Coq au Greek Vin.

For my mother-in-law, each turn in the road to her late husband's village (Mikrokleisoura) brings with it a story to share as we make the drive. "This is where we saw the hare!" she exclaims. Returning to the city after nightfall, their trip was once halted by this hare- he had become frozen in the headlights. They honked and honked, but the dear thing could not move for fear and shock. Finally she resolved to get out, but just as she reached the him, he snapped out of it and bounded off into the shrubby oaks. I'd never had her for an animal lover! It is wonderful how you can know someone for years and years, and still they can surprise you. "How kind!" I said. She turned, blinked twice, and patiently explained: "No, dear ...."

Stifado, a dish of stewed meat with wine, a little tomato, pearl onions, and gently sweet with allspice, is, apparently, so tasty that a sensible matron in a top-coat and beehive (it was the '70's), given the chance, will jump out of a car, wring a hare's neck, pop it into the trunk next to the 10 k tin of feta, and be on her way. (My second favorite mother-in-law story involves her inviting a neighbor over for coffee in the hopes she might offer to slaughter a chicken for her on the rooftop of their apartment building in downtown Thessaloniki. How do you not like a story with the line: "Put on some coffee. And bring me a knife." ?) I need hardly add that she is a wonderful cook.

It's a good dish, one of the more elaborate and slow iterations of the meat + onion/wine/tomato to be had. Coq au vin, faster but with a lot more ingredients, is another. Today's lunch combines the speed of the French dish with the simplicity of flavor of the Greek dish- not much stuff, not much time, everyone's happy. Just the thing for the chicken thighs in the freezer. All you need for them is an onion, the rest of last night's wine, a little tomato (fresh, canned, paste....) and some seasoning.

A warm steak has kept sauced rich foods from our table- it has been fresh fish and salads for days, and no complaining. After a week of this summer reprise, a softly overcast day- and a look at the calendar - made this warming hybrid just the thing:

We will need:

4 chicken pieces, with or without the bone

3 T olive oil

2 onions

a large glass of wine

a cup of pureed tomato, or tomato paste and water to make the equivalent

bay leaf

seasoning- either allspice and a clove, or sage and a little thyme

Thinly slice the onions and start softening them in the olive oil. After giving them a brief head start, add the chicken pieces, salt and pepper, and turn them until the chicken is no longer pink and the onions are softer and the pan has browned a bit. Add the wine, a little water, the seasoning, and simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes. Add the tomato and keep simmering, uncovered and adding water from time to time as needed, until the oil floats free and the sauce changes from dirty-pinkish to a rich mahogany. If the chicken was on the bone to begin with, it won't be any more. The sauce will have benefited, but you may want to fish out the bones for more elegant serving.

If you go with the sweet seasoning, it is perfect on rice or on egg noodles, or- as here- the time-consuming, heavy, and absolutely delicious classic accompaniment of fresh french fries. With the more savory options, mashed potatoes, or a soft polenta are a good choice. I won't deny a frozen chicken does not have the flavor of wild game, but you cannot always count on running into a hare when you need one.

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Crab with Butter- Why Keep the Wow Just for the Weekend?

The National Gallery in London has three van Gogh paintings- 

the boots and the sunflowers 

(on postcards and dorm room walls everywhere), 

and this overlooked dreamy little sleeper. Beautiful crab.

Why indeed? If you think a tangle of bright red crabs on a brown paper-covered table signals a festive weekend lunch, try it on a Monday afternoon. We did just that- 

The paper table covering is littered with cheerful bits of shell
Even after a fat hour and a half, there are still bits and pieces aplenty to suck on
and crusts of bread to gnaw at absently. No one hastens from the table.

And I have to say it starts off the week very nicely, gives a sense of occasion to a day that characteristically lacks it. Crabs are plentiful right now where we live- they are large, and more importantly, very full. They are also very easy, at least from a practical perspective. Buying them is festive and eventful, provided you don't give it too much thought: at our market, the fishmonger holds them up one at a time so we can see them writhe and snap as they go into the sack. Such a vivid proof of freshness does have a price to your conscience, at least to David Foster Wallace's (and to mine but.... clearly less so). 

I addressed the awkward issue with the crab lady, who frankly did not see the problem. She did have a solution though- a while in the freezer will have them dazed and, one hopes, numb to suffering.

More drama than it looks here.

Into the freezer they go, just as they are in their sack. After an hour or so get out your largest pot and fill it two-thirds full (as to leave room for the crabs). Sea water is best, they say. And I have sea water just across from my house. But this is urban sea water, with urban stuff floating in it. Instead, I throw in a handful of salt, some peppercorns, a couple of bay leaves, and some tarragon sprigs (I just happened to have them- I wouldn't buy them specially)-

Covering the pot helps the water get to this vigorous boil quickly.

The partly frozen crabs will cool down the water fast. We want a full rolling boil when we start adding the crab-

This is the third crab- that's why the water is still again.

On the advice of the crab lady, I brought the water back to the boil and then from that point timed 15 minutes. Color is not enough of a clue- they turn from blue and gray to red almost instantly. 

The first time we made crab this season we made a nice spicy tomato spaghetti to have alongside, thinned with a little water the crab boiled in. No one bothered with it. The second time, we stirred some crushed garlic and minced parsley into melted butter. This was marvelous on the crab. The third time we realized we were out of butter and made a tarragon mayonnaise instead by mixing in minced tarragon, crushed garlic, black pepper, and a gentle scraping of orange zest. This was delicious, but overpowered the delicate flavor of the crab, so we had it instead as a savory dessert with little shreds of baguette while we were finishing our wine.

After a fifteen minute boil, they're ready.

Once the crab is ready, nothing to do but eat it. It is a primitive meal, a messy meal, full of dismembering and cracking and sucking. Covering the table in brown paper adds a relaxing note. Other nice things to have are crab crackers or nut crackers, a big bowl for discarded shells, lots of napkins, maybe a couple wedges of lemon (more useful for squeezing over your fingers than for over the crab), and of course that melted garlic butter.

We start with the claws- cracking the shell in a couple places first-then the legs, and then take the top shell off by grasping the the straight side- opposite the eyes. There are some lines of spongy white stuff under the shell that are not edible or nice- remove them from the body, then nearly the rest of it is sweet delicate meat. held together with whispers of shell that divide it into little segments. Nearly everything but the shell is food.

For four, I bought 12 crabs- in this case that was about 3 kilos, making them about 250g/half a pound a piece. Three of these each was a leisurely and satisfying meal, with nothing else at all save for the bread and the garlic butter. This would be terrific for a crowded table of friends- the only thing holding you back would be the number of large pots you have. But they take so long to eat you could be enjoying the first batch while the second is on.

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