I'm Going to Texas

Published in the New York Times

2011-09-04T10:47:00.005-05:00

Oh frabjous day … my Peach Cobbler recipe made it into Reader Photos and Recipes: Essential Summer Dishes in the New York Times!

Actually, this isn’t the first time I’ve made it into the Times, having written a letter that a appeared in the print edition during the 2008 presidential campaign (second letter, which obviously wasn't convincing enough), but it feels every bit as good the second time around.

I probably would have missed the online call for recipes, avid print reader that I am, had it not been for the critter that chose to deposit some scat on our Thursday morning paper as it sat in the driveway. So it was that I found myself reading the online NYT during breakfast, clicking various “Most Emailed” links which eventually led to the summer recipes retrospective.

Cobbling together an entry (sorry, I couldn’t resist) with a poem and a recipe from an earlier blog post, along with a picture of the beach in North Carolina had to be done in half an hour, lest I be late for work. To which I went without giving much more thought to the matter … until I returned home to discover an email request for a peach cobbler picture to go along with my submission.

Woo hoo! I made the cut! And I figured taking a picture would be a piece of cake: just make a cobbler in the morning, send off a picture and wait for magic to happen. Published in the NYT … again!

Except. Have you ever found perfectly ripe peaches in the store? Ever?

I ended up at the HEB on Friday morning surreptitiously squeezing peaches. The produce manager’s eyes narrowed, prompting me to offer an explanation, “I need to make a cobbler, the perfect cobbler, today, this morning, for the New York Times. I can’t wait for the peaches to ripen. Could there possibly be some over-ripe rejects in back?” Eyes softening, the gentle man said he’d see what he could do. Alas, there were no perfect peaches to be had.

So I bought 2 dozen peaches that barely yielded to thumb pressure, hoping to cull the 3 or 4 cups needed for the recipe. Slicing into one peach after another, I muttered under my breath, “What was I thinking?” But it all worked out. Don and I took some pre-baking pictures,

the cobbler went into the oven, baked to a perfect turn, and then I impatiently waited for it to firm up enough to cut. Finally, the requisite picture was taken and sent off.

The few hours that passed between emailing the picture and seeing it online were spent shopping for seafood stew ingredients in a vain attempt to keep from clicking the Dining website link like a demented pigeon in a Skinner box. Until finally, they appeared: my poem, my recipe, my picture. Oh joy!

Except. The poem didn’t quite fit. And got cut.

Oh well … the recipe and the picture are still there. As for the poem, it’s been here on the blog all along, and here it will stay.

Sunrise on the Outer Banks, courtesy of Keith Cline, Labor Day 2011

For Peaches

On a Carolina highway,
air rippling with early summer heat,
my thumb
seeks the reassurance
of soft flesh
yielding,
ripened to perfection.

Rose and gold and palest jade
rim the edge of heaven,
nexus of sand and sea and sky;
the sunrise a recapitulation
of summer sun imprinted
on fragrant orbs.

Silver blade in hand
I cleave flesh
into wedges drenched with juice,
sweetened with sugar,
freckled with cinnamon.

Then open the oven
to air rippling with heat
that will meld
flour & butter
sugar & cream
into a cobbled bed;
a perfect end
for peaches.

Coming next... seafood stew

2011-09-03T07:48:00.003-05:00

Bringing home the bacon

2011-07-31T21:12:00.001-05:00

I told you I had some more poetry in me ...

Island Home

I walk through shadows,
the morning sun tangled
in orchard-high branches
of live oak and Ashe juniper,
belying the heat yet to come

Deer fly before me,
hooves clattering
across the roadway
then thudding into shadows
as birds trace scalloped arcs
from tree to wire

I imagine an outer bank,
a sheltered beach
flung into the sky,
water streaming
down flanks of stone,
the sun baking silt and shell
a million years and more

This then is home,
where driftwood lies
in dry-creek beds scoured clean
by gulf-born torrents,
lithic remnants
of the forsaken shore,
a thousand feet closer to heaven

There is a sense of place and belonging here in the Texas hill country that surprises me, as much as I love the beach. Likewise, it is passing strange that there isn’t a time when I go for a walk that I don’t think of Shelter Island, even though we now live 1000’ above sea level. I’m endlessly fascinated by the grasses, wildflowers, trees, shrubs, rocks, and critters along the roads and nature paths that thread through our neighborhood. And as the sun presses down, I could close my eyes and be once again on the Outer Banks.

Soon after we arrived (hard to believe it’s been two years), I discovered author Susan Wittig Albert. Reading her lyrical memoir Together, Alone marked the beginning of my education about the naming of things in this place we now call home. So last night, as we worked up an appetite by walking our dinner guests around the property, I proudly pointed out lace cactus and rock beds, cleared meadows and DIY bird baths, while rattling off a lengthy list of the critters that share the land with us.

Dinner included an old stand-by ("Williamsburg Trellis Style" in the Salad Days post) with a new twist: our own bacon, inspired by a recent meal of pork belly and duck at Meg and Paul’s. Of course, I didn’t exactly follow a recipe, but I have one now.

Bacon My Way

1 pound fresh pork belly
1 fresh turkey breast (hey, if you’re going to fire up a smoker, you might as well make it worthwhile)
¼ cup brown sugar
½ cup kosher salt
4 cups water
12 cups cold water and ice

Heat 4 cups of water in a 6-quart pot and stir in brown sugar and salt until dissolved. Add ice and cold water until you have one gallon of cool brine.

Place the pork belly into a plastic container (cut the pork belly to fit, if necessary) and cover with brine. Place a 2-gallon plastic bag in a large stock pot, add the turkey breast, and cover with the remaining brine. Put lids on both containers and refrigerate overnight.

One hour before smoking, remove the meats from the brine, dry with paper towels, and place under a fan to dry before smoking. Smoke the pork belly for one hour. Continue to smoke the turkey breast until it reaches an internal temperature of 165 (another hour or two, depending on your smoker and the outdoor temperature). After the meats cool a bit, wrap them securely in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil. Even so, prepare to have your refrigerator smell like a smoke house for as long as it takes to eat the results of your labors.

What? You say you don’t have a smoker? Well, you should … the cost is reasonable and the results are well worth the investment. Go for it!

BTW, pan frying the brined and smoked pork belly bacon was disappointing. But slicing it into thin strips and microwaving it on paper towels reduced it to perfect crisps of goodness that were well-worth the effort.

For Peaches Redux

2011-07-10T15:33:00.002-05:00

When I started the blog almost two years ago, I posted a piece written during the 2007 Eastern Virginia Writing Project. For Peaches was the last poem I wrote until last week, when an Facebook "missing you" from Susan at the EVWP inspired a spate of poetic musing. So be forewarned ... there may be more to come.

Coda

Heat beats down

from a cloudless blue sky;

it will not rain today.

Four inches in forty weeks;

the drought

biblical.

The rain,

two lusty squalls

too little.

The floodplain,

laid bare by

grasses

dormant

in the face of the sun.

A deer,

not two months gone,

already reduced

to gleaming white.

Even so,

the hill country trees

set their seed in

rusty brown knots of flesh

like so many cobbles of chert

strewn across the Rumple-Comfort soil.

And as I draw beads

of sun-distilled nectar

from each precious drupe,

my knife’s progress is halted,

again and again,

by the stone at each heart;

creation’s prayer

for rain.

Deconstructed Peach Pie

1 cup flour
1/3 cup lard + 1 Tbs. butter
1/2 tsp. salt
4+ Tbs. ice water

Process the flour, lard, and salt until it resembles corn meal. Put in a bowl and stir in water with your fingertips, adding just enough to gather the dough into a soft ball. Roll out thin, slice into strips 1/2 inch wide by 3 to 4 inches long. Sprinkle lightly with sugar and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 375 until lightly browned ... 10 to 12 minutes.

1/2 cup Mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup heavy cream
Sugar
Vanilla
Peaches
Cinnamon sugar

Whip Mascarpone and cream, adding sugar and vanilla to taste.
Slice peaches and dust with cinnamon sugar.
Set out peaches, pie crust strips, and Mascarpone cream to be combined at the table.

Windy with a chance of fire

2011-04-24T17:35:00.000-05:00

Right after we moved to Cascade Trail last September the rain gauge recorded a 6" gully washer. Flooding is a reality, so even though most creek beds are dry most of the time, signs at every low water crossing warn drivers against trying to get through when it's pouring rain. The Sink Creek crossing just down the road from our place is at least 10 feet below the road grade, but the flood marker is 5 feet above that. The public service tag line around here is "Turn around, don't drown" with good reason.

Unfortunately, it hasn't rained much since that first torrential downpour and Texas is getting way too much ink in the national press about the wildfires that have already consumed over one million acres in the western part of the state. It got a little too close to home last week when an Austin fire destroyed eight homes and a fire in Wimberley damaged three more. As I related the latest news to my dad, he commented that I probably shouldn't seek work at the Chamber of Commerce. "Not good for business" was his take on my story-telling.

Well, I'm actually kinda proud of the challenges we've encountered around here. Spoiler alert: if you intend to visit us at some point, you might want to stop reading before going any further. Still, for those of you who know me, you've gotta figure if I can handle this stuff, anyone can.

For instance, we see creatures in abundance, both great and small. Recent sightings of feral hogs by neighbors were confirmed with our own eyes as we passed a dead hog on Ranch Road 12 this weekend. We're pretty sure we spotted a coyote one morning, although I've been disappointed at not hearing their storied yips and howls more than once. And even though they're even uglier than the turkeys (which are pretty ugly in their own right), we actually appreciate the turkey buzzards, which do a fair job of cleaning up the roadsides after car versus deer collisions.

Less desirable are the creatures small. We saw more than a few scorpions when we first moved in, including this one in the master bathroom (and Meliss wondered why I hadn't taken any baths). Our neighbors recommended an outfit called Hired Killers to discourage future visits from multi-legged critters. Even so, we keep an eye on the floor when we get up in the morning. We've also learned that they grow 'em big in Texas when it comes to centipedes. I have no pictures to show, which may be just as well.

We've got our share of cold-blooded critters in these here parts, too. Until recently, I had only seen snake skins in the yard, but as we walked past the low water crossing last Friday, Don spotted a live one. Now he says the snake was only about 5 feet long, but I'm here to tell you it took up the better part of half the road, which I'm pretty sure is wider than 10 feet. Later that same day, I was on the floodplain behind the house when I heard a chattering kind of sound. I'm not going to say it was a rattling kind of sound, but I did choose to walk rapidly in the opposite direction rather than investigate further. I must say, I prefer the little green anoles to their slithery relations.

The good news is we have an abundance of butterflies, birds, and wildflowers. In fact, one of the prettiest flowers is growing in a neighborhood field that burned last fall. Like a phoenix, the Prairie Nymph rose through the ashen clumps of grass, proving the resiliency of nature in the face of fire and flood alike. Even so, I'll continue to take it seriously when the weather forecast is windy with a chance of fire, and count our blessings (which are many) in the meantime.

Birthday Season

2011-04-21T18:41:00.002-05:00

Heather recently introduced me to the concept of the birthday season which, as I understand it, begins with the first of several celebrations and ends with the last. In the Ackert family, where all birthdays are celebrated during the annual trip to the Outer Banks, that could make for some very long birthday seasons.

In any case, Meliss and I headed to Williamsburg in early March to be a part of Logan's 7th birthday season. While there, we made the acquaintance of Wyatt, who is the newest member of the Laroche/Marshall clan (and shares a November 30th birthday with his soon-to-be godmother, Meghan). I also made a trip to Carino's seafood market for the express purpose of spiriting three pounds of jumbo lump crabmeat back to Texas. So I was well prepared for the beginning of Paul's 30th birthday season the following week.

Meghan planned a phenomenal party complete with a mobile wood-fired pizza trailer. Invited guests were asked to bring a challenge for Paul, in lieu of a gift. What better challenge, I thought, than a quickfire?
[Note for non-foodies: a "quickfire" is the name given to a cooking challenge on the Bravo network television show "Top Chef"]
To make it a fair challenge, I filled two identical brown paper bags with butter, cream, Outer Banks seafood seasoning, parsley, chives, celery leaves, and last, but far from least, two carefully thawed containers of Carino's jumbo lump crabmeat. As any good chef would, I also brought my own knife, along with a whisk and a saucepan. The challenge was this: create one dozen crabmeat hors d'oeuvres in gougeres (savory gruyere-laced cream puffs). The time limit: 10 minutes.

Twelve hungry party-goers watched as the gas stove was fired up and the whisks started to fly. Herbs fell under the knife. One guest googled foodie theme music (I'm not sure if it was Top Chef or Iron Chef), while another called out the time remaining. Paul reached for truffle oil as his key ingredient, while I opted for vin santo and dijon mustard. Plates were called for, gougeres split and filled as the final seconds were counted down. And the winner was ... the guests, who got to eat succulent Virginia crabmeat deep in the heart of Texas.

That was then, this is now: Paul's birthday season continues tomorrow night at the new Austin City Limits studio/theatre, where Williamsburg-born musician Bruce Hornsby is playing an Earth Day concert. It will come to an end two months hence when we gather everyone together at the Outer Banks to celebrate all the birthdays in the year past and look forward to those in the year ahead ... with any luck we'll also be comfortably numb.

Making little ones out of big ones

2011-03-13T16:08:00.002-05:00

We cut a lot of scrub brush last fall ... mostly Texas persimmon, Ashe juniper (the locals call it cedar), Possumhaw and Yaupon (which look much the same, except that one is deciduous and the other is evergreen). My best estimate is that we lined about 200' of the driveway with branches piled 4-5 feet high and 6-8 feet deep, much like the pile looming behind this 4' tall tom turkey. You can do the math, but it added up to an awful lot of brush. Fortunately, we found someone willing to bring in a mega-chipper, leaving behind three piles of shredded wood that took up considerably less real estate.

We also have some walkways that can be tricky to navigate, to say the least. This is the path leading from the fire pit to the dry creek bed at the back of the property. It's pretty typical, with limestone ready to trip you up the moment you stop watching your step.

So I started spreading the shredded wood chips over one of the pathways, which was a pretty good idea ... except there were some pretty high-profile stones with sharp ridges on top. Even with a thick bed of mulch, they seemed likely to trip up unsuspecting hikers. That realization inspired a trip to the shed to retrieve my old geology pick, purchased in 1975 when I was an undergrad at William and Mary.

Wielded with a steady hand (and a good pair of safety glasses), it made short work of the limestone in the middle of the path. I may have failed at flint knapping, but I definitely succeeded at rock busting.

Sadly, the old gray pick, she ain't what she used to be. After a couple of days, the shank started to work its way out of the handle, making it less than safe for continued path remodeling. I suppose I could get a new handle made, but I'm thinking a new sledge hammer may be a better call.

Until then, I'm heading to the kitchen to whip up a batch of Snickerdoodles. Which is a total non sequitur, but that's pretty much how life is these days ... better than fine.

Snickerdoodles

1/2 cup Land O'Lakes butter with canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs. Stir in flour, cream of tartar and baking soda. Roll small balls in cinnamon sugar and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 8 minutes at 400 degrees. Note: I find these do better if you don't use convection.

DIY continued

2011-03-04T18:33:00.002-06:00

Antler and flint

Well, I tried flint knapping, which is the process of shaping rock into arrowheads with a series of sharp blows. I've since concluded that the art of making arrowheads isn't my gift ... not without a lot of practice anyway. But I do have a great story about how I got the antler I needed.

I was coming home from work one day and saw a yearling deer chewing on something that looked for all the world like a bone. So I stopped the van in the middle of the driveway, got out, and chased after the deer ... which promptly ran away (smart deer), but not before dropping what was in its mouth. The bone turned out to be a small antler. Why the deer was chewing on it is beyond me, but I picked it up and put it on the front porch, where it sat until my ill-fated go at making something out of flint.

Fortunately, Don has had a little more success in the DIY department lately. He added a second bird bath to the front garden bed and created a tripod from cedar limbs to hold a bird feeder. The birds don't seem particularly interested, but I'm impressed.

The birds will come around eventually, I'm sure. It's just that they seem to have other things on their minds right now. For instance, our local turkey harem has been joined by a strutting tom who fluffs up his feathers every few steps to impress the ladies. Quite a show ...

Back?

2011-02-25T09:57:00.007-06:00

Meliss helping out at Xmas

Don's winter project

We've been so incredibly busy since moving to Cascade Trail ... cutting down brush, trimming trees, hauling rock, and just generally soaking up the reality of our new digs. So I'm not sure I can promise to get back to the blog and stay with it, but I'm sure gonna try.

This morning's inspiration came with sunlight flooding through the trees and the promise of an 80 degree day. Glowing like an alien spaceship just arrived from Planet X was a grapefruit-sized ball moss hanging in one of the live oaks, soaking up the rays and sending out new growth. I have to thank Susan Rudat, a Wimberley artist, for raising my awareness of ball moss with her pen-and-ink rendition of this Spanish moss cousin back when we were pretty clueless about our new environs.

Ball moss ... looking like something Dr. Suess would think up

But we're getting a little bit more savvy, now that we're well into our second year as come-here Texans. Don rightly pronounced the first day of spring a couple of weeks ago while we were at the new Austin City Limits theatre listening to Cody Canada and the Departed with Meg and Paul (after they treated us to a wonderful dinner at La Condesa). Since then, the grass has been greening, the ground has been sprouting, and the tree buds have been swelling right along with the ball moss.

Figuring the birds were sure to show up soon, we went bird bath shopping last weekend and found a 14" pottery bowl (actually a drip catcher for a large pottery urn) that we put on the ground in the garden. Later that day I spotted a neat piece of cedar driftwood in the dry creek bed behind the house and hauled it back. Don put one and one together and we ended up with a pretty cool bird bath for a total expenditure of $20.

So, now I'm off to try some flint knapping with a piece of antler I stole from a deer last fall. But that's another story ...

Don't forget the sweet potatoes

2010-11-28T20:36:00.002-06:00

Our Thanksgivings didn't include sweet potatoes until we started going to the Laroche family feast. Since then, sweet potatoes with butter, brown sugar, and marshmallows have been de rigueur. But as they did so many years ago, sweet potatoes have once again become a new tradition, this time thanks to Danielle and Cory. They said this was a dinner side dish, but I wouldn't hesitate to serve it with whipped cream for dessert. Just don't wait until next Thanksgiving to try it ...

Sweet Potato Soufflé

3 lbs sweet potatoes, cooked and puréed
1/4 cup butter (room temperature)
1 cup sugar
5 eggs
2 cups half and half
3/4 cup flour
nutmeg and cinnamon to taste

Beat the eggs well and then mix everything else in until smooth.

Bake for 1 hr to 1 hr 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Winging it

2010-11-28T20:02:00.002-06:00

I've mentioned this before, but there's something magical about breads made near the shore ... kaiser rolls, bagels, and pizza always taste better to me on Long Island and the Outer Banks. Still, recent efforts in the Hill Country have yielded passable results, culminating in some pretty decent sandwich rolls yesterday. At least, that's what Meg told me, although I'm thinking it was the hiking outdoors that whetted our appetites.

Now it seems I may have created a monster, as Paul has decided the rolls would be the perfect platform for smoked turkey sandwiches at the beach next summer. Don't know if I'm going to be up for baking a dozen fresh rolls every day when I'm on vacation. So, here's my plan: I'll post the recipe now, which will give everyone time to practice between now and June 18th. Good luck with that, huh?

Hill Country Sandwich Rolls

1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 heaping Tbs. gluten
1 cup lukewarm water
1/2 Tbs. yeast
1/2 tsp. sugar

Stir the water, yeast, and sugar together and let it work for a few minutes while you put the rest of the ingredients in a food processor. When the yeast is bubbling, pour into the flour and process, gradually adding more flour until the dough masses on the blade and no longer sticks to the sides of the processor bowl. Let 'er rip for a minute or so more, then turn out into a bowl. Work the dough with your hands, turning the edges under and adding flour as necessary to keep it from sticking to your fingers. Put the dough back in the bowl, cover with a damp towel and leave in a warm place for a couple of hours.

Divide into 10-16 rolls, depending on desired size. As before, roll the edges of the dough under and up, adding flour as needed, until you have little pillows of dough with smooth tops. Pour puddles of olive oil onto a sheet pan, dip the top of each roll in the oil, and then place each roll in the middle of some oil and sprinkle with kosher salt.

Let the rolls rise for another hour under a damp towel. Bake at 375 (convection) or 400 (conventional), checking after 10 minutes. Watch for the tops to brown, and take the rolls out when the bottoms are crunchy and brown. Cool for at least 20-30 minutes before slicing and serving.

New traditions

2010-11-26T12:31:00.008-06:00

Our second Thanksgiving in Austin resulted in a couple of wonderful additions to the Thanksgiving menu (which has already been enriched by the Levine family tradition of coconut cream pie and fried turkey). This year, Cory and Danielle contributed an amazing sweet potato souffle, while Heather and Taylor made broccoli salad (recipe to follow).

From left to right, our next-door neighbors
Smoked, Roasted, Fried, and See-You-Next-Year.

We also upped the diner:turkey ratio to 3:1, adding a smoked turkey to the roasted and fried versions. Of course, traditional sides abounded: cranberry (two ways), mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole (which Meg changed up by using fresh haricots verts instead of canned or frozen green beans). Gravy and stuffing (two ways) were piled on while Danielle and I discussed how we really don't understand why everyone else prefers the white meat, but ultimately decided we're totally okay with having the dark meat to ourselves.

Now, the morning after the day before, we're grazing on leftover pumpkin muffins and pecan pie as we work ourselves up to tackling turkey sandwiches for lunch. Life is good.

