sophie writes

A Rogue Post...By My Mother

2010-07-14T11:33:00.001-04:00

Clearly I need not state the obvious and say that I have been lacking motivation, focus and inspiration when it comes to this blog. My mother wrote this “rogue post” weeks ago for precisely this reason- and it has taken me THIS LONG to even get around to posting it. I mean it was already written. All I had to do was upload it with the pictures and it would be done. But apparently even this is too much for me.
These oatmeal cookies were delicious, and my mother’s rogue post that follows ain’t half bad either. It reminds me of the letters she used to write to me when I was at summer camp. I used to always get homesick, especially at camp, and her letters never helped much.
“The kitchen is silent as I write this,” she would say. “I made blueberry muffins this morning but there is no one here to eat them.”
Lines like this were enough to send me into a fit of snotty tears, and since I was embarrassed to be caught crying over letters from home, I got into the habit of stuffing them into my pockets and then trudging up the hill to the “latrines” where I could read them in one of the toilet stalls and weep privately .
What a baby!
I now hand you over to my mother and her delicious oatmeal cookie recipe. I recommend eating them for breakfast, because they are sort of like a jacked up granola bar.
*You may also like to note my mother's photography- and the fact that the lense to her camera apparently has a smudge on it. Greasy cookie dough fingers will do that!

This is a ROGUE BLOG posted by Simon and I, who, for the past few days, have been left home alone in the hot, humid, Rhode Island heat. We have been missing Sophie, her blogging, and her cooking because she has been ‘otherwise occupied ‘with her travels and is now consumed by her summer tutoring job at URI.
When will life return to normal? When will Sophie sit again on the sofa paging through volumes of poetry and cookbooks releasing little sighs of delight and ‘hmmms’ of anticipation?
Last night, after the wild and sudden downpour that created flash flooding along Wakefield’s Main Street, Sophie drove off to her class. Abandoned once more in the 90 degree heat and in a fit of desperation, Simon and I decided to further crank up the BTU’s in the kitchen and bake.…. oatmeal cookies. Specifically, the comforting oatmeal cookies from Simon’s childhood memory. It was wicked hot in the kitchen but the cookies did not disappoint. Here’s our version of the original recipe taken from The Bakery Lane Soup Bowl Cookbook by Marge Mitchell and Joan Sedgwick which makes no apologies for butter and cream. We played with it a little by eliminating the white sugar and cinnamon, adding raw sugar, coconut, peanut butter chips, vanilla and peanuts.

Sorry there’s no poetry here for you. Just close your eyes and think “oatmeal cookies, oatmeal cookies, oatmeal cookies”. You won’t feel the heat anymore.

Oatmeal Cookies

3 cups regular oats
2 cups raw and brown sugars
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup sunflower oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon baking soda

Assorted chocolate and peanut butter chips, raisins, shredded coconut, slightly salted peanuts and walnuts.

In a big bowl mix dry ingredients, in a big measuring cup( 4 cups) mix the liquid ingredients and the baking soda. Mix liquid in to the dry. Stir in the assorted chips and nuts. Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet . Bake about 10 minutes or until they smell wonderful at 350 degrees. Makes about 3 dozen healthy sized cookies.

Cooked Poem: "Cabbage"

2010-06-06T11:36:00.006-04:00

Several weeks ago I was rummaging through a friend’s bookshelf, a bookshelf that contains, among other things, a rather extensive collection of Charles Simic.

“I have a feeling,” I said. “That Charles Simic would have some good food poems.”

Turns out he does indeed.

“Cabbage,” comes from his collection of poems entitled The Book of Gods and Devils and is, as this copy’s owner remarked “out of print.”

I have already mentioned my affinity for cabbage here- boiled, fermented, raw- I love it. So when I read this poem that afternoon I knew “Cabbage” was fated to be the next cooked poem.

“Cabbage”

She was about to chop the head
In half,
But I made her reconsider
By telling her:
“Cabbage symbolizes mysterious love.”

Or so said one Charles Fourier,
Who said many other strange and wonderful things,
So that people called him mad behind his back,

Whereupon I kissed the back of her neck,
Ever so gently,

Whereupon she cut the cabbage in two
With a single stroke of her knife.

Oh cabbage. What to do with you? Making my own sauerkraut has been on the list for a while now, but I think this is a project for later in the summer. I then thought that perhaps I should just make coleslaw, especially because it was Memorial Day weekend and coleslaw would fit into the whole cookout scheme of things. But this just didn’t feel right. Simic is Yugoslavian after all, I thought, and saying this poem inspired coleslaw seems shallow and wrong. So instead I found a recipe for Yugoslavian Stuffed Cabbage, and while the timing seemed a bit off last weekend, I found myself in the kitchen boiling vinegary cabbage and cooking heavily seasoned ground meat.

I couldn’t help but think about mysterious love as I pulled apart each boiled cabbage leaf, and rolled into a tight little bundle, nestling it in snugly with the other cabbage rolls.

Are you mysterious, cabbage? Do you, as they say, symbolize such strange and mysterious love?

Oddly, the night after I made the cabbage rolls I lay in bed and watched this film. In it, two women fall in love while working in a sauerkraut factory in Germany. What are the chances, right? The filmmakers must know about this mysterious love thing too, I thought. In one scene in particular, the two lovers crouch together in a cabbage field, and between loaded looks and long silences, talk to each other about their past failed relationships. One of them struggles with a knife to cut the cabbage from its stem, and then the other says “here, let me show you an easier way.”

Major cabbage symbolism in action right there, I tell ya. Regardless, it was a good film. You should rent it. Or stream it, or whatever. But I’ll warn you it is a little depressing. So don’t watch it and then yell at me about how it got you all sad, okay?

Since I have never eaten a cabbage roll before I really had no reference point for what it should taste like. And the idea of mixing cinnamon and nutmeg in with the ground meat, and then paired with tomatoes and sauerkraut did seem a little gnarly at first, but the flavors actually play off each other very well. The recipe recommends that the rolls are even better after sitting for a few days, and this is true. I ate them the next day for lunch and they were even better. Supposedly they should be served with boiled potatoes. Maybe washed down with a glass a vodka, too.

And I apologize for these photos. I struggled with finding a way to make the stuffed cabbage look as appetizing as it actually is. So I realize they look at little rough here, but they are good! Really!

Yugoslavian Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

1 head of cabbage, cored
1 c. vinegar
1 onion, chopped
¼ lbs. bacon, copped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 bunch parsley, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 lbs ground meat (you can use any combination of pork, veal, beef, or turkey. I used pork and turkey because that is what I had in the freezer)
½ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. paprika
¼ tsp. nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
1 bag or can of sauerkraut (about 2 cups)
1 14 oz. can of pureed tomatoes
2 cloves
1 Tbs. sugar

Boil the head of cabbage in water for 20 minutes, along with the 1 cup of vinegar. Drain and cool.

In a skillet, brown the onion, bacon, garlic, parsley, and celery. Add the ground meat. Let cool and then add the cinnamon, nutmeg, paprika, salt and pepper, egg, and rice.

In a separate bowl, mix together the sauerkraut and tomatoes.

Trim the cabbage leave and fill with meat mixture. Place them into a casserole dish, fitting them tightly against each other. Cover with sauerkraut and tomatoes mixture. Sprinkle with sugar and the two cloves.

Cover and bake at 350 for two hours. Serve with boiled potatoes.

This time we did use the kitchen

2010-06-01T17:24:00.004-04:00

*All photos courtesy of Danielle Henderson
The last time we made waffles over at my friends Jon and Lea’s house we had to do it like this because their kitchen was completely gutted for renovations. It has been many many months but the kitchen is finally functional, and while it is not entirely finished, Lea and Jon invited everyone over for a Memorial Day brunch Sunday morning.

The kitchen looks beautiful, Lea made scrambled eggs, home fries, and fresh carrot/pineapple juice that were to die for, plus this delicious cinnamon role (made out of pizza dough that she bought from a local bakery). And Jon, good Pennsylvanian boy that he is, ironed up some tasty waffles which we all drizzled with blueberry compote, maple syrup, and Greek yogurt.

I may have mentioned before that both Jon and Lea are talented potters, so Sunday morning we drank and ate off of their beautifully handcrafted plates and mugs. Coffee and waffles definitely taste better this way.

I forgot my camera to document the deliciousness, but the lovely Danielle was there and managed to take all these pictures. All photo credits go completely to her! Her camera’s battery died 20 minutes in but being the resourceful type of lady that she is, she merely gave the battery a couple of licks and it worked like a charm!

A Healthy Midweek Meal

2010-05-27T21:42:00.001-04:00

While fresh basil is not quite in season yet, the unusually hot weather we experienced here in Rhode Island this week had me craving this lighter version of basil pesto.
Locally my mother is known as the “pesto queen” since during my childhood she ran a small pesto making business, selling it by the gallon to local restaurants and gourmet shops throughout South County. Every summer she would grow a large garden of basil, and would spend July and August weeding and later harvesting the basil in huge quantities. She did most of this herself, but would also often enlist local teenagers and more help from wonderful friends and neighbors.
Harvesting was a long process: we would clip the basil and put it on a big white sheet, which we would then carry over to a kiddie pool full of cold water where it would be washed thoroughly (this was a nice job on hot, humid August afternoons). Once it was washed it was put out to dry on big screens in the sunshine. When the basil was dry it was transferred back to a big white sheet which was put on the ground and then surrounded by “basil strippers.” This sounds exciting, I know, and while actual stripping would have been way more fun, these strippers were just lots of people sitting in beach chairs “stripping” the basil leaves off the stems. This took a long time, especially for the younger kids, and my mother would often get us to help by offering us ice cream sandwiches as incentive (which worked for me, obviously). Once all the basil was stripped it was transported in big baskets into the kitchen, where my mother would stand for hours feeding the basil leaves into an old meat grinder, which turned the basil into a dark green paste. The meat grinder always horrified me because I knew that if I stuck my fingers into while it was on, it would grind them up. Scary! The ground up basil was then put in the big freezer down stairs and frozen until my mother would get a pesto order.
This pesto recipe however, is not her famous one. I will post that someday I promise. Instead, this pesto is one that is much lighter and therefore more “figure friendly,” since most of the olive oil is replaced with chicken or vegetable stock. While this may not sound appetizing, the minced basil with garlic, pine nuts, and cheese makes it equally delectable. Put it over whole wheat pasta, along with some cheery tomatoes and grilled chicken thrown in and it is a really healthy and satisfying meal.

Simon also made a very tasty Bloody Mary Tuesday night, garnished with the last of my dilly beans from the summer. And the garden is now full of delicious salad greens, which we also ate, tossed with lots of balsamic vinegar and salt.

Figure Friendly Pesto

2 c. fresh basil, packed

2 cloves of garlic

¼- ½ c grated Parmesan cheese

¼. c pine nuts

¼ low sodium chicken stock

3 Tbs. olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Put everything in the food processor and pulse until it is a paste. Enjoy!

Add any of the following: grilled chopped chicken, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, sautéed zucchini, grilled shrimp etc.

Goat Cheese Danish, Thanks to the Lovely Andrea

2010-05-19T11:31:00.005-04:00

Before you say anything let me tell you that I know. I know. I have been neglecting the blog. I have been unfocused. I have been easily distracted. I haven’t even been cooking very much.

What have I been doing?

What have I been doing.

I’m not really sure. I guess part of what’s been going on is that the seasonal shift from winter to spring has finally happened. Now, instead of scurrying through the short days, trying to be as industrious as possible before darkness and cold descends, friends call at noon to say they are drinking beer on the porch. They say that they are enjoying the warmth and sunshine, and that I should come over. At noon. To drink. Sometimes on a Monday. But I didn’t just write that.

Or, there was that Saturday a few weekends back when a friend and I decided to tune up and dust off our bicycles so that we could take rides anytime, all the time. And since we fixed mine up (which had been sitting unused in the garage since I took a nasty spill during an unexpected rainstorm in 2008) I have been going for rides a lot, instead of making things.

Then last weekend my parents asked if I would help them in the garden. I planted rows of bush beans, and made little dirt mounds for zucchini, sprinkled basil seeds, and dill seeds, “Scarlet Nantes” carrot seeds. I watered little pepper plants, shoveled compost that was full of wiggling pink worms into the wheelbarrow. Helped my mother mulch the dahlia beds.

And then this happened:

Welcome to the wilderness little brother....

BUT THEN a few days ago my friend Andrea, who keeps goats, asked if I would like to come over and make goat cheese filled Danish.

And of course I said yes.

My friend Andrea, who I already told you keeps goats, has been making all sorts of delicious things with the goat milk. Fresh chevre, ricotta, yogurt, and ice cream.

Neither Andrea nor I had ever made Danish before, and the normal pastry dough recipe for Danish that Andrea and I found involved too many "roll out the dough and then refrigerate for 30 minutes” stages. Instead, we found a quick method recipe from the cookbook Baking With Julia, which worked beautifully. Andrea read the directions while I rolled out the dough, and then folded it. At first we didn’t understand why you have to keep rolling it out and then “fold it like a business letter.”

“What is the point of this?” I kept asking every time Andrea told me to do it. “Why does this matter?”

“I don’t know,” she kept responding. “Just do it.”

This question was answered when we took the adorable little Danish out of the oven and the dough had risen in little flaky, buttery, golden layers.

“This is why!” I cried holding the Danish in the palm of my hand. “By rolling it and and folding it over and over it makes it like this!”

Oh, the revelations of the self taught home cook. These are special moments indeed.

The goat cheese we used was a yogurt Andrea had made and then strained most of the liquid out of. The result was a delicious, soft cheese with a very understated tang. I don’t know how Andrea has been making the cheese. She is just going to have to enlighten us about it by guest blogging here soon.

We made two different combinations for the Danish. The first was goat cheese with stewed rhubarb from Andrea’s garden. I just put it in a pot with a little water and brown sugar and let it cook down. Then we also made a batch with the goat cheese and some lemon marmalade Andrea got at the farmer’s market. These were good too, and tasted sort of like lemon meringue pie.

Originally we were going to make the Danish into a “pinwheel” shape, as described in the Joy of Cooking. But I cut the squares too small so we just ended up leaving them as squares and then placing the cheese and filling on top. They were delicious.

My friend Rose and her daughter Ella arrived just as the Danish were conveniently coming out of the oven.

How many did you eat Rosie?!

I think it was at least five.

Danish Pastry, from Baking With Julia

Ingredients:

1/4 cup warm water (105ºF to 115ºF)
2-1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 cup milk, at room temperature
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 sticks (8 ounces) cold unsalted butter

Instructions:

Mixing the Dough

Pour the water into a large bowl, sprinkle over the yeast, and let it soften for a minute. Add the milk, egg, sugar, and salt and whisk to mix; set aside.

