Food for Thought

Bland, low-fiber diet

2011-10-12T14:41:00.001-04:00

I need advice and I need it soon.
Do I sound desperate? That's probably because I am. I'll spare you the gory details, but after spending most of yesterday in the emergency room, my diet has been restricted for the first time in my life. And the restrictions are pretty brutal: avoid whole grain food, whole fruits and vegetables, meats, seeds and nuts, fried and fatty foods, dairy, alcohol, and spicy foods until my symptoms go away. Are they serious? What is left? Oh, yeah. Here's that list: white rice, fruit and vegetable juices without pulp, tender meats.
I implore my foodie friends. What can I do to make these foods interesting? I am hoping that I can ditch the diet in less than a week (after all, our fig tree is still producing amazing fruit that is FULL of seeds), but in the meantime, what suggestions do you have?
Thanks for any recipes you can offer!

A Change of Seasons

2011-09-23T21:08:00.002-04:00

On the way home from work yesterday, I noticed gold in the trees and sniffed autumn in the breeze. The page on the calendar magically turned to September 23. I might be holding on to summer for dear life, but fall is officially here.
At 6:30, the sky was almost dark, and not just from the rain. Instead of corn and melons at the market, there were root crops and apples. Pork tenderloin in the oven sounds better than salmon on the grill. Butternut squash puree was a welcome addition to the dinner table.
I'm lucky to live in Pennsylvania. Just as one season starts to weary my senses, the next brings change. Local strawberries taste all the more sweet because I know they only last for a few weeks, but they give way to the next crop and the next. And when the heat and the humidity get unbearable, I relish the laziness because I know fall will soon bring not just cooler air, but also falling leaves, macintosh apples, and giant pumpkins. Of course, the big family holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, are only a blink of an eye away. Then we get to share food and cheer with everyone we love.
So, I'm looking behind at summer, wishing for just one more watermelon, and looking ahead to Christmas, anticipating cookie baking, but in the meantime, I will enjoy the early fall and its bounty. I hope you will, too!

Here's a recipe for a great fall side dish. The most difficult part is peeling the squash, and if that task is too daunting, most markets sell already cleaned and cut squash (but at a premium!)

Pureed Butternut Squash

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into about 2 inch cubes*
maple syrup, to taste
butter, to taste
cinnamon and nutmeg, optional
Put squash in a covered, microwave-safe dish and cook for 5 to 8 minutes, depending on the size of the squash. Make sure the squash is very soft. Do NOT add water to the dish; the squash will produce its own steaming liquid.
When the squash is soft, drain well and transfer it to the body of a food processor fitted with the stainless-steel blade. Process until smooth. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup maple syrup, total, and about a teaspoon of butter for every cup of puree. Blend just to combine. Serve.
Don't worry if this recipe makes more than your family can eat in one setting. Leftovers are delicious!

*To peel this stubborn vegetable, use a chef's knife to remove both ends. Use a sharp potato peeler (I love the OXY peelers) to remove the skin. Cut in half between the bulbous bottom and the more slender top, then place flat side on the cutting board and slice into 2-inch slabs. Put the slabs on their sides to cut again, and then cut crosswise. With practice, you can peel and slice a squash in under five minutes.

To market, to market

2011-09-01T22:12:00.000-04:00

On the way home from school today, we stopped at the East Goshen Farmer's Market. It felt good to be back after missing it for two Thursdays in a row. The market continues to expand, but there are certain vendors that I have to visit. My first stop was to Frecon Farm for peaches, plums and sickle pears. While I was waiting in line, Gary visited Blueberry Hill Produce for corn, just to make sure that they didn't run out before I got there. A visit to the market would not be complete without the beets from Maysie's Farm, and Sam also had huge heads of escarole and gorgeous radishes to add to my market basket. I picked up a baguette from Wild Flower Bakery. Then I made another stop to Blueberry Hill for ingredients for gazpacho. The green beans were lined up like firewood in quart basket, so I couldn't resist them. Luckily for my waist and wallet, John and Kira (the chocolateers) were not there today, but I'm hoping they'll be back next week. Not only are their candies delicious, they come in adorable shapes. Who can resist caramels wrapped up in a honeybee chocolate casing or chocolate cherries that look like ladybugs? A dozen multi-hued eggs from Lindenhof and a bag of granola from Laura's Biscotti, and we were home again, home again, jiggity jig.

So what did we have for dinner? We went to Le Saigon so Tim could have their soft-shelled crabs before they went out of season. The corn will have to wait until tomorrow night.

When we got home, I handed off some peaches, plums, and pears to Tim (once again, I bought enough fruit for a small army), put the beets on to steam, harvested the heart from the escarole for salad later in the week and cooked up the tougher outside leaves for soup, nibbled on a few radishes before stashing the rest in the vegedor, and whipped up a batch of gazpacho. Now, all the purchases that need to be in the fridge can actually fit, and I have several meals started for the coming days.

And that's why I love going to the East Goshen Farmer's Market!

Coffee versus tea service

2011-08-27T17:07:00.002-04:00

It happened again last weekend. I was sitting in one of my favorite breakfast places, savoring a cup of Bigelow's Raspberry Royale tea when a well-meaning waitress topped off my cup with--you guessed it--coffee. Now mind you, the tea service looks very different from the coffee service (there's a saucer, for one thing, with my used tea bag resting there in plain sight), and I didn't ask for a refill, yet there I was with a cup of coffee/tea. The waitress was quite apologetic, but since it was neither tea nor coffee, it was not palatable. And she didn't bring me another cup!

But at least my waitress noticed my cup was nearing empty. While coffee drinkers are offered refills ad nauseum, I have to beg to get more hot water. Heaven forbid if I ask for another tea bag as well. Instead, I hold out my cup a la Oliver Twist, pleading for more from a frowning waitress. I guess it's because tea service is more difficult than coffee service--there's the boiling water and the tea bag, a whole two part process versus the simple picking up of an already-brewed pot of Joe.

Tea drinkers are subject to other forms of torture, I might add. No one arbitrarily sticks a slice of lemon in a cup of coffee, yet waitresses insist on garnishing tea cups with lemon wedges. When I add a little cream to my tea, the residual juice ends up leaving curds in my cup. Yuck!

Tea needs really hot water to brew, yet often the water is barely tepid, forcing tea drinkers to drink a watery, barely warm beverage. Meanwhile, my coffee-drinking friends are complaining that their beverage is too hot to sip. That's when I start to boil myself!

Do you drink tea? Do you have any stories that you would like to share? Do you have any suggestions to improve tea service for all of us tea drinkers? Let me know!

The votes are in!

2011-08-24T10:46:00.000-04:00

Corn-on-the-cob eaters are a creative bunch. They eat their corn across the cob, around the cob, and cut off the cob all together. They eat it plain. They eat it with butter, butter and salt, or barbecue sauce. They make succotash, corn casseroles, and corn chowder. They cook corn on the stove and on the grill. They husk it first or leave the husk on to protect the tender ears from the searing heat of the coals.

Out of the responses I received, nine people addressed the question of across or around the cob. Three people said they ate across the cob and two eat around. One of my favorite people eats her corn across and then around (I always knew she was creative!). Three people say they always eat their corn cut off the cob.

However you eat your corn on the cob, enjoy the last few weeks of what has been an exceptional corn summer. By this time next month, local corn will be a memory. That is, until next July when the corn is again as high as an elephant's eye!

Setting change

2011-08-14T11:44:00.000-04:00

If you were trying to post a comment and unable to do so, please try again. When I looked at my settings, I discovered there is a new, improved, and recommended comment editor. Mind you, it could have been new two years ago. I haven't looked at the settings since I started posting. As students would say, my bad.

I apologize for any inconvenience, but I hope you will play the corn-on-the-cob game anyway!

Corn-on-the-cob survey

2011-08-13T17:44:00.006-04:00

Here it is August already, and I have not posted a word about corn on the cob, the quintessential summer vegetable (remember, tomatoes are officially fruit). Both the Thursday and the Saturday farmers markets have been selling corn for well over a month, but I haven't paid tribute to those wonderful ears of sweetness.

Growing up, I remember helping my mother husk a couple of dozen ears of corn for our large family. The kitchen would grow even more hot and humid while the spaghetti pot simmered, waiting for us to plunge the ears into the deep water at precisely the right moment. Back then, we cooked corn for at least ten minutes, and we would only pull enough corn from the pot for one ear per person, letting the rest keep warm on the stove. We'd slather on butter and shake enough salt on top to induce an immediate heart attack, and then we would attack the corn, letting the toppings drip onto our plates. Messy? Yes. Delicious? Without a doubt.

A few years ago, I had oral surgery in late June. The doctor gave me a list of foods to avoid. Apples, not to hard to give up during stone-fruit season. Gum, not too hard for a teacher to resist. Caramels, a little harder. Salt-water taffy, a test of my will power. Corn on the cob, sheer torture. He said that I could cut the corn OFF the cob, but what is the point of that? I mean, seriously, if I were a political prisoner, that would violate the Geneva Conventions. I must confess that since I wasn't allowed to eat corn on the cob, I didn't buy corn on the cob, and I didn't cook corn on the cob. Call me cruel, but I could not face that temptation without succumbing.