Broccoli Salad

1 cup mayo
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/3 cup of sugar
2 crowns of broccoli, cut into flowerets
1 onion, chopped
4 slices of bacon (or more), crumbled
1/2 cup slivered almonds, pan toasted

So these amounts are totally negotiable. After you whisk together the mayo, vinegar and sugar, pour them over the broccoli, onion, bacon, and almonds. Taste and adjust to your liking.

The amazing thing about this dish is how it grows on you as the meal progresses. Compared to all the other rich, warm sides, it adds a crunch and bright flavor that is absolutely perfect (especially if the planned carrot and celery crudités are left in San Marcos, as ours were yesterday).

Bliss

2010-11-05T21:53:00.005-05:00

Friday is my Saturday, so today we spent the day playing in our backyard, and I still can't quite believe we're really here.

There are amazing little cacti only a few inches high ... poking up through rocks on the floodplain that look for all the world like they belong on the moon ... the intricate warp and weft of spines a net of protection over the tender innards that the deer would certainly eat if they could.

And not 100 yards away are the dinner-plate-sized cacti next to our outdoor shower, perfectly happy to pick up the overflow from Don's water play ... though with the weather dipping down into the thirties tonight, he may opt for the indoor shower tomorrow.

Even when the news is bad, it's good. Just after we closed on the house there was a terrible blow (Tropical Storm Hermine ... you might have heard of her), that brought down a red oak in the front yard. Don had good intentions of going at it with a chain saw, but ended up getting a hand from a guy he ran into at Ace Hardware. Ever obliging, his new friend cut the trunk into sections that could be made into stools to put around our fire-pit to be. Then Don sanded and sealed them, and they've been waiting in the side yard ever since ... until today.

Today we built our fire pit ... hauling limestone from the back of the property, digging out the rich soil around the bedrock in a corner of the yard ... rolling the tree trunks stools over on the hand truck ... then gathering dead branches from the live oaks to use in our inaugural fire.

We even found a large flat stone to place on top of the tallest chunk of trunk, making a perfect platform for late-night noshing.

After a dinner of "what's in the fridge" pasta and artichokes, with a hearty Malbec and homemade focaccia (light as a feather with a crust that crackled with olive oil and salt), we poured hot cups of coffee, put our flashlights in our pockets and headed out to the fire-pit. The hose was at the ready, just in case, but the night was calm so the smoke and sparks flew straight up to the stars. And as the fire dwindled down to embers, we toasted marshmallows, our backs gently chiding us about the day's labors, creaking in the cool night air. No doubt about it ... bliss.

Say cheese ...

2010-10-31T11:50:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure why I don't watch "Good Eats" as much as I used to ... somehow it went off my radar when we moved to Texas. But Alton Brown, the Bill Nye of cooking, has been the source of many culinary successes over the years. So when I needed to figure out a birthday treat for a co-worker on a paleolithic diet, I turned to an Alton-inspired cheesecake recipe that worked well with Splenda in our South Beach diet days. Since said co-worker is partial to stevia-based sweeteners, I bought some SweetLeaf, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best.

Now there are also several college students in our office who have no caloric concerns, which led me to make two batches of cheesecake ... one with stevia and one with old-fashioned cane sugar. And not knowing who liked what with cheesecake, I decided to use mini-cake pans so I could use a variety of toppings. In other words, I hedged my bets.

The unbaked batters tasted equally good to my sugar-addled tastebuds, and the final products disappeared from the office fridge in short order. A sure sign of success. So I kept the stevia in the cabinet for future use. But I must confess, when Meg came by the following weekend, it was the cane sugar version that got the nod for a reprise of cheesecake four ways: with ganache, dulce de leche, strawberry jam, and cherry preserves.

And this time, the camera was ready ...

Cheesecake a la Alton

1/2 cup finely ground almonds
1-2 Tbs. melted butter
1-2 tsp. sugar (or 1/8 - 1/4 tsp. stevia sweetener)
8 ounces cream cheese (regular or low fat)
1/2 cup sugar (or 1 Tbs. stevia)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 - 1 tsp. almond extract
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
1-2 Tbs. cream (or half-and-half)

Preheat oven to 300. Spray Baker's Joy into 4 mini-cake pans.
Since a lot of this recipe depends on taste, the crust ingredient amounts are open to interpretation. Just grind a handful of almonds in the food processor, stir in some melted butter and sugar, adjust to taste, and lightly press into the bottom of each cake pan. Put in the oven for 10 minutes to toast the nuts while you mix up the batter. Then take out the pans and let them cool slightly. Lower the oven to 250 degrees.
Beat the cream cheese and sugar together, then continue to beat in the sour cream, almond extract (more or less, depending on your taste), eggs, and cream. The batter should be light and all ingredients fully incorporated.
Divide the batter into the mini-cake pans and put the mini-cake pans into a roaster or large cake pan with 2-3" sides. Put into the 250 degree oven and carefully pour hot water into the large pan to a depth of 1 inch, creating a water bath.
Bake for 1 hour. Turn off the oven. Open the door for one minute to release some of the heat. Close the door and leave the cheesecakes in the hot water bath for another hour.
Take the pans carefully out of the water bath to avoid dripping water on the surface of the cheesecakes. Cool for 15-30 minutes, then brush sour cream lightly on top of each cheesecake, cover with plastic wrap, and put in the refrigerator for 4-6 hours.
To serve, run a thin-bladed knife around the edges of each cheesecake, then turn onto a serving plate. If you want the almond crust on the bottom, put plastic wrap over your hand, turn the cheesecake onto your palm, then carefully turn it crust side down onto the plate. Top with your choice of jam, ganache, dulce de leche, or all of the above.

Time flies

2010-10-17T10:09:00.008-05:00

The best I can do for a picture since I don't have any red velvet cake or birthday bites on hand

I recently ran across the planning sheet for Bridget's bridal shower, which featured 60 scones among other things. I must admit that I can't recall making half the stuff on the menu (which might have something to do with the mind-altering pharmaceuticals I was taking for my back at the time), but I do recall that everything was bite-sized ... 90 fruit kabobs, 90 shrimp cocktail, 72 crab tarts, 90 Smithfield ham tarts, 30 salmon pinwheels, 90 cucumber and chive finger sandwiches, 60 artichoke-filled phyllo shells, 120 birthday bites, 90 simnel cake bars, 90 lemon curd tarts (which I do recall did not work out very well), and 1 red velvet cake (which did).

Both the birthday bites and the red velvet cake recipes evolved as a result of requests for Bridget's birthday bashes over the years. The birthday bites had their genesis in a fudge pie recipe from my college roommate and bridesmaid, Jane Tucker. And the red velvet cake was concocted after comparing umpteen internet recipes and coming up with a a version that has stood me in good stead ever since.

Now Bridget is expecting her first child in December. Guess it's time to pass on those recipes so she can start practicing for future birthday parties.

Birthday Bites

2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup flour

Melt chocolate and butter in microwave. Cool slightly. Beat in sugar, eggs, and flour.

Scoop into 24 mini-muffin cups that have been prepped with Baker's Joy.

Bake at 350 until just set ... I start peeking at the 10 minute mark.

Best topped with whipped cream and raspberries.

Red Velvet Cake

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 ounces of red food coloring (no scrimping here)
1/4 cup Droste cocoa
2 cups flour
1 scant cup buttermilk
1 Tbs. wine vinegar
1 tsp. baking powder

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the food coloring and cocoa in a cup, then blend into the batter.

Mix in flour and buttermilk alternately by thirds. Sprinkle baking soda over batter and beat in vinegar by hand.

Put in two layer cake pans or a 9x13 baking pan prepped with Baker's Joy spray.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, being careful not to overbake ... I usually turn off the oven and open the door for about five minutes or until the cake just pulls away from the sides of the pan so it won't collapse in the middle.

Frosting (aka Butter Overload)

1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk (don't substitute cream, it doesn't work)
1 1/4 cup butter (yes, that two and a half sticks)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp. vanilla

Whisk flour into milk and cook on the stove until thickened. Put in a bowl and place plastic wrap over the surface to prevent a "skin" from forming (very unappetizing). Cool in the fridge.

Cream room temperature butter and sugar until thoroughly combined. Then beat in vanilla and milk/flour paste until light and fluffy.

Frost cake and keep in the refrigerator until ready to serve (or the butter will melt off the cake)

Bit by Bittman

2010-10-17T10:08:00.012-05:00

Mark Bittman's "Minimalist" in the New York Times Dining section is the column I love to hate. All too often he comes up with a recipe that is close to, but not quite like one of my own, which makes me thump the table and declare, "I could have written that!" and/or "No, mine is better!"

The cool weather had me thinking of giving the convection oven a whirl, so my mind was already on scones. Thus it was that this week's Minimalist merited a double thump because "Of course I use the food processor!" but "How could he have left out the demerara sugar?" So then I had to make some. Life is hard.

And no, I don't have a picture of the scones ... only the twice-thumped table, since we ate them all before Don could get out the camera.

Scones (with thanks to Mom for the 1997 edition of the Joy of Cooking on which this is based)

2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 generous Tbs. butter
1 egg
2/3 to 3/4 cup heavy cream and/or half-and-half
Demerara sugar

Put dry ingredients in food processor, and slice in pats of butter. Process until flour resembles coarse cornmeal. Put into a mixing bowl.
Whisk egg white into cream and/or half-and-half. Pour 3/4 of the egg/cream mixture over the flour mixture and blend gently with a large fork. Add more cream if dough appears at all dry.
Scrape out dough with a rubber spatula and place on a lightly floured pastry cloth. Press gently to desired thickness (a generous half inch or so).
Cut into small rounds (1 1/2"), place on an ungreased aluminum sheet pan, brush with cream and sprinkle with demerara sugar.
Bake in a 400 degree convection oven for 7 minutes. Then check and bake an extra minute or until scones are lightly brown on the bottom. Let cool on sheet.
Worthy toppings include clotted cream, mascarpone or double Devon, plus lemon curd or strawberry jam.

A walk on the wild side ...

2010-10-07T22:28:00.011-05:00

Generally speaking, we much prefer two- and four-legged critters, but we have exempted the moths and the butterflies from our current campaign to discourage visits from anything with six or more legs ... or worse, anything with no legs at all. Besides, with wingspans in excess of four inches, these guys are more like birds than insects anyway.

Of course, we have deer in abundance, though fortunately they're far more skittish than their Garrison Trail kin. And one of our first drives into the neighborhood revealed what we thought to be a grey fox, but we've since decided it was more likely a coyote. Turkeys roost in the trees as the sun slips below the horizon and one late-night return from Gruene Hall featured a skunk, very much alive and well. I also got my first good look at an armadillo as I drove slowly through the low water crossing. It looked like nothing so much as an armored opossum and judging by his (or her) rather casual saunter across the road, it's no wonder that most of them end up rigor mortised.

Food continues to be a revelation ... and we're fortunate that the Sol de Mexico right up the road has local eggs for $3 a dozen. I've learned a thing or two about eggs since my clueless postings a year ago, not the least of which is that bright yellow yolks are not necessarily a good sign. Indeed, chickens that are able to eat what they can scratch out of the ground (grubs and bugs for the most part) produce pale yellow yolks. And the thin watery egg whites that surround the yolks are an equally good sign. When they're this fresh, the end products are exceptional: light airy popovers, tender cookies, and creamy scrambled eggs are givens. Not to mention the recent news of salmonella in factory farms which pretty much clinches the case for locavore eggs, IMHO.

Since I ran out of eggs yet again, Don picked up some more this afternoon. So in addition to the usual New York Times and Austin American Statesman, my morning-off breakfast tomorrow will feature leftover steak, scrambled eggs, pico de gallo, tomatillo salsa, and fresh grated Cotija on flour tortillas. Tomatillo salsa? Another revelation.

Tomatillo Salsa

6-8 tomatillos
1 small onion
2-3 garlic cloves

Remove the tomatillo husks, rinse and quarter. Peel and quarter the onion. Leave the garlic cloves in their paper skins.

Place the vegetables in a small baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.
Oven roast at 400 degrees until the onions begin to brown around the edges.
Remove from the oven and cool for 15 minutes.
Squeeze garlic out of skins and place with onions in a food processor. Pulse several times until roughly chopped.
Add the tomatillos, skins and all, to the food processor and finish with 2-3 more pulses.
Serve warm over whatever leftovers you choose to wrap in tortillas and serve for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

And so we begin again ...

2010-10-05T16:07:00.013-05:00

"I'm Going to Texas" began a little over a year ago with a posting about a roadrunner photographed a few miles from our new home in Wimberley. A lot has happened since then, not the least of which is our recent relocation to a five-acre homestead in San Marcos ... which explains both the roadrunner in our new garden to the right and the extended blog subtitle above. Moving twice in a 14 months has been a challenge, but we're finally settling in and looking forward to being at 700 Cascade Trail for the long haul.

The house is wonderfully eccentric, and I'm waiting for Don to take some pictures that show it to full advantage. For now, suffice it to say that I'm like a kid at Christmas with a kitchen that has both a gas cooktop and an electric convection oven, which vie for favorite toy status with the granite sink we splurged on after moving in. You'll notice there are two faucets, one of which delivers filtered water for drinking. Our first few days at Cascade Trail were marked by some dismay as we discovered how hard water can be when it travels through 900' of limestone before reaching the surface. We ended up needing both a new water softener at the well head and a new dishwasher as a result ... but the up-side is we no longer have glasses coated in milky white calcium.

Of course, as we unpacked the boxes that were hidden away in the closets at Garrison Trail, we unleashed a flood of memories from Shelter Island, Williamsburg, and Avon ... and couldn't help but think of those we miss back east. Still, this is home now. We can only hope the bits and pieces of stuff that we've accumulated over the years will serve as talismans for the future.

So too does food serve as a reminder of good times past, with always the promise of the next memorable recipe ... like the buttery cookies we discovered at Austin's Central Market.

Alfajores

1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg and 2 yolks
1 tsp. vanilla
2/3 cup flour
1 1/2 cups corn starch
1/4 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
Canned dulce de leche (if you can find it)

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Carefully mix in flour, corn starch, baking powder and salt.
Roll 1/8" thick, cut into 1 1/2" rounds. Bake on parchment paper in a 325 degree oven for 9-10 minutes (you don't want to brown them, so I don't use the convection oven for this recipe).
Cool and fill with dulce de leche (to be authentic), or jam, or lemon curd, or ganache ... the list is endless. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and try not to inhale.

Corn on the 4th of July

2010-08-28T10:54:00.005-05:00

We've been enjoying a rolling feast of corn this year. The first batch arrived fresh from Mexico in May, followed by east coast corn on the Outer Banks in June, Texas corn from Fredricksburg in July, and Briermere corn on Shelter Island in August. Me a locavore? Not when it comes to corn ... I'm forever in search of the tiniest, sweetest kernels that come with the season's first ears, wherever they may be.

Fresh corn on the cob is best savored by boiling it for a few minutes, slathering on butter and then adding a sprinkling of salt. But when it's more than a day old, corn just isn't the same. So to help out store-bought ears, I've become a fan of Mexican-style grilled corn which is coated with a thin sheen of chili-spiced mayo, a sprinkling of grated Cotija cheese and a squeeze of fresh lime juice.

Which brings me to the past 4th of July. Now the 4th is one of three All-American holidays calling for burgers and hot dogs on the grill, the other two being the summer bookends: Memorial Day and Labor Day. Of course, a proper cookout must have the full cast of supporting sides: deviled eggs, cole slaw, sweet pickles, and potato salad. Which is to say, lots of time in the kitchen. But with only two of us in the house, I couldn't muster the requisite energy for preparing a full cookout spread. Thus was born the Mexican Corn Dog: a kosher hot dog topped with savory corn-off-the-cob and wrapped in a flour tortilla. Now if that's not melting pot Americana, I don't know what is.

Last I checked, there was fresh sweet corn from Colorado at Brookshire Brothers and Labor Day approaches. Let the feasting begin ...

Mexican Corn Dogs

Grill or boil some corn. Cool, then cut the kernels off the cob. Depending on how much you have, spoon in a little mayo (I use Hellman's), squeeze in some fresh lime juice, then sprinkle on grated Cotija cheese and a dash of chipotle chile powder (optional, but it adds a wonderful smoky heat). Taste and adjust seasonings to suit.

Grill kosher hot dogs (Nathan's if you can find them, or Hebrew National) until gently charred.

Nuke a stack of flour tortillas in the microwave (freshly made if you can find them, or even make your own).

Assemble hot dogs, Mexican corn-off-the-cob and shredded jack cheese on warm tortillas. Best served with Fat Tire or Skinny Dip (but you'll have to go to the Outer Banks or come out to Texas to find those).

A little bit of smoke

2010-05-30T12:50:00.001-05:00

It's really great when your kids grow up ... especially when they get you cool toys for Christmas. We've been having fun playing with two in particular: the web cam that Meg and Paul gave us, which lets us watch Max the Weimeraner puppy grow before our eyes even though he's hundreds of miles away in St. Louis. And then there's the mini-panini press that Meliss and Jake gave us, with griddles that can be popped in the dishwasher and a surface area that's just right for two.

I must admit we did have some struggles at first. Piling too many ingredients onto bread sliced a shade too thick resulted in no little consternation as our creations ended up slip sliding away when we tried to close the press. But necessity is the mother of invention, so invent we did. Today's lunch was the logical culmination of a series of experiments. It's time to share.

First, you must find wonderful bread. We're fortunate to have found a bakery called Phoenix Rising, where they bake organic breads in a wood-fired brick oven. And there was some leftover rotisserie chicken in the fridge that, along with red pepper, bi-colored squash, avocado, red onion, and fresh mozzarella, seemed just the thing for lunch. Now you can see the problem already ... how to balance all this stuff onto a slice of bread?

Easy. Mush it all together. First grate the veggies, then the cheese. Chunk up some chicken and avocado. Peek out in the garden to see what the deer have left. Rosemary today, other days cilantro, basil or chives. Throw in some toasted pine nuts, salt, and pepper. Then wonder ... what else?

Thin slices of bread, brushed with olive oil and heaped with the filling go onto a hot press, which doesn't get pressed at all, but gently tucked on top of the sandwiches. Then we wait and Don is tasting the leftover filling, saying, "What's in here?" And I smile, because there's something new ... just a little bit of smoke, and a little bit of heat.

The sandwiches come off the press and they taste just right, though odds are we won't have exactly this mixture again. Next time there will be different veggies in the fridge, some other leftover meat to use up. But the smoke ... I won't leave out the smoke: finely diced heat from the tail end of a chipotle, it's better than bacon.

Gotta love Texas.

Whisking away in Margaritaville

2010-05-28T18:16:00.021-05:00

One of my co-workers left her salad dressing at home the other day, so I shared some vinaigrette that I had stashed in the fridge at work. When she said she'd like the recipe I was shocked (shocked!) to find that I didn't have it posted on the blog. Known in our house as Trellis Vinaigrette, it's loosely based on a recipe from the Trellis in Williamsburg, but it's been ages since I looked at the recipe; I know it by heart.

The all-time Ackert family favorite application for Trellis Vinaigrette is Grilled Chicken Salad ... a bed of leaf lettuce greens topped with bite-sized pieces of grilled chicken (fingers of boneless, skinless chicken breast marinated in white wine and lemon juice for 15 minutes before grilling over a hot charcoal fire), toasted pecans, sliced scallions, boiled (or nuked) red bliss potatoes, and crumbled bacon (a dry cure is best). Some sliced strawberries on top and a generous dose of vinaigrette will do you.

Trellis Vinaigrette also adds great tang and ably moistens deviled egg filling, cole slaw, and potato salad , all of which will no doubt make an appearance on our Memorial Day dinner table, along with burgers and Nathan's hot dogs.

Trellis Vinaigrette

Juice of 1 or 2 lemons
An equal quantity of apple cider vinegar
Safflower oil, one and a half times the lemon/vinegar quantity
1 heaping teaspoon of Dijon mustard for each lemon
Kosher salt

This recipe is all about proportions. Since you can't control how much juice is in a lemon, that quantity becomes the basis for the rest of the recipe. So juice the lemon(s) and put the juice in a measuring cup. Eyeball an equal quantity of apple cider vinegar then make note of the combined quantity. For example, if I squeeze 2 lemons, it usually yields about 1/3 cup of juice, to which I add 1/3 cup of vinegar. Place in a steep sided bowl or a lidded glass jar and add 1/4 tsp salt (you can add more later depending on your taste) and one heaping teaspoon of Grey Poupon Dijon mustard for each lemon ... two in the example we're working on here.

Now measure 1 1/2 times that quantity in safflower oil (which is light, wonderful, and hard to find) ... so, 2/3 cup of lemon and vinegar requires 1 cup oil.

Here's where I part ways with cookbook orthodoxy: I do not slowly drizzle the oil into the lemon and vinegar while whisking away (gasp). Instead, I either shake everything together in a lidded glass jar or I put the whipped cream whisk attachment on my hand mixer and beat until the vinaigrette turns thick and creamy.

If it seems watery, I plunk in a little more mustard and/or oil. If it's bland, I throw in a little more salt, maybe even some pepper.

All of this is greatly facilitated if I have a Margarita in hand as I make the vinaigrette. Fresh lime juice, agave nectar, and a good tequila, shaken in crushed ice. Yum ... think I'll go whisk some up right now.

Do it yourself

2010-05-07T16:04:00.008-05:00

I well remember the first time I had potstickers at a Munson family wedding in northern Virginia. They were a revelation: soft dumplings caramelized on the bottom and filled with savory pork. But they were impossible to find in 1990s Williamsburg, so I was overjoyed to see them on a TGIF menu in Orlando, Florida when we took a family trip to Disney World. As I recall, the company of our hosts, Cathy and her son Alex, was the highlight of that particular meal, the potstickers turning out to be deep-fried and less-than-revelatory.