Put the flour in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Cut the butter into 1/4-inch-thick slices and drop them onto the flour. Pulse 8 to 10 times, until the butter is cut into pieces that are about 1/2 inch in diameter. Don't overdo this — the pieces must not be smaller than 1/2 inch.

Empty the contents of the food processor into the bowl with the yeast and, working with a rubber spatula, very gently turn the mixture over, scraping the bowl as needed, just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Again, don't be too energetic-the butter must remain in discrete pieces so that you will produce a flaky pastry, not a bread or cookie dough.

Chilling the Dough

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough overnight or for up to 4 days, (if that better suits your schedule).

Rolling and Folding

Lightly flour a work surface (a cool surface, such as marble, is ideal), turn the dough out onto it, and dust the dough lightly with flour. Using the palms of your hands, pat the dough into a rough square. Then roll it into a square about 16 inches on a side. (A French rolling pin, one without handles, is best here.) Fold the dough in thirds, like a business letter, and turn it so that the closed fold is to your left, like the spine of a book. (if at any time the dough gets too soft to roll, just cover it with plastic wrap and pop it into the refrigerator for a quick chill.)

Roll the dough out again, this time into a long narrow rectangle, about 10 inches wide by 24 inches long. Fold the rectangle in thirds again, turn it so the closed fold is to your left, and roll it into a 20-inch square. Fold the square in thirds, like a business letter, so that you have a rectangle, turning it so that the closed fold is to your left, and, once more, roll the dough into a long narrow rectangle, 10 inches wide by 24 inches long. Fold in thirds again, wrap the dough well in plastic, and chill it for at least 30 minutes, or for as long as 2 days. (Depending on what you plan to do with the dough, you might want to divide it in half now.)

The dough is now ready to be shaped, filled, and baked, following the recipes of your choice.

The dough can be kept covered in the refrigerator for 4 days or wrapped airtight and frozen for 1 month; thaw overnight, still wrapped, in the refrigerator.

Yield: Makes 2 pounds of dough

Bluebird Sings Spring Songs

2010-05-04T11:22:00.007-04:00

Last week I was invited to judge my old elementary school’s Pie Baking Contest, which is just one of the many exciting events at the school’s annual May Fair.

When I was little I used to wait with bated breath for the May Fair every year. It was quite the social event, complete with a Maypole, dancing, face painting, flower crowns, and sticks with streamers tied onto them that we would wave around excitedly.

The Pie Contest is a fairly new addition to the festivities, and I took the job seriously from the get go. My friend Lea also agreed to judge, and on Saturday we arrived ready to eat lots of pie.

Actually this is not entirely true. Originally I was excited to eat lots of pie, and I thought it was a great idea until I began thinking about it more, whereupon I realized that this could potentially be too much pie. It started to give me anxiety.

“Lea” I said, my voice heavy with concern. “Even if we just take one bite of every pie- say there are forty pies? That will still be like eating an entire pie on our own, at least. I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Maybe we can do it like wine tasting,” she said trying to ease my nerves. “We can take a bite and chew it just enough to taste it, and then spit it out.”

I thought about this for a minute, and tried to imagine sticking a forkful of oh, say, chocolate cream pie in my mouth, chewing it (sort of) and then spitting it out.

“That’s impossible,” I said to Lea. “How can you only partially chew pie? How can you taste it without swallowing it? It will just dissolve in our mouths before we can spit it out. We have to eat it.”

“That would be so gross anyway,” she said. "Imagine."

So I was resigned to the excessive pie consumption that seemed inevitable, and made a mental note to take an epic bike ride later that day.

But once we arrived we quickly realized that all my worries were for naught because only two adults entered pies! The pie contest would have been a total bust if it wasn't for the “Under 14” category in which about ten pies were entered.

Suddenly our task seemed much more manageable, and we got to work tasting and rating on a scale of 1-5 (five being the best), for crust, filling, originality, presentation, and overall tastiness. Since there were not that many pies entered I admit I did indulge in repeated tastes of the same pie. With most of the pies. Okay all of them. But Lea and I did go for a bike ride that afternoon- I swear.

The pies were all delicious, but I do have a few personal favorites:

The first was an apple pie that was decorated with a ceramic blackbird poking out of the middle, and then little dough “eggs” that were dyed blue. I was instantaneously deeply in love with the kid who conceptualized this one. The apples weren’t cooked through and some weren’t peeled, but I didn’t care. It was just so sweet! And the girl who made it even wrote on the recipe card “bluebird sings spring songs.”

My heart melted.

The grand prize winner went to Owen Gilmartin for his outstanding Old Fashioned Lemon Pie with Macadamia Coconut Crust. It was also decorated with glazed blackberries and raspberries. Taste, presentation, and overall deliciousness made this one the winner.

There was also an insanely delicious sweet potato squash pie, with a huge mound of whipped cream on top. This was one of the two pies made by a parent, but the spices in the filling gave it a wonderful warm and complex flavor.

Happy May Day!

Cooked Poem: Ode to an Artichoke, and some Jong and Child

2010-04-26T20:17:00.005-04:00

For Simon
This Cooked Poem on the artichoke was completely accidental. The artichokes just looked so lovely in the grocery store on Saturday that I had to take them home with me. And because they looked so lovely, and complicated, I thought there has to be at least one poem that has been written in the last several hundred years that is about the artichoke. I found “Ode to an Artichoke,” by Pablo Neruda, and then sure enough, Erica Jong has her own poem about the artichoke in response to Neruda’s. She also has one in response to Julia Child’s instructions on the preparation of an artichoke. I therefore decided it would be appropriate to include everyone for this Cooked Poem. The artichoke was grown and harvested, Neruda was inspired and wrote a poem, Jong read Neruda’s poem, ate the artichoke and responded, and she also read Child and responded. Then I read Neruda, Jong, and Child, cooked the artichoke and ate it.

All this inspiration from what is really just the flower head of a thorny thistle.

I decided to dedicate this Cooked Poem to my brother Simon, who is the most passionate artichoke lover I have ever known. Since childhood, Simon has delighted in the ritual of pulling off each leaf, dipping it in the lemony vinaigrette, and then scraping the leaf between clenched teeth to get at the tender flesh.

So I thought about him as I sat at the table tonight, with the rain outside, doing just this.

They really are so delicious.

"Ode to an Artichoke," by Pablo Neruda

The artichoke
of delicate heart
erect
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.

And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a pot.

So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart.

Here are sections 11 and 12 from Jong’s poem “Fruits and Vegetables.”

11

(Artichoke, after Child): Holding the heart base up, rotate it slowly with your left hand against the blade of a knife held firmly in your right hand to remove all pieces of ambition & expose the pale surface of the heart. Frequently rub the cut portions with gall. Drop each heart as it is finished into acidulated water. The choke can be removed after cooking.

12

(Artichoke, after Neruda)

It is green at the artichoke heart,
but remember the times
you flayed
leaf and leaf,
hoarding the pale silver paste
behind the fortress of your teeth,
tonguing the vinaigrette,
only to find the husk of a worm
at the artichoke heart?
The palate reels like a wronged lover.
Was all that sweetness counterfeit?
Must you vomit back
world after vegetable world
for the sake of one worm
in the green garden of the heart?

Here are Julia Child’s instructions, from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Preparation for Cooking:

One at a time, prepare the artichokes as follows:

Remove the stem by bending it at the base of the artichoke until it snaps off, thus detaching with the stem any tough filaments which may have pushed up into the heart.

Break off the small leaves at the base of the artichoke. Trim the base with a knife so the artichoke will stand solidly upright.

Lay the artichoke on its side and slice three quarters of an inch off the top of the center cone of leaves. Trim off the points of the rest of the leaves with scissors. Wash under cold running water.

Rub the cut portions of the artichoke with lemon juice. Drop it into a basin of cold water containing 1 tablespoon of vinegar per quart of water. The acid prevents the artichoke from discoloring.

Artichauts Au Natural

6 artichokes prepared for cooking as in the preceding directions

A large kettle containing 7 to 8 quarts of boiling water

1 ½ tsp salt per quart of water

Drop the prepared artichokes in the boiling, salted water. Bring water back to the boil as rapidly as possible and boil slowly, uncovered, for 35 to 45 minutes. The artichokes are done when the leaves pull out easily and the bottoms are tender when pierced with a knife.

Immediately remove them from the kettle with skimmer or spoon and drain them upside down in a colander.

Boiled artichokes may be served hot, warm, or cold.

Bite the Apple

2010-04-20T12:36:00.002-04:00

I just re-read my last post and I counted nine exclamation points.

Nine.

And this is not including the title, which also happens to include an exclamation point. What could possibly have been so exciting that I was compelled to use an exclamation point nine times in four paragraphs? I’m not entirely sure, but I guess that’s what happens when I drink three glasses of wine while writing on a Saturday night. But I suppose happy, enthusiastic typing on the computer is better than the alternative, right? And some of you know what this alternative is, either because you know me, or because it's something that has happened to you too.

So to make up for my overly zealous punctuation use, there will zero exclamation points used in this post. This post is going to be very serious, and I will use only periods and commas.

Like this.

I have updated the about page and hope to get around to the cooked poem page soon. Check it out. I guess this is where I would use an exclamation point, in order to convey excitement and urgency, but I can’t. Anyway, writing an about page is hard. It’s hard to sum things up, but I tried my best.

I also decided to share with you those Cappuccino Bars I made on Saturday. They were okay, but they were not great. I can’t lie to you. The flavor was good but they were a little dry.

Anyway, you should go ahead and make them anyway. You’ll probably make them come out better then I did and then you can let me know what I did wrong.

Cappuccino Bars

2 sticks of butter, softened

1 ½ c. self rising cake flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

1 c. sugar

4 eggs

2 Tbs. instant espresso (or regular coffee, just add an extra tablespoon) dissolved in 2 Tbs. of hot water

Sift the flour, baking powder, and cocoa into a bowl and add the butter, sugar, eggs, and coffee. Beat well and then pour into a greased baking baking pan.

Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. Cool and frost with the white chocolate frosting. Cut into squares.

White Chocolate Frosting

½ c. white chocolate chips

4 Tbs. butter

3 Tbs. milk

1 ¾ c. confectioners’ sugar

In a double boiler melt the chocolate, butter, and milk. When it has melted remove from heat and whisk in the confectioners’ sugar. Spread over the cake and dust with more powdered sugar.

Changes!

2010-04-17T21:21:00.014-04:00

Making some changes over here to Sophie Writes! Bear with me please as I am horrendous and impatient at dealing with all this website stuff, and it is only because of an extensive phone date with Chelsea this morning that things are starting to look a little more put together. I’m learning. But I’ll warn you, if you visit the site sometime in the next few weeks and things are looking a bit, errr, crazy, it’s probably only because for a fleeting moment I reached the threshold of my tolerance with all this and Had! To! Walk! Away!

In all seriousness though, I am very excited about the changes to the website, and to celebrate I made cappuccino bars. They are currently cooling on the kitchen counter and I don’t have any pictures of them. Instead I thought I would post a couple pictures and the recipe for this butterscotch layer cake I made months ago and never shared with you. I know! I have a lot of these posts that never made it to the site unfortunately. But don’t worry; I’m working on fixing this too.

There is a little story to this cake but for discretion’s sake I won’t go into too many of the details. Suffice it to say I was involved in an unpleasant misunderstanding with someone here in town for several years. We share many mutual friends so understandably this affected a large part of both of our lives. I had wanted to clear the air for months but just wasn’t quite sure how to do it. Amazingly, she had been feeling the same way and took the initiative to invite me over one night to a small get together at her house (where all my other friends were going to be as well, of course). As it turned out, the misunderstanding was completely unfounded and silly, and we both lamented the fact it had taken us FOUR YEARS to resolve it. Onward!

This cake is what I made to bring over that night, as a peace offering. The cake was really a bit over the top but is an accurate representation of just how thrilled I was to be finally moving beyond everything. Nothing says I am sorry, I am happy we can be friends, this has gone on way too long, like a dense, sweet, buttery, fattening, sugar filled, creamy frosting smeared cake.

This, or a bottle of whiskey, something we also had that night.

The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess. Sorry I don’t have photos of the finished product. Yet again, the drinks started flowing as soon as I walked in the door and I couldn’t be bothered with taking pictures of the cake all gussied up with frosting and drizzled butterscotch. Between you and me, I did think it looked rather obscene. Sort of like an overly eager 16-year-old-girl with too much make-up on, who you feel bad for because she is obviously trying too hard. I can't help it! I was just so happy to be there!

Butterscotch Layer Cake

For the Icing:
1 c. sugar
½ c. cold water
1 ¼ c. heavy cream
14 ounces cream cheese at room temp.

For the cake:

1 c. unsalted butter, very soft
7 Tbs. brown sugar
½ c. sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/2 c. self-rising cake flour
2-4 Tbs. heavy cream

Grease and line 2 8x2 inch cake pans.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make the icing first by dissolving the sugar and water over low heat, remembering not to stir it at all while you do this. When it is dissolved, turn up the heat and boil it until it turns a dark golden color. This will take about 10-15 minutes.

Take off the heat and slowly whisk in the cream. Place back over for another minute, whisking until it is smooth and combined. Cool, and then refrigerate until you need it.

Put all the ingredients for the cake except the cream into the food processor and pulse until it is smooth. Scrape down the sides and then pulse again, this time adding a couple tablespoons of the cream. Check the consistency; if it is runny then stop, otherwise add 1-2 more tablespoons of cream.

Divide the batter into the two pans and bake for about 25 minutes. Turn out of pans and let cool on a wire rack.

Beat the cream cheese until softened and then add a cupful of the caramel. Beat gently to combine.

Put one cake layer on a plate. Using a spatula spread just under half of the icing over the top. Place the other cake on top and then ice the top of that cake with the remaining icing. Using a teaspoon drizzle some of the reserved caramel over the cake.

Cooked Poem: The Eggplant Epithalamion

2010-04-14T16:50:00.022-04:00

The poem selected for this month’s cooked poem is from Erica Jong’s Half-Lives, and is a poem devoted entirely to one of my favorite ingredients, the eggplant.She has many poems about food in fact, and this morning I had a difficult time picking which one I wanted to use. She has one about borscht, one on carrots, and one on Chinese food. Her first published volume of poetry is actually titled Fruits and Vegetables, and has, not surprisingly, poems all about onions, avocados, artichokes, and rice.

