Toast

Class holiday: Chapter Three, the last

Heaven on Seven, a farmers market, and the Jam Class Buffet

By Thursday morning, I had concluded that there was no denying my unexpectedly ravenous morning appetite. I guess I'm not usually particularly hungry for breakfast, because my real job is sedentary, and I don't generally work until nine at night, either. So I took my hungry self to Heaven on Seven, described by the Slow Food Chicago guide as "New Orleans North, " where I had the above-pictured breakfast of poached eggs and andalouille sausage on cheese grits.

I'm afraid that I chuckled when I saw the plated breakfast, which looks like the Fisher Price play clock we used to teach my daughter to tell time, in the analog days of yore. The waiter seemed a mite offended, though I meant only to show my appreciation. I made sure to tell him how delicious it was, and I think I was forgiven. It really was wonderful, everything cooked perfectly, and the chopped green onions on top were just the right touch.

Heaven on Seven is located on the seventh floor (hence the name) of the Garland building at 111 N. Wabash, across from Macy's- formerly Marshall Field.* The ambiance is Early Tabasco, and they serve a variety of wonderful looking gumbos and estoufees and other cajun specialties. It was seriously crowded for lunch, by the time I left, but easy to be seated for a late breakfast.

After breakfast, I headed on over to the Daley Plaza Farmers' Market, one of many downtown and neighborhood markets sponsored by the Mayor's Office of Special Events. This one is open on Thursdays. Beautiful flowers and fruits, vegetables, baked goods, surrounded by umbrella tables, and there was a cooling fountain, too. There is a rule that all food must be identified by point of origin, which is pretty cool-pretty much everything I looked at was grown by the people selling it, and was from Illinois or Michigan.

As a traveler, I was kind of frustrated, I would have bought loads if I was at home. But I did have a fridge in my room, so I got me some homemade cheddar and a mini ciabatti for sandwiches, as well as a small box of apricots. I was really pleased with everything, especially the apricots. I had just about given up on fresh apricots- though I love the dried ones.

Supermarket apricots generally taste like potatoes. These little guys were not particularly soft, but they were a lovely dark orange, with speckles, and the little boy selling them explained that there might be a few worm holes, as they hadn't sprayed for 2 years. I was glad I took a chance on them, they were sweet/tart and spicy- just delicious.

I gave one to the elderly lady sitting next to me on the plane home, and she agreed that they were heavenly. I also bought 2 bunches of beautiful Michigan asparagus, and carried them home in my tote bag on the plane. I was a little worried that they might be a problem with the security folks, but they passed through the x-ray without comment, and I was able to serve them to my friends Friday night.

The third night of class was as busy and informative as the first two; we finished and bottled up our chutneys and jams, and made numerous bottles of garlic dills. I was able to wrap my jam bottles in my laundry, to bring home in my checked suitcase, but had no room for 4 quarts of dill pickles, so those were donated to a classmate driving home. The final photo is Chef Bob Hartwig , arranging a gorgeous buffet of his beautiful baked goods and our mutual jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles. We tried everything, then packed up our loot, our certificates(!), and our French Pastry School aprons. Much though I love this supply of goodies, my most valuable memento is my little notebook of recipes, annotated with my class notes. And you will be seeing the results here, as time goes on.

Addendum

Things we made:

Lemon jelly with sliced lemons
Apple jelly with vanilla
Strawberry Mint Preserve
Orange marmalade
Blueberry preserve with red onions and sherry vinegar
Chocolate raspberry jam
"Nutella" type chocolate and hazelnut spread
Hazelnut praline
Dill pickles
pickling spice
Shallot confit

Demonstrated (and eaten!):

Pastry cream
Brioche dough
sweet tart pastry
lemon pound cake
Scottish buttermilk and cream raisin scones

Food 2.0

Recently, I received several "Advanced Reader's" copies of food books, which is a delightful side benefit of writing a blog, a not-for-profit enterprise- in my case, anyhow. It makes me feel puffed up and important, giant geek that I am. But even better, I get to see lots of interesting new stuff and add to the strain on the inadequate shelf space in my apartment. Life is good.

When invited to preview, I tell publishers' representatives that while I promise to read their book, I cannot promise to review it. I don't review books often, and may well find I have nothing much to say about a new cookbook. If a book is wonderful, or fun, or incredibly awful, I will talk about it, or just let you know it's out there-in case you didn't. Know, that is.

It is a good thing that I am not a reviewer of food books by trade. While I read cookbooks like novels, and have bought far too many of them myself, I am wordless after a preview of most. If you see a book featured here, there is probably a fair amount of enthusiastic babbling or, well, the opposite. I do favor the former, and generally only go after a bad book if I believe the author both influential and egregiously lazy. This is an unusual case, though, because I think something good is in danger of going under.

Warning: In a few minutes I am going to be ungracious.

