Recreating a Family Recipe: Oyster Stew

Do you have any family recipes that, when you ask the cook why they make it, the answer is “because we always have”?

In our family, it was oyster stew.

Last week I asked my 90-year-old 100 percent Swedish-American grandmother why she always made oyster stew on Christmas Eve, and her answer was “because that’s what we always did.” Her mother before her had made oyster stew on Christmas Eve, and her mother before her. (Someone on the other side of the family made lutefisk on Christmas Eve, she told me, but oyster stew is objectively a tastier dish.)

In all of the childhood Christmases we spent at my grandparents’ farm in Virginia, there was only one Christmas Eve when oyster stew wasn’t served. And although most of the 17 of us (9 of us children) only slurped at the broth–and only then because of our parents’ disapproving looks–there was a wild uproar the year it wasn’t served.

Embarrassingly, I was one of those in the majority who only tasted the broth.

But now that I have overcome the broth-slurping, strange seafood-avoiding stage of my life–my husband and I devour raw oysters–this year I was determined to re-create the family tradition and attempt the recipe myself.

I interviewed my grandmother, who had never really used a recipe when she made it. She said it was basically oysters, butter, milk, half-and-half, onions, parsley, salt, and pepper. I got to work writing my own recipe. It was surprisingly simple.

My husband and I sat down on Christmas Eve to our homemade oyster stew. My grandmother will be thrilled to know that we intend to make this a new-old family tradition and pass it on to our daughter (we hope she isn’t one of the broth slurpers!).

Here is the recipe I came up with and used:

Christmas Eve Oyster Stew

2 T. butter

2 T. grated onion

2 T. minced celery

2 c. shucked oysters in their liquor

1 c. milk

2 c. half-and-half

1/2 to 1 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

2 T. chopped fresh parsley

The full recipe is available on Plummelo.com.

Plummelo Blog: Conquering a Cooking Fear... with Cheese

Today I overcame one of my longtime cooking fears. I’m sure many of you can relate — I tend to shy away from (read: avoid like the plague) recipes with more than, say, 10 ingredients.

But I adore a good eggplant parmesan so much, and I needed to have it so much, that in the end I was willing to do what it takes to accomplish the homemade flavor. I had saved Bobby Flay’s recipe to my Plummelo weeks ago, but kept staring at it with intimidated eyes. No, not this week. Too many ingredients. But at a certain point, you just need to have the eggplant parm. I reached that point.

My husband had done the grocery shopping this past weekend. Somewhat surprisingly, he returned with two lovely eggplants (he tends to bring home about 90 percent of what is on the list). The pretty purple guys stared at me from their lofty shelf in the fridge for a few days. Too many ingredients…

But today was their day.

Let me digress. I live in the North End, a quaint neighborhood that is Boston’s Little Italy. It is a place where people still shop (and vendors still sell) for their ingredients separately… the meat from the butcher, the vegetables from another guy, the cheese and cold cuts from the salumeria. To me, there is so much joy and old-fashionedness in procuring my ingredients from the specialty sellers. They know their stuff, and they have the highest quality ingredients. Quite often, they are also at competitive prices. But today I spent $30 on cheese. Fontina, two types of mozzarella, and parmesan. As the cheesemonger was serving up my portions, he inquired as to their ultimate destination, “What are you going to make?” “Eggplant parmigiana,” I said. “How many are you cooking for?” And I sheepishly replied, “Two.”

I spent $30 on cheese? And so it goes.

With my 20 or so ingredients on hand, I began. It required a good deal more attention and stamina than my standard five ingredient recipes, but none of it was as difficult as I had feared. It was a journey, and I aimed to enjoy the whole process. There was dicing, slicing, boiling, dredging, whisking, stirring, layering, and baking.

And then there was eating. (We called over some friends to share in the eating.)

My conclusion? It was worth the investment of time, and I tasted each one of my 20 ingredients.

Reflections on One Week as a Working Mom

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind. Where do I start? I guess I start in 1995 when I was attempting to map out my life. I pre-wrote my resume when I was 18 years old (I should have saved it). And aside from a few twists and turns, that magic 8 ball could not have more perfectly predicted that I would end up exactly ... here.

I always wanted to be immersed in food and words. My first foray into this dream life was back in 1999 when I was about to start my master's, and I had a six-month period before I began. I was given the opportunity to work as an intern at Chicago magazine, and someone somehow let me take hold of a few restaurant reviews.

