Laurie Colwin

You will hear her name often in this blog, written with reverence and respect and sadly, she is with us no more. She died in 1992 but I didn't discover her until my 30s, and she was long gone. I don't know how I came across Family Happiness but that was the first book of hers I read. I don't want to be overly dramatic and say it changed my life, but something about it resonated. That to me is the key of what makes a "good book": that there are passages that ring the bell in the cathedral of your soul, and you are folding pages, or reaching for a pencil or post-it to jot down passages, or just thumping your forehead with your palm, thinking "Yes...yes exactly...that's just what I felt but I didn't have the words." As a reader, it is so satisfying to see an idea pinned down to the page in beautiful language. As a writer, this is even more satisfying when you do it yourself and someone else thumps their forehead and cries "Yes, exactly!"

So I began to devour Laurie Colwin, with no small amount of sadness because I knew once I'd read everything she'd written, there would be no more. And one thing I noticed in all of her writing was that she wrote about food. A lot. Meals and snacks were described and integral to the plot, the focus of scenes. Kitchens were important. And her food was really good. I came to learn she had been a regular contributor to Gourmet Magazine and had published two books of essays on food: Home Cooking and More Home Cooking (the latter being published posthumously). I went immediately to the library and took them out. Two chapters into Home Cooking, I went onto Amazon and ordered my own copies of both. They now live on my kitchen bookshelf when they are not residing on my bedside table.

These are my desert island books. I can happily read and re-read them for the rest of my life. I could make an entire post with quotes from them, or flat-out copy entire chapters to share. There are recipes, but that is only a small part of their charm. They are simply delightful. If you like books about cooking, food, home, family and kitchens then I cannot recommend them highly enough.

There's a popular party/dinner table round-robin question that goes, "If you could have lunch with anyone, alive or dead, who would you pick?" For me it is Laurie Colwin. I would love to meet her, have lunch with her or better, make lunch with her. I wish I could tell her how much she has meant to me, how much I learned from her. I wish I could say, "I knew nothing about roast chicken until I read Home Cooking." And most of all, to shyly tell her that when I myself write about food and cooking, it is her wry sense of humor and inflection that I try to convey, if not shamelessly mimic. It is the "Cooking of the Refined Slob" philosophy that I try to live by and share - the refined slob does not peel the garlic or truss the chicken or need fancy kitchen gadgets.

Most of all, it is her love of "Plain, old-fashioned home food" that I embrace and will be trumpeted on this blog. And by "plain", we don't mean boring. We mean the kind of food that is simple, but unspeakably comforting. Soul food. Comfort food. The food kids will eat and adults will treasure. I love going out to eat and having a gourmet meal, I love to try a three-page recipe out of Martha Stewart that's full of unnecessary complication. But those are the exceptions and not the rules. Most of the time, I just want to make something simple and delicious that everyone will love, something that will make someone's eyes shine and utter those magic words, "This is delicious...can I have some more?"

Are You All Right, Sister?

I was in Starbucks with Redman, and we were examining the goodies in the display case when a black gentleman spoke to me. "Excuse me, sister, are you on line?"

"No, no, you go, we're deciding," I said.

"Thank you, sister," he said, and stepped up to order. Meanwhile Redman was watching, and, I could tell, processing. I got my coffee, he got his treat, and we sat down at a table. It took him all of four seconds to dive in.

"Why did that man call you 'sister'?"

I smiled. "Well he didn't know my name, and maybe he likes to say 'sister' instead of 'ma'am'."

"Do you like that?"

"I do actually," I said. 

He was done with the topic and into his game. I drank my coffee and thought about the salutation of "sister", and a very vivid memory I have of its usage. 

It was a train ride over twenty years ago. Jeeps and I had broken up, and I was taking the train home from Manhattan with a bag full of belongings. You know that ride, right? It's as good as it gets. I had no recollection of how I'd become so entrenched in his apartment, and now I figured it was going to take me a month to extricate myself, and I could not wrap my mind around the fact that I was no longer part of a couple. 

