TGivin', come and gone

This is part one of the Petro family Thanksgiving. This year, it's a week-long adventure in one house, during which thirteen members of the family eat, sleep and play together. Like a Thanksgiving camp, if you will.


Oh, the only time of year I truly wait for. And actually, once Thanksgiving is over, what's left of the year? My scrooge-y side comes out in anticipation of Christmas, the presents and the pressures. At least there are the food and family memories of Thanksgiving carrying over into the terrible rush of December.

This year we spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house in Maryland. I was a little sad about not having another warm and sunny holiday in southern California, but after arriving to an unlikely and mild 60 degrees in Appalachia, I unpacked my shades and bikini.

Kidding. At least we could wear t-shirts and still have warm arms.

We started the holiday week early this year, and by the Monday before Thanksgiving most of the extended family had already arrived. Impressed? I don't know that many families who take it as seriously as we do. If we didn't all get there in ample time before the actual Thursday, everything would be thrown off entirely and Thanksgiving could disappear in the dark mist. Something like that.

Pre-game: Making the giant list for food shopping is actually a fun event for us. We strategize, whilst sipping rum and Coke. Fancy, it is. After a trip to the grocery store for meal #1, the fridge was already packed tight. We started an area in the garage for overflow.


And Dad set up the brand-new turkey fryer.

We all expressed concern over this monstrous electric-potential-fire-disaster, but at the same time, all were intrigued by the golden, crispy, juicy possibilities. My journalist friend, Angie, sent me safety tips after having written numerous news articles about Thanksgiving fires caused by turkey fryers.

Where would we fry the turkey? Outdoors was the vote, but Dad, who is the tallest and eldest, decided on the garage.

Okay.

Some eating highlights before the big day round up as follows:

- Auntie Merribeth's spaghetti and meatballs with cousin Mike's garlic bread
- Fish tacos with Uncle Andy's rice and beans
- Christine's Butternut Squash Soup



By Wednesday, we had already eaten to the point of having to roll from point A to B. Where was the time for exercise when we had desserts to plan and card games to play? Thus, the night of butternut squash soup. This recipe can be adjusted to behold a nice, spicy kick if you're feeling dangerously squashy. It has been adapted from several like recipes.

Butternut Squash Soup

1-2 Butternut squash, depending on the size of your crowd
Vegetable broth, heated
Heavy cream or milk
Nutmeg, ground
Honey
Fresh thyme
Cinnamon, ground
Cayenne pepper, ground

1. Peel, seed and cube the squash. Boil until soft in large pot.

2. Puree squash in batches in food processor or blender with vegetable broth, adding just a little heavy cream or milk as you go. Return puree to pot.

3. To taste, add nutmeg, thyme, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and honey to the puree. The more cayenne, the better the spicy bite! Keep to a simmer, letting the spices meld to the squash puree.

4. Adjust spices as necessary. When tasty, serve!

More food and fun to follow. We're only up to the night before Thanksgiving!

Campin' Out

Camping can have a varied food effect.




For example, above is the effect mid-hike after reaching a scenic view, pausing for some PB&J, trail mix, and power bars ... and fruit, and cheese and crackers. And cookies. Campers become napping turtle-people, sunning on a large rock.

Trish had orchestrated a rather impressive camping adventure of 11 people, with both a Philly and a NYC group convening in the wilds of just-outside-of-NYC in Harriman Park.

This event created a food challenge. Camp food forces the cook to reach a new state of simplicity. Every ingredient, method of preparation and cooking utensil must be considered ahead of time. This is hard for me. I enjoy complicated and spontaneous cooking - experimenting for large groups of people with new recipes that have multiple stages of preparation and if possible, hard to find and somewhat mysterious ingredients. Food is flung around the kitchen in a fluster, and everything comes flying out of the cupboard in a time-sensitive search for the springform pan. This is the fun of cooking - doing it in a slight disaster area. Camp cooking, however, needs an uncluttered frame of mind. A strategic approach, if you will.

A good s'more, for instance, requires perfect timing. This is very important or you end up with a nicely toasted marshmallow sandwiched between grahams with a chunk of hard, cold chocolate. We did a fair amount of s'more trial and error on this trip. On the second night, we got it. The bottom layer of graham and chocolate must be warmed and ready to go at the same time that the marshmallow has been toasted to bulging, internally gooey perfection. If you are like Erin and myself, you just want a s'more right away and will do almost anything to get it. You will hover excitedly with marshmallow-on-stick, waiting for the fire to start. But we all became willing to time each element right and eat bare marshmallows in the desperate intervals. The s'more instructions are below.