Continuing to seek out potstickers over the years yielded a string of less-than-memorable dining experiences, with the end result that I finally decided to try making my own. The Food Network recipe I printed out over the Christmas 2004 holidays and served to the girls and my folks is riddled with strikeouts and the ever-present beverage recommendation "good with beer." They were a lot of work and the end result never quite reached the level of that first magical taste so many years before. The packaged wonton wrappers that I used were too thick and doughy, often cracking and always overpowering the filling. After a couple of tries, I gave up on the recipe.

So potstickers were the last thing on my mind this past weekend when we were flying back to Austin after attending the funeral for Don's mother, Betty. Having exhausted my reading material (Eat, Pray, Love and Ruth Reichl's For You Mom, Finally), Meg filled the breach with the May issue of Food & Wine magazine. In addition to some intriguing recipes for oatmeal pine nut bars, semolina pancakes, pork and pineapple tacos, and hummus, there was a recipe for do-it-yourself dumplings.

Stopping to pick up some groceries as we drove out of Austin, I was primed to look for potsticker ingredients. Central Market did not disappoint. Fresh ginger, garlic, scallions, cabbage, and shitake mushrooms, along with freshly ground pork, made their way into the basket. Too travel weary to tackle making the "easy five minute dough" promised by Food & Wine, I cooked up an improvised pork filling and stuck it in the fridge, where it languished for a couple of days.

When I did get around to making the potstickers two nights later, we had eaten our way through three quarters of them before I realized they were worth a picture ... and a recipe.

Potstickers (serves two)

Filling
2 Tbs safflower or peanut oil
3/4 pound ground pork
1/2 cup rough chopped shitake mushroom tops
1 garlic clove
1 inch peeled fresh ginger
1/4 cup thin sliced scallions
1/2 cup finely shredded cabbage
Sesame oil
Soy sauce
Microplane box grater (this thing scared the heck out of me when I first got it, but now I use it all the time)

Slice green scallions into thin rounds. Finely shred the cabbage using a medium-sized microplane blade.

Heat the oil in a saute pan, throwing in the pork and shitakes first. As the pork begins to cook, gently break it up with a wooden spoon (I used an old bamboo paddle that came with a wok that has long since departed ... it's one of my favorite cooking tools).

Grate the garlic and ginger on the finest microplane blade and toss them into the pan, turning the heat down to medium high if things look like they're moving too fast.

Taking care not to overcook the pork (which will get more cooking time in the dumplings), add the sliced scallions and grated cabbage, then cook for another half minute or so. Season with sesame oil and soy sauce to taste. Remove from heat and let cool while you make the dumplings or refrigerate the filling for another day.

BTW, this is more filling than you need to fill 16 dumplings, but the leftovers are a great way to pass the time while the potstickers are cooking.

Dumplings
2/3 cup bread flour (the better to develop gluten)

1/3 cup water

1/4 tsp safflower oil floated on the water

Pinch of salt

1 cup chicken broth (homemade, of course)

2-3 Tbs. safflower or peanut oil for frying

Put the flour in a food processor with 1/4 cup of the oil/water mixture and a pinch of salt. The goal is to make a "raggy dough" according to Food & Wine magazine. As the food processor whirls, add water until the dough masses into a ball. Stop and feel the dough. If it feels dry, restart the food processor and drizzle in more water. If the dough sticks to your finger when you poke it, give it another whirl and sprinkle in a bit more flour until it is just past sticky.

Don't worry about over-processing ... by forming gluten, you end up with a stretchy dough that handles beautifully. However, you will need to give the dough a rest so that it doesn't act like a rubber band when you try to roll it out. Remove the dough ball from the food processor, gently form it into a disk shape, adding just enough flour to keep it from sticking to your hands, and leave it in a small bowl for 15-30 minutes.

Divide the dough in half, divide the halves into quarters, the quarters into eighths, and stop dividing when you end up with 16 little nuggets of dough. Lightly flour a pastry cloth and rolling pin, then coax the little balls into 3-4" rounds. You'll be amazed how thin you can make them by stretching the dough rounds after rolling them out.

If you made the filling in advance, this would be the time to gently warm it in the microwave (please don't use a high setting ... 40-50% power is much better). If it seems dry, a splash of chicken broth will help it along.

Put out a sheet of waxed or parchment paper. Dip your finger in water and run it around the edge of a dough round, place a tablespoon of filling in the middle, pinch the dough closed and put the dumpling on the waxed or parchment paper. When you get halfway through filling the dumplings, which look like fat little purses, check the first few and turn them over if they are starting to stick to the paper. If any holes open up, gently pinch them closed.

When the dumplings are filled, heat a few tablespoons of safflower or peanut oil in a skillet large enough to fit all sixteen. Fry the dumplings on high for a minute or two, then add 1/2 cup chicken stock and put a lid on the pan. Cook another minute or so, then take the lid off and let the stock boil away, gently coaxing the potstickers to keep them from sticking too firmly. Peeking to see if the dumplings have caramelized on the bottom is allowed. BTW, when Don asked why the potstickers weren't cooked on top, I defied orthodoxy by flipping the dumplings at the last minute to caramelize them on both sides.

Serve immediately, dipping the potstickers in soy sauce to taste ... you can even make a wonton soup of sorts by plunking them in hot chicken broth if you're so inclined. I think we drank a light pinot noir the other night, but an unfiltered sake would be even better (although nigori can be hard to find). Side dishes of rice and/or slaw with an oriental dressing are logical accompaniments if you're really hungry, but as a light supper, potstickers can stand alone.

Idyll

2010-04-28T22:19:00.005-05:00

We headed out to Pedernales Falls last Sunday ... which is pronounced per-duh-nal-ess for some reason. Not having much experience with rivers and falls, I guess I expected sort of a miniature Yosemite ... all verticality and plumes of mist. But that wasn't what we found. The falls were flatter and wider than I expected. And when I closed my eyes, I could hear the echo of breakers from the Outer Banks, though there was no gull-cry or salty tang in the air.

Coming to the bottom of the rocky slope, we stepped out onto a dusty sandy ... beach? Well, not exactly. Still, I couldn't help but think of Ram Island as I found my way to the edge of crystal clear water lapping over rounded river rocks that looked ever so much like cobbles deposited by a long-ago glacier. There was even a tiny Hay Beach tower that begged to be imitated. So while Don clambered over boulders taking pictures of lizards and exotic plants (you'll have to visit his blog to see those), I played at making rock castles and had my day in the sun.

Waffles Four Ways

2010-04-25T12:50:00.009-05:00

I just spent the past four days with four guys in the house ... three of them imports from Stonehouse Elementary School in Williamsburg, come to check out the Texas Hill Country. Don took Mark, Scott, and Jeff to Austin and beyond, averaging two bands a night while they liberally sampled the local beverages, braved the heat of various chili peppers, ate all the barbecue a body could hold at the Salt Lick, watched the bats fly out from under the Congress Street Bridge, climbed Mount Bonnell, and ... well, you get the idea.

Austin trailer-made breakfast tacos and migas made a particularly big impression, so I was under heavy pressure to come up with an impressive final meal this morning. Fortunately, I went to Brookshire Brothers last night with a notion to get some fried chicken to go with waffles. Better than chicken, I found poblano sausage made on-site by Norman, who is our local butcher par excellence. Don fired up the grill in order to bring out the best in the beef, pork, and cumin-laced links. Meanwhile, I prepped a couple of quarts of strawberries, nuked some hot fudge sauce, and whisked up some waffles.

Waffles used to be a regular weekend offering in the Ackert household. Made with a quarter pound of butter per batch and tricked out in Haagen Dasz vanilla ice cream and hot fudge, they were pretty popular ... until we found out that Don's cholesterol level had climbed into the upper stratosphere. So it was nice to have an excuse to put them back on the table. Besides, there are no calories in Texas, at least not when you're on vacation.

In the end, I gave the guys a choice of waffles four ways: with fried chicken and maple syrup, poblano sausage and agave nectar (with thanks to Meliss for introducing us to its subtle sweetness), ice cream and strawberries, or ice cream and hot fudge sauce. When I asked them what they wanted, the answer was, "Yes."

Wimberley Waffles

1/4 pound melted butter
2 eggs
2 cups milk (whole milk, preferably)
Bisquick

Melt the butter by nuking it for a minute. Whisk the eggs and milk together. Then whisk in the butter and just enough Bisquick to make a thin batter.

My waffle iron takes exactly 2 minutes and 40 seconds to make the perfect waffle ... but you'll need to experiment with batter and times until you hit what works best for you. This recipe yields a light, crisp waffle that is best eaten hot off the iron. Just keep 'em comin' and don't be worrying about leftovers.

Don't take a picture ... remember this in your heart

2010-03-21T10:35:00.015-05:00

Once upon a time there was a little church. As with most little churches, it was rather humble and not very well to do. But it was led by a gentle man named Father Jim+ who reassured my long-ago-young-mother self that offerings of time and talent would be valued as highly as monetary treasure. So it was that I offered my time to the cause of baking Simnel Cake.

Jim supplied both the recipe and the following explanation to the bakers who were charged with feeding the hundred or so souls who were expected to attend church the following Sunday:

Simnel Cakes are traditionally prepared on the fourth Sunday in Lent, called Mid-Lent or Mothering Sunday. The name Mothering Sunday originated from the medieval custom of visiting the Mother Church, or cathedral, on this Sunday. In parts of England, it was also the tradition of servants and apprentices to make a special visit to their parents on this day. Whatever the occasion, especially popular was the gift of Simnel Cake. It is a very rich cake shared during a brief break from the Lenten fast. Simnel Cake can be given as a gift: cut into small pieces, wrapped in shiny foil, and tied with a bit of colorful ribbon or string.

Merriam-Webster's (at m-w.com, my favorite online dictionary) defines simnel as "a rich fruitcake sometimes coated with almond paste and baked for Mid-Lent." As with most Simnel Cake recipes, Jim’s called for currants and citron. And indeed it made sense that any mid-winter confection made centuries ago would have dried fruit in it. Unfortunately, a fruitcake is a fruitcake. And though I followed Jim’s recipe to the letter, I watched as most of the gifts were unwrapped and then surreptitiously trashed after a single bite.

Not being a great fan of dried fruit myself, I reasoned that my medieval predecessors would certainly have used fresh fruit had it been available. It didn’t take much of a mental leap to conclude that the candied lemon and orange peel in the recipe could be replaced with freshly grated citrus rind. I self-servingly passed over the issue of dried currants and reworked the recipe to my liking. The resulting new-style Simnel Cakes were offered at the little church for many years, with more than one parishioner requesting an “extra to take home.” If any ended up in the trash, they were few and far between … victims, no doubt, of stalwart fruitcake aficianados.

Fast forward twenty years. My younger daughter, now twenty-four, dropped in from St. Louis last weekend. Since eating well is de rigueur at any Ackert family reunion, I had stocked up, adding almond paste and fresh fruit to a shopping list heavy on tortillas, avocadoes and chipotles. Though I didn’t wrap them in foil, the Simnel Cakes made for a proper Mid-Lent celebration … a welcome break from the fast of missing Meliss.

Simnel Cake

3/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs (or 3/4 cup Better’n Eggs)
1 Tbs. grated lemon peel (one lemon)

1 Tbs. grated orange peel (one orange)

1 ½ cups flour

7 ounces almond paste (I use Odense)

Use a 13" x 9" baking pan with sides. Spray the pan with Baker's Joy or Pam cooking spray. Line it with parchment or waxed paper. Spray the paper with more cooking spray.

Grate the orange and lemon peel, with a microplane if possible. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and grated peel. Stir in the flour. The dough will be like a thick cake batter.

Warm the almond paste in the microwave at 20-30% power (warm) for 30-60 seconds, until soft and pliable. Roll out the almond paste on waxed paper. The idea is to roll the paste thin enough to cover 13" x 9", but since it won't show, it doesn't have to be perfect. It can even be in pieces, which is actually easier.

Spread half the dough in the pan (the trickiest part). Lay almond paste on top of the dough. Spread the remaining dough on top of that. Don't fuss with it too much ... it will spread out as it cooks.

Bake at 300 degrees for 50-55 minutes, until golden. Cool slightly before inverting onto a cutting board. Peel off the paper and trim the edges (great for nibbling!)

Ice with 1 to 2 cups of confectioner's sugar, 1 Tbs. melted butter, and enough lemon and orange juice to make a thin glaze.

Cut into bars. Wrap in foil and colored ribbon to make a proper gift.

Oh fudge!

2010-03-07T17:19:00.005-06:00

I am absolutely, undeniably, no-doubt-about-it addicted to chocolate. Gotta have it … every day … just a little bit. Okay, sometimes more than a little bit. Hey, I’ve heard chocolate is actually good for you and until it’s proven otherwise, I’m inclined to believe it.

And so, in a conversation over dinner at the Cool Mint Café last night (a wonderfully spontaneous trek to San Marcos with our Garrison Trail neighbors), I mentioned my Mom’s hot fudge sauce with a fair degree of enthusiasm. Incredibly easy to make, it was the topping of choice on Hildebrandt’s hand-dipped vanilla ice cream when I was growing up. These days, I must confess that I sometimes make microwave ganache as an even quicker route to chocolate bliss when the vanilla Häagen-Dazs is looking lonely.

Then there’s the fudge I made for the first time this week. Inspired by a New York Times Dining section recipe, which I changed of course, it received rave reviews when passed around to my colleagues at the Alkek Library. So, without further ado, I present chocolate three ways: sauce, ganache, and fudge. May you eat them all in good health.

Mom’s Hot Fudge Sauce

2 ounces unsweetened (baking) chocolate
¼ cup sugar
1/3 cup water

The original recipe calls for cooking the sauce slowly over medium heat until satiny smooth (5-10 minutes of constant stirring). It can also be made in the microwave by alternately nuking it on high for one minute, then stirring, nuking for another minute, stirring, and finishing with another 30 seconds if needed before stirring it to its final satin glory.

Lazy Ganache Sauce

2 Tbs. heavy cream
1/3 cup Ghirardelli 60% Cacao bittersweet chocolate chips

Nuke the cream for 30 seconds. Stir in the chips until melted. Done.

I-did-it-my-way Fudge

12 ounce bag of Ghirardelli 60% Cacao bittersweet chocolate chips
4 ounces unsweetened (baking) chocolate
4 Tbs. butter
14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
Generous ½ cup of walnut pieces

Line an 8x8 pan with waxed paper. Melt the first four ingredients over hot water in a double boiler (you must own one of these … they are indispensable … more recipes to follow). Stir constantly (having a phone conversation at the same time is not recommended). Fold in walnuts, pour into 8x8 pan. Refrigerate until set. Take out of pan and peel off the waxed paper. Cut into ¾” squares (they’re too rich to be any bigger … besides, you can always eat two).

And though I haven’t tried it yet, I’m thinking that toasted hazelnuts could substitute for the walnuts. Another possible variation: a sprinkling of grey sea salt. Ah … life is good when you have something to look forward to.

Channeling Mom

2010-02-21T18:04:00.029-06:00

I was slowly sinking into the sofa, getting more horizontal and closer to sleep by the minute … a common enough occurrence after a long day of work and a good dinner. But something kept tugging at the edges of my consciousness, much as I tried to ignore it. It became an irresistible impulse, and I found myself heading into the kitchen to make cookies.

Although the truth is, cookie making has been something of a disappointment since we came out to Texas. I miss my convection oven, and the chocolate chip cookies that were my pride and joy in Virginia just don’t come out the same since we moved. Still, I love chocolate and what I craved was my Mom’s oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips. Just one problem: I have yet to succeed at making them.

Mom’s cookie recipe came from a 1959 cookbook created by the gentle women of the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. The brown-edged pages betray its age, and page 70 in particular is covered with spatters of butter, eggs, and vanilla from years gone by.

The red penciled notes still visible in Aunt Libby’s recipe for Oatmeal Coconut Wafers leave one to wonder if Mom’s “excellent” refers to the original recipe or her variation on it. She never went back to insert a note about adding chocolate chips, but one thing’s for sure: her substitution of wheat germ for coconut was inspired. Mom’s oatmeal cookies were always lacy thin, with a crisp finish that eluded me every time I tried to duplicate them.

“Just bang the pan halfway through baking them,” she would say when I called to bewail my latest failure. And so I’d try again, slamming the pans against the oven door to no avail.

“Maybe it’s the weather,” she said on yet another attempt. “You really should only make them when the weather is dry and it’s awfully humid down your way.”

Well, with the recent Texas hydrology report of rainfall at 150-450% above normal, I figured I was doomed to failure yet again. Flipping open the cookbook, I pondered how to adjust the recipe and tossed ingredients into the bowl. Tasting the end result, I decided that it wouldn’t much matter if the cookies didn’t come out … the dough was delicious. I wrote down the recipe, just in case it was worth keeping.

It was, and it is.

Garrison Trail Granola Cookies

(makes 3 dozen)

1/3 cup Land O Lakes Spreadable Butter with Canola Oil

1/3 cup white sugar (scant)

1/3 cup brown sugar (generous)

½ tsp vanilla (more or less)

Revised 8/28: 1/6 cup beaten egg (half of a 1/3 cup measure)

1/3 cup flour

1/3 cup Kretschmer Original Toasted Wheat Germ

1/3 cup chopped Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips

¼ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

1 cup Garrison Trail Granola (see recipe index to the right)

Cream butter and sugars. Beat in vanilla and egg. Fold in dry ingredients. Batter will be quite moist. Scoop ½ tsp. portions onto parchment paper (trust me, you don’t want to bake these directly on the cookie sheet, no matter how well you butter it).

Bake 6 minutes at 350:

When cookies have puffed up, slam the pan on the oven door to flatten them:

Bake 2-3 minutes longer until dark golden brown:

Slide the cookies, parchment paper and all, onto a wire rack to cool. BTW, these are insanely good broken up and sprinkled over Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream.

Bigger Batch

1 cup Land O Lakes Spreadable Butter with Canola Oil

1 cup white sugar (scant)

1 cup brown sugar (generous)

1 tsp vanilla (more or less)

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1 cup Kretschmer Original Toasted Wheat Germ

1 cup chopped Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips

3/4 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. salt

3 cups Garrison Trail Granola (see recipe index to the right)

Comfort Food

2010-02-14T11:36:00.005-06:00

Long ago and far away, I traveled to Wisconsin a fair bit. Strange, but the integrated library system that we used at Colonial Williamsburg was licensed from a firm in Brillion, so trips to users group meetings in the Green Bay area became an annual event. One of the earlier jaunts lasted several days, and I soon tired of restaurant food and motel accommodations. By the time we headed back to Virginia, all I could think of was a home cooked meal and my own bed.

Flying into O’Hare late in the afternoon, facing a fairly extended layover, we decided to get an early dinner … one last meal out. Fortunately, we found our way to a diner where I ordered chicken pot pie. It was the ultimate comfort food. A buttery brown crust broke open to reveal a rich chicken broth, shreds of real chicken, chunks of floury potato, and nuggets of sweet carrot. Granted, it did have some tired peas, but they were easily fished out and put aside (peas should never be subjected to extended cooking, imho). The pot pie was so good that I tried to imitate it when I got home. And I’ve been refining the recipe ever since.

The most recent version got us through a rainy gray day, with leftovers to spare. Give it a try next time you find yourself debating what to do with a leftover rotisserie chicken.

Chicken Pot Pie

½ rotisserie chicken

2 small to medium potatoes

2 small or 1 large carrot, shredded

A handful of mushrooms, sliced relatively thin

1 shallot, sliced fine

1 cup Bisquick

1/3 cup milk

Butter and flour for roux

Take the meat off the chicken and set aside. Cover the leftover bones and skin with 6 cups of water and simmer for an hour or so until you have about 4 cups of rich broth.

Make a roux by melting 2 Tbs. of butter and adding 2 heaping Tbs. flour. Whisk in the broth and cook until thickened.

Nuke the potatoes until tender, leave the skins on and cut into rough dice. Put in the bottom of a 2 quart casserole. Top with shredded carrot, sliced mushrooms and sliced shallots. No need to cook the veggies … they will be get all the cooking they need in the oven. Layer on bite sized pieces of chicken.

Pour in warm, thickened broth until it just covers the chicken. Top with a biscuit crust made by quickly mixing 1/3 cup of milk into 1 cup of Bisquick with a fork. Handle the dough gently … rolling it out on a pastry cloth, flouring the rolling pin a bit to keep it from sticking.

Bake at 425 until the crust is golden and the sauce is bubbling (easy to see if you use a clear Pyrex casserole dish) … about 15 minutes, give or take.

Not your mother’s Eggs Benedict

2010-01-06T21:31:00.000-06:00

“So how’d you do that?” was the gist of a question about my ornamental Hill Country Christmas eggs. Herewith a recipe of sorts for how to make your own …

Eggs Ornament (process photos to follow at some point in the future)

One old school compass
Turkey brining needle (not pictured)
Eggs (more than you think you need … some won’t make it)
Wrapping paper scraps (thinner is better … old Paper Factory Christmas paper was my go-to)
Decorative edge-cutting scissors (a scrapbooker’s delight)
Fine cuticle scissors
Paintbrush
White glue (with a little water added)
Buttons
Foil wrapped plastic cord, or other flexible wire (make sure it will fit into the button holes)
Hair spray (for a slight gloss)

The hardest part is blowing the insides out of the eggs. Using the compass, poke a small hole in one end of the egg, a larger hole in the other end. Blow through the smaller hole, forcing the eggs out of the larger hole. Be careful not to burst your eardrums (easier said than done).

