In Which I Learn to Speak French...sort of

Oeufs en cocotte is just baked eggs

 When I was a precocious 20-something, I took out a loan and bought a Bon Appetit magazine.

I thought that was the height of culinary mastery. This was before the internet or Food Network; even before Emeril. I couldn't even make most of the recipes in the publication because they called for exotic ingredients like capers and quail and I was more on a budget of peanut butter and chicken livers.

There was only one dish I could make in the Bon Appetit magazine and that was oeufs en cocotte. Just eggs, cream, and butter -- that's it...only in French. It was in French and I could afford it, so saved the recipe.

This was when, in order to save a recipe, you cut it out, printed it or copied it by hand.

 Then you put it into a recipe box. 

For any non-boomers reading this, a recipe box was an actual, physical box. Theoretically, the recipes were neatly glued to or written on 3x5 index cards and categorized by meal type.

In terms of judging other cooks, size mattered. If you had a tidy 4x4x6 recipe box with clean cards covered in glistening plastic holders, you were obviously a “throw a can of soup on it” type of cook.

Real cooks had huge, sticky monstrosities with ripped magazine pages crammed in between the category markers and pieces of paper with cryptic instructions like “bang it against the counter until soft then boil for 15 minutes in the pot with the loose handle,” with no indication as to what was being prepared.

Every female Boomer had (or has) one of these, no matter what they tell you. Most of them still have the ones that belonged to their mothers. We’ve come a long way, Baby -- but ya gotta eat.

And that is where the recipe for oeufs en cocotte has stayed for the last 40 years. It would surface now and then and I’d consider taking a stab at it. But, honestly – have you met my family? I’d just have to say the name of the recipe and everyone would start doing bad Maurice Chevalier and Julia Child impressions.

No -- sunny-side up was good enough for the likes of the Jacksons.

I haven’t delved into my recipe box in years. My old standby recipes by this time are etched into my brain; and between the internet, cookbooks and YouTube, I’m never without a source for new stuff.

In fact, it was while I was on Pinterest (my Happy Place) that oeufs en cocotte popped up again, only in the guise of “baked eggs.” Oeufs en cocotte are presumptuous; baked eggs are the eggs of the people.

I got creative and added spring onions and spinach

An egg’s an egg, right? Oh! No, no………non! Baked eggs are creamy and satiny; they are eggs for the discerning egg lover*. 

I could have been enjoying baked eggs for the past 40 years!

So now I’m thinking about all the other things I’ve avoided for equally stupid reasons. Shall I tackle Proust? Start listening to K-Pop? Join the Society for Creative Anachronism?

I suppose I should, perhaps, learn French.

*There is no other term for an “egg lover.” I spent way too much time finding this out.

With baguettes from Madison Farmers' Market

Cauliflower RiceOrWhy I Hate Eating Out

Every now and then, I happen upon food in a restaurant so absolutely wonderful I have to either figure out how to recreate the recipe in my own kitchen or be forced to visit the restaurant again, requiring yet another meal out.

Eating out demands a whole social system I’m usually just too exhausted to deal with. Other diners, the host person and waitstaff all require my interaction. Most of them – well intentioned, I’m sure – want to chat using that hideous manifestation of extroversion connection: Small Talk.

Server: How are you today? (Translation: Are you going to be low-maintenance, or…gluten free?)

Me: Fine. (Translation: Please don’t tell me your name…)

Server: My name is Ashley/Bradley/Brooke/Chandler and I’ll be your server. (Translation: You’re going to complain about the air conditioner hitting you in that seat. I know it.)

Me: Hi. (Translation: Oh my God! Now I have to remember his/her name. I’ve already forgotten it! What ever happened to people named John and Mary? What do kids with weird names do when they want pre-printed stickers to put on their notebooks and they can’t find a sticker with the name “Tracey” spelled “T-R-A-Y-S-E-E?” They would have to special order…)

Server: Ma’me? Ma’me? (Translation: Are you having a stroke? You didn’t hear me ask what you wanted to drink and you’re tipping the chair over and dropping the cutlery all over the place.)

However, Dirtman requires I go to restaurants on occasion and going with him doesn’t make matters any better. Dirtman doesn’t go to restaurants so much to eat, as to socialize. (Yeah, I know – how have we stayed married 30 years?)

First Dirtman scopes out the room, looking for someone he knows… or someone he might know… or someone wearing a Virginia Tech t-shirt… or someone wearing anything. He chooses his victim, wolfs down his food, excuses himself to go to the bathroom, never to be heard from again.

This leaves me at the table alone and at the mercy of a server who, now feels sorry for me and wants to ramp up the conversation.

Server: Are you enjoying your meal? (Translation: Jeese, even her husband doesn’t want to eat with her.)

Me: … (Translation: My mouth is full of food. Is it more rude to answer with a mouthful or try to swallow first and risk that, since this is small talk, she/he doesn’t really care and will move on before I get a chance to answer, in which case she/he’ll think I’m rude…)

Server: I’ll just take some of these dishes away. (Translation: Maybe I should go get her husband who is sitting at that table chatting with that group of bewildered Buddhist monks.)

I carry my Kindle with me always for just such occasions. I act like I’m reading something requiring full concentration. (Translation: I am deep and too focused on my reading to discuss whether it’s hot enough for me.)

During one of these meals I was introduced to a magical manifestation: Cauliflower Rice; specifically, cauliflower rice from Zoe’s Kitchen. Zoe’s is fast food (ish), without the health risk – and they make an incredible hibiscus green iced tea. And cauliflower rice answers the prayers of a 60-year-old woman who has finally admitted her carb-loaded days have passed (begrudgingly -- I still sneak in a pasta day. I'm not a psychopath).

Zoe’s Cauliflower Rice, infused with wonderful fresh flavors, forced me to spend half the time I should have been focused on the Charlottesville Opera’s performance of Oklahoma! instead trying to figure the interesting seasoning mixture that made the dish so captivating.

