So much better

You guys really are terrific. I dropped the ball last week, I know, with all this book nonsense and blah blah blah, but you were so nice. Your congratulations and good will cheered me right through to the end - to Thursday morning at approximately 11 am, when I said so long to our old friend Man U. Script. He’ll be back soon enough, I fear, but he’s gone for now, and that’s good enough for me. Darn good, in fact.

And hey, I wrote a book! Goodnight. How on earth did that happen? I didn’t know I had it in me, really, until it was done. Life o’ mine, you are full of surprises - and also dirty dishes, and dirty laundry, and dust bunnies. I spent Thursday afternoon scrubbing the kitchen sink, sweeping the bathroom floor, and going through mail that had been sitting next to my desk since October. October, people. Then I watched four episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent (I have an itty bitty crush on Vincent D’Onofrio; don’t tell); ate two pains au chocolat; danced around to the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa for a couple of hours; and finally, yesterday, fell asleep curled around a pile of warm laundry and missed most of the afternoon, including a holiday party at the home of friends.



Oh yeah. I also made toffee, chocolate blocks, banana bread, and brown butter cookies spread with homemade strawberry jam.

Brown. Butter. Cookies.

I feel so much better. About everything.



I clipped the recipe for these little beauties two years ago, but it took me until now - my priorities have been totally out of line - to try them. But better late than never, I say, because they’re lovely. For one thing, they’re some of the prettiest cookies I’ve ever seen. Shaped in the well of a teaspoon - a tad tedious, yes, but therapeutic in a way, and totally worth it - they turn out smooth and curvy, the approximate size and shape of a flattened egg. They’re pale gold and flecked with toasted bits of butter, and you sandwich them with a festive sash of jam across the waistline. They’re sophisticated but still approachable, eminently edible. If they were human, you’d want to pinch their cheeks and buy them a drink.

Then, of course, there’s the flavor: intensely buttery, warm and rich, and ever-so-slightly nutty, with a sandy crumb that melts instantly on the tongue. They remind me a bit of Pecan Sandies® - only minus the pecans and plus jam. (If you grew up, as I did, with Pecan Sandies®, you’ll know that’s high praise.) Their creator, Celia Barbour, calls them “the best cookies in the world,” and while I’m not quite ready to go that far - they don’t, after all, contain chocolate - I think she’s onto something. I can’t imagine a better cookie for dunking in a mug of coffee on Christmas Day. They’re coming along in my carry-on tomorrow morning, when we fly to the East Coast for the holidays. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks, with an empty cookie tin in tow.

Friends, I wish you the very happiest of holidays. It’s been quite a year, and I’ve loved spending it with you.



Brown Butter Spoon Cookies with Jam
Adapted from Gourmet, December 2005

I’m not going to tell you that these are the world’s easiest cookies, because they do take a bit of time and technique. But I will tell you that they’re outlandishly delicious, and that there’s something terrifically calming about shaping and assembling them, even if it does take a while. Plus, the dough is wonderfully simple - maybe the simplest I’ve ever made. You make it right in the saucepan! Neat-o.

As for shaping the dough, well, it’s a little tricky at first, but after the first 10 or 12, you’ll find yourself settling into it: instinctively knowing how much dough to use for each cookie, how to press it just so into the bowl of a teaspoon, how to slide it out. By the second pan, it was actually going pretty quickly. Oh, and don’t worry about little imperfections: the heat of the oven will soften and smooth them.

Lastly, about the preserves: Celia Barbour recommends using a mixture of half cherry and half strawberry, but I used only strawberry. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s a jam you love. My strawberry jam was homemade, left over from a recipe project this fall, and its flavor was terrific with the brown butter cookie.

2 sticks (1 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt, slightly rounded
Heaping 1/3 cup fruit preserves

To make the dough:
Fill the kitchen sink with about 2 inches of very cold water.

In a medium heavy saucepan, melt the butter over moderate heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the butter turns golden and smells nutty and flecks on the bottom of the pan turn a rich caramelly brown, about 10 to 12 minutes. (Butter will initially foam a bit, then dissipate. A thicker foam will appear and cover the surface just before the butter begins to brown; stir more frequently once this occurs.) Remove the pan from the heat and place it in the sink to stop the butter from cooking further. Cool, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Remove the pan from the sink, and stir in the sugar and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture and stir until a dough forms. Shape the dough into two balls – or one, but it’s a little unwieldy – and wrap in plastic wrap. Set aside at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours to allow the flavors to develop. (Alternatively, chill dough balls until you’re ready to use them. Allow the chilled dough to soften at room temperature for at least one hour before shaping into cookies and baking.)

To shape and bake the cookies:
Set an oven rack in the middle position, and preheat the oven to 325°F.

Choose a teaspoon with a deep bowl. (I used an antique silver teaspoon; older spoons in general, I find, have nice deep bowls. Do not use a measuring spoon.) Pinch off a small bit of dough from one of the balls and press it into the bowl of the spoon, flattening the top. The dough will feel crumbly, but as you press and mold it, it will become cohesive. Pressing gently, slide the shaped dough out of the spoon and place it, flat side down, on an ungreased baking sheet. (I lined mine with a silicon liner for easy clean-up.) Continue forming cookies and arranging them on the sheet pan; you should be able to fit about 18 cookies. Bake the cookies until just pale golden, about 8 to 15 minutes. Cool them on the sheet pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes; then transfer them to the rack and cool completely. Meanwhile, continue shaping and baking more cookies until all the dough is gone. You should be able to make about 60 to 70 cookies in all.

To assemble the cookies:
While the cookies cool, heat the preserves in a small saucepan over low heat until just runny. Pour and scrape through a sieve into a small bowl to remove seeds and solids. Cool completely. (I stuck mine in the fridge for a few minutes.)

Working with one cookie at a time, spread the flat side with a thin layer of preserves. Sandwich with the flat side of a second cookie. Continue with the remaining cookies and preserves. Let the finished cookies stand until the jam is set, about 45 minutes.

Transfer cookies to an airtight container and wait 2 days - really! - before eating to allow the flavor to develop. (Or, if making them well in advance, freeze them.)

Yield: 30-35 sandwich cookies

Thursday, Thursday, Thursday.

Hi, friends.

I had the best intentions. Really, I did. I was going to tell you about another cookie today, and a really good one too. But a visitor of sorts has been staying with us lately, and he won’t let me into the kitchen. He’s big and burly, nearly 90,000 words tall. His name is Man U. Script, and he’s a real bruiser. He’s bossy and demanding, and he makes me sit at my desk for hours and hours and hours.

But the good news is that, at long last, he’s leaving on Thursday. He’s getting into a FedEx box and going to New York to hang out with my editor. I can hardly believe it. I don’t know whether to open a bottle of champagne, or cry, or curl up on the couch and sleep. Maybe all three? We’ll see on Thursday. Thursday, Thursday, Thursday.



I’ve really been feeling pretty good about things, aside from being exhausted and all. For pure satisfaction, writing a book is hard to beat. But the other night I had the scariest dream. In it, I was meeting my editor for the first time - which I’ll do next week, actually, when Brandon and I go to New York for Christmas - and much to my terror, she turned out to be Anna Wintour. You know - Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue magazine, she of the impeccable bob and severe, I-will-not-smile-I-will-not-smile-I-will-
not-smile expression? She was holding my manuscript and sneering, and then she sighed and said, “Hmmm. Well. I suppose it’ll have to do.”

You’d better believe I woke up sweating after that one. (And for the record, my editor is not Anna Wintour. Phew.)



So, guys, I don’t have any cookies for you this week. I’m so sorry. Let’s try again next week, can we? I’m game if you are.


