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Table for one

By Kim Davaz

While in college, I once worked with a young woman who had majored in home economics. Every night, she told me, she made a complete meal that she ate sitting at a nicely set table. All by herself. I was very impressed that she considered such niceties to be essential.

Fifty-one percent of the people living in New York City live alone, according to Judith Jones in her latest cookbook, “The Pleasures of Cooking for One.” Cooking for one is not a chore, Jones insists, but a pleasure.

In addition to cooking meals on ordinary days, Jones explains how to splurge on a whole lobster or, an even bigger splurge, to be able to make a dish for one that by all rights should be made only for a dozen: cassoulet, that long, slow, gently cooked French classic of beans and meats. Jones makes it here for one (with the possibility of leftovers). As Julia Child’s former editor, Jones knows her lobster and cassoulet.

This is a smallish book, not much bigger than a novel, but it has everything a cook-for-one might need. She lists necessary kitchen equipment and staples for the pantry, refrigerator and freezer. Photos show her preparing dishes, the finished dishes and glimpses of her kitchens - one in New York City, one in Vermont. Her kitchens aren’t gleaming, sleek-surfaced magazine kitchens. They are full of essentials stacked and hung on the walls for ease of use in limited space, tidily arranged and cozy. You can tell by her kitchens, filled with well-used, good quality tools and cookware, that food is a pleasurable and essential part of her life.

Give this cookbook to anyone moving out to live alone, to someone newly alone or to someone who is often alone at mealtime (perhaps living with someone who travels or works during regular mealtimes.) Thank you, Judith Jones, for reminding us that solitary meals don’t have to be meager or unhappy.

Amy Willcock, author of five cookbooks on how to cook on that icon of British kitchens, the Aga stove, has her offering for the solo kitchen, “Cooking for One: 150 Delicious Recipes to Treat Yourself.”

Published in England, the measurements in “Cooking for One” are metric. They’ve translated the oven temperatures, but you’ll have to convert the amounts. Go online and find conversion charts to print out and stick in the cookbook, or use a fill-in-the-blank converter. Either one will give you close enough amounts for most recipes. You can also find measuring cups that have both metric and Imperial (that’s what we use) markings.

You may also have to look up ingredients that may not be familiar, such as Arbroath Smokie (a kind of fish), gulls’ eggs, cobnuts (a variety of hazelnut), and a Bake-O-Glide, which is a silicone liner for a baking sheet.

Willcock tucks cooking tips in with the recipes, including one under the recipe for Pan-Fried Pigeon Breast With Blackberries and Cassis that says it’s helpful to wet your hands before plucking poultry. Remember that.

“What We Eat When We Eat Alone: Stories and 100 Recipes” is by Deborah Madison, author of the essential “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone” and her husband, Patrick McFarlin. His charmingly funny illustrations fill this book that is partly in praise and partly in open-mouthed amazement at what people eat when alone.

Some will make a Judith Jones or Amy Willcock meal. Others, not so much. Foods that people have confessed (probably under duress) to eating as a meal include cake batter, crackers (with or without sardine juice), TaterTots, peanut butter and jelly, and cereal. These are foods that horrify and amuse, as Madison writes in the introductory chapter. Some of them don’t sound half bad.

The idea that became this book began on a trip when McFarlin asked what people ate when they found themselves alone. The responses were so fascinating, McFarlin and Madison began asking just about everyone they ran into about their solo eating habits. This led to what they call “a portrait of human behavior sprung free from conventions, a secret life of consumption born out of the temporary freedom - or burden, for some - of being alone.” These are confessions, not all necessarily proud ones, of solo eating.

Names of recipes written in red as part of the narrative appear as recipes in standard form at the end of the chapters. Some recipes are for things made just for themselves, while others are born of leftovers, such as potato soup made from mashed potatoes; a saffron- and cardamon-scented rice pudding made from leftover rice; a grilled sandwich made with pimento cheese; and a spaghetti sauce of capers and leftover canned tuna in olive oil. Polenta gets two recipes plus seven things to do with the leftovers.

Madison took some food ideas and dressed them up. A mention of a quick dinner of mashed potatoes with green chilies and cumin turned into Potato and Green Chili Stew with suggestions to mash the potatoes instead of leaving them in chunks, or add more liquid to make a soup.

Some of the people in Madison and McFarlin’s book might benefit from Jones’ book or from Willcock’s. All three books will make cooking for one less of a chore as they encourage experimentation to make dishes that are exactly as you would like them. They may even make you want to double them and invite someone to dinner.

A Potato Dish for Julia

Yes, it was made for that Julia. From “The Pleasures of Cooking For One.”

• 2 medium new potatoes
• 1 small garlic clove
• 4 teaspoons butter, divided
• Freshly ground black pepper

Peel the potatoes, and slice them very thin. Peel and mince the garlic with the flat of your chef’s knife, mash it with a little salt until it is a paste. Work a little of the butter into it. Heat 2 teaspoons of the butter in your small frying pan over medium-low heat, and lay in half the potato slices, overlapping slightly, to fill the bottom of the pan. Salt and pepper them lightly, and smear the garlic paste on top.

Add the remaining layer of potatoes, and cook gently, setting a small cover askew on top of the pan. After about 8 minutes, turn the potatoes, which should be brown on the bottom, by setting a small, sturdy plate on top of the pan and flipping the potatoes over onto it. They won’t hold together in perfect shape, but don’t worry.

After heating the remaining butter in the pan, just slide the potatoes back in and arrange them as neatly as you can. Let them cook, semi-covered, for about 5 minutes, and uncovered for a couple of more minutes, at which point they should be done and nicely browned, both top and bottom.

Turn them onto a warm dinner plate, and let them mingle with whatever juicy meat you are having for dinner.

Scallops With Lemon, Black Olives and Capers

From “Cooking for One.”

• Olive oil
• 4 scallops
• Splash of white wine
• Zest of half a lemon and some juice
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 small tomato, seeded and chopped
• 3 to 5 black olives in olive oil, pitted and roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon capers, rinsed

Heat a frying pan until it is very hot, then add a little olive oil.

Add the scallops and cook for 1 to 2 minutes on each side. Remove from the pan and keep warm.

Deglaze the pan with the white wine.

Add the lemon zest and juice and an additional 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and add the tomato, black olives and capers.

Put the scallops on a warm plate and pour over any juices, then spoon over the sauce. Serve with crusty bread.

A Glass of Zabaglione

Serve this alone in a wine glass or over sliced fruit. You must make this in a double boiler or in a heat-proof bowl that will sit on top of a saucepan without its bottom touching the simmering water. From “What We Eat When We Eat Alone.”

• 2 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup Marsala wine

Get your water simmering in the double boiler. Put the eggs, sugar and Marsala in the bowl, set it over the water, and start whisking immediately.

Bubbles will appear, then more bubbles, then suddenly it will seem as if it’s all foam.

Keep whisking and the whole mass will turn into a creamy froth.

Draw your whisk through the bowl and if you see any wine that hasn’t been incorporated, keep whisking until it is. The whole process should take just 2 or 3 minutes.

Put the froth into a wine glass and eat it slowly with a spoon.

Kim Davaz writes a biweekly cookbook review column for The Register-Guard.