Picnics

I love picnics. Though I must admit, I have never really found a picnic book that I adore, completely. Picnics, by Sara Deseran, is one of the best little picnic books. It offers a nice mix of recipes and heaping helpings of picnic advice. There is a list of items to bring to the picnic. How frustrating can it be to arrive at a lovely picnic area and realize that you have no corkscrew?

Deseran adds a menu section in the back of the book. She takes recipes from the book and arranges them into events like a City Picnic, an Elegant Brunch, or a Latin Barbeque. The menus are a nice touch.

I am a huge fan of orzo and it rarely shows up in cookbooks. For my money, it is versatile, easy to use, and downright tasty. Picnics offers up a great orzo salad.

Orzo Salad with Green Olives, Tomatoes, and Feta

1 pound uncooked orzo (2 generous cups)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 pounds cherry tomatoes, in an assortment of colors, halved
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 English cucumbers, unpeeled, quartered lengthwise and cut into slices
1 cup chopped red onions
1 cup (about 5 ounces) feta cheese, crumbled
3/4 cup green olives, halved
1/2 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper


Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the orzo and cook until just tender, about 8 minutes. Drain. Rinse with cold water and drain again. Add 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and mix well. Set aside.

Put the tomatoes in a large bowl and add 1 teaspoon salt. Let stand for 1/2 hour or so and then drain any accumulated liquid. Add the cucumber, red onion, feta, olives, parsley, lemon juice and the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and gently mix. Add the orzo and gently toss with the vegetables. Season with the remaining salt and the pepper. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Mix up a big batch and head outside.

Cooking In Provence

I know, I know, I don’t need another cookbook about Provence. There are clafouti, and moules and tomato tarts, oh my. Still, there has never been a Provence cookbook I didn’t love and Alex Mackay’s Cooking In Provence is no different. I can’t help myself, but French food just looks better than any food on the page. How is that possible? I don’t know, but it is a fact. Rather than palaver on, take a look at the food.

and

and

Oh yeah, here is the recipe.

Coeur A La Crème

350 g (12 oz) fromage frais
200 g (7 oz) caster sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
250 g (9 oz) raspberries
300 g (10 1/2 oz) or 2 large punnets, of either raspberries, strawberries or red currants, or a mixture
100 ml (3 1/2 fl oz) double cream or crème frâiche (optional)

Line a heart, or any perforated mould – the base of a small colander would do – with a layer of muslin. Mix the fresh cheese with half the sugar and the lemon juice and spoon it into the muslin and mould, being careful not to crease the muslin too much. Tap the mould against the table a few times to knock out any air bubbles and leave to drain for at least 2 hours.

Mix the first 250 g (9oz) raspberries with the remaining sugar and 100 ml (3 1/2 fl oz) water in a small pan. Bring to a boil, purée and strain, and mix the remaining fruit.

To serve, unmould the cheese heart, warm the berries in the coulis and help yourself to the double cream.

I think coeur a la crème is a wonderful, and lovely dessert. It is quite easy to make and tasty. I am resolving to make it at least twice this summer!

Cider Beans, Wild Greens and Dandelion Jelly

Joan E. Aller has written a book about cooking in Southern Appalachia, Cider Beans, Wild Greens and Dandelion Jelly. The exact “region” covered by Appalachia is a bit fluid. Generally Appalachia runs from middle-eastern Mississippi, through middle Alabama, north Georgia, western Virginia, Maryland, South and North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, southern Pennsylvania and most of West Virginia.

Aller moved to the Tennessee Mountains and fell in love with the culture. She began gathering recipes from the region. The focus is the area around her, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina. She mixes traditional recipes with recipes from a growing number of bed and breakfast inns throughout the area. That means that Ramps and Bacon show up along side Warm Camembert Salad with Apples and Walnuts; Hot Artichoke Dip finds itself with Shrimp and Grits.

Aller has studied the historical background of the area, tracing the Cherokee to the Melungeons to the Africans to the Europeans to the owners of Bed and Breakfasts. Each migration brought new foods and twists on the native flora and fauna.

The Melungeons were a strange sect, probably descended from Berber Muslims and Sephardic Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Immigrating to the new world on Portuguese ships. They settled in the mountains of Appalachia, keeping to themselves. As more Europeans arrived, the Melungeons pushed further and further into the hills. With no written language of their own, they became almost a myth in the area, their very name used to keep children in line. There is a recipe for Melungeon friendship bread, a tradition carried on by the Amish. The bread is nurtured for 22 days, and then baked. Along with a loaf of bread, the recipient gets a bag of starter to keep the bread moving. As someone who has made and passed on friendship bread, I have to say the intent is noble but the thought of having to spend 22 days getting more starter ready to bake can be a trial. Pretty soon, people begin to hide when they see you coming with bread and that ubiquitous bag of starter.

