250 Potato Possibilities

All Hail Kale!

2012-01-29T09:45:00.000-08:00

Well, it's that time of year again, the time of the year when my weekly Newleaf produce box is full of kale. I love kale, but it does have a way of building up in the fridge. I have a few recipes I make a lot where the kale is cooked, like Gourmet's potato and kale gallette or the ever popular black-eyed pea, kale and chorizo soup. Sometimes, though, I like to use the kale raw.

Usually, I'm meticulous about keeping track of the source of my recipes, but this is a recipe I found at my sister-in-law's. I snapped this photo, certain that I would remember where it came from. But guess what? I don't. Anyway, I've made this recipe a couple of times and it's fantastic. A little browsing on the interwebs reveals this to be a traditional Italian salad. The real key to this salad it to shred the kale thinly. I love this salad. It's cheap, healthy and elegant.

A very Gourmet New Year's round-up, 2001 style!

2012-01-24T08:02:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure about you, but so far my resolutions are going pretty well. As part of this year's get better plan, I vowed to clean out that stack of papers that's been moving around my house for about a year now. First here, then there. You'll be glad to know it's gone now...well, mostly. One of the gems I found in this pile was this list of the 50 best restaurants of 2001. I don't remember cutting it out, but I did. And it's only taken me 11 years to figure out what to do with it. So I thought that before I toss this in the recycling, I'd share it here on the interwebs. It's a good list. Many of these restaurants would make it on the list today. My only regret? That I didn't make it to the Herb Farm when I lived in the Pacific Northwest. Oh well, at least I have Topolombopo and Blackbird.

Google eBookstore

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of Google’s eBookstore. If you move past the first page of bestsellers and serial fiction, you’ll find a ton of digitized magazines from the past. My friend Meg is doing a project based on Ebony magazine, but if you go back a hundred years earlier you’ll find a wealth of ladies’ journals from the 1800s. My favorite are Godey’s Lady’s Book, American Cookery: The Boston Cooking School Magazine (of Fannie Farmer fame), and my favorite, The Delineator.
    The Delineator is the magazine produced by the Butterick company from 1873 to 1937. If the name Butterick sounds familiar, it might be because they’ve been making sewing patterns since the mid-1800s. You can still buy them today. In fact, The Delineator’s main purpose was to introduce current fashions and then show you how you might reproduce the same at home with the aid of a hand dandy Butterick pattern. If you ask me, the clothes look so complicated I couldn’t imagine getting dressed by myself. Making those clothes seems impossible! The ongoing discussion of fasteners and safety pins is fascinating, and there is always a section on at-home millinery in case you want to make your own hats.
    The other thing that’s so interesting about The Delineator is that it is also the acorn from which spring the tree of the Culinary Arts Institute. Every issue of The Delineator contained recipes as well as general tips on cooking and housekeeping. The articles are fun as well.
    One of the great things about Google ebooks is that they are full scans of the magazines. This means you get all the amazing ads as well. It’s through this ephemera that I can see into the past. History books never meant much to me, but to be able to read what women of the time were reading, is fascinating. Today I saw a young women reading a crappy entertainment magazine about the Oscars and wondered if Google were to digitize that, what would readers a hundred years from now think.
    Although it’s great fun to read these magazines, don’t look for them to be easy academic research. The metadata is sucky, magazines are called by different titles depending on what source digitized them. Most of the ones I have run across are scanned in volumes, which on the surface seems easy, but really makes it hard to find things again, especially because the pagination of the journal does not match the pagination of the scan.

Scalloped Potatoes

2012-01-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

You know what's good? Potatoes are good. I mean, they are so yummy it's hard to even fathom it. I recently made Scalloped Potatoes from pretty much my favorite of the Culinary Arts Institute cookbooklets, 250 Ways of Serving Potatoes. You might remember a similar dish that my friend Stephanie made for The Culinary Arts Institute dinner party back in 2009. This is not the same recipe, but from the same chapter of the same book. I reread her suggestions before I started this one. But really, it's potatoes and butter. How bad can it be?

SCALLOPED POTATOES
6 medium potatoes
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons butter
milk

Pare potatoes and cut into thin slices. Place in a greased baking dish in 3 layers 1 inch deep, sprinkling each layer with salt, pepper and flour and dotting with butter. Add milk until it cane be seen between slices of potato, cover and bake in moderate oven (350 F) until potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Remove cover for the last 15 minutes to brown. Serve from baking dish. Serves 6.

I fancied-up the top so it would look Frenchified. But if there's one thing I have learned about CAI recipes is that the potatoes always cook longer than it says. I'm pretty sure this isn't the sort of thing where people in the past liked their potatoes toothier either. It's something else that I just can't put my finger on. Perhaps oven temp? Maybe I should have cooked it at 375. One thing I did account for was the use of the word "milk." Nowadays, we have all kinds of milk. I assumed they meant whole milk, which I didn't have, so instead I used half two percent and the remainder half and half, which is a common substitution. It ended up baking nearly two hours, but I'd planned for that. All in all, this was an easy recipe and the potatoes were crazy good. Even better the next day. We had it warmed up with a salad for lunch. I'd certainly make this again.

Gourmet All the Way!

2011-10-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

For about two years now, I've been collecting back issues of Gourmet. At first it was just an issue here and there. Then I bought five years off eBay from 1961 through 1965. These magazines served me well. My favorite thing this last two summers has been to go to Ravinia, sit on the lawn with a pick-nick, a glass of wine, and a forty year-old issue of Gourmet.

Well a few weeks ago I was looking at eBay and saw that a woman had put up for sale her whole collection of Gourmets. From 1965 all the way through the last issue. This just about killed me. I was intentionally NOT trying to make a complete set of Gourmet. I mean, our apartment is 697 square feet. Where am I supposed to store something like that? And what kind of right do I have to take up all of that space? Who needs all those magazines anyway? Turns out I do because I wrote the woman. She'd never sold anything on eBay before. Her mother-in-law had subscribed to the magazine and when she passed, this amazing woman kept renewing the subscription. I can see how that happened. It would take a lot to stop subscribing after all those years. Perhaps like a monthly remembrance of her mother-in-law.

The catch was, I had to pick the magazines up in Kentucky! I just couldn't figure out how to make that happen, so I didn't even bid on them. But no one else did either. When the magazines were reposted Serena convinced me to buy them. The woman who was selling them offered to meet us in a town called Marion on the Illinois side of the boarder. This saved us two hours each way.

I was really nervous to meet her. I was afraid she would think me a dilettante. Or perhaps resentful that I was carrying away her past. But when we all rendezvoused in the parking lot of some highway-side chain hotel, all of my fears were dispelled. Her name is Terri! And she's an artist and a metal worker and someone who, if I'd met at an opening, I would have immediately loved. The whole experience was odd and intimate. I felt as if I were carrying away her memories, which I guess I was.

After almost a week of rearranging, cleaning, and tossing out, finally the magazines are installed in the dining room. This was at Serena's insistence. She maintains that after the time and expense of procuring these things, it would be foolish to stash them in the basement, or even under the bed. Of course, she is right.

I've got some duplicate years. Now I'm the one posting on eBay.

The Lunch Box

2011-10-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Serena and I drove practically to Kentucky to pick up 54 years of Gourmet that I bought off Ebay. It’s a six hour drive to Marion, where we were to rendezvous with my Gourmet’s previous owner. But six hours is a long time in a car and although we had a good time, but doubt we’ll be vacationing there anytime soon.

Since I’d already shot my wad on the magazines, this road trip seemed like perfect opportunity to try out some new recipes instead of eating at a lot of expensive and unhealthful roadside restaurants. I turned to The Lunch Box Cookbook for some ideas. I settled on “Sardine de Luxe” filling for our sandwiches. But quel dommage! I was all out of sardines. Serena though that this was a good thing, and that perhaps sardines sandwiches weren’t quite the right choice for a day-long car ride.

Of course she was right, and I decided to make something that did not require a trip to the grocery. The Lunch Box has a great recipe for “Basic Egg Salad Filling” followed by many “variations.”

4 hard-cooked eggs, chopped fine

3 tablespoons chopped sweet pickle

3 tablespoons salad dressing

NOTE: they mean vinaigrette dressing

½ teaspoon prepared mustard

¼ teaspoon onion salt

Few grains pepper

This is an easy recipe and I had everything on hand—even onion salt. I chose the variation in which you add chopped pimento-stuffed green olives. It was really tasty and way less stinky than sardines.

Roasted Artichokes

2011-09-18T20:37:00.000-07:00

This week my Newleaf Grocery organic produce box contained two perfect little artichokes. I love artichokes so much, but the last time I made them I think I steamed them for maybe...I don't know, six hours, and they were still underdone. So staring at my new friends on the counter, I decided to try something new. After a little browsing on the interwebs, I came across this great recipe for roasted artichokes on the excellent food blog Pinch My Salt.

The recipe is simple enough: Cut the tops off your artichokes, stuff in a few cloves of garlic, drizzle with olive oil and lemon, then of course, salt and pepper. Wrap your little ones in foil and bake at 425 for an hour and fifteen minutes. This is one of the best and easiest recipes I've ever tried for artichokes. They are delicious and require zero attention, which would make them great and elegant for a dinner party, something where you don't want to be tied to the kitchen.

I'd never roasted artichokes before, and I have to say, they are amazing. The roasting intensifies the flavors. Most likely, any artichoke at my house will never again see a boiling pot of water.

Pin Feathers

2011-09-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

I used to hate chicken—all chickens, including actual pecky chickens, and I especially hated poultry, the eatin’ kind. My only experiences with chicken involved meat that was stringy, dry, and dusty. All of that changed when I moved to Rogers Park and started ordering the whole roasted take-out chicken from El Llano. Sadly, it burned to the ground and I was forced to learn to make chicken myself. Don’t worry, though, they have another location.

America’s Test Kitchen is great place to start for almost any new cooking skill. After many attempts, I mastered their roasted chicken recipe, and can knock a Purdue extra-meaty roasting chicken out of the ballpark. But I’ve got to tell you, a big, fat, giant chicken takes a long time to cook and it makes every meal feel like Thanksgiving. A whole roasted chicken is feels a little limiting.

Then about three months ago, I moved to the advanced stuff—Jacques and Julia Cook at Home. Jacques likes to splay his chicken. This has a couple of benefits. First, it cooks in about half the time. Second, it makes the chicken seem WAY less formal. It’s easy to dress up or down. The knife skills needed for this are just at the outer edge of my ability, so I always make sure to watch Jacques do it right before I attack the backbone. Usually, I watch it two or three times to work up the courage to chop the joint off it’s little drumstick. Practice is helping. A cleaver might help more. I think the next step is to try boning an entire chicken.

In The Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook, there’s a handy little boning how-to. Step 1 includes cutting the head off your chicken. My chickens only come beheaded. ALL of the recipes in the poultry section have you start by pulling and singeing pinfeathers. I get the feeling that chickens used to come barely dead. The pictures are great, but I’m not sure they’re that instructive. The last steps show you how to stuff and tie your now de-boned chicken. Makes me want to try it.

The New Art

2011-04-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Serena and I went to the Edgewater Antique Mall. I was poking around the ladies' things, like I always do, when I ran across some excellent used books. I found the 1953 Pillsbury Bake-Off cookbook highlighting the year's winners (more about that later). I even thought about trying to enter. I mean, the deadline is this Saturday. I sadly discovered that I do not meet the requirements. Too bad. The Pillsbury Bake-Off seems like the kind of thing you could etch on a tombstone.

This delightful handbook The New Art (1935) is produced by the General Electric Kitchen Institute of Nela Park, Cleveland, Ohio. In it the authors introduce us to the joys of General Electric kitchen appliances. The book opens with a photo of the pastoral Nela Park GE Kitchen Institute. The following pages show happy, carefree women. In one photo a woman sits in a car stopped on what looks like a tree-lined street, while a woman on the sidewalk leans into her friend's car. They look as if they have just bumped into each other. The car door is open. Perhaps they are going somewhere. The photo that follows shows a well-dressed woman sitting on sprawling lawn as her children play next to her. The next photo is a foursome of women playing cards. It is obvious these women have been set free from the drudgery of kitchen work and are now able to spend more time with their children. But what's more surprising is that they are also depicted as child-free, spending leisure time with each other. The first part of this little booklet goes to great lengths to avoid showing actual women using the appliances. The only women we see using these new time-saving tools are disembodied hands and female scientists. The housewives, well they just drive around the neighborhood and play cards all day.

There's delightful little tidbits throughout. For example in the chapter entitled "Food Preservation and the General Electric Refrigerator," we are told how this new device solves the three major problems of food storage: "1. A low, even temperature, always below 50 degrees. 2. An atmosphere not too moist nor too dry. 3. A good circulation of of pure, chilled air." I don't know about you, but I'm shocked that 50 degrees counts as "chilled." Um, I think my bedroom closet runs somewhere around 50.

One thing that all the appliances had in common is that they all have space beneath them. As Serena pointed out, that would go a long way to making a small kitchen feel spacious. I kind of wish we still had these today. I'd like them to work a little better, though.

The little booklet ends with these words: "The New Art of Living Electrically has not only banished drudgery and monotonous routine from America's homes, but is has brought new hours of freedom to the busy homemaker, new joy to her work, new savings to her budget, and new health and happiness to her family." Turns out they were right.

Barefoot with Ina

2011-03-06T07:40:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned that I’m in love with Ina Garten? I mean really, really in love. I used to just read her cookbooks (Barefoot in Paris is my favorite), but then her show Back to Basics appeared on Hulu and that’s when I was really smitten. Her freckle-kissed nose. Her joie de vivre. The portrayal of life in The Hamptons that boarders on pornographic. It’s my favorite way to end the day.

