Meantime

Okay, well, it appears that I was a little optimistic when I said, “I’ll see you next week.” Lo and behold, next week is officially here, but I’m still busy with California, Dungeness crab, sweet potato biscuits, cranberry upside-down cakes, cousins, and that kind of stuff.

So much fun - and so much eating - can keep a girl pretty well occupied.

I hope you won’t mind if I say that I’ll see you next week instead. I promise to come back with some big news for the New Year. I hope you’ll stop by.

In the meantime, be well - and well occupied with all sorts of wonderful things.

The best thing since Brussels sprouts

Friends, grab a stash of cookies and pull up a chair, because we have to talk.

I’m a little funny about heavy cream. This probably makes me a total killjoy, but I can’t help it. My mother is this way too, so maybe I get it from her. Cream soups and sauces upset her stomach, and by some sort of sad, unlucky inheritance, the same goes for mine. By way of illustration, take the tragic case of the velouté de potimarron - a velvety pumpkin soup - that I once ordered at a bistro in Paris. As soon as it arrived at the table, I knew I was doomed: it coated the spoon like clotted cream, and its color tended more toward white than any shade of winter squash. I took three bites before my stomach did a flip-flop. Of the remainder of the evening, the only good thing I remember is the man sitting next to me, who leaned into my ear and breathed, en français, “You remind me of Cleopatra.” (I was hitting the smoky, kohl-black eye makeup pretty hard back then.) For a pale-skinned, blue-eyed American girl with red hair, that was dreamy. The cream in that soup, however, was not.

As a kid, the only form of cream I knew well was the whipped kind, beaten in a chilled bowl with a dribble of vanilla and served alongside dessert. I also knew that my dad sometimes sneaked into the kitchen late at night to eat a bowl of cereal doused in heavy cream, but it seemed to me horribly decadent, if not flat-out wrong. Gah. Maybe something is wrong with me. For whatever reason - my genes, my stomach, my stodgy inner Puritan - I’m just not one to go throwing around cream. I hardly ever cook with the stuff. I’m a real drag. I do like a bowl of ice cream, and a good gratin, but otherwise, eh.

But if ever there were an occasion to make me change my tune, cream-wise, it’s upon us. The holidays make us all feel a little kinder, I find, and a little more generous with others, with ourselves, and with our measuring cups. This Christmas, I plan to be very kind and generous with my Brussels sprouts. I plan to give them a whole cup of cream.



I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but I love this recipe. My stomach literally coos like a baby at the thought of it. I could lap up a plate of this stuff like a cat with a bowl of milk. You know the old saying, “It’s the best thing since sliced bread”? Well, forget about the bread: from now on, cream-braised Brussels sprouts are the standard to be bested. Please say hello to my new favorite holiday side dish.

Were I not such a sucker for Brussels sprouts, I probably never would have considered such a creamy, nervy creation. The Brussels sprout may be a homely little thing, all green at the gills and hard-headed, but it’s bewitching. If you’ve ever tried it hashed with poppy seeds and lemon, you’ll know what I mean. Today’s recipe, adapted from my cool-weather bible All About Braising, is about as bewitching as it gets. It also happens to be righteously easy, which leaves plenty of time for fussing over your Christmas roast, your sweet potato biscuits, or that punch bowl of boozy egg nog. You could even prep the sprouts a day ahead: rinse, trim, and quarter them, and then stash them in a sealed plastic bag with a damp paper towel. Thirty minutes before dinnertime, get out the skillet and fire up the stove. From there, the sprouts cook themselves, shaking off their tough, bitter crunch in Jacuzzi bath of cream. They emerge completely relaxed, fork-tender, loosely cloaked in an ivory glaze, their pungency diffused by butterfat and a slow, patient braise.

I know I once said that the hashed sprouts recipe was the one to win over skeptics, but actually, I lied: this is even better. The cream coaxes forth the Brussels sprout’s inherent sweetness and fills the kitchen with a rich, nutty, warming aroma that could make even the toughest of men purr like kittens. [Go on, tell ‘em, Brandon.] Just thinking about it makes me want to go fix myself a bowl of cereal and pour some cream on top.

Happy holidays, everyone. May they be filled with cookies, Brussels sprouts, and the people you love. We’re headed to San Francisco with a suitcase full of goodies, and I’ll see you next week.



Cream-Braised Brussels Sprouts
Adapted from All About Braising

First things first: buy good sprouts. They should feel firm and have tight, shiny-edged leaves. I like to buy medium-size ones, with heads that measure, say, 1 to 1 ¼ inches in diameter. You could buy littler ones, if you like, but don’t buy them any bigger. I find that the larger they are, the stronger – i.e. more bitter – their flavor. My dad used to come home from the grocery store with big, hoary, loose-leafed, air-headed sprouts, and it made me crazy. Do not do that.

These sprouts would be delicious alongside most any meat that typically graces the holiday table: beef, turkey, ham, lamb, you name it. And with a crusty hunk of bread and some cold leftover chicken, they also make for a warming Sunday lunch. We gave it a trial run just for you, and I actually had to remove the serving dish from the table to keep us from eating the whole thing.

1 ¼ lb. Brussels sprouts
3 Tbs unsalted butter
¼ tsp coarse sea salt, plus more to taste
1 cup heavy cream
1 Tbs fresh lemon juice, or more to taste

First, prep the Brussels sprouts. Trim the stem end of each sprout and pull off any ragged or nasty outer leaves. Cut the sprouts in half from stem end to tip, and then cut each half in half again. Ultimately, you want little wedges.

In a large (12-inch) skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the Brussels sprouts and salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sprouts are nicely browned in spots, about 5 minutes or so. I like mine to get some good color here, so that they have a sweetly caramelized flavor.

Pour in the cream, stir to mix, and then cover the pot. Reduce the heat to low or medium low: you want to keep the pan at a slow simmer. Braise until the sprouts are tender enough to be pierced easily with the tip of a paring knife, about 30-35 minutes. The cream will have reduced some and will have taken on a creamy tan color.

Remove the lid, and stir in the lemon juice. Taste for seasoning, and adjust as necessary. Let the pan simmer, uncovered, for a minute or two to thicken the cream to a glaze that loosely coats the sprouts. Serve immediately.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings, depending on what else is on the plate and whether or not Brandon and Molly are present.

Building blocks

I have long entertained a little fantasy about weekends: namely, that they’re fun and restful. Most of the time, in reality, I fill them with way too much stuff. This stuff could be fun and restful in theory, but when you cram it all into 48 or so hours – leaving room for sleep, of course, and for finally cleaning the bathroom – it doesn’t look much like a fantasy. Sometimes it’s even kind of stressful, a word that should never, ever be associated with Saturday or Sunday. But this past weekend, blessed be, was like Christmas come early. We had the sort of weekend I wait all week for, sans Clorox and Windex and other commitments and duties. We had champagne and homemade ice cream sandwiches by the fire. We slept until ten(!) and drove to Columbia City Bakery for sticky buns and soft pretzels. We made homebrew with two friends and ate Szechuan take-out. And oh my stars, we even went to a show. Quel weekend!

I’m not sure how I got so lucky, but I wasn’t about to monkey with things by throwing a fussy baking project into the mix. So not only did I not fuss, but hell, I didn’t even bake. I just melted, stirred, chilled, and cubed.



Oh my, are these ever ea-sy. I know I say that about nearly everything around here, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Melt a pound of dark chocolate, stir in some dried fruit and nuts, slip it in the fridge, and poof! You’ve got yourself a pan of dark chocolate candies. These are as speedy and simple as it gets - and, more importantly, they’re spoil-your-dinner good. And despite the astounding ease of their making - you could so drink a big glass of boozy egg nog and not mess them up - they look fussy enough to earn you some good, old-fashioned fussing over.

Gourmet calls these candies “Fruit and Nut Chocolate Chunks,” but I like to think of them as chocolate “blocks.” They remind me of a child’s building blocks, squat and solid, but etched with appealing flecks of fruit and nuts rather than the boring old alphabet. With a set of these in my toy chest, I could have built my childhood forts from something much tastier than blankets and chairs and poster board, and oh, how popular I might have been! But later is always better than never, I believe, and so it goes with these. They’re made for an adult’s palate, anyway, with a dark, refined flavor that - by way of some mysterious fruit-cacao alchemy - hints at wine and liqueur and fancy chocolate truffles. They’re almost better than my weekend, and I don’t say that lightly. They’re one for the cookie tin.



