Chinese Five-Spice, Tawny Port, and Amanda Hesser's Duck

My mother wanted Chinese duck for Christmas dinner. Until now, our family recipe has been Cattherine Turney's blend of soy sauce and honey (Cathy was a distinguished screenwriter--"Mildred Pierce," "Of Human Bondage"--and a great cook). But I Googled Chinese duck recipes anyway. I was referred again and again to Amanda Hesser's Ginger Duck from "Cooking for Mr. Latte: A Food Lover's Courtship, with Recipes." I found the recipe on "The Splendid Table's" website. Decided to make Hesser's duck instead of Cathy's because much was made of the succulence of the meat. The technique was to simmer the ducks with spice, soy sauce, and sugar the day before, chill it, then roast to heat and glaze for serving.
When I picked up the two thawed ducklings from the butcher (we were going to be eight), I happened past the spice aisle. A jar of Chinese Five-Spice beckoned and I grabbed it.
I decided to use this blend in place of just ginger to intensify the Chineseness...star anise is the predominant flavor, other elements were Szechuan pepper, ginger, cloves, and Chinese cinnamon...fennel can also be added, and/or cardamom.
Hesser's simmering technique is fun and easy and it was clear the ducklings would be delicious. Before I put the brace in the ice chest in the patio to chill overnight (the fridge was chockablock), I took a spoonful of the broth and a morsel of the meat to my mother. She closed her eyes, then opened them, exclaiming, "The best I've ever tasted!" I sagged with relief--she has so loved Cathy's recipe all these years.
Last night just before putting the ducks in the oven came my second change in the recipe. As can happen when I'm cooking a complicated meal and there's a lot going on in the kitchen and out, I forgot to recheck the ingredients' list. Dumb. I was supposed to add sherry to the broth.* I couldn't believe it, but I scoured my mother's bar and cupboards, and there was no sherry in the house. But there was tawny port. Huzzah. I think it was what the Chinese (or is it the Japanese?) call a happy accident. The fruity warmth of the port was perfect.
While the ducks were roasting, wafting a heavenly fragrance through the house, my dear mother--99-1/2 years old--sat writing an ode to them.
My only disappointment was that the ducklings' skin did not crispen in the oven. That could be because I roasted them in a Vallauris (French earthenware) gratin dish, not a roasting pan. Metal might have reflected more heat and glazed the skins.
I served the ducks with "The Silver Palate's" divine recipe for pureed sweet potatoes and carrots. (Change I made in THAT was because I--again--didn't check the ingredients, I had no creme fraiche so I softened cream cheese and used that. Another happy accident. At least my reputation was redeemed from the canned Thanksgiving sweets...) I also served brussels sprouts sauteed with pecans, Blue Lake green beans with threads of fresh ginger. Salad was delicate mixed greens with Comice pears, pomegranate seeds, and crumbled blue cheese. For dessert, my grandmother's traditional steamed Carrot Pudding (essentially a plum pudding) and very hard Hard Sauce (courtesy of Jack Daniels).
As I was tucking my mother in bed, she beckoned me to come close and she said, "I want you to get nine ducks next week and make them for me," and then she sweetly fell asleep. It was a very merry Christmas!
*Even though the two ducks simmered in one pot--I used my canning kettle--I doubled broth ingredients, all except salt...customarily I only use half-again as much salt.

Marvelous Vegetable-Soup-in-Balance

Sunday morning, after making bacon for my granddaughters to go with our popovers, I started a pot of soup that I wanted to bring with me on a bit of a retreat…a couple of days out of town so I can work. No cooking. A comforting pot of soup already made.
The soup turned out to be—well, I want to say magnificent, but that’s a bit much, so I will say marvelous. What makes it so good? I figured it out. The vegetables are all happily married…a felicitous balance. Harmonious. There are lots of vegetables, but somehow I managed to add just the right amount of each so no flavor dominates.
Here’s roughly what I did...
First I whimsically poured about ¼ cup of the drippings from the bacon skillet into my big soup pot. Yes, I’m nominally a vegetarian, but not slavish, as you can see. I sauteed half an onion (coarsely chopped), a whole smallish head of celery (ditto) until they were gilded. I find the initial softening of onion and celery in fat makes an enormous difference in the finished flavor of any mixture--raw onion and celery can carry their sharpness to the end.
Next I peeled a couple of handfuls of baby potatoes, cut them in half, added them so they could golden up as well. Normally I leave the peel on potatoes for soup, but something made me peel them, and now I believe that lack of potato peel—which is bitterish—contributed to the soup's delicacy.
More restraint: at this point I normally would have added garlic to the sauteing, but now I feel that LACK OF GARLIC in this soup is another reason it’s so delicate.
Next I added a dozen baby Brussels sprouts, tossed them around for a bit so they could soak up the lusty bacon flavor.
With the seasoning vegetables softened, I added a cupful or so of prepared crinkle-cut carrots (I know, I know, but I had lots to do besides make soup on Sunday).
Meanwhile, on the side, I started cooking a cup of dried Great Northern beans—fast soaked them (directions on the package), then cooked them in the pressure cooker. They emerged not quite done, so I simmered them uncovered in the pressure cooker pot with a handful of mixed dried mushrooms. No need to soak the mushrooms, they had ample time to hydrate as they simmered with the beans.
To the vegetable pot I added a big fat leek, sliced (about 1/8-inch thick), and a small bulb of fennel also sliced crosswise (a little thicker slices for the fennel). For liquid, I poured in a can (16 ounces) each of low-sodium chicken broth and beef broth--I find the flavor of these two together delicious. Stirred in half a big can of diced tomatoes—in my opinion, vegetable soup without tomatoes ain’t vegetable soup. Usually I would have used the whole can, but something restrained me, and am I glad. When the fennel had softened, I added half a sweet green pepper, coarsely chopped.
When the beans and mushrooms were tender, in they went with their broth together with the final vegetable, a 2-cup package (naughty girl, Sylvia, using prepared vegetables, but I was grateful for the gift of time) of fresh small English peas. I've never bought these before, but they turned out to be an incomparable addition--their texture is a lovely pop in the mouth, something one never gets from frozen peas.
Onion, celery, fennel, leek, potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts, white beans, green pepper, tomatoes, mushrooms, peas with not too much broth. That’s another of this soup's virtues. The base is not thick like minestrone but the vegetables don’t float in a sea of broth either. Enough to cover. No herb (more restraint!), just sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Oh, yes, and a tad bacon fat (other days, of course, I would use olive oil). For garnish, I sprinkle on shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Where did this new wave of restraint come from? Beats me. But it has taught me an invaluable lesson (I will not say Less is more...will not).
Brrrrr, it’s soup weather. One big batch provides meals for days--the above makes 4 main dish servings--growing tastier with each day. Make some!
Use a light hand, eh? And don't forget crusty bread for sopping up the bottom of the bowl.

Candied Spiced Walnuts--Super Last-Minute Christmas Gift!

Last month I mentioned a big gathering I was cooking for, wrote about the truffle-flavored pâté I made. (One small crock was left over so I covered it with a quarter-inch of melted butter and it’s at the back of the fridge, the country way of preserving potted meats…we’ll dip into it on New Year’s Eve, can’t wait.) Also for the party, tempted by a photograph of spiced walnuts next to the recipe in a commercial rag—the nuts had the matte look of cinnamon-colored streusel, sugar crystals gleaming—I prepared a 10-cup batch. In all my years of making sweets I’d never candied walnuts and wasn’t sure what to expect—the recipe was so EASY it didn’t feel like making candy. When the walnuts came out of the oven and I took a bite, I was thrilled. They were so crunchy, toasty, spicy, walnutty, and not too sweet.
Yesterday, I made another batch for Christmas presents. Quickly made (not much more than an hour), I couldn’t recommend these more highly…a lovely luxe present for little time, money, and effort.
NB: you can divide or multiply the proportions as you wish.
1½ cups granulated sugar
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1½ teaspoons ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 egg whites
3 tablespoons water
10 cups best quality walnut halves (for economy’s sake, broken pieces can be mixed in)
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with baking parchment or foil.
Shake the sugar and spices together in a paper bag until blended.
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the egg whites and water together until frothy. Add the walnuts and toss with a fork or your fingers until pieces are thoroughly coated.
In relays, place nuts in the bag and shake until pieces are thoroughly sugared.
Spread the nuts in a single layer on the baking sheets and bake until the coating is dry and set, about 1 hour, stirring gently every 10 minutes.
Cool thoroughly on the sheets, stirring gently as needed to break up stuck pieces. Store in an airtight tin in a cool place (not the refrigerator). Makes 10 cups. They’ll keep until eaten.

What I learned from my Thanksgiving dinner...

THE MASHED POTATOES: I learned that you cannot prepare mashed potatoes ahead of time, not even an hour. For FLUFFY potatoes—and isn’t that the point?—the potatoes should be steamed rather than boiled (not water-logged this way), put through the food mill or ricer hot, blended with melted sweet butter and hot half-and-half (proportions are easy: ½ stick butter and ½ cup half-and-half per pound of russets, which serves 2 to 3) salted and white-peppered, turned into a warm bowl, sent straight to the buffet. Hard to do when there’s so much else going on at the last minute, but worth it...
SUMMER TRUFFLES: At the market I saw a little jar with four small black balls labeled “Summer Truffles,” temptingly priced, I was thrilled—I’d add them to the mashed potatoes. Yesterday morning I opened the jar, cut the first into slivers and tasted a piece, quivering with anticipation. Wow. I looked down at the bits. Really? Is it possible? I tasted another. It was possible. Zero flavor. Zip. None. Today I Googled the term and read, “Summer truffles do not have as strong an aroma or taste as winter truffles do.” Understatement of the year.
THE CANDIED SWEET POTATOES: I’m done using canned sweets. Not worth saving time and energy…many pieces are mushy, but more importantly, their flavor has no depth. And I’m not sure that pouring maple syrup over the slices in a gratin dish is the answer…I added orange zest and melted sweet butter, but they were blah. The best candied sweets are cooked pieces finished in a skillet with brown sugar and butter, yes? Besides, having just one oven, the fewer dishes I have to bake after the turkey comes out, the better.
THE GIBLET GRAVY: Two days’ cooking is not too long for memorable gravy. I simmered the turkey giblets with buckets of chicken hearts and gizzards in low-sodium beef broth on Tuesday, let them chill, then first thing I did yesterday morning was chop them coarsely and set them again to simmering. At some point, I decided to finish the gravy as much as I could, adding Madeira, Kitchen Bouquet (my grandmother’s favorite seasoning, and how a slosh of this deep brown coloring made of caramel and vegetables transforms gravy from lackluster to rich), and Wondra flour (blessings on it for not making lumps). Simmered simmered simmered. When the turkey was done around 2:00 o’clock, I turned everything in the bottom of the roasting pan (yes, even the bit of melted fat), and boy oh boy, THAT DID IT! I’ve never ever made such a gravy.
STUFFING BAKED IN THE TURKEY: Not going to do it again. First of all, the powers that be make a big thing about the stuffing reaching 165 degrees before you can safely serve it…and maybe it will reach that temp and maybe it won’t. Second of all, when my son carved the turkey, I was too busy to remember to ask him to spoon the stuffing into a bowl, in slicing, he did not notice it, and last night when I was putting food away, I found soft stuffing mooshed all around the turkey platter. Ah. The stuffing I had baked (bread cubes, cooked chestnuts, dried cranberries) was the perfect texture. From now on, my turkey will roast empty.
THE DRY BRINED TURKEY: Yes, I did it, began Monday morning. And yes it was easy. Yes the bird roasted to an amazing bronze, the meat was juicy, and not salty. Great success. Except its 15 pounds 12 ounces reached 165 degrees IN TWO HOURS! Yoiks. I’d counted on close to three. I put the turkey back in the oven at 200 degrees and let it think about things while I gathered my wits…no harm done. Next year I’ll know better.
THE CREAMED ONIONS: I saw the bags of frozen pearl onions, they looked darling. They were darling and my cream sauce was super (if I do say so myself—I flicked in a hint of Parmigiano-Reggiano, imperceptible but added depth). However, the onions were too dainty—again, I regretted trying to save time and energy. Next year, back to fresh boiling onions…meatier, more flavor.
THE GINGER PUMPKIN MICE (lame joke…plural of mousses): I saw an appealing recipe in “The Silver Palate Cookbook” that could be a dessert for people who don’t want pie. Typical me, it wasn’t until I was ready to assemble the recipe—the oven was heated to custard’s 325 degrees, all my little ramekins were prettily lined up—that I realized it was made with gelatin, and uncooked. THE EGGS WERE RAW! Oh my. Considering what a fuss is made about the potential danger of eating raw eggs, I was interested—and reassured —that this recipe had held its place in an edition published in 2007. I decided to make the dessert and tell everybody, and if they were nervous, they could pass. No one passed, and the smooth pumpkin cream with chopped candied ginger on top was delectable. Somehow it was comforting, preparing a dish from another era when danger did not lurk behind every raw egg...
THE PEOPLE: Yep, you guessed it. My family and friends around our Thanksgiving table are what made the dinner marvelous. Good food is nice but good people are what one is thankful for…
THE AVOIRDUPOIS: Now I have to do a heck of a lot more walking…and less eating…to drop the two pounds I gained in the feast. I don’t mind. The thinking, the cooking, the eating, the camaraderie, made it a wonderful wonderful Thanksgiving.
And it’s always good to keep learning.

