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With this post, I’m reviving the “Something Delicious” series I paused in 2012. This revival is part of my personal campaign to reconnect with the beauty that so often inspired me to write before I allowed my alarm at all that is frighteningly destructive, not beautiful, to colonize my creativity. I wrote about it last week in an essay entitled “But Beautiful.” I’m not giving up on calling out whatever attempts to pervert love and justice in these times, but you can expect to see me riffing on deliciousness and its life-lessons on the regular going forward.
I love versatility. Why? I’m thrifty, so that could be part of it. I buy clothes from Ebay and Poshmark and books from Bookfinder.com. I’ve moved at least two dozen times in my adult life (though we are determined to stay put now), modifying furnishings to fit their new surroundings.
Maybe it’s because I’m sentimental. There’s a stack of delicate flower-painted china cups and saucers in a cupboard, inherited from Rick’s second wife who passed away many years ago and blessed him before she left with finding love again. Several of the saucers sit under small pots of orchids that happily bloom each season. Each time I water them I’m reminded that love, too, can be repurposed.
Maybe it echoes a certain kind of creativity that prizes improvisation and casts a cold eye on the readymade. Yesterday I wore a sweater that used to be a dress before the sewing machine and I revised it. The sauce I made for lunch while wearing it was loosely based on a recipe that sounded good but proved to be better when I doubled all the aromatics.
Enter the star of this blog, cottage cheese. My grandmother used to have a scoop of it for lunch side-by-side with a piece of matzo and a canned peach, my idea of boring. But if social media is any guide, cottage cheese has become the superstar ingredient of the last few years, perpetually endorsed and transformed by cooks convinced that you can never have too much protein. I asked Google why cottage cheese has become so trendy and all the answers mentioned TikTok, which I don’t use. They also said that demand for this dairy product is so high, some makers are facing shortages.
On Facebook, a row of short videos labeled “reels” appears between friends’ posts. Instagram serves them up too. I guess the algorithms have me pegged, because nowadays about half the reels show cottage cheese-based recipes: brownies, ice cream, bagels, bread, muffins, and more. I skip most of them, as they seem more like chemical formulas than food: flavored protein powder, peanut butter powder, sugar-free pudding mix, and other things that may deliver some of the nutrients desired, but won’t taste good to me.
I’m deeply skeptical about treating food like fuel. Yes, it nourishes our bodies by providing the necessary energy and nutrients, so in that sense, it fuels us. But it also delights our senses, gives us pleasure, surprises us with novelty, and reminds us of the magic of bringing forth food from the earth and the life it sustains. I understand that some people need liquid diets to recover from illness, turning to meals that come in a bottle. But the trend in Silicon Valley toward replacing real food with these concoctions is an artifact of workaholism, drinking meals at the computer and thus saving the lost work time that would result from preparing and eating food that must actually be chewed.
A story I once heard from someone in the classical music world stuck with me. This person said that many students coming out of conservatories, where curricula tend to focus almost exclusively on musical training and competition, may be able to play flawlessly, but that conductors often complain that their playing is cold, lacking the emotional coloration of real-life experience. And also, that because they’ve experienced little of the socialization that education generally offers, they often lack social skills and the ability to cultivate relationships that aren’t transactional. Big generalization, I know. But it seems to also fit some of the tech bros whose opinions and habits are exposed to the public these days. My own view is that pursuing any ambition that precludes experiencing ordinary thrills, heartbreaks, surprises, and challenges will produce a lopsided character.
Food may not head everyone’s list of meaningful experiences, but it surely makes the top tier. Not everyone has access to the variety and abundance of foodstuffs available in developed countries. One of the horrors of this world is that great numbers are deprived of adequate food on account of war, displacement, public indifference, and private greed. But billions of people who do have access to food invest skill and care in even a very limited range of foodstuffs, cultivating creativity, discernment, pleasure, and sensuality.
To me, in a society of relative abundance, people’s relation to food says something about what it is to be fully alive. Some people think of great swathes of human activity as merely things to get through so they can focus on what they’ve decided really matters, Sleep, exercise, and eating all contribute to well-being, but I worry that seeing them entirely as unavoidable necessities diminishes them. The alternative is to bring some measure of beauty, awareness, and desire to even mundane activities, honoring their capacity to express life force and to remind us of the gratitude the gift of life deserves.
So I’m one of those “eat real food” people, but never fear, you won’t find me chowing down on raw meat and raw milk any more than I am likely to transport roadkill to Central Park. I’m not joining the TikTok fad of making everything out of cottage cheese, but there is one infinitely versatile cottage cheese-based dish that Rick and I love, and I don’t think it will go out of style.
We call it cottage pudding, but I imagine social media has lots of names for it. The basic formula is roughly equal parts cottage cheese and Greek yogurt, plus eggs, maple syrup, vanilla and salt, blended, baked, and cooled. We use full-fat dairy, but I’ve heard it will work with two percent or even nonfat. You can substitute any sweetener and flavoring such as grated lemon peel, almond extract, cinnamon, or nutmeg. You can whirl in cocoa powder to taste and make it a chocolate dessert; or a ripe banana to produce something that resembles banana cheesecake. I’ve never tried to make it savory, but I imagine leaving out the sweetener and adding some parmesan and herbs would make it a nice appetizer with olives and crackers or bread.
The recipe is forgiving. I have made this dish so many times that by now I eyeball the ingredients instead of measuring them, and it has always come out delicious. We tend to eat it for breakfast with some sliced nuts and berries on the side. Rick likes it sweeter, so he adds more maple syrup. You’ll need to experiment to find your favorite versions, but so far, all our experiments have been yummy and I’m guessing yours will be too.
Cottage Pudding
(this makes four servings)
2 cups cottage cheese
2 cups Greek Yogurt, unflavored
4 eggs
4 Tablespoons maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
Put all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and whir till the mixture is smooth. Divide it among four oven-safe ramekins (ours are two-cup size).
Bake it at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 23 minutes. Slide a butter knife into the center of one dish. If the mixture still seems quite liquid, give it another three minutes in the oven. Your preferred texture determines cooking time: the more you cook it, the denser it will be when it cools. We like it creamy, so 23 minutes usually suffices.
Cool the ramekins on a rack to room temperature or a little warmer. Cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to eat, as the texture is best when it’s cold. (If the puddings are too hot when you put them in the refrigerator, moisture will condense on the inside of the lid and drip onto the pudding.) They will keep, refrigerated, for four or five days.
“I Shall Be Released” sung by Nina Simone. I can’t say it connects to cottage cheese, but it’s one of my favorites.