P.S. If you, like me, are feeling a little pinched for kitchen time these days - and who isn’t? - you might try this salad with butternut squash and chickpeas, or spaghetti with my favorite tomato sauce, or Brussels sprouts and pine nuts with pasta, or celery root soup. They’ve been our standbys lately.

P.P.S. Oof! In my befuddled state, I was unable to contribute a prize to this year’s Menu for Hope raffle, but don’t mind me: go donate and enter anyway, right here.

The cookie-baking part

The rains, oh, the rains. They have come.

Yesterday, while those of you on the East Coast were reveling in fresh snow on the windowsill, we woke to rain thumping on the roof. Despite what you might have heard about Seattle, this isn’t our usual kind of weather. Our rain is more of a fine mist, a la di da sort of rain - definitely not a thump-thump. We went out for croissants and grapefruit juice anyway, in spite of the downpour, but as we huddled uncomfortably under a single umbrella - we seem to have lost our second one; it’s going to be a long, wet season - Brandon turned to me and said, woefully, “Remind me - winter in Seattle isn’t really this bad, is it?”

For the record, no, oh no, it’s not. Winter here is really not bad at all. In fact, it’s quite good. It’s pretty mild, and everything stays green, and you rarely need more than a jacket. And no matter what the weather is up to, misting or thumping or nothing much, it’s always perfect - perfect! - for baking cookies.




Oooh-weee! I do love winter. Or the cookie-baking part of winter, anyway. That’s what it’s all about. If you’re looking for me anytime soon, just follow the sound of the whirring mixer.

Those who were reading last winter might remember that, come late November, a great cloud of sugar settled over this site. I baked, and I baked, and then I made some chocolates, and then I baked some more. (I also made some Brussels sprouts, which don’t technically involve sugar, but they were so sweet and creamy that, in my book, they’re akin to candy.) In the past few years, I’ve come to expect it, this funny urge to produce. I’ve never been one for making a mess - you should have seen me tiptoe around the papier-mâché in grade-school art class - but come December, I itch to get my hands into softened butter and sticky doughs. I can’t imagine, as the nights get shorter and darker and colder, not retreating into the kitchen. It’s warm in there, and steamy, and it smells like cinnamon sticks and chocolate. I just like it so much.

But of course, like it or not, a girl can only eat so many cookies. Of necessity, most of my output will wind up neatly stacked, wrapped in cellophane, packed in tins, and shipped out to places near and far. Cookies make the very best gifts, I think, and really, you wouldn’t believe how satisfying it is to march into the post office with an armload of your own production. (Try it! Nothing else compares, I swear.)

In light of all this, it makes good sense, I think, that for the second year in a row, I’ve decided to give only handmade gifts for the holidays. I even took a pledge. It’s a little scary to commit to such a thing - and even more to say it aloud here, with all of you out there cracking the whip, ready to hold me accountable - but in practice, it’s really pretty easy. After all, when I say that I plan to give only handmade, I don’t mean only handmade by me. (That would require a lot of cookies, people, more than I’ve got time or sanity for. I sweat just thinking about it.) I’ll be giving about a dozen tins of homemade cookies, but beyond that, there are plenty of places to buy handmade gifts, pretty things with history and character and accumulated love. They’re not cookies, but they’re close.

Oh, and speaking of cookies - I know, I know; you’ve been very patient - I’ve got a real whopper for you today. Brandon has officially declared them one of his favorite cookies EVER(!!!), and though you and I both know that he’s a teensy, weensy bit of an exaggerator, in this case, you’d do well to take heed. They’re really tremendous. They might not be the prettiest girls in town, a little speckly and plain, but they make up in flavor - ten-fold, in fact - what they lack in looks.



The cookies in question are from Alice Medrich’s newest book Pure Dessert, which, if I may be so pushy, I would strongly recommend adding to your Christmas wish list. It’s a gorgeous book, for one thing, brimming with inventive takes on cookies, cakes, and other sweets, and I swear, every recipe that woman touches turns to gold. She’s a gem. (Remember those cocoa cookies I wrote about in October? They were hers. See what I mean?) The recipe that follows is ample proof. Medrich calls them Nibby Buckwheat Butter Cookies, but since I have a constitutional aversion to the word nibby, I call them buckwheat butter cookies with cocoa nibs. Either way, whatever you call them, get ready, because if you’re not careful, they’ll claim a permanent hold on your kitchen.

Which, actually, on second thought, wouldn’t be so bad. They’re crisp, delicate, and intensely buttery, and like any cookie worth its salt, they melt instantly on the tongue. I ordinarily associate buckwheat flour with breakfast and pancakes and blini, but folded into cookie form, it becomes effortlessly sweet, nutty and toasty, as though it were meant to be there all along. The nibs, for their part, bring a nuttiness of their own - something I’d never really noticed before - not to mention a lovely whiff of bitter chocolate, like Toll House® Morsels for the adult set. They’re ingenious cookies all around: smart and surprising and utterly, utterly seconds-worthy. And, heavens to Betsy, would you believe it, they get even better with age. That means, you know, that in the time it takes you to bake a few other types of cookies too and pack them all up in a pretty tin and send them to wherever, they’re actually getting tastier. Good lord, I love that. Hello, happy holidays.



Buckwheat Butter Cookies with Cocoa Nibs
Adapted from Alice Medrich’s Pure Dessert

If it’s at all possible, I would urge you to make these cookies at least one day before you want to eat them. Their flavor takes time to develop. On the day they’re made, they’re okay, if a little too buckwheaty - but by the second day, they’re amazing. Just amazing.

1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ cup buckwheat flour
½ lb. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
¼ tsp. salt
1/3 cup cocoa nibs
1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours.

In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter with the sugar and salt until smooth and creamy but not fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the nibs and vanilla, and beat to incorporate, scraping down the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the flours all at once, and beat on low speed until just incorporated. The mixture will seem very dry and pebbly at first, but keep beating, and it will slowly moisten and darken (as the buckwheat flour is absorbed) and come together. You’ll know it’s ready when it pulls away from the side of the bowl. The dough will be very thick.

Form the dough into a long (12” or 13”) log about 2 inches in diameter. Because the dough is so thick, I find it easiest to do this by pinching off hunks of dough from the bowl and lining them up on a large sheet of plastic wrap to form a log, then massaging and pressing them together to seal. Wrap well and refrigerate at least two hours, or overnight.

If you have refrigerated the dough overnight, remove it from the refrigerator 1 to 2 hours before you want to bake the cookies. (It’s a dense, rich dough, and once it’s very cold, it takes a little while to soften enough to slice without shattering.) Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven, and preheat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners.

When the dough feels slightly softened - it should have just a hint of give when you press it with a fingertip - unwrap it and place it on a cutting board. Using a thin, sharp knife, carefully cut the dough into ¼-inch-thick slices. Place slices on the prepared baking sheets, spacing each cookie about 1 ½ inches apart. (I put about 15 cookies on each sheet; you won’t be able to bake all the dough at once.)

Bake until cookies just begin to color around the edges, about 12 to 14 minutes, rotating the sheet pans from top to bottom and front to back midway through. Transfer to wire racks, and cool the cookies on the baking sheets (or slide the parchment onto the rack to free up the pans). Cool completely before eating or storing. Repeat with remaining dough.

Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to 1 month. (I thought that seemed a bit long, though, so I stashed mine the freezer. I don’t know - Medrich says they’re fine at room temperature, but I didn’t want to risk it. They’re gifts, so I want to be sure they’re good.)

Yield: about 50-55 small cookies

Refilled and refueled

Oh my. That was nice.