One of my favorite recipes from Appalachia is for honey cream. It is not something you see too often, but it really should be a staple in every kitchen. Serve it on pancakes, cornbread or fry bread. It works on fruit, too.

Tennessee Honey Cream

2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons honey

In a medium bowl using a stand mixer, beat the cream on medium speed until it begins to thicken. Drizzle in the honey and continue to beat until the whipped cream is thick.

This is a great addition to Southern cuisine and the history of regional cooking.

Edible

One day Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian compiled a little newsletter about food in Ojai. They dubbed it Edible Ojai and for a couple of years they toiled in not quite obscurity. Noticed by Saveur, Edible Ojai was featured in their top 100 for 2004. In the tiny blurb, the authors expressed a desire for their concept to, “crop up everywhere.” Be careful what you wish for!

Over the next few years about 60 local “edibles” sprang up; from Ojai to Boston, from Portland to Orlando and my closest -- Edible Allegheny.


It was only natural to envision a cookbook culled from all those “edible” editions celebrating local foods, farmers and artisans. Actually, like most of their publications, Edible is more than a cookbook, it is a hymn to those local individuals who have dedicated their lives to producing, maintaining, and promoting local foods.


Here’s a recipe from Edible Memphis.

Collard Tops with Parmigiano

1 bunch (about 1 1/4 pounds) collard tops or broccoli rabe (including flowers and stems), coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 cup heavy cream or half-and-half
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 f. Have a large bowl of ice water ready. In a large saucepan of boiling salted water, blanch (partially cook) the collards until bright green and slightly tender, about 2 minutes. In a colander, drain the collards, then plunge the greens into the ice water. Drain well and squeeze dry; set aside.


In the same saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook until it is tender but not browned, about 2 minutes. Stir in the cream. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook until slightly thickened, 1 to 2 minutes.

Lightly grease a 1-quart casserole pan. In a medium bowl, combine the collards, cream mixture, cheese, salt, and pepper. Spread the mixture evenly into the baking pan. Cover with the lid or foil and bake until the cheese is melted, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

For someone who always saw collards cooked for at least 2 hours, this is a great way to cook them quickly.

Check out the Edible Communications web site to find an Edible publication in your area. If there isn’t one… you know you always wanted to be magazine publisher!

Cooking With My Sisters

Adriana Trigiani is a best-selling novelist. She immortalized her home in the Virginia hills, Big Stone Gap. Her books are filled with family and a strong sense of place, so it is only natural that her cookbook, Cooking With My Sisters, is, too. She grew up in a household with six children, four girls and two boys. They were a large Italian, Catholic family in the Baptist South of Virginia.

Trigiani tells of the first time they were fed “spaghetti” at school, an event she described as “shocking.”

"The noodles were boiled until you could see though them and then sloshed with sloppy joe mix, heavy on the ground hamburger. We did our best to swing the cafeteria staff toward authentic Eye-talian (as they put it,) but we gave up when they insisted that all spaghetti sauce needs is a base of chopped meat, a cup of ketchup, and a shot of chili powder."

It is a story I know too well. When I went to school in the North (South Dakota, so maybe still in the South.) I remember being served “cornbread.” Though it was not cornbread, but rather an overcooked, slightly crusty yellow cake, sweet and sticky and nothing close to my Mother’s cornbread. I was horrified.

Culture shock is a bitch!

Trigiani book is filled with stories and recipes, with a plethora of "notes" from her sisters. Here is a family recipe for cookies, but not the sweet kind, the small savory bites known as Taralli. A perfect compliment to a glass of wine with sisters.

Savory Taralli

1/2 packet (1 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water (105 –110 degrees)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fennel seed
4 cups all-purpose flour
In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water and allow to bubble. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the flour, to the yeast mixture. Add the flour and mix well.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Take a piece of dough ant roll it between your hands, making a pencil-like shape 4 to 5 inches long. Create a circle by joining the ends together and pinching them closed. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 8 minutes, or until golden brown.

Adriana Trigiani brings the same love of family and language to her cooking as she does to her novels.

Singers & Swingers In The Kitchen

Today’s Famous Food moment is a blast from the past -- the groovy, swinging sixties! In 1967, this slim volume gathered together a group of famous and not “scene-makers”.

