Second Dinner

What Crickets?

2009-12-07T20:26:00.000-08:00

It's been very quiet here lately, it's true.

First there was Thanksgiving, in Seattle, a town where I'm apparently unable to bake bread. Otherwise I liked it there, but really. Come on, Seattle.

Then there was all the flying, and the sleeping, and mostly the end of the semester. The Librarian has been much to the fore, and while she hasn't quite managed to elbow back the Baker, she sure as hell has routed the Blogger, by far the least central of my shifting identities.

Also, in by far the weakest excuse, my camera's batteries have run down and I apparently have a block against picking up a pack of double A's.

(Leader's Pain au Levain, unadorned)

I have been baking, though. I can't help it. Bread, quiche, toffee, sables, even a pear tart that was supposed to make it into a TWD post last week but never quite arrived (it was runny).

(a poor picture of a first attempt at Leader's Ganachaud Flote)

And, of course, I was back at Lily & Fig this weekend trying out new things. This week's offerings were Challah (a slightly leaner and less sweet formula--I'll retrace and add a bit more sugar next week), Raisin Walnut Levain (bought straight off the cooling rack), Oatmeal Sunflower bread (a straight dough, with a little oil and honey), and my favorite, untasted, the Roasted Garlic Levain. This bread, with roasted and mashed garlic mixed right into the dough, smelled heavenly from the knead to the bake.

So far, the response to the bread has been so generous and positive, both in person and online. I can't help but feel that a shout-out on excellent local blog I love Franklin Ave really puts me on the neighborhood map. That's actually one of the things I'm enjoying most about this gig (aside from the opportunity to legitimately obsess and experiment with bread)--the opportunity to meet so many more of my neighbors, and to be, in whatever small way, a more real part of their lives, and they of mine. I've met dentists, gardeners, middle school students, and all kinds of cookie-hungry Crown Heights denizens, more good people than I could have hoped to encounter in years of just walking down the street, thanks to Lily's warm way with an introduction and the universality of baked goods.

I promise I'll buy batteries and finish all my homework soon, and be back with beautiful breads, cake, and my new interest, slow-cooker turkey stew, soon. In the meantime, if you want to see a beautiful set of pictures of Lily & Fig, with my challahs featured in the case, visit this Flickr page.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Cran-Apple Crisp

2009-11-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

This week was a quickie--the big innovation in the crisp topping was the addition of coconut, but because not everyone in my house can eat coconut I made it without--a pretty standard crisp topping, but without the coconut, I probably should have used more oats. But it was crisp. It was delicious.

Daily Bread: Starry Polish Cottage Rye

2009-11-18T21:06:00.000-08:00

That's more like it. Above is Leader's Polish Cottage Rye, a nearly perfect bread made from a combination of a rye sourdough and wheat bread flour. This loaf was everything I could have hoped for and more: crackly crust, deep flavor, and soft, moist, irregular open crumb.

The dough is wet enough to require proofing in a bowl, basket, or banneton, which will make it more difficult to do at the bakery, but I think it's worth it. This loaf proofed in a napkin-lined colander, which left an unexpected starry pattern even through the cloth.

Daily Bread: Semolina Levain with Corn Flour

2009-11-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

Sweet golden bread, two pretty little footballs. I replaced the 1/2 cup whole wheat in the last loaf with 1/2 cup fine semolina, and the 1/4 cup rye with 1/4 cup corn flour. In response to some customer comments, I also tried upping the salt a little. Brought one loaf to Democracy Now and it vanished before the bagels on the same table. Matt found it a little dry/chewy, and I know what he meant. I think if I'd given it another half hour or hour to proof it would have had a more open crumb, but the taste is excellent and the chewiness has its own attractions.

Now I have to practice making slightly larger loaves, as the ones I made last week for the bakery felt too small. Bulk production spreadsheets upcoming.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

2009-11-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, I started a Ginger Cookie Project--comparing and contrasting recipes from my books and the internet in the hunt for my perfect (spicy, crackly, chewy) ginger molasses cookie. I had several successes and some lame attempts. Over all, my favorite was the Soft Glazed Gingerbread from the Tartine cookbook. The bootleg recipe for the Black Dog ginger cookies was a dismal failure. I even went so far as to create a comparative spreadsheet for all of the recipes I tried, but haven't yet gotten around to posting it (soon, I promise).

I was reminded forcibly of my unfinished project when Pamela of Cookies with Boys chose Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie. Mine came out a little dryer than I would have liked, probably due to some slapdash measuring, but the cookies made by many other TWD participants had exactly the look I usually go for, so I think I'll be coming back to test these again. I'll probably do what I usually do; up the spices, decrease the sugar--they were a little sweet.

Daily Bread: Multigrain Pain au Levain

2009-11-16T21:42:00.000-08:00

Testing bread in earnest now.