It may have swooped down suddenly upon me, but Thanksgiving landed with a gentle bump and the merest, softest sigh. It was quiet and slow, with plenty of time for cookies and wine and “Pass the Baby” (our favorite game when there’s an infant around, namely my niece Mia) and slices of pie for breakfast. Over the course of five days, some of us never even left the house, and those who did went only for important things like green beans, brownies, beer, and walks around the neighborhood. Brandon wore pajamas for two days straight. We slept on an egg crate mattress pad in the living room, and the flue in the fireplace wouldn’t shut, so cold air billowed through the room, but under two blankets and one fuzzy throw, we slept until almost eleven every morning. I don’t know the last time I slept that late, except maybe the morning after my senior prom. It was just what I needed.

Of course, there was also a roasted turkey with lemon slices tucked under its skin, which I needed too. And my mother’s stuffing with pork sausage and spinach and almonds and brandy, which I promise to tell you more about someday, because it really is the absolute best. Then there were Brandon’s trademark mashed potatoes moistened with a puree of caramelized onions and roasted garlic, and hashed Brussels sprouts with poppy seeds and lemon. There was also butternut squash roasted with chickpeas and curry, and cranberry sauce with red Zinfandel and orange peel, and cranberry chutney with crystallized ginger, and apple crisp and pecan pie. If you’ll believe it, we actually forgot(!) to buy shortening for the biscuits(!), so they had to wait a day, until Friday, but in the end, it worked out even better. They were just the thing to go with our day-after turkey soup, made with stock from the simmered carcass, carrots, celery, and cubes of butternut squash. I made two batches of biscuits, but I should have made more, because some of us - though I won’t say who - got a little snarly at the table, sparring for the last few.

I’m telling you, there’s nothing to settle a person back into herself like five days under her mother’s roof, some Lillet on the rocks, a lot of food, and a husband who spends the better part of two days reading her manuscript and even says nice things about it, bless him, when he’s through. I still have a lot of work ahead of me, but I feel ready for the holidays, refilled and refueled, ready to put a pot of mulled cider on the stove and make the house smell like December.

And speaking of refueling, since you’ve been so kind to me lately - or, really, actually, all the time - I want to give you a recipe today that I’m especially pleased with. It’s a pasta dish with Brussels sprouts - ‘tis the season, you know; we’ve all got some knocking around the crisper drawer these days - and toasted pine nuts, bound together with the barest slip of cream. I think you’re going to like it. I sure do.



Those of you who subscribe to Gourmet might have noticed something similar in the November issue. That’s where I found the inspiration for this. It was tucked away in the “Ten Minute Mains” section: a pithy recipe for fettuccine with Brussels sprouts and pine nuts, an unassuming little ditty that, to tell you the truth, I almost completely skipped over. But my friend Olaiya made it, tweaking it slightly, and with all sorts of superlatives, told me how good it was. And she was right: it’s really terrific. A keeper, for sure. It’s my newest standby dinner. (The leftovers make a nice lunch too, but that’s just icing on the cake.)



It may not be much to look at, but the combination of Brussels sprouts and pine nuts is an inspired one, I assure you. They’re lovely on their own, but together, the fragrant, toasty nuts highlight and boost the sprouts’ naturally nutty qualities. They make for a flavor that’s almost addictive, which is a lot to say for a pasta dish. (I usually reserve that kind of praise for things involving chocolate.) In the original version of the recipe, the pine nuts were to be cooked with the Brussels sprouts, which made them a bit soggy for my taste, so I tweaked the method to toast the pine nuts separately, allowing them to hold onto their delicate crunch. I also added a dash of cream at the end for a dose of moisture, richness, and oomph. It’s the sort of thing you’ll want to make on many a chilly night, before you fire up a batch of apple butter or a batch of sablés. I know I will.



Pasta with Hashed Brussels Sprouts and Pine Nuts
Adapted from Gourmet, November 2007

¾ lb. Brussels sprouts, trimmed
3 Tbsp. pine nuts
½ lb. dried pasta, preferably fettuccine or another long noodle
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
½ tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. heavy cream
Parmigiano-Reggiano, for serving

In a food processor fitted with the slicing disk, slice the Brussels sprouts into a fine hash. Set aside.

Place a large pot of salted water over high heat.

While the water is heating, prepare the pine nuts. Place a large heavy skillet over medium heat. When the pan is warm, add the pine nuts and, shaking the pan frequently, toast until golden and fragrant. (Careful: they burn easily.) Transfer to a bowl or small plate, and set aside. Set the pan aside as well, but do not wash it: you’ll use it again in a minute.

When the water boils, add the pasta and cook until al dente.

While the pasta cooks, prepare the Brussels sprouts. Return the skillet to the stove, and place over medium-high heat. You want it to get quite hot. Add the olive oil and butter. When the butter has melted – it’s okay if it browns a little; mine did – add the Brussels sprouts and salt. Sauté, stirring frequently, until bright green and just tender, about 4 minutes.

If the pasta is ready at this point, drain it, reserving ¼ cup cooking water, and add it to the skillet with the cooked Brussels sprouts. Alternatively, if the pasta is not yet ready, transfer the sprouts to a large bowl. (You don’t want them to sit in the hot pan too long.) Either way, when the pasta is ready, toss it with the sprouts. Add the pine nuts and cream, and toss again. If the pasta seems a bit dry, add a splash or two of the cooking water.

Serve immediately, with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and additional salt at the table.

Yield: 4 servings

Sudden, huge, gorgeous

Hi, guys.

I can’t believe Thanksgiving is only three days away. I don’t know how the heck that happened. I had a dream last night that the ocean was in our backyard, and that I was standing at the window, looking out at it. Above the water, the sky was overcast, thick with clouds. As I stood there watching, all of a sudden, one of the clouds shook loose and fell, just like that, dropping fast and heavy, straight out of the sky. It landed in the water with a huge, gorgeous splash, like Paul Bunyan doing a cannonball in the neighborhood swimming pool, like some exotic flower breaking into bloom. This year, Thanksgiving feels a little like that, I think. Like it fell out of the sky. It’s sudden, huge, gorgeous.




Tomorrow we fly to Oklahoma, and I can’t wait. I had wanted to give you a new recipe today, something fitting to the occasion, but here we are, and uh, I don’t have one. I do, however, have a manuscript that’s really coming along, and it has lots of recipes, and in only three weeks, it will be done. I hope that counts for something. To me, it feels like everything.




So I hope you’ll understand if I’m a little quieter than usual right now. You don’t need me, anyway. You’ve got lots of cooking and baking and eating to do. There are birds to be roasted and dishes to be filled. So hop to it.



But in case you need any last-minute nudges, any ideas in these last 72 hours, I’ve dredged up a few. What follows is a list of some of my cool-weather favorites. Any of them would be right at home on a holiday table, and some, come Thursday, will most certainly be on mine.

Breads
Sweet potato biscuits
Touch-of-Grace biscuits

Miscellaneous
Cheddar crisps
Cranberry chutney with crystallized ginger and dried cherries

Soups
Apple and butternut squash soup
Butternut squash soup with pear, cider, and vanilla bean
Puree of celery root soup

Sweets
Ginger-pear upside-down cake
Roasted pears
Tarte Tatin

Vegetables
Braised fennel
Braised green cabbage with onions and carrots
Braised red cabbage with apples and caraway seeds
Butternut puree with maple syrup
Cream-braised Brussels sprouts
Hashed Brussels sprouts with poppy seeds and lemon
Radicchio and radish salad with pear and parmesan
Vinegar-roasted shallots

Vegetarian main dishes
Braised winter greens with chickpeas, onion, and garlic
Dreamy white beans
Warm butternut and chickpea salad with tahini


Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you, and you, and you, for everything.

