MY REPUTATION IS AT STAKE

It isn’t easy to contradict a reputation. It was incumbent upon me at all times to live up to my press clippings: hard, irascible, rude, arrogant, uncompromising, bullying and more. My reputation was that I did not tolerate fools gladly and never believed that every one, including the totally uninformed, is entitled to an opinion.

Every so often I would have to relent. A gentler side of me would emerge. Because, after all, in spite of my reputation, I had (and still have) a side that is almost pedestrian in its ordinariness. From time to time, exhausted by confrontation, I would open the phone lines on my radio talk show to talk about, believe it or not, cooking.

I love to cook. It’s right up there with playing the piano, visiting Paris, and in my rowdier days – sailing. Of all the material I ever had in print, I don’t think there is anything that I enjoyed more than my column about preparing a Sunday brunch and trying not to do the unforgivable: ask my guests how they were enjoying the food. Never, ever do that. Bite your tongue. Even if some of your guests are so busy talking to each other that the food enters their mouths without even a flicker of approval or disapproval.

I love to cook, because I enjoy making people feel good. My daughter does it too. She is what I call a “feeder.” She is like a grandmother who stands at the doorway of the kitchen with her aprons on and a dish towel in one hand watching other people eat.

Most of my friends don’t understand why I like to cook. They say all the obligatory stuff: “How can you go to all this trouble,”? Or “Why don’t you open a restaurant?”
The answer to that one is easy. With a restaurant the patrons are not your friends. They can be bluntly critical. Friends only smile and enjoy. Or pretend to.

We are having a few people over New Year’s Eve for a late snack-style supper, and for those who can stay awake long enough. Champagne toasts at midnight.

Let me share my menu. (And for those who take the trouble to read this, share your menu with me.) There will be barbecued back ribs, done on my rotisserie cooker and basted every few minutes. I like my ribs to be caramelized and chewy. I don’t pre-cook them so they fall off the bone. There will be chicken fingers using a recipe that once made Dave Nichols (the originator of President’s Choice) grimace with discomfort. It is a recipe that no one else I know of uses. I stumbled on it while experimenting with different coatings. The chicken is first rolled in flour, then dipped in eggs then rolled in – are you ready – a mixture of flour and white cake mix! My grandsons love it. They all want “Papa’s Chicken.” The fingers are served with a dipping sauce. It can be soy based or what prefer, an orange sauce like what I make for crepes suzettes,

There will be what most people call liver pate but which I know is just plain old Jewish deli style chopped liver. The original chopped liver was either chopped or ground. I like a smoother texture. I use a food processor. The original chopped liver was made with a cholesterol-filled killer called “gribennes.” That is the Jewish version of cracklings, but instead of pork rind we use chicken skin. The fat is rendered off the chicken which is fried in a mixture of onion and garlic. The onions are caramelized almost to charcoal. The resulting combination of fat (schmaltz) onion and ch8icken skin cracklings are added to the mixture. Today’s health conscious chopped liver is lightly fried in olive oil; an onion is cut in quarters. Three quarters of it is well fried, the other left raw. All are put together in the Cuisinart with two or three hard-cooked eggs, salt and pepper and a generous amount of garlic. It is then made smooth, put into a dish to make a spherical mold... I line the dish with plastic wrap, cover the bottom in roughly ground fresh pepper, place the liver on it, press down, and when ready to serve, invert the bowl, remove the plastic warp, and voila.

I may also make meatballs that are reasonably diet conscious. I use three parts ground chicken to one port of ground pork. (The pork defeats the cholesterol promise, but what the hell.) I roll them in panko and bake them. They are served with my own dipping sauce that is just a slightly sweet and sour tomato mixture.

Confession. I still have some wonderful spanakopita in the freezer. The people I buy it from make it in stick that look like small spring rolls.

Now I have shown you the human side. All that is left is my best wishes that your New Year’s Eve promises good stuff and the year to come fulfills at least a few of your dreams.