As far as the actual sustenance, we go beyond s'mores. (Though, I admit nothing is truly beyond the S'more). I don't know where the thought "big pot of chili" came from. I had a sudden vision of warm, big bowls of ... stuff... being eaten by chilled, but happy people circled 'round the campfire. Working my way backwards from that vision, I came up with a way to do camp chili. I think we got it on the first go-round. All it really took was a giant pot, several ziploc freezer bags of diced onions and peppers, crushed tomatoes, beans and rice, and a baggie of various herbs and spices. And, uh, reaching into the cooler for a beer every now and then to add some more liquid to the pot when necessary.




I think people were happy with the outcome.

Now, it is true this was not the kind of meal you could prepare on a true roughin' it type of trip. My camp food skills have not yet evolved to there. We had a grate on the fire, could lug the big pot in our car and bags of ingredients in the cooler. But the meal totally worked for a large group of friends who drove out of the big city for a weekend in the cool and pretty, late-summer woods.


The Best S'more

Marshmallows (lots)
Graham crackers (lots)
Chocolate (lots)

1) Put on headlamp. Find s'more sticks.
2) Make assembly line of all ingredients.
3) Put bottom graham cracker/s and chocolate in pan over fire (not too close) to gradually warm.
4) Begin toasting marshmallow a minute or so later.
5) Get bottom layer of graham and chocolate from pan, place marshmallow on top, and add top layer of graham.
6) Eat best s'more ever.
7) Make another one. Use headlamp to check for inevitable chocolate on face, arms, lap.

Camp Chili

4 cans of beans, multiple varieties (e.g. black, kidney, garbanzo, white)
3 can of crushed tomatoes and their juices
1/2 a bag of rice
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 sack of mysterious spices (e.g. chili powder, thyme, basil, oregano, crushed red pepper, salt, pepper)
4-6 cans of beer

1) Put all ingredients in separate ziploc freezer bags (bag of diced vegetables, bag of tomato, bag of beans, etc
2) Pack all camping gear
3) Arrive at campsite and build fire with friends
4) Get out big (giant) pot with lid
5) Saute onions, peppers, and garlic
6) Add 1/2 of spice sack and saute a few minutes more
7) Add tomatoes, rice, the rest of spice sack and 1-2 cans of beer. Put lid on pot and cook, stirring occasionally until rice is done. Add more beer when necessary.When
8) When rice is done, add beans and additional beer as necessary. Cook until beans are hot and add additional seasoning as desired.
9) Scoop into mess kits, add cheese and crumbled chips.

Plum-Apricot-Nectarine-Blueberry-Peach Lavender Crumble

One evening Marvelous M and Super C invited a goat for dinner.

The two were unsure as to what a goat would like to eat, but decided to play it by ear. Marvelous M had just gone to the Morningside Heights farmer's market that day and returned with pints of little yellow, orange and red cherry, grape and pear tomatoes, and a few verdant zuchinni and bright yellow squash. A fresh bunch of earthy smelling basil was her brilliant after thought.

Marvelous M and Super C put together a simple pasta of the colorful tomatoes and basil with marinated artichoke hearts and fresh parmesan on top. The squash and zuchinni they sauteed in a white wine vinegar of rosemary, thyme and lavender.

All was merry, all was in season. The chefs drank wine together with the goat and had interesting conversation.

And then they brought out the fruit crumble.

The goat gasped with delight.

For they had done it - fruit crumble was his favorite dish.

The special thing about this fruit crumble was that it had not one or two, but a multitude of pitted fruits and berries. Italian plums, apricots, nectarines, blueberries and peaches filled the dish beneath a crust of brown sugar and a European chefs' high-quality cooking butter. A thick and oozing syrup of golden orange and muted purple fruit juices bubbled beneath the decadent topping.

The trio dished their servings. They ate. They were overjoyed.

And there was one more surprise.

"Delicious. What is that delightfully aromatic flavor floating just above the sweet fruits and melting crumble?" the goat wondered out loud.

"It's lavender!" both Marvelous and Super shouted triumphantly, for they had made the goat happy.



