Book Recommendation: Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant

In Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone, Nora Ephron, Ann Patchett, Steve Almond, and others provide essays about the experiences of eating alone, along with a scattering of recipes designed to feed one.

I read this on vacation, which was unfortunate because the book made me want to go out immediately to buy ingredients to cook myself a fabulous meal. In particular, Phoebe Nobles' Asparagus Superhero made me sad that the asparagus season is over for the year.

The thread that connects all the pieces in the book is that feeding yourself, when you're by yourself, is an acceptably selfish act. When you don't have to worry about the needs and wants of another person, you can cook whatever you want. Whether you choose to treat yourself to a nice place setting and garnishes, or eat straight out of the pot, it is all about what feels best to you. (Personally, I tend to run the gamut between cooking lovely dinners for myself with fancy ingredients to having cornflakes for dinner.)

I didn't connect quite as much to the section on eating out alone. I've done it and I'd do it again, especially when traveling, but I think that restaurants are fundamentally a social experience for me.

Potato-Leek Soup

One of the drawbacks, for me, of being a spinster, is that I really do like to cook, and it's fun to cook for other people. I still like to make a big batch of something, even if I'm not having company, so I can have leftovers in the freezer. It's cheaper and healthier than take-out or packaged convenience foods. Not that I don't have my fair share of dinners consisting of Totino's Pizza Rolls and Rice Crispies. (Not together, of course--that is a two-course meal.)

I'm getting over a cold this weekend, so I decided to make Potato-Leek soup in the crock pot. The recipe is from Not Your Mother's Slow-Cooker Cook Book. The cookbook authors adapted it from Julia Child, which made me feel very accomplished and fancy, even though it was a really easy recipe. It only has four ingredients!
4-6 cups vegetable or chicken broth
2 Tablespoons butter
4 peeled, diced russet potatoes
4 leeks, chopped, white parts only

Leeks can be hard to get clean, if they have grit between the layers. The trick I use is to slice them, then let them sit in a bowl of cold water for an hour or so. All the grit settles to the bottom, and you can just scoop the leeks out of the top with a slotted spoon.



All the ingredients cook in the crockpot for 4-6 hours. I'm sure it smells really good, but I can't smell much today.





After it's cooked, you can ladle small batches into the blender, or use an immersion blender to puree the soup. If you're clutzy like me, I recommend an immersion blender. It saves lots of clean-up and the potential of 2nd degree burns. Believe me. It is one thing to accidentally splatter a milkshake all over yourself, and quite another to do it with hot soup.





I end up with a yummy dinner, and lots of leftovers to freeze for future lunches and dinners.