This morning I vacillated for a long time between her poems “Chinese Food” and “The Eggplant Epithalamion.” Eggplants are out of season I thought , and I should wait until August when their round little bodies have ripened in the garden, along with the tomatoes, parsley, and basil. But when I thought about making pork filled won tons, on such a beautiful spring day, I realized that I should make what I want to eat. Baked, garlicky eggplant just seemed so much more appealing, and so “The Eggplant Epithalamion” won.

The Eggplant Epithalamion

“Mostly you eat eggplant at least once a day,” she explained. “A Turk won’t marry a woman unless she can cook eggplant at least a hundred ways.”

-Archaeologist Iris Love, speaking of the cuisine on digs in Turkey. The New York Times, February 4, 1971

There are more than a hundred Turkish poems

about eggplant.

I would like to give you all of them.

If you scoop out every seed,

you can read me backward

like an Arabic book.

Look.

(Lament in Aubergine)

Oh aubergine,

egg-shaped

& as shiny as if freshly laid-

You are a melancholy fruit.

Solanum Melongena.

Every animal is sad

after eggplant.

(Byzantine Eggplant Fable)

Once upon a time on the coast of Turkey

there live a woman who could cook eggplant 99 ways.

She could slice eggplant thin as paper.

She could write poems on it & batter-fry it.

She could bake eggplant & broil it.

She could even roll the seeds in banana-

flavored cigarette papers

& get her husband high on eggplant.

But he was not pleased.

He went to her father & demanded his bride-price back.

He said he’d been cheated.

He wanted back two goats, twelve chickens

& a camel as reparation.

His wife wept & wept.

Her father raved.

The next day she gave birth to an eggplant.

It was premature & green

& she had to sit on it for days

before it hatched.

“This is my hundredth eggplant recipe,” she screamed.

“I hope you’re satisfied!”

(Thank Allah that the eggplant was a boy.)

(Love & the Eggplant)

On the warm coast of Turkey, Miss Love

eats eggplant

“at least once a day.”

How fitting that love should eat eggplant,

That most aphrodisiac fruit.

Fruit of the womb

Of Asia Minor,

reminiscent of eggs,

of Istanbul’s deep purple nights

& the Byzantine eyes of Christ.

I remember the borders of egg & dart

fencing us off from the flowers & fruit

of antiquity.

I remember the egg & the tongue

probing the lost scrolls of love.

I remember the ancient faces

of Aphrodite

hidden by dust

in the labyrinth under

the British Museum

to be finally found by Miss Love

right there

near Great Russell Square.

I think of the hundreds of poems of the eggplant

& my friends who have fallen in love

over an eggplant,

who have opened the eggplant together,

who have swum in its seeds,

who have clung in the egg of the eggplant

& have rocked to sleep

in love’s dark purple boat.

For a long time I steered away from cooking eggplant because how to prepare it always seemed to elude me. It wasn’t until the last time I was in Italy with my grandmother that I started to cook it and realized that eggplants are not as intimidating as I had thought. I would buy the little eggplants at the market and when my grandmother would get up from her afternoon nap she would slice them and salt them and leave them to rest under a dishtowel on the kitchen counter for me. Often I would just grill them on the stove top with some olive oil, and we would eat them for dinner sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, chopped parsley, more olive oil, and salt and pepper. Once, I prepared them this same way and then topped them with leftover Bolognese sauce, which was delicious since the eggplant’s meaty flesh can stand up so well to the heavy tomato sauce.

But since Jong’s poem is all about Turkish eggplants, I thought I should try to make something less familiar. And since Turkish women are supposed to be able to cook eggplant 100 different ways, I figured I should make more than just one eggplant dish. So I made two. As the eggplants baked away in the oven this afternoon, my apartment was filled with their earthy, moody scent.

Both of these dishes were simple and relatively easy to make. The Turkish Eggplant Salad is surprisingly light and airy, and tastes delicious sandwiched between a piece of pita bread. I chopped up the eggplant into chunks, but I think it would also work to puree the whole thing in the food processor and make it more into a spread. The baked eggplant recipe came from a North African cookbook, and the filling is wonderfully flavorful and satisfying.

Turkish Eggplant Salad with Garlic and Yogurt from Fay Levy’s International Vegetable Cookbook2 medium eggplants (total 2 to 2 1/2 pounds)

2 or 3 medium garlic cloves, finely minced

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons lemon juice

5 to 6 tablespoons plain yogurt

salt and freshly ground pepper

cayenne pepper to taste

Cut the eggplants in half and prick several times with a fork. Bake at 400 F for about 1 hour. When done, eggplant’s flesh should be tender and eggplant should look collapsed. Remove eggplant peel, cut off stem, and drain off any liquid from inside eggplant. Chop flesh into cubes with a knife.Transfer eggplant to a bowl. Add garlic and mix well. Stir in olive oil, lemon juice and yogurt. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper; season generously. (Salad can be kept, covered, 2 days in refrigerator.)

Aubergines Farcies (Baked Stuffed Eggplant) from Kitty Morse’s The Vegetarian Table: North Africa

2 medium eggplants

3 tbs. olive oil, plus olive oil for drizzling

1 onion, chopped

4 tomatoes

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 c. dried bread crumbs

1/3 c. Parmesan cheese, grated

Handful of parsley, minced

8 basil leaves, chopped

1 tsp. harisa or red chili paste

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the broiler. Trim the stems from the eggplants and cut in half length wise. With a sharp knife, remove the flesh, leaving a 1/4 –inch-thick shell. Chop the eggplant flesh and set aside.

Brush the inside shells with olive oil and place in an oven proof dish. Broil them until they turn light brown, 4-5 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a skillet, heat a couple tbs. of the olive oil and cook the onion, until tender 6-8 minutes. Coarsely chop two of the tomatoes and add to the onion. Add the eggplant, reduce heat, and cook until the eggplant is tender, covered, 8-10 minutes.

Transfer the eggplant mixture to a bowl and mix with the garlic, bread crumbs, cheese, parsley, basil, harisa (or chili paste), salt and pepper. Fill the shells with this mixture. Slice the remaining tomatoes and arrange them on top of the eggplant. Drizzle with olive oil and bake until lightly browned, 25-30 minutes. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Bohemian Kolaches

2010-04-07T10:36:00.006-04:00

As part of my mother’s ongoing quest for her cultural identity, she announced a few days before Easter that she wanted to make kolaches for the occasion. Kolaches, for those of you who are not familiar, are fruit filled pastries of Slavic origin. I had never had one- or even seen one, I don’t think.
When questioned further by my father about why she wanted to add making them to her already long list of things to do that weekend, she said she felt she had to make them before she died, because it’s “part of her heritage.”
The recipe for “Bohemian Kolaches” she dug up came from another vintage bread baking book, Homemade Bread, published in 1969. I’ve developed a real affinity for these old cookbooks not only because they have great recipes, but because the language and notes to the cook (who is obviously an eager to please housewife) are pretty funny. For example, underneath the title “Bohemian Kolaches” it declares that they are “fruity and gay.” Fruity and gay! You don’t say! Let’s make them right now!
The book also contains a litany of suggestions and advice aimed at helping you become the most formidable homemaker of all time.
“If you want to collect compliments for the bread you bake, do make Kolaches.”
Well, now that you mention it, I do want to collect compliments, for everything I do.
“Some women consider Kolaches tedious to make, but almost everyone believes they’re worth the effort.”
That’s okay, I have all the time in the world to stand at the counter, making “tedious” things. Especially if it is going to impress my guests.
“Arrange the apricot-and prune-filled rolls, dusted with confectioners sugar, on a tray for your next tea or coffee party, or pass to guests with coffee at any time of the day.”
I’m especially grateful they included this direction, because I don’t think I would have been able to think of doing this with the Kolaches myself.
The book also has small historic anecdotes too, about the origin of the “crescent roll” for example. (I won’t go into it, but it involves Turks, and tunnels, and nighttime bakers in Vienna.)
While this was supposed to be my mother’s project, I was the one who initially ended up making them Saturday afternoon. I say “initially” because I ended up reading the directions incorrectly and totally screwed everything up . I added the yeast to the scalded milk instead of to the warm water, thereby failing to activate the yeast, and was left with a heavy, somewhat dry ball of dough. Half an hour after setting my dough to rise, I excitedly peeked under the dishtowel expecting to see the glorious ball of dough, shiny and swollen, expanding like a balloon, only to realize it hadn’t change a bit. Not one bit!
It was my mother who identified my mistake, and I, who was growing increasingly less enthusiastic, decided to toss my failed kolache dough into the compost bucket.
“I’ll just whip up some more dough,” she said. “You go and relax.”
So I did. And she made the kolaches, which ended up being beautiful and sweet and very impressive. She even hauled my discarded dough out of the compost and invented a delicious, round, loafy thing filled with dried fruit and nuts, which we ate Easter morning. I think it all worked out and that her Aunt Mary, and all the other Czech mothers that had come before her, were looking down on her, knowing that from the beginning baking the kolaches was meant to be her task.

Bohemian Kolaches
½ cup milk
2 pkgs. Active dry yeast
½ cup warm water
¾ cup butter
½ sugar
1 tsp. salt
4 egg yolks
4 ½ cup all purpose flour

Scald the milk; cool to lukewarm.
Sprinkle yeast on warm water; stir to dissolve.
Cream butter, sugar, salt and egg yolks together until light and fluffy. Add yeast, milk and 1 ½ cups of the flour. Beat for 5 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally. Batter should be smooth.
Stir in enough remaining flour, a little at a time, to make a soft dough that leaves the sides of the bowl. Place in lightly greased bowl, turn dough over to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, 1 to 1 ½ hours.
Stir down; turn onto lightly floured board and divide into 24 pieces of equal size. Shape each piece into a ball. Cover and let rest 10 to 15 minutes.
Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets; press each piece of dough from center outward with fingers of both hands to make a hollow in center with a ½” rim around the edge. Fill each hollow with 1 Tbs. of filling.
Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, 30 to 40 minutes.
Bake at 350 for 15 to 18 minutes, or until light brown. Brush tops of rolls with melted butter and sprinkle lightly with confectioners sugar.

Prune Filling
Cook 30 prunes in water to cover until tender. Drain and then mash with a fork and stir in ¼ cup of sugar and ¼ tsp. allspice. Filling should be thick. Makes enough for 14 kolaches.

Apricot Filling
Cook 25 dried apricots (about 1 cup) the same way as the prunes. Also mash with fork or in the food processor, adding ¼ c. sugar. Filling should also be thick and will make enough for 10 kolaches.

March Cooked Poem: "Mele in Gabbia"

2010-03-29T19:05:00.006-04:00

Several weeks ago when I was looking for a poem for this post, I noticed that Jane Hirshfield also has many poems about food. She writes about sticky figs and leatherskinned pomegranates. She also has one about a lover whose fingernails are blackened with marjoram and thyme and who mercilessly cuts up vegetables into very small pieces on the kitchen’s butcherblock. When I started reading her poems years ago this was not something I had noticed. It therefore was a new discovery, and one poem in particular, “Mele in Gabbia,” struck me as particularly tasty as I read each line.
I then started thinking about this one writing strategy I was taught in an education class in which you present students with a painting or photograph, and then have them generate a piece of writing from the image. They can write a poem, a story, or a song. Many writers and poets have done this (Ekphrasis is the official term to denote writing concerning itself with the visual arts), and my professor showed us Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus as an example, and then William Carlos Williams's poem that was written as a result of the famous painting, also appropriately titled “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.”
So then I thought, why not generate a recipe from a poem, just like a writer would generate a poem from a picture? “Mele in Gabbia” would be the perfect first poem to do this with! Surely I can make these little apple pastries that inspired Hirshfield's poem, I thought. And surely there are countless other poems that can inspire a culinary creation of some sort too. William Carlos Williams also wrote that little poem about the plums, Pablo Neruda is always comparing some lover’s body to a loaf of bread, and Billy Collins has a poem entitled “Osso Buco,” after all.
And hence my new blog project, Poems Cooked was born! That’s right, I know you are all as excited as I am to learn that every month from now until whenever, I will feature a poem inspired recipe. I will find a poem that describes a food or ingredient in detail, research the recipe, attempt to make it, and post it here for all of you. And please! Feel free to send me any poem you think is fit to be cooked!
I hereby now commence the Cooked Poem Project, but in truth, this first one is really a baked poem, since we are dealing with pastry. Here it is:

Mele in Gabbia
The pastry
is dusted with sugar.
The slices of apple inside,
just sour enough.

The name,
“apples in a cage.”

I eat them
in this good place-
the pastry warm,
a little bit chewy,
the linen
impeccably white-
and consider.

I had never encountered or even heard of “mele in gabbia” until I read this poem. I asked my father, who grew up in Italy, if he had ever eaten "mele in gabbia."

"No, never." He said.

Some internet research revealed that mele in gabbia is in fact just this, a baked apple in a pastry “cage.” I must admit that I do not traditionally enjoy making pastry. I find it annoying. But for the sake of the project I decided I would take it on. I found a recipe for pate brisee, which I had also never heard of before, and got to work.

Midway through, as I attempted to roll out my pate brisee and “encage” the apples, I realized I had perhaps embarked on something rather beyond my ability level. Every time I lifted my cut pastry to cover the apple, it would break into many small pieces and fall onto the counter (see photo # 4). I found myself cursing under my breath and declaring that if I was to ever try and make "mele in gabbia" (or whatever the heck it is) again, it would have to be for an extremely special person. An Extremely. Special. Person.

By the time I had gotten the apples somewhat successfully encaged in pate brisee, it dawned on me that it really is not as difficult as I was making it out to be. Patience is really all you need here, and the ability to not overcomplicate things, which I have a tendency to do. I think the first run through was the toughest, and that making it again would be much less complicated. So instead of an extremely special person, you really could make this for just a special person, if you really wanted.

Hishfield described the pastry as “a little bit chewy,” but mine was not. It was delicious and buttery, but not chewy. It is a rather simple dessert, since the apple is only brushed with water, and the pate brisee is not very sweet. The dates in the middle of the baked apple therefore gave it a little extra sweetness, which I think is a wise addition. A little ice cream on top would probably be nice with this too, but I just ate it plain.

Mele in Gabbia (Apples in a Cage)

8 dates, pitted and diced
4 apples (I prefer tart baking apples, like Granny Smiths) peeled and cored
2 jasmine tea bags
Pate brisee
Confectioners sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Submerge the dates in the tea and let them infuse for ten minutes. Drain and stuff the cavity of each cored apple with the dates. Brush apple with some water and set aside.