My first attempt contains the obvious flavors of lemon and dill and is very good. But it lacks the one very important spice that gives Zoe’s version its unique flavor. Cardamom was acceptable, but I have to own up to a miss.

You know what this means. It means another visit to Zoe’s Kitchen. Otherwise I’ll never be able to eat Cauliflower Rice without pants.*

*For those that know me – sorry for that visual flashing in your brain.

Boneless Pork FrankenloinorHow to make so many substitutions to a recipe it no longer resembles the recipe you started with

So I had this portion of a pork loin sitting in my freezer; this hunk of meat that I had to commit ahead of time to make because one doesn't defrost a loin of pork and then put off roasting it because one got home late and only had the energy to make a martini OR make dinner and, the way things have been going lately, the martini always wins so long as the Tanqueray holds out.

This particular pork loin was a cute little end piece I surreptitiously snipped off the end of a larger roast I'd made earlier this summer for the family at large. It was the perfect size for two people to have dinner and a few pork sandwiches.1

A boneless pork loin is basically a big hunk of solid meat, a sort of blank canvas for flavor and, paired with a morning spent watching Food Network, it was destined for a more creative treatment than my usual rub-n-roast.

At first I thought I'd cut it into individual boneless chops, butterfly the chops and stuff them. But, in seeking inspiration from the internet, I happened upon a video of stuffing a pork loin roast.

Now here's the thing about recipes off the internet: they're written by people who actually make meal plans; people who go grocery shopping on a regular basis -- people who have money to go grocery shopping on a regular basis. Here in Linguiniland, grocery shopping is done as a last resort -- when even the ramen is gone and you can see straight through the top shelf to the bottom of the crisper drawer.

The guy on the video had thought out his meal so far ahead that he had figs on hand for the stuffing and time to hunt down something with the unfortunate name of "fat caul.2" He was so organized, he had butcher's twine and so wealthy, he had a Le Creuset roaster.

So, basically, this is the same recipe, in so much as there is a pork loin that it's stuffed, but all similarities end there. My stuffing is significantly more humble: the only bread on hand was stale hot dog buns in the freezer and from that I just threw together the standard stuffing I use at Thanksgiving in a much smaller quantity.

I substituted the "fat caul" with bacon because I figure you can substitute just about anything with bacon. (Couldn't they come up with a better name than "fat caul?")

My butcher's twine is the end of a skein of cotton yarn I used to knit dishcloths. Just call me the MacGyver of the kitchen.

I did have to learn to butterfly a pork loin, not easy when it's a teeny tiny pork loin end. But, just as you can use bacon as a substitute for everything, you can also use bacon to camouflage ugly knife skills. And it doesn't have a depressing name like "smoked pig stomach lining."

I roasted the whole thing on a bed of onions and made a sort of jus/gravy (I like jus, Dirtman likes to drown things in gravy -- so I compromise).

The recipe was a success, but will work infinitely better with a full roast. Next time, I'll plan ahead and put apples and pecans in the stuffing.

The bacon could barely contain the stuffing in my tiny butterflied roast and I doubt that...Thing That Shall Not Be Named... would do much better. I'm sticking with the bacon anyway; the flavor was out of this world! I doubt anything called "caul" could do much better.

...And then I don't have to explain to anyone that I wrapped their dinner in a caul.

1. The perfect size for a couple that never hears from their sons for whom they sacrificed and slaved, obtaining gray hair and probably an ulcer, yet are never bitter or expectant of any gratitude for the 70 hours of labor she put into bringing said sons to life or the ENDLESS MONTHS OF HOMESCHOOLING SHE SPENT EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCE AMONG "TO, TOO AND TWO" AND "THERE, THEIR AND THEY'RE;" but a couple that does not want to confine their pork loin consumption to times when said ingrates deign to drop by expecting to be fed.

2. The only other reference I can think of to a "caul" is in the book David Copperfield -- apparently David is born with a "caul," which is eventually sold because people were evidently less squeamish and more superstitious. Since a "caul" is, basically, the afterbirth over the head of a baby that hadn't been pierced in the birth process, it hardly conjures culinary visions in my brain but, instead, sort makes me throw up a little in my mouth.

Making memories......whether you want to or not

I think I've finally mastered the skill of not making an all-out assault on a major holiday.

It has taken quite awhile, considering I've been responsible in some way or another for family holidays since I was in my 20s. I admit that the weight of that responsibility is all my own. Back in the day, I had a soul-sucking habit of attributing too much sentimentality and piling too much food into one single day. This resulted in an entire week of a misery that, I was convinced, was never fully appreciated by those who benefitted from my martyrdom. By the evening of Thanksgiving, I'd be cross, cranky and ready for bed by 5 o'clock.

I had come by my holiday obsessions honestly. There was no such thing as a "quiet Thanksgiving" for my mother. Like every good Italian, it was required that there be approximately 50 percent more food than necessary for the number of people invited -- and the number of people invited was always inflated  because my mother invited anybody and everybody and, unless they told her "no" in so uncertain terms, they were counted as a definite. My mother, though, had both my grandmother and me helping out.

So the bar was set and every year I would frantically try to incorporate any and all traditions and even concocted some of my own. I would cram my kids with so much rich food and heartwarming ritual they would feel positively miserable if they had to spend the holiday anywhere other than with their perfect mother.

The first clue I had that I was missing the mark in the building memories department was the year that I made homemade cinnamon buns for Thanksgiving day breakfast. I got up at 6 a.m. to make sure they had enough time to rise and that they'd be hot and ready when everyone got up. They were absolutely wonderful and I couldn't help puffing up at my domestic derring-do...until one of the Heirs sighed, "But I sure miss those ones you used to make that popped out of the can."

Goodness knows, I tried to deliver the homey holiday Hallmark is convinced we're all supposed to have. I've tried the tradition of going around the table and saying one thing we're thankful for -- this dissolves into chaos pretty quickly when participants list "not having a gaping head wound" or "tequila." I had to hold up the Official Lighting of the Creche so the Bethlehem stable could be festooned with prayerfully and properly respectful, but anachronistic, action figures. I only tried a sing-a-long once -- it's amazing how quickly my family can come up with alternative lyrics...and I'm not talking about the kids, either. I gave up trying to inject tradition into holidays two decades ago.