Chocolate “Blocks” with Fruit and Nuts
Adapted from Gourmet, February 2003

Be sure to choose a chocolate whose flavor you love, because it’s the main player here. I can think of any number of excellent brands, but for the sake of affordability – goodness knows most chocolate ain’t cheap – I went with a few bars of Ghirardelli 60%. It’s not particularly fancy, but it is relatively easy on the wallet and has a very true chocolate flavor. Also, for the pistachios and peanuts: you can use either salted or un-, but bear in mind that chocolate and salt make very happy bedfellows, so if you have the salted kind, by all means, use it. I used salted peanuts and unsalted pistachios because that’s what I had on hand. And lastly, for the fruits: if you, like Brandon, feel a little nauseous at the thought of chocolate and raisins, feel free to substitute another fruit instead. Dried cherries would be lovely, I’ll bet, as would chopped dried apricots.

1 ¼ lb good-quality bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
Vegetable oil, for greasing the pan
2/3 cup dried cranberries
2/3 cup raisins
2/3 cup roasted, shelled pistachios, salted or unsalted
2/3 cup roasted peanuts, salted or unsalted

In the top of a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally until smooth.

While the chocolate is melting, line the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, leaving a 2-inch overhang. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush the foil with vegetable oil.

When the chocolate is melted, remove it from the heat, and stir in the fruit and nuts. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan, and spread it evenly with the back of a spoon or rubber spatula. Place the pan in the refrigerator, and chill for about an hour, or until the chocolate is firm. [I chilled mine for exactly one hour and found the chocolate to be the perfect temperature for cutting - not too hard and not too soft. If it’s too hard, the chocolate will shatter under the knife, and you’ll have trouble getting a clean cut.]

Use the foil overhang to lift the chilled chocolate mixture from the pan, and place it on a cutting board. Peel back the foil, and cut the chocolate into whatever size you desire. I like mine in rough 1-inch cubes.

Note: These candies keep in the refrigerator, sealed in an airtight container with foil between the layers, for up to two weeks.

Yield: About 60 1-inch cubes

Menu for Hope

Dear readers:

I know that you have come here today expecting some cookie talk, but I hope you won’t mind if I mix things up a little, just for a minute. The cause is a very good one, I promise.

Today is the opening day of the annual Menu for Hope charity raffle, the brainchild of lovely and benevolent food blogger Pim. Last year, the raffle raised an impressive $17,000 for UNICEF. This year, we aim to raise even more, with all proceeds going to the United Nations World Food Programme. For those of us who take great pleasure in food and cooking, this is a small, fitting way to help those less fortunate. For a mere ten dollars a ticket, you can help someone in need get a nutritious meal – and maybe get yourself a nice raffle prize, to boot. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty darn good to me.

Plus, look at those prizes! I hardly know where to start – I want every last one of them. But if I were you – not to be pushy or anything – I’d put my money on one in particular: a chewy, delectable thing that comes from my own kitchen and that Brandon has dubbed, entirely without prompting, “the best cookies, anywhere, EVER.” [You know, of course, that he does exaggerate, but he’s usually right.]

Just think: a dozen chocolate-capped coconut macaroons, lovingly made by yours truly and delivered to your very door! These little beauties never fail to please. A colleague to whom I recently gave a Tupperware of these actually moaned with each bite and then, quite tellingly, held the container to her chest for the remainder of the day. Another friend has taken to calling them “little lumps of heaven.” [I, of course, do not exaggerate.]

I will bake the macaroons to order, topping them with a rich ganache of organic cream and Valrhona chocolate, and I then I will send them via overnight mail to any location – that means you! – in the continental United States. [Sorry, no international or overseas shipments.] Sure, you could hunt around in my recipe archives and make them for yourself, but wouldn’t you rather let me do it? And give some money to a good cause, rather than your local Safeway? I thought so.

Here’s what to do:

1. Go to the donation page at First Giving.
2. Make a donation. Each $10 will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. When confirming your donation, please specify which prize (or prizes) you’d like in the “Personal Message” section of the donation form. Be specific: state how many tickets you’d like to put toward each prize, and please use the prize code. My code is UWO6. Don’t forget that! Without that code, you can’t direct your ticket to my macaroons, and that would be terrible.
3. If your company matches your donation, please remember to check the box, and fill in the necessary information so that we can collect those funds too.
4. Should you win, we will need to contact you, so please also check the box to allow us to see your e-mail address. It will not be shared with anyone.
5. Winners will be announced on January 15. In the meantime, hope and wait.

To see other prizes offered by us West Coasters, hop over and visit Sam. And thank her for her hard work.

I’ll be back tomorrow with another treat for the ole tin. In the meantime, you know what to do: donate. Please.

Hop to it

The sun set at 4:18 this afternoon. That means that the street lamps outside my office window shuddered ominously to life at ten minutes after three, people. Six o’clock this evening was indistinguishable from midnight. I don’t know how it is where you are, but around here it’s very, very dark.

When Brandon moved to Seattle last June, he was more than a little apprehensive of all this, and with good reason. No sane person moves to “The Rainy City” – or, more fittingly, “The Rainy and Really, Really Dark City” – without some reservations. I tried to soothe him with the usual consolations – it doesn’t really rain so much as sort of mist, and I mean, hey, have you seen our summers? – but he wasn’t convinced. I really tried, fellow Seattleites, but it’s not easy to find nice things to say about our wet, stumpy days and long, loooong nights. I guess we all have to live them for ourselves, and make our own peace with clouds and damp ankles.

As for me, there is just one thing that keeps my head above water – no pun intended, I swear – through these soggy, sloppy months: the kitchen. (That, and the sheer force of will to survive to see next summer.) I mean, hell, when nighttime starts in the late afternoon, how else is a girl supposed to while away the bleak, inky hours? With a pot of soup, that’s how – or a slow braise, or some butter cookies scented with the cheering zest of this season’s “it” citrus, the Meyer lemon. In the end, you know – and at the holidays – it always comes back to cookies.



If you haven’t bought a Meyer lemon yet this year, consider these your marching orders. As my dad used to say, hop to it! And while you’re at it, make sure that your stock of butter, flour, and sugar is in good shape. You have Christmas presents to bake, by god. And – lucky you! – this particular present makes a batch big enough for giving to friends far and wide, and for eating straight from the sheet pan too. It also makes a long, pitch-black night pass pretty painlessly.

What we have here is basically a French-style shortbread, called a sablé, or “sandy” cookie, for its fine, crumbly texture. This particular specimen, however, gets a gussied up for the holidays, with a sugar collar and a spritz of zest from a Meyer lemon. The hybrid cross of a regular lemon and a mandarin, Meyer lemons are sweeter and less tart than a typical supermarket lemon, with a complex, floral aroma that feels mysterious and familiar at the same time. Mixed into a batter and baked, their zest blooms into a delicate, spicy scent that fills the room, and a flavor that makes these cookies damn near impossible to stop eating. With an edgy tinge of salt and a bit of textural intrigue from Turbinado sugar, these will have a space in my Christmas cookie tin for years to come – assuming, of course, that I can get them packed safely away and into the freezer before I eat them all.



And as for those dark nights and clammy days, well, it’s no coincidence, I think, that on the very day I baked these cookies, Brandon turned to me and said, quite out of the blue, “You know, winter here really isn’t bad at all.”



Meyer Lemon Sablés
Adapted from Amanda Hesser’s Cooking for Mr. Latte

I am not ordinarily drawn to such a plain, humble-looking cookie, but after baking these fragrant, buttery lovelies, I am officially reconsidering my ways. They’re good. With their subtle citrus flavor and crisp, shortbread-like texture, they would sit beautifully, I imagine, next to a cup of tea. And as we found last night, they happily team with a glass of sauternes to make a soft, gentle finish to a hearty winter meal.

About the Meyer lemons: if you can’t find them in your local market, you could certainly use a regular lemon here – no sweat. And Brandon also thinks that the zest of another winter citrus would work nicely in these too – maybe a tangerine, Satsuma mandarin, or good ole navel orange?

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup confectioner’s sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 Tbs finely grated Meyer lemon zest (from about 2 good-size fruits)
¾ tsp coarse sea salt or Kosher salt
4 large egg yolks
¼ cup coarse Turbinado sugar, for rolling logs of dough

In a small bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, and whisk to mix thoroughly. Set aside.

