Nice issue. Please tell Laraine that I particularly enjoyed her piece, and wish I'd thought to try mesc in order to appreciate my mom.
- Bill
__________
I loved Carol Caldwell's "No Dessert" piece. Here I was buying into the far more complex theories of why G. W. Bush is what he is: his deep-seated desire to kill or at least upstage his dad, the Narcissistic Personality Disorder theory, etc. Nah. I think Ms. Caldwell's Mess Cleaning Imperative Deprivation is much more fun.
Okay, who the hell WAS the natural-gas-loving Mrs. America of 1960?
__________
Tom Maxwell’s article on Maple Syrup (or maple surple as my mother used to call it) is wonderful. I hope there will be more from him.
I love the site.
- Tracy Newman
__________
i like the hollow bunnies , i think chocolate should be thin, you just have to eat 3 or 4 bunnies
Dedicated to the notion that one of the things that’s wrong with the world is that there aren’t enough waffles in it and everyone should sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes order “one for the table”.
It’s about elegance and simplicity. It’s about
having a philosophy about life that extends to the choice of
ingredients, fresh and otherwise, (ecological within reason), the way
you entertain, the placement of flowers in a vase, the careful way you
sometimes scramble an egg or simply butter a piece of toast and
conversely a sort of casual chaos that allows you to whip up dinner for
12, just because you suddenly look up and there are 12 people for
dinner.
Amy Ephron
America's Favorite
by Amy Ephron
Repeat after me: Cindy Hensley McCain. Say it again: Cindy
Hensley McCain. I don’t know why but it sounds like Theresa Heinz
Kerry to me.
I like Theresa Heinz Kerry. And I really like Heinz ketchup and
I always wanted to write a piece about the 57 varieties of Heinz.
Remember when that used to be their slogan. I always wondered what
they were. Relish? Pickles? Baked Beans? I wanted to have a
barbecue and test them all. Were there really 57 or were there really
more (or less) and they’d just gotten used to saying there were 57.
But
I digress because the point is Theresa Heinz Kerry didn’t want to
release her tax returns. She filed separately from her husband John
Kerry. And at the time that he was running for President, she resisted
making her tax returns public. For a really long time. In fact, she
released her tax returns on October 16, 2004, less than three weeks
before the election. And we all know what happened to him.
Tis the season of Sample Sales, or so it seems when the mailers start
arriving announcing this 40% off (but it's in downtown LA) or that 80%
off, but not until two weeks from now when I’ve completely forgotten
about it and f*#k it anyway, where’s the instant grat? I subscribe to
Daily Candy and Top Button, the latter being exclusively an online
sample sale site. There is also a mother at my younger daughter’s
school whose clothing line I happen to love that has her sample sale
around this time too.
It’s taken me a long time to become a savvy shopper when it came to
these 'deals’. I was the sucker that clipped the coupon for something
at the market I would normally never eat. I would be under the illusion
my family might try the yogurt covered zucchini chips for 50% off.
Invariably it would linger past its expiration date and get thrown out.
This always jettisoned me into the ‘I’m gonna be homeless someday, why
oh why did I waste my money like that??” fear fantasy. I would vow
never to make that mistake again and I finally learned that the only
coupons worth clipping for me are batteries and toothbrushes. Do I
really need that 35¢ off the second four pack of Charmin? Hell no!
Around our house in those days, if you didn’t clean up your room you
went to bed without dessert. Not just a mess in your own room,
either. If you left a mess anywhere and refused to be responsible for
it—reasons ranging from recalcitrance to outright sloth—no matter!
There was NO EXCUSE FOR IT! You hit the sack with a hole in your
belly. Tough patooties. That was the law of the land.
In the great Southeast, no meal was complete without something sweet to
finish it off. Round it out, take the edge off. Such punishment then
was tantamount to twenty lashes. While you might be able to stand fast,
stay whatever course had to be stayed concerning your Mess and its
necessity, it was you, the Messer, who teetered bedward in sugar shock,
the withdrawal kind, not the law upholders of the land.
It was l960, when our mother’s chums entered her in the Mrs. Nashville
contest as a practical joke. Not because she wasn’t up to muster in
all things home ec, it just wasn’t something anybody from our side of
town had ever “done.” Nonetheless, she went right on ahead with it,
jumped through the field trials, and sashayed home with the banner.