What's in season - August:

Tomatoes
Basil
Squash
Plums
Nectarines
Blueberries
Peaches

Specialty Ingredient:

Culinary Lavender*

*Note: can be found in specialty gourmet stores, sometimes your local grocery store in the spice aisle, or can be ordered online

The little, expensive things

Saffron, lavender and white truffle oil. Out there floats a lot of criticism about gourmet foods and ingredients. But let's be fair. Sometimes the right gourmet ingredient will literally knock your socks off. Recently several key ingredients have shown up at my door step.

Lavender: After an extensive search for culinary lavender, which was finally located at the classic Upper West Side gourmet store Zabar's, Meredith and I made a Cherry-Lavender cake for Ann's summer garden party. Some previous research on cooking with lavender revealed that we might not be able to just pick lavender stalks from a garden, but that certain types are cultivated and harvested especially for cooking. We indulged in all parts of the making process - zesting the sunshine-yellow lemons, pitting the ripe, dark magenta cherries and sprinkling in the grey-blue lavender buds. Such color, such texture, such aroma and joy!






The end product was somewhat flatter and more pancake-like than we expected; therefore we will reveal the recipe following some more testing. I have been informed by the food blogger source of the recipe that cake baking is a chemical art and process and thus it must be done exacting and carefully.We were baking very late at night, so another go at the cake is worth it.


Saffron: What is this mysterious and whispy dark-pumpkin colored spice? I still don't know. With it, Trish made a rice with shrimp and chicken sausage. It was delicious, of course, though we were trying really hard to distinguish and appreciate the saffron flavor and aroma from everything else. Going in I knew basic things about saffron: it's expensive, aromatic and lends a distinct golden color to foods. All facts have been checked. It cost Trish $18.00 for a little envelope of the crimson threads, which were locked away in the back room of a store. Saffron is serious business. It comes from the saffron crocus, which yields only three threads per flower. Also true is that it has an international grading system for quality. The chemical composition appears to be very complex and makes up it's flavor, dye qualities and aroma. And this spice has been used medicinally for thousands of years. What we know now is that saffron has a history. We did not know this when eating the rice.

White truffle oil: Unlike saffron, there is no need to look up the history and context of white truffle oil. Its hugely intense, earthy aroma speaks for itself. Alix and I used it to make what we call our most refined dish yet. We almost staggered under the weight of sheer eating pleasure.

Orzo with White Truffle Oil

Orzo, cooked
Marinated sun-dried tomatoes, chopped finely
Pine nuts, toasted
green beans, fresh from garden, trimmed, blanched and cut
1 tsp white truffle oil

Directions: Mix all ingrediants together in proportions to your liking.

A gift from fellow foodie Joe, this truffle oil is part of a 90-ish day recipe challenge, after which the oil is supposedly is no longer fresh.

Specialty Ingredient:

Culinary Lavender
Saffron
White Truffle Oil

What's in Season - June:

Green (string) beans (June - October)

Liz's June Wedding

Midway through June was cousin Liz's wedding in Cleveland. The twenty-something cousins had already predicted who would be married first within our bunch, and Liz was not the first we had guessed. But at times the best thing about families is the "who knows?" unpredictability. The extended family converged for the affair, starting the Thursday before with a food party for the soon-to-be newlyweds. All guests brought a dish and recipe to share = tables of food. We met a lot of new people through their food. Groom Jason's grandma was my favorite - the way she simply, yet exquisitely described a two-ingredient sloppy joe and waldorf salad made me wish she had a cooking show I could watch every day.

So food is the great social integrator at weddings.

At the food party, my sister and I ran a smoothie station and blended a few original fruity creations. Teresa capitalized on her smoothie-making skills gained during her famous college-years stint at the Orange Julius in the mall. Especially popular at the party was the Magic Mojito (and it was good even without the rum!)- all recipes can be found below.


The Sunday after the wedding, Liz and Jason were already on their cruise ship ready to sail out into the Caribbean and our family was playing croquet and prepping for an after-party and Father's Day picnic in Auntie MJ's and Uncle Don's backyard.

Family picnics are great casual affairs where lounging, eating and talking are the primary activities. We got stuffed on Italian sausages in toasted rolls that were topped with roasted red peppers, onions and spicy mustard. Auntie MB's rosemary potato salad had me swooning under the fragrance, and we grilled some corn smothered in chili-lime butter for twenty people, all on a little hibatchi.




Following were some s'mores and Liz's homemade birthday cake for Teresa and Anthony. The bride even took time to bake her cousin a birthday cake - amazing. It was a fluffy white cake with a mysterious lump of chocolate in the middle - delicious! Still full, though wanting more family fun and food, Dad took me to the airport so I could get back to NYC in time to catch my flight to Mexico, thus setting us up for the next food episode.

