Wise Women Friday: M.F.K Fisher on Cheese

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Words of wisdom from the American food writer M.F.K. Fischer (1908-1992):

Wine and cheese are ageless companions,

like aspirin and aches, or June and moon,

or good people and noble ventures.

Sometimes you look at a couple and you think: What are they thinking? This will never last, and then, low and behold, twenty years go by and they're sending you postcards from their second honeymoon in Maui. It just goes to shows. You never can tell.

Wine and cheese, for example. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: you are crazy, Margaret. No one less than M.F.K Fisher called wine and cheese "ageless companions." Entire parties are devoted to wine and cheese. Restaurants have wine and cheese hours. Magazines have wine and cheese columns. But I'm going to take the contrarian position here. Wine is good. Wine is fine. Wine is a lot of fun. But cheese...well, that's next to butter.

Personally, I go for your soft, gooey cheeses. Your bries, your Humboldt Fogs. My feeling is that if you are going to eat cheese you should go try to pack as much fat and cholesterol in it as possible and really make it a decadent experience.

That being said, I'm also a fan of goat cheese, which my sources tell me is a healthier, lower-fat cheese experience. Goat cheese is like a demilitarized zone in my house. Some people feel strongly for it, some people feel strongly against it. Peace is kept by keeping your opinion to yourself. But, really, how can you not love something so perfectly white and creamy? Smear it on fresh bread, sprinkle it on a salad, pair it with a pear; it's like eating a cloud. Plus, it's almost healthy so you can feel smug! And that's always a plus.

Wise Women Friday: Julia Child

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Words of wisdom from Julia Child, who introduced Americans to the art of French cooking:

If you're afraid of butter, use cream.

Yes. I saw "Julie and Julia." Yes. Meryl Streep channels Ms. Child and makes her so darn appealing that it's hard not go home and whip up a pot of beef stew. But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about butter.

When I think of butter, I think of my father-in-law, Tom Finnegan. When he was dying of leukemia, I knew that the end was near because I found butter in his refrigerator. Tom had given up butter years earlier, a consequence of a week at a very regimented diet and fitness camp where people were encouraged to reject all things hinting of cholesterol. This was before the good versus bad cholesterol days; this was during the cholesterol equals Satan days. So when I saw the butter, I knew that Tom had thrown caution to the wind. If he was going to die, he was going to first relinquish the shackles of healthful self restraint and slather his final days in creamy, wonderful, artery-clogging indulgence.

What is it about butter? Cream it with sugar and it's an airy piece of heaven, just a handful of flour away from the promise of a birthday cake. Cook it with lemon juice and eggs yolks and it's higher fashion than a Prada bag. Spread it on a rustic loaf of bread and you've just connected yourself to the span of human history. Butter moves cooks to wax eloquent and gives comfort to the dying. But why is it so good? It's like a miracle. Inexplicable yet redemptive.

Wise Women Friday: Madame Defarge

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Words of wisdom from the villainous Madame Defarge, knitter and score-keeper extraordinaire in Charles Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities:

Tell wind and fire where to stop...but don't tell me.

I am a bit late to Bastille Day, but I can never remember birthdays either so if this holiday is important to you I beg your forgiveness. I once knew things about the French Revolution. I once knew dates. I once knew names. Now my expertise is reduced to the following facts: Marie Antoinette never promised anyone cake and a revolution supporting the noblest of ideals ended up a terrifying blood bath. Although the details of the Revolution floated like ether out of my brain decades ago, what I do remember is A Tale of Two Cities. I remember Madame Defarge, whose knitting served as an abacus that kept track of all the people and all the sins she would avenge when the Revolution finally arrived. I remember that good-hearted bad boy Sydney Carton switching places with that boring Charles Darnay, and I remember wondering what was wrong with that crazy Lucie! I begged her to choose Sidney, but she'd chosen Charles so many thousands of times already that I just couldn't get through to her. Sigh. Poor Sydney. It was a far better thing he did than he had ever done. And I was just fourteen when I read about it. So, of course, it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.

Wise Women Friday: Mary Shelley

From the author of Frankenstein, I give you insight into guilt:

Ah!  it is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, 

but for the guilty there is no peace.

I excel at feeling guilty.  It is one of  the emotions I have really perfected.  My own special recipe consists of one part fear, two parts remorse, and two parts shame.  You let that settle in your gut for a few minutes (may five or six) and then you add a nice thick layer of anxiety and compulsive thinking about how whoever you've done wrong will likely hate you forever.  

Now, you'll feel tempted to rush this next step, but you must resist the urge to speed things up because this next part is critical.  NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, do not actually try to make contact with the aggrieved party.  The aggrieved party will probably have no idea that they've even been aggrieved.  The aggrieved party will probably not even know what you're talking about.  And then where will you be?  You'll have to explain why the aggrieved party should be aggrieved, and, believe me, nothing good can come of that.  

No.  Here's what you do: You stew on your guilt for maybe a couple of weeks.  You obsess on it.  You really get good and compulsive.  Then, just when you can feel the leathery snake scales growing on your skin, you go and eat everything in your refrigerator.  Thus fortified, you invite the aggrieved party to coffee or breakfast, but right when they get there you feign an "emergency" and flee the scene as fast as possible.  Now, the aggrieved party will feel so bad about your "emergency" that they will only feel sorry for you.  And you can just make it a point to never have to see that aggrieved party ever again for the rest of your life.  And bingo!  Everyone's happy (with the slight exception of the small tic you may develop in your right eye, but, hey, in some societies tics are considered incredibly sexy so, really, it's still all good.)

So the next time you skip out on a friend and leave them footing the bill and surrounded by a bunch of depressed strangers, just remember, Guilt!  It's what for dinner!

Wise Women Friday: Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker

Words of wisdom from Irma and Marion, the mother-daughter team who brought us The Joy of Cooking:

It is a sobering fact that unless you 

use the rendered grease [of bacon], 

you are eating only one-fifth of what you buy.

First printed in the height of the Depression, The Joy of Cooking is nothing if not a thrifty homemaker's bible.  And now, in these austere times, who among is not, on some level, a thrifty homemaker?  But what to do with the rendered bacon grease?  How can one use the total package, as it were?  That is the question. 

Of course, you can cook with it, as is commonly done in the south. (Think: pie crust.)

But must economy doom us to heart disease, strokes, and fat thighs?  I say no!  With a little creativity, bacon fat can be as versatile as that favorite black dress you dress up or down for any occasion.  Why wait?  Start today: Use your bacon fat in any of these fabulous ways:

1. Moisturizer.  Perfectly natural and chemical free (as long as the bacon is organic), but do pass through a sieve first as little bits of bacon on the face are not at all attractive.

2. Scented crayons.  Just mix with a little paraffin and food coloring.  Bake until hard.

3. Humane dog call.  Don't torment Fido with one of those high-pitched whistles that only canines can hear.  To dogs, that's like scratching fingernails on a blackboard.  Slather a little bacon fat on your wrist and Fido will come running.  Even better, he may bring a few friends.  The more the merrier is what I say!

4. Candles.  Enough said.

5. Bird Feeder.  Just douse the fat in some bird seed, attach some yarn and hang from a tree.  You'll have a regular aviary!  (Warning: do not leave small pets or children unattended.)

6. Lubricant.  Enough said.

7. Chapstick.

8. Volumizing hair gel.

Why stop there?  There must a million things to do with bacon fat.  As the old saying goes: The world is your oyster and bacon fat is your Swiss Army Knife.