Comfort Coding

What To Cook for When the Stakes and Anxieties are High

Nov 03, 2024

I made this Hot Buffalo Cauliflower Dip for a crew of new ladies last night, thank god for Amanda Paa and her Heartbeet Kitchen archives!

In my former life, my then-husband and I used to host election night parties. He was a Republican, I an independent leftie, and we managed to gather a pretty mixed bag of voters for a night of watching the returns while eating barly soup and crafting huge stacks of sandwiches (how American.) A few of my friends would make score cards, like it was the Oscars, and while some would sit close to the tv, others would chit-chat in back and wait for updates to be called out. It was pretty chill, and mostly fun.

Until 2000. And the damned hanging chad. When it became clear that we would not be finding out the winner of the Gore/Bush battle that evening, I had to kick people out finally at 2am because I needed to go to bed. I remember leaving the soup out and the table littered with bread and mustard blotches, waking up to it the next morning like a national hangover exemplified by my kitchen. It was the first time I can remember feeling the crack in the firmament.

I told this to a few 20-somethings who could NOT BELIEVE that I hosted a multi-party party. Those were the days when we could, before the cult.

This is going to be a very anxious week, most of us are buckled up for the ride. And just because you need to stay furious, doesn’t mean you can’t also find comfort when you need it.

In fact, be comfortable in your fury.

I’m gathering women on Monday, pulling power together before the storm. We’re going to share food, laugh, probably kitchen dance, and shift energy forward with roasted pork and congee. If you can, cook something this week, it’s the most helpful form of witchery there is. Bring yourself to the pot, create nourishment for others, stirring, cackling, feeding your people, believing we can move forward in time, as life only does. Because we are never going back.

Here are some of my favorite foods that will stoke your fires and feed your soul. More can be found on my other instagram What To Cook For When.

In honor of Sunday Bolo season:

What to Cook for When it's not the first snow of the season, because you know a tease when you see it, but it's the first snow with intent. So you breathe deeply with conviction, and you creep down the rickety stairs to the very dark basement of your psyche and you light the big boiler of your winter soul. Giddyup.

Sunday Bolo
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Plan 3 hours to cook.
2 lg carrots
2 celery ribs
3 fat cloves garlic
1 lg onion
1/4 c olive oil
1lb ground chicken
1 lb pork sausage
Freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of cinnamon
1 c cream
1 c beef stock (or chx)
2 1/2 c red wine (lighter is better, Pinot not Syrah)
2 c crushed tomatoes in puree (Alessi has a big can)
S+P
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Finely chop carrots, celery garlic, and onion in food processor. Heat olive oil in pot over med heat. Add veg, a big pinch of salt, and turn heat to med-low. Saute slowly without browning for 30-40 min, until veg is soft and concentrated.
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Add meats, with a bit more salt and a few shaves of a nutmeg, a shake of cinnamon. Break up the meat as it sautes, cook until the color is gone.
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Add cream and adjust heat so cream simmers softly. Stir frequently until cream is nearly gone in puddle form, still breaking up meat.
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Add stock and simmer slowly away again, continuing to stir. Add wine and do the same.
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Add tomatoes and keep simmering until sauce is reduced a bit more, really to your liking. Thick, but not dry. Hit it with your desired S+P, some like to add a pinch of crushed red pepper here.
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Serve over pasta, or on a crusty hunk of bread with olive oil and parm. Or eat straight from pot while standing over the stove and not looking outside.

What to Cook for When you really need a good smelling house. Maybe because another one of your adult babies is moving away to another city in the best evolution of life. Or maybe because at the same time your only girl is getting married and there's a whole other beautiful family out there now who gets her, and you feel like if just stand strong and stretched, with arm aloft holding up a dripping fork full of sexy pork, that you might still be the beacon.