Put the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer (or a large mixing bowl). Beat (with the paddle attachment, if you’re using a stand mixer) on medium-low speed until the butter is creamy; then add the confectioner’s sugar and beat for a minute. Add the granulated sugar, and beat for a minute more. Sprinkle the lemon zest and salt into the bowl, and mix briefly to just combine. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing briefly to incorporate after each addition. With the mixer on low, add the flour in three doses, mixing just until the flour is absorbed. Use a rubber spatula to do any last scraping and stirring; do not overmix. The dough will be quite thick and dense and sticky.

Divide the dough between two large sheets of wax paper. Using the paper as an aid, smoosh and roll and shape one blob of dough into a rough log about 1 ½ inches in diameter. Roll up the log in the paper, and twist the ends to seal it closed. Repeat with the remaining blob of dough. Chill the two logs until the dough is cold and firm, at least two hours and up to a couple of days.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and set a rack in the middle of the oven. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper. Put a large sheet of parchment paper on the counter, and pour the Turbinado sugar onto it, making a ridge of sugar approximately the length of the dough logs. Remove a log from the fridge, unwrap it, and roll it lightly in the sugar to press the crystals into its sides. Coat the log as thoroughly as you can; then slice it into ¼-inch-thick slices. [I found that a thin paring knife works well.] Lay the slices on the baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie. Refrigerate the remaining dough.

Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes or until just golden around the edges, rotating the sheet 180 degrees halfway through the baking time. [Keep in mind that the cookies will continue to brown a bit after you have removed them from the oven, so it’s best to err on the pale side.] Cool them on the silicone mat or parchment paper on a wire rack. Repeat with remaining dough.

Store the cookies in an airtight tin at room temperature for up to three days, or freeze them in a Tupperware, with a sheet of wax paper between each layer.

Yield: about 80 silver-dollar-size cookies

To my heart's content

Whew. You know that saying about the month of March? That it comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb? Well, I think November is the exact inverse. It comes in on its tiptoes, with a faint, flirty rumor of fall and a clove-scented hint of the holidays to come, and it goes out all a-bluster, with sleet and snow and rosy cheeks (in Seattle, anyway) and a full-on assault of all things Santa Claus. Part of me wants to hunker down and hide away for a month or so – hibernate, bear-style, with a teapot and a down pillow – but the other part of me couldn’t be happier. After all, this time of year is tailor-made for cookie baking: loads and loads, pan after pan, cookies for eating, cookies for giving, cookies to my heart’s content. Oh, happy, happy holidays.

I’ve never been a big fan of Christmas shopping. It always feels sort of forced and messy, and more about the wallet than anything else. I love the idea of Christmas presents – I am human, you know – but when it comes to procuring them, my feelings are mixed. The mall doesn’t exactly help matters. The problem is this: I don’t so much want to buy. I want to make – or, more precisely, bake. What makes me happy at the holidays – or any day – is the homemade and the handmade, things with history and character. So this year, I have made a decision: to give only gifts made by hand,* with no exceptions. [Okay, except a few books, maybe, because they’re books, people, and that doesn’t count.] I’ve done a little baking and canning for past Christmases, but this is my first year to go whole-hog handmade. It may sound a little daunting, but to me, it sounds just like heaven. It sounds like lots and lots of cookies. I hope you’re ready.

Now, there will be some apple butter, I’m sure, and some fruit-nut balls with floppy chocolate caps, and maybe even some coffee-walnut toffee. [I am turning into my mother, I know, and I don’t mind one bit.] But the next few weeks mainly spell good, solid, quality time for me and my oven. I’m always itching to bake a pan of cookies, so you can imagine how happy this makes me. Unlimited excuses for creaming butter! Sugar by the bag! And, thanks to the first cookie on my list – fittingly named “chocolate rads” – pound after radical pound of cocoa-rich bittersweet chocolate.



I was reminded of this recipe last weekend at City Bakery, while downing one of three “melted” chocolate chip cookies I tucked away over the course of three days in New York.** [It would have been a real shame, you know, to let a day go by without eating one.] Dark and crackly-topped, Maury Rubin’s chocolate-on-chocolate confection was not only worthy of the trip from Seattle, but it also called to mind a cookie that made regular appearances in my mother’s annual Christmas tin. Her version came from an old Bon Appétit recipe, a straightforward formula that called for both bittersweet chocolate and chocolate chips, as well as instant espresso for oomph and cake flour for a dainty, melting texture. It was, I remembered, rip-roaring delicious.

So on the plane ride home, I started scheming, and within 18 hours of our landing at SeaTac, a batch of chocolate rads sat cooling on my countertop. Tender to the core, like a dense sort of cake, these little beauties are a chocophile’s dream. Like small, tidy brownies encased in crisp, crinkly shells, they quite literally ripple with chocolate. And best of all, they keep for a few weeks in the freezer, which makes them pretty darn ideal for us Christmas bakers. It’s not even December yet, but ooh boy, is this heart ever content.

* This doesn’t mean that I won’t be buying a few things here and there - just that those few things will be handmade. The Internet is brimming with artists and crafters whose work is very, very worthy of Christmas giving. Here are a few of my favorites, a little sampling of people who make me feel especially happy about going handmade this year:

Jen Causey and her inspiring camera
Lisa Solomon and her totes and tees and more
Maria Vettese and her lovely letterpress (nudge! nudge! the card society, anyone?)
Blair Stocker and her wise.. crafting
Camilla Engman and her beautiful work


** A celebratory weekend after my successful first go at roasting a turkey (phew!). New Jersey, you were kind to me.


Chocolate Rads
Adapted from Bon Appétit a while back

These cookies are all about the chocolate, so don’t skimp. You want these to be, uh, rad, you know. It may be a tad expensive, but buy the good stuff.

1 pound bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
4 Tbs unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 Tbs pure vanilla extract
1 tsp instant espresso, such as Medaglia D’Oro
½ cup cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
2 cups good-quality semisweet chocolate chips, such as Ghirardelli

In the top of a double boiler or metal bowl set over gently simmering water, melt the bittersweet chocolate, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat, and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar and eggs, and beat with an electric mixer until thick and pale yellow, about 3-5 minutes. Add the melted chocolate, melted butter, vanilla extract, and espresso powder, and beat to mix thoroughly.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into small bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the chocolate mixture, and stir with a rubber spatula to just combine. [The batter will be fairly gluey and thick.] Stir in chocolate chips. Place the bowl in the refrigerator, and chill until the batter is firm but not too hard, about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper. Drop the batter with a spring-loaded ice cream scoop – mine has a capacity of 2 tablespoons per scoop – onto the prepared sheets, leaving about 2 inches of space around each blob of dough. With moist fingertips, press down on each blob to flatten it slightly. Bake the cookies until tops look dry and crackled, about 11-13 minutes. Do not overbake. Transfer the cookies on the parchment paper to a wire rack, and allow to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough. Remove finished cookies from the parchment paper, and store them in airtight container.

Note: These cookies freeze beautifully, and they can be frozen for up to a month. Allow them to come to room temperature before serving or eating.

Yield: About 35-40 cookies

Combine-and-boil

Now, I know I’m really pushing the limits here, with less than 72 hours until the big day, but I just can’t let another year sneak by without sharing one of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving spread. I hope I’ve caught you in time. Hurry - before you read another word, jot this on your grocery list:

apricot preserves
white distilled vinegar
raspberry preserves
ground cloves
Grand Marnier
fresh cranberries
crystallized ginger
dried tart cherries

That task complete, you’re over halfway to having a bowl of this kicky, warming, sweet-tart stuff on your table. This cranberry chutney is basically a combine-and-boil job, but you’d never know that by its complex, knee-buckling flavor.



My mom has been making this recipe for, oh, at least ten or 15 years. I’m hard-pressed to think of a Thanksgiving when we haven’t eaten it. Mom doesn’t remember where she first found the recipe, which is written in her handwriting on an old slip of paper. But in any case, we have been making it for long enough – and I have tweaked it enough – that it now really feels like ours. I remember many a Thanksgiving afternoon spent standing around the butcher-block island in our kitchen, with my dad on one side, blending cranberries and oranges into a raw relish, and my mom on the other, stirring a pot of this chutney on the stove. Come dinnertime, I would mound a spoonful of each on my plate, alternating raw and cooked with each bite of turkey. But the next day, when the time came for a leftover turkey sandwich, it was always the Tupperware of chutney that I turned to first, with its soft, juicy cranberries, winy dried cherries, and spicy bits of ginger. I would slather the ruby conserve onto a slice of whole wheat bread, top it with a fanned-out layer of turkey, and finish with a second slice of bread. Mayonnaise was optional; my mom spread her second slice with a thick smear, but I studiously avoided the stuff. Either way, that was how we did Thanksgiving, and its leftovers too.