Food 2.0 presents food by Charlie Ayers, the original, and former long-time head chef guy at Google. Google, in its role as employer, is famous for the wonderful food served to its high tech workers, so good that it keeps them hanging around working, instead of, say, going home.

The book is published by DK publishing, heretofore associated in my mind with cleverly designed, modern travel books, loaded with attractive and helpful illustrations. Food 2.0 is, however, excessively and ineffectually tarted up design-wise. As a result, one might well fail to notice the really excellent recipes, which are delicious, healthy, and mostly very simple to prepare. This guy is clearly a terrific cook- one of those people with a major flair for combining flavor and texture in sometimes new, but not bizarre ways- original, but not weird. His recipes do not require odd ingredients, and can all be made, without excessive fuss, at home.

Ayers has a distinct, neat personality and some very good ideas to impart, but they are not organized in an accessible way for a person who is used to, say, reading books. Perhaps this is an attempt to convey some sort of techie, info-in-bytes kind of feeling, but it is distracting and unattractive, and also, it doesn't work. This is a book, for crying out loud- you can't click on a word for more information. And what is more, there is no index. Even a food magazine, if decent, has an index.

The type-faces and cover photo (of what looks like an dull, ordinary burger-though it is not)- just plain, well, suck. I have no problem with the all-black-and-white interior concept as an idea-it could have been good. But these are boring photos; they are badly composed, as is the type and layout. They make the book look junky, and this guy is not junky- his food is great. It's really too bad. [note: Farmgirl Susan has pointed out (she got an advance copy too) that the final edition will have full color photos. There's a note on the back to that effect, which I didn't notice. I hope that will improve the look of the thing, and maybe that there are some design changes in the offing, too. Couldn't hurt.]

I hope there will be sufficient mass media reviewer interest in the quality of the food, so that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. This is emphatically not a book I would have picked off the rack to have a look at. I may be a bit of a nut about type design, layout, and the book as a physical object, but I think it is not eccentric to call this one plain ol' ugly.

I am a little surprised at how much I apparently care about this sort of thing. I mean, for example, I am very fond of a number of cookbooks of the spiral-bound, standard production variety, and am not at all offended by their design. They are what they are, and likeable for it. But this one- it's pretentious, in its own casual way, and the design detracts from the text. End of cranky rant.

Anyhow, I'm glad to have the book for the interesting ideas and recipes, and here is one I made for a simple stir fry. I used my last frozen duck breast on this , but chicken breast is specified, and of course, would be good, too. This recipe serves one.

1 tsp veg oil
1 cup mixed vegs (diced onion, green beans or sliced sugar snap peas, and carrots in small pieces)
1/2 tsp finely chopped lemongrass
duck breast or chicken breast , cut in thin strips
1 cup raw peeled shrimp
1/2 tsp minced garlic
3 tbsps dark soy sauce
2 tsps rice vinegar
1 tsp light brown or palm sugar
1/2 tsp. asian style dark sesame oil
freshly ground black pepper
2 handsful shredded lettuce

In a wok, heat the oil and stir fry the veg for a couple of minutes. Add the lemongrass and duck, and stir fry until the duck has lost almost all pinkness. Add the shrimp, and fry until pink. Add everything else- except the lettuce, cook for a minute or two, and pour over lettuce. Eat this right away! If you want a heartier meal, add a cup of cooked rice noodles along with the soy and flavorings.

I love the lemongrass flavor. I had some cute yellow carrots- so I used both the yellow and orange for prettiness. This is an especially good casual stir fry, though I'm not sure why it works so well. Clever fellow.

Something Wicked: Pistachio Chocolate Thumbprints

My friend I., in aid of my recent babka obsession, recommended a wonderful cookbook, with the longish title of Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins and More, by Carole Walter. This is a woman who clearly knows what she is talking about and writes a mean recipe to boot.

She even explains how to make real strudel dough so clearly that I almost feel as if I could do it. I intend to follow several trails , including the babka road, in this excellent book. The first thing I had to try, though, was totally off-topic. And these chocolate pistachio thumbprint cookies are awfully good.

They are a little bit of a pain in the neck, in terms of multiple steps, dirty pans, and fiddle. Her instructions, however are so detailed that you pretty much cannot fail. No paraphrasing I can do will be nearly as good as the original- if you are a cookie monster who loves coffee cake, you should just get the book. Really. Plus, there's just so much detail a person can transcribe before they just don't want to anymore. Especially those of us who were never such great typists to begin with.

However, as I think it is unfair to show a picture and give no recipe, this is what I am going to do. I am going to provide the cookie recipe, and suggest that you use whatever chocolate glaze, or ganache suits you to fill the thumbprints. I think any nice one will work, though I am partial to Ms. Walter's, and have a bit left for a coffee cake to follow. I followed her instructions very closely, and the cookies are special. She's in a class with Dorie Greenspan and Maida Heatter for the writing of recipes for baking, folks.