Sister Smoothies*

Magic Mango & Mint Mojito
1/2 can of Limeade concentrate
1 cup of Seltzer
1 sliced Mango
1-2 sprigs of Fresh Mint
1 1/2 cup Ice
Blend!

Love Monkey
1 1/2 cups of Chocolate Soymilk
2 sliced Bananas
1-2 teaspoons of Honey
1 cup of Ice
Blend!

Smooth Sailin'
1/2 cup of Sliced Strawberries
1/2 cup of Sliced Pineapple
1 1/2 cups of Orange Juice
1-2 teaspoons of Honey
1 1/2 cups of Ice
Blend!

*Adjust proportions of ingrediants to your liking.*

*Rum can be added to any of these if you need to feel extra smooth.*



Grilled Corn with Chili-Lime Butter

If done right, this corn will take you to new heights in flavor. The trick is to do an initial smother of the mixture, grill it, then spread on some more with an extra squeeze of fresh lime juice.

Fresh corn (husked)
1-2 Sticks of butter
1-2 Limes
Chili Powder

Directions:
1. Soften butter in microwave. In bowl with butter, squeeze in the juice of one lime. Sprinkle in chili powder to your taste. Blend.

2. Spread on corn ears. Grill and turn until golden brown.

3. Spread another layer of chili-lime butter on corn and squeeze on a little more fresh lime juice.

Grandma's Cookies

Michelle brought these to book group and we couldn't stop eating them. You will not get the recipe for Michelle's Grandma's cookies here, because I did not get it either. She is not giving it away. But they are exactly what a homemade chocolate chip cookie should be: moist and chewy, with nice chunks of chocolate. A little salty, a little sweet. Thin, so you think 3 cookies = 1 cookie. I think I ate 7, but Erin ate in the teens, she claimed.

Grandma's cookies are rare in our world of comestibles. I'm thinking about where my recipes come from, and it's normally a good search on the internet. Maybe from a cookbook. I definitely don't have any recipes from a Grandma. Or many from Mom or Dad. For the book group, I made Libby's Funky Bean Healthy Bean Salad, but I have no idea who Libby is, or how she came up with such a funkalicious side dish. I found it on vegweb.com. So what's the emotional tie to food? Grandma's cookies are so wonderful, partly because they are the perfect specimen of cookie and partly because of the story attached. Partly because of the value - the recipe was passed down and is therefore slightly mysterious. Only certain choice people can make Grandma's cookies happen again in this world.

There is Dad's Stuffing - every Thanksgiving he makes two batches - one that is sweet, one savory. The recipe is not a secret exactly; you can watch him make it. But he will not give you a tutorial. All I know is that you end up with two huge foil roasters full of stuffing that are best eaten with either a) a scoop of Cool Whip (the sweet) or b) a ladle of gravy (the savory). (The gravy is a semi-mysterious herbed and flavorful concoction suited to drizzle over the entire plate of Thanksgiving. Also a recipe that is not a secret, but neither is it blatantly advertised).

So maybe I'm not making Dad's Thanksgiving Stuffing now in life, nor am I trying too hard observe closely, but maybe I will later. It's Dad's now. Maybe Grandma's cookies and Dad's Stuffing are less about the food and recipe itself and more about the people who cook it...the food that makes us crave the people we love.

Cookin' In: Quinoa and Chocolate

The Alix and Christine show could be quite the hit. That is, if you'd like to watch two ladies drink wine, talk, cook and eat for hours on end. I think I was home by 4:00 am.

We decided to simplify the meal, knowing a complex recipe could really slow our leisurely pace even more. Made a Quinoa salad with fresh corn, black beans, red pepper, lime and cilantro. Quinoa is evidently one of the more perfect foods as far as nutrients and protein go. The Aztecs were cooking it 6000 years ago, yet it's still hard to get in your typical grocery store. If you've never had it, the texture is somewhat grainy, somewhere between rice and cous cous. But it's officially a seed and not a grain.

Along with the quinoa, we made tacos with sauteed portobello and green peppers, fresh homemade salsa, and avocado. Light, spring fare, made to save room for the chocolate course from The Chocolate Room.

I had no idea chocolate, herbs and fruits could live by perfect symbiosis in one little chocolate.