Mrs. Nashville, l960. Nice picture in the paper, everybody got a big
kick out of it.
Defining the dress code of the Gents, that was easy….BUT OH, THE DRESS
CODE for women…that was serious. Pant suits were just coming in big and
the Maitre’D would have none of it. It was here, at the Plaza Hotel,
with all the Management taking notes, that I rewrote their dress code
with sketches and fabric swatches, as I tried to educate those huffy
puffed-up doormen.
I explained carefully to them that they must never allow entrance, if
the fabric on the pant suit was the least bit shiny… like Polyester… that
was a no no. They liked that, since it left them with some power…
Imagine having to make sketches of what a woman could wear to a
doorman... Who were we trying please here in this Boys Club of the Oak
Room? Why the Mad Men of course! Only linen darling... or flat dry wool
or men's tweeds... Oh dear...
Recently I was at a library book sale and as usual I scanned for hidden
treasure among the cookbooks. Browsing cookbooks is nothing short of a
history lesson. Here's what I found, as men came back from fighting
overseas and Americans travelled abroad for pleasure, their hunger for
exotic recipes increased and so did the number of international
cookbooks.
Cooking on a budget was a popular theme in times of
recession like the 1970's. Curiously the cookbooks from the 50's and
60's were dominated by the use of processed foods. Browsing the
volumes, I began to wonder, just how did processed food come to such
popularity anyway?
Not long after my shopping trip I began reading Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America. Not a cookbook at all, but a rich and fascinating history of cooking in
America in the post WWII period up until the early 60's. Suddenly it all made sense!
It wouldn’t be Spring in Maine without eating at least a couple
“batches” of fiddleheads. This has been a record winter for snow and
the melt has been gentle and slow until a few days ago when it rained
for twenty-four solid hours! Since fiddleheads grow along the banks of
waterways they literally disappeared until the waters receded.
Interesting vegetable, huh?
There are two varieties of ferns that are most desirable to eat, the
cinnamon fern, a smaller more compact variety, which arrives first, and
then the more prized ostrich fern, larger in size and more elegant in
flavor. Fiddlehead ferns have a flavor like nothing else. They taste
something like the fresh tips of asparagus with the texture of okra.
You either like it immediately or you don’t. There is no middle ground
or negotiation with this vegetable. Period.
My favorite all time saying is that 'you can pick and choose your friends but not your
family.' Perhaps that's because I have some extended family members who
are constant reminders of that famous quote.
My immediate family is
very close as well as my 1st cousins, aunts and uncles and for the most
part, I would choose to be friends with them. However, I do have some
cousins "that don't know me and I don't know them" and would prefer to
keep it that way. I have been known to desert my grocery cart and flee
when I catch a glimpse of them at the grocery store. These people and
their lifestyles made Jeff Foxworthy rich and famous.
My mother's bedside table was laden with books about food. On any
given night it might be Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French
Cooking. Or Michael Field’s Cooking School. Or the massive two-volume
set of The Gourmet Cookbook.
I ended up with her copies of those books, and when I took them
home and paged through, I wasn’t surprised that not a single page was
soiled. That’s because although she loved, loved, loved food, she
didn’t actually cook…except for blanching and roasting the occasional
pound of almonds on the cook’s day off.
The pages with Julia’s roast duck and basic quiche recipes are
now well splattered, since I not only read those books but I also love
to cook. My cookbooks are well behaved and stay in the kitchen, but my
bedside table is often loaded with books about food.
As much as I've bemoaned The Secret and it's heretofore unbelievable existence, on Friday I asked, I believed, and let me tell you, did I ever receive!
In case you've never heard of it, I like to follow a little blog called Eater,
and Eater likes to follow the ins and outs of the Manhattan dining
experience. Every Friday, Eater runs a wonderful contest called the "Friday Resy Giveaway!!" which I love for both the excessive use of exclamation points and the
word "giveaway."
Through unknown methods (they probably just have the
foresight to call a few months in advance), Eater manages to procure a
desperately sought-after reservation at some Manhattan restaurant de jour,
which they then give away to the most deserving reader. The reservation
up for grabs last Friday was an 8:30, table for 2, at uber-foodspot Allen and Delancey.