French Truffle-Flavored Chicken Liver Terrine (for a Crowd)

I’m still cooking for the family party we’re having Sunday afternoon…looks to be 75 to 80 friends stopping by. I wanted to make a creamy pate to spread on crackers and toasts rather than the sort of sturdy composition of meats (also called pate) one bakes, slices, and serves on a plate with a fork.
I went straight to the young Jacques Pepin’s, “A French Chef Cooks At Home” for his Terrine de Foies de Volaille. In my years of giving big parties, it was my mainstay—always the best I ever ate. (I confess I did gild Pepin’s lily by adding a sweet apple, a trick I learned from a great cook, high school friend of my mother’s, the artist Robert Tyler Lee.)
Today I decided to make a lighter version, use less butter and omit Pepin’s finish of whipped cream. Instead my enrichment was an ingredient I’d never heard of in the 70’s: truffle oil. Truffle oil is costly but an enormous value for the money—a thread, a spoonful, makes an amazing impact in a dish, and a small bottle can last months in the fridge.
Should you, too, be entertaining the masses, here's a recipe for a delectable pate easily made that can be prepared in advance. It serves 40 at least, but of course you can reduce the proportions (or indulge yourself...).
Generous 5 pounds fresh chicken livers
6 cups water
4 leafy stalks celery, cut up to fit the pot
2¼ pounds unsalted butter, softened
4 small Gala or Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, chopped small
3 very large shallots or 2 small onions, peeled and chopped small
5 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
¼ cup good brandy
1 rounded teaspoon nutmeg, preferably freshly grated
½ teaspoon ground cloves
4 shakes (1/8 teaspoon) cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons truffle oil
About ½ tablespoon kosher salt
Freshly ground white pepper
While using scissors to snip out the fatty connective tissue of the livers, place the water and celery in a large (at least 4½ quarts) saucepan, bring to a boil, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the livers, return to a simmer, then reduce the heat, cover, and cook without letting the water boil for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and let set 10 more minutes; the centers of the livers should still be slightly pink. Drain in a colander.
Meantime, melt a cube of the butter in a sauté pan and cook the apples, shallots, and garlic over medium-low heat until golden and thoroughly soft.
In batches in a food processor, puree the livers with the butter and apple mixture until smooth smooth smooth. Turn into a large bowl as you go and stir to blend in each batch. Finally, blend in the brandy, nutmeg, cloves, cayenne, then the truffle oil. Add salt and white pepper to taste.
Smooth into serving bowls, cover airtight with plastic film, and refrigerate up to 1 week before serving with French bread, crackers, or toasts.
Cornichon pickles on the side are a nice touch.

Ajvar!

In one of my former lifetimes, I was asked to do an article on Serbian cuisine for a magazine. Truth to tell, I wasn’t sure where Serbia was—had to look it up on the map (yes, it was that long ago). I loved the food I learned about in my research—I’ve always been crazy about earthy Central European cooking. One of my favorite discoveries was Kaymak with Ajvar…bread spread with creamy fresh cheese topped with a piquant puree of roasted sweet peppers and eggplants.
Years passed, I forgot about it, then one day at Trader Joe’s I found imported jars of orangy-red ajvar on the shelf with the tapenades. Oh joy! Richly flavored and super-low in calories*, I went through a jar or two a week, smoothing ajvar (AY-var) on morning toast, lunchtime bread, nibbletime crackers. Then TJ’s dropped it. Oh no!
This weekend there’s a big reception in the family and I volunteered to do the food. I’ll make ajvar, says I to myself. I found luscious peppers and huge eggplants at Costco, and I prepared them last night watching “Masterpiece Contemporary” (excellent episode). It took me the full two hours, I’m afraid. One must peel the peppers—the skins are bitter. Peeling roasted peppers is a meditative act as are many tasks in cooking, and if one chooses to do it, there’s nothing for it but to do it with mindfulness—and the BBC.
This recipe is large but ajvar keeps at least a week in the fridge, and it would be simple to prepare a fraction of the amounts. If you want to be traditional, serve it with fresh creamy cheese. Alan Davidson’s “The Oxford Companion to Food” says kaymak is made with cow’s milk in Europe and the texture is comparable to clotted cream. The Serbian cook who gave me material for that article so long ago said it was fresh goat’s cheese. Doesn’t matter. It’s the play of mild-tasting creamy white against richly flavored creamy orange-red that’s splendid.
I will add this: last night after I finished, I was disappointed. The ajvar wasn’t as flavorful as when I dipped a spoon in this afternoon. So let it ripen before serving.
Something else. To my surprise, I seem to have stumbled on the perfect proportions because I can taste every element in the blend. Doesn’t happen often.
Serbian Spread of Roasted Sweet Red Peppers and Eggplants
(About 50 2-tablespoon servings)
1 cup flavorful olive oil
12 large fleshy sweet red peppers
2 very large or 3 medium eggplants
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon lemon juice
About ½ tablespoon salt
At least 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Set one oven rack in the middle with a baking stone if you have one, set a second rack just above it. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Brush 1 very large or 2 smaller baking sheets with 2 tablespoons of the oil. Slice peppers in half lengthwise, remove caps and seeds, fit halves cut sides down on the sheets. Slide sheets onto the middle rack. Pierce eggplants with a knife in several places and set whole on the top rack. Roast peppers until soft and edges are blackened, up to an hour. Stack pieces in a bowl, cover with plastic film, and let steam 15 minutes. Scrape off skins, setting pieces in a colander (juices would thin the spread). Continue roasting eggplants till collapsed—large fruits might take another half-hour. Cut open and scoop flesh into colander to drain.
Puree peppers in a food processor and measure. Puree eggplants and measure. My amounts were 4 cups pepper puree, 2½ cups eggplants… adjust your amounts of garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper proportionately. In the food processor, blend the purees with seasonings, then with the motor running, drizzle in olive oil (I used 14 tablespoons). Not too much oil and not too much processing--consistency should be nice and thick.
Refrigerate and let ripen at least 12 hours before serving.
*This ajvar is about 18 calories per tablespoonful…

