The two days of Christmas

When I was a little girl, Christmas was a spiny, sparkly tree floating on a sea of shiny, sparkly boxes. I’d wait 364 long days for a few hours of stockings and presents, a morning so exhilarating and so exhausting that I’d spend the afternoon comatose on the green shag carpet of our living room, my arms locked around the day’s best loot. But like most things, from monkeys to morals, Christmas evolves. In my case, it evolved from the living room to the kitchen, from the twinkly tree to the blue-flamed stove, and from tissue-wrapped stuffed bears to foil-tented roasted turkeys. If nothing else, that’s got to be proof of some sort of intelligent design—or at the very least, of good breeding.

In my family, Christmas takes place in the kitchen. You’ve heard the old saying: give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile. Well, give us Christmas, and we’ll turn it into 48 hours in the kitchen, a 25-pound turkey, five quarts of asparagus soup, four dozen scones, three gallons of egg nog, two dozen biscuits, two fillets of beef Wellington, a case of Veuve Clicquot, and a bushel of spinach, creamed.

This year we descended fifteen-strong upon the home of my brother David and his wife Carée, and though the house was plenty roomy, we made quite a crowd in the kitchen. In the weeks beforehand, David set the ground rules—Christmas Eve would be beef, and Christmas Day turkey—and we set out planning menus, making lists, and calling dibs. David and Carée would take care of the beef, the turkey, the oysters, wine, champagne, egg nog, cheeses, creamed spinach, sautéed mushrooms, and snacks, should we need them. My sister Lisa would make a cream of asparagus soup, cranberry sauce, two flans, stuffing, a chocolate-pecan tart, and of course, her Scottish scones. My mother would make her favorite bread pudding: layers of buttered bread sandwiching mincemeat and marmalade, doused with cream and eggs, baked until puffy as a quilted pillow, and slathered with hard sauce. My niece Hillary would make silky salt-roasted fennel with olives and herbs, a grapefruit-pomegranate tart, a salad with arugula and pears, and for breakfast, lemon-ricotta pancakes and truffled egg toasts. I offered biscuits, butternut squash purée with maple syrup, and leeks with cream and tarragon, baked to limber and lush. And for his part, my nephew Brian would wander the house with his new kid-friendly cookbook, pointing at the pictures of paella and folding down pages.

Needless to say, we had food enough for twelve days of Christmas, but being of strong constitution and eager appetite, we made quick work of it in two. We shared oven mitts and clinked glasses; we spilled, toasted, and went teary-eyed; and come bedtime, we each slept as though we’d eaten for three—which we had, for better or for worse.

And 360-some days from now, we’ll do it all over again. In the meantime, I plan on a 2006 full of excuses for champagne and a full kitchen, menus and lists and, first of all, those leeks. In fact, I’d be baking up a batch for New Year’s Eve, had I not already called dibs on a different sort of dish, one involving a party dress—black! strapless! with feathers!—and Balthazar, Brandon, and a very Big Apple.


Leeks with Cream and Tarragon
Adapted from Fresh from the Farmers’ Market


We served these leeks with beef Wellington, but they would be a lovely compliment to any roasted meat. The original recipe calls for a full teaspoon of tarragon, but being easily overwhelmed by its assertive flavor, I prefer my version with a bit less. I want just a whiff of tarragon, just enough to lend intrigue to the leeks’ unctuous bath of broth and cream.

8 leeks, each about ¾ inch in diameter
½ cup heavy cream
½ cup homemade or good-quality chicken broth
½ - ¾ tsp minced fresh tarragon
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cut off the dark green tops of the leeks, leaving only the white and pale green stalk. Trim the roots away, but leave the base intact. Cut the leeks in half lengthwise, leaving about 1 ½ inches together and uncut at the root end, so that the leeks will remain intact in the oven. One by one, rinse each leek under cool water, taking care to wash away any dirt trapped between its layers. Arrange the leeks in a shallow baking dish just large enough to hold them in a single layer.

In a small bowl, whisk together the heavy cream, chicken broth, tarragon, and a pinch or two each of salt and pepper. Pour the mixture over the leeks, and slide them into the preheated oven. Bake for 30 minutes; then remove the leeks from the oven and turn them over with tongs. Return them to the oven and continue baking for an additional 30 to 45 minutes, until they are lightly golden and very tender and have absorbed most of the creamy sauce. Serve hot or warm.

Yield: about 6 servings

Scone City

Once again, I’m hawking priceless family treasures over at Seattlest. Last week, it was my great-grandfather’s swashbucklingly boozy egg nog, and this week, it’s my sister’s scones.


Each Christmas, my sister Lisa takes a simple recipe for Scottish scones—a formula given to her, appropriately, by a Scottish friend—and spins it into a half-dozen delicious varieties. In our family, these scones are a much-anticipated Christmas-morning tradition—perfect for eating with one hand while tearing at wrapping paper with the other, and with nary a greasy fingerprint to be found. I’ve written previously about a summery rendition of these rugged beauties, but come Christmas, it’s only appropriate to trot them out again—and this time, in a warming, wintery incarnation spiked with crystallized ginger and daintily freckled with finely chopped pistachios.

If you’re looking for me next Sunday morning, head for Washington, D.C., and follow the crumbs.

Happy holidays, very dear reader. xo

The art of so-called side dishes

Maybe it is a product of our time, a generational thing, or just a matter of pheromones, but I keep falling in love with vegetarians. I spent nine years in their camp, so perhaps I’m predisposed. I may dally with a meat-and-potatoes man, but fate has it that my love is meant for herbivores only. One might argue that my sample size of two is too small for statistical significance, but it’s all I intend to have, and that’s significant enough for me. The first man to win my cooing and swooning was a devout vegan with the bumper stickers to show for it, and together we lasted for three meatless—if occasionally buttery, and blissful—years. The second has, in the twenty-four years since his birth, not once eaten meat, but his palate has ventured farther than most ardent omnivores. I refer, of course, to my wonderfully food-obsessed New Yorker. If push came to shove, I’d take him over a plate of sausage any day, and as you know, dear reader, that is saying a lot.

But no amount of love can change a cold, hard fact: the holidays are a lonely time to be a vegetarian. With a turkey here and a roost goose there, here a tenderloin, there a spiral-sliced ham, everywhere a canapé involving caviar or crustaceans, December can be a cold, mean month. There is Tofurky for the brave, but faced with such odds, the braver will abstain. There are mashed potatoes, breads, biscuits, and yams this way or that, but no matter how many starches on the plate, they do not a meal make. All too often, a table set around meat—as most holiday tables are—looks a little off-kilter when its fleshly centerpiece is removed. A well-stocked plate has an intrinsic balance, an organization that depends on a variety of flavors and textures, a nebulous something that lands softly but satisfyingly on the tongue. So while I am solidly a meat-eating girl, the love of a good vegetarian has taught me a keen respect for the art of so-called side dishes, the sides that make a main meat irrelevant. When I say side dish, I mean creamy, garlicky, herb-flecked white beans.


Though humble to the eye, this silky, lusty purée sings in the mouth. Unabashedly aromatic with garlic, olive oil, rosemary, and sage, it perfumes the entire kitchen with a warm and welcome mid-winter rush of fresh herbs. These beans have appeared at my family’s Christmas parties and its bat mitzvahs—a testament, one could say, to our interfaith gourmandism, but more accurately, to this purée’s universal appeal. On the plate, it plays well with pork, beef, or poultry but is sturdy enough to take center stage among herbivores, carnivores, and those in between. It’s good enough for the love of a good vegetarian, and as you know, dear reader, that is saying a lot.


Dreamy White Beans
Adapted from Mollie Katzen’s Vegetable Heaven

These beans are wonderfully easy and effortless to make, requiring only the foresight to soak the beans a day ahead of time. As a side note, please forgive the recipe’s title; it is Mollie Katzen’s, not mine, and as Brandon notes, “She’s such a hippie.” Nonetheless, I owe her quite a debt of gratitude, and soon, you may too.