This morning I baked two loaves of multigrain pain au levain, using Daniel Leader's formula from Local Breads. The multi grains, which soaked for eight hours while the levain fermented, were sesame seeds, flaxseeds, coarse cornmeal, and oats. The dough also contained small percentages of whole wheat and rye flours. I forgot to add the seeds until halfway through kneading, rendering the dough very wet and gloopy, so kneading was a long slow process, with frequent rests.

One of the things that I'm concentrating on now that the weekend's loaves will actually sold to people is my shaping and scoring. I consider the loaf above to be a triumph. It also tasted good, dark and moist. I took it in to the architects' office where I used to work, and they, German, English, Japanese, and American, were very complimentary. I'll be filling in at that office quite a bit in the next month, and am looking forward to re-gaining one of my more enthusiastic and knowledgeable audiences.

Compulsive baking--win friends and influence people.

Going 'Pro'

2009-11-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

Exciting news.
The week before last, I saw a sign on the door of Lily & Fig, the bakery down the block.

"Experienced Bread Baker Needed - Part Time"

Hmmm.
I'm a full time student. I work about 3/4 time at various freelance jobs. I'm a member of a theatre company.
But it looked good. Very good. And temptingly close to home. I'm baking all the time anyway, right? Why not learn more and let someone else pay for the ingredients...(All justifications, by the way--I got starry-eyed just thinking about perfecting my pain au levain, opening up the bakery in the dark dawn...I've been fantasizing about these things for years.)

I went in.

It turned out that they were indeed looking for low-volume, part-time bread, and they were willing to take a chance on me. After one weekend, I hope they think that that chance was justified. I'm still learning, still navigating bulk production, big mixers, convection ovens, customer satisfaction, and consistency. I'll be learning a long time, slowly teaching myself with the help of bakery owner Lily, baker Karen, the books of Leader, Hamelman, et al, and weekly experience.

This is a small good new thing, a lucky chance. If you live nearby, or happen to be visiting, come try some bread--it's Franklin Avenue between Sterling and Park Place. For now, it will be challah on Fridays, and some combination of whole wheat, pain au levain, and other naturally raised breads, along with rustic Italian breads, on Saturdays and Sundays.

Tuesdays with Dorie: All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake

2009-11-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

TWD is running amok this month--any recipe can be made for any Tuesday. Admittedly, I made the majority of this month's recipes in October...but since I haven't yet made the official one for this week (hold your breath for cranberry-apple crisp), I still relish the freedom. And the part where Dorie posted on my Caramel Chestnut post. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Also warm and fuzzy, and far less complex than three layer chestnut confections was the All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake, featuring almost every flavor associated with the Thanksgiving-Christmas season. Cranberries? Check. Pumpkin? Check. (Around here it was sweet potato, but no harm done) Apple? Check. Nuts? Check. (I used almonds). Spices? Check. Kind of gimmicky? You'd think so, but it really works. This is just a simple, really, really good cake. The kind you eat with every meal of the day until it's gone. The kind your (my) mother likes. No, really. I'd suggest making it. The recipe is here.

Recipes

2009-03-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

The following is a list of recipes that have appeared on this blog. All recipes link to the original post, recipes are either included or hyperlinked in the body of the post.* The list is a work in progress, and can be reached via the permalink on the left-hand menu bar.

Sweet:
Aunt Ida's Honeycake
Bart's Chocolate Cake
Black Dog Bootleg Ginger Cookies (link only)
Carrot Cake
Chocolate-Almond Buttercrunch Toffee (David Lebovitz)
Chocolate Chip Cookies (Jacques Torres via The New York Times)
Cup Custard Easy Jam Tart (David Lebovitz)
French Chocolate Granola (Orangette)
Ginger Molasses Cookies (Curtis and Schwartz Cookbook)
Ginger Snaps (The Art of Simple Food)
Mango Ice Cream
New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies
Nibby Buckwheat Butter Cookies (101 Cookbooks)
Rhubarb-Apricot Oatmeal Muffins
Rhubarb Pie (Orangette)
Soft Glazed Gingerbread (Tartine-link only)
Soft Molasses Cookies ("Joe Froggers") (King Arthur Flour)
Sticky Toffee Pudding (David Lebovitz)
Vegan Beet Cake
Yogurt-Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Rhubarb Compote

Tuesdays with Dorie:
Chipster-Topped Brownies (Dorie Greenspan)
Tartest Lemon Tart
Tiramisu Cake (Dorie Greenspan)
World Peace Cookies (Dorie Greenspan)

Daring Bakers:
Abby's Infamous Cheesecake
Milan and Mallow Cookies
Strudel

Bread:
Adaptable Crackers
Cooked Oatmeal Bread
Judy's No-Knead Corn Rye
Thin Crust Pizza Dough

Savory:
Cucumber-Sesame Salad (Alford & Duguid)
Minimalist Kasha Varnishkes (Mark Bittman)
Roasted Brook Trout
Plump Pea Dumplings (101 Cookbooks)
Potato Pesto Salad
Spaghetti Squash with Ricotta, Sage, and Pine Nuts (The Kitchn)
Tamales

Drinks & Condiments:
Avi's Watermelon-Fennel Salsa
Hot Hesper
Pear Butter (The Traveler's Lunchbox)
Stacey's Signature Salad Dressing

*For copyright reasons, Tuesdays with Dorie recipes have not been listed, but I plan to begin linking to the recipe as posted by the weekly challenge hosts, and will list the links here going forward. (April 21, 2009)

Happy Birthday, Christina's Dad

2009-11-08T07:46:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I featured a guest post, but it was worth the wait. This one is a sweet doozy (yes, more cake) from an old friend and one of my most faithful readers and troubleshooters, Christina.