Around midnight we methodically and slowly enjoyed an entire plate of chocolate. To describe it is to be one with the chocolate. Among the sensuous bites: Caramel and lavender in dark chocolate, passion fruit and ginger ganache, coconut truffle in toasted coconut, white chocolate ganache with Grand Marnier, apricot basil ganache in milk chocolate, passion fruit ganache in white chocolate, mint ganache with bitter chocolate pieces, red chile and tangerine ganache, and strawberry, lemon and thyme ganache.

We ate all of the above.

I don't know what I will do while Alix is gone traveling for an entire month. Go to chocolate school, perhaps.

The Chocolate Room
86 5th Ave (between St. Mark's and Warren St)
Park Slope, Brooklyn
718-783-2900
www.thechocolateroombrooklyn.com

Friends who can cook

Chef Verlander of the East Village cooked up a beautiful feast in celebration of Sebastian's birthday and Edith's housewarming.

The menu:

Antipasti: Cured meats (S Daniele Proscuitto, Spanish Lomo, Genoa Salami), Olives, Marinated Roasted Peppers, Roasted asparagus, Marinated mushrooms, Caprese

Insalata: Arugula and Mesclun with pears, toasted walnuts, with Roquefort and Dijon vinegarette

Pasta: Pappardelle Bolognese, sauce made with skirt steak, pancetta, ground pork shoulder

Formaggi: Four-year aged Gouda, Humboldt Fog Goat Cheese, Fromager Des Clarines

Dolce: Ice Cream Cake!

I wouldn't mind if Chef Verlander opened up a restaurant - all food was superb. And he sure does not look Italian, but if you were at the table blindfolded, you would think Nonna had made the Pappardelle Bolognese. Absolute perfection.

We made gnocchi!

Alix and I are moving into new culinary dimensions with our cooking. First of all, we will eventually end up writing a cookbook highlighting various underappreciated foodstuffs. Parsnips will be the subject of the first chapter. We know of no others who like parsnips the way we do. Sometimes peppery, sometimes sweet, this root vegetable has been the subject of several of our email conversations. Oh, we are high caliber.

We made a parsnip soup combining a potato, a parsnip, a leek, and an onion. Root vegetable heaven.

Alix had suggested making a sweet potato gnocchi, which I would have assumed to be an all day cooking affair. But in fact, she mixed and rolled out the dough while I put together the soup. We had the gnocchi with a simple sauteed fresh spinach, garlic and tomatoes. And of course finished our meal and talking around 1:00 am. And this was partly because we began scheming for a summer cook-off event...oh, this will show up in your local newspapers...

And in other big news, after 10 weeks of physical therapy Alix can walk again!

Spring Italian Dinner Party - La Felice Vita!

Ann asked me to housesit and then encouraged me to throw a dinner party. She told me that her house has great party karma, and that, in fact, if I had a bad party it had to be my fault.

It was a very good party.

Once again we find there is something magic about putting a bunch of good people in a good space with food and wine. That, after all, is the food effect I have been trying to describe in entry after entry. I put together a fairly simple menu and invited the most charismatic and friendly people I know, asked them to bring wine and figured all would take care of itself. This was true.

Ann's house is big and at the same time cozy. The dining room is all warm, deep wood and goldenrod colored walls. Wonderful tiles with barnyard animals and vegetables line the kitchen and breakfast bar. Ann had told me no matter what, everyone would congregate in the kitchen and dining room, despite the other fantastic spaces.

Luckily, Emilia is now visiting from Rome, and she came over to help me prep the afternoon of the party. We chopped, pureed, mixed, sauteed, simmered, and talked and talked for hours, not believing the time had passed so quickly. My wonderful friends began rolling in after work and school, carrying in bottles of wine. Drinking and eating antipasti, everyone gathered near Ann's big, round wooden table, which was filled with crusty bread, fresh mozzarella, proscuitto, sopresseta, and verdure misti - zuchinni, yellow squash, carrots, and fennel - roasted with capers, garlic and olive oil, and bowls of two simple spreads of kalamata olives and sundried tomatoes, both floating in pools of a piney, herby and sweet olive oil. There was a huge ensalate of mixed greens, beets, cucumber, dill and green onions, with a olive oil, fresh garlic and lemon juice dressing.

Being hostess means one is not quite as carefree as the guests, but one still gets a nice bird's eye view of the whole scene. Every now and then I floated around and just listened to the great conversation, glad to hear that even the small talk was lively.

