Arty Party

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

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

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

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

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

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'

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?