A great relief

Oh guys.

It’s kind of hard for me to get my head in the game this fall - you know, for Thanksgiving and the holidays and all. I can hardly keep track of anything these days except the words on my computer screen, and even that’s touch-and-go. My brain is a wide-mesh sieve. The other day, I went out to breakfast with a friend, someone I’d lost touch with for a couple of years and ran into again only recently, and we were talking about my wedding. She wanted to know what time the ceremony took place, and - get this - I couldn’t remember. Could. Not. Remember. I was like, “Uhh, four? Or five? Or no, four-thirty?” The only good part is that later, when I told Brandon about my little memory lapse, he giggled and admitted that he can’t remember either. Heavens, he’s dreamy. We were meant for each other.

But all that notwithstanding, I really do want to talk about Thanksgiving today. I love Thanksgiving. It’s barely ten days away and approaching at lightning speed. I haven’t been cooking much these days, to be perfectly honest, but over the past few weeks, during lunches and in those late-night moments before my eyes cloud with sleep, I’ve come across some holiday recipes that made me itch to get to the stove. I don’t have much time to spare, but this weekend, feeling terribly decadent and devil-may-care about the manuscript and whatnot, I decided to do it anyway.



Oh ho ho. See that carrot soup up there? So pretty, right? So silky, so creamy, so delicious, it would seem, with white cheddar and a warm baguette? Oh, were it so. To tell you the truth, it was boring. Really boring. Like, I’ll-keep-eating-this-because-it’s-healthy-but-I’m-definitely-not-
going-to-enjoy-it-boring. It had tons of sweetly sauteed shallots, homemade chicken stock, and cream, and still, booooo-ring. I had it for lunch today and almost fell asleep.

Then there was the winter squash gratin from Julia Child’s The Way to Cook. Years ago, someone told me that it was a terrific recipe, and I’ve had it bookmarked ever since. I finally tried it on Saturday. It’s basically cubed winter squash - I used butternut - that you steam briefly with some minced garlic and fresh ginger and then fold gently with béchamel, top with fresh bread crumbs and gruyère, and bake slowly until lightly browned on top. I’d never made a gratin with béchamel - usually just milk or cream - but this was Julia, right? I love Julia. And butternut squash! And gruyère! It would be rich! It would be gooey! A Thankgiving homerun! You see where this is going. It too was only so-so: strange and slippery on the tongue, and with next to no flavor. It was like butternut squash with the volume turned down. It was wasted groceries, basically, and why oh why did I do that, and oh, what the hell, let’s have ice cream for dinner.

But in the midst of all this, my weekend of utter mediocrity, I remembered something. It came as a great relief. I think you’re going to like it. I know I do.



What I remembered was Shirley Corriher’s Touch-of-Grace Biscuits. Over the past several years, these little lumps of glory have come to be my Thanksgiving trademark, and though I wrote about them here three years ago, I thought it was high time to take them down from the shelf, dust them off, and trot them around again. I hope you don’t mind. Once you’ve tasted them, I doubt you will. I’ll bet even a snore of a carrot soup could look lively with one of these dunked in it.

Shirley Corriher is a well-known food scientist and author of a book called Cookwise, but even if you haven’t heard of her, this recipe will have you shouting her name from the rooftops. It’s based on her grandmother’s method for making biscuits, and though it’s a little odd on first glance, it’s utterly, utterly easy. Basically, you combine flour, sugar, and salt; rub in some shortening; and then stir in buttermilk and cream until the mixture looks like large-curd cottage cheese. Then, using a measuring scoop, you spoon up a biscuit-size quantity of the wet dough, dunk it in a bowl of flour, dust it off, nestle it in a cake pan, and repeat. The biscuits bake into a pebbly cake of sorts, like this.



Then you break them apart, wrap them in a dishtowel, put them on the table, and watch them go - because they do, fast. They’re uncannily light, moist and airy, with a flavor that’s both rich and tangy, buttermilk through and through. If you want to know what I’ll be contributing to Thanksgiving next week, when Brandon and I go to Oklahoma to celebrate with my mother, my aunt, my grandmother, three cousins, one cousin-in-law, two cousins’ boyfriends, one brother, one sister-in-law, one uncle, and one baby niece who is just starting to eat real food and loves it so much that she pants in anticipation - pants! - when she sees a spoon, well, this is it. I’ll probably be making two batches, actually, or maybe even three. Because we like biscuits. Much better than butternut gratin, in fact. I don’t know what I was thinking.



Touch-of-Grace Biscuits
Adapted from Shirley Corriher’s Cookwise

This recipe relies on two principles: 1) that low-protein flour makes tender biscuits, and 2) that a wet dough creates lots of steam in the oven and makes biscuits extra-light. It’s both simple and ingenious. The only tricky part is that you need Southern self-rising flour. It sounds finicky, but there’s a method to Corriher’s madness: Southern brands of flour are milled from a soft wheat that contains less gluten, meaning that they make a more tender biscuit. My favorite brand is White Lily, although I think I’ve also used Martha White, maybe, and Aunt Jemima brand. I can’t remember. White Lily is hard to find outside of the East Coast and the South. Williams-Sonoma used to carry it, but they’ve stopped, and now I have to mail-order mine. Crazy, I know, but these biscuits are worth it. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll order some too.

If you can’t find Southern self-rising flour, or if you don’t have time to wait for the mail, you can also try this: instead, combine 1 1/3 cups national-brand self-rising flour, 2/3 cup Wondra flour, and one heaping ½ teaspoon baking powder. That’s a decent substitute, although not quite as light. You also might need to add a touch more buttermilk to get the right consistency.

Nonstick cooking spray
2 cups Southern self-rising flour, such as White Lily
½ tsp. salt
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup vegetable shortening
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup all-purpose flour, for shaping biscuits (do not use self-rising for this)
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit, and spray an 8” round cake pan with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, combine the self-rising flour, salt, and sugar and whisk to mix well. Add the shortening and, using your fingers, rub it into the flour mixture until there are no lumps bigger than a large pea.

Stir in the heavy cream and buttermilk, taking care not to overmix. Let stand for 2-3 minutes. The dough will be very wet, resembling large-curd cottage cheese.

Pour the all-purpose flour into a shallow bowl or pie plate. Rub your hands in the flour to dust them well. Using a ¼-cup measuring scoop or something of similar size, spoon a lump of wet dough into the flour, and sprinkle some flour over it to coat well. Gently pick it up and shape it into a soft round. I do this by cradling it in the cupped palm of one hand and gently shaking it, letting the excess flour fall through my fingers. You can also toss the dough softly - very softly - back and forth from cupped palm to cupped palm: it should feel similar to a water balloon. Place biscuit in pan and repeat with remaining dough, pushing biscuits tightly against one another so that they will rise up and not spread out.

Brush with melted butter and bake until set and lightly browned, 15-20 minutes. Cool for a minute or two, then dump out and break apart into individual biscuits.

Serve immediately.

Yield: 10-12 biscuits

So warm, so fragrant

Oh November, November, November.

What on earth am I supposed to do with you? You’re so confusing. I don’t know whether to cheer for you (Thanksgiving! Fuzzy slippers! Hot cider with cognac!) or hide under the bed (Chapped lips! Sunset at 4:46 pm! So! Much! Work! To! Do!). November, you’re a mess. You’re even worse than Brandon’s closet. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.