Recently there was an episode where she made a dessert of roasted berries, finished with walnuts, served atop Greek yogurt. While I was watching the show, I didn’t really think much about it. But the next weekend, we were invited to our friends’ house for dinner, so Serena and I decided to try Ina’s dish. It was a big hit.

The thing is, I don’t live in The Hamptons, and for most of the year good berries are hard to come by. So, I bastardized Ina’s fresh fruit recipe and came up with something similar that I have been serving for breakfast all through the worst part of winter.

In a heavy skillet add about a quarter cup of water, just enough to wet the bottom of the pan. Add a diced apple and diced pear (or whatever it is you want to get rid of) and let these cook a few minutes on medium, just to soften them up a little. To this mixture I add about a half-teaspoon of cinnamon and a generous pinch of cardamom. Then I add a bag of frozen organic mixed berries. And if they are reasonably priced, fresh berries too. Right now organic blueberries are around for about 2.50 so they have been well-featured. I add a big pinch of kosher salt and the let whole thing bubble around together, until the many have become one, but not so long that the berries break down. When it is all over, stir in chopped walnuts. Serve on Greek yogurt.

This has been such a pleasant addition to our morning. Bright and sunny. It’s easy to make, too and has the ability to give new life to tired apples and pears.

Chou-fleur au beurre noir

2011-02-28T08:27:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a dish sneaks up on you with its goodness. You make it, set it on the table, and then are dumbfounded by the result. This is exactly what happened to me last week as I was unthinkingly trying to get rid of some surplus cauliflower from my organic produce box. As you may know, I love cauliflower—actually all of the cruciferous vegetables: broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, rapini, all of them.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a copy of LaRousse Gastronomique. The consensus of the interewebs said to get the pre-revision version, so I bought the 1961 edition. It’s not really a cookbook, but more of an encyclopedia of food. Each entry describes the food/dish/technique in detail and then gives practical examples. I was reading through the “C” section and stumbled upon “cauliflower” or chou-fleur as the French say. I read through all of suggestions for preparation and they sounded all right, but mostly involved boiling in well-salted water, serving either hot or cold and covering with something like cheese or butter or herbs.

Later that day, I’m staring mindlessly into the fridge trying to come up with something for dinner and I thought, What the hell. I’ll just boil that cauliflower up. So I followed the directions and boiled the head whole and topped it with browned butter. Then I sliced the cooked cauliflower like a loaf of bread, plated it, and on went the browned butter (good, European-style). I served it as an entrée with a mesclun salad. It was amazing. Rich, savory, and very satisfying. This is exactly what people mean when they say “more than the sum of its parts.” Cauliflower with browned butter will most certainly make it into regular rotation at my house. I realize it doesn’t sound like much, but you really will just have to take my word for it.

A San Francisco Treat!

2011-02-11T08:07:00.000-08:00

I spent this Christmas with my girlfriend and her "Blue State" family. A bunch of us got together and stayed with Serena's sister Cydney and her husband Kevin in San Francisco. OMG! It was so fun. I'll tell you, the last time I was in San Francisco was about twenty years ago--back when everyone was still vegetarian. You've come a long way baby! Just about all we did was eat. We cooked. We went to Chinatown. We went for coffee. To Boulette's Larder. But maybe the most fun was the day we went to the Ferry Building and ate at Boccalone, a salumi shop that sells sandwiches as well. (Here I am with my brother-in-law, "porking out.") I love their motto: Tasty, Salted Pig Parts. For lunch, I chose to have the "meat cone." A delightful cone filled with slices of many of their porky offerings. The prosciutto was great. It was like heaven! A cone of meat for lunch. What more could a girl want?

I realize that maybe next to Brooklyn, San Francisco is probably the most foodie place in the country. I've read that. I didn't disbelieve that, but after four days there I just couldn't get over the quality of the food and drink that was seemingly everywhere. Cydney served fresh oysters. They were so good, I cried. I hadn't eaten seafood so fresh since I left Seattle. Here in Chicago, I have to search high and low for quality produce. Despite shopping at high-end groceries and having a weekly organic produce box delivered, I still often feel as if the food quality comes up short. It's really frustrating. Of course San Francisco has the luxury of being in a temperate climate. It practically has a year-round growing season. Yesterday in Chicago it was -2 BEFORE the windchill. I guess you do what you can with what you've got.

Delmonico's

2011-01-15T10:40:00.000-08:00

Serena sent me this great article from The Village Voice. It's called "Our Ten Best NYC Restaurants of the Last Two Centuries." One of the restaurants listed is Delmonico's, reportedly the oldest continuously operated restaurant in New York. I was supposed to have dinner there last Thursday. If it wasn't for the winter storm that grounded the outgoing planes from O'Hare, I'd be writing you right now about the fabulous time I'd had eating Steak Delmonico's and Lobster Newburg.

The lure of the oldest restaurant in New York is pretty seductive to a gal like me. Delmonico's first seriously hit my radar last year when I read an article in Gourmet (February 1962)

called "Lunching with Father" by Carol Truax. In this, Ms Truax tells of her Saturday luncheons at Delmonico's with her father, the Honorable Judge Truax of the Supreme Court of New York--a fat cat in every possible way. In this remembrance, she's a little girl, "beruffled and beribboned." She doesn't give a specific date but her father died in 1910, just weeks after his retirement from the bench. (A search of Google Books brought me to a lovely tribute in Medico-Legal Journal, March 1910. See picture.) For sure, this bit of fluff is a tad on the pretentious side, but nonetheless it's very interesting, even if it is the memory, at least fifty years later, of an eight year old girl. Her father has the porterhouse steak and little Carol has squab. Judge Truax orders a bottle of Chateuax Margaux '87 for them both. As is so true with the old Gourmets, this is basically just food and wine porn.

In "Lunching with Father," Truax calls it Oscar's Delmonico's. At the end they visit the Waldorf-Astoria where Oscar is their waiter. The Village Voice article discusses Oscar and his big move from Delmonico's to the Waldorf-Astoria. I can't help but imagine that Gourmet readers of the early sixties would have known the reputation of Oscar.

The Bowery Boys have a great episode all about Delmonico's.

New Essay!

2010-10-06T04:34:00.000-07:00

Got aspic on the brain? Then you will want to read my new essay just posted over at Connotation Press. It's called Take Two Calf's Hooves.

Pictured is the photo that inspired the whole piece. Of course it is from The Culinary Arts Institute. A little cookbooklet called Dishes Mother Used to Make. In fact I think I wrote about it in my second post. It's a real delight.

Peanut-Butter Nut Bread

2010-09-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

There are a million reasons I shouldn't eat bread. Okay, maybe twenty-five and one or two others, but sometimes I just get a taste for coffee cake. I really love waking up on a Saturday morning, making a pot of coffee or two and sitting down to a hot, sweet piece of coffee cake soaked in butter. In a pinch muffins will do, but coffee cake is a real treat. This weekend I made "Peanut-Butter Nut Bread" from 250 Breads, Biscuits and Rolls (1953). While it doesn't explicitly say coffee cake, it only takes a quick peek at this recipe to divine the intention: sugary, nutty bread.

"Peanut-Butter Nut Bread" has two cups of flour and one cup of brown sugar, making for a sweet, molasses-colored bread. But the real charm is the topping. Made from brown sugar, butter, and nuts spread in the bottom of the pan, these simple ingredients turn to a carameley, gooey, topping when the pan is inverted. Yum! The batter was so wet, I was sure the thing would never set, but sure enough 60 minutes later, coffee cake as tasty and homestyle as any hipster bruncheon place.

The caption reads: "Youngsters sing with all their might. Hooray! It's peanut-butter bread tonite." You bet they'd sing. A cup of sugar is enough to make any child sing!

Barbetta

2010-09-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

So, here's the thing...It's like Matt Weiner is in my head, or next to me in bed reading over my shoulder. Monday night I was watching the new episode of Mad Men where Don and that girl, and Betty and Henry were all coincidentally out to dinner at the same restaurant. And what was that restaurant, you might ask. Well, it was Barbetta. I know this because that's what the menu said. But the clever Mr Weiner put that there for a reason. He leaves little presents around his show for those who are interested. I can't imagine how interesting the show would be if I knew more about advertising than what I learned from The Deceivers.

Every now and again Gourmet reviews an old or established restaurant--and that's from the early '60s. Of course I Google them, and some of these restaurants are still around. Sadly, some I've just missed by a year or two. When a restaurant is 128 years old, missing it by a half a decade or so doesn't seem so long. When Barbetta was reviewed in the February 1963 issue, it was celebrating it's 55th birthday and a name change--it had been called Barebetta's. The article focuses on its remodel and the new management by Laura Maioglio who took over for her father. Although the review is excellent, it reveals its early sixties viewpoint: "She has created something, and it is hardly to be doubted that she has the qualities--rarely seen in a woman--which could make her name a byword in the New York restaurant world..." Well, Ms Maioglio still runs Barebetta and it looks to have a delightful outdoor dining area. Lamar Hoover is a dick and new to the job having replaced the queeny old reviewer, Alvin Kerr. Although this new reviewer is also queeny, he is not charming as Mr Kerr was, this guy's just a jerk.

Anyway, it seems to me that Weiner must be reading these old Gourmets because I keep bumping into articles I've read. Certainly Don and Betty are keeping up with the happenings in the New York restaurant scene. I mean that scene could only plausibly happen because at that moment, after 55 years, Barebetta was HOT HOT HOT. I plan on visiting sometime this winter. Maybe I'll see Matt Weiner there, or even better, Betty Francis.

Ladies Invited

2010-08-26T06:05:00.000-07:00

I was reading through a November, 1955 Gourmet and ran across this ad for Gourmet's Guest Club. This is actually an ad for a credit card offered to Gourmet subscribers. This was way back in the Diner's Club days. But what I find most interesting about this ad is that it is directed toward the "lady executive" who might feel uncomfortable, or more likely, her male luncheon guest might feel uncomfortable, with the woman paying. As it says in the ad, "No money on the table, no battling over the check."

This is particularly interesting because as I read through all these old restaurant ads it becomes clear that many restaurants restricted the hours in which women could dine. For example, The St. Regis on Fifth Avenue has an ad that reads, "ladies are invited after 4 o'clock." This says to me that ladies are definitely NOT invited before 4. So what do you think is going on there during lunchtime? Pissing contests? Dancing girls? No, I think what's going on there is business and drinks. Okay, and maybe cussing, but the point is that the whole idea is exclusionary and presented a real hurdle to business women.

When I first moved to Chicago I worked at the Chicago Sports Bar and Grill, a real shithole in the financial district of the Loop. I think they hired me because I was white. The place was right out of an old movie, electricians and contractors came in for lunch and drank until we closed at 8. Cops ate free and there was this one cop who, in uniform, would do this joke which involved him HANDING ME HIS GUN! and then dropping his pants. Once in a while this group of men in suits came in before we opened, like at 9:30 or something. I wasn't allowed to speak to them unless they spoke to me first. They gave me a 20 every time I brought them a round. As you can imagine, very lucrative. Anyway, there was this geezer who came in all the time and drank his lunch and told me about the good ole' days when the Berghoff (contentiously Chicago's oldest restaurant) had a men's only bar and women had to have their cocktails at a booth. That is, of course, until "those feminists ruined it."

So I was really impressed by this ad that came out almost 50 years before my tenure at The Chicago Sports Bar and Grill and how forward thinking they were, how sensitive to the difficulties of the needs of female executives. And it was an untapped market, of course. American Express bought them out, which I still think of as the credit card of the businessman.

Cooking with--Soda Pop!

2010-08-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

I don't usually re-blog, but over at Mostly Forbidden Zone (Thanks Nick!) they posted a link to a blog called and everything else too. Folks who read 250 Potato Possibilities will be interested in the collection of cookbooklets that feature cooking with soda pop. You might remember that we briefly visited this idea with guest blogger Stephanie (Pulled Pork, March 2009) who wrote of the "Secret Southern Ingredient," Coke, which now after reading this blog seems a little middle-of-the-road. (No offense, Steph.)

Pictured here from Cookin' With Dr Pepper is a pot roast made with Dr Pepper. Although according to their website, no prunes are harmed in the production of Dr Pepper, it's that pruney base flavor that has given Dr Pepper the reputation for being prune-derived. Or maybe it's that vaguely medicinal "Doctor" in the title. For last winter's Culinary Arts Institute Dinner, I made pot roast with prunes and it was super yummy, and come to find out from America's Test Kitchen, also based on a traditional German Jewish dish. So I guess this means pot roast with Dr Pepper is a natural, right?

You Know It's Summer...

2010-08-19T04:43:00.000-07:00

My friends Patty and Sarah had a fabulous party last Sunday. The sun was out, there were lots of friends, writers, wine. I was expecting a good time so I made what has come to be my signature summer party dish, Pigs in Blankets. The first time I made these had to be more than ten years ago. I thought it would be fun so I bought tons of hot dogs and spent the day rolling and baking. When I got to the party someone made a crack about my dish, something about it's nutritional quality. But I'll tell you, by the end of the day, there wasn't a single Pig in Blanket left.

For those of you who haven't made these before, they are just hot dogs wrapped in "crescent roll" dough. Following the rule that smaller things are always cuter and taste better is what makes these party dogs so popular. Cut the hot dogs in half and also halve the crescent roll triangles. This yields two-bite size piggies and they are ever so cute. I always make a meat dog and a veggie dog. Serve with a big dish of yellow mustard.

Secret Recipe (Shhhh)

2010-08-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

Last time I was in Everett, my mom and I took a trip to the supermarket. We were getting pantry items and something for dinner. My mom offered to make her fabulous crock-pot pot roast and I can't tell you how excited I was. I love pot roast.

Anyway, my mom told me the story of her awesome dish came to be. Seems she used to work with this fellow who made an amazing pot roast. He'd bring it to all the office luncheons. His co-workers loved it so much, they begged for the recipe, but he would never give it to them. Turns out it was an old family secret. On his last day, my mom got him to give it up. And finally I got my mom to give up his recipe, but only after I swore that I wouldn't tell and especially not post it on my blog.

