Midnight Feasts

Charmain Ponnuthurai gathered a group of fairly famous folks to put together a cookbook with a theme. The theme was midnight eating. The book is a fundraiser for Springboard, a children's dyslexia organization in Britain. Those of you who read this blog (and correct its spelling) know that such a cause is near and dear to my heart, or my brain which is unable or unwilling to differentiate between "d" and "b" and "p."

In the introduction to Midnight Feasts, Ponnuthurai fondly remembers a passage from British children's author, Enid Blyton, who wrote in The Ship of Adventure of children sitting in a dark courtyard eating:

"I've never known bread and cheese to taste so lovely, " said Diana.
"It's goat-milk cheese, isn't it Bill?"
"I say, look at Mickey stuffing himself."

Chefs like Fergus Henderson and Yotam Ottolenghi, royals like the duchess of york and Lady Carole Bamford and actors like Gillian Anderson and Gwyneth Paltrow take us into their late-night cravings and ideal after- dark dinner.

Gillian Anderson's Peanut Butter & A Banana

1 banana
2 tablespoons peanut butter

Take the banana and slice it end to end down the middle. Take some peanut butter, smooth or crunchy, your choice and lather it down the one side of the banana as thick as your tastes desire. Place the other half of the banana on top like a sandwich.
Then slice two, three or four times, depending on the size of your banana, creating little individual peanut butter banana sandwiches. Wrap each section individually in tin foil and place a whole lot of them in a plastic container in the freezer. Then, in the middle of the night, open the freezer, grab a ball of tin foil, unwrap it and find a surprisingly delicious snack just waiting for your enjoyment. It image that most reminds me of this snack is the yellow man that pops up when you send an AOL email message.

If you read this blog, you know I am not making this recipe. I let my love of the X-Files and Bleak House override my hatred of bananas.

Chicken & Game

Brillat-Savarin once said, "A chicken is a canvas on which the cook can paint." In Chicken & Game by Ninette Lyon, she certainly does paint a nifty chicken. She also manages to to include guinea, squab, turkey and even a rabbit or two in her canvas. Lyon was a French cook who wrote a little book about cooking meat. Meat At Any Price became a huge hit in France. The book won several culinary prizes and the butchers of Les Halles offered Lyon's her weight in meat. Not a bad prize.

Chicken & Game was published in the early 1960's so there is no illustration for the recipes. They are quite straight forward and easy to assemble. Well, the chicken recipes are easy as anyone can find a chicken -- the pheasant and wild boar might be a tad more difficult if you live off the beaten track.

Chicken in the Sunday staple at Doe Run Farm (though we try to keep that a secret from the girls who lay our eggs!). I am a huge fan of giblets. Some of my favorite recipes involve chicken gizzards. Thumbing through Lyon's book, I found several recipes for chicken giblets, but this one included not only gizzards but an often overlooked veggie, salsify. Salsify looks like a big old hairy carrot and tastes mildly of oyster.

Giblets with Salsify

1 tablespoon fat
2 lb giblets
1 onion
1 lb salsify
1 clove garlic 2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 glasses bouillon or water
salt and pepper
parsley
1/2 clove garlic

Heat the fat in a flameproof casserole and brown the giblets, the onions sliced in rings, and the salsify cut in even pieces. Add crushed garlic and flour and brown these too. Season, and stir in the hot liquid. Close the lid, and simmer for 3 hours. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and a trace of garlic.

This is excellent. Trust me on this one. You can feel free to bring this to a potluck and you can rest assured that you will be the only one to bring it to the table.

Food For Beauty

There are no ugly women, only lazy ones.

Helena Rubinstein

Today's Famous Food Friday is Helena Rubinstein. In mid August, The Peak of Chic brought back one of my favorite features on her blog -- "What's In Their Library." Fittingly, The Peak of Chic changed it up a bit and produced "What's In My Library -- Jennifer Boles." One of the books from her own library was Helena Rubinstein's cookbook, Food For Beauty and since it is in our library, too, we thought it would make a great Famous Food Friday.

Marie Laurencin (1885 -1956)

Helena Rubinstein wearing a yellow shawl, 1934

Helena Rubinstein was the eldest of eight daughters of a Polish merchant. In 1890 she headed off to Australia giving up her study of medicine to find a husband. What she found was the appalling skin of Australian women. Rubinstein began selling a cream of almonds and tree bark to help with dry, flaky skin. Within three years her creams had earned her $100,000 and she headed to Europe. In 1914 she moved on to New York. She wrote of her first impressions of American women:

"It was a cold day,and all the American women had purple noses and grey lips, and their faces were chalk white from terrible powder. I recognized that the U.S. could be my life's work."