Hello Second Dinner readers! Katya lived across the hall from me way back during our freshman year of college . . . and I have lots of fond memories of Katya that involve food. She baked cookies in the grimy dorm lounge, hosted latke parties every Hanukkah, and spent lots of time talking with me about Vidalia onions and pomegranates. So I’ve been following her adventures here with interest.

I just entered a period of "funemployment" after three years of long hours at work, and so I’m making up for lost time in the kitchen. Now, I’m a pretty good cook and an okay amateur baker. But even though my cakes always taste fine, they look like they were beaten with the ugly stick. Uneven layers, cracks, crumbs in the frosting – can you say "hot mess"?

Imagine my surprise when I was able to produce the following for my dad’s birthday.

For the first time ever, I managed to bake a cake with a lovely shiny coat of frosting and no messy crumbs poking through! I was so ecstatic that I had to share my good news with Katya, who kindly offered to display my efforts here.

I followed the chocolate layer cake recipe featured at Smitten Kitchen (using the adaptations for 9-inch cake pans) and it baked up like a dream. The layers were nice and even, and super-moist. I made sure to thunk the pans on the counter a few times before baking as per the tips over at SK.

Things always go awry for me once it comes time to frost, probably due to my lack of patience. I’m bad at crumb coats and always have trouble spreading buttercream without ripping off layers of crumbs and getting them scattered all over the place. So, this time, I made sure to bake the cake the day before my dad’s birthday in hopes that the layers would be easier to work with at frosting time. I cooled the layers completely before wrapping them in plastic wrap and then left them in the fridge for 24 hours. I also decided to try a chocolate sour cream frosting (again featured at Smitten Kitchen) in hopes that I would find it more amenable to spreading. Well, it worked like a charm. Frosting this cake was practically effortless since the frosting was so light and easy to work with. Nary a crumb peeked through AND it was absolutely delicious.

My dad loved the cake and thought it tasted even better on day two than on the day it was cut. I think the taste of the sour cream kind of mellowed out a little and melded better with the cake layers. But the best thing about this cake is that it has magical properties. We were able to keep this cake under a dome in the fridge for TWO weeks with no signs of it going bad or getting a stale taste. (My mom can’t eat chocolate and I am limiting my consumption of sweets, so there was a lot of cake left for my dad to tackle.) This is the everlasting gobstopper of birthday cakes!

Many thanks to Katya for letting me guest blog and share my cake-baking excitement. At her urging, and with some trepidation, I will attempt pane genzanese next!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake

2009-11-03T08:08:00.000-08:00

I must have really been missing elaborate cakes. Although if you asked me, I'd almost surely tell you that I love crispy, buttery, nutty desserts, cream and fruit over chocolate, and pies over cakes, somehow when it was my turn to pick the week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, I went all out. I picked the Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake, a three-layer extravaganza filled with chopped nuts and buttery ganache, and then covered in more chocolate glaze. No joke.

The magic word, of course, was chestnuts. No one, not even, I dare to say, an Appalachian farmer living through the winter on them before the blight, could love chestnuts more than I do. I love everything about them, from their hokey homey-ness, their association with fires and hot cider, and their sweet, firm, and slightly dry roasted selves. I love them from street vendors and hot out of the oven. I adore them with brussels sprouts and dream of them in stuffing. Chestnuts are it.

Cake? What cake?
Oh, this one.

As many TWD participants mentioned, this was an extravagant and expensive cake. Over a pound of butter, a pint of cream, and nearly a pound and a half of various chocolates, not to mention the chestnut paste and chopped chestnuts. This was a CAKE. Just thinking about it makes me feel awed and giggly.

It was also a two-day affair. (Some, like the Engineer Baker, made it a one-day affair by skipping out on all the trimmings. As you can see, she was pleased enough by the cake plain and simple. This may be me next time--I'll be making truffles out of my ganache if nobody minds.)

It began with ganache--a stovetop caramel, lightened with cream, flavored with milk and dark chocolates, and thickened with butter. That went into the refrigerator, and on to the cake.
The cake was a butter cake, creamed and sugared, with the addition of a cup of sweetened chestnut paste, and lightened with beaten egg whites. I made mine in a 2"x8" pan and found it filled it nicely, although because the pan was smaller and taller than recommended, it took nearly 45 minutes longer to cook. The cake, wrapped well, went into the refrigerator with the ganache.