2 cups dried white beans, soaked overnight and drained
2 large rosemary sprigs
About 12 sage leaves, tied together with string
1 ½ Tbs minced fresh garlic
1 tsp salt, or more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil, for serving
Good-quality balsamic vinegar, for serving

Place the beans in a large pot, and cover them by 2 inches with cold water. Add the rosemary and sage, and bring the pot to a boil over medium-high heat. When the water boils, lower the heat slightly and maintain the pot at a simmer, skimming off any white foam that rises to the surface, until the beans are tender, about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, place a large bowl in the sink, and set a colander inside the bowl. When the beans are ready, remove the herbs, and drain the beans into the colander, reserving their cooking liquid in the bowl beneath.

Place the drained beans, garlic, salt, and a grind or two of pepper in the bowl of a food processor, add a ½ cup or so of the reserved cooking liquid, and process to puree, adding more liquid until the beans reach your desired consistency. You can make them fairly thick, like rustic mashed potatoes, or you can add more water to make them a thinner, spoonable puree. I like them somewhere in between.

Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary. Spoon the puree into a large bowl, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and serve.

Yield: about 6 servings.

Seattle(st)’s Best Egg Nog

Over at Seattlest, I’m revealing the age-old secrets of my family’s egg nog recipe, passed down from my maternal great-grandfather J. P. Hartt. This is the stuff of legends, dear reader, and it’s been corrupting the youth of my family for generations. We’ve never been a video-camera kind of gang, but our one family gathering on tape, the Christmas of 1987, is now famous for my (then) eight-year-old cousin Katie’s announcement that her favorite part of the holiday was “drinking egg nog with boooooze in it.”

Egg nog gets a bad rap* in some circles today, and it’s no wonder: all too often, it’s nasty, viscous, cloying stuff, no better than cheap melted ice cream. J. P. Hartt’s rendition is the greatest of exceptions. Smooth, sophisticated, and with a slurpability that belies its richness, it is subtly sweet and, needless to say, very, very boozy. Cheers to you and yours, from me and mine.


*If you are concerned about the safety (or lack thereof) of using raw eggs, please read my notes in the comments section of the post.

A coming-of-age, in cookies

It may have notoriously waving wheat and pastures full of prime Angus steak, but truth be told, Oklahoma’s food scene is most famous—in certain very exclusive, you understand, very select circles—for my mother’s holiday baking. For nearly twenty years, December was no ordinary month on my mother’s calendar: it was a series of nut-filled, chocolate-covered, butter-rich weeks, of afternoons spent churning out cookies, candies, chocolates, bars, and toffees by the dozen. When it began, I had a pacifier; when it ended, I had half a college diploma; and along the way, I had a sequence of fickle love affairs with nearly every confection my mother made. Some measure maturity in birthdays, milestones, firsts, or lasts, but I plot my personal chronology in Christmas cookies.

As is often the case, mine was a humble beginning. My mother’s Christmas cookie tin was a gorgeous, glamorous thing, but in the early days, I only had eyes for a modest, brown, burnt-sugar candy called Aunt Bill’s. Endemic to the South and a few lucky Plains states, it is creamy, chewy stuff, the flavor of praline melded with the texture of fudge, made from butter, sugar, cream, pecans, and inordinate amounts of muscular stirring. Tooth-achingly good, Aunt Bill’s candy was just the thing for a pre-adolescent sweet tooth—until, of course, I tasted chocolate “rads,” the dark, crackly, bittersweet chocolate-on-chocolate cookies that would usher me into puberty. But before another holiday season had passed, I had already begun a slow turn toward the Linzer cookie, classic and classy in its fancy powdered sugar coat, with a nutty almond base and rosy raspberry filling. Then, at age eighteen, I thought I had at long last found the final frontier in a now-crunchy, now-melty mouthful of coffee-walnut toffee. But I was mistaken. I had not yet tasted a chocolate-dipped fruit-nut ball.


My mother had been making them since the late 1980s, when the recipe was published in Gourmet, but for reasons of irrational childhood prejudice and suspicion of not-too-sweet sweets, the fruit-nut ball had never crossed my lips. In the end, that fateful first bite only took place because I was stuck in an airport somewhere between Oklahoma and California, in transit back to college after Christmas and cursed with a long layover. I was hungry, and by chance, I had a tin of my mother’s cookies stashed in my bag. They were intended for my freshman advisor, a lovely South Indian woman who had invited me “home” for countless dals and curries and was long overdue for proper thanks—but, I told myself, with a little rearranging of the tin’s contents, she’d never know that something was missing. I studied the tin, reasoning that the fruit-nut ball—though untested and, frankly, unpromising—might be my best bet: it seemed at least remotely healthy, and since it was obviously the dud of the bunch, I wouldn’t be depriving my friend of anything particularly good. So I plucked one from the tin, careful not to disturb its neighbors, and I took a bite.


The chocolate cap gave way to a rush of powdered sugar, and beneath it, a soft, dark, winy chew. The dried fruits and walnuts, finely chopped and held together only by a splash of juice, had morphed together into a third something, a flavor at once floral and musky, almost alcoholic, simple on the page but complex on the tongue. It was sophisticated, adults-only stuff from the first bite to the fourth ball, which I handily tucked away shortly before boarding. Needless to say, the tin never found its way out of my dorm room, and eight years later, I still find myself stuck on the chocolate-dipped fruit-nut ball—not a cookie in the strict sense, perhaps, but certainly a coming-of-age.


Chocolate-Dipped Fruit-Nut Balls
Inspired by Gourmet, March 1986

My mother and I find that these little confections improve with time, so for maximum enjoyment, plan to stash them in the fridge for a few days before eating. I like them best cold from the fridge, but then again, I also like cold meatballs and cold stewed prunes. I also like doing my Christmas cooking and baking to the tune of Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” played over and over, very loud and passionately lip-synced. I trust you’ll do what feels best.

1 cup walnuts
½ lb dried cherries
½ lb dried Turkish figs
½ lb dried apricots
½ lb dried pitted prunes
1-2 Tbs fruit juice, such as good apple cider, or fruit-flavored liqueur
Powdered sugar, for dredging
8 ounces good-quality semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Place the walnuts in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, and process them to chop finely. Remove the walnuts to a large mixing bowl.

Rinse the bowl of food processor, wipe it dry, and fill it with the dried fruit. Pulse the machine to chop the fruit finely. You don’t want to turn the fruit into a gummy purée, but you do want it to be chopped finely enough that there are no pieces larger than a pea. Remove the fruit to the bowl with the walnuts, and stir them to mix. Add 1 Tbs fruit juice or liqueur, and stir to combine. Pinch off a smallish wad of the fruit-nut mixture: when you roll it between your palms, does it hold together in a tight ball? If not, add a bit more juice or liqueur until it does.

Pour about ½ cup of powdered sugar into a small bowl; you can add more later, if needed. Pinching off little mounds of the fruit-nut mixture, shape them into 1-inch balls, roll each ball lightly in powdered sugar to coat, and place them on a baking sheet. Let the balls stand at room temperature, uncovered, for 24 hours.

Line a second baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat, and keep it close at hand. In the top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Remove it from the heat. Using a teaspoon, plop and dab and shake chocolate onto half of each ball; you may want to do this over the sink, wasteful though it may be, rather than over the bowl of chocolate—otherwise your melted chocolate may be contaminated by sprinkles of powdered sugar. Place the balls on the lined baking sheet, and place them in the refrigerator until the chocolate has hardened. Tuck each ball into a small candy or cupcake cup, and store them in an airtight container, chilled, for up to 2 weeks.

Yield: About 50 balls.

Saving the holidays, one macaroon at a time

This week’s installment of Seattlest finds me conquering the Christmastime cheese ball and supplanting it with more readily edible—and enjoyable—homemade holiday gifts. Each December, I relish the chance to hole up in my kitchen and churn out dozens of delicious things to give away, and I can’t help but spread the gospel.

Though there is certainly no shortage of wonderful holiday treats making their way around the web, I’ll be calling your attention to a few of my own favorites over the next three weeks. First on the list is a plain, simple, and delicious coconut macaroon,

adapted from Tom’s Big Dinners, by Seattle culinary celebrity (and recent “Iron Chef” winner) Tom Douglas. I love a good macaroon, as I’ve already made clear, and Douglas’s is no exception. While my usual chocolate-covered rendition is rich, moist, and toothsomely dense, his is lighter than air, with a sweet meringue base to give it a chewy, fluffy interior and a shatteringly crisp shell. I'm hard put to say which version I prefer, but the ease—and, dare I say, dirty-snowball appearance—of these makes them a shoo-in for the season.