Let me tell you something about traditions, particularly ones you concoct yourself -- they're never the ones your kids remember anyway. They pick their own favorites, thankyouverymuch, and the more embarrassing they are to you, the better.

Toppergetdown

For instance, we now have a tradition of guessing what dish I made that I forgot to put out. It's usually salad, but one year I woke up Friday morning to find the tiny nubs of brussels sprouts drying in the oven. Another favorite is guessing what time it will be when I'm finally so distracted by cooking that I forget to push food far enough back so our Australian Shepherd can't countersurf the cheese.

Heir 2 began a tradition of seeing how many times he could program the stereo to play "What's New Pussycat?" before it pisses someone off (he'll usually stick in one "It's Not Unusual," just to hear someone say, "Thank goodness!" to a song like "It's Not Unusual" -- which is then followed again by more "What's New Pussycat?").

And, once again, I will dig out the basket of nuts for Heir 1. So he can look at them and know they are there. (Do not eat any of the nuts in the basket, should you visit us during the holidays. The boys weren't even in high school when I bought those nuts. But it just isn't the holiday season without the basket of nuts.)

So, I've learned to let go of the control of the holidays. I no longer wear myself out cooking a huge, complicated menu. Wonder of wonders: no one cares. Do I still fuss and cook on Thursday? You bet I do! Well, until it gets tedious. Then I stop, have a martini and enjoy myself. No one ever left my house hungry.

So Martha Stewart would probably cringe at the haphazard delivery of turkey right off the cutting board and self-serve dessert, not to mention my lumpy mashed potatoes. The wine is probably wrong and I never remember to put on my "nice clothes" after doing all the cooking.

And Topper will probably eat all the leftover Doritos out of the bowl someone leaves on the coffee table. Just like he did last year. And the year before that.

Apparently, it's tradition.

My Life With Food

Let's address the literal (ahem) Elephant in the Living Room, shall we?

How does one survive owning an eating establishment when one's addiction of choice would be (ahem, uncomfortable shuffling of feet) ... um ... eating.

(We will pause a moment while those who know me mutter under their breath, "Yeah, I was wondering about that..." and my brothers moan to themselves, "Oh, not again...")

Truly, this wasn't an issue at first because most of what we serve is relatively healthy. Oh, we have our share of cream soups and cold cuts; but we keep our portions reasonable and temper the meat with plenty of vegetables.

Plus, I'm running around this cafe 15 hours a day five to seven days a week. And the first month, eating was the farthest thing from my (and anyone else's) mind. Between the stress and the physical activity, we all slimmed down. Of course, the guys -- who were all making a point to at least swallow a sandwich once a day -- all dropped 20 to 25 pounds. Meanwhile, I -- the only female around here -- survived the entirety of February on coffee and gum; I think my earlobes may have gotten thinner.

I didn't miss food in February and I made the mistake of telling myself I'd found the secret to weight loss: surround yourself with so much food, you don't even want to smell it. Even the sweets we carry -- mostly baked goods -- weren't a problem since I bake them myself and am rarely tempted by my  own cooking.

Yup, I said. I got this licked. I thought of writing a book about the irony of overcoming the urge to eat by immersing yourself in the very thing to which you are addicted.

And...and...AND...I dropped a jeans size in March. No sweat. Just exhaustion and stress.

Oh. Yeah. I was tough to live with, what with all the smugness swirling about me.  Here I was, surrounded by cheese, for cryin' out loud, and I was losing weight. Oh. Yeah. I had this thing beat.

We all know where this is going, don't we?

One day I'm back at my little hot plate, waiting the requisite 45 minutes it takes to heat up a pot of soup, when the doors burst open and a bunch of burly Teamsters deposited a freezer in the middle of our little cafe.

An

ice

cream

freezer.

I believe the Biblical phrase goes: Pride goeth before the cookies and cream.

...or something like that.

So.

Back to the original premise of this post: How one survives owning an eating establishment when one's addiction of choice is eating.

You start by not allowing the One In Charge of the Ice Cream to order coffee ice cream. I apologize to any of my customer whose favorite is also coffee. Unfortunately, a shot of espresso poured over vanilla is just as good, if not better, than coffee ice cream and, if there is one thing we have in abundance around here, it's espresso.

In all fairness, I've been pretty good -- I only succumbed twice in the past three weeks. But I know it's just a matter of time. Food speaks to me. Loudly. (This must be why I sleep so well -- there is absolutely no food at home.)

Ice cream screams -- it's why we carry it. Come to think of it, I have my business to consider. How can I ask my customers to eat something I won't eat myself? I'd be a hypocrite, right?

Right?

Besides, I can quit eating ice cream any time I want.

Really.

A little baking humor...very little

If I'm given a drug test within the next 48 hours, I would test positive for heroin.

I'm streamlining a recipe for lemon poppy seed scones and have been taste-testing all day.

So I suppose I would not get whatever job I'd be drug-tested for because I was.....

...wait for it...




SCONED!!!!!!

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

(I'm very tired.)

My life with pasta

Homemade ravioli for Christmas dinner

Lately I'm all about homemade pasta. You would think this activity would be in my DNA or something. Don't all Eye-talians know how to make pasta and sing opera?

Frankly, though, I had to teach myself like anybody else.

I didn't grow up eating a whole lot of fresh pasta. Occasionally my grandmother would take a day and make homemade noodles to go with chicken soup. This was before pasta machines were available to just anybody. She'd roll out the dough herself, fold it up and cut it into thin strips. Then she'd lay a tablecloth out on my parents' queen-size bed, dust it with flour and shake each batch out to dry until dinner time.

Oh -- and she kept the bedroom door closed so the dog wouldn't get the noodles. I, however, had opposable thumbs (still do!). So I would try to sneak in and eat the raw noodles...oh, how I loved the raw noodles...more than the cooked ones. Of course, if I got caught I incurred the wrath of my grandmother, who was convinced I was going to get worms from eating raw dough. I've lived to tell the tale -- wormless.