So we get to the store to get our "secret ingredient" and what do we see when we pull the box of Lipton onion soup mix from the shelf? Right there on the front of the box: "Great for Slow Cookers" with a recipe for pot roast on the back. So here's the recipe, sprinkle onion soup over the pot roast. Way to keep a family "secret."

Salad Nicoise

2010-07-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

This week I had some stray green beans left from my produce box and I wasn't sure what to do with them. Coincidentally, we also had some leftover boiled small red potatoes. You what I was thinking? I was thinking Salad Nicoise! Composed salads are great fun and also an excellent way to use up extra veggies. Plus composed salads look awesome and you can serve them to guests without it appearing you are serving leftovers. (Heads up to future guests. If you see a composed salad, you are seeing last night's dinner.)

When I make a composed salad, I always just use my everyday vinaigrette, which I usually have on hand. But I wanted tonight's dinner to be special, so conjured all my inner Frenchness and made a nice vinaigrette with lemon, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, shallot, and then I added the oil slowly while whisking to emulsify. It was great. It might even become my everyday dressing.

I took at peek at Mastering the Art of French Cooking for salad pointers and mine was pretty spot-on with Julia's but hers had anchovies, so I added them to mine and I have to say, they made all the difference. I wish every meal of leftovers could be so luxurious. Another of her pointers that I've taken to heart is always use tuna packed in oil. She's right about that one. Tuna packed in water tastes like dust.

Plum Sorbet

2010-07-27T13:19:00.001-07:00

I don't know quite when it happened, but I have become extremely frugal around food. My fridge is filled with beautiful organic produce and dairy, high quality meat, homemade condiments and pickles, so it isn't exactly that I'm cheap. I just cannot bare to throw ANY food away. In fact, I never do. Tonight's leftovers are tomorrow's lunch. I save my chicken carcasses and vegetable scraps and make stock. Seriously, we don't throw anything away. But every now and again I am faced with a surplus of something. For example, last week in my produce box I got kale. Well it was like 95 degrees last week and the last thing I wanted was a hearty winter green. So I made kale pesto and froze it. Now some night when I'm tired and haven't planned anything for dinner, I can boil up some pasta and pull out the pesto and Viola! a lovely dinner.

The same thing with some plums. Serena was going to make plum pie (yummy!) but then we got busy and it didn't happen. Honestly, I'd forgotten all about the plums until I was digging through the fridge looking for a snack and there they were, only days from expiration. I had no idea what to do with them, that was until I picked up the next issue of Gourmet, August 1962. And what is on the cover? You guessed it, plum sorbet.

We've got a workhorse of an old Kitchen Aid that my friend Daniel gave us as a housewarming present. In fact it looks exactly like the Kitchen Aid advertisement in that same issue of Gourmet. A couple of years ago for Christmas I asked my mom for the ice cream attachment and now we make our own ice cream. It's really good and easy. As for the sorbet, I followed the recipe pretty closely. (Click on the picture to make the recipe bigger.) I only made a couple of changes. First, I used pasteurized egg whites because I was sure I'd be feeding this to guests. Secondly, following the advice of America's Test Kitchen, I added a bit of booze to the fruit so it wouldn't freeze solid. Good thing I have like a pint of that Luxardo left over.

The sorbet tasted great and my friends ate it up. I will certainly make this again, and will use it as a template for other sorbets. Good stuff.

Gourmet: The Magazine of Good Living

2010-07-16T07:16:00.001-07:00

I have fallen down the freakin' rabbit hole. This food and nostalgia research project has been great fun and is yielding rocking essays, but once in a while I feel as if I am losing my grip on reality. A couple of months ago my friend Martha gave me a 1961 issue of Gourmet Magazine that someone had left at her restaurant (that I've mentioned before, where I used to work called The Sisters). Anyway, I was completely enthralled. Despite its stinky mustiness, I read every single page. Cover to cover. Including the ads. Immediately I got on eBay and bought a full five years: 1961-1965 including index.

Honest to god, I swore I wasn't going to blog about this. It was too easy. Too nostalgic. The magazine is rife with juicy tidbits. There could be a whole blog just about this.

I have now read all of '61 and of '62. The thing is, when you immerse yourself in the media and culture of a specific era some of it rubs off. We've heard this argument a million times about pornography and violence. Well, I hate to stand here in the camp of Andrea Dworkin, but after what must be two years of reading Culinary Arts Institute cookbooks, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961), and now two years worth of Gourmet, I find myself inured to the likes of aspic (see picture).

Other things are happening too. I decant my half and half into a glass container. Organ meats, which I loved as a child, are now regaining their appeal. We use only cloth napkins. And as I've mentioned aspic has started to look appealing. Perhaps it is too much Dick Van Dyke Show.

Oh, and did I mention that I bought all of 1948 in a single bound volume. Do I see an intervention?

Maraschino Cherries

2010-06-24T14:03:00.000-07:00

If everyone else jumped off a bridge, I probably would too. Over the last few months I've run across a couple of articles on homemade Maraschino Cherries--one in The New York Times and one on NPR. What's weird is that I hate Maraschino Cherries, but for some reason these have been calling to me.

The recipes are really simple: take some berries and dump some booze on them. I used the recipe where I heated the booze up. And I sterilized the jars, as you would for canning. Including prep time, the whole project took about a half hour and yielded about 5 pint jars. Although easy, it was expensive for all those cherries and that big bottle of Luxardo. I'd never really had a call for cherry liqueur before this, but I still have half a bottle of this stuff left over, so if you have some suggestions, let me know. Perhaps I'll use it to make ice cream.

The end result is beautiful and homemade, but the thing is I'M SCARED TO EAT THEM. They've been in my fridge three weeks now. The should be ready. Foods that "cook" or are preserved without heat freak me out. I feel this way about ceviche and cold smoked pork as well. I should just eat one. How much harm could it do?

Harry: Dog with Big Eyes

2010-06-24T06:15:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl my grandparents gave me a set of prints for my bedroom. They were really popular at the time, by Keane or Gig or Bucky or one of those other painters who painted dogs, cats, children and other household pets with pitiful big eyes. The kind of thing you might see in old Brady Bunch or Family Affair episodes. There were two: A cat in an alley with a trashcan and a fish skeleton. It was skinny and starving. A dog tied to a chain link fence that was also skinny and starving. At night when I was trying to fall asleep I would lay in bed and look at them and cry. If I awoke in the middle of the night, I would try to keep my eyes closed so I wouldn't have to see them. One night my mom came in and I was crying. She looked at the pictures, took them down, and I never saw them again. Sadly, I couldn't find images of my original pictures, so I stole these off the interweb. They'll give you an idea.

Here I am an adult with my first rescue dog. He was seriously abused and it's hard work to rehabilitate him. Serena and I take pleasure whenever he does something a regular house dog would do, even if it's bad--like steal a piece of popcorn off the floor or squirrel away a pair of underwear. I can't help but wonder if I didn't grow up and love animals just to rectify the wrong I saw in those paintings. Also I have to ask, What were people thinking in the 70s?

Cake is Frightening

2010-06-21T13:20:00.001-07:00

My friend Nicholas found this photo while he was on vacation and immediately thought of me. He is right, this is one of the scariest cakes ever made. But the real curiosity is the rubber stamp on the back.

--Photograph--
by
Fort Lewis Sentinel
Fort Lewis, Wash.
This Photograph Must Not Be Photographed Without
Permission. If Permission is Granted, Credit Line Must
Be Given As Follows.

Photographed By FORT LEWIS SENTINEL
Additional Photos May Be Obtained & Mailed C.O.D. By
Referring to Neg. No. 7496 3

I wonder if I sent away, if they would send me a copy. I can't imagine what this photo was for.

The Chinese Cook Book

2010-06-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

A while back my dear friend Stephanie gave me a cookbooklet that belonged to her aunt Gingie, The Chinese Cook Book (1936). When she handed it to me, I was surprised to find that I didn't recognize it. It clearly says "culinary arts tested" on the front and on the back it says "Culinary Arts Press, America's Largest Cook Book Publisher," located in Reading, PA. Frank Daniels on his cookbook website says that this is a precursor to The Culinary Arts Institute books I know and love.

There are lots of interesting recipes. It took me forever to figure out what "Chinese Sauce" was, but then I read the introduction and it says that is soya sauce. Duh. It's an old cookbook so all of the recipes are written in paragraph-long narratives. One that struck me was CHINESE PINEAPPLE SALAD: Boil one pound bean sprouts in pineapple juice. Cover with mayonnaise dressing, flavored with Chinese sauce. Sprinkle with chopped nut meats and garnish with sliced kumquats or crushed pineapple. (Doesn't sound too authentic to me.)

This evening I made radish salad. It looked pretty tasty.

RADISH SALAD: Wash and trim with care one dozen fresh radishes: do not peel, but cut in half. Lay the halves face downward on a clean table or board and lightly crush each piece with the flat side of a knife or some other heavy instrument. Make a sauce of one-half teaspoon of vinegar, one-half teaspoon of sugar, one-half teaspoon of soya sauce, and one-half teaspoon of olive oil. Place the halves face downward in the sauce, and let them remain thus 15 minutes before serving.

Although this sounded easy, I found myself stuck at a particular part of the recipe. After I'd cut all the radishes, I pressed down on one with the side of the blade to crush the radish. It didn't crush. I got a bigger knife. It didn't crush. I pounded it with the butt end of a good sized chopping knife. It didn't crush. I chose not to crush the radishes. They tasted pretty good. Nothing spectacular. Usually I serve my radishes on a bed of coarse salt. And if you didn't notice by my profile picture, I prefer them to look like rodents.

Mr Blanding's Dream House(s)

2010-06-01T05:34:00.000-07:00

Last week I was in Everett visiting my mom. We had a great time, and one of the high points was a visit from my friend Margaret. I'd met her when I was just a schoolgirl and as our city library's historian, she helped me research a paper I was writing on prohibition and the history of Everett's speakeasies. She showed me a tavern where back in the day the proprietors kept a caged bear in its interior courtyard so the liquored-up longshoremen could wrastle and gamble away their leisure hours. Later, I worked at that same library. Needless to say, I credit Margaret for my love of history and perhaps even its intersection with popular culture, though I'm not sure bear wrestling counts as popular culture.

I was telling her about the essays I've been writing about nostalgia, the domestic, and popular culture that isn't so popular anymore. And guess what? She'd just finished writing an article for HistoryLink.org about the real world houses that were built to support the release of the film Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). The same film was remade in 1982 and titled The Money Pit, which starred Shelly Long and Tom Hanks. Now in case you missed this classic, it stars Cary Grant and the always charming Myrna Loy. Every time I indulge the fantasy of building my own place or undertaking some kind of gut rehab, I just watch this movie and the whole fantasy disappears. I love this movie and I still feel sorry for Mr and Mrs Blandings and all the money their house costs even though I know that 62 years later that rolling spread in Connecticut near the commuter rail line is probably worth more than I will make in the remainder of my lifetime.

Despite my best efforts, I can't convince Serena to buy one of these "Blandings Homes." I've told her that it would be a great investment and that we would be living in the midst of history, but no luck. I did, however, notice that on the interwebs there are copies of the Blanding floorplan. So maybe if I won the lottery we could build our own from the ground up. But then, they made a movie about building this exact same house, now didn't they?

Please, do, read her essay.

Peapod

2010-05-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

I know I talk a lot about the book Manly Meals and Mom's Home Cooking but the thing is that this book really got me to look afresh at domestic actions I had taken for granted. Now I'm not a complete fool, I've always understood that a recipe on the back of say a can of Campbell's cream of chicken soup was only there to get me hooked on cream of chicken soup. In fact, I used to eschew any recipe that called for specific brand at all. Manly Meals discusses this idea of brand name sponsored recipes quite a bit. But somehow, instead of making those sorts of recipes even less appealing, I've found myself gravitating toward this sort of recipe. It makes me feel part of something larger. As if many homemakers before me have opened a cookbooklet from, let's say, Worcestershire Sauce and made one of the dishes.

Lately as part of my resolve to put off buying a car for another year or two, I've started having my groceries delivered by Peapod. It seemed really exspensive at first, but I've been keeping track. It actually costs me less. I think this is because I order every two weeks on the nose. I make a menu plan for that two weeks and I never impulse buy. It's working, at least for now.

A while back with one of my orders, they delivered a little brochure of recipes featuring Peapod's store brand, Our Family. I made a commitment to try at least one of them. This tuna dish has become a staple for lunches. I don't make it with avocado--mostly because I don't usually have any on hand, but also because this dish is comprised mostly of canned ingredients and that seems a waste of good avocado. It's an excellent pantry meal if you omit the fresh basil. You can make this the night before and chill it up. I add a little extra vinegar and package the tuna in a leak proof container and the salad in separate containers. That way I can just dump the tuna salad on the greens and it makes a lovely lunch that feels fresher than it is.

Pop Tarts + Ice Cream = Fun!

2010-05-17T15:07:00.000-07:00

The end of the semester signals library research day for all of my classes. I stay in a glowing fixed spot and they orbit around the many floors of the library diligently researching their topics. Or maybe they're at the Starbucks next door or perhaps smoking out front of the building. Who knows? But anyway, I'm there for three hours for each of my three classes. At some point there is always down time. This semester I turned my attention to the magazine American Home. Columbia College has only about ten years of them. I went through that ten years with a fine tooth comb. Later, when I went to look it up on the interwebs, I found that I'd done this research before. The confusion came because I'd been reading the old issues from the '20s. Columbia has only '65 to when they went under in '77, give or take.