To clean the inside of the eggshell, fill a turkey brining needle with warm water, inject the water into the eggshell, shake gently, and blow out the water. Let the egg dry thoroughly for at least a day or two. I actually stored up several dozen eggs over the course of two months.

Cut out pieces of wrapping paper using decorative or cuticle scissors (depending on what kind of edge you want). Snip ¼ -½” cuts around the edges of each design so it will flex around the egg without buckling.

Mix a little white glue with water. Coat the back of a design, carefully mold the design onto the egg, and smooth the paper down along the edges. Your fingers will get sticky, so be prepared to wash up as you go.

Once the glue is dry, probe for the hole at the top of the egg with the compass. Then gently create a second hole close to the first hole (the paper you have glued onto the egg should provide enough support for the egg to sustain two holes … trust me, it’s hard to punch two holes in the top of an eggshell before you glue down the design, so don’t try to create two holes in advance).

Thread a 3” piece of cord/wire through two holes of a button, then poke the cord/wire through the two holes on top of the egg. Put a dab of glue on the side of the button facing the egg, then push the button down until the glue holds the button onto the egg. Adjust the length of the wire to create a loop.

Once the glue is completely dry (preferably once you have made a bunch of eggs), hang the eggs on a branch, drying rack, or clothes line and spray with hairspray.

Metaphorical moment: When an egg breaks (and this is inevitable), do not despair. Simply cut out a design to fit over the hole, glue the design on, and continue. Unless of course the break is beyond repair. In which case, chalk it up to experience and try, try again.

And while I had high hopes for embellishing the eggs with rubber stamps and embossing powder, I wouldn’t recommend it. Some ideas just don’t pan out (pun intended).

Last, but not least: you might have noticed that one of the finished eggs has a scallop shell motif on it. The image, taken from the Internet, was printed on Staples double-sided matte photo paper. I’m going to be experimenting with photographs next to see if I can create some “wedding eggs.” Hope they work out better than the embossing powder idea did.

ROMHT

2010-01-05T19:49:00.002-06:00

I recently received a Facebook friend request from my niece in New York. I was flattered, actually. But of course, most of her posts are in a code I can’t decipher. Which is as it should be.

Back in the day, we had our own code. Finding a Wheatley High School (class of 1974) cohort on Facebook I dropped her a line and wondered if she remembers ROHMT and Molasses Cookie dough.

Pro’ly, I'm thinking.

Molasses Cookie Dough

¾ cup butter
1 cup sugar
¼ cup molasses
1 egg (or ¼ cup Better ‘n Eggs if you’re salmonella/E.coli risk averse)
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. each of cloves and ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon

Melt butter. Cool and mix in other ingredients. Chill in the fridge. Really, that’s all you need to do, as this is the best raw cookie dough ever. However, if you insist on baking it into cookies, roll small balls of dough in sugar and bake on greased cookie sheets at 375 for 8 minutes.

A Midwinter Night’s Dream

2010-01-03T10:34:00.007-06:00

I made the mistake of saying that moving to Texas had gotten us out of the house more than we used to in Williamsburg. “So you want to go to the free concert in Zilker Park tomorrow night?” Don asked.

“Umm, well … I guess so,” was my lukewarm reply. After all, it was Sunday night and we had just returned from Austin, where Meg and I had taken in Ballet Austin’s Nutcracker matinee. Christmas was only five days away and I had a long list of things to do.

None-the-less we called Meg and Paul to see if we could bring dinner in exchange for use of their guest room the following night, and invited them to join us at the concert … on a work night, no less. “You don’t really have to come,” I offered. But come they did, with Meg observing that they probably wouldn’t have made it of their own volition (such is the power of newcomers to inspire a reawakened awareness of one’s environs).

On a cool Austin evening, we joined the long line of cars queuing into Zilker Park, drawn by the tree of lights and the promise of free entertainment by Asleep at the Wheel, with a hoped-for guest appearance by Shawn Colvin.

There were throngs of people and a festive air, enlivened by the heady aroma of kettle corn and the flickering lights of toy swords purchased from vendors and wielded by tiny hands. After listening to the music for awhile, Meg suggested we walk through the light displays, which were scaled back from years past. Not that I would have known. It was a Grand Illumination, Texas style.

We walked into a wonderland, greeted by Maurice Sendak’s Max,

an armadillo rodeo,

Mother Goose's cow jumping over the moon,

and a vision of the Austin skyline straight out of the Jetsons.

I'm thinking Logan would have loved every bit of it.

Wearied at last, we trekked back to the car as the Frost Tower glimmered in the distance ... making our way to warm beds, to sleep, perchance to dream.

Let's do brunch ... Hill Country style

2010-01-02T12:29:00.006-06:00

The breakfast taco is a wonderfully civilized way to put a lot of great flavors and textures together. The palate is as varied as you choose to make it, and with a little advance planning, can make for a simple brunch where you actually get to sit down and enjoy your company.

Of course, in Texas we have the distinct advantage of having access to amazingly fresh food, even in the middle of winter. It’s one of the things I hoped would be true when we headed west, and we’re endlessly delighted by what makes it onto the table every day.

Freshly made flour tortillas are readily available at some of our grocery stores and are the basis for any good taco. However, refrigerated flour tortillas come close, with shelf-stable tortillas a distant third. Or you can make your own (just check the blog index for the recipe).

Fresh chorizo sausage is another Texas joy, found at the HEB (they don’t lie when they say “Here Everything’s Better”). Dried chorizo is a reasonable substitute, just remove the casings and dice it fine. Then there’s the Cotija cheese, (pronounced co-tee-ah). We found a "vaca rica" version that translates as “rich cow.” Ha! Wonder how much fat that has in it? It’s a lick better than the Cotija I used to buy at the Food Lion in Williamsburg, but that will do in a pinch.

Of course my favorite ingredients are the green, tan, and brown eggs from the Dripping Springs Farmers Market. Lucky us, even though the market has closed for the winter, the farmer gives us a call every couple of weeks asking if we want some eggs. It has a slightly illicit feel to it, but we happily go to pick up our stash whenever the opportunity presents itself.

By the way, the eggs were so beautiful that I couldn’t bear to crack them open and throw out the shells. So I carefully blew the insides out and several dozen ended up as Christmas ornaments on our tree this year.

Last, but not least, the produce doesn’t have to travel far to reach us, so Campari tomatoes, jalapenos, organic cilantro, and blissfully ripe avocados are standard occupants in the fridge. Life is good indeed.

Sadly, no pictures were taken the day we had everyone over for breakfast tacos, but since Meliss requested the frittata recipe I figured it was worth a blog. We regret that the Walkers are currently shivering through 6 degree weather in St. Louis. Maybe a Sunday brunch will banish the chilblains and bring back warm memories of the day we played Bagg-o and got sunburned … in December!

Pico de Gallo

Diced Campari tomatoes (or grape tomatoes if you can’t find Camparis)

Finely diced jalapeno (remove seeds and inner membrane with a spoon if you want to lessen the fire)

Finely diced red onion

Chopped cilantro

Lime juice

Kosher salt

I know … no amounts here, but you really can’t do this wrong,

Chorizo Frittata

8 oz. cream cheese (low fat works, ‘though it's sorta pointless here)
8-12 oz. Cotija
Chipotle chilies in adobo sauce (canned)
9 large eggs
¾ cup flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 cup shredded cheese (Mexican mix, Colby, Monterey Jack, whatever)
12 oz. small curd cottage cheese (I used low fat, also sorta pointless)
¼ lb. chorizo sausage (bulk, or taken out of casings and diced)

The night before, melt cream cheese and shredded Cotija together with a couple of diced chipotle chilies and some adobo sauce. This will not make good queso (which is what I was originally trying to make), although it won’t hurt to dunk a few chips in to be sure it tastes okay. Put in a bowl and refrigerate overnight. Cut into cubes once it's firmed up.

Pan fry chorizo until cooked through and set aside.

Beat eggs, then whisk in flour, baking powder and salt. Fold in cottage cheese, shredded cheese, cubed Cotija/cream cheese, and chorizo. Pour into a 9” x 13” casserole sprayed with Baker’s Joy. Bake at 350 … start watching after 30 minutes and take out when set in the middle.

Breakfast Tacos

Flour tortillas (figure on two 6-8” tortillas per person, more if you’re really hungry)
Frittata sliced into tortilla-long fingers (or scrambled eggs if you want to keep it simple)
Shredded cheese
Sour cream
Pico de gallo
Avocado wedges
Optional: scallions, potatoes, bacon, sausage, leftover grilled meat or veggies, shrimp … the list is limited only by your imagination

Alternate tortillas with damp paper towels. Nuke in the microwave for 20 seconds on high to warm the tortillas. Flip the stack and repeat if necessary.

Put out the ingredients and let everyone build their own tacos to taste.

Top Cookie … or “Pack your butter and go”

2010-01-01T22:25:00.011-06:00

This year was our first Christmas season in Texas, and I’ve decided I can definitely get into the spirit even when the temperature is in the 70s. Meliss and Jake flew in from St. Louis on a cool, clear Christmas afternoon … much better weather than their October venture. Meg and Paul hosted dinner at their house, serving us an amazing surf and turf of prime rib and lobster tails, with asparagus, horseradish potato cake, and salad with fig balsamic dressing, pine nuts, red grapes and feta.

We had Christmas cookies for dessert, a tradition from the many years we spent celebrating with the Laroche family. Don decided that a competition for Top Cookie would liven up the festivities, and designed a ballot for the four entrants which were to be judged on taste, texture and presentation.

First up, my Mom’s shortbread, which I’ve often imitated, but never duplicated. Though we made shortbread using a recipe from my Grandma Munson (born Scotswoman Jesse Watson, who surely knew what she was doing) when I was a child, Mom changed recipes once I left home, so I never got to watch her make it … she just brought it with her each year when she and Dad came to Williamsburg to celebrate Christmas with us. This time around my version wasn’t quite as crisp as hers, a bit thicker than it should have been and I dosed it with a too much sugar, but it was still recognizable and the sentimental favorite.

Next, a perennial entry: Greek Kourambiades, which I first made in high school as part of a social studies assignment to create a Middle Eastern dish. [A side note on my high school: it was different, to say the least. No substitute teachers, for one. Instead, we had a choice of guest speakers, open study halls, or Watergate hearings to watch. Even better, our teachers had virtually unlimited sick leave … and used it since they didn’t have to write sub plans. But I digress]. While others brought falafel and pita bread to the Middle East luncheon, my research focused on finding a dessert with lots of butter. Some things never change. The recipe replaced Aunt Yetta’s pinkie cookies as the go-to nut cookie recipe and came with me when I started making my own cookies as a young bride in Virginia (32 years ago this week).

The Mocha Christmas Tree Cookies were also a high school find, from a New York Times cookbook that I read at our next door neighbor’s in East Williston. I’m not quite sure how I came to be reading a cookbook in the Presti’s kitchen, but the recipe has gone through a number of revisions over the years, all good. Meliss prefers her cookies sans chocolate (making them coffee cookies rather than mocha) … a plainer presentation to be sure, but toothsome just the same. And I used my grandmother’s Mirro cookie press, one of my favorite inheritances.

Last, but far from least, was a new entrant: LaCoursier family Nutmeg Logs courtesy of Meg’s husband Paul. I got a bit nervous as I made these, realizing I’d never actually seen or tasted the original cookies and was setting myself up by making substitutions in a recipe I never made before. But I bluffed my way through and hoped for the best. And best they were, winning the Top Cookie prize when all the ballots were counted. I’m guessing it was the Haitian Barbancourt Rhum substituted for the rum extract in the recipe that put them over the top. Of course, ¾ of a pound of butter didn’t hurt either. Whatever. Nutmeg Logs are destined to be part of the Ackert family Christmas cookie rotation in perpetuity.

Nana Ruth’s Shortbread

½ lb. butter (salted)
½ cup sugar
2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar. Mix in flour. Divide into three parts, flattening each into a circle about ¼” thick on parchment paper. Score into 8 wedges and prick with a fork. Bake 25 minutes at 325. Sprinkle with sugar while still warm. Cut into wedges along the scored lines. Pack in an airtight container with wax paper.

Kourambiades (I have no idea how to pronounce this)

½ lb. melted butter (salted)
¼ cup sugar
½ cup chopped walnuts (I use the food processor)
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder

Mix ingredients together. Shape into small balls (1 tsp.) Bake on parchment paper for 15-20 minutes at 350 until slightly golden on the bottom. Cool slightly, then shake with confectioner’s sugar in a paper bag to coat.

Mocha Cookies (but only if you include the chocolate ... otherwise they're Espresso Cookies)

8 ounces Land O’Lakes butter with canola oil

¾ cup sugar

1 small egg
1 tsp. vanilla
¼ cup espresso powder (the original recipe called for 1 Tbs. of instant coffee)
2 cups flour
1/8 tsp. baking powder
4-6 oz. Ghirardelli 60% cacao chocolate chips
Nonpareils and/or green sugar crystals (Mom also used chopped nuts on hers)

Beat egg in a cup with vanilla and espresso powder. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg mixture. Fold in flour and baking powder. Dough will be soft and may need a bit more flour to keep it from being sticky … but be careful not to overdo it. Use a Christmas tree or wreath template and press cookies … be assertive, quickly twisting the handle 180 degrees and rapidly lifting the press between cookies. Bake 10 minutes at 375 until crisp.

While cookies cool, gently melt the chocolate chips in the microwave and scoop into a heavy plastic bag. Snip a corner and drizzle the chocolate onto the cookies, then sprinkle with whatever suits your fancy (or leave them plain … Meliss would approve).

Nutmeg Logs

½ lb. butter (salted)

¾ cup sugar

1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbs. Barbancourt rum (this is non-negotiable … just ask the Laroche family)
2 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
¼ tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg, vanilla and rum. Fold in flour, nutmeg and salt. Roll into “snakes” about ½ inch in diameter. Cut into pieces about 2 inches long. Bake on parchment paper for 12-15 minutes at 350 until golden brown. Cool while making the frosting.

Frosting

¼ lb. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2-3 Tbs. Barbancourt rum
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
Freshly grated nutmeg

Soften the butter in the microwave (30 seconds at 50% power). Beat in remaining ingredients. Spread over cookies and grate nutmeg over the top while frosting is still moist.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T09:49:00.005-06:00

Wishing you peace and much joy this Christmas Day and in the New Year.

With love from the Texas Hill Country.

N.B. The ornaments on the tree were made using Hill Country eggs.

Good news, bad news

2009-11-28T14:00:00.009-06:00

The bad news was that I couldn’t find Pepperidge Farm white bread for turkey sandwiches. The good news was that Paul scored some at the Central Market. But there was more bad news: it didn’t taste quite right. Was it because Pepperidge Farm changed their recipe or is this one tradition that we've simply outgrown? No matter, there was good news in the end: muffins.

These particular muffins have made guest appearances with smoked turkey in the past, so leftover Thanksgiving turkey seemed like a good fit. I whipped up a batch for lunch and we paired the resulting sandwiches with some Fat Tire ale … a wicked brew that can be found just about anywhere in Texas as well as selected Outer Banks groceries, and which, to my unsophisticated palate, insists on reminding me of egg creams from yesteryear. For those of you who have not experienced a true New York style egg cream, there is neither egg nor cream to be had ... rather, chocolate milk charged with hyper-carbonated seltzer water. Maybe the malt in the Fat Tire echoes some subtle note in Bosco chocolate syrup. No matter. It tastes extremely good.

And so it was that Don was asked, yet again, to delay a perfectly good meal in the service of the photographic muse, the better to portray what we enjoyed after our two mile walk through Woodcreek. If you are looking for a way to dispatch your leftover turkey, you might want to give this a try.

Apple Onion Walnut Muffins (makes six, doubles with ease)

2 Tbs. melted butter
1 egg
½ cup milk
¾ cup flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. kosher salt
1 small Granny Smith apple, shredded
1 small sweet onion, similarly shredded
1 handful of walnut pieces (¼ - ½ cup)

Whisk eggs and milk together. Add melted butter. Fold in the remaining ingredients, being careful not to overmix, which makes for tough muffins. Put in six greased muffin tins (I use Baker’s Joy) and bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes.

And if you want to gild the lily, whip up some cranberry jelly, too.

Cranberry Jelly

12 ounces fresh cranberries
1 ½ cup water
1 ½ cup sugar

Simmer cranberries and water for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to avoid scorched berries. Press cooked berries through a strainer to remove seeds and skins, and return to the pan with sugar. Cook another 3-5 minutes. Refrigerate until set.

A Noah’s Ark Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T15:35:00.015-06:00

We had two of everything for Thanksgiving yesterday: a fried turkey and a roasted turkey, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, plain stuffing and sausage onion stuffing, smooth cranberry jelly and chunky cranberry orange relish, green olives and black olives, carrots and celery, red wine and champagne … along with matched sides of Levine family green bean casserole and buttered corn versus Ackert family creamed onions and sautéed turnips. Dessert would have continued the two-by-two theme with coconut cream pie and pecan pie, but Kristen and her family saved the day from cliché by arriving with a chocolate frosted cheese cake.

It’s a good thing we decided up front to eliminate pumpkin pie and apple pie from the menu, as dinner was so good that there wasn’t much room left for sampling all the desserts. However, pumpkin did make a pre-dinner appearance in a “new for this year” brunch pairing of pumpkin rolls with, you guessed it, two fillings. One was a straight take on an Ina Garten recipe I caught on the Food Network the other night, but the second was a riff on strawberry trifle, as odd as that might sound.

So see for yourself. Snag the original Pumpkin Roulade recipe from the Food Ne twork, cut the pumpkin cake in half after it’s cooled and fill one side with a half recipe of the mascarpone filling. Then whip up a trifling half. It won’t be as pretty, but in my book it wins the prize for taste.

Trifling Pumpkin Roll

½ Ina Garten pumpkin roulade cake
1 small box Jell-O Vanilla Cook and Serve pudding (not instant!)
1 ½ cups milk (whole milk is best, but 2% will do)
½ cup whipping cream
½ cup toasted chopped hazelnuts (filberts)
Sherry or Vin Santo

Cook the pudding mix and milk in the microwave until thickened. Place a sheet of plastic wrap directly on top of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming as it cools. Whip ½ cup cream (don’t add any sugar), and fold into the chilled pudding.

Chop the hazelnuts and then toast them for 3-6 minutes in a 350 oven until they are nicely browned. Cool.

Spritz the pumpkin roll with sherry (I stick my thumb into the bottle opening to control the flow). Slather the cake with a layer of the pudding/cream mixture. Sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts. Roll carefully and expect it to sag, as the cream filling is not as firm as the mascarpone version.

Conduct your own taste test and may the best cake win ;-)

Urban Impression I

2009-11-15T16:02:00.004-06:00

Even though I’ve always said that I wouldn’t want to live in a city, Don and I agreed to spend the week at Meg and Paul’s condo in south Austin while they soak up some sun on the Mexican coast. They think we’re here to take care of Katie, their Jack Russell Terrier whose recent brush with glaucoma left her with one eye and a perpetually saucy wink. But the truth is we’re having a blast living the vida urbana, if only for a little while.

Yesterday we headed to the Sunset Valley Farmers Market, one of several locavore haunts in Austin. Fresh arugula, cucumber, tomatoes, and onions made their way into my mesh bag, while we made note of the turnips, pecans, and sweet potatoes that we’ll return for next week in anticipation of Thanksgiving. While there, we sampled some maple-flavored “Dad’s Granola,” which was good, but not better than our Garrison Trail granola blend. We really should go into the Wholey Granoley biz one of these days. And I actually managed to avoid the kettle corn stand, although hunger pangs ultimately drove us to stop at Chuy’s (pronounced chewies) for lunch … a good thing, as it resulted in a mental note to add grilled corn to my tortilla soup recipe.

Wanting to sample the joys of urban exercise, we headed to Zilker Park, which has recovered from last month’s ACL mud bath, the Dillo Dirt now back under the turf where it belongs. As we drove into the park, a lone guitarist stood far out in the middle of a grassy field, playing to the sun. We picked a parking lot close to Lady Bird Lake and stepped out to join the flow of humanity that was walking, running, and riding by.

Austin has an abundance of hiking trails that appear to be in constant use by a staggering number of people. Averaging about ten feet across, we found the Zilker Park trails to be simple, hard-packed earth with the occasional paved section. Slower walkers-and-talkers stayed to the right, the better to be passed on the left by power walkers, joggers, runners, and cyclists. This was people watching at its finest, with every age, color, and body-type imaginable, some more amply represented than others.

There were parents pushing jogging strollers occupied by children who mostly looked perplexed, pregnant moms-to-be taking their soon-to-be newborns for a virtual walk, rock-hard running fanatics gliding effortlessly by, and less-fit wannabes trudging on with expressions of grim determination. Many were scantily attired and/or shirtless, revealing flesh moving in ways most strange. Many more were branded, some with tattoos, others with t-shirts. Burnt orange longhorns held sway, although a Duke blue devil tee did make a surprise appearance. At one point, three women strolled by in skirts, clutching handbags and looking totally incongruous. And if the constant stream of cyclists flew by too quickly to make any impression, the slow, deliberate passage of the halt and the lame imbued them with a touching aura of grace.

Then there were the dogs, every bit as diverse as their owners, from a black teacup poodle to a show quality St. Bernard. A few were muzzled and all were leashed as they scurried, limped, and trotted along, some making their own sartorial statements --a black chow with a yellow Cub Scout neckerchief, a tongue-lolling German shepherd with a peace sign bandana-- and a surprising number sporting bags of poo dangling from their leashes.