I do recall, that as she got older, the noodles got thicker and thicker until they more like dumplings; good dumplings -- but still not the tender, toothsome strands they were supposed to be. And for the most part, when she made chicken noodle soup, the pasta of choice was acini de pepe out of a box.

I would occasionally make homemade pasta when the kids were growing up -- usually on days they weren't home and it was just Dirtman and me. It takes a long time to make, roll out and shape enough pasta for four people, particularly when they're used to filling their bowls to over flowing. My success in those days was erratic -- sometimes it flowed smoothly and was delicious; sometimes it was an exhausting nightmare of tight, unyielding dough with an ultimate mediocre texture; sometimes the whole thing wound up in the trash.

I didn't begin to enjoy making pasta until the Christmas Dirtman bought me the pasta-making attachment for my blender (Dirtman will happily buy me all the kitchen equipment I want. Recently at K-Mart he tried to foist a fryer on me). I don't know why this is, because a pasta machine only does half the work of pasta-making -- the shaping. And the shaping is the easy part if you've put together a proper dough.

Having read up on the subject and following the directions of countless different methods, I'm convinced the only way to learn to make pasta is to just make pasta. I've worked with the step-by-step directions in front of my face -- directions written out carefully by someone whose handiwork I'd admired -- and had to, at some point, just let The Force take over. Whether it's because it really is in my DNA or whether it was because I just relaxed at this point and enjoyed the process, I've never had trouble since.


Today I'm making lasagna noodles (and the lasagna). Two batches should be more than enough -- I prefer making a lot of smaller batches than a single large batch. When I work with too much, the pasta is always tough; and, honestly, I just love the feel of that nice, smooth little lump of  pasta dough sliding like silk on the board. (I wish there was a job where I could do nothing all day but knead dough -- bread dough, pasta dough, whatever; love to knead dough).

It's something I'd like to see incorporated into the cafe on a limited basis -- say, fresh noodles for the chicken and beef noodle soups. It's a little fiddly and I certainly wouldn't commit to fresh pasta dishes if we were a full-service restaurant (God bless restaurants that do!). But a couple of days a week, a couple of batches of noodles shouldn't be too much fuss.

Picnicking with the Linguinis

You must understand this: We Linguinis NEVER take picnics lightly.

Well...until yesterday...

However, you must understand our background of picnicking before you can truly be amazed at yesterday's excursion to Lost River State Park in West Virginia.

Growing up, there were always several picnic excursions throughout the summer and they were always hours away. My father always liked to be traveling in the opposite direction of the traffic; so, though we lived near the shore, with a beautiful state parks 10 to 30 minutes away, we were always heading "against traffic" to the "mountains" of New Jersey (High Point State Park has what New Jerseyans call "mountains"). This required leaving at 6 o'clock in the morning and dragging in at 9 o'clock at night -- but not a single second was spent sitting in traffic (though Pa would look at the line of cars going in the opposite direction and comment on how ridiculous it was to be sitting in traffic like that).

I realize the purpose of a picnic is to eat -- A. Meal.

One. Meal.

Remember, though: We arrive at 8 o'clock in the morning. So breakfast, lunch and dinner all have to be arranged and carted. There were bags of Mrs. Obco's Donuts and thermoses of coffee (my parents had an official coffee thermos bag specifically for this) for breakfast, deli for lunch with a complete selection of cold cuts, rolls, bread, condiments and salads, and then a variety of meats to barbecue for dinner.

On top of this, were the rare treats of junk food -- this was the one time my mother would buy us any sweet crap the television has convinced us was the end-all in desserts. And she wouldn't just buy a package -- she'd buy an entire BOX; boxes of Twinkies, boxes of TastyKake pies, boxes of chocolate grahams, boxes and boxes and boxes of sugar! (We won't discuss the long-range ramifications of this practice; right now I choose to make this a happy memory...in her heart, Ma meant well -- though when I tell this to my kids now, they're really bummed.)

Okay. That was just the food. Now we had to load the car with things to occupy us for 12 hours, both in the car and at the picnic site. John Boy had his maps and pamphlets, Dark Garden had his assortment of recreational equipment (fishing rod, basketball, swim gear), I had a pile of books, my mother had her crossword puzzles, and Pa had his beer (though, in all fairness, he was the one who took DG fishing, swimming and to the playground, not to mention he did all the barbecuing).

Oh...did I mention the assorted relatives? Grandma, aunts, cousins -- sometimes it spilled over into a second vehicle, particularly since a dog or two also had to be accommodated.

Whenever we'd arrive at the park, if it was crowded, my mother used to moan about there being so many people around that it wouldn't be relaxing. It occurs to me that, upon seeing our parade enter the picnic area, most of the other people were thinking the same thing.

Nowadays, my generation is in charge of the picnicking and, while we've streamlined a few things, it is still and event requiring more planning than the Normandy Invasion. Everything is up for discussion, from the venue to the menu.

JB makes lists and, while I've never actually seen his list, it must look like this: beer, bratwurst, bottle opener.

DG brings all the meat, barbecue stuff...and cleaning products; lots and lots of cleaning products. We always have the cleanest picnic site in the park. No roll of paper towels and damp cloth for him -- no! He's got spray disinfectant and cloths and wipes.

I bring the stuff that has to be cooked ahead -- salads, side dishes and...yes...dessert; one dessert. ONE.

Yes, we've pretty much got this picnic thing down, though I will admit, all the advance planning a prep can get stressful until we decide on everything.

Well, until yesterday...

It all came together too easily -- which should have warned me. We immediately agreed on the venue, we each stated what we were bringing (admittedly, we do turn into the Atkins family on picnics) and we generally coordinated a time (cell phones don't work at Lost River).