You will need:
1 3/4 cups AP flour, spooned in and leveled
1/4 strained dutch process cocoa
1/4 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, slightly firm
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 1/2 tsps real vanilla
1 cup pistachio nuts, toasted, and then medium chopped
3 tbsps sparkling sugar (I used sanding sugar in green- I have a personal weakness for colored sanding sugar)
sufficient chocolate glaze to fill 32 thumbprints

Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour cocoa powder, and salt. Set aside. Put the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle beater. Mix until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the sugar in a steady stream, and stop when just incorporated. Blend in egg yolks and vanilla.

Remove the bowl from the mixer, and blend in the flour mixture with a wooden spoon. (It's a bit of work, but don't overmix, or it will get oily, she says).

Set out a sheet of waxed paper, and with your hands, roll out a walnut sized ball of dough, and set it on the waxed paper. Continue until the dough is all made into cookies.

In a small shallow bowl, beat the egg white with 2 tsps water, just until combined. In another bowl, mix the sparkling sugar and cooled, chopped nuts. Now take half of that mixture, and put it in a small shallow bowl. Dip each cookie in the egg white, and rollin the nut mixture to cover. Then set each on one of the cookie sheets. When the nut mixture gets low, add more. (This helps it stay drier, instead of being all sticky from the eggwhite.)

Once all the cookies are on the baking sheets, use the end of a wooden spoon (about 1/2"in diameter), to poke a deep hole in the center of each cookie. Put the cookie sheets in the oven, and bake for 12 minutes. Take them out, and re-poke all the holes with the spoon-end. Turn them round and exchange the top sheet for the bottom one. Bake another 3-5 minutes, until firm to the touch, then remove. Let the cookies sit on the sheets for 5 minutes or so, then move to a cooling rack. When they are tepid, fill with your glaze or ganache.

These will keep in an airtight container for a week, with waxed paper or foil between, if they last that long. I wonder if I could actually make a strudel, from other than frozen, store bought filo? I think the coffee cakes come first.

Gotta Love 'Em: Two Practical Theoreticians on Home Cooking and More

Well, y'know, is this my favorite thing, or what? I have been enjoying two books by very smart women who have written, edited and thought about food and cooking for many years. Both have cooked beautiful food, for family and friends, and sometimes customers, all to excellent effect and exerting great influence. In their newest books they have explained, interpreted, expounded and provided recipes.

You cannot help but know something of Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse, author-with-others of influential cookbooks, organizer of school food and gardening programs, patroness of eating local movements, and general world symbol of the "New American Cuisine".

But unless you explore the publishing history of the cookbooks you cherish, you may or may not have heard of Judith Jones. Jones, with Knopf since 1957, has edited many of the food classics-and known their writers- from Edna Lewis, to Mastering the Art of French Cooking with Julia Child, to Lidia Bastianich, Claudia Roden, Madhur Jaffrey, Marcella Hazan, Marion Cunningham, Irene Kao, et al, along with her impressive purely literary editing work. She been author, and co-author too- of the LL. Bean Game and Fish Cookbook, among others. Her fascination with good food developed during her post war stint, as a young woman in Paris, a time and place to which every reading food lover wishes to teleport.

Jones has a unique voice and has had an interesting life. Eager to try new things and cook real food, she is a believer in mastering the fundamental techniques of a cuisine, and adapting them to the best and freshest and most interesting local food available. She takes trouble with her food, but does not confuse care and effort with the sort of chef-y cooking which demands exotic ingredients and special, costly purchases for one-time use. And though she is widowed and lives alone, sets her table most every night, and cooks real food for herself. Among the recipes at the end of her excellent The Tenth Muse is a group of recipes for one.

One recipe I especially love is her Sauce Gribiche, for lamb or other cold meats. You see my own here, not beautiful, but delicious. This sauce validates my long held view that vinegar and/or capers are just the thing to brighten up such leftovers, and make a treat out of necessity. It seems a nearly perfect application of that idea, and I can tell you that, as a bonus, it is also very good on cauliflower, and asparagus. You just mix the ingredients together: 1/2 tsp salt, 1 Tbsp dijon mustard,1 Tbsp wine vinegar, 3 Tbsps olive oil, 2 cornichons, 1 tbsp parsley and 1 hardboiled egg- all chopped small, and freshly ground black pepper.

Ms. Waters needs no introduction. I have enjoyed all her previous cookbooks, but I admit, more in the nature of inspiration than in recipe-following. I don't live in California, so many of the specific, wonderful, fresh local ingredients in those recipes have been unavailable to me, here in Western Pennsylvania. I think she would probably have advised me to use what is good and beautiful locally, and in that way, I do think I've taken many of her ideas to heart.