This year, I’ll be toting a Tupperware full of cranberry chutney to Brandon’s family in New Jersey, where I will - [deep breath] - roast my very first turkey without maternal guidance. Lord help me. At least the chutney is a sure thing - that, and the fact that my mother is only a phone call away.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.


Cranberry Chutney with Crystallized Ginger and Dried Cherries

This chutney is, of course, delicious with turkey, but it also takes kindly to being heaped on the back of a buttered biscuit. We have also tried a spoonful of it in a bowl of sweet potato soup, and it was surprisingly delicious. [Thank you, Dan and Shauna, for giving Brandon such a brilliant idea.] And it also makes a lovely, wintry appetizer atop a crostini smeared with fresh goat cheese. Oh, cranberry chutney, the places you’ll go!

A few notes about ingredients: the original recipe calls for raspberry vinegar, which Brandon tells me is “so ‘80s,” and anyway, most brands of the stuff are sort of gross. If you have some in your pantry, feel free to use it here; otherwise, do as we did and simply substitute a mixture of white distilled vinegar and raspberry preserves. It does the trick just fine. As for the dried tart cherries, Trader Joe’s sells them quite cheaply, and they’re very tasty. And about the cranberries: be sure to pick through them carefully and discard any rotting, mushy, or generally icky ones. There is usually a good handful, if your experience is anything like mine. Lastly, note that this chutney reaches its thick, jammy, finished consistency only as it cools, so it will still be somewhat loose when you first remove it from the heat. The photographs above were taken when mine was still on the runny side, only a few minutes after I had pulled it from the stovetop. Yours will look quite a bit thicker when it is fully cooled.

24 ounces apricot preserves
¾ cup raspberry vinegar, or ¾ cup white distilled vinegar plus 1 ½ tsp raspberry preserves
A pinch of salt
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ cup Grand Marnier
2 bags fresh cranberries, nasty ones discarded
½ cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
1 ¼ cups dried tart cherries

In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the apricot preserves, raspberry vinegar (or vinegar and raspberry preserves), salt, cloves, and Grand Marnier. Stir to mix, and place over medium-high heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, and continue to cook – it will bubble aggressively, and you should stir regularly to keep it from scorching – for about 10-15 minutes, or until it has thickened slightly. Reduce the heat to medium, add the cranberries, and cook until they are soft but not popped. [I know that they’re ready when I hear one or two of them pop; that’s a good indicator that most of them must be getting pretty soft.] Add the ginger and cherries, stir well, and remove from the heat. Cool completely before serving. The chutney will thicken considerably as it cools.

Yield: 8-10 servings

A scoop alongside

I’ve never been much for Thanksgiving desserts. This admission may be sufficient cause, I know, for calling Homeland Security, but I’m not afraid to say it. Friends, pumpkin pie just doesn’t do it for me. I feel sort of iffy, too, about sweet potato pie, and apple pie is okay, but eh. Likewise, I hold that pecan pie is only worth eating under certain conditions: namely, when it’s light on the gloopy stuff and either a) spiked with bourbon, or b) spiffed up with chocolate. I don’t know. Thanksgiving desserts just seem like a handy excuse to use that stale jar of pumpkin pie spice – what is that stuff, anyway? – and indulge a half-bottle of corn syrup. But a few days ago, I stumbled upon something that could make even me perk up this Thursday, come dessert time. Heck, I would happily eat an apple pie from McDonald’s – you know, the kind that comes in those cardboard sleeves? – if it came with a melty dollop of this salted caramel ice cream.

Like many great discoveries in my life, I owe this one to Brandon. Back in September 2005, less than five months after we met, he bought me an ice cream maker – or, more precisely, Lello Junior gelato machine – for my birthday. When it arrived at my apartment, the delivery driver parked it outside the front door of the building – all 35 unwieldy pounds of it – and I came down, unsuspecting, to carry it upstairs. I read the print on the side of the box and let rip a ladylike snort: I had never declared any desire for an ice cream maker, but on more than one occasion, Brandon had. So here it was, at my door in Seattle. It was quite clear whose present this really was. But I did what any love-struck, butterfat-hungry girl would do: I hauled it upstairs and heaved it into place on the kitchen counter. And when Brandon came for his next visit, he made no fewer than three ice creams and sorbets – two types, in fact, on his first day in town. In the year or so since, I too have become quite attached to our little Lello Junior. It has pretty lines and curves, not to mention that fancy internal compressor, and it purrs like a fat, white cat. And it made possible this lovely stuff, which I cannot urge upon you strongly enough.

Salted caramel has been all the rage in recent years, traveling from its humble origins in the north of France to pastry menus around the world. The presence of salt works a subtle magic on caramel, deepening and brightening its flavor, making it taste somehow more like itself. Here in Seattle, I’m rather partial to local chocolatier Fran Bigelow’s grey salt caramels, dipped in dark chocolate and freckled with a few nubbly crystals. But my new favorite incarnation of the salt-and-caramel duo is this ice cream, from a recipe that recently ran in The New York Times. I have sampled my share of caramel ice creams over the years – whenever I see them on a menu, I can’t resist; caramel churned with cream just sounds so right – but no restaurant or ice cream parlor has ever really wowed me with their rendition. This one, however, did, and by god, it came from my own kitchen.

It starts with a very dark caramel, which, when churned with milk, cream, egg yolks, and the fancy French salt fleur de sel, makes for a very sophisticated, subtly sweet flavor that rumbles slowly around the mouth. And despite its rich ingredients, it doesn’t coat the spoon in that sickening – nay, scary – way that some homemade ice creams do. Instead, it feels almost ethereally light – or, at least, as light as a puddle of egg-enriched cream can possibly be. Finished with a bit of crunchy fleur de sel, it strikes me as a perfect way to dress up and make special the familiar, spiced flavors so typical of Thanksgiving desserts, from apples to pecans and pumpkin. In fact, it would be an ideal topper for any warming, wintry dessert: a gooey-centered square of brownie, maybe, or a pear crisp with toasted hazelnuts. Just last weekend, I served some in a ramekin alongside a slice of tarte Tatin, and we all sat around the table and swooned. It also made a nice snack the next afternoon, eaten from a teacup, with a book on the side. And for those of us who will spend this Thursday in the kitchen, that might be an awfully good plan for Friday.


Salted Caramel Ice Cream
Adapted from The New York Times and Nicole Kaplan of Eleven Madison Park, NYC

Before freezing, the base of this ice cream is surprisingly thin. Brandon and I – suspicious souls that we are – feared that it wouldn’t freeze properly and, if you’ll believe it, almost threw! the! stuff! away! But thank goodness we didn’t, because once frozen, it was silky-smooth. Note, however, that it will likely take longer to freeze than a thicker, more traditional, cooked custard base. We let ours churn for a good 50 minutes – much longer than the norm for other recipes – and even when we spooned it out into a container for the freezer, it was still quite soft. It firmed up like a charm, though, after a few hours in the deep freeze. One final to the wise: the caramel here should be allowed to reach a very dark amber color, darker than you might think. If your stove is good and hot, it won’t take long.

1 ¼ cup granulated sugar, divided
2 tsp light corn syrup
2 cups cream, preferably organic
2 cups whole milk
10 large egg yolks*
½ tsp fleur de sel, plus more for serving

Place ¾ cup sugar and the corn syrup in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Do not stir. Place the pan over medium-high heat, and cook the mixture to a dark caramel, swirling the pan as it begins to brown to distribute the sugar. Add the cream; then slowly add the milk. The caramel will seize and harden, but don’t be afraid. Bring the mixture to a boil, and then simmer it, stirring, just until the caramel has dissolved.

Meanwhile, place the yolks in a large bowl with the remaining ½ cup sugar and the fleur de sel. Whisk to combine. When the caramel cream is ready, pour a splash of it into the egg mixture to temper, whisking constantly, and then another splash or two for good measure. Then pour the tempered egg mixture into the caramel cream. Whisk thoroughly.

Pour the mixture through a fine-meshed sieve into a medium metal bowl. Place the bowl in an ice bath to cool the mixture completely. Remove the bowl from the ice bath, cover it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions. Serve with additional fleur de sel sprinkled on top.

* Technically, Kaplan’s method - as with many other homemade ice creams - may not cook the eggs to an adequate temperature to kill Salmonella bacteria. The New York Times didn’t make a fuss about it, so I decided not to either, but if you are concerned, click here.