I have to admit, it was coming together so nicely that all week long I hardly gave it a thought. I did my usual grocery shopping and only threw in a few items that were picnic-related (instead of doing my usual pre-picnic shopping blast I can ill-afford). I did a few prep things the night before, slept in the day of (unprecedented!), and loading the car consisted of one cooler and Zsa Zsa's water bowl and tie-out chain (which we only use if we see park rangers driving around -- I try to spare her the indignity of being in chains when there is no need).

So here is how it went down:

DG was bummed because my nephews both had to work that day and couldn't come. Dirtman was also working, so he wasn't there. Heir2 couldn't make it home from Roanoke for the holiday weekend, so he wasn't there.

No one brought paper plates.

No one brought tongs to barbecue.

No one brought paper towels.

JB blamed it all on the fact that for the first time, he hadn't made a list (he never put these things on his stupid list and, besides, when he makes a list, he always forgets to put something on the list anyway, rendering the list useless).

However (and everyone else may disagree, I'll admit):

I had a wonderful, relaxing time. We had a nice, secluded spot next to a brook. I could sit on a rock and put my feet in the water. It wasn't too hot or too cold.

All the other stuff?

We made do.

Note the dishes made from aluminum foil, the knife doubling as "tongs" and our site-side cleaning system (actually, we only washed our hands in the stream).

The food was great. It was a beautiful day. But, more importantly...

...Zsa Zsa was happy.

Macaroni and...

Every ethnicity has their own version of a fallback meal. I'm sure this is what stir fries are in Asian cuisine and pot pies are in Anglo circles. For us it was the "macaroni and...s."

The dish usually starts with softening up some onions and/or garlic in olive oil while boiling up a pound of whatever pasta you have around (hence, the generic "macaroni" instead of a specific type). Then you throw in whatever vegetable(s) is(are) handy in the crisper, freezer or can, toss in a little of the pasta water and, usually basil and/or oregano. The cheese and grater are, of course, on the table.

These days, I cut the amount of olive oil and rely on chicken stock along with the pasta water for some of the moisture. And I don't cook the living daylights out of the vegetables and pasta like my mother and grandmother did

The dish above is macaroni and cauliflower, which sounds like it shouldn't go, but actually does (a drained can of diced tomatoes is in there too). I've upgraded it with fresh oregano, only because somehow last year's oregano patch that went to seed survived the winter and now we have more oregano than we know what to do with. When you come to my house, you don't get to leave unless you take oregano with you.

There is also macaroni and peas made the same way, only I confess I like it best with a handful of diced pancetta browned with the onion. I'm the only one who likes macaroni and escarole -- mostly because no one else will even taste it. I'm sure at some point my mother or grandmother made macaroni and kale -- but the main reason I married Dirtman is that he had a equally jaundiced opinion of kale and I knew that I would never be forced to so much as smell that horrid weed ever again.

In this house, our hands down favorite is Macaroni and Beans. This is the only time you will find me opening a can. And it is the only time I will insist on a specific pasta. If you make macaroni and beans (the "beans" being dark, red kidney beans) with medium pasta shells, the beans will slip neatly into the shells like little tiny jackets, offering a perfect bean/pasta ratio. We used to tell the Heirs that I did this little trick by hand, hoping to enhance my Martyr-Mom image -- it worked fine until they turned about four or five and realized their mother didn't have that kind of attention span or patience.

Of course you can go to a restaurant and order just about the same thing for eight or nine dollars. So I plated this in my best Italian ceramic pasta bowls and put that little sprig of fresh oregano there so it would look all professional and we can pretend we're dining out -- well, all except for the 75 cents per plate price tag...and Toppergetdown's chin in my lap.

Cookbooks and Candy

My family knows me...

...and they like to eat.

After a brief 24-hour break from cooking so we could whittle back some of the Christmas leftovers, I couldn't wait to get back into the kitchen today to play with the new toys I got for Christmas.

Today it was the Cranberry Apple Cake from Ina Garten's book (or "In the Garden," if you're my brother...). I kind of owed this cake to Dirtman, since I'd put cranberries in the freezer to make for Thanksgiving and then promptly forgot them. Dirtman loves cranberries and the rest of us love apples, cinnamon and orange*. And...it's cake -- it won't see a new day.

This went together very easily -- perfect for a day I had three loads to hang on the clothes line to catch up on laundry. The wind gusts are pretty strong, which is good for drying clothes as long as you anchor them good and tight. I have nightmares of my bras flying about the neighborhood, causing traffic pile-ups.

*Yes, Heir 1, the cake is for us, not for the Dog People. (Heir 1 claims whenever I make something good, it's always for a kennel club function.)

Not for The Dog People

Breakfast at Linguini's

This year we discovered what we have is an Autumn Patio, discovered as we were hanging out laundry and suddenly realized how pleasant it was in the backyard now that the weather is cooler and the sun is hitting at a different angle.
We've taken to spending more time out there and Sunday morning I made up some homemade cinnamon buns and coffee to eat while enjoying the scenery. Since Dirtman* works this afternoon and evening, this will be our version of an "anniversary meal" for this year.



In the summer the patio is unbearably hot. Even with an umbrella over our outside table, it is impossible to sit out there until the sun disappears behind the mountain.

Now, if Dirtman isn't working that evening, we take our "happy hour" out to the patio, driving the dogs nuts -- Zsa Zsa is always hoping I'll drop an olive or two -- and looking out at this.

*...who, we promise, is getting a haircut right now, as I am typing this...

Crisp WeatherorWhy I Baked Apple Cake

We were talking about it being autumn and what that meant. (Frankly, even at 53 years old, I still think I need to buy new saddle shoes in September.)

Heir 1 brightened up and said excitedly, "Fall is crisp weather!"

I felt a tinge of guilt. He wasn't talking about the cool autumn temperatures. He was referring to apple crisp.

Heir 1 loves crisp -- any crisp: peach crisp, blueberry crisp, cherry crisp...even the time I made a strawberry crisp that everyone else was rather ambivalent over. Heir 1 would rather have crisp than pie. He was ecstatic one year when, as a Christmas gift, I gave him a "Crisp-A-Month" for his very own -- Dirtman was not permitted to hijack Heir 1's crisps for breakfast.

