"Dinner and a Movie - 12 themed movie nights with recipes to share and enjoy" - Popeye [Spinach] Pies for the SAG Awards

Date I made this recipe:  Sunday, January 29, 2017 – Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) Awards

Dinner and a Movie – 12 themed movie nights with recipes to share & enjoy by Katherine Bebo

Published by Ryland Peters & Small

ISBN: 978-1-84975-441-5; © 2013

Recipe:  Popeye [Spinach] Pie – p. 102

Well our TV and movie awards season is underway, and this past Sunday, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards were handed out and a good time was had by most (exception:  those who did not walk away with an award).  I like the fact that the SAG Awards are handed out at a dinner (dinners are way more relaxing) and that they are brief.  Kudos to the producers who bring that sucker in at two hours and change, something the Academy Award producers have yet to achieve. In fact, I do believe they are close to wrapping up last year's Oscar production and whew, in the nick of time too, as the 2017 Oscars will be held on the fast-approaching date of February 26^th. 

Happily, when it comes to awards shows, I have "themed" cookbooks at the ready and this is one of them.  Granted, the SAG Awards go to both TV and film actors, producers, directors et al., but I have yet to find a cookbook compilation that addresses only TV shows. It stands to reason as movies were around before episodic TV but maybe some day soon, someone will join together as "man and wife," recipes from a number of TV shows, rather than just producing one per TV show, such as the I Love Lucy Cookbook, Edith Bunker's All In The Family Cookbook, or The Walton Family Cookbook (all of which I own), and the like.  Food for thought (pun intended).

Now normally, I tell my readers a bit about the book and then add some pertinent stories and then finish it up with the recipe.  But because there is so much about and in this book to discuss, I'm going to tell you right now that the recipe for the Popeye [Spinach] Pie is way down at the bottom, and if you want to skip there, be my guest.  I made this recipe (from the "Comic Book Hero" chapter) because my husband loves Popeye.  Loves him, loves the movie with Robin Williams and Shelly Duval, loves the whole shebang.  In fact, he wears often a Popeye bicycle jersey when out and about, and after I bought him a Popeye bendable figuring, he installed it on one of his bicycle handlebars which of course, generates a lot of conversation from fellow riders.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it and so if you want to bail on me now, please continue to scroll down.  For those who want to see what this book is all about, follow along with Mitch as we discuss the Dinner and a Movie cookbook.

The Dinner and a Movie cookbook is comprised of 12 themed movie night menus.  At the beginning of each "chapter" or menu, there's a list of about 20 or so movies that fit that genre.  For kicks, I decided to see how many movies of each genre I have seen; my "scores" are listed below.  Each chapter contains also a cocktail befitting the genre, a popcorn befitting the genre, and a handful of other recipes that also work well with the theme.

Okay then, here are our 12 movie night menu "nominees:"

1. Girl Power
2. Fright Night
3. The Big Apple
4. Best of British
5. Western
6. The Golden Age
7. Mob Squad (not to be confused with the TV show, the Mod Squad!)
8. Sci-Fi
9. Action-Adventure
10. Comic Book Heroes
11. James Bond
12. Bollywood

All right then, let's get going and so "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!"  (Bette Davis, in the movie, All About Eve.)

Girl Power

• Girl Power movies include: Thelma & Louise; 9 to 5; Steel Magnolias; The Devil Wears Prada, and Bend it Like Beckham.  
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score:  I've seen 18 out of 25 "Girl Power" movies which is amazingly high. So...I guess I like "chick flicks?" 
• Girl Power food and beverage "highlights:" "Silk Stocking," (a cocktail); "Butter Toffee Popcorn," and "Mean Girl Muffins."

Fright Night

• Fright Night movies include: Carrie, Jaws, The Shining, The Silence of the Lambs, and Sixth Sense.
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score:  I am not a horror flick chick and so my total number of movies viewed is a measly 8 out of 23.  I would like to point out though, that in the early 80's, some friends and I went to a late-night double feature of two movies included in this list, Eraserhead (what an odd, odd movie), and Night of the Living Dead so there's that. 
• Fright Night food and beverage "highlights:" "Bloody Mary," "Paranoia Popcorn," and "Coffin Sandwiches."

The Big Apple (movies about NYC)

• The Big Apple movies include:  When Harry Met Sally, Taxi Driver, King Kong, Gangs of New York, Breakfast at Tiffany's.
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score:  All told, I've watched 18 out of 26 "Big Apple" movies, although this list did not include movies like You've Got Mail which is too bad since my husband and I were in NYC when it was being filmed.  In fact, I went to Zabar's (Deli and grocery store) the day before they shot the scene where Meg Ryan stands in the "cash only" line despite not having cash.  And let me tell you from personal Zabar's shopping experience, that scene was not a work of fiction.  The sign at the register says "Cash only" and they mean it, dammit! 
• The Big Apple food and beverage "highlights:" a "Manhattan" [cocktail] (of course!), "Raspberry and White Chocolate Popcorn," and a "Rollin' Reuben" sandwich.

Best of British

• Best of British movies include:  Bridget Jones's Diary. Watership Down, A Fish Called Wanda, Mary Poppins, and Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score:  I've seen 13 out of 25 which is not too bad considering I am not even remotely British.
• Best of British food and beverage "highlights:" "Nutty Popcorn," "Posh Pimms," (a Pimms cup is the summer go-to drink for all of England.  Or so I read), and "Sausage Rolls."