Plain Jane, with chickpeas

Peanut butter on toast. A soft-boiled egg with salt and pepper. Butternut squash boiled in cider and mashed. A carrot dunked in lemon-tahini dressing. A cold apple, cored and cut into sixths. Spaghetti squash with sea salt. A glass of milk and a pile of graham crackers. Three-quarters of my diet looks and sounds like something you’d find on the tray of a high chair, or at snack time in preschool. I’m totally blowing my cover, I know. There’s much to be said—and written—for complexity, for nuanced flavors and saucy, sophisticated stuff, but dear reader, woman does not live on intricately crafted dishes alone. I love my salt cod tarts and my soufflés, my hand-rolled pastas and panades, but plain, uncomplicated Jane is also pretty in her own way. Give me a handful of Newman’s arrowroot alphabet cookies and I’ll play contentedly for hours.

Daily life may not be photogenic, and no one needs instructions for putting peanut butter on bread, but I’ve been woefully remiss in giving good, gritty, everyday grub its due. Some dishes are quiet; they don’t sit up and tell stories begging to be written and retold. Instead, they get under our skin and into our kitchens in other ways, namely through outright, all-out, drag-down deliciousness. Take, for example, my favorite spin on the beans-‘n-greens genre, a dish I’ve made no fewer than four times in as many weeks: braised winter greens with chickpeas, onions, and garlic.

These days, most of us have eaten our fill of wilted greens, whether in a salad or as a ubiquitous restaurant side dish, sautéed with olive oil and lemon. But cooked more slowly, braised with only a few clinging drops of liquid and a couple of aromatics, winter greens arrive at the table a different dish entirely, one I’m hard put to put down. Longer, gentler cooking brings out a low, earthy sweetness in chard, collards, or kale, an uncanny flavor that plays well with other things grown close to the ground. The coarse, dark leaves slowly melt into a tangle with onion, garlic, and olive oil, handily trapping nutty, sweet chickpeas onto the fork. It’s a dish perfectly calibrated in its simplicity: a handful of common, everyday ingredients treated uncommonly well, with no sauces or emulsions, no garnish or glitter, no adornments or adult-rated appointments. And for me and Plain Jane, it’s happily so.



Braised Winter Greens with Chickpeas, Onions, and Garlic
Adapted from Fresh from the Farmers’ Market, by Janet Fletcher

This dish sounds so commonplace that I’ve been hesitant to write about it, but its flavors are so unusually well-balanced that I don’t want to keep it to myself. It would be a delicious side for sausages, roasted pork, or roasted chicken, and it would make a welcome bed for a poached egg. Most often, though, I take it as a perfectly plain, perfectly satisfying main dish, with fruit, cheese, and bread to make a hearty meal. It’s ideal for these mid-holiday times, when we find ourselves otherwise surrounded by cookies and cakes and heavy-handed spicing.

The original version of this recipe calls for only chard, but I prefer to use the pretty “sauté mix” from Willie Green’s Organic Farm, which—as far as I can tell—contains ruby chard as well as young leaves from Lacinato (also known as dino) kale, green Winterbor kale, purple Redbor kale, and maybe even mustard greens. I’ve also used collard greens, and to very good effect. These latter greens are a bit heartier than chard, so if you use them, which I highly recommend, choose specimens that are on the younger, more delicate end of the spectrum. I don’t recommend spinach, which goes limp and slippery almost the second it hits the pan. Whatever you use, make sure they are fresh, good-tasting greens with crisp, plump-looking leaves. This recipe is the ultimate in simplicity, so be sure to use the best ingredients possible.

2 bunches chard, kale, collard, or other winter greens, about 1 ½ pounds total
3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, minced
½ medium yellow or red onion, minced
1 can (15 ½ ounces) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Salt
1 ½ tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Trim the central ribs from the greens, and discard them. You should wind up with about 1 pound of leaves, or a bit less. Wash them well in a pan of water, and drain them well in a colander. Some water will cling to the leaves, and don’t worry—you want it to. Stack the leaves a few at a time, and slice them crosswise into ¼-inch-wide ribbons. Set them aside.

In a 12-inch skillet, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion, and sauté until the onion is soft and edging toward translucent, about 5-10 minutes. Add the chickpeas, and stir to mix. Add the greens, season well with salt, and stir and fold gently to blend. The leaves are bulky, so you may need to add them in batches, letting them cook down slightly before adding more. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the leaves have wilted enough that you can cover the skillet. Cover, lower the heat—you want to keep the contents of the pan cooking gently and slowly, with no aggressive sizzling or burning—and cook until the greens are tender, about 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the lemon juice.

Serve warm or at room temperature, but not hot. Taste and adjust the seasoning just before plating.

Yield: 6 side-dish servings, or 2-3 main-dish servings

The best laid plans, and a Linzer tart

I started with the best of intentions. When I set out for Oklahoma a week ago, I planned to return with rapturous photos of a bronze-skinned turkey; my mother’s tried-and-true gravy secrets; the complete, unabridged tale of Brother Timothy’s stuffing and the decades-old Junior League cookbook from which it springs annually in full glory, with pork sausage, chicken livers, toasted almonds, spinach, Parmigiano Reggiano, and brandy; and at least a few presentable photos. All for you, dear reader. But I got a little distracted. There was plenty of rapture, yes, and the turkey and stuffing were certainly up to snuff, but when I dragged my suitcase back into Seattle on Sunday night, all I had to show for myself was a bargain-priced 10” All-Clad skillet, a half-dozen predictably failed photos with Brandon, and a lone recipe. Luckily for all of us, the recipe in question should make up for my shortcomings. I started with the best of intentions, and by god, I’ve brought you a cranberry Linzer tart.


I hope you’ll see fit to forgive me.

This delectable thing has been making regular appearances on our holiday table for a decade now, since a very snowy, fortuitous, and fateful getaway to the Wooden Goose Inn in Cape Neddick, Maine. I was only 17, and obviously very impressionable. The innkeepers, two unabashed gourmands by the name of Tony and Jerry, treat their guests to elaborate breakfasts and teas each day, and we quickly fell under the sway of their kitchen. I’ve already written a paean to their elegant but buckle-busting breakfasts, but tea-time left us equally wide-eyed and weak-kneed. I wasted no time in choosing a favorite among the array of homemade tarts and pastries, and ten years later, I haven’t budged an inch. For me, each afternoon in Maine meant a rich, black cup of coffee and a hefty wedge of cranberry Linzer tart, sweet, sour, and almost spicy, in a sandy almond crust fragrant with cinnamon, cloves, and orange peel. And today, for my mother and me, each holiday season means an afternoon of measuring cups and a full, hefty pan of cranberry Linzer tart.

So this Thanksgiving, I got my fix of Mom, man, and tart. My mother kindly cast a blind eye to all our cutesy carrying-on, and in return, Brandon—bless his huge, thumping heart—charmed her with brown-butter mashed potatoes and daily doses of his trademark fennel salad, weeded out her old pots and pans and a few dead electronics, and plowed through her pantry full of old, rancid oils and crusty vinegars. Were I less susceptible to so much delicious distraction, I would have chronicled every second. But instead, I sat back, gave a lot of thanks, and ate a lot of Linzer tart.


Cranberry Linzer Tart
Adapted from the Wooden Goose Inn

This beauty may look like a lot of work, but it comes together quite simply. First and foremost, keep in mind that the lattice top is only as complicated as you want to make it. We don’t usually bother with a lot of fancy weaving; just lay a few strips of dough in one direction, and then lay a second layer on top, perpendicular to the first. If you’re feeling especially festive, you could even try topping the tart with a mosaic of cookie-cutter shapes instead of a traditional lattice. It’s the holidays, after all, so you’re allowed to get a little schmaltzy.

