My Favorite Meal: Home Cookin'

It always amazes me how quickly the body embraces new habits. I've started a morning gym routine recently and almost instantaneously found myself getting crabby and misaligned on the days when I've chosen to sleep in over pulling my body out of bed and into the pre-dawn city darkness in spandex yoga pants and pigtails. (It's one of San Francisco's seediest hours, as it turns out--I've so far seen one arrest and numerous stumbling, confused vagrants in my one-block walk to the gym.)

Another new habit of mine: Sunday cookery. On a day like today, when there are no plans as far as my eye can see and the sun's bright and the breeze is pushing through the window in a poetic shhh-ushhh-uhh, I want nothing else than to spend the last remaining hours of my weekend in the kitchen. It may not seem like an intuitive thing (wouldn't I rather be sunning myself in the park enjoying a cold 22-ounce beer in a brown paper bag?), but I assure you that some of the nicest weather in San Francisco makes for the best cooking experiences. There's nothing better than opening the windows a crack (and only a crack, since my cats also have a new habit, one of falling out of third-storey apartment windows) and letting the smells circulate through the apartment and into the street.

This morning I woke up with pie on the brain and a rotten sweet potato in my fruit bowl. The mushy-fuzzy potato was nestled amongst several cousins and siblings that were doing a slightly better job of clinging onto life. While the fruit-laden Meyer lemon tree in our backyard was initially calling my name, I couldn't ignore the remaining tenacious tubers in the bowl. So, I'm in the process of making my first-ever sweet potato pie, taking my time roasting the potatoes in an attempt to produce maltose-rich results. (I don't really know what maltose is, but it seems like something I may have learned at some point during that one particularly terrible semester I had of organic chemistry in college. Regardless, fancy words win me over all the time, so when I read about it in the recipe, I knew I had to try it.)


They're beeeeauteee-ful.

But I digress. This post is actually about my favorite meal. The best eats I had during the past seven days. I promised I'd make the effort to reflect on it every week, and my slow-roasting potato maltose experiment gives me some time to do it during Sunday Cookery.

And--wouldn't you know it--I actually don't have a favorite meal to report on this week. Even with all this time (90+ minutes!) I have to talk about it. It's because I can't narrow it down to one.

When I somewhat haphazardly put the "my favorite meal" idea together a few or so weeks ago, I didn't expect that it would drive me deep into a world of home cooking. I thought for sure it would have inspired me to, yes, cook great meals at home, but I also thought I'd be more inspired to venture out and try tasty eats at some of San Francisco's best cheap-and-cheerful places. It turns out that I don't want to do that. I want my weekly favorite meals to be, well, mine.

There's something so fantastic about home cooking. Of course there is; most people agree that home cooking (mom's home cooking, usually) is much better than anything that can be ordered from a restaurant. I guess I just never thought about why it's so darn good.

Now that I've had a solid week (okay, more like five out of seven days) of home-cooked meals, I understand it better. For me, home cooking is so superior because it allows me to know and love every ingredient used in a dish. Yes. I am a control freak, both in and out of the kitchen.

Example: Tuesday's meal. Braised escarole and white beans with whole wheat gnocchi. What the hell is escarole? All I knew is that it came in my CSA box and I mistook it for lettuce until I re-read the CSA newsletter (it never made it onto a sandwich, but I wonder...). I consulted our copy of the Field Guide to Produce and learned a bit more (popular in Italian cooking; mild flavor; melty texture). Even after that, I wasn't totally convinced that the leafy stuff in the bag in the fridge wasn't just red lettuce, but okay. So I threw together a basic braising liquid (chicken stock, green garlic, garlic, green onion, splash of tamari) and paired it with another Italian staple, white beans, wondering aloud at several points along the way what soggy salty lettuce would taste like. Oh, and did you know you could get whole wheat gnocchi, and it's not as pasty as the potato version and it pairs really nicely with a bean-based braise?

Yup. Home cooking can be some of the most educational food you can eat. And most rewarding.

So I ate really well this week, between the braise, the pork chop with fresh steamed green beans, the first pan of meatballs I ever made, the veggie sushi (fresh mango and avocado, by far a perfect pairing), and the homemade burritos, just like I hoped I would. Unfortunately, though, I can't just pick one favorite meal; they all stood out.

Perhaps it's a rookie's mistake--trying too hard at the start, resulting in consistent(ly tasty) results. Perhaps more risks need to be taken.

Speaking of, I'm smelling something sweet burning in the kitchen.