Western

• Western movies include:  True Grit, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, City Slickers, and Back to the Future Part III. 
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score:  My viewing score in this category is a pathetic 6 out of 20.  Well, I was never fond of horses so....  As a note, one of the movies in this category is The Magnificent Seven which is  great movie based on a Japanese movie, Seven Samurai, directed by the late but legendary Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa.  Andy is a huge fan of his films, and when we first started dating, we watched a few of them on our own "Dinner and a Movie" night. 
• Western food and beverage "highlights:"  "Lynchburg Lemonade," (a mix of lemonade and Jack Daniel's), the popcorn is "Popcorn Nachos," and, in a hilarious nod toward the movie, Blazing Saddles, "Blazing Backed Beans." (Yes, especially when watching that scene.)

The Golden Age

• The Golden Age movies include:  Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, Singin' in the Rain, Holiday Inn, and a Streetcar Named Desire (I just have to:  "Stellllllaaaaaaaaa"). 
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score: I am pleased to report that I've seen 18 out of 20 of the movies listed here.  What can I say except I am an old soul who loves classic and timeless movies?
• The Golden Age food and beverage "highlights:"  "Casablanca Cocktail" made with gin, likely because of this memorable line in the movie, Casablanca: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." The popcorn option is "Lover's Popcorn," (made with vanilla bean), and a sweet treat option is "Sparkling Diamond Cupcake" (The movie reference is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the song "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend.")

Mob Squad

• Mob Squad movies include:  The Godfather Trilogy; Goodfellas; Married to the Mob; Pulp Fiction; The Usual Suspects. 
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score:  If the author would have separated each Godfather movie instead of grouping them as a "trilogy," I would have done better in this category, but since she didn't, I've watched only 9 of 25 (some of them through my fingers because of the violence).
• Mob Squad food and beverage "highlights:" "Espresso Martini" made with espresso (coffee) and vodka, each of which I like separately but cannot envision enjoying a mix of the two in a martini glass. The popcorn is "Public Enemy Popcorn," made with dried mushrooms and some black truffle and that's a yum, and who wouldn't love "'Got a Beef' Lasagna?"  I almost made that one but switched it up at the last minute.  Let me just also add that all the food in this category was Italian (not that popcorn is Italian) and I could have made every single recipe.  Still might!

Sci-Fi

• Sci-Fi movies include:  Avatar; WALL-E; Independence Day; Alien; Planet of the Apes (probably the original).
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score:  This category was a challenge because there are movies that I think I've seen but probably haven't (like The Terminator) and so I'm going to err on the side of caution and say I've watched 10 out of 25.  The movie, The Matrix, is in this sci-fi grouping and I will confess to being one of those people who enjoyed the movie even if the whole concept of "human" artificial intelligence was too much for me! "Wait...what just happened?  Who are they again?  What?!"  I will also tell you that I saw the movie Spaceballs eons ago while traveling with a friend to Chicago on an Amtrak train.   And you know what, when you're "trapped" on a train or a plane, suddenly some of these movies don't seem so bad or so corny – like this one!  (Love me my John Candy, may he rest in peace.)
• Sci-Fi food and beverage "highlights:"  a "Blue Moon" cocktail made with tequila, blue Curacao, lime juice and lemon sorbet, our popcorn is "Gremlin Popcorn" and there's a recipe for "Death Stars" cookies, guess where that idea came from? (Hint, it contains the famous line  "I am your father," which by the way is the actual movie quote and not, as many believe, "Luke, I am your father." But seriously, doesn't the latter quote sound better?)

Action-Adventure

• Action-Adventure movies include:  Indiana Jones; Mad Max; Pirates of the Caribbean; Harry Potter; Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. 
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score:  Ugh.  I've only seen 6 out of 24 of these movies.  I guess I'm not into swashbuckling, either.  That said, one of my favorite concert band pieces to play for all time is music from the Pirates of the Caribbean.  But have I seen any of the "Pirates" movies?  No, reader, I have not. But the music is boss!
• Action-Adventure food and beverage "highlights:"  "Paradise Island Punch" is a nod toward the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, The Beach.  Your popcorn is "Peanut Butter Popcorn," (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids) and then there's Hannibal's Jalapeno Poppers for the 1983 movie, The A-Team featuring actor Mr. T, he of the "I pity the fool" fame. 

Comic Book Hero

• Comic Book Hero movies include:  The Avengers; Iron Man; Popeye; X-Men; The Incredibles.  When I was in my community band, we played music from The Incredibles for one of our summer concert series and it was a big hit.  It's also very fun to play.
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score:  At first blush, I don't think I'm going to do very well in this category but let's count and... nope.  As expected, I've seen a big 5 out of 26 movies and my only excuse is "I'm not a guy."  My husband read a lot of these comic books that were made into movies, whereas I read Archie, Ritchie Rich, Nancy, and every once in a while, Superman, and with the exception of the Archie comics, I read all the rest when visiting my grandma.  Grandma lived with my aunt and uncle and their family, and my cousins had quite the stockpile of comics that I read and re-read and re-read again every year while visiting. It was my very favorite thing to do as soon as we got there with the exception of hugging grandma, of course.
• Comic Book Hero food and beverage "highlights:" "The Hulk's Smash" (tequila, Midori, Cointreau and lime juice), your popcorn is "Captain American Popcorn" (red, white, and blue), and the "entree" is the recipe I made for tonight's dinner, "Popeye Pie."  My husband loves Popeye.  Loves him, and this movie with the late Robin Williams is one of his favorites.  And so as tempting as some of the other dishes were (well, pretty much all of them), this was what I had to make. 

James Bond

• James Bond movies include: Dr. No; Goldfinger; Casino Royal; The Spy Who Loved Me, Octopussy, and 21 other James Bond movies and only James Bond movies, go figure!
• Ann's Movie-Watching Score:  I've seen ummm...2 out of 26?  Again, I'm not a guy.  Guys are mostly (although not always), the ones to watch James Bond movies.  But this gal loves her martini ("Shaken, not stirred") and will even put aside the fact that the "007 Martini" calls for a "dash of vermouth."  I like my martini really, really dry which is to say even a "splash" is overkill.
• James Bond food and beverage "highlights:" "007 Martini," "Coconut Popcorn," which I gather is a nod to all the coconut [suntan] lotion-covered bathing beauties in these movies who emerge from the sea looking perfectly tanned, perfectly "not-drenched" with salt water, and with nary a hair out of place.  I wish.  And then there's "Diamonds Are Forever Steak."