It features, according to the cover, “dozens of nutty, turned-on, easy-to-prepare recipes from the grooviest gourmets happening.” On the back cover: “Dig the sounds… in the kitchen. They’re hip, mod, delicious recipes from today’s top scene-makers…”

Who are these “scene-makers”? Well, some you know – the Rolling Stones – and some – The Cyrkle – are clearly no longer making the “scene.” There is Omar Sharif sharing his Southern Fried Chicken recipe. No offence but I’m not sure I want Omar Sharif making fried chicken! There are the Buckingham’s long before Lindsay ever saw Stevie Nicks. There is Don Adams and an entry by Sybil Burton Christopher, who was Richard Burton’s wife before Elizabeth Taylor. After she was dumped by Burton she moved to Manhattan, opened a boutique and, if this little cookbook is any indication, made the “scene.” (She is also the mother of Kate Burton who played Ellis Grey, who was the mother of Meredith Grey, played by Ellen Pompeo in Grey’s Anatomy. So, in some way, that makes Sybil the de facto “grandmother” of Meredith Grey, or maybe not… I digress.)

As you can see from these page, no expense was spared in the production of this book!

Here are just a few of the groovy dishes one might find oneself eating while making the scene.

Hot Dogs On the Rocks
(serves 5 Stones)

10 frankfurters
5 potatoes, or enough instant mashed potatoes to serve five
1 large can baked beans

Prepare the instant mashed potatoes, or boil and mash the potatoes. (Use milk and butter, making regular, every-day mashed potatoes.) Cook the frankfurters according to the package directions and heat the baked beans.

On each plate, serve a mound of creamy mashed potatoes ringed by heated canned baked beans. Over the top of all this, slice up the frankfurters in good-sized chunks.

Mick supposedly “invented” this dish with Charlie Watts adding in the canned beans.

When I think of the iconic, swinging sixties scene, one name always comes to mind – Leonard Nimoy. This is a fab first course invented by Nimoy, himself.

Cold Soup Nimoy

2 cans cream of celery soup
2 cans cold water
1/4 pint sour cream
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cucumber, chopped
3 scallions, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
Seasoned salt (or salt) and pepper

Mix he soup, water, sour cream, lemon juice and seasoning, and beat with an egg beater. Stir in chopped vegetables. Chill and serve in cold soup bowls. (It is especially nice if you can let it chill overnight.)

How fab is that. Canned soup chilled! Overnight.


Finally, for all my blog readers, a third recipe from a triple threat – one Barbra Streisand. In 1967 she was an actress, a singing star, and now a mother. According to Singer & Swingers, Streisand took up cooking when she went into retirement. (The first of many retirements in Bab’s history.) This recipe is for her invention she calls instant ice cream.

Barbra’s Instant Coffee Ice Cream

24 marshmallows
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon instant coffee
1 cup heavy cream

Turn your refrigerator to the coldest point. Pour milk into a saucepan, heat, and gradually add the marshmallows. Mix until the mixture is smooth; add the instant coffee. Let it cool a bit. Whip the cream until stiff; mix cream and marshmallow mix together and pour into and empty ice cube tray. Freeze.

Barbra likes it with pretzels. Believe it or not.

Seriously, with this cookbook I’ll believe anything.

Might I suggest that you gather your friends to make the scene? You can be the swinger who whips up dinner. Start with Cold Soup Nimoy (Don’t forget to chill it overnight.) For the main course Hot Dogs on the Rocks finished up with Barbra’s Instant Coffee Ice Cream with a side of pretzels, just like Barbra!

No doubt you will be the most fab foodie on the block!

Canal House Cooking

Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton were two gals with cool food careers. Hirsheimer was one of the founders of Saveur magazine. She was a food and design editor at Metropolitan Home. As a photographer, she takes classic and inviting images of food and its surroundings. Hamilton worked at Martha Stewart Living, Cook’s Illustrated, and at Saveur. She co-founded the Restaurant Hamilton’s Grill Room and served as the executive chef. So what did they do when they decided to leave the corporate magazine world? They started a magazine/book kind of thing.


As an editor of a literary magazine, I follow the comings and goings of literary start-ups, so why not do give recipes the same treatment as short fiction or poetry. Hirsheimer and Hamilton rented a studio in a red brick building on a canal, added a couple of small stoves, some pots and pans and a bit of olive oil and Canal House Cooking was founded.

Basically, they meet in the morning, make some coffee, tell each other what they had for dinner and then cook all day. Sounds like a plan. Three times a year, they publish a magazine in the form of a literary magazine that is chocked full or seasonal recipes.

From Issue #1

Potato Salad “Buttered” And Lemoned

Assemble the salad while the potatoes are still warm allows them to absorb the flavors of all the “fixins”.