Oh, people. Can it be true? Is it really November 5? Only 17 days before Thanksgiving? And did I really see that terrible ad for Lowe’s last night, the Christmas one with the giant snow globe and the dancing holiday turkey? (Also, did I really admit, by saying that just now, that despite our having proudly “given up” television last year, Brandon and I still pull the old box out of the closet every now and then, and that even though we canceled our cable plan, we found that you can use the old cable cord as an antenna, jiggling it and posing it just so until the picture is passably clear, except that it means you have to tiptoe back to the couch very, very carefully, or else you’ll disturb the whole precarious arrangement?) It can’t be possible.

I love November. It’s my mother’s birth month, so I really owe it quite a lot. I just don’t like what it means: the (almost) end of the year, the end of warmth (at least until spring), the end of daylight savings time, the inevitable ramp-up to all-out holiday craziness. I get tired just thinking about it. I need an eye pillow.



No, wait. Scratch that. You can’t get away with an eye pillow unless you’re a) Joan Collins, or b) on an overseas flight, and even then, it’s questionable. I’d rather have a roasted pear. They’re warm, for one thing, scented with vanilla bean and lemon. And with the way their little backs curve, it seems to me that they would fit perfectly, rounded side down, in the hollow of each eye. Doesn’t that sound nice? So warm, so fragrant, so soothing. They may be the best part of November, until Thanksgiving anyway.

I really could go on and on about these pears, and if my schedule this week weren’t giving me the shakes, I might. It’s a method I first heard about a few weeks ago, when Brandon and I were listening to The Splendid Table one Sunday over lunch. By the way, if you don’t listen to the show already, you really should consider it. Lynne Rossetto Kasper, its host, is so lovely. She’s quite contagious, in the best possible way. She has a wonderful voice - the kind fairy tales should be read in, I’ve always thought - and when she starts laughing, she sort of cackles and wheezes. I love her. I want to invite her to dinner. Anyway, on October 13, I think it was, she had Sally Schneider, author of A New Way to Cook and The Improvisational Cook, on the show. The two of them were talking and cackling and oohing and aahing about Sally’s recipe for roasted pears. It’s simple as can be: she just halves them, tosses them with sugar, butter, and vanilla bean, and then bakes them until they’re caramelized. My favorite part was when Sally told Lynne - with a slightly conspiratorial air - that a few nights earlier, she’d made a double batch for a dinner party, and one of her guests ate almost all of them straight from the pan before the meal was even served.

Having now made them, I can understand why. Pears are plenty fine on their own, but oh my, roasted pears are even finer. The dry heat of the oven intensifies their flavor, for one thing, and with a sticky, see-through sheath of vanilla sugar to boot - not to mention butter, ah butter - they almost make November worth the trouble. Almost.



Roasted Pears
Adapted from A New Way to Cook, by Sally Schneider

This recipe could be tweaked any number of ways. Roasted pears are just the beginning, really. Some thoughts and suggestions:

1. Try this method with other fruits. Think plums, apricots, peaches, apples, pineapples, strawberries(!), bananas(!), and even mangoes. Whatever fruit you use, it should be peeled (if there’s tough skin involved) and pitted (if it’s a stone fruit) and either halved or sliced ½ to ¾ inch thick. Softer fruits, or sliced fruits, will take much less time than harder or halved ones.

2. Sugar-wise, play around. You’ll see that the recipe below makes one cup of vanilla sugar, but you’ll only need a fraction of it. See what tastes right to you. I used ¼ cup, and it seemed about right. Whatever you do, you’ll have sugar left over, which just means that you’ll have to roast more fruit – darn! – or use it in another dessert. You could also try using honey or maple syrup in place of the sugar, but it would be a little harder to work the vanilla in.

3. Sally Schneider uses only two teaspoons of butter, which seems downright stingy to me, so I used two tablespoons. Watch out, Sally. You never know what I’ll do next.

4. I like the purity of using only vanilla bean here, but if you want a little added complexity, try dusting your pears with a pinch of cinnamon. Or maybe some cardamom, with roasted apricots. Or fresh thyme leaves with plums.

5. Cooked this way, pears get nice and tender, but they hold their shape and stay somewhat firm. They’re soft, but depending on their ripeness, they might not be quite as yielding as you’d hope. That’s my only beef with them: I want them to slump. If you’d like yours a little more tender, I’d suggest trying a couple of things: put more water in the pan to start with - maybe 1/3 cup - and/or try covering the pan with aluminum foil for some of the baking time.


1 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean
4 medium ripe pears (about 1 ½ lb.), preferably Comice or Bartlett
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
Water

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Place the sugar in a small bowl. With a thin sharp knife, split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds to the bowl of sugar. Using your fingers, rub the seeds into the sugar until evenly dispersed. (Discard the spent pod, or bury it in a canister of sugar – soon it’ll have a wonderful fragrance, and you can use it in most any recipe – or use it to make vanilla extract.)

Peel the pears and halve them lengthwise. Core them, if you like. (I didn’t bother, but it would make them easier to eat. Whichever you choose, leave the stems intact. They make for a pretty presentation.) Place them cut side up in a large baking dish and drizzle them with the lemon juice. Dust liberally with some of the vanilla sugar. (I used ¼ cup.) Dot with butter. Add 2 tablespoons water to the dish.

Slide the dish into the oven, and bake the pears, basting every ten minutes with the pan juices and turning them once or twice, for 40 minutes to 1 hour, or until they are glazed, cooked through, and very tender. The syrup in the dish will thicken and darken as it cooks, but if it evaporates too quickly – before the pears are ready – add a tablespoon or two more water to the dish. (I added 2 tablespoons at the 30-minute mark and another 2 at 40 minutes, stirring them into the caramelly pan juices with my basting brush.)

Serve warm, with ice cream, crème fraîche, or a glug of cream.

Note: I could also imagine serving these as a savory side dish to roasted pork or game, if you used some interesting spices and a light hand with the sugar.

Yield: 4 servings

D-e-s-s-e-r-t

You guys are so nice. Really. You let me rattle on about bratwurst, and butternut squash, and tomato sauce, and through it all, you just smile and nod. You’re so polite. Especially when I know that all you really want, deep down, is dessert.

You heard me. D-e-s-s-e-r-t. You don’t have to hide it anymore. I know how it is, because I feel the same way. I mean, let’s be real: bratwurst is nice, and so are chickpeas, and so is tapenade, but for crying out loud, people, pass the damn cookies already.

I have long held that a day without dessert is a day poorly lived. We all have different definitions of dessert, I’m sure, but whatever yours is, I hope you’re eating it. There are 1,440 minutes in a day, and if you don’t set aside at least some of them for a square of chocolate or a wedge of apple tart, well, I just don’t know what to say. Maybe you should rethink your schedule? 1,440 minutes is a lot to waste. Which is why it’s so deeply disturbing, so utterly wrong, that there hasn’t been a recipe for cake, pie, cookies, compote, ice cream, mousse, sorbet, or quick bread on this site for over four months. FOUR months. That’s 175,316 minutes. That’s a long time to go without dessert.

I owe you an apology, for sure. And some cookies.



It’s not that I haven’t been eating dessert for the past four months. I assure you, that’s not the case. It’s just the opposite, really. It’s rare that a day goes by without a sweet baked something winding up on the counter, first on a cooling rack and then sealed in plastic wrap, trailing a ragtag parade of crumbs. There have been pies and cakes and cupcakes too. There’s been a lot of dessert around here. It’s just that it’s all for the book, which is to say that it’s a) still in development and b) top secret, and that c) I’m a terrible tease to even mention it here. What I really mean is that I haven’t been doing much pleasure-baking, that’s all. Except for that stupid apple cake, and it made me cry.

