My bread can’t compare to these beauties of Ian’s.
“Ugh! Their house smells like wet dog!” commented a friend’s sassy teenage daughter about a mutual acquaintance.
“I don’t want to know what you think my house smells like,” I teased.
“Oh! Your house smells wonderful! Like fresh bread and cinnamon!”
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“Is this homemade, too?!” asked Son’s Friend #1 in astonishment.
“Everything here is homemade!” answered Son’s Friend #2 with glee.
When the book Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche came out in the early ‘80s, many of us had a laugh about the gender stereotypes portrayed in the book. Unfortunately, the satire was lost on some of my acquaintances, who truly believed that to eat quiche (or to try any foods with foreign-sounding names for that matter) was to lose their masculinity.
They were, of course, way off base, but I understand the importance of food to our identity. “You are what you eat,” after all. Foods can be tribal affiliations—Coke vs. Pepsi, vegans vs. meat eaters, carbs vs. protein.
Even if we eat the same things, the vocabulary of food defines and divides us. Soda or pop? Hoagie or sub? Chips or fries? Biscuits or cookies? Casserole or hot dish? Brownies or bars?
But for the adventuresome, those differences quickly resolve into similarities. Cook enough different foods, and the divisions become connections.
Take quiche lorraine, for example. It is just the French version of the English bacon and egg pie. The variations within “quiche” and “pie” are greater than the differences between them.
A gallette is just a tart with a French accent.
Mexican tortillas are almost the same as Indian roti.
Greek pita bread could be mistaken for Indian naan.
French ragout, Indian curry, and Latin American sancocho are all just stew by a different name.
Sweet, sour, bitter, salt, umame. Starch, sugar, protein. It all comes down to biology, and we all need the same nutrients to keep us going. The protein in my burgers may come from soybeans, and yours from beef, but we both love that slab of umame-rich protein on a nest of carbohydrates (a bun, some rice, some bulgher) and dripping with sweet/sour catsup (or ketchup, or sauce…).
The spicing may differ, but the essence is the same. Just like us. We are what we eat, after all.
We have a good half dozen wooden spoons sitting in the crock on the kitchen counter. They are some of the most heavily used tools in the kitchen, and the first thing I reach for whether I’m stirring pasta, potato soup, or sizzling onions.
The very best spoon is the one my daughter carved for me. Its smooth finish, beautifully rounded bowl, and attractive handle speak to her perseverance and attention to detail. It is a lovely, functional piece of art, and it makes me smile every time I use it. Can’t ask more of a spoon!
A couple of years ago, I got The Gourmet Cookie Book for Christmas. I immediately loved the book just for its stunningly elegant graphic design. It’s a book worth having, even if you never make a single recipe out of it, because it is a piece of art all by itself. It took me a while to get around to making the cookies, but every recipe I’ve tried has been good so far.
Yesterday, I made Speculaas (Saint Nicholas Cookies) from this book. I think I’ve found my new favourite cookie. These lovely biscuits combine the best of biscotti, rusks, and gingerbread in a highly dunkable package! I made the recipe straight from the book:
Combine in a medium bowl:
3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
½ tsp ground aniseed
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp salt
Beat in a large bowl until light and fluffy:
1 cup butter
1 ½ cups brown sugar
Stir in:
3 Tbsp milk
Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, stirring until it is well combined. Form the dough into a ball and knead on a well floured board. Roll into a rectangle ¼-inch thick, and cut into rectangles 2 ½ inches by 1 ½ inches with a knife or cutter (I used my bench scraper, and it did a lovely job). Place the rectangles on a buttered cookie sheet, decorate with blanched almonds, halved or slivered (press the almonds gently into the dough), and brush them with lightly beaten egg white.
Bake at 375°F for 12 to 15 minutes, or until browned and firm.
The grass sparkled in the beam from my headlamp this morning and crunched underfoot—our long-overdue first frost. After such a hot summer, we should have expected a warm autumn, but I was beginning to wonder if it would ever frost; it usually occurs near the end of April.
Of course, even without a frost it’s been too cool for the summer crops outside the greenhouse; they gave up weeks ago. So we’ve been eating as though it has already frosted, but there’s something decisive about the first frost.