Pasta with Marinara Sauce: Pure Simple Easy—and Perhaps the Best

As I write this, I’m eating supper, a second-night serving of fettuccine marinara, my favorite pasta sauce.
What is “marinara” anyway? It’s supposed to mean “of the sea,” but that only extends to its having been born in Naples, which is on the Bay of Naples.
In “Bugialli on Pasta,” the brilliant Florentine chef and cooking teacher Giuliano Bugialli writes, “Fundamentally, alla marinara simply means to add tomatoes to the basic olive oil and garlic, aglio e olio. This must have originated sometime in the nineteenth century, when ripe tomatoes came to play a dominant role in Neapolitan cooking…”
When Susan Lescher and I were sharing a New England kitchen, we often made this sauce. And so I have continued to make it for myself and a friend—or myself one night and myself the next.
There are only three essential ingredients: olive oil, garlic, tomatoes. There is a goodly amount of olive oil and this gives the sauce unctuousness. Don’t scrimp on it.
But. And.
Bugialli adds parsley…and I sneak in rosemary. But there is no real need for herbery. The Italian canned tomatoes I use (Lola) come with big thick leaves of basil, but basil isn’t essential.
Bugialli purees the tomatoes at the end. Feel free to do that, but I prefer texture—and I save a step.
This is a versatile base. Just before serving, Susan and I often stirred in a handful of pitted kalamata olives— gorgeous. Last night I added sliced and sautéed mushrooms. Capers are delicious, too.
When I was newly married, I was sent a hand-written recipe from a friend of my mother’s, Clemence Jandrey, the wife of Fritz (Frederick W.) Jandrey, who had been the U.S. Vice Counsel in Naples just before World War II. Clem’s recipe was for Neapolitan Marinara Sauce and across the top she wrote, "The Best!" All it was was a tin of plum tomatoes simmered till thick. Being in my twenties and teaching myself to cook, I found the idea absurd…how could this be anything but a lazy cook’s trick? I don’t think I even bothered to try it. Ah, the arrogance of the young. It amuses me that I am now the age Clem was when she sent me the recipe. What she knew that I did not was that long slow simmering of tomatoes sweetens and refines their flavor. I wish I could tell Clem that I've learned this since…
As for the shape of the pasta, Bugialli calls for vermicelli or perciatelli (spaghetti-like with a hole in the center). He notes, “Medium-thick, long pastas can be substituted one for another if you can’t find the specific one.”
As for portion size, my comfort-level serving is 2-1/2 ounces. I’ve heard the word “trencherman” used for the traditional 4-ounce serving.
I do like more sauce on my pasta than is customary for most Italians, so the amounts I’ll give serve half of what is traditional in Italy.
Which pasta brand is considered best? Not long ago I asked that question of my friend and mentor, Russ Parsons, and he reminded me of a story he wrote for the Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2002. The Times test kitchen cooked eight artisanal and three standard pastas in two-ounce batches, lightly dressed each with olive oil. Russ wrote, ‘When the brands were revealed, both of our favorites were made by Latini—the regular red-box brand and the Senatore Cappelli type made from an heirloom wheat variety. That Latini fared so well was no shock; it's the dried pasta of choice for most of the great Italian restaurants in this country…While the Latini pastas were the best in our tasting, we also liked the spaghetti from Rustichella d'Abruzzo, another artisanal Italian product, as well as from La Molisana and Barilla, Italian brands made in the U.S.”
Finally, Susan taught me to combine the sauce with the pasta and WAIT a few minutes to let the paste absorb the sauce, let the two marry. A subtle but crucial step.
You can make this much sauce to coat a pound of pasta in the Italian style, or double or triple the recipe for more pasta still. It could not be simpler.
PASTA ALLA MARINARA AFTER BUGIALLI—2 to 3 servings
½ cup fruity olive oil
6 to 8 large cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped (although no harm done if you leave them whole)
20 large sprigs Italian parsley, leaves only, coarsely chopped, optional
Large sprig of fresh rosemary, chopped, optional
1 pound 12 ounce can of peeled whole plum tomatoes*, Italian, with basil leaves if possible
1 tablespoon coarse salt
8 ounces dried pasta, any shape, preferably Italian
Freshly ground pepper
Optional additions: generous ½ cup pitted kalamata olives…OR 8 ounces mushrooms, sliced and sautéed till golden…OR ¼ cup chopped Italian parsley leaves…OR ½ to ¾ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, to taste
In a large heavy skillet over medium heat, warm the olive oil, then add the garlic (and parsley and rosemary). Stir for a couple of minutes, then add the tomatoes. Chop up the tomatoes with the edge of a cooking spoon into smallish pieces. You’ll want it to simmer for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. The sauce is finished when thickened to the consistency you desire. Stir in added ingredients if you like to heat them up. Remove from the heat, cover, and wait for the pasta.
While the sauce simmers, set a large pot with at least 3 quarts cold water over high heat, cover and bring to a boil. When the water boils, stir in 1 tablespoon coarse salt, add the pasta, cover until the water returns to a boil, then boil uncovered, stirring often to keep pieces from sticking.
Generally, spaghettini cooks in 5 minutes, trenette in 6 to 7 minutes, and penne in 7 to 8 minutes, thicker cuts of pasta can take 9 to 12 minutes. Start tasting 2 minutes before the expected time. When a piece tests tender with just a tad of chewiness—past being gritty at the center—al dente, turn into a colander.
Shake the colander then turn the pasta into the sauce pan, grind over pepper to taste, and stir until blended. Cover and let the paste soak up the sauce for a few minutes. Serve in heated soup plates and pass freshly grated cheese.
Marinara sauce can certainly be prepared a day in advance and reheated.
NB: When I reheat this for myself the second serving, I moisten it with a thread of olive oil before I cover and zap.
*Of course you can buy canned tomatoes already chopped, but I’ve found the pieces tend to be mushier than the flesh of whole tomatoes, and if you chop them up yourself, you can suit your own esthetic.

Have You Made A Frittata For Supper Lately?

When I was a little girl living with my parents in The Garden of Allah in Hollywood, now and then we received postcards from my mother’s old friend, MFK Fisher, who was living amongst boulders and rattlesnakes in Hemet, a hundred miles to the east. The card—postage was a penny—was always a recipe in MF’s round blue-ink script, and the titles were fascinating. The two I particularly remember are “Cookies of Otamela” (so very MF, a made-up Spanish word for oatmeal) and "Frittata." To my nine year-old’s ear, “Frittata” was mellifluous—tintinnabulation—and I longed to taste it. I can’t remember my mother making a frittata, but when I was married and Gene and I went to visit MF, she made them for us often.
Dissolve through many years…I don’t think I made frittatas for my children, it’s not a children’s dish…children like to know what they’re eating. I remember Dinah when I was testing recipes: “What is this, Mommy?” “It’s veal, dear.” “I know, but what was it?”
Hey. What is a frittata, anyway?
It is a serene—not hustled about—Italian variation of a French omelette…you can count on the Italians to do something beautiful that’s easygoing.
More precisely, a frittata is cooled cooked vegetables/ cheese/meat mixed with beaten eggs, poured into a hot buttered skillet, cooked gently until the eggs are set on the bottom, then—here’s the drama and the fun—coaxed out of the pan, flipped over, then slipped back into the skillet to finish cooking.
Hunh? Easy you say? Yes.
The flipping over part can be sidestepped by finishing under the broiler.
Also, you can miss when you flip and the world doesn’t come to an end. Not long ago, I was making a frittata for six in an enormous skillet on a friend’s cooktop…flipped it over onto a big platter—so far so good—only the platter slipped and half the damn frittata went splatting all over the cooktop. My friend, a meticulous housekeeper, was horrified but I calmly picked up cooked chunks and pieces, plunked them onto the serving platter, finished cooking what was left, and it all tasted fine—I mean, I was cooking for FRIENDS, for pity’s sake. Alas, my hostess was not happy with her eggy stove but I’m afraid even though I was mortified for the mess, I thought it was pretty funny…
Above all, the great thing about this dish is that you don’t need to worry about rules or proportions. Use what you like and what you have on hand.
Now here I am on my own and I probably make a frittata a week. The reason? It’s easy, delicious, practical, cheap. Nourishing. Lean.
Tonight, watching the Dodgers—I hope—cream the Phillies, I made a frittata for my supper…
What I did was slice half a box of mushrooms and sauté them in a tad of butter till tender while nuking a chunk of frozen chopped spinach till cooked…poured myself a glass of my Spanish red wine while, in another skillet, I cut up a small onion and sauteed it in a thread of olive oil till sweet and golden…added minced garlic (have you discovered the jar that has minced garlic at the ready, what a treat!) at the end. Turned mushrooms, spinach, onion into a shallow dish, cut in a couple of ounces of mozzarella in small pieces to melt, mixed it all up, and let cool.
Watched the game, sipped my wine.
I beat up two eggs and stirred them into the cooled veggies. Salted and peppered (could have added dill weed or fresh parsley but didn’t bother). Heated a tablespoon of butter in the non-stick onion-cooking skillet over medium-high heat, poured in the mix, shook the skillet to settle the vegetables. Cooked until the sides looked set and the surface looked close to set—hard to give you time, because every mixture, every skillet, every burner is different, but it’s generally 4 to 8 minutes. Then I used a non-stick spatula to free up the bottom, set a big plate on top, and flipped it over. Set the skillet back on the heat, swooshed it over with another spoonful of unsalted butter, slid in the frittata—uncooked side down. Cooked it another few minutes till, when I shook the pan, the whole thing moved. Slid it onto a plate and sat and finished watching the game.
We just lost to the Phillies. Bummer. They lead the series 3 to 1. I called my formerly cherished Philadelphia-born friend Nan Wollman and told her that it’s over between us.
But it was a good and simple dinner. There was more than enough for me…I wish MF were around to share it.

Jacques Pepin's Magic Wand

I first heard the name, Jacques Pepin, from my mentor, Helen McCully, Food and Wine editor of “House Beautiful” magazine, a lifetime ago. Helen told me she had met a remarkable young chef from France and she became his mentor as well, handing him around New York’s culinary establishment. They collaborated on a cookbook, “The Other Half of the Egg, Or, 180 Ways to Use Up Extra Yolks or Whites” (1967). I bought Pepin’s books as they came along—his style suits me to a T. His roast Chicken with Cognac in “A French Chef Cooks At Home,” 1975, was where I learned to roast chicken at high heat--400 degrees—15 minutes on one side, 15 minutes on the other side, 15 to 20 minutes breast up. (How young he looks on the cover!) Although I was writing cookbooks by then, I immersed myself in Pepin’s large-format-books-with-great-photographs, “La Technique” (1978) and “La Methode” (1979), soaking up the fine points.
Cut to a couple of weeks ago when I was on my hands and knees cleaning my apartment’s carpet. I turned on the television to cheer me up, it was set on PBS, and there was Pepin making squash soup. When the chunks of squash and its seasonings were tender in the saucepan, Pepin stuck this sort of fat wand into the pot, I heard a brief whirring sound, and the camera panned down to show a smooth golden puree. Lordy. I had an immersion blender once but it was useless, gave it away…
I looked up the wand on amazon and sent for it. Took it with me on my visit to the mountain. Fitted the wand into one of its cups (it comes with several bells and whistles) with avocado and onion and had guacamole in the flicker of an eyelash. Few nights ago, I minced four shallots just as quickly. Wow. Last night, I cooked a potful of spinach, stalks and leaves, they looked so unpromising, but I stuck in the wand, pushed the button. Plush emerald puree!
Now I must confess I am a gizmo girl. It runs in the family. When Henry Ford sent out his first automobiles, my father’s father in Chicago took the engine apart then put it back together. My father collected gizmos almost as passionately as books.
I didn’t realize one of Pepin’s sponsors is Cuisinart, but I must say ever since a friend told me about the new invention called a food processor, I’ve never been disappointed by Cuisinart. This, too, is an exceptionally useful kitchen tool—particularly if you’re cooking for just one or two. It not only purees and chops, but there’s a whisk as well—I whipped cream in a twinkling. And clean-up is much faster and easier than with a food processor—rinse, rinse, shake dry. I'm pleased my splurging turned out not to be an extravagance but money well spent. I regard the Smart Stick Hand Blender with Whisk and Chopper Attachments a bargain—$47.50 from amazon.
Just thought you’d like to know.
Now thank goodness my rug is clean so I can stay away from Pepin and temptation…
At least for a while.

Café Aroma’s Melt-in-Your-Mouth Best-You've-Ever-Eaten Scones--Revisited

After four days I ran out of scones, and niggled by the thought that perhaps they might be baked to advantage at a higher temp, I made them again this morning. With all due respect to Frank Ferro's method, I must say these scones that were baked hotter rose higher, were even lighter (although not so crumbly), outsides were crisper and the tops were an appealing nut brown.
While I was at it, I added a tad more butter and fruit, and, lacking fresh blueberries, used frozen wild blueberries. Lovely and a big saving.
Btw, it took my apartment-kitchen oven 45 minutes to heat but less than 15 minutes to prepare the recipe.
I do urge you to try these scones!

ST’s Café Aroma-Inspired Scones—makes 12
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cool but not cold (or 5 tablespoons, if using 36% cream)
1/2 cup Zante dried currants or fresh or frozen blueberries or cranberries (add frozen fruit without thawing)
1 large egg (1/4 cup)
1-1/4 cups heavy cream, preferably 40% butterfat
About 2 tablespoons sugar for the tops
Heat the oven to 425 degrees, place the rack in the center, and use a baking stone if you have one. Line a 14- by 16-inch baking sheet (or 2 smaller sheets) with parchment paper. Sift (or shake through a big sieve) flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder into a 2-quart mixing bowl—if using kosher salt, stir it into the cream instead.
Cut the butter in small thin chips over the bowl. With your fingertips, lightly rub butter and flour together until the butter is in petite-pea-sized chunks. In a pint or quart measuring pitcher, beat the egg until yolk and white are blended, then beat in the cream. You'll need 1-1/4 cups egg/cream mixture, so pour the excess into a small bowl (it will be for glaze). Drizzle the 1-1/4 cups over the flour and use a fork to quickly blend in—about 12 strokes. Add the fruit--if using currants, crumble to separate--and lightly quickly mix in.
Use a 3-tablespoon ice cream scoop or big spoon to set 12 rounded portions an inch apart on the baking sheet. When the oven has reached 425 degrees, brush each mound all over with the reserved egg/cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until light brown, about 15 minutes. Cool on a rack then store in a tightly closed jar in the refrigerator. Warm in the toaster oven about 4 minutes before serving.

