COLD WEATHER COOKIN’ PART I

As winter settles in around us, a new imperative seeps into the kitchens of thoughtful cooks and family-keepers. It’s time to consider the time-honored claim of soups as the ultimate cold weather comfort food, not just as a side-dish as too many Americans think of it, but as the very heart of a great  dining experience. To kick off an occasional column on this subject in the months to come, here is a detailed celebration of one of my personal favorites.

WINTER SAVOY CABBAGE SOUP

1 small head of dark green Savoy cabbage

1 medium onion, chopped fine

½ lb. smoked turkey sausage, de-skinned & cut in rings

32 oz. chicken stock

½ cup red wine

1 can cooked Cannellini beans

2 cups cooked pasta (small pieces)

2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 pats of butter

Salt & pepper

“pinch” of herbes de provence (optional)

1 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar for pot at serving time (optional)

Objective:     An exciting combination of tastes and flavors, mouth-feel and aroma; a tenderness of cabbage without an over-cooked chewiness, (al dente); a good balance between   solids and broth, with beans and pasta still intact.

            In an enamel Dutch oven (or sauté pan) over medium heat, pan-fry sausage pieces in small amount of olive oil, adding crushed garlic as cooking begins, while stirring.  As meat begins to brown slightly, drizzle in the half cup (or less) of red wine (Chianti works well), and slowly deglaze the pan with all its fond, setting aside for use later.

            While the Dutch oven is still on the burner, begin to sauté the chopped onion, adding no more oil than the minimum.  Meanwhile, quarter the cabbage, remove the stem pieces, and cut into thin shreds with a sharp chef’s knife. Cut into short lengths.

            When onions are translucent – but not browned at all – set aside with the sausage mixture to be added in later.  Melt two pats of butter in the still-hot pan and pan-sear the shredded cabbage, turning and mixing with a wooden spoon. This process is a key element of preparing Savoy: the idea is to slowly tenderize the cabbage, without actually “cooking” it through. We wish to preserve its natural dark green color while releasing flavor.

            While all this is going on, have enough water coming to a boil in a small pot to pre-cook some broken-up pasta noodles, to be set aside to drain until the final moments of soup-making.  (This way, the pasta will not absorb needed moisture from the finished soup.)

            As the cabbage progresses, add back the meat/onion/garlic mixture which was set aside earlier. Begin adding chicken (or vegetable) stock, a cup or two at a time. I like to preheat the broth in the microwave in order to preserve valuable cooking temperature in the main pot.

            Slowly add in the cannellini beans while gauging the tenderness of the cabbage. It will probably require 20-30 minutes of slow cooking to reach that stage.  When almost done, add in the pre-cooked pasta and keep the pot warm for serving.  Salt and pepper carefully.

            Don’t be tempted to “water down” the finished product; always prefer to use some more stock to do so.

With its beautifully crinkled leaves and proud history, Savoy is the mildest and most kitchen-friendly of the cabbage family. A quintessential Italian favorite, it is known there as Cavolo Verza. Here it is pictured with two other mid-winter cooking “stars”.

A marriage of cabbage, smoked sausage, white beans and pasta, a cold weather soup such as this one offers both multiple levels of flavor and savings for the provident shopper.

 

           

WHISTLE STOPS, DONUTS AND THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA

For young Americans of the World War II generation, the road to war usually began with a ride on a train.  Sooner or later, whether heading to a training facility, or later when undertaking that thoughtful, uncertain journey to embarkation points on the east and west coasts and eventually the battle fields of Europe, the Islands of the Pacific, or the sea routes between, a steam-belching locomotive and a string of bare-bone passenger cars would become a never-to-be-forgotten interlude.

            For the most part, these passengers would be made up of boys who had never even been away from home before, probably in their late teens and only recently acquainted with a shaving brush and razor.  Almost every experience ahead of them would be a “first”, including the sense of loneliness and disconnect they would feel, even in the presence of surrounding companions in uniforms that didn’t fit too well and, who probably felt the same way. It was culture-shock times ten.

            Less than two weeks after Pearl Harbor, the citizens of North Platte Nebraska got word that some of their own boys in Company D of the Nebraska National Guard would be coming through town on the tracks of the Union Pacific which ran right through downtown, on the south side of Front Street. Residents decided to meet the train and hand their sons refreshments and good wishes. The gathering was large, but it turned out to be a mistake: the passengers were Company D, but from the Kansas National Guard. The following day 26-year-old Rae Wilson a local store clerk wrote a letter to the editor of The Daily Bulletin suggesting that this effort had been so satisfying for both the givers and receivers that it shouldn’t end.  “I say get back of our sons and other mothers’ sons 100 percent. Let’s do something and do it in a hurry! We can help this way when we can’t help any other way.”

            That was the beginning of the “North Platte Canteen” where volunteers would meet every such train, with donuts, fruit, coffee, treats and warm “best wishes” for the boys in uniform coming through their remote corner of Nebraska prairie country.  To begin with, it was two or three trains a day, but that soon increased to an average of 23, carrying from 3,000 to 5,000 troops each day. (By war’s end, it would reach 8,000 per day, with the canteen manned and supplied from 5:00 am in the morning to the last train of the night.)

            In those days the population of North Platte numbered only 12,000, but somehow they managed – with some volunteers from other nearby communities – to operate their canteen throughout the war years serving more than six million servicemen on passing trains. And they did this without any official outside funding, unless you count the five dollar bill President Franklin Roosevelt sent them to show his support.

            Among the thousands of side stories which could be told to illustrate the sheer logistics behind what was accomplished by this handful of dedicated Americans, consider the matter of coffee cups alone. This was in an era before paper plates and plastic cups.  The train stops were limited to ten minutes, so the cups of hot coffee and cocoa were carried aboard by the departing G.I.s. The empty cups were dropped off at the next “whistle stop” to be returned to North Platte on a following train. No cup was ever lost from the vital circulating inventory!

            If I had to explain to a visitor from abroad how it was that the United States was victorious in WW II to stand as a land of exceptionalism in so many ways, I would point to the Spirit of America which lived in every community of that era, and which was evidenced by the unmitigated patriotism of the people of North Platte.  Theirs’ is – as one writer put it – “a love story between a country and its sons”.

 

Whether peeling hard-boiled eggs by the thousand, making up baskets of fruit, plying trays of hand-made sandwiches, or acting as “platform greeters”, mothers and daughters (with the behind-the-scene help of a lot of husbands and Dads) from 120 communities made sure that no troop train ever went “unmet” during their “whistle stop” in North Platte, Nebraska in the 1940s.

                        Photo Courtesy of Union Pacific

Al Cooper who writes the “Home Country” column crossed the continent by rail himself six times on wartime assignments in 1950-51, and has a special fondness for the porters on those trains who went out of their way for boys in uniform. (An article perhaps for another day.)

NOTE:  For a heart-warming and in-depth look at North Platte’s “love story”, read Bob Greene’s “Once Upon a Town”