Bollywood

• Bollywood movies include:  Salaam Bombay!; Slumdog Millionaire; Bend it Like Beckham; Monsoon Wedding, and Bride & Prejudice. 
• Ann's Movie-Viewing Score: This is the final category, and seeing how "Bollywood" movies have only been a "thing" for the past couple of decades, I think I can be forgiven for not cleaning up in this category.  My score here is only 4 out of 25, but I absolutely loved all four:  Slumdog Millionaire, Bend It Like Beckham, Monsoon Wedding (loved, loved, loved), and Bride & Prejudice. 
• Bollywood food and beverage "highlights:" a non-alcoholic "Rose Petal Drink," "Bombay Popcorn" that contains ghee (clarified butter), curry and mango chutney, and there's also "Chicken Tika Masala" for your Tika Masala fans.

So that concludes tonight's 2017 SAG Awards movie review, and now let's get on with the "show" and talk about the recipe – Popeye [Spinach] Pie.

Andy and I love spinach but prefer it to be mixed in with something rather than eaten "raw" in a salad.  In fact, Creamed Spinach is a favorite of mine even though I never had it growing up. 

The recipe is really simple:  use a store bought crust, fill a muffin tin with the dough, add the filling, add a raw egg in the middle, top with more crust and bake.  This pie's spinach filling, a mix of spinach and arugula, was divine, such that I kept eating it instead of putting it in the pie. 

Here's what didn't quite work though:  the egg in the middle of each pie was almost overdone and the crust needed a bit more time in the oven. But of course, had I left them in longer so the crust could brown, I might have incinerated the filling and who wants an incinerated spinach filling besides nobody ever?

The recipe suggests using ready-made shortcrust pastry, but when I Googled it to find out what it was (basically, a pie crust), I found a very easy recipe to make at home and so went with that.  Since I had already decided to make just half the recipe, it seemed easier to just make half the crust as well.

The thing that I loved about the recipe in general is that you use a muffin pan to make your individual pies and that was fun.  And I can easily see making these in a mini muffin pan for party appetizers, sans the egg but double the filling.  This one is going into the tickler file.

The instructions to tell you to bake the pie in the oven "for 10 minutes until the egg is just set and the pastry is just cooked," but as I alluded to above, these two items did not play well together in the oven and so the egg was almost cooked through instead of "just set," and the crust was a tad underdone.  Not that we didn't eat it anyway, but next time around, I'd like to get it right.

Here then, is your recipe:

Popeye [Spinach] Pie – Makes 8 pies

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus extra to glaze

1 small onion, finely chopped

8 oz fresh spinach

1 cup ricotta

4 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan

2 ½ cups rocket/arugula, finely chopped

1 teaspoon freshly chopped tarragon

Freshly grated nutmeg

1 lb ready-made shortcrust pastry (Ann's Note: this is basically a ready-made pie crust.  I made my own pastry crust; recipe is below)

8 eggs

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

You will also need a large, heavy baking sheet, a round cookie cutter, and two 4-hole muffin pans.

Preheat the oven to 425F.  Put the baking sheet in the oven to heat for at least 30 minutes.  Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, add the onion and fry for 5 minutes until golden.  Let cool.

Steam the spinach until just wilted, refresh in cold water, then squeeze out as much moisture as possible and roughly chop.  Beat the spinach and onion into the ricotta with the Parmesan, rocket/arugula and tarragon.  Season well with salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Roll out the pastry on a clean, lightly floured work surface.  Cut out 8 circles with the cutter.  Use these to line each muffin cup.  Fill each pie with some of the ricotta mixture.  Ann's Note:  to make your own short-crust pie dough, see below.

Make a small dent in each filling.  Break the eggs one at a time, separating the yolks from the whites.  Slip a yolk into the indent of each pie.  Season with salt and pepper.

Roll the pastry offcuts into long, thin ropes an cut into 16 lengths.  Use these to make a cross on the top of each pie, sealing the edges with a little water.  Brush lightly with olive oil.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes until the egg is just set and the pastry cooked.  Ann's Note:  I think we are missing an instruction here.  The recipe calls for you to put a baking sheet in the oven to heat for at least 30 minutes, but then never again mentions what you are to do with it!  My guess is that you put the muffin pans on top of the [heated] baking sheet but that is only a guess.  I did not do that so perhaps that is why my pie crust was a little underdone...or not!  We will never know.

Serve hot.

New York Time's Basic Short-Crust Pastry https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12884-basic-short-crust-pastry

145 grams all-purpose flour (about 1 cup)

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1 stick cold unsalted butter (1/4 pound), cut into 1/8-inch pieces

3 tablespoons ice water

Put flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer or food processor.  Add butter and quickly cut it into flour until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Add ice water and mix briefly, about 30 seconds, to form a soft dough.  Remove dough, shape into a thick disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.  Bring to cool room temperature before rolling.

To roll, lightly flour dough and counter.  Roll out gradually, periodically letting dough rest for a moment before continuing.  This makes rolling easier and will keep dough from shrinking back during baking.

Ann's Note:  at this point, the instruct you to roll out the dough so it will fit in a 9 1/2-inch fluted tart pan but you will be using a muffin pan so adjust your dimensions accordingly.  The author also suggests you chill the dough for an hour before baking; we did not do that.