Two days later, assembly. Cake was sliced into three layers, and trimmed and leveled to perfection. Each layer was brushed with a syrup of Campari and sugar. Following the syrup, a full cup of ganache was luxuriantly spread over each layer, followed by chopped almonds--(it was supposed to be chopped chestnuts, but the chestnuts at the corner bodega were clearly from last year, dry, hard, and sadly, moldy. I was able to salvage a few for decoration, but the almonds had to do last minute duty. Next time.)

The remaining ganache iced the cake, and then...wait for it...I poured a dark chocolate glaze over that. In the final slices, it was beautiful to see the two layers of color in the chocolate icing. This was serious cake. I had intended to freeze it and present it to my family for Thanksgiving, as I won't be there with them, but there was a more immediate need, and off the cake went to load-in for Granada, my theater company's new play, where dusty and exhausted producers and crew were able to add some richly-deserved chocolatey smears to their talented faces.

Here is the recipe, adapted from its appearance in Bon Appetit in 2005.

Chocolate-Caramel Cake with Gold-Dusted Chestnuts
by Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients:
Caramel ganache
9 ounces high-quality milk chocolate (such as Lindt or Perugina)
3 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (21/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

Cake:
2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups (packed) golden brown sugar, divided
4 large eggs, separated
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup sweetened chestnut spread with vanilla (or several cooked chestnuts spun in the processor with some vanilla and sugar)
1/4 cup whole milk

Brandy syrup
1/4 cup brandy
2 tablespoons golden brown sugar
24 jarred peeled whole chestnuts; 12 coarsely chopped, 12 left whole (about 7.25 ounces)

Glaze
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
Edible gold dust (optional)

Preparation
For ganache:

Combine milk chocolate and bittersweet chocolate in medium bowl. Stir sugar, 2 tablespoons water, and cinnamon stick in heavy medium saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and boil without stirring until syrup turns deep amber, occasionally brushing down sides of pan with wet pastry brush and swirling pan, about 6 minutes (time will vary depending on size of pan). Add cream and salt (mixture will bubble vigorously). Bring caramel to boil, whisking until smooth and caramel bits dissolve, about 1 minute. Discard cinnamon stick. Pour hot caramel over chocolate; stir until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Let stand until completely cool, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour.

Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in chocolate mixture in 4 additions. Cover and refrigerate ganache overnight.

For cake:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 9x9x2-inch metal baking pan. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in 1 cup brown sugar, then egg yolks and vanilla extract. Beat in chestnut spread, then milk. Sift dry ingredients over and gently mix together. Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in another large bowl until soft peaks form. Add remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar and beat until stiff but not dry. Fold egg whites into batter in 3 additions.

Transfer batter to pan. Bake cake until golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 48 minutes. Cut around cake to loosen. Cool cake completely in pan on rack.

For syrup:

Stir brandy and brown sugar in small bowl until sugar dissolves.

To assemble:
Turn cake out onto work surface. Peel off parchment. Using long serrated knife, cut cake horizontally into 3 equal layers. Place 1 cake layer, cut side up, on 8x8-inch cardboard square. Brush cake layer with half of brandy syrup. Spread with 1 cup ganache (ganache may needs some time out of the refrigerator first to become spreadable--KS). Sprinkle with half of chopped chestnuts. Top with second cake layer, cut side up. Repeat with remaining brandy syrup, 1 cup ganache, and remaining chopped chestnuts. Top with remaining cake layer, cut side up. Spread remaining ganache over top and sides of cake. Place cake rack on sheet of foil; place assembled cake on rack. Chill while preparing glaze.

For glaze:
Bring cream, sugar, and 1/4 cup water to boil in heavy medium saucepan, stirring until sugar dissolves. Add chocolate and whisk until melted and glaze is smooth. Let cool until thick but still pourable, about 4 hours (it only took mine about 10 minutes-KS).

Pour glaze atop cake, spreading evenly over sides. Chill until glaze sets.

Brush 12 whole chestnuts with gold dust. Arrange chestnuts across top of cake. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover with cake dome and refrigerate. Let cake stand at least 4 hours and up to 8 hours at room temperature.) Serve cake at room temperature.

BBA Update: Kaiser Rolls and Marble Rye

2009-10-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

I've been holding off posting some recent Bread Bakers Apprentice breads that I've made, because I got a little out of order, but I decided that out of order is better than just sitting on the photos forever--and losing some. I made Reinhart's Kaiser Roll recipe over a month ago, and was really happy with the light, loose, flaky crumb of the final rolls. I somehow failed to save any pictures, though, so you'll have to imagine those until next time.

I did manage to get a few shots of my attempt at Marbled Rye Bread. Here it is, posing with my new toy, a left-handed slicer. I bought the slicer at a tag sale in Park Slope a few weeks ago, eliciting cheers from the crew running the tag sale. The slicer, they said, had been their long shot, almost a joke...i.e...''we'll know we're brilliant salesmen if someone buys that."Although I own a perfectly good serrated knife, I was tempted by the slicer's elegant wooden handle and by the giveaway price, and I bought it.