Indeed the trails were remarkably clean, with virtually no waste to step over; the only litter a soft shoulder of fallen leaves that cushioned our steps while the overhanging branches sheltered us from the strong sun. Water fountains and trash barrels made discrete appearances at regular intervals, as did benches placed at strategic overlooks, the better to watch the kayaks, canoes, and rowing shells that plied the waters below. And in one spot where the trail dropped down to the water’s edge, families and ducks concentrated on the age-old delight of feeding and being fed.

Returning to Zilker this morning, the trail was every bit as fascinating. I avoided the previous day’s digital edema by grabbing two small, flat stones at the outset of our walk, keeping my fingers curled around the cool limestone cradled in each palm. And one fleeting hour later, reluctantly exiting from the stream of humanity, I spotted a tow-headed tot riding high on his father’s shoulders. Our eyes locked, and as we passed our heads turned to hold the gaze, both of us grinning from ear to ear.

Prodigal

2009-11-07T16:27:00.018-06:00

They say there are no seasons in Texas, but my senses tell me otherwise. In the weeks since I last wrote, smudges of gold have appeared in the trees along the creeks and turkey foot grass has bronzed the roadsides. Though there are no sugar maples to paint the hills red, autumn has surely arrived.

Our days have been full, and like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights, my mind has been frozen with indecision. Should I write about the River Walk in San Antonio, the biker rally we stumbled onto in Galveston, the Wings over Houston air show we went to that same weekend, or the pottery festival in Gruene? How could we have been so thoughtless as to eat the chicken pot pie and the latest pasta concoction before taking pictures for the blog? When will I ever find time to make paper, create new recipes, and write now that I’m working full-time?

Oh yes. I have rejoined the world of the gainfully employed, leaving at 7:00 each morning for the Alkek Library at Texas State University in San Marcos. The drive is a marvel, the ground cloaked in swaths of early morning fog as the sun gilds the edges of the hills. My mind is filled each day with the esoteric details of government documents, then I return home just as the sun slips back behind the hills, the GPS flickering into night mode.

Weekend time has regained its urgency, with never enough of it to spend on all the wish lists and projects. But today, as I threaded through the crowded aisles at the Brookshire Brothers grocery store, I spotted apple cider and knew that time had to be found for an unscheduled project. So I made an extra stop at Ace Hardware and bought a new deep fryer. Tomorrow, I’ll be sure to take a picture.

Doughnuts (2 dozen)

3 Tbs. softened butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

4 cups flour (sifted)
1 tsp. nutmeg
4 tsp. baking powder
1 cup milk

Makes very soft dough which can be hard to handle, but the end result is worth it. Roll dough ½” thick, cut into rings and holes (I've used a small drinking glass and a little bud vase since losing my doughnut cutter some years back). Heat deep fryer to 350 degrees. Flip doughnuts when the tops crackle and remove when both sides are dark brown. Drain on brown paper bags and cool briefly. Coat the doughnuts with cinnamon sugar (3/4 cup sugar, 1 Tbs. cinnamon) by shaking them in doubled brown paper lunch bags. Serve with cold apple cider.

P.S. As an afterthought, I tried putting some ganache on the last batch of doughnuts this morning ... nuked a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream for 30 seconds, stirred in 1/4 cup of Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chips and dunked the doughnuts. Suffice it to say that this most assuredly will not be an afterthought next time.

LOL

2009-10-15T09:56:00.005-05:00

We may have had miserable weather this past weekend, but we made some great memories. Chief among them was Meg’s tale of her foray into the world of car maintenance.

First, for those who are not familiar with my older daughter, it is important to set the scene. Meghan is a human resources generalist at an Austin hospital, which is a very serious job. She drives a Volvo S40, purchased six years ago after she and our faithful Volvo 850 parted ways following a nasty accident. Since the 850 had pretty much saved her life, Meg became a serious Volvo fan.

But Volvos do have a reputation for electrical problems. In the past, Meg has regaled us with tales of her turning signal, which has an on-again-off-again habit refusing to work on demand. Her solution, arrived at by watching a mechanic test her car’s blinking capacity, involved turning on the emergency flashers whenever the turn signal didn’t work, then turning them off which, for whatever reason, usually resulted in a functioning turn signal … for a while.

Volvos also eat brake lights for breakfast, so our family is accustomed to keeping a good supply of spare bulbs on hand (we got our S70 at the same time Meg got her S40). As we sat around the table talking this past weekend Meg confessed that she had wearied of asking Paul to help her with replacing the bulbs, which has to be done in a timely manner as Meg’s brake lights have an uncanny ability to attract the attention of law enforcement personnel.

Meg decided she would respond to her latest dashboard warning herself. Step one involved single-handedly determining which bulb was burned out. Placing a can of paint on the brake pedal seemed like a good idea, until Meg realized the can was leaking onto the floorboard. Her second attempt involved placing one end of the hedge trimming shears against the brake pedal while moving the front seat forward until the shears depressed the pedal. Having thus activated the brake light, Meg determined which bulb was burned out and then liberated the hedge shears.

Continuing the story with dead-pan delivery, Meg proceeded to demonstrate what it took to remove the burned out bulb from its recalcitrant housing, replace it with a new bulb, and then test the new bulb with the aforementioned hedge shears. Fans of comedian Steven Wright will understand what I mean when I say that Meg kept a perfectly straight face while the rest of us laughed until we were gasping for air. For those who haven’t experienced Steven Wright’s style of delivery, get thee to youtube for a sample.

And so, with thanks for the memory, I dedicate the following recipe from Sunday brunch to Meghan, storyteller par excellence and darned good light bulb changer.

Bacon Potato Omelet (with a tip of the hat to the Frugal Gourmet)

2 slices of bacon (preferably dry cured)
2 small new potatoes, nuked and cut into small cubes
1 scallion, sliced into thin rounds (I found purple scallions at the Wimberley Farmers’ Market)
1 clove of garlic, minced or pressed
1/3 cup coarse grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (yes, it’s worth $12 per pound)
1/3 cup diced tomato (the ripest you can find)
3-4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tbs. butter

Fry the bacon until crisp, then chop coarsely. Nuke the potatoes until tender and cut into small cubes. Fry the potatoes in the bacon fat until lightly browned. Stir in the bacon, garlic and scallion, then turn off the heat.

Heat butter in a separate omelet pan, cook omelet until eggs just begin to set. Top with potato mixture, cheese and tomato. Fold omelet over the toppings and serve immediately, with toast and extra bacon if desired (and when is it not?)

Making it up

2009-10-14T17:06:00.003-05:00

When we went to Meg and Paul’s this past weekend we were shocked (shocked!) to find no butter in the fridge. Meliss had no problem since she was making asparagus roasted in olive oil, but since my plans included candied carrots, only butter would do. Fortunately, Jake and Don made a detour to Central Market and rescued the meal, but …

Confronted with our dismay over the state of her refrigerator, Meg fessed up. Having an overabundance of overripe bananas the week before, she had made not one, but two batches of banana bread, thereby using up all the butter in the house. Sadly, neither recipe had yielded a decent result.

“Why didn’t you use my recipe?” I asked.

“Because you never gave it to me,” Meg replied.

Until now …

Banana Cake

2 bananas

1 cup sugar (1/3 to mash bananas, 2/3 for the batter)

½ cup Land O’ Lakes butter with canola oil

1 tsp. vanilla extract (the good stuff, no artificial flavoring please)
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp cinnamon
½ cup sour cream
¾ cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts (or both)
½ cup cinnamon sugar (to taste … I like a fair bit of cinnamon)

Mash the bananas in 1/3 cup sugar. Cream the remaining sugar with the butter and vanilla. Beat in eggs one at a time. Fold in 1 cup of flour along with the baking soda, nutmeg and cinnamon, followed by the mashed bananas. Fold in the remaining flour, followed by the sour cream.

Mix the chopped nuts and cinnamon sugar together. Sprinkle ¼ of the nut mixture into a greased tube pan, then spread ¼ of the batter on top. Sprinkle another ¼ of the nut mixture evenly into the pan and then spread on ½ of the remaining batter. Sprinkle the third ¼ of the nut mixture and spread on the rest of the batter. Sprinkle the remaining ¼ of the nut mixture on top.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes, or just until the cake sets. Be careful not to over bake, as the cake will continue to set after it is removed from the oven.

Note: If you only have one banana or not much appetite, cut the recipe in half to make two mini-loaves (as pictured above). Bake for 30 minutes at 350.

Chicken Soup

2009-10-13T13:58:00.003-05:00

Meliss and Jake flew in from St. Louis this past weekend; their first time seeing our new digs in Wimberley. Undeterred by the rainy grey weather, we took everyone on a sightseeing drive through the Texas Hill Country. Perhaps we should have realized that the backseat request for more air conditioning was a cry for help, but no … we drove on, and on, and on through Mountain Crest, Big Sky Ranch, Skyline Ridge, and Flite Acres.

It was only when we returned home that the truth came out: we had turned everyone a not-so-lovely shade of green. Don’s “Who wants a margarita?” was met with groans and Meliss quipped that some chicken soup would be more appropriate.

Not a problem! I pulled a container of Rotisserie Chicken Stock out of the freezer, whisked up a roux, and asked if anyone was interested in having a cup of chicken soup. Everyone was interested indeed. And all recovered sufficiently to head out to Trattoria Lisina a few hours later, where we feasted on fedelini al pachino (no relation to the actor), cannelloni, spaghetti carbonara, seafood linguine, and spicy sausage pizza. The evening ended better than fine as we shared chocolate mousse cake with Nutella and hazelnuts.

So all's well that ends well. I'll just be sure to have plenty of stock on hand for their next visit, when we plan to drive up Devil's Backbone and then head down to Gruene on Purgatory Road.

Chicken Soup

3-4 cups Rotisserie Chicken Stock (see recipe index to the right)
2-3 Tbs. butter
2-3 Tbs. flour

Melt butter over medium heat, whisk in flour and cook gently for a few minutes. Whisk in warm stock. Heat until thickened to a creamy consistency. Season to taste.

The Dancing Bear: A Love Song in Two Parts

2009-10-05T14:35:00.010-05:00

When I was growing up, family drives were pretty much limited to the 80 mile stretch from East Williston to Shelter Island, with the exception of one vacation to Mystic and Sturbridge which covered 350 miles. So it was significant that my folks drove 400 miles to deposit me at the College of William and Mary in 1974, and then returned six weeks later with my brother Art in tow for Parents’ Day.

October 5, 1974 was a classic Williamsburg fall day. The sun was strong, as it had been the year before when I first visited the campus with my dad, but even so the first leaves were starting to drift onto the brick walks around the Sunken Gardens. We went to watch the Indians beat the Citadel in football (no, I don’t actually remember that … I just looked it up in the Flat Hat). Then we headed out to dinner at the King’s Arms, notable only for my first, and last, bowl of peanut soup.

Heading back to my room in DuPont, I passed by the hall telephone (yes, back in the day there was only one phone for a hall of 30 women). Robin was on the phone and called out as I walked by, “What are you doing tonight? Theta Delt is having a band and Andy’s friend needs a date.”

Being a young woman who truly valued the essential goodness in people, I asked, “What does he look like?” And finally agreed to go only after determining that “Don” was “tall and not bad looking.” An hour later, Andy, Don, and a bottle of Gallo Hearty Burgundy showed up and we were off to Theta Delta Chi to dance the night away. Don, wearing a stylish wide-wale couduroy jacket, had a signature dance move he called the “Dancing Bear. That was all it took; we continued to see each other for weeks, then months, then years ... thirty-five years as of today.

* * * *

When Don suggested we go back to Gruene to listen to music this past weekend, I said yes, since I had an ulterior motive: I wanted to get a picture of the Dancing Bear sign I had spotted a couple of weeks before. We went to the Gristmill for lunch, entering just as Brown Eyed Girl began to play. I asked if Don could remember when Brown Eyed Girl was first recorded, and he replied that it must have been in the early 70s since it was a standard at fraternity parties. Of course.

Turning to the menus, I settled on tortilla soup (much better than peanut soup at the Kings Arms) and Don opted for grilled trout, washed down with Shiner Bock and Dos Equis respectively. The rains came as we ate, and continued as we walked over to Gruene Hall to hear the McKay Brothers. We just caught the last stanza of a song about Liza Jane (my dad’s nickname for me from way-back when), which would have been way cool, but it turned out that this particular Liza Jane was a dog ... literally.

The rain picked up, drumming a tattoo on the roof of Gruene Hall as it ran down the corrugated tin and and splashed to the ground in beaded-curtain streams. The McKays played on while I danced in my seat to the Beatitudes of Heat, Disappearing Texas and The Pawnee Waltz.

Every so often the weather would let up and we’d debate whether or not to leave. Then the thunder would rumble and we’d reconsider. When the show ended, we were finally forced to brave the rain and found ourselves shin-deep in running water as we crossed the street to the car. After twenty months of drought, it wouldn’t do for the Texas Hill Country to ease into the rainy season I guess.

As we pulled onto Hunter Road I reminded Don that I needed a picture of the Dancing Bears. “Not really,” he said. Yes, really. I rolled down the window as he angled for a shot, then we continued on to I-35, figuring that the low-water crossings on Purgatory Road would surely be flooded, blocking the shorter way home. As we turned onto the interstate, the sun broke through behind us, painting a rainbow onto the clouds and then, with the water flying off the cars ahead of us, the end of the rainbow bent down right in front of us, until we were the end of the rainbow.

Magic still happens …

Tortilla Soup

(with thanks to Linda Ford, whose Sopa de Lima first made me a fan)

Soup:

3-4 cups rotisserie chicken stock

1 onion, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely diced

2 cups leftover chicken meat, cut into bite-sized pieces

Optional: 1 Tbs butter and 1 Tbs flour cooked into a light roux

1 or 2 tomatoes, diced

Salt and pepper

Toppings:

Corn tortilla chips (I’m partial to Central Market organic chips, but East Coasters can make do with Tostitos Natural Blue Corn tortilla chips)

Grated cheese (queso fresco, Monterey Jack or Colby)

Chopped cilantro

Avocado slices

Lime wedges

Heat the chicken stock over medium heat, add the diced onion and celery and simmer for 15 minutes. Add chicken, jalapeno and roux (optional, add if you want the soup to be more stew-like), then cook gently until chicken just begins to fall apart. Add tomatoes and cook 3 minutes longer. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Ladle into bowls and top with cheese, crushed corn chips, cilantro and avocado slices. Serve with wedges of lime and extra toppings, which can be added to taste. Ice cold cerveza is also highly recommended ... Dos Equis, Negra Modelo or Corona.

On Pictures

2009-10-04T12:11:00.000-05:00

For those of you who are less familiar with blogs, please note that you can enlarge pictures to see more detail by clicking on them (one click will do, but two won't hurt).

Also, belated credit to Don, who has been taking a lot of the photos for I'm Going to Texas. You can see more of his work at http://www.wimberleyphoto.blogspot.com/.

The Mother of Invention

2009-10-03T12:34:00.008-05:00

I know, I know … it’s been ten days, but I’ve been busy working on a recipe. And just to put the delay into perspective, when Cory and Paul recently wagered a $100 bottle of wine, they gave Meghan, Danielle and Kristen six weeks to come up with four bagel recipes. That’s a week-and-a-half per recipe by my reckoning. So ten days for one recipe sounds about right.

Although the truth is the recipe that I’ve been working on has actually been in the making a lot longer than that. Back when I graduated from Catholic University with my Masters in Library Science I put a papermaking book on my Christmas wish list. I’m sure I thought I’d have lots of free time having completed four years of graduate study. Always faithful wish-granters, my folks inscribed “Christmas 1992 … Looks like fun!” into a copy of Making your own Paper. But 1992 was also the year I got promoted, and found I had to do the work of two people when my former position went unfilled. Work took more and more creative effort as planning to build a new library at Colonial Williamsburg was added to my job description. The book was relegated to a shelf, left to gather dust with my needlework books.

Time remained elusive, even after I left Colonial Williamsburg. Becoming a school librarian in 1997 promised to open up some free time in the summer, but between moving to Windsor Forest, chauffeuring teenage daughters, and hosting Friday night suppers, creative time got short shrift. Likewise, the summer of 2003 looked like it had potential, with both girls finally graduated from high school and relatively independent, but the Eastern Virginia Writing Project got the nod and the time. And the independence proved illusory, as Meghan ended up spending the summer recovering from two broken wrists.

Fast forward to 2009 and early retirement from teaching in Virginia … 17 years after first getting the notion, I finally found the time to try out papermaking. Not content to follow one recipe (why start now?), I checked out every book I could find in the Wimberley Village Library and the San Marcos Public Library, then gave myself the challenge of making paper using only those materials I had on hand … no purchases allowed.

Rummaging through boxes in the garage, I eventually found the food processor that my cousin Glad had given me at Robin Acre last year. A repurposed hamper stuffed with needlework supplies for the move to Texas yielded screens from a children’s papermaking set (probably of 1992 vintage), thick cotton yarns, and old threadbare table linens. The office produced an array of paper, including linen envelopes purchased for mailing resumes some time back. Containers and placemats from the pantry filled out the list, and I was ready to go.

My first attempt at making paper resulted in a fuzzy white cloud of linen, more notable for its holes than any resemblance to paper. I did a little better with combining blue cotton yarn and torn up envelopes, but the resulting paper was paler and thinner than I had hoped. I went back to the drawing board.

The second attempt was a distinct improvement. Using a combination of torn fabric, cotton yarn and water-soaked cover-stock, I managed to produce sheets of paper embossed with a quilted pattern from the placemats I used as “felts.” And a planned progression of colors, from white to yellow, then beige, red, blue, and finally green, was more successful than I had dared hope. But this time the paper was too thick. So, like Goldilocks, I gave it one more try.

Dedicating a full day to making red paper, I hunted through the house for supplies. An old red flannel shirt was reduced to shredded rags, red cotton yarn was cut into quarter inch lengths, and red cover stock was sliced and diced on the paper cutter. After soaking in distilled water, they were pureed in the food processor, one pinch at a time, then swirled into a tub of water.

Time and time again, I slid the five-by-five screens beneath the surface of the fiber-clotted water, then lifted them straight up, trapping a mass of red fibers. Having no deckle, I improvised by pouring fiber-rich water over the thin spots ...

... then turned each new sheet of paper onto placemats, carefully peeling back the screens and leaving the paper in the sun to dry. Six hours later, I had two dozen sheets of paper, and this time they were just right.

I’ve got a plan now: a white paper day, followed by blue, purple, yellow, and green days. And then what? A great reveal … on Christmas Day.

Some Gru Things

2009-09-23T10:21:00.016-05:00

We went to the Gruene (pronounced “green”) Market Days for the first time last Sunday, drawn by the promise one hundred vendors selling their creative wares. Then wandered through the downtown area, the shops welcome oases in the hot Texas sun. As we got closer to the water tower, Don spotted Gruene Hall. It was packed with people and obviously not air conditioned, which made it somewhat less than attractive with the late-afternoon temperature stuck in the 90s. Fortunately, Don prevailed and we entered to find a bluegrass band playing to beat all, led by a young fiddler named Ruby Jane.

After settling onto a bench in the back, we took in the screened open-air hall, which was lined with tables liberally carved with names and dates like old-time school desks. The band played under a bank of neon beer signs, seemingly unaffected by the heat, which was only partly relieved by the overhead fans hanging from unadorned rafters. Folks were mostly drinking beer, but as we tapped our toes some braved the dance floor, unable to resist the music’s call.

Over to one side, kids barely taller than the sides of the pool tables played an impromptu game, trying to roll cue balls into corner pockets past the outstretched hands of their watchful opponents. Parents looked on from nearby benches, happy to have found a momentary diversion. In the shade of the hall, the heat finally lifted … or maybe it was the music that carried it away.

All too soon The Ruby Jane Show wrapped up with a final number, the applause faded, and the crowd trailed slowly out into the street. Later we learned that Gruene Hall is the oldest dance hall in Texas. And that Ruby Jane is only fifteen years old. Fitting factual bookends to nestle around a great Texas memory.

* * * *

As I write this three days later, the heat has broken and the temperature is an unseasonably low 60-something degrees. The promise of fall has arrived, if only briefly, and I’m thinking onion soup would be just about right for lunch. But not the standard-issue, chewy-cheese, watery-thin-beef-bullion-based onion soup of restaurant visits past. Rather, a velvety rich concoction, with gruyere softly strung on tender shreds of sweet onion in a golden rich broth. I told you the chicken stock would come in handy some day.

Onion Soup (for two)

3 cups rotisserie chicken stock (give or take)
1 or 2 Vidalia onions, coarse grated (or whatever sweet yellow onion you might have)
2 Tbs butter (1 Tbs for sauteeing, 1 Tbs for roux)
1 Tbs flour
¼ cup Marsala (You have no Marsala? Well then, a light red wine if you must)
½ to 1 cup coarse grated gruyere cheese (I tend to go heavy on the cheese)
Toasted bread or croutons

Sauté the onions in butter until tender in a medium-sized saucepan.

In a separate saucepan, melt the butter and make a light roux with the flour.

Whisk 1 cup of chicken stock into the roux and cook until thickened.
Pour the remaining chicken stock into the onions; add the roux and a healthy splash of Marsala.

Season with salt to taste and bring to a rolling boil.

Put toasted bread or croutons in the bottom of two soup bowls and top with grated Gruyere.

Pour boiling soup over bread and cheese ... stir gently to melt the cheese and serve immediately.

Best with cold ale and a nap afterward.