Long Oven Sexy Pork
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Get a big pork shoulder/butt from a butcher. Mine comes from either @cathymackenthuns or Village Meats or Costco. The day before you're going to cook it (ideally) rub it with this mix pulsed in a food processor:
About a cup of Kosher salt
Bunch fresh oregano leaves
4 garlic cloves
Pepper
Squeezed Clementine (or lime) + olive oil
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It all depends on the size of your butt 😜, but this rub should be a bit paste like (throw olive oil in there if you're feeling it). in the pan, fat cap side up, score with a shallow knife cut in two diagonal directions, crossing cuts. Then rub your pork all over, you cheeky monkeys.
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Leave it in the pan uncovered in a fridge or tented in your garage if you live in MN for most of the year. 12+ hours? Like a day, but you can do this with a short cure and still be happy.
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Pour a beer into the pan before you pop it into a 250 oven. I started this 9lb bone-in butt at 9:15am. At 12:30, I turned it up to 275. At 5pm it went up to 305. I took it out to pull it around 6:30, it was luscious and fatty and perfect. Sometimes I broil at the end to get that top fat cap super black and crisp, but it was already too hot in my house that day.

What to Cook for When someone isn't well. And that someone happens to be the whole reason you draw breath. So you cook something that is easy, but somehow dazzling in that she would never have made it for herself. She wasn't the one who taught you to cook, too busy she was working and going to night school to reconstruct a life blown apart by a very short-sighted man. But those empty nights alone fending for yourself may have been the groundwork for your food life. So you cook for her all the time, in gratitude, with love, to pay it all back, for the mom lessons she never knew she was delivering, and maybe with just a sprinkle of fear. Tonight at least. Because who are you without your origin story there to smile at your delivered congee. .
Healing Congee
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1c. Jasmine rice
3 c. Chicken stock
3 c. Water
Fresh ginger, grated
Tamari/soy sauce, a few glugs
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Instant Pot: put it all in the IP. Swish around, seal and cook 30 min high pressure. Natural release.
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Stove: put it all in a pot, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Stir here and there. Simmer for about an hour, or until you get the porridge consistency you want. Keep adding stock/water if it goes too fast, and thickens too quickly. Soft and humble luxury is the goal, my witches.
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Meanwhile, wilt some greens (kale, spinach, chard, whatchulike) in a pan with hot oil and hot garlic. Also shred some chicken or pork if you need to.
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Congee thickens as it cools so stir in warm stock if you need to loosen it up. Add your greens, some protein, a softy egg, sesame oil, whatever you think will be aromatic and compelling without being off putting to the beautiful human who will be receiving this warm and sturdy vessel of your soul.

What to Cook for When you feel that you might uniquely understand what it means to be bone cold. There is no sweater thick enough, no woolen thing righteous enough to be able to gird your bones against the slow creaking cold. Sun gone, snow whips, sleep evades, and you Just. Can't. Get. Warm. And by the way: screw tea, that librarian of liquids, with steamy whispers about quietly calming bullshit. You need to light a fire, in your belly. You need your bony cold witchy fingers to mix up a cauldron.
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Fast White Chicken Chili
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Let's just layer and go.
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In your soup pot over medium heat, glug some olive oil and add 1 ONION, DICED and 2-3 GARLIC CLOVES smashed and chopped. Then, 1 JALAPENO, with the seeds scooped out (don't touch your eyes!) and rough chopped. Chop up some FRESH OREGANO, throw it in, shake in a bit of CUMIN, and waggle it around. As it's getting all soft and lush, toss in one of those squat CAN OF GREEN CHILIES. Let it all work on your kitchen, and if you put your face over the steamy pot for warmth: bonus points.
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Now you need CHICKEN and you need 6-8 CUPS BROTH. Maybe it's 2-3 uncooked breasts which you cook in the broth for 15-20 minutes and then pull out to shred. Or maybe it's the rotisserie chicken that you already bought, shredded, and the bone boiled to make the broth. I feel like you know your truth on this. Either way: add bird, add bone juice.
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Drain and rinse 2 CANS WHITE BEANS. Are they Great Northerns? Cannellinis? Navy nubs? As long as they aren't bitter and souless QAnon white beans, I feel good about your chances. Stir them into the pot and raise the temp so that it comes to a boil. Then lower to a simmer for about 15-20+ minutes. When stirring, go ahead and smoosh some of those beanos so that you get a bit more creaminess. Hit with S+P if you haven't already.
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Pour yourself a nip of whiskey (or reposado) and ladle out a bowl. Top with fresh cilantro, avocado, and a fat blob or two of your best hot sauce. If it doesn't immediately warm the bones, take the bowl and the nip into the tub with you until next Tuesday.