Graham Sutherland (1903-1980)
Helena Rubinstein in red brocade Balenciaga, 1957

In 1938 as a supplement to her cosmetics empire, Rubinstein wrote a cookbook based on the Bircher-Benner diet in Zurich, Switzerland. Maximilian Bircher-Benner, much like John Kellogg, set out to changed the 19th century diets. He chose fruit, vegetables and nuts over meats and breads. His ideas combined controlled nutrition with spartan physical discipline. His most famous idea was muesli.

Food for Beauty is filled with beautiful sounding recipes. One would be hard pressed to figure out what the ingredients are but who wouldn't want to partake in Lotus in Sunlight,Citrus Sunwheel, Tropical Radiance, Imperial Garden, or Sun Shaft?


Here is her recipe for a light soup.

Essence of Tomato

2 lbs. ripe tomatoes
1 bunch green celery tops
2 leeks (entire)
1 small potato
6 outside lettuce leaves
1 cup empty pea pods
2 quarts cold water

Wash vegetables thoroughly but do not peel them. Chop coarsely. Place in a large enamel, copper or glass kettle. Cover with cold water. cover kettle. simmer for 2 hours. Then mash through a fine sieve. Serve hot in bouillon cups.

Now don't be lazy, whip up a batch of Essence of Tomato and settle in for your own Day of Beauty.

Read it again at Lucindaville.

Ice Cream Desserts

It may be September, but it is still in the 90's here, so we are not packing up the ice cream machine just now.
I pulled out Louis de Gouy's book Ice Cream Desserts. It is filled with recipes and nifty bits of information that everyone should know. For instance:

There is a subtle distinction between a fruit cocktail, a fruit cup and a frozen cup. Fruit cocktail is essentially an appetizer; whereas fruit cup is often served as a dessert, and a frozen cup, usually composed of fruit and ice cream, attractively dressed, is also a dessert.

Pay attention, there will be a quiz.

Louis de Gouy has quite the culinary persona. His father, Jean, was the Esquire of Cuisine at the Imperial Courts of Austria and Belgium. After studying at Daddy's knee, Louis moved on to study with Escoffier. He worked at some of the most illustrious hotels in Europe and America including the Grand Hotel, Hotel de Paris, Hotel Kennsington, and the Waldorf-Astoria. In addition he worked on J.P Morgan's yacht, Wild Duck, on a round-the-world cruise.

In his copious free time, he wrote over 20 books. His "masterpiece" was The Gold Cookbook, with nearly 3000 recipes. My favorite is the two-volume Derrydale Cook Book of Fish and Game. But today --ice cream.

The purpose of this volume was to enable the home cook in preparing delectable frozen treats. Given the time period, 1938, there are few options for making ice cream other than the hand cranked freezer or simply placing the base in the freezer. Unlike Baskin Robbin's 31 flavors, there are 470 recipes in Ice Cream Deserts.

Here's a recipe that sounds totally modern and well beyond the 31 flavors.

Cornflake Ice Cream

1 cup fresh milk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, combined with 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg yolk, slightly beaten
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cup corn flake cereal
2 cups heavy cream, whipped custard-like

Combine sugar and cornstarch and mix well. Stir int he milk, a small amount at a time, cooking over hit water until mixture is thickened, stirring constantly. Remove from hot water, cool slightly, then stir in slightly beaten egg. Return to hot water and cook for 2 short minutes, stirring constantly, Strain through double cheesecloth. Stir in the heavy cream, whipped to custard-like consistency alternating with corn flakes and flavoring extracts. Freeze in refrigerator tray until mushy. Remove from refrigerator , scrape bottom and sides, then beat smooth. Return to freezer try and freeze for three hours.

What a lovely idea -- breakfast ice cream!

The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual

The story goes...

Two Italian kids who grew up together in Queens, then reunited to open an Italian-American restaurant in Brooklyn. It is not such a far-fetched story. It happens all the time. What makes this story different are the two friends, Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo. "The Franks", as the duo became known, opened an Italian restaurant, Frankies Sputino, featured fresh ingredients, simple preparation, and a relaxed dining room. Soon, their relaxed style of food and fun became a frequent stopping place for in-the-know New Yorkers.

Nest step...

A cookbook, of course. The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual gives the average reader a how-to in pasta making, sauce sauce simmering, and meatball rolling. Filled with rustic drawings and kitchen tips, "The Franks" offer up btheir simple style with everything a modern cook will need to cook like grandma.


Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo are not your average "pretty-boy" chefs. If they tell you to sit down and eat your meatballs, chances are, you will! Their food is simple, fresh and authentic. In their hands, a simple salad becomes a perfect spuntino.

Tomato, Avocado and Red Onion Salad

2 large ripe tomatoes
1 small (or 1/2 medium) red onion, thinly sliced
Fine sea salt
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 Hass avocados
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Core the tomatoes and slice into wedges. Combine with the sliced onion, a large pinch of salt, and the olive oil and vinegar in a large bowl. Gently toss, and divide among four serving plates.