Her newest book The Art of Simple Food seems to me to be her most personal , and it also deals with the basic techniques with which to make use of those good local ingredients. There are chapters for the fundamentals of various sorts of food preparation, with sample, teaching recipes, and a back section with many more recipes- all very do-able, and alluring. Like all Water's prior books, it is nicely designed, and pleasant to touch. The jacket-less cover is a lovely, silky creamy sort of cardboard- very nice to handle. I have admired the various covers for her previous books, done by David Lance Goines, and his beautiful Chez Panisse anniversary posters. This book- not his work- is also attractive, as you can see. I love the typography.

Some folks have said that Ms. Waters is not really so much about cooking, as about shopping. Shopping for the perfect organically grown, rosy plum, the incredibly fresh micro-greens, the free-range, heritage farm-bred game bird, and so on. Pretty much any one who wants to can do this sort of shopping in their own way, though it cannot be denied that the wealthy, and people who live in certain climates do have a certain advantage. There is, of course, much more to it than that. This lovely food should , she demonstrates, be cooked in a way which enhances and does not ruin it. This is a tightrope well worth walking, and requires care, experience, and attention.

Much as I admire, and generally agree with these tenets, I do think that Ms. Waters and some other folks with similar points to make, sometimes seem to neglect, a bit, an important aspect of the tradition of good home cooking. This principle has resulted in some of the greatest culinary classics, and informs the work of the everyday, inspired home cook. I mean the genius of making something out of nothing...the use of that which is available, if non-ideal... the slightly soft carrot in the bottom of the bin, the left-over cooked vegetables, or the boiled beef from the soup. With the application of imagination and experience, our mothers and grandmothers made stupendously good food this way, and we should not forget how to do it. Sure, shop for the best, the local, the perfect when you can. But "Waste not, want not" is an environmentally sound adage, too. I'm just saying.

Street Food for Homebodies

I am always pleased, but a tad conflicted, when I'm sent a new book or product. I say that I can't promise to write about something I haven't seen yet, but I don't like to disappoint. If I wrote a book, and sent it off, and the recipient was silent, or expressed boredom, or worse, with the product of my hard work, I might well be brokenhearted. But probably, in order to become a published writer of any sort, you have to be made of stronger stuff than yours truly. I hope, before retirement age, to reach a level of self confidence where I am not deeply grieved to discover I am disliked, even when the rejecting party is someone I have no actual interest in whatsoever. I do know this queasiness to be a character flaw- so that's a start.

Fortunately, I am pleased as punch (or is it "Punch" as in "and Judy"?) with Street Food, the second book by Tom Kime, a gifted fellow who I had not heard of before. Once a chef at the famed River Cafe, he has apparently been, inter alia, a TV Host, an award winning author, and the caterer of Jamie Oliver's wedding feast. Who knew? He has traveled four continents, sampling the street food of India, southeast Asia, north Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe, snagging recipes for the kind of goodies that make you feel you are on holiday from all culinary drudgery.

Street food, the best of it anyway, is like that. But the recipes which appear from time to time in newspapers and magazines frequently lack the on-site magic. Part of that, no doubt, is the absence of the charm of travel. I had an inkling, though, from first looking over this collection, that it was the work of an original cook. I thought he might well be one of those few with a special gift for putting simple things together in ways which enhance them, creating food which is more than the sum of its parts.(The world may be full of such wizards- professional and non-but if so, most of them don't write books.) Perhaps it is a special gift for recognizing, rather than, or in addition to creating, since these are meant to be very authentic recreations? In any event you can certainly see originality at work in the combination suggested meals put together from this widely diverse group of treats.

I think my first impression was very not wrong. I've made three things from this book, and all three were wonderful.(These are my photos, of my food, BTW; the ones in the book are far classier, but I thought you'd like to see that these things are doable at home.)They were shourba corbasi- a chard soup with rice and tumeric, shlada al falfla hamra al khizzou-a carrot and orange salad with paprika dressing, and cucur udang-Singapore prawn fritters with sweet chili sauce. The last, involving hot oil, was the only one that was the least bit of trouble. And I'm here to tell you that all three were really, truly delicious and different and easy to love.

All are pictured, I will leave you to figure out which is which. I had a bit of trouble deciding which recipe to pass along. I went with the soup in the end, as it is so seasonally on target (it was all there in my CSA farmbox, and so quick and easy.) This is how I made it, adapted from Street Food:

1 pound of swiss chard, stalks and leaves separated, very well washed
1 qt good quality chicken or veg stock
2 tbsps olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 leeks, trimmed, rinsed halved and sliced
1/2 cup long grain white rice (I used basmati)
2 tbsps white wine or rice vinegar
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 1/2 cups plain greek style yogurt- or drained ordinary yogurt
pinch ground tumeric
juice of a lemon
chopped fresh mint leaves
salt and pepper

Finely dice the chard stalks, and finely shred the leaves. Bring the stock to a boil in a small saucepan. Heat the oil in a soup pot with a heavy bottom, and cook the onion, leeks , and chard stems for 4-5 minutes, until just beginning to brown. Add the rice, and stir to coat thoroughly. Pour in the hot stock and vinegar. Bring to a boil, and simmer until the rice is tender- about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, chop the garlic and add to the yogurt with half of the lemon juice, the tumeric, and a bit of salt. add the chard leaves to the soup, and simmer a few minutes, until they are tender. Remove from the heat, and whisk in the yougurt combo. Taste for seasoning, and add salt, pepper, and a bit more lemon juice as needed. Top with mint leaves, and serve lukewarm or hot- but lukewarm tastes especially nice to me.