A Favorite Delicious Fast Easy Nourishing Cheap Hot Supper from Long Ago

Enough salad for supper. Tonight, being OCTOBER! (who can believe it?) I wanted something hot.
When I was a student in Paris living in a corner room of Mme. Galetti’s apartment—40 rue des Ecoles—my pension included breakfast each morning (big bowl of coffee and all I could eat of bread fresh from the corner baker slathered with sweet butter and preserves, usually sour cherry) and lunches. Dinners were mine to roust up and usually I ended up sitting on my bed reading while eating a slab of open-face sandwich, also from the corner baker.
Occasionally of a Sunday afternoon, Madame would notice me lollygagging about, take pity on me, and invite me to join her and Monsieur for supper. It was at Madame’s table that I discovered Eggs Florentine. Only this dear plump middle-aged Belgian lady, forced to take in students to supplement her husband’s income from baking palmiers in the back room, would never put a fancy name to what she cooked. It was simply poached eggs on spinach.
I thought it a sublime combination.
I have made it a hundred hundred times in the fifty-five years since. Tonight, for example. No recipe needed--and it’s way easier than the dish Madame prepared, as she did not have spinach already blanched and chopped, much less a microwave oven.
What I do for just me or for half a dozen people is cook frozen chopped spinach according to package directions (yes of course I could use fresh), stirring in a mort of sweet butter after it’s cooked. Spinach with plenty of butter is spinach lifted to its highest power.
At the same time, I bring a little saucepan of water to the boil while slicing my loaf of bread then toasting it (olive bread tonight). Then I grate or cut in slivers a tasty cheese on hand…tonight I had a special teleme jack, but any cheese that is not too dominant is fine. You want not to overwhelm spinach’s intriguing and complex flavor.
When the water is boiling, I drop in an egg per serving (sure, you can do two)…time 3 minutes’ simmering (easy does it). I lightly butter the toast, set it on a plate and cover it with spinach, then use a slotted spoon to lift out the perfectly poached egg and lay it on the spinach. Sprinkle or strew over the cheese, season with a little salt and fresh-ground pepper, and that’s it.
Ah, Mme. Galetti, I wish you knew how pleasures of your table have endured in my life...

Café Aroma’s Melt-in-Your-Mouth Scones—Best You’ve Ever Eaten!

Recently on a stay in Idyllwild (the mile-high village in California’s San Jacinto mountains where Gene and I lived for twenty years), my friends and I walked each morning to have breakfast at Café Aroma. Café Aroma seems to be THE gathering place these days, Frank Ferro--the café’s heart and soul--is an inspired chef and charming host. How I wish his establishment had been in place when we were.
First morning with my coffee, I ordered a blueberry scone. First bite, I knew I was in the presence of something extraordinary.
Until now, James Beard’s Cream Biscuits have been—to my taste—the measure of biscuit/scone heaven. Frank’s are better—they crumble on the way to your mouth and in the mouth, they melt, their flavors of butter/flour/fruit in perfect balance. Frank adds dried currants or cranberries or blueberries to the dough. I thought my preference would be blueberries until I ate a currant scone…until I ate one with cranberries.
Café Aroma serves these beauties not with butter but lemon curd, a delightful conceit. Truthfully, being so rich, they need no topping—and I find I can taste the fruit more clearly when plain. But for a special occasion, you can buy a good lemon curd where good preserves are sold (or stand over a double boiler whisking eggs, sugar, and lemon juice for 10 long minutes…).
I asked Frank if he would share his scone recipe and he graciously gave it to me for this page. His amounts, naturally, are industrial strength. I made one-third the recipe, one dozen. Ate two before they cooled (the scones should be served warm, by the way).
Frank calls for an ingredient I was unfamiliar with (Mrs Hattie Childs, my Senior English teacher, would want me to say, ‘with which I was unfamiliar’…), Manufacturing cream. I discovered it’s a commercial product with 40% butterfat…happily it’s available as Trader Joe’s Heavy Cream. Or use your favorite “heavy whipping cream” (probably 36% butterfat) and add an extra ½ tablespoon butter for every 1 cup cream.
I had to bake the scones longer than his recipe…my apartment oven is surely not the equivalent of Frank’s restaurant range. Too, Frank bakes his scones way cooler than any recipe I’ve seen—Beard uses 425 degrees, Myrtle Allen, the maven of Ballymaloe House, uses 400, the incomparable Jim Dodge uses 375 degrees. But I wouldn’t touch it…
I also ended up with more egg mixture than I needed, so I cut down a tad on the cream. And I used my hands rather than a mixer. Easier clean-up.
I will give you Frank’s recipe for Café Aroma verbatim first—you can divide the dough the way he does, using different fruits—then my household adaptation.
Café Aroma’s Scones—makes 36!
6 cups Flour
1/2 tablespoon Salt
3/4 cup Sugar
3 tablespoons Baking Powder
1/3 pound Butter
1 cup Curants
3 Eggs
4 cups Manufacturing Cream
Sift flour, salt sugar and baking powder into a mixing bowl.Thinly slice butter and add to flour mixture. Mix in Hobart on speed one until butter pieces are about the size of small peas. Currants can be added during this step, but if making other fruit flavors, wait until after eggs and cream are added and you have set aside enough dough for the other flavors. In a metal bowl, whip the eggs and cream together. Slowly add the egg mixture to the flour mixture in the Hobart until a firm dough forms. Using an ice cream scoop, measure out each scone, making sure there are no air bubbles. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and brush with remaining cream/egg mixture. Bake at 300 degrees for 11 minutes then turn pan around and bake for 12 more minutes.
ST’s Café Aroma Scones—makes 12
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3-1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cool but not ice cold (or 4-1/2 tablespoons, if using 36% cream)
1/3 cup Zante dried currants or fresh blueberries or fresh cranberries
1 large egg
1-1/4 cups heavy cream, preferably 40% butterfat
Heat the oven to 300 degrees; set the rack in the middle of the oven and use a baking stone if you have one. Line a 14- by 16-inch baking sheet (or 2 smaller sheets) with parchment paper. Sift flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder into a 2-quart mixing bowl—if using kosher salt, add it to the cream instead to dissolve.
Make the dough using the same technique as for short pastry (see the galette, August 12, 2009 entry): Cut in the butter in thin chips. With the tips of your fingers, rub butter and flour together until the butter is in small-pea-sized chunks. In a smaller bowl, with whisk or egg beater, beat the egg and cream together until slightly frothy. Measure out 1¼ cups (reserve the rest) and drizzle over the dough. Use a fork to quickly blend in—about 12 strokes. Add the fruit (using currants, crumble them in to separate) in 3 or 4 strokes.
With a 3-tablespoon-capacity ice cream scoop, measure out dough, smoothing the top, making sure there are no gaps, and place as far apart on the baking sheet as you have room. Brush each all over with the reserved egg mixture. Bake for 15 minutes then turn the pan around and bake another 15 minutes, or until the center is thoroughly baked (only way to find out is to break one in half...then you have to eat it ...pity). Cool on a rack, they will keep at least one day. Warm before serving.
(Incidentally, I find the present crop of Sun-Maid’s “Zante currants” finer quality and more flavorful than I can remember.)
And, oh yes. Is this recipe for high altitude? I neglected to ask, but having baked for decades on the mountain, I'm fairly sure Frank adjusted his recipe for those of us who visit Cafe Aroma for a few days, request the recipe, then go home and bake on the flats.

Oh, Yogi!

Tonight putting together my supper, watching the recording of last night’s Charlie Rose—an hour with Rahm Emanuel—I heard one of those remarks that makes you laugh aloud with delight and gratitude, a quote to last forever:
Speaking of Iran and its choices, Emanuel quoted Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Divine.

Roasted Fennel Medallions, Sweet Red Pepper Strips and Carrot Slices, A Cool First Course

I was back in the mountains recently and cooked supper for half a dozen friends, using the electric stove that I’d used a few weeks before. The oven ran REALLY hot, and the fruit galette I made the first time cooked in 15 minutes instead of 40. So this time I made sure to test the temperature, set the dial to where it would be 400 degrees when I baked the mushroom galette I was preparing...and preparing...and preparing...five sorts of fresh mushrooms, dried wild mushrooms, onions and shallots, rich sauce, plus the pastry, damn glorious thing took me hours. The oven temp turned out to be fine. What wasn’t was that, in my rush to get it into the oven, I forgot to brush the surface with beaten egg, so that, when I opened the oven door, instead of burnished, the galette looked ghostly. That was the first thing I noticed. The second—How on earth?!*#@%! oh no! was that fully a fourth of the galette was sliding/had slud off the buttered rimless baking sheet and precious chunks of mushrooms and shards of pastry lay on the oven floor. Nightmare. Then I saw that, in my haste, I’d set the oven rack on two different levels! one higher than the other… I felt like an idiot.
What did work beautifully in my supper, though, and made me feel redeemed a bit, was the first course. I had come to the mountain expecting to cook for four friends, but then wanted two more to join us. I planned to serve hors d’ouvres of slices of raw fennel, Moroccan black olives, Genoese salami, and pistachios, was going to serve pattypan squashes with the galette. But I didn’t have enough squash. So I decided to roast the fennel and…what else? At the market I’d grabbed a couple of lovely sweet red peppers and a bunch of long skinny carrots. Because the cabin’s dinner plates were smallish--everything would be too crowded--I decided I’d serve the vegetables as a cool first course.
I brushed two baking sheets with olive oil, set the oven to 400 degrees. I trimmed off the fennel stalks at the top of the bulb (reserved the stalks for leaves), and sliced the bulb top to bottom a little more than ¼-inch thick, taking care to keep the pieces intact. I arranged the pieces (there were 8) on a baking sheet and brushed them lightly with oil. I cored the two sweet peppers, cut them into strips about 3/8-inch wide, then cut the strips in half (a more manageable size). Put the strips in a bowl, drizzled them with olive oil, and tossed with my hands so every piece was moistened, then spread the strips on the remainder of the fennel sheet. I roasted these vegetables until the fennel was tender crisp and had taken on color but before the peppers got limp, not very long. Meantime I peeled the 8 carrots and cut them on the diagonal in pieces about ½-inch wide. Tossed them with olive oil as I had the peppers and arranged them on the second baking sheet. Roasted them until they were also tender crisp—but they didn’t look roasted, so I put them under the broiler and shook the sheet until the slices had hints of brown.
Now I sprinkled the warm vegetables with lemon juice—one lemon was enough—a bit of coarse salt and a few turns of the white pepper mill. Tossed very gently to blend, covered with waxed paper, set aside. I snipped feathery leaves from the fennel stalks—minding not to catch even the tiniest bits of stems (it should look like dill from the Dill Weed jar), about ¼ cupful.
At serving time, I re-tossed the strips and slices to glisten again. I set a medallion of fennel on each salad plate, arranged carrot slices at the base, then divided up the sweet red peppers, half a portion on each side of the fennel. Sprinkled with fennel snips and served. This much would make 8 servings, but I distributed it to 7.
I will make this combination again…it could not be simpler, the colors are gorgeous, and, to my delight, everyone exclaimed how delicious it was.
Still I wonder who it was that first observed, "Haste makes waste..."