Every mother needs a signature cookie. Even if it’s one you buy—like a fresh-from-the-bag Pepperidge Farm Milano. Or a local, corner-bakery, purchased elephant ear. Of course, it’s best, when the kids look back, if the signature cookie is one you baked. Why? Because of the effort. People like to see effort and kids seem to really respond to it. It lets them know you weren’t just phoning in the whole motherhood thing.
Growing up, my mother had a signature cookie. She probably hasn’t thought of it as her cookie, but everyone in the family knows. She’ll be 80 years old on her birthday this July and if she’s in the kitchen, and she says she’s going to make cookies, you know
what’s coming:
I had a completely fabulous mother. She was a pretty good cook, except
that she was always so busy with her politics, and with being
consigliere to her large family, and with talking to my dad while he
was on his second job shift,, that she almost never cooked dinner
without a phone lodged between her shoulder and her ear.
This resulted in many culinary tragedies, and seasoning mistakes. Here are two examples.
Gooseberries have nothing to do with geese. The berries are bigger than a pea, smaller than a marble and are pale green or ruby red, depending on the variety. Wear gloves when you pick them. The bushes are covered with thorns. I dare you to eat one raw without making a face. They are beyond tart.
Gooseberry pie is an acquired taste. The only places I know to get it are Du-par’s Restaurant (L.A.’s Farmers’ Market, Studio City and Thousand Oaks) and my mom’s kitchen in Edwardsville, Illinois. Call me be biased, but I like Mom’s better. She has made it just for me for at least 35 years. And yet, I’m not a bit spoiled. We used to have a gooseberry bush in our back yard that provided enough fruit for Mom to make about one and a half pies. Not nearly enough. Now she gets her berries by the gallon from the frozen food locker in town.
About a month ago, I shared a recipe for buttery shortbread. In a cooking class I taught recently at my local natural foods co-op, we made the same shortbread, only rather than using 1/2 cup cake flour as my original recipe instructed, we used brown rice flour. It gave the shortbread a much creamier, more tender consistency. It was delicious. I thought it couldn't get any better.
Until today. I crushed some dried lavender buds, minced up some crystallized ginger and worked them into the rich dough. A sprinkling of Mrs. Kelly's Lavender Rose Sugar was the icing on the cake, or the cookie, I guess.
I first discovered dried lavender buds when a friend of mine from
Pennsylvania, who also teaches cooking classes, shared a recipe for an
appetizer of lavender infused honey over goat cheese. At that time, I
wasn't able to find the culinary-grade dried lavender locally.
Eventually, I bought a jar from Wayzata Bay Spice Co.
I had so much fun experimenting with the lavender. It's delicious mixed
with anything lemon.
Dinner at a great restaurant is like jazz music. The Duke Ellingtons,
Count Basies and Billie Holidays of the culinary world perform their
signature genius through improvisation.
Such is the case with Nancy Silverton of La Brea Bakery fame, Chef
Mario Batali, and winemaker/restaurateur Joseph Bastianich, who
together own Pizzeria Mozza, an up tempo hotspot in Los Angeles.
The trio really knows how to riff when it comes to putting a new stamp on old standards.
When you enter the door at the Beverly Hills Cheese Store - the
greatest cheese store in the U.S. of A. (419 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly
Hills, California 90210), the first friendly face and voice you see and
hear on your left will always be that of Cheese Wiz Sebastian Robin
Craig working behind the counter like a whirling dervish - unless he
is jetting off to the cheese caves of Roquefort, France for a tasting;
or Stockholm, Sweden to compose more jazz (go to iTunes for his latest
CD “Volition”); or just kicking back and learning Russian.
This Hepcat of Hoch Ibrig – Sebastian is one stop shopping and
possessor of knowledge about everything (food, life, arts). If you are
cheese dumb going in (“Uh, sir, could I see something in a tasteless,
rock-hard Brie, please?”), you are the freaking Count of Comté by the
time you leave (“Yes, Sebastian, I do believe that if they had properly
added some proprionic acid bacteria before the secondary fermentation
this cheese could have been a saved mais tant pis!”)
