Nothin But a Chicken Pie

All right then. Nicole is at the NJ DMV with Duncan getting her license renewed. Shaw, momentarily asleep in the swing in the dining room, is snoring through her cold. We keep the house @ 60ºF in the winter here at the house where we live. It gets cold. We wear sweaters and put a single duraflame log in the tiny fireplace and stay forcefully cheerful, almost maniacally upbeat. We giggle self

righteously when we hear other folks complaining about the cold when their houses are turned down to 68ºF. If someone visits and says, "It's freezing in here.", I say, "No. Freezing is 32ºF. It's 60ºF. Almost twice as warm as freezing!"

If it gets absolutely unbearable, we just run out and jump in the incongruous hot tub that we own and that heats you up to 104º and keeps you warm for a good 45 minutes on your return.

I hadn't used the hot tub in awhile because it didn't seem to be in line with our our borderline poverty circumstance. How could I take something so luxurious as a hot, bubbly bath when the situation is so dire? Didn't fit. Rich people hot tub. Poor folks are cold and miserable and stay that way. I jumped in the other night when it dipped below 20º outside and realized that this was the first indulgence I had allowed in a while and that now is exactly the time to yield to this extravagance.

In my mind, I guess I was thinking, "I'll use the hot tub when I get a steady job." Silly.

Once I had submerged and was staring at Orion and the occasional jet on it's descent into relatively near Newark International, I thought, "Darn this feels good. Should have been coming out here every night. Fool. Who are you to deny yourself the pleasures that are readily available in the moment because you deem yourself not worthy in general, in some self imagined broader judgment sphere? If this thing is gone someday, Fool, you're going to be good and pissed that you didn't enjoy it while you had it. Fool." Seems to be a running theme.

Which of course leads me to Chicken Pie.

It's later in the day and Shaw may or may not be more sick than we thought. She's pretty miserable and crying long and loud at times when she usually smiles and bubbles. She has a chest full of phlegm that you can feel and hear when she breathes. Nicole called the doctor and she's going in this afternoon. We're worried because 11 week old Shaw is not covered on our insurance because we can't afford it and what is going to happen at the payment counter? Hey Joe Lieberman. Hey.

Duncan's watching some Christmas movies. He's been kind of defiant and gloomy the last couple of days. Not like him. I saw a piece in the Times the other day, a poll about how 50 % plus of out of work folks are worried that their kids are being emotionally affected in an adverse manner by their parent's unemployment. You have to wonder. Kids know everything, even if they can't express it. They know it and they feel every current that flows in a family. I know I did. I think I might be able to cheer him up with a late afternoon hot tub.

Which of course leads me to Chicken Pie.

It's later in the evening. Duncan is in bed. Shaw is fine. The doctor says she has a cold. Something nice in knowing that we are over cautious with the second child too. By the time Nicole got to the doctor's office, Shaw was completely over being miserable. In fact she was in a terrific mood. She was bubbling to every one she met, smiling, laughing, complementing them on their taste in jewelry. The doctor was like, "There's nothing wrong with her. At all." Nicole felt relieved. At the payment counter, they said, "Cigna Co pay?" Nicole said. "Sure. Yes." She paid the $25 and came home. We live to fight another day.

Which reminds me of Chicken Pie.

When I mentioned that I was stuffing a chicken into a pie in my status the other day, the response was immediate and visceral. I believe people like to hear two things in life. They like to hear "Chicken", and they like to hear "Pie" put them together and there is a definite Gestalt phenomenon. This was a little labor intensive, but definitely worth it and made us food drunk with the awareness that the whole was indeed greater than the sum of it's chicken parts.

CHICKEN PIE (Adapted from Ina Garten)

1 whole chicken (3.5 to 6 lbs.)
1/3 cup dijon mustard
1 bunch green onions
Kosher Salt
Pepper
5 cups chicken stock
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1 1/2 sticks butter
2 cups chopped yellow onions
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 cups diced carrots, blanched for two minutes
2 cups frozen peas
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley leaves

Pastry:

3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/4 pound cold butter diced
1/2 cup to 2/3 cup ice water
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
Kosher Salt and cracked pepper

Preheat oven to 425ºF. Rub Dijon mustard all over chicken and rub salt in the cavity. Stuff bunch of green onions in the cavity, truss, and roast for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
Remove meat from bones and carcass and discard skin. (Save bones and carcass for stock.) Cut or shred the chicken into bite size pieces.

In a small saucepan, heat the chicken stock and dissolve the bouillon cubes in the stock. In a Dutch oven, melt the butter and saute the onions over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Add the flour and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add the hot chicken stock to the sauce. Simmer over low heat for 1 more minute, stirring until thick. Add 2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and heavy cream. Add the chicken, carrots, peas, and parsley. Mix well.