I sat by the window, pressed up against the side of the car, wanting to disappear in the crack between the seat and the wall, wanting to be invisible, wanting to die. I'm not one for crying in public but I was exhausted, and when the tears came, fuck it, I just let them fall. I was one miserable bitch and the goddamn train wasn't even at 125th Street.

Then someone tapped my arm.

"Are you all right, sister?" This black woman was suddenly sitting there, reaching across the empty middle seat between us and offering me a tissue. I took it and tried to smile. "Heartbreak hell," I said.

She nodded. "I thought that might be it. I'm sorry. You go ahead and cry." She opened a book and started to read and left me be. I looked back out the window, clutching my ball of damp tissue, strangely touched by the "sister" she had used.

Are you all right, sister?

Sister.

I liked that she called me sister. Why didn't we all do that, why wasn't that salutation the norm for all women, black, white or otherwise? It should feel natural to call an unknown woman of my own age bracket "sister" rather than "Hey, um..." or worse, "ma'am."  

So I tried it out, not long after, in the mall when I saw a woman struggling to get on the escalator with a stroller and a toddler. I said, "Do you need help, sister?" She smiled and thanked me and we got her safely aboard, but my insides had cringed. I felt dumb. "Sister" felt phony, like trying on a jacket three sizes too small. I didn't try it again.

Fairly recently, I was on line at a deli in the city, wearing one of my favorite grey sheaths, and the woman behind me tapped my shoulder and said, "Sister, you are wearing the hell out of that dress." I thanked her, burning with pleasure, and jealous of how natural and wonderful "sister" sounded in her mouth. Damn her.  

So anyway, while I can't say it, I'm always acutely aware of the sisterhood. We women...we're all in this together, but too often in our youth we view each other as competition. It's in our later, wiser years that we come to realize how much we rely on each other—not only our close girlfriends, but more and more often, strangers.

I've been sponsoring women through Women for Women International for seven years. Besime, Hakima, Regina, Delphine, Olive, Marcella and Nenyitmwa: they are my global sisters. In the every day, I try to sponsor women just by saying something. It's so simple and has such an impact but too often things go unsaid. I try to say them. 

If I see a woman wearing a knockout pair of shoes: I tell her. If the dress is fabulous: I tell her. Because when a woman, a stranger, leans into your space and gives you a tissue or a compliment, she becomes your sister. That woman on the train, she is my sister, and I often think of her, twenty years later when I am now forever entrenched with Jeeps, and I thank her for being in that seat, thank her just for being socially fearless and asking: 

Are you all right, sister?

Yes. I'm all right. Thank you, sister.

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Photo Credits

Wrote

Valerie Everett

Elvert Barnes

Cosimo Roans

Tomato Pie

I've long wanted to try this recipe for Tomato Pie.  I first read about it in Laurie Colwin's More Home Cooking. Colwin first had it "...at a tea shop called Chaiwalla, owned by Mary O'Brien, in Salisbury, Connecticut. According to Mary, the original recipe was found in a cookbook put out by the nearby Hotchkiss School, but she has changed it sufficiently to claim it as her own."

So it looked delicious and not that complicated so here we go, and you're going to make it with me! Preheat the oven to 400 and let's go...

So the pie is a double-crust pie and you can make your own crust. I used a Trader Joe's pre-made crust. Be sure to bring it to room temperature 30 minutes before you start putting the pie together. I didn't do this which put a slight crimp (cough) in my plans but it was fine in the end.

You need 2 28-oz cans of whole peeled tomato. "Drain well and slice thin," says the recipe and I had a feeling "Drain well" was going to be the make-or-break factor of this pie. So I drained the whole tomatoes in a colander in a sink, and then after slicing them, put them back in the colander to drain more, pressing down on them a little. Either way it's a soggy business.