But then I remembered a certain cookie that I first made sometime last year, when I saw a version of it over at Baking Bites. I don’t know why on earth it’s taken me so long to tell you about it. Maybe it’s because they settled so seamlessly into my repertoire that I kind of forgot that they hadn’t always been there. (By the way, how lovely is it to say “my repertoire”?! I’ve always wanted to be one of those cooks who has a repertoire. Maybe then, I thought, I would feel like a real grown-up.) These cookies are totally dreamy. Imagine a brownie in cookie form, and you’ve got the idea: chewy, dark, and dense with chocolate flavor, but not too sweet. Now, imagine this: that all the ingredients are common pantry items, just waiting in your cupboard and fridge. And that they take barely half an hour to make, including baking time. And that they’re kind of [shhhhh] low-fat. Just typing that makes my fingers itch to go flick on the oven.




I must have made these cookies at least a dozen times by now. I baked them for a barbeque last June and a picnic on the 4th of July. Sometimes I make them just for the freezer, to stash away for snacks. About two weeks ago, I made a batch for no reason at all. We ate about half of them one evening, me and Brandon and our friend Sam, while sitting around the living room, trying to decide what to eat for dinner. And then, last Saturday, because it was the end of the week, and because I had written a lot, and because writing a lot makes a girl feel kind of hypoglycemic, I made another batch. Plus, the sun was out this weekend, and I’ll bet you’ve heard the old saying “make cookies while the sun shines”? Sure you have.

Anyway, when cookies are such a snap to make, you hardly need an excuse. In fact, you’d need a pretty good excuse not to. So hop to it. No reason to let another minute go by.



Chewy Cocoa Cookies with Chocolate Chips
Adapted from Alice Medrich

The original version of these cookies doesn’t have chocolate chips, so I guess you could leave them out, but I think they’re pretty important. This is a relatively virtuous treat, as cookies go, so that extra boost of richness is nice. Plus, there’s no such thing as too much chocolate. No. Such. Thing. Don’t even try to argue.

Of course, you’re welcome to throw in other additions as well. I’ve put chopped pistachios in here, and they were wonderful. I’ll bet dried cranberries or cherries would be good too. Or toasted walnuts. Whatever you choose, I’d keep the quantity of additions to about ½ cup in total. And I’d make sure that at least some of that ½ cup is chocolate chips. For example, when I do pistachios, I use ¼ cup, plus ¼ cup chocolate chips.

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. (½ stick) unsalted butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
7 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup plain yogurt, preferably not low- or nonfat
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ cup chocolate chips, preferably Ghirardelli brand, either semisweet or bittersweet

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone liner.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

Place the butter in a medium microwave-safe bowl, and microwave briefly, until just melted. Add the sugars, and sift in the cocoa. (You can skip the sifting if you want, but my cocoa almost always has lumps, and I don’t like cocoa lumps in my cookies.) Stir to blend well. The mixture will be somewhat thick and pasty, like wet sand. Add the yogurt and vanilla and stir to mix thoroughly. Add the dry flour mixture, and stir to just combine. Add the chocolate chips and stir to incorporate.

Drop the dough by generous tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheet. (I use my tablespoon-size measuring spoon to scoop and shape the dough into little domes. Rinsing the spoon regularly helps to keep the dough from sticking, and leaving the spoon slightly wet after each rinsing helps too.) You should be able to fit about 8 or 9 cookies, nicely spaced, on a standard sheet pan. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, or until the tops of the cookies have crackled slightly and look set. Transfer the sheet pan to a wire rack, and cool the cookies on the pan for 10 minutes. Transfer them to the rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.

Note: These cookies keep nicely at room temperature for a couple of days. I store mine in a large plastic bag, and I usually stick a paper towel in there with them. It helps to regulate moisture and keep the cookies fresh and chewy. (It’s a trick Brandon taught me, one he learned from an ex-girlfriend’s mother. Thank goodness for ex-girlfriends, right?)

Yield: About 20 cookies

Bigger and fuller and brighter

Today I want to tell you about a friend of mine. You’ve heard of her, I’ll bet, and if not from me, then because of her own site. Her name is Shauna, and people, the lady knows how to live.

I first met Shauna a couple of years ago, in September, I think, when, after a series of long, chatty e-mail exchanges, we decided to sit down for some tea at Mr. Spots Chai House, a little hippie haven of sorts in Ballard, a neighborhood about halfway between our apartments at the time. I should tell you at this point that I have a terrible fear of chai, due to the fact that after having my first mug of the stuff about ten years ago, I went home and had horrible, horrible dreams - like, he’s-chasing-me-with-a-chainsaw kind of dreams, the sort that make you never want to sleep again. But Shauna and I sat down one Sunday afternoon and shared a cup or two, and both the conversation and the chai were delicious. Then we went to the Ballard farmers’ market and strolled around in the early autumn light, and watching Shauna swoon over a crate of red onions, I knew she was somebody I wanted to keep around.

(In case you’re wondering, though, I did have nightmares again that night, awful ones about ex-boyfriends and drive-by shootings - both of them utterly terrifying in their way - and needless to say, I haven’t had chai since. Don’t ask. Shauna and I have since moved on to coffee, other teas, or, preferably, wine. Lots of wine.)

I want to tell you about my friend Shauna today because her first book, titled Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back . . . & How You Can Too, has just been released, only ten days ago today. I know I’m biased - oh and how - but hers is a story that everyone should hear. You don’t have to have celiac disease to read Shauna’s book, or to care about what she has to say - about how she went from a childhood of processed foods and frequent illness to a diagnosis that could have devastated her; about how she chose instead to see it as a gift, a chance to start over, to live bigger and fuller and brighter, the way she does today: in good health, in love, up to her elbows in good food.

Shauna is passionate about celiac awareness, but she’s even more passionate about this dirty business we call life. I always thought I was pretty good at appreciating things, at scraping every drop of sauce, so to speak, from my dinner plate. But this lady, I swear. If I’m scraping the plate, she’s licking the darn thing. She’s going after life with both hands.

My friend Shauna lights up the room. I’ve never met someone who could make obstacles disappear the way she does, like magic. And though she may seem sweet on her website, the girl can be downright gritty in real life, which I secretly love. She’s a terrific partner for watching the Oscars, when lots of catty commentary is required. And for someone with such an open, ready smile, she can swear like a seasoned sailor. You should have seen how hard she laughed at me when she saw the chair I used to sit in at my desk. I’d chosen it because my desk at the time was an old Hoosier-style hutch, and it was a funny, too-tall height, so this was the best solution, albeit a somewhat uncomfortable one. Shauna howled when she saw it. (Needless to say, I’ve since moved on to real, big-people chairs.)

Really, there’s nobody with whom I’d rather share a dinner of pork chops and plum sauce, or a plate of homemade sausage and polenta, or a platter of zucchini carpaccio, or a spur-of-the-moment snack of green olives and hard cheese, or - as we ate a couple of nights ago at Volterra, when she came by to drag me out of the house after a day of writing - an arugula salad with fennel, slices of cucumber smeared with a soft cow’s milk cheese from Italy, and (gluten-free) pasta with stewed wild boar and red wine. Hers may be a diet with some serious restrictions, but to sit at her table, it doesn’t feel that way.




I thought about sharing a recipe from Shauna’s book today. Maybe the lemon olive oil cookies or the chocolate banana bread? It seemed only fitting. But in truth, I’d rather that you read them in her words, from the pages of her book. And anyway, a week or two ago, while perusing the October issue of Gourmet, I came upon a recipe that I know she would love, a recipe for bratwurst served with a compote of apples stewed in white wine and cream. Really, that recipe all but sat up on the page and said, HELLOOOOO SHAUNA. Not only was it naturally gluten-free, but I happen to know that the lady loves sausage, not to mention other forms of pork - like I said, she’s a good one - and she has more than once sung for me the praises of the humble apple.

