Frying

Everyone is familiar with the notion that life can be pictured as a leaf floating down a stream, moving from place to place, occasionally caught for in an eddy or against a pebble, stays for a while before moving onwards and downstream. It is a pretty good metaphor, but what about this one:It is as if I am a piece floating in hot oil, where it touches my outside there is sizzle, after being in it for a short period I develop a crust that protects my inner part from drying out, from being denatured. I float on the surface, I bounce from interaction to incident, being heated by the very hot grease, but not burned.

Yesterday, because of weather delays at O’Hare and the nature of the fare & pay system I earned less than minimum wage for the day; on the other hand I was paid while I was reading volume 3 of Tillich’s Systematic Theology , a book that will take me the rest of my life to read, a book by someone who still surprises me with the depth of his understanding; not paid very much while I reading him, but it wouldn’t be right to be earn big bucks while doing that.

I drove a couple of young corporate types out to O’Hare, their studied shallowness and superficiality pained me to experience. “I was like”, “he was like”; every fourth word was “like”, every fourth word was like experiencing a sleet storm hitting my face; but then it was over, they went on their shallow and controlled corporateness.

Yesterday I was informed that I had a ‘charge-back’ on my pay, a passenger from weeks ago disputed that I should be paid my full gratuity because he was unsatisfied; I remember the order, it was fucked-up from the time it was phoned in until the moment he left the car, nothing about it went right, just the way things go sometimes. It cost me almost a day’s pay; on the other hand there has recently been additional $100 bills handed over at the end of a few orders, just the way things go sometimes.

A couple of days ago I had the painful experience of not being able to see my dying friend Bert, he had just been returned from the hospital and was not to be disturbed; that I am not allowed to know his medical condition, that I am just the anonymous and occasional visitor is a role that I know, it is a well reasoned and predictable role; but it hurts to be turned away, turned and kept ignorant of his condition. On the other hand I have had the warmest smiles from that man that I can remember in my whole life, smiles that were so pure I could barely stand them; it is because we have no history between us, have no agenda between us, that those pure smiles and a thank-yous can happen.

Relations between my landlord and myself are strained, they were never close even though he lives nearby, but they have now been strained; the beauty of the tenant lease defines what I do, what he does, there is no mention of friendship or cordiality, that ain’t part of any lease or contract, that is the beauty of it.

I am back up to 375 mg. of Lyrica; it makes me a little drunk in the morning, but the fibromyalgia pain seems to be gone, I am going to stay at this level as long as I can.

It is now before dawn, I am alone; in order to understand and move through all of this, being alone is necessary; sometimes I am lonely, the loss of family and friends is painful, should be painful, but it doesn’t destroy me.

A few people will read what I write, almost no one who I know face to face; anonymity allows me to write about this journey just before dawn on a Friday in early springtime. I do think that this can be viewed as a journey in boiling oil, oil full of energy and the ability to change who I am on the outside, if I don’t have some sort of crust on I would be destroyed. After a while my time in the oil will be done, I will be removed, as will each and every one of us; the trip is eventful, it is painful, it is hot, it is disturbing, it impinges, it is wonderful.

The sky is becoming lighter in the east, the coffee in the pot is luke-warm, Aged Sumatra is the label on the bag, great tasting stuff that I can still taste a few hours afterwards, great stuff that stays in my blood and gives me that coffee jolt.

It is important to have a book, or books, that I will never completely understand; for the last while I have been giving books away, books that I never go near anymore, that don’t have anything more for me, I have drank all that is in there; certainly I have the Internet for data, for searching; but I have a few actual books that move me each time I open one of them. I once read that the Bible is not holy unless it moves the reader in a spiritual way, only then it becomes holy, and for just that time, otherwise it is just a collection of works decided on by some guys on an island a couple of centuries after Christ died, guys who needed to stitch together an empire of land and thought.

I am going to have a morning nap after reading a few pages of Larry McMurtry’s Telegraph Days, loaf around until it is time to go back to work.

Making Soup

If your larder contains a bushel of broccoli and a bushel of chicken bones, and you are hungry, there is a pretty good chance that you will be eating broccoli soup for dinner. The protein from the marrow of the bones satisfies appetite, and it’s smooth texture feels good going down the gullet. The broccoli has its particular flavor, a strong green color that looks good in the bowl; animal protein combined with vegetables works in all the ways necessary for a good dish.