2. Halve, pit, peel, and slice the avocados and divide among the four plates. Sprinkle the avocado with a small pinch of salt and drizzle each plate with a little olive oil. Finish with a few grinds of black pepper just before the salad goes to the table.

Now sit down and eat.

The Pleasures Of Cooking For One

If you read this blog because you love cookbooks, then Judith Jones needs no introduction. Best known as an editor who found and nurtured some of our favorite cookbook authors, including Julia Child and James Beard, she also co-authored several cookbooks with husband Evan Jones.

Jones died in 1996, and Judith Jones found herself bereft and food lost its flavor for her because there was no one to share a meal with from day to day. She wrote:

“I was not sure that I would ever enjoy preparing a meal for myself and eating alone. I was wrong, and I soon realized that the pleasure that we shared together was something to honor. I found myself at the end of the day looking forward to cooking, making recipes that work for one, and then sitting down and savoring a good meal.”

After cooking for "one" for a time, she decided to impart her wisdom to others and she wrote The Pleasures Of Cooking For One. While it is a cookbook, it seems like so much more. Lest you think that the recipes are for grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, think again. There are single servings for Beef and Kidney Pi, Boeuf Bourguignon and this...

Osso Buco With Gremolata

2 teaspoons olive oil
Salt
1 (2-inch) veal shank, cut across the bone
1 small-to-medium onion, chopped
½ carrot, peeled and chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 small leek or 1/2 large leek, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup chicken broth
Freshly ground pepper
Small sprig of fresh rosemary or a pinch of dried rosemary
5 or 6 fresh parsley stems

Gremolata:
1 small garlic clove, peeled and minced
About 2 strips lemon peel (without pith), minced (about 1 teaspoon)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Heat the oil in your small pot. Rub salt over the veal shank, and put it into the sizzling oil. Brown lightly on one side, then turn and brown the other. Turn the veal on its side to make room for the onion, carrot, tomato and leek pieces. Sauté them for a minute or two , then flip the shank over so it is bone-side down, and pour in the wine. Stir to get up any browned bits, and reduce the wine by half. Pour in the broth; add several grindings of pepper, lay the rosemary and parsley stems on top, and cover. Let cook for 1 3/4 hours at a gentle simmer.

Meanwhile, put together the gremolata – the tasty, garlicky topping – by simply mixing the minced garlic, lemon peel and parsley together.

When the meat is very tender, remove it to a warm plate, discarding the parsley stems, and sprinkle the top with as much of the gremolata as you like. Eat with some crusty bread to sop up the sauce. And don’t forget the marrow. Use a little coffee spoon to scrape it out and extract the last precious morsel.

And now, as Jones' most famous editee might say, Bon Appétit.

Easy Summer Food

I know, summer is waining! So what better time than to fill the days with summer food while we still have time. Easy Summer Food is another one of those lavishly photographer offering from Ryland, Peters & Small, a British publishing house that does wonders with small cookbooks. I have a profound fondness for their books. They tend to be a bit small and specialized, but this one is meaty.

Easy Summer Food has a collective authorship though it seems to be largely written by Maxine Clark. I have read several reviews of this book that criticize it because the recipes are too complicated and it says "easy" in the title. Seriously, how "easy" does one want them? Paella and grilled duck take some time and a few ingredients.

Here is a recipe that is about as easy as it gets. It is also yummy.

Chorizo in Red Wine

1 tablespoon olive oil
10 oz. small, spicy fresh chorizo sausages, cut into 1/2-inch slices
1/2 cup red wine
crusty bread, to serve

Put the oil in a heavy skillet and heat until smoking. Add the chorizo and cook for 1 minute. Reduce the heat, add the wine, and cook for 5 minutes.

Transfer to a serving dish and set aside to develop the flavors. Serve with warm crusty bread.

This recipe is a perfect example of taking something that you grab at the market and, with just a bit of thought, turning it into something that is special.

Pad Parties

Pad Parties is a campy recipe/party planner/craft compendium of the recently-tacky-making-a-comeback- school of entertaining decor. Matt Maranian is the King of Kitsch. Not just kitsch but ultra-Kitsch-O-Rama.

So after writing several books on how exactly to decorate your house in the absolute over the top style, it was only a matter of time before he rustled up a cookbook . After all, after you have spent months gathering Tiki torches and lava lamps and shag carpeting into your humble abode, you will need to entertain the neighbors.

This book has tons of unusual projects to make for your PAD. It also features a lovely musical selection as one can't decorate with Tiki and faux fur and play Susanne Vega at a party. As for the recipes, there are some really nifty little bites for your pad or any other party you might just decide to throw. Here's an updated fave for the Mad Men crowd.