First frost gives me permission to haul out the sewing machine after a summer’s interruption to crafts. It encourages me to pull out a good book. It gives me leave to contemplate steaming pots of soup and chunky vegetable stews for dinner. It is a milestone in the year. A time for taking stock, reflecting on the summer’s crops, and enjoying a brief break from most garden chores. Though the garden looks wasted and sad after the first frost, it is a time to savour, like every other event and milestone in the garden year.
Sunday breakfast was biscuits (or, as I have to say to my Kiwi kids, American biscuits, lest they thing we’re having cookies). I sometimes forget about biscuits–generally only making them when there are no eggs in the house—but they make such a lovely breakfast, slathered with homemade jam! Make enough, and they’re equally good at lunchtime with cheese and mustard.
For some forgotten reason, I always make my biscuits heart shaped. The crispy pointy end is absolutely the best part!
Long about now, the summer bounty is over, the winter crops aren’t yet producing, and we start eating the foods we preserved over summer.
Long about now, we remember the brandied cherries.
We don’t make many (we don’t eat many)—one pint jar full. On top of a scoop of vanilla ice cream, accompanying a chocolate brownie, or all on their own, they are a decadent treat. Like much of the summer bounty stored up, they feel like buried treasure when we remember them on a cold, rainy day.
Though it is sad when the last of the season’s goat cheese is gone, I do enjoy the excuse to buy cheeses I don’t make myself.
Blue cheese is one of these. I’ve heard enough horror stories about making blue cheese (“Once you’ve made blue cheese, all your cheeses end up blue”) that I’m reluctant to try it. Besides, there are plenty of moderately priced, locally produced blues available.
My family can polish off a generous wedge of blue at lunch, and much of the blue cheese we consume is eaten simply on bread or crackers.
If I can hide it until dinner, though, I love blue cheese in a salad with pears and walnuts. The combination of bitter greens, sweet fruit, and sharp salty cheese hits all the right buttons. We usually top it with a bit of vinaigrette, but this time we simply drizzled some pomegranate syrup over it. Divine!
The well-used Brownie page
In the interest of full disclosure, I admit I was raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and I claim Pennsylvania Dutch heritage.
But my Michigan-born husband agrees that nobody does junk food better than the Pennsylvania Dutch.
My husband the saltaholic raves about Bickles chips and Snyders pretzels. I, with my sweet tooth would swim through crocodile infested water for a whoopie pie or a slice of shoo fly pie.
So when I’m looking for pure decadence, unencumbered by nutrients, I open the Mennonite Community Cookbook.
Usually, it falls open to page 281—Brownies.
I have modified this recipe, reducing the sugar slightly, and substituting cocoa for unsweetened chocolate (which isn’t easily available here), but I hate to mess too much with perfection…
Oh, and I ALWAYS make a double batch…here’s my doubled version
¾ c. cocoa powder
1 c. butter or shortening
1 ½ c. sugar
4 eggs
1 c. flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 c. chopped nuts, chocolate chips, or coconut
2 tsp vanilla
Melt cocoa and butter together. Beat eggs thoroughly and add sugar. Combine egg and chocolate mixtures and blend well. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Blend wet and dry ingredients together, mixing until smooth. Add nuts and vanilla.
Spread dough in a greased 9 x 13-inch pan. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 30 minutes.
Time for another tribute to one of my favourite kitchen tools. We have three cast iron frying pans. As I recall, two were garage sale finds and one was a wedding present. At least one of them gets used nearly every day.
I love the cast iron pans for their weight. Though it can take several minutes to heat them up, once they’re warm, they cook gently and evenly, without a searing hot spot in the middle and cold edges. I also love the pans for their ability to go from stovetop to oven—gravies and béchamel sauces made in a cast iron skillet can easily be popped into a warm oven to finish cooking, as can frittata.
I always make cornbread in a cast iron skillet—heating the skillet on the stove before pouring in the batter gives the finished bread wonderful crispy edges! And, of course, making flatbreads of any kind in cast iron is a pleasure—its mass allows it to quickly but gently bake a bread.
And it’s always nice to know I’ve got a handy weapon in the kitchen, you know…just in case Sauruman or Shelob shows up at the door (after all, we do live in Middle Earth…;) )
Robinne Weiss 