Yield: about 1 quart

___

And last but not least, if you’re still putting the finishing touches your Thankgiving menu, here are a few ideas from the archives:

Apple and Butternut Squash Soup
Braised Fennel
Braised Green Cabbage with Onions and Carrots
Braised Red Cabbage with Apples and Caraway Seeds
Butternut Purée with Maple Syrup
Butternut Squash Soup with Pear, Cider, and Vanilla Bean
Caramelized Cauliflower
Cranberry Linzer Tart
Dreamy White Beans
Fresh Ginger Cake with Caramelized Pears
Ginger Pear Upside-Down Cake
Hashed Brussels Sprouts with Poppy Seeds and Lemon
Sweet Potato Biscuits
Tarte Tatin
Touch of Grace Biscuits
The Winning-Hearts-and-Minds Cake

And come back tomorrow, when I will post my family’s favorite take on the cranberry theme, a cranberry chutney with crystallized ginger and dried cherries. It’s so good that Brandon had to hug me after his first bite. That’s what I call Thanksgiving.

The case of a certain squash purée

Sometimes, I must admit, I fall down on the job. Take, for example, the case of a certain squash purée. I first made it three whole years ago, and though it has since made many (sold out! standing room only!) appearances at my table, it has somehow never been documented here. I suppose I should offer some sort of fancy excuse, but really, all I can say is this: it just won’t sit still for the camera. It’s silky, slinky, beguiling stuff, and it always vanishes before I can snap a photo. But when I made a batch this weekend, I – having learned from my mistakes, not to mention being rather persistent – plunked it right down for a photo session, tout de suite, before it could sneak away. And so, with no further ado, I am delighted to introduce at long last – in a rare moment sans eager forks and spoons – this seductive bowl of butternut squash, maple syrup, and sweet butter.

Now, it may not sound like anything out of the ordinary, because on paper - or a computer screen - it really is pretty simple. Heck, it has only five ingredients, including water and salt. Its warming flavor is exactly what you expect from butternut squash, but miraculously, even better. A nudge of maple syrup makes the squash’s earthy sweetness step up and shine, while butter smooths its starchy edges into submission. I like to think of it as the savory equivalent of a chocolate pudding, all soft corners and easy swallows. It’s smooth and soothing, the sort of thing that makes you want to lift the plate to your chin and - for lack of a more ladylike expression - shovel it in. All of which makes it a natural for the Thanksgiving table, where comfort reigns, as well as for any number of wintry occasions; and hence my hurry to tell you about it - three years late.

I have made this purée each Thanksgiving since 2003, when I stumbled upon the recipe and made it for my mother, myself, and my boyfriend-at-the-time in my cramped apartment kitchen. Being mainly a vegetarian in those days, I served it alongside a spinach soufflé, with braised red cabbage and my favorite biscuits. [My mother, a true sport, gamely agreed to a fowl-less holiday.] It was our first Thanksgiving without my father, and we left an empty place setting where he would have sat. In retrospect, I think he would have preferred that we pile his plate high with turkey and stuffing, but since that was not an option, maybe I should have made him an offering of butternut squash purée. He always had a weakness for anything with its sort of texture - mashed potatoes, Cream of Wheat, scrambled eggs, soft polenta. Knowing him, he would have stirred a big splash of cream into the squash, turning it from glowing orange to a muted, frothy gold. Maybe I’ll try that one day, if I can manage to keep from eating it all first.

Butternut Purée with Maple Syrup
Adapted from Gourmet, November 1993 and 2003

This is one of those simple, simple recipes that sneak into your repertoire so seamlessly that you hardly even notice. If you’re anything like me, you’ll wake up one morning to find that you’ve already made it a half-dozen times. Aside from being delicious from the first spoonful, the best thing about this purée is that it actually improves with age. Try to make it at least a few hours ahead – if not a day or two. A little rest in the fridge allows the flavors to gel, and the texture, too, settles into a silkier state. If you don’t have a food processor, you could probably do just fine with a potato masher, although the texture won’t be quite as smooth. No one will mind, though; trust me. And a word about the maple syrup: its flavor is not pronounced here - it brings only a subtle sweetness, no more - so if you like a strong maple flavor, you might add more than I call for. Note also that this recipe is easy to halve, but I hardly find it necessary. It will get eaten, no matter how much you make.

5 lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into rough 1-inch pieces
2 cups water
1 ¾ tsp salt, or to taste
1/3 cup maple syrup, or to taste
3 Tbs unsalted butter, cut into dice

Place the squash and the water in a large (5- or 6-quart) pot. [The water will not cover the squash.] Sprinkle 1 tsp of the salt over the squash. Place the pot over medium-high heat, cover it, and bring it to a simmer. Adjust the heat as necessary, and simmer until the squash is very tender, about 15 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the squash to a food processor and process it until smooth, adding cooking liquid as needed. I don’t add much liquid – only a little splash or two if the food processor seems to gum up. You will probably need to process the squash in batches, transferring the purée into a large bowl as you go. Stir in the maple syrup, butter, and salt – the squash should still be hot enough to melt the butter – and taste to adjust seasoning as necessary. Serve warm.

Note: This purée can – and, I say, should – be made little bit ahead and chilled in an airtight container. Reheat in the microwave or a 350-degree oven, adding a bit of water if needed.

Yield: 8-10 servings

Special occasions, special measures

Never mind that I was awake into the wee hours last night, having coughing fits and nearly choking to death on a Ricola lozenge: as of this post, I am hereby trading my fever for holiday fever. It is the second week of November, with Halloween now tucked away for another year, and nothing can stop me from taking a great, whooping, breathless dive into all things holiday – not even the fact that the only thing really whooping around here right now is my cough. But pay no attention to that. I love the holiday season, and I sincerely hope that you do too, because for the next several weeks, that’s what I plan to talk about around here. You curmudgeons and Grinchly types will just have to roll your eyes and content yourselves with a lump of coal.

Now, understand: I do not plan to tell you how to roast a perfect turkey or make a pan gravy that will impress your mother-in-law. There are plenty of other places to do that, and anyway, if you’re anything like me and mine, you have your own favorite heirloom methods and formulas. Instead, I want to talk about the other – and, I think, more inspired – items that orbit the holiday table: the pre-meal nibbles, the sprightly side dishes, the sweet little things you pack in shiny tins and deliver to a friend’s front stoop. There will be cookies, of course, and a chutney or two, and maybe even an ice cream: things to give away, and things to eat by the spoonful. But first, as is the case on so many occasions, there will be crackers and cheese. Or, more specifically, the most delicious single combination of butter, cheddar, and flour to cross your lips.

Before I say another word, I should issue a little disclaimer: I am not, people, one of those types who make their own crackers on a regular basis. If I’ve got friends coming over, I open a box of the store-bought kind, not the oven door. But special occasions call for special measures, and this holiday season, I am happy to announce a strange, Martha-esque milestone in my kitchen career: I made my own crackers. And by god, I would – and will – do it again in a heartbeat. These things are delicious, and astoundingly easy too. They’re really just a slice-and-bake job.

Lacy, crisp, and flaky with butter, these beauties are my kind of prelude to a holiday meal. They melt on the tongue like a communion wafer – the transubstantiation of cheddar, perhaps – delivering a concentrated dose of flavor that belies their diminutive size. Each is no bigger than a silver dollar – in diameter and in depth – which makes them just the thing for nibbling before a big, festive dinner, when family and friends hover around the kitchen like well-trained vultures, waiting for a scrap. I can also imagine bringing them, along with a bottle of champagne or red wine, to a wintry weeknight dinner with friends, or putting a tray of them on the table at a holiday open house. These sophisticated little meltaways need no accompaniment, and anyway, they might crumble under the weight of one. They’re best on their own, savored in delicate, crumbly bites – although if push came to shove, I imagine they could be quite irresistible, too, with a thin, feathery slice of apple on top. Either way, this is a recipe to lodge firmly in your repertoire from this holiday forth, or, frankly, anytime.

Cheddar Crisps
Adapted from Gourmet, November 2006

The original version of this recipe yields three types of seasoned cheddar crackers: one flecked with black pepper, one with caraway seeds, and one with nigella seeds. But seeing as I couldn’t find nigella seeds in my usual grocery store loop, I took the lazy way out and left a third of my crackers plain instead. If you’ve got nigella seeds lying around, have at it - but if not, don’t worry: these crisps are plenty good plain, sans seeds or pepper or other seasonings. Be sure, however, to use a tasty cheddar, one that you would happily eat on its own. I chose Black Diamond. Not only is it easy to find pretty much anywhere, but it is also my standard, never-fail cheddar for pretty much any use. Oh, and for the record, the black pepper variety is delicious with champagne; we gave it a good, thorough test tonight, just for your benefit. And I imagine that the caraway version would be wonderful with nearly any beer, though I might reach first for a Belgian ale.