This evening, I'm going to put about an inch of water in my wok, add a smidgen of sugar, and bring it to a boil while I husk the corn. As soon as the water hits a full boil, I'm going to drop the corn into the pot, put on the lid, and let it steam just until the kernels change color. In August, the corn is so sweet and so tender and so wonderful that it doesn't need butter or salt. But if you can't help yourself, go ahead. Indulge. After all, summer--at least corn on the cob--doesn't last very long.

My question for you: Do you eat your corn across or around the cob? Please let me know. I'll post the results the week of August 21.

Grandma's Garden

2011-07-25T12:16:00.005-04:00

You might have noticed a theme to my July posts. Every one has something to do with summer gardens. You might think that I myself have cultivated a garden. I wish. However, I grew up with a great-grandmother and a mother with amazingly green thumbs.

Grandma Isabella stars in many of my garden memories. The back yard in Caln featured a grape arbor, vegetable garden, apple, peach and pear trees, and a chicken coop. Even though I was only five when she died, I can still picture her bent over with her hoe, weeding between the rows of her tomato and pepper plants. I can see her shaking out her apron, feeding table scraps to her chickens. I can still taste the warm egg she fed me straight from the shell (we didn't worry about salmonella when there were only a couple of chickens in the yard). We all looked forward to the fourth of July, the day she said we could pick the first tomatoes off the vine and eat them still warm from the summer sun. In August, she led us in preserving the garden bounty for the long winter ahead, and the pantry shelves heaved with jars of tomato sauce, green beans, and peaches.

Grandma had very little formal education, but she knew gardens. She planted peas on St. Joseph's Day, March 19, and we gobbled raw peas by the pound. She used fish bones as a natural fertilizer in the garden. She planted marigolds around the border to keep out pests. She moved the zucchini around the garden so squash borers never had a chance to establish. I only wish I could remember more of her garden lore. She believed that "stolen" plants performed better than gifted ones, so she would use her sharp nails to nip clippings when her friends weren't looking. Those snippets grew into beautiful plantings. Her Christmas cactus is still producing beautiful blooms in December, and while the clippings I stole from my own grandmother's Christmas cactus (with her blessing) bloom in February rather than December, they are further proof of her stolen-plant theory.

As the hot summer days gradually grow shorter, I hope that you take time to sit on a swing on a screened porch, sip a tall glass of iced tea, and remember the relatives with green thumbs and the gardens of years ago.

Breakfast Parfait

2011-07-25T11:47:00.005-04:00

Summer fruit begs to come home with me. Quarts of blueberries, peaches, plums, raspberries, blackberries. Whole melons, cantaloupe or honeydew or water. Pounds of cherries, red and yellow. And, like big-eyed puppies, they follow me home. The problem? There are only two adults to eat this harvest. It's almost impossible for Gary and me to consume the quantity of irresistible sweet produce I buy, unless it's an integral part of our breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.

My favorite sumer breakfast is a huge bowl of fresh fruit topped with Greek yogurt, a squirt of agave nectar, and a sprinkle of good granola. This week, local blueberries and Saturn peaches are featured in my breakfast bowl. A carton of baby banana Greek yogurt adds another layer of flavor. The best part about this breakfast is that I don't get hungry again for hours.

You, too, can enjoy an easy, delicious, healthful breakfast. Visit a good produce stand. Let yourself be seduced by the smells and textures and flavors. When you get your haul home, keep the peaches and plums at room temperature to preserve their flavors and textures. And remember that, despite its name, a breakfast parfait is good any time of day.

Mangia!

BLT

2011-07-21T19:55:00.004-04:00

It's summertime, and the tomatoes from the East Goshen Farmers Market this afternoon were at their prime. We've had salad caprese every other night for the past two weeks, and while I can't say I'm tired of perfectly ripe tomatoes layered with fresh mozzarella and basil, drizzled with artisan olive oil from A Taste of Olive, I needed a change. What better way to savor summer than a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich? Add a couple of ears of fresh corn as a side. YUM!

2011-07-15T10:39:00.002-04:00

If you are in East Goshen on Thursday afternoon between 3 and 7, check out the new farmers market. In addition to fresh produce, eggs and locally-grown meat and poultry, you can find wonderful chocolates (packaged with ice to get them safely home even on the hottest of summer afternoons), cheeses, and popsicles.

Fat Tuesday leads to Ash Wednesday

2011-03-08T18:41:00.004-05:00

I don't remember celebrating Fat Tuesday when I was growing up, but Ash Wednesday holds special memories. Of course, we went to church before school and stood in line for ashes. "Remember man that you are dust and into dust you shall return," the priest intoned over and over, smearing a rough cross of ashes from last year's palms on each person's forehead. The combination of an empty stomach, the pungent aroma, and the words themselves left me dizzy and not a little afraid of my own sins. All day long, the cross (and my navy blue jumper with the St. Cecilia School emblem) reminded me and others of my faith.

That first day of Lent, I felt especially holy denying myself anything pleasurable, all sweet and salty snacks especially. There was no eating between meals, and there was no meat during the week when I was growing up. For Ash Wednesday dinner, my grandmother would make, of course, a huge pot of vegetarian lentil soup. Even though we were not supposed to enjoy food during Lent, her lentil soup was a treat that I still can taste, and mine is never quite as good as I remember hers. That difference doesn't deter me, though. Even as I write, there is a pot of lentil soup simmering on the stove so tomorrow I'll be able to commemorate the first day of Lent and my grandmother.

Vegetarian Lentil Soup

This soup makes an easy if not instant vegetarian dinner. The most labor intensive part is chopping all the vegetables!

3 onions, finely chopped

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped carrots

1 small potato in 1/2 inch dice

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 pound brown lentils, rinsed and checked for small pebbles

2 bay leafs

10 cups water

salt to taste

Put all ingredients except salt into large soup pot. Bring to a gentle boil, then lower heat to maintain a simmer. Cover, but tilt lid to allow some steam to escape. Cook for 60 to 90 minutes, until lentils are soft. Add salt to taste. Serve with crusty bread and a green salad.

Long time, no posts

2011-03-08T09:36:00.000-05:00

Please forgive the delay between posts, but I forgot my login information—even my gmail login. So, take this word from the senile: keep a log of any accounts you use infrequently. It will save hours of trial and error! I hope that you’ll come back and read my blog.

Ice Boxes

2010-08-24T13:15:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I swear I'm channeling my grandmother. I am not by nature a person who loves to clean, unlike MomMom who took vacation at the beginning of the summer to take down the heavy winter drapes, wash all the windows (using Q-tips and toothpicks to get into every nook and cranny), and put up the light criss-cross curtains, bleached white, starched and ironed to within an inch of their life.

I silently chuckled when MomMom would scold me if my drawers weren't neat. I could not imagine how the conversation would go, even if someone did dare to peek into my messy dresser. How would they work the topic into conversation? "When I was snooping in Linda's house, I opened her medicine chest. Would you believe that she has expired aspirin?" Or "I just happened to be in Linda's bedroom, and I opened her underwear drawer. She doesn't iron her panties!" Neither scenario seemed likely.

However, in anticipation for the PECO pick up of our garage refrigerator, I found myself elbow deep in soapy water scrubbing down the shelves and walls, removing drawers and soaking them in a bleach solution. Who was I trying to impress? My husband walked past me and acted shocked. "Oh, I see. There was a change of plan. It's Better Homes and Gardens coming to pick up your refrigerator, not the PECO recycling crew." I wrung out my rag and saw the humor in the situation. This appliance served us well, even after it had been relegated to the garage. It was the repository for beverages in case of unexpected guests, it was the place where I would stash a pot of stock to cool quickly, it was the spot to store an over abundance of summer produce, and now I'm waiting for its removal to the refrigerator heaven in the sky.

When the refrigerator recycling truck arrived, two muscled men opened the door to make sure it still operated, then they cut the cord and carted Old Faithful down the driveway. Having a second refrigerator in the garage was the last vestige of my childhood memories of a second kitchen, where my grandmother and mother and (eventually I) would can tomatoes and peaches, where we would bake pizzelles at Christmas over the gas flame, where we would cook in the summer to keep the house cool.

It's no wonder that I was looking at my old refrigerator with my grandmother's critical eye. It's the end of an era, an age when families needed a second kitchen. With just the two of us, it was downright wasteful to run that second refrigerator, storing food that often was forgotten because of its lack of proximity to the kitchen. It was time for a change.

But maybe I should whip up one of MomMom's recipes, for old time's sake. My favorite summer dessert was MomMom's Icebox Cake.

MomMom's Icebox Cake

1 large box chocolate pudding mix (not instant)

1 large box vanilla pudding mix (not instant)

4 cups milk

1 box graham crackers.

Prepare the chocolate pudding according to box directions with two cups of milk. (I use the microwave method, but MomMom always cooked the pudding, stirring constantly over low heat.)