A "Mad Men" Finale Repast, with recipes from "Sardi's - The Story of a Famous Restaurant;" "The Colony - Portrait of a Restaurant..." & "Tanqueray The Perfect Entertainer"

Date I made these recipes:  May 17, 2015 – Mad Men Finale

Sardi's – The Story of a Famous Restaurant by Vincent Sardi, Sr., and Richard Gehman

Published by:  Henry Holt and Company

© 1953

Purchased at Kitchen Arts and Letters, NYC

Recipe:  Chicken Tetrazzini – p. 223-224 with assistance from Betty Crocker

The Colony – Portrait of A Restaurant And its Famous Recipes by Iles Brody

Published by: Jarrolds Publishers (London) Limited

© 1946, 1^st edition

Purchased at Julian's Books, NYC

Recipe:  Haricot Beans A L' Itlaienne – p. 164

Tanqueray® The Perfect Entertainer – A Collection of Recipes for Cocktails, Canapés & Hors D' Oeuvres

Published by Barron's

© 1984

Purchased at Arc's Value Village Thrift Stores

Recipe:  (Tanqueray®) Martini – p. 26

As the saying goes, "All good things must come to an end," and so endeth the fabulously entertaining Mad Men TV show.  Most people I know who watched and loved the show said some variation of the same thing:  "It was like watching my childhood (or young adulthood) all over again." 

The thing I loved most about the show is that it stayed true to form of telling a story that fit the ages and didn't change it just because people wished it otherwise.  As an example, women had a hard time then (and now) making headway in the marketplace.  Harassment was rampant and I could tell you chapter and verse of some of the things I witnessed in the workplace.  Smoking at work was definitely a cool thing and drinking during hours was not seen as the next step to heading to AA.  In fact, during the early 80's, my boss used to take my department out for liquid lunches every quarter.  In the first years of the show, many people – my guess men and women a lot younger than me – complained that all of this seemed unreal.  It wasn't.

When the character Sal, the art director left, some people thought the world would end and "surely he'll be back, right?"  He wasn't.  In real life, it was rare for someone to leave a company and then return and if they did, they often left shortly thereafter for the same reasons that drove them from the place in the first place.  I was glad that creator/director Matt Weiner didn't cave in to popular demand.

I could spend hours writing about how I loved this show and how the research and dedication to costuming and set design and props and character development and music is something we will likely never see again but the point of this particular writing is, of course, to talk about cookbooks.  So let's talk!  (As an aside though, a friend watched all of two seconds of the next to last episode and commented that the tie was wrong. Apparently, that was his only take away.  But I'm here to tell you pilgrim, the tie was NOT wrong!  Every article of clothing, down to the "unmentionables," was researched to the nth degree.  The tie was correct.  End of rant.)

During the course of the seven year run, Matt Weiner also talked about how he envisioned how the show would end pretty much from the moment he wrote the first script.   I too, thought about what to make for the "last supper."  And so I selected three books that I thought would be a good fit:  Sardi's cookbook, The Colony cookbook and the Tanqueray® cookbook – two venerable NYC restaurant cookbooks and one from the makers of Tanqueray® gin.  The gin book was thrown in at the last minute but it's fitting seeing as everybody on the show was drinking like fish and smoking like chimneys.

Out of all the restaurants featured in Mad Men during the seven-year run, Sardi's is perhaps the most famous. (Check out Season 2, Episode 5 where Don dines with (character) Jimmy Barrett and his hell-on-wheels wife, Bobbie.) Opened in 1927, it became famous for all the celebrity caricatures that continue to adorn the walls.  Back in the day, if your visage was on that wall, you had definitely made it!

Unbeknownst to me, Sardi's is listed as the "birthplace" of the Tony Award and Broadway stars continue to frequent the place which is still in business after all these years.  I'm going to have to add a visit there to my NYC bucket list. 

This cookbook, acquired a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, is not exactly a cookbook but rather, the story of Sardi's and how it became such an "it" destination. Recipes don't appear until Chapter 14 – Some Sardi Specialties – and even then, only a select few.  Many of them, like the chicken tetrazzini, call for sauce "in a can," a product Sardi's created and sold – see page 209 for details. I imagine that back then, Sardi's Jiffy White Sauce was likely all the rage, but I tell you what, trying to duplicate that sauce (no longer sold) for this recipe took some doing and I must confess to you that I cheated and called upon Betty Crocker for assistance.  What would we all do without Betty? By the way, and I just have to say this, my nose turned up when I read about white sauce in a can because...ew?

So that's the skinny on Sardi's and now you probably want to know about The Colony so I'm going to tell you (thanks to Wikipedia).  The Colony opened its doors in 1923, four years before Sardi's and operated until 1971.  Unlike Sardi's which was located at 44^th Street (Times Square area), The Colony operated on the city's Upper East Side at 61^st and Madison ("Mad Ave!").  According to Wiki, once the Vanderbilt's discovered it, it rocketed to fame.  Another interesting tidbit was that restaurateur Sirio Maccione (well-known in NYC but perhaps not so much elsewhere) served as The Colony's bar captain from 1960 to 1970 before leaving to found the equally famous Le Cirque in 1974. 

The Colony cookbook is similar to Sardi's in that the story of the restaurant comprises most of the book, but unlike Sardi's, there are a lot more recipes to play with.  Still, each recipe takes up the tiniest of space in the book (usually, a paragraph) and so instruction is lacking (and good luck with the ingredients as well).  

And then there's the Tanqueray® gin cookbook about which I just must rant:  call me crazy, but wouldn't you expect a Tanqueray® cookbook to include Tanqueray® in every recipe?  I would, I did and yet not one single recipe for appetizers, etc. contained gin.  Well this was disturbing!  And try as I might to get excited about some of the recipes, I just couldn't and so finally gave up trying to make a dish from the book and focused instead, on my very favorite drink – a martini.  And this is so "Mad Men" that it just all worked and now I can get on with my life.