For the filling:
2 cups granulated sugar
¾ cup cold water, divided
12 ounces fresh cranberries, picked over and rinsed
½ cup golden raisins
1 tsp grated orange peel
2 Tbs cornstarch

For the crust:
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups toasted almonds, finely ground
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp grated orange peel
¼ tsp ground cloves
A pinch of salt
6 Tbs unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 egg yolks, beaten with 1 Tbs water
Water, as needed

Whipped cream, for serving

To make the filling, combine the sugar and ½ cup water in a medium saucepan. Put the pan over medium heat, and stir until the sugar has dissolved. The mixture will look cloudy. Stir in the cranberries, raisins, and orange peel. Bring the mixture to a boil, and cook, stirring constantly, until the cranberries pop, about 6 minutes. In a small bowl, blend the cornstarch with the remaining ¼ cup water, and stir it into the cranberry mixture. Set the saucepan aside, and allow the filling to cool completely. It will thicken as it cools.*

To make the crust, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. In a food processor, combine the flour, ground almonds, sugar, cinnamon, orange peel, cloves, and salt. Add the butter, and process until the mixture is crumbly. With the machine running, add the egg yolks mixed with water, and process until combined. Squeeze a handful of the dough in your fist; if it is still on the dry, crumbly side, add little splashes of water—about a ½ Tbs at a time—with the machine running, continuing to pulse the dough until it coheres nicely to itself when squeezed. This dough is pretty forgiving, and you need not really worry about overworking it. Reserve 1 ½ cups of the dough for the lattice top. Press the remaining dough evenly into the bottom and up the sides of a 9” removable-bottom tart pan. Bake it for 15 minutes.

To assemble the tart, spoon the cooled cranberry filling into the crust. On a clean surface, pat and roll the remaining 1 ½ cups crust dough into a flat circle about ¼ inch thick. With a pairing knife, cut the circle into rough ¾-inch strips. Working carefully—the dough is delicate—overlay the strips to form a lattice on top of the filling. Bake the finished tart for 30 minutes, until nicely browned. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature, preferably with lightly sweetened and loosely whipped cream.

*Note: The cooled filling should have the consistency of a chunky chutney or jam. If you find it a tad loose, as we did this year, simply spoon out some of the excess liquid until you reach the desired consistency; then spoon the filling into the crust.

Yield: 8-10 servings

Seattlest gets jealous, makes soup

Over at Seattlest, the soupe du jour is butternut squash with pear, cider, and vanilla bean, a homespun knock-off of a dish from one of my favorite local spots.

I’ve never been one for trying to recreate restaurant meals, but the soup I had at Crow was sufficiently delicious to warrant a go, and anyway, if I may be so bold—trained chefs of the world, please forgive me!—I thought I could make it even better. The original restaurant version was wonderfully light—almost frothy, really—but unabashedly opaque with cream; and its vanilla flavor, though dainty, was almost veering toward dessert. Using this recipe as a template, I aimed for a velvety but only lightly creamy soup, with just a subtle stroke of vanilla and a good, oomphy dose of pear. The results have me feeling like a proud parent. If you were in the vicinity of downtown Seattle at noon today, that scraping noise was me in my office, going after the last mouthful in the bowl.

The state of the sprout

I wait all year for Brussels sprouts. Many pine away patiently for October’s first pumpkins or November’s puckery cranberries, but I hang my hopes on a fresh fall Brussels sprout. This stance no doubt puts me in a minority—a happy one, meaning that entire market displays of sprouts are mine, all mine—but really, the state of the sprout in America today is a sad, sad thing. If another Thanksgiving dinner ends with a platter of Brussels sprouts still sitting untouched, we clearly have a national emergency, not a national holiday, on our hands.

For many, the merest mention of Brussels sprouts conjures up childhood visions of bitter, mushy, nose-wrinkling wads of cruciferous terror. I’ve seen even the most ardent of food lovers shrink before a pile of the little green orbs. This unfortunate aversion usually stems from one of two roots. First, Brussels sprouts are often cruelly boiled past their bright, verdant prime into olive-green oblivion, turning even the sweetest sprout bitter. And when overcooking is not the culprit, many cases of Brussels sprout phobia can be attributed to simple seasonality. Though sprouts can be found in the supermarket nearly year-round, they are markedly better—sweeter, with tighter, more compact heads—in the cold months. According to the lovely folks at Willie Green’s Organic Farm, sprouts that have weathered the first frost are much tastier than their spring- or summertime counterparts, which explains why I wait all year to, come fall, get my fill.

And that’s exactly what I do. Sometimes I roast them, halved and tossed with olive oil and sea salt, in a hot oven; sometimes I halve and sauté them with chestnuts. I’ve eaten more than my fair share of Brussels sprouts braised and glazed with a handful of whole peeled shallots, and I’ve heard rumors of bewitchingly good blanched sprouts sautéed in butter with red grapes and toasted pecans. But when Thanksgiving rolls around, you’ll find me at the stove with a skillet of hashed Brussels sprouts with poppy seeds and lemon.


Tossed in a hot pan for a scant five minutes, the sprouts soften and give up their starchiness, wilting into a warm slaw scented with white wine and citrus. It’s a method my family stumbled upon several years ago, and a shoo-in for our holiday table. Come Thursday, we’ll unite in Oklahoma—Seattlites, New Yorkers, and those in between—to hash away at another year, giving thanks for another fall, another Brussels sprout, and a very happy minority.


Hashed Brussels Sprouts with Poppy Seeds and Lemon
Inspired by The Union Square Café Cookbook

This recipe has brought many skeptics over to the pro-sprouts team. If you find yourself likewise converted and hungry for more, try this, this, this, or this. A whole universe is opening before you.

About 1 ¼ lbs Brussels sprouts
1 ½ Tbs fresh lemon juice
2 Tbs olive oil
1 medium garlic clove, minced
1 Tbs poppy seeds
¼ cup white wine
¼ tsp salt

Cut the stems from the Brussels sprouts and remove any blemished leaves. When all the sprouts are trimmed, you should be left with about 1 pound total. Halve each sprout lengthwise, and slice each half into thin slices, about 1/8 inch thick; or, alternatively, hash them in a food processor fitted with the slicing disc attachment.

In a large bowl, toss the hashed Brussels sprouts with the lemon juice.

In a large skillet or sauté pan, warm the olive oil over high heat, almost to the smoking point. Stir in the hashed sprouts, garlic, and poppy seeds. Add the wine, and cook for about 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly, until the sprouts are bright green and lightly softened but still barely crunchy. Reduce the heat to low, season with salt, and cook for 1 minute more. Remove the pan from the heat, and serve.

Yield: About 4-6 servings.

What it boils down to

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are. So spoke Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, legendary French gastronome. On the surface, it sounds like some sort of cheap parlor game, or maybe a fortune teller’s scam at a traveling circus, but the man had a point. What we eat is an everyday testament to our personal, cultural, and, some would say, political, experience. There’s not much to argue with there. But I’ve been thinking lately, as I’m sometimes known to do, and I wonder if Brillat-Savarin’s snappy quip might lend itself to a modest—and seasonal—update. I’d like to propose a new parlor game, and it goes like this: tell me what you want for Christmas, and I will tell you what you are. We may be a week out from Thanksgiving, but as your local retailer would like to remind you, it’s never too early to draw up a list for Santa, or your mother. And just think of what you’ll learn about yourself—it’s better than psychoanalysis. I’ll demonstrate. This year, my list runs as follows:

a set of 4 ½-inch springform pans
a cake carrier
a comb
Bad Gal
underwear
Pilates sessions
fishnets
sausage-making attachments for KitchenAid mixer

Reading between the lines, this much is clear: I’m a woman who plans to bake and transport cakes, but who can’t be bothered to replace the comb she broke three weeks ago or the favorite black eyeliner that was stolen from her suitcase last May; who trusts her mother’s taste in lingerie; who values exercise and a solid supply of fishnets; and who, dear reader, is very, very serious about sausage. And though any of these points is worthy of infinite discussion, really, we both know where I’m headed. In the end, it usually boils down to sausage.

