Ninecooks

Sushi, Ninecooks' style

Last week my husband Ted and I watched the oh-so-campy Ghostbusters for the gazillionth time. Remember the scene near the end, where the four ghostbusters are standing on the roof of Sigourney Weaver's apartment building, blasting their backpack-mounted phaser guns to no effect at the evil Gozor? Harold Ramis' character comes up with the idea to "cross the streams" (and defeat the villain, and destroy the Stay-Puf Marshmallow Man...which sounds completely ridiculous if you haven't seen the film).

When the four phaser streams intertwine, they prove powerful enough to change the energy flow around them.

And, strangely, as I watched the movie, this made me think of Ninecooks' four cooking groups, each one a stream, powerful on its own, but more powerful when intertwined into a whole Ninecooks community. That's our mission, building community one group at a time, one family at a time, one menu at a time.

And then, I thought of sushi.

(And right about now, you're thinking, "She's nuts!")

I'm not really nuts, but I am really excited about the idea of using some variation of the same menu for all four groups, tweaking a bit here and there to fit the personality, timing, and tastebuds of each. Crossing the streams, weaving the same ideas among the groups, taking from one and sharing with another.

For the new World Cuisines Cooking Group, which meets for the first time at the end of this month, I've been working on a bento box menu. We'll start with sushi rice made in the rice cooker, and we'll create a variety of vegetable nori-maki for one of the components of our bento box. We'll fill the bento's other compartments with teriyaki chicken or salmon, dumplings, salad, and steamed rice (I have some Nishiki brown rice I've been wanting to try).

The Family Cooking Group meets the first week in June. At first, I planned to explore the idea of hand pies – empanadas, arepas, Cornish pasties, calzones. But then I thought that, in the warm weather (and hot kitchen), it might be nice to do....sushi! Not the squishy-fishy kind, but some maki rolls with less conventional fillings like tomatoes and mozzarella, or bacon and eggs, or something with chocolate. Sushi American Style, by Tracy Griffith, has great ideas for my family-friendly version of the sushi menu.

The following week, the Wednesday Lunch Group takes over the Ninecooks kitchen. They've already expressed a desire not to cook too much in June (memories of last year's hot Spring cooking sessions dancing in their heads, I guess). Though we talked about a menu that riffed on strawberries, I think I'll propose....sushi! A platter of maki rolls and inside-out rolls coated with sesame seeds sounds like the perfect lunch, doesn't it? And maybe we'll figure out how to get those strawberries on the menu, too.

The #1 Cooking Group meets in late June, closing out Ninecooks' Spring season. By the time we get together to cook, it'll be way too hot to cook. The #1 folks are adventurous and accomplished in the culinary arena, so perhaps we'll explore even more unconventional sushi, using herbs and vegetables from our gardens. In addition to rolls, we can try oshi-zushi (pressed sushi) and fukusa-zushi, omelet parcels filled with rice.

Four groups, four different approaches. How do you say bon appetit in Japanese?

(Photo from Easy Sushi by Emi Kazuko, Ryland Peters & Small, 2000.)

How to start a cooking group, part III

With apologies to Dr. Seuss:

B is for bento, the box and its meal.

E is for excited – that's how we feel.

N is for new friends we'll make in the kitchen.

T is for tasty, those dishes we're fixin'.

O is for opening up to the fun

That always erupts when nine cooks cook as one!

The new World Cuisines Cooking Group meets at the end of May for its first cook-together, which means that in a couple of weeks I'll be sending out a grocery list to each of the cooks. It's no secret that we're starting with bento boxes.

In restaurants in the US, menus list bento boxes (usually the "lunch special") according to protein – teriyaki chicken or salmon, grilled beef, etc. In fact, the key element of the bento is rice, so that's where we'll put our cooking energy. In two-plus hours of actual cooking time, we can't make everything from scratch, even with 18 hands at work. For our bentos, we'll make the sushi rice, using a rice cooker method I learned in Sushi American Style by Tracy Griffith, and practice rolling some kappamaki and maybe inside-out rolls, too. We'll do a quick grill of chicken or salmon teriyaki, and add a green salad with ginger dressing. There's always a warm dumpling or yam cake in the bento, and for this we'll take a bit of help from a store-bought product.

I found these chicken gyoza in my favorite Asian grocery store, Super 88 Market in Boston. Super 88, part of a small chain in the greater Boston area, rivals any of the Asian groceries I've visited in New York's Chinatown. The same size as the Stop & Shop next door, and unlike the tiny markets in Boston's Chinatown, Super 88 caters to the culinary needs of the Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Laotian, Cambodian and Japanese communities, with a huge produce department that also carries foods common in Caribbean cooking. Condiments and cookware, lobster and lotus root, fresh noodles and dried seaweed – this is one-stop shopping.