Quarter the pate brisee and roll each quarter out into a disk (do each apple/dough disk one at a time).
Cut a small hole in the middle of the disk, and then make small slices radiating out from the hole (like a sunshine, sort of). With a spatula carefully lift the dough and place it over the apple so the hole is at the top of the apple. Carefully press the dough together at the bottom of the apple and then place the “caged” apple on in a baking pan. Bake the apples for about an hour and a half, until the apple is completely baked through.

Pate Brisee (the pastry dough)

1 ¾ c. flour
2/3 c. butter, cut into small pieces
1 tsp. sugar
1 egg
1 Tbs. cold milk

Put the flour, butter, sugar, and egg in the food processor and pulse until the dough takes on a grainy texture. Add the milk and pulse until the dough comes together. Remove from food processor and form into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.

Today

2010-03-19T16:46:00.004-04:00

I read this poem last night and it was so perfect I almost posted it, but then didn't. While I was walking down Narragansett beach this afternoon I couldn't get the line about the hammer and the paperweight out of my head, and the sun was so bright, my body so warm.
Before I got out of the car I had sat in the beach parking lot and wondered if I should take my shoes off. Was it too soon? Would I look ridiculous, parading down the shore with my naked, white feet? Clearly impatient, clearly foolish.
I left them on.
After I walked a little while I noticed that most people had chosen otherwise. The beach was littered, all the way down, with bare footprints.

Today

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

From Nine Horses: Poems, by Billy Collins

Monday Night Dinner

2010-03-15T21:03:00.007-04:00

Before you say anything I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “What two blog posts in one day!? What gives? Don’t you work? Don’t you have anything better to do?!” And the answer to that is that actually, no, I did not work today. And if you live in South County and dared to venture outside the house you will have also noticed that it is still raining. I mean seriously nature, it’s still raining? HAVEN’T YOU HAD ENOUGH? Because I have. Obviously.
Anyway, I decided to make my parents and our friend Glen dinner tonight, because the bottom line is that my parents are wonderful people and I realize I don’t do nearly enough for them. I really should do so much more. So I told them to relax and that I would be responsible for putting food on the table, just this one time. I told them to enjoy it because it won’t happen again for a loooong time.
I’m kidding! I make them dinner all the time….
Onion soup is one of my personal favorites, and I thought it would be appropriate considering aforementioned weather conditions. The recipe comes from a great cookbook, Bakery Lane Soup Bowl, and as long as you have a food processor to slice all the onions, it’s a simple and straightforward recipe. I also made garlic croutons to go on top, along with shredded Swiss cheese. Very tasty.
The Raspberry Clafoutis is a lovely baked confection I have newly discovered. I know it sounds like some sort of awful venereal disease, but I promise it does not taste like one. It's a French dessert that is traditionally made with cherries, however I used rapberries. Really, I think just about any type of fruit used for this would be delicious. It’s a quick, loose batter to make and only takes 30 minutes in the oven. Simple and gratifying. The cheery lemon flavor with the raspberries is like a little bit of sunshine with each bite.
Onion Soup au Gratin from Bakery Lane Soup Bowl
1 ½ lbs. yellow onions, thinly sliced
3 Tbs. butter
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
3 Tbs. flour
2 quarts beef stock
½ cup dry vermouth
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbs. cognac
Combine onions, butter and oil in a large soup pot. Cover and simmer over low heat 15-20 minutes, or until the onions wilt. Uncover and raise heat to medium. Sprinkle with salt and sugar and sauté about 45 minutes, stirring frequently, until onions are a deep golden brown.
Sprinkle flour over the onions and continue cooking for about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in stock. Bring to a boil and add the vermouth, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes, stir in cognac and serve. Top with garlic croutons and grated Swiss cheese.
Garlicky Parmesan Croutons
Half a loaf of bread cut into cubes (French baguette, ciabatta- anything lying around will do really)
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. butter
Two cloves of garlic, minced
Salt
½ grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt the oil and butter in a skillet and sauté the garlic. Add the cubes of bread and cook for about 5 minutes, until they have absorbed the fats and start to brown slightly. Sprinkle with salt and put on a baking sheet. Toast in the over for about 15 minutes, until they toast more and become dry and brown (doesn’t sound good, but it is). Take them out of the oven and toss with Parmesan cheese. Put on top of soup!
Raspberry Clafoutis
½ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup plus 2 Tbs. sugar
Pinch of salt
3 eggs
3 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
Grated zest of one lemon
¼ cup plus 2 Tbs. milk
3 cups raspberries
Preheat oven to 350 and grease a pie dish. In a bowl whisk together the sugar, four, and salt. Whisk in butter, eggs, and lemon zest and mix until smooth. Add the milk and whisk about 3 more minutes until nice and smooth. Pour into pie dish and top with raspberries. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the clafoutis is set and golden. Cool slightly, but serve warm. You can dust the top with some confectioners sugar if you feel so inclined.

Boiled Supper

2010-03-15T14:18:00.009-04:00

Sunday morning was spring forward, and the culmination of this with a little too much to drink the night before, a fallen tree in the driveway, and the continued stormy weather caused me to move much slower than usual. After re-heating an old burrito for breakfast and drinking a couple cups of coffee in quick succession, I decided to venture down the driveway to assess the tree situation and any other possible damage from Saturday night's storm. I stared at the tree for a few minutes before shoving it with my hip thinking that just maybe I could move it myself. But after looking at it a little bit longer it was apparent that to move it would definitely require a chainsaw- and like, a man. Or a bad-ass lady, the definition of which I was anything but at 11 o’clock yesterday morning.
So instead I opted to give into isolation and an extended mid day bath. This was an exceptionally good idea. An hour later I emerged, warm and pruney, only to see the neighbors car drive slowly up the driveway, signaling that someone else had taken the initiative to move the tree. I admit a small part of me was disappointed because, you know, no more excuses.
When Rose called at 3 o’clock I was still doing absolutely nothing. Wait, that’s not true, I was doing something but I am not going to tell you what it was because it’s too embarrassing. I shouldn’t of even written that part. I should delete all of this. Oh the regret. Anyway, let’s just say I was watching TV when Rose called to tell me that our friend Katie was making boiled cabbage and corned beef for dinner and was I interested in going over.
Yes, I said, I very much was.
Two minutes later Katie called to tell me the same thing, and I told her I already knew and that I was already coming.
Corned beef and cabbage is one of those things that as a child I found utterly repulsive, but as an adult I find exceptionally satisfying and delicious. It’s so simple! And with a little vinegar over the boiled vegetables, some extra salt, and a squirt of mustard for the brisket (on a windy night) it is supreme. Katie, good Irish girl that she is, made this boiled supper with the expert's touch, and I have to admit I was feeling pretty in love with her by the end of the night for feeding me such sustaining food. It was one of those meals that unexpectedly nourishes more than just the stomach.
Boiled Corned Beef and Cabbage Supper a la Katie Martin
3 lbs. corned beef brisket
2 Tbs. pickling spices
2 onions, quartered
6-8 potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 lbs carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
1-2 cabbages cut into 6-8 wedges
Put the brisket, pickling spices, and onion in a large pot or Dutch oven and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer until the brisket is cooked through (this will take about 2-3 hours).
Take the brisket out of the pot and transfer to a baking sheet. Put the brisket in a 375 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, just enough time to crisp up the outside of the brisket. Meanwhile, put the remaining vegetables into the pot, cover, and boil about 20 minutes, until all the veggies are nice and tender.
Transfer the vegetables onto a platter, cut up the brisket and serve! A little vinegar for the veggies and some mustard is a tasty added touch.

Not-Yet Flan

2010-03-03T21:02:00.011-05:00

I have to be truthful and say I am sort of at a loss for any kind of commentary to go along with this flan I made on Sunday. I don’t have a good story to share, and while it almost made me say forget it, I’m not writing anything, I thought surely there must be some way to get around this lackluster mood I am in. Right? Right. So I have been thinking that instead of a story, how about a morning poem? Yes, a morning poem would be lovely.
I decided to flip open an old volume of poems I have by Jane Hirschfield, and this is the first one I read. I thought it was funny because the poem just happens to be about not yets, and the last blog post I wrote had to do with not yets as well. And when I read the poem over once more, I realized that one of the reasons why I feel as though I don’t have anything to write is because my whole week has really been a bunch of not yets, too. It is not yet spring, I have not yet gotten that job, and my flan is not yet very good. Usually this would not bother me so much except that lately I have been feeling ready. I am ready for the ground to thaw, for movement, and for my stupid flan to come out right. But then I find this poem and am reminded that along with all these not yets, it is important to realize that I am also not yet dead. No, I am not yet dead at all, and things are not yet over.

Not-Yet, by Jane Hirshfield

Morning of buttered toast;
of coffee, sweetened, with milk.

Out the window,
snow-spruces step from their cobwebs.
Flurry of chickadees, feeding then gone.
A single cardinal stipples an empty branch-
one maple leaf lifted back.

I turn my blessings like photographs into the light;
over my shoulder the god of Not-Yet looks on:

Not-yet-dead, not-yet-lost, not-yet-taken.
Not-yet-shattered, not-yet-sectioned, not-yet-strewn.

Ample litany, sparing nothing I hate or love,
Not-yet-silenced, not-yet-fractured, not-yet-

Not-yet-not.

I move my ear a little closer to that humming figure,
I ask him only to stay.
So, back to the flan. I used a recipe that Lea got from her friend Pedro, and then supplemented it with some guidelines from the Joy of Cooking. I had high expectations for it, especially after I successfully plopped it out of the soufflé mold to reveal the most beautiful round orb of pale custard submerged in amber sugary syrup I have ever seen. Truly, I cannot tell you what a joyful moment this was, and how the sight of it was one of simple, elated pleasure. I just wanted to hug and kiss it over and over. It looked so good in fact that I thought it was appropriate to have its photo taken beneath the droopy pink tulips I have on my kitchen table right now.
This was the highlight of the flan because in terms of flavor and texture I was a little let down. It tasted okay, but was a bit egg-y. Lea suggested that if it sat for a few days the sulfur flavor would eventually lessen.
Perhaps adding more sugar?
I also didn’t heat the milk when I was making the custard, and word on the street is that you should heat the milk.
I wanted the flan to be a little thicker and creamier- perhaps I will try it with condensed milk next time. Or coconut milk? Or even cream?
Who has a knock out flan recipe out there? Send it my way!

Here is the recipe I used for this flan, with some suggestions for changes.

Not-yet Flan

For the flan
9 eggs
4 cups milk
15 soupspoons of sugar (Pedro’s measurements)
1 tsp. vanilla

For the caramel:
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup water

In a heavy sauce pan heat the sugar and water without stirring it. Once the sugar has completely dissolved, cover and let boil for two minutes. Take off the cover and let boil until it turns a beautiful dark amber. Quickly remove from heat and pour into ramekins or a soufflé dish. Swirl the caramel around the dish so that it coast half way up the edges of the pan.

In a bowl crack the eggs and add the sugar. I then added the milk cold, but try heating it up and see what happens. Gently mix it up and add the vanilla. Pour into the dish and place in a water bath. Bake at 350 for at least one and a half hours. When it is goldenish on top and seems firm take out of the over, let rest a few minutes and then cover it with plastic wrap and put in the fridge. Leave it there for at least 4 hours, but preferably longer. A few days even.

Evidence of Spring

2010-02-27T13:10:00.003-05:00

I came home this morning from getting a coffee and noticed a small bundle of snowdrops blooming by my front door.
They are brave harbingers indeed, to push their heads through such frozen ground.
And now I'm afraid they have given me false hope. I left the house without my jacket, rolled the window down as I drove. I went for a walk thinking it would be warm, only to quickly curl red, chilly fingers into the sleeves of my coat.
Not yet, not yet.

Soon, but not yet.

Six Days in Austin, Six Different Flans

2010-02-23T14:56:00.008-05:00

I can’t take credit for this blog post, since this was completely Lea’s idea. Our first night in Austin Charlotte took us to Guero’s Taco Bar on South Congress St. and after a delicious meal and multiple margaritas the three of us decided to split a flan for dessert. The flan was the perfect sweet ending to a satisfying meal and it got Lea and I even more excited to explore Austin’s gastronomic offerings. Already in the midst of a deep and passionate food romance with each other, Lea came up with the flan idea the next night during dinner.
“Let’s try a different flan every day and rate them for your blog,” she said. “It could be called six days in Austin, six different flans.”
Charlotte, our gracious host, announced that flan was in fact one of her all time favorite desserts, so finding a different one to eat everyday would be a mission she could get behind.
We decided we would base our assessments of each flan by rating their texture, flavor, syrup, and overall deliciousness. With the plan conceptualized and our objectives clear, we committed ourselves to the “flan project” for the remainder of our trip with extreme and unwavering diligence.
But what you may ask is exactly flan? According to wisegeeks.com “flan is baked custard quite similar to crème caramel, typically made with eggs, cream or milk, gelatin and vanilla. Often flan is synonymous with crème caramel because it includes a layer of burnt or caramelized sugar on the bottom.”
Flan is most popular in Latin America and the Philippines.

