Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Kitchen Korner
I used to buy Ian a celebrity cookbook for Christmas every year, until I ran out of ideas for celebrities who seemed even vaguely plausible in the kitchen. Thus, we will from time to time have Stanley Tucci's potato croquettes or Chrissy Teigen's mac and cheese interspersed with our regular menu of microwave cookery and Blue Apron meals we forgot to cancel. We even dipped into Paula Deen's offerings before she became controversial. But this past weekend we really outdid ourselves with a little bit of Gwyneth Paltrow, specifically her summer corn polenta recipe that looked really easy but ended up possessing my life for a spell.
You see, the recipe called for freshly prepared polenta, not the pre-cooked kind. And the first three grocery stores I checked only had the latter, or at least that was the only type I could find. It turns out there are lots of different places in groceries stores where polenta might be! The pre-cooked polenta was in the "international" aisle next to other Italian fare, but when I ultimately found the raw stuff it was with baking supplies. Maybe if I'd realized that it's also known as "corn grits" that would have made a difference? I don't think that Gwyneth would be comfortable with that terminology, though, and I'm never one to cross a vagina candle mogul.
Anyway, once I got the right supplies, the polenta was a pretty breezy 45 minutes in the kitchen, most of which was spent stirring. And it received rave reviews, though that may well have just been social politeness. Not sure whose cookbook I'll use next time. Does Rihanna have an entry?