Street food at home is a luxury. This stuff is really good, I kid you not.

A Couple of Not So Green Salads

I have been making a homely supper/indoor picnic for my friends, while re-perusing the classic spiral bound cookbook White Trash Cooking, and debating about what sort of potato salad to make. That's not the potato salad you see there, but another not-so- green salad, to be named later. I figure just about every body knows what a basic American potato salad looks like.

I had a big mason jar of Clem's ambrosial barbeque sauce that I brought home with me, which I do, pretty much annually, stopping at Clem's barbeque pit on the way back from our work conference in State College, PA. I also bring home half a rack of fire-pit barbequed ribs- but those disappear shortly after I make sure the cats are okay, and well before I unpack. A week or so later, I make a supper of pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, potato salad, and some kind of cobbler or pie. It's a thing.

The coleslaw recipe is a fixture- non-negotiable, in this context, anyhow. but I am always open to potato salad variations, from the hokiest to the haute-ist. Potato salad is a tremendously versatile dish, a blank canvas for the painting of, well whatever- I'll let this wonky metaphor fade on out- you probably know what I mean, anyway. For this meal, though, I thought something down-homey would be compatible- hence the book.

Whenever I consult WTC, I am surprised and a little embarassed to recall just how little most of the recipes appeal to me. I think of myself as a lover of plain home cooking, fried chicken, biscuits, greens, etc, but much of this stuff is pretty sickly, though intriguing. A lot of processed foodis involved- cake mix dumped on some peaches for a cobbler, canned vegetables and soups in casseroles, and the like. The book is full of strong, admirable characters, and is utterly noncondescending- so what am I, some kind of food snob? I don't know. I certainly don't scorn the use of humble, unlikely, or hokey ingredients- I make a chicken thing with coca-cola- and it's good. But a ton of these recipes-I can tell I'd hate them.

I greatly prefer, southern/country cooking-wise, most of the recipes in the books of Edna Lewis, with or without Scott Peacock, her buddy, fellow chef, and, at the end- her caretaker. There are lots of recipes with titles that are the same as those in WTC, but they are different, sound good, and taste good when you make them. You can tell they come from the same place and time- Scott Peacock even recalls the very same cake-mix cobbler recipe, as being tasty, but a bit "oversweet". He notes that while his mother used supermarket biscuits in her blackberry cobbler- he makes his from scratch. These guys are chefs, though, not home cooks like me. E.L. was from a country cooking tradition, but she was a sophisticated person, who spent many years cooking professionally, and writing about food.

I guess these two were looking to the food of the generation before S.P.'s mother's era...folks who didn't have the option of adding gratuitous doses of chemical novelties to the food they grew and raised. When all that stuff appeared for the first time- cake mix, Cool Whip, packaged biscuits, jello and pudding, it must have been irresistable, fun and magical-especially to people who did hard physical work all day, and were used to a lot of laborious cooking as well. Once considered special, and a treat, these instant gratification foods are so much a part of our culture that we may be considered annoying elitists if we avoid them .

Surprisingly, though, these two cookbooks offer virtually the same potato salad recipe, except that the Lewis/Peacock version has cider vinegar, and the WTC one uses pickle juice. So that's what I made, and it is nice. It is basically boiled potatoes, cubed, mayo, a little chopped onion, a little brown mustard, hard-boiled egg yolks, a little cider vinegar, salt and pepper. Very basic, very good. I generally add a little celery seed and some finely chopped fennel or celery.The more egg yolks you add, the better it is, no question There is no potato salad more elemental, and pretty much everyone eats it.

Which brings me to the salad you see in the photo- this is a "BLT Salad", which sounds like a refugee from WTC, but was actually found in a Lewis/Peacock book. Like the potato salad, it has an added luster when prepared mostly from fresh veg from my CSA farmbox. (The coleslaw, too- there was a crispy, beautiful cabbage this week.) This is how you make it:

Wash and dry some very crispy lettuce- we had romaine, (but even iceberg would be better than something soft or buttery), cut it up and top with chunky croutons, freshly made from good white bread; crispy bacon cut into squares; and a beautiful tomato or two, cut into smallish cubes. Add salt and pepper, and just before serving, toss with just enough good mayonaisse to coat it lightly. So very good. But how could it not be?

There is some green in this salad after all, but what with the bacon and mayo, it ain't exactly your palate-cleansing pile-o-greens. Still.

Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant

I am lucky to have been sent a copy of this collection of essays about cooking and eating alone, a subject close to my heart. I was going to quickly read through and review it for you, as it is now available for pre-order from Amazon, and various other book sellers. But I've read the introduction and the first two essays, and have decided I want to make it last, and savor it. So instead of writing a proper review- I will tell you why I've got it by the bed, and am allowing myself one chapter per night.

Fans of the late Laurie Colwin will recognize the title of the book and lead essay, a personal favorite, from her Home Cooking. I first read this essay right around the time I was living alone, for the first time in my life...a widow, whose only child had just gone off to college. It was about Laurie Colwin's life in her tiny Greenwich village flat, when she was in her early twenties, and I was 44, but it hit me right where I lived. Because although I was lonely, and sorely missed my daughter, I was also a little giddy with the unexpected freedom, and fascinated and surprised by the choices, culinary and otherwise, I made when there was no one to answer to but me. And despite many changes and rearrangements since, I'm still kind of amazed and delighted.

In addition to the excellent introductory essay by editor Jenni Ferrari-Alder, there are contributions by Colin Harrison, Holly Hughes, Ann Pachett, Nora Ephron, Marcella Hazan, and many others, diverse and tempting, about the strange and fascinating things that human beings do and think about when cooking and/or dining alone. I do believe this very close-to-the-bone behaviour reveals quite a bit about the kind of creatures we are, various, strange and intriguing. What an inspired idea, and there are recipes! I'm not going to rush through it, but I wanted to let you know it will be published officially on July 19th, so you will have a chance to read it too.

And, oh yes, I love the aubergine dustcover.

Barbara Kingsolver, First Farmbox, and Rhubarb Ice Cream

I have been reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, her story of her family's year of eating locally on their Appalachian farm. I picked it up because I thought highly of her Poisonwood Bible. Before I read the latter, I had tried a couple of her earlier novels, and found them okay, but not so interesting. I thought P.B.was far superior what she had done previously, and wanted to see what she had to say about a topic which is simultaneously close to my heart, and, well, annoying.

So far, I' m a little surprised that I'm enjoying it so much. In my younger days, I read "back to the land" books dreamily, and devoured everything I could find on sustainable agriculture, seed saving ,genetic diversity, and eating locally. The romance of the imaginary organic farm has lost a lot of its appeal for me- I am an urban sort of person, and prefer to let my CSA farmer do the actual bulk growing.

I do miss my garden-I long for it every spring- and I need to come up with a way to have one again, but I know that the realities of farm life are truly not my cup of tea. Likewise, I feel that I understand the political food issues. Though I'm not an expert, and don't do enough about those issues on a political level, I don't need convincing of their righteousness. And I'm easily bored, especially when there's preaching.

This book does not pretend to be The Way for everyone. It is unassuming, personal, sensible, and encouraging. It is also loaded with lots of good practical , factual backup for any arguments you might have with, say, people who claim corporate chemical farming some how serves the poor of the planet, and who decry as "elitist" advocates for local, organically raised and free-range food.

Ms. Kingsolver's science background and writer's chops serve her well. She speaks confidently, and simply. The Monsanto stories, though not new, are just chilling. Her family and their home are interesting and appealing, without being too exemplary, or cute. I'm about half way through the book, and I'm a little bit re-motivated. Not that I was demotivated, but I'm sort of jazzed on the issues again. And the woman has me wanting to try my hand at making cheese. Meanwhile, the supermarket fruits and veggies from afar are looking like an even worse choice than usual, and I'm delighted and relieved that it is the beginning of the new year for my CSA farmbox.

The first farmbox of the year always looks beautiful to me, though it is necessarily a bit sparse, since we are in western PA, and it is barely June. There are herbs, spinach, lettuce, pea greens, strangely unformed, yet slightly woody onions, lovely crisp radishes (as mentioned earlier), and a bunch of rhubarb. (And, as every year, with the first box, there is a complementary round loaf of some soft-crusted mushball whole grain bread, which must be toasted to be tolerable. I don't get this- in all other ways, the Kretchmanns exhibit excellent taste. Oh well.)

I'm having a Tilapia filet, baked in parchment with pea greens and herb butter for dinner. I'll let you know how it goes-it's an LA Times recipe, since deleted, but reconstructed via the good memory of an egullet member. There's going to be a supper of farmbox baby spinach with pinenuts and raisins over polenta in the picture too.

The rhubarb, washed and diced, is about 2 cups worth, just about enough for a quart of ice cream. This is how I made it:

Stew the rhubarb, cut into very small dice, for about 15 minutes in 2/3 cup of water with a pinch of salt, 3/4 cup sugar (or a mixture of sugar and golden syrup), a squirt of lemon juice, and a half of a split vanilla bean. Cool thoroughly, chilling if possible.