I also learned Sunday night that flans can be savory, made for example, with spinach.
Shockingly however, some people who we described this project to were less than enthusiastic.
“I hate flan,” one of Charlotte’s friends announced during a brief camping trip. “It’s so creamy.”
Pause.
*crickets*
Exactly.
And some Texans we encountered (even those who were employed at well respected eateries) didn’t even know what it was we were inquiring about.
“What’s that?” one girl behind a bakery counter in Fredericksburg asked. “Yeah, no, we don’t make that.”
But we never let these comments deter us, and aside from Saturday when we were camping at Inks Lake, we managed to find a flan every day. Here they are, in chronological order.
Tuesday
Guero’s Taco Bar. This was our first flan, and since we ate it before the project officially commenced, it really served as the initial inspiration. After eating enchiladas, chalupas, tacos, bean and cheese tamales, chips and salsa, guacamole, and drinks (all served by our very handsome and attentive waiter) we still found room for this. The flan was thick with a slightly grainier consistency than most flan because, we realized after a few more bites, Guero’s uses coconut in the custard. This changed the consistency but also added a subtle dimension to the traditional caramel flavor of most flans which was lovely. It was also served with plenty of sugary syrup, making it delightfully moist and sweet. Amazingly, after this meal we managed to stumble over to the Continental Club to witness some of the Fat Tuesday celebrations. Exhausted and sated, we collapsed back at Charlotte’s apartment and slept heavily.
Wednesday
Trudy’s. Charlotte had to get up and spend the day on campus, so Lea and I were left to our own devices for most of the day. We had a wonderful time leisurely strolling down Guadalupe St. and admittedly it turned into a little bit of an unexpected shopping spree. Having stretched our budget for the day from ahem, some impulsive spending, and with the awareness that Charlotte had had a taxing day in the competitive and cut throat world of academia, we decided to make dinner for Charlotte at home. It was over a delicious pasta dish Lea whipped up that the flan project was really born, and so it became essential that after digesting dinner we journey out to find another flan. We ended up at Trudy’s and indulged ourselves in Palomas, a delicious drink made with lime juice, tequila, and Fresca, and two orders of flan. This flan paled in comparison to Guero’s, but did have a silky smooth texture which made each bite soft and light. The flavor lacked depth, although the top was dusted with some cinnamon which warmed it up and made it a little more interesting. We also decided it would have been nice to have a little more of the caramel syrup- unlike other flans there was no leftover syrup to spoon up at the end. On our drive home we speculated if Trudy’s flan was in fact, made from a box. (Photo #4)
Thursday
Central Market. Charlotte suggested that we should try a flan from Central Market which is an upscale grocery store nearby. We had to buy groceries for our camping trip that weekend anyway, so this seemed like the logical choice. When the three of us scanned the bakery case however, there was not a flan in sight. When we asked the woman behind the counter if they had any, say tucked away in the back, she said no, they did not.
“Do you ever have it,” one of us asked. “Like, maybe sometimes?”
“No, never.”
Disappointed, we were considering our options when it occurred to me that occasionally there are pre made flans in the pudding section of many grocery stores. The pudding section at Central Market came through for us and we walked out with two flans to taste; Kozy Shack flan, and a “Spanish Flan,” in a small round container. When we got home we flipped them onto plates, passed out the spoons, and I readied myself with a notebook and pen, ready to take notes. The “Spanish Flan” (photo #3) was surprising thick and creamy, with an amazingly smooth texture. The flavor was also very strong, which made sense after we read that the fourth ingredient was rum. The Kozy Shack flan (photo #2)was much lighter with less flavor than the Spanish flan, and reminded me more of a caramel Jell-O. Good but not great.

We then spent the night salsa dancing...
Friday
Mamacitas Mexican Restaurant. Friday we packed up the rental car and headed out of Austin to Fredericksburg, a funny German town about an hour and a half away, in the middle of Texas “wine country” (I know, who knew). We hiked Enchanted Rock that afternoon, and then feasted on authentic German cuisine at Der Linderbaum restaurant. Noting the fact that Fredericksburg was a predominantly German town, we realized that finding a flan may be more challenging here than in Austin. But we found one not far from downtown, at Mamacitas. This flan was made in one big dish, and sliced into wedges, as oppose to the individual flans we had been tasting that came in individual ramekins. Mamacitas’ flan was luxuriously creamy, with lots of caramel flavor and lots of syrup. Out of all the flans we tasted, Mamacitas’ was the most old school, traditional, caramel flan.
Saturday
Saturday we drove to Inks Lake to camp with several of Charlotte’s friends from UT. No flan, although we did eat delicious mushroom risotto made on the Coleman stove, grilled vegetables, sausages, s’mores, whisky, wine purchased from our previous day in “wine country,” and lots and lots of snacks.
Sunday
La Condesa. Sunday was our final night in Austin, and after taking the afternoon to recuperate from 1). hiking, 2). driving, and 3). the consumption of multiple tacos from Tacodeli, we decided to hit the town for drinks, flan, and some two-stepping. La Condesa is a newly opened restaurant in downtown Austin that Charlotte had been wanting to try, and they did have an intriguing "flan de camote," or sweet potato flan. The restaurant itself has a wonderful atmosphere (excellent place to take a date, Charlotte noted), and an impressive menu (although we limited ourselves to chips and guacamole, and a pitcher of margaritas). The flan de camote was delicious but was not the traditional flan that we had been searching for to rate. The consistency and flavor was much more like pumpkin pie and while I love pumpkin pie, Lea and I just didn’t feel comfortable calling this flan, flan. The papitas and candied sweet potatoes that garnished the flan were wonderful too, but again, not authentic. (Photo #1)
The Official Results of the Flan Project:
#1 Guero’s
#2 Mamacitas
#3Spanish Flan
#4 Trudy’s
#5 La Condesa
#6 Kozy Shack
I am now back home and enjoying the residual glow of a truly wonderful vacation, which was full of wonderful friends, good food, and worthwhile adventures. This week I also want to make a flan of my own from scratch, the results which I will assess and add to the line up (unbiased of course.)

Good Morning, Sweet Valentine!

2010-02-14T11:57:00.002-05:00

Firstly, I want to make it clear that this is in no way an anti Valentine’s Day post, or rant, or therapy session, that oh, poor me, I’m single on Valentine’s Day. It’s not going to be like that at all. Because I actually think Valentine’s Day is a very sweet thing and is a day when you have an excuse to give your sweetie a little extra love and to say “hey, I like having you around.”
And if you don’t have a Valentine this year you can always do what I did this weekend, which includes going out to dinner with your Dad (thanks Dad!) and bringing your 97 year old grandmother roses and chocolate. This morning I also decided to make myself a special Valentine’s Day breakfast, which included milky coffee in my favorite Italian teacup, and baked oatmeal with peaches. I also got up to speed on the last three Savage Love podcasts, which ended up being another perfect idea because dang, relationships have problems.
In other non Valentine’s Day related news: That previously mentioned lesson I had to give this week in front of the principal for that job I want? It was not my most glorious teaching moment. I was nervous and I had to teach grammar, so I’ll let you envision how that played out in your own minds. Yes, it got a little hairy- and because of this they want me to come back and teach another lesson.
It’s not great news, but it’s also not bad news. But it does feel strange because Friday morning going into it I had mentally prepared myself for either a “yes” or a “no.” So when they said “come back and try again,” I couldn’t help but think “whaaaaaa???”
It’s been a weird thing to process the last couple of days, and it has reminded me of when I was in elementary school and someone would screw something up and instead of accepting the mistake or failure they would yell “do over!” and then be allowed to try it again.
A “do over” could be declared over anything, anytime. It could be after muddling up your lines while rehearsing for the class play, or during a game of kickball at recess after you unexpectedly give the ball a particularly wimpy kick. “Do over!” someone would yell, “DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OVVVEEEEEEEEEER!”
There was also nothing shameful about calling for a do over. On the contrary, do overs were demanded with authority and force, and often were non-negotiable.
I suppose this is the attitude I have adopted for the next couple weeks. But first I get to relax a little and enjoy a short trip to Texas, where I will spend several days hanging in Austin with two good friends, and then hiking in the hills of Western Texas, like a cowgirl.

Whirlwind

2010-02-08T14:56:00.010-05:00

This last week has been a big one for me. The kind of week when the great changes and shifts in life are palpable and present, and when the choices that are made are with the awareness that, gulp, they are choices that will effect at least the next several years of my life. Traditionally when I have stood at a crossroads like this it has been in a puddle of soggy tears, feeling that the responsibility of my own fate is just too much to handle. I have always been baffled and jealous of friends who would handle decisions like this with joy and excitement. I know, I need to lighten up and learn to embrace change. Thankfully, there have been no tears this week, and while I have been feeling lots of excitement it has also been coupled with a lot of stress and the occasional and unavoidable “I just don’t know what to do!”
After three days at a job fair in Cambridge where there was a lot of preoccupation with resumes, and first impressions, selling yourself, and "professional attire", I was so relieved and happy to visit with a few friends in Cambridge Saturday afternoon. I met my friend Nick in Harvard Square for lunch, and then my friend Myles swooped in and picked me up at The Coop. We went and had some delicious espresso and then Myles suggested we visit the Institute of Contemporary Art, which is also close to the train station.
“I thought it might help you decompress after a stressful few days,” he said.
It was a thoughtful gesture and come to find out, to visit something beautiful, walk inside, gaze, and be quiet was exactly the right way to end my visit and take a break from thinking so much about myself and the future.
Myles also told me about the delicious homemade ravioli he and his girlfriend have been making, and his description of the butternut squash filling and rosemary infused butter sauce had my mouth watering as we rode in the taxi back to South Station. I have never made homemade pasta but it’s been on the list for a while. When I woke up yesterday morning in my own bed and began to figure out how I wanted to spend the day, making these ravioli as well as visiting with some good friends were the only things I was willing to put on my agenda.
The ravioli dough was really the most challenging part. I just experimented and ended up using three eggs for three cups of flour, but once I got into it I realized this was really too much flour. The internet told me to put the flour on a clean counter, make a well, and then put the eggs in the well, beat them and then incorporate the flour from the edges as you go. This method worked for me. I then had to roll out the dough since I don’t have a pasta machine, and I had a hard time getting the sheets as thin as I think they should be. Because some of the sheets ended up thick, some of the pasta was a little tough after they were cooked. However, the later batches were thinner and came out perfectly tender and supple.
Myles suggested making the sauce with rosemary and pecans, but I opted for sage and toasted walnuts (since this is what I had in the cupboard). Tossing the ravioli in the sage infused butter, with the crunch of the toasted walnuts was absolutely delectable, along with a crush of black pepper and some more Parmesan cheese.
The filling with the squash and pears was extremely warm and comforting and I think would also make a great filling for butternut squash lasagna with a bechamel sauce. Lea was over and also sautéed up some tasty kale with garlic and olive oil, which was a perfect, healthy side dish.

With everything still very much up in the air, this week is also likely to be an intense one. I made it to the second round of interviews for a teaching position at a neighboring public high school, and Wednesday I have to teach a 90 minute lesson to 25 9th graders I have never met before, while the classroom teacher and principal observe.

Pass the wine please!
Butternut Squash and Pear Ravioli
For the filling:
I medium butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks
2 pears, peeled and diced (I used Bartlett)
2 cloves garlic
A pinch of nutmeg
½ - ¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Boil the squash and garlic until tender, and add the pears for the last few minutes (just to get nice and soft). Drain out water and then puree in the food processor or with an immersion blender until nice and smooth. Add cheese and seasonings, set aside. (Come to think of it, roasting the butternut squash would also be delicious- try it and let me know!)
For the Dough:
Maybe 2 cups of flour
Pinch of salt
3 eggs
A little water if dough seems dry
I realize this is vague. I probably shouldn’t even be including instructions for making the pasta dough since I really don’t know how to do it myself! Anyway, what I did was put the flour on the clean counter and made a well. Crack open the eggs and beat them with a fork in the well, adding flour as you beat. Then begin kneading the dough, adding more flour and maybe a little water. Once you have a nice, elastic dough, roll out into two sheets. The dough should be pretty thin. Then scoop the filling and put it on one sheet of the pasta so that you make a little grid with the filling. Put the other sheet of pasta over it, and then cut out the ravioli. Moisten the sides with a little water to make the sides stick. Place in boiling water and cook until they begin the rise to the top.
Sage butter sauce
3-4 Tbs. butter (or more!)
5 sage leaves
¾ cup toasted walnuts
Melt the butter with the sage in a skillet and cook on low a few minutes. Remove the sage leaves. Put cooked ravioli into the skillet and coat them with the butter. Sprinkle toasted walnuts on top, and some more Parmesan cheese if you want. Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

And Then the Living Room Turned Into a Waffle House

2010-01-24T15:17:00.005-05:00

Dear Rose,
Sorry I am posting this picture of you eating a waffle. Please don’t be mad at me.
Love,
Sophie
Last night I went to Lea and Chives’ house, mainly for a pottery night. I succeeded in throwing my first pot (a shallow, clunky bowl really), which was fun albeit pretty difficult. Luckily, Chives is a patient and skillful teacher and while there are no photos of last night’s pottery session, you can expect some soon.
Maybe it was because it was around dinner time, or perhaps it was being in a studio surrounded by Chives’s and Lea’s beautiful handmade bowls, mugs, and plates, but we all got hungry. Chives wanted pancakes, but with a torn out kitchen due to their current remodeling projects, pancakes seemed unlikey.
“We could go back to my house,” I suggested.
“Or we could make waffles,” said Lea. “We have a waffle iron.”
I have to admit I was skeptical about this idea. Waffles? No kitchen? Really? What a fool I can be! Lea ran to the grocery store, we went into the living room, cleared off the coffee table, Chives set up the waffle iron on top of an old pizza box which was put on top of some logs, and we mixed up the batter.
Lea also pulled out a pomegranate, a container of Greek yogurt, and a jar of honey.
“I thought we could have waffles with Greek yogurt and honey,” she said, hereby adding one more reason to the already 1,256 reasons why we are friends and I love her.
I never would have thought of putting these things together on top of a waffle, and the combination was one of the best things I have had in ages. I admit I strayed at one point and topped my second waffle with maple syrup and butter, but quickly went back to smearing it with yogurt and honey before decorating it with the tart, juicy, pomegranate seeds.
Lea said at one point she liked pomegranates because there is something so historic about them, and I agree. It is one of the most ancient fruits- and while I suppose it was the apple that Eve bit, the pomegranate seems so much more forbidden. So putting this on top of a waffle?
With one forkful windmills collided with ancient pillars, Ode on a Grecian Urn traded lines with Hans Brinker or His Silver Skates, yellow tulips bloomed under towering Cyprus trees. And this was all happening in my mouth, while I chewed.
Lea didn’t have vegetable oil so we used olive oil instead, but this just added another subtle dimension to the already wonderfully unexpected amalgamation. All this with only a waffle iron plugged into an electrical outlet in the living room.