So yesterday, come lunchtime, I browned a bratwurst in her honor and ate it with a cream-cloaked jumble of apples and onions. Given a good simmer in white wine, the apples soften and the onions relax, and with finishing dashes of sugar and vinegar and a lashing of cream, the combined effect is both sweet and savory, rich and tart, like something you might find on a farmhouse table in Normandy or Alsace. It’s a lusty, rib-sticking, delicious mess, perfect Sunday fare for a cool October day. I have a feeling that Shauna would approve.


Bratwurst with Creamy Apple Compote
Adapted from Gourmet, October 2007

The original version of this recipe calls for the bratwurst to be split and broiled, but I usually pan-cook mine, so that’s what I chose to do here. I like the look better, anyway, of a whole, nicely browned brat.

Also, the original version calls for 8 brats for 4 people, but given the richness of the compote – serious and seriously delicious richness – I don’t know about that. I’m more inclined to steer you toward 1 brat per person, and then a green salad alongside.

2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, quartered from root to stem, sliced
2 Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 8 wedges
1 Turkish bay leaf
½ tsp. salt
1 cup dry white
4 bratwurst (see note above)
Vegetable oil
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp. packed brown sugar
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Combine butter and oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet, and warm over medium-high heat until the butter is melted. Add onion, apples, bay leaf, and salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, about 6 minutes. Add the wine, cover, and simmer gently until the apples are tender but still hold their shape, about 6 to 8 minutes. Remove the lid and briskly simmer until the wine is reduced by about half, 2-3 minutes.

Meanwhile, while the apple mixture cooks, prepare the bratwurst. Place a large heavy skillet – I like cast-iron for this – over medium heat, and let it get nice and hot. Then add a small glug of vegetable oil: preferably safflower or grapeseed, since they have a higher smoke point than other types. Then add the bratwurst. They should sizzle nicely. Cover the pan and cook, flipping the bratwurst a couple of times, until they are evenly browned and cooked through. (I usually have to cut into one of mine to check for doneness, but it doesn’t really bother me: the juices that run out help to coat the pan a bit more and give the brats a nice sheen.)

While the brats are cooking, finish the apple compote. When the wine is reduced, stir in the cream, brown sugar, and cider vinegar. Briskly simmer until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Discard the bay leaf. Serve the compote alongside the bratwurst.

Yield: 4 servings


P.S. Fellow Seattlite and blogger Sarah Jio interviewed me on her site last week. (Thanks, Sarah!) Click here to see what I had to say.

The nitty-gritties

Hi, everybody.

A few of you asked, in the comments last week, if I might tell you a little more about my book, the project that’s been eating up a large portion - wait, did I say large? I meant all, or darn near all - of my thoughts for the past several months. I really haven’t told you much about it, have I? I guess I didn’t really think to until now. I’m so glad you gave me a nudge. I just got swept up in the wedding for a while there, and then, when it was over, I dove so deep into writing that it never really occurred to me to climb out, grab a dry towel, and tell you what I saw down there.

To tell you the truth, it’s pretty murky sometimes. It’s kind of hard to see where I’m going. It reminds me of a quote I read a while ago, an E.L. Doctorow line that goes something like this: “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I’m not writing a novel, mind you, but I know what he means. Most of the time, I just try to write, to follow the headlights, to not think too hard. That’s all I can do, anyway, and it’s hard enough, just that. When things are going well, I feel like a million bucks, like I just discovered a new planet, or the cure for AIDS, or a lifetime supply of chocolate hidden under the bed. Then again, sometimes - like, oh, yesterday - I cry a lot, over things like French toast.




(While we’re at it, let me tell you that nothing, nothing, is worse than recipe testing on Sunday mornings. Listen: if you ever write a cookbook, or any sort of book with recipes, and if you need to test breakfast foods, DO NOT test them at breakfast time, or on weekend mornings when you should really be sleeping. You and your husband will wind up hungry, and then you’ll give him the silent treatment when he tries to make you feel better, because you desperately need to pout for a while, just to get it out of your system, and so it goes until lunchtime, when you’re too starved to be mad anymore. Like I said, don’t.)

Writing a book is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But when it works, it’s so fun. I used to write poetry as a teenager - I know, I know; who didn’t, right? - and one of my teachers, a poet named Peter Fortunato, once told me something that I’ve been thinking about a lot. He was talking about writing, and about how utterly free we are when we write, about the worlds we can imagine and create for ourselves, about how rip-roaring fun it can be. He said, and I wrote in big letters in my spiral notebook: “You’re riding Pegasus! Isn’t it amazing?” He was just trying to cheer us brooding teenage poets, I’m sure, but I still remember it, after all these years. I’m riding Pegasus! This is amazing! Of course, Pegasus ain’t no carousel pony, people. He bucks and skitters all over the place. But some days, I never want to come down.




Speaking of which, before he carries me away again, let me give you a few nitty-gritties.

My book’s tentative title is Orangette: The Stories My Kitchen Tells Me. The title may be entirely different by the time it shows up in bookstores next fall, but that’s what I’m working with for now. It’s what feels right. The book grows out of the format and style of this blog, meaning that it’s a collection of recipes and the stories that go with them, sixty-some-odd in all. Roughly two-thirds of the book will be new material. I want to give you as much new writing and as many new recipes as I can, but some old stories and dishes feel like classics now, and they belong in there too. Plus, even the more familiar recipes have been tweaked and retested, made to work better and tastier than before. (Remember this banana bread, for example, with chocolate and crystallized ginger? I reworked it, using a different banana bread base, and it’s even better. I can’t wait for you to try it.)




Each recipe will have been tested by a minimum of three people, or four, if you count me. The way it works is this: first I work on a recipe in my own kitchen - often with Brandon’s help; if you like something, be sure to thank him too - and then, when I’ve got a handful of recipes ready, I send them to my team of testers. They have a month to try them, during which time I get the next handful ready, and then we start again. I have 12 testers, all of them volunteers, working for nothing but my gratitude. (There’s lots of that to go around, thank goodness.) Some of them are family (my sister Lisa and my mother, namely, both wonderfully precise cooks), and some are friends. Some live in Texas, and some live in Sweden. Some are readers of this blog, some are bloggers themselves, and some I have never met. I have been stunned by their generosity and energy, and by their willingness to buy expensive vanilla beans, port, and Parmigiano Reggiano on my behalf. You’ll hear a lot about them in the acknowledgments section, which is, so far, my very favorite part of the book to write. When all else fails, I work on the acknowledgments. Thanking people is easy.




I’m learning all the time. Writing is such a strange, mysterious process. I say that even now, as I sit here, doing just that. In writing this book, I’ve remembered some of the weirdest, most wonderful things. Like my first kiss, for example - which, let me tell you, was pretty weird. Or that my mother and her siblings went to school with John Waters and Divine. (Weird and wonderful, right?) Or how much my father loved mayonnaise. I’d forgotten all that. It feels so good to remember. It’s what keeps me going, what keeps me from freaking out entirely, with only eight weeks left to finish this manuscript. December 15 is coming up awfully soon.

Hopefully, next fall, the date when it hits the shelves, will come even faster.

I can’t wait to share it with you.



Fennel-Potato Soup with Dilled Crème Fraîche
Adapted from Bon Appétit, November 2007

I didn’t want to leave you without a recipe this week, because heavens knows we all have to eat, even when we’re on a deadline, right? I made this soup last Friday and have been eating it for lunch ever since. It’s a terrifically easy one, just the thing for a filling-but-healthy fall lunch. It’s subtle and soothing, a blend of sweet leeks, perfumed fennel, and rich, earthy potatoes. As flavors go, this one is utterly reassuring. And with a dollop of cool, green-flecked crème fraîche on top, it feels a little fancy too.