Salad Days

2009-09-19T16:04:00.015-05:00

The phrase “salad days” has been rattling around in my head all week and during lunch today I wondered out loud if I was right in recalling that it meant good times. Afterwards, I went to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary website at www.m-w.com to check my assumption, finding:

     Main Entry: salad days
     Function: noun plural
     Date: 1606
     : time of youthful inexperience or indiscretion
     “my salad days when I was green in judgment” — Shakespeare
     also : an early flourishing period : heyday

So, not exactly “good times,” although I certainly have fond memories from way back when. I guess what I need is an ancillary definition to cover our recent lunch-time fare, which is replete with salads, no two exactly alike and all good.

We've avoided the “lettuce, tomato and cucumber” rut by taking a cue from the old Chinese menus of the past, which prompted choosing “one from column a, one from column b” etc.  In composing your own salads, try to use as many categories as possible without using too many ingredients from any one category. And if you read this and wonder, “How could she have forgotten (fill in the blank)?” please send a comment ... I'll happily add to the lists.

Greens
Lettuces - Romaine, spinach, arugula, leaf lettuce (either “baby” or mature, blends or single variety)
Cabbage and other cruciferous vegetables
Herbs - chives, basil, cilantro
Vegetables – Avocado, cucumber, celery, carrots, beets (I know, they're not all green)

Fruits
Tomatoes – grape, Roma, cherry, beefsteak

Strawberries, grapes (red seedless)

Oranges, apples, pears, peaches

Nuts and seeds
Tree nuts - walnuts, pecans, pine nuts, almonds
Legumes - peanuts, peas, beans
Seeds – pumpkin, sunflower, sesame

Cheeses
Soft cheese – fresh mozzarella, feta, blue
Grated cheese – parmesan, asiago, cotija

Proteins (leftovers are often an inspiration here)
Meat – chicken, pork, beef
Seafood – shrimp, crab, lobster
Eggs – hardboiled, fried

Starches
Potatoes – boiled, fried
Rice – wild, white, blend
Pasta – orzo, shells, linguine
Added crunch – croutons, wontons, corn chips

Garnishes (for want of a better term)
Onions – scallion, red onion, shallot, chives
Olives – Kalamata, green (please, not canned black olives)
Peppers – bell, hot, pickled
Cured meat – bacon, prosciutto, sausage, ham

Dressings
Oils – safflower, olive, peanut, sesame
Citrus juices (fresh squeezed) – lemon, lime, orange
Vinegars – cider, red wine, rice wine, balsamic
Seasonings – salt, pepper, mustard, soy sauce, garlic, anchovy paste

Nota Bene: please avoid bottled dressings … it's so easy to whisk up your own! As a rule of thumb, for two people combine approximately 2-3 Tbs. of citrus juice and/or vinegar with 2-3 Tbs. oil and season to taste. After a while, you’ll find that you can just eye-ball the quantities. Additions such as mustard, garlic and anchovy paste will tend to help the emulsification process along, but just whisking and immediately dressing the salad should suffice.

Here are some tried and true salad combinations, but don’t feel bound by them. Experiment and make note of those that please you.

Greek
Baby spinach and romaine, cucumber, tomato, feta, Kalamata olives, red onions, with a wine vinegar and olive oil dressing.

Italian
Romaine, tomato, pine nuts, prosciutto, olives, shredded asiago, dressed with balsamic and olive oil

Caesar-style
Romaine hearts, croutons, parmesan, seafood (crab, shrimp), dressed with wine vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, anchovy paste and garlic … please, no tomatoes!

Asian Inspired
Baby greens, bok choy or cabbage, carrot shreds, orange, almonds, shredded pork, scallion, sesame seeds, fried wontons, dressed with peanut and sesame oils, rice wine vinegar, soy and brown sugar

Williamsburg Trellis Style
Baby greens, toasted pecans, scallions, strawberries, boiled potatoes, grilled chicken, bacon, dressed with safflower oil, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, and Dijon mustard

BLT
Baby greens, tomato, bacon, walnuts, fresh mozzarella, croutons, dressed with safflower oil, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, and Dijon mustard

Arugula
Arugula, tomato, blue cheese, walnuts, avocado, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil

Mexican
Grilled skirt steak or chicken, cotija cheese, blue corn chips or fresh flour tortillas, salsa of red onion, avocado, tomato, jalapeno, and cilantro dressed with lime juice and salt

Breakfast Salad

Baby greens, bacon or ham, fried potatoes, fried eggs, dressed with a touch of balsamic vinegar

Refrigerator Salad
Baby greens, leftover meat, leftover veggies, leftover pasta or rice, nuts and/or cheese, vinaigrette (like this one with baby spinach, leftover chicken, oven-roasted beets, fresh mozzarella and balsamic vinaigrette ... which would have been even better with some pine nuts)

Last, but far from least … do you have a favorite salad combo? If so, please leave a comment and share it with the rest of us!

Home Sweet Home

2009-09-18T06:30:00.004-05:00

We can’t mow our backyard. There is so much loose limestone that the only way to trim the grass is with a weed whacker. Indeed, for the first month and a half, we didn’t even need to do that, given that we arrived at the tail end of a twenty-month drought. But now that it has rained –three days worth of road-closing, flash-flood-warning heavy rain– the temperatures have dropped into the eighties and the grass is growing.

Which is to say, we’ve been outside all week. The house we are renting has sod out front, but no other landscaping to speak of. There is a pile of limestone leftover from the house construction and a lot of bare dirt. So we had a load of mulch delivered and are in the process of moving chunks of limestone from the pile in the backyard to the edge of the cement walkway, which is being trenched and leveled.

We’re doing all of this very carefully, having heard that Texas critters like to hang out in rock piles. So far so good. And we’ve got to make hay while the sun shines, because El Nino is coming. Yes, more rain … in abundance. At least that’s what I’m expecting, having experienced the El Nino of 1998 that dropped so much rain on Virginia that it delayed our move into Hempstead Road. It's true that weather predictions are notoriously unreliable, but we’re taking everyone at their word and getting the soil protected while we can.

Of course, all this yard work requires a tremendous amount of energy (mildly sardonic tone here), giving me just the excuse I needed to dredge up an old favorite from the recipe book. Only what I found was I actually had three versions of Crème Brûlée French Toast, which have been conflated into this fourth and, for now, final version. Crusty on the top and dripping with caramel on the bottom, you won’t need any maple syrup … just a good hot cup of coffee and a way to burn off the calories.

Crème Brûlée French Toast (for two, with leftovers if you’re good)

3-4 cups bread cubes (please use a good crusty loaf, preferably stale)

1 egg and 1 yolk

1/3 cup heavy cream*
2/3 cup milk*
½ tsp vanilla
3 Tbs. butter
1/3 cup brown sugar

Melt the butter and brown sugar.
Pour the caramel-to-be into the bottom of a buttered 1 ½ or 2 quart baking dish.
Whisk together the eggs, milk, cream and vanilla.
Put the bread in the casserole and top with the egg mixture.
Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for half an hour. Take out when golden brown and set.

Decision point: do you want a chewy caramel base or a soft caramel base (as seen here)?
For chewy, just pop the casserole straight into the oven.
For soft, put the casserole in a pie plate in the oven and then add 2 cups of water to the pie plate.
This is a custard, after all, and a water bath will give a gentler set to the end product.

* Note: I have used 1 cup half-and-half (either regular or fat-free) in place of milk and cream. It’s not quite as good, but it gets the job done.

Everything but the Cluck

2009-09-14T16:26:00.013-05:00

There’s an old expression that you can cook every part of a pig, except the oink. Well, one of the reasons I don’t begrudge the food store six dollars for a good rotisserie chicken is that I use everything but the cluck. After Friday Night Supper comes Saturday lunch, and while I have been known to warm up the bread and chicken as a perfectly respectable lunch, I tend to get more positive feedback when I make chicken salad. Fresh herbs are key, so Don and I headed out the other day to pick up chives, parsley, basil, and rosemary at the local feed and seed.

Once stripped of the usable meat, the remaining chicken bones, skin, and whatever drippings lurk in the bottom of the plastic shell are dispatched to a stock pot. A minimalist, I do not add anything but water to cover the remains of the chicken, bring the pot to a boil, and then reduce it to a simmer for a couple of hours. The result is liquid gold, aka Rotisserie Chicken Stock. But a caution is in order: if you want a good basic stock, it is best to avoid rotisserie chickens flavored with lemon pepper, barbecue sauce, etc. Strained and frozen, the stock can be kept for another day, another recipe.

Saturday Chicken Salad

Chunks of leftover rotisserie chicken

Finely diced celery

Finely diced cucumber … I’m partial to the seedless English variety

Toasted almonds or pine nuts
Chopped herbs … parsley, chives, and/or rosemary work well
Chopped olives … kalamata or green olives in brine
Finely diced shallots or thinly sliced scallions
Mayonnaise
Dash of Montreal Steak seasoning

Yes, yes … I know there are no amounts, but I don’t know how much chicken you have leftover. This is where you have to channel your inner chef … cut some stuff up, throw it together, taste it and adjust. It's also what I call the cook’s privilege: getting a taste beforehand, not to mention the applause afterward.

Serve on bread if you must, but I prefer good multi-grain crackers such as Fresh Market Lavasch or Kashi TLC Stoneground 7-Grain.

Let’s do Brunch

2009-09-13T19:30:00.009-05:00

I should have learned after the great bagel caper a couple of weeks ago that I really don’t need to bring anything to an Austin brunch, but East Coast habits die hard. I asked Tasha if I could bring something today and she graciously permitted me to do so, but once again I needn’t have bothered. What an amazing spread she and Mike put on for us at their home in Dripping Springs:

Made-to-order espresso in more flavors than I can count
Fresh smoked Alaska Silver Salmon that Tasha caught a couple of weeks ago in Alaska
Bagels and cream cheese (some with the aforementioned salmon blended in)
Egg casseroles, one with feta and spinach, the other with peppers and sausage
Fresh fruit and biscotti
Did I mention the fresh smoked salmon? I did? It’s worth repeating … it was that amazing

We sat outside under cloudy skies, thoroughly enjoying the 80 degree temperatures, the view of Sunset Canyon and some great conversation. There were plenty of Cinnamon Knots leftover, but not much else. So, lesson learned … until next time.

Cinnamon Knots (makes 32 small rolls)

1 Tbs. yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1 cup lukewarm water (total)
2 cups bread flour
2 Tbs. wheat gluten
½ tsp kosher salt
2 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. melted butter (for dough)
6 Tbs. melted butter (for coating)
1 cup cinnamon sugar

Put ¼ cup lukewarm water in a cup; add yeast and 1 tsp. sugar. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes.
Meanwhile, put flour, gluten, salt, 2 Tbs. sugar and melted butter in a food processor bowl.
When the yeast starts bubbling, add it to the dry ingredients along with the rest of the water.
The dough should be fairly wet as you process it … add more flour until the dough gathers and no longer sticks to the sides of the food processor.
Remove the dough, add enough flour to keep it from sticking to your hands.
Knead into a flattened disk, cover the bowl with a wet towel and let it rise for one hour.
Put the melted butter and cinnamon sugar into two shallow rimmed bowls.
Divide the dough into two halves and set one half aside.
Divide the remaining dough into 16 pieces (cut in half, in half again, etc.)
Hang the resulting fingers of dough on the edge of the bowl.

Dip each piece of dough in butter, then in cinnamon sugar, and twist in a knot.
Put the first 16 knots on an ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Let the rolls rise for another hour.
Bake at 375 for 15 minutes, or until dark golden brown and firm to the touch.
Place on cooling racks for ten minutes, dip in glaze (below), and cool another half hour.

Glaze
3 Tbs. melted butter
1 cup confectioners sugar
½ tsp. vanilla
2-3 Tbs. milk

Whisk into a glaze … add milk or sugar as needed to get a “dip-able” consistency

In my Mother’s Kitchen

2009-09-13T17:20:00.017-05:00

My Mom was generous with her kitchen ... she actually let my brother and me learn to cook by getting our hands dirty. We learned the basics early on by making chocolate chip cookies, but the pièce de résistance was my first solo effort at making dinner for the whole family when I was 11 (in 1967). Boeuf Bourguignon a la Julia Child, culled from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, was the chosen dish. No wonder … we loved watching the French Chef together on Channel 13 (which never needed a laugh track to get us going).

If you have Julia Child’s epic tome, please turn to page 315. If not, you can link to a reasonable facsimile of the recipe. Knowing my Mom, this is probably close to what she said as I learned how (not) to follow a recipe:

6 ounces of bacon sounds like a lot … we’ll use 4 slices and that will be plenty
Never mind that part about simmering the bacon rind, we’ll skip that
We’ll use chuck rather than lean beef … it’s got much more flavor
Rather than dry the beef, we’ll just salt it and coat it with flour, that will save a step later
You won’t need a whole onion, and why don’t you cut the carrots into sticks
3 cups of wine?! We’ll cut that in half … burgundy will do
And here are the Herb Ox bullion cubes, dissolve them in 2 cups of boiling water
Tomato paste yes, garlic no … you know how I feel about garlic and we’ll never miss it
Thyme, check … bay leaf, check … aren’t you glad we skipped the bacon rind step?
18-24 small white onions? Not necessary, we already have enough onion in there
Let’s put the mushrooms in at the end, so they won’t get soggy
Parsley? I just don’t think that’s necessary if it’s just for decoration

Followed as directed, what we ended up with was my Mom’s excellent beef stew with a red wine kicker. I learned my lesson well, and have rarely followed a recipe to the letter ever since.

For the next 41 years my Mom and I shared our love of cooking and our recipes. As a young newlywed I would call her at dinnertime for directions. When we went up to Shelter Island, I watched her cook, although there were certain recipes I never mastered, chief among them her oatmeal cookies and her strawberry jam, both of which relied on her intuition for their realization. As the Internet developed, we moved from phone calls to emails, the better to record our efforts.

Yesterday I went back to an old stand-by for leftover rotisserie chicken, a recipe Mom sent back in 2001. In her email, she started with “Hope Melissa is fine – let us know when she has completely recovered (Meliss had pneumonia that summer) … I tried a new recipe tonight and thought you might like it.” After detailing the recipe ingredients she continued, “Actually, I forgot to buy a red pepper so I did without … maybe you could add good olives [instead]. And I served it on arugula. Of course, I never follow recipes exactly, but you get the idea.”

Of course I did.

Chicken Orzo Salad

Leftover rotisserie chicken, cut into bite-sized chunks
Juice of one lemon
Olive oil in equal measure
1 tsp. dried thyme (I’ve never used fresh, but it would be great)
1 garlic clove, minced (or pressed, which is what I usually do)
½ tsp. kosher salt
2 cups of cooked orzo
4 oz. feta cheese (please don’t get pre-crumbled, it’s so dry)
8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sautéed in 1 Tbs. butter
Fresh dill (my contribution, strictly optional)

While the pasta and mushrooms are cooking, dice the chicken and place in a serving bowl. Whisk the lemon, olive oil, thyme, garlic, and salt for dressing the salad. When the mushrooms have sweated out, add them to the chicken. Drain the pasta, and add to the serving bowl. Stir in half the dressing, and taste before adding more (or not). Crumble feta over the top and serve.

This can be served plain or on greens … my favorite accompaniment is fresh arugula.

If at First you don’t Succeed ...

2009-09-12T12:48:00.015-05:00

You may (or may not) recall during "The Great Egg Debate" there was a bit about some potato and onion cakes. The first batch had to be pitched due to over-seasoning, and even though the second batch was better in that regard, the end result was still disappointing. The cakes were chewy rather than crispy and therefore unworthy of further mention.

Fortunately, we had been to brunch at Z'Tejas with Meg and Paul, so I had an idea of what I could try to remedy the situation. Recalling the fine shred of the Z'Tejas hash browns, I used the smallest opening on my OXO box grater ... which just got the nod from America’s Test Kitchen (in their free online newsletter). It was tough grating raw potatoes, but when I tried my microplane box grater, it didn’t give the shred I was looking for. So I soldiered on and watched my knuckles. After shredding in a hint of onion (much easier), I wrung out the excess moisture. Five paper towels later, I had a nice dry mass of shredded potato and onion, which I proceeded to season lightly and fry to a crisp in olive oil.

My other objective was further self-education in the joys of eating free-range eggs. A bed of greens and prosciutto made the perfect nest for an end-product that turned out to be picture-worthy. Fortunately, Don’s recently acquired Nikon SLR was up to the task of documenting this new take on egg salad.

Egg Salad

2 red bliss potatoes, raw and unpeeled

1 small sweet onion (yellow or red)

2-3 Tbs. olive oil

Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Balsamic vinegar

Mixed greens (I used arugula and baby romaine)

Shredded prosciutto

1-2 eggs per person

Butter

Shred potato and onion using a fine grater. Squeeze out excess moisture. Spread into two loose cakes and season lightly with kosher salt. Sauté in olive oil at medium high until dark golden brown, turning several times. Keep warm while cooking eggs.

Dot the serving plates with balsamic vinegar. Top with a nest of greens and shredded prosciutto.

Heat butter in frying pan. Crack eggs into custard dishes and slide into hot pan (to avoid breaking the yolks). Turn gently and be careful not to overcook (the yolks should be runny).

Place potato cakes and eggs on the salad. Before eating, break the yolk, the better to distribute the flavor to the rest of the salad.

Requiescat in Pace

2009-09-11T07:41:00.005-05:00

Charles Mathers departed this world

September 11, 2001

We'll miss you always Uncle Chuck

Photo by Lt. Arthur Barnett, FDNY (retired)

Spinach Hockey Pucks

2009-09-10T10:43:00.005-05:00

By all rights, I should put the product back on the shelf with an ingredient list like this:

Unbromated Unbleached Enriched Wheat Flour [Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Folic Acid], Unbromated Stone Ground 100% Whole Wheat Flour, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Salt, Contains 2 percent or Less of: Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Unsulphured Molasses, Yeast, Spices, Onion Powder, Nonfat Milk, Calcium Propionate (to Retard Spoilage), Buttermilk, Wheat Gluten, Crushed Wheat, Citric Acid, Parsley, Vegetable Mono and Diglycerides, Sugar, Monoglyceride, Honey, Butter, Vegetable Oils (Canola, Soybean and/or Sunflower), Raisin Juice Concentrate, Soy Fiber, Vinegar, Whole Wheat Flakes, Spent Wheat (Wheat Bran, Wheat Protein, Maltodextrin), Potato Flour, Wheat Bran, Datem (Dough Conditioner), Unbleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley, Calcium Carbonate, Enzyme Modified Soy Lecithin, Cultured Whey, Degerminated White Corn Flour, Soy Flour, Guar Gum, Wheat Starch, Lactic Acid, Enzymes and Soy Lecithin.

I mean, what is this stuff? Trouble is, I love the taste of Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Stuffing, made by a company which was, irony of ironies, founded by a woman who learned to bake bread because of the “severe allergies and asthma of [her] youngest son, whose condition made him unable to eat most commercially processed foods,” to quote the Pepperidge Farm website.

How did it get this crazy? I know I’ve mentioned Michael Pollan before, but his message bears repeating. And he’s put an interesting twist on that message in today’s New York Times op-ed piece. Take a look, then come on back.

Because the truth is I’m gonna keep using Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Stuffing ... it tastes that good. It makes the best filler for meatballs and meatloaf I’ve ever used, and crushed in the food processor the crumbs are unbelievably good as a coating for homemade chicken fingers.

However, it reaches its finest expression as a star ingredient in Spinach Hockey Pucks, so dubbed by a disdainful guest at the annual Laroche tree-trimming party (pictures pending) who had seen one too many spinach balls. But not these spinach balls. One taste and he was converted. Spinach Hockey Pucks became a holiday tradition, a non-negotiable must-bring requirement for entrance at subsequent tree-trimming parties. Try them for yourself. Maybe you’ll become a convert, too. And if not, you can always use the leftover stuffing mix for meatballs and chicken fingers.

Spinach Hockey Pucks

2 boxes frozen chopped spinach
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 stick melted butter
½ cup coarse grated Parmesan
2 cups Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Stuffing
1 small onion, coarse grated
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and coarse grated
4 slices dry-cured bacon, cooked and crumbled (Todd Company from Smithfield is best)

Cook the spinach according to package directions, but be careful not to overcook … you want some texture. Squeeze out the excess water and combine with the other ingredients. Shape into walnut sized balls and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes at 350 or until firm and lightly browned on the bottom.

Crazy Country

2009-09-09T13:59:00.009-05:00

We left Williamsburg for Texas on a Thursday morning in late July. I had planned the journey down to the last detail with Trip Advisor and Google Map. We had cell phones and Garmin Nuvis (GPS). And we had two cars. Knowing how different our driving styles are (mine is “jack rabbit up to speed and hit cruise control,” whereas Don’s is “keep your foot on the accelerator at all times and adjust to the conditions”), I proclaimed that we should not try to stay together.

It was a pretty good plan as far as it went, which was about 40 miles. Then I hit the turn-off for the 295 bypass around Richmond and realized that Google Map and the GPS both wanted me to stay on 64 West. What would Don do? I called to ask, but he didn’t answer. So much for well-laid plans.

We did eventually rendezvous at a rest area on the west side of Richmond, decided that it might be better to stay in sight of, if not rigidly one behind the other, and headed on ... only to encounter traffic at a standstill on 81 South. Hours later, we arrived at the planned lunch stop in Lewisburg, West Virginia where the GPS dropped us four blocks east of our destination. By the time we staggered into the Stardust Cafe it was 3:15 and they had stopped serving lunch. So had everyone else in the area it turned out.

Taking pity on us, a kind waitress delayed her own meal long enough to bring us some fantastic home-made tomato soup and bread, the best she could do under the circumstances. As we ate, I bemoaned the traffic delay that had prevented us from enjoying a fuller meal. Don, ever on the lookout for the positive, noted how beautiful the mountains had been on the drive in.