Wow, that was a lot of back story. Anyway, there's no big scanner at the library so I just took a picture with my phone for my friend Andrew. I thought it was CRAZY to sandwich ice cream between Pop Tarts. In fact, I laughed out loud at this ad and thought Andrew and I would have a good chuckle together. Well guess what? I was watching Hulu and saw a Pop Tart ad that totally resurrects this idea. Can you believe that Pop Tarts is still selling this idea? It seems painfully old fashioned. But then again, who am I to say? I wouldn't eat a Pop Tart even without ice cream.

Good Housekeeping's Appetizer Book

2010-05-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

My old friend Krista was in town last week for a conference. It'd probably been fifteen years since we'd seen each other. I know her from Seattle, back in the day. We saw the Dead Kennedys together. She was with me when I broke my foot at a TSOL, Fartz, and Fastback show. We saw Iggy Pop for our 15th birthdays. Lock down. Cops came. Mom saw me on the news. It was all very punk rock. Anyway, she sent me a couple of cookbooklets she had kicking around. We are both strikingly less punk rock now.

Good Housekeeping's Appetizer Book is the non-Culinary Arts Institute cookbooklet she sent along. First off, the cover is great. I have never considered using a pillar candle as a holder for kabobs. Genius! Sadly, some of the recipes are pretty gross. Lots of bologna. Katsup and peanut butter. But there are also some smart suggestions for relish trays. When I started this project I thought relish trays were stupid, but I've come around. Still, there is a limit to how much time a modern gal can spend transforming vegetables into other objects.

It has become obvious that I don't post during the semester, only on school break. I'll work on that. But for now I'm off for the summer and have a backlog of awesome recipes and cookbooklets. It'll take me three months even to catch up.

(p.s. The recipe on the right refers to "French Dressing." It took me forever to figure out that at one time French Dressing meant vinegrette. I have no idea how the corn syrup and katsup mess that is now called French Dressing came to that moniker, especially since no French person would ever eat such slop. Just think vinegrette when you read that term.)

Soup and Bread

2010-02-26T07:39:00.000-08:00

This past Wednesday I was flattered to be one of eight soupmakers in this week's Soup and Bread. In case you're not familiar, this is a weekly wintertime fundraiser hosted by The Hideout. Its founder is the super fabulous Martha Bayne, who writes amazing articles about food, and Chicago, and food in Chicago, and Chicagoans and their access to food, local food, slow food (and I don't mean your server's been smoking weed). Soup and Bread has been very successful raising money, but also in raising awareness for local charities that fight hunger. The proceeds from my Wednesday night benefited First Slice.

For my turn at the ladle I made Black-Eyed Pea, Kale, and Chorizo soup. Usually I make this from scratch, with dried beans and homemade chicken stock. But since I was feeding a crowd, I had to make two gallons of it. I don't have two gallons of homemade chicken stock on hand, so I had to go with canned. The nice thing about this recipe is that it is readily adaptable to convenience foods. Off and on for ten years, I worked at The Sister's Restaurant in Everett, Washington. They taught me to cook, and specifically to make soup. We served this soup there and it was always really popular. Of course, at The Sisters the soup stock was homemade, but Hey, we do what we can, right? What follows is my version of The Sisters' soup.

Black-Eyed Pea, Kale, and Chorizo Soup

2 49oz cans of chicken stock

5 15 oz cans of black-eyed peas (well-rinsed)

one large onion

1.5 to 2 pounds chorizo

2 large bunches of curly kale

olive oil

Bring chicken stock to boil, add black-eyed peas in large pot. Reduce heat. In a skillet, sauté onion in olive oil. Add to pot. In the onion skillet, cook the chorizo though, but not until dry. (When using chorizo in natural casing, you may press it out a little at a time into balls. It’s not so important that they be round, but you’re aiming for little bites of chorizo in your soup and not have it turn out crumbly like ground beef.) Brown chorizo in batches. Do not crowd pan. Drain on paper towel. Add to pot. Simmer on low for two hours stirring occasionally. A half-hour before you intend to serve your soup, skim any accumulated chorizo fat from the top. Chop kale into pieces and add to pot. Serve when kale is cooked, yet still bright green.

Christmas Cake (4 of 4)

2010-01-22T06:44:00.000-08:00

The final cake we made was The Heirloom Noel Cake. This cake was REALLY fucking difficult. We stacked the cakes atop one another and by the time we started frosting it became apparent that the cake listed distinctly to one side (my fault). But somehow this didn't really matter because this cake was crazy looking. It was like a Dr. Suess cake. It took as long to assemble The Heirloom Cake as it did the other two combined. This cake was weird, but it is also the only cake I'd make again. It looked completely fake. It was nutty and really when you get down to it, it's just chocolate cake with vanilla frosting.

HEIRLOOM NOEL CAKE:
Cake:
1 (18.25-ounce) box spice cake mix
2 (19.5-ounce) boxes chocolate cake mix OR Store-bought un-iced cakes: 2 (10-inch) chocolate cakes, 2 (8-inch) spices cakes, 2 (6-inch) chocolate cakes, and 1 jumbo chocolate cupcake (top cut off)

Icing:
4 (16-ounce) containers creamy white frosting
1 (1-fluid ounce) bottle green food color

Decorations:
1 cup white chocolate chips
4 drops green food coloring
1 sugar cone
1 (6.4-ounce) can white decorating icing (recommended: Betty Crocker-Easy Flow)
1 package red licorice whips, 6 cut into 6-inch lengths, 6 cut into 8-inch lengths, and 6 cut into 10-inch lengths
1 (6.4-ounce) can yellow decorating icing (recommended: Betty Crocker-Easy Flow)
1 (6.4-ounce) can red decorating icing (recommended: Betty Crocker-Easy Flow)
16 birthday candles

Cake:
Mix and bake 2 (8-inch) cake layers according to spice cake package directions. Cool completely.

Mix the 2 boxes of chocolate cake together according to package instructions. Bake 2 (6-inch) and 2 (10-inch) cake layers and 1 (7-ounce) ramekin. Cool completely.

Cone Tree:
In a medium bowl combine white chocolate and 4 drops of green food coloring. Place bowl in microwave and heat at 50 percent power in 20-second intervals until white chocolate is melted and smooth. Dip the sugar cone into the chocolate and spin it around so that it is evenly coated. Remove from bowl and let excess chocolate drip off. Place on a plate lined with waxed paper and let dry.

Assembly:
In a large bowl stir together frosting and about 10 to 12 drops of green food coloring. The icing should be a pale green color. If too light in color, add a few more drops of food coloring. Transfer the icing to plastic releasable bags or a pastry bag. Cut 1/2-inch off the corner of the plastic bags and set aside.

Cut off the top of each layer so that it is flat and even. To assemble cake, place 4-inch by 12-inch strips of parchment paper around the edge of the cake plate or stand. Place 1 (10-inch) cake layer on cake stand on top of the parchment paper. Spread a layer of frosting and top with remaining 10-inch layer. Frost cake with icing.

Place 1 (8-inch) layer on cardboard cake round. Spread an even layer of frosting and top with remaining 8-inch layer. Frost cake with icing and place on top and in the center of the frosted 10-inch cake.

Place 1 (6-inch) layer on a cardboard cake round. Spread with a layer of frosting and top with remain 6-inch layer. Frost cake with icing and place on top and in the center of the frosted 8-inch cake.

Place the small cake that was baked in the 7-ounce ramekin (or the jumbo cupcake) on top of the 6-inch layer and frost with the icing. Place cone tree on top.

To decorate the cake, first carefully remove the parchment paper from underneath the bottom layer. Using the can of white decorating icing fitted with the star tip make small rosettes around the top and bottom edge of each cake tier and the bottom of the cone tree. Place a small rosette at the top of the cone tree.

Drape the licorice whips like "garland" around the bottom 3 cake tiers using the 6-inch lengths for the top layer, the 8-inch lengths for the middle layer and the 10-inch length for the bottom layer. Using the yellow icing can fitted with a star tip, pipe rosettes where the garland strands meet. Place 1 small rosette on top of the cone tree. Using the red icing fitted with the round tip randomly place small red dots around the cake. Place candles in the yellow icing rosettes between licorice garlands.

ANDREW SAYS:
This was my favorite Sandra Lee cake. As Terri aptly pointed out, this cake looks like it’s straight out of a Dr. Seuss book – playful, charming, lopsided form. You really don’t have to be precise on this cake. About halfway through the recipe, Terri decided to just look at the picture and go from there. It was a good choice. Just stack, ice the hell out of it, and decorate. Suggestions:

* Using vanilla buttercream frosting instead of store-bought frosting
* I loved Twizzlers as a kid, but these things taste nasty. Instead, I would use real garland, or, if you’re good at cake decorating, just making red curves with a round decorating tip.

Hanakkuh Cake (3 of 4)

2010-01-22T06:29:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a continuity problem with The Food Network. The cakes were all referred to in different ways depending on where on the site you were located. The worst offender was the Star of David Angel Food Cake, referred to as The Star of David cake and later on another page as The Star of Hannukah [sic]. I think they need a copy editor.

In Lee's description there's no discussion of making the cake kosher. I'd always thought that marshmallows could never be kosher, but come to find out there are kosher (and vegan) marshmallows right there at The Jewel. Andrew and I didn't bother with the kosher element, because Lee didn't. This was the easiest cake to make. The blue color was really pretty.

STAR OF DAVID ANGEL FOOD CAKE:
Ingredients:

1 (10 to 12-ounce) angel food cake
10 large marshmallows
1 (12-ounce) container fluffy white frosting
Blue food coloring
Special Equipment: wired pearl strands

Directions:
Place cake, wide side down, on a serving platter. Fill hole in center of cake with marshmallows. Place frosting in a medium bowl. Stir food coloring, 1 drop at a time, into frosting until desired color is achieved. Spread frosting evenly over top and sides of cake to coat completely.

Bend pearl strand into 2 Stars of David, leaving 2 inches of wire hanging down from bottom of each star. Place 1 Star of David inside and perpendicular to second Star of David, creating a 3-D effect. Stand Stars of David atop cake. Drape another pearl strand around base of cake. Remove pearls before cutting and serving.

ANDREW SAYS:
I love the color of this cake. However, this is the nicest thing I can say about this flavorless cake (sugars in various forms and blue dye). I like the idea of a Star of David in the center, but constructing it took more time than assembling the cake. Like the Kwanzaa cake, the idea of frosting an angel food cake seemed weird to me. It sure does look pretty, but it makes cutting the cake more difficult. Maybe Sandra consistently chooses angel food for its appealing shape instead of a flat, round cake. My coworkers didn’t touch this one because of the color. To which I say: What’s wrong with a blue cake?!?

Kwanzaa Cake (2 of 4)

2010-01-22T06:06:00.000-08:00

This is the cake that started it all. It must have been sometime last summer that Andrew forwarded to me a YouTube clip of this cake. After that, I was hooked. It is this cake that inspired me to start writing about "semi-homemade" and the meaning of "from scratch." This is the cake we started with on our cake odyssey. It wasn't hard at all, but I had a hard time finding black tapers and didn't have the balls to go The Afrocentric Bookstore to buy some. We went with just red and green. It tasted gross. But I LOVE LOVE LOVE Corn nuts, what Lee call "acorns," so all is well.

ANGEL FOOD HARVEST CAKE:

Ingredients:

1 angel food cake

I can vanilla icing

2 Tbs cocoa

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1 can apple pie filling

1 large bag “acorns” (Corn Nuts)

pumpkin seeds

7 taper candles (3 red, 1 black, 3 green)

Directions:

Cut cake in half.

In a mixing bowl combine icing, cocoa, cinnamon, vanilla. Mix well.

Frost center of cake. Replace top.

Fill center with pie filling.

Frost exterior of cake. Top hole with pie filling.

With a knife make holes in top of cake for the 7 taper candles and insert the candles (3 green, 1 black, 3 red).

Place acorns around bottom of cake. Sprinkle pumpkin seeds over top, then more acorns.

ANDREW SAYS:

Contrary to Lee’s philosophy, “keep it simple,” this assemblage was all over the place – the flavor, texture, and presentation; the cake was fluffy, the brown icing was thick and rich, and the whole, salted nuts were abrupt. Many of us agreed the nuts were too much and should have been finely chopped or taken out. I took leftovers to my job, and everyone liked the apple-filling element; while it’s hard to argue taste, I think the idea of having these unexpected things together creates a sense of “gourmet” or uniqueness without being gourmet. The taste of the cake becomes secondary. While still using step-saving products, here are my suggestions of re-imagined fall harvest cakes:

Spice cake mix in bundt form, filled with apple pie filling, garnished with finely chopped nuts, like pecans or blanched hazelnuts. No icing or a light chocolate glaze?
Angel food cake served with fresh caramelized apples and whipped cream on the side
Doughnut cake with vanilla-cinnamon or maple frosting

Semi-Homemade Cakes! (1 of 4)

2010-01-21T06:49:00.000-08:00

A few months back I wrote an essay about Sandra Lee and the atrocity of her semi-homemade holiday cakes. Well my charming friend Andrew, himself a lover of the "assembly" approach to cooking, agreed to join me for a day of the Sandra Lee method. We made all three cakes: Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and the Heirloom Noel. As we did with the Culinary Arts Institute Party, we invited our loved ones to join us. At this point I think these people might eat anything.

It took all day to make the cakes. They were unbelievably expensive and time consuming. To tell you the truth, as we were putting the finishing touches on the final cake I was a little curt. In the picture you can see my eyes are blood shot. Andrew ate a lot of frosting and got a kind of sick. It was a friendship building experience. Serena was a real trouper fabricating a 3D Star of David out of wire and ball garland. The whole thing would have tasted better, been faster, and cheaper if we'd made them from scratch.