The original version of this soup calls for chopped smoked salmon as a garnish, rather than the dilled crème fraîche I use here. Though I love the flavor of smoked salmon, I didn’t like the idea of its chewy, flaky texture in soup. And, as it happened, I had some crème fraîche kicking around the fridge, along with some fresh dill left over from a recipe test (my dad’s potato salad; wait till you see, it’s really delicious). This soup seemed like a fitting use for both. Plus, I love the way it looks and tastes with a spoonful of tangy, herbed cream.

For soup:
3 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 medium (or 1 large) fennel bulbs, trimmed and sliced
1 large leek (white and pale green parts only), halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
1 tsp. fennel seeds
1 ½ lb. russet potatoes (about 2 large), peeled and cut into coarse cubes
5 ½ cups chicken or vegetable broth (such as this one), plus more to taste
Salt, to taste

For serving:
Crème fraîche
Finely chopped fresh dill
Salt

In a heavy large pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the fennel, leek, and fennel seeds, and cook, stirring often, until the vegetables begin to soften, about 8 minutes. Add the potatoes and 5 ½ cups broth, and stir to combine. Bring to a boil; then reduce heat to medium and simmer, partially covered, until potatoes are tender, about 12-15 minutes.

Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender. (When working with hot liquids like this, never fill the blender more than 1/3 full, as the liquid can expand and cause some nasty burns. Brandon currently has a scab over his eyebrow from just this sort of soup-explosion accident.) It should be very smooth and creamy. Return the pureed soup to the pot and rewarm over medium-low heat, stirring regularly and thinning with more broth by ¼-cupfuls to reach your desired consistency. (I added an additional ½ cup.) Season with salt to taste. It’ll need a pretty good amount.

Just before serving, spoon some crème fraîche into a small bowl, and stir in finely chopped dill to taste. This sort of thing can take as much or as little dill as you like. Taste, and add a pinch of salt. Stir well.

Divide soup between bowls, and serve dilled crème fraîche on the side, so that each eater can dollop a bit into their soup.

Yield: 6-8 servings

Lots of trouble

You already know by now, I’m sure, that I like the idea of a simple recipe. For whatever it’s worth, I like the notion that you can take a few well-chosen, high-quality ingredients, treat them kindly, and come out with a pretty nice meal. When I started this blog, I had no idea that this was a schtick of any sort, much less my schtick: it’s just sort of happened that way. It’s how I like to eat.

It also, however, gets me into lots of trouble sometimes. I am constantly – I mean constantly, people; it’s pathological – falling prey to cookbook and magazine recipes that are way too simple, with too few ingredients to taste like much of anything. I mean, it’s one thing to take a can of tomatoes, five tablespoons of butter, and one halved onion, bang them into a saucepan, and call it tomato sauce. That’s fine. That’s classic. But to take four pounds of thinly sliced tart apples, three measly tablespoons of sugar, and two even more measly tablespoons of butter, bake them together overnight in a low, low oven (while you toss and turn, I might add, waiting for the house to burn down), and expect a magical transformation, a delightful gâteau aux pommes, something that looks and tastes like the burnished, beautiful top of a tarte Tatin?




That’s silly. Like, stupid-silly. Like, thump-your-forehead-with-the-palm
-of-your-hand-silly. Like, I’m-going-to-throw-the-cookbook-that-inspired
-this-down-the-basement-stairs-and-I-just-might-go-with-it-silly. That’s the recipe I made last night. ARRRRGH.




That’s also the recipe I won’t be sharing with you today. I’ll just say this: that if you have a cookbook whose title rhymes with The Ban Brancisco Berry Blaza Barmers’ Barket Bookbook, please do not make the cake on page 173. That, and listen to your husband when he tells you to just stop, to stop cursing the apple corer, to stop it RIGHT NOW and come sit on the couch and end the weekend nicely, with an episode of Brothers and Sisters. Take it from me. I know these things.

On the upside, however, I do have a backup recipe for you, a little something that we made as part of dinner on Friday, when we didn’t have much in the house but felt too cheap to go out for groceries. It’s pretty darn simple, too, but unlike, ahem, some things, it actually worked. For every stupid, lumpy, watery-tasting gâteau aux pommes, may there be a radicchio salad with radishes and parmesan.

It happened the way most dinners do when we’re busy: with us digging in the fridge, dredging up scraps and drips, and throwing them together. In the crisper drawer we found a head of radicchio left from a recipe test a couple weeks back, along with some radishes - they’re a constant around here, always at the ready - and a raggedy-edged wedge of parmesan cheese. I sort of wrinkled my nose at the combination, worrying that the radicchio might be old and bitter, but Brandon forged on. He sliced the radicchio into thin strips and the radishes into wafers, and then, while we boiled water for some pasta, he tossed them in a bowl with a last of a jar of vinaigrette from the week before. Then he shaved some parmesan over the top, and while the pasta cooked - it would later be tossed with some pesto from the freezer - we sat down to a surprisingly pretty, fittingly fall-like salad.

The radicchio was crisp and wonderfully mellow, tamed by a good dose of vinaigrette and the rich, salty punch of parmesan. The radish, for its part, crunched pleasantly, sweet and cool. Brandon commented than a few slivers of pear would be nice too, and he’s right: their sweet, perfumed flavor would be perfect here, and perfectly in season too. I don’t have a photograph to show you, because we ate it all on the spot - so sorry! - but given the trauma I’ve detailed above, I hope you’ll let me off easy. Anyway, you can imagine it for yourself: a tangle of purple leaves dotted with red-edged disks of radish, big shards of parmesan, and couple slices of slivered pear, its green skin curved like a line drawing. (See? So pretty! You don’t need some stinking photograph.) It’s lovely; it’s s-i-m-p-l-e; and come to think of it, it might just be dinner again tonight.


Radicchio and Radish Salad with Pear and Parmesan

The dressing that we used on this was my standard vinaigrette, but made with Cognac vinegar. I know that not everyone lives with a vinegar fiend, as I do, so if you don’t happen to have a bottle of that fancy stuff lying around, know that you can use most any white wine-type vinegar.

6 radishes
1 medium head radicchio
½ firm-ripe pear, green or red or most any color (optional)
Parmigiano Reggiano

For vinaigrette:
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
3 Tbsp. Cognac vinegar (see note above)
½ tsp. salt
5 Tbsp. olive oil, plus more to taste

First, make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl, combine the mustard, vinegar, and salt, and whisk to blend. Add the olive oil, and whisk vigorously to emulsify. Taste, and adjust as needed. Depending on your vinegar, you made need more oil. (We often add an additional teaspoon.) This is a more acidic dressing than some, but it shouldn’t hit you over the head with vinegar. Set aside.

Prepare the salad. Trim the radishes, and slice them very thinly. Quarter the radicchio from stem end to tip, and peel away any ragged outer leaves. Working with one quarter at a time, slice crosswise into ¼-inch-thick strips. If you are using the pear, cut it into very thin slices. Combine the radishes and radicchio in a large bowl, and toss with vinaigrette to taste. Add the pear slices, and toss very gently, so as not to break them up.

Serve, using a vegetable peeler to shave a few shards of parmesan cheese onto each serving.

Yield: About 4 standard-size servings, or two Molly-and-Brandon-size servings


P.S. Does anyone besides me read the title of this post and want to yell “Lots of trouble! Lots of bubble!” à la Fred Schneider in “Rock Lobster”? I didn’t think so.