Truthfully, if it’s not published in the “New Yorker,” I probably read less non-fiction than is good for me. The volume of good-for-me reading tends to trend downward the older I get and the further I am from school, quite frankly. I do enjoy a memoir, however, but I’m often wondering about the justification for writing one. Is it just to chronical the falling into and out of love, an addiction, some discovery or loss of faith, or a family tragedy?
Elissa Altman wrote “Poor Man’s Feast” and subtitled it, “A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking.” And so I thought, no mystery here! I dug into it, though, and was confused from the get-go. One chapter starts with, ‘Every lady should carry a hanky in her purse,’ Gaga, my mother’s mother, once told me when I was four.”
When I was four? The book has a lot of this type of thing casually slipped in. The type of thing that once noticed makes you wonder how truthful or accurate any of the rest of the document really is. It’s told from a very present first person point of view, with minimal reported dialogue. Very quickly, the memoir is about the humbling of a native New Yorker, how she falls into love with the rural, out of love with a city, and in love with simple food over the fuss and bustle of her youth. As a love story, I can see why she would fall for the serene, doting object of her affection, but Alissa’s own voice comes across as less comical and more cutting, in many cases, and you wonder why people would have the patience for her during her slow pilgrim’s progress.
Of course, in the end, the author did win my patience and reading the book itself was hardly a labor. It was the work of a day or two, a few stolen, pleasurable hours, and the recipes were a nice counterpoint to the narrative body of the text. They didn’t, in all cases, connect obviously to the chapter that preceded, but they do follow a progression of their own, as they move towards the simpler, and the simpler.
Montreal’s knee-deep in a swelteringly humid end-of-August. The kind of weather where you sweat from standing up. Not much cooking gets done these days, save for the simple, and the simpler the better. Last night we took a slice out of “Bon Appetit” and made some lobster-roll inspired shrimp rolls. (Too hot to fuss with a lobster.) Dinner was ready in minutes, and roll in one hand, Pimm’s cup cocktail in the other, we were on the couch working our way through Season 2 of “Homeland” before the sun was down.
To get to this happy point, take about a pound of peeled, deveined shrimp and cook them for about two minutes in salted, boiling water. Splash them with cold water to cool them down, but be sparing you don’t want to waterlog them and want to keep them nice and sweet and juicy. Salt them, and then forget about the shrimp for a little bit.
Whisk together, 1 large celery stalk, finely chopped, with 3 thinly sliced green onions. Add ¼ mayonnaise (I used Hellman’s), 1 tablespoon chopped dill, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of prepared horseradish, 1 teaspoon of red wine vinegar, ½ teaspoon of paprika, and pepper.
Chop the shrimp into bite-sized bits and fold them into the mayonnaise mix. I added a bit more mayo at this point. I might have added a bit too much dill and the whole affair was looking too green.
Meanwhile, butter and toast some hotdog buns in a frying pan. The recipe makes four generous rolls, and our eyes were bigger than our mouths so I didn’t halve it. We only managed one apiece. But we have leftovers for tonight.
Here’s a toast to keeping things simple.
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