Friends

Here’s something you know but that I wish to set down: If it weren’t for friends, we would not get through it.
Right?
Right.
In recent weeks I have been privileged to spend some days traveling with a close friend, a wonderfully deepening experience.
Then I went to a warm laugh-filled reunion with high school friends, re-discovered special people. (I met my best friend in Uni High as we turned sixteen. Diane and I have been through almost sixty years together, love, loss, surprise, dismay, the beauty of a sustaining friendship...)
Next I reconnected with dear friends from a later period in my life, those of the twenty years when Gene and I lived in the mountains. To my delight, old friends introduced me to new friends. So pleased!
Last weekend, on Saturday I shared a cozy supper at Beacon (delicious pan-Asian cuisine) with old close friends, one of the rare couples who has not let go of this old-girl-on-her-own. Sunday, I was invited by a new friend to a potluck picnic in Rustic Canyon, introduced to more new friends. Splendid eats, splendid company under enormous old oaks.
In the midst of this shower of friendship, my eldest child gave me an extraordinary gift…his understanding and insight lifted a burden from my shoulders, one I had been slogging beneath for years. What better friend could a woman have than a clear-eyed son?
And then this morning. Uber-painful. Another’s anger and unhappiness splashed all over me, etched into my mind and heart, made me ill. I had planned to go off tonight with the first of my season tickets to the opera, third row center of the Front Loge to see Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love.” But I could not. I only wanted to be home with little Cakes, my work, the solace of my terrace garden.
I thought about making myself a martini…it was one in the afternoon, but then I realized that was a bad idea. Instead Cakes and I went for a walk and I called a close friend. I confess I enjoy chatting on my cell when I’m walking if I’m not listening to a book. I reached out, burbling, prattling, dumping, not wanting not to, wanting to shut up. Of course my friend was empathetic. Of course I felt better.
Ah then in my email came the unexpected invitation from a young friend to a Mac Cook-Off in October. Wowiezowie. I adore mac and cheese! I was charmed and grateful to be included. My spirits lifted the more.
Late this afternoon, I called another old close friend. She has just hied herself into a retirement community and is having a bit of a rough patch getting acclimated. Still hurting, I muttered about what happened this morning, couldn’t help it. My dear friend buoyed me with her incomparable Yankee brand of comfort and in return I murmured the most optimistic words of encouragement I could think of.
By tonight, on Cakes’ and my evening walk, I was pretty much healed and I walked along envisioning Nemorino pouring out his love for Adina…I will hear them next week…
For supper I polished off the last of the slow-roasted Roma tomatoes I’d taken to the picnic (the recipe given me long ago by my dear Susan). I piled them on thick rounds of toast, sprinkled them with grated Gruyère, sat down with my kir, and watched Charlie Rose with E.L. Doctorow. Learned something about writing fiction. Felt even better.
Gene was fond of saying, “Old friends are best.” Indeed. But new friends, young little dogs, clear-eyed sons, the prospect of buckets of mac and cheese, slow-roasted tomatoes, and Charlie Rose can also be the best while enriching one’s life, not to mention coming to one’s rescue…
Susan’s Slow-Roasted Plum Tomatoes
Oil a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Cut firm but ripe plum tomatoes in half lengthwise (remove the stem scar or not). Arrange close together cut sides up. In a saucer, blend olive oil with minced garlic (more or less garlic according to taste) to make a thin slurry and brush each half very lightly with this. Sprinkle with coarse salt and set in the oven. Roast uncovered at 300 degrees until velvety soft, about 3 hours…or turn off the oven after about 2 hours, prop the oven door open, and let finish. Grind over pepper and sprinkle with thyme leaves or fine ribbons of sweet basil or bits of rosemary, any herb you like—or none. Serve at room temperature as a side dish, mixed with pasta, or on toasts as a sandwich or hors d’oeuvre. They’ll keep beautifully in the fridge until eaten. Allow 2 tomatoes per serving.

Two Ripe White Peaches

I just ate most of two ripe white peaches standing at the sink.
I remember the first white peach I ever saw. I can’t imagine how it was, but I was in my twenties…maybe even thirties. It was a shock, this exotic, like discovering my first pluot. Something about the snowy whiteness of the flesh raised this peach to a higher order, isn’t that silly. But it did. It was as though the fruits were virginal, merited respect. Silly again, but not really. There are some achievements in nature one ought honor.
This afternoon, I bought a clamshell package of four organic white peaches at Trader Joe’s. I examined them carefully from the outside, and when I sniffed at the little open slot of the box, the fragrance was divine, so they clearly were wonderfully ripe. Unfortunately, tonight when I took them out of their box to put them on the epergne, I realized two were beginning to lose ground…a hint of mold appeared on one and the other had an unhappy brown spot. I whipped out my small paring knife and nicked out the offending spots, the while thinking, How’m I going to preserve these? keep them from deteriorating more?
I know, just add sugar. Sugar is, of course, a preservative sine qua non. So I cut the peaches into a blue glass bowl, bite sizes, and sprinkled them copiously with sugar.
Then here I was with a blue glass bowl full of fragrant, juicy, sweet, ephemeral—that’s the key word, they were not going to last—white peaches. What to do with them?
I’ve learned over the years that refrigerating peaches is a bad idea…the flesh can become grainy, woody. Actually, the first peaches I bought this summer—also organic, also smelling of the ripe fruit—were a misery. Woody as hell, clearly they had been refrigerated. I had to throw them out—there was no rescuing them…could not turn them into jam, could not keep them in brandy, could not frame them in a galette, there was no way the woodiness would not be noticed.
I reached for one of the large silver spoons my Russian great-grandmother brought over on the boat from Rostov-on-the-Don. I have three, they are oversize, thin, bent, with fiddle-back handles, and I eat just about everything from my morning oatmeal to my lunchtime yogurt to my evening risotto with one of these precious spoons. Stirred the sugar a bit to dissolve it, spooned up the morsels.
Sublime.
My husband used to be annoyed at my eating standing at the sink. He’s not around to get cross at me, but if he were, I’d do it anyway. He said it was a sign of undue haste. Maybe. Maybe instead it’s a sign of being comfortable in one’s kitchen, of feeling easy just leaning against the sink, daydreaming, not wanting to pick up a napkin and go to the table or the counter or anywhere…that sometimes feels like a sign of undue fussiness. Why not simply be straightforward and plunge in to eating the lovely treat at hand with pleasure and no nonsense?
And so I did.
The other two peaches are in the epergne I carried on my lap on the plane home from Orvieto forty years ago. I will eat them the same way tomorrow.
I urge you: go and get a handful of fragrant ripe organic white peaches and eat them wherever it feels happiest, at the sink or under a tree or sharing with a good friend.
Too soon the end of summer will take all the possibilities away.

Mediterranean Pasta Salad for Eight

In Idyllwild, when I learned friends were coming up from the desert, I offered to make supper. Because I had brought most of the ingredients from town, I decided on a pasta salad. Not having any cookbooks with me, I went online and read about pasta salads. Picked up some pointers…sweet peppers are more flavorful roasted than raw (I hadn’t done that in my last salad, but I think it’s a worthy idea). Lemon juice in the dressing is preferable in lightness for both flavor and color to a dark vinegar like balsamic. Creamy feta is preferable to crumbly Parmesan. Chopped raw red onions and green scallions add point. More delicate-flavored herbs like Italian parsley, sweet basil, and cilantro are preferable to aromatic rosemary and sage. And so on. But don’t forget that rules are made to be broken…
Having just put together the seafood pasta salad (August 26th entry), I composed the following. Oh. I happened to have a tub (9 ounces) of Trader Joe’s Artichoke Lemon Pesto in the fridge and I used it as the base for the salad dressing. It made a yummy dressing, but truth to tell, I couldn’t taste artichoke in the salad—it just was there, adding its warm notes. A simple olive oil and fresh lemon juice dressing would be excellent. I mixed and served the salad in/from the broiling pan of the cabin’s oven…we ate by the roaring creek (there was a thundershower that afternoon). It was a splendid evening and my salad was a success.
NB: Should you be serving very hearty eaters, you could mix in chunks of oil-packed tuna or cooked chicken or good salami.
Moisten about 1 tablespoon dried sweet basil leaves in a saucer with a little olive oil, stir, and let the leaves reconstitute—this can be done any time.
Add 1 to 2 tablespoons sea or kosher salt to 4 to 5 quarts water in a big pot and bring to a boil. When the water boils, add 1 pound strozzapreti pasta (priest choker—longish rolled pieces, or fusilli or any pieces that hold up well), and stir occasionally for two minutes. When al dente, lift out (reserve the water), drain and shake well, turn into a big bowl, drizzle with about ¼ cup olive oil, add the basil, and stir gently with a wooden spoon to moisten every piece. You can cover and set this aside now for hours, but every hour or so stir with your hands so pieces don’t stick together.
To the hot pasta water, drop in the contents of a 10-ounce bag of frozen organic baby peas, stir, and drain—all the cooking they need. Lay on a paper towel in a dish, cover, and keep in a cool place.
A few hours in advance, brush your oven’s broiler tray with olive oil. On it arrange 6 to 8 Roma tomatoes quartered lengthwise. Core and seed 1 red and 1 green sweet pepper, cut into strips a scant ½-inch wide, then cut strips in half (slice on the diagonal, for handsome’s sake). Put 3 large garlic cloves through a press or mince finely (about 1 tablespoon) and daub smidges over the pieces. Sprinkle lightly with sea or kosher salt, a few turns of the pepper mill, drizzle with olive oil, and roast at 350 degrees (the oven needn’t be preheated) until tender-crisp, less than an hour. Cool (set in the fridge if there’s room).
At any point, over the cooled tomatoes and peppers, distribute 5 scallions thinly sliced, white and green parts both…½ large red onion, finely chopped …1 cup pitted kalamata olives…3 to 4 ounces (about ¾ cup) toasted (shake in a dry heavy skillet till lightly browned) pine nuts. Cover to keep moist.
An hour or two before serving, strew over 4 ounces feta cheese cut in small cubes…the peas…the leaves of a most of a bunch of Italian parsley snipped with scissors or chopped…and the pasta. Prepare ¾ cup salad dressing made with pesto as a base or simply ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon hearty olive oil and 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus a little salt—bear in mind the salty feta and olives. Pour over evenly and stir with your hands, gently blending blending blending. Cover and keep at room temperature until serving, at which point, blend one last time. Garnish with the rest of the bunch of parsley.

