The Pleasures Of Cooking For One

If you read this blog because you love cookbooks, then Judith Jones needs no introduction. Best known as an editor who found and nurtured some of our favorite cookbook authors, including Julia Child and James Beard, she also co-authored several cookbooks with husband Evan Jones.

Jones died in 1996, and Judith Jones found herself bereft and food lost its flavor for her because there was no one to share a meal with from day to day. She wrote:

“I was not sure that I would ever enjoy preparing a meal for myself and eating alone. I was wrong, and I soon realized that the pleasure that we shared together was something to honor. I found myself at the end of the day looking forward to cooking, making recipes that work for one, and then sitting down and savoring a good meal.”

After cooking for "one" for a time, she decided to impart her wisdom to others and she wrote The Pleasures Of Cooking For One. While it is a cookbook, it seems like so much more. Lest you think that the recipes are for grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, think again. There are single servings for Beef and Kidney Pi, Boeuf Bourguignon and this...

Osso Buco With Gremolata

2 teaspoons olive oil
Salt
1 (2-inch) veal shank, cut across the bone
1 small-to-medium onion, chopped
½ carrot, peeled and chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 small leek or 1/2 large leek, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup chicken broth
Freshly ground pepper
Small sprig of fresh rosemary or a pinch of dried rosemary
5 or 6 fresh parsley stems

Gremolata:
1 small garlic clove, peeled and minced
About 2 strips lemon peel (without pith), minced (about 1 teaspoon)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Heat the oil in your small pot. Rub salt over the veal shank, and put it into the sizzling oil. Brown lightly on one side, then turn and brown the other. Turn the veal on its side to make room for the onion, carrot, tomato and leek pieces. Sauté them for a minute or two , then flip the shank over so it is bone-side down, and pour in the wine. Stir to get up any browned bits, and reduce the wine by half. Pour in the broth; add several grindings of pepper, lay the rosemary and parsley stems on top, and cover. Let cook for 1 3/4 hours at a gentle simmer.

Meanwhile, put together the gremolata – the tasty, garlicky topping – by simply mixing the minced garlic, lemon peel and parsley together.

When the meat is very tender, remove it to a warm plate, discarding the parsley stems, and sprinkle the top with as much of the gremolata as you like. Eat with some crusty bread to sop up the sauce. And don’t forget the marrow. Use a little coffee spoon to scrape it out and extract the last precious morsel.

And now, as Jones' most famous editee might say, Bon Appétit.

The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food

Judith Jones is probably the most famous foodie who didn’t spend her life in a kitchen cooking. Well, actually, she spent a lot of time in a kitchen cooking, but her claim to fame in not cooking, but publishing people who did cook. Judith Jones is the editor who brought Madhur Jaffery, Marcella Hazen, Ed Giobbi, and Edna Lewis to the reading public, but there were more.

She brought Elizabeth David to America, a feat that proved to be quite difficult. It seems, Jones wanted the stuffing set to fill zucchini, to fill just the zucchini and not make triple the amount needed. She wanted them to be zucchini and not courgettes, after all, it was America. David didn't see the problem and she knew courgettes were much more pleasant sounding than zucchini. She wrote to Jones:

“Inconsistencies are inevitable in a cookery book and preferable, I think myself, to the absurdities brought about by overzealousness in the matter of liberal renderings.
I don’t think one does any harm in crediting one’s readers with a little imagination and knowledge of their own.”

Is it any wonder I love Elizabeth David! Knopf told Jones to reject the book if David refused her changes, but Jones realized what a wonder it was and she published it with all of Elizabeth David’s “inconsistencies.”

There was someone else she edited … let me think… oh, yes, Julia Child. If you went to the movies this month you know this story by heart.

James Beard, Judith Jones, and Julia Child

Jones was a bit of a cookbook writer on her own (and with her husband, Evan). So when Jones set out to write a biography, it was destined to be a winner. The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food is just that. Part biography, part love story, part cookbook and all totally fascinating.

As for the cookbook part, Judith Jones first tasted this sauce in a bistro on the Left Bank. It was spread on sliced cold meat. She loved it and searched around for a recipe. She never found one she truly liked, so she devised her own.

Sauce Gribiche for Cold Lamb or Other Meats

1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon capers
2 cornichons, chopped in small pieces
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped fine
Freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Mix all the ingredients together. If you’re not using the sauce right away, hold back on the parsley, and mix that in at the last. This is a sauce you have to taste so you can adjust the seasoning to get the balance right. Adjust accordingly to what your palate tells you.

See the movie if you must (you must) and while you are out, pick up a copy of The Tenth Muse.