Final Draft: The Perfect Meal

The onions hit the pan with a satisfying sizzle, flecking my kitchen counter top with pin-sized medallions of smooth olive oil, as I stood over the stove with my mom getting a lesson in what it means to make onions “sweat.”

“You’re going to want to stir them occasionally,” my mom said.  “Until they turn translucent.  They’re going to start caramelizing and will be super yummy over burgers,” she said.

I nodded, setting up camp in front of the stove.  Every now and then I gave the onions a good stir (only slopping a few over the sides of the pan), while munching happily away on the walnuts toasting on the nearby burner, and only half listening as my mom began explaining the difference between mincing and mashing garlic.

The two of us were cooking The Perfect Meal, an assignment for my Food and Travel Writing class.  Jumping at the chance for a much-needed break from “K,” I had made the five-hour drive from Kalamazoo, Michigan, to my hometown of Wooster, Ohio.  Although being home would be a treat in itself, I also knew that home would provide the resources (and help!) that I needed to make this meal a success. 

I had spent the drive home mulling over the different food items that could possibly make up my Perfect Meal menu.  At first I wanted to make gyoza, a type of Japanese dumpling that my older brother and I grew up on.  But Brennen is thousands of miles away working in China, and gyoza wrappers are incredibly time consuming and difficult to make from scratch, so I nixed that plan before hitting I-69.  Next I thought about making a variety of Spanish tapas.  I could make tortilla de patata and cold gazpacho soup.  But finding all the ingredients to make the dishes taste like my Spanish host mom’s could potentially be tricky.  Instead I decided on doing a spin-off of the traditional American meal: cheeseburgers and french fries.  After reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and watching the film Food Inc., I realized how unhealthy and unsustainable the burger and fry industry could be.  I wanted to try my hand at making a similar meal, but entirely from fresh, local foods, either from farmers or stores committed to practicing sustainability.  It was going to be the conventional American meal, made unconventionally, I decided.

“Are you stirring those onions?” my mom asked me as she plopped neatly cut pieces of sweet potato into a bowl of salt water.  Jumping into action I put down my fistful of warm walnuts, and began stirring the onions vigorously.  They hissed loudly, as if angry to have been forgotten.  My mom gave me the same look she used to give me as a kid: I had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

This was not the first time my mom and I worked in the kitchen together.  From a young age I had showed an interest in baking, though my repertoire consisted mostly of variations of chocolate chip cookies and the occasional box of brownie mix.  However, my problem with cooking is I never really could find the patience to finish the task.  By the time my first batch of cookies would emerge moist and golden from the oven, for example, I would have eaten my fill of raw cookie dough and lost interest in the entire project. Abandoning the flour-covered counters and piles of dirty dishes I would run off to play, leaving a trail of cookie crumbs in my wake.  I think my mom was sensing a similar conclusion from me now, as I was too busy munching away on various parts of our dinner before we had even finished preparing it.

Just then my dad walked into the kitchen, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. 

“What’s for dinner?” he asked peering into our various pots and pans.

What’s for dinner seems like such a simple question.  And two months ago I probably could have given a very simple answer.  After reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, however, I’ve come to realize that, in fact, it is a very complicated question.  Luckily, I had prepared for this question and had come up with a response that I think even Pollan would be proud of. 

“Classic hamburgers made with 100% grass fed beef,” I told him. 

“They’re topped with grass-fed baby Swiss cheese, sautéed oyster mushrooms, and caramelized onions, all on fresh baked pretzel rolls.  Accompanying the entrée is sea salt sweet potato fries, a field greens salad with cherry tomatoes, toasted walnuts, and a homemade lemon and olive oil dressing, and, if you’ll be so kind to run out to the garage, an ice cold Great Lakes Brewing Company lager.”