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ lb sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated (on the large holes of a box grater or in a food processor fitted with the shredding attachment)
1 large egg yolk
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp dried mustard
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper, coarsely cracked in a mortar and pestle
1 tsp caraway seeds

Combine the butter, cheese, and yolk in the bowl of a food processor, and blend until smooth. The mixture may seem very thick and lumpy and cement-like at first, but persevere, stopping the machine and scraping down the sides as needed; it will eventually come together into a smooth, thick paste. When it does, add the flour, dried mustard, and salt, and pulse until just combined. Transfer the dough to a sheet of wax paper, and divide it into three portions. [Do not clean the food processor yet.]

Return one portion to the food processor, add the pepper, and pulse until combined well. Transfer the dough to another sheet of parchment paper. Using the paper as an aid, shape the dough into a log roughly 7 inches in length and 1 ½ inches thick. Roll up the log in the paper, and twist the ends to seal it closed. Clean the processor and dry it well. Make another log on a separate sheet of wax paper in the same manner, using caraway seeds instead of pepper. Place the final, unseasoned portion of dough on another sheet of wax paper, and make it into a log as well. Chill the logs until firm, about 2 hours.

When you’re ready to bake the crisps, put an oven rack in the middle position and preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Unwrap one log and, using a paring knife, cut enough thin slices – about 1/8 inch thick – from it to cover the baking sheet, arranging the slices about 1 inch apart. Bake the crisps until their edges are golden, about 10-12 minutes. Transfer them on the parchment to a rack, and cool them slightly, about 15 minutes. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Serve crackers warm or at room temperature.

Note: The dough can be chilled, wrapped in foil or a plastic bag, for a week or frozen for up to two months. The crackers can be baked a few days ahead and cooled completely, then stored in an airtight container at room temperature. If you like, you can reheat them on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven for about 5 minutes.

Yield: about 100 crackers

A popover worth the wait

So, have you ever had one of those days when you do or learn or eat something so fantastic that you can’t wait to tell the whole world, and then by some cruel twist of fate, the whole world seems to conspire to shut you up? First, let’s say, you get a wretched sore throat, followed by a snotty, now-stuffed, now-dribbly nose. And then the hard drive of your computer up and dies, just like that, with nary a warning or whimper. And then you feel sorry for yourself and slouch around for a few days, sans computer, sneezing all over your old, beloved gray sweatshirt. Ever had that happen? Yeah? Me too. It’s been a bad week. The last truly good thing I remember was the popover I ate on Sunday morning - and oh, what a popover it was. I would have told you about it a few days ago, were it not for, well, all this. Please pardon my delay, and my cold, and my computer.

What I’ve been meaning to tell you is this: popovers, I’ve decided, are my ideal breakfast food. Don’t get me wrong – I do love my usual plain yogurt and granola, but I’m talking ideal here. Popovers are about as close as you can get to eating clouds without leaving the kitchen.

An American adaptation of Britain’s Yorkshire pudding, a popover is a light, hollow roll made from an eggy batter, so named because it “pops” up and out of its pan as it bakes. Popovers enter the oven as mere puddles of batter but bake up, an hour or so later, into billowing, buttery, ethereal poufs. Lighter but no less special than a croissant or cinnamon roll, they boast golden, crisp crusts and a soft, custardy inner lining, perfect for a smear of jam or honey – or for eating plain, in big, greedy bites.

Some people might serve them as part of a big spread, but to me, what makes popovers so lovely is that they fill the belly just enough, but never too much. Last Sunday, Brandon and I sat down at the breakfast table with a basket of these, two pots of jam, and orange juice, and, between bites and slurps, agreed that anything more would have spoiled the charm. A couple of popovers, steamy and butter-scented, is all a girl needs on the average morning. In cases of severe hunger, a bowl of tart yogurt might be nice alongside, but for those of us who like to leave room for lunch, it’s entirely optional. And should you have a popover or two left over – lucky you! – come noontime, they rewarm nicely in a moderate oven and go swimmingly with a bowl of soup.

Speaking of which, a cauldron of chicken noodle sounds pretty good right now – both for soothing my throat and for submerging my entire body. That may be in order for the weekend. But one thing is certain: Sunday morning will find us again in front of the oven, waiting for our popovers to pouf and pop, signaling the close of a very sub-par week and the start of a new one.

P.S. A big, huge, sloppy thank you to Brandon for letting me borrow his beautiful new MacBook Pro, and for spending hours on the phone with Dell, and for making me a piña colada in a fancy glass. I owe him something very nice, as soon as I stop snorting and sneezing.
P.P.S. And a warm thank you to dear mav, who gave me the beautiful linen dish towel pictured above.

Butter Popovers
Adapted from The Bread Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Not only does this recipe produce a delicious popover – crispy on the outside, airy and spongy on the inside – but it also is a real snap. Whereas some popover batters require a rest before baking, this one can go straight into the oven, thanks to the wonder of Wondra. In the words of Rose Levy Beranbaum, Wondra flour is

a granular form of flour developed by General Mills. It dissolves instantly in liquid because it has been subjected to a process called agglomeration. It is produced essentially by misting flour with water and then spray-drying it with compressed air, which separates the flour into particles of even size and shape that will not clump when mixed with liquid.

It may sound sort of fancy, but Wondra can be found in most American grocery stores. We found it on the flour aisle of our usual store, in a blue cylindrical cardboard can. Aside from that, you need nothing else unusual, except the popover pan. For this recipe, you’ll want a standard-size popover pan with six wells, or a 12-well mini popover pan, or a standard 12-well muffin pan. Note that if your pan is made of black metal, you will need to lower the initial temperature to 400 degrees, rather than 425. I missed that little hint the first time I made these, and my popovers were finished in about 45 minutes total, rather than an hour. Their rise was also a little stunted, if you ask me.

1 cup plus 3 Tbs Wondra flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp granulated sugar
1 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
4 Tbs unsalted butter, melted and cooled but still liquid, divided - plus a little more for greasing the pan

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Set a rack on the second level from the bottom of the oven.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar. Slowly add the milk, whisking continuously. Using handheld beaters or a whisk, add the eggs one at a time, beating for about 1 minute after each addition, and then until the batter is smooth. Beat in 2 tablespoons of the butter. Don’t worry if the butter seizes a bit into little clumps. (If you don’t plan to use the batter immediately, cover it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Beat it lightly with a whisk before using.)

Use a pastry brush to thoroughly coat the inside of each well of the pan with some of the remaining melted butter. [Do not skimp, or the popovers might stick!] Then spoon about 1 teaspoon of additional butter into each well of the popover pan. If you’re using a mini popover pan or a muffin pan, use only ½ teaspoon per well.

About three minutes before baking, place the pan on a baking sheet and slide it into the oven to warm. The butter should get very hot and begin to brown, but do not allow it to burn. Remove the pan from the oven, and divide the batter among the wells. Bake for 15 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for about 35 minutes for standard popovers or about 20 minutes for smaller or muffin-size ones, or, most importantly, until the popovers are puffed, golden brown, and crisp to the touch. About five minutes before the end of the baking time, open the oven door and – carefully! – make a small slit in the side of each popover to release steam and allow the insides to dry a little. Do not open the oven until this point, or the popovers might deflate.

When the popovers are ready, remove the pan from the oven. With a pot holder, gently lift them from the pan one at a time, holding onto them from the top. [You might need to loosen them a tad around the edges with a knife.] Serve immediately, with jam, honey, or – for the extra indulgent – butter. I liked them best plain, but jam was nice too.

Yield: 6 standard popovers, or 12 smaller popovers

A tokaji for your tarte Tatin

It doesn’t take much to make me bake something. A ripe banana crosses my path? I’ll bake a banana cake. A hunk of chocolate lands in my grocery cart? Clearly, I’m supposed to make some brownies. That pound of butter in the freezer? It’s very pushy, always begging to be used, foisting itself into batters and stuff. Gah. And with apple season upon us, you can well imagine the pressure I’ve been under. I must, I must, I must bake something! So when Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page – authors of the must-have book Culinary Artistry, among others – dropped me a note to tell me about their newest title, What to Drink with What You Eat, I was elated. Not only did it give me a perfect excuse to bake a little something – all in the name of beverage pairing, you see – but it gave me good reason to drink a little something, or somethings, too.