Combine the chilled rhubarb mixture with 1 cup of cream and one cup of milk. Freeze according to your ice cream maker's directions. This is a delicious, not too sweet, subtly flavored concoction, IIDSSMS.

Consume, feeling elegant. I'm going to save some for next weekend, in the hope that there will be strawberies in the farmbox. Clearly this ice cream woud be insanely good with some pulverized real strawberries on top.

Pasta Regulare: Two By Three, Four from Two

In an early Sopranos episode, mob guy Pauly Walnuts was amusingly appalled that a Starbucks-like coffee chain had "stolen [his] culture." He particularly objected to the fancy Italianate names for drink sizes and not-so-Italian yuppy-style beverages. He ordered a coffee, and when the barista looked at him expectantly, waiting for his "vente, skim" type clarification, he snarled and said "I'll have a regulare".

Okay, my title is not so on point- I'm just stretching Pauly's "regulare" tag here to tell you about two new cookbooks devoted to making pasta casually, for family consumption, on a regular basis. One,"On Top of Spaghetti", I bought because the authors, Johanne Killeen and George Germon, who own and run Al Forno, in Providence, previously produced "Cucina Simpatica", a cookbook among my top ten all time favorites. The other, Everyday Pasta, by Giada De Laurentis, came in the mail because I had been unsuccesssful in an attempt to cancel a bookclub membership.

I decided to try a couple of recipes from Everyday Pasta, and a couple from On Top, because , well, I don't mind eating pasta for supper most any day, and now I can perform the dubious public service of telling you what I thought of both books. In its most direct form my advice is as follows: Buy On Top. Everyday Pasta? Fuggeddabouddit. In support of these assessments, I will tell you about the recipes I tried from each. Obviously this subjective analysis is deeply flawed, based on a too small sample, and for all I know, hopelessly prejudiced by the irritating way in which I acquired the De Laurentis book. I don't think so, but then I wouldn't, would I?

I suspect that the principle differences between the two books are the levels of inspiration/sensibility, and recipe testing. Which may explain why the On Top recipes I tried "worked" and the Everyday recipes did not. Those Al Forno people are brilliant and gifted, and can put simple things together and make them distinctive. And someone has also obviously actually made every recipe in their book more than once. I'm sure Ms. DeL is a reasonably good cook (though I find it hard to believe that she often eats this sort of food-she looks to be a vivid, tiny hummingbird powered by, maybe, nectar?), but her two pastas I tried missed the mark. Especially as to texture. Meh.

The one was the Baked Gnocchi, with spinach and goat cheese.. It sounded fine, though a bit overloaded with cream- the spinach and nutmeg seemed appropriate companions. I did not use homemade gnocchi ( she said it wasn't necessary to do so), but I did use some lovely prepared ones I had made before..and liked. Stodge with lumps here. The flavor was okay, but nothing thrilling to make up for the belly bomb nature of this substance. Not good.

I next tried a Rotini with Salmon and Roasted Garlic. I picked it because I had a nice bit of salmon. It had rosemary, which was strange, and quite a lot of chicken broth that never got reduced and syrupy, or mixed with scraped up crusty bits of anything. The flavor was fine..not odd, as I had feared with the rosemary, roasted garlic, and salmon. The lemon juice (more wetness) and zest kind of tied the flavors in with the fish...but the finished pasta sat damply in its seasoned chicken stock, and hence was pretty unappealing. I did eat it up though, unlike the gnocchi, which I pitched. You can see it in the picture above, though the dampness at the bottom is not visible.

On the whole, I feel as if the De Laurentis book was the result of a business plan. I wonder if some non-cook thought it would be clever to offer up a whole bunch of nifty/quirky ideas for relatively easy pasta dishes. Then, maybe, a bunch of people brain-stormed possible ideas, which were checked out in a totally cursory way, if at all, before being tied up in a little salable package. Of course, I cannot know this is true, and I may be, like my salmon supper, all wet. But I'm not impressed. These recipes strike me as both simple minded and pretentious...so maybe Pauly's ouburst is not entirely unrelated to the matter at hand after all....

From On Top of Spaghetti I tried the Spaghettini with Sauteed Chicken Livers, as seen in the other photo. If you are not among the world's large contingent of liver-haters, you will love this. If you are, my praise will be, of course, necessarily unconvincing. Recently, a friend described to me a chicken liver dish she had at a brunch at Lydia's, which sounded very much like this, except that it was served over a pancake of polenta, instead of spaghettini.. I think this sauce would be more than okay served like that as well.

To make this you need:
4 oz chicken livers, trimmed, cut into largish pieces, dried and sprinkled with coarse salt
unsalted butter
Tbsp. shallots finely chopped(I had none, and used scallions, instead)
1/2 cup dry white wine
cup chicken stock
8 oz dried spaghettini
1/4 cup cream
pepper
cayenne (a pinch)
Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Tbsp finely chopped fresh sage (not dried, ew)
freshly grated Parm

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Heat 3 Tbsps of butter in a saute type pan, add the livers, and saute quickenly, browning them all over, Remove from pan with a slotted spoon,and set aside. Add shallots, cooking until they begn to color, then add the wine, scrapping up any liver bits on the pan. Let it burble until syrupy, add the stock, and bring to a boil. Remove pan from heat.