I’ve already written at blush-worthy length of my great love for the humble sausage, that ancient and noble by-product of efficient butchery. Though the exact origins of sausage—a word derived from the Latin salsus, meaning “salted” or “preserved”—are up for debate, it is believed to have been invented thousands of years ago, as early as 3000 B.C. The concept itself is ingenious, really, a sort of delicious pack-rattery practiced on meat whereby leftover scraps and typically unappealing parts—less tender meats, or organs—are ground or chopped, salted, spiced, and packed into casings traditionally made of animal intestines. But really, the details don’t much matter. Fresh or cooked, smoked or not, dried or wondrously juicy, nearly any sausage will get a sigh out of me, from the boiled bratwurst of my childhood, eaten with my father at our kitchen table, to a housemade lamb sausage with tzatziki and cracker bread at San Francisco’s Zuni Café. I’ve seared sausage, roasted it, and grilled it; I’ve stretched out on a picnic blanket in the Place des Vosges and eaten salami and sopressata; and, by god, I’ve nearly bathed myself in a fennel sausage sandwich at Salumi. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I put two Italian sausages in a baking dish with a few handfuls of red grapes, and I slipped them into the oven.


The grapes sizzled, sputtered, and melted into syrup, basting and braising the sausages in their bubbling juices. In the heat of the oven, they turned winy and complex, shiny-skinned and soft, their sweetness and perky acidity a perfect foil for the fatty, earthy meat. A sausage is a fine thing, but topped with stewy grapes, it’s worth its weight in fishnets—which, anyway, I may never wear again, if there’s sausage under the Christmas tree.


Roasted Sausages with Red Grapes
Inspired by Gourmet and Matthew Amster-Burton

I was astounded by this deceivingly simple dish. Be sure to choose good-quality sausages and flavorful grapes, and then let them work their magic. Serve this lusty stuff alongside boiled or mashed potatoes, or maybe roasted winter squash, and sautéed or braised winter greens.

2 mild chicken or pork Italian sausages, about 5-6 ounces each
½ lb red seedless grapes, preferably organic
2 scant Tbs olive oil
½ - 1 Tbs balsamic vinegar, or to taste
Salt

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit.

Heat a heavy skillet, preferably cast-iron, over moderate heat until hot but not smoking. Lay the sausages in the skillet, and cook them, turning once, until nicely browned, about 8 minutes total.

While the sausages are cooking, remove the grapes from their stems, rinse them under cool water, drain them, and place them in a bowl. Add the olive oil, and toss.

When the sausages are browned, place them in an 8-inch square glass or ceramic baking dish, and dump the grapes on top of and around them. Slide the dish into the oven, and bake for 25 minutes, turning the sausages once after about 15 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven, and move the sausages to a platter or individual plates. Pour the grapes and their juices into a small saucepan, season with a pinch of salt, and place the saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring, until the grapes bubble and sizzle and their juices are syrupy. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the vinegar, and pour the grapes over the sausages. Serve.

Yield: 2 servings

Seattlest + Macrina = true love and ginger cake

In this week’s Seattlest episode, I’m devouring a ginger pear upside-down cake from Leslie Mackie’s Macrina Bakery & Café Cookbook, a collection of recipes from one of Seattle’s best bakeries.


Lest you hesitate for even a second before following the link, I must tell you that this was one of the most delicious cakes I’ve eaten in recent memory. Big, buttery, and oozing with caramelized pears, it had a remarkably moist, not-too-sweet crumb and a subtle kick of fresh ginger. I took a handsome chunk of it to work yesterday and came home with nary a crumb. Something tells me that, come Thanksgiving, one of these could earn you a year’s worth of gratitude.

In praise of braising

I’m not one for favorites. I have no favorite movie, no favorite color, no favorite number, no favorite song. Declaring something a favorite seems to freeze it unfavorably in time, mark it with an expiration date, foist it up onto a pedestal from which it will inevitably tumble when the next favorite comes along. Instead, I like to think of myself as more of an equal-opportunity appreciator. I have my preferences and my pets, certainly, but they are fluid, mutable, and therefore, I like to think, more fitting to the human condition.

But, dear reader, I must make a shameful confession: come cold weather, I have a nasty bias toward braising. And though I hate myself a little for saying so, I’m starting to think this is a favorite cooking method in the making. I love to braise. There are few things—vegetable, animal, or otherwise—that don’t stand to benefit from a slow, barely simmering soak in some sort of aromatic liquid, myself included. When I was fifteen, I wrote an urgent, breathless poem about wanting to immerse myself in a vat of marshmallow creme, but today, I’d much rather a warm pool of gently rumbling broth, or wine, or both, preferably with an eye pillow. And short of that, I’ll settle for a plate of braised fennel, a seasonal favorite of my kitchen if ever there were one.


For many of us, fennel is an acquired taste. Until a few years ago, I was among those who consistently plead “no, thank you” at the merest whiff of the licorice-scented stuff. I am still no lover of licorice, but somewhere along the way, I was brought around to the pro-fennel camp. You won’t catch me biting into a bulb apple-style, like a man I once sat next to on an airplane, but otherwise, I’m a solid “yes, please.” Fennel’s crunch and sprightly anise flavor make it a regular in my salad bowl, with red oak-leaf lettuce and slivers of kalamata olives; with lemon, olive oil, and nubbles of aged Gouda; or tossed with Dijon vinaigrette and dusted with shards of toasted hazelnuts. But when cooked—or, more specifically, braised—it becomes something else entirely, something that, I’d dare to venture, could even win over those fennel-fearing stragglers. With a half-hour’s soak in simmering liquid, the high-pitched flavor and aroma of raw fennel give way to something rounder, more lingering, and more voluptuous, sweet, herbal, and mellow. The bulb cedes its crunch in favor of fork-tender softness and goes downright silky in a puddle of wine, broth, and olive oil.

And though I’d very much like to soften the season’s rainy chill with a dip in the braising pot myself, playing favorites with fennel will at least pass the time, and deliciously so.


Braised Fennel
Adapted from The Zuni Café Cookbook

While braised meats can take hours, braised vegetables are ready in only 30 or so minutes, making this type of preparation relatively quick and trouble-free. After a brief gilding in a skillet, the fennel slides into the oven and takes care of itself. It’s a set-it-and-forget-it operation. Choose smallish to medium bulbs, preferably not those seemingly steroid-pumped ones the size of Paul Bunyon’s fist, which tend to be woody and have loose layers. You want smooth, firm, white to light green bulbs that feel heavy for their size, with no shriveling or brown spots. Braised fennel is especially delicious with roasted birds or a nice pork roast, but frankly, I’ll take it alongside nearly anything. It also reheats beautifully in the microwave or, covered, in the oven.

3-4 fennel bulbs, each about 6-8 ounces, trimmed of stems and fronds
2-3 Tbs olive oil
About ½ cup dry white wine
About ½ cup good-quality chicken broth
Salt, preferably a good, flaky variety such as Maldon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cut the fennel into 1- to 1 ½-inch wedges, or, if you’re using smaller bulbs, quarter them.

Warm about 2 Tbs of olive oil in a large (preferably 12-inch) skillet over medium-low heat. Lay fennel wedges in one crowded layer in the pan, and cook them until they are golden on the bottom, about 5-10 minutes, and then flip them to gild the other side. Salt them lightly. As the fennel finishes browning, remove the wedges to a flameproof baking dish. You may need to brown the fennel in batches, adding oil as needed, until all of it is browned.

Arrange the fennel in a single, crowded layer in the baking dish. Add the wine and chicken broth in equal parts to reach a depth of ½ inch. Place the dish over medium heat, and bring the liquid to a simmer. Transfer the dish to the oven, and bake until the fennel is tender, about 20-30 minutes. Serve, with additional salt for sprinkling.

Yield: about 4 servings

It’s raining, it’s pouring, and Seattlest is roasting

Over at Seattlest, I’m singing the praises of roasted chicken, a favorite cold-weather staple and, as luck would have it, one of the first meat preparations I tackled after bidding ado to my (pseudo) vegetarianism. Since that fateful day when I roasted my first chicken, I’ve tried a number of recipes, but the outright finger-licking, fall-down goodness of the simple Zuni Café method makes it my gold standard. And I can’t resist sharing.