When it was all over and the cakes were done, I felt unbelievably proud. But I felt sad, too. Writing about Sandra Lee and thinking about her stupid tablescapes and crappity crap dinners had brought me to this idea of simplicity and communion with friends and family. The cakes, one of which was inedible, were so wasteful, so costly and I was ashamed to be so privileged to make food as a joke.

But then our friends came. Lara and Dominic, Nick and Andrew, Serena and me. We had a good time, ate cake, drank wine, and all was right with the world.

Top Chef Tasting Menu

2009-09-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

Despite our love of good food, Serena and I rarely spend the big bucks on fancy restaurants. Instead we prefer the more humble fare like that of The Cuban Lunch Counter at the back of La Unica (try the fried yuca) or perhaps Hai Yen famous for the 1A. But this week, we splurged. Already we had deep regrets about the two great food events we missed this last year. First the Mulefoot Pig dinner at Blackbird. It just seemed so expensive. Now, of course, I would pay anything to have been there. And then there was the the Green City Market BBQ, which we just didn't get it together to attend. Luckily that happens every summer, so we get another chance. But when Serena read about the Rick Bayless winning Top Chef Tasting Menu at his tony restaurant Topolobampo, man we had to go.

Our friend Stephanie had a birthday a quite a while back, but sadly we lost her gift somewhere inside our apartment. So after months of looking we called it a loss and thought, we should make the night into a belated birthday for our friend. Serena is the one who secured the reservations. She went on Opentable and said she "watched as the reservations disappeared." Finally, she secured us a 5:30 reservation on a Wednesday. Good thing. I checked Opentable again and they showed no reservations available.

The whole experience was amazing and the service fantastic. Friendly, but not intrusive. The Top Chef menu was great--even better than I expected. Although the server described each dish as it was presented, I still wish I had brought along a crib sheet. Some things I liked better than others. For example the smoked quail in barbecue sauce with cole slaw and chilies rocked. The crispy pig's foot, kicked the sucklin' pig's ass. The fresh and tasty seafood offerings, though good, were not startling (like the pig's foot), but maybe that's just because I'm from the Pacific Northwest and am used to seafood so good that sometimes you cry.

Here's the menu I copied from RickBayless.com. Follow the links and it will take you to very lovely pictures. It was dark in the restaurant so really only the picture below (of said suckling pig and pig's foot) turned out. I checked this published menu against my memory to see if there were any substitutions. There weren't:
tart of Mick's height-of-season peaches, Prairie Fruits Farm goat cheese (infused with Earl Grey) and toasted pumpkinseed frangipane.

Next time Serena, Stephanie and I plan on going to Bayless's new place, XOCO for churros and hot chocolate! Both of which can be had for something around the price of train fair.

Change of Plans

2009-07-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

It must be pretty obvious by now that I shot my wad on the Culinary Arts Institute dinner party. When I started this blog, my intentions where quite narrow: Make some food and blog about it. But the project itself was larger--I was researching for a book. Of course I'll still post the awesome treats from the cookbooklets, but I will also share some of the other interesting things that I've run across in my studies.

I just finished reading Many Meals and Mom's Home Cooking: Cookbooks and Gender in Modern America (2003) by Jessamyn Neuhaus. This book addresses gender roles and how they are reflected/reinforced by cookbooks, but really it is an examination of the role of media in the formation of gender identity, specifically national gender identity. Manly Meals is one of the best books I've read this year. Every single chapter was interesting. I was particularly fascinated by the chapter that dealt with the early part of the century and the introduction of recipes by food processors, companies we would know today--General Mills, Knox, Swans Down. What I found interesting is that I have products by these companies on pantry shelves right now. I would reccomend this book to anyone with an interest in food and culture.

Currenltly, I'm working on a series of essays about food and nostalgia. Wish me luck!!!

Cook Now, Serve Later

2009-05-20T14:40:00.000-07:00

My friend Andrew with the eagle eye spotted the dreaded "carrot ring with peas" lurking in the corner of another cookbook called Cook Now, Serve Later (1990). The book is filled with LOTS of lovely color pictures and despite the obvious mid-centuryness of the recipes, the photos clearly have an early 80s healthy food vibe. That's why this carrot ring is such a mystery.

There are many mysterious things about this book. First of all despite the fresh photos, the recipes seem REALLY old. Take "Gazpacho Aspic" and the notorious "Carrot Ring with Peas" for example. But this book is from the editor's of Reader's Digest a magazine actually predicated on the notion of reprinting--an early re-blog, if you will. Right this minute I even have a stack of Reader's Digest Condensed books from 1963 and 1964. As far as I can tell the last reprint of the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook was released in 1989 (which still contained the recipe for "Picaninny Creole" by the way) and this book came out in 1990. Hard to believe anyone thought this kind of food would go over well in the 90s.

Dessert: Dominic Molon and Lara Hayes

2009-05-18T06:04:00.000-07:00

La and Dom's Ball Blog (with Tomato Soup Cake rising)

We began the morning with the Tomato Soup Cake, chosen, naturally, because it sounded so exotic, so strange, and, well, so positively sketchy. Chef Dominic sifted the dry ingredients (nutmeg, cinnamon, flour, baking soda and powder, and ground cloves.) Chef La creamed the sugar and butter (rather than shortening) to the melodic sounds of the '70s (Vicki Lawrence, Harry Chapin, The Hollies ...) Butter was chosen over shortening. Why? We didn't have shortening and who doesn't love butter? Midway through, we stopped to assess and photographically document the proceedings. The mix at this point (with Tomato Soup yet unblended in) looked disturbingly similar to refried beans and bland salsa (Chi Chi's anyone?) Chef La then mixed the walnuts and raisins in to the tune of Rufus with Chaka Khan's "Tell Me Something Good." Alas, the report was not good from the kitchen island as the cake's current status was described as "something you'd totally make in pre-school." 10 AM saw the cake go into the oven, the feeling of expectation palpable and heightened somewhat by the eruption of Styx's "Lady" from the Ipod. The necessity of the cake being left to rest for 24 hours be-damned, we thought, as the loaf pan was quickly chucked in. Linda Ronstadt seemed to echo our olafactory senses' response to the odor emanating from the oven as she repeatedly bleated "you're no good, you're no good. you're no good, baby, you're no good."

Chef Dominic had the Manchester United v Spurs match to attend (and organic produce to secure), which meant that Rum Truffle Ball preparation would have to wait until the afternoon. Presentational strategy was discussed and agreed upon, while hope was held for the cream cheese frosting intended to adorn the cake.

Hours later, after a nap necessitated by United's thrilling come-from-behind 5-2 victory over Spurs, Rum Truffle Ball production began. The dessert, incidentally, was chosen because ... they are balls and we felt it necessary to ensure that the evening's menu had balls. Milk chocolate was melted and shaved and rum added. Into the freezer it went as conversation turned to the proper dress code for both Culinary Arts Institute dinner party and witnessing the return of industrial sonic transgressors, Throbbing Gristle. Chef La then formed the balls, dipping them into the shaved chocolate, then marveled at her chocolate smeared hands and, upon tasting one, declared "these are quite good!" The delectables were then packed and plans were made to depart.

(editor's note: Dom and Lara used 250 Classic Cake Recipes (1940) for their "Tomato Soup Cake" recipe. Interestingly, this cake was left out of the final 1975 edition called 200 Cakes. )

Meat: Terri Griffith

2009-05-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

I knew there was going to be a hungry crowd for this party and I wanted to fix something that was both out-of-the-ordinary yet still edible. 250 Ways to Prepare Meat (1940) was there for me with “Pot Roast with Prunes.” My first reaction to this was, Yuck! But the more I thought about it, the better it sounded.

I followed the recipe pretty precisely. The only real difference is that I used my new bible, The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. It gives lots of pointers for pot roast, things none of the CAI cookbooklets do. My guess is that in 1940 when this book was published women knew the basics of preparing a pot roast. Well, it’s not 1940 anymore and we have other skills now. Which is precisely why I rely on The Test Kitchen to let me in on the details. I patted it dry and tied it up before browning, then let it rest twenty minutes before serving. I really believe that all these little things really make a difference.

The pot roast itself was extraordinary. It was moist, flavorful, a lovely color. I’m not sure you’re supposed to say this sort of thing, but it was the best pot roast I’ve ever had. I highly recommend this recipe to anyone inclined. (I scanned it high resolution so you can follow the recipe and see the delightful photo.) Next time, I would turn that beefy prune sauce into a gravy and serve it with mashed potatoes. This recipe is super good. Trust me.

("Prunes and apricots with pot roast add glamour to the meat and flavor to the gravy.")

Potatoes: Steaphanie Crain

2009-05-08T20:30:00.000-07:00

EASY BREEZY BACON…AND POTATO. That didn’t suck.

I chose the 250 Ways of Serving Potatoes (1940) cookbook because I love potatoes, I love that there was an entire cookbook devoted to it, and I thought this book held my best chance to quickly find a recipe that was easy and goof-proof. I was wrong.

Housewives in the 1950’s took their potatoes seriously. The booklet is divided into more categories (with sufficient recipes for each category to warrant their own category) than I consciously knew existed for potatoes. Baked, boiled, soups/chowders, creamed and scalloped, mashed, fried, salads, sweet potatoes listed separately…these ladies knew their potatoes. And now I know how American families could have potatoes with every meal.

I quickly dismissed all potatoes sweet and anything that involved multiple steps, such as fried potato cups filled with hotdogs. And then I landed on the Potato with Bacon recipe and looked no further. How can you possibly make a potato better? Bacon.

The ingredient list was very common:

1 lb. of bacon
6 medium potatoes
2 tbs. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 cups milk

I assumed that the bacon measurements were for cooked weight. Since I don’t have a kitchen scale, and am a firm believer that more bacon always makes things more better, I cooked an entire one pound package, after trimming the most visible fat and dicing the remaining bacon (which was kind of difficult but made me feel chef-y).

I also assumed that they didn’t mean skim or soy milk, so I used full-fat milk, and I tripled the pepper amount.

I layered the sliced potatoes, topped with the flour, salt and pepper and the bacon, repeated the layers, and poured milk over the whole thing.

It looked disgusting:
My greatest fear was that it would come out of the oven as nothing more than clumps of raw flour with bits of greasy bacon gristle-studded potatoes floating in curdled milk.

I popped it into a moderate oven (thankfully, they defined “moderate” as 350º), covered, for 45 minutes. When I took the pan out to uncover for the remaining 15 minutes in a desperate attempt to brown the top and make it look a little less like something they serve at Shady Pines retirement home on Wednesday nights, I was saddened to see that a milky skin had formed on the top of the potatoes, and there was a LOT of milk still swishing around. Happily, though, it looked like the flour islands had melted and incorporated themselves into the dish. Things were looking up for this dish!

And then down. The top didn’t brown, but the potatoes were soft, and I didn’t want to add insult to injury and overcook them. So I took them to the party with the attitude that this was an exercise in culinary experimentation, and not all experiments succeed. Clearly.

The potatoes were served about an hour into the party, and I am thrilled to report that they didn’t suck! They had been warming in the oven, and I’m not sure if it was the extra heat that thickened the milk into a sauce, or if it was just the resting period. The potatoes were tender, the bacon was semi-crunchy, and the milk sauce was a nice consistency. I was surprised that the dish was more sweet than savory, and if I made it again, I would up the salt and pepper. And maybe add some cheese.

I was told the potatoes were great the next day for breakfast, which made me very happy. And validated my earlier hypothesis that 1950’s housewives really knew their potatoes.

(editor's note: This was so fantastic the next morning, you can't even know. A big ole' platefull and a cup 0' joe. Awsome.)

Vegetable: Terri Griffith

2009-05-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

When trying any new recipe a cook can expect a failure or two. So throwing a potluck where every single person was trying a new recipe, I figured I'd better err on the side of caution an make an extra dish just so that no one went away hungry. Well imagine my embarrassment that my dish was the one that tanked. It looked pretty cute, but was a total failure—or should I say gross.

I selected “Carrot Ring” from the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook (1965). It looked simple enough (it was) and appealing. The recipe was really straightforward calling for 2 cups cooked carrots, onion, salt pepper, 3 eggs and 1 cup milk. Bake all this together and fill with peas. How great is that? Two vegetables in one dish. But it was gross. It came out like scrambled eggs with carrots in it. Yuck! The picture that accompanied the recipe looked kind of good. After considering each ingredient and step, I think I know what went wrong. Perhaps it was the interpretation of the phrase “cooked carrots.” The carrots in the picture look WAY mushier. I even cooked my carrot ring and extra 20 minutes and they still were too firm.

If I had to reinterpret this recipe I would write, Cook carrots to a paste. That should do it.

Rolls: Serena Worthington

2009-05-05T04:37:00.000-07:00

(editor's note: Serena used Dishes Mother Used to Make (1942). This was from a series of thematically linked cookbooklets published in the 40s.)

For the dinner, I was assigned bread. My girlfriend says it because I’m a baker but I really don’t feel like one. I can’t even say that I enjoy baking because usually it stresses me out. I think I just like foods that fall under the category, baking.

So with my limited baking skills, I embarked on Parker House Rolls from Dishes Mother Used to Make. I picked them because no one I asked had made them and I thought it would be funny.

I ran into trouble right away when the recipe asked me to stir the yeast, salt, sugar and shortening in warm water until the shortening melted. I don’t know a ton about baking but I do know that water the called for lukewarm would not melt the shortening and water hot enough to melt shortening would certainly kill the yeast. Perhaps this would have worked with cake yeast but I was using packaged yeast. I doubt it though. So I melted the shortening in the microwave on low and set it aside to cool a bit. I rebelled a bit here and mixed up the water, sugar and yeast and waited for the yeast to bloom. Them I added the shortening and salt and finally the flour. I viewed the result with great skepticism. It was really, really wet and didn’t resemble anything I would call dough. With a shrug I covered it and waited for it to double in bulk. This brings me to the weirdest part of this recipe; I was to add an egg after this first rise. So, I have a big, wet yeasty mass and I am supposed to stir an egg in? Whatever. I stirred in the egg, complained to Terri and left the thing to double again.