2-3 pounds potatoes, any variety will do
Salt
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup rally good extra-virgin olive oil
Pepper
Rind from 1 preserved lemon, chopped
Chopped fresh chives or parsley

Peel the potatoes if you use a thick-skinned variety or if you simply prefer peeled potatoes for this dish. Put the potatoes in a large pot of cold water generously seasoned with salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook until they are tender. Drain.

When they are cool enough to handle, slice the potatoes and arrange them on a serving platter, “buttering” one side with some of the mayonnaise as you work. Drizzle the potatoes with the olive oil, season them with salt and pepper, and garnish the potatoes with the preserved lemons and chives.

Not only do the girls cook, but they lift a glass, too. And the population of Lucindaville loves to lift a glass. Here is a libation from the current Issue #4. The recipe was sent in by a supported to help with a deadline. Though, it might just make you miss a deadline or two.

The Arturo

Pour 1 tablespoon real maple syrup and the juice of a hand-squeezed, fat, thin-skinned lime into a glass. Add 2 ounces Mount Gay Eclipse rum and stir to mix. Fill the glass with cracked ice then float Zaya Grand Reserva rum or Rhum Barbanbcourt (15 year) on top.

If you subscribe to cooking magazines, here’s one without the ads, just great recipes and beautiful photos. Check out their website: thecanalhouse.com.

OMG -- The Satellite CRASHED

We didn't quite blogging...the hardware just stopped us from uploading. It stopped us from downloading.
Frankly we were just stopped. And it was devastating.

Tomorrow we will begin loading all the stuff we couldn't.

And getting back to reading everyone else -- We MISSED you!!!

A Man's Cookbook

One of the big stars of French culinary television was Raymond Oliver. He owned the three star restaurant, LeGrand Vefour, a truly legendary establishment. Kind of like James Beard, he has fallen a bit out of style in modern day culinary adventures. He is probably best known in America for his participation as one of the eleven judges at the Judgement of Paris, made famous in the movie, Bottle Shock.

In the late 1950's he wrote a book on cooking for men -- or a cookbook aimed at men -- to get them to cook -- for themselves. OK it sounds a bit more complicated than it should be. It was a guy's cookbook by snotty French chef. It made it to America in 1961 as A Man's Cookbook.

The book is a wonderful period piece complete with small black and white drawings of food items. He gives basic info on how to cook on a gas stove, an electric stove and the ever-present wood and coal range, which should give you some idea of how old this book is!

Above all, Oliver is a French Chef in the heyday of French cuisine. That means that he is not adverse to include a recipe for oeuf en gelée, which I always think of a a dish for a man's man. So how about pig's feet?

Pig's Feet
Les pieds de porc

Split in half, these are excellent pan-fried in bread crumbs or broiled. They may be truffled, that is, served with slices of truffles. Cook them in a well seasoned bouillon, drain them, and let them cool pressed between two planks. Once they are cold, cut them lengthwise, cover with bread crumbs, and broil. Serve very hot.

Or you could just have an oeuf en gelée.

The Forgotten Art of Flower Cookery

I know you think there was never a cookbook I didn't lust after. I must admit a certain fascination with flower cookbooks. There is something I just adore about cooking with flowers as an elemental ingredient. Maybe, and I the first to admit it, there is a profoundly prissy element to flowers as an ingredient. while nothing makes me happier than a side of beef, I also love a nice cold soup sprinkled with a "mystery" ingredient that came from the flower garden.

The Forgotten Art of Flower Cookery by Leona Smith is from the early 1970's. Smith was considered the leading authority on flower cookery. Truth be told, in many of the recipes, the flower element seems to be just a garnish, but in this day and age of cooks all trying to trump each other in the exotic ingredient department, some nice pickled carnations might be just the ticket to one-upsmanship.

Every Thanksgiving, tables across America are laden with sweet potatoes. Here is a recipe that will make you the talk of Thanksgiving or even The Fourth of July!

Confucius Sweet Potatoes

1 pound sweet potatoes or 1 seventeen-ounce can
1 cup orange juice
1 three-ounce package of orange gelatin
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup yellow chrysanthemum petals

While the sweet potatoes are cooking (if using raw potatoes) combine all other ingredients except petals. Simmer and stir for 5 minutes.

Place sweet potatoes in the syrup ad let stand over the lowest possible heat for 15-20 minutes. Baste occasionally. Turn off heat, add petals, and baste until petals are glazed.

Once I found myself in an unfamiliar kitchen. I was making some carrots, but there was nothing interesting to flavor them with, so I was facing a bowl of steamed carrot. (OK, not the worst thing in the world.) I noticed a package of orange Jello on the shelf. I added the Jello and some butter to the carrot circles and turned out a truly tasty and interesting carrot dish.

Confucius says: When in doubt check the larder and the flower garden!