Want to learn how to cook but donโt know where to start? Miss the last 600 posts on Dinner: A Love Story and donโt know how to catch up? Looking for something to read while anxiously awaiting dispatches from the Supreme Court? Look no further. Herewith, a list of one hundred definitively DALSian (which is to sayย totally unofficial,ย ridiculously subjective) rules of dinner.
1. โAcidโ is usually the answer when you taste a dish and wonder โWhatโs missing?โ
2. Always cook more spinach than you think youโll need.
3. The quickest way to enrage me is to start eating before the cook has sat down. Even if Iโm not the one cooking.
4. The juiciest limes are the small ones with thin, smooth skin.
5. Being cooked for in someoneโs home is one of the finer pleasures in life.
6. But Iโm pretty sure Iโd skip that invitation if someone offered to take me toย ABC Kitchen instead.
7. There is nothing sadder than a piece of warm pie without ice cream.
8. Improvising with herbs or vinegars? Yes. Improvising with baking soda or baking powder? No.
9. There are very few problems in a kidโs life that arenโt momentarily solved by a stack of chocolate chip pancakes on Saturday morning.
10. There are very few problems in my life that I canโt momentarily forget about when Iโm cooking dinner with Andy.
11. No need to sift. Whisking is just as effective.
12. Herbs in the salad.
13. Horseradish in the mashed potatoes.
14. Cinnamon in the chili.
15. Resist the urge to apologize when youโre cooking for people. Most of the time your dinner guests wonโt notice anything is wrong until you bring it up.
16. There is no more fun question to put forth at the dinner table than โWhat would you do if you won this weekโs Powerball?โ
17. Dessert should be cake.
18. Kitchen chairs should be red. Or at least fun.
19. The term โ100% All-Naturalโ when it appears on food packages: 100% meaningless.
20. If you have to unwrap it, itโs not going to be good for you.
21. Itโs not wise to store your drinking glasses in the shelf above the dishwasher, the shelf that wonโt be accessible until you shut the dishwasher.
22. Two words for those of you who havenโt switched from (iodized, metallic-tasting) table salt to (easy-to-handle, clean-tasting) kosher salt: Why the f not?
23. If my house were burning down and I could only save one thing from the kitchen, it would be my Master Copy of Dinner: A Love Story that Iโve had event planners, bookstore owners, morning show hosts, party guests, guest-posters, and family members sign as if itโs my high school yearbook.
24. Or maybe my Dutch Oven.
25. Slice a baguette on its side instead of right side up. That way you donโt end up smushing the loaf with your hand and knife.
26. Freeze soups and stews in flat bags so they thaw more quickly under running water. I know Iโve told you this one a thousand times, but it bears repeating.
27. The best way to seed a cucumber: Peel, halve horizontally, then use a spoon to scrape out the seeds.
28. The best way to get the conversation going at the table is by saying โWhich kid got in trouble at school today?โ
29. The best way to prepare scrambled eggs is with freshly grated Parm and snipped chives.
30. The best way to prevent tearing when chopping an onion is to wear contact lenses.
31. As far as I can tell, instructing your children to โplease, dear Lord, pleaseย use your napkinsโย every night for ten straight years is not the best way to get your children to use napkins.
32. Learning how toย Deconstructย my family dinners saved my family dinners.
33. Itโs counterintuitive, but the sharpest knife is the safest knife.
34. When entertaining: Bo Ssam for the Boss;ย Short Ribs for the Neighbors; Minestrone for the Vegetarians.
35. When entertaining: Chicken is kind of a bummer.
36. When you use a knife to scrape food off a cutting board, use the dull side so you donโt ruin your blade.
37. When someone says they drink โone to twoโ glasses of wine a night, you can pretty much assume itโs two.
38. If you have to ask โlime or lemon?โ when making me a gin and tonicโฆIโll make my own gin and tonic.
39. My new Holy Trinity:ย Rice Wine Vinegar, Fish Sauce, Grapeseed Oil.
40. When you throw shrimp into lightly boiling water, it takes exactly three minutes to cook.
41. If youโre gonna use storebought pizza sauce, Don Pepino is the one to buy.
42. There is no such thing as owning too many little bowls.
43. Without some crunch (nuts, celery, snap peas, radishes), salads can only reach half their potential.
44. An immersion blender is just not as life-changing as everyone promises it will be.
45. Everybody should know how to properly chop an onion.
46. Most everybody should know how to roast a chicken.
47. Establishing a post-dinner alternating lunch-packing schedule goes down as the smartest thing weโve ever done as parents.