Before I get into the gist of the recipes, let me just say that I loved Mad Men's ending.  Loved it.  And without giving anything away – in case you haven't seen it yet – there was an "ending" and then there was another ending, one last scene that just tied everything together.  My husband and I clapped at the first one and then after that one last scene, just screamed "It's perfect!  It's just perfect!"  So thank you, Matt Weiner! 

Chicken Tetrazzini – the original recipe with modifications to follow – Serves 4

4 ounces spaghetti

1 can white sauce (Ann's Note:  this product no longer exists)

¾ cup of milk

1 cup cooked diced chicken

4 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1 three-ounce can chopped mushrooms

Okay, so.  Since white sauce no longer exists, I had to decide whether or not to make a basic white sauce, coming up with proportions equal to the can – size unknown – or whether to "cheat" (such a Don Draper thing) and modify the recipe to something that was easier on everybody.  I modified it by following a Betty Crocker recipe that I got off the internet that uses cream instead of white sauce.  You could also make up a white sauce (recipes are everywhere) and then add the milk as directed.  Since we are a two-person household, I opted for the cream rather than keep milk in the fridge that neither of us will drink.

Boil about 4 ounces of spaghetti to taste and drain it.  Set aside in a colander.  To one can of white sauce add three-quarters of a cup of milk, bring it to a boil, and smooth with an egg beater.  Add one cup of cooked diced chicken, four tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese, and a three-ounce can of chopped mushrooms and their liquid.  Mix the ingredients well.  Put the spaghetti in a buttered baking dish.  Pour over the sauce.  Shred over it more Parmesan cheese and dot with lumps of butter.  Brown under the broiler.

My modifications come to you from Betty Crocker as follows (serves 6)

1 package (7 ounces) spaghetti, broken into thirds

2 cups Green Giant™ frozen sweet peas (Ann's Note:  many modern-day tetrazzini recipes call for peas.  We like them so why not?)

¼ cup butter or margarine

¼ cup Gold Meal™ all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

1 cup Progresso™ chicken broth (Ann's Note:  and wouldn't you know, that's the chicken broth I had in my pantry)

1 cup whipping cream

2 tablespoons dry sherry or water

2 cups cubed deli rotisserie chicken

1 jar (4.5 oz) Green Giant™ sliced mushrooms, drained

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Ann's Note:  butter + flour + milk = white sauce.  This recipe called for 1 cup of cream instead of 1 cup milk making for a richer white sauce.  That said, although the dish started out being oh-so-creamy, the sauce dried out a bit after baking, leaving me to think that making approximately 10 ounces of white sauce and then adding the extra milk was really the way to go.  Lesson learned.

Heat oven to 350F.  (Ann's Note:  the original recipe asks you to use your broiler to finish the recipe.)  Cook and drain spaghetti as directed on the package, adding peas during the last three minutes of cooking.

Meanwhile, melt butter over low heat.  Stir in flour, salt and pepper.  Cook, stirring constantly.  Boil and stir for one minute.  Stir in sherry/water, spaghetti and peas, chicken and mushrooms.

Pour mixture into an ungreased 2-quart casserole.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Bake uncovered about 30 minutes or until bubbly in center.

Ann's Notes:  No way was this all going to fit into a 2-quart casserole (are they kidding me) and so I used two, two-quart casseroles.  And then I am iffy about the 30 minute cooking time uncovered because the dish wasn't creamy like I expected and that disappointed.  It was all good, but I think it suffered from baking without a lid.  Next time around, the lid goes on and instructions be damned!

Haricot Beans A L' Italienne – serving size not given

1 quart (approximately) 1.5-2 pounds haricot vert (a fancier form of green beans)

1 tablespoon butter (approximately)

1 pound butter (2 sticks)

1 ½ - 2 cups hot stock

1 egg yolk

Juice of one half lemon

Parsley, finely chopped (for garnish)

Ann's Note:  once again, I found myself having to translate this recipe into something more modern.  It was almost a disaster until we got the amount of stock to use right.  The numbers given above – 1 ½ - 2 cups – is an approximation.  I think I might have used two cups but am not sure.

Here are the original instructions:  Parboil a quart of beans, drain and finish cooking them in a pan with melted brown butter.  Stir well and serve with the following sauce poured over them.

To make the sauce, melt a pound of butter, stir in an ounce of flour till it is smooth, add enough hot stock to make a sauce, and bring it to a boil.  Strain the sauce and put it back on the fire.  Stir in the beaten yolk of an egg, the juice of half a lemon, and some fine chopped parsley.  Serve very hot.

Tanqueray® Martini – serves 1 (Ann's Note:  I am a huge fan of Blue Coat gin, but Tanqueray® will do)

2 ounces (1/4 cup) Tanqueray® Gin

¼ teaspoon dry vermouth

1 olive or twist of lemon

Place a shaker in the freezer for 1 hour before beginning.  Place Tanqueray® gin in shaker with vermouth.  Add 2 or 3 ice cubes.  Stir well then strain into Martini glass.  Either drop in an olive or dangle a twist of lemon on the rim of the glass.  Serve very cold.

Okay, folks, here in my Martini recipe:  Pour gin of any amount desired into a shaker.  Skip the vermouth all together if you want a dry martini (I do) otherwise, measure out ¼ teaspoon as directed (and this made me chuckle—"a quarter teaspoon?") and add it to the gin.  Add an olive(s) that are either pitted or stuffed with pimiento and most certainly not the gorgonzola-filled ones which are precocious and nasty.  Do NOT add lemon, not as a garnish, not as anything.  Sip.  Breathe out.  Relax.  Rinse and repeat.