The rye bread was wonderful, and I'm looking forward to making it again next time I get my hands on some rye flour.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate-Craisin Brownie Un-torte

2009-10-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get a little ahead of myself with Tuesdays with Dorie. I do weird things like bake all the recipes for a month the week that they are announced. While this could be looked on as admirable on-top-of-it-ness, it has a down side. The side where I burn out a bit, and concentrate less on individual dishes. I have it on good authority that my TWD tone has been getting a little flippant. While it's true that anything I do weekly is going to be treated with a little less reverence than once in a lifetime achievements (and isn't that the point of this self-guided baking course?), I do want to do justice to the TWD baking projects, to write thoughtfully, take lovely pictures (hopefully with more step by step footage), and contextualize the posts in the larger TWD universe.

I will continue to substitute ingredients and to play with recipes. Why, after all, does the book have the ubiquitous 'playing around' insert? By and large, TWD is to be part of my weekly routine, and as such, it usually has to fit into my weekly schedule, budget, and supplies. I don't freak out if a recipe goes awry, and I don't twist myself into knots following rules.

But, and this is the point, I do care about what I make, and to re-orient myself to my writing and photography goals, I seized the day when it was my turn to select a recipe, and picked one of the book's most rich, and intricate recipes. The reveal will come next week, but be assured that the pick has already garnered both whines and cheers, ingredient consternation, and general hysteria on the TWD blog. Which of course amuses me no end. What those of you who commented on my 'TWD tone of snark' may not realize is that there is a whole little TWD community chat and comment thread that goes on weekly at www.TuesdayswithDorie.com, and that by the time I come to post about a recipe, I have already seen quite a bit of discussion about problems, questions, substitutions, failures and successes, and so the posts that I post are often positioned in inadvertent relation to that discussion. Some of it leaks into the comments on this site as well, as some of you who know me from non-TWD contexts have noticed. While I'm bemused by the occasional 'buck-up' comment when I haven't expressed self-doubt or dissatisfaction, I generally appreciate the support very much.Sometimes I'm annoyed, sometimes intrigued, often amused, and all of that comes into my commentary on the sweets as well.
For instance, this brownie un-torte. It was going to be a fudge-y brownie filled with kirsch-plumped cherries, topped with a mascarpone cream. It wound up more like a gooey (so gooey it had to be twice-baked) brownie-cake with Campari-plumped-orange-scented craisins, that never quite got topped. It just never quite made it. But, like anything with so much chocolate and orange flavor, it was good.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Sweet Potato Biscuits

2009-10-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

Ooooh, these should have been mine. Thank you Erin of Prudence Pennywise, for getting to them first so that I didn't have to wait. Basic biscuits with a touch of nutmeg, a glop of sweet potato puree, and no one in this house could stop eating them. Those who live nearby (especially in the house) will remember my obsession with Orangette's Sweet Potato Pound Cake. Sweet potato and nutmeg are pretty much my ideal flavor combination. These have the added advantage of speed and sandwich capability. Here's Matt's--turkey, apple butter, cornichons, and dijon mustard.

Well Provided

2009-10-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

Thursday was a cold, wet, and dismal day. The kind of day where I take a train all the way to midtown and then fail to complete an errand because I can't bear the five block walk from the train through the tourists. It was also the kind of day that lets me know just how much I am loved.

First, a new neighbor came over for pie. Just stopped over, had some coffee, chatted, and took some pie. Could it be that Brooklyn is finally becoming, at least in part, the drop-in culture I dream of? Probably not, but it's a step in the right direction.

Then, I got to have dinner with Jill. Jill has known me for roughly eighteen years, and loved me for roughly thirteen of those. I don't grudge the first five, because the rest has been so good. Over the years,
Jill has pushed me, praised me to the skies, yelled at me, yelled with me, sung with me, done for me, and even lived with me. Through it all, she has loved me, and she tells me so after every time I see her. I love her too, and am always grateful for her talent, her questions, and her constant loyalty, memory, and curiosity.

After dinner, I came home wet and freezing to one more good thing. I knew that Matt had just had surprise oral surgery, so I wasn't expecting much in the way of conversation even, much less presents. But a large brown box was waiting for me in the hallway, with CSA vegetables on top and something even better on the bottom.

Last week, I posted about my ever-growing and obsessive desire for produce in large quantities. I wrote about it as a hunger for the more rural landscape of my childhood, as a desire for more than enough, for fullness and safety. Stacey has confessed on more than one occasion that she has a similar relationship with squash. Too many squash in the house, she admits, gives her a feeling of safety. Every time I go to the farmer's market, I think about all the security those tables and tables of multi-colored squash could give, and sometimes I get her a little one for a present. Sometimes I get one for myself as well.

Clearly, my loved ones took that post to heart, or just knew it well already. I got an email from my mother the other day telling me that she was blackening her hands cracking black walnuts for me (what black walnuts? from where? had we discussed this or did she just assume (rightly) that I would want any black walnuts upon which she stumbled?). And Matt, when he showed at the end of CSA pickup swollen and craving soft foods, knew me well enough that when the site coordinator told him to take all the apples he wanted, he took the whole box, and carried it proudly home for me. I danced around and couldn't stop exclaiming for hours. He knows me, this man, and he loves me. And he's a good provider. A whole cellar of squash couldn't make me feel so warm inside.

