The Sauce

It used to not be on the menu, it was just a very well known secret.  My friend Sheryl introduced me to it.  We started by dipping our chips in to it but eventually ended up dousing everything on our plates with it. It was a good secret to know.  The ‘it’ is Chuy’s creamy jalapeno dip and if you’ve had it, you know exactly what I am talking about.  The stuff is as legendary as Kraft macaroni and cheese or a good batch of Ronald’s fries.  

I would describe Chuy’s as Tex-Mex Elvis-a-fied TGIFriday’s.  It has lots of tacky junk tacked to the walls and you can dine in a Cadillac but unlike TGIFriday’s it’s actually cool to go to Chuy’s in spite of the cheese factor.  It’s the kind of place where you can openly drink a frozen margarita and not feel like a dick because everyone else is happily having one too.  Specifically the ridiculous ‘dot’ or ‘double dot’ which is a frozen margarita served in a bathtub of a glass with a dot or a double dot of strawberry margarita in the center. It’s Disneyland level dining for adults.  

I don’t know what they put in that sauce to make it so awesome.  I’ve been trying to replicate it for years.  When I lived in Texas some of my friends speculated that the backbone of the sauce was ranch dressing.  At home I mainly use the creamy jalapeno for fish tacos but I also use it as a crudite dip served with jicama and peppers.  Apparently I now have the chance to compare mine to the real deal, Chuy’s just went national and opened an Atlanta location.

Creamy Jalapeno Dip - Makes about 1 cup

1 - 4.5 ounce can green chiles

4 ounces sour cream

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 bunch cilantro

Juice of 1 lime

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1/3 of a jalapeno, minced or 5 pickled jalapeno slices

1 tablespoon pickled jalapeno water from the jar

Place everything in a food processor and process until blended.

CSA Dilemma

Our friends are vacationing for 10 days in London; we are watching their Chihuahua, Roadie. Roadie is not your typical Chihuahua; he's a lover not a fighter. He's friendly, he's ridiculously cute, missing his tail and he does this funny little shake with his left paw when he's walking fast. Roadie is something of, shall we say, a Don Juan. He has no problems sleeping with strangers. I know because he spent the night curled up on Jim's sister's pillow after having met her 2 hours before. The next morning he casually trotted out of the bedroom at 10 AM. If his parents take him to a party my money says by the end of the night Roadie will be situated in a pretty girl's lap and she will be feeding him pinch after pinch of barbecue. The dog's social mores aside, our reward for hanging out with Roadie is that we get our friends' CSA baskets while they are away.

I have been bugging Jim about participating in a CSA for years and he's been hesitant. I suspect based on up front cost, stringent rules and in spite of his title of Mr. Spontaneous, the unknown factor of the basket contents. The first CSA basket arrived chock full of everything, enormous amounts of organic fruits, veggies and popcorn? I could barely carry it. Jim was so excited when he saw this windfall of food he washed everything one at a time and displayed them on our counter Cezanne-like only with 30x more food than Cezanne would have used. He took a picture and posted it to his Facebook. Feel free to check out his still life. He then jumped in and made us dinner making a small dent in the mountain of food.

The next day Jim went to California and I went to New York. When I returned 2 days later the food mountain was still there staring at me. I didn't know where to start, which I suspect, participants in CSAs across the country go through weekly. It was like a Chopped basket except without the cotton candy or the bison sausage, still equally baffling. It had items I cook with often, like butternut squash and sweet potatoes, it also had slightly eccentric cousins to other loved vegetables, like white radishes, but it also had an over abundance of items I rarely use, such as green peppers.

I'm not the biggest green pepper fan; while I don't dislike them and I'll gladly eat them, I don't seek them out either. I find green peppers misappropriated quite often. A giant chunk thoughtlessly plopped on a salad. Or constantly paired with onions, the perpetual wingman. Unlike peanut butter and jelly, who seem to do fine without one another, green peppers don't seem to have much of a social life without onions. I really like other types of bell pepper. Isn't there more for this vegetable? So I thought, well, what about green pepper Harissa? And you know what? It works.

The green peppers also came with Anaheim peppers and jalapeños. Surely you could use any type of pepper that appeals to you.

