Linda Rittelmann and Steve McGookin are some of the Underbelly’s best friends. Linda is also an excellent chef; Steve is from Belfast. That should tell you all you need to know about their history and experience in the kitchen.
Linda lives in Baltimore and the couple enjoys a trans-Atlantic relationship. For a lot of people right now, being together means being apart. Like many other couples separated by Covid, they’ve made the most of technology by organizing a video dinner date every Sunday and sharing the mouth-watering images of their home-cooked meals across social media, captivating ‘inner fat boys’ everywhere.
They’ve developed an integral system, in which they decide on a main course during the week and often end up with very different interpretations by the time they sit down to eat, posting pictures and their recipes on Facebook accompanied by the title, ‘Dinner Together, 3,000 Miles Apart’.
When a ‘rom com’ brandishing this name hits theatres in 2021, remember you heard it here first and ‘halfsies’ on the royalties!
We creeped on Steve and Linda’s early Christmas dinner this past weekend and this is what we found out:
Linda:
It was Steve’s idea to begin with.
I’d left Belfast at the end of January thinking it would be just a few weeks until we saw each other again. When the lockdown started in mid-March, we realized not only was that not going to happen, but our plans for the summer were up in the air. A long-distance relationship is difficult at the best of times, but at least in the “before times” we’d been able to travel freely back and forth.
Our very first video dinner date was at Easter. A restaurant in my neighborhood, The Tilted Row, was closed to diners but was offering a roast lamb dinner for takeout. It was the day after my birthday, so Steve paid for the dinner as a gift, grilled some lamb chops on his end, and we shared a video call with a nice bottle of wine on Easter Sunday.
So began our weekly dinners. I’d send a list of three or four recipes I thought Steve might like and he’d pick one. We’d shop, and then make the meal together on Sunday, checking in along the way. Early on, we made things like salmon fillets, leg of lamb, pad Thai, veal saltimbocca and fish pie.
Soon, though, we morphed into themes centered around a dish or an ingredient that left us each some room to improvise. Ingredients – especially cuts of meat – don’t always translate well between Northern Ireland and the US. For example, this last Sunday, Steve was able to get a nice small gammon joint with the skin on, but since I was shopping via Instacart, I wasn’t able to get anything similar and, therefore, was unable to produce the nice crackling texture that usually accommodates my ham roasts.
A few slow cooker meals have been useful when we’ve had busy weeks or crowded weekend schedules. Since we began at Easter, we only missed Memorial Day weekend when I went to visit my family in Pennsylvania.
Having been a caterer, a cooking instructor, and the culinary director for Williams Sonoma here in Baltimore, I’m comfortable cooking dishes without much of a recipe, but I do follow spices, seasonings, and technique pretty closely – there are very few foods and spices I don’t care for.
Steve’s universe is more limited, shall we say, and his approach is more “freestyle.” He uses recipes as a general guideline, and eliminates and substitutes spices, ingredients, and seasonings at will. Often, they are inspired. Just as often, I shake my head in bewilderment. But he is cooking and learning, and most importantly – we are sharing our love through a meal we’ve made together, despite the 3,341 mile distance between us.
Steve:
We are definitely at opposite ends of the culinary ability chart. While I would admit I cook to eat, Linda is in love with food and the stories behind it. When I say I’m going to make some soup, that means I’ll be opening a can. When Linda says that, she actually makes soup. It’s great when we’re together – she loves to cook and I love to eat what she cooks. Preparing dinner like this is fun and keeps us connected. It’s certainly her domain and it makes me happy that she shares her passion so generously.
Practically, it’s something we can do together that we can’t usually do in real life – we have a small, one-person kitchen in both of our houses and there’s not really room for both of us to be in there at the same time. As Linda says, “Behind every good man is the cabinet you need to get into.”
As well as the roasts, ribs and tacos, some of my unexpected favorites have been jambalaya, a Moroccan tagine and the week we cooked a variety of vegetarian and non-meat things. We also did a fun ballpark food-themed night, since we’re both big baseball fans.
I moved back to Belfast a few years ago after a decade in the US and I’ve been impressed by the range of locally-grown food that’s available at my local shops, as well as specialty stores like the new Asian Supermarket by Ormeau Park, where I was able to get ingredients and steamers so we could make bao buns.
For sure, some things didn’t turn out the way I planned – I’ve had to ditch my gravy a couple of times – but Linda’s a good teacher. I’ve learned a lot, and not just about food.
We know we’re lucky to be able to do this, when so many people are struggling. We’ve made donations to local food banks in Baltimore, where food insecurity is a real issue, and to the NI branch of Fare Share to help others eat at a really difficult time. Hopefully 2021 will bring some relief to everyone.
When you get to our age, a year apart means a lot more than when you’re younger, but just having this connection makes us appreciate all the things we’re still blessed to be able to enjoy in the middle of the uncertainty everyone is going through.
From the Underbelly, we would like to wish Linda, Steve and many other couples and families separated by distance and circumstances this year a very merry Christmas and that we’ll be all be back together safe and happy in the new year.
Linda will be contributing recipes and restaurants that have a distinctly transatlantic connection to Northern Ireland and sharing some American recipes adapted for Northern Irish kitchens, ingredients and palates in the new year. Stay tuned!