As for what to bake, it was easy. Ever since I made my first tarte Tatin – in preparation for this piece over here – my stomach has rumbled at more or less regular intervals for its dark, winy flavor. Both complex and comforting, it is the flavor of fall, if you ask me – although I won’t exactly refuse it in winter, spring, or summer, either. [I’m a real pushover.] And given that it is late October, it seemed only fitting that I pick up a few local apples at the market, tuck them into a skillet, cover them with puff pastry, and turn them into a tarte Tatin.

And then – here comes the fun part – I would send said tart down the gullet with sips of, well, whatever Andrew and Karen told me to.

The plan thus hatched, I sat by the door and waited for the book to arrive. A big, glossy tome with an inviting close-up on the cover, What to Drink with What You Eat is laid out in a fashion that reminds me – in a good way – of a foreign language dictionary. In this case, the “translations” are pairings: part of the book matches beverages to foods, and another matches foods to beverages. If you’re wondering what to drink with miso soup or cheese straws, you’ll want to search the first portion. On the other hand, if you’re curious about what foods go with the bottle of Chimay Blue in your fridge, you’ll want to flip to the second. Each type of food or beverage comes with a list of recommended pairings, some classic – pineapple with rum, or Stilton with port – and some surprising. [I would have never thought to put a glass of Fizzy Lizzy sparkling orange juice alongside a dessert with plums, but come to think of it, it just might work.] And for those seeking general principles and guidelines, there are also a few introductory chapters that explain everything from the sensuous science of balancing flavors to the temperature at which red wine is best served, with chatty, down-to-earth anecdotes. As for me, I headed straight for one page in particular: the one about apples, and apple desserts, more specifically.

Andrew and Karen suggest no fewer than 22 possible pairings for apple desserts, but for the sake of sanity – and so that I wouldn’t slump my way to work the next morning – I decided to choose just three: a sauternes, a Hungarian sweet wine called tokaji, and bourbon.* The first I had tasted before, but not with apples; the second I had read about but never tried; and the third was a shoo-in, seeing as a bottle of Woodford Reserve was sitting in our liquor cabinet. With the help of my preferred local wine shop, I chose a 2003 Château Lamothe Guignard Sauternes - a good year, the merchant told me - and a 2000 Royal Tokaji. A couple of hours and one warm tarte Tatin later, we were ready to taste.

Now, far be it for me to make bold exaggerations - I usually leave that to Brandon - but I discovered something momentous at the table that evening. It is this: apples were invented, I believe, for the express purpose of being served alongside a Hungarian tokaji. Sure, bourbon is lovely: smooth, spicy, with a whiff of vanilla and a delicious afterburn that together bring intrigue to the simplicity of apple. It’s awfully hard to quibble, too, with the soft sweetness of sauternes, or with its satisfying, syrupy mouthfeel. But the amber-colored tokaji was the only one that had us pausing to mull over its complex flavor - brown butter, butterscotch, silky, delicious - and then reaching for a refill. It not only made the tarte Tatin’s deep, caramelized flavor taste even deeper, but in turn, the tarte somehow made the tokaji taste even better too. Less sweet than sauternes and less cloying than bourbon, this stuff is addictively good; as Brandon said, “I want to drink the entire bottle.” But thank heavens he didn’t, because the little bit we have left - not to mention the other 19 pairings to be tried - gives me good reason to bake another tarte. Andrew and Karen, I owe you one.


* Brandon, Mr. Bourbon Man, was surprised to see that his beloved booze was not listed as a possible pairing under the word “apples.” But we flipped to the listing for whisky, and sure enough, there it was: “apples.” We assumed that whisky / bourbon’s absense from the apple listing was just a simple oversight, and so we forged ahead. Please pardon our boldness.


Tarte Tatin
Adapted from David Rosengarten’s Taste and Julia Child’s The Way to Cook

Don’t be intimidated by this classic dessert’s fussy look, or by the length of this recipe: it’s very straightforward. And I’m very verbose.


5-6 large apples, preferably Golden Delicious or Ginger Gold
Juice of 1 lemon
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
6 Tbs unsalted butter, divided
About 14 ounces puff pastry (store-bought, such as Dufour brand, is just fine; if frozen, be sure to let it thaw for about an before using)

Peel and quarter the apples, removing the cores such that each quarter has a flat inner side. Toss the apple quarters in a large bowl with the lemon juice and ½ cup of the sugar. Set aside for 30 minutes.

In a 9-inch cast-iron skillet set over medium heat, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter. Add the remaining 1 cup sugar, along with a few tablespoons of the apple-lemon juices. Stir to mix. Cook the mixture over medium-low heat, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon, for about 15 minutes, or until the mixture is a smooth, bubbly, pale caramel color.

Remove the pan from the heat and carefully add apple quarters, arranging them rounded-side-down in a decorative pattern. Arrange a second layer of apples on top wherever they fit, closely packed. This second layer need not be terribly neat. Top the apples with the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, cut into dice.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cook the apples over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, occasionally spooning the bubbling caramel liquid over them. Press them down gently with the back of a spoon — don’t worry if they shift a bit in the liquid; just move them back to where they were — and watch to make sure that no one area of the pan is bubbling more than another. Shift the pan as necessary so that the apples cook evenly. They are ready when the liquid in the pan has turned to a thick, amber ooze. The apples should still be slightly firm. Do not allow them to get entirely soft or the liquid to turn dark brown. Remove the pan from the heat.

On a floured surface, roll the puff pastry out to a thickness of about 3/16 inch. Using a sharp, thin knife, trace a circle in the pastry about 10 inches in diameter (1/2 inch wider all around than the skillet), and trim away any excess. Carefully lay the pastry circle over the apples in the skillet, tucking the overlap down between the apples and the inside of the pan.

Place the skillet on a rimmed baking sheet, and bake for about 30-35 minutes, until the pastry has risen, and is dry and golden brown. Remove the skillet from the oven, and let it to rest for a minute or two. Tilt the pan and look down inside the edge: if there is a lot of juice, pour most of it off into the sink. [Do not pour it all off, or the apples may stick to the pan.] Place a serving platter upside-down over the skillet and, working quickly and carefully (it’s hot!), invert the tart onto the platter. Rearrange any apple slices that may have slipped or stuck to the skillet. Serve warm or at room temperature, preferably with a tokaji.

Yield: 8 servings - or less, if you, like me, like seconds

The smaller, the sweeter

Once upon a time – not so long ago, but it sure feels like it – I lived in a little studio apartment in Paris.* It had a front door that closed only when slammed, a tiny terrace guarded by a garden gnome named Vincent, and an almost-kitchen in an alcove, with a two-burner electric stove, a dorm room refrigerator, no oven, and a microwave that I stood on my tiptoes to reach. It was humble, but it was sweet. And above all, it was in France. People, it could have been Stuart Little’s matchbox, for all I cared. To me, that apartment was a petite – Parisienne-size, let’s say – piece of paradise. I used the top of my dresser as a de facto countertop and cheerfully cooked my ovenless meals. The foot of my bed made a handy dinner table, where I sat to eat my daily baguette dunked in soup and bowls of ratatouille with runny poached eggs. One entire shelf of my wee fridge was taken up by cheese, wrapped in waxed paper and stinky with promise. I ate it to the televised soundtrack of Les Guignols and PPDA, licking my knife** to get every last nub and smear. Never mind that I had to break myself in half to shave my legs in the pocket-size shower stall. That place was paradise.

Now, this little studio of mine was situated in the eleventh arrondissement, not too far from a particularly good market street called rue Oberkampf. Gently curving up an ever-so-slight slope, the narrow street was lined with shops and stands: a butcher under a red awning, with chickens spinning on a rotisserie outside; a cheese shop here; a cheese shop there; a wine shop; a boulangerie; and a pâtisserie too, its windows lined in puff pastry and marzipan. But my favorite shop on Oberkampf was a greengrocer on a corner, under a kelly awning. Behind boxes of wares stood the shop’s keeper, a man in something akin to a doctor’s coat, meting out the pick of the day. He was chatty but serious, almost professorial. He made small talk about carrots with his customers. On that first visit, when my turn came, he promptly offered me half an apricot, plump and rosy around the shoulders. Needless to say, I was an easy sell. I’m a sucker for a man who knows his stone fruit, and who genuinely cares about carrots. So I snatched up a dozen apricots and, over the months that followed, came back for eggplant and tomatoes and lettuce, along with mushrooms and soft green pears. And sometime in the winter, perhaps as a reward for my devotion, he pointed me to a wooden crate near the door. Within it lay the cutest, tiniest cauliflower in the whole world. It was the size of my fist, snowy white, with leaves curled shyly around its cheeks. It would be extra sweet, he promised me, and mild and tender. So I took it back to my studio and its stunted little stove – for which the cauliflower seemed to have been destined, anyway – and while I set the table-slash-bed, I steamed it until it melted under my fork. Eaten warm with a mustard vinaigrette, it was nutty and warming and delicious, a small wintry meal for someone living in small quarters.