While the pudding is cooling slightly, place a single layer of graham crackers on the bottom of a 9x13 glass baking dish. Cut crackers to fit, and reserve any small or broken pieces.

Pour slightly cooled pudding over crackers.

Place a layer of graham crackers over the chocolate pudding.

Prepare the vanilla pudding as above. Cool slightly, and pour over second layer of graham crackers.

Crush the pieces of graham crackers (enough to make 1 cup of crumbs) and sprinkle over the top of the vanilla pudding.

Refrigerate until well chilled.

The Italian Flag: Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes and Broccoli

2010-08-01T21:55:00.009-04:00

There's nothing like vine-ripened tomatoes. You don't have to do anything to them, and they are delicious. When the farmers at the Growers Market bring their first tomatoes to town, I throw caution to the wind and indulge in a classic BLT on white toast slathered with mayonnaise. When I want to gild the lily, I make a Salad Caprese. Just cut the tomatoes into thick slices, layer them with fresh mozzarella, garnish with basil, and drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil. I'm partial to A Taste of Olive's Peloponnesian.

After the first flush of tomatoes, I start looking for more creative ways to use the bounty. Tonight I made the ultimate lazy summer dinner, rotini pasta with tomatoes and broccoli. It's easy to make, it's nutritious, and it's quick to clean up.

When I'm making a quick dinner, I try to get all my ingredients ready in advance. That way, I don't have to stop and start--once I put the pasta into the pot, there isn't much time for dawdling!

Here's the prep:

Start by putting a big pot of water on to boil. As you wait, chop a couple of cloves of garlic and put them in a medium bowl. Add 2-3 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil (that Peloponnesian works well here, too). If you like a little heat, add red pepper flakes to taste. Sprinkle with sea salt, if desired. Cut a large head of broccoli into bite-sized pieces and reserve. Stack about 12 leaves of basil, thinly slice, and reserve. Cut 8-10 small (2 inch) balls of fresh mozzarella into quarters and reserve.

Now let's cook:

Core two large washed tomatoes and cut an X at the other end. When the water comes to a full boil, drop the tomatoes into the pot and remove them after a minute. Put them into a bowl of ice water. Peel the tomatoes and chop them into 1/2 inch dice. Add the tomatoes to the olive oil and garlic. Add salt to taste to the water, and 1/2 pound of rotini noodles to the boiling water. Follow package direction for al dente pasta (I used Barilla, which cooks up in 7 minutes). When there is 3 minutes left to the cooking time, add the reserved chopped broccoli.

Drain the pasta and broccoli when it is just al dente, but reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water. You might not need it, but if the pasta is a little dry, it's essential! Return the drained pasta and broccoli to the pot and add the tomato-garlic oil. Toss over low heat for about one minute to warm the tomatoes. If the dish is dry, add a little of the reserved pasta water. Remove from heat, add about 1/2 of the reserved basil. Toss. Put the pasta into individual serving dishes (2 main course servings, 4 appetizer servings). Top with the reserved mozzarella and garnish with the remaining basil. If you like, shave some pecorino romano cheese over the top. Serve with a green salad and good Italian bread.

This dish is open to many variations. Instead of mozzarella cheese, substitute diced pepperoni or ham. Instead of basil, use flat-leaved parsley. Instead of broccoli, try fresh peas or green beans (the peas cook in less time, while the green beans need to go into the pot along with the rotini). You can add a handful of pitted Italian olives or a sprinkling of toasted pignoli to the cooked pasta. If you have a hankering for this summer dish in February, use good-quality diced tomatoes in a can. It isn't quite the same, but it's still a quick, nutritious, easy dinner.

Mangia!

Melon Season

2010-06-30T18:17:00.003-04:00

Summer isn't summer until melons are ripe. This week, we've had not one but two watermelons. Both were the seedless variety, which often break my heart, yet I buy them again and again. Why? Because I can't stand the waste of the much larger seeded melons. There is no way that two people (well, actually, just me because my husband does not share my enthusiasm for the juicy, crisp, sweet red flesh) can eat a whole seeded melon before it goes horribly south. With perseverance, though, I can finish a seedless melon, if it lives up to expectations. Plus, in the summer, I'm lazy and I don't want to deal with the seeds. Even as a kid, I could never spit seeds, and now that I'm an adult, I don't want to contend with the mess.

That brings me back to this week's melons. Because it is still very early in the melon season, I was skeptical, but it was hot, and the melons were on sale, and I succumbed to temptation. Against today's wisdom, I popped it into the refrigerator as soon as I got home (evidently, watermelon holds its nutritional value better if left on the counter). Before long, though, the siren song called me. With the heat, we didn't feel like eating, but watermelon sounded just right. That is, if the melon itself was just right.

I put the melon on the cutting board, pulled out my biggest chef's knife, and thrust it into melon's heart. It split easily in two, revealing perfectly red flesh. It looked delicious, but looks can be deceiving. I cut one half in half again and began pulling the flesh from the rind, cutting chunks into a huge glass salad bowl, restraining myself. If it was wonderful, it would keep, but for the time being, it was better not knowing. When I topped off the bowl, I finally succumbed. One taste told the tale.

Summer had arrived. The melon was chilled to perfection, the texture was crisp, and the taste was sweet, the taste of summer. Ahhh!

Food from the heart doesn't have to come from the kitchen

2010-06-28T16:48:00.003-04:00

Last Thursday, my brother's family returned from Richmond, VA. They had made settlement on their new home, and they were waiting for their furniture to arrive. I wanted to cook something special for them, but my house was one of the 200,000 plus residences still without power after the storm that barreled across Chester and Delaware counties. Even with a gas stove, I depended on electricity for the spark and for temperature controls. I was despondent. I mean, if my family can't count on me to bring sustenance to a life-changing event, what good am I? I couldn't bake a cake. I couldn't make a pot roast. I couldn't even boil water for iced tea.

After a while, I put on my thinking cap and realized that perhaps food doesn't always have to come from my kitchen to come from my heart. I made a trip to the grocery store and ordered a variety of lunch meats and cheeses. I bought Italian rolls and a loaf of marble rye. With some chips, pretzels, and bakery cookies, I rounded out the picnic basket. I tossed paper products and beverages into my cart. From home, I added butter, mustard, and mayonnaise, pickles and olives, a sharp knife and a big box of plasticware. I had the ingredients for a meal that was easy to prepare and to clean up.

Since there are plenty of boxes left to be unpacked, I can still make a casserole to relieve my sister-in-law of kitchen duties as she gets settled into the new house, but in the future, I'll know I have other options if my kitchen is out of commission!

Institution Food or How We Eat at the AP Reading

2010-06-18T13:00:00.003-04:00

There is nothing like the smell of Sterno to remind me of the taste of institution food. This past week, that scent was strong. Let me backtrack. I spent the last eight days in Louisville as a guest of the College Board reading essays for the Advanced Placement Language and Composition exam. To get any doubts out of the way, yes, it is insane, but it is also a wonderful opportunity to meet other equally crazy English teachers and to share with them best practices in the classroom and our favorite books and movies. However, whenever anyone tries to feed close to 2,000 people at a crack, the food is not going to be what your mother made, unless she was the cafeteria lady of a large high school.

Institution food suffers from trying to feed many people in a reasonable amount of time. The many people part means that the choices are driven toward the taste of the masses. You are not going to find Brussels sprouts being served, for example. You will find chicken breasts and sliced turkey, beef in barbecue sauce and poached mild fish. Basically, you'll find anything that keeps reasonably well in a chafing dish, but the food is never quite warm enough and always too salty. Unfortunately, the only seasoning used IS salt. Correction. We were served mixed vegetables that were heavily seasoned with oregano. While I love oregano on pizza, for my money, it doesn't enhance broccoli mixed with carrots and corn.

The salad bar suffers from the opposite problem: it is difficult to keep the greens crisp and cold in this environment. The toppings look tired after the third day. And I'm a dressing snob. At home, I drizzle only the finest extra-virgin olive oil into a bowl that I have rubbed with the cut side of a clove of fresh garlic, then I add a smidgen of red wine vinegar (made in small batches and sold in one of my very favorite stores in Philadelphia's Italian Market), a dollop of dijon mustard, and a generous sprinkle of chopped fresh herbs. The dressings in the cafeteria line were mass-produced, gelatinous, overly salty, and probably very bad for anyone with high cholesterol.

The foods that are most successful for a crowd are the very foods that I should be avoiding: the starches (they serve a wide variety of potatoes and pasta salads) and desserts (the brownies were out of this world). It is far to easy to justify dessert when the rest of the meal felt unsubstantial. However, the bottom line is that calories, whether they taste good or not, are still calories. Did I need that slice of cake? Of course not. I am no where close to starvation. Yet, somehow it jumped onto my tray and disappeared.

As an adult, I feel silly jockeying for position in a cafeteria line, juggling a tray, eating off of plastic plates with plastic forks that break before the meal is over. I revert to my adolescent whine as I criticize each bite I put in my mouth. However, even as I complain about the mystery meat and the wilted lettuce, there is a part of me that appreciates the fact that I did not have to plan the meal, shop for the ingredients, or cook.