I have been thinking of the governor who is about not to be governor, who has made an interesting dish so far, perhaps he will continue in the kitchen, make other meals, explore other flavors; it really isn’t important anymore, he was only important in that he governed, now he doesn’t govern, what he makes in the kitchen now is for private consumption.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind when making soup: Cook the vegetables until they are just at the height of taste and color, quench them in cold water if necessary to keep from overcooking. Watch out handling the stock, whether beef or chicken, stock is very good for growing bugs, laboratories use it to grow bugs; keep the stock below 38º F or above 145ºF, don’t let it cool on the counter, use the fridge. When the ads suggest serving soup piping hot, the idea of keeping the bug population low is behind that suggestion.

Here is a method for seasoning soups and sauces: Don’t add any seasoning until after the soup is made, this includes salt. Salt has the property of bringing out the main flavor of the soup, it will be responsible for making the tomato soup have the maximum tomato flavor. Pepper and the other seasonings should be considered as accessories, as compliments, never the reason for the soup. Salt is added until as much of the tomato flavor is there as possible, beyond that the soup will taste salty; so how do you know when the height of flavor is reached? Put a few tablespoons of the unseasoned soup in a small glass, taste it, remember that taste, add some salt, taste it, remember that taste, repeat. You will know when the soup tastes salty, remember how it tasted just before that, that will be your target for the potful; add salt to the pot, taste, compare the taste to what you remember from before. Now you see some of the craft of cooking.

If you have forgotten the taste at the height you can reverse the action by adding a few more tablespoons of soup to your glass, do the experiment again.

There are many more things I could say about soup, but maybe I should leave it right here for now; if you practice the above you will feel good about your ability, about cooking in general, it will be your dish for your table.

There has been letters and comments in the newspapers about the effect on the children of what the father did, what parents do; certainly everything that parents do leaves a mark of some kind on a child, everything my parents did, your parents did, that is the nature of being a child and a parent. If the kids are hungry enough they will make a nourishing life from what they have; this is the nature of becoming an adult.

I happen to have fibromyalgia and anxiety, among other ingredients: I do a fair amount of introspection and meditation because of how I am, the result of inner knowledge is something that I could not have known otherwise. I once came within minutes of dying, I didn’t die but I did come to understand the presence of the spirit, a religious experience, a something or other that has always been present, is present in each one of us; this is something I would not have had otherwise.

In cooking school I was given Bibb lettuce, from which I made a summer soup; lettuce doesn’t have a great deal of flavor, I needed to have a light touch with the salt and the other seasonings, I didn’t want to overwhelm that subtle lettuce flavor. I remember that it tasted pretty good, I had hoped to make tomato, everyone does, but lettuce is what I was given, that is what I used.

To make a good soup one needs ingredients, more importantly one has to want to eat, has to have desire for enjoyment.

Cook a piece of trout

I met a guy I know in the supermarket the other day, he asked me what I was cooking, I showed him the fillet of trout; he told me that he was going to make some kind of soup with a standard soup recipe; then he told me that he liked fish but was afraid of cooking it. His fear keeps him from what he really likes; fish is just a little bit of flesh, to be cooked as any other kind of flesh, and if he screws it up the worst that could happen is that it is thrown away and he has to make a peanut butter sandwich. I suggested that if he is afraid to cook fish that that is what he ought to be making.

There is this really bright and effective guy who has done something that caused him to lose his big job and strain his family.

There was a time when I often used sex as an antidote to anxiety. I don’t know if I have ever written that before, admitted it before:– it really doesn’t matter in the scheme of things what I did, what anyone did, and so we might as well admit to them.

There are people who feel the need to put down their children’s aspirations, who can offer only conditional love and acceptance; there are people who are so afraid of human interactions that they must have everything on a competitive or unemotional level; there are people who do all sorts of things because of anxiety and the other demons. These demons are in the nature of all people, always have been, always will be. Perhaps we could admit that, and go on from there?

Now that nature has relieved me of the sex option, or toned it down somewhat, I need to live with and face my anxiety without the sex option, which I have been doing for about a decade now.