As for the outside, I think I definitely need some new boots and slippers. So I can shuffle around the house making apple butter, of course.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Allspice Crumb Muffins

2009-10-13T04:54:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about Tuesdays with Dorie is that it, like the book, is pleasantly inconsistent. Recipes vary from complicated to barely noticeable in terms of effort, tastes vary from rich chocolate to gentle almond or coconut. Some weeks it's three layer cake, some weeks it's streusel muffins or cup custard. Some weeks I carefully create a dessert, some weeks I off-handedly throw some things in a bowl. As long as I don't take it too seriously, TWD is endlessly adaptable to my moods, ingredient stock, and time constraints. And I don't take it too seriously--after all, my goal is a familiar and easy working familiarity with Dorie Greenspan's repertoire and style. This isn't a pastry class, and it isn't a contest. Sometimes I plate, sometimes I gobble. Sometimes I leave off toppings. But slowly and happily, my understanding of the pastry world grows and deepens, and Dorie-in-the-book and I have developed a good working relationship.

She likes cute names and creamy toppings a bit more than I do. But she also knows a lot more about the wonders of sables and pudding than I ever dreamed. And sometimes all that mascarpone really makes it. The chance to gently absorb the work of this woman who has helped the world absorb the work of so many others is always interesting.

This week was one of those stick it in the bowl, figure it will be fine, weeks. And it was. And Matt liked both these buttery beasts of Allspice Crumb Muffins and the fat-free, oat bran heavy, apple muffins from the new Moosewood cookbook equally. My streusel wasn't all that crumbly, but I attribute that to general lack of paying much attention to what I was doing, and to quartering the recipe.

Carrot Harvest

2009-10-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

The night before last, we harvested the final vegetables from our roof garden. The last to leave the ground were the scraggly little garden's dark horse, planted on a whim--the bucket carrots. All summer, we babied them and marveled at them, amazed that something so substantial as a carrot could really grow on our city rooftop.

Along the way, we pulled one or two, but left the bulk of the carrot harvest until the cold snap snapped and we hoped they'd be sweet and and as large as they could be.

I'd like to say that we harvested at night because we'd consulted several almanacs, the entrails of a chicken, and one or two oracles to find the exact perfect phase of the moon and pollen count at which to harvest, but really that was just when we got around to it.

Look at them!

We grew them, on our roof!
And, even more amazingly, our strawberry plant is still flowering.

Must transplant ASAP. But first, just another few minutes to admire the baby carrots. (posing with CSA carrots)

Tuesdays with Dorie: Split-Level Pudding

2009-10-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

On the bottom: Chocolate Ganache

On top: Vanilla Pudding

Problems: None.

Pudding? Mmmm,

This One's For Frances

2009-10-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

Fall makes me ravenous. Summer and fall and harvest and suddenly I crave half-bushel bags of apples, piles of tomatoes, plums, corn, quinces, and bathtub-sized piles of grapes. Here in Brooklyn, it gets sunny, smells sweet, and then the leaves turn and the wind picks up and winter comes, but it is never quite summer, never quite fall. The CSA has gone a long way toward countering this, but even with the piles and piles of anything imaginable at the farmers market, something of abundance is missing. Which is another way of saying that I can never really quite get my fix until I have too many, too much of something. Twelve pounds of blueberries was just a warm-up. Next to having the garden myself, I want neighbors, abandoned trees on public land, and, more realistically, farm stands with generous deals on blemished or overabundant produce.

Since I was being (happily) drafted for foraging expeditions from a very young age, I can't pretend ignorance of the origins of my hunger. This one is squarely in my mother's court. It was she who brought me to strawberry and raspberry pick-your-owns before busybodies thought I'd be able to tell ripe from green, and she who talked the old woman down the block into letting us clear her sour cherry tree for years. My father was no slouch himself, and we often found ourselves deep in the grounds Northampton's recently defunct State Mental Hospital--not so incidentally his old employer--raiding the neglected orchards for peaches and the rampant brambles for blackberries. Whatever we could come by or grow in quantity was the prize, and in my greedy childhood confidence I came to understand that only too much is enough, and that, when it came to fruit and my family, too much was more of an academic concept than a concrete reality.

These days, I live in a city--one with wonderful farmers markets--and my fruit budget, even when maxed out, is measured more in pounds or single fruits than in bushels. While I always have some, I rarely have flats and piles, and it's almost never cheap, let alone free. We're working on growing, but we're not quite there yet--total home fruit crop this summer was four sweet and unexpected late-August strawberries. (I'm transplanting the runners, crossing my fingers, and hoping for the best--what's the best way to keep them alive overwinter?) I love nostalgia and longing as much as the next girl, but when it's fruit I can't just wallow, I need action.