And now I have to figure out what to make for dinner tonight. Hmm. Is there any cheese to go with this whine?

Broccoli

2010-05-27T21:47:00.004-04:00

Broccoli has gotten a bad rap. After George Bush proudly proclaimed his dislike for this cruciferous vegetable, a raft of people jumped onto the anti-broccoli bandwagon. I'd like to say a few words in its defense.

When prepared well, broccoli is perhaps the most beautiful and delicious vegetable available for those of us who live in a climate that has distinct seasons. Broccoli is an easy side dish steamed, stir-fried, or creamed. When my children went through their anti-vegetable stage, they still liked "trees" for dinner.

However, broccoli brought my husband and me together. You see, when we were dating, my father called a meeting with my future husband, and the outcome was that we were not going to see each other any more. Several nights later, I got a telephone call. It was my husband-to-be. He had a head of broccoli and didn't know what to do with it. Of course, the next night I prepared the broccoli, and we have been together ever since.

Broccoli is at its best sauteed quickly with a little garlic, red pepper, and olive oil. But it also makes a delicious and easy soup. Here's a quick and easy recipe that makes an excellent first course. People will think you slaved all day. I won't tell that it only took 15 minutes!

Cream of Broccoli Soup

2 cups chicken stock

1 stalk celery, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 medium carrot, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic

a generous pinch of cayenne pepper

2 cups steamed broccoli (still bright green)

1 cup heavy or whipping cream

Bring chicken stock, celery, carrot, onion, garlic and cayenne pepper to a boil in a medium saucepan. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes. While the stock is simmering, steam the broccoli and drain. Working with half of the stock and the broccoli at a time, puree in a blender (be very careful because the mixture is very hot). Return the pureed mixture to the medium saucepan and add the cream. Reheat gently (do not bring to a full boil), and season to taste with salt and pepper. If you like, garnish with chopped parsley and a dollop of sour cream.

Making Bread

2010-05-09T19:55:00.000-04:00

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away, my summer job was in a commercial bakery, the kind that makes bread and cookies and fish-shaped crackers. For me it was only a summer job, and I was lucky to get it in a bad economy. Because I was a girl (they didn’t call us women), I got to work on the line.The college boys worked in maintenance, standing around the perimeter of the cavernous factory floor holding push brooms as props for their infrequent inspections. The girls on the line earned $4.35 an hour. The boys, I learned later, earned three or four times that.

Depending on the line, there might be six or eight stations, and girls rotated from one to the next on twenty minute intervals. Some study had determined that routine increased productivity. It certainly cut down on boredom.

I started on the line that produced commercial rolls that were shaped like the lower-case letter “e,” creatively called E-rolls. We girls worked around two sides of a long machine that mixed the ingredients, shaped it into cylinders that were propelled down a conveyer belt. The first girl on the line twirled the handle that sifted additional flour onto the belt, kept an eye on the extruder to make sure the cylinders were uniform, pulled off the irregular ones and the ones that didn’t get shaped, moved full trays of rolls from the end of the line to the proofing trays, and rolled the full cart into the proofing oven.

The next position was responsible for shaping every other cylinder into a perfect letter e. While the first day my rolls didn’t come anywhere close to approximating that shape, by the end of the summer, I could keep up with seasoned veterans.

As you might guess, the next seat on the line also shaped the cylinders, but that position was responsible for tidying any rolls that didn’t make quality control. The fourth girl on the line moved the rolls from the conveyer belt onto the trays before they were dumped unceremoniously to the floor. Then you moved to the other side of the machine. E-rolls were probably the hardest to make, but we also had to learn the tricks to form hotdog and hamburger rolls, parker house and butter rolls, and all the rest if we wanted to keep our job.

All the rolls were shaped before lunch. The girls who were lucky enough to have hours scheduled after lunch also rotated from one job to the next. The trays of rolls were fed into large conveyer-belt ovens, and when the oven discharged the hot trays, we grabbed them in gloved hands, smacked the trays so the rolls loosened, then flipped them onto the cooling belt. The rolls rode to the packing area where we picked up the rolls and moved them into the next belt that fed the rolls into plastic bags. Those bags were stacked onto large metal trays that eventually made their way into trucks where the rolls went off to be delivered to local restaurants. That is in an ideal world.

Our world was often less than ideal. The packing station was the most temperamental. A machine puffed air to open plastic bags, but if the air puff wasn’t strong enough, or if the bags didn’t release properly at their perforations, there was nowhere for the rolls to go, but there was also no way to stop them. We had to pull trays and stack the rolls onto them so the rolls didn’t tumble to the ground, a total loss.

Because I worked hard and learned pretty quickly, I worked at least 40-hours a week, earning enough to pay for my tuition at a state college for three years in a single summer. And it’s a good thing that I did, because I didn’t want to return. I had a constant cough from the flour in the air. My back ached from picking up the heavy trays. My arms were scarred from transferring the rolls from the trays to the cooling rack. I appreciated my college education because I knew what it cost me physically to earn it.

Putting on the Ritz

2010-04-29T10:25:00.003-04:00

Sharing a meal brings friends together. Making a meal together with friends cements those bonds. For months, a group of my friends has been planning a foodie event. Our host planned a menu based largely on recipes from Fine Cooking magazine, and we shared responsibility for gathering ingredients. On Saturday morning, we loaded up the car and drove to New Jersey to prepare the feast. Annette, our host, provided a beautiful venue, including her dining room set with an antique linen tablecloth and sterling, and shopped for fish and chicken and vegetables. Judy visited the Devon Farmers Market for fresh berries, cantaloupe, kiwis, and cheeses. Paola provided the wine. I brought along chocolates from Eclat and ingredients to make fresh pasta and sauce. We were set.

Together we chopped, sliced and diced; we sauteed, braised and roasted. We rolled pasta dough. We laughed and we learned. We paired appetizer cheeses, bread, and crackers with Italian bubbly (don't call it champagne!) as we waited for the guys to return from a hike. We moved to the dining room for the arugala, shaved baby artichoke and parmesan cheese salad tossed in a lemon vinaigrette. We twirled pasta fresca in tomato sauce without getting stains on the linens. We feasted on fresh trout stuffed with herbs and lemons, chicken with mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes and caramelized onions, asparagus drizzled with truffle oil, and roasted fingerling potatoes. We ended with fresh berries, more cheese, and chocolates.

Dinners like this were a staple in my parents' house. Almost every month they hosted a dozen friends who dressed in tuxes and formal dresses. My mother spent the week before polishing silver, ironing tablecloths and napkin, rinsing the crystal, shopping, cooking, and baking. My grandmother and I helped her prepare and assisted in the clean up. I remember watching the adults sit at the table, the candlelight reflected in the crystal and silver. I listened to them talk about politics and religion. I saw the faces flush with excitement and with wine. I envied their glamour.

This dinner party echoed that glamour in all the important ways. Annette pulled out all the stops, and the conversation rose to the occasion. I felt adult in a way that it is impossible to do when sitting in the kitchen with the everyday dishes and tableware.

My generation is different from my parents'. I used to wonder why we didn't use the good stuff everyday, but I seldom use my grandmother's china or the good silver even when we have company. After this weekend, though, I'm looking at the china cabinet with a new glint in my eye. The next time we get together with friends, we'll have dinner in our dining room with the crystal and the china and the silver, and we'll behave like the grownups that we are. Finally.

What's for dinner?

2010-04-20T17:02:00.004-04:00

What's for dinner? That is a question that strikes terror in the heart of day-to-day cooks. After four decades of cooking, I figure I've turned out something in the vicinity of 10,000 dinners alone. (If you don't want to know your own startling statistic, don't do the math--it frightened me, for sure!) After a while, making dinner gets boring. What else is there to make? And if your house is like mine, you don't get many suggestions from the peanut gallery. Maybe I should take it as a compliment, but my family trusts me implicitly with meal planning. It's a nightly dance. "What do you want for dinner?" "Oh, I don't know. Whatever you want to make." AARGH!

Chicken is my go-to entree. Out of those 10,000 meals, I bet over half have involved some form of fowl. It's versatile and easy to prepare, but I usually end up grabbing a package of skinless, boneless breasts because they cook more quickly than the whole bird. Here's a good compromise that is featured in the May 2010 issue of Everyday Food (although I've seen it in other books and magazines long before it appeared there).

Pre-heat the oven to 500 degrees. Yes, 500. It's going to make the skin crispy without drying out the delicate breast meat. While the oven preheats, take your chicken (3 to 4 pounds), rinse, dry, and place it breast-side down on your working surface. Using sharp kitchen shears, cut down one side of the backbone, turn the chicken, and then cut down the other side. (I collect the backbones and the necks in the freezer until I have enough for stock. Waste not, want not.) Flip the chicken so the breast is skin up, and press on the breastbone until the chicken is flat. Sprinkle generously with salt (if using) and freshly ground pepper. Gently loosen the skin and insert aromatics (slices of lemon, or halved garlic cloves, or springs of thyme or rosemary) between the skin and the breast and thigh meat. Place the prepared chicken in a roasting pan or oven-proof skillet.