I write this with the understanding that it is not guy talk, not something to be discussed, and that is the problem. All of us have something or other, the more we sit on that something or other the more it hurts both ourself and others.

I am fortunate that I am in a position now that I don’t give a shit who knows what is going on, I have more important matters of concern; I now spend my energy examining what has been called the ultimate concern.So maybe I can do a bit of service by just putting down here what I feel, I experienced, I did, without the worry of concealment.

I don’t know if the guy who lost his big job yesterday has anxiety problems, don’t really care because it is none of my business; but he does have something that he tried to conceal, concealing causes a lot of damage. A decade ago there was this guy who nearly lost a very big job, because of concealment of something that affected him unduly. His wife may not get that same very big job because it is perceived that she conceals herself.

I have written previously of the instances of family members not admitting that dad is dying, keep believing that a new medicine will keep him from dying, that the medicine he now gets is making him act the way he is; family members who are looking away from what is the most natural thing in life, who are missing the opportunity to share and befriend dad as he goes about his business of dying.

I have no illusions that admitting to anxiety, writing about avoidance will change anyone’s mind; but I feel that it needs be said, that yesterday’s example will be taken by at least one person.

Buy a piece of trout, cook it just like a hamburger; the worst that can happen is that you will have to eat a peanut butter sandwich.

Cooking Bay Scallops

I came home with a package of bay scallops, about twelve ounces, enough for two meals. The special thing about scallops is how tender they are, fragile enough that I can squash one between my tongue and palate; I want to maintain that texture when preparing.

I also came home with a bag of baby spinach, a fresh bottle of salsa verde, another of medium red salsa, small Dutch potatoes, Italian parsley. I came home with the disk of “No Country for Old Men”.

The potatoes would be boiled, then put into a warm bowl of olive oil, crushed garlic, s & p, chopped parsley.

Here’s what I came up with for the scallops: Put some oil in a large sauté pan, warm it, throw in the baby spinach,cover it, let that warm for a few minutes before putting the scallops in, cover it. The water vapor thrown off by the spinach will cook the scallops quickly, no more than two or three minutes; before removing from the pan I put in a few tablespoons of the salsa verde. I had a plate warming in the oven waiting for the scallops.

This isn’t so much a recipe as a notion that I wanted to treat the scallops gently, to not disturb that tenderness; the baby spinach doesn’t need much cooking either, that made them a good combination. I used a prepared sauce so that there wouldn’t be all that time needed to make one in the pan; in and out quickly.

Scallops are at the other end of the texture spectrum from marlin or shark, both of which can withstand grilling or stewing. The idea is to picture in my mind what might work, what I have or am willing to buy that will go well together.

The potatoes, as always, were great; the movie was memorable.

A Piece of Marlin

Earlier in the evening I had driven a woman and her spouse in from O’Hare, returning from their Florida home; she was a most definite conservative, hated Hilary, was silent about Obama, knew that all Canadians hated their health care system, disliked the Senate, and had a need to give me exact directions to their home on the Gold Coast, most exact directions.

Now I was on my way to buy the groceries for my late dinner; I had in mind cooking a skinless breast of chicken, for want of anything else, it was half past eight, I had finished work early. Approaching the bus shelter on Damen, at Chicago Avenue, I saw that that woman was there again; she has been there for months now, not every night, but enough nights that I recognized her sitting there, since autumn. She was bundled completely: both feet sitting in a cinch-top garbage bag, tied at the knees; from there upward wrapped in a blanket that went high up the back of her neck, the hood of her parka had been pulled low on her face, I could see light colored mittens clasped in front. It wasn’t cold last night, a few degrees above freezing, and expected to drop into the mid twenties before dawn; it wasn’t a cold night for Chicago, unless you were sitting in an open bus shelter, and looking as if you’d be there for the duration. I made note of all of this as I walked by.

On my way to the poultry area of the supermarket, for my very predictable skinless chicken breast, I looked at what was left in seafood. The clerk there had taken the display apart, was shoveling the chipped ice out; there were a few packages of wrapped fish sitting off to one side, there was a single marlin steak among the other fillets; I hadn’t had marlin for so long I couldn’t remember, why not?