I teach myself foraging skills, and hunt mulberries, juneberries, and black locust flowers right in my neighborhood. I also make sourcing trips to Northampton several times a year, cramming the rituals of the seasons into hurried weekend trips. March or April is for sugaring, and carrying home the gallon jug. June and July are for berries, and rhubarb, and August begins the blueberries. In September or October, I turn to my old home again for Yom Kippur and big bags of 'utility' apples from Outlook Farm. It may seem single-minded, but for me it's how I rejoice, and how I connect. And how I eat.

And when I can't find a way to satisfy my need for seasonal abundance completely, I trick myself into satiety by making Frances the badger's favorite--jam.

Preserving, by its very nature, breathes abundance--enough for the next day, and the next, and for the whole winter. I've already written about the wineberry jelly (note that I spent my birthday picking fruit. This is how important it is), my most ambitious project to date. This fall, it's been jams and butters.First, greengage plum jam, tart and squishy, followed by tomato puree, then apple butter, and now pear cardamom butter. Corn kernels from the CSA put up in bags with their milk. I've been freezing, eating, or giving away, rather than really canning, because the batches are too small to make even small batch canning impractical. I doubt we'll be provisioned too deep into the winter, but the long hours of slow simmering, stirring, tasting, and getting everything sticky have started to calm something deep inside of me, some primal agricultural hunger. Now I can begin to let the old year go, and turn toward winter with at least one or two little jars of summer abundance distilled and waiting, sweet and sticky.

The harvest isn't quite over, though...our carrots are sweetening on the roof. The last of the fruit, though, was picked on Friday, over the phone. I called my mother, and asked her about the state of the next door neighbors' quinces, which I've been absconding with for the last few years (like mother, like daughter). She, able co-conspirator that she is, was out the door with the phone still in hand, and long before our conversation was over, had filled a bag with fallen fruit. Yes, I come by it honestly. And sweetly.What you might call a goodly heritage.

Campfire Cooking

2009-09-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Blueberry barrens, Maine

This summer, we did some wandering. We wandered all through New England and bits of upstate New York. Sometimes we stayed in houses, sometimes we stayed in a tiny tent, sometimes we travelled by car,and sometimes by canoe, but always we made fires, and we experimented with the art of campfire cooking.

Cooking over a campfire is both simpler and more complicated than cooking in a kitchen. There is no running water, temperature regulation, stocked pantry, or fancy appliances. These limitations, possibly frustrating in the long run, are just the incentive for good ideas in the short. I didn't miss the complications I usually love. We just made food.

This trip was one of the first times I've gone beyond just skewering food or boiling water over a campfire. Yes, we certainly had wonderfully skewered vegetables, even the ridiculously decadent bacon-wrapped steak, but we also tried our hand at dutch oven cuisine--more specifically, cornbread. Of course it burned, but it was a small revelation to me, a confirmation of the truth that I could live well with only a wood fire and one or two utensils, could live well and eat well outside for a long time.

I left this post unwritten for a long time, because our final camping trip of the season was this past weekend. In the end, we didn't cook anything particularly noteworthy, but just being out there burning wood reminded me of all the pleasures of cooking outside, the kind of pleasures a grill never quite duplicates--the gritty ash, the sweet burning smells, the communal attention to the pot and the skewer, the hungry dog blissfully licking the grill, and best of all, waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night in the light of the good fire.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Crunched Tart

2009-09-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

I made this tart on the same day that I made last week's pufflets, and brought them both in to work. The 'turnovers' got a good response, but they couldn't touch the tart. In fact, once I finally located an implement (back of a fork) with which to cut the tart, one eater informed me that they made the turnovers 'taste like dirt,' and another told me that it was the best thing to happen to him since the office had moved a week and a half ago. Not bad.

The dessert in question, which can turn others to dirt and liven the days of very very put upon receptionists, was a tart layered with chocolate ganache and nutted caramel. It was supposed to have a tart crust, but I accidentally made Dorie's pie crust instead (it's on the page following the tart dough) and didn't bother to correct the mistake. Because I also didn't bother to allow the caramel layer to chill a while, it kind of blended into the crust and into the upper chocolate layer, which muted the effect but kept the taste wonderful. This kind of thing is not my dessert of choice, but no one can deny its near universal appeal (and it is good). Even Matt, though, who loves chocolate, said it well when he said it wasn't much different from eating hot fudge out of the jar. I can't explain why that's not as good a thing as it sounds like. I think, with my love of salt caramel, I would have preferred it with the layers unblended. Or just a great big fistful of salt caramel would be fine too.

Husk Tomatoes!

2009-09-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

As a Farmer's Market hound, I'm a sucker for the unusual, the heirloom, and the new. I buy my broccoli and beans, and love them, but my attention is always caught by the oddly colored tomato, the new herb, the strange varietal and foraged stuff. At Wednesday's Union Square Market, I tasted a vegetable I had tried and failed to order from my favorite heirloom seed catalog for the roof garden--the Mexican Sour Gherkin. This is a quarter-length pellet shaped little cucumber cousin, with markings like a watermelon, and a juicy interior somewhere between a lemony cucumber and a berry. Those were fun, but they were expensive, and I was thrilled to come home to some exotica right in my CSA box.

