suzy and the stomach virus

i guess that's the problem with advanced cooking: life gets in the way. you spend lots of time shredding imitation crab, slaving over a hot sauce pan, praying for things to form cakes instead of lots of little separate lumps of crab and breadcrumbs, and what happens?

your husband ends up not being able to eat them, because he's got the mother of all stomach viruses. all he could eat this week was bread and cashews (don't ask, i don't know). as if by sympathy (unwonted, i guarantee it), all i feel hungry for is cous cous, bread, and the occassional bean burger.

so what happened to the crab cakes? i guess i'll discover how well they freeze.

so, in tribute to the past week, here's a recipe straight from my brain:

Suzy's Stomach Virus Friendly Cous Cous
1 c uncooked cous cous
fresh mint leaves, chopped or shredded
1 medium-sized ginger root, chopped
1/2 c almond slivers
1/3 c cashew pieces

-Cook cous cous according to package.
-Sautee mint, ginger, and nuts in olive oil for 5 minutes, or until the mint leaves shrivel up.
-Pour entire mixture, including any extra olive oil, into cous cous.
-Mix well.
-Eat in good health!

suzy meets amanda

i really, really, really wanted to like Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte. i got it on the recommendation of adam (the amazing amateur gourmet), i liked the cover, i really liked the fact that there were illustrations before every chapter (i'm going to start the More Books Should Be Illustrated movement one of these days), and i loved the fact that there was an index at the end that encompassed recipes and ingredients.

as far as the recipes go, i must admit that i only tried one--the macaroni and cheese recipe. the white sauce was more white chunks of butter-clotted flour than sauce, and even though i followed the recipe verbatim it just didn't seem like there was enough cheese in it. but that's not amanda's fault, and for the most part i liked what i saw of the recipes. her insistence on ground pepper and grains of paradise (whatever the hell those are) is a little annoying, but that i can forgive.

what i can't forgive, however, is how flat the chapters are. i was expecting some lively dialogue, some interesting insights, and hopefully some entertaining stories about food and relationships. what i got instead were essays that are hardly cohesive, with random anecdotes barely woven together with random descriptions of whatever food she happened to be eating. even the anecdotes specifically about eating in restaurants with famous foodies are interspersed with amanda's distracting and lackluster internal monologue. the last chapter was the most frustrating--she attempts to sum up the trials, tribulations, and successes of dating mr. latte, but because it wasn't backed up in the previous chapters, it felt artificial.

overwhelmingly flat, is all i can really think of to describe her writing. of course, i haven't read her columns, and maybe this isn't the best introduction to her style. i live in that hope. in any case, i'll certainly be trying some of the recipes, and will stick to the illustrations from now on.

suzy and the crab

did you ever wonder what, exactly, imitation crab is made of? i like to think that this little guy, weird-looking as he is (or she? i have yet to learn the fine art of crustacean gender identification), is happy that i use it, instead of real crab. but then again, it's mostly because i can't afford to buy a pound of actual crab. so look out, buddy--just wait till i get my raise.

wikipedia has this to say about imitation crab: " a type of processed sea food made of surimi, or finely pulverized white fish flesh, that has been shaped and cured to vaguely resemble snow crab legs... The primary ingredient in most crab stick is Alaska pollock from the North Pacific."

so pollock it was. why, you may be asking? do we care?

because, in what i consider one of my finest successes to date this week, i decided to try to make crab cakes. imitation crab cakes. vaguely cake-like congolmerations of imitation crab. you know what i mean.

what possessed me to do this? oh, the dangers of having betty crocker's recipe of the day! there it was, on my google home page, just one click away: Crab Cakes Italiano. mind you, most bettycrocker.com recipes are called things like "Impossibly Easy Spinach Pie", and involve Bisquick. so you can perhaps understand my impulse, given that a five year old with a measuring cup could make most of their recipes. which is why i have an account on the site in the first place.

but crab cakes? impossibly easy crab cakes? and what makes them italiano, anyway? is there such a thing as an italian crab? did the recipe involve bisquick? so many questions... how could i pass that up?

i did not! but, friends, it was not that simple. the ingredients themselves were easy enough to get, and the recipe is very short and simple. that is, until you get to the part about the crab.

1lb fresh lump crabmeat, cleaned and rinsed, or imitation crabmeat, shredded, it demands. shredded? i looked at my imitation crab. it was arranged in cute little rolls, pink on the outside and white on the inside. shredded? i actually (believe it or not) picked one up, unrolled it by hand, and picked it apart. that, i decided, would take hours.

is there such a thing as an imitation crabmeat shredder? if so, please send one post haste. i have never been so stumped in my life. i ended up mashing it about with a fork until it looked less roll-like and more... piece-like is really the only way to describe it.

which, i think, is what led to difficulties later on. i have never in my life had such a weird experience attempting to turn something into a cohesive patty. did i not use enough breadcrumbs (for breadcrumbs, read smushed up croutons)? too little mayonnaise? too much pesto? god only knows, but it was a miracle that they even looked as crappy as this:


and so, aspiring crab-cake makers, take it from me. no matter what it takes, shred that crab. the agonies of getting these into the pan to fry were ... well, agonizing!

the fact that they stayed (mostly) together at all was, i believe, divine intervention. thank you, oh patron saint of bad cooks who try advanced recipes without the proper equipment. thank you thank you thank you.

but, believe it or not, these were an intense success! they were tasty--much chewier than real crab, but i guess that's the imitation part--my husband ate two and had to be forcibly restrained from eating more, and considers it my finest creation to date. which may not be saying a lot, but feels good nonetheless.

so the moral of the story? crab cakes are yummy, imitation crab cakes are yummy too, but god help you if the crab, imitation or otherwise, is not shredded.