Always, Always Read the Headnote!

Howdy cookbook fans!

Yesterday it was 98°F in Austin. This isn’t a brag; last summer’s 80 days over 100°F and 42 days over 105°F nearly broke me. This heat is earlier this year, and I’m a bit despondent. Forgive me.

Anyway, this is an essay about headnotes. On this stupid hot day, I decided to make a Judy Rodgers recipe from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook for dinner: artichokes with onions, black olives, and mint. I had some whole, uncooked artichokes leftover from a work thing, and I was in desperate need of cooking something that was for me, for pleasure, and not for work. So I set off to the grocery store.

First of all, the grocery store was absolutely nutso busy. And this is Texas, our grocery stores are huge and over air-conditioned, this was not some Brooklyn joint with tiny aisles. I had to wait in line to get a cucumber. A woman rudely demanded I skip the cucumbers so she could get by. I waited anyway. (Sorry, I needed a cucumber!!!)

So it wasn’t a surprise when I got to the table that normally offers containers of basil and mint and found only a handful of sad, wilty looking Thai basil bundles. Hmph. I asked someone who worked there: yeah, they were out of mint. Fine. I did the rest of my shopping and left.

Here’s where shit gets a bit Odyssean: on the way home I stopped at three additional grocery stores and they were all out of mint. (Technically, actually, I stopped at 4, one was closed for Memorial Day.) If you don’t drive in Texas, I am not sure I can explain how taxing running errands in the heat can be. I have a 15 year old black car with shitty AC, so parking in shady spots is a must, but then you have to walk farther to get to the store, and then walk back to a car that is hot despite the shady spot (but not as hot as it would be if you parked in the sun). Then it takes a good 5-10 minutes of driving to get the car even remotely cool. By the time I got home, sans mint but with the added bonus of a completely defrosted frozen pizza, I was a sweaty mess.

I put away the groceries, wondering what TikTok influencer had a recipe go viral that caused this run on mint. Mojitos, suggested my partner Raphael. Then it dawned on me that my neighbors Patrick and Andrea have a vegetable garden and might possibly have mint. A quick text and I was informed not only did they have mint, but they had TOO MUCH mint, and would I please come take as much of it as I could handle. (THANK YOU A&P!!)

Back out in the heat I go.

Finally, finally, home with two sprigs of dang mint (the recipe calls for 12 leaves, and I was making a half recipe), I flip open the book to get cooking. Here’s the headnote, the bolding is mine:

Reader, I grow rosemary in the flower box in front of my house.

Now, Judy Rodgers was sort of famous for her wordy recipes full of caveats and variations, substitutions and market advice. But I would argue that plenty of headnotes offer valuable information—indeed, there’s often some good advice tucked inside the method, as well. Not all kitchens are the same, not all cooks are the same, not all grocery stores carry mint, apparently. Context is a necessary function of the headnote, as important as telling you how hot to get your oven.

This is where I hedge, though, because also: not all headnotes. Some headnotes—some headnotes I myself have written—don’t actually provide additional culinary information. Some of them are about what the recipe writer was inspired by, or the history of the dish, or some cultural context. This is often where recipes become literary; there is poetry in this type of headnote. These, too, are important to understanding the recipe, but perhaps not as important to making it.

But you won’t know unless you read the dang headnote, will you? Preferably, before you go to the grocery store.

Here’s Judy’s artichokes recipe, delicious with mint or, apparently, rosemary.

Baked Artichokes with Onions, Lemons, Black Olives, & Mint

• 2 pounds thinly sliced sweet yellow onions (about 8 cups), such as Grannex, Vidalia, Walla Walla, or Maui [PF would add Texas 1015s to this list]

• ¾ to 1 cup mild-tasting olive oil

• Salt

• 4 garlic cloves, slivered

• 1/3 cup Niçoise or Gaeta olives (about 2 ounces), rinsed

• A dozen fresh mint leaves, very coarsely chopped

• ½ lemon, cut lengthwise

• About 6 tablespoons dry white wine

• 4 bright green, tightly closed artichokes, 3 ½ inches in diameter

• A little water, as needed.

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Toss the onions with about ½ cup of the olive oil and about 1 ½ teaspoons salt (if using kosher salt, use a little more). Add the garlic, olives, and mint.

Trim off one pithy end of the lemon, then slice it as thin as possible into half-moons, stopping when you hit pith at the other end. Remove seeds as you encounter them. Toss the lemon slices with the onion mixture, add the white wine, and set aside to let the onions soften and “weep” their moisture while you trim the artichokes.

Trim the bottom of the stem of each artichoke and carefully peel the stalk. Remove badly damaged or dry outer leaves. Trim the thorns with scissors or slice them off with a sharp paring knife. Cut the artichoke in half, then use a stainless steel spoon to carve under and remove the thistley choke, leaving the meaty bottom intact. Rinse in cold water; don’t drain well—a little water between the leaves helps ensure that the artichokes cook thoroughly and evenly.

Sprinkle the artichokes with salt, squeezing and folding them so some salt falls between the leaves. Drizzle and rub with olive oil to coat thoroughly, then squeeze the halves so you can trickle and rub some oil between the leaves.

Spread the juicy onion mixture about 1 ½ inches deep in a large, flameproof baking dish (I use a 10- by 14-inch lasagna pan). The liquid should be about 1/2-inch deep; if not, add a little water. (This puddle will generate steam to keep the artichokes moist as they cook.) Nestle the artichokes cut side down in the bed of onions. They will be crowded.

Heat gently over a low flame until the puddle is bubbly, then cover tightly—first with parchment paper, then foil, dull side out—and bake until you can easily pull a second-tier leaf and the pulp at its base is tender. This usually takes about 1 ½ hours; the exact size of the artichokes, as well as the baking dish and oven performance, will affect cooking time. Be aware that the outermost layer of leaves will emerge a little leathery, which I like.

Once a test leaf is tender, raise the oven temperature to 400°F, uncover, and bake for about 15 minutes longer to concentrate the flavors and lightly brown the tips of the vegetables. Serve hot, warm, or cold, as is, or with homemade mayonnaise flavored with lemon, garlic, or a few chopped anchovy fillets.

Cover any leftovers tightly and refrigerate; they will be silkier and sweeter the next day. Bring to room temperature before serving, or heat slowly, loosely covered, in a 300°F oven.

Reprinted from The Zuni Café Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes & Cooking Lessons from San Francisco’s Beloved Restaurant by Judy Rodgers. Copyright © 2002 by Judy Rodgers. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

Who writes about vegetables like that?! Ugh, we were so lucky to have Judy Rodgers, and luckier still that she wrote all of this down. That’s all for today!