Before leaving the store with my vegetables, fish, and Newcastle Brown Ale I made sure that I had a $5 bill that I stuck in my jacket pocket. She was still there; I stopped in front of her, set down the bags in my right hand so that I could take out the bill which I offered her. She declined the money. I looked at her and said that it to buy something to eat, she looked back, smiled, said that she had just eaten, I replied that she could buy breakfast, she smiled again and said that she had some money thank you; the conversation was ended. A sweet and unaffected smile from the folds of blanket and parka. I wished her goodnight and walked home.

Pouring my first glass of beer I thought about dinner. Marlin has a lot of texture, some would say it is chewy, so I made sure that I would slightly under-cook it. I could watch the color change on the side of the steak, after it was cooked about one-third the way up I turned it over. There was an open bottle of salsa verde in the refrigerator; because the sauce was cold I needed to put it on the fish while there were a few minutes of cooking left, time for the sauce to warm. When the cooking was where I wanted it I put the whole sauté pan in the warm oven, finished boiling some small Dutch potatoes, that were put into the bowl of olive oil, crushed garlic, salt & pepper, and a small handful of chopped Italian parsley, that had been waiting in the warming oven.

I ate the fish directly from the pan; I was alone, the pan wasn’t a mess,(I was watching that Hoffman movie about the perfumer) eating it from the pan, on a tray was right. Fish,sauce, boiled potatoes and room temperature English beer made a good meal, not fancy, not difficult to make, just a group that went well together with a movie.

I thought about the two woman as I grew bored with the movie, it was a pretty movie, but predictable; the two of such different circumstances, within two miles of one another, on the first night of March in Chicago, the one at peace, the other not so much; I had another beer with dinner.

This morning I remember that soul at peace, the richness that was in her smile, the unaffected way she responded to my offer; she was more more than an allegory, she was the example.

Cooking for one

I went to the store yesterday with the intention of buying skinless chicken breasts, again; in my mind I went over the various ways that I could make it with what I had at home or could buy, it seemed as if I knew all the alternatives well, almost too well. On the way to buy chicken I took a look at the fish counter, for the same price as chicken breast I could buy a piece of cod; it had been a while since I’d had it, the fillet was thick enough not to dry out during cooking, it is not so delicate that it would fall apart when handled; cod was it for dinner. At the salad bar I picked up a mix of vegetables that could either be cooked, or eaten as raw salad for lunch, I chose baby spinach instead of lettuce; there were still a few of those small Dutch potatoes at home.

I cooked the cod just as I do chicken, but with a closer eye, after turning it once I could see those thick flakes starting to separate as they cooked; I think that fish should be underdone, so I gently lifted the fillet onto the warm plate, I thought I’d try the salsa verde because I had never done that before, because the salsa isn’t overpowering, because I have an open jar of it in the fridge. The fish will keep well in the warm oven while I finish the vegetables.

In the same pan as used for the fish I added some more oil, with the heat turned higher I took a handful of the mixed salad vegetables: red onion, cauliflower, broccoli, and baby spinach. Keeping the pan moving I cooked the vegetables fast, and slightly underdone. They were put on the plate with the fish; I then deglazed the pan with balsamic vinegar, reduced that and put it over the vegetables. The potatoes, as always, were boiled and added to a warm bowl of olive oil, fresh garlic & parsley, salt and pepper.

It was a good combination, they do work well together; cod and salsa verde. The salad vegetables, with reduced balsamic vinegar, were pretty good as well. Who knew that was going to be dinner, when I started out?

I slept well, this is my day off, I awoke thinking that I would go for a long walk, visit the Art Institute, it has been a while since I’d gone down there, and there certainly aren’t many people around this Monday morning. I got up to find out that we are under a winter storm warning: snow, sleet, freezing rain are expected to start about noon. I have almost no interest in going downtown in stuff like that, it is too much like what I do at work; I’ll stop and see what movies Dave has that are out this week, that’ll be a good alternative to slopping through wet snow and ice; I don’t need that on my day off.

My point here is that it is good to have intention, it is even better to pick up on alternatives as I see how things are going along. That I haven’t yet left the house means that where I am going is planned, but not destined.

Cooking some vegetables

Just as resilience is the way to test how meat is cooking, color is for many vegetables, those that have a single color. Put a piece of carrot in water that is just off the boil, watch it for a couple of minutes , remember how the color changes; the orange intensifies, and then it becomes a dull orange going towards brown; if you remember that most intense orange you will have memorized the point that the carrot is cooked right.