"The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook" - Pineapple Glazed Ham & Potatoes Au Gratin

Date I made these recipes: March 25, 2012 (Mad Men Season 5 premier)

The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook by Judy Gelman and Peter Zheutlin
Published by: Smart Pop
ISBN: 978-193666141-1
Recipes: Pineapple-Glazed Ham in honor of Season 4, Episode 1 “Public Relations” and Julie Child’s Potatoes Au Gratin in honor of Season 1, Episode 2 “Ladies’ Room”

Finally, after 17 months off, Mad Men is back. It’s back! Oh how I have missed it. I mean, weren’t we all on the edge of our seats wondering about Joan’s baby and Don and Megan’s engagement and all kinds of various and sundry revolving stories? I know I was. Aside from a TV show here and there, I can’t think of any other show I have wanted to watch more than Mad Men.

This hero worship is probably due to the fact that I grew up in the 60’s. I was in Kindergarten when President Kennedy was shot (I called him President “Keninney”) and held on for the ride in 1968 when everything seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket. In between, I managed to somehow survive Catholic grade school and Vatican II, secondhand smoke, loud cocktail parties thrown by my parents (where I got to sip from my dad’s martini and please, spare me the lecture) and the gamut of 60’s fashion. In fact, one of the more hilarious scenes from Mad Men has Betty chastising Sally for running around with a dry-cleaning bag on her head because Betty didn’t want the clothing in them wrinkled. While I’m pretty sure my mother would have been more concerned than Betty about my potential death by asphyxiation, I also know my mom’s desire for smartly pressed clothes and so who’s to say I, too, wouldn’t have heard “Ann Marie Verme, you’re ruining the clothes!”

The thing I, and others, love about this show is the attention to detail. When I watch this production, I feel as if I was right back in the 60’s, girdles and all! Many women were horrified that pregnant women smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol but as my friend, Mary, said on many occasions “Oh my God, my mother smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish with all of us kids!” And that was absolutely true; the fact that you were pregnant was immaterial.

Smoking was allowed everywhere, and I mean everywhere, even hospitals (can you imagine?!) In fact, my favorite “toy” growing up was the huge ashtray in our local bank. It was filled with sand and my brother and I used to move the cigarette butts through the sand like we were driving a truck—at least until my mother said “Stop that!” Spoilsport.

For many women of the 60’s, the “available” positions were teachers, nurses, secretaries or stay-at-home housewives. My mother stayed at home (because my dad wanted her to) and hosted coffee klatches with her female friends, grocery shopped, cleaned the house, took care of me and my brother and countless other things and was still expected to have dinner ready and on the table by 6. And it wasn’t that my dad was a hard-ass, far from it. It’s just that more women stayed home because it was expected of them and that was that. Dinner was, of course, preceded with my dad’s wind-down-from-a-tough-day martini.

So speaking of cocktails, this cookbook has a ton of popular 60’s cocktail recipes, many of which I have sampled in bars and restaurants over the past few decades, but I decided to pay homage by making a couple of food recipes instead. Besides, at precisely 8 bells Central Standard Time, I had my own cocktail of choice, a martini, at hand, ready for the start of our two-hour adventure. (By the way, the authors suggest adding 1/8 ounce of vermouth to the gin. Nonsense! That’s overkill.)

As to the food, the recipes all sounded delicious but I just had to make the ham recipe in honor of the hilarious episode from last season, Season 4, where Pete and Peggy have to come up with an advertisement for the fictitious Sugarberry canned ham. (That said the recipe for “Trudy’s Flying Roast Chicken with Stuffing” recipe came in a close second—talk about another hilarious moment in Mad Men history when Peter sent his wife Trudy’s roast chicken over the balcony in a fit of pique!)

Okay, back to the ham, in this episode, Pete and Peggy struggle to make their ham client happy. After much consideration, they come up with a “sure-fired” way to get their female grocery-buying public’s attention and that is to stage an in-store fight where two women argue over who is going home with a Sugarberry ham. The idea was, of course, to make Sugarberry ham the only ham that women would want to make. But naturally, the two “housewives” hired for the promotion get into a major fight, all hell breaks loose and that pretty much put the kibosh on that! Tell you what though I can’t look at a canned ham anymore without cracking up laughing. (And for the record, of course the ham I made today is a canned ham. If Matthew Weiner can pay attention to details, so can I!).

As to the potatoes, well, ham and potatoes just go together, right, so I broke my own little rule of only making one recipe per cookbook and made the au gratin potatoes as well. This was the first time I’ve ever seen them made with Swiss cheese but then again, this is an adaptation of a Julie Child recipe so that made sense. The texture of this is more like an omelet due to the addition of eggs, but I found myself really liking it. Still, Julia Child aside, I’m really more of a cheddar cheese gal myself when it comes to au gratin potatoes.

So there we were – martinis in hand, ham on the plate, potatoes nearby, and Mad Men commenced. Ah, life is good!

Pineapple-Glazed Ham (adapted from The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook (Hearst 1963)) – Yield: 1 ham
1 ham (in keeping with the episode, canned ham is best!)
1 cup pineapple juice, or reserved juice from pineapple can
¾ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 15-ounce can pineapple slices
Maraschino cherries, optional

Cook ham according to instructions on the package. Remove ham from oven 45 minutes before it is done cooking and remove rind. Score ham, if you wish, by cutting it in long diagonal slashes in one direction and then crossing those cuts with diagonal slashes in the opposite direction to create a diamond pattern. Increase oven temperature to 400F.

Combine pineapple juice, brown sugar, and mustard in a small saucepan. Cook over low heat until thickened and clear. Spread on ham. Use toothpicks to fasten pineapple slices to ham and place maraschino cherries inside the pineapple rings. Return to oven for 20 minutes or until pineapple is glazed.

Place fully cooked ham on a serving platter and let rest for 15 minutes before carving into thin slices.