P.S. On a side note: it appears, dear well-wishing reader, that my so-called flu is actually mononucleosis. In light of this new development, I wanted to issue a sad preemptive warning: in the interest of getting more shut-eye, I may have to back off on posting for a week or two. Who knows, though; I’m still up and about and working, and a girl still has to eat—and therefore, write! We’ll see. In the meantime, thank you, as always, for checking in.

A handy life strategy, dinner included

A few devoted readers may remember when, about eight months ago, in a post involving Spandex, my mother, erogenous zones, and whole wheat bread, I mentioned a woman named Sherry, an aerobics instructor for whom I once harbored a short-lived but memorable fascination. I was only five or six, too young to stay at home alone while my mother took her aerobics classes, but old enough to keep myself entertained in the back room of the gym—and to do some serious thinking about my life.

Sherry was the nicest, prettiest, and most approachable of the instructors. She had a soft, crinkly, playful voice, and her legwarmers always matched her elastic belt. Her shiny, dark brown hair was something straight out of a V05 Hot Oil ad, and she was engaged to a man who, I believed, looked like Ken. I was fascinated with Sherry. I wanted to be Sherry. First, I reasoned, I would have to change my name, and then we would have to spend lots of time together. This part would be very convenient, actually, because I had a plan. In the wilds of preschool, I had somehow come to believe that in order to get my driver’s license, I would have to pass a test requiring me to take apart a car and put it back together. This being far too daunting, I decided that when my time came, I wouldn’t bother with getting my license; instead, I’d get Sherry to drive me everywhere, and that way, we’d be together. So it was that I devised a handy life strategy: if being an adult looks too hard, I’ll just get a pretty lady to do it for me.

Today, two decades later, the inner workings of automobiles remain a mystery to me, but I do have a driver’s license and, happily, my given name. I must admit, though, that when adulthood—work, laundry, and staying awake on the bus, plus clothing, bathing, and feeding myself—starts to look grim, I still start looking for the pretty lady. And that, dear reader, is how I came to own a Nigella Lawson cookbook.

Had Nigella been around when I was a pre-pre-adolescent, smiling down reassuringly from the cookbook shelf, I would surely have been spellbound. And if someone had warned me that as an adult, I’d have to cook and feed myself three times a day, my answer would have been easy: I’ll let Nigella do it for me. Sure, she may be a tad obvious, what with all that coy finger-licking and cleavage, but when being a grown-up gets me down, she is the Sherry of my kitchen. Though she can’t actually pack my lunch or dish out my dinners, at least she can tell me what to eat and how to cook it. Her look may be more merry-widow Bed Head than V05, but her style is warm, inviting, and sensible; her food is easy-peasy approachable; and to cap it off, her recipes work—and beautifully too.

I have gladly slurped her simple pea soup; I’ve topped dozens of oatmeal cookies—not to mention some fingers—with her brown-butter frosting; and I’ve nearly forgotten all social graces before a slice of her chocolate banana cake, which no one should ever, ever, be asked to share. I even trust her with granola—a momentous declaration indeed, given that my breakfast is a ritual of the highest order. For years, I started my mornings with one granola—and one I still love dearly—but recently I’ve been cheating with Andy’s Fairfield granola from Feast. Nigella told me to. And when the dim, damp, doggedly tiring days of fall have left me with little enthusiasm for the kitchen, I’ve settled into the couch with one of her cookbooks and emerged refreshed, with a pair of chopsticks and a plate of her red seasonal salad.


Now, if only there were a pretty lady to do the dishes.


Red Seasonal Salad
Adapted from Feast, by Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson has quite a way with Vietnamese-inspired flavors, and this salad is ample proof. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself in an all-out chopstick assault, pinching and plucking up punchy mouthfuls of cabbage, red onion, radish, and cold chicken doused with fish sauce, lime, chiles, garlic, and cilantro. The original recipe calls for cooked turkey, which, come Thanksgiving, can be found in abundance across the U.S., but for everyday purposes, I prefer chicken. This is, after all, a winter salad, and nothing fits the season better than a roasted chicken.

2 red chiles (often labeled Thai chiles), seeded and finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tbs superfine sugar
3 tsp rice vinegar
3 Tbs fresh lime juice
4 Tbs fish sauce
3 Tbs vegetable oil, such as canola or grapeseed
1 red onion, peeled, halved, and very thinly sliced
Freshly ground black pepper
4 cups cold cooked turkey or chicken, shredded
1 ½ lbs red cabbage, quartered, cored, and very thinly sliced (about 8 cups, sliced)
½ lb red radishes, thinly sliced into rounds
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

In a very large bowl, whisk together the chiles, garlic, sugar, vinegar, lime juice, fish sauce, and oil. Add the red onion and a grind or two of black pepper, stir to immerse the onion slivers in liquid, and set aside to steep for 15 minutes. Add the shredded turkey or chicken, and leave to steep for another 15 minutes. Add the cabbage and radishes, and toss gently to coat with dressing. Add about half of the cilantro, and toss to mix. Serve, topping each portion with a bit of the remaining cilantro.

Leftovers of this salad keep surprisingly well—though they do lose a bit of pep and crunch—for up to two days in the refrigerator, sealed in an airtight container.

Yield: about 8 servings

Joining the club: Seattlest

Sometimes details escape me, such as when I’m engaged in heated battle with a virus. For example, I have—until today—completely forgotten to announce, dear hungry reader, that you can now also find me and my writing over at Seattlest, a sibling of New York City’s illustrious group blog Gothamist, San Francisco's SFist, Paris's Parisist, and the rest of the -ist gang.

I'll be contributing weekly food pieces focused mainly on seasonal recipes and cooking, broadcasting from my kitchen, as usual. In my first article, I extolled the virtues of caramelized cauliflower, one of my favorite fall standbys and the recipe to turn to when you want to watch a sworn cauliflower hater literally eat his words. This week I turn to yellow split pea soup with winter squash and kale, a warming brew that, along with cacio e pepe and my old faithful buttered toast with honey, recently sustained me through several flu-fraught days.

I hope you’ll come visit.

The semantics of stewing

In the English language, there are only a handful of phrases that come with their own built-in laugh track, and sadly, “stewed prunes” is one of them. Witness the following exchange, tearfully recorded by yours truly during a phone conversation earlier this week:

Molly: I’m thinking of making stewed prunes.*

Brandon: [Giggle].

Molly: Why are you laughing? Have you ever eaten a stewed prune?

Brandon: [Giggle]. No, but it just sounds funny. I mean, steewwwed pruuune! [Giggle giggle].

It is a dark, dark day, dear reader, when you learn that the man you love—and whose genetic material you would like to help perpetuate, even—is a prune skeptic.

In his defense, Brandon claims that he dislikes all dried fruits, the unfortunate result of being forced to eat too much “hippie trail mix” as a child. Now, it’s bad enough that the delicious prune—or, to use its new, marketing-friendly name, the dried plum—has to work an unglamorous side-job as a laxative, but for it to be discriminated against on the basis of childhood trauma is simply unfair. And anyway, if we really get down to semantics, stewed prunes aren’t dried fruits anymore. They’re soft, swollen, gushy pockets of heady, sweet-tart juice.


I like to think of prunes as plums that have been bettered by hardship, plums made wiser by old age and wizening, and I consider myself lucky to have been schooled in the simple art of stewing from an early age. My father, a fan of cook-while-you-sleep breakfasts, used to load up a late-night saucepan with prunes, water, and thin slices of orange and lemon, bring it to a boil, cover it, turn off the heat, and let it sit until morning. The Food Safety and Inspection Service would likely look askance at such a method, but it did make ours a relatively happy, mainly healthy, pro-prune household.

Today I prefer a method that’s a little more conventional but every bit as effortless: a short, gentle simmer over low heat, with no stirring, poking, or prodding required. You’ll know that your prunes are properly stewed when an almost liqueur-like aroma wafts out of the saucepan. The fruit should slump on the spoon, and its skin should yield to the tooth with a gentle, dainty pop. Its silky, juicy pulp should be both warming and wintery, a deep, round, heartening flavor that’s delicate but deathly serious.

If I have my way, even the most hard-boiled of prune skeptics will be stewed into submission.


*Thank you, David Lebovitz, for believing in prunes.