But after J-school was over, reality set in and I took a job that would allow me to pay my Boston rent. It was my first job. It was so obviously where I was supposed to be (thank you, Lord) for that period of my life because on my first day there I met Paul. All that aside, -- and I don't mean to dismiss it -- I wasn't in my element. I was very much out of my element in an industry I didn't know. There were definitely days (most? all?) when I sat at my desk building charts and editing reports dreaming about what I would make for dinner, how I would get the ingredients, and what I would bake on the weekends.

Fast forward nine years. I have always wanted to be a mom, much much more than I wanted to write or edit anything. Lindsay came along and I couldn't see further than her face. I'm sure moms out there understand how your new baby can do this to you. You kind of lose sight of everything else. I didn't think I was ready to turn any of my focus away from my daughter...

But then something came along that was so obvious. I wasn't looking for it at all, ... but I had a gut reaction when our friend PJ asked me to write and edit for his new recipe/food related internet startup, Plummelo. I think I dismissed the possibility before I even gave it a chance. But then I thought about it. How could I not do it?

So here I am. It has been one week as a working mom. I spent exactly zero minutes preparing for it, but it has given my life an extra spark that, I hope, will only improve me. Some things fell by the wayside this week, as I'm sure will become my new normal. No, I didn't get to all the laundry; yes, Lindsay spent much longer than she would have liked in the playpen; yes, I lost a few pounds on account of forgetting to eat (what?! it's good and bad at the same time); and yes, the sink was more full of dishes than it has possibly ever been. But, in practicing the Plummelo vision, I eked out two fully planned, fully home-cooked meals! Now my hours spent planning our meals and dreaming about recipes are part of my job. (More about that later.)

I'm not going to pretend it was easy to manage a 9 month old baby and work. My roles often butted heads, with the baby interrupting phone calls, emails interrupting my time with the baby, and my thoughts and ideas fleeing my mind as quickly as they came, but I think that with time I'll get used to managing my two responsibilities. I don't have a conclusion, because it's only the beginning of this interesting journey, but for now, I'm being challenged and inspired all at once. And I really like it.

Plummelo Blog: Kill Two Birds with One Stone: Rotisserie Chicken

My key to getting through a week with no fewer than two presentable and edible meals on the table is planning, or—at a minimum—creativity. I can make this happen if I plan ahead enough to make two great meals out of one primary ingredient. But success will only ensue if I have all ingredients on hand after an exceptionally efficient grocery shopping.

Does this sound familiar?

Note: Extra points for making enough to last for lunch leftovers, or better yet, putting a portion in the freezer.

This week my plan involves one pre-cooked rotisserie chicken. (In previous stages of my cooking life, I used to pass these birds by, writing them off as shortcuts for people who don’t cook. Now I run to them: “Please come home with me, delectable little bird!”)

On Monday morning, I walk to Whole Foods with the baby. I get a golden-and-crispy-on-the-outside, juicy-and-tender-on-the-inside rotisserie chicken, among other things.

Upon returning home, I first inform my work-at-home husband that there is a killed and de-feathered animal in the house, because he insists on picking off all the meat I discard as unusable. I am a meat snob.

I pull out a sharpened sudoku (no, not one of those puzzles from the newspaper) and a clean cutting board. For me, there is something therapeutic about chopping chicken.

I divide the chicken into two bowls. I put one bowl of diced chicken in the fridge and get to work on the first recipe, my adaptation of Everyday Food’s Broccoli Calzones(this recipe doesn’t include chicken; what a shame). The recipe makes eight calzones, so I always serve two and freeze six for later. It’s the perfect pull-out-in-a-pinch dinner or lunch. Whenever I make them, I pre-cook them (the recipe says not to) so I can just zap them in the microwave (on the convection/crisper function) and serve with some jarred pasta sauce on the side. I buy the pizza dough pre-made, which saves a lot of time.

On Tuesday, I doctor up Real Simple’s Chicken Curry in a Hurry. The chicken is already set to go! I alter many recipes, including this one, by adding some veggies (mushrooms, green peppers). I always add vegetables to any casserole-type dish that doesn’t call for anything green. If I’m feeling bold and wishing I was someplace tropical, I throw in some cubed pineapple. I serve it over jasmine rice.

Cooking for Baby?

Tonight I made mushrooms and barley for the little one and -- oops! -- the adults ate it, somewhat surreptitiously, for dinner with our pork tenderloin. You know you've made darn good baby food when it ends up as your side dish adjacent to the fig and raisin chutney.