Grate 1 1/2 cups of sharp cheddar cheese.

Chop about 1/4 of whatever fresh herbs you have to hand.  All the basil is dead in my garden but I had parsley, chives and a couple sprigs of oregano so that's what I chopped

Put the bottom crust into the pie pan.  Arrange the drained, sliced tomatoes in the bottom.  Sprinkle herbs on the tomatoes.

Sprinkle 1 cup of the cheese.  Whisk together 1/3 cup mayonnaise and 2 tablespoons lemon juice and drizzle on top, followed by the rest of the cheese

Put on the top crust and crimp.  And shut up because crimping pie crust is right up there with making gravy for me.  I suck at it.

Slice some steam vents in the top crust and into the 400 it goes for about 25 minutes.  Within 5 minutes you'll notice a really great smell coming into your kitchen.  At about 10 minutes I noticed the edges of the crust were browning pretty quickly so I covered them with some foil.

After 25 minutes, take pie out of the oven and set to cool on the curved shelf of your kitchen pass-through window which your architect designed with the express purpose of cooling a pie thereupon.

"The secret of this pie, according to Mary, is to reheat it before serving, which among other things ensures that the cheese is soft and gooey.  She usually bakes it early in the morning, then reheats it in the evening in a 350 oven until it is hot."

So it was delicious and different.  I thought the bottom crust still came out soggy so next time I'm going to borrow a trick from quiche making and put a layer of cheese down first on the bottom crust; this creates a vacuum seal to keep the tomato juices from doing that thing they do.

The Time of the Season

I'm almost done. "Done" being a loose, relative term. It's never done. I just mean I'm nearly done with the greater maintenance to-dos and the greater projects of this year.

1. The new Zen garden: done. Well, I still have to mulch the beds but I'm waiting for the zinnia and sunflower seedlings to show their heads so I don't mulch over them. And we're still waiting on delivery of the bench but that's just cosmetic. For all intents and purposes: done.

2. The area behind the veggie garden: done. Ugh, this sucked but it was satisfying. First of all, it let me recycle a boatload of cardboard boxes by laying them down on the ground instead of landscape cloth (satisfying). Second, I was mulching with gravel, and the gravel pile is clear on the other side of the lawn, and so I barrowed back and forth, uphill both ways, shlepping, shoveling and raking gravel (suck). That was my leg workout for the week. 

OK, so let me ask you...I can't believe I'm sharing this...but are there any other sick, twisted individuals out there who, when faced with a back-breaking, arduous task of some sort, tell themselves to suck it up and pretend they're in a Nazi work camp and you do it or die? No? Just me? Never mind...

So it's done, cross that off the list. I moved over my rhododendron bush which is blooming for the first time EVER. It'll be much happier here. I'm so glad this is done, I love it. It's clean and neat and now the vegetable garden looks beautiful from all angles.

As do I.

3.  Vegetable garden: done. Done as in everything is in, planted, sown. The paths could use some mulch and a lot of my birdhouses are falling apart, but I'm not stressing about it. I love this garden so much. Recently I imported some posts from our old family blog. Now when I show you the view from here, you can click here and see how we built it back in 2007: It's come a long way, baby. Now is time to just enjoy. 

I have to remind myself of this, to stop and smell the flowers. This time of year, I work upstairs at the dining room table where I can always look out the windows and see my flowers. I walk through the beds several times a day, pulling a few weeds, deadheading, taking pictures, or just looking to see what's different. Every day something is different. It's so hard to describe the pleasure I get from gardening without resorting to cliché. I should just let the pictures do it for me. So I will.

And hello, my poppies?? Those pink ones?! I. Love. Them. They're called "fruit punch" and there is absolutely no question why. They are just dynamite, I only wish they lasted longer. Another reason to make sure to get out there and take a look, especially with the flowers that only bloom once in a season. Get out there and take a good long look, and fill up your eyes until next year.