Heaven In Your Spoon

Sabayon—thick frothy custard, France’s version of zabaglione (just yolks, sugar, and spirits)—chilled and lightened with whipped cream, oh my! This is the confection my friend Julia brought to enjoy with champagne on the occasion of my mother’s 99th birthday. I was fascinated because I’ve only tasted sabayon that was rushed from stove to table. Whipped cream not only tempers the sweetness but lightens the already ethereal texture. Could not wait to make it.
I was in the mountains when I got the chance, back in my beloved Idyllwild where Gene and I lived for twenty years. Old friends got together for supper and I brought along the cold sabayon. It took a sturdy whisking arm, but was easy enough to make even in the kitchen of a small mountain cabin. An advantage was that custard and cream had to chill so I could prepare both in advance and go for a long walk with Cakes. It was an ideal dessert to carry to a party.
The recipe I used for the custard was in an old “Joy of Cooking.” I looked up others on the Net just now and found one of Julia Child’s/Jacques Pepin’s…Nigella Lawson’s…Tyler Florence’s…and several magazine sources. Some use prosecco in place of marsala or sherry and everyone’s proportions are different. I discovered cold sabayon is fashionable served with large strawberries for dipping. I would think that would put the focus on the berries when I think the sabayon’s the thing. It occurred to me that, were I to add one element, it would be shavings of dark chocolate on top—Nigella Lawson suggests this—but it’s awfully close to gilding the lily. At any rate, so many versions are proof that this is a foolproof mixture—you can use more or fewer yolks, more or less sugar and marsala (or sherry or prosecco) in the custard and fold in as much or as little whipped cream as you like and it will work. More sugar and it will be sweeter. More spirits and it will be thinner—but have more flavor. I opt for flavor. I seem to have used more whipping cream than most, but, hey, the lighter and creamier the better by me.
More than proportions of ingredients, it is the gentle cooking of the custard—to insure the yolks won’t curdle or be grainy—and the whisking—to insure all will be billowy—that creates the heavenly texture. I wondered why one can’t use an egg beater, but recipes uniformly want a whisk, so who am I to question authority? Some recipes call for testing at the end with an instant-read thermometer, and the required temps vary from 140 to 170—funny. I didn’t have such a thermometer in my kit bag, just used the good old coating-the-back-of-a-wooden-spoon trick.
A few steps will insure success: use a double boiler (no cheating)…be sure the water beneath barely simmers and that the bottom does not touch the water…cool the thickened custard rapidly (whisk over ice water and the bottom SHOULD touch the water)…have not just the cream but the bowl and beaters chilled before whipping…fold the whipped cream into the custard no more than a couple of hours before serving—whipped cream thins out and would start to thin out the custard.
However. The custard can be prepared a day in advance, the surface covered with plastic film and refrigerated. Whipped cream will hold for several hours if you place it in a sieve lined with a damp cloth, set it over a drip-catching dish, cover with film, and refrigerate.
This is the way I made the sabayon…um, with one exception. I packed a bottle of sweet marsala by mistake. The sabayon was delectable but the flavor would have been nuttier, more complex, with dryer wine.
Cold Sabayon (6 to 8 servings)
In the large top of a double boiler or a big stainless steel bowl, whisk together 8 large egg yolks and ½ cup granulated sugar. Whisk vigorously until light. Whisk constantly while drizzling in 1 cup dry marsala or sherry. Set over barely simmering water and whisk constantly, vigorously, reaching every part of the mixture, until the custard has increased many times in volume and coats a wooden spoon so that it makes a track when you run a finger through it. Allow 10 to 15 minutes (enough time to compose a limerick or haiku). Place the pan or bowl over a big bowl of ice water and continue whisking till cool. Lay plastic film on top and refrigerate.
Whip 2 cups best quality heavy whipping cream until soft peaks hold. If more than 2 hours before using, chill as described above. Up to 2 hours before serving, fold the whipped cream into the cold custard and smooth into a chilled 6-cup serving bowl. Cover with film and keep cold until serving in small bowls in beautiful billowy dollops.

Amazing Cookies

I was nonplussed tonight, running rejoinders through my head…
My mother had said to me on the phone, “Of course, I know you’re not interested in politics…” She’d spent the last four hours watching CNN on the day’s proceedings for Teddy Kennedy. “Did you watch it, Sylvia?” “No, Ma, I didn’t.” “Why not?” “Uh, well, I was working and—” My mother said, “I see. Well, it’s been magnificent, inspiring.” “I’m so glad, Ma.” “Yes. It’s too bad you’re not interested...”
Stung, my natural defenses coursed into action and I said, “Ma, you know how much I love politics. I’m the one that worked so hard for Obama, remember? I’m the one who went to Texas for him...” My mother shot back, “That was a year ago.”
I needed a cookie.
I remembered there was a little storage container in the fridge packed with four cookies left from the batch I made some time ago. I pulled it out, lifted the top, picked up a bar, ate.
Whoa. The bottom crust was as crisp—was it crisper?—as the day I baked it. The flavors, hazelnut, raspberry, coconut, came through clearly. Amazing.
So if you have a celebration coming up in which you’ll need a platter of handsome cookies or want to give a gift of cookies at the holidays, some that can be baked weeks in advance, see my entry of July 22nd, “Lovely Easy Bar Cookies for Picnics”—I should drop the “for Picnics”—and whomp up a batch.
Maybe I'll make them and take some over to Ma.
Except I know in my heart of hearts that tussles between mothers and daughters are not about what they appear to be.
And throwing cookies at them in hopes of gaining ground is by and large not the highest and best use of good cookies.

Picnic Pasta Salad from Sea and Garden…

Last night my friend and I went to the Hollywood Bowl. Yo-Yo Ma and Placido Domigo were on the bill and the place was jammed to the gills. Placido (I call him by his first name because he is an intimate friend of the sister of an intimate friend…not really, but because he is such a sweet man, warm as toast) took the microphone in the beginning and said it was a banner night for him, his first conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic (I’ve heard him conduct the LA Opera Orchestra and it was wonderful but this was better), his first in the Bowl, his first appearing with his “dear friend, Yo-Yo.” Ma played a Dvorák cello concerto, enomously complex, his face was wreathed in smiles. The second half of the concert was Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. The night was balmy, the audience adoring, it was a perfect Bowl evening. But the memory of a lifetime came after the Dvorák when Placido and Ma gifted us with an encore, rare these days. Placido sang in French (a song I did not recognize, turns out it was Massenet's “Élégie”) to Ma’s accompaniment…just the two of them on that cavernous stage for about five minutes. The giant screens with a camera close up captured their expressions, their passions. It could not have felt more intimate.
Our supper before the music was simple, starting with cheeses —Saint-André (my fave), double Gloucester, Italian truffle—on toasts, then a seafood pasta salad, then dessert of chunks of perfumed cantaloupe and watermelon, all washed down with a cool Ruffino Pinot Grigio. Oh, and at Intermission, we split a Snickerdoodle.
The salad is worth handing on to you. A charm of the dish is that most of the seashells somehow end up stuffed with bright red dice of sweet peppers, tiny green peas, flecks of sweet basil or minced red onion, a wee pink bay shrimp or creamy scallop. The composition can be made in the morning to eat later, it transports beautifully (keep ice packs around the container), and is easy to eat off a plate on your lap. Black Greek or Niçoise olives are a handsome garnish but not necessary.
Inspired by a recipe in “The Silver Palate Cookbook,” this amount fills a 6-cup container—it was supper for me and my friend, I brought the rest home, and it was supper for me tonight as I watched the sad homages to Ted Kennedy.
Picnic Pasta Salad from Sea and Garden…
Buy about 6 ounces uncooked seafood—your choice of bay shrimps, bay scallops, squid. Also buy a 4-ounce chunk of line-caught Ahi tuna. Cut squid in ½-inch rings, cut clusters of tentacles in half. Leave tuna as is.
Bring 2 quarts salted water to a boil over high heat. Drop in the shrimps and scallops, count 1 minute, scoop out with slotted spoon and place in a colander. Add squid pieces to the boiling water and time 5 minutes, testing the last minute or so, and when tender-chewy, scoop out and add to the colander. Shake excess moisture from seafood and turn into a medium bowl. Drizzle over ¼ cup flavorful olive oil and squeeze in the juice of 1 lime or small lemon. Stir gently. Return the water to a boil* and drop in 2 cups (6 ounces) conchiglie (seashell) pasta—I used Montebello organic (from Whole Foods). Stir and start tasting after 7 minutes, it should be al dente in about 8 minutes. Scoop out, drain in the colander, shake off excess moisture, add to the seafood--keep the pasta water.
Quickly steam the tuna: set on a heatproof rimmed dish on a trivet over boiling water, cover, time 4 minutes (the center should be barely pink when you cut into it), remove tuna—give the juices it exuded to the cat—and cover to keep moist.
For the vegetables, drop ½ cup frozen petite peas into the hot pasta water, stir, scoop out, shake in the colander, add to the bowl. Cut ½ fresh sweet red pepper into small dice, slice ½ cup cherry tomatoes in half, add both.
In the food processor, process 1 to 1½ lightly packed cups fresh sweet basil leaves (as much as you can pull together), about ½ cup fresh parsley leaves, ½ tablespoon dried sweet basil leaves, and about 2 tablespoons olive oil until the leaves are finely chopped. Peel half a small red onion, cut in small chunks, add to the herbs and process in bursts till the onion is minced. Turn this into the bowl with 3 tablespoons drained capers. Cut the tuna into half-inch chunks and add. Toss the salad gently with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon. Add salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste, and if the flavor still needs point, blend in 1 to 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar or cider vinegar.
Cover tightly and refrigerate up to 24 hours. Best at room temperature. 2 to 3 servings.
*Cooking the seafood, pasta, and peas in the same water not only saves resources but intensifies flavors, I find.

Impossible to stop eating!

That was the subject of the email I sent my friend Susan last night. She suggested I post it, so here it is. [I’ve added a couple of elaborations in brackets.]
I had half a dozen beets, some biggish, some a little on the wan side, leaves were certainly goners, that I steamed tonight. Did them in the Cuisinart rice cooker, came out perfectly. [I peeled them, which I don’t usually do when cooking beets, but otherwise they wouldn’t have fit in the steaming basket…cut the big ones in half to be the same size as the smaller ones. Steaming time was about 25 minutes.] While they were hot, I cut them in thinnish slices.
Looking around for a nice marinade or pickle, in Amelia Saltsman’s “The Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook” I found a notion for roasted beets--no proportions--from Beechwood Restaurant in Venice.
The combination is honey (I used Greek, 3 tablespoons), olive oil (Spanish, ditto), shallots (I thinly sliced 4 green onions all the way up), thyme (I used dried leaves, a teaspoon), sherry vinegar (1 tablespoon) [if I hadn’t had sherry vinegar, I would have used cider vinegar], and salt (a good pinch of Maldon’s). Pepper isn’t mentioned and I think that's right, because everything is so delicate, but I expect a few twists of the white pepper mill couldn’t hurt.
I blended the dressing to dissolve the honey and poured it over, stirred gently...not hardly anything left in the bottom.
It was just about the best thing on beets I’ve ever tasted. I couldn’t stop eating them.
Finally I set the bowl in the fridge…this morning I stirred them up, took a slice—how each piece glistens!—again I couldn’t stop. Beechwood lets their beets marinate for “at least 24 hours.” In my house, they won’t last that long…
Next I will try this honeyed marinade with steamed carrots…then how about chunks of butternut squash?...roasted fennel…cipolline…leeks? …yummy cool made-ahead salads for autumn…maybe sprinkle with pomegranate seeds when they come into season?
Thank you Amelia…and Beechwood Restaurant!