Alas, Heir 1 has watched season after season go by this year and nary a crisp in sight. He has even had to endure The Promise of Crisp, only to find that the next day I had neither the energy nor inclination to bake one. To make matters worse, it was left to him to comfort me as I lamented the fact that I was such a loser of a mother that I couldn't even manifest a crisp for my first born child.

So last week I made a huge apple crisp with apples from our local and beloved Rinker Orchard, picked that day. And I would show you that crisp, only it came and went very quickly.

So this weekend rolled around and I was going to make another apple crisp when I remembered that each year I go through apple season making crisp after crisp and, when the local season is over, remember I've been wanting to make an apple walnut cake for myself.


That's right. For ME. I made a totally selfish dessert in spite of the fact that I had abused my first born with promises of Crisp Abundance while languishing in my pajamas watching TCM -- for month after month.

I suppose my punishment was that for the first time in a long time I attempted to take a photo was the first time in a long time that the sky over Shenandoah County clouded over with the threat of rain. The photos stink, but the cake was good and even Heir 1 was not too disappointed that it was not, in fact, crisp.

Only Humpty Dumpty looks like he has evil plans for the apple cake; but, then, he's been a disapproving Dumpty my entire life...

...but it finally rained!...

In which The Heirs eat elsewhere

When it comes to trying new foods, I'm pretty adventurous. I always thought this was a good thing, since Dirtman loves to bring home the "new products" that come into the produce department at work.

There really hasn't been anything too disturbing; usually a fruit hybrid accompanied by some bizarre, disturbing description: "It tastes like a grape, but has the consistency of an avocado." You have to wonder how boring things get around the horticulture lab that someone suggests "Ya, know what might be good? Let's cross a potato with a watermelon and see what we get."

Anyway, the grocery store chain Dirtman works for has corporate offices out of state and, from there, they sometimes get it into their heads to send entire cases of expensive, exotic vegetables alien to this area, expecting customers to take it on faith that they taste good.

This is how I ended up with a bag of fiddleheads in my kitchen.

Fiddleheads are not completely unknown to me -- they grew wild in my native Pine Barrens of New Jersey. And, while I have been known to avail myself of wild greens in places far, far away from road beds (where vegetation is regularly sprayed with chemicals), it never occurred to me to injest a fiddlehead. Turns out that was probably a smart move, since the Pine Barren variety were probably toxic.

So Dirtman brought home a nice, safe bag of fiddleheads and I followed package directions and boiled them for seven minutes and tossed them with lemon juice, butter and salt. The package claimed the taste was a "cross between asparagus and green beans."

Were we ever in need of a vegetable with a flavor between asparagus and a green bean?

Certainly that was the opinion of the Heirs, who saw no need in their lives for an asparagus/string bean flavor blast, though they were delighted with the fact that holding them upside down turns them into little yo-yos and prompting me to wonder how long after a child has passed his eighteenth year you can stop reminding them not to play with their food.

So Dirtman and I were the only ones who actually ate the fiddleheads, our reaction to which was..........................................................

"Meh."

They tasted like...a vegetable; nothing unique or outstanding. They are, however, visually interesting.

So the next night I decided to put the leftovers into a frittata, figuring I would artfully arrange the coil of the fiddleheads around sliced mushrooms and then pour the egg mixture on top. This way, when I turned the frittata out, the bottom would be the top.

The Heirs, of course, chose to dine elsewhere.



Well, that was the plan anyway. When it came to actually doing it, I remembered that my nonstick pan isn't oven-safe (which is where you finish off a frittata). So I had to resort to my iron skillet where I artfully arranged the fiddleheads and mushrooms and poured the egg mixture on top, at which point I realized that the reason you finish a frittata in the oven is so that the cheese you put on top melts. This was a frittata, not an omelet, and no one was going to see my artfully arranged fiddleheads coiled around sliced mushrooms.

So much for my career in food styling.

The frittata was wonderful, though. Okay...it was wonderful so long as you kept your eyes closed. The fiddleheads turned the eggs gray on the inside. And, again, not a strong flavor.



The final verdict: If I need a conversation-starter at dinner, I'll serve fiddleheads. If doctors discover that fiddleheads cause you to suddenly drop your weight by 10 pounds every week, I'll serve fiddleheads. If fiddleheads go on sale for a dollar a pound, I'll serve fiddleheads. Otherwise..............

Meh.

Be careful what you wish for

On Dirtman's side of the family, the New Year tradition is to eat black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. On my side of the family, the tradition is that the first thing you eat in the New Year has to be herring ("Many different herrings.").

Up to this time we have ignored both these traditions. In fact, I don't believe we even have a New Years tradition. Now that the kids have social lives of their own, we pretty much stay home and stone cold sober in case we are needed. So far, we never have been.

This year we figured, ya know, flying in the face of tradition hasn't gotten us very far; and who are we to argue with hundreds of years of fish and beans? So I sent Dirtman to work with the directive to collect these bizarre talismen.

Well, we are apparently not the only ones falling back on susperstition this year. There was no herring to be found -- sold out, both the herring in wine sauce and the herring in sour cream. He was considerably more successful with the black-eyed peas -- and we didn't even have to resort to dried or canned.

So this morning I went on line to find the least painful black-eyed pea recipe and decided -- in for a penny, in for a pound -- on Hoppin' John.

"Ya know," I pointed out to Dirtman as the recipe emerged from the printer, "if this works and we have a good year, it means every New Years Day for the rest of our lives we're going to have to choke down black-eyed peas."

"We've never had black-eyed peas on New Years Day before?" he asked.

"Nope. I haven't had black-eyed peas on New Years Day since the New Years before I met you," I said casually.

Then I said -- because the realization took me unaware and I blurted it out before I knew what I was saying: "Oh no! I think you are the result of the last time I ate black-eyed peas."

I'll spare you his response.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation*

I stared out at this*2:



Tried to ignore this (not for the faint of heart or stomach).