Ann’s Notes: My canned ham only took an hour to cook but I was still in a burning hurry to get done in time for Mad Men’s 8:00 (CST) start so….I didn’t wait until the pineapple juice, brown sugar and mustard became a paste but instead just poured it over the ham and shoved it in the oven. But I did take a moment to arrange the pineapple slices on top of my perfectly flat canned ham! Needless to say, I didn’t bother to score the ham since there was nothing to score—no rind, no fuss, no muss, no bother!

Potatoes au Gratin (adapted from Gratin De Pommes De Terre Aux Anchois – Gratin of Potatoes, Onions and Anchovies), Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child (Knopf, 1961))

2 tablespoons butter; plus 1 tablespoon for top
1 cup minced onions
½ pound raw potatoes (about 2-3 large potatoes) (Ann’s note: today’s baking potatoes are HUGE so weigh them in the grocery store if at all possible lest you end up with more potatoes than needed like I did.). Peel and dice the potatoes into 1/2-inch cubes
3 eggs
1 ½ cups whipping cream, half-and-half, cream or milk
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
½ cup grated Swiss cheese

Place butter in a skillet and melt over low heat. Cook onions slowly in butter for 5 minutes or so, until tender but not browned.

Preheat oven to 375F. Drop potatoes in boiling salted water and cook for 6-8 minutes, or until barely cooked. Drain thoroughly.

Butter a 3-4 cup baking dish. Spread half of the potatoes in the bottom and then the cooked onion and, finally, the remaining potatoes.

Beat eggs with whipping cream, and add salt and pepper. Stir. Pour eggs and cream over the potatoes and shake the dish to send the liquid to the bottom.

*May be cook in individual serving crocks if desired.

"Larousse Gastronomique" & "As Always, Julia" & "The Hour" - Chicken Sautee a la Bourguignonne

Date I made this recipe: November 6, 2011

Larousse Gastronomique – The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine & Cookery by Prosper Montagne - Introduction by A. Escoffier and PH. Gilbert; Edited by Charlotte Turgeon and Nina Froud (The First American Edition)
Published by: Crown Publishers, Inc.
© 1961
Recipe: Chicken sauté a la bourguignonne or matelote – p. 262

Additional reading:
As Always, Julia – The Letters of Julia Child & Avis DeVoto – edited by Joan Reardon
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0-547-41771-4
No recipe

The Hour by Bernard DeVoto
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company
© 1948, 1949, 1951
No recipe

Were it not for Julia Child, I would likely not have pulled Larousse Gastronomique off the shelf any time soon, especially since it weighs a ton and sits on my highest bookshelf, such that I need to stand on a chair to reach it. That would have been a shame because it’s a fun book to peruse.

So how did I come to cook from this book? Well, it was all because “Larousse” was mentioned in a very entertaining read, As Always, Julia.

In 1951, Julia Child was residing in Paris with her husband, Paul Child when she read an article about kitchen knifes published in Harper’s Magazine, written by Bernard DeVoto. When Julia wrote a fan letter to Bernard, his wife, Avis, answered. Bernard was a very busy writer and often left correspondence to Avis.

When Avis responded on behalf of Bernard, it triggered a correspondence between the women that lasted until Avis’ death in 1989.

Besides becoming a good friend of Julia’s, Avis championed Julia Child’s soon-to-be masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. When Houghton Mifflin dropped the ball on the manuscript, Avis, who worked in publishing, brought the book to the attention of Alfred A. Knopf publishing and the rest as they say is history (or “l’histoire” if you’re French).

I have to tell you that reading the correspondence between these two ladies during this tense time of “will they/won’t they publish this?” was riveting. Without Avis, I doubt this book would have been published. Avis was also instrumental in securing Judith Jones, then an up-and-coming editor to review and test the recipes. Judith has gone on to achieve fame in her own right, and I enjoyed her recently published The Pleasures of Cooking for One. I tell you what, between these three women, they propelled home cooking and French cooking and really, all kinds of cooking, to the forefront and never looked back. They are my heroes.

A hero of a different nature though, is Avis’ husband, Bernard, who wrote the article that triggered the eventual publishing of Julia’s book. Bernard already had quite the name for himself but his book, The Hour, a book about the cocktail hour, cemented his friendship with Paul Child forever. And wouldn’t you know I happen to have that book on my bookshelf as well. (And who knew that one day I’d be able to tie all these books together?!)

Neither the As Always, Julia book nor The Hour have recipes per se but Bernard talks a lot about my favorite drink, the martini:

“There are only two cocktails. One can be described straightforwardly. It is a slug of whiskey and it is an honest drink…With the other cocktail we reach a fine and noble art, and we reach too the wars over the gospel that have parted brothers, wrecked marriages, and made enemies of friends.”

He goes on to talk about there is a misconception that women cannot make a good martini: “For instance there is a widespread notion that women cannot make martinis, just as some islanders believe that they can cast an evil spell on the tribal fishnets. This is a vagrant item of male egotism: the art of the martini is not a sex-linked character. Of men and women alike it requires only intelligence and care—oh, perhaps some additional inborn spiritual fineness…”

For the record, my dad taught me how to make martinis and was always impressed when I made them even better than he did. So what Bernard says is true: women rock the cocktail world.

Bernard totally wins me over though, when he talks about other drinks that while popular, are not cocktails. And he makes it clear as clear can be that “A martini, I repeat, is made of gin and vermouth. Dry vermouth.” Amen to that! He scoffs at Gibsons (p. 39), a drink made of gin and an olive and on p. 61 gives us all a worthwhile reminder: “Remember always that the three abominations are: (1) rum, (2) any other sweet drink, and (3) any mixed drink except one made of gin and dry vermouth in the ratio I have given.

I could wax on about this book but I do need to get to the recipe at some point (And no, I haven’t forgotten) but I tell you what, you need to read Bernard’s book. It starts slowly but after 30 odd pages, he just nails the art of the cocktail. And he’s funny in a dry whit sort of way-kind of like my martinis!