This week's share included, in addition to corn, lettuce, bitter greens, kale, beets, potatoes, wax beans, tomatoes, eggplant, and onions, a handful of tiny yellow husk tomatoes, or cape gooseberries. Hearing that these little sweetish seedy berries were superfoods, I had bought a bag of them dried at Trader Joes a few years ago. Bitter, odd, and full of seeds, they were not successful in muffins nor in granola, and languished in the freezer for years until I finally threw them out. The fresh version is luckily more palatable, but still odd. Mildly sweet, with a bit of an edge, Matt compared them to blueberries, then grapes, and they also do resemble the fruit whose name they stole, the tomato, but mostly they are their own, and I'm happy to have a chance to explore them.

There are so many kinds of edible fruit and vegetables in the world, and I feel like my diet is so limited, embraces so few of the possibilities. I love sampling new fruits in markets I visit (and in my own) and imagining how my life would be if a food I'd barely heard of (say taro) were to become my staple.

BBA "French" and "Italian" Breads

2009-09-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a little event at a downtown bookstore that featured Amanda Hesser (NYT Food Writer), Julie Powell (Julie & Julia, and Judith Jones (Editor for Practically Everyone I Can Think Of) speaking about the enduring legacy of Julia Child. Hesser was concise and incisive, Powell voluble and mobile--intensely thoughtful, and Jones warmly patrician, with practiced delivery and a well-developed sense of humor.

I enjoyed the opportunity to listen to these three ladies, to hear the 'real' voices of the literary voices I've read eagerly. I was a little disappointed in the quality and quantity of the questions ("Did you really eat aspic?), but since I didn't ask any myself, can't really complain.

The event did make me confront an issue I've been wrestling a bit with, which is the focus and style of this very blog. I know food blogs are a dime a dozen, but I do enjoy mine (and enjoy my cooking more), and I want to spend some real time working on the quality of the writing here. It's going to take attention, and time. Ideally, each post would be a well-thought-out, honest, mini-essay, with something new to say or instruct, possibly some good links, and connected to an overarching goal or writing persona that is uniquely mine. Writers like John Thorne and Julie Powell have raised the bar in their different ways, daring me to engage with the food I make on a visceral and intellectual level, to examine it from the vantage of appetite and history and my honest understanding of self and family. Perhaps tellingly, neither of these writers use photographs or pictures on a regular basis. They rely on the quality of their prose and the urgency of their interest and passion. I could read John Thorne's work forever, and while he comfortably fills his own niche, he makes me believe there might be a niche for me as well.

This is just to say, look out for some longer musing and hopefully some material more probing than 'I made this! It was good!" though there will be those as well.

By the way, as a part of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, I made these French and Italian style breads. They were good. I present the recipes together because they are essentially the same. Both begin with a prefermented dough to simulate the leftover dough that would be used in a similar bakery recipe (Once again I wasn't on top of it enough to just save some of the French Bread dough to make the Italian...go me). The method continues exactly the same (the Italian gets a little sugar and oil enrichment along the way) until the shaping. For the French, I made one baguette, one batard, and one little round loaf. I turned the Italian dough into a pile of picturesque little rolls.

Both formulae produced sturdy, flavorful sandwich breads. Matt's happiness as being able to have a simple turkey sandwich was a firm reminder to make this kind of bread more often. I preferred the Italian style, in as much as there was a difference, but that might just have been my fondness for the little roll shapes.

Bags of CSA

2009-09-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

CSA this week was bountiful, even though we were back to sharing our share. Wax beans, the last of the tomatoes, oak leaf lettuce, broccoli, arugula, frying peppers, onions, fennel, and garlic, some of which have yet to be touched and some of which went into the making of a simple holiday meal of catfish, Lee Bros. cornbread and tomato salad, and green beans.

I'm also back on a rice and asian foods kick, and when dinner often involves stir fried or fake-wok-fried dishes like lo mein or fried rice, I'd discovering that lettuce makes a great (lightly) cooked vegetable. Which is good, because I often forget to make green salads and wind up letting it go to waste. Between the panzanella kick and the wok kick, though, I don't think there's much danger of that left.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Cottage Cheese Pufflets

2009-09-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

First turnovers, now pufflets. These desserts appear in the cookie section of the book, but they are pretty much turnovers by another name, a very soft, flaky, deeply sticky dough. The chilled product seemed more like a very thick cake batter than a full on pie dough, but I underchilled it a bit, so perhaps the fact that it wasn't that easy to work with was my fault. The final product was turnover-like in feeling, but actually better than the flaky turnovers (at least this time--such temperamental doughs probably take a while to sort out to the point where they're consistent).

For the filling, I used gooseberry jam that I bought out of curiosity. Deeply ingrained associations ensured that most of the people who ate them referred to them as 'apple' turnovers regardless.