New Years' Resolutions

It being a Friday afternoon, somewhat foggy and looking like rain, and contemplating a night out in Atlanta, what with free babysitting and all, it seemed a perfect time to reflect on some New Years' Resolutions. Appropriately, they are tardy. Last year I was more machine than man, and it wore my gears down. I've been in the process of shutting down for the past month, and the restart button was hit sometime this week. By next week I ought to be humming away nicely, so it might be nice to think about resolutions, or a strategic plan, or something of the sort.

I feel somewhat odd about doing it on a blog. To make public what really is private, and of no interest to anyone, strikes me as fatuous. I can take comfort only in the fact that no one reads this blog. Seriously. Now that I have a "stats" tracker handy, I can confirm this. Only a handful of people have come across various postings, and they are likely trying to find out something about a particular wine or hunting for recipes. They likely move on without looking at all. I am fine with this, of course. I set this up as a personal log, in order to monitor my own progress with cooking, grilling, growing (vegetables herbs fruits and the like), and cocktail making.

In fact, it was because of my last New Years' Resolutions that I created the blog. I resolved (more appropriately on December 31) to do three things: lose ten pounds; write a book; and become a better cook. The ten pounds was easy, partially because I had put ten pounds on over the previous season. After three months I had taken all the weight off, and have since kept it off. The book was a little more difficult. I conducted research in the Spring and began writing (in earnest) in June. In the space of six months, I wrote about 70,000 words and delivered it to the press in mid-December. I'm now awaiting the copyedited pages.

But become a better cook? Up against the other, more tangible goals, this one seemed flabby. I took a stab at it by starting this blog and recording the recipes that I was making. It would be like a kitchen workbook. I could measure my progress by focusing on a few key dishes: chili colorado; rib eyes on the grill; risotto. And with cocktails, I would hone my skill on the classics: sours; margaritas; old fashioneds. Occasionally I would experiment. The problem with these measures, of course, is that they had no guts. How does one succeed? Simply by doing? The more important question, of course, was how to measure failure, and it was not one that I considered when I blithely posed the question.

Irony of ironies, my unscientific resolution was the one from which I profited most. Yes I lost ten pounds; yes I wrote a book. But these things nearly killed me. I achieved weight loss by rigorously hitting the pool, swimming daily for months. It left me with knots in my back so bad I could barely stand to stand. Literally. I toned it down in the summer and interspersed workouts on the elliptical machines, which helped, but that turned my workouts all perfunctory and pedestrian. My book was a great achievement. I wrote 1000+ words a day for months, indulging myself in unbroken spells of reading and writing. I rolled out of bed every morning at 6:00 and was in the office downtown before 7. I watched the sun move across the window of my twenty-first floor office (a rare perk in academia) and was usually done by 1, just in time to take a break at the gym. I would then spend the rest of the afternoon collecting new materials from the library, handling other business, or goofing off until I picked up my daughter from her school. Truly, the writing summer was one of the best of my life. But when classes started back up in August, what with 15,000 words left to write, the pressure became unbearable. I upped my caffeine to promote efficiency and upped the alcohol to take the edge off. This diet of daily coffee and nightly drinks did precisely what it should do, which was exhaust me. Combined with two essays I had to complete for other projects, a boatload of volunteer work for the charter school, my tenure application, duties on the local arrangements committee for the American Society for Legal History, and, well, childcare and dangerously-neglected-fathering--the list goes on and on. I was not prepared for the crash that the schedule would bring me to, especially after such a pleasing summer.

What pleased me most was picking fresh tomatoes and cucumbers off the vine, making jalepeno jelly, fantasizing about new patches to grow radishes and green beans and multiple species of cucumbers and--the holy grail--heirloom tomatoes the size of two fists held together. I did not do a great job of working the garden I did have, but it bore me some good fruit.

So, my resolutions for this year. I've decided not to go for the specific goals, but rather to concentrate on pleasure, enjoyment, and the unmeasurable goods which it brings.

1. Build a better garden.

Quite literally--build. I'm going to plan out my areas, zeroscape most of it and then turn the rest into garden rows or plots for flowers, fruits and vegetables.

2. Grow a better garden.

I'm going to come back this year with a better plan, some compost (huge piles of it are breaking down as we speak), fertilizer (I did NOT use enough good fertilizer last year), and more attention to detail. I resolve to blog regularly so that I can actually monitor progress, rather than lazily as I have done.

3. Do more stuff.

I want to start planning events. We damn near missed the peaches last year, coming in at the end of the season to pick peaches at Gregg's Farm. What a pity it would have been to miss that! What a pity that this was our first time in a peach orchard, when we have been living in Georgia for six years! I resolve to plan things out ahead of time, and to experience some more things. My lil' gardner is just approaching the age where she can enjoy these things, and we owe it to her to experience the world more fully.

So there it is--three new resolutions, all of them designed to improve my life not just this year, but in all the years to come. However hokey this all sounds, I can report my first victory right now. Instead of working this afternoon, I spent it gathering up information about new restaurants we have not yet tried. I have found four that make gourmet lists and we will visit one of them tonight. Likely The Shed at Glenwood, although Miso Izakaya might get a nod. It has purportedly improved since our first visit. Onward, 2012!

getting the timing right on hamburgers

grill at 450-525. Circa 15 minutes, opening the grill only to flip and to check towards the end. Also, I closed down the top damper, which dropped the temperature (down to 450). I had to open the damper again to keep the temp from dropping too far. At 12 minutes I opened the grill to toast the buns, then I pulled the buns, added cheese, and closed it for about two minutes.

The result was juicy and cooked throughout. Call the result medium to medium well for burgers that began at just under 1/2 pound of raw ground beef. I could have gone a few minutes less, but ten minutes is likely the minimum, at least for medium-range.

Braised quail

Braised Quail (From the NY Times)

Ingredients

• 4 quail
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 pound mushrooms, chopped
• 1 cup white bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
• 1 tablespoon tarragon, chopped
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• 3/4 cup dry white wine
• 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 2 cloves garlic, halved, skin and any green part removed
• 1/2 cup blanched toasted slivered almonds

Preparation

1.

Wipe the quail dry with paper towels and set aside.

2.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

3.

Using a frying pan that can go into the oven and on top of the stove (preferably cast iron) soften the shallot in the butter. Add shallots to a bowl with the mushrooms, breadcrumbs, parsley, tarragon, salt and pepper. Mix well and moisten with a little of the white wine. Stuff the mixture into the bird cavities.

4.

Heat the oil in the skillet. Add the stuffed quail, breast down and brown lightly. Add the remaining wine and the garlic cloves. Cover and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Turn the quail breast up, turn up the heat to 400 and continue cooking for five to 10 minutes or until the quail are cooked.

5.

Remove the quail to a heated platter. Bring the sauce in the skillet to a boil over high heat and reduce by about a third. Remove the garlic cloves and season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour the sauce over the quail, sprinkle with almonds and serve.

This recipe worked just fine. Stuffing it gave it shape, although the legs stuck out in a rather perverse manner (perhaps next time bind the little legs, genius). Do not overcook!