Dear Reader Column 07-27-07

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Dear Reader,

I have a liver dinner date this evening. Sounds exciting doesn't it? The word liver can do that to a person--get them all excited. Okay, so I admit I never imagined myself looking forward to a liver dinner date, but nevertheless I am. First time and all, you know--and I'm even going to take my camera--not to take pictures of the liver necessarily, my liver dinner date is with two good friends and I thought I should have the waiter take our picture for posterity.

When I was a kid, my mother used to serve liver at least every two weeks. It was frightening. As soon as I saw Mom slicing up a big piece of liver into little liver servings, and dipping them in flour and heating up the oil--I started phoning friends.

"Have you eaten yet? Can I come over for dinner? I just got a new Beatles album and I'll bring it along. You can even keep it for a week. I really need to come to dinner." And if those calls didn't produce a liver reprieve, I'd dial friends of friends. "Hello there, I'm Ginger's best friend and she thought we should get to know each other, have you eaten yet? By the way I just got a new Beatles album..."

Mom liked liver because it was cheap. It didn't matter that I hated the stuff. "This isn't a restaurant, you'll eat what I serve." And of course the other half of that sentence was something about not wasting food, so I was forced to sit at the table until I ate every single bite of the liver and onions on the plate in front of me. Oh did I forget to mention the onions? Not that they made the dinner anymore palatable. The onions were cooked in the same pan as the liver.

My only salvation was ketchup--lots and lots of ketchup. Dump on the ketchup, pinch your nose with two fingers and then shove as big of a piece of liver as I could get down my throat without choking. Gagging produced no sympathy at the liver dinner table.

By now you're probably wondering why I'm looking forward to my liver dinner date this evening. Well, it started as a joke. My two friends were kind enough to invite me to a home cooked birthday brunch a couple of months ago, so I thought I would reciprocate and invite them out to dinner. And I thought we'd all get a good laugh when I invited them to a liver dinner, but to my surprise I've been hanging around with liver connoisseurs. And they assure me they know all the four-star places to get a tasty liver dinner.

So I'm a tad ambivalent, but still excited--I'm sure liver tastes different when you're an adult. Doesn't it? I haven't decided what I'm going to wear to my first grown-up liver dinner, but for sure I'm bringing a bottle of ketchup.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
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Comments

[Marian]

Of course it's too late to help you with your Liver Dinner Date - which I do hope you enjoyed, but reading this column brought back memories of my own forced-liver-eating experiences, and I wanted to pass along my solution- SOY SAUCE! It's the only think I ever found that successfully obliterated that livery flavor!

[Karen Zabuska]

I have been on vacation, so I just read the liver insident tonight. Oh my gosh, you lived in the same house I did, except I had to eat liver once a week since it was good for me. I had those same onions cooked in the same liver oil, the liver dipped in flour and the same bottle of ketchup. I also had to sit there until finished and let me tell you I gagged many a time. I would be there for hours and have a trusty glass of water. I know my Grandmother loved me, but I hated the liver. Funny, my Mom never ate it only Grandma and me. Thanks for bringing up those memories.

Karen Zabuska

[Janny]

I hope you had a good liver dinner date! If you fell in with liver lovers, trust me, they probably discovered a place that knows how to cook the stuff. Which, I'm proud to say, I do as well.

The secret?

You don't fry it. You broil it. Like a fine steak.

No onions.

No trimmings.

And definitely not for too long!

Most people apparently don't know not to fry liver with onions--that's so much a "standard" that people think it's the only way to serve the stuff. But in fact, as you discovered, that's one of the best ways to make it tough, dry, strong, and pretty much unpalatable.

However, if you broil it, just until it's done (and that will be a way shorter time than you might think)? It comes out tender, moist, and with a mild, almost sweet flavor that could well get addictive.

No soy sauce or ketchup needed, either!

Now that my husband is basically off organ meats (too high in cholesterol), I don't have it as much anymore. But just thinking about a great liver dinner makes me think that it wouldn't be a bad idea to put it on the grocery list for next week...

Enjoy!