“You look at them?” I squeaked in amazement, “I just try to get through them without totally freaking out!” Not to worry, Don reassured me, we’d be through them in no time at all.

“Are you kidding?” I shot back, “We have 150 miles left to go through West Virginia, and West Virginia is nothing BUT mountains.”

And so began my odyssey in the Odyssey: the endless climbs and hair-raising descents through “almost heaven, West Virginia.” (Note to John Denver: what were you on when you wrote that one?) I fairly flew, not daring to slow down as the grills of monster trucks loomed in my rearview mirror, hitting the radio search button on the rare straight-aways, finding nothing but gospel and country to get me through.

As I drove I recalled the last time I had ridden a roller coaster ... a very long time ago, before Busch Gardens had even built the Loch Ness Monster. Back then I had chanted a mild four-letter expletive (starts with “c” and rhymes with trap) over and over, while promising God I would never again go on a roller coaster if I could just survive the ride. So what was I doing piloting 4600 pounds of metal down 45 degree inclines at 80 miles per hour while muttering the same old incantation? In the words of Dierks Bentley, “I know what I was feeling, but what was I thinking?” We should have shipped the cars to Texas and flown Southwest, that’s what.

Obviously I lived to tell the tale and never was I happier then crossing the state line into Kentucky. Beautiful Kentucky, with its rolling hills and blue grass. Gentle Kentucky. I loved Kentucky, yes I did. Of course, by the time we limped into Lexington, the carefully chosen restaurant had already closed for the evening. We opted instead for Ricardo's sports bar in Versailles (pronounced ver-sale … go figure), which turned out to be a high-class honky tonk with a mean pinot noir (MacMurray) and some surprisingly good seafood. My nerves slowly stopped jangling, soothed by the riffs of a two-man combo strumming Keith Urban in the background. 551 miles down, only 1177 to go.

Coda:
It would nice if I could say I left West Virginia behind that day. Nice, but not true. Fate may not be kind, but she does have a wicked sense of humor. You see, the song at the top of the country hit parade, the one that played over and over as I drove through the West Virginia mountains, left its chorus indelibly recorded on my mind's internal soundtrack. So when it comes on the radio and Don calls out, “They’re playing your song,” I’m already gone, barreling down the West Virginia highways once again, singing,
“God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy."

Leavin’ the ‘burg Leftovers

Good cheese ravioli (I’m partial to Drake’s)
Chopped fresh tomato
Chopped parsley
Garlic butter
Mascarpone cheese
Toasted pine nuts
Thin shreds of Prosciutto
Grated Fontinella cheese
Chopped Kalamata olives

You’ll notice there are no quantities here. That would be because I was literally emptying out the refrigerator and pantry in anticipation of our impending departure. Just cook up some ravioli, warm a little mascarpone, melt some garlic butter, throw the whole thing together and enjoy. If you have different stuff hanging out in your fridge, follow your muse. A glass of red wine would do nicely, too.

Requiescat in Pace

2009-09-07T08:40:00.010-05:00

My mom died on April 7, 2008, five months to the day before her fifty-fifth wedding anniversary. Today marks the fifty-sixth anniversary of their marriage on Labor Day in 1953 and my dad still grieves ... will always grieve.

It’s impossible to comprehend the depths to which the loss of a parent (or that of a spouse, child, or sibling) will send you until you experience it for yourself. Seventeen months after her death, I am just now accepting that Mom, my daughters’ Nana Ruth, is truly gone.

For the longest time I denied her passing, imagining her to be taking a nap or out at the store when I talked to Dad on the phone. Even when I went to Shelter Island to help sort through her clothes and her crafting supplies, I clung to the illusion that she was just out of sight in another room, unable to reconcile her absence from my life with my need for her.

A few days ago I finally brought myself to complete the linen bag that will hold her ashes. As I stitched the letters of her name and the dates that bounded her time with us in this world, I let go of my denial and accepted the reality, the finality of her death. And realized the wisdom of Kaddish, the Judaic mourner’s prayer repeated daily in the year following the death of a parent. For it is only with time that we can come to face that which we most want to deny.

The raw edge of grief has blurred. I no longer expect her to answer the phone, but I do hear her voice from time to time, its inflections escaping from my lips, especially when I’m talking to Meghan, Melissa, or Logan.

I sense her presence in other small signs … the ladybug that appeared in St. Mary’s on the day of her funeral and reappeared at the Outer Banks in the two summers since … rainbows … a break in the traffic as I merge onto a highway … stars shooting out of the Pleiades in the middle of August.

Those are not enough, of course. But a wise friend once reminded me to be thankful in all things, rather than for all things, as the scripture is more commonly rendered. The world still turns, each new day bringing grace if we have the will to see it. And that is sufficient to bring a measure of peace.

Eggs Redux

2009-09-05T20:21:00.011-05:00

Did I say I couldn’t tell the difference between mega-mart eggs and free-range eggs earlier today? Please allow me to recant. But first, a picture:

This is a popover. One of the best popovers I have ever put in my mouth. It didn’t hurt that it was accompanied by some Texas free-range loin lamb chops that we scored at the Dripping Springs Farmers Market. The chops had a healthy layer of fat, unlike the mercilessly butchered lamb that appears in the meat cases at most food stores. Fat that carried the essence of lamb to the tongue with a grace that …

Wait, this is supposed to be about the eggs. And the popovers, which were like perfectly toasted marshmallows … crunchy brown on the outside and utterly hollow on the inside. When broken open, each popover released a fragrant puff of steam as it revealed its golden center. They would have been great as leftovers for breakfast, with a dab of butter and seedless raspberry jam, but there were no leftovers tonight. Tant pis.

It’s time for a recipe. And it appears that I’m going to have to find another free-range egg supplier, because the twelve eggs I bought today are now six, which will never last until the next Dripping Springs Farmers Market two weeks hence. Next time I’ll have to buy two dozen ... or three.

Popovers (serves only two when they taste this good)

2 eggs (need I say free-range?)
A generous ½ cup of milk (I use 2%, whole milk would be even better)
½ Tbs. melted butter
A scant ½ cup of flour

Pre-heat oven to 425
Grease a 12-cup mini-muffin tin with Baker’s Joy spray (I know it’s chemical, but it works so well)
Whisk the eggs and milk to a froth, then whisk in the melted butter
Add almost all of the flour and gently whisk
The batter should be like a very heavy cream, but take care not to overbeat it
Add a bit more flour if the batter looks too thin (this takes experience … just keep trying)
Fill each mini-muffin cup to the rim and bake for 15 minutes, or until the popovers are rich brown puffs
They can be held in a warm oven for up to half an hour if need be

Once a New Yorker …

2009-09-05T15:27:00.010-05:00

There are certain foods that only attain perfection in New York. This is true. Ask any New Yorker. Only in New York can you find the perfect pizza, bagel, or Kaiser roll. Ex-pats commiserate about their never-ending frustration as they try out the newest restaurant or food store. Ever in search of their bliss, never succeeding, they ponder the reasons why. Is it the water? The salt air? Being at sea level? What is it about New York and bread?

So I was worried, very worried, when I learned about the new recipe my son-in-law was concocting. There was no way it could ever hit the mark, but how was I going to tell him the bitter truth? What was he thinking, trying out his bagels on a native New Yorker?

I tried not to worry too much. Paul is nothing if not thorough. He researched everything you would ever need to know about bagel-making. He told me stuff I never knew. Did you know that proper bagels are boiled in a lye solution before being baked? I didn’t. Besides, Paul has made some amazing food for us in the few short years that we’ve known him: fried ice cream, grilled prosciutto pizza with arugula and truffle oil, smoked brisket with his own dry rub, sea scallops perfectly seared with asparagus on the side, fried chicken and waffles … together. Maybe he could pull it off. Maybe I wouldn’t have to be … polite.

On the appointed day, I volunteered to bring some contributions to the brunch, as I am wont to do: granola, yogurt, strawberries, and a freshly baked blueberry coffee cake. I needn’t have bothered as they went virtually untouched by the assembled noshers. Because the bagels were amazingly good: the surface glazed to a crackle, the texture just chewy enough, the flavor … perfect. As were the honey almond and bacon scallion cream cheese blends that Meg had whipped up. I was … wrong.

Sorry, no recipes to share here. Just this: anything is possible. Even New York bagels … in Austin.

The Great Egg Debate

2009-09-05T14:04:00.012-05:00

I was taken to task for my promotion of “fake eggs” in the “Cookie Dough Conundrum” posting the other day. Guilty as charged, although in my defense, I did read labels and chose the Better’n Eggs brand because it was 98% egg whites, didn’t have too many unpronounceable chemicals, and tasted as close to mega-mart eggs as I could find. So it's only 2% fake. Which is, I guess, about as indefensible as being 2% guilty or as impossible as being 2% pregnant. Fake is fake.

Duly chastised, my mission today was to find real eggs laid by real chickens on a real farm. To that end, Don and I headed out early to case the Dripping Springs Farmers Market. The first booth yielded tomatoes, potatoes, and delightfully small onions. (Which merits a parenthetical observation: why do food stores only carry monster-sized onions? Don’t they know you only need a little bit of onion if you’re cooking for one or two?)

The second booth yielded pay dirt: fresh eggs from free-range, pastured, bug and grass eating local chickens for only $4.00 a dozen. Opening the carton of eggs was like opening a jewel box. I must confess, though I knew intellectually that they existed in more than two colors, I was rocked back on my heels at the sight of the multi-hued eggs. Betraying my total ignorance, I asked if the eggs got that way because of what the hens ate. No, the farmer patiently explained, egg color was determined by the variety of chicken. What kind of chickens? Heinz 57s, production reds, golden sexlinks, leggers, and one other that I can’t quite recall. Really. I looked ‘em up when I got home. And found a bit more on Google than I bargained for. Who knew?

In any case, there was no question that we were going to have eggs for lunch. I took out some leftover sausage (pork with poblano chile peppers made by Norman at the local grocery store ... but that’s another story), fried up some potato and onion cakes (the first batch of which I over-seasoned and had to trash), and sliced some fresh tomato (which looked way too much like a mega-mart variety and tasted much the same … you can’t trust everything you find at a farmers’ market).

The eggs I did last, knowing they would cook in a hurry. Melting butter in the skillet and then scrambling the eggs with my trusty bamboo spoon, I was caught off-guard by just how quickly they set into soft golden curds. Light and delicious, the eggs were a perfect foil to the spicy sausage and crispy potatoes. Lunch was a success and I was converted.

But I do have another confession to make. I can’t honestly say that the eggs tasted significantly different from store-bought eggs, which I’m sure will infuriate true egg aficionados. Perhaps it’s because my taste buds are not yet attuned to the subtleties of true egg flavor. Perhaps I need to sample another farmer’s wares. Perhaps I need to make some custard ice cream to better ascertain the flavor potential of the little jewels.

This much I do know: I love the idea of bug and grass eating chickens running around in a pasture much more than the idea of antibiotic-infused warehouse chickens that surely lead miserable lives. That idea alone is worth spending an extra three bucks per dozen to me. And I’ll happily keep working on further educating my taste buds. No doubt it will be a pleasure.

Friday Night Supper

2009-09-04T09:33:00.021-05:00

Google “eating dinner together” with “student achievement” and you’ll come up with a raft of reasons why sitting around the table with your family every night is a sound parenting practice. But I can honestly say that Friday Night Supper was not designed to enhance anyone’s grades in school.

The original Friday Night Supper was my Mom’s way of taking a break from cooking one night a week since we rarely ate out. So, in my teen years anyway, my brother and I were on our own in the kitchen. My supper of choice was pancakes, made with Bisquick of course. Sometimes I opted for mock Crepes Suzette cribbed from an old, yellowing cookbook with its covers falling off from many years of use. I don’t remember its title, but it was thick as a New York phone book and inscribed to my mom “from your starving husband,” or words to that effect … a true relic from the early years of their marriage.

I still whip up crepes and orange sauce from time to time, using a recipe that has never before been written down and the battered Flint pancake turner that my brother Art gave me as a wedding gift. Another relic, it has been mightily used and abused in its time. On one memorable occasion, Art and I were bickering as Mom tried to fix dinner. She cautioned us to stop, which we ignored. Repeatedly. Finally fed up, she raised her voice and intoned, “Cut it!” while whacking the edge of the counter with the pancake turner. The handle shattered. Art and I stared at each other, eyes wide, then erupted in snorts as we tried to keep from laughing. Mom turned, the mangled Flint in her upraised hand and … laughed out loud. At which point we joined her, laughing until tears came to our eyes and our sides ached as we gasped for air. I don’t know if I was actually supposed to keep the Flint when Art gave it to me years later … I so wanted it that I never asked, and I’ve used it to flip hundreds, if not thousands, of pancakes since. It’s the best spatula I’ve ever used.

Fast forward to the 1990s: Friday Night Supper was my way of getting out of cooking, too. As a working mom, the end of the week marked the ebb tide of my energy and cooking ambition. I would head to the grocery store after work to do the shopping for a weekend’s worth of eating, but it was Ma Ukrops who did the actual cooking for the Friday night meal. The shopping list rarely varied: a rotisserie chicken, a loaf of crusty bread, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, and avocado. Whoever packed the groceries was asked to place the bread atop the chicken nested in its plastic shell, the better to warm the bread up on the drive home.

I rationalized this abdication of my cooking responsibilities thusly: what is a recipe but an assemblage of ingredients after all? And the proof was in the pudding … my kids rarely missed being home for Friday Night Supper. In fact, they often brought friends to share the meal with us. Heather and Jessica (shown here at Melissa's wedding) became stalwart fans. The resultant lack of leftovers was more than offset by the gift of their presence as we sat at the table talking on and on, long after the eating was done.

Friday Night Supper (Williamsburg Style)

1 warm rotisserie chicken (from Ukrops, if you have one in your own hometown)
1 fresh loaf of crusty break (Ecce Panis Neo-Tuscan Boule, if you can find it)
Fresh tomatoes (whatever variety is ripest)
Fresh basil (don’t count the cost, you’re worth it)
Fresh mozzarella (the softer the better)
Avocado (yielding ever so slightly to a discerning thumb)
Unio olive oil (you must have this on hand at home)
Kosher salt (another staple)
Fresh lemon (ditto)

Slice enough bread to serve the assembled diners, wrap in foil and put in a 350 oven
Slice tomatoes and mozzarella, top with basil leaves and a drizzle of olive oil
Peel and slice avocado(s), drizzle with lemon juice
Request the services of your favorite carver to dismantle the chicken
Provide ample salt and pepper for seasoning at the table, along with olive oil for dunking the bread

Friday Night Supper (East Williston Style)
aka Crepes and Orange Sauce (serves 2)

2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
½ cup Bisquick (there I go with the Bisquick again)

Whisk the eggs and milk together, then add in just enough Bisquick to make a thin batter
Let the batter sit while making the orange sauce (see below)

Pour ¼ cup of batter into a hot, lightly oiled omelet pan

Tip pan to spread batter into a thin crepe, flip once (with a Flint, if you have one)

Batter should flow easily and set quickly … adjust as needed by adding Bisquick or milk

Roll each crepe and put on a warm plate in the oven until ready to serve

Sauce

¼ cup orange juice concentrate (which now comes in re-sealable containers, very cool)

¼ cup water

¼ cup sugar

2 Tbs. butter

Combine orange juice concentrate, water and sugar in a small saucepan

Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer while the sauce thickens (five minutes or so)

Whisk in butter to finish the sauce and keep on very low heat until crepes are done

Adjust sugar to taste

Serve crepes with warm orange sauce and a sprinkling of extra sugar if you’re feeling particularly decadent (which is par for the course for me)

Craving Mexican

2009-09-03T11:52:00.015-05:00

Wannabe-Yankee that I am (I grew up on Long Island), I always thought that Mexican food was too hot and spicy to handle. Fortunately, Cindy Sedam invited us out to Fort Worth about ten years ago and took us to Joe T. Garcia’s.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history. I fell in love with fajitas, enchiladas, guacamole, and pico-de-gallo … only to be cautioned that I wouldn’t find the same fare back in Williamsburg. Fortunately, that wasn’t entirely true. Casa Maya, and then Tequila Rose became my go-to haunts for all things Mexican. But they couldn’t hold a candle to Joe T’s … or to Matt’s El Rancho on South Lamar … or to Torchy’s Tacos in the South Austin Trailer Park (hold your fire Austinites … I’m sure there are others, I just haven’t had time to sample them all yet).

So while we were still on the East Coast, I developed my own take on Mexican-style food. I discovered that jalapenos could be tamed by removing the seeds, became adept at timing avocado ripeness, and stalked the local food stores for Cotija. I took a deep breath as I paid $12.99 a pound for skirt steak and $1.99 a bunch for organic cilantro. And I learned how to make my own flour tortillas, the core ingredients of which --flour, lard, salt and water-- are the same as my grandmother’s Depression-era bread recipe.

Now lard can be found in many grocery stores, but I share Michael Pollan’s dim view of animal fat that doesn't need to be refrigerated. Read the fine print on a lard box and you’re apt to find the dreaded word “hydrogenated.” I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to eat something that’s full of saturated fat, I want it to be unadulterated. Fortunately, you can find leaf lard online, which can be portioned and frozen for future use. I’ve also made tortillas with olive oil, and they’re actually pretty good, but there’s nothing like using lard in flour tortillas, absolutely nothing. So find yourself some good lard and make some tortillas. Then you’ll have enough lard leftover to try in your next apple pie crust. At which point you should be well and truly hooked.

East Coast Fajitas (serves 2)

1 lb. skirt steak
Hardwood charcoal for grilling if at all possible

Marinade
3 Tbs. soy sauce (I just eyeball this as it glugs out of the bottle)
3 Tbs. olive oil (ditto)
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. cumin
Juice of ½ lime
2 Tbs. brown sugar

Salsa
1 ripe Haas avocado, chunked
½ small red onion, finely diced
½ cup diced ripe tomato
¼ cup chopped cilantro leaves
1 small jalapeno, seeded and chopped fine
Juice of ½ lime
Kosher salt to taste

Tortillas
1 cup flour
½ tsp. kosher salt
2 Tbs. lard (or olive oil)
1/3 cup water

Optional toppings
Grated Cotija cheese (or queso seco)
Sour cream
Onion and/or red peppers, lightly sautéed in olive oil

Make the tortilla dough at least two hours before you plan to start dinner
Put the water and lard (or olive oil) in the microwave just long enough to warm it
Add to the flour and salt and give them all a spin in the food processor
The resulting dough should come together in a ball without being too sticky or crumbly
Add water or flour as needed to make a nice elastic dough
Let it rest under a damp towel for at least an hour, more if possible

The salsa and marinade can be made about an hour before grilling time
Cut the skirt steak into two to four shorter strips before marinating
Assemble any other toppings as desired
Recruit your favorite grillmaster to get the grilled fired up and the meat cooked rare
Then carve the meat into thin strips just before serving

Try to cook the tortillas while the meat is grilling, so they’re hot when you serve them
You can hold them under a damp towel in a warm oven, but hot off the griddle is best
Divide the dough into 6-8 pieces
Roll into 6-8” circles, using as little flour as possible
Cook on a 400 degree griddle (or a hot frying pan) … do not grease the cooking surface
Flip several times, 20-30 seconds to a side, until each tortilla puffs
You’re aiming for light brown spots … if the pan/griddle starts smoking, turn it down a bit

To serve, layer ingredients onto tortillas, roll up as best you can (good luck with that) and enjoy

Cookie Dough Conundrum

2009-09-01T20:29:00.018-05:00

E. coli outbreaks have become a staple on the evening news, but the one that emerged this summer was worthy of Sherlock Holmes. A cluster of young women, not normally associated with E. coli outbreaks, led the Centers for Disease Control to look for an unorthodox culprit. And they found it: cookie dough. More precisely, pre-made cookie dough from our friends at Nestle (makers of the only semi-sweet chocolate morsels I ever put in my chocolate chip cookies).

Now I’ve been paranoid about salmonella in eggs for years, which is why I use Better'n Eggs, a pasteurized egg product that lets me bake my cake and eat dough, too (we’re not talking calories here, just food poisoning). I’m not sure eggs were the culprit in this particular E. coli outbreak, but this I truly believe: if you make your own cookie dough, you’re less likely to get food poisoning ... especially if you eat it right away.

There is one problem, of course. My chocolate chip cookie recipe makes enough dough for 6-8 dozen cookies, which is a bit excessive, even for me. That’s why I mastered the art of the cookie dough snack batch. I never did tell my mom, but I started making my own mini-batches of dough when I was a teenager, taught it to my own kids, and just now noshed the latest batch. Which I made purely for the purpose of testing the recipe on your behalf. Selfless I am.

Snack Batch Cookie Dough
Note: I don’t use measuring spoons … just teaspoons and tablespoons from the silverware drawer

1 heaping tablespoon of Land O Lakes butter with canola oil (or whatever shortening you’ve got)
2 heaping tablespoons of light brown sugar
1 heaping tablespoon of white sugar
1 teaspoon of Better'n Eggs (you’ve got to keep this stuff on hand at all times)
A few drops of vanilla
2 heaping tablespoons of flour
A pinch of kosher salt
A pinch of baking soda (don’t leave this out, it adds flavor)
2 tablespoons of chocolate chips (or chopped chocolate … improvise)

Mash the butter and sugar together in a cereal bowl. Mix in the egg and vanilla. Stir in the flour, salt and baking soda. Add the chips. No oven to pre-heat, no baking sheet to grease. Just enjoy.

P.S. When Meg was going to JMU, her roommate was one of those rare people who doesn't particularly care for chocolate chips ... but she loved the cookies. So Kate, if you're reading this, just leave out the chocolate. Bon appetit!

