Cioppino and Other Assorted Disasters

The other night I invited my cousin over to the house for dinner.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to serve when I made the invitation. It was Oscar night so I thought I’d step out of the ordinary and try my hand at Cioppino. I think it was because I saw a photo of Chef Peter’s Cioppino on the Seghesio Facebook page as they were getting ready for their Cioppino dinner and wine tasting.

I received the Kindle Fire for my birthday and let me say I love, love, love it.  As I’ve mentioned before I have a semi-smart phone so it’s a delight to utilize the Android apps found on the Kindle fire.  One of them is the Epicurious app which lets a user find recipes and then create shopping lists. Genious.

After finding a recipe and reading the reviews, I settled on the Cioppino for dinner. A few substitutions needed to be made and after reading the reviews which stated it’s not really cioppino without dungeoness crab, I needed to find a source.

Now the Chicago area has a lot going for it but San Francisco it is not when it comes to finding a great selection of fresh fish so some frozen would have to do.  The last time I had cioppino was down on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco eating the cioppino recommended by Mario Batali.  I figured he knew what he was talking about (and he did).

I didn’t have those same hopes for my recipe only I hoped it would be edible. So after shopping on Saturday, I was already for dinner. It would be a simple matter of preparing the base and prepping the fish before she arrived for dinner. At this point you may be wondering what I meant by other disasters. Nothing could be simpler at this point, right?

Wrong.

Never underestimate my ability to make things more difficult when left alone in the kitchen. You guessed it I decided to add to the menu. This is where you see the two trains colliding.  Here’s why. I had some blood oranges in the refrigerator that needed to be used before they went bad.  The great thing about technology is that you can take something from bad to disaster very quickly.

That’s exactly what I did.

I decided on a Blood Orange Tart.  Now it would have been helpful to have fully read the directions before starting. But then skimming is always preferable to reading right? Wrong again. Something about the custard spending the night in the fridge was overlooked.

So here I am. Instead of prepping for dinner, I’m rolling out tart dough. And because I have no patience, I didn’t let it fully rest in the fridge before attempting rolling. After filling the tart pan, I put it in the freezer for around 30 minutes before baking.

Now I’m running out of time and trying to mix the custard, cut blood orange supremes (which turned out more like blood orange pips) and start the stock.  I have two hands and apparently less than one brain. That’s not possible.

Putting aside the tart and deciding not to have this for dinner – after all I didn’t figure out how to go back in time. I started the prep by finely dicing a medium yellow onion and a small fennel bulb. These, along with a little garlic went into a large pot on medium high. Once softened, I added the other herbage and the white wine and tomatoes.

I didn’t think much about it at the time but it called for ½ teaspoon of red chile flakes. That’s not a lot – or so one would think. But after cooking for a while I was hearing that my cousin’s eyes were burning from the spice.  After opening the window, I added the cod, shrimp, clams and mussels.  After cooking for a few minutes I also added the squid.

Now I had looked all over for the dungeoness crab and could only find some cooked crab.  I didn’t want to overcook it so it had to wait until the last minute.

Meanwhile, I’m back at the custard. Apparently I can’t push the easy button at all.  I couldn’t wait until after dinner could I now. That way I could focus my efforts on one thing rather than trying to do both. Without overcooking the fish, I was trying to hurry the custard along without turning it to scrambled eggs.

And now you know why I think cooking is a community effort.  I can’t be trusted in the kitchen by myself.  The food may be good but in the end, disaster is waiting just around the corner.

As it turned out the cioppino was incredible if I do say so myself. Paired with a couple of bottles of Cotes du Rhone wines dinner couldn’t have been better . . . even if the dessert-less mess could have been avoided. At the end of the day, it isn’t really about the food or the wine.  It’s about sharing life with those you care about most.