For the pastry, mix the flour, salt and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor on the dough setting. Add the shortening and butter and mix. Pulse until well mixed. With the motor running, add the ice water and process until it comes together. Dump the dough onto a floured board and knead quickly into a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic and allow it to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

Divide dough in half. Roll dough out flat and cover the bottom of a large pie mold with 1 to 2 inches of overhang. Roll out another piece for the top crust. Pour filling into pie and lay top crust over. Fold overhang and crimp. Brush the dough with the egg wash and make slits in the top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 1 hour or until the top is golden brown and the filling bubbling hot.

Pepper Pity Party

Off campus today. Got out of the house. Sitting in the South Orange Library to write. Left Nicole in charge with Shaw napping and Duncan watching Horton Hears a Hoo, which he calls Horton Hears of Hoo. He's watching it for the fourth day in a row. Cabin fever? You betcha.

I woke around 5 AM this morning. Shaw was wanting something to eat and Nicole was seeing to it. Duncan had heard the human movement on the second floor and assumed it was time to get up. We got Duncan back to bed and I headed back to our room. I took the radio that I keep next to the bed, adjusted the volume so that I could just hear it if I pressed it next to my ear and listened to right wing talk radio. This has evolved to being the way that I put myself to sleep every night. It works very well, I usually fall asleep in about 10 minutes this way. If I don't use the radio, I start to think when I lie there. Thinking gives way to worry, and worry transforms to panic. The right wing content allows me just enough anger/distraction to keep me from my own poisionous thoughts and lulls me to sleep. In the morning when I'm making coffee and Duncan's bagels and eggs, I put on the NPR.

NPR for the kitchen, Fox radio for the bedroom.

The 5 AM radio trick wasn't working. My own thoughts were louder than the radio.
The spiraling began. When I came downstairs around 7:00, Duncan was on the couch with a book.

"What do you want for breakfast?"

"No. Mom."

"Well, I can make it for you if you want."

"No. I just want Mom."

Since Nicole and Shaw have returned from Missouri, I have slipped back firmly into second position in Duncan's family hierarchy. It's okay. It's as it should be, and I do think my second position, while still second, is a slightly higher second since our Michigan odyssey.

Now, if I was a smarter man, and some days I am, I would march upstairs, get some running clothes on, do a nice slow 5k and let the endorphins do their magic. Probably that day is tomorrow. Today, apparently I'm going to worry. Not smart today. Probably smarter tomorrow.

I talked to my therapist for the first time in several years a couple of weeks ago after a day like this. He told me I need to make money. He's right. For the last twelve years straight, I've made the money by acting in plays on Broadway and occasionally appearing on television. My life expanded around that streak of employment in the entertainment industry. A house was bought, a family grew. Now, I'm weathering a dry spell and I find that I don't know how to do anything else. (This is where the worry starts.) I look at friends who have gone on to have wildly successful careers in theater, film and television and made oodles of money. (This is where the spiraling begins.) I look at other friends who got out and now support their families in more traditional ways week to week and go on skiing vacations and such... and I... Damn it. Now I'm there.

It's just money. Probably in the grand scheme of things at the end of it all, I'm going to be pretty pissed that I spent so much time fretting about things that I couldn't control. And things have always worked out somehow in the past so things will probably work out in the future. I have hope as in "I hope that phone's gonna vibrate some money into this house."

I'm pretty sure that the upstairs bathroom shower drain pipe is leaking into the plaster of the kitchen ceiling, because when someone takes a shower you can hear a drip and there is a crack appearing.

I have friends who would give anything to have my problems.

I did have a day of employment last week on a major motion picture. Henry's Crime starring Keanu Reeves. I had a scene with Keanu. I was the detective who was trying to keep him from making a terrible mistake that would result in his needlessly going to prison for three to seven years. It went well, and I shared a black SUV from the Suffolk County Jail back to the city with Keanu. We talked a bit. I told him about my family. He said he didn't have any children.

"Huh." I thought. "Huh."

Listen, I get it. I just need more money.

And so, I do what I can do. I cook. And hope.

I'm gonna go home and go for a run, then make dinner.


Polenta Stuffed Peppers

4 to 8 red or yellow bell peppers (depending on size)
3/4 lb. sweet or hot Italian sausage
1 Tbs. butter
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup polenta
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano Cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella or Gruyere

Cut the tops off the bell peppers and remove seeds and ribs. Blanch for two to three minutes in boiling water to soften slightly. Arrange in a shallow buttered baking dish.

Preheat oven to 375º F.

Remove casings from sausages and heat in saute pan, breaking up the meat over med. heat until no longer pink.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion softens, 3 minutes. Add polenta and stir to mix. Slowly pour in the chicken broth, stirring to combine. Add the cream, corn, basil, cilantro, salt, sausage, and 1/4 cup of the Pecorino. Cook, stirring constantly about 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Fill the peppers with the polenta. Sprinkle with the remaining Pecorino Romano and the Mozzarella/Gruyere. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden and bubbling Serve hot.

O Holy Pasta

 Have been besieged by real life lately . The news of Nicole's dad being so sick has been accompanied by the whole family having a mutual cold for the last two weeks. All of us coughing into our elbows, except for 9 and a half week old Shaw, who just sneezes and smiles knowing she is exempt from the elbow rule.