Ultimate Lentil Soup

Forget it, I'm going to keep making and posting soup recipes until this stupid weather breaks or I die.  Whichever comes first. Slow Cooker Revolution is on a roll with what it touts as "Ultimate Lentil Soup."  I don't really like lentil soup.  I don't hate it but it's not my go-to.  Jeeps loves it though, and he's been killing himself shoveling snow so I wanted to make it for him.  It didn't hurt that the recipe called for bacon and mushrooms.

Well, friends, to cut to the chase: this soup is tits.  Unbelievable flavor.  I snuck in a can of black beans toward the end and the country-style texture of beans and lentils rocks.  The mushrooms are killer.  The chard is a treat.  Bacon makes it all sexy.  I stirred some frozen sweet corn into the kids' bowls to cool it off.  And they ate it. 

As my friend Art said, "This is not your mother's lentil soup."

Lentil Soup

Ultimate Not-Your-Mother's Lentil Soup

• 2 onions, minced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 4-5 slices bacon
• 3-5 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2" pieces
• 2-3 large portobello mushroom caps, gills removed and cut into 1/2" pieces (the gills scrape right out with a spoon.  You do this to keep the soup from getting muddy)
• 1 cup brown lentils, picked over and rinsed
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 8 ounces Swiss chard, stemmed and leaves cut 1/2" thick

Microwave onions, garlic, oil, tomato paste, porcini mushrooms and thyme in bowl, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes.  Transfer to slow cooker.

Stir chicken broth, vegetable broth, bacon, carrots, portobello mushrooms, lentils and bay leaves into slow cooker.  Cover and cook on high 5-7 hours or low 9-11 hours, until lentils are tender.

Stir in black beans and chard, cover and cook on high until chard is tender, 20-30 minutes.  Discard bacon and bay leaves.  Serve.

Sicilian Chick Pea Soup

The soup itself is Sicilian, not the chick peas. Most Italian soups feature cannellini beans but in Sicily, chick peas are the favored legume. The recipe comes from the Slow Cooker Revolution cookbook, Volume 2. You can make it in 7 hours in the slow cooker, or in 45 minutes on the stove top. It's not very attractive, but it's yum. It features fennel, garlic, oregano and red pepper. It also calls for anchovies, which I did not use, and escarole, which I did not have.

Stove Top Version

• 2 fennel bulbs, cored and chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes
• 2 8-oz cans chick peas, dried and rinsed
• 7 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 head escarole, chopped coarse, or 1/2 bag of frozen spinach

Heat olive oil in soup pot or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add fennel and saute 7-8 minutes. I found the soup very savory and kept looking for a sweet note.   think if you really get the fennel caramelized it will bring that sweetness.

Add garlic, oregano and red pepper flakes, saute another 2-3 minutes.

Add chick peas and chicken broth. Cover and simmer 20-30 minutes. Add spinach or escarole and cook until wilted, another 15 minutes.

Serve with a glug of olive oil and a big dollop of parmesan cheese

Slow Cooker Version

• 2 fennel bulbs, cored and chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes
• 2 anchovy fillets, rinsed and minced
• 8 oz dried chick peas
• 7 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 head escarole, chopped coarse, or 1/2 bag of frozen spinach

Microwave fennel, oil, garlic, oregano, anchovies and papper flakes in bowl, stirring occasionally, until fennel is softened, about 5 minutes. Transfer to slow cooker. Stir in chick peas and broth. Cover and cook until chick peas are tender—10 to 11 hours on low or 7 to 8 hours on high.

Stir in escarole or spinach, cover and cook another 15 minutes.

Serve with olive oil and parmesan.

Soap Opera: Vanilla Sundaes

Panda and I got into making soap as gifts last year and the hobby has lain fallow since. But now once again, 'tis the season, and we've caught the bug anon. 