I like to put my oven to work, so I add vegetables to the pot. Tonight, I peeled a large sweet potato, cut it into chunks, dressed it with olive oil, and added the chunks to the pan. They were tender and slightly charred when the chicken was ready. I've also added chunks of potatoes and carrots. Everyday Food has several other suggestions.

Put everything into the oven for 30 minutes, or until the juices run clear and the temperature at the thigh reaches 165 degrees. Let the chicken rest for 15 minutes before serving. Another advantage to this preparation: you don't have to actually carve a bird, one of my least favorite chores. This recipe serves four. When you add a salad, slice a crusty loaf of bread, and pour a glass of your favorite white, you'll think you're in Tuscany.

Bon appétit!

Breakfast

2010-04-19T10:29:00.004-04:00

Nutritionists say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but when I was a teenager, I balked a breakfast like a filly approaching a jump. There was no amount of cajoling that would get me to eat. Eggs were slimy, cereal soggy, and pancakes, French toast and waffles set-my-teeth-on-edge sweet. My mother, the saint that she is, whisked an egg into a cup of whole milk augmented with sugar and vanilla, and she barricaded the front door until I gulped it down. Mind you, these were the days before anyone worried about cholesterol, and e. coli and salmonella poisoning had not been invented. And those were the days that no amount of food added an ounce to my skinny frame.

Today I don't need any coaxing to eat breakfast. I'm spoiled for choice. Maybe oatmeal, topped with raisins and walnuts, sweetened with brown sugar. Maybe Rice Krispies with a sliced banana. Maybe a fresh pear with a big dollop of ricotta cheese. Maybe a sliced orange sprinkled with toasted coconut and a slice of Italian toast slathered with Plugra. Maybe a hard-boiled egg with French sea salt and some thinly-sliced radishes from Saturday's Growers Market. Maybe a slab of sour cream coffee cake and a mug of caffe latte with a thick cap of foam dusted with cinnamon sugar. See what I mean? What's a girl to do when she is on sabbatical and the kitchen is open?

Here's my latest favorite coffee cake recipe. It starts with a version found in The Scholarly Chef: The University of Richmond Cooks, but I've modified it. It's buttery and decadent!

Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Chips

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup good quality plain yogurt

1 cup cinnamon chips

Topping

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Grease a 9x13 inch glass baking dish with butter. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour, baking powder and salt onto a sheet of waxed paper or a paper plate. Reserve. Beat butter until light and fluffy. Add sugar gradually and beat until light. Add eggs one at a time and beat until well incorporated. Add vanilla. Mix sour cream and yogurt. Reserve. Add the flour to the creamed butter mixture in three portions, alternating with the sour cream and yogurt (use the waxed paper or paper plate to make a funnel to pour the flour into the mixing bowl). Pour half of batter into prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with cinnamon chips. Top with remaining batter and smooth. Combine topping ingredients in a small bowl. Sprinkle topping over cake. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. You get to decide how many servings!

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It's certainly the most versatile.

Bon Appétit!

The Perfect Pizza

2010-04-18T21:30:00.005-04:00

When I was growing up, Friday was the night for pizza. My father would pick up a couple of pizzas and a stromboli so my mother had a night off. As I got older, I learned how to make pizza from scratch, and I would make pizza for the family. I loved the feel of the yeast breathing life into the flour as I kneaded five pounds of flour into dough, no mean task, I assure you. There was enough pizza for a party, or for our family of nine.

To me, there are two kinds of pizza. No, not the Sicilian square and the Neapolitan round. I'm talking homemade and everything else. If you have never tried to make pizza on your own, there's no need to fear. Yes, it does involve yeast, and many people run from yeasty bread recipes as if they are being chased by the devil himself, but trust me, pizza is as easy as pie.

Why bother making your own dough when Domino's is just a phone call away? First of all, you get to control the quantity and quality of all the ingredients. Second, it tastes infinitely better than anything out of a delivery box. Third, it is satisfying to watch those you love dig into a pizza you made all by yourself--or with their help.

The ratio is simple: 3 cups of flour to an envelope (a scant three teaspoons) of yeast (regular or quick rise), a generous sprinkling of salt, a cup of warm water (give or take, depending on the humidity in your kitchen), and a drizzle of olive oil. With a food processor, preparing the dough is almost too simple to imagine. Put the dry ingredients into the processor bowl, take it for a brief spin, then slowly drizzle the water through the feed tube while the processor is running. Add the olive oil (a couple of tablespoons, if you are squeamish about guestimating). When the dough comes together, stop, wait five minutes, then give the dough another 20 second mix. Transfer the dough to a flour-dusted counter top and knead briefly. Grease a large bowl with another tablespoon of olive oil, and transfer the dough into the bowl. Turn the dough so it is covered with oil, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and wait. If you are using instant yeast, the dough is ready in well under an hour. If you are using regular yeast, wait two hours or longer. You will know that it is ready when it is puffy and your fingers leave an indentation (rather than just springing right back at you). This quantity of pizza will serve four people with ordinary appetites. If you have teenagers in your house, you probably will want to make two times the recipe. Don't be tempted to put the doubled ingredients into your food processor at the same time, however!

Once the dough is nicely risen, the fun begins. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. That's about as hot as a home oven gets. Then choose the size and shape of your pizza. With the above recipe, you can make one thick square pizza in an 11x16 inch jelly-roll pan, or you can make a thinner pizza in a 16 inch pizza pan, or you can divide the dough into fourths and make personal round pizzas as thin as you can roll the dough. I don't use a pizza stone personally, but there are some people who swear by them. I found I was usually swearing at mine.

Sprinkle corn meal on the pan to prevent sticking. Shape the dough in the pan and let it rise a second time while the oven heats. Add your toppings. Bake for 10-18 minutes, depending on the size and shape of your pizzas. You want your crust to be a golden brown, no matter how thick or thin. The thinner the pizza, the shorter the cooking time. Remove from the oven when the crust in golden brown and the toppings are bubbling.

Time your pizza so that people will be able to eat it hot from the oven. Of course, you probably want to make enough for left-overs. Cold pizza is a delicacy in and of itself.

Here are some ideas for toppings:

Traditional margharita: spread the dough with your favorite pizza sauce (see below for an easy recipe), bake for 6-7 minutes, remove from oven to top with fresh mozzarella cheese sliced very thin and torn fresh basil leaves. Return to over and continue baking until crust is browned (about 7 minutes for a 16-inch round pizza).

The Italian flag: drizzle the dough lightly with olive oil. Cover with thinly sliced fresh tomatoes and sprinkle the tomatoes with salt to taste, then arrange ricotta cheese and lightly cooked spinach attractively over the tomatoes. Bake for 14-16 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

White pizza with broccoli: Drizzle olive oil over the dough, sprinkle generously with shredded mozzarella cheese, and top with broccoli cooked al dente (I stir fry my broccoli with olive oil and garlic until it gets bright green). Sprinkle with red pepper flakes, if desired, and bake.

Other toppings: roasted red peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni, cooked Italian sausage. Really, just about anything. Artichoke hearts, asparagus, broccoli rabe, cauliflower--almost any vegetable is at home on a pizza. Experiment with cheeses. While I love a good gooey mozzarella, any grated cheese alone or in reasonable combination can be enlisted.

Quick pizza sauce: Pour a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil into a heavy medium saucepan over low heat. Add 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (about 2 teaspoons) and red pepper flakes to taste (I usually add about a teaspoon of red pepper). Cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently and watching constantly (don't let the garlic burn). Add a 28-ounce can of good-quality chopped tomatoes in puree and a bay leaf, and bring to a boil over medium high heat, then reduce to low and simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes. Add salt to taste.

Potato Salad Memories

2009-09-07T20:48:00.004-04:00

Labor Day marks the end of picnic season for my family. One brother starts the grill and makes hamburgers and hot dogs and Italian sausage. Another brother marinates a London broil and adds it to the mix. I made deviled eggs and chocolate cherry cake. My mother made a big bowl of potato salad.

My mother makes potato salad often during the summer, but this batch was special. She used my grandmother's recipe. It takes the better part of a day between boiling potatoes and eggs, grating the eggs and the onions so they meld into the dressing, chopping celery into quarter-inch dice, cutting potatoes into precise cubes. Every step requires precision.

I have watched my grandmother and now my mother make this potato salad for close to fifty years, but I can't replicate it. When I go to the store, I can't remember which brand of mayonnaise my grandmother always used. I can't get the timing right for the potatoes. They are either crunchy or mushy. I can't judge how much egg and onion to add. It just doesn't taste the same.

Tasting that first forkful of my mother's potato salad today brought back memories of my grandmother standing in front of the sink in her blue seersucker apron. I could see her scraped knuckles around a wooden spoon folding mustard and mayonnaise into the potatoes, onions, and eggs. I can hear her asking me to taste to see if there is enough salt or if it needs more mustard, even though I know it's already perfect, just like the potato salad my mother made for us today.