So anyway, okay, back to earth and to today’s recipe.

When Avis asked Julia for some casserole recipes with a French flair, Julia initially responded that she couldn’t think of any but then went on to say that she found some in “Larousse.” And that prompted me to pull the book from the shelf and see if I couldn’t find the recipes. Well—between the first and last copyrights, some pages must have changed or the version changed because the page numbers that Julia cited were not the pages with the recipes. So shoot.

But actually, that was all okay because Larousse Gastronomique is an encyclopedia (I had forgotten) and it was a blast to look through the recipes and definitions and whatnot, all from A-Z. There were food I had never heard of, photos and maps and all kinds of diagrams regarding food and utensils and everything in between.

Seeing as how Julia recommended some chicken casserole recipes to Avis, I was bent on finding one that worked (and let’s face it, making a calves’ head meal or something with eel was just not going to happen). And people, you have no idea what a challenge that was.

For starters, there are about 25 pages of chicken recipes. Each recipe is about a paragraph long, and unfortunately for me (and for you), the “main” chicken recipe isn’t so much a recipe as a description and you have to go back to the beginning of the chicken section to find it. And then it offered up no clues whatsoever, not to cooking time, not to chicken size. Nothing.

So then I read through all the little recipes but eliminated a good portion of them because they required that I make an additional sauce of some sort like tomato sauce or brown gravy. And just like the chicken recipe itself, the sauce recipes weren’t any clearer so I ditched those recipes tout de suite

This left with me tonight’s chicken dish. And so my hubby and I went to the grocery store where we reenacted a scene from one of my favorite episodes from I Love Lucy where Lucy’s mother is coming to LA for a visit but she doesn’t reveal any details in the telegram she sent (which was addressed to Micky Micado. Lucy’s mother did not like Ricky.)

Lucy: “Well, at least she wrote us a wire and told us she’s arriving at 9:30.”
Ricky: “Hooray for mother. AM or PM?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
Ricky: “What day?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
Ricky: “What airline?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
Ricky: “What happened to that woman’s brain?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
(From: I Love Lucy, California Here We Come episodes, The Hedda Hopper Story. Thanks to http://ultimateilovelucy.wikia.com/wiki/The_Hedda_Hopper_Story for providing the dialogue.)

Anyway, so Andy and I went to the grocery store:

Andy: “So what size chicken do you need?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”
Andy: “Well, does it need to be boneless or not?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”
Andy: “Well, do we need a whole chicken?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”
Andy: “Well how long do you cook it for?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”

So I bought a couple pounds of chicken breasts with ribs, hoped for the best and commenced firing:

Step 1 – “Fry in butter 4 slices bacon…” Okay—how much butter? It didn’t say. So I used about 4-5 tablespoons and that seemed to work. And then you add blanched onions and raw mushrooms. So far, I managed that just fine.

Step 2 – “Drain this mixture and brown quickly in the same fat a chicken cut into pieces in the ‘ordinary way.’” Okay – define “ordinary way” because it sounds like we’re talking about a whole chicken cut up into parts although again, it doesn’t say.

Step 3 - “When the chicken is half-cooked…” Okay, stop right there. How would I know when the chicken is “half-cooked?” Because like everything else with this recipe it doesn’t say!! So for this portion of our program, I thought about a chicken recipe I made really early on for this blog where you put the chicken in a pot, (no oil or butter required, just the chicken) covered it and cooked it on high heat for about 45 minutes. So I went that route and the chicken was perfectly tender. Score one for me!

Step 4 – “Take the chicken out and garnish. Dilute the juices in the pan with 1 cup of red wine, boil down to half and thicken with a tablespoon of butter worked together with flour. Strain.”

Here’s where the thing almost derailed: there just weren’t juices left to dilute in the pan and so I added butter…and then more butter…and then more butter. And then after cooking down the red wine (and butter), I added the tablespoon of butter and flour (At last, we have a measurement) but didn’t know how much flour to add to the butter. I ended up using about a teaspoon of flour to one tablespoon of butter.

Well. The butter/flour mixture sat like a blob in the pan so I had to whisk it to get the huge lumps out and then I tasted it and “yech.” And I mean “yech.” It was so sour I almost spit it out. So to save it, I added sugar in small increments until it wasn’t so awful. (Well, it awful but infinitely more edible).

In the end, the chicken was good, the onion/bacon/mushroom mixture was good, but the gravy was forgettable. Next time around, I’d either add the wine straight to the chicken or I’d drink it and call it a day. If I were you, I’d lean heavily toward drinking! (And throw in a martini to boot, compliments of Bernard DeVoto!)

I served this chicken with wide noodles and green beans. As to what side dishes Larousse recommends well…it doesn’t say.

Chicken sauté a la bourguignonne or matelote – serving size…it doesn’t say
4 slices bacon
12 small onions (pearl onions)
12 small raw mushrooms
1 cup red wine
Butter

Fry in butter 4 slices of lean bacon cut in a big dice and blanched. Add 12 small onions, blanched; cook till golden and add 12 small raw mushrooms. (A note about blanching: to blanch means that you cook items for a very short time period in boiling water and then you place the items in a cold water bath to stop the cooking. I couldn’t really find a definitive time to blanch items on the internet so I went with about a minute. My guess it was probably less but since it didn’t say….

Drain this mixture and brown quickly in the same fat a chicken cut into pieces in the ordinary way. When the chicken is half-cooked, put the garnish back in the pan, cover and cook for 15 minutes.

Take out chicken and garnish. Dilute the juices in the pan with 1 cup of red wine, boil down to half and thicken with a tablespoon of butter worked together with flour. Strain.

Set the chicken on a dish, surrounded with its garnish and pour the sauce over it.