We're helped this year by this awesome book I found at Michael's, Soapmaking the Natural Way, by Rebecca Ittner. It's not hardcore, true pioneer, ashes-and-lye soapmaking, but apothecary fun of mixing glycerine soap blocks with essential oils and pantry ingredients to create very cool little soaps.

We went through and picked a few to try out, and I had to go in search of a few specialty ingredients, mostly the essential oils and things like kaolin clay or goat's milk powder. Essential oils at the local health food store were the rough equivalent of my monthly phone bill, so I hunted around online and found three sites that between them seemed to have everything we could need at pretty decent bulk prices:

Bramble Berry Soap Making Supplies

Bulk Apothecary

Essential Wholesale

I had all three open at the same time, comparison shopping, and in the end went with a few things from Bulk Apothecary and the rest from Essential.  After this recon, some soaps we wanted to make got rejected because the cost of their materials was just unjustifiable. Neroli essential oil? It's a mortgage payment, I'm not kidding.

So a few things arrived in the mail on Thursday, we hit the test kitchens and have two soaps for you, one is a brown sugar vanilla clear soap, the other is a two-tone Vanilla Sundae.

Brown Sugar Vanilla

This is very straight forward melt-and-pour, and the additives are not specialized or weird.

• 1 lb clear melt-and-pour glycerine soap (I have been buying my soap blocks at Michael's, they come in a 2-lb package so this was half of it)
• 1 teaspoon vitamin E oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essential oil (on which many purists call bullshit, apparently there is no such thing as vanilla essential oil, and what you really get is a real glorified vanilla extract. It certainly looked like vanilla extract and cost about the same so draw your own conclusions)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar

• Small spray bottle with alcohol (I found one in a little travel kit I had under the sink for some strange reason)

In a large glass or pyrex measuring cup, melt the glycerine soap in the microwave.  Stir in the oils and sugar, and then pour into molds. Spray the tops of the molds with alcohol to remove air bubbles. Let cool and fully harden, then pop out of the molds.

Vanilla Sundae Soap

This soap is a little more labor intensive because it has two layers. But it is gorgeous and smells amazing and really once you have everything set up, it's not a lot of time to make them. I have one at my kitchen sink and the other in my shower. They're really great, lather up nice, and the scent is just divine. And you made them, how cool is that?

White layer:

• 1/2 lb shea butter melt-and-pour soap
• 1 tsp sweet almond oil (this hadn't yet arrived so I used the vitamin E oil)
• 1 tsp vanilla essential oil (cough, extract, cough)
• 1 tablespoon goat's milk powder, dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water and whisked smooth

Melt soap in microwave in large pyrex measuring cup or bowl. Stir in the oils and the goat's milk. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside while you make the second layer.

Clear layer:

• 1/2 lb clear glycerine melt-and-pour soap
• 2 tsps honey
• 1 tsp cocoa powder

Melt the soap in the microwave, stir in the honey and cocoa powder. A whisk works best to get the cocoa fully incorporated.

Microwave the white layer about 20 seconds to wake it up. Pour into the molds until they are half-full. Spray the surface with alcohol to remove bubbles.

Pour the clear layer into the molds until they are full. With toothpicks, swirl the colors together. Spray the surface again with alcohol. Let the soaps fully cool and harden, then pop out of the molds.

Herbed Cottage Cheese Biscuits

Everyone is set with their turkey chili, turkey tetrazzini, turkey soup, and turkey so forth, so to go with all your recycled turkey goodies I have some herbed cottage cheese biscuits. Are you like me?  Do you buy a thing of cottage cheese with the full intent of eating it, and it's still there, unopened, weeks later?  I'm mortified to tell you exactly how long this container was in my fridge and I peeled back the seal expecting to find a science experiment.  But it was fine.  Now that the seal was broken I had to use it immediately, so to go with my turkey minestrone soup, I made these biscuits.

The first batch I baked at 450 for 12 minutes and they got burned on the bottom and were under-done on the inside.  So the next batch I put into the oven at 450, but then immediately turned the heat down to 425 and baked about 21 minutes.  Still slightly gooey in the middle.  So this is one of those things you might have to fiddle around with.  But they taste great.