Gutless Rumaki

1/2 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon curry powder (optional)
1/2 pound sliced bacon
Two 8-ounce cans whole water chestnuts, drained
Wooden toothpicks
Brown sugar

Stir together soy sauce, ginger and curry powder, if using, together in a measuring cup and set aside. Cut the scrappy quarter end off each bacon slice, making for a strip measuring about 6 inches long. Snugly roll each bacon slice over a water chestnut and skewer with a toothpick.

Place the rumaki in a single layer on the bottom of a shallow dish then pour soy sauce mixture over, carefully drenching each roll. Let sit, covered and refrigerated for about 1 hour.

Preheat the broiler and position the rack 4 to 6 inches from the heat source. Spread a generous layer of brown sugar on a plate. Dredge each rumaki in the brown sugar getting as good a coverage as possible. Place the rumaki 1 or 2 inches apart in a broiler pan and broil for about 10 minutes turning frequently, until bacon is crisp.

Now get out there an party.
If you are in need of an ensemble to wear and find yourself in Brattleboro, Vermont, you can check out Matt's shop, Boomerang.

Consuming Passions

Consuming Passions is more of a food history than a straight up cookbook. Philippa Pullar takes the reader on a romp from the earliest of Roman foods to the throes of DDT in the 1970's. As you may be able to tell from the title, Pullar is interested in the passionate side of food.

Her detailed accounts of the Romans is quite fascinating if not the lest bit nauseating. There was a lot of eating with your hands and relieving yourself at the table and eating until you puked. She cites an early book on etiquette that offers this advice. When at dinner avoid digging into your codpiece. Rules to live by!



The sixteenth century saw a new appreciation for and fascination with fruit. Fruits were not simple served but adorned to fit a kings table. During Christmas, Sir William Petrie's household consumed one ton of cheese, 17 oxen, 14 steers, 5 bacon hogs, 13 bucks, 4 cows, 29 calfs, 129 sheep, 3 goats, 5 does, 54 lambs, 2 boars, 9 porks, 7 kids and a stag. That was some Christmas party!

Sir Alfred Munnings, Taggs Island

In the 1920's, a flourishing restaurant trade grew up in Britain. In her diaries, Lady Cynthia Asquith rarely lunches alone. For the poor, times were grave with most families subsisting on just over a shilling a week to buy food.

Consuming Passions is a great book if you have an interest in the history of food and how it is consumed. The recipes are culled for old cookery books. Here is a recipe worth the title alone.

Meat Roly Poly

Make a suet crust. Cover it with a mixture of minced meat and kidneys, a little liver if liked, onions and herbs and a few oysters, Roll up and boil. Serve with a good brown gravy.

Grab a glass of wine and remember, don't dig in your cod piece.

Annemarie’s Personal Cookbook

At 21 years old, Annemarie Huste stood in front of Billy Rose, songwriter,entertainer and household name and told him that he should hire her as his private chef. So he did. Within six weeks she was promoted to his executive housekeeper, managing a staff of 12 people. Eight months later, Rose died and Huste was looking for a new employer. It just so happened that Jacqueline Kennedy was looking for a chef and soon Huste was cooking for kings, queens and the leaders of the world who often visited the Widow Kennedy after paying respects to President Lyndon Johnson.

Unfortunately, for Huste, her access to the most famous woman in the world and her incredible good looks and youthful demeanor,made her fodder for gossip columnists. Mrs. Kennedy did not approve, so Huste was told she would no longer be needed.

Fortunately for Huste, her access to the most famous woman in the world and her incredible good looks and youthful demeanor, made her a natural for television and as they say in the press, there is no "bad" publicity, so being fired by Mrs. Kennedy made her cache rise as a bidding war for her first cookbook ensued. That was followed by the talk-show circuit, a television cooking show, food editor of the Saturday Evening Post and the German edition of Family Circle, and executive chef of Gourmet magazine.

When her book, Annemarie’s Personal Cookbook, was published The New York Times wrote:

"From “just a little something special” about pistachio ice cream, or things a beginner can do in minutes ti a hamburger to win a man’s heart… to wonderfully simple advice about elegant cuisine and gracious entertaining… her is “a fun cookbook.”

Here is her pistachio ice cream.

Pistachio Ice Cream

4 cups heavy cream
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons almond extract
Green food coloring
1 1/2 cups chopped pistachio nuts

Pour heavy cream into a bowl and whip until slightly stiff. Add the sugar and almond extract and beat thoroughly. Add a drop or two of food coloring (easy does it). Fold in the pistachio nuts. Pour mixture into a mold or other container and place in the freezer.

After 1 hour, stir the cream gently so that the nuts are well distributed and don’t sink to the bottom. Finish freezing for at least 6 hours or overnight.

Today, Annemarie Huste is still cooking, teaching and writing. She runs Annemarie's Dinning Room, offering private dinning and cooking lessons.