The pasta came out and the people all lined up. There were two pastas - one rotini with roasted red pepper, artichoke hearts, olives, mozzrella and fresh parsley. The other was a pasta primavera, a linguini with crisp green beans and asparagus, a light creamy sauce of parmaggiano-reggiano and pine nuts, and topped with fresh basil and grape tomatoes sauteed in balsamic vinegar and fresh garlic. I was not sure how to make pasta for 20 people, but it practically made itself.

The pasta and bread did not slow anyone down - the merriment continued when Ann's little poodle, Grace, came to visit, jump around and sniff about. I pulled the pears out of the oven, which had been roasting and simmering in butter, apple juice and brown sugar, dolloped them all with vanilla ice cream and watched everyone spoon feed themselves.

The trickling out of guests began around eleven, but the dinner party die-hards stayed until after four in the morning, when the tired hostess had to end the shenanigans only because she had to catch a train the next day.

La felice vita! Grazie, amici.

Party Styles

Oscars Night, 2007!

Michelle and Christian are very into this. Thanks to them, I've seen more Oscars movie nominees than I ever have. Leading up to the event, they had online spreadsheets for us to keep track of movies watched and rated. We had voting ballots and there were prizes! The decorations were superb.

As it flurried outside, we piled together with out of town Yorksters Angie, Katy and Mike, in Michelle and Christian's cozy Park Slope apartment on their huge and comfy couch. And enjoyed great food and wine, of course. M and C are dependable and serious with the wine - nice reds from various regions that they had picked up at neighborhood wine store Big Nose, Full Body. I had two from Spain and Australia, one a bit spicier than the other and both going nicely with the range of cheeses, meats, crackers, spreads and fruit.

In the spirit of Best Picture nominee Babel, I had made a well-received cous cous with chickpeas, almonds, dates, curry and cilantro. And for dessert, our hosts made the diner breakfast Olive ordered in Little Miss Sunshine - Waffles a la Mode-y. Mmm. Scoops of vanilla ice cream on warm, toasted waffles - especially the cinnamon mini waffles - is just goooood. We thought of all sorts of possible toppings, but the fundamentals were perfect.

And after watching the special past-Oscar winner montages, my movie list has grown ever longer.

Big Nose, Full Body
382 7th Avenue (between 11th and 12th Sts)
Park Slope, Brooklyn
718-369-4030
www.bignosefullbody.com

Cous Cous Salad with Dates and Almonds
www.epicurious.com

Food of the Rainbow

Broken bones, surgeries and casts do not stop Alix and I from making our famous meals. Although we had a brief hiatus, Alix is recovering nicely and we are back in the saddle. She even has a clever wheelie chair to scoot around the kitchen! On Friday we chilled out with some white wine and caught up on the week before starting that night's dinner: sweet potato and corn chowder, ginger-orange vegetable stir fry, and, of course, a mixed berry tart.

All dishes were low maintenance and all vegan. Bonus: we ate all colors of the rainbow with our whole foods - red pepper, sweet potato, yellow squash, sweet corn, green beans, broccoli, sprouts, and berries. The USDA says its wise to eat a colorful variety of fruits and vegetables for the biggest punch of vitamins and nutrients. Plus, it's aesthetically pleasing.

Alix mixed up a great soy sauce dressing for our stir fry - freshly grated ginger, zested and juiced clementines, fresh chopped garlic, and a splash of vinegar. Add more juice and zest for a citrusy zeal. We tossed the dressing in our vegetables and rice and chowed down, while checking out the seed catalog for Alix's up and coming summer kitchen garden!

Oh, yes, and all evening we enjoyed a terrific, inexpensive Cabernet-Sauvigon from her neighborhood wine store, SIP, and talked until three in the morning about everything from snow days to travel plans to Ishmael. Food with Alix is a fine, fine experience.

SIP Fine Wine
67 5th Ave (and St. Marks Place)
Park Slope, Brooklyn
718-638-6105
www.sipfinewine.com

www.5aday.gov

Presto! Pesto!

I'm not in Italy yet (this summer, E!) but I can try to cook like I am. The Italians have put some lovely ingredients together, with incomparable results. Fresh basil, garlic, olive oil, garlic, salt, parmesan and pine nuts. What is like pesto? Nothing. Put in the food processor and hit go. Mix into pasta al dente.



Let us appreciate the little green textured flecks up close.



I recommend comparing several recipes for the correct ratio and variations of ingredients. Search pesto alla genovese for the classic recipe. Dream in shades of green!