Add the pasta and plenty of salt to the boiling water, and cook until it is just a bit less done than you like. Meanwhile, turn the heat on under the saute pan, and add the cream, pepper and cayenne. Bring to a boil, and add the livers.

Drain the pasta, dump it into the saute pan, and toss it around with the sauce. Cook 2 minutes, then toss in the sage and parsley. Share out into 2 bowls, and grate plenty of parm over the top. I love this with whole wheat spaghettini, but it is also very nice with the plain old everyday variety. Yes, the salmon one is prettier, but you absolutely do not care.

I also made the On Top of Spaghetti Fettucini with Venetian Chicken Sauce, which did not disappoint., but that is for another day...I'll be making it again. Many of the pastas in this book are incredibly simple...simpler even than these two, and they sound just as wonderful, and as likely to be do-able on the spot, with a reasonably well stocked pantry. I will be trying a bunch of their tomato based pastas this summer. You might well like to do the same. And this is the only one with any sort of liver, so do not be afraid.

Moosehead Gingerbread

Gingerbread is one of the classic comfort foods of the English-speaking world, and the stuff of nostalgia, real and imagined. There are endless variations, and I've never tried one I'd reject completely. Ruminations by John Thorne on the subject feature a version which actually included, if I'm remembering correctly, beef drippings. There is a lovely Laurie Colwin essay with two very nice recipes, one of which uses Lyle's Golden Syrup. Nika Hazelton's American Home Cooking has a serviceable, simple one, and I definitely intend to try the Chocolate Gingerbread in Dorie Greenspan's newest book; it looks gorgeous.

These, of course, are all soft, cake type gingerbreads. The gingerbread for cookie-cutter cookies (and gingerbread houses and the like as well) is a different animal entirely. I have favorite old standby recipes for both types. As to the soft kind, I use Maida Heatter's Moosehead Gingerbread, from her Great Desserts. That's the sort I made for dessert, to warm me up.

Gingerbread does nicely in my earthenware 9" square baking pan. I think that it keeps the outside edges from crisping up. Normally, I'm a sucker for food with crispy bits; I make gratins in very low pans, for maximum top, and love the corners of my jam bars. But I like my gingerbread soft all over, with as little hard, dark edge as possible. Using this sweet little Emile Henry number allows me to get that, without (eech) undercooking the gingerbread. The original recipe didn't call for this kind of pan, and of course you can make it in a regular metal one.

My brown pan is from the Emile Henry Artisan Series, which purports to be a reproduction of their original 19th century ware. Emile Henry stuff, in case you are not familiar with it, is made from some sort of special Burgundian clay, which causes it to be much less sensitive to temperature changes than most pottery. You can put it straight into the oven from the freezer, and even cook in it over a gas burner, with a flame tamer in between, and a careful eye. Unlike the other, more colorful EH lines, the Artisan items resemble el cheapo pottery outlet type bakeware. Perhaps this is why they seems to be often on sale, and hence more affordable. I kind of like the "fool the eye" effect myself, and all the EH things work wonderfully.

Maida Heatter's gingerbread, minimally adapted here, came from an "old time fishing guide in Maine." I can't remember which of the John Thorne books his essay came from, but I think he actually went in search of M. H.'s fishing guide. (Well, he did live in Maine then, but still.) It invariably cracks on top, but I don't mind a bit. To make it you need:

All purpose flour 2 1/2 cups
Baking soda 2 tsps
salt 1/2 tsp
cinnamon 1 tsp
powdered ginger 1 1/2 tsps
ground cloves 1/2 tsp
ground mustard 1/2 tsp
black pepper 1/2 tsp
butter 1/4 lb.
dark brown sugar 1/2 cup
eggs 2
molasses 1 cup
strong hot coffee 1 cup

Preheat oven to 375F.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, mix butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, and mix in one at a time. Now, beat in the molasses.

Sift dry ingredients together and add to the bowl, alternately with the hot coffee, ending with the dry mix. Pour into a 9" square baking pan, which has been buttered and dusted with dry breadcrumbs. Bake about 45 minutes, until done. Cool 10 minutes. Invert on another rack, and then back again, top up. It When fully cooled, cut into 9 squares. Consume, preferably topped with a dollop of whipped cream, or in a bowl with some runny custard poured over.

There's definitely a touch of heat in this gingerbread, what with the mustard and pepper. All to the good IMHO. As to the other kingd of gingerbread, we'll go there one day soon.

The Moosehead Lodge sign comes from the Adirondack Country Store, where they sell these wooden reproduction signs for home decor use.