While Eleven

2010-01-18T16:07:00.006-05:00

These pictures were taken in August of 1994, when my mother, older brother and I took a short trip to the Czech Republic in search of my mother’s “long lost relatives.” The impetus for the trip occurred when my grandfather had died the year before, and my mother had sat by his bedside dumbfounded as he mumbled and sang in Czech- a language she had never heard him speak before these final moments at the very end of his life.
My grandfather never revealed much of his childhood to my mother, nor did he ever pass on any sort of Czechoslovakian traditions or sense of identity to his children. Hearing him speak this foreign language therefore moved and surprised my mother profoundly, and stirred within her a deep curiosity to find out more about this side of her family, and herself. She knew she still had relatives in the old country, since she remembered her aunt Barbara used to send a little money to some of them before she died, but aside from this she knew nothing.
About a year after my grandfather’s death my family went to Italy for the summer. Since the Czech Republic is not too far from Italy, my mother thought a side trip was in order. My father had to take a business trip in the middle of the vacation, and after he left my mother loaded all four of us children onto a train in Arezzo and we traveled north to San Danielle del Friuli, where some close family friends live. We dropped off Thea and Simon with them, and then my mother, Sven, and I boarded a train that crossed through Austria overnight, and in the morning arrived in Tabor, Czech Republic. From here Sobeslav, the small town where our “relatives” lived, was only another short train ride away.
The events that unfolded that day traumatized me as an eleven year old, and are documented in the following essay I wrote in seventh grade and decided to dig up and share after I also found these snapshots. While comparing the train station in Tabor to a train station in WWII was certainly a bit melodramatic on my part, my mother can attest that the vibe when we got off the train was not good. I didn’t know it then, but we had arrived in the Czech Republic only five years after the Velvet Revolution, and only a year and a half after Vaclav Havel had taken office. The country was therefore still emerging from behind the curtain, and while I may have been a bit overly dramatic in my impressions as an eleven-year-old, I certainly was picking up on some of the residual social and political tension that had not yet completely dissipated.
I think this feeling was also due in part to the fact that while I had traveled to other countries before this, it had always been to affluent European countries like Finland where we rode bicycles and watched strange Scandinavian cartoons, or Italy, where we were smothered in kisses and overfed by loving Italian friends and neighbors. This was an entirely different and foreign part of Europe that I had never seen before. And that morning we had arrived after spending weeks in Italy- extroverted, loud, loving, wild Italy. The contrast for me was overwhelming and I found it extremely freighting. I can’t help asking myself now how this experience would have been different if I went as an adult. Surely it would have been disturbing, but I don’t think it would have been quite as visceral as it was for me as a pre-adolescent.
As soon as we got there all I wanted to do was go back, as evidenced by my mother’s snapshots in which I look less than thrilled. I spent nearly the entire day in tears, begging my mother for us to leave. The first picture is of me in front of a bridge, right after we left Antonia’s house. I think my mother wanted me to stand still so she could snap the picture, and from the looks of it I was flatly refusing. The second is of my brother and Antonia in her house, and the last is of my brother and me at the “translator’s” house with Jan standing in the back in the green shirt.
Below is the essay I wrote in Mrs. Meyer’s class in all its resplendent seventh grade glory. I think I wrote it only a month or so after it happened, and the prompt she gave us was something like “write about something you did this summer. Some of the sentences make me cringe now, but I held my itchy fingers back from making any revisions!
Brevity is not something I am good at, and this essay (or introduction to this essay for that matter!) is no exception. Sit back and get comfy, maybe go to the bathroom first or grab a glass of water. Or take a break and come back and read it later.

***********************************************************************************

As soon as the train pulled into the station, my mother, my older brother Sven, and I walked across the tracks, bags in hand, and made our way to the main building. I felt like I had stepped back in time, like into World War II during the German occupation. It was grey and depressing. People eyed us suspiciously. We quickly made our way up to the main desk. No one looked happy; no smiles, no laughter. You immediately sense these people had gone through something unfamiliar to what I knew. I felt scared and nervous, probably the way they felt about us, strangers in their home. Their home, we were in the Czech Republic. It was the summer of ’94 and my mother, my brother and I had come to seek long lost relatives in a little town called Sobeslav; that is, if there was anyone left.
“Three to Sobeslav,” my mother said, using gestures to try to communicate with the woman behind the desk. She understood and gave us the three tickets and said something in Czech. We were puzzled. She said it again, getting impatient. Still we didn’t understand. Then she took a piece of scrap paper and wrote “8 K” which was Czech money. Of course, she wanted Czech money. Well we had just come off a train from Italy, it was seven in the morning, and we didn’t have any Czech money because we hadn’t had a chance to go to the bank. So, my mother shook her head and began to get nervous and very self conscious. The people behind us were getting impatient also. Then, a Czech soldier standing further along in the line pushed his way through and bought himself a ticket, paid for it, and paid for ours as well. He spoke to us in English. Finally! Someone spoke English. My mother repaid him with an American ten dollar bill. He thanked us, told us what track the train would come on, and then left. Immediately after, my brother burst out laughing.
“What?” my mother asked.
“Do you realize what you just did,” he said.
“What,” my mother said again.
“You gave him a ten dollar bill!”
“So,” said my mother. “He paid for our tickets.”
“Yes, but ten American dollars are worth about fifty Czech dollars. Our tickets actually cost about fifty cents each.”
“Oh dear,” said my mom. “Well, at least he’ll be able to go out for a few meals for a while.”
A few minutes later the train pulled into the station and we all go on again. We walked down the empty corridor and found an empty place for the three of us to sit.
I was relieved to be back on the train again, and felt less vulnerable. I looked out the window as the train began to move. For the first time that day I saw the beauty of the country. The sun was coming out and I gazed at the rolling green fields, passing forests and small summer cottages by the side of the tracks. It really was how my mother described it. Fairy tale country, magical and mysterious and very beautiful. I was happy to be out of the grey and dismal station that we had arrived at earlier that day and took a few minutes out of reality to let my mind wander.
I was snapped back into reality when my mother pulled out a letter she had written about two weeks before. It had taken her about ten days to write because she had to write it all in Czech which meant she had to look up every word in her little English/Czech dictionary. The purpose of the letter was to send it to some names of some people who were supposedly our lost relatives. She had made two copies of the letter. One she sent to the address she had gotten from a cousin at home. The other she kept; this was the letter she pulled out. The letter said that she and her two children would be coming to Sobeslav on the 9th or 10th of August. It told who we were and our business. She hoped this letter had been received so they would know we were coming and who we were.
She opened the letter, briefly looked it over, and then went into the corridor where a short, middle aged woman with brown graying hair and glasses was standing. In English my mother said, “excuse me,” and handed her the letter. The woman read it and when she was done handed it back to us and smiled.
The train stopped when we arrived in Sobeslav and the woman motioned us to come with her. We took our bags and followed her off the train and through the station into Sobeslav. It looked relaxed and somewhat peaceful. The park was on our right with green trees and benches where old women sat discussing whatever they had heard lately, and to the left there were shops that sold postcards, dolls, puzzles, fruits and vegetables, and an assortment of other little things to buy.
We followed her as we walked through the town. When she saw someone, she stopped, took the letter from my mother’s hand and opened it, then showed it to the person, asking if he or she knew the person we were looking for. Many of them said no, until finally an old man said, “Yes, I know Jan. He lives just down that way.”
The woman thanked him and nodded her head saying, “yes, yes, come, come.” We followed her now not stopping to ask people. We crossed the bridge through the town square and into what seemed to be a normal working class neighborhood. We walked a little ways down then stopped at one of the more tumbled down houses. It was triangle shaped and had dead flowers in the front. The grass was overgrown and badly needed to be cut. There was a rust gate. The woman called out in Czech, “Hello! Anybody home?” A few seconds later a man’s head stuck out the window. He shouted back at us in Czech, “What do you want?” My mother stiffened. The woman replied back to him, “Some people are here to see you.” At least that is what I assume they were saying. “Okay, okay,” he said and shortly after he appeared at the gate. He looked to be about sixty five or more years old, was tall and skinny, and had grey hair going every which way. The woman said a few words more and the old man nodded. She then turned to us and smiled. We turned our attention to the man, who opened the gate and let us in. Then we turned around to thank the woman, but she was gone. I looked around but I couldn’t see her anywhere.
“An angel,” my mother whispered.
“Yes,” I said. “An angel.”
He led us through the gate and into the house. It stunk badly of rotten potatoes. The second I entered the house I wanted to leave. Then we proceeded up three flights of stairs. When we got to the top a very old woman greeted us. She carried a cane and poked everything she went by. She was clearly surprised and confused. She motioned us into what I assume was the living room. It had an old table and a mattress on a bed stand, some old books, and a broken TV. We walked into the kitchen. A few rotten pears lay on the table, a few dirty mugs by the sink. They clearly had no food. IT was frightening to see these people living this way. What did they eat? What did they do all day?
The way we finally found out they were our relatives was this. In their living room was an old book shelf. On the book shelf stood two old photographs from the 50’s or 60’s of my great aunt Barbara’s family. They lived in Detroit and my great aunt was sending them money and food while she was still living. And this was who my mother recognized in the picture, on top of the bookshelf.
My mother pulled the pictures down and proceeded to make gestures, naming everyone in the photograph, so that the old woman, whose name was Antonia, would know we were somehow related. I think she understood because both she and my mother started to cry. Then she took out more photographs and we looked through them together. She offered us some stale candy. “No thank you,” I said. Still she tried to give me the candy. “No, no, no,” I said. Finally she got the idea. The she showed us the rest of the house. I couldn’t stand the smell another minute. I swore I was going to throw up, so I said, “Mom, can we please go?”
“Yes Sophie, just hold on a minute,” she replied
I started to fuss. My mother gave me a look saying, look Sophie, we’ve come all this way, just get with it.
I felt so helpless I started to express my feelings to my brother but he just laughed. What was his problem? I couldn’t believe it, this was a highly dramatic thing for me and he just laughed??!!

Antonia returned with my mother and an old, bloody chicken bone stuck in her pocket. By this time my mother really wanted to leave and we proceeded to the stairs but she yelled at us. So we wrote her a note saying in Czech that we had to leave and if we found someone who spoke English we would return. She read it and we left.
Air! Ah air! I could finally breathe again. I walked out the gate with my mother and my brother, who was still laughing.
The man with the long grey hair I learned was named Jan, and was Antonia’s son. I apologize for not telling you that earlier.
Antonia stuck her head out the window and started yelling at us in Czech. We didn’t understand so we walked down the street towards the town square, found some benches, and sat down.
“What if they come find us and drag us back to the house with them?”I asked.
“I don’t think Antonia can get down those stairs without Jan’s help, and I don’t think he will be able to find us,” my mother replied.
We were all a little shocked at what had happened and I think my mother regretted what she had done.
We went to an ice cream parlor to life our spirits. My mother and I got a chocolate ice cream cone, and my brother got a big cream filled pastry. I took one big lick.
“Yuck!” I said in an astonished voice.
“Oh, yuck!” My mother said. “It tastes horrible!”
“Yum, yum, yum,” my brother said.
“This ice cream has sour milk in it,” I said.
“I think you are right,” my mother replied.
My brother just laughed as he enjoyed his big pastry. My mother and I discreetly threw out our ice cream. Then for about three hours we walked around Sobeslav, trying to get as far away from the house as possible.
We were making our way to the train station to go back to Tabor when my mother said,
“There he is!”
I froze. Terror ran through my body. I wanted to run. He crossed the street and came directly toward us, took our bags and motioned for us to come with him.
“No, no!” I said.
I began to go into hysterics. Where was he taking us, what were we going to do? We began to walk with him. My brother laughed and my mother tried to comfort me although she was very nervous herself. We crossed the bridge and we then stopped at a gate with high surrounding walls so you were unable to see the house.
“English,” Jan kept saying.
My mother shook her head in understanding. She told me he had found someone to translate for us and I began to calm down a bit.
Jan rang the door bell and it was several minutes until a woman answered it, and told us to come in. There was a little court yard with flowers in it. Beautiful flowers!
We came with her into the house. She was short with brownish red hair, and wore a skirt with an apron tied around her waist. He name was Maria. She led us into the kitchen where a plump, pale man sat somewhere in his late seventies. The kitchen had a cozy, lived in fell about it. They told us to sit and asked if I needed some medicine because I was crying. My mother politely said no thank you.
The old man went and got his diploma off the shelf. He had received mostly C’s and had forgotten most of the English he had learned. They gave us coffee and biscuits and we then proceeded to try to communicate. We got somewhere using the English/Czech dictionary, and we found out a little about the family.
The old couple was very lively and full of energy and life. They joked around and we all had an enjoyable time.
Then Jan took us to a little diner where we ate goulash and drank coke. It was awkward. We tried to tell him we needed to get to the train station and he seemed to understand but not very well.
After we ate lunch we all went to the train station still accompanied by Jan. We got there, got our tickets and realized we still had an hour to spare. So we sat on a bench and listened to Jan talk.
When it was time to get the train we all walked up to the train station. The train came and we said good-bye to Jan. He shook our hands. Mine was the last he shook; he wouldn’t let go. I started walking with him still holding onto my hand. I smiled. He smiled. Then we got back on the train and left Sobeslav for good. It had been a long, long day. I had so many thoughts running through my head. Should we have done this? If we should have done it, we certainly should have done it differently. My mother says we were like a naughty child who did something he wasn’t supposed to do. The live so differently to us and experienced things I have never experienced. Now, I can never look at things the same way I used to. That one day had changed my entire life.

Wednesday Night Dinner

2010-01-13T21:41:00.005-05:00

Winter Root Vegetable Chili (8 servings)

2 Tbs. olive oil

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, diced

2 red bell peppers, chopped

1 lbs. carrots, peeled and chopped

1 lbs. parsnips, peeled and chopped

2 Tbs. cumin

2 Tbs. chili powder

salt

1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

1 c. water

1 can each: red kidney beans, black beans, chickpeas

1/2 c. barbecue sauce

Put oil in large sauce pan or dutch over and saute onion and garlic, about three minutes. Add red bell pepper, carrot, and parsnip, and saute for 5 minutes. Add cumin and chili powder and cook one minute more.

Season with salt.

Add tomatoes, water, beans (you could use any combination of beans, and corn would be good too) and barbecue sauce and simmer 20 minutes.

Adjust seasoning and serve with sour cream, tortilla chips, corn bread, and red onion relish.

Red Onion Relish

1 red onion

1 bunch cilantro

Juice of 2 limes

pinch of salt

Put everything in food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Serve on top of chili.

Hazel's Gingerbread Cake with Pears

Spray a 9" cake pan that is at least 3" tall.
Melt 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, pour into the pan, sprinkle 2/3 cup brown sugar on top. Slice and arrange 2 pears on top.

1/2 cup soft butter
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1 cup dark molasses
1 cup boiling water
2 1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 Tablespoons candied ginger, chopped
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix thoroughly: sugar, soft butter, and egg. Blend in molasses and water. Mix dry ingredients and blend in; beat until smooth. Pour into pan. Bake 45-60 minutes, until center is firm, but before the brown sugar burns. Remove from oven and invert
onto a serving plate. Serve warm or cold with vanilla ice cream or
whipped cream.

Note, Can be made with crisp apples as well, and served with chilled apple sauce mixed with whipped cream.