“Sounds like you went to Local Roots,” my dad said opening the garage door. 
It was true.  That very morning my mom and I had made a trip to Local Roots, a market committed to ensuring direct producer to consumer contact, sustainable farming methods, and fresh, organic produce.  A regular customer, it was no surprise that my mom knew just where to find the various ingredients we’d need for the meal.  After deciding upon a pound of grass fed ground beef, a quarter pound of grass fed baby Swiss cheese, and a large assortment of beautiful, soft, white, grey, and yellow oyster mushrooms, we made our way to the veggie booth in hopes of finding some yummy looking greens.  When we arrived, however, we were met by a lonely sign:

No Greens This Week, it read. Things are growing slowly in the cold and needed time to recoup… sorry for the inconvenience!

I sighed.

This would require Plan B.

After checking out at Local Roots and swinging by The Bake Haus, a local bakery that supplied us with freshly made pretzel rolls, we headed to downtown Buehler’s, one of the eight Buehler’s stores in the area.  Formerly a local one-branch grocery store, Buehler’s has since gone on to open stores in numerous neighboring counties and now considers itself corporate.  However, it was Wooster where Buehler's began, where the Buehler kids went to school, and where "Buehler Hill" is located, a plot of land on which the entire Buehler family seems to live.  Even though Buehler’s has now expanded and is a supplier of industrial foods, it still promotes local products and sustainability whenever possible.  And it was there where my mom and I bought four large sweet potatoes, onions, lemons, cherry tomatoes, and regrettably, a pre-packaged field greens salad mix. Our last stop was at uptown Buehler’s to get a six-pack of Great Lakes, the local brewery of Cleveland.

Cracking a beer, my dad began to set the table for three as my mom and I put the final touches on our meal. 

Pulling the burgers out from the oven, I slid them (somewhat) gracefully onto the warm rolls, arranging them carefully on a plate.  They looked kind of beautiful there, I decided.  The cheese, though still gooey in the middle, had melted completely on the outside and sent milk white waterfalls cascading down the sides of the burger before coming to rest in the toasted crevices of the pretzel roll.

“Alaina! Fries!”  my mom’s voice snapped me back as I saw steam pouring from the oven.  I whipped open the over door, pulling out the scalding trey of sweet potato fries which, with the exception of a few blackened, crispy causalities, looked perfectly done in my eyes. 

I placed the fries on a plate while my mom tossed the salad, and in no time it looked like we were ready to eat. 

Sitting down at the table with my mom and dad, I was both nervous and excited to see how the meal I prepared had actually turned out.  Though a sophomore in college, I felt almost like a little kid again waiting eagerly for their approval and praise as they took their first bites. 

“Mmm delicious,” my dad said.  “This is really good,” agreed my mom. 

I exhaled, and got ready to try the burgers myself. 

The first bite of the burger was… difficult.  The pretzel roll was so thick and the meat patty so large that it was honestly pretty hard to get my mouth around.  I think I even ended up cutting the roof of my mouth on the hard, salted crust of bread before I finally got a good solid bite.  But when I did, it was delicious.

The meat was flavorful and moist, sending rivers of red juice down my chin, smattering the sweet potato fries below on my plate.  The fries themselves were sweet and crisp, and balanced the acidity of the lemony salad and bitter swigs of beer. 

As the three of us tucked into our dinner, silence fell over the table, which in my family only means one thing: we were all too busy eating to talk. 

It was nice cooking this meal, I decided.  I felt a sense of accomplishment now that I was sitting here eating the fruits of my labor.  Successfully cooking a healthy, sustainable, and delicious meal from start to finish was an achievement in my book, and perhaps, had even proven to my parents that I could make a meal (mostly) on my own.     

By the time we had had our fill, night had fallen, and the conversation turned to my departure in the morning.  I’d be making the drive back to school tomorrow, back to the stress, the bland cafeteria food, and the lake-effect snow. 

But for now I was home and the three of us were together. I had made a successful meal, and for me that was enough. 

I barely even noticed that there were clean plates all around.