At only 30 calories each, and with no MSG, these chicken-and-cabbage gyoza will be the perfect addition to our bento boxes. We can pan-fry them like potstickers, or steam them for a lower-fat option. The group can decide which way to cook the gyoza – the first of many group decisions they'll make in the Ninecooks kitchen.

In the next two weeks I'll put the finishing touches on the recipes, and split the grocery list into (hopefully) equal portions. Each cook brings part of the groceries; that way no one person is burdened with all the food shopping. It's a system that works well for all of the Ninecooks cooking groups. As the host, I provide pantry items and soft drinks.

And, for this cooking adventure, we'll "deflower" my collection of brand new bento boxes!

How (and where) to start a cooking group, part II

You've heard the old saying – "we all have to start somewhere" – and I've been mulling over where in the world to start Ninecooks' new World Cuisines Cooking Group.

I decided to start in the cellar. Don't laugh; the cellar is where I store the extra pots and pans, cookie sheets and bamboo steamers, tagines and tongs, mortars and pestles. And in amongst the kitchen equipment overflow, I spied four black bento boxes that I purchased a couple of years ago, but never used.

My bento boxes have five compartments, and when you order a "lunch box" in a Japanese restaurant in the US, here's what you find in those compartments: a meat or fish (often a teriyaki dish); salad; sushi; hot dumplings; steamed rice. There's a mini-compartment, too, for soy sauce or wasabi.

Why bento boxes and group cooking go well together:

1. We can fill our boxes with anything we like: vegetable sushi, salad, dumplings, salmon, M&Ms, Cheerios.
2. We can concentrate on learning one basic technique (making sushi rice and sushi).
3. The end result will be a meal that's beautiful, healthy, and light.
4. In order to complete the bento boxes, we all have to work together.

More than a dozen people responded to my initial query about a cooking group focused on culture, celebrations and cuisine and, after many emails and schedule juggling, that number is down to a workable seven or eight cooks. My plan is to organize a no-commitment cooking session in late May, and then, for those who are still interested, to start on a regular cooking schedule (every 5-6 weeks) in September. Putting together the fixings for a bento box dinner, and enjoying our bentos on the back porch on a warm Spring evening, might be a fun and festive way to introduce the group members to each other, and to introduce all to group cooking, Ninecooks style.

How to start a cooking group

We live in a world divided. Sweet or spicy. Chocolate or vanilla. Ketchup or mustard.

Some people are starter-uppers; others are maintainers. I'm a starter-upper who loves the thrill of getting a new idea and pumping a zillion hours of creative energy into putting the pieces together ... which is why I'm so excited about the new World Cuisines Cooking Group.

Unlike other Ninecooks groups, which have taken on global cuisines (see our Eaters of Lebanon or Olé Molé menus) from time to time as part of a whole range of cooking experiences, this group will focus exclusively on cuisines, cultures and celebrations all around the globe.

At each cooking session (every 5-6 weeks), we’ll make several recipes from one country or region. Sometimes our cooking will coincide with festivals or holidays in that country; other times, we’ll pick a cuisine at random (from a hat!). We’ll be inspired by new cookbooks, new travels, and our own family food traditions to share. We’ll experiment, and we’ll learn together and from each other.

This is Ninecooks' fourth cooking group (starting with The #1 Cooking Group in 2002), so by now we've figured out a thing or two. We've learned what we need in the kitchen, and what we can live without. Don't have 6 chef's knives or 6 cutting boards or 6 mixing bowls? Well, really, who does? (Okay, I do.) Ask people to bring their own. You can find many other tips – about forming a cooking group, stocking the pantry, and setting up your kitchen – in the handy-dandy Instruction Guide to our Menus for Group Cooking.

The World Cuisines Cooking Group debuts in September, and between now and then I'll write about how we get organized, holidays and events we'll celebrate, and the menus we'll make. Want to cook along with us? Here's how to get started:

• Put together a group of 6 friends or family members, or neighbors, or co-workers, or your book group or yoga buddies or fellow retirees or Red Hats or young moms or roommates.....
• Ask each person to make a list of food allergies or aversions (mine are pork, cauliflower, and innards).

• Pick a day and time to cook together. It could be once a month, four times a year, or every fifth Tuesday night – whatever works for you.

• Decide whether to have your cooking in the same kitchen each time, or to take turns hosting your cooking sessions. (Ninecooks hosts all of our cooking groups in our kitchen, because it's easier when everyone learns their way around the kitchen and we don't always have to stop and ask, "Where's the.....?")

• Once you've decided where to cook, take inventory of pots and pans, mixing bowls, good knives, and cutting boards. Who's got the Kitchen Aid mixer, blender, food processor? (Remember: you do not need fancy equipment or multiples of everything in order to host a cooking group. You just need a sense of humor – and a good sharp knife, a mixing bowl, and a couple of pots and pans.)

That should keep you busy until next time, when I'll pull out the calendar and start planning the menu for our first World Cuisines cooking sessions.