Genoese Minestrone

2010-01-10T16:59:00.006-05:00

The weekend turned out to be lovely, and highlights include swimming laps with Lea at the URI pool, pulled pork sandwiches Saturday night (thanks Libby!) followed by live music at the Ferguson’s, a thorough house cleaning, and an afternoon visit to a friend who has a brand new baby. I decided to make this minestrone soup for the new Mama, and since her only request was something with “roughage,” the large quantity and variety of veggies in it made it a suitable choice. When I first started cooking soups I always thought that they needed lots of spices and herbs to make them flavorful. Often soups do need a little extra “help” in the seasoning department, but I am also learning that when there are lots of vegetables involved, the flavor from the vegetables alone is enough to give certain soups the delicate, delicious taste that is so good.
This recipe comes from Debra Mayhew’s cookbook Soup, which I cannot recommend enough. I bought a copy of it years ago for 5.99 at Walden’s, and I think it is easily one of the best cookbooks I own. This soup is hardy and very satisfying. Putting a spoonful of pesto on the top also adds another delightful element. With a slice of bread it is the perfect dinner for a cold night in January.
Genoese Minestrone
3 Tbs. olive oil
1 onion, minced
2 celery stalks, minced
5 ounces green beans, cut into 2 inch pieces
1 zucchini, finely sliced
1 potato, cut into ½ inch cubes
¼ Savoy cabbage, shredded
1 small eggplant, cut into ½ cubes
I can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
3 ounces vermicelli
Salt and freshly ground pepper
(You can make the pesto if you feel so inclined, but I just bought a jar from the grocery store.)
Heat oil in large pot and cook onion, celery, and carrots over low heat for 5-7 minutes.
Stir in green beans, zucchini, potato, and cabbage and cook for about 3 minutes over medium heat. Add eggplant, cannellini beans, and tomatoes, and cook for 2-3 more minutes.
Pour in the stock with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Stir well, cover, lower the heat and simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Break the pasta into small pieces and add to soup. Simmer, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Stir in pesto and simmer 2-3 more minutes, or just ladle soup into bowls and let everyone put their own pesto on top.

Very Vanilla Cake

2010-01-09T10:33:00.005-05:00

The first week back from any vacation always seems to feel extra long and draining. My first week back from this holiday vacation got off to a particularly rocky start after I thought school resumed this Tuesday when it actually began on Monday.
Nothing beats sleeping in only to wake up to a phone call from work asking why you aren’t there.
“There’s no school today,” I said as the horrible realization began to sink in.
“No, there is school today,” the calm voice on the other end of the phone informed me.
I’ve had anxiety dreams like this before, dreams where I would show up to teach with nothing prepared, or with no clothes on, or to the wrong place. But luckily it was always just a dream, and I would wake up, breathe a huge sigh of relief, and welcome reality back with open, loving arms.
Monday however I was not so fortunate, and the fact that I had made a mistake (for good reasons I assure you) was mortifying. What sort of flake doesn’t know what day school starts? Excuse me, let me clarify, what sort of teacher? Because I am the teacher, not some lackadaisical college student who shows up a week into classes only to say “oh, I didn’t think school started until this week.”
“Please,” I would think and roll my eyes. “Let’s get with the program- look at a calendar.”
Tuesday morning I returned to school feeling very vulnerable to my embarrassing foible. Luckily the other teachers I work with are a jovial bunch, and while I don’t think I will ever live it down, no one was angry with me.
“It happens to the best of us,” one teacher said during lunch. “Once my roommate told me it was a snow day when it wasn’t, and the principal had to call my house in the morning.”
Despite my mistake I’ve made it to the weekend and I am glad. My book club met last night and this month we all read Ruth Reichl’s Comfort Me with Apples. I read all of her books in quick succession last spring and think her writing is beautiful and funny, but I’ll warn you that they are impossible to read on an empty stomach.
I wanted to make something from her book to bring to the meeting, but yesterday afternoon I had limited time and energy. The apricot pie looked good, but it is out of season. I found this recipe for vanilla cake in her third book, Garlic and Sapphires, and decided to make it based largely on the fact that I already had everything I would need. I love recipes like this because the ingredients are so simple. The batter for this cake was so thick and dense; I was amazed at how light the cake turned out being. And the two tablespoons of vanilla makes it extremely fragrant and flavorful. Ruth’s recipe doesn’t include any directions for frosting, and I agree that this cake doesn’t need it. But I’m sure it would be delicious with a scoop of ice cream, or some sort of syrupy, fruity thing over it. I was also thinking it might be nice to try making it with almond extract next time instead of vanilla.
Ruth Reichl’s Vanilla Cake (from Garlic and Sapphires)
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup sour cream
2 Tbs. vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 and butter and flour a bundt cake pan.
Cream sugar and butter together, and then add in eggs one at a time.
Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together and then add this to the butter mixture, mixing well. Add sour cream and mix well; then mix in the vanilla.
Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until golden. Let cool 5 minutes before turning out of the pan.

Time to Detox

2009-12-31T13:12:00.000-05:00

I decided to get a jump start on my New Year’s detoxification plan yesterday and have always found a good first step is making some sort of healthy, comforting, vegetable soup. I had friends over last night and we ate this soup accompanied by sweet apple sausages with yellow mustard and sauerkraut, bread and butter, grapefruit and avocado salad, honey-sesame covered almonds, Belgian beer, Jameson on the rocks, hummus and crackers, gherkins, leftover and slightly assaulted gingerbread men, and chocolate. Errrr, yeah, let the detoxification begin!!
Butternut squash soup has become a winter essential- I make it all the time. There are so many different variations possible, but generally I just chop everything up, submerge it in either chicken or vegetable stock, cook it until everything is tender, add some fresh grated ginger, and then use my trusty immersion blender to puree it. So simple and so delicious! With a spoonful of sour cream it is the perfect light yet satisfying dinner. My godmother first told me how to make this soup and she likes to sometimes sprinkle crumbled blue cheese on top- which is wildly good too!
Recently I have been adding a little brown sugar into the soup at the end to give it that added sweetness and depth of flavor. When I make it I just eyeball all the measurements, but here are some general proportions for a soup that will serve about six good eaters (as long as you also have other food to give them too, such as sausages, bread, chocolate, nuts…just kidding).

*Also congratulations to my friends Joel and Nomi who had a beautiful baby girl yesterday. Welcome to the world little Nora Bettina, and Happy New Year everyone!

Butternut Squash Soup
1 big butternut squash, peeled and chopped

2 onions roughly chopped
A few cloves of garlic, chopped
2 apples, peeled and roughly chopped
2 carrots roughly chopped
About 6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1-2 Tbs fresh grated ginger
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
In a big pot sauté onions and garlic in a little oil. Add chopped carrots, apple, and squash. Pour in stock so that vegetables are totally covered and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. Once tender, add fresh ginger, remove from heat and blend to desired smoothness. Adjust seasonings to taste- maybe add some brown sugar if you want.

%#@! Doughnuts

2009-12-26T17:34:00.000-05:00

One of the presents I received yesterday was a vintage McCall’s Magazine bread baking book. Apparently my mother found it in the gift store of the Kenyon’s Grist Mill in Usquepaugh. After days of what feels like constant eating- cookies, chocolates, bits of half eaten gingerbread men lurking in just about every corner of the house- cooking, let alone baking was way off my radar when I got up today. In fact, I went upstairs this morning to find my mother in the kitchen, flour dusted over the counter and her hands gingerly rolling out more gingerbread, her festive holiday cookie cutters standing at attention, ready to be put to work.
Oh god, I thought, she’s really gone off the deep end.
“You’re not serious,” I snapped. “What are you thinking? How can you possibly be baking more? Enough is enough!”
My gut has been hanging over the edges of my pants for days now and I’m grumpy and cranky about it. Horrified by the scene I had stumbled into, I decided to go for a vigorous power walk far away from all gastronomic temptation.
I returned sometime later feeling virtuous, hungry, but admittedly a little bored and lackluster. I made some phone calls- no one answered. I looked around my apartment- glimpsed at the TV but quickly turned it off. Thought about grading papers.... sigh, what to do, what to do?
I picked up the McCall’s bread book and started flipping through it. Yeast breads? No, I don’t have the patience. Biscuits? No. Muffins? Ugh, no. And then I arrived at the Doughnut page. “Perfect doughnuts are tender, light, fragrant,” I read. “We warn you that once you have learned to make them, your family will never permit you to forget- they’ll want you to make them again and again.”
Don’t do it, I told myself. You don’t even really like doughnuts. I looked down and poked my belly with a finger. Definitely chubby.
I looked at the photograph on the opposite page- the beautiful, round, glazed, “light” doughnuts. It would make a good blog post I thought…and there is that little get together later, so it’s not like I would be left with this huge batch of doughnuts to deal with. And it has been so cold outside, and it’s just going to stay cold, and slushy, and get dark by 3:30 this afternoon.
Oh the irony.
So I made them damn it, and they were worth it. The nutmeg in the batter gives them a very subtle, warm flavor and I opted to simply dust them in cinnamon and sugar instead of dealing with all that sugary frosting.
When I made the batter I forgot to add the final ¾ cups of flour and when I took it out of the fridge and put it on the counter to roll out, I noticed it was very wet. Too wet. I added more flour and mixed it all in and it did not seem to negatively affect the dough at all. A sturdy recipe indeed! I love doughnuts!
I also did not have a doughnut cutter so I had to make do with just a circular one for biscuits. At first I thought it would be fine, but when I fried up the first batch and broke one open, it was raw in the middle. My brilliant friend Charlotte was over and announced that this was indeed why people began cutting the middle of doughnuts out, so that they would cook all the way through. Oh Charlotte, why didn't you say so!
I hand rolled out the rest of the dough and twisted them into “free form” doughnuts. But ultimately the whole thing worked out because, with the middle of the doughnut raw, you only eat the cooked bits around the edges. So if you think about it, you’re not really eating a whole doughnut at all, and we all know when you just take little bits here and there to “taste,” it doesn’t count. It’s totally not like eating an entire doughnut at all. No, it’s completely different.

Perfect Doughnuts

3 eggs

1 c. sugar

2 Tbs. soft butter

3 3/4 c. sifted flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. nutmeg

2/3 c. buttermilk

canola oil for cooking.

In bowl with electric mixer beat eggs, sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

Meanwhile, sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

At low speed, add buttermilk into egg mixture. Then, gradually mix in the dry ingredients. Dough will be soft.

Refrigerate for one hour.

On well floured surface roll out dough 1/3 inch thick. Cut out doughnuts and continue to re-roll dough until all used.

Heat oil in skillet until 375 degrees. Gently dropped doughnuts in 3-4 at a time. As they rise to top turn over and fry until golden brown (about 3 minutes in all).

Place on paper towel to drain. Then roll in cinnamon and sugar. Enjoy!

Metamorphoses Part I

2009-12-20T14:11:00.001-05:00

Three years ago my little brother came out to me as transgendered. We were driving up to my aunt’s house in East Providence for Thanksgiving and I remember distinctly it was just past exit 10 on Route 95 when he said it. I don’t remember being shocked necessarily but I do remember asking him to clarify what exactly that meant. I mean, I knew what it meant to be transgendered, but more of what it meant for him. Who was a she at this point.
My sister.
Sarah.
She was nineteen and a freshman in college.
“Like, you want to be a boy?” I asked him while I was driving.
“Yeah,” he said. “I am a boy.”
This was not just that he was gay I realized. I remember when he came out about that too. He was 12 and it was the summer and we were in the swimming pool, floating around on fluorescent foam “noodles.”
“I like girls,” he had told me.
“So you think you’re a lesbian,” I replied back. “You have sexual crushes on girls.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Like you want to be with them, not just be like them,” I said, a differentiation I thought was important to make.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Like you want them to be your girlfriend.”
“Yes, I do.”
I found this shocking at first, although my best friend told me later she could have called it years ago. I felt proud in a way that he felt comfortable enough to tell me, and when he was so young. So many people suffer through years of angst ridden confusion and denial about their sexuality; I thought it was good he seemed to have it all figured out. But this, on the other hand, was exactly why my mother was not thrilled.
“She’s so young,” my mother had said. “How can she know what she wants or likes, she hasn’t had enough experience!”
This is true in a way. When I was 12 I had never kissed a boy, and was still straddling the cusp between childhood and adolescents, playing house one minute and then curiously shuffling through Seventeen magazines the next. But I always knew what I liked. I did not have to have kissed a boy to know I liked them. And for him it was the same way.
Driving in the car that day, the idea of him actually changing seemed so far away. It was a long process he explained. He would have to be evaluated by psychologists, see other doctors, do all this “stuff” before he could begin testosterone treatments.
While I tried to understand and be open to his decision, I was afraid and apprehensive. The whole thing just seemed so severe and the idea of taking any kind of drug or hormone for the rest of his life seemed like such a serious commitment. And this hormone would morph his body and change it forever. It seemed so science experiment-y, not to mention extremely unnatural.
But my reservations were nothing compared to my mother’s grief and unparalleled doubt. My father, much to my surprise, embraced my brother’s decision and was a strong supporter from the beginning. My mother on the other hand was riddled with questions and fear. My mother always wanted the best for her children and for her children to make the best choices for themselves. And this choice my mother wasn’t sure about.
“He’s so young!” she would say over and over again (and at this point we were still using female pronouns). “She’s only nineteen, think how much you change from one year to the next at your age!”
This was true too. And deciding to transition from female to male is not like getting a tattoo. I thought back to when I was nineteen and the choices I had made. The very, very, unawesome choices.
“What if she turns twenty-five and realizes she made a mistake?” my mother pointed out. “It will be too late and the damage will have been done.”
I understood what my mother was saying, but looking back at him when we were growing up, his second grade picture in which he is dressed in a three piece suit and a tie, the realization that he is male made lots of sense to me. When my mother was pregnant with him everyone’s guess was that the new baby would be a boy. When he was at summer camp in elementary school my mom would pick him up only to hear him complain how the counselors made him play on the “girl team.” When we played house he always volunteered to be the dad or the brother, which I thought was so weird because being assigned to have to play the dad, in my mind, was the worst thing ever.
I’ll stop here for now, Part II coming soon….

It Arrived!

2009-12-20T11:49:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to report that Simon held up his end of the beet bargain and when he returned home Friday night he was indeed bearing Mrs. Prop's delicious raspberry vodka infusion, per our arrangement. (It turned out to be vodka after all, not rum). The mason jar was already half empty (or half full depending on how you look at it...I guess) and Simon said this was because he felt he deserved some of it since he had arranged the whole barter. And then my mother said she also deserved some since she grew the beets, technically. So ok, I give them that- but the rest is mine!

This infusion is delicious and deadly since the fruit really masks the fiery burn from the hard liquor. I have to remind myself to drink it slowly. Over ice with a pfeffernusse cookie is especially lovely.