Goodbye, Sheila

2009-09-02T18:38:00.002-04:00

Sheila Lukens was perhaps the single biggest influence on me as a new wife. I poured over The Silver Palate Cookbook every week as I planned menus. She inspired me to make every meal special.

Over time, her recipes adjusted to fit a healthier lifestyle, and I followed her lead. It was never a sacrifice to eat better when using Sheila's recipes.

I will miss her.

Vacation dining

2009-08-24T15:13:00.007-04:00

Dining out, for me, is a special treat, no matter how often we indulge ourselves. I'm torn between wanting a Cheers experience (a place where everybody knows my name) and trying a new place. Last week when we were on vacation, we had a chance to do both.

In Albany, we revisited Tandoor Palace, a quiet Indian restaurant on the corner of Lark and Madison. It's an artsy area, and there is no off-street parking. In fact, there's a sign on the door that warns customers away from parking in the nearby Dunkin Donuts lot. We should have realized that when we found an empty spot on Madison, it was too good to be true. After a delicious and relatively inexpensive meal, we discovered a $65 parking ticket on our windshield. That more than doubled the price of our chicken tikka, vegetable biryani, and paswari naan. We won't be going back to Albany.

In Fishkill, NY, we discovered a cluster of restaurants on Main Street. There were two Italian restaurants, a steak house, an Irish pub, and a Thai restaurant. We checked out the menus as we strolled past each. We paused in front of Locando, debating which cuisine we wanted to try when Nasi, the owner of Locando, invited us to come in. Nasi sat down with us, explained the specials, told us a little about himself and the restaurant, and even offered to substitute broccoli rabe for mashed potatoes when he learned that I'm Italian. The quality of the food matched Nasi's hospitality. We started with a salad caprese. Fresh mozzarella slices topped garden tomatoes and basil that were drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil. Nasi chose an excellent chianti for us to drink with the meal. It was modestly priced and complemented the meal perfectly. House salads were included in the price of entrees. Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers held up to a creamy balsamic vinaigrette. For his entree, Gary chose the fillet of sole special. The sole was stuffed with baby shrimp and topped with a large shrimp garnish, then plated with a dozen clams. I chose the spinach ravioli in a wild mushroom sauce. I'm partial to ravioli, and Nasi's interpretation was delicious. By the end of the meal, we were content. We plan to go back to visit Nasi next summer so we can enjoy both the delicious food and Nasi's gracious hospitality!

Now we're home, and I'm back in the kitchen. After a visit to the West Chester Growers Market on Saturday morning, I have an abundance of fresh veggies so cooking in a pleasure. I think tonight we'll have zucchini with fresh corn and basil as a side dish. It's time for me to get cooking.

Visit a country fair this summer

2009-07-29T14:46:00.004-04:00

Last night, my husband and I visited the Goshen Country Fair. It was his first time--he is usually teaching a graduate course that week--and only my second. However, for both of us it brought back memories of other fairs when we were children.

At the entrance to the fairgrounds were the big rides, rides that tumble and rides that spin, rides that make you scream and rides that make your stomach do back flips. For me, it's more fun watching those rides than participating. The kiddy rides were farther away from the entrance, and these reminded us of our children racing from one to the next, getting more and more excited and tired as the evening wore on until one of them had a melt down and we had to head home.

There were also games of chance that I remembered. Win a stuffed animal. Win a bottle of soda. Win a glass. Win a trinket that will take up space until someone finally tosses it in the trash.

Merchants take advantage of captive parents, setting up stands to remind us of the home improvement projects we have been longing for. Do you want a new kitchen? Do you need a new roof? Are solar panels in your future? Come to the fair and put your name on their list of potential clients to call.

Local politicians are there, too, to kiss babies and shake hands. How can you vote against the gal or guy you talked to at the fair?

The fair showed its country roots, too. There were goats and cows on display, local 4H projects, a surprise in the Philadelphia suburbs. There were vegetables and flowers on display as well, huge lumpy potatoes, giant zucchini, twisted carrots, Mason jars of dried corn, vases of fresh-cut zinnias and marigolds and lilies.

But the best part of the Goshen Country Fair is the food. The Goshen Fire Company makes killer donuts, and you can buy them plain or covered in cinnamon or powdered sugar. They are tender and sweet, a perfect treat.

Take an evening this summer and go back in time. Visit a country fair and be a kid again. Or at least you can feel like one!

2009-07-27T11:06:00.008-04:00

Italians of a certain age might remember festivals during the summer. These events were a combination holy day and block party. They involved the entire community. I remember the Feast of St. Anthony. Aunt Catherine and Aunt Mary, my grandmother's sisters, both had houses on the parade route. The combination of location and love ensured a day of family, fun, and food.

My father would pile all of us into the car early in the morning so we wouldn't miss a minute of the festivities. First there was mass, and afterwards, men of the parish carried statues of the saints and the Blessed Virgin out of the church and up the hill to St. Anthony's Lodge. The statues were draped in sashes, and on the parade route, people pinned bills to the statue of choice. To my young eyes, it looked like a saintly beauty pageant. I thought the number of bills showed which statue was the most popular or most powerful.

Everyone followed the pageant to the lodge. The grounds were transformed into a carnival with rows upon rows of stands, each featuring a different game of chance or type of food. My favorite was the balloon game, where for a quarter, anyone could shoot five darts. If you hit a balloon, you won a plastic necklace. If there was a ticket inside the balloon, you won money. I wouldn't know about the money part, but my neck was heavy from all the cheap trinkets I won. Even though my father only gave each of us a dollar, his uncles and their sons made sure we had enough money to keep us entertained all day.

Then there was the food. The wives of lodge members were the best cooks ever. They made cakes and cookies and pies. But even as a kid, I knew the dolci were mere fluff compared to the sandwiches. And the king of the sandwiches was the veal scaloppini. I'm still searching for the perfect recipe that melds tender veal, green peppers, sweet onion, fresh mushrooms, and tomato gravy into the perfect filling for the perfect roll, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, with just enough oomph to keep the precious veal from tumbling to the ground. If you have a recipe for veal scaloppini that you are willing to share, please post it.

In the meantime, you can find me testing sandwiches at the shore.

Marrakech

2009-05-12T11:39:00.005-04:00

One of my favorite songs as a teenager was "Marrakech Express." Something about that bright and bouncy tune made me want to travel to Morocco. When my then fiancee and I were planning our wedding, we even toyed with the idea of honeymooning in Marrakech. While that never panned out, I've always been fascinated by northern Africa.

Maybe it was that fascination that I pulled me into Marrakech last weekend. We were visiting friends in northern New Jersey. It was too wet to hike, so we make the trek to Montclair for the annual museum fundraiser, Art in the Park. There were four tents with crafts from the region and beyond, another tent for kids crafts, and a caravan of food trucks. It was a soggy Sunday, and after a few hours browsing the craft stalls, we were chilled and tired. Marrakech proved to be the perfect antidote.

The restaurant has two dining rooms, and we opted for the inner sanctum, separated from the main dining room by a beaded curtain. The tables are low and surrounded by banquets covered in orange and gold striped pillows. Our waitress delivered baskets filled with warm pita wedges and bowls of tappenade, tangy and garlicy and redolent of olives. The menu offered a wealth of choices for vegetarians and carnivores. While we waited for our meals to arrive, we were served sweet mint tea from individual silver pots and poured into clear classes.

Our entrees included bouillabaisse, a tagine of lamb and prunes, brochettes of chicken and lamb served with zalouk (eggplant with garlic and tomatoes) and a salad, couscous de ma mere au poulet (couscous with chicken breast, raisins, chick peas and caramelized onions), and traditional Moroccan couscous served with vegetables. Each plate was attractively arranged, and every choice was delicious. My couscous de ma mere was a perfect blend of sweet and savory, with enough couscous for a second meal.

None of us had room left for dessert, but that just means we'll have to return.

We had a chance to ask the chef for his recipe for tappenade. He told us to put olives in a food processor with a little garlic and extra-virgin olive oil to taste. I blended a combination of canned black olives with pitted Kalamata olives, and the result was delicious. It's an easy appetizer to keep on hand for drop-in guests or for any sudden snack attacks. It will take you straight to Morocco without the hassle of boarding a plane.

Birthday Cakes

2009-04-28T13:52:00.006-04:00

Photo: A Martha-Stewart inspired cake for my mother

I love birthdays, especially other people’s birthdays. One of my earliest memories involves my grandmother’s birthday. My parents had decided to throw a surprise party for her, and they felt to make it a true surprise, they had to act as if they had forgotten her birthday altogether. To my innocent sensibilities, their plot bordered on cruel and unusual punishment, certainly not deserved by my grandmother who lived with us, cared for us, and always, always, always remembered everyone else’s birthday. So, with the craftiness of the very young, I got up as soon as I heard my grandmother in the bathroom, knocked at the door with feigned urgency, and spilled the beans. I can still remember sitting on the edge of the commode, swinging my restless little legs, telling her that she shouldn’t worry, we didn’t forget her birthday, we were going to have a party, and the cake was hiding in the dining room in the china closet.

