Sausage and Cheese Strata

Gotcha covered for Easter Sunday brunch with this delicious sausage and cheese strata. Easy to make -- prep in advance the night before -- and it's going to please every palate! Promise!

A La Recherche...

If you know literature, you know those are the first words of the title of the Marcel Proust masterpiece, “Remembrance of Times Past.” In it, Proust constructs the longest sentences known to mankind, but lets us in on youthful memories of the baked treat, madeleines.

Proust wrote: “I raised to my lips a spoonful of cake (and) a shudder ran through my whole body and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place.”

That’s quite something to write about a little sponge cake that’s eaten like a cookie, dipped in coffee or tea.

I have no such childhood memories of food that are so pleasant. What I do remember is the incident that forever marked me and my relationship to green beans, including the elegant haricot vert.

When I was growing up, green beans and most other vegetables served at dinner time came from cans, dumped into a saucepot and warmed on the stove, sometimes until they turned gray.

Pediatricians in the 1950’s were demigods, as Dr. Benjamin Spock’s tome on raising children was selling tens of thousands of copies. My mother was no different than any other of her contemporaries. She thought that the words of our pediatrician were the equivalent of the engraved stone tablets of Sinai.

Frustrated that I wouldn’t eat my green beans she turned to “Dr. Joe” who gave her this sage advice: “If he doesn’t eat them at dinner, serve them to him cold for breakfast.” And so from that point on I was forever marked.

I promise you, I’ve tried them all sorts of ways – steamed, broiled, roasted, tempura-battered. Green beans and I just don’t get along and I’m afraid we never will.

Funny thing is that like most other kids, I didn’t care much for most green vegetables, yet today I am a huge fan of greenies like Brussels sprouts, broccoli, asparagus, spinach and the like.

Now my mother will read this piece and ask my why I’m picking on her (again). Nothing will ever stand in her way of inducing guilt, even when I tell her that I understand that no one gave her a handbook on raising kids.

So let us think about the eating habits and food preferences we are instilling in our kids. I promise this is not a lecture about obesity or diabetes, though I share the concern of the medical and nutritionist communities about the health of America’s children. The British populist chef, Jamie Oliver, undertook a project in England’s schools to change children’s eating habits and now he’s bringing it to America. I hope he succeeds.

More vegetables, fewer fried foods, lower amounts of carbohydrate-laden foods, moderated fast food, and so on.

In the meantime, let me share with you a recipe for tempura-style green beans that I adapted from the Red Cat, a popular eatery in New York:

Make the dipping sauce first by combing 1-1/4 cups of Dijon mustard with healthy pinch of dry mustard, a tablespoon of Tabasco, a quarter cup of soy sauce and three-quarters of a cup of honey. Put all ingredients in a saucepan and whisk over low heat. Transfer to a bowl to cool.

Make the tempura batter by whisking four egg whites to soft peaks. Then whisk in, gradually, three cups of flour and two and three-quarter cups of club soda.

Heat some canola oil (deep enough for frying) to 350. Dip fresh green beans that you’ve trimmed into the batter and carefully lower them into the hot oil in small batches. Fry until golden, about three minutes. Remove to paper towels to drain and salt immediately.

Serve with the dipping sauce.

Everybody I’ve made this for tells me it’s delicious. But I’m sorry, I just can’t.

Moroccan Matzoh Ball Soup

Just in time for Passover, here's a soup with Moroccan overtones (a little cinnamon) and a nod to the Sephardic traditions of the holiday.

Kitchen Guy Promo Video

Here's the way we promote my weekly program: Kitchen Guy, The Tastiest Two Minutes in Television.

The Other Side of the Table

I’ve been giving wait staff a pretty hard time in my blogs, but isn’t it usually the case that a few miscreants give a whole group a bad rap?

There is another side to the story and, having been a waiter at more than one time in my younger days, I know from whence they speak.

Diners can be a pretty ugly lot, too. There are now a number of blogs written by waiters and waitresses, and a couple of books have just come out, written by waiters baring their souls about their travails in restaurant dining rooms. Some of you diners are doing some pretty weird and, from what I’ve read, some pretty rotten things.

Have you eaten half or more of your meal and then told your waiter it wasn’t prepared to your liking? Have you ordered something and then feigned an allergy?

Have you overstayed your welcome, thereby preventing the restaurant from turning the table in a reasonable amount of time, so that the restaurant and the waiter could make more money? Have you stayed to the point where the busboys are putting the chairs up on all of the vacant tables and you’re still lounging and chatting with an unpaid check? Did you know that the wait staff has more to do after the restaurant closes, so you’re keeping them way beyond regular hours.

Did you remember that most state laws exempt restaurants from paying their wait staff minimum wage, with the expectation that tips will make up the difference? Did you run a $90 bill and give the waiter $100 and tell him or her to “keep the change?” And did you do the math and figure out that you left an 11 percent tip?

Did you show up at the restaurant on a busy night without a reservation and insist that you should get not just any table, but one of the better tables in the place because you “know the owner?”

And on those busy nights, do you make special requests, expecting the chef to cater to your every whim? And did you know the chef does not cook every dish, so Joe or Manny or one of the other line cooks, more than likely only know the original recipe and aren’t really qualified to make the adjustments you asked for?

In some of our country’s larger cities waiting tables in high-end restaurants is regarded as a profession. And in some cases, the position can be so lucrative that it is handed down from father to son. There are waiters in New York City that make in excess of $100,000.

But waiters and waitresses also get an unfair rap for waiting on tables because many people think they’re biding their time waiting for a big break on the stage or screen or some other “better” job.

And in that same vein, have you asked your waiter or waitress what they really do for a living? Did you know that in most cases that’s an insulting question?

There are more people in a restaurant that make things happen that you never get to see. In many cases, the wait staff is obliged by restaurant management to give a percentage of their tips to the busboys, line cooks and, if there’s a maitre d’ or host/hostess, to him or her, too. Other restaurants pool tips so all waiters and waitresses make about the same amount each night they work – without regard to quality of service or check sizes.

Have you wondered why most restaurant menus now declare that parties of six or more will have an automatic gratuity added to the check? There’s a reason, but based on all of the foregoing, I’ll let you figure it out.

The long and short of it is that a large plurality of waiters and waitresses are doing a great job and they deserve to be tipped. In most European countries, a gratuity is added in to the check – an automatic 15 percent no matter what.

I’m a 20-percenter. I’ve walked in those shoes. But unlike the European system, it’s not automatic nor do I think it should it be. Gratuities are an expression of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. In my book, it’s no different than sending back food to the kitchen when it’s cooked incorrectly – how will they know they’ve done something wrong unless you tell them?

I think it ought to be the same with wait staff. Learn to earn.