We split up for Thanksgiving, Nicole and Shaw flying to Missouri to be with Paul, and Duncan and I driving to Michigan to see my folks there. When Nicole's not around I magically become Duncan's number one and I gladly lap up the sloppy seconds. He is the best traveling companion I have ever known. Content to pore through his Seuss in the back seat or gaze out the window with the obligatory "Are we there yet?" only appearing at the six hour mark into the 12 hour drive. We gazed at the mysterious fog on route 80, exclaimed with delight when the sun appeared, sang as much of the score of Rudolph that we could remember, felt some early Christmas magic when we turned on the radio and the score of Rudolph (and I mean the entire score) just happened to be playing on a station somewhere between Dubois and Youngstown and sucked every ounce of happiness out of the Happy Meal at the service plaza.

Other than Duncan's bagel and eggs in the mornings, I did not cook for the four days in Michigan. I had my mom's Thanksgiving feast. Pretty much the way it has been since I've known it. My earliest memories of cooking of course are with mom. I seem to remember being an expert flour sifter, pan greaser and beater licker. Mom makes terrific pies. Mom taught me how to make spaghetti.

Two boxes of Kraft Italian Spaghetti, aka "Zesty Italian", the one in the green box. In the box is half a pound of dry spaghetti and two envelopes. One containing Kraft Parmesan Cheese and the other something called Italian seasonings. The instructions have you mixing the Italian seasonings with a combination of canned tomato sauce and/or paste with water, boiling the spaghetti, sprinkling the cheese and Presto!

Mom showed me if you browned the hamburger first with some chopped onion and add a can or two of Pennsylvania Dutch mushrooms and then followed the sauce instructions on the package, you ended up with the ambrosia of my mid-western youth. I do not not exaggerate when I say that I could not stop eating the stuff. There was a terrible night when I was left alone with some spaghetti in the pot on the stove that had been set aside for my brother to eat when he came home from swim team. On commercial breaks in the living room I would slip into the kitchen and just have one more bite. By the time Dan got home all that was left was a sad little lump of noodle in the corner of the pot. He knew, and he was pissed. I'm sure he too would remember this incident today.

I generally have a hard time playing the favorites game: colors, movies, memories hard to pick one over another being as the lists are so long and I'm vaguely over aware of the subjectivity involved in making these choices, moreover, I don't want to be tied down to favorites. However, if I ever am in a situation where the last meal is being offered to me, I know that it would be spaghetti. I might quibble over sauces but of the pasta itself there would be no question. Rolled around the fork or slurped up the chin, it has an indescribable comfort level for me that has never wavered since those days in Port Huron, Michigan.

My first job in New York in 1983 during my freshman year at NYU was busboy at a place around round the corner from my dorm on Waverly and Mercer called Zi Pepe's. After paying the dorm fees and tuition with my student loan checks I had exactly $14 dollars in my brand new Citibank account when I walked in Zi Pepe's and asked for a job. I remember that I made $6 the first night and broke a glass but mostly I remember the first staff meal. It was a spicy spaghetti, tomato based with mozzarella and maybe spinach stirred in....

The earth shaking, volcanic, wondrous new reality wherein spaghetti could be puttanesca, bolognese, carbonara, amatriciana, prima vera and on and on not only made the $6 a night bearable, it made it downright desirable. My midwestern mind was blown and when I revisited Michigan for that first Christmas break and mom made Spaghetti just for me, well...I had changed... forever. I knew what al dente was. I knew what herbs were. (I had always assumed that the Italian "seasonings" in the packets were man made by Italian men. Had no idea they were herbs.) I knew what cheese was. I hope I was kind. Conveniently, I don't remember that part.

The day after Duncan and I drove the 12 plus hours back from Michigan and still had a day before Nicole and Shaw returned from Missouri, we had one night of home alone cooking. Imagine my joy when I asked Dunc what he wanted for dinner and he looked me in the eye and said, "Spaghetti."

 SPAGHETTI WITH CREAMY TOMATO ITALIAN SAUSAGE SAUCE (From SImply Recipes)

3 Tbs. olive oil
4 to 6 shallots, chopped
3 to 4 garlic cloves chopped
1 1/2 to 2 lbs. sweet Italian Sausage, casings removed (Or hot or any combo)
1 cup heavy cream
2 14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes in juice
3 to 4 Tbs. fresh chopped sage
1 1/2 cup frozen green peas
1 lb. Spaghetti
grated Pecorino Romano

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add shallots and garlic and saute until beginning to soften, about 3 minutes. Add sausages and saute until no longer pink, breaking up sausages 5 to 10 minutes. Add cream, simmer 5 minutes. Add tomatoes with juices, sage, and frozen peas. Simmer until sauce thickens, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in large of of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain.

Return pasta to pot and add sauce. Toss over medium heat until sauce coats pasta. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to serving bowls and top with cheese.

(I usually wind up with enough sauce for another meal down the road.)