Art Heals: Sauerbraten

Throughout the covid captivity, coping by cooking has become the ultimate meme.  But not just cooking, no, I mean “creative cuisine.”   Ordinary weekday grub just doesn’t cut it in the competition for the corona confinement crown.  People (women, mostly, but men are increasingly showing off their mad skills too) are baking, broiling, grilling, roasting and occasionally scalding their fingers (though this is usually edited out of the video).  Competitive cookery has elevated simple sustenance into a moveable (make that movie-able) feast.

Frankly, I’ve almost lost my appetite.  Don’t get me wrong.  I actually love to cook.  Dinner parties were my thing, mainly because of something called “tablescapes.”  This is when you go all out to match your table décor to the food you are serving—a curator’s dream.  I mostly gave these parties upon returning from a trip— “A Night in Venice” featured sarde in saor,

a “Mendoza Menu” meant Argentinian wines.  I invited friends, turned memories into food, and shared happiness.  But the happiness came from the sharing in real life.  Not for me the planning, shopping, substituting, cooking, photographing, filming, and Zoompreening of today’s isolation fight nights.

But I’m not alone here in captivity, especially on the weekends when my companion in quarantine and I break our 9-5 sequestration and spend two whole days in each other’s company.  That is something to celebrate, a little bit of real life to savor, along with a meal a bit more elaborate than the ordinary M-F repast.

So, sauerbraten.  It’s a German dish dependent upon a thrifty cut of beef, which is marinated for 4 days, then cooked for hours in its own gravy made with gingersnaps and served with red cabbage and kartoffel knoedel (potato dumplings).  Don’t be too impressed—all this happened because in my pantry exploration I came upon a half bag of gingersnaps (they last forever), a jar of red cabbage (newer—purchased in the early lockdown frenzy along with canned garbanzos I haven’t yet used) and, mirabile dictu, a box of knoedel (they come in little bundles that you put in  boiling water until they metamorphose into dumplings.) Why, you ask, did my pantry contain these culinary gems?  Because I probably made sauerbraten 6 or 7 years ago, and I always buy two of everything, a habit from my years living abroad. I am a pack rat.

Anyway, we had it last weekend, and since you have to make a lot of it, we will have the leftovers this weekend.  Not a competition, no tablescape, no photos, but a really nice meal shared in real life with a real person that I love.  Happiness.

Wonderful meals will be made this weekend by my Muslim friends, to whom I wish a warm and happy Eid.

Here is a glass-art plate made by stained-glass artist Corinne Whitlatch, for a 2013 exhibit featuring The Ultimate Washington Dinner Party.  This plate is for would-be invitee Hanan Ashrawi.  Art Heals.