Smashed Potatoes (under $3; about 25 minutes)

There is almost nothing more unpalatable to me than the mashed potatoes of my childhood. My mother used to peel and boil chunks of potato until they fell into powder. Then she'd get out the electric mixer, add margarine and some milk and mix until she could nearly pour the stuff. Babyfood. The consistency of vomit-froth. Insubstantial and unchewable. Gah. Yuck.

I encountered these again in Wisconsin and would have despaired, but thankfully, I'd been living in Georgia in between, where I --

1. had a shitty electric mixer that couldn't handle potatoes for, say, 15 (I fed 23 people at once);
2. so had bought a potato masher (mine is less hand-grenade-y than this), which changed my life, potato-wise; and
3. had met the inestimably wonderful Peter Gareis, who taught me his secret to mashed spuds.

The secret to smashed potatoes ala Gareis is that you must chew, and you must chew on rich, worthwhile things. All hail Peter, who stood in my kitchen and made these one day while I watched. Actually, come to think of it, it might have been his kitchen, and I might have been spying intrusively. All hail Peter anyway.

Okay, what you need:

A large pot

water

about 6-8 medium boiling potatoes (for about four people, or just one of you, if it's been a really really bad day)

butter

milk

salt

cream or yogurt cheese

Easy.

Step one: wash potatoes thoroughly. You're going to eat the skin, so make sure it's clean.

Step two: cut unpeeled potatoes in about 2" pieces.

Step three: put potatoes in pot and just cover with hot water.

Step four: boil them on high until a fork slides easily into the largest piece you can find. This should take about 10-15 mins. NO longer than 20 or you'll have crap falling apart potatoes and that's no fun.

Step five: drain the potatoes. Save the water for soup if you're that kind of person.

Step six: put the potatoes back in the warm pot. Add about two-three TBSP of cream/yogurt cheese, a splash of milk, a tsp salt and some butter.

Step seven: mash vigorously. Add a little more milk to get a smoother consistency if you need to.

Taste and adjust salt and add pepper if you like that. Find an old sappy movie and plop down on the couch with a bowl of these. Eat in big gobbing spoonfuls, like ice cream. They're good for your soul, very calming, very grown up.

There you go.

Say Cheese (less than $3; Overnight)

Cheese, I hear, is bad for you. It clogs the heart. People can die of cheese. This is weird, isn't it? It's just a little clotted milk with the whey wrung out.

Hey, did I ever tell you the stinky cheese story? Probably. But I'm getting old, so I'm going to tell it again. You can skip to the food part if you've heard this before.

I can't tell you how many people turn my book over (the ten or so who bought it) and say: wow, that's a great picture, you look just like an author. By which they mean: you look like you're smelling something really terrible. You look like you're thinking: "Bad prose is everywhere! It offends the nostrils, it stinks to high heaven! I am rarified! I write!"

Actually, it's rotten Gorgonzola. It really is a bad smell, the smell I can only liken to nasty, nasty, dirty ass.

But wait: I get ahead of myself. Picture this: a romantic honeymoon, picnic lunches in picturesque plazas in Italy in April, etc. etc. We were there on the cheap, so we foraged for food in the morning, backpacked it til noon, bought some wine and ate al fresco. We had olives above the forum, with the best mozzarella and grilled eggplant I've ever tasted. We ate bread and artichokes at the Pyramid or near the Pantheon. I can't remember it all. The point is, we went to the bread store, bought bread; went to the fruit market, bought fruit; went to the cheese man (blessed are the cheese-makers...), bought cheese.

One day, unsure what any of the labels read at the particular formaggeria where we were standing, I saw a familiar label: Gorgonzola. I'd heard of that! Hurray!

I held up my palm. In my Engaliano, I said: as much, as thick as my palm. The nice man said prego, wrapped it in three or four layers of wax paper and a paper bag, we paid, and four hours later, bread and loquats (in the rose family!) in hand, we were ready to consume.

You have all, I think, seen my palm. It is not a dainty thing. Likely we had -- conservatively -- half a pound of Gorgonzola in a bag, four hours in the heat.

When we opened the backpack, there was a visible mushroom cloud. Not spotting any dogs nearby, I said: honey, was that you? Chuck said: I think there's a sewer grating under us.

Oh, I said.

Then he opened the paper bag with the cheese in it. Strangers fifty yards away passed out.

Close the bag! I shouted.

AAHHH! Chuck screamed, it's on my HANDS! it's on my HANDS!

Moist towelettes (they have a MUSEUM!) did nothing; a whole bottle of water did nothing; no, rotten Gorgonzola is like sulphuric acid and passes straight through skin to impregnate the blood and muscles underneath with the smell, as Chuck put it, of thousands upon thousands of dirty pigeon butts.

I can'd brede, I said, my eyes rolling back in my head. Oh God, helb me.

Dis is an excellend dime for a pigture, Chuck said.

Snap.

This is the story of the author photo I love best. Yes, I am smelling terrible terrible things. Really. This is not a metaphor.

