I’ve been thinking. Well, I’ve been cooking, in kitchens that aren’t mine. Holidays often find me in strange but friendly places. And while I’ve been wowed by some spiffy gadgets and enviable cookery – most notably this KitchenAid Pearl 600 Stand Mixer and this, the classic, a real Le Creuset Dutch Oven, which, I will say, I do fervently covet, in the red shade if anyone needs to know – well, there’s no space like the home kitchen.  After all, I’ve spent three years now arranging it just the way I want it, and filling it with the things that keep my cookery moving along at a harmonious and feast-focused tempo.

And then there are those things. Gifts, accidental finds, a few purloined items too. The things that, if your kitchen burned down (because you forgot to close the oven door or you accidentally ignited the cat when you were perfecting your saganaki technique), but you were rich and money were no obstacle to buying all that stuff again and again if need be, well, those things that you just couldn’t.  Couldn’t replace, wouldn’t be yourself without. Those precious items, treasured for strange and private or perfectly practical reasons that, would it be fair to suggest, without which your cooking career could be in the garbage disposal?

I know you have some of those items.  It’s a little scary to admit them, isn’t it?  Sort of like drawing a big red I AM HERE circle on your gravest vulnerabilities.

I’ll go first then. I have about six or seven kitchen treasures that have shaped the way I cook, the way I even think about food, and they’re all remarkably basic. I won’t give them to you all at once though. For today let’s talk about my biscuit cutters.

Biscuit cutters

I stole these. I was a strange kid.

They belong/ed to my grandma (one reason that I’m glad my grandma doesn’t know how to use the internet – though occasionally my well-meaning mother prints out a post and mails it to her. This one is for the closet, Mom).

I pretty much grew up at my dad’s mom’s house, spending the bulk of my pre-school time there. She lived in the country, or so I thought; a small, backwards city is more like it, where she happened to own an acre of land. I learned to cook and garden there. Learned all about the wonder of compost by watching my grandpa dig a hole in the ground and throw leftover produce in it. Learned to love cats and hate bugs (my grandma has so many phobias – odd, for a farm girl).  Fed the insatiable, rock-eating polar bear that lived in her drainage sewer (bygones, oh Collinsville Public Works). Built my first outdoor fire – and my first indoor blazer happened there as well.  Made funnel cakes and dumplings and chicken noodle soup (the only meat dish I ever really crave) and experienced eating herbs, those magical, mysterious things that don’t resemble food but which are not forbidden to eat, even right out of the backyard. Fresh dill tastes like Grandma’s house.

She’s still got beads and rhinestones and silver pins and big, clinking, clattering, sparkling, colliding jewelry in her treasure box.  But no. I was bedazzled by her kitchen.

Rustic and purposeful and relentlessly efficient, nothing was ever wasted in that kitchen of hers.  As far as I can tell, it still isn’t.

She had these biscuit cutters, a set of three, each one slightly bigger (or smaller, depending on where you started) than the last.  When not in use they fit inside each other like nested dolls. We used those biscuit cutters most mornings I was there, to make light breakfast breads and sometimes cookies. Even back then, they were old, in a regal and storied way though, in that historically heavy way that even a child can recognize. They were burnished dark and solid, but when you pressed hard enough on them the handles caved slightly under the weight of your hand, so that you had to hold the dough down and lift the whole cutter carefully, jiggling it back and forth to extricate it.

One night I was wandering her kitchen while she sat at the dining room table (the gathering place in her home). She might have been talking to my parents about the strangeness of the new-fangled push-through tab on the can of Tab Cola.

“Grandma?” I called, and carried my six-year old self earnestly to the table and plunked down in the center of the discussion, biscuit cutters clutched in my left hand, which I held slightly behind my back.  “I have a good idea. How about if we have a new rule?  Say that if  you come to my house and see something you like, you can have it, and if I come to your house and see something I like, I can take it home with me and keep it.”

“So, if I come to your house and find money, I can take it?” she asked.   I had no money. I nodded.  “And if I come over and decide I like….” she glanced around her own house and named the first thing her eyes fell upon, “your new upright vacuum cleaner, that’s mine?”  If only…. I nodded vigorously.  “Well what if I come to your house and I see some bubblegum, I can have that too, right?” After a quick calculation, I determined that was easy enough to come by. I magnanimously agreed. “What about your new shoes, then?” she asked.

“Which ones do you mean?” I hedged.

“Your new ones. The red ones. With the sparkles.  The Dorothy shoes.”

Well. That was a bit tougher. Was she bluffing? I glanced under the table at her feet. There was no way she’d ever fit into my new Dorothy slippers. Still, what if she knew some other kid that would like them, and she took them for her?

Without saying yes or no, I slipped away. I hung the biscuit cutters back on their rusty hook and went to play with her jewelery box.

Late that night, when my parents had driven through the oak woods and across the river, covering the 20 miles back to our house, and were groggily unpacking our bags –  the leftovers sent from Grandma’s kitchen,  a new screwdriver that Grandpa had bought for Dad and the catfood that none of her 8 cats would eat but that she thought our current stray, Friendly, might like — I gasped. My parents were equally surprised to find the biscuit cutters in the bag, tarnished and slightly dented, beautiful, and mine.

It’s funny though. Technically, of course, I didn’t steal them. Even though Grandma sent them with me, and probably forgot about them soon after, I still feel like they don’t belong to me. That’s not such a bad thing either. I wonder if it’s why some people do steal — feeling the tug of the person they stole from on the other end of the object, a presence with them all the time. It’s like having my grandma in my kitchen with me each time I cook, and I feel both a twinge of guilt at my childhood brashness and also a glow, a special contentedness, each time I catch sight of them. For that, I’ll live with my conscience.

I use them for everything.  Cheddar jalapeno biscuits.  Perfectly round bruschetta pieces. Pita circles. Homemade fillable pasta. Cookies, naturally, most notably my Lady Grey and Lavender Tea Cakes. And of course these spicy couscous cups, which some of you may remember from earlier in the year.

I offer you this recipe now because it’s a no-brainer for holiday potlucks – so easy to make (I cheat and use Near East boxed couscous), good hot or cold. Spicy enough to catch everyone’s attention without causing any unplanned profanities. And really pretty too (even though, back when I wrote that post, I wasn’t too creative with the camera yet, so forgive the lack of photos here…)

And how about you? What objects in your kitchen are utterly irreplaceable?

The Recipe

Spicy Couscous Cups
4 large flour tortillas**
3/4 cup of sesame chili oil*
1 box tomato and lentil couscous
2 cups cooked heirloom black turtle beans (or other black beans)
¼ cup fresh parsley
1/2 cup olive oil
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
3/4 cup crumbled feta or goat cheese (optional)

** don’t use whole wheat tortillas for this. They’re too thick and end up breaking apart and cooking unevenly.
* if you can’t find this, just add a few flakes of hot red chili to your own sesame oil. Add them depending on your preference for heat, of course.

Using a 2 1/2? to 3? biscuit cutter (or tin can, if your Grandma didn’t give you her cutters), cut circles out of the flour tortillas, about 3 dozen. Brush both sides with sesame chili oil and press into a mini-muffin pan. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes. Remove and cool.

Prepare couscous according to package instructions. In a food processor, blend the black beans, parsley and olive oil until a chunky paste forms. In mixing bowl, combine the couscous, bean paste, cheese (if using), and red peppers and stir well. Fill the cups just before serving.

These are great to make a day ahead, just store the tortilla shells in an airtight container and warm before filling and serving.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.