Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

Just the mention of my favorite cake and I’m ready for a piece. Not a huge fan of icing or frosting, my traditional birthday cake is always a pound cake, plain and simple. Sour cream, cream cheese, chocolate, fruit flavored and even rum pound cakes abound in the culinary world.

As a fan of most all of these very simple, very elegant, and VERY delicious cakes, the plain ol’ pound cake or whipping cream pound cake just might be my favorite... sour cream and cream cheese respectively in the top three. Mama made this one as is her custom for my birthday...or any other time I pester her enough so she’ll cave in a make me one! The basis is the same. A simple cream (sour, whipping, or cream cheese) that combines with flour, butter, and sugar to make the perfect consistency of cake – augmented by a note of pure vanilla.

Even a scraping of vanilla bean adds the slightest of flavor and visual delight to the cake and whipped cream dollop. Though, for my first birthday, I managed to actually sit in a bakery cake piled and piped with sugary icing and eat my way out of the Sesame Street cake; yet, I developed a love for the goodness that is simply pound cake. Flavor, yes, a major factor, but also for versatility is why this cake is so dear to my heart.

The change in temperature; going from cold to hot to cold again has wreaked havoc on my family and their health. Me included. Last week, there were two mornings that I dropped the kids off at school, came home, and got right back into bed. Slept for hours, with a puppy on my belly. Regardless of feeling totally crappy, there truly is nothing better than getting back under the covers (at 9:00 a.m.) with a cozy, little Lola close by.

Thank goodness for my freezer. Meal planning, prepping, and stocking the freezer pays off. In my opinion, it’s a wonderful feeling, opening the freezer door and seeing laborious hours spent in the kitchen, put to good use.

Before crawling back into bed, I went to my extra freezer and took out three quarts of chicken stock. I also grabbed 2 organic chicken breasts and set both on a rimmed baking sheet to thaw. After several hours of napping, I had just enough energy to roast the chicken, cut the veggies, and prep the matzoh balls.

For my family, matzo ball soup is one of our favorite comfort meals. It’s a one pot meal that covers all the food groups; protein, grains, vegetables, and fat. Plus, this meal leaves plenty of room for dessert.

This is one of those recipes that seems more complicated than it is. Make it once and you’ll never need to look at the recipe again. Eat what you make and you’ll become addicted, learning new ways to use the nutty, spicy, sweet, deeply satisfying condiment. It’s a no brainer on simple grilled, broiled or poached fish or chicken, but it’s on vegetables where the sauce really shines.

Suzanne famously serves it atop potatoes. I’ve featured it here on this blog as part of a Grand Aioli, a dish where dipping becomes an art form of customization. I love it dribbled on fried eggs, tucked in a tortilla with whatever as a “colonial” salsa. I would really like to know your favorite way to eat Romesco. A spoon anyone?

If you can’t find dried chiles pasillas then substitute the more commonly found New Mexico chiles. Pasillas have a more complex sort of winy flavor and a bit more heat than the brighter flavored New Mexico chile.

This is one of those recipes where the quality of the bread makes a tremendous difference. It’s a peasant dish and assumes a peasant loaf, so try to find a great natural local natural yeasted bread in your area. If all else fails, use La Brea Bakery. I used a couple slices off a small boule from Roan Mills.

Making gumbo is a ritual in my family. We make it when the New Orleans Saints play their first game of the season. We make it after Thanksgiving. We make it Super Bowl Sunday. We make it for just about any occasion that falls between Friday and Sunday, since it gets better every time we heat it up and we want those three days to enjoy it.

Gumbo is the reason for the big variety of hot sauces in my fridge. It's also one of the reasons I work out at least an hour every day. And it reminds me of when my family lived in Shreveport, Louisiana.

It's no accident that all of the food I'm passionate about leads back to family. It was Faith Ford, a born-and-raised Louisianan, though, who first introduced me to the food from the Creole State. She made an amazing gumbo, along with mind-blowing black-eyed peas that are a Southern tradition on New Year's Day. They're thought to bring good luck and wealth.

But it wasn't until my youngest brother, Pat, married his wife, Stacy, who is also from Louisiana, that we all became gumbo zealots. You get a good sense of the two of them as soon as you find out their recipe begins with a six-pack of beer---and those are for the cooks (they assume at least two cooks) to consume as they make the gumbo.