Repeat after me: Cindy Hensley McCain. Say it again: Cindy
Hensley McCain. I don’t know why but it sounds like Theresa Heinz
Kerry to me. 
Tis the season of Sample Sales, or so it seems when the mailers start
arriving announcing this 40% off (but it's in downtown LA) or that 80%
off, but not until two weeks from now when I’ve completely forgotten
about it and f*#k it anyway, where’s the instant grat? I subscribe to
Daily Candy and Top Button, the latter being exclusively an online
sample sale site. There is also a mother at my younger daughter’s
school whose clothing line I happen to love that has her sample sale
around this time too.
Around our house in those days, if you didn’t clean up your room you
went to bed without dessert. Not just a mess in your own room,
either. If you left a mess anywhere and refused to be responsible for
it—reasons ranging from recalcitrance to outright sloth—no matter!
There was NO EXCUSE FOR IT! You hit the sack with a hole in your
belly. Tough patooties. That was the law of the land.
Defining the dress code of the Gents, that was easy….BUT OH, THE DRESS
CODE for women…that was serious. Pant suits were just coming in big and
the Maitre’D would have none of it. It was here, at the Plaza Hotel,
with all the Management taking notes, that I rewrote their dress code
with sketches and fabric swatches, as I tried to educate those huffy
puffed-up doormen.
Recently I was at a library book sale and as usual I scanned for hidden
treasure among the cookbooks. Browsing cookbooks is nothing short of a
history lesson. Here's what I found, as men came back from fighting
overseas and Americans travelled abroad for pleasure, their hunger for
exotic recipes increased and so did the number of international
cookbooks.
It wouldn’t be Spring in Maine without eating at least a couple
“batches” of fiddleheads. This has been a record winter for snow and
the melt has been gentle and slow until a few days ago when it rained
for twenty-four solid hours! Since fiddleheads grow along the banks of
waterways they literally disappeared until the waters receded.
Interesting vegetable, huh? 
My mother's bedside table was laden with books about food. On any
given night it might be Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French
Cooking. Or Michael Field’s Cooking School. Or the massive two-volume
set of The Gourmet Cookbook.
As much as I've bemoaned The Secret and it's heretofore unbelievable existence, on Friday I asked, I believed, and let me tell you, did I ever receive!
Every mother needs a signature cookie. Even if it’s one you buy—like a fresh-from-the-bag Pepperidge Farm Milano. Or a local, corner-bakery, purchased elephant ear. Of course, it’s best, when the kids look back, if the signature cookie is one you baked. Why? Because of the effort. People like to see effort and kids seem to really respond to it. It lets them know you weren’t just phoning in the whole motherhood thing.
I had a completely fabulous mother. She was a pretty good cook, except
that she was always so busy with her politics, and with being
consigliere to her large family, and with talking to my dad while he
was on his second job shift,, that she almost never cooked dinner
without a phone lodged between her shoulder and her ear.
Gooseberries have nothing to do with geese. The berries are bigger than a pea, smaller than a marble and are pale green or ruby red, depending on the variety. Wear gloves when you pick them. The bushes are covered with thorns. I dare you to eat one raw without making a face. They are beyond tart.
About a month ago, I shared a recipe for buttery shortbread. In a cooking class I taught recently at my local natural foods co-op, we made the same shortbread, only rather than using 1/2 cup cake flour as my original recipe instructed, we used brown rice flour. It gave the shortbread a much creamier, more tender consistency. It was delicious. I thought it couldn't get any better.
Dinner at a great restaurant is like jazz music. The Duke Ellingtons,
Count Basies and Billie Holidays of the culinary world perform their
signature genius through improvisation.
When you enter the door at the Beverly Hills Cheese Store - the
greatest cheese store in the U.S. of A. (419 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly
Hills, California 90210), the first friendly face and voice you see and
hear on your left will always be that of Cheese Wiz Sebastian Robin
Craig working behind the counter like a whirling dervish - unless he
is jetting off to the cheese caves of Roquefort, France for a tasting;
or Stockholm, Sweden to compose more jazz (go to iTunes for his latest
CD “Volition”); or just kicking back and learning Russian.