"Stoup"

Is it soup? Is it stew? No...it's stoup! I did not coin the term. Rachael Ray did. But it's a very good one and should be cooked up more often. Seth and I made a delightful stoup of chicken and italian sausage for the presidents birthdays. The first time I made this meal was in sunny San Diego with my cousins. Auntie was working, so cousin Mike and I had to feed Marc and Graeson. They were very happy when we sat down to eat, and I still remember Graeson's full mouth with little bits of tortilla chips spraying out when he said, "Mmm, this is good."


As you can see from the picture, the aroma of stoup also had an interesting effect on Seth. He became rather enamored with the pot of bubbling potatoes, peppers, beans and chicken...I've never seen this happen before in real life, but I did just recently see the movie Like Water for Chocolate, and know that when cooked with love food can have strange and wonderful effects on people...

This stoup is quite easy, can be made in one pot, and should necessarily be topped with cheese and crumbled tortilla chips.

Chicken, Chorizo and Tortilla Stoup
www.foodnetwork.com

Like Water for Chocolate (Como Agua para Chocolate)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103994/

Sister Stew

You can eat pineapple in February! After all, the groundhog told us that spring is almost here. Thus, in anticipation of brightly ripe summer fruits, I highly recommend the pineapple carmelized and with toasted coconut over vanilla ice cream. That was the dessert Teresa and I made on chilled February evening in Delaware. You can do other things with pineapple too, such as wear it as a fancy hat (example in picture).

Teresa and I had spent the entire day in our pajamas lounging and talking about everything before starting the pineapple project (Why should sisters ever have to live far apart?). And before our tropical dessert, we made a sisterly stew to buffer the coldy wind outside. After all, when you've been immobile for hours except for your storytelling, idea sharing, news updating mouth, your belly needs something warm inside. We opened a bottle of Pinot Noir from a vineyard in France that's been around since 1725. I know virtually nothing about wine, but figure a vineyard that established must produce something good. It was delightful to sip as I put together this very easy and completely vegan soup-stew [recipe adapted from vegweb.com]

Ingredients:
vegan sausage (e.g. the Gimme Lean brand)
garlic
some mushrooms, potatoes, carrots and onions
barley
vegetable broth or boullion cubes
herb seasoning of your choice (I used oregano, pepper and rosemary)

1) Boil potatoes, mushrooms, carrots and barley in broth until soft.
2) Saute and brown onions, garlic and vegan sausage. Add seasoing.
3) Add "meat" mixture to broth mixture.
4) Ladle in large bowls and breathe in wintery stew aroma.
5) Chow down

Oh, how I did not want to leave my sister for anything. But we shall eat together soon.

The energy crisis and the love of chocolate

The last supper. At Alix and Colin's amazing three floor abode, that is, before they move in to the next great place (with a backyard! Imagine dinner on the patio, among the plants and lawn furniture!). At least Alix is one friend who isn't leaving the city, or even the neighborhood. She treated me to some of her week's delightful leftovers, with a springy green and fruit salad. We shared a nice bottle of Montepulciano and watched a disturbing documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" According to the doc, we have several guilty parties to blame, including the government, oil industry, car companies, and consumers.

Alix was getting quite steamed as the show went on (I had seen it before), so luckily we had made another famous fruit crisp to cool the tempers. Apple and pear, with a secret weapon in the topping - candied ginger and shredded coconut. It is our dream to make the best fruit tart on the planet. There will surely be some fanfare when that happens.


Our sweet, hot beverage of choice was the "I Like it Spicy" hot chocolate from the Cocoa Bar. If you've ever balked at chilis and cayenne pepper in your hot chocolate, balk no more. This is a thick and frothy chocolate with a hot kick at the back of your throat. Cocoa Bar is a favorite place in the neighborhood that specializes in not only chocolate in all forms - drink, truffle, cake and pie - but also in wine and coffee. The search for happiness is over.

Chocolate sloshing inside, I walked home in the first lovely Brooklyn snowfall of the year!

The Cocoa Bar
228 7th Ave (between 3rd and 4th Sts.)
Park Slope
Brooklyn, New York
718-499-4080
www.cocoabarnyc.com

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Katie's Farewell Stromboli

Why must we say farewell to Katie?? It's horrible to keep saying good-bye to dear friends that have been leaving New York this year, seemingly in droves. And of course, they are some of my greatest food friends. Katie and I have shared much conversation, antipasti and after-work vino at Max Cafe in Morningside Heights and amazing lunchtime sandwiches at at Fresh Cafe (reviews forthcoming!)

