The Virtues of White Sauce (and swearing at your kids)

For the past eighteen years I've strenuously steered myself away from swearing around my kids, but now that they're teenagers, I've relaxed my efforts and allowed my language to be a little more natural.

Like when I was teaching Henry how to make white sauce. His first attempt had been a floury, lumpy fiasco. This was his second try, and I wanted him to get it. "You've got to show it who's boss," I told him, "you've got to whisk the hell out of it!"

He emitted little sparks of glee at hearing me say a bad word, and something seemed to click in him. He whisked the hell out of it, and the results were gorgeous, a smooth, satiny white sauce.

We've focused on sauces for most of our first cooking lessons, an approach I've borrowed from the curriculum at Le Cordon Bleu. I worked as an English instructor at Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago a couple of years ago, teaching Composition to future American chefs and bakers, and I learned from my students (wonderful students! Some serious potty mouths on them, though) that much of their initial course work was in knife skills, broths, and sauces.

Henry and I have worked a bit on knife skills (see The Tao of Broccoli), we've made one broth so far (see the kombu/mushroom broth in Fast Food), and we'll be delving into these areas more soon. But he is coming along nicely as a junior saucier. He can make a basic red sauce, adaptable for any pasta dish, and convertible - with a change of spices - into enchilada sauce. He can make a pesto out of herbs and vegetables to use as a dip, spread, or pasta sauce. And now he can make a white sauce, the foundation for countless treats: cheese sauce, nacho dip, butternut squash sauce (our favorite fall recipe for Butternut Squash Ziti is coming in the next post), or spinach dip. Henry singlehandedly made this obscenely rich and delicious dip for our family on Thanksgiving.

We ate the hell out of it.

Spinach Dip 

1.5 lb fresh spinach, washed, stems removed

2 tablespoons butter or olive oil

4 medium cloves of garlic, minced very fine

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup 1/2 & 1/2 or non-dairy substitute

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese or non-dairy substitute

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon paprika

pinch each of oregano, basil, thyme

3 tablespoons sour cream or non-dairy substitute


Cook spinach in boiling water for 1 or 2 minutes, just until it's all wilted. Strain well and squeeze out excess water. Chop spinach finely and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, heat butter or olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for one minute (don't let it brown). Add flour and stir well. Cook, stirring constantly until flour turns light blond and smells toasty, 1 or 2 minutes.

Whisk in the 1/2 & 1/2 or substitute, little by little, until the mixture is smooth. Keep cooking until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens, 2 or 3 minutes.

Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring, for 4 or 5 minutes.

Add parmesan or substitute, lemon juice, salt, paprika, oregano, basil, and thyme. Stir well to combine.

Remove from heat. Add the sour cream or substitute and chopped spinach.

Serve with tortilla chips or whatever you like to dip.

The Half-Empty Nest

I guess I could say the nest is half empty. A few weeks ago, my oldest son Jonah started college, and it has been discombobulating.

It's kind of terrible. I ran into my neighbor Bob, whose daughter is now in grad school, and we commiserated on the sidewalk. "Nobody," said Bob, "tells you how hard it is. One minute they're sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal, the next you're driving home from some college with a broken heart." True.

But it's also kind of wonderful. Jonah is ready, he's happy, he's doing the things he should be doing and he's in a good place.

And I'm getting more sleep - no more 1 a.m. awakenings, no more late night clunking sandwich making. It reminds me of that momentous leap of long ago, from having a night-waking toddler to having a kid who sleeps through the night.

I am sleeping through the night. I hope Jonah is. I have no idea, though, and no way of knowing. Maybe he's not sleeping at all. I don't know. He could be doing anything. What was I doing when I was 18?

Did I mention how terrible this is?

I miss many things about my oldest son, but these days I especially miss our irregular Sunday evening cooking lessons. During all of Jonah's senior year, I cobbled together a cooking course of sorts, an attempt to prepare him for adult life and an excuse to spend some time with him while he was still home. It was also, I must admit, a sideways ploy to get someone other than me to make dinner once in a while.

Jonah's cooking lessons were imperfect, but I knew that from his perspective the project was a success when he claimed, shortly before his departure for college: "I now know how to cook. You don't have to worry about that." For me, it was an unquestionably valuable experiment. I only wished I'd started doing it earlier, much earlier, like when he was 13.

Which brings me to Henry. Henry, 13, is my youngest son. For the past year he has been saying things like, "When can I start MY cooking lessons?" Henry has always been impatient, always trying to catch up with his older brother. He stubbornly started to walk when he was 8 months old, before his little round baby body was even ready. I'm convinced, especially in retrospect, that this was an act of will, a major clue about the personality of a very, very determined person.

Well Henry, good news: It's your turn. Time to rattle those pots and pans.

I guess I could say the nest is half full.