48. Great Grandma Turanoโs meatballs are better the next day.
49. Itโs not chaos. Itโs richness.
50. You end the day with family dinner.
51. When making pasta, be sure to salt the water.
52. The proper cocktail construction: First ice, then booze, then mixer.
53. Nobody uses enough ice.
54. You very rarely feel worse about yourself after cooking dinner.
55. You very often feel worse about yourself after going out and spending $68 for four soggy pepper jack quesadillas, some rice and beans, and a couple of Shirley Temples.
56. The simpler the recipe, the more likely I am to cook it.
57. People who say bribery is not a good way to get kids to eat have never had kids.
58. When eating grilled stuff outside in the summer, there is no shame in cold, pink wine.
59. When cooking steak on the grill, get a nice char over hot coals and then move it to a less hot part of the grill โ i.e. over indirect heat. Test for doneness by pressing down on the meat with your finger. When itโs ready, it will have the consistency of the flesh at the base of your thumb. Once itโs firm, you have overcooked it.
60. The best grilling steak is a well-marbled ribeye.
61. The least healthy grilling steak is a well-marbled ribeye, which tells you something re the relationship between fat and flavor.
62. As Julia Child once said, โThere is nothing worse than grilled vegetables.โ
63. Clean as you go. Seriously, I canโt stress this enough.
64. Eggs can become difficult to eat if you think too hard about them.
65. We never invested in a decent blender, and I rue that sh*t to this day.
66. We did invest in a big, expensive Le Creuset Dutch Oven and, 300 pork ragus later, I am so happy we did.
67. When roasting potatoes โ or any vegetable, really โ cook five minutes longer than the recipe says. And then cook five minutes more.
68. If you want to get something crispy, the pan needs to be hot. And so does the oil.
69. The ideal weeknight side: Baby carrots simmered for 15-20 minutes in a little water, a squeeze of honey, a couple of sprigs of thyme, salt, and curry powder.
70. Let us stop for a minute and consider the taste of a fresh ear of corn, rolled in butter, sprinkled with salt.
71. Performance enhancing drugs are to sports as butter is to cooking. Which is not to say that butter is evil. But it is cheating.
72. I canโt think of a single meat or fish that does not taste better on the grill.
73. Salt the water again.
74. Raw spinach does nothing for me.
75. If someone cooks dinner for you and that dinner is delicious, and you enjoy eating it, say so. Say, โOh my god, this is so good. This is INSANE.โ
76. If someone cooks dinner for you and that dinner is maybe not the best thing youโve ever eaten in your life, but still, it clearly required thought and time and work and, yes, love, say, โOh my god, this is so good. This is INSANE.โ
77. If you cook dinner for someone, and that person is not super forthcoming with his or her expressions of happiness or gratitude, you must (a) fight every urge to ask them if they like it, and (b) think twice about cooking for that person again.
78. Cooking is to baking as pleasure reading is to chemistry homework.
79. Salted butter for toast and bagels, unsalted butter for everything else.
80. Season your meat generously before you cook it, and then season it again while itโs cooking.
81. Everything in moderation, but particularly garlic.
82. I have a lot of regrets, but one of them is not substituting boneless chicken thighs for boneless chicken breasts in a recipe.
83. Three secret weapons of salad dressing: Teaspoon of sugar, dash of Sriracha, chives.
84. When making a hamburger, pack it loosely, and use lots of salt and pepper. And never ever ever ever press down on it with your spatula, for crying out loud. That is, unless your goal is to make it taste less good.
85. I serve turkey burgers. I know turkey burgers. Turkey burgers are a friend of mine. Turkey burgers, on your best day, you are no hamburgers.
86.ย Anything + Broccoliย = A meal you can feel pretty good about.
87. If you care about what other people think about you and your parenting abilities, it is important that your kids only ask for their water โon the rocksโ at home.
88. My ideal summer lunch: An open-faced heirloom tomato sandwich, on white toast smeared with mayonnaise and sprinkled with sea salt.
89. If I could keep only one cookbook, it would be Marcella Hazanโsย The Essentials of Italian Cooking, followed byย How to Cook Everything.
90. Afterย Dinner: A Love Story, I mean.
91. The only acceptable mayonnaise brands are Hellmanโs and Dukeโs. It is a testament to how much I love my father that I can still accept him even though he puts LOW FAT MIRACLE WHIP on his sandwiches.
92. When I was a kid, my favorite meal was breaded pork chops that had been marinated in white vinegar. My mom would make them for my birthday, when the report cards arrived, and when I came home โ with forty pounds of dirty laundry (and a gold hoop earring!) โ from college. That smell, of the vinegary pork chops coated in Progresso Italian breadcrumbs, browning in olive oil in the Sunbeam electric frying pan, is burned so deep into my brain that, if you did the deathbed montage of my life, itโd be in there, right near the beginning. Not sure what that says about me, but itโs true.