The only good thing about friends leaving is that everyone gets together to share talk and eats. For Katie's down south send-off, Trish made some addictively good strombolis. They are very easy to make, and easier to keep eating ... I had one piece too many and definitely felt like a Stromboli during the train ride home.

Trish's Stromboli

What you need:

pre-made dough (Trader Joe's has a great herby one)
Sauce
Cheese
Fillings (we had some veggie and some carnie)

Spread out and flatten dough, arrange sauce, cheese and filling on half the dough, length-wise. Flip other half over the filled side, press and seal. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes, or until golden browned and crispy on top.

My favorite had scallops, zuchinni and sweet peppers. Mmm. As you can see, we ate two entire trays of the delicious stuff.

Although I could have easily rolled tummy-first back to Brooklyn, for dessert I had one of the best cupcakes in the land - buttery soft cake and fluffily pink buttercream frosting. Erin brought a big box from sugar Sweet sunshine, a bakery on the Lower East Side that I cannot wait to visit. Their website alone puts me in a cakey state of mind.

Farewell, Katie...please come back and eat with me soon...

sugar Sweet sunshine
126 Rivington St. (between Essex and Norfolk)
New York, NY
212-995-1960
www.sugarsweetsunshine.com

Sunday cous cous and vino

Sometimes simple is the best. Putting a few basic foods together and having a pleasant bowl of something makes me happy. Even better is a simple dish with red wine and good conversation. Especially if you are making important observations about life, you don't want to complicate things more with an elaborate recipe. Carlos came over for a late-ish Sunday night dinner.

Although the tempature was dropping by the second, we walked over to the best wine store in the neighborhood - Slope Cellars. It's worth the chilly walk and open on Sunday until 9:00! All recommendations have been perfect, and all have ranged from $10-12. Maybe $15 if I am feeling extra fancy. This time it was a beaujolais that was smooth, lightly velvety and just...nice. I have no wine description skills yet...

I made the first dish I had ever really learned to cook - White bean, zucchini and tomato over cous cous. So simple in fact that almost all the ingredients are in the title. Except for the most important, ever aromatic, chopped rosemary. One day I will write a nice song about my love for rosemary. It's very strange.

The dish: chop some zucchini, unpeeled, so that the green skin and red tomato create a visual zap in the stewy vegetable melange. Saute in olive oil and while the zuchinni is still crisp, add a can of white beans and a can of diced tomatoes. Then add as much rosemary as your heart desires, cooking until warm and herbed. Oh, and before all that, boil some water, turn off the heat and add cous cous. If you're not talking and talking like I was doing after a glass of wine, the whole thing only takes 15 minutes.

This recipe is from an excellent cookbook called Simple Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin.

Slope Cellars
436 7th Ave, between 14th and 15th Sts
Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY
718-368-7307

Famous Duo

I'm so glad Alix came back from her travels. She and I have had some mouthwatering food experiences together - and it keeps getting better each time. By the end of the year, we will hopefully be famous for our dinners (although it's usually just the two of us). We made a late dinner last night - and when I say late, I mean midnight dessert.

We started with Alix's nutty and light hummus - secretly herbed with fresh thyme and rosemary. Fruity cocktails in hand, we eventually moseyed upstairs to print out our recipes from vegweb.com, which is a great site for vegan/vegetarian food. There have been few, if any, disappointing turn outs from that site. We had decided on an eggplant casserole, steamed bok choy and blueberry crisp for dessert. When making our menu, we usually start with an inventory of our cupboards, look up recipes accordingly and then barely have to get anything at the store. Results are often amazing.

The casserole starts by sauteing the chopped eggplant, portobellos, fresh basil and onions in olive oil, soy sauce and garlic. That's added to some cooked brown rice, with vegan-rella (soy cheese) mixed in and on top. Pop in oven to bake. Then make the easiest dessert crisp in the land: sweet blueberries with a crumbly, texturous topping. Pop in oven as soon as casserole comes out. The steamed bok choy barely took 2 minutes and was a perfect mate to the casserole. Inhale the wonderous smells....mmmmm. Sit down to eat and watch on the projector a slide show of Alix's travel pictures. Dilemma: eat ravenously or watch crazy pictures...can't multi-task...music playing is perfect, too. Senses overwhelmed with joy.



The blueberry crisp was notably delicious. I am happily eating the leftovers now. Generous nutmeg and a serendipitous ginger granola made the topping almost spicy. Recipe pictured above on the big projector screen!

Here's to another brilliant success.