And to make a long story short, this is exactly what I thought of last week, when I stumbled upon a cache of pint-size cauliflower at the market. They were about a pound each – small by American standards, albeit still rather giant in comparison to their Oberkampf counterpart. I brought home two of them, nubbled and pearly, and set to work in our Seattle kitchen to cook them as I would have done in Paris, had I had an oven or a pastry brush.



First, I steamed them for a few minutes, so that they just softened. Then I painted them – the whole heads, still intact – with a slurry of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and slipped them into the oven. Tucked under a tent of aluminum foil, the little crucifers went completely relaxed, letting loose their limbs and florets to slump on the floor of the roasting pan. When they yielded to a serving spoon without the slightest squeak or fight, we doused them with vinaigrette and ate them, sweet and silky, on the spot. For a minute there, it was like just like Paris – or better, even, what with all that roasting and relaxing, not to mention a real dinner table.


* Should you wonder what I was doing there, here you go. The pay is puny on first glance, but for only twelve hours a week, it’s pretty wonderful. I highly recommend it.
** I know, Mom, I know. I was living dangerously. Please forgive.



Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Mustard Vinaigrette
Adapted from Parisian Home Cooking, by Michael Roberts

Really, is there anything cuter than a short, squatty, lightly burnished head of cauliflower? [The answer, ahem, is no.] Now is the perfect time for this dish: the beginning of cauliflower season, when the heads are small and sweet. And the recipe itself couldn’t be easier, not to mention delicious. I like to serve this pretty, rustic dish on the warm side of hot, and with a little boat of vinaigrette on the side, so that each eater can drizzle or douse to their heart’s content. I usually use my standard red wine-mustard vinaigrette, but if you like, you can play with different vinegars in your dressing. On the night that the above photograph was taken, we used Banyuls vinegar, and its tart, nutty flavor was a welcome change.

2 small cauliflower, about 1 pound each
3 Tbs good-quality olive oil
2 Tbs fresh lemon juice
1 tsp fine sea salt
A few grinds of black pepper
A pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
This vinaigrette

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Set a steamer basket inside a large, deep pot, and add water to a depth of ½ to 1 inch – just below the bottom of the steamer. Rinse and trim the cauliflower. Place them in the steamer, cover, and steam for 15-20 minutes. By this point, they should be tender and should have changed in color from a raw, opaque white to a slightly more translucent, yellowy off-white.

Meanwhile, combine the oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a small bowl, whisking to mix well.

When the cauliflower is ready, gently transfer them from the steamer to a medium baking dish or small roasting pan, something just large enough to hold the two heads side by side. Using a pastry brush, paint the cauliflower with the oil mixture. Cover the pan with aluminum foil, and place it in the oven. Roast the cauliflower for 30 minutes, basting every ten minutes. [You should have just enough of the oil mixture for three light bastings in total, including the first one.] Remove the foil, and continue to bake for another 10-20 minutes, until the cauliflower is pale golden and a knife can be easily inserted into its core.

Serve hot or warm, with vinaigrette.

Yield: About 4 servings

Special game, fennel salad

Every now and then, Brandon and I like to play a special game. It has no real name, but if I were to give it one, it might be called the “Your Partner Has No Past” game. It goes like this: whenever one of us mentions a previous boyfriend or girlfriend, the other feigns deafness, dumbness, or outright incomprehension. For example:

Molly: “Oooh! I love this song! Turn it up! [Ex-boyfriend] put it on a mix tape for me when we first met.”

Brandon: “What? Who did? You mean I did? I did, right?”

It’s not so much that we dislike knowing about each other’s previous significant others — because in fact, I take a sort of perverse interest in the topic. No, it’s just that it’s so fun to pretend that your partner came out of the ether, fully and perfectly formed. You know — the way that Athena sprung from Zeus’s head? It makes us both look terribly talented and precocious, like minor geniuses in the romance department. To wit:

Brandon: “Oh baby, you’re such a good kisser. It’s really amazing, since I was your first kiss and everything. Riiiiight?”

Molly: “Of course! [Wink, wink.] And you, mon cheri, are so good at hugging! It’s really amazing how good you are, especially since I’m the first person you’ve ever hugged. Riiiiight?”

As you can see, our game is really quite fun. You should try it — so long as both players are in on the plan, of course. Otherwise, it could get messy.

But all that said — sex, lies, and special games — I have to admit that I am actually quite grateful for Brandon’s ex-girlfriends, and one of them in particular. Without Gillian’s wise tutelage, he would be, he tells me, “a terrible hippie.” He would also douse all edibles with inedible — for most people — amounts of vinegar. And he might never have done any homework, or made it through college. Clearly, I owe the woman quite a lot. But more than anything else, I owe her — or, technically, her parents — a big one for teaching Brandon about shaved fennel salads.

Apparently, Gillian’s parents once owned a CD-ROM of Julia Child’s series Cooking with Master Chefs. In one of the episodes, Alice Waters, Patron Saint of All Things Fresh, teaches Julia how to make a shaved fennel, mushroom, and Parmesan salad. Gillian’s parents were quite taken with the idea, and it quickly became a regular in their repertoire. Brandon tasted it for the first time in their home, and now, one breakup and a few years later, it is a regular in ours. To Gillian’s parents, I say: things may not have turned out as you imagined, but inadvertently, you sure did a good thing for me and my man. Thank you.

This salad is a wonderful cool-weather standby: crisp, fragrant, a little cheer for the jaw. Now that the soft, baby lettuces of summer are gone, it’s time for fall’s sweet fennel and earthy mushrooms. Shaved paper-thin and layered on a platter, drizzled with olive oil and fresh lemon juice, this is what salad looks like when it wears its winter whites — or, rather, pale greens and browns. Finished with curls of sweet, fruity Parmigiano Reggiano, it makes a lovely Sunday lunch for two, with a hunk of baguette, a pat of butter, and a piece of fruit for dessert. If you’re anything like us, it might even inspire a special game — something involving forks, stealth, and the last bite of salad.





Shaved Fennel Salad with Mushrooms and Parmesan
Adapted from Alice Waters and Julia Child

Part of what makes this salad feel special is its elegant, layered presentation. But if you’re short on time — or just don’t feel like fussing — you can certainly toss it in a bowl like any other salad. As for variations, you can try adding a dash of truffle oil for some sophistication and snazz, or, if you’re feeling frisky, try replacing the mushrooms with paper-thin slices of Asian pear. We thought of that a couple of days ago, when we shared an Asian pear after big plates of this salad. The mingling of flavors was fantastic. Needless to say, it’s next on our list.

1 medium fennel bulb, about 10-12 ounces
5 or 6 small mushrooms, preferably crimini or white button
Good-quality olive oil
A lemon
Sea salt, such as Maldon
A hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
Freshly ground black pepper

First, prepare the fennel. If it still has its feathery fronds, cut them off at the base of their stalks, and discard them. Rinse the bulb under cool water, and dry it thoroughly. Using a vegetable peeler or paring knife, trim away any bruises or brown spots on the very outermost “skin” of the fennel. Cut the bulb in half from root to stalk, and trim the root end. Using a sharp knife or a mandoline, slice the fennel as thinly you possibly can.

Now, prepare the mushrooms. Wipe away any dirt on their surface with a damp paper towel, and trim off and discard the stem end. Using a sharp knife or a mandoline, slice the mushrooms very thinly.

Assemble the salad in layers on a large platter or, if you prefer, on individual plates. First, make a layer of fennel slices. Drizzle lightly with olive oil. Then place a layer of mushrooms on top of the fennel. Drizzle lightly with lemon juice, and season with salt. Using a vegetable peeler, cut thin shavings of the cheese, and arrange them on top of the mushrooms. Add another layer of fennel, followed by a light drizzle of oil, and then another layer of mushrooms, lemon juice, salt, and cheese. Repeat until you run out of fennel and mushrooms; you might have two layers of each, or you might have more; it doesn’t much matter. Finish the salad with a good drizzle of lemon juice and a hearty splash of oil, and garnish with a few shavings of cheese. Serve immediately, with salt and pepper to taste.

Yield: 2 quite generous servings, or 4 side servings