We are buried under 18 inches of snow in Rhode Island today and I am not going anywhere. I should grade the stack of papers I took home with me for the weekend but a tromp through the snow followed by a modest glass of this by the fire is much more appealing. Happy holidays everyone!

The Souffle Project

2009-12-13T14:03:00.000-05:00

A few years ago I stumbled upon a copy of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking at the Salvation Army in North Kingstown. I bought it for ten dollars, took it home, but sadly never ended up making many of the recipes. I have been a Julia Child fan since I was about six, when I would watch old re runs of her cooking show on PBS, sitting on the couch, while my parents made dinner in the kitchen. Besides being mesmerized by all her cutting and clomping, kneading and mixing, all I remember is thinking how strange she was. Like, this woman is really weird. Weird and amazing.
So when I decided that it was time to attempt the infamous soufflé, it was Julia I turned to. I had wanted to try making soufflé for a while, especially since my mother’s chickens were laying well over two dozen eggs weekly- and there could easily be seven dozen eggs in the fridge on any given day. So making a soufflé seemed very practical and logical, despite the soufflé’s reputation. And you all know the reputation I am referring to here- I am referring to the myths, the legends, the paranoia, the “culture of fear” if you will, that surrounds the delicate, elegant, elusive soufflé.
I did not allow myself to be daunted by this however. And early Sunday morning I was resolved. Before I could change my mind I sent out a text message to the few friends I thought may be brave enough to partake in the project. It was 9:00 in the morning. “Attempting the soufflé tonight” I wrote. “Join me if you dare.”
Only a small handful replied. “Shhhhh,” one wrote back. “We will speak only in whispers.” And later, “I’ll wear my slippers.”
With the word officially out, there was no turning back. I promptly began researching and luckily Julia Child is explicit about each step, and heeds simple warnings about the process to the home cook. For example, the bowls you use to beat your egg whites cannot be greasy or oily or your whites will not stand up right. And that once out of the oven the soufflé must be eaten immediately (within 5 minutes) before it begins to deflate.
Armed with this new knowledge I went through my refrigerator and cupboards in order to gather ingredients and write a shopping list. I traveled upstairs to my parents’ refrigerator to procure the necessary eggs when !Shock! Gasp! There were none! *
By 3 pm however the hens had come through and laid half a dozen beautiful, pale eggs. I held them delicately between my fingers and as I made my way back to the house I found myself thinking about this passage from Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale in which Offred, the protagonist, describes how long ago women used to hold eggs in between their breasts to incubate them. I don’t know why, but to my seventeen-year-old mind this just seemed to be the pinnacle of sensuality and eroticism. And I remember lamenting distinctly that my breasts were too small to ever hold and incubate an egg and how this seemed unfair. Offred goes on to remark how eggs seem to glow and have a life of their own, and how thinking about them gives her an intense pleasure. And how holding an egg in between her breasts would have felt really good…
But clearly I digress! I am supposed to writing about cheese soufflé, not bosoms. Sorry if that last paragraph made any of you uncomfortable....
So anyway, I decided to make one cheese soufflé and one with spinach, onion and cheese. I even made a soufflé playlist of calm, quiet music in order to coax and encourage the soufflé to rise and be voluminous and golden (Julia’s description, not mine).
A half hour later my soufflés were indeed golden and voluminous much to my elation and relief, and I immediately rushed everyone to the table to eat it ASAP. Two of my friends were late and while I would never start dinner with missing guests soufflé! can’t! wait! So we had to start without them but luckily they arrived just as I was pulling the second soufflé from the oven.
The soufflés turned out lovely- were creamy and comforting and tasted perfect on a late summer night with a glass of red wine.
Desert soufflés are next.

Souffle Aux Epinards (Spinach Souffle)

1 Tbs. minced shallot or green onion

1 Tbs. butter

1/4 c. chopped frozen spinach

1/4 tsp. salt

Cook the shallots for a moment in the butter. Add the spinach and salt, and stir over medium heat for several minutes to evaporate as much moisture as possible from the spinach. Remove from heat.

Souffle Base

3 Tbs. butter

3 Tbs. flour

1 c. boiling milk

1/2 tsp. salt

a pinch each of black pepper, cayenne, and nutmeg

4 egg yolks

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in flour and cook over medium heat until butter and flour foam together for 2 minutes without browning. Remove from heat and when mixture has stopped bubbling, pour the boiling milk and beat vigorously with a wire whisk unit blended. Beat in the seasonings. Return to medium heat and boil, stirring, for 1 minute. Sauce will be very thick.

Remove from heat and drop each yolk into hot sauce and beat together.

The Egg Whites and Cheese

5 egg whites

A pinch of salt

3/4 c. graded cheese of your choice (SSwiss, Parmesan, Gruyere, cheddar)

Put egg whites in bowl and beat with salt until stiff. Stir a big spoonful (1/4 of egg whites) into the sauce. Stir in all but a tablespoon of the cheese. Delicately fold in the rest of the egg whites.

Baking

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and then turn down to 375 once souffle is put in oven.

Butter the mold heavily and then coat with grated cheese or breadcrumbs. Pour the souffle mixture into the mold, which should be 3/4 full. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top and place in center of oven. Bake for 25-35 minutes until the top is nice and brown. Serve at once!

* When the fridge is really on egg overload my aunt takes them to Providence and sells them to her co workers*

Cry Baby Beets

2009-12-03T14:24:00.001-05:00

I've been feeling a little down the last couple weeks. A mixture of shorter days, a little heartache, and being really, really ready for the semester to be over. My little brother Simon came home for Thanksgiving last week and said his friends at school had been lusting for the pickled beets I had made last summer. "Sorry," I said in my negative and moroseful state, "no pickled beets this year."

"But that's not true," my mother chimed in. "There are lots and lots of beets left in the garden that no one ever picked!"

Simon assured me that if I agreed to pickle beets that weekend he would help. He also said that he could arrange a barter with his ex-girlfriend's parents in Vermont: a jar of beets for one of her mom's vodka infusions (which are pretty amazing...drank some last year).

Somewhat reluctantly, and not at all determined, I joined my father in the garden later that day to help dig up the beets. They hadn't been thinned and many of them were quite small. But I knew the little, tender bulbs would be delicious.

I gained momentum. In the fading daylight I trimmed off the greens (not worth saving by this time of year unfortunately) and rubbed off the big clumps of dirt.

I then set up shop in my kitchen, began sterilizing jars, and cooking the beets until they were nice and tender and their skins would peel easily.

My mood began to lift as my apartment turned into a steam room and I treated myself to a few generous glasses of wine. I downloaded some tracks from Jay-Z's new album, and just between you and me, I busted some mean dance moves during the "wait time."

Sunday afternoon Simon hopped on the train to NY with two pints of dark maroone pickled beets. The barter agreement had been finalized also- although it's rum this year, not vodka. Raspberry I think.

The recipe I used came from the same book I got the Dilly Bean recipe from. I added onions to my beets, but you can omit them if you prefer.

Cry Baby Beets (or Spicy Pickled Beets)

Select small young beets. Break off the stems (which can be cooked and eaten like spinach). Leave about an inch of the stem so that the beets do not bleed during cooking. Cook until just tender. Dip into cold water. Peel off skins. Discard stems. Large beets should be treated the same way, but slice to desired thickness. Make a syrup in the following proportions to cover (I doubled the recipe for about 10 pints):

2 cups sugar

2 cups cider vinegar

2 cups water

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cloves

1 tsp. whole allspice

1 Tbs. ground cinnamon

1-2 cups thinly sliced onion.

Pour over beets and boil about 10 minutes. Pour hot into sterilized jars and seal at once in a water bath for 20 minutes.

Starting Over/Dilly Beans

2009-11-23T20:41:00.000-05:00

I feel it again, that desperate, clawing need for some sort of creative outlet. The creation of this blog was really my dear friend Chelsea’s idea, who always has my best interests in mind and has always advocated loudly for self expression and productivity. I was out visiting her in Portland in June this year, and one slow, rainy morning we “launched” Sophie Writes, the beautiful cabbage masthead photo having previously been taken at a local flea market near Chelsea’s house. Anyway, I was reluctant to say the least and obviously, due to a sparseness of “posts” since, never really quite got into it. But I want to try, I do. Again. I’m going to try again and I am not going to make lame excuses about how I don’t have anything to talk about, or how I can’t figure out the nuances of blogspot.
So, while I wasn’t writing or posting things this summer let it be known that I was thinking about it. And planning. My mother’s garden had a bumper crop of green beans this summer and I photographed the entire canning process because I was convinced it would be a great blog post. I didn’t do it four months ago but I will bring it to you now…
Dilly Beans.
I am a freak for anything pickled. Something about crispy preserved vegetables submerged in salty, briny, vinegar satisfies my soul. I had a pickled egg for the first time at a bar in Providence recently and it was a revelation. Oh, pickles, pickles, pickles!
The garden this year was sadly not the most productive it has been in the past, despite my parents fierce war on the groundhogs and my mother’s tireless weeding and gentle gardener’s touch. But we got a lot of green beans. We ate as many as we could every day, sautéed them with olive oil and garlic, cut them up and put them in salads, and nibbled on them throughout the lazy afternoons like they were potato chips.
But I knew greater steps had to be taken to preserve these beans, lest they go to waste.
The recipe I used came from A Primer for Pickles: A Reader for Relishes. It’s a very simple process, and because the beans are only slightly cooked during the water bath at the end, they come out being delightfully crisp and crunchy.
4 lbs green beans, whole, (about 4 quarts)
For each pint jar:
¼ tsp. hot red pepper, crushed
½ tsp. mustard seed
1 dill head
I clove garlic
Solution of 5 cups cider vinegar to 5 cups purified water and ½ cups pickling salt (I just use kosher salt)
Make sure you wash the beans thoroughly. Cut into lengths that fill the pint jars. Pack beans into sterilized jars. Add crushed pepper, mustard seed, dill heads, and garlic (blanch garlic in hot water for 1 minute before placing in jar).
Combine vinegar, water, and salt. Heat to boiling. Pour boiling liquid over beans filing to ½ inch of the top of jar. Seal and process for 5 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Behold your beautiful jars of Dilly Beans! Marvel at the warm, smooth glass jars full of tasty pickles and feel virtuous when you hear their little lids pop as they seal up for many months. Open them in January and think about sunburns and mowing the lawn.
PS. I entered a jar of these at the Washington County Fair this year. Second place! Not bad…I think I didn’t get first because I could have packed the beans straighter. There is always next year.

Birthdays

2009-08-28T17:31:00.000-04:00

My friends Lea and Chives celebrated their birthdays recently and I was in charge of cake. Chives requested his old favorite, chocolate cake with white frosting, while Lea requested zucchini cake -a faithful standby I make a lot that she had yet to taste.
While many may be daunted by the idea of baking two separate cakes in the middle of July, I awoke Friday morning thoroughly pleased by the fact that I would be able to spend the whole morning baking away in the kitchen. As I creamed butter, sugar, and eggs I rotated between listening to A Stranger podcast and some old Patty Griffin. A strange combination, I know, but it worked for me.
I ended up using Ruth Reichl’s Devil‘s food cake recipe and Seven-minute frosting, which you can find in her first book Tender at the Bone. I recommend anyone interested in writing and food read it, because it is wonderful and has lots of good recipes. Historically I have stayed far away from “boiled” type frostings, fearful of the science-y attention they seem to require (candy thermometer? I don’t have the patience nor the time for you…) Lea assured me however that the frosting was amazing and easy to make, although be prepared for a serious workout if you don’t have an electric beater. The frosting is really more of a billowy marshmallow meringue than a heavy, buttery frosting, which is a wonderful contrast to the lightly sweetened chocolate cake.
The zucchini cake I have been making for years and the original recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess. It’s a sturdy, simple recipe, and the only time I have not had this cake turn out well is when I failed to use self-rising cake flour. Be ye warned. To make this cake even more of a cinch I don’t make the lemon curd myself, but opt to buy it at the grocery store. It’s just as delicious, I promise. This is a wonderful cake to make in the spring and summer, since zucchini is in season and the spongy cakes and zesty lemon flavor goes seems to go down really easy in warmer weather. But I have been known to make this cake in the dead of winter too- when we New Englanders need a little lift in our step and break from the cold and dark.

Devil’s food cake
1 cup milk
¾ cup cocoa
⅓ cup white sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
¼cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups sifted cake flour
1½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
Seven-minute frosting
4 egg whites
1½ cups sugar
¼ cup water
1 tsp. cream of tartar
⅛ tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
To make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.
Heat the milk in a small pan until bubbles begin to appear around the edges. Remove from the heat.
Mix the cocoa and white sugar together in a small bowl and slowly beat in the warm milk. Let cool.
Cream the butter with the brown sugar. Beat in the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla. Add the cocoa mixture.
Mix the remaining dry ingredients together and gently blend into the butter mixture. Do not overbeat.
Turn the batter into the prepared cake pans. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until the cake shrinks slightly from the sides of the pans and springs back when touched gently in the center. Cool on a rack for a few minutes, then turn out of the pans onto the rack. Let cool completely before frosting.
To make the frosting:
To make the frosting, combine the egg whites, sugar, water, cream of tartar, and salt in the top pan of a double boiler. Set the pan over simmering water and beat with an electric mixer for about 5 minutes, or until soft peaks form.
Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Keep beating until frosting is stiff enough to spread. Use immediately and all of it.

Zucchini Cake
2 medium sized zucchini
2 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup plus 1 tbs. sugar
1 ½ cups self-rising cake flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
Filling:
Jar of lemon curd
Frosting:
1 package of cream cheese
½ cups (and a bit more) confectioner’s sugar
Juice of one lemon
For the Cake:
Grate zucchini’s and let drain in the sink. To expedite this process I tend to scoop the zucchini up in balls and squeeze them to get the moisture out.
Put the eggs, oil, and sugar in a bowl and beat until creamy. Add the flour, baking soda and powder, and continue to mix until well combined.
Stir in zucchini and pour into two 8x2 inch cake pans greased and lined with wax paper.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until light brown and firm.
Let the cakes cool for a few minutes before turning them out of the pans.
For the frosting:
Cream the cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon juice until smooth.
To assemble the cake, place one cake on a plate and spread the top with lemon curd. Place the second cake on top and spread the top only with the frosting. Enjoy!

The birthday party was down at the beach and I had fanciful plans of taking lots of pictures of beautiful sun burned party goers eating big slices of cake. But it got dark by the time we brought the cakes out, and I was too drunk to think about taking pictures anyway- so those images will just have to be left up to your own imaginings.