Stewed Prunes with Citrus and Cinnamon
Adapted from Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings

When I wanted to recreate the flavor of my father’s overnight stewed prunes, I turned to a little feel-good cookbook-cum-self-help-book by Edward Espe Brown, Zen monk and author of several well-known vegetarian cookbooks. Brown treats his prunes as simply as possible, and rightly so. To my palate, prunes are the loveliest of dried fruits: they lack the shrill, high-pitched sweetness of raisins and the sticky, cloying sugar of dates, and their low, dark flavor has more depth than, say, a dried apricot. These stewed prunes get additional nuance, too, from thin slivers of citrus fruits, which go into the pot bitter peel and all. They’re delicious warm, with thick, Greek-style plain yogurt, or atop a bowl of oatmeal, dabbled over ice cream, or—as I’ve been known to do it—cold, straight off the fork, from the fridge.

1 orange, OR 2 small tangerines, OR 1 small orange and ½ a lemon
1 pound pitted prunes, preferably organic
1 cinnamon stick

Cut the citrus fruit in half vertically, and then slice it thinly, peel and all. Place the slices in a medium saucepan with the prunes and the cinnamon stick, and add water to cover. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer, and cook over medium-low heat for about 30-45 minutes, until the prunes are quite tender, the citrus slices are soft and glassy, and the liquid in the pan is caramelly. Remove the cinnamon stick and serve, or store in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week. I find that they're actually better after a little rest, so I try to make mine a day or so before I want to eat them.

A state of melt

The last time I was this sick was 12 years ago, during the Christmas holidays of my freshman year of high school. Though my memories of the time are understandably—and blessedly—hazy, I do remember the key points: I spent a week lying on the couch in my family’s den; I sucked down a box or two of Comtrex; I lost eight pounds; and I got to wear my favorite green pseudo-punk bomber-jacket-inspired parka indoors. Those were the days, as they say.

There’s nothing like the first real flu of adulthood to make me look fondly upon the illnesses of my adolescence. Today, dear reader, I have two words for you: night sweats. And I’m not referring to the kind that can result in babies. I’ve been barricaded in my apartment since Thursday afternoon, with nothing to distract me but nausea, a sore throat, headaches, body aches, hot flashes, and the entire first season of America’s Next Top Model on DVD. It should be amply clear that I am not well.

But as with most things, sickness has its upsides. If nothing else, lying supine for the better part of three days does give a girl new perspective, literally and figuratively. And ever the optimist, I’ve chiseled a few gems of wisdom from the dark mineshaft of my disease.

#1: If you are sick and live alone in a city thousands of miles from both your mother and your boyfriend, crying about that fact makes things a lot better, or, at least, it frightens your mother and your boyfriend enough to make them call every two hours, which makes things a lot better.

#2: An ice-cold glass of tangerine-flavored Emer’gen-C is unspeakably delicious, especially when you have no clothes left to remove but are still sweating.

#3: A slice of buttered toast with honey is unspeakably delicious, period.

And #4: If you’re looking to expand your flu-vexed vocabulary beyond “night” and “sweat,” try cacio and pepe.


Cacio e pepe is shorthand for hot, wet spaghetti slicked with finely grated Pecorino Romano (cacio) and dusted heartily with freshly ground black pepper (pepe). Whether I am fit or frail, healthy or feeling like hell, a day that includes this elemental Roman peasant dish cannot be deemed bad. Even at my worst, salt, starch, and the dairy tang of sheep's milk cheese never fail to arouse a lusty jab from my fork.


In fact, though not normally one for exaggeration, I’d dare argue that this may be a perfect dish: round but not rich, lightly creamy but clean, laced with peppery heat, and fantastically easy to both prepare and consume with heavy eyelids and a hoarse throat. If cacio e pepe is properly made and promptly eaten, the cheese should be in a “state of melt,” according to Lynne Rossetto Kasper, as should the person eating it. It’s more satisfying than hot flashes and night sweats combined, and short of a state of wellness, I can’t think of anything more delicious.


Cacio e Pepe
Adapted from Gourmet, March 2003

I first wrote about cacio e pepe here about a year ago, but because I didn’t do it justice then—and because I’ve eaten it three times in the past three days—I feel it deserves to be revisited. And anyway, you know how I feel about anything involving cheese. This recipe serves four as a first course, although you can easily scale it down to feed one or two. It's more about method than measurement.

½ lb good-quality dried spaghetti*
2 ½ oz (¾ cup plus 2 Tbs) very finely grated good-quality Pecorino Romano, such as Sini Fulvi**
Freshly ground black pepper

Cook the spaghetti in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente.

While the spaghetti is cooking, fill a large glass or ceramic bowl with hot water to warm it. Just before the pasta is ready, drain the bowl but do not dry it.

Reserve ½ cup of the pasta cooking water, and then drain the pasta quickly in a colander. Do not shake off the excess water. Dump the pasta into warm, barely wet bowl. Sprinkle ¾ cup cheese and about 3 Tbs cooking water evenly over the spaghetti, and toss it quickly but gently. If the pasta seems dry, add more cooking water. Divide the pasta among four plates, and finish it a few grinds of black pepper and a sprinkling of the remaining cheese. Serve immediately.


*Always buy pasta that has been extruded through old-fashioned bronze dies rather than Teflon ones. The slightly rough surface of the pasta will hold sauces better.

**Grate the cheese on the ragged-edged holes of a box grater; do not use the small teardrop-shaped holes you’re probably accustomed to using for a fine grate. You want to wind up with a sort of cheese powder, which makes for almost instant melting.

Going steady

Every kitchen has its strong, silent staples. I’ve certainly got my stockpile of oils and vinegars, condiments, rice, pasta, beans, butter, eggs, milk, flours, salts, and sugars, some dusty, some fusty, and all standing as ready proof of my fine Depression-era homemaker instincts. But if tomorrow brings a shortage in my stock of champagne vinegar or vermicelli, my kitchen won’t suffer. I can feel plenty satisfied without, say, Dijon mustard or basmati rice. The same cannot be said, however, for another subset of pantry regulars—the standbys that aren’t really staples, but rather steadies, those with whom I set a daily date. Without my cheese and chocolate, I’d be facing a Great Depression indeed.

As of this writing, my refrigerator contains a block of Grafton two-year cheddar, a hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano, another of Sini Fulvi Pecorino, the dregs of a piece of five-year Gouda, a half-eaten wedge of Point Reyes Original Blue, and a small tub of fresh, hand-dipped ricotta. You won’t find me eating them all at once—greediness is very unbecoming, or so I’m told—but I find that a sliver, or two, or three, is necessary for proper functioning. I was converted to the ways of cheese by a stern but well-meaning French host mother, and you know the word on the street: French women don’t get fat,* and by god, dear reader, I too will have my daily cheese. By the same token, my cupboard’s current chocolate lineup includes Chocolove 77% “extra strong” dark, Dolfin 88% dark, Dolfin milk chocolate with “hot masala,”** a blocky bar of Valrhona for baking, and Vosges Haut-Chocolat’s Creole and Barcelona bars,*** the sexiest of my steady sweets. We end every day together, chocolate and I, and though I harbor no illusions, I think this relationship is really headed somewhere.

But where the magic really happens is in the unlikely meeting of my two pet pantry items. While I can’t recommend a joint mouthful, chocolate and blue cheeses, for example, could be united by a shared affinity for port, and I’d venture to guess that, given the right setting, a chunk of caramelly aged Gouda might welcome a chaser of dark chocolate. And certainly, cream cheese and chocolate are no strangers. But the holy union I’m really after, dear patient reader, is a double chocolate cupcake with ricotta, bourbon, and orange zest.


Deep brown with cocoa, rich and tender, each fist-sized cake holds a well of creamy ricotta sexed up with bourbon and bitter orange, with a few chocolate chips for good measure. Swirled together, the ricotta and chocolate each make the other something better: the soft dairy richness of the fresh cheese gains depth from dark chocolate, and the chocolate’s sincere, not-too-sweetness borrows intrigue from the boozy ricotta.


With a dozen of these on the counter, the kitchen fills with a complex, almost spicy warmth, enough to make the most well-endowed cabinet of rice and pasta look downright sad. Every kitchen needs its strong, silent staples, yes, but things are so much more interesting when you’re going steady.