Have You Ever Grated Raw Beet into Salad?

Last night for dinner I put together my weekly salad with cold pink salmon (Trader Joe’s Alaskan wild-caught, from a can, delicious and a bargain). Generally, just for me, in summer I add something like a diced Persian cucumber and half a sweet red pepper, two or three sliced green onions (all the way up), a handful of pitted Niçoise olives, and a few batons of cheese (last night it was cheddar). I was also lucky enough to have a luscious red heirloom tomato, which I cut in in small juicy knobs. At the bottom of my big wooden salad bowl was the bed of mixed greens, the sort I used to gather in my mountain garden but now I pick from a tub at the farmers’ market or shelf at Trader Joe’s. As I pulled out the jar of sort-of-Caesar dressing I’d made for my granddaughters on the weekend, I noticed the beets I’d bought to make my friend Danielle’s rapée but never got to. I took one, peeled it, and shredded it on the medium blade of the grater over the bowl. I dressed the salad, added a few turns of the mignonette pepper mill, and tossed with my hands. Boy, were the colors pretty—rosy pink, bright and dark red, purple, gold, black, orange, half a dozen hues of green. Took the bowl and my glass of wine—I was thrilled to find a Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie at TJ’s, had not had Muscadet in years and although it’s perfect with fish, I’m afraid the Val de Loire vintner would blanch to find his delicate wine served with my salad mishmosh—to my accustomed dinner place (I’m ashamed to admit it’s the stool at the kitchen counter in front of my old Mac laptop, next to the television, I put a cloth napkin over the computer and set my plate or bowl on top, Gene would not approve). Turned on my recorded-from-earlier Charlie Rose and tucked in to my supper. Well, it was absolutely delicious with unexpected flashes of sweetness. No question that the surprises of sweet beet made it special... and it was so easy. It occurred to me that the possibilities of salad companions for grated raw beets are endless...starting with apples... walnuts...oranges...endive...fennel...carrots...cole slaw...cauliflower...celery root...sweet pickles...cold meats...marinated herring...certainly potatoes... white beans...lentils...avocados...hard cooked eggs...asparagus...green beans...bean sprouts...raw shreds of summer squashes...sprinklings of caraway, cilantro or chervil... Gotta go now, but oh my!

Comfort Me With Chanterelles

OK. When I think about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar facing 18 more months of house arrest…or women moldering in refugee camps all over the world…I have no complaints. Zero. Zip. Nada. I am covered with blessings.

Still, I confess, relative to my modest life in context, it has been a nasty week…nah, week-and-a-half. Of course we live in our own context, the spectre of the beautiful martyr in Myanmar is real/not real. Here sitting where we sit, we are relatively better or worse than we might be…might have been…were. Indeed, I want for nothing. I am hugely blessed. But, Pollyanna that I am, even so it has been a stressful time. (I will spare you the details.)

This afternoon I worked my usual Thursday as a volunteer at UCLA’s new hospital. I work in the surgical waiting area, helping people who sit for hours waiting for family and friends in surgery. It’s a great job, rewarding, and every week sets my world in order, particularly because there are always small children involved…today “Baby Boy Jones” wasn’t three days old. How can you come away not filled with gratitude?

But by 5:00 o’clock as I headed home, I felt in need of comfort food. What would it be? I didn’t have breakfast (had to take my panicked mother to the doctor’s early), no lunch to speak of (had to take Ma marketing before taking her home), so I could afford something frivolous with calories. I settled on it: polenta and mushrooms—not just mushrooms, chanterelles. Perfect.

I went to Ralph’s and picked out several handfuls of chanterelles, a handful of shiitake, and half a dozen crimini. Chanterelles always make me think of my cherished Susan Lescher, as I had never seen chanterelles before Gene and I went to dinner at Susan and Bob’s in Sneden’s Landing—she served us buttery pasta with chanterelles. I was agog.

I came home and put together—

Paula Wolfert’s incomparable baked polenta. For just me for two meals (or for me and a friend), I set the toaster oven to 350 degrees while, in a round 4-cup earthenware baking dish I combine 3 cups water, ¾ cup polenta, a scant tablespoon olive oil, and ¾ teaspoon salt. The oil floats on the surface, the cornmeal and water don’t mix, not to worry. I place the uncovered dish in the oven (the temp doesn’t have to have reached 350). I set the timer for an hour, at which point the polenta has a bit of a crust…I stir it with a fork, then cook it another half-hour, and serve. (For more people, I multiply the ingredients out…temperature and times are the same.)

I poured myself a glass of my Spanish red wine, watched the recording of tonight’s "Newshour"—delighted to see Renée Montagne from Afghanistan, I’m a big fan of hers on NPR’s “Morning Edition”—prepared the mushrooms. I cut the crimini into odd shapes, à la Deborah Madison, cut the delicate shiitake in half, sliced only the largest chanterelles in half. I had two heirloom tomatoes in danger of being lost, so I peeled them, pressed out seeds and juice, and roughly chopped them. When the polenta was about ready, I heated a drizzle of olive oil in a big skillet and sautéed two minced shallots and four minced garlic cloves until softened. Added a lump of butter and the crimini and shiitake, sautéed them a couple of minutes, then mixed in the chanterelles and tomatoes. Sautéed, stirring, another few minutes till the chanterelles were tender. I plopped polenta on my plate and the mushrooms over it. Sprinkled over a handful of shredded aged SarVecchio Wisconsin (pleasing stand-in for Parmigiano-Reggiano). Sat in my accustomed chair watching Jon Stewart.

Felt better.

The Quintessential Cheese Soufflé and Rustic Fresh Fruit Pastry

In “The Greens Cook Book” in her recipe for “Taglierini, Zucchini, Lemon, Pine Nuts, and Herbs,” Deborah Madison instructs: “Slice the zucchini diagonally into pieces about the same thickness as the pasta. Line up the slices and cut them into narrow matchsticks. Each one will be tipped with green or gold…” When I first did that, I was in awe of such attention to esthetics. Next, in a recipe with mushrooms (I forget where), Deborah suggests cutting up the buttons randomly, into chunks, bumps, knobs, widges, so the dish not only has a more interesting texture but somehow the mushrooms feel as though they were gathered in the wild. In time, I became privileged to gain Deborah as friend and mentor. I know of no more sensual cook and she continues to be an inspiration.

Last night, I promised my granddaughters a cheese soufflé for supper. Now I have a recipe for cheese soufflé in one of my books, but it’s from another lifetime, so I opened Deborah’s “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.” I adapted her Goat Cheese Soufflé with Thyme, used half medium cheddar and half Monterey jack—few children like goat cheese, alas—and baked it in a relatively shallow square dish (Le Creuset, 7 cup capacity, 8-1/2 inches square by a scant 1-3/4-inches deep). Perfection. The trick before baking—as for soufflés baked in traditional deep round dishes—is to run a finger around the rim of the dish, slightly pushing the preparation up toward the center. It baked high, puffed, with a lovely square hat, fully cooked but still moist in the center. Everyone—especially Grandma—was thrilled.

Deborah Madison’s Cheese Soufflé (via SVT)

Place 6 large eggs in a bowl and cover with warm water—chilled whites don’t beat to fullest volume. Place the oven rack in the lower-middle position, use a baking stone if you have one, and set the temperature to 400o. Butter a 6-cup soufflé dish or 7-cup square or oval baking dish, then dredge with about 2 tablespoons grated or ¼ cup flakes of Parmesan cheese.

Make a cheese sauce: melt 3 tablespoons butter in a 2-quart saucepan, whisk in 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour. Cook over medium-low heat about 2 minutes (takes away the raw taste of the flour). Whisk in 1¼ cups whole milk or half-and-half and whisk over low heat until smooth and thick. Remove from the heat and blend in ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, several turns of the white pepper mill, and, depending on how salty the cheese you’ll use, ½ to ¾ teaspoon salt.

Separate 4 of the eggs: drop the white first into a small cup (if a speck of yolk falls in, whites won’t beat high—last night, TWO yolks broke, it happens when eggs aren’t spanking fresh), then turn it into a medium-size non-plastic mixing bowl. Drop each yolk as you go into the sauce and whisk until blended. Now whisk the cheese of your choice into the sauce, 4 ounces—rounded 1 cup—crumbled or coarsely grated (a portion of Parmesan adds depth).

Separate the remaining 2 eggs and add the whites to the others (save the yolks for something else). Beat until foamy, add a pinch of salt, then beat until stiff but moist—when you raise the beater, a little peak curls over. First lighten the cheese sauce by blending one-fourth the whites into it…use a broad rubber spatula to fold in completely. Quickly fold in the remaining whites: constantly turning the pan, blend using a down to the bottom up around the sides motion. Stop when there are no more patches of either sauce or whites. Smooth evenly into the prepared dish, pushing the preparation up toward the center. Run a forefinger ½-inch deep around the sides to make a channel. Set in the oven, reduce the heat to 375o, and bake until nicely browned, 30 to 35 minutes. If you like the center saucy, bake till the top is a bit jiggly. If you want it firm, gently shake the dish to make sure the top doesn’t jiggle. Rush to the table in triumph! Makes 4 to 5 servings.

I’ve never done it but I read you can refrigerate the cheese sauce in advance, then fold in the whites just before baking. I’ve also read you can pop the soufflé, all set to go, into the fridge for 15-30 minutes, then bake. I’m not brave enough.

A lovely summer supper for friends would be this cheese soufflé served with slices of heirloom tomatoes and a mixed green salad, and for dessert, Deborah’s galette of fresh fruit. The galette is also from “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone,” an essential for every inventive cook’s library.

Deborah Madison’s Fresh Fruit Galette (via SVT)

This tart is the absolute easiest, funnest, handsomest, and one of the most delectable of pastries (once upon a time I wrote a little book on tarts, so I know whereof I speak.) The pastry is short and flaky, the dough quickly made, and those who have had trouble rolling out dough will find it eminently user-friendly. The galette’s shape is freeform—whatever ends up after rolling out, delightful. The flavors of the fruit are fresh and pure because they are lightly sugared and not thickened. And there’s the added flavor the fruit’s peel gives, as there is no need for peeling. And the galette is accommodating: you can serve it 20 minutes after pulling it from the oven or the next day. Utterly stress-free!

