My wife, Dody, would
have written this but she doesn’t type. So the least I could do
is do it for her. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t eat.
Although, as I’ve tattled
before on these premises, Dody has long since proclaimed she is
all cooked out, when she sees that pleading, hungry look in my
eyes she knows what I crave and rather than slip into something
filmy (hey, 80... can do filmy) she heads for the microwave oven
or her George Foreman grill (this is not an advertisement; George,
a fellow Houstonian, does not need outside PR), where she can
strut her stuff with one hand tied behind her. Here are some of
her recipes, which even the culinary-challenged may follow:
Asparagus (Works
with broccoli and other vegetables, too):
Cut off tough
bottoms and wash spears. Place in a bowl with a little water and
cover bowl with plastic wrap. Leave one end opened at one corner.
Cook on “High” for 3 or 4 minutes, depending on how many spears
you are cooking. Drain the water off. If you want to eat warm,
add butter. If you want cold, sprinkle with Italian dressing and
marinate in refrigerator.
Great for snacks if
chocolate makes you feel guilty.
Succotash:
Zap baby limas in enough water to cover 4-5 minutes. Drain and
add can of drained kernel corn and butter and zap another 2 minutes.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Cornbread is good with
this but you need a regular oven to bake it. Using mix is okay.
George Foreman Grilled
You can do steak, flattened chicken breasts, pork loin or fish
au natural, or can baste or marinate before grilling if you feel
adventurous. Soy sauce, steak sauce, barbecue sauce.
Say you have skinless
chicken breasts. Baste with soy and grill a while.
And in the words of
Danny Kaye in a cooking sketch he once did on TV, “If you can’t
get a chicken use a fish.” Salt and pepper to taste. With fish
store-bought tartar sauce is good. Or maybe just a squeeze of
lime or lemon would be nice.
Remoulade would be
good if you could find the right stuff. Anywhere but in Louisiana
and some places in Texas it doesn’t taste like the real thing.
A ham and cheese sandwich
on a roll becomes something special when Georged. And simple,
too. Put ham
and cheese slices in a split roll and zap a while. Dr. Pepper
goes well with it. Any vintage.
One of my personal
favorites doesn’t require any kitchen machinery except a toaster
oven to toast the almond slivers.
Chinese Chicken
Salad
Mixed baby greens (Dody buys them packaged at the market); baby
spinach is good, too; hunks of chicken breast (Dody buys whole
cooked chickens and skins and dissects them), green onions, slivered
almonds and bottled Chinese chicken salad dressing (Dody gets
hers at a place called Trader Joe’s). Cut up chicken and other
stuff, slather with dressing, toss and sprinkle on the almond
slivers. Garlic toast goes good with it.
While you have the
toaster oven out, you could make a Dody quesadilla.
Toast a flour or corn
tortilla with one or two low-fat packaged Cheddar cheese slices
until the cheese melts, add store-bought pico de gallo (a salsa
of chopped tomatos, onions and spices), fold and hand-eat. Be
careful not to let melted cheese drip out of end onto your lap.
You need a regular
kitchen range with an oven for her other specialty.
Pecan Pie (Remember
Meg Ryan saying "Pecan Pie" in When Harry Met Sally?)
Dody used to make her crusts out of crushed graham crackers but
now she’s become expert at finding them frozen in the market.
Defrost 9-inch crust, line with pecan halves. For filling, beat
up four eggs, add a cup of brown sugar, 3/4 cup of dark Karo syrup,
1/4 teaspoon salt (if you’re not on a salt-free diet), 1 tablespoon
of vanilla, 3 tablespoons of melted butter. Top with more pecan
halves and bake in a 400% oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to
375% and bake 35 minutes longer.
Chocolate ice cream
on top is good.
Dody’s key to casual
cookery: If you can find ingredients ready-made, buy ‘em.
David Westheimer lives
with his wife of 55 years, Dody, in the same Los Angeles apartment
they moved into from Houston, Texas 39 years ago. Their son, Fred,
is a Senior Vice-President at the William Morris Agency and his
younger brother, Eric, is a veterinarian. Succeeding generations
include five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. As a journalist,
David worked for Oveta Culp Hobby. At 83, David Westheimer continues
to write, and not just for Senior Women. His latest effort, "The
Great Wounded Bird", his recollections of World War II, winner
of the Texas Review 1999 poetry prize, was published this year
by Texas Review Press and may be ordered from Amazon Books, where
it has moved up 1,458,159th on their sales list, from Barnes &
Noble and Borders Books. He is a novelist and a retired Air Force
Officer. He can be reached for a repertoire of feigned curmudgeonly
remarks at: DWestheime@aol.com.