Even that young, I knew the essence of a good birthday was a wonderful cake, a fantasy of frosting and filling. One year, my mother made a pound cake completely covered in butter cream flowers. She set the bar for the birthday cakes I wanted to make. They had to be beautifully crafted. They had to have a theme, a theme that matched the birthday boy or girl. And, most of all, they had to be delicious.

I soon took on the challenge of baking birthday cakes myself. My mother made everyone else’s cake, and it seemed inherently unfair that her cakes should come from a bakery. It didn't matter that I was only thirteen. It was well past time that my mother should get a home-made cake. So, with secrecy in mind, I asked my father to take my mother shopping while I baked for my mother. She always made chocolate cakes, but she herself preferred vanilla, so I decided to make a vanilla concoction with a lemon filling. I called my mother’s Aunt Jean to get her famous recipe for butter cake. I combed through my mother’s worn cookbook for a recipe for a lemon filling. I was ready.

The cake itself wasn’t that hard to make, even if I used every bowl in the kitchen. While I waited for it to cool, I started on the filling. The recipe said to "cook until thickened, about five minutes." With very little experience in what a “thick” filling looked like, I stirred for over an hour without it achieving the desired consistency. I put the cake together carefully, frosted the cake with white icing, wrote “Happy Birthday Mom” crookedly on its face with Wilton’s decorator’s icing from a tube, and waited for the applause when dessert was finally served.

The applause never came. The filling had hardened to a cement-like consistency, and only one of my five brothers was even willing to taste this excuse for a birthday cake. Not only was this a cake with a shape only a mother could love, it tasted terrible. It was bad in every sense of the word. Did that stop me? No! I kept baking, and with experience and cake-decorating classes, I'm the official family cake maker, especially for my mother's birthday.

To this day, the most popular birthday choice is my mother's famous devil's food cake. Here's the recipe:

Mom's Devil's Food Cake

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 cup cocoa

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 ¼ cup vegetable shortening

1 cup boiling water

1 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, pour the boiling water over the shortening and allow the shortening to melt and the mixture to cool slightly before adding it to the dry ingredients. Add water and shortening and remaining ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix until thoroughly blended (2 minutes with a hand mixer). Pour an equal amount of batter into each of the prepared pans. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pans and a toothpick comes out clean. Frost with your favorite icing. The cake can also be baked in a 9x13 inch pan, increasing the baking time to about 45 minutes.

Family Recipes

2009-04-20T13:44:00.012-04:00

Photo: My daughter eating a meringue in Florence

Do you keep a bookshelf in your kitchen? If you do, you might understand my problem. I suffer from an embarrassment of riches in the cookbook department. I love to read cookbooks the way some people love to read mysteries--I savor the list of ingredients, ponder the strategies proposed (to sift or not to sift?) and wonder how the finished dish will taste. In addition to shelves and shelves of cookbooks, I also subscribe to way too many cooking magazines, and heaven forbid I should toss out even one. My print subscriptions are augmented by recipes that come from emails and websites. So what exactly is my problem? How do I keep track of all my recipes?

The short answer is that I don't. There are recipes that melt away from my repertoire without my notice, and there are recipes that I want to try that I can't locate in the blizzard of books and clippings and magazines that drift around my kitchen. If I'm lucky, I'll rediscover a cherished find when I flip through the pages of an old magazine or cookbook or when I look at a menu from a particularly memorable meal. It's hard to tell how many former favorite dishes have been lost forever.

The most vulnerable recipes are the dishes passed down from my great-grandmother. She came from Italy as a young bride, illiterate, so she did not have a chance to write down her recipes for posterity, and she died when I was only five. Before my grandmother died, my brothers and I were able to get her to prepare many of our favorites while we watched, taking notes on measurements and on the smells and textures. We wanted to preserve our food heritage and pass it on to our children and theirs. We each had a piece of that pie, but we never had a chance to put it all together.

Then, for one of my brother's weddings, I compiled a family cookbook. The presentation wasn't particularly special, just a computer print out, and it was far from complete, but with each recipe I included a brief story. Over the next ten or fifteen years, as we'd remember a favorite dish I would add it to the file. If someone discovered an error, I'd go back and make a change. Every few years, I printed out new copies and distributed them to my family. When we realized that the book did not include the recipes for the traditional seven fish dinner we always eat on Christmas Eve, I spent hours in consultation with my mother. How often did she change the water for the dried fish for the bacalla soup? How many pounds of flour did she use to make the crispelles, the lighter-than-air rustic fried bread? As we talked, I scribbled down as many details as possible, knowing that some day it will be my turn to cook this important meal myself.

Last winter my daughter asked for an electronic copy of the family recipes. I was ecstatic! She was finally interested in cooking, my little girl who seems to be allergic to everything even vaguely related to kitchens and cooking. However, she had an even bigger surprise for me. With the assistance of her boyfriend, she took the humble family recipe book and turned it into a masterpiece. She scanned old photographs and sifted through the thousands of photos in her own electronic album to select the perfect pictures to illustrate the events and the food. She went through every recipe and made the format consistent throughout. Her boyfriend updated the index and helped with formatting. After days of work, she sent the updated file to Apple to produce a hard-cover volume of the family cookbook, and she gave a copy to my mother and to me for Mother's Day.

The story of the family cookbook didn't end there. Last summer, my mother took the entire family to Italy. We stayed in a bed and breakfast just outside Rome in Frascati, a charming hill town at the end of the metro line. It was the family reunion of a lifetime, and it gave us lots of time to eat, to drink, to share stories, to take pictures. Once again, my daughter went to work with her camera and her computer. For Christmas, she created a custom family cookbook for each of her uncles so they have a masterpiece to call their very own.

While this cookbook has not solved my problem of keeping track of all my recipes, it has ensured that my family will remember the dishes that mean the most to us.

How do you organize your recipes? Let me know!

Here is my daughter's favorite family recipe. It's a comfort soup that you can whip up from pantry staples in under 20 minutes.

Pastina Soup

(We pronounce it pash-tin-a.)

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, cut in two pieces

3 cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup ancini de pepe (tiny, peppercorn-shaped pasta)

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup grated locatelli cheese

freshly ground black pepper

additional cheese for garnish

In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about a minute. Turn up the heat to high and add the water and salt. Allow the water to come to a full rolling boil. Reduce to a slow simmer for 5 minutes to allow the water to become redolent of garlic. Return to high heat. When the water comes to a full boil, add the ancini de pepe, and lower the heat to medium to prevent the water from boiling over. Cook for 9-11 minutes (it should be al dente). While the pasta is cooking, beat the egg and cheese together. When the pasta is al dente, remove the garlic and slowly whisk the egg/cheese mixture into the hot soup. Take the pot away from the heat, cover, and allow the soup to sit for a few minutes to allow the egg to finish cooking. Immediately ladle into two soup bowls, add a grind of pepper to taste and a touch of additional grated cheese.

Makes 2 servings

The Healing Powers of Chicken Soup

2009-04-13T19:57:00.011-04:00

On April 19, 2008, the Philadelphia Flyers were playing the Capitals in Washington for a berth in the Stanley Cup finals, and our son had tickets for the game. He and his buddy agreed to drive as far as Greenbelt to take the Metro so they didn't have to contend with DC traffic. The Flyers lost that game, but it was early and the weather was beautiful, so the two guys did some sightseeing in the capital before heading home. They weren't all that familiar with the public transit system, so they retraced their steps to get back to the metro stop near the stadium.

Neither our son nor his friend saw it coming. Just as they were getting ready to go underground, a gang of boys in their mid-teens came up behind them. They hit our son and his friend at the same time, fracturing our son's jaw and giving his friend a concussion. The attackers ran off, but a good Samaritan saw the attack and dialed 911. The police arrived on the scene in minutes. They corralled a group of black teenagers and asked our son and his friend to identify their attackers. Our son told the police that he never saw their faces. How could he recognize someone who came up behind him? As he bled, the police insisted he make an identification, but our son was unwilling to point the finger at someone just so the police could make an arrest. He told us later that they were mere kids, and his word could put an innocent person in jail for a long time. Finally, the police allowed our son and his friend to get into the waiting ambulance and head for the nearest trauma center.

The attack occurred on Saturday evening. It was close to midnight before our son was admitted to the hospital. Because his friend "only" had a concussion, he was released. Hospital rules said that only family could stay in the room, so our son was alone, and his friend had to find a place to stay since he was in no condition to drive home. Fortunately, he has a cousin who lives in DC, and she was able to put him up for the night.

The next morning, his friend called us using our son's phone. He wasn't very coherent, but it was clear that our son was hurt. Because he is over twenty one, no one could tell us the extent of his injuries. We feared the worst, and headed toward the hospital, armed with a list of phone numbers of doctors we could call on a Sunday morning. I don't know what we would have done without a cell phone.