I spent the rising time wondering what I was going to make when the rolls inevitably failed. After the second rise, the mixture was only slightly less wet and I had to shrug both shoulders when I dumped this soupy mixture on the counter to “knead” it. By “knead” they must have meant, “add tons and tons of flour until soupy mixture become something resembling dough.” So “knead” I did. With lots of swearing and expressing of disgust and indignation. WTF, was, I believe, heavily featured as in, “WTF is this?” “WTF am I supposed to do with this mess?” Purely rhetorical questions since Terri was no longer answering me at this point.

Here was my second bit of trouble. The instructions were not clear about how to turn the dough into a “pocketbook.” What did this mean exactly? After parsing each word of the recipe and staring at the picture I decided to cut the dough into squares and fold it to form a pocketbook. No way was I going to try a biscuit cutter on that mess. I went ahead with pressing a dull knife into the middle of each one although I was really just going through the motions. The knife depression disappeared almost as soon as I made it. I brushed the dough with butter (the saving grace as it turns out) and folded them in half onto their sides and then I “pinched” the sides. By “pinched” they must have meant, “push the sloppy wet sides of the roll together until the melted butter nearly stops leaking out.” Then I put some more butter on them as instructed. Here again there was not actually quantity of butter listed so I used my judgment.

I let them rise again. I really wish I had some guidance from the recipe about how long to let them rise. Without this information, I just called them good when they had puffed up a bit.

I put them in a preheated 400 degree oven and baked them until they had some color, about 20 minutes. I was enormously relieved when I took them out and they resembled a bread product. I served them at room temperature. They got good reviews at the dinner, which was a surprise. I have to say it must have been the butter.

Salad: Nicholas Alexander Hayes and Andrew Breen

2009-05-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

PEAR-GINGER JELLO SALAD
1. After browsing through several, CAI booklets, we settled on the Pear-Ginger Jello Salad because of the yummy flavor combination (Actually, it was an excuse to finally buy little Jello molds and create beautifully suspended fruit in a vibrant yellow membrane).

2. Prep: We sprayed the copper molds with cooking oil to help with the mold release. We also put the plates in the fridge so the 8 Jello molds would hold up during transportation.

3. Changing the Ratio: Based on “Breen/Hayes Test Kitchen,” Jello seems to conform better to the mold when you use less water. So, we didn’t go by the water/jello ratio that the recipe called for. The box says 1 pk to 1 cup of boiling water, but we halved the water to ½ cup (3 pkts + 1½ water). We brought the Jello to room temperature before adding the 1½ cups of ginger ale. We ladled the tepid Jello into the molds, leaving about ½ cm from the top for the fruit. Because our molds were smaller, we diced the canned pears instead of using pear halves.

4. We left the molds in the fridge for 5 hours and released the Jello by pouring hot water on the back of the mold, and placed them on iceberg lettuce. If we could change anything, we would let the Jello cool longer before pouring in the ginger ale (to maintain the bubbliness).

(editor's note: Andrew and Nicholas used the special Shop-Rite edition of Entertaining Six or Eight. Oddly, there was no publication date, but based on the other books this appears to be from the early to mid 1950s. This was a special series with lovely illustrations by Paul Hamlin and the Shop-Rite logo right on the cover. Also, Ruth Berlozheimer is not credited. Instead, Melanie De Proft is listed as director.)

Soup: Martha Bayne

2009-05-01T05:44:00.000-07:00

Picking one soup from 250 Delicious Soup Recipes (1950) was thoroughly overwhelming. So I went about it scientifically. Too expensive? Cut. Sorry, Creole Bouillabaise, which needed not only a pound of fresh shrimp but also two pounds of snapper.

I was also feeling tired and lazy so anything too complicated was out as well. This eliminated intriguing contenders like Mock Turtle Soup (“Cover calf’s head with cold water …”).

But, despite my sloth, I felt duty bound to at least try to cook something. This inconvenient surge of work ethic knocked out the entire section on Jiffy Soups, which offers a conceptual framework for proportionally blending various cans of condensed soups to create new and exciting taste sensations such as Cream of Corn and Mushroom, and the discreetly named Triangle (“1 can condensed tomato soup, 1 can condensed bean-with-bacon soup, 3 cans water”).*

Lastly, I wanted it to have a shot at being vaguely edible. I remain to this day strangely drawn to Ripe Olive Soup but I didn’t think it would be very hospitable to inflict it on a bunch of strangers. So, after a brief flirtation with something jelled and chilled – which just seemed like it would be classy – I settled on Tuna and Tomato Bisque.

I like tuna, I like tomatoes. They go together well in a nice nicoise salad. Why not a soup? Also: they both come in cans, and see above in re. laziness.

Here is the recipe:

Tuna and Tomato Bisque

1 (7-ounce) can tuna
2 tablespoons minced parsely
1/4 cup diced onion
1 cup cooked tomatoes
2 cups water
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
dash cayenne
3 cups milk

Shred tuna, add oil from tuna, parsley, onion, tomatoes and water. Heat to boiling and simmer 20 minutes. Strain. Blend butter, flour, salt and cayenne’ add milk, gradually stirring constantly and cook until smooth and thickened. Add tuna mixture, blend and serve at once. Serves 4.

I doubled the recipe and ballparked the quantities, with two 5-ounce cans of Bumblebee Solid White Albacore Tuna in Oil and one 28-ounce can of Dominick’s-brand Organic Whole Peeled Tomatoes.

I drained off the oil from the fish and ran into trouble right off the bat. Am I supposed to add the fish to the soup base? What is this “tuna mixture” mentioned at the end of the recipe? The tuna? ” Mixed with … other tuna?

Anyway. I wound up just throwing the oil in with the tomatoes, onion, and parsley and alliteratively decanting the tuna into a Tupperware to take up to Terri’s. Then I gave the cans to the cat. He was psyched.

Simmered oil, tomatoes, onion, and parsley for 20 minutes – it actually smelled pretty good – and then strained it. I don’t have a chinois so I just pushed it through a colander.

This resulted in a lovely clear tomato bouillon.

And some tomato/onion/parsley mash.

Whisked in the butter, flour, salt, and cayenne, and then the milk. After blending in six cups of a possible eight it was a very pale pink, so I just stopped there. Which was probably good because it wound up having a very “subtle” flavor. Any more dairy and it would have been just Milk Soup With Tomato Essence.

Anyhow. That was basically it. Once I got to Terri and Serena’s I heated it back up and then mixed in the reserved tuna “mixture, “garnished the bowls with parsley, and served.

I also made some cayenne croutons to accompany the soup. Actually, they were supposed to be these elaborate bits of toasted bread sculpture involving cutting bread into doughnut sized rings, and cutting some more bread into long fingers and then threading the whole ring-and-spear unit together and garnishing each bowl with one. But that quickly proved too much work, not to mention a massive waste of perfectly good bread. So I just cut the bread into toast points, dipped them in butter, dusted them with salt and cayenne, and then promptly burned them in the oven.

Whoops.

I brought them along anyway and everyone seemed to think the charred, peppery bread added a certain textural something, but maybe they were just being nice.

Would I make Tuna and Tomato Bisque again? Probably not. It wasn’t bad but it was, as I said, quite milky. By which I mean, “bland.”

But now, at least, I can say that I’ve tried tuna soup.

*Why “Triangle”? Is this meant to evoke some illicit three-way between the tomato, the bean, and the bacon?

Crudités: Serena Worthington and Terri Griffith

2009-04-30T04:54:00.000-07:00

What would a dinner party be without crudités? The Culinary Arts Institute, although doesn't give a recipe, does suggest providing a simple relish tray for guests. I didn't expect with all that fun, elaborate food anyone would eat this plain tray of celery and olives. Sure enough, they didn't.

Our second crudités was Radish Mice. This is really the only place that we strayed from the cookbooks. After all, they're period and I just LOVE radish mice so Serena made me two plates and served them on a bed of Kosher salt. Needless to say by the end of the evening there was nothing left but tails.

Canapés: Andrew Breen and Nicholas Alexander Hayes

2009-04-29T04:09:00.000-07:00

(editor's note: Nicholas and Andrew used 500 Tasty Snacks (1941) for this recipe)

SHRIMP CANAPÉ
1. We followed most of the recipe, except we used lumpfish roe in lieu of caviar. The recipe called for lemon mayo, so we mixed fresh lemon juice with store bought mayo to taste. We cut the white bread with a small wine glass, and used the bread scraps for croutons.

2. This recipe was pretty easy, although we had to handle every little piece carefully. We finished several hours before the party, but the canapés held up well – the toast was still toasty and the shrimp was still glistening. When we try this recipe again, we may experiment with using limejuice, and perhaps trying a different marinade for the shrimp.

Culinary Arts Institute Dinner

2009-04-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Serena and I hosted an entire dinner party cooked from the Culinary Arts Institute cook books. Each of our guests selected a recipe for this prescriptive potluck and will blog about their experiences. Over the course of the next week or so, I will post the entries for each course.

MENU:
Canapés—Andrew Breen and Nicholas Hayes
Crudités—Serena Worthington and Terri Griffith
Soup—Martha Bayne
Salad—Andrew Breen and Nicholas Hayes
Rolls—Serena Worthington
Vegetable—Terri Griffith
Potato—Stephanie Crain
Meat—Terri Griffith
Desserts—Dominic Molon and Lara Hayes

Some of the recipes were a great success, some not so successful. But it was a fun night all around. I hope you enjoy the forthcoming posts and perhaps try some recipes yourself.

Eggs Florentine

2009-04-19T14:19:00.001-07:00

After a beautiful, practically summer day on Saturday, I woke this morning to find rain, rain, rain. So I thought it would be fun to make a nice brunch. I started with The Encyclopedic Cookbook (1965) and made “Buttermilk Muffins.” They would have turned out much better if I hadn’t turned the oven off half-way through. I think that pretty much sums up that recipe.

“Eggs Florentine” was also on the menu. Now I’ve heard of Eggs Florentine, but have never actually had it. The recipe seemed really easy. I had a bag of spinach in the freezer and some leftover collard greens from my weekly produce box and it seemed like a fortuitous intersection of weird ingredients at the ready. (Please note the photo in the book. This is the Eggs Florentine before it is cooked. Funny, I wouldn't have made that choice.)

I made a few changes. I used white cheddar instead of American cheese. And I also had a bunch of collards that I had cooked in left over Bagna Cauda. I was introduced to this sauce in the book Twist of the Wrist (2007), by Nancy Silverton. It’s a fantastic cookbook that uses tinned, jarred, and frozen items. Many of the recipes require a high degree of skill. Amazon has it listed under the heading Convenience Cooking. Man, are people pissed when it arrives. By “convenience” most people are thinking quick and easy. A better way to think about this cookbook is: I just got home from my restaurant and brought a few friends with me. It’s two o’clock in the morning. What can I make with ingredients from my pantry that will go with this excellent bottle of wine? Anyway, there is a recipe for Bagna Cauda which she says is sauce. Really, it’s just adulterated butter. It is unbelievably great and keeps really well in the refrigerator.

Bagna Cauda
from Nancy Silverton’s Twist of the Wrist

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
20 anchovy fillets, finely chopped (about 1/4 cup of 1 2.8-ounce jar)
8 large garlic cloves, minced (about 2 Tablespoons)
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
Grated zest and juice of 1/2 a lemon
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the butter, olive oil, anchovies, and garlic in a large skillet over medium-high heat until the anchovies dissolve and the garlic is soft and fragrant, about 2 minutes, breaking up anchovies while they cook and stirring constantly so the garlic doesn’t brown. Reduce the heat to low and cook the sauce another 2 minutes to meld the flavors. Turn off the heat, stir in the parsley and lemon zest and juice, and season with Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

I was surprised by how well this turned out. It had to cook a little longer than stated, but it was really great. Before I started cooking from Culinary Arts Institute cookbooks, I never ever had a need for bread-crumbs. These books are really bread-crumb heavy and I have learned that finishing everything with bread-crumbs tends to make dishes look mighty alike.

guest blogger:Daniel Baudanza

2009-04-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

I am the kind of cook who is not afraid to invite five or six people over for dinner and have the main course be something I have never cooked before. I am also not afraid of recipes that come from cook books where green mashed potatoes are at home with rings of peas and deviled eggs in aspic are a matter of course.

This recipe is a lot of work for little payoff. First of all there is a long long marinade of dubious flavor and second the whole puff pastry thing just tends to fall to crumbs as you slice the delicate pork inside. Most of this went to the dogs who by the way love puff pastry flavored with pork. I also took the suggestion of making a kicky little decoration with left over pastry dough in the form of a palm frond it being easter and all.

My biggest problem with this recipe are the cooking instructions. Mostly this is my fault, I doubted my own instincts as a cook. The recipe calls for two eight-inch long pork loins to be cooked at 350deg for one hour and forty five minutes!!

I read it twice but gave the book the benefit of the doubt.

My brain did not calculate that this book was written sometime in the late sixties where the difference between eating roast pork and eating a hand full of white sand was salt content. Needless to say the pork turned out very very dry.

Luckily I saved some juice and made a gravy, the time honored tradition of all failed cooks.

Guest Blogger:Daniel Baudanza

2009-04-07T16:47:00.001-07:00

My mom gave me this great cook book.

Creative Cooking Course edited by Charlotte Turgeon.

I can't tell you when it was published because I don't read roman nvmerals but I can tell you that my mom gave it to me because she would never cook anything wrapped in pastry dough.

Luckily, I would love to go to bed wrapped in pasty dough. Add the words ham or pork and I won't ever wake up!

As fancy as this book gets and it does get fancy (there is a page devoted to butter sculpting) this recipe is no more than a humble ham and cheese quiche with a giant cheese flower on top.