Green Pepper Harissa

4 small or 2 large green bell peppers

3 Anaheim peppers

3 jalapeños or 1 large

1.5 teaspoons caraway seeds, toasted

1.5 teaspoons cumin seed, toasted

6 +1 tablespoons olive oil

Large pinch of salt

Tiny pinch of cinnamon

1/2 cup cilantro leaves

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Pre-heat broiler. Place peppers and garlic on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and drizzle with about 1 tablespoon olive oil. Roast the peppers in the broiler. Time will depend upon your broiler. My broiler is in the top of the oven I placed the peppers about 7" from the flames, my broiler is not particularly potent and it took me 5 minutes rotating the peppers every minute. Keep your eye on anything in the broiler at all times. The garlic may finish sooner.

Place the peppers in a paper bag for about 5 minutes. Making sure they are cool enough to handles peel the skins off of the peppers. Slice them in half and discard the seeds and stem. This should make about 2 cups of roasted peppers.

Put the peppers, spices, cilantro and 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the food processor, process and stream in the remaining 4 tablespoons of olive oil until desired consistency. Finish with lemon juice.

Notes: Use as you would regular Harissa. I'm showing it as a dip but we also marinated and baked chicken in it. It's also great on eggs.

Watermelon Pickle

It’s amazing how things you have totally forgotten can come back instantly when someone puts the right words together. I immediately was transported straight to the 7th grade today when someone on a food website asked ‘Can you pickle watermelon?’ Yes, you can, and there is a wonderful poem by John Tobias that goes with it and you can’t do one without reading the other. I very much remember the first time I had watermelon pickle.

Miss Seidel was our 7th grade English teacher and she was from the South, Alabama I think, which was foreign enough to us. She was everything cool about the 80s. Our 7th grade class was her first year at our very strict private school. She was in her early twenties, she had an asymmetric haircut, she wore funky clothes and made jewelry. She was confident, educated and too hip for the burgh of Baltimore. She was everything my stodgy all girls school was not. Who hired her? The other teachers shopped from the LL Bean catalog and clearly only refreshed their wardrobes every decade. They looked like line backers in skirts. They had been there for 40 years and would be there for another 40. They lived and socialized in the same snobby, blue-blooded, wood paneled station wagon neighborhood that the school was and is located in.

Miss Seidel was like a beautiful bird in a burned out forest. She was friendly. She was one of those teachers. The ones that inspire you and make you want to work beyond what is required of you. We idolized her, even stalked her to her apartment one day for a surprise visit. She didn’t flinch; she buzzed us in and served us iced tea. Of course her apartment was cool, filled with awesome vintage finds that someone her age should not have had the time to collect just yet. She was like Molly Ringwald and Madonna, combined, only cooler and real.

One day Miss Seidel brought in a jar of watermelon pickle a family member had sent her. She said she had not had any in a while, maybe since she was a kid and was curious about it herself. None of us has ever seen a watermelon pickle before, let alone had any relatives that canned things. She explained its southern provenance, that It is the rind pickled, sour and sweet. She then read us John Tobias’ poem Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle from a Friend Called Felicity. I remember this clearly. Then she passed out chunks of the watermelon pickle on toothpicks. And instantly, John Tobias’ poem became my memory of watermelon pickle. Why hadn’t I had watermelon pickle for this beautiful memory? Well, I did now, and I was not going to let it go. To this day I’ll talk like I’ve been eating watermelon pickle my whole life.

Miss Seidel only lasted 1 year at our school. The bird had to fly. Every time I hear the words watermelon pickle I think of her. The poem she read us sums up how I feel about watermelon, summer and the childhood memories associated with both. Now, after all that, I have to admit, I do not have a watermelon pickle recipe to amaze you with, but, David Chang does. I can offer a you a watermelon salad recipe. But read the poem and pretend you’ve been eating watermelon pickle your whole life.

http://ellemay.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/reflections-on-a-gift-of-watermelon-pickle-received-from-a-friend-called-felicity/

Watermelon Salad (serves 12 as a side dish)

1/2 small watermelon, cubed

1 Kirby cucumber, chopped

1/2 a jicama, cubed

2 jalapenos, minced

2 limes

salt

3/4 cup herbs (I use basil, mint, cilantro and chives)

Combine the first four ingredients, squeeze lime juice on top and toss with herbs abd salt. Serve cold.