The doctors we called all agreed that it was better for our son to get treatment in Washington rather than drive the three hours home. Their logic frightened me: they said that the doctors in DC had much more experience with fractured jaws, especially those caused by a slug to the face. It turns out, the doctors were right. We learned that the surgical staff in this one DC hospital treats at least one broken jaw a day, usually more, whereas the medical staffs in our suburban hospitals seldom saw this type of injury at all.

Our son had to wait until late Monday afternoon for surgery. The word fracture can be used to describe a wide range of injuries, but in our son's case, it meant that his jaw was sheared in two and the force of the blow had severed the nerve that runs inside the bone. Because of their extensive experience, the doctors were able to repair the break from inside his mouth, leaving only a quarter-inch incision along his jaw where they had to insert a screw to secure the metal plate. To stabilize the jaw, they wired his teeth together. While he was in severe pain for weeks and an area of his face from the middle of his bottom lip down remains numb to this day, he suffered no brain damage.

During the eight weeks when his teeth were wired shut, our son lived on a liquid diet. Lest you get too excited about the prospects of a diet of enforced milk shakes, any temperature extremes were uncomfortable, and when the doctors said liquid, they meant liquid. Even melted ice cream was too thick for him to sip. At five ten, our son only weighed about 140 pounds to begin with. He was lean and wiry from climbing at the rock gym. After eight weeks, he lost over twenty pounds, and he was outright gaunt.

When we told our family and friends what happened, everyone asked the same question: Why? The boys weren't wearing ostentatious Flyers hats or jerseys, and even if they were, the game had ended hours earlier and the Flyers had lost that game anyway. No one tried to take their wallets or their watches. Is it possible the attackers mistook them for someone else? It's hard to tell because we never found out who was responsible. It seems our son and his friend were in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the sights of a mob who had nothing better to do and something to prove to the world or to themselves. They showed us that they were anonymous and dangerous, capable of attacking two men at least a decade older and leaving those men helpless.

During the hours we waited for surgery and the eight weeks of recovery, I realized more than ever that it is impossible to protect our children from random acts of violence. As a parent, there was little I could do except sit by and watch my son's pain. That, and make chicken broth, one of the few foods he could enjoy during his recovery. The act of making the soup helped me as much as it helped my son. Bringing the pot to a boil, skimming off the foam, chopping the vegetables, and waiting were all therapeutic. It helped to know that I was doing something to ease his hunger if not his pain.

A year later, our son is almost back to his pre-attack weight, and he is finally back to climbing. He even joined a co-ed soccer league this spring. He has not shied away from attending sporting events. In fact, he and the same friend went to the final game of the 2008 World Series, the two night event. He has never questioned his decision to refrain from identifying his unseen attacker. Maybe his reluctance to point a finger changed the life of someone the police had lined up. In his heart, he knows that putting someone in prison wasn't going to reform anyone.

Here is my recipe for the chicken broth that sustained our son and me during his recovery.

Fortified Chicken Broth

1 large can Cottage Inn chicken broth

1 3-pound whole chicken, with neck but with heart, liver, and gizzards removed

water

2 large onions, peeled, cut into quarters, with a whole clove studded into each quarter

2 large carrots, peeled and chopped into 2-inch pieces

3 large ribs of celery, chopped into 2-inch pieces

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

1 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon whole peppercorns

1 teaspoon salt (optional)

4 large springs of Italian (flat leaf) parsley

Place whole chicken and neck in large pot. Add canned broth and add enough water to cover the chicken. Bring to a full boil. While waiting for the pot to boil, cut up the vegetables, and remove any foam that rises to the surface.

After the liquid comes to a full boil, add the vegetables, herbs, peppercorns and salt and return to a boil. Reduce heat to a low simmer and allow to cook for at least two hours to extract as much of the energy from the chicken and the vegetables. Continue to remove any foam that rises to the surface. Cool slightly, then strain the broth through two layers of cheese cloth to clarify. Discard the vegetables. Reserve the meat for another purpose. Cool before refrigerating. Chill overnight, and remove the fat that rises from the top. Reheat to serve. Use without 3 days.

This broth can also be used as a base for many soups, if you are not feeding someone on a liquid diet.

Eggs for Easter

2009-04-10T13:54:00.005-04:00

When my brothers and I were growing up, spring and Easter always came hand in hand. In anticipation of the season and the holiday, my mother and grandmother cleaned the house from top to bottom, changing the heavy drapes for criss-crossed sheer curtains, steam cleaning rugs, dressing the furniture in flowered slipcovers. My brothers and I always had brand-new outfits that we wore to church on Easter Sunday, there were pots of lilies and hyacinths and azaleas wrapped in pastel foil for my mother and grandmother, and the Easter Bunny always hid huge, cellophane-wrapped baskets filled with candy. In the center of each basket was an enormous chocolate-covered egg inscribed with the name of its owner. We itched for mass to be over so we could go home, tear into our baskets, and search for hidden eggs, both hard-boiled and plastic, the latter stuffed with yet more candy. We had all given up chocolate for Lent, so after 40 days, our sweet tooths were ravenous.

It is no surprise that I wanted to continue this tradition with my own children. However, my husband and I had made a decision about their upbringing early on. We wanted them to have a healthful diet, and twenty-five years ago, that meant substituting carob for chocolate. Sugar was out, honey was in, and children weren't even allowed honey until after they were a year old. Somehow, an Easter basket filled with carob-coated raisins and peanuts and bear-shaped bottles of clover honey didn't have the same cachet as the baskets I remembered. So, throwing caution to the wind, a certain bunny was allowed to deliver baskets containing candy in many shapes and every size. The baskets bulged with bonbons--foil-covered chocolate eggs, egg-shaped peanut-butter cups, dark chocolate crosses stuffed with marshmallow, pastel candy corn, yellow and pink marshmallow peeps, robin-blue speckled malted milk eggs, mini chocolate eggs covered in bright candy coating. In the center of each basket loomed a large chocolate bunny, almost as big as the kids themselves. Although both our daughter and son questioned the existence of Santa Claus early, they never doubted the Easter Bunny was real. What else would explain the flood of candy after a year-long drought?

These chocolate orgies have always culminated in a big Italian Easter breakfast with the extended family. The centerpiece of the meal is still the frittata. To say a frittata is like an omelet is like saying that Penn State is just a college. Like the chocolate eggs of my youth or my children's Easter bunnies, the frittata dominates the table because of its size. When I was a child, my grandmother always made the frittata, and my father's first question was always, "How many eggs this year?" Back then, when there were nine of us at the table, her answer was usually a number in the low thirties. The other ingredients vary from region to region, but we follow the same recipe that my great-grandmother brought with her from Italy, which my Italian cousins still make. Now that the family has expanded to include spouses and grandchildren, there are some changes. Instead of my grandmother, my brother makes the frittata. Instead of thirty eggs, he uses at least fifty. He stands over the stove for over an hour, gently stirring the eggs to create a masterpiece for our family, just like my grandmother and her mother.

Over time, our children's taste in candy has changed. They are looking for quality, not quantity in their sweets, so the Easter Bunny now limits her shopping to Eclat Chocolate. However, the Easter highlight is still the frittata. Here is a rendition for smaller families to enjoy.

Easter Frittata

12 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)

several generous grinds of fresh ground pepper

1/4 cup chopped Italian (flat-leaf) parsley

zest from one large orange, finely grated (about 1 tablespoon)

3 tablespoons freshly grated locatelli cheese (you may substitute other sharp Italian cheeses) plus additional for garnish

1 cup ricotta cheese

1-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

orange slices for garnish

Break the eggs into a large bowl. Beat until well blended, and add the salt and pepper. Stir in the parsley, orange zest, and grated cheese. Gently add the ricotta cheese, but do not completely incorporate it into the egg mixture. You should see small pieces of ricotta floating in the beaten eggs.

Heat an 8-9 inch frying pan over medium heat, and add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Test to see if it is hot enough by adding a small cube of bread. If it sizzles, the oil is ready. Remove the bread cube. Carefully add the egg mixture to the hot oil. Allow the egg to start to get firm before gently moving the cooked egg to the center of the pan. Continue to stir gently to move the cooked egg into the middle, but not so often to create scrambled eggs. When the frittata is firm and almost cooked through, either flip or broil the frittata .

Option 1: Flip the frittata--Cover the pan with a plate that is slightly larger than the pan. Carefully invert the pan and plate, shaking the pan gently to move the frittata onto the plate. Remove the pan. If there are any bits of egg remaining on the bottom, remove them with a spatula. Clean the pan with a generous wad of paper towels. Return the pan to the stove, add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil, and return to temperature before returning the frittata to the pan, uncooked side down. Allow it to finish cooking without stirring. Gently shake the pan to keep the frittata from sticking. Continue cooking until the bottom of the frittata is lightly browned.

Option 2: Broil the frittata--Preheat the broiler when you add the egg to the pan. Move the pan with the frittata under the broiler until the top is golden and the egg is cooked through.

When the frittata is completely cooked, slide it onto a serving platter. Sprinkle generously with grated cheese, and surround the dish with orange slices.

Serves 4 to 6 people.