*Thank you, très chère collègue et confidante, for wisdom and girl-talk.
**Thank you, Michele, mille fois!
***This stuff is dangerously dreamy, mav. Thank you!


Double Chocolate Cupcakes with Ricotta, Bourbon, and Orange Zest
Adapted from Gourmet

In addition to the chocolate and ricotta, it doesn’t hurt that this recipe features a hit of booze, which—judging by the contents of this blog—seems to be a staple on its way to steadydom. And with chilly weather settling over the land, the orange zest is a nod to winter’s promised citrus. These cupcakes are at their melty, moist, aromatic best when still slightly warm from the oven, although they are more than passable up to three days after baking, sealed in an airtight container or heavy plastic bag. I took a half-dozen day-old cupcakes to work one day, and they had all disappeared by 10 am, with plenty of swoony gratitude from my coworkers.

For ricotta mixture:
1 cup fresh whole-milk ricotta
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg white
1 Tbs good-quality bourbon
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
½ cup good-quality semisweet chocolate chips
A pinch of salt

For cupcake batter:
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup canola oil
½ cup milk (any fat content is fine)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 Tbs distilled white vinegar
1 Tbs pure vanilla extract
¼ tsp orange-flower water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a 12-well muffin tin with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together all ricotta mixture ingredients. Place the mixture in the refrigerator to chill.

Place a good-sized sieve over a large bowl, and put the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and sugar into the sieve. Shake the sieve to filter the dry ingredients through into the bowl. Whisk to combine them thoroughly.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the oil, milk, egg, vinegar, vanilla, and orange-flower water; then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in the large bowl, stirring to just combine. Do not overmix.

Spoon a generous heaping tablespoon of the chocolate batter into each muffin cup. Top the chocolate batter with a rounded tablespoon of the ricotta mixture, followed by another rounded tablespoon of the chocolate batter. You should have just enough chocolate batter for 12 cupcakes, although you will likely have leftover ricotta. [Sorry about that.] Holding a paring knife point-down, swirl the tip of the knife through the batter in each cup in a figure-eight pattern to marble the batter.

Bake the cupcakes in the middle of the oven until a toothpick or thin knife inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 30-35 minutes. Cool them in the pan on a rack; then gently unmold and serve.

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Sog Story

I am, dear reader, a bread snob. I’m a harsh critic of crust and crumb, a stickler for sourdough, and very, very picky about my pain au levain. In my experience, few things trigger heartache like a cardboard baguette or a spongy, thin-skinned boule—and honey, I have known heartache.

But lately I’ve found myself feeling an unabashed affection for a type of bread that would ordinarily fall under the general category of “bad,” and that would be soggy bread. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if the title of this blog isn’t something of a misnomer. “Orangette” is apt enough, I suppose, and certainly, plenty of chocolate-dipped orange rinds have passed these lips, but given the recent output of my kitchen, “Sog Story” seems more fitting. It may seem a bit sog-centric of me, but as far as I’m concerned, first there was pappa al pomodoro; then there was panade; and then there was light.

James Baldwin once wrote, “To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread. It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of that blasphemous and tasteless foam rubber that we have substituted for it” (The Fire Next Time, 1963).

Now, I’d certainly second that, but if it were up to me, I’d rephrase things a bit. To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in soggy bread, in sogginess itself and to be present with all that we make soggy, from the effort of soaking to the eating of wet bread. It will be a great day for America when we begin to eat soggy bread, instead of blasphemously and tastelessly scorning it.

Indeed, I’m starting to think that if I’m to be remembered for anything, it might as well be for my unflagging advocacy of panade, a velvety, voluptuous casserole with a base of soggy bread and stewed onions. This is where stale bread goes when it’s been very, very good.


As someone who has cobbled together some of her most satisfying meals from little more than bread, cheese, and a bowl of greens, I’m prone to nothing less than fits of fork-in-air ecstasy before a steaming plate of this peasant fare, a slurp-worthy mosaic of day-old bread, coarsely grated gruyère, wilted chard, and caramelized onions, doused in chicken broth and baked until swollen and silky.


Somewhere between the full-bodied flavor of good broth, the unctuous ooze of melting gruyère, and the deep, dark sweetness of slow-cooked onions, panade becomes something infinitely greater—and wondrously richer—than the sum of its simple parts. A cross between soup and stuffing, it's an ideal accompaniment to a chilly night’s dinner of roasted chicken, lamb, or pork, but it’s also plenty satisfying on its own, with little more than a green salad alongside.

If this is what a soggy Seattle winter tastes like, there will be some serious heartache when spring rolls around.


Chard, Onion, and Gruyère Panade
Adapted from The Zuni Café Cookbook

If you, like me, aren’t regularly cooking for a crowd, you may be tempted to toss aside this recipe, assuming that this delicate, soupy stuff won’t make for good leftovers. Skeptical reader, I argue otherwise. Once refrigerated, the panade will soak up its extra liquid and become something like a moist Thanksgiving stuffing, but all is not lost. A quick jolt in the microwave will restore its soft unctuousness, even if its soupiness is gone. In fact, it makes for wonderful at-work lunches: easily transported in a Tupperware container, it is hearty, satisfying fuel for a day of whatever it is that you do. And if you’re into gilding the lily, Judy Rodgers, chef of the Zuni Café, also recommends pan-frying flattened scoops of leftovers. I haven’t yet tried this method, but if you do, please report back.

1 ½ lbs yellow onions, preferably a sweet variety, thinly sliced
About ½ cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic, slivered
Salt
1 lb red Swiss chard, thick ribs removed, cut into 1-inch-wide ribbons
Water
10 ounces day-old chewy artisan bread, cut into rough 1-inch cubes
2 cups good-quality chicken broth
About 2 loosely packed cups good-quality Swiss gruyère

To prepare the onions:
Place the onions in a large, deep saucepan or Dutch oven, and drizzle and toss with about ¼ cup olive oil. Set over medium-high heat, and shaking the pan occasionally, cook until the bottom layer of onions is golden on the edges, about 3 minutes. Stir, and repeat. Once the second layer of onions has colored, reduce the heat to low, and stir in the garlic and a few pinches of salt. Let cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are pale amber and tender but not mushy, another 20 minutes or so. If at any point the onions look as though they’re drying out, cover the pan to trap in moisture.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

To prepare the chard:
Place handfuls of chard in a large sauté pan or skillet, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with water and a few pinches of salt. Set the pan over medium heat until the bottom layer of leaves begins to cook; then reduce the heat and stir and fold the leaves until they are just wilted, 2-4 minutes. The leaves should be bright green and their white veins quite pliable. Set aside.

To prepare the bread:
Using your hands, toss and massage the cubed bread with 2 or 3 Tbs olive oil, ¼ cup of the broth, and a few pinches of salt.

To build the panade:
Using a flameproof 2-quart soufflé dish or deep, enameled cast-iron pan, assemble the panade in layers. Start with a good smear of onions, followed by a loose scattering of bread cubes, a thin layer of onions, a blanked of chard, and a handful of cheese. Repeat, continuing until all ingredients are incorporated and the dish is full. Aim for 2 to 3 layers of each component, but make sure that the top is a mosaic of all the ingredients. Don’t worry if the layers are a bit uneven, or if you have to pack them down a bit—this is meant to be rustic.

Bring the remaining 1 ¾ cups broth and 2 cups water to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Pour the warm liquid slowly, in doses, over the assembled panade, drizzling it down the sides of the dish. The liquid should come up nearly to the top of the layered ingredients.

Set the dish over low heat on the stovetop, and bring its liquid to a simmer, looking for bubbles around the edges. Cover the top of the dish with parchment paper, then very loosely cover the top again with aluminum foil. Place the panade on a baking sheet to catch drips, slide it into the oven, and bake it until hot and bubbly, about 1 to 1 ½ hours. The top should be pale golden and a bit darker on the edges.

Uncover the panade, raise the oven temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, and leave until for another 10-20 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Remove it from the oven, allow it to settle for a minute or two, and then serve.

Yield: About 5 main-dish servings, or 6-8 side-dish servings