Did this:

Read these:

Came home to this*3:



(Sigh)

*Summer vacation generously supplied by Mr. and Mrs. Dark Garden, to whom we are eternally grateful, but not so much as to adopt their TV viewing habit (Oh, yes. I saw you two watching wrestling and I tried to convince myself that you were doing it so I would comment on it until I actually heard you discussing the program like you watch this on a regular basis at which point I immediately took up smoking, binge drinking and hard drugs because now I realize there is absolutely no hope for the world and I might as well die young {ish}.)

*2 Believe it or not, we were at Outerbanks -- nice North Carolina beaches. I will not take my camera to the beach. But you all know what a beach looks like, right?

*3 Our neighbor IH across the street naively took a dozen. She told Dirtman, "no more for awhile," not realizing that her acceptance of said cucumbers has automatically contractually obligated her to receive cucumbers every day until the end of the growing season -- unless, of course, she sends back the card we mail her to opt out for a days' worth, which I have a feeling will probably get lost in the mail. IH suggest we put out a table with the extra produce, but I have a feeling that's a good way to lose a table and not much else.

*4 We would also like to acknowledge Heir 1 for staying home and taking care of all the animals and plants without making me feel guilty about it, even though Zsa Zsa was on one of her yogurt and farina diets, Topper gets the runs whenever I leave, Abbey was finishing being in heat and Salt continuously slipped off to peruse the neighborhood. Miraculously, dogs and cats are all happy and healthy and one, in particular, still qualifies to enter a convent (were she not canine, I guess...).

Cucumber-some II

Hello and welcome to the cucumber blog -- all cucumbers, all the time...

So I managed to get this done today:



This is a gallon of garlic dills that will have to ultimately be refrigerated since I don't have a canner.

I would be rejoicing, only this is what is left:



Sigh. I can't devote any more refrigerator space to pickles. As pickles go, these are my favorite (everyone else likes the ubiquitous bread and butter pickle, but I don't have the ingredients on hand for those). But how many pickles can one eat? And, in terms of popularity, cheese, yogurt, milk, lunch meat and leftovers far outweigh pickles which are sort of an afterthought -- a spare link, if you will -- in the Linguini food chain.

Cucumber - some

The past four days have revolved around our kennel club's dog show. The result of this is that we are now awash in cucumbers, in spite of having given some away (not easy when many of your neighbors also are awash in cucumbers), eaten as many as possible, and have even more on the vine that will be ready by the end of the week.

So I am preparing refrigerator pickles out of the canning pickles that somehow got planted (the motives of which are called into question because we have no means to properly can). Every meal is accompanied by cucumber salad. I even made a cucumber sandwich for lunch today, even though a really good cucumber sandwich require white bread and all I had was whole grain. In perusing other recipes, I found several suggesting we eat cooked cucumbers and, while I'm game for anything, I can't see the other residents getting that adventuresome in their cucumber consumption.



In January we will miss the cucumbers since I can't bring myself to pay ridiculous prices for those things in the grocery store. But, for now, they decorate the entire house.

I have a feeling the cukes will be the least of our problems in a few day -- Dirtman brought in the first of the zucchini this morning.

Easy as...well, ya know...

Yes, we're a little prolific with the food posts lately. Chalk it up to the time of year when the availability of fresh produce makes cooking and baking so enjoyable.

We picked up some plums on sale this week. I wait all year for fresh summer fruit and it disappears around here pretty quickly. So I had to make this pie right away because I'm sure that in a few days all the plums would be gone.

Family legend has it that my grandmother made the most wonderful plum pie. But by the time she baked it for me, her eyesight was poor and she'd fallen out of the habit of baking. Add to that the fact that she made her pie crust with olive oil and I begin to wonder if her plum pies weren't better in retrospect than actuality (a bit like camping trips).

The sad thing about fruit is that it's become increasingly hard to find any that taste good. Strike that. It's become increasingly hard to find any that tastes -- period. Organic produce around here is way beyond my means and I've not yet found a local source for plums. Peaches and apples, no problem. Plums, forget it.

Anyway, this was one of those tasteless grocery store buys that every once in awhile produces a good plum. Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky with this batch, but I had hopes that the baking might bring out some flavor.

Well, anyway, that was the plan.

Appearance-wise, they were lovely (which seems to be the primary goal of grocery story produce -- all appearance and no substance. I'll leave you to make the obvious metaphorical connnections...)

When I am Empress of the Universe my royal robes will be this color.

This required about 6 large plums for an 8-inch pie. I cut these up just any old way, trying to keep the slices with as little peel as possible so no one has to deal with a huge mouthful of plum peel. To this I added a scant cup of sugar, 2 T. granulated tapioca (or "quick cooking") and a shake or two of cinnamon. A few recipes called for ginger also, but my herb cabinet is a nightmare to rifle through, so I decided to favor the recipes that consider ginger unnecessary.

Now, let's talk pie crusts.

There is a school of thought that says either you are a person who can make a wonderful pie crust or you are a person who cannot. Whenever someone tells me they can't make a pie crust -- excluding the people who say that because they don't want to make a pie but feel under some moral obligation that they should -- I tell them they're trying too hard.

There is a reason they call it "easy as pie." Crust too tough? You fiddled with it too much. Once the water is in, bring the dough together and let it alone in the fridge for awhile. So what if you can't get the rolled-out crust into the pie plate in one piece. Piece it together and seal it with your wet finger. No one is taking pictures for Bon Apetite. Pie is pie.

Besides, once you slap that sucker on a plate, no one is going to care that their slice isn't a perfect equilateral triangle; double so if you serve it with ice cream.

Of course, you can buy a passable ready-made pie crust, but here's my thought about that (yes, I have an opinion about pie crust): Making a pie crust is a little bit of a workout; all that cutting in and rolling out stretches some muscles and burns a few calories, making pie consumption a little more justifiable -- not the whole pie, mind you -- a nice, conservative piece. Anyway, that's what I tell myself.