The cheese I'm about to tell you how to make, however, is both mild and easy; it substitutes naturally for cream cheese, sour cream, any savory, thick dairy. I haven't tried it in sauces that I would heat, feeling like it would lose its structure this way. But we use it, cold, for all kinds of things.

What you need is a man's hanky, plain, unflavored yogurt (I use non-fat, but feel free to try whatever), a little milk, and some salt. C'est tout. In the end you have about 6 oz of spreadable cheese.

Beside a sink where you can let the cheese drip overnight, line a largish soup bowl with the clean hanky. Dump about half a 32oz carton into the bowl on top of the hanky. Bring two opposite corners together and tie in a half hitch. Grab the other two corners and tie these in a double half hitch securely over the faucet handle. You want the proto-cheese to swing free and drip into the sink.

Go to bed. Sleep. Leave the thing for 24 hours.

When it's done, untie the hanky and let the cheese ball (in roughly the shape of its packet) roll out into a bowl you can seal.
Add about a TBSP of milk and about a tsp of salt. Mix with a fork and refrigerate.

We serve this with crackers and paprika Nick McRae brought us from Europe. I eat it on sandwiches, all by itself. I've even used it for dipping chips. It's really versatile, I swear, and doesn't smell in the least.

There you go.

Beans, Beans. They're Good for Your Heart.

My grandfather was a notable flatulent. I knew "pull my finger" (I laughed until I cried at this video) before I knew much of anything else, I think. He used to sing this song all the time. Also, a variation of a song with a drunk pig in it, or a drunk man: I can never remember. Then he'd pop out his dentures, and we'd all shriek and run away.

I didn't know then that in my future were a lot of beans.

As everyone knows, beans are a cheap, reliable source of protein for people who don't eat much meat. In my pantry I have bags of red and brown lentils, limas, pintos, kidney, and black beans (note the gas-free recipe). The enchiladas I describe below use black beans but you could probably substitute anything else that's meaty-tasting and get the same effect. You can substitute canned beans; rinse them very well, until the sliminess is gone, if you do.

To make the beans, I use a crock-pot. It's less labor intensive than soaking, rinsing, and regular cooking. I cover the bottom of the crock-pot with washed unsoaked dry beans, then dump in about six cups of water. Here I've added jalapeno paste, crushed garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano, basil, bay leaves, cumin and a little cinnamon. Set the pot for six hours, and go do something else. If I'm home, I stir every couple of hours and check the water level, if I remember to. If not, not. Beans are not only cheap and proteinous, they're low-maintenance when they're done like this.

If you just want beans and rice, when the beans look done -- they're soft and you can break some up by stirring -- make rice. White rice cooks at a roughly 2:1 ratio -- 2 parts water to one part rice (though this post describes another way of measuring). Probably three cups of water to 1 1/2 c rice will make plenty for two or three people. Boil the water with a little salt. When it's boiling, add the rice, stir once, bring to a boil at medium high heat. Lower the temp, cover, and cook for about 20 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. Let stand off the heat for five minutes with the cover on before you eat. Note: I dislike rice that falls into separate grains. If you like that, this is not how to get that.

If you use brown rice, which I prefer, the ratio is more like 3:1 (3 parts water to 1 part rice). Brown rice cooks longer too: more like 40 minutes. But it's really better tasting.

However, if you're going to make enchiladas with your beans as I am about to do here, you want:

cooked black beans
cooked rice
cream cheese
tortillas
grated cheddar
enchilada sauce
salsa

I use bottled sauces this time of year because the tomatoes are SO bad, but feel free to use whatever you like. I also use prepared tortillas, since I have an electric stove and they just don't work right for me here. In India, I did good ones; here? Nope. Maybe when we change over to gas.

Here's how totally inauthentically Mexican black bean enchiladas work.

Preheat the oven to 350. Mix the beans and the rice together. You can, and I often do, saute diced onions and peppers until they're soft and mix them in as well.

Set out a tortilla. In the middle, plop a hefty spoonful of the beans and rice, top with a spoon of cream cheese (I use neufchatel or yogurt cheese, but you can use cottage cheese, ricotta, sour cream, any of them). Fold the left and right sides of the tortilla over the filling and roll the tortilla up to make a black bean envelope (starting at 2:31 in this video). To do this, take the bottom part of the tortilla, fold it over the filling away from you, and roll the body of the tortilla away from you until it forms a tube, like a burrito.

Set each of these in a lasagna pan whose bottom you've coated in salsa, which will sort of prevent them from sticking. The enchiladas can touch each other. When the pan is full, drizzle the enchiladas with enchilada sauce. Don't worry about using too much. You won't.

Top with grated cheddar. Try not to put so much on that you can't see where the edges are, since you'll have to try to lift these out separately. Bake until the cheese is melted and a little browned and the sauce is bubbly (maybe 20 minutes). These are better even the second day, and they freeze, unbaked, pretty well too.

There you go.