Pieces of fruit are casually arranged over a round or oval of dough observing a broad margin, then the margin of dough is folded up over the fruit, pleated and pinched to make a secure border (no escaped juices to burn on the oven floor). Finished, the handsome fruit is set off by a fetching frame—even the frame’s raggedy edge adds charm. Whatever fruit that bakes successfully works—apples, apricots, peaches, plums, cherries, figs, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries. Use a single fruit or, as I love to do, a mélange—my last was 6 large plums, 1 big peach, and 1 cup of blueberries. Blueberries, blackberries, and gooseberries can bake the full time, but raspberries should be lightly sugared and sprinkled over the last 10 to 20 minutes of baking.

There is one essential: a base of crumbs to absorb juices. Once I forgot them in a plum galette and the pastry was sopped. Deborah calls for amaretti, biscotti, or dry bread crumbs…I have also used gingersnaps.

Place the oven rack in the middle position, use a baking stone if you have one, and set the temperature to 425o. Preparation time is about 45 minutes.

For the dough, use a fork to mix 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, ½ teaspoon kosher salt, and 1 tablespoon sugar in a medium bowl. Cut in 1½ sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter—cool but not ice cold—in small chips. With the tips of your fingers, rub butter and flour together until about half the butter is in pea-sized chunks (these make the pastry flaky), the rest of the mixture is crumbly. Drizzle over 1/3 cup ice water and use the fork to quickly blend it in—about 12 strokes. Gently press the dough into an inch-thick round. If the room is hot or the butter was soft or it’s helpful for your schedule, wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes or freeze for several weeks. When ready to roll out, the dough should be cool but malleable.

Now Deborah and most pastry chefs prefer dough for tarts rolled 1/8-inch thick, which makes a delicate base. For this country matter, I prefer it a shade thicker (scant 3/16-inch) because the pastry is crunchier and holds up beautifully if there’s a second day. So roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface to a 13-inch (slightly thicker crust) to-14-inch (classic thickness) round…the shape can be irregular but the thickness should be even. Butter a 14-inch or larger pizza pan or rimless pan or the underside of a rimmed sheet. Gently fold the dough in half then lift onto the pan and unfold. Patch as needed. If desired, you can cover tightly and refrigerate for a day—then when heating the oven, tuck in the pan just long enough to warm the dough to cool but malleable.

Prepare the fruit: about 6 cups of fresh ripe stemmed, pitted, and/or cored fruit, usually 2 pounds. Apricots and figs are sliced in half; peaches, nectarines, plums, and apples are sliced a generous 1/4-inch thick. Blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries are just rinsed.

Leaving a 2-inch margin all around, smooth 1/3 to 1/2 cup (depending on the juiciness of the fruit) crushed cookie, dry bread, or cracker crumbs—or a tasty mixture—evenly over the dough. Arrange the fruit over the crumbs—apricot halves cut sides down, fig halves cut sides up, slices and berries evenly distributed. Fold the margin of dough up over the fruit and pinch to make wide pleats...pinch tight and look for any places a piece of fruit may have poked through or the dough looks suspiciously thin…this dough is a cinch to patch (no water needed). Melt 4 tablespoons unsalted butter and gingerly brush the dough all over, then brush the remaining over the fruit. Sprinkle both dough and fruit with 3-4 tablespoons sugar.

Bake 20 minutes, reduce the temperature to 375o, and bake until the fruit is tender and the pastry nicely browned, another 20 to 35 minutes. Carefully run a long thin spatula underneath the galette and slide onto a cooling rack for at least 20 minutes so the bottom will not soften. Best served warm with cream or vanilla ice cream. Makes 8 to 9 servings.

The Restorative Powers of Getting Away

Cakes (my maybe-a-year-and-a-half-old bichon-poodle angel of a rescue) and I just returned from six days on the road.

Our friend Danielle joined us, and we not only had a marvelous time damn near every minute, but to my amazement, when I landed back in LA, I felt an astonishing surge of happiness. It was as though the break blew out all the clouds glooming about in my head. It was the more amazing because I came home to my mother having an anxiety attack and my apartment recuperating from a terrible flood…

Cheery me, neither fazed me. All because I got away.

Last Wednesday, we drove up to Sonoma. For lunch, we stopped in a shady spot along highway 5 and made ham sandwiches French style (Danielle is from French Morocco)…crusty rolls I’d picked up at Emil’s bakery at 9 am…Black Forest ham, sliced cornichons, butter. I can’t be sure, but I may never use mustard instead of butter on a ham sandwich again. We stayed in a little cottage by a pear orchard (it’s called Pomegranate Cottage when, I think, it should be Pear Cottage), had our supper al fresco—Danielle brought a delicious wild rice/vegetable salad and a beet rapée (fine strands of raw peeled young organic beets, mild vinaigrette, minced dill—how come when I love carrot rapée as much as any salad on earth, I’ve never known about making it with beets?), Spanish red wine, and for dessert, my bar cookies (July 22nd entry—they really are longkeeping, delicious).

Thursday, over to Santa Rosa to pick up my cherished friend Norah. We drove up to Healdsburg, picnicked in the town park. We sat on a bench under a gazebo and ate off enameled tin plates dear friends Susan and Bob gave Gene and me a hundred years ago…salad of mixed greens with the rest of the ham and beets, plus niçoise olives, batons of cheddar, small chunks of apple. Dessert was enormous dark cherries from the plushy Sonoma Market. As much as I’ve been in the Sonoma Valley, I’d never been up to Healdsburg. We drove along Dry Creek Road with its carpets of vineyards flung over the hills, small wineries tucked away, banks of wildflowers. Mad for that part of the world.

After returning Norah, we drove to the coast across lush Marin dairyland to delightful Point Reyes Station. Near there, friends have one of the most beautiful houses I’ve ever been in, Japanese-inspired, remote, silent…the kitchen window looks out on wetlands and a creek running to Tomales Bay. Our friends gave us a splendid supper of roast chicken, risotto, and luscious yellow and white peaches splashed with Prosecco…

Next morning, our friends were off for the weekend, we lucky enough to house sit. For lunch came dear Hildy up from Tiburon and I served us Paula Wolfert’s incomparable oven-baked polenta (“The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen”—go thou and do likewise!) topped with a ragout of mushrooms (fresh shiitakes and dried chanterelles, porcini, morels, a thread of truffle oil). Shorty’s produce at Tomales Bay Food Company in Point Reyes Station provided the shiitakes and superb red and red and green heirloom tomatoes I sliced—there is no better way to present them, yes?—as well as organic spinach and basil for a small salad. Cowgirl Creamery’s nettle wrapped St Pat’s cheese (made right there in a corner of the market) and country bread that was warm when Danielle picked it up came before Shorty’s divine Brown Turkey figs for dessert.

For supper, my Coastie grandson Stuart and his lovely friend Christina brought us oysters fresh from up the road at Marshall—Hog Island oysters. I can’t remember what else we ate…

Saturday we drove down Shoreline Highway, California Route 1—as rapturous a drive with its ocean and redwoods and oaks and wildflowers as Big Sur, I think—to Mill Valley to visit my dear sister-in-law and her family. Corinne made us a glorious fresh fruit cup (every fruit she could think of) and a green salad, perfect on a hot summer day. Then back to Point Reyes, this time cutting over the mountain through Mt. Tamalpais State Park and its deep redwood forest. For supper, I’d brought along Trader Joe’s lemon pepper pappardelle and I dressed it with capers (wild organic Mediterranean capers oh my), pine nuts, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and Spanish olive oil. (I find myself reaching for the more robust Spanish and Greek oils these days, rather than delicate French and Italian, interesting how one’s palate changes.) Sweet watermelon for dessert.

Um, Sunday morning we made French toast with the remains of the great bread from the day before…Hildy had brought us raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries and we heaped them over the toast. Then off to visit a friend of Danielle’s for coffee and superb French pastries…on to my daughter Dinah’s for dinner and the night. My dear son-in-law Gary made us spaghetti with a creamy scallop and shrimp sauce, roasted asparagus, and twelve minutes later, we fell into bed.

Yesterday, time to come home, but Dinah gave us marvelous Italian coffee in thermi (mine was still hot when I unpacked). For lunch we stopped in San Luis Obispo to meet my Cal Poly grandson Weston and his sweet friend Amanda…I had a cheeseburger, my first since I came home from India a vegetarian. Then, driving down Highway 101, more of my blessed California, oaks and golden grain and vineyards and dark blue sea, back to the real world.

But, as I say, with the leisure to cook and eat and sit quietly and not answer the phone or turn on the television, to look out the window and soak up some of the most magnificent scenery on the planet, I was ready.

Failing the Idealist Test

I had in mind to tell you about a family of wines I’ve recently discovered. They are from Spain and prepared from organic grapes. (I wonder why the wine does not have an organic label…must be something in the vintner’s process.)

But then. I realized that, as a Californian, I should not plump for a wine brought from thousands of miles away.

And as a conscientious greenswoman (is that a word yet?), I should not ditto.

Now I am the sort of obsessive who, when she passes the laundry room in my apartment building and someone has left the light on, I go back, stop, reach in, and turn it off. Who faithfully lifts the charger of her cell phone from the plug because of that commercial with the teenager who got caught NOT doing the same. Rather than drive, I walk and take the bus when I can. I buy as much as possible from the farmers’ market. I am deeply committed to combating global warming.

I was fascinated when I heard that Sir Paul McCartney refused Toyota’s gift of a Prius because it had been flown in (I suppose if someone had driven the car across Japan, caught a ferry to Shanghai, then driven across China and—the most direct route—Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Germany to France, caught another ferry across the English Channel to London, Sir Paul would have accepted it).

OK. So in the middle of winter when Whole Foods offers luscious red grapes from Chile, I almost literally turn up my nose at them. Too much pollution dumped from the plane that brought them. But then, skulking about the deli section, I look over my shoulder left and right before snatching up a block of Parmigiano Reggiano…grabbing a block of Irish butter…scooping up Niçoise olives…

I remember when I first was aware that I was eating something fresh from a far-off land. I was nineteen, just arrived in Paris, and at the corner market bought a couple of blood oranges from Israel. I was agog. Until then in my sheltered life, I never gave a moment’s thought to where my food came from.

Ever snce, I am always thrilled when I savor honey from Hymettus…oats from Kildare…cheese from Cheshire, Seine-et-Marne, Parma… If I can’t be there in real time, I can close my eyes and be there in my senses.

I have read of Barbara Kingsolver’s year of eating only things she grew…of others who only ate food grown within a certain distance from their house. I am filled with admiration. Model deportment. I admire the Slow Food movement, although I confess I know little about it. (I will educate myself, I will, I will.)

But if the point is not to use black pepper from Tellicherry, Cassis from Burgundy, I would be very very sad.

Well, if I tell you about the wines, when I go to buy them, they might be gone. But what are friends for, if not to share? The name is Albero. I’m crazy about the white—it is sparkling and pleasantly dry, makes a lovely kir. There are two reds, one with red on the label, one with yellow—I prefer the red (you can tell I am not a sophisticated wine person), it's a Monastrell also known as Mourvedre. And there’s a rosé that is delightful. These are not elevated wines, but modestly priced and pleasing for every night.

Still they’re from Spain. How many tons of garbage are dumped on the planet to get them here?

Don’t want to think about it.