By the way, what is it about putting hot biscuits into a towel-lined bowl that makes you feel so goofy?

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Herbed Cottage Cheese Biscuits

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp coarse salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp dried chives
• 1 tbsp dried dill weed
• 2 tsp dried parsley flakes
• 5 tbsp butter, cold, cut into pieces
• 1 16-oz container cottage cheese

Makes about 18 biscuits - some for now, some to freeze.

Preheat oven to 450.  Line baking sheet with parchment or silpat mat, or spray with Pam

In large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and herbs

Add butter, and with pastry cutter or two knives, work through the flour until it is in small, pea-size clumps (a food processor also works but I didn't feel like breaking it out)

Add cottage cheese and mix together until just combined (the dough is not going to make you feel good, it's sort of a mess, just deal)

With a soupspoon, drop onto baking sheet

Put into oven, turn heat down to 425, bake 20-21 minutes until golden.

Keep warm in towel-lined bowl.

Be goofy.

Pumpkin Chia Muffins

It's the time of year when you feel like you should be doing something with pumpkin.  This combined with the fact that I suddenly have a teenager in the house who is getting up ten minutes before she has to leave for school and thinking she can just rush out the door with nothing in her stomach and... (Hand over mouth).....MOM?!

Anyway, I put the two problems together and searched out a pumpkin breakfast muffin recipe.  I found this one from Dr. Oz's site and I have made them four times in four weeks.  Right now I have a double batch going, they're that popular.

These have no end of good things in them, and you can tweak the recipe to get as many good things in there as you like.  The original recipe, doubled, calls for 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup of white flour.  But you can make this into 3 cups of virtually any kind of grains or flours.  I mean literally.  Anything.  You might not have the fluffiest, most domed muffins, but I've never made the recipe with the same flour twice and it always works and tastes great.  So tonight, for example, my 3 cups are made of:

1/2 cup flaxseed meal

1/2 cup almond meal

1/2 cup white flour

1 1/2 cups wheat flour

Dr. Oz's recipe also called for olive oil; I subbed coconut oil because I am an addict.  I also used regular sugar instead of the agave because agave isn't something I keep around.  You can tweak this to your heart's content depending on your religious beliefs.

I also added dark chocolate chips because duh.

Pumpkin Chia Muffins

(Single batch recipe below, makes 12 muffins plus an annoying dollop of batter you don't know what to do with)

• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• 1 cup whole-wheat or whole-grain flour plus 1/2 cup white flour (OR 1 1/2 cups of whatever flours/meals you like)
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger (ginger!  not the garlic powder!  don't ask!)
• 2 tsp baking soda (when using almond meal and flaxseed meal, I throw another 1/2 tsp in)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 can (16-oz) pumpkin
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup coconut oil (or olive oil, or canola)
• 1/2 cup agave nectar (or 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup sugar; I made it a scant 1/2 cup because I was using chocolate chips)
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans (Optional)
• 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another.

Combine dry and wet and stir in chocolate chips.

Bake 25-30 minutes until tester comes out dry.

Serve as they're flying out the door to the bus stop.

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Salted Caramel Pumpkin Seeds

My neighbor Jaime did this to me so I have to do it to you.  It's her fault.  Don't blame me.  That's all I have to say. Happy Halloween.

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Seeds

• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 cups raw pumpkin seeds, rinsed and pat dry
• Nonstick cooking spray
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon each, brown sugar and granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 300. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, mix sugar, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Add seeds and toss to coat evenly. Spread on the baking sheet and spray with cooking spray.

Bake seeds until lightly golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Stir in sugars and salt; cook until deep golden brown, 1-2 minutes.

Reduce heat to low and stir in seeds; coat with buttery caramel mixture and cook an additional minute.

Remove from heat and let cool before serving.

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