I made my own pastry dough but used a different recipe than the one in the book. It called for 4cups of flour for a 9" pie crust and I just didn't understand why I would need that much dough.

I also changed the cheese flower to petals of cheese sandwiched in between some pastry dough like mini cheese puffs.

Otherwise, I stuck to the recipe which was simple ham eggs parmesan and onions. Although for a ham and herb pie there was only a half a teaspoon of tarragon and some salt. I only use teaspoon measures for baking soda and yeast.

All in all it turned out well and very tasty. New secret ingredient--onion water. I will admit that my cheese flower was not anywhere near as impressive as the one in the book.

Blueberry Muffins

2009-04-05T07:13:00.001-07:00

A lazy Sunday morning. I have a pile of papers to grade and it's supposed to snow. Sounds like a job for Blueberry Muffins. Since blueberry muffins are an American staple, I knew The Culinary Arts Institute would be able to help me out. I found a great recipe on page 37 of 250 Breads, Biscuits and Roll (1953), though the title page reads The Breads, Biscuits and Rolls Cookbook.

The recipe was simple:

MUFFINS
2 cups sifted, enriched flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup melted shortening
1 cup milk

Sift dry ingredients together. Mix egg, shortening and milk together thoroughly. Combine mixtures, stirring just enough to dampen flour. Fill greased muffin pans 2/3 full. Bake in hot oven (400 F.) 25 minutes. Makes 12 to 15.

Under "Variations" it has you mix blueberries with the dry ingredients. I also assumed that they meant for me to use fresh blueberries, but all I had was frozen. When I used to work at The Sisters it was my job to make the blueberry muffins. We also used frozen. The deal with frozen berries is that you can't just toss them into the dry ingredients, you have to lovingly place them in layers. It doesn't take long and it makes the muffins much more lovely. Besides, layering keeps the blueberries evenly distributed.

Milk is a problem that plagues our household. We don't ever have milk on hand. Sometimes half and half, today just soy creamer. But The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, revised edition (2006) suggests keeping dry buttermilk on hand. We bought a tub of it just for emergencies like this.

The recipe turned out fantastic. Serena said they tasted "old fashioned," meaning they weren't very sweet. They are quite good and I will certainly use this recipe again.

250 Fish and SeaFood Recipes

2009-03-28T05:51:00.000-07:00

Last time I was at La Frescasita they were having a big sale on tilapia fillets. I bought a bunch and popped them in the freezer figuring that there was always something to do with white fish. When I first received 250 Fish and SeaFood Recipes (1940) I thought I would never end up cooking from it. (note: The 1970s edition is called 200 Ways to Serve Fish and Sea Food, but the title page reads 200 Different Fish and Sea Food Recipes. I think it's funny how they played loosey goosey with the titles.) First of all the recipes are all things like "take 24 fresh oysters," then it has you shuck them and bake into some kind of crazy casserole. Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, this kind of seafood adulteration is really a sin. I think no matter how long I live in the Midwest I will never abandon this basic tenet of preparing seafood. But for the sake of this project and the uninspiring frozen tilapia, I turned to The Culinary Arts Institute.

Right off the bat there were a couple of acceptable fish recipes. I chose "Baked Fish Fillets." The recipe was simple and I had all that was needed.

Baked Fish Fillets

1 pound fish fillets
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
Fine dry bread crumbs
1 tablespoon oil or melted butter

Cut fillets into serving pieces. Combine milk and salt. Dip fish into milk, then into crumbs being sure fish is completely covered with crumbs. Place in greased baking dish or on oven proof platter, sprinkle with oil and brown quickly in very hot oven (500F.) 10 to 20 minutes. Do not add water. Serve with Almond Butter Sauce, melted butter, Maitre d'Hotel Butter or Lemon Butter. Serves 2

I followed the recipe closely and it turned out well. Since I didn't have any bread crumbs, I made some from pita that I had in the freezer and topped it with butter. If I were to make this recipe again, which I will, I would definitely season the bread crumbs. I am unsure whether or not packaged bread crumbs were popular in 1940. Maybe they were expecting my bread crumbs to already be seasoned. Anyway, it was good. I made "Tartare Sauce" from the final page. It was good as well. I served the fish and tartare sauce with a packaged mushroom risotto with peas and a green salad.

Scalloped Sweet Potatoes and Corn

2009-03-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I love about my weekly produce box from Newleaf Grocery (www.newleafnatural.net) is that it forces me to work with unfamiliar ingredients and since much of the produce is local, at certain times of the year I have an abundance of a particular vegetable. Now for example, it’s sweet potatoes. Last week I had some great sweet potato fries, processed and froze some uncooked fries for a future date, and I also fed some to my dog who loves them. But that still leaves me with about a half a dozen more. I turned to 250 Ways of Serving Potatoes (1941) for help.

There were MANY more recipes for sweet potatoes than I expected in this book. I don’t really think of sweet potatoes as a potato. I mean, if I’m in the mood for mashed potatoes or tater tots, then sweet potatoes don’t really do the trick. But I guess in this case they count. There was terrifying similarity in the recipes. Mostly it was all sweet potatoes, butter, and brown sugar in some combination. They’d change it out a little with honey instead of sugar, or marmalade instead of sugar. You get the idea. The single recipe I use as an example of my grandmother’s horrible cooking is in this book: “Sweet Potatoes with Cheese and Mushroom Sauce.” And by mushroom sauce they mean canned cream of mushroom soup. The recipe is right next to the one I made. I also wanted to mention that there is also a recipe for "Pickaninny Creole" on page 41. Though it shouldn't have, this surprised me. Immediately I ran to The Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook. This is really just another repackage of the previous booklets. I just had to know if "Pickaninny Creole" made the cut to this 1964 edition. It did. Really, did no one ever look at these recipes again?

The "Scalloped Sweet Potatoes and Corn" recipe was pretty good. There were a couple of small problems--my fault, mostly lack of planning. The recipe says to boil the potatoes, but I always prefer my vegetables roasted and since the sweet potatoes I had were so small, it didn't really take long. The thing is, I was then left to peel them hot if I wanted dinner to be ready by the time Serena got home. It also calls for white sauce, which I made from the Encyclopedic Cookbook. Here's the dumbass part, I didn't check how much the recipe called for. So after I made the white sauce, I dumped it on my casserole only to find I didn't have enough. But since my potatoes were so small I just poured a little extra milk in and called it good. It was supposed to cook for 45 minutes, but when I pulled it out the whole thing still looked pale and dry. I added a bit more milk and some butter dollops on top. I mean, what doesn't taste better with butter? I served this with a green salad and kale sauteed in butter. I would definitely make this again.

Arty Party

2009-03-18T17:39:00.001-07:00

My friend Andrew really digs food that looks like something other than what it is. I once had the entire set of General Mills' Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library (1971). The thing was, it wasn't nearly as interesting as it should have been. I gave the set away but kept these two cards because I thought that someday I might make them. The "Rag Doll Tea Party" seemed perfect for a ladies luncheon, but so far I haven't made it. But maybe Andrew will, or maybe you will. Who knows? If you do make one of these, be sure to let me know.

250 Delectable Desserts

2009-03-14T12:32:00.001-07:00

One of the fascinating things about the cookbooks from The Culinary Arts Institute is the way they (Ruth Berolzheimer) recycle their material. Nowhere is this more obvious than with 250 Delectable Desserts. The oldest edition I have is from 1940. This two-color cover was standard with the books from the 40s. Honestly, I have no idea what this dessert is on the cover--especially the little rounds, possibly bacon, or those little soy disc things that come with vegetarian udon. The strange thing about this book is that when you open the cover the title page reads, 250 Tempting Desserts. If you're re-packaging material, it seems easy to understand how this kind of mistake could happen. What's less easy to understand is how this "typo" happened on the 1949 and 1950 editions, which were similarly titled 250 Delectable Dessert Recipes. The dessert pictured on this 1950 edition also seems impenetrable to me. I think it might be baked apples. The title page of 150 Delectable Dessert Recipes (1971) reads correctly. I assume this happened when they culled their “best” 150 recipes and had to change the title page anyway.

Despite the cover or the title, all of the editions of the 250 Dessert variety are EXACTLY the same on the inside. The 1970s versions, the smaller 150 Desserts, use the same recipes, same pictures, same font. The only difference is pagination, and of course the missing 100 recipes. This really makes me wonder about the content of these books. If the 70s editions are simply selections of the 50s editions, which are reprints of the 40s editions, then just what is the source for the 40s editions? How old are these recipes anyway? Is this why they are so strange?

Guest Blogger: Stephanie Crain

2009-03-06T07:50:00.000-08:00

CROCK-POT® MAGIC

Last night I performed, if not a miracle, a pretty good magic trick. Even though most of my recipes consist of “Open, Peel Film Back, Heat for Three Minutes,” I somehow turned four simple ingredients into some of the most delicious barbeque pulled pork I’ve ever had. And it was easier than standing at the microwave, waiting to stir mid-defrost.

To Serve 4 – 6

Step 1: Open the Crock-Pot® you bought four months ago.

Please note, this is for illustrative purposes only, and my Pot never had food in it before last night. I would show an image of mine, but it’s in the dishwasher.

Step 2: Slice two small white onions and lay on the bottom of the Pot.

Step 3: Put raw pork, with excess fat trimmed, on top of onions. (I thought I used pork loin, but there were a few pieces with bones in them, resembling pork chops. The bottom line is that you can use any cut of pork according to all of the recipes out there.)

Step 4: Put on the lid and turn Crock-Pot® to Low.

Step 5: Do whatever you want while it cooks for approximately four hours. Seriously. You don’t have to do anything with it except let the Pot work its magic! I took a nap, watched a movie, cleaned a little and walked the dog.

Step 6: Drain off as much liquid as you can (there isn’t a picture of this because it looked like consommé) – I had about two cups worth – and remove any bones. At this point you can break up the meat into smaller chunks easily with a fork.

Step 7: Add the star ingredient. I used the entire 28 ounce bottle.

Step 8: Add the secret Southern ingredient
I used about one cup of Coke. This is classified as a Southern secret ingredients, because our Southern friends take their Coke very, very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that if you do manage to find Pepsi products in the store, they’re usually more expensive than Coke products.

Step 9: Stir the meat until the sauce and Coke are incorporated. Put the lid back on and cook until your guests arrive. (In my case, this was about another four hours, so I turned it to Warm for the last hour.) I suspect that the longer you let it cook, the denser the sauce becomes, and the flavor is more intense.

Step 10: Happy Vittles Time! Serve on the best buns you can, with Terri’s Rockin’ Coleslaw and Kettle Salt and Pepper chips.

Of course, pleasant company and saucy pork with fried potatoes are always a recipe for a good time, but this meal was so tasty, so easy and (if I say so myself) so impressive, it was almost like having staff cook for you.

(editor's note: Today I was at the supermercado and saw that Sweet Baby Ray's has a chipolte-style BBQ sauce. It think that would be great in this recipe.)

Rogers Park Chicken Soup

2009-02-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

Our fabulous new fruit market La Frescasita is having a big sale on chicken this week. Serena suggested we make some chicken soup this weekend, but I rejected that because chicken soup just seems so boring.

Well after a few hours of podcast editing this morning, that "boring" chicken soup started to sound pretty good. There wasn't much in the refrigerator, so I headed up the street to La Frescasita to take advantage of the sale.

I tried to find a recipe in 250 Soup Recipes, and I even checked 100 All American Recipes, but they were universally bad. The main chicken soup recipe had ham it. Really, ham? I'm big girl, I can make chicken soup without a recipe.

Sadly, I didn't have any pre-made stock on hand and I wanted dinner to be ready by the time Serena got home, so the organizing of the preparation was most important. First, I baked the chicken for about an hour. When that was done, I broke the chicken up and let it cool a bit. While that was happening I took my two biggest pots and placed them on the stove--one for soup, one for stock.

Ingredients:
one whole chicken
a whole bundle of celery
3 pounds carrots
one pound mushrooms, quartered
one bag frozen corn
half a bag of frozen peas added at the end
one jalepeno
herb bundle
quarter cup Lustau Dry Sherry
fistful of sea salt

I chopped all of the vegetables and placed them in the soup pot, all the butt ends into the stock pot. Likewise with the chicken. I pulled all the good bits and coarsely chopped it for the soup, while the carcass went into the stock pot. I also added to the stock one quartered jalepeno and a quarter cup of sherry. To the soup I added a bag of frozen corn. The soup pot was placed on low, where it stayed for hours. But the stock, well I kept it at a low boil until everything was mush.

After about three hours, I drained the stock and added it to the soup. What makes it Rogers Parkish, besides the jalepeno, is the addition of a carton of leftover brown rice from Grande Noodle. Now, I have no idea what kind of rice they use, but it is the best brown rice I have ever had, practically purple in color. The last thing I added was what I had left of a bag of frozen peas. Nice, bright color and I got to get rid of some old peas.

The special ingredient was a bundle of herbs that I brought back from Barcelona. I had thought that this would be something special and not reproducable. But you know what? At La Frescasita they have herb bundles too, but theirs are fresh, not dried. And theirs are more country style looking, and not all anal like the ones I bought at Gispert.

Serena brought home a whole wheat baguette. I swear, this is the best chicken soup I've ever had.

Guest Blogger: Serena Worthington

2009-01-31T15:15:00.000-08:00

I was reading somewhere, on the internets perhaps, where someone listed their favorite food as chip and dip. It would never have occurred to me to list chip and dip myself. I would think your favorite food should be an entree like mac ‘n cheese or fish tacos. However, when you think about it, it’s a good answer. Here is a most excellent dip recipe from our friend Carol’s mother, Virginia.

Mrs. Stanley’s French Onion Dip.
(Pictured in its natural party environment.)