93. More vinegar, less oil.
94. The ideal summer dinner: Fresh clams with pasta and a raw kale salad with pecorino romano and red onion.
95. Egg salad is a perfect food that is made even more perfect by the addition of dill, a handful of chopped pickles, and a dash of Dijon mustard.
96. The older I get, the less I like beer.
97. My ideal dessert: Jennyโs Mexican chocolate icebox cookies with cinnamon or vanilla ice cream. Or a fresh Mallomar, eaten in total quietude, so as to fully appreciate the sound of teeth cracking pristine chocolate shell.
98. Dredging the chicken or flounder before frying is an excellent task for a kid who is eager to help. Peeling a beet with a sharp knife is not.
99. Make friends with the fish guy at your farmerโs market.
100. Salt the water again.
Oh hell yes! The only thing missing is a reference to rolling a joint, ha! Go buy the blenderโฆ you deserve it. Do it now!
So many are amazing but the ice one won me over โ I am obsessive about a lot of ice. One of the biggest fights my husband and I ever got into was him offering me a glass of water with barely any ice.
I was pretty far into my pregnancy. He handed it to me and I burst into tears claiming โdonโt you KNOW me at all?????โ
โฆโฆโฆ.
I have to disagree with number 44. I hate my blender, but LOVE my immersion blender. I use it nearly every single day. ๐
I loved this entire list but I really cracked up at โIf you care about what other people think about you and your parenting abilities, it is important that your kids only ask for their water โon the rocksโ at home.โ
Love this post, but I have a very important question! What is the recipe for the picture shown on the top right? It looks amazing!!
So completely agreed with Jennyโs #3 especially when Iโm not the cook.
Jamie โ Itโs pan-fried pizza with pineapple and prosciutto! If you have my book, itโs in the pizza chapter.
Thanks for taking the time to compile this, which is full of useful information, pleasantly delivered. I agree with 99 of them (generally). The one about freezing everything in bags, however, horrifies me. As does the fact that youโve told people to do it a hundred times โunless you have some source of safe, reusable bags. (Do you?) If all your readers used 50 plastic bags a year (less than one per week โ not such an outrageous assumption), can you even imagine the quantity of non-recyclable waste that would produce? No. Donโt use ziplock bags for freezing. Invest in flat glass boxes. Theyโre wonderful to use in the fridge, too! ;o)
I do not cook, almost ever. And yet, I LOVED this post. I shared it with a couple of friends and then proceeded to tell them my favorite rules, which ended up being quite a few.
This was absolutely brilliantโฆ I came across your blog via exPress-o, and just wanted to appreciate this post in particular โ so fun and personal, I feel like I know you both and like we would totally get along ๐ Well done and thanks for the tips!
Love this post.
I miss Dukeโs. We lived in NC for a year, came back to CA, bought one to take back with us. Why only one!
All Iโve read is this list (linked to by Aimee at Simple Bites) and your โfirst time here?โ page and I am in love! Can my family come over for dinner? Or you can come over hereโฆjust finished hosting Easter dinner for our pastorโs family (that meant five boys under the age of 5!) plus our nanny and her husbandโฆit wasโof courseโa blastโฆand we havenโt started the dishes yet.
This โ this is LIFE right here. This is also why I love food. GREAT list!
Awesome list! Also:
Add a few squares of chocolate to every pot of chili.
Why do cucumbers need to be seeded, anyway??
29 and 90 are my favorites. thank you.
this is the best ever.
I think the three of us should be best friends. Although, I love grilled vegetables. L. O. V. E. love โem.
Love the gin and tonic line โ completely agree! Also, never enough ice โ BFโs family never has ice in their house ! It blows my mind!
Can someone explain whatโs wrong with grilled vegetables? Seriously. I want to know.
This is so awesome, thanks for sharing. I laughed so hard to #87. What a lovely idea you two have put together here. Iโm more than excited to read the book and learn more.
Smiles from Vancouver ๐
#20 is insane.
what about delicious fresh goat cheese? extra firm tofu? I could go on for days.
#64โฆ could not agree more. If i think about an egg while iโm eating it I get totally repulsed.
LOVE this list! LOVE LOVE LOVE
Whenever I am in the kitchen, I usually think about how soon I can get out. Thank you for all of this. Iโm ready to mend my ways and YOU are helping me see food and cooking and family love in a new light.
Amazing.
Regarding #22: goiter avoidance.
YES to #78!!!