So, for the record, for an 8-inch pie:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
3/4 c. vegetable shortening (or cold butter, if you are so inclined)
approx. 5 T. ice cold water

You know the drill: Mix the flour and salt. Cut in the shortening until the size of baby peas. Add water in tablespoon increments and stir with a fork just until dough comes together. Divide in half, wrap and refrigerate for 20 min. or so.

Roll out one half of the dough and place in pie plate. Dump in plum mixture and dot with 2 T. butter.

Roll out second half, top pie and crimp edges. If the fruit is particularly tart, I'll brush the top with milk and sprinkle on some sugar. Using a fork, stab the crust all over making steam vents (By family rule, I am required to form my stabs in the shape of the letter that the filling begins with, as if I'm churning out a large variety of pies on this particular day and won't be able to remember what this one is. I continue to do this because...well, I just do.)

Bake at 450 degrees F. for 10 minutes, drop the temperature to 350 degrees F. and bake for 40 to 45 min. more. Cool on a rack.

(This crust comes from the label of the Crisco shortening, which my mother copied down in her recipe file and we've always used. It's probably still on the label -- I never bothered to check)

Not my fingers -- Dirtman served the pie

So there ya go. Easy peasy and you don't have to settle for those hideous grocery store pies with their tiny bits of fruit swimming in corn syrup and corn starch and covered with a thick, leathery crust.

Unfortunately, the crust was the best thing about this particular pie. Other than that, it could have been a styrofoam pie for all the flavor you could taste. But, I whipped up some cream and slapped it on top and everyone was satisfied but me.

Bread at last

I've waxed poetic about baking bread before. And, again, I've always felt the best part of baking your own bread is being able to eat it warm, 20 minutes after it has baked.

It's always bothered me, though, that I could never find that perfect basic ingredient mix that would produce a loaf that had that "artisan" look to it and tasted so good that it was worth the effort to bake myself, rather than visit a bakery.

Let's face it -- high end grocery stores are churning out some pretty nice looking loaves and attaching all kinds of cool names to them. Taste? Well, I guess they taste okay. They don't taste bad.

So, anyway, my quest has been to bake a really nicely-textured, tasty and visually pleasing loaf of bread using a process I could deal with on a regular basis. A custom-built wood-burning stone bread oven out back would produce a wonderful loaf of bread, but I can't see myself going out there every day to fuss with that unless I was, say, producing a loaf for the Last Supper or something.




So this has been a kind of quest, one that I thought would be easy enough since all I had to do is Google "Italian Bread" and -- voila -- a recipe would appear.

Alas, no. I had some very specific qualities in mind and no single recipe fit. So it was time for experimentation.

I never produced anything inedible, but I was beginning to think that maybe the qualities I was looking for just weren't do-able in a plain old kitchen oven.

Finally on Monday I produced a loaf that had a great flavor and a perfect crust. The only thing missing was texture, but it was coming close. The most pronounced improvement was that I had gotten rid of that "yeasty" taste that so often plagues homemade bread, even ones using a sourdough starter instead of yeast. That's a lovely flavor for sandwich bread. But for Italian bread? Uh-uh.

Friday I actually was abandoning my quest for the perfect loaf and seeing if I could manifest a couple loaves of bread with a minimum amount of equipment. This was in preparation for our vacation to Outer Banks (graciously being provided by the Mr. and Mrs. Dark Garden), where I would feel really stupid lugging my Artisan mixer (because I am already lugging my ice cream maker).

Turns out that was the key. Even though I rely on the Artisan only to do the initial mixing of the dough and knead it by hand, it still made a huge difference (to me, anyway) in texture to mix and knead it start to finish by hand. From my standpoint it was wonderful -- I love to mess with dough.

The ingredients are simple:

6 to 6-1/2 cups bread flour
2-1/2 tsp. dry yeast
2 T. sugar
2 T. olive oil
2-1/4 c. hot tap water (around 115 degrees F)
1-1/2 tsp. salt

I make a soup of the the yeast, sugar and 1/4 cup of the water. While that sits, I measure out about 6 cups of the flour onto my kneading surface (I have a granite-topped bakers' cart). Once the yeast is dissolved and foamy, I make a well in the center of the flour and pour the yeast mixture and the olive oil. Gradually feed the flour into the liquid until all the liquid is absorbed.

Add salt to remaining 2 cups of hot water and gradually incorporate into dough. Begin kneading (cleaning up all over your surface as you knead). Add extra 1/2 flour as needed to keep dough from sticking. Knead until "smooth and elastic," as all the books say. I stop kneading -- reluctantly -- usually after about 10 minutes -- just enough time for a nice, quick meditation.

It really will feel like a baby's behind when it's ready for the first rising (Dark Garden is throwing up just a little in his mouth right now). Slap it in an olive-oil coated bowl, flip is once to coat, cover with oiled wax paper and put in a warm place to rise until doubled, 1 to 1-1/2 hours.

Let me insert something here about rising dough. Yeast can only rise so much. If it's doubled in size and an hour has not yet passed, pull it anyway. The rising time is for the dough, not you. If it rises too much the first time, when you go to shape it and put it in for a second rising, it will have nowhere to go.

Anyway, punch down, dump onto your kneading surface and let it rest 10 minutes. Divide in half, shape into oblongs and place on baking surface (I use an upside down sheet cake pan sprinkled with semonlina flour, but you can use a parchment-lined cookie sheet or, if you're lucky enough to have one, a baking stone lined with the semolina flour).

Brush with egg white, sprinkle with topping if you like (toasted sesame seeds, poppy seeds, cracked wheat, etc.). Let rise another half hour.

Set oven for 350 degrees. Place loaves in oven, mist with water and bake five minutes. Mist with water again, bake another five minutes. Mist once more. Bake an additional 35-40 minutes. Loaves are done when they make a hollow sound when you thump them.

Cool at least 20 minutes before slicing. It doesn't cool any faster if Heir 2 stands over it, threatening it with a knife.

Editor's note: We are fully aware we cannot come close in texture to bread baked in a bread oven. But life is too short to wait to own a stone oven before baking bread.