Whether a vegetable is cooked enough is something of a subjective judgment, depending on how your mother cooked them; test for yourself. Cut a few more pieces of carrot, put them in the hot water and remove pieces at different intervals: before the color is most intense, when it is brightest orange, when it is becoming brown; taste each piece for both flavor and texture. The flavor of carrot will be at its most intense when the orange is the same; there will be good texture when you bite into it, the snap of rawness will be gone. Give the experiment a try; know what is going on with the food you prepare, serve it with that knowledge, you’ll feel pretty good, won’t have any need to be defensive.

Broccoli cooks in a similar way, when those flowers are at their most intense green pull them from the water. Broccoli consists of tender flowers that could, and often are served raw; the trunks are heavy and need much longer time before they are done, so separate the two. The trunks can be cooked and made into soup in the food processor, it is almost impossible to serve the trunks and flowers at the same time. A method I like for broccoli is to hold the branch upside down in the hot water, watch the color for the 20 seconds or so that it takes to become intense; the flowers can be cut from the trunk afterwards, or the whole thing can be served as a single piece, with the intention that the trunk will be cut by a steak knife at the table. Somewhat crude, but it is an alternative.

Play with this idea of color, find out if you agree, practice remembering when they are most intense, experiment with the other colored vegetables.

Vegetables that are going to be made into soup are blanched the same way, see if you can bring that intense color to the table in liquid form. Again, don’t boil the soup, heat it above 180º but not much more than that; boiling the soup will degrade the color and flavor. Don’t limit yourself in the choice of vegetables for soup; my test for making soup in school was cantaloupe; it makes a subtle, cold, summer soup; as does lettuce; tomato can be either hot or cold; look around the produce section for something interesting that you haven’t considered before. Look for alternatives to broccoli and carrots.

Even though you have your mind set on a particular dish you want to make know your options: what you want may not be available on any particular day, or it may be more expense than you want to pay; alternatives are the way to escape boredom, lettuce soup will get attention when you serve it.

I suppose that having alternatives is a way of accepting what is rather than what you might have wished it to be; accept that tomatoes are not such a good choice at times, be prepared to go with snow peas instead; with the confidence and knowledge that you can prepare those delicate snow peas so that they are just right.

Pieces falling into place

I went to the supermarket yesterday afternoon with no plan for dinner; I was focused on not falling on the polished ice that defined my path to the store; walking around with a basket that contained only my gloves I waited. Walking down the canned goods aisle I waited; saying hello to the pharmacist, asking how is Roller Derby Weekend went, I waited; I looked to see if they had my beer in stock, Newcastle Brown Ale, and I waited; I was waiting for the pieces to fall in place. I had walked past the meat counter, the ethnic foods aisle, the produce counter, all while I was waiting for the pieces to fall in place:Then they came together; there was a special on Hormel pork tenderloin, the 1-1/2 lb. piece will make 3 good size meals, pork tenderloin is as tender and moist as beef tenderloin; it was a long time, if ever, that I have bought a jar of salsa verde that would go well with the pork; fingerling potatoes are expensive, and so that will keep me from eating too many at one sitting, I picked up a bag because they are the best tasting potato I have had in a long time; red peppers were the same price as green today, so one firm one, they go quickly when they start to go so buy only what I’ll eat in a day or two. And the beer, it is the smoothest that I know.It turned out that the tenderloin was on sale because it was not trimmed cleanly, there was fat, nerves and gristle that take so much time to cut away, this is how Hormel could offer them at that price. After trimming I made 1/2 inch thick slices that I would sauté quickly, slightly underdone, then put on the salsa verde that was already on the warming plate.

To prepare a pepper lay it on its side, slice off the bottom, sit it on the cut side and make 4 box cuts, I was left with the stem and seeds all of apiece to be thrown away; the sliced pepper would be cooked in the pork pan; deglazing would be with some beer.

The boiled potatoes would go into the bowl of fresh garlic and olive oil, salt and fresh ground pepper that was also waiting in the warming oven, a handful of chopped parsley is mixed in just before serving.

It was just a matter of waiting for the pieces to fall in place to make a good meal.