Better than OK at the Corral

2009-08-31T16:42:00.014-05:00

This past weekend Don and I had an experience well worth the price of admission. Now it should be said up front that we expected to have a great time watching Julie and Julia. But the best part of the evening turned out to be the venue, and that's saying something.

The Corral Theatre is a Wimberley landmark. We paid $5.00 each to gain entrance to an open-air enclosure that did bear a striking resemblance to a corral, although the fencing was solid, presumably to muffle the sound of cars on Ranch Road 3237. We brought beach chairs with us, not knowing how much seating would be available, but opted to sit in the 1950s vintage green metal lawn chairs … you know, the kind that gently rock as you lean back.

Those who preferred the assorted resin chairs sat a little farther back. All told, there were probably a hundred folks on hand to watch Julie and Julia, while munching popcorn, soda and candy from the concession stand, sold for the blissfully retro rate of a buck a pop. Bargain prices notwithstanding, some of those in attendance strolled in with their own coolers containing beverages and snacks, all under the benevolent eye of the proprietress who welcomed each guest.

The movie was scheduled to begin at “dark thirty,” which we learned was about half an hour after sunset as the stars began to prick their way into the sky and the moon settled into the branches of a live oak. The screen, a white-washed mosaic of masonite, and the fence-mounted speakers were a distinct improvement on the standard megaplex fare, and the gentle breeze was better by far than any air conditioning system yet invented. The old projector stuttered at the beginning of each reel, lending an authenticity and sense of fun to the whole enterprise. There was one pause in the action, about 30 minutes into the film. As the lights came up, one of the teens from the concession stand walked down the aisle and pulled ticket stubs from a bowl in order to award free tickets to some lucky movie-goers. But at $5.00 a head, we’ll be back, freebies or not. Heck, I’d pay twice that in a New York minute.

Shelter Island, 1969

2009-08-27T14:06:00.014-05:00

Grandma Munson always made her own bread, enough to last a whole week. She scooped flour into her mustard yellow earthenware bowl to a line that only her eyes could see. Running water over the inside of her wrist until it was just the right temperature, she filled a chipped china cup halfway with lukewarm water, then added yeast and sugar. Turning back to the earthenware bowl, she spooned in pillows of lard and strewed salt with no discernable measure. Rubbing the flour and lard between her fingers, she told me how butter was scarce during the Great Depression and the ration-card days of World War II. Oleo was tasteless, little improved by adding the packet of dye intended to mimic the rich yellow of real butter. And so she became accustomed to using lard, with its earthy animal essence, smelling like wet puppy on a rainy day.

Forming a well in the center of the flour laced with lard and salt, Grandma poured in the bubbling yeast and more lukewarm water, stirring it all with a long-handled wooden spoon. As the bread dough gathered, she took the bowl up in her left arm, inching her right hand down the handle of the spoon to get a better purchase, pulling the bread dough up and out, snapping it like some great elastic band. Then dumped the mass onto the floured counter, dusting her hands and the mound of dough with more flour, kneading the bread into submission. She left the dough to rise overnight, covered with a damp dish towel. Waking the next morning to the smell of yeast and fresh brewed coffee, I came downstairs to find her placing new-formed loaves in six bread tins, lacquered from years of baking.

But not all the dough went into the tins. Butter sizzled in a black cast iron skillet as Grandma plucked one nugget of bread dough after another with a fork cocked between her palm and ring finger. Flipping the walnut-sized bread cakes in the pan until golden brown, and then onto the platter for serving, she sent me to the cabinet to fetch the blackstrap molasses for dipping and for Pop Pop’s coffee. We ate breakfast around the dining room table, where Pop Pop outlined our chores for the day: there were summer apples to rescue from the deer, tomatoes to pick, and knives to sharpen for the fish that would surely be arriving later in the day, the next door neighbor having already promised a share of his catch in exchange for some vine-ripened beefsteaks.

Pop Pop called them his bluefish tomatoes because he put fish guts and heads into the ground before planting them each year. “Like Indians,” he told me, “nothing wasted.” The plants grew big and tall on an elaborate wooden scaffold that held them up to the sun, the whole surrounded by chicken wire to keep out the deer. The grass under the apple trees, still wet with dew, recorded the evidence of the midnight marauders: half-eaten apples and tracks just outside the tomato enclave. Shaking the trunk of each tree, Pop Pop pointed to the new fallen apples, pippins he called them, directing me to gather them up so Grandma could make pie. Then he turned his attention to his tomato vines, chortling over the size of this tomato and that one. Cradling one in the palm of his hand, he hefted it up and down, declaring it to be a whopper, a pound and a half at least.

Carrying bushel baskets laden with apples and tomatoes back to the house, we stopped at the asparagus bed, where Pop Pop drew out his pen knife and nipped the thickest spears close to the ground, placing the asparagus on top of his basket. We entered the back door to the scent of baking bread, heavy with the promise of lunch. After washing the apples in the sink, I sat on the stool watching Grandma peel, quarter, core and slice them into green-tinged wedges, the knife blade flashing in her hand. She blessed them with sugar, freckles of cinnamon and a touch of cornstarch, then turned to making the pie crusts. Once again ladling flour, salt and lard into the earthenware bowl, she cut the lard into the flour with two knives drawn past each other like dueling swords. Running the tap until it was icy cold, Grandma shook a shower of water over the bowl, drew the pie crust together, rolled it thin and draped it like elegant linen into each pie tin. Filling the tins impossibly high with apple slices, she draped a second crust over the top of each, pinching and turning, pinching and turning to seal the apples within.

Pulling the loaves of bread out of the oven, Grandma rapped them with a knuckle to be sure they were done, then turned them out on to wire racks, leaving them to cool on the back porch. The loaf tins she returned straightaway to the cabinet, the mahogany veneer of baked-on grease undisturbed by soap and water. The pies took their place in the oven, whiffs of burnt sugar and apple juice layering over yeast and lard as they bubbled and browned. The bowls washed and put away signaled time for lunch. And I was granted a prize: the heel of a still-warm bread loaf, slathered with butter and dusted with sugar, all chased with a tall glass of cold milk.

As promised, the neighbor-man arrived in mid-afternoon with bluefish for our dinner, leaving with the lesser tomatoes after a being treated to a discourse on the genesis of the largest bluefish tomato, destined to be served at Pop Pop’s table. Putting the still-twitching snapper blues in a bucket, Pop Pop selected two knives from the drawer and took them out to the barn as I trailed behind. There he filled a tin cup with water from the rain barrel and hung it over the grindstone. A slow steady drip, drip, drip of water fell through the hole punched in the bottom of the cup. Sitting astride the grindstone bench, Pop Pop’s foot pumped the treadle, starting the massive wheel turning, water flying as the stone gained speed. As he drew each knife against the stone, a keening wail joined the rhythmic thump of the treadle, now high, now low, the blades moving back and forth. Holding the knives up to the sunlight, Pop Pop tested the blades against his thumb, making me wince in anticipation. No blood did he draw, but found the blades to be worthy. Spreading out newspapers on the bench, he scaled the fish, a shower of sequins leaping into dusty sunbeams. Then dispatched heads, fins and tails with the heavy carving knife, and eviscerated each fish with the filet knife. On the way back to the kitchen, entrails and offal were buried a short way from the garden, in the plot allotted to the next year’s tomato harvest. “Always rotate crops,” he said, “just like the Indians. Don’t forget.”

Who could forget? The smell of butter browning flour-dredged fish, thick slabs of tomato, tender crisp asparagus. And better, apples reduced to a thick sauce encased in a crust that shattered in the mouth, releasing salt and sweet bathed in the rich earthiness of pork fat. Washing and drying dishes and silverware, folding linen napkins into napkin rings to be used the next day and the next day and the next day. All the days flowing together.

Bread Knots for Two

½ cup bread flour (for openers)
1 Tbs. wheat gluten
½ tsp. kosher salt
One splash of Unio olive oil (instead of lard)
½ cup lukewarm water
½ Tbs. yeast
½ tsp sugar

Run water over your wrist until it is just this side of warm. Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the water, stir in with your finger and let it sit for 5-10 minutes.

Measure the flour, gluten, salt and olive oil into a small food processor. My old stand-by is a Royal LaMachine I, purchased when I was too strapped (more like too tight) to afford a Cuisinart. A couple of years ago I bought one on eBay for Melissa’s birthday … but I digress.

Pour the yeast into the food processor and process while slowly adding more flour until the dough just clumps into a ball. Take it out, dust it with flour (it should be pretty soft and sticky) and hand-knead it into a flattened disk. Place in a bowl, cover with a damp towel and let it rise for an hour or two.

Divide the dough into eight pieces (break it in half, break each half in half again, and finally break the four pieces into eight … hopefully all about the same size). Hang the finger-sized pieces of dough over the edge of the bowl to rest.

Fill the bottom of a small cereal bowl with a puddle of olive oil (a few tablespoons), a sprinkling of kosher salt and some garlic (powder or fresh, strictly optional). Dredge each piece of dough in the oil, twist into a simple knot, and place on a cookie sheet.

Cover the bread knots with the damp towel and let them rise for another hour (if you have that long … I often hurry things along by putting the cookie sheet in a warm place). Pre-heat the oven to 400 and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Apple Pie (adapted from The Joy of Cooking, 1975)

Filling
3 lbs. Granny Smith apples
2/3 cup sugar
1 Tbs. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbs. cream

Crust
1 ¼ cups of flour
1/3 cup lard, chilled (best is partly frozen)
½ tsp. kosher salt
2-3 Tbs. iced water

Peel, core and slice the Granny Smith apples into a large bowl. Stir in the other filling ingredients and set aside while making the pie crust. BTW, I only make a top crust, my reasoning being that the bottom crust is always a sodden mess and just doubles the caloric guilt anyway.

Process the lard into the flour and salt until it is somewhere between pea-sized and corn meal. Transfer to a mixing bowl, sprinkle with ice water and gather together into a loose ball with your hands. It’s better to add a little too much water, as it is easier to remedy a sticky crust with a little more flour than it is to salvage a crust that is too dry.

Place the apple filling into a pie plate, roll out the crust, drape it over the apples and fold the crust up and over the edges of the pie plate. Cut slits in the crust, brush with a little cream and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Bake at 450 for 10-15 minutes, turn down to 350 and bake for another 30 minutes, then put a cookie sheet on a rack under the pie plate to catch drips. Keep checking every 5 minutes until the filling is visibly bubbling and a thin knife blade inserted into the apples meets no resistance. The apples should be soft to the point of chunky applesauce (IMHO).

Double the Pleasure, Double the Fun

2009-08-26T22:26:00.013-05:00

The Ackert family doesn’t do anything by halves. It wasn’t enough to have one wedding last, year … we had two. Meghan and Paul were married four months after Meliss and Jake.

Then we up and moved away from our long-time home in Williamsburg. As a result, I’ll get to make Meg a birthday cake for the first time in about ten years since Austin is only 30 miles from Wimberley. She hasn’t placed an order yet, but I’m guessing she’ll want Vanilla Vanilla Cake. I actually earned an award with this cake, back when I was a Girl Scout (which is to say, a very, very long time ago). Another cake won first prize for decorating, but mine got honorable mention for taste. As with the Peach Cobbler, this recipe has Bisquick in it, which is weird because I like to think of myself as a "scratch baker" and a "whole foods" locavore-wannabe. Translation: I do whatever works best for the recipe at hand.

In any case, the recipe came from my Grandma Barnett (my dad’s mom) and is one of the few that I haven’t messed with too much over the years. Grandma always made it in a loaf pan (hence the original name “Mom Barnett’s Loaf Cake” in my mom's recipe file), although it can also be made in a tube pan or a 9” x 13” sheet pan ... I've even tried layers and cupcakes from time to time. It has a terrible tendency to collapse in the middle, but you don’t want to overcook it because it’s better too moist than too dry. Meg likes it iced with vanilla and has always called it Vanilla Vanilla Cake. If I’m making for myself, I ice it half in vanilla, half in chocolate, because I can never decide which I like best. BTW, if it does get a bit dry, a scoop of vanilla Haagen Dazs helps.

Vanilla Vanilla Cake

½ cup Land O Lakes butter with canola oil
1 ¼ cup sugar
3 eggs or ¾ cup of Better'n Eggs (pasteurized so you can lick the bowl)
1 ½ tsp. vanilla (remember, Nielsen-Massey)
3 cups Bisquick
¾ cup milk

Bake at 350 degrees, 45 minutes for a loaf pan, 30 minutes for a tube pan, 20 minutes for a 9”x13” pan

Vanilla Icing

½ cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 lb. confectioner’s sugar
Milk or cream as needed

Melt butter, add vanilla and half the sugar. Beat with a handmixer, adding sugar and milk (or cream) until you reach a spreadable consistency.

Chocolate Icing

1/3 cup butter
2 or 3 ounces of unsweetened chocolate
1 tsp. vanilla
1 lb. confectioner’s sugar
Milk and/or coffee as needed

Melt butter and chocolate. Add vanilla and half the sugar. Beat with a handmixer, adding sugar and milk and/or coffee until you reach a spreadable consistency.

Note: If you plan to ice the cake with both vanilla and chocolate icing, cut the recipes in half.

Just a Trifle

2009-08-26T21:17:00.012-05:00

Melissa is my Valentine child, born on February 14th (the day she was due, which I very much appreciated at the time). Having a birthday in the middle of winter had its problems. Aside from having to share "her day" with the rest of the world, it never failed that some significant invitee to her birthday party would succumb to whatever contagion was active that year. Grandma, Papa, Dad, Meg, friends ... you name 'em, she missed 'em. Everyone except me. I had to be there to supply the cake.

Her perennial birthday cake request had cake in it, but wasn’t actually a cake at all. What she almost always wanted was Strawberry Trifle. As with most of my recipes, this one morphed over the years, but the biggest challenge was finding good berries in February. So I would grab any I could find within a week of the party. But once I found them, the other big challenge was to keep them from spoiling.

Well, Melissa married Jake last year (click the link to hear their first dance song) and she now lives in St. Louis, so I don’t actually get to make her birthday cakes anymore. But berries getting moldy between the time I purchase them and the time we eat them has continued to be a problem … until now. I haven’t actually tried it, but the article “Prolonging the Life of Berries” published in today’s New York Times makes good sense. [Update: I tried this and the jury is still out. The berries weren't very good after I heat treated them, but honestly, they weren't all that great when I bought them either. I'll keep you posted.]

Meanwhile, here’s the recipe …

Strawberry Trifle, aka Melissa's Birthday Cake
(some assembly required)

Cream filling
2 large boxes or 3 small boxes of Jello “cook and serve” vanilla pudding (NOT instant)
5 cups of whole milk (I use less than called for so the pudding will be thicker)
1 ½ cups heavy cream (unsweetened)

Cook on stove or in microwave until thickened
Put in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap on top to prevent a skin from forming
Cool thoroughly in refrigerator
Whip heavy cream (no sugar) and fold into pudding

Fruit Filling
2-3 quarts of strawberries, hulled and quartered (more is better)
2 Tbs. sugar sprinkled over berries and gently stirred in

Nuts (optional)
2-4 oz. slivered almonds toasted for 5 minutes at 350 (be careful they don't burn)

Sponge Cake
6 egg whites
6 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
¼ cup hot water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder

Whip egg whites into soft peaks
In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar, then mix in water and vanilla.
Fold flour and baking powder into yolk mixture
Fold egg whites into yolk mixture
Bake in an ungreased tube pan at 350 for 45 minutes

Assembly
Decide if you want to make one large trifle or two small ones and divide accordingly.
Cut sponge cake in half horizontally and sprinkle with Amontillado sherry to taste (just stick your thumb in the bottle and spritz over the cut side of the cake)
Put a little pudding/cream in the bottom of the serving bowl(s)
Layer cake, strawberries, almonds and cream filling, in that order, twice.
Refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving if possible.
Garnish with sweetened whipped cream and whole strawberries if desired

Food is Love

2009-08-25T21:28:00.011-05:00

At the 2004 Eastern Virginia Writing Project, Emily Pease gave us a simple assignment: write about forgiveness. This is what I wrote then ... five years later, it still rings true.

When all else fails, bake cookies.

That was my mom's mantra when I was growing up. It was a useful strategy in a house with two children and no television ... my father's edict based on his belief that broadcast media were intrinsically evil, in spite of his employment on Madison Avenue. Or perhaps because of it.

On rainy days when my brother and I had exhausted the amusement potential of blocks and records and board games, we resorted to bickering.

"Did so."

"Did not."

"Did so."

"Did not."

"Mom!"

Sometimes she punted by sending us to the neighbors, who had televisions and more relaxed standards for childrearing. Sometimes she stayed home, no doubt savoring the silence. Sometimes she went with us, to sit over coffee and cigarettes with the other moms, until the combined forces of too many children in too small a space resulted in the inevitable and we were all back at square one.

"Mom!"

Sometimes she baked cookies. Opening a bottle of vanilla extract is all it takes to trigger the memory of the school bus yellow bag of Nestle's Semi-Sweet Morsels. Preheating the oven ("Why Mom?"). Kneeling on wooden chairs at the red and white oilcloth of the kitchen table. Plopping bars of Imperial margarine into the green Pyrex mixing bowl (hearing the trumpet voluntary as an imaginary crown appears on my head).

Greasing the cookie sheets by rubbing traces of margarine from the inside of the golden foil wrapper. Carefully measuring tablespoon after tablespoon of brown sugar and white sugar, six of each. Sniffing the vanilla bottle, never daring to taste it. Cracking egg shells on the edge of the bowl, wrinkling my nose at the slimy cold wetness of the egg whites. Sifting flour and baking soda and salt together ("Why Mom?"). Sneaking chocolate chips out of the bag. Spooning lumps of dough onto the cookie sheets. Licking the beaters.

Bliss. What better way to divert attention, ensure peace and quiet? Buttery warm crumbs of sweetness and liquid chocolate. Icy cold milk. It never failed.

So why reinvent the wheel? When my own two daughters exhausted the amusement potential of Barbie dolls and cassette tapes and board games and television, they inevitably resorted to bickering and I to cookies. I must confess that I skipped a step or two. Too impatient to measure out sugar in tablespoons I quickly converted quantities into cup measure, the sooner to get to the end product. For product, not process, was what I was about. And the eggs? All that salmonella lurking in wait, prohibiting the licking of beaters? No fear. I used Second Nature Better'n Eggs, duly pasteurized and patently safe for raw consumption. For what was the point if not to lick the bowl? And indeed, why even bother with all the fuss of greasing pans and preheating ovens, scooping dough and juggling hot pans? Let 'em eat cookie dough! It never failed.

It was a point of pride with me, being the mom who let everyone eat cookie dough. I was a hero in my own hometown, a legend in my own time. I never counted the cost, the calories, the cholesterol. Who cared? The kids were happy, I was happy. Bliss.

And now they've grown up, become teenagers. No wait, one is 21 now. How did that happen? Angst reigns. Like all parents, I goof, make mistakes, screw up royally. And then owning up to my mistakes, apologize when it is called for, which was more often than I care to admit.

"Why can't you get it right the first time, Mom?"

Why not indeed? We, as parents, never actually set out to infuriate our children, though they believe otherwise. Recently I read Robert Farrar Capon's book Kingdom, Grace, Judgment in which he said, "When I crippled my children emotionally (or when my parents crippled me) it was not done out of meanness or spite, it was done out of love: genuine, deeply felt, endlessly pondered human love -- flawed, alas, by a self-regard so profound that none of us ever noticed it." And I could relate.

Which is why my mantra is: When all else fails, make cookie dough. Because the inevitable inevitably happens. So when all is not well in the small world called home, cookie dough is the signal to one and all that forgiveness is humbly sought. And my daughters know that to accept the cookie dough is to offer a gift, to forgive yet again.

They haven't turned me down yet.

Chocolate Chip Cookies, the DJ Montague version
(makes 6-8 dozen)

2 8-ounce tubs Land O Lakes butter with canola oil
1 pound box Domino light brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup Better'n Eggs, scant
4-5 cups unbleached white flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
24 ounces Nestle semisweet chocolate morsels (none other)

Cream butter, sugars and vanilla, then beat in eggs
Mix in baking soda, salt, and 2 cups flour
Fold in, 2 more cups of flour, then slowly add enough
flour to keep the dough from being sticky
Fold in chocolate chips and scoop onto a greased cookie sheet

Bake at 350 for 7-8 minutes in a convection oven or
10-11 minutes at 360 in a regular oven, until edges are brown
Leave on sheet for 5 minutes, then put on a cooling rack
Perfect for tea parties or with a glass of ice cold milk

Eastern Virginia Writing Project 2007

2009-08-25T20:34:00.017-05:00

For Peaches

On a Carolina highway,
air rippling with early summer heat,
my thumb
seeks the reassurance
of soft flesh
yielding,
ripened to perfection.

Rose and gold and palest jade
rim the edge of heaven,
nexus of sand and sea and sky;
the sunrise a recapitulation
of summer sun imprinted
on fragrant orbs.

Silver blade in hand
I cleave flesh
into wedges drenched with juice,
sweetened with sugar,
freckled with cinnamon.

Then open the oven
to air rippling with heat
that will meld
flour & butter
sugar & cream
into a cobbled bed;
a perfect end
for peaches.

Peach Cobbler

1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup Bisquick
Splash of heavy cream

Combine and press crust into an 8x8 pan, then top with
3-4 cups sliced peaches mixed with
2 Tbs sugar with a pinch of cinnamon
1/2 tsp cornstarch or instant tapioca

Bake at 400 until peaches are bubbling and crust is lightly browned
N.B. This recipe has never been followed exactly, rather it is an approximation to be modified as you will