Internet Dinner Dating - Zester Daily

Internet Dinner Dating

Technology and creativity lets a long-distance couple enjoy cooking dinner together.

| Tuesday, 16 March 2010 | 13:20

computer with wine glass If only one person in a relationship can cook, the instinct seems to be to teach the other how. It’s wonderful quality time, and there’s always the possibility of great food on the other end. Unfortunately, until the process is well underway, an eager, unsupervised attempt at dinner can easily end in al dente spaghetti a la salmonella. Or dish towel a la stove.

Cooking as a couple is learning by watching and participating. The surprise ingredient in my quest to teach my significant other to cook is distance. I’m a writer in New York, and he’s a medical student a thousand miles away in Minnesota. In a modern long-distance relationship, like mine and B’s, technology must be on your side. So we invented the Internet dinner date.

Me: "Hi honey, I’m heading to the supermarket to get food for tonight. What are we making? Call me back when you get this, talk to you soon."

B: "Hi honey, I’m here at the supermarket, the beef here doesn’t look very good. Lamb? Call me back, I’m looking at vegetables."

Me: "Sorry, my phone was on vibrate. Text me a picture of the lamb, let’s see what we can do. I found some good cucumbers -- call me back."

B’s Text: "No service over by the eggs, getting yogurt, home in 15."

My Text: "OK, lamb, couscous, cucumbers, red onions -- can’t wait! And mint! And don’t forget a lemon!"

Once we’re home, we sign into Skype, laptops strategically positioned in the kitchen out of harm’s way, and unpack our groceries, comparing lamb chop thickness and debating glass pan versus casserole dish and our quickfire challenge: How to flavor the couscous. B wins, orange juice it is.

Immediate observations: My red onion is twice the size of his, his cucumbers will need peeling (mine are the thin-skinned English variety), my yogurt is full-fat and his is 2 percent, and our rib chops are relatively uniform in size and thickness. Neither of us has forgotten lemons. It’s important to identify ingredient variations before starting to minimize the differences in outcome, also known as raw meat or soggy vegetables.

First, we get the lamb in the marinade. While chopping onions and cucumbers for the salad, B and I have a beer, talk about his friends matching for residency programs, his new vacuum cleaner he loves so much he keeps it in his living room "like a dog," when the "Arrested Development" movie might possibly be coming out, and the day’s headlines. We’re really making dinner together, more than a thousand miles apart, and have been doing so for the entirety of our relationship. We eat together frequently now, thanks to a video chat session that took place late one night in the kitchen of my mother’s restaurant where I was prepping vegetables for the next day’s lunch shift. Not wanting to miss our date, I took my laptop with me, and the Internet cooking date was born. We kept it simple for that first dish -- broccoli soup -- and never looked back.

plated dinner

B is now an excellent cook and has taken the recipes I’ve taught him via video chat over the years to new levels, creating his own inspired spinoffs, showing off for potlucks, dominating at friendly rounds of Iron Chef, and bringing packed lunches that are the envy of his fellow hospital cafeteria frequenters. Our method of online education works brilliantly, and best of all, it’s free.

In tandem, chopped onions go into a simmering vinegar and sugar mixture, couscous goes into boiling orange juice and B gets ready to cook his first lamb chop. I’m watching closely, ready to intervene, keeping time on my egg-timer iPhone app. He executes a flawless broil, five minutes precisely on each side. I can see the beautifully browned top, the bits of crunchy burned fat on the bone. As the chops rest, we assemble the salad and stir mint into the couscous. In less than an hour start to finish, we’re ready to spend some time together at the end of the day, relax, enjoy a dual-effort dinner and watch "The Office." Just like any other couple.

Lamb Chops With Orange-Mint Couscous and Cucumber-Pickled Onion Salad

Serves 2 (halve if recipe is for an Internet date for two)

Ingredients

For the lamb chops:
4 lamb rib chops

1 cup plain whole milk yogurt

2 tablespoons ground cumin

½ tsp kosher salt

½ tsp fresh ground pepper

For the couscous:

½ cup 5-minute couscous

½ cup orange juice

2 tablespoons fresh chopped mint

For the salad:

1 large cucumber, cubed

1 small red onion, roughly chopped

½ teaspoon dried oregano

½ cup red wine vinegar

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon sugar

Juice from half a lemon

Directions

In a large bowl, combine yogurt, cumin, salt and pepper.
Add lamb chops, coat thoroughly, cover with plastic cling wrap and refrigerate for at least half an hour.
Bring vinegar and sugar to a boil in a small pot, add onions and let simmer for 15-20 minutes, then preheat broiler to high.
Remove excess marinade from chops, broil close to the flame for 5 minutes on each side.
Bring orange juice to boil in a small pot, add couscous and a pinch of salt, stir, cover and remove from heat.
Strain the onions and combine with chopped cucumbers, lemon juice, olive oil and oregano.
Stir chopped mint into couscous.

Jess Kapadia is a food writer in New York.

Photos: Computer with wine glass, top. Credit: webphotographeer: Yogurt-marinated lamb, orange-mint couscous and pickled red onion and cucumber salad. Credit: Fima Macheret