Culinary Overdose

If New Year's Day sets the tone for the entire year, I will not be able to squeeze through doorways by December 31st.

I was off from work this holiday season which enabled me to indulge in any and all holiday whims. Baking twenty dozen biscotti isn't unusual for the holidays, making eighteen pounds of  Emeril's spiced candied nuts might be considered over the top, but not this year. I was able to entertain, bake until my oven dials were starting to melt off, decorate every room of the house, and get together with friends throughout the season rather than just once or twice for the month. Needless to say, I got into the zone, the cooking zone.

I didn't think twice about planning my week's complete menu entirely from new cookbooks. Doesn't everybody? Analyzing each recipe for it's fit to my pantry, it's seasonality, local availability, and just because I liked the picture in one case. The last of the holiday season's goodies were down to mere crumbs and I wanted to start the year trying a few treats. Somehow that plan spun out of control and I have made cooking dinner and dessert into a competitive sport.

New Year's Day should be special. For my husband it means round the clock football, for me a celebratory day that is both relaxing and an indulgence. Sort of icing on the cake of Christmas. The house is back to normal, every last bit of Christmas packed away. What better time to try a beef rib recipe that cooks for seven hours? After all, I was home all day.

Jamie Oliver's new cookbook is comprised of his American food exploration. It starts in New York and so did my cooking week. We waddled our way through Daisy May's BBQ Beef Ribs, over to Chinatown for Fiery Dan Dan Noodles, and stopped off in Little Italy for Veal Parmigiana. I felt a small stab of betrayal when I switched to the Ad Hoc cookbook for Thomas Keller's cobbler. It sounded innocent enough to step over to another book for a change in the week, but I blindly ended up making Blueberry Granola Bars with some guidance from Nigella's Kitchen. It was as if I was on binge cooking high. The year isn't a week old and I have had a life crisis brought on from inhaling dish soap vapors.... I've run out of olive oil.

For most people that just means a quick trip to the local supermarket. I've become a wee bit spoiled. Usually I have a liter of cooking olive oil, a bottle or two of particularly flavorful olive oil for dressing my food with, as well as all the other staples like walnut or chili oil. The generic supermarket brand is bland and greasy to me. Lawsuits have been flying regarding the labeling and marketing of oils as extra virgin or first press lately to weed out these cheap imitations. I favor a market ten miles down the road that actually has a tasting counter to pick out your oils. It isn't me that is spoiled but rather my husband.

So this running out of olive oil, was it a subconscious effort to stop the madness? It did force me to finish dinner substituting oils from the 70's for my usual liquid gold. Just as in knitting or quilting, the talent lays in one's ability to to take a pattern and make it your own. We feasted on a Rocky Mountain Oyster interpretation that allows the calves keep their testicles and uses a flavorful meatball in a rich chili sauce instead. Serving it with broccoli pasta in brown butter was tasty and fresh. Sometimes we have to run out of something to try something new.

As my husband says, how can I miss you if you never leave?