Books |
Lunch at the Shop: The Art and Practice of the Midday Meal
Peter Miller
By
Published: Apr 15, 2014
Category:
Food and Wine
A reader threatened me: “One more cookbook, and I’m outta here.”
Dude, don’t go.
The concept of “Lunch at the Shop: The Art and Practice of the Midday Meal” — making lunch at the office — is as American as Kim Kardashian. The photographs are terrific, courtesy of Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton, who you know as the creators of the Canal House cookbooks. The book has a wonderfully homemade feel; the author’s wife did the charming illustrations. And as for Peter Miller, he’s a fine writer doing a very good imitation of a bookstore owner.
The book addresses a problem that office-workers know well: Around noon, your leave your place of work, go out and buy something that fills a plastic container, skibble back to your hole and gobble lunch as you read blogs. Miller is more elegant about this: “We fly on by lunch, as we often fly on by seasons and deeds and signals.” And thus we buffer our real needs: that we’re hungry, tired or just need a break.
The solution: make lunch right at the office, take twenty minutes, share a meal with colleagues and the occasional visitor.
It takes a certain kind of intelligence to take an idea like this — an idea that many of us have surely had, and dismissed as idealistic, too much work or bad office politics — and execute it to the point that outsiders want to join you. Peter Miller is that guy. He did time at Harvard in the late l960s, then went to Philadelphia to teach high school and (of course) change the world. That didn’t happen: “On the first day, I put on my nice clothes, walked down the street and was robbed of forty dollars. The next day I left with only ten dollars and was robbed of that.”
He moved on to Eugene, Oregon and then Seattle, where he knew no one. Seattle was pre-Microsoft, and primitive. He bought houses for $5,000, rehabbed them and flipped them. He met Raymond Mungo — then in flight from his sudden celebrity as the author of Famous Long Ago: My Life and Hard Times With Liberation News Service. Improbably, they opened a general interest bookstore.
The computer people arrived. They were the enemy:
They are mostly soulless, and the perfect example of our city’s relentless nature. They aren’t really even smart. It’s something else, more of a cunning. You know the people, the ones that are buoyant. Buoyant in a time of deep sorrow in this country. It’s ugly and inelegant and estranged. This is the curse of the Internet — it is totally out of sequence with life.
A guy walked in and told Miller that he would soon be crushed by this new thing called Amazon. “I tell him the next time he passes by my store just keep on walking by, he’s no longer welcome in here.” Twenty-odd years later, Peter Miller Books — an emporium dedicated to design and architecture books — is a Seattle institution, and thriving. [It is an irony to be selling this book, at a discount, on Amazon. For the hardcover, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
The shop lunches began eight years ago. They were basic at first. They’re not complex now. It was the idea that mattered. The caring. The ceremony: “It didn’t matter to me if I made the whole meal and four people ate together or if we all worked on it and we all eat together. I just liked the idea that it was in common.”
Miller and his colleagues cook with food they love — and, often as not, food they have left over. Their lunches usually include beans or rice, pasta or lentils, “the proud and historic opposite of fast food.” Also on the menu: “a little oomph.” That is, you’ve got to care, you’ve got to make an effort.
At a lunch to celebrate the book, the Canal House cooks made lunch from Miller’s recipes. We started with open-faced sandwiches and then lentil soup, with chocolate chip cookies for dessert. As the least foodie person there, I found the lunch thrilling. So did the professionals — they too became members of the Clean Plate Club.
Lunch started with this. Easy. Elegant. Even, dare I say, soulful. Like the book. Like the author.
Fromager D’Affinois, Arugula and Almond Butter Sandwich
serves 4
8 slices of bread or 4 split rolls
4 TBS unsalted butter
4 TBS almond butter, preferable crunchy
8 slices Fromager D’Affinois or Brie, sliced half-inch thick
1 handful of arugula leaves
2 in-season apples or Bosc pears, quartered, cored and thinly sliced
salt
2-3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
It is an interesting balance: the sweet almond butter, the soft, mild cheese, with the spicy greens and the apple cutting through. Don’t forget the salt –– it keeps the gooey parts from having too much input.
The sandwiches may be a little tall, but if the bread is not too hard or the layers too heavy, they should hold together. This is also a dish that can be served open-faced.
Butter one side of the bread slices or rolls. Spread one side of the bread slices or rolls with the almost butter. Lay one slice of cheese on the buttered side of the roll or bread. Place arugula leaves on top of the cheese.
Fan the apple or pear slices over the almond butter; it will help keep them in place. Sprinkle with salt and lemon juice and close the sandwich.
The sandwiches can be made in advance and are best at room temperature, which allows the cheese to soften and its taste to mesh with the other ingredients. When you serve the sandwiches, lay extra slices of fruit on the side. Squirt some lemon juice on them so they don’t brown. You can also make a simple salad with any extra arugula and serve it alongside.