1 1/2 packages of onion soup mix
8 oz cream cheese (don’t use lite cream cheese ‘cuz that would be wrong)
16 oz sour cream (see above regarding “lite”)
blend with a hand mixer until cream cheese is well mixed
chill for at least an hour until firm
Serve with sturdy chips--this is some hearty dip

(editor's note: I think Kettle Chips, the sea salt and cracked black pepper kind, would be great with this dip. It is SERIOUSLY the best French onion dip I have ever had.)

Nibbles

2009-01-26T14:53:00.000-08:00

Saturday was my writing partner's birthday. Nicholas was hosting a cocktail party and since I really didn't get it together to get him a proper present I thought, Why don't I make some party snacks. What I had in mind was something like Chex Party Mix, but you know, more Culinary Art Institutey. Of course I turned to 250 Tasty Snacks (1970). You might remember this title from back in November with the discussion of cheese balls. Anyway, there were two recipes, "Nibbles" and "Crunchy Nibblers." The recipes were very similar, but I chose the "Nibbles" because of the reliance on Worchestershire sauce as the main seasoning. I did, however, add the shoe string potatoes from the "Cruchy Nibblers," and am glad I did. I've posted a couple of the pages in case you want to try some of these spectacular snacks yourself. I think the "Creamy Anchovy Dip" looks great. I scanned it hi-res so that you can try the recipes yourself.

This recipe posed a few problems, though. Because it was only 5 degrees outside, our friend Jessie gave us a ride to the store. Serena and I tried desperately to hurry, dividing our list and buying only what we needed for the party. Well, do you know where to find shoestring potatoes? And we had dried onion soup on the list (see next post). Also, the recipe called for onion salt, garlic salt, celery salt, and salt. Well, all we had at home was celery salt and of course gray sea salt. I was really surprised at how expensive those adulterated salts are, so we just bought one--onion salt.

It turned out well. Serena called it "subtle," which it was. But I made a few choices along the way that added to the subtlety. First, I used celery salt, onion salt, and dried garlic. I left out the garlic salt and...the salt. Really, it seemed like there was PLENTY of salt in this recipe. It also called for AN ENTIRE CUP OF BUTTER! Of which half was unsalted. My friend Andrew suggested that back when this recipe was originally copyrighted (1965) people drank and smoked a lot and maybe needed the salt. I think maybe we needed the salt a little, too.

Barcelona's Bitchin'

2009-01-05T15:27:00.000-08:00

Barcelona is an amazing food city for many reasons, but the main one is that the local mini-mart, Opencore, caries an impressive array of wine and cheese. I'm not kidding. From the outside the store looks like any old Walgreens or CVS but alongside the shampoo and toilet paper is amazing wine (2,35 euro) and rockin' cheese (7,20 euro). So, yea maybe I could have gotten something better at Whole Foods, but certainly not for the same price or with the same convenience. My favorite was that they had a locked case of fancy meat! Seriously, the booze wasn't locked up. No, it was the "duck ham" that was much purloined commodity. Really, when was the last time you had some good meat from CVS?

250 Delicious Soup Recipes

2008-12-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

Monday was the last day of school and when I got home I was so tired and cold, that I needed a remedy. Even though the supermercado is only two blocks away, I just couldn't face the walk. So I turned to 250 Delicious Soup Recipes (1950) to help me out. On the train home I had been mentally running through the contents of the refrigerator and remembered that I still had all that half and half and also some mushrooms. Cream of Mushroom soup has always been a favorite of mine, but I have never made it from scratch. In one of the old Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple movies she gives a recipe for mushroom soup. Something like: mushrooms, stock, flour, cream, bit of salt. At the time I remember thinking, Is that all there is to it?

In 250 Delicious Soup Recipes, they give two different versions. The regular kind and "Chef's Cream of Mushroom Soup." Of course I picked the chef's version. I followed the recipe pretty faithfully except that I used half and half. I was fresh out of veal stock so used chicken. The only thing I would do differently next time is to start with a roux and then add the mushrooms. The mushrooms released so much liquid that it made browning the flour difficult.

250 Ways to Make Candy

2008-12-13T11:31:00.001-08:00

Serena and I had a happy cooking morning, listening to NPR and making candy. From 250 Ways to Make Candy (1950) I selected "Inexpensive Milk Caramels." I made it mostly with half and half because both Serena and I came home with half and half and now we have like a gallon of it. We finished the caramels with gray sea salt, a suggestion made by Serena not 250 Ways to Make Candy.

Unlike some of the other Culinary Arts Institute recipes I have tried, this one ROCKED! It was great, though difficult to cut. I'm a really big caramel fan and occasionally splurge on the artisinal caramels from Whole Foods. I can't remember their name, but they are made here in Chicago and come in a small white box. Mine don't rival their creamy, gentle goodness, but mine turned out well anyway. Candy making is fun although I'm not quite as excited when it comes to eating it.

Meat Muffins

2008-12-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

The "Meat Muffins" were a complete success! The recipe was easy and I followed it exactly. There was, however, a bit of hesitation at the glaze. It called for half a cup of ketchup mixed with half a cup of brown sugar to be brushed on top about mid-way through baking. In the refrigerator I have some Sweet Baby Ray's Hot 'n Spicy Barbecue Sauce, which is my absolute favorite. It would have been simple to just brush the top of those meaty little muffins with that, but I really wanted to give the recipe a go. I'm glad I did because the glaze became quite smokey and nice as the muffins cooked and the brown sugar did its magic. I used only a quarter cup of each of the brown sugar and ketchup and I'm glad I did because I had more than plenty. I would be interested in knowing what ketchup was like in the early 40s, if it was made with corn syrup or sugar. It seems to me that this glaze would be just as good or better if made with tomato paste.

The picture on the right does not accompany any particular recipe, but is a serving suggestion from 250 Ways to Prepare Meat (1969). It reads, "Sausage, ground pork, lamb or beef can be shaped many interesting ways." Why yes, yes they can.

2008-12-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

This evening I will be making "Meat Muffins" which can be found on page 36 of The Ground Meat Cookbook (see previous post). There are no specific serving suggestions, though earlier in 250 Ways of Serving Potatoes (1941) I saw a mention of "French Potato Balls" but there was no recipe. There was a picture which mentioned using a melon baller, which sounds like a great idea to me. Since they will be so little, I'm just going to cook them in a pan.

Here are two versions 250 Ways of Serving Potatoes (1941). The only difference is the cover. Both are dated 1941, but it is obvious that the blue one is the older of the two. Also, it is numbered 13 while the color photo cover is 113. Curious.

204 Intriguiging Ground Meat Recipes

2008-12-05T15:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday through Coudal Partners Serena found this great site where someone has posted the full text of The Ground Meat Cookbook (1954). I haven't seen this book before so you know how excited I was to read it. The resolution is pretty good, so it is possible to work from it. As you can see by the cover, it's a stunner.

The books I have are all from the 1940s or the 1970s, but this is from the 1950s series. Although I've seen the covers, I've never looked inside. The contents are spectacular and there are some differences between this and the ones I own. First, there is playful use of illustration and color. For example, the charming illustration of lambs in swimsuits at the beach atop the recipe for "Frosted Lamb Loaf." At first I thought they were poodles, but why would there be poodles at the beach? Another of the illustrations depicts a tarted up row of dancing pearl onions adorning the recipe for "Liver Dumplings."

The thing that is noticeably missing is the name of Ruth Berolzheimer. This seems odd to me because the two series I have 40s and 70s both have her name on it. So I am wondering if when the original series of the 40s was re-worked, they simply kept her name since it was she who compiled the recipes in the first place. Up until now, I thought that her tenure at Culinary Arts Institute was un-interrupted throughout that period.

Please try a recipe or two and let me know how it turns out.
http://www.meatbook.com/index.html

Holiday Cheese Log

2008-11-22T09:13:00.000-08:00

I planned to use the Amy Sedaris Cheese Ball recipe that I cut from an issue of BUST Magazine. She republished it in a slightly different form in I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence (2006). There it's called "Lil' Smokey Cheese Ball." This recipe is by far the best basic cheese ball recipe I've ever used. You can make lots of changes and it still turns out great.

Amy Sedaris's Cheese Ball
BUST Magazine, 2001

2 8oz packages cream cheese
2 cups shredded smoked gouda
1 stick unsalted butter
2 Tbs milk, cream, or 1/2 and 1/2
2 tsp A-1 Steack Sauce
2 cups crushed nuts

Allow ingredients to soften to room temperature. Beat them all together in a mixing bowl and form into a ball, or small balls to suit your needs. Roll in crushed nuts and refrigerate. Remove from refrigerator and allow to soften about 20 minutes before serving. Serve with crackers of your choice.

Armed with my shopping list, Serena and I took the bus down to Jewel because you can't buy anything but queso fresco or cheadar in our neighborhood. But when we got to Jewel there was not a single scrap of smoked gouda left! I was outraged. Was everyone making cheese balls for Thanksgiving? From our slim choices we decided to use an extra-sharp cheddar and smoked white-cheddar mix. It turned out great. The thing about this recipe is that it is so forgiving. Yummmmm.

250 Tasty Snacks

2008-11-22T08:00:00.001-08:00

This week I have three parties. My friend Victoria's birthday, Thanksgiving at Paula and Terri's, concluding with a pie and hors d'oeuvres with Lara, Dominick, Andrew and Nicholas. As you can imagine, that's a lot of cooking. I decided to make a single dish that I can bring to multiple parties. And obviously that dish is a cheese log.

I turned immediately to 250 Tasty Snacks #1 (1970, original copyright 1965), which I knew would help me out. There was an interesting looking recipe for "Nut-Cheese Log," that used both cheddar and roquerfort, but it called for a half a cup of white wine and honestly, I just didn't trust it. So I've decided to stick with my trusty old standby.

Dinner Party

2008-11-16T19:46:00.001-08:00

So I had some friends over for dinner tonight. All in all the meal went well. I used a lovely Polish sausage that I got at Lincolnwood Produce and I made my mashed potatoes from small, unpeeled red potatoes instead of instant (yuck!). It was a hit.

For sides, I served asparagus with pimento strips, just like The American FAMILY Cookbook suggests. I thought I would have a hard time finding pimento, but it was right there on the shelf at Lincolnwood. Of course, the store had a lot to do with it. We also had a great Ceasar Salad with a nice anchovy dressing from The Joy of Cooking.

Serena made the "Pots de Creme Chocolat" from 150 Delectable Dessert Recipes #13 (1971). She really likes to follow a recipe the first time out with a dish. They tasted pretty good, but the instructions were poor. It proved what I had been thinking all along as I read through these books--many of these recipes have not been tested.

Frank 'N Potato Pie

2008-11-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

I've decided to make the Frank 'N Potato Pie with turkey kielbasa and actual mashed potatoes instead of instant. First of all, old school Culinary Arts Institute books would NEVER have used instant. But in reality, no one eats instant potatoes anymore and I would imagine them to be intolerable to a modern audience, but doesn't it look good.

I'm watching my favorite television program, The Bob Newhart Show. This episode originally aired on November 24th, 1973 (You gotta love Hulu!). That is one week shy of 35 years ago. You have to admit, Emily is pretty cute. The title theme "Home to Emily," makes me want to be home to my own Serena. I wonder if Emily ever made these dishes. It seems unlikely.

The American FAMILY Cookbook #8

2008-11-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

I'm having a few friends over on Sunday. They're colleagues of my girlfriend, Serena, and I want everything to be nice. She already told them about my project, so really the goal is to make something that will be authentic, but still palatable to a contemporary audience. For Sunday I have selected a lovely main dish from The American FAMILY Cookbook #8 (1971) called "Frank 'N Potato Pie." Though I have to say, the frank in the photo looks much more like a kielbasa and not a hot dog. The latter books from The Culinary Arts Institute are obviously re-works from the 40s and 50s editions. Many are exactly the same recipes, even the same photos. This makes it hard to tell precisely when frankfurters metamorphosed from sausage to wiener.

Of course, there will be salad to offset the starch of the potatoes. Also, I will serve grilled asparagus wrapped in pimento (all long green vegetables: asparagus, green beans are bound by pimento). And I am serving a delightful chilled Lambrusco from Trader Joe's. I still can't decide on a dessert. The one I want to make requires a star-shaped Jell-O mould. Sadly, I'm fresh out.

Dishes Mother Used to Make #126

2008-11-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

Sadly, Dishes Mother Used to Make #126 (1942) hardly looked as if it had been cracked. It had been checked out a few times. But really...This is so pathetic. Five times in 62 years? Even if you account for the REMOTE STORAGE this book seems better than that. But then I wondered, Was it the title, Dishes Mother Used to Make? Now, when I was growing up my mother made it pretty clear that women had better things to do than cook. And my mother wasn't such a great cook anyway, and maybe even the women a generation before me had mothers who weren't such great cooks. What if our romantic ideals of women from the past (mothers) who made such great food wasn't really true. Of course, I'd batted this idea around before, but faced with the reality of people's indifference to Dishes Mother Used to Make, I've come to the conclusion that perhaps we are not so fond of mother's cooking.

The Library is My Friend

2008-11-09T15:58:00.000-08:00

I started my search for books by The Culinary Arts Institute through the state academic library system. Who would have thought that someone might still have these jewels on their shelves. Well, come to find out The University of Illinois had a few. You can't imagine how shocked I was by this. I went ahead and requested them, though I didn't have great hopes. Because these books are really slight I figured they were probably just lost through non-specific library attrition, of which most of the books I really want seem to be victim. Well they came! Sure, they were marked REMOTE STORAGE on the front. Sure, they hadn't been checked out for a decade or four, but they came. The first one that came is called Meals for Two #128 (1942). (Please note the PostModern self-reference of the cover.) It was a little beat up, which indicated use. Honestly, that seems like a lot of food for two. And wasn't everyone thin back then?