A Sauce for Erasers

A meal without nuoc cham is no meal at all. Corrine Trang.

I am pretty sure that nuoc cham (nước chấm) is my favorite condiment.


When it comes to food, "favorite" is a marvelous adjective. It is so unabashedly subjective. So much more useful than, for instance, "best". Even so picking favorites isn't easy. The answer to "what is your favorite braise?" may be affected by so many variables - mood, weather, contents of the pantry. I have managed to come up with a top five soups list and even rank them, but the list and rankings are subject to change without notice.

Condiments present a different problem, there are not only so many to choose from; there are so many variations within each type. Much of what is used are prepared - in this case not always a bad thing. Consider ketchup. Heinz is my favorite ketchup. I will use others, Hunt's or DelMonte - even Sysco's House Recipe® - on french fries and burgers. Homemade is nice, but it just doesn't make it for that. Homemade Mayo is delicious, but I want Hellman's in my egg salad. Oh, and Mira- um, that other stuff, works well for breaking in a ball glove if you don't mind the stench.

Mustard is different. Webers is my go-to, but I have many favorites, like many styles and enjoy many combinations of flavor. I have found few, prepared or homemade that don't work for me.

Chemistry Set for the Kitchen

Condiments are like old friends -- highly thought of, but often taken for granted - Marilyn Kaytor

From the beginning of my adventures in cookery one of my most agreeable tasks has been creating condiments.  In large measure I think the making of condiments rekindles the primal joy of a kid with a chemistry set. A simple vinaigrette can present one with solution, emulsion, suspension, diffusion, absorption, and colloids. That's just the beginning. Think fire. Fire is cool.

Mustard, ketchup, dressing, sauce BBQ and Hot, it doesn't matter. All are a hoot to make (and they make great gifts).

In the beginning it was steak sauce - an attempt to re-create the distinctive sauce used by the Rainbow Steak sandwich shop. (I think Rainbow Steak was owned by Amiel Mokhiber of Amiel’s, whose kids I went to high school with. Amiels has now been resurrected on Henrietta Road, near (in?) Rainbow's old location ). My kid brother Bobby and I had a Saturday afternoon tradition of blending, improvising and tasting. If we never quite achieved our goal, many results were quite tasty.

(Ad)-Dressing the Summer

So this is this, and that is that:
And there's how you AD-DRESS A CAT - T.S. Eliot

I usually don't do recipes. They are a pain in the buttocks. At home I tend to cook by the seat of my pants, the outcome of each flavor profile guided by instinct and skill to match my mood at that particular moment. If you believe that I'd like you to consider this bridge I'm selling in Brooklyn.

The fact is that, while I know where I want to go and how to get there, I am too lazy to carefully measure so as to create the instruction manual for others to repeat my result. Every once in a while I do come up with something I really like and take the time.