Eats For One … or more

K-Paul Meatloaf

My hardcover copy of Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen is dogeared, foodstained and some of the pages are coming out of the binding. It is inscribed, “From Robert and Katy, 1984,” and it is still a “top shelf” cookbook in my kitchen library.

I prize it because the recipes have a zing to them and it contains the best meatloaf recipe of all time. Paul Prudhomme calls it Cajun Meat Loaf and it’s on page 112 after Cajun Prime Rib and followed by Fresh Veal Liver with Mashed Potatoes, Smothered Onions and Bacon. I call it K-Paul Meatloaf.

I am a lover of good meatloaf, and its first cousin, meatballs. I have tried countless such recipes over the years, 13 remain in my database, and probably an equal number in my Cookbook collection; most are good. K-Paul Meatloaf is the best.

What is meatloaf anyway, but ground meat, bread, egg, milk and seasoning. It can be hard and dull or rich, moist and full of flavor, depending on the “other stuff” that goes into the mixing bowl.

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“Gravy isTomato sauce, usually the kind made with meat like pork, veal, etc, and typically eaten with macaroni, rigatoni or ziti. As opposed to marinara sauce, a meatless tomato sauce usually eaten with spaghetti.”
Peter Paul “Paulie Walnuts” Gualtieri quoted in The Sopranos Family Cookbook [Warner Books 2002]

I’m posting this Pork Braciola and Tomato Gravy recipe just because its so good and reminded both Carol and me of the “spaghetti sauce” she used to make back in the day when there were hungry kids around. I’m pretty sure she picked it up from one of the neighbor ladies in South Roanoke Apartment Village. In any case, it followed us to Newton, and is one of the few recipes I took to Jerusalem.

After our move to San Francisco, there were no longer hungry kids around and we got caught up in trying new recipes from new cookbooks, and then there was the no carb phase and Carol’s tried and true spaghetti sauce fell by the wayside.
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Baby Artichokes at the Market

I don’t know when I “learned to like” artichokes. It was before 1977 when we took a three-week family trip from Boston to explore California. Driving on the Route 1, along the Pacific, we marveled at the artichoke fields around Castroville, the Artichoke Capital of the World.

All we knew then was the big ol’ Globe Artichoke that we boiled and ate, leaf by leaf dipped in a butter sauce, until we got to the “choke,” which we carefully removed with a spoon to attack the heart or bottom of the artichoke. Of course, we naively overcooked them, but they were good eatin’, nonetheless. Far superior to the only other artichokes we knew, which came in a jar.
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“JERUSALEM ! ! !” cried the taxi driver, as we topped a long hill and first glimpsed the white buildings of the ancient city, before plunging into another deep valley.

I had read O Jerusalem, a book by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre, dramatically describing the events, places and people of the 1948 War of Independence, and I was thinking of the battles of the Latrun Heights and Bab el Wad as we sped through these sites, along the modern highway from Ben Gurion Airport. But the hills are steeper and the Wadis deeper than I had imagined, or could have imagined; an Ohio boy living in Boston.
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Called Jerusalem Bean Soup because that’s where I was when I invented it. The winter there is cold and wet and this soup is warm and hearty.

1 onion, sliced
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 can peeled tomatoes, with juices
8 cups beans, including cooking juices*
(use more than one kind of beans if you like)
4 T. tomato paste
1 t. oregano
1 t. basil
1/2 t. rosmary
salt and pepper to taste
water to cover
3 T. chopped parsley

Render bacon. Add onion, celery; cook until soft. Add everything else, except parsley. Bring to a boil, then simmer, partially covered, about 45 minutes.

Probably serves 4; keeps well, heats up well.

* To prepare beans from dried: Soak overnight in plenty of water, then cook until tender (45 minutes) with onion stuck with 2 cloves, bay leaf, 2 cloves peeled garlic.