I lay in bed most every morning waiting for the pieces to fall in place; whatever dream I remember floats through my consciousness to see if anything interesting remains; I’ll let a daydream develop for a short time, then categorize it to see what it was about. If there is nothing interesting immediately I’ll nap for a while, waiting for the pieces to fall in place; it is time to get up when the certain pieces stick, images or words are what I am about in the morning; it is time to write.

The bible story of the father who was commanded by God to kill his son came to mind, I had read something by Kierkegaard on it a week or so ago; Kierkegaard thought that it had to do with the suspension of morality, I think differently. Whenever a story has lasting power it is because it is allegorical, generations and cultures can use it because there is something behind the literal obviousness. That story means that to know the divine, to have a personal relationship with God, to know what is in the depth of my heart, I have to transcend even the closest bond, the one with my child.

That need has been on mind a lot; has been there for a long time, not by choice is there alienation with someone who loved me without judgment, some time ago, and now doesn’t; this is the most painful thing that I have ever had to endure, because of that I have come to see deeper into myself, closer to what is divine and infinite; not by choice, but by luck the pieces have fallen into place.

I write this story completely because it is necessary; to restrict or cut it would be to deny the experience, the opportunity; that others may or may not read it is immaterial, it is the writing and publishing that is important.

And those are all the pieces today, and they are all in place, I feel a complete story.

What’s new

The desire to write, to put words down for others to see, this act of arrogance; is that someone might want to spend time and effort in reading some more ordinary words of mine. There is no new story, there hasn’t been a new story, a different observation, a new thing for a long, long time; there are only the old themes and passions re bottled and new labels applied.

And yet I sit here with a fresh pot of coffee, I am putting down words, never a new word, never a new emotion, there hasn’t been a new story for thousands of years; and yet I sit here with a fresh pot of coffee and the need to write.

Leo Tolstoy never came up with anything that hadn’t been said previously; he wrote of family matters, love affairs, politics and war. And we love it that he did.

I am hung up on this idea of the new, a blind belief that newness is the same as life; but it isn’t, life is just life, it is being now, and making sure that there will be life after me.

The brown sparrows are at the feeder, they may be the same as were there yesterday, will be there again tomorrow, and the occasional cardinal. I don’t fill the feeder in hopes that an eagle or an ostrich will come to feed, I put seed there so that there will continue to be life outside my window.

I have written a few posts about how to cook, no detailed recipes, just how something is to be made into food the best way that I know. A good meal isn’t about new recipes, different ingredients, it is about enjoying what you are eating, what is in your mouth, the satisfaction of food well prepared, and food is the fuel for this body. Tomorrow we will all be hungry again, somebody will have to cook again. I might write a few more items all about how to make food again.

The sparrows eat, they warm themselves when there is a break in the clouds, they take advantage of eating a bit of snow for the water.

I ought to visit Bert in the home today, it has been over a week since I was there; it is not that I have signed a contract, am not receiving money, haven’t made a promise to his relatives, nor that he remembers me; visiting Bert is like putting out seed, cooking dinner, doing the laundry, taking a shower; none of it means anything in the long run, but it is necessary for today’s run.

My earlier mistake was to be buying into this notion that new is important, that there really might be something new, that the tiny novelties displayed for amusement are important; bullshit—there is being, and there is nothing, being is the important one.

That’s it for today, and tomorrow, just as it was yesterday.

Sauté meat

I had a dream that I thought would make a good theme for writing today: It had to do with the different ways that people approach what is divine, that source of different religions; but as often happens the path changed.

Sauté or pan-fry is the single person’s good friend, it is also the most popular method at restaurants for the same reason; it is a fast way to cook a good, single meal. Sauté is all about heat of an intensity that causes a change in the nature of the food. It has a interestingly different flavor that we all appreciate.

A sauté pan has low sides in order that the cook can handle the food quickly before it burns; it has a wide bottom so that a large area is directly on the heat; it usually has a curved, sloping side that allows many pieces to be flipped all at once, without being handled. (Practice that flipping by using a cold pan, dried peas, standing on the back lawn, practicing it cold, until you have that wrist action perfected.)

The idea behind pan-frying is to bring high heat to the surface of the food, and to do it without scorching; the best pieces for this method are serving sized, have flat surfaces, a chop is an example; that whole surface of the chop (or whatever) is heated to a temperature that changes the chemistry of the meat, makes it something else, makes a hard, brown material that is impervious to liquid.

Turn the warming oven on.

Put enough oil in the pan to cover the entire bottom (a dry pan or pot is never, ever, put on a stove, whatsoever), put the pan over medium heat until the oil is hot. How do you know if the oil is hot enough? Look at it. From an angle look at the reflection of light on the surface; at first the surface of the oil is glass smooth, just what you’d expect from the surface of a pool of liquid; continue heating, don’t walk away from the stove, when things happen they will happen quickly. That plain smooth surface will begin to have small waves on it, undulations, it will shiver; this shivering indicates that the oil is about as hot as it can be safely, boiling oil becomes a gas that will ignite–fire & flames, oil fires are difficult to extinguish.

That shivering surface says that it is time to put the food in the pan. Gently lay the chop on the oil, let it set without moving, let the surface become hot, very fast. The surface of the meat is being changed from flesh to the something else, that brown, hard stuff that is an impervious layer. Use your nose to determine if the fire is too hot, if the oil is about to burn; if you think that the temperature is too high reduce the flame; if you have left the pan for a second or two too long, which with practice you will learn to do–lift the pan from the fire, hold it above the fire until the oil cools, reduce the flame and lower the pan to the heat.

When to turn the steak over? This heat of about 350°F, or more, is driving the moisture in the steak away from the fire, towards the cold upper side; watch that raw side for droplets to appear, the juice is about to be driven from the cutlet; this is the time to turn the meat over, and to repeat the process. The juices in the meat have been prevented from escaping. That hard, brown stuff, besides being a moisture seal, tastes good, it is the reason that we like sautéed meat.

From the previous couple of things that I have written you can figure out how to know what is going on inside the meat, determining the temperature by touching it; do this only after the meat has been turned, there is no sense touching raw meat that is barely above refrigerator temperature; touching raw meat should only be done when necessary, when washing up is followed immediately.

Feel the resilience; wait a minute after turning because the surface will be far too hot; do it quickly, better to do it several times than leave your finger there to be burned and insensitive. Feel the center, feel towards the edge, find where and when the meat is cooked. Don’t worry about contaminating the food with your fingers; you have washed your hands at least once during the preparation, you have something nearby to wipe your finger, and that surface is so hot that no bugs can live on it. Just a quick touch, remember how it feels, bring that memory back when you touch it again. This is how you add control to what you are about in the kitchen.

When the meat has cooked remove it to the plate that has been sitting in the warming oven.

You know when the meat is fully cooked, 160°, cooking it further will dry it, will send flavor and texture out the vent fan.

The meat is now done and waiting in the holding oven, the pan is off the fire, but leave the fire on for a while longer. There is a greasy pan with stuff stuck to the bottom with which to make a sauce. Pour out the oil, give it enough time to drain without disturbing that brown stuff stuck to the pan.

You now need to decide on the nature of the sauce; if you are drinking a wine chosen to accompany the meat use it; if you don’t wish to use wine use stock, consommé, beer, and there is always water. Put some of the chosen liquid in the pan, put the pan back on the fire, find your wooden spoon, and wait for the liquid to boil. As the watery liquid boils it gets under the stuck brown stuff and lifts it free, scraping with the wooden spoon get all of that brown stuff from the bottom. Work the spoon over the whole surface, make it clean; after it is clean tilt the pan so that a pool forms directly over the heat; boil this pool and reduce the quantity until it is just enough to lightly coat the surface of the steak you have just cooked. Taste it, think how this will go with whatever it is that is waiting, does it need any other flavors?

Pour that reduced liquid over your steak; a wine sauce that was made in about 2 minutes, didn’t waste anything, and it tastes pretty damned good.

The ways that that sauce can be flavored are the source of hundreds of recipes; but now you don’t require a recipe, think about what you have on the shelf or in the ‘fridge that would taste good in the sauce, experiment to see if it really is good, or is something that will never be mentioned again; it is important to make a few things that are inedible, get to know the boundaries.

In less than 10 minutes (about the time it takes to drink a glass of that wine) you have made a pretty good meal, as if you ordered a steak with wine sauce in a restaurant.

And here I was about to write about the personal nature of the religious experience.