morsels & sauces

Here we go... entry #1. In this   Cook Your Books  series, I have chosen 15 books to read in 2017 based on somewhat arbitrarily chosen categories. My theory (bogus it might turn out to be) is that all 15 of these books will somehow connect to food. And I plan to write about that food. This first installment is a book inspired by a fairy tale.  The Snow Child  by Eowyn Ivey is a dark treasure of a book.  Set in a harsh 1920s Alaska  this book tells the story of  two forty-something Pennsylvanians (Mabel and Jack) who have chosen to homestead. They are not young pioneers ready to forge their ways in the rough and tumble world of Sarah Palin. Instead, they are world-weary adults who have come to a darkened Alaska Territory for some quiet.  In a novel that lusciously describes snow, cold, darkness, and silence, Ivey writes a love letter to Alaska, to magic, to possibility. But also to independence, (dare I say) feminism, community, and c...

And now for the final entry in my week-long experiment with Food52 . Their new(ish) cookbook  A New Way to Dinner   has been my inspiration for a week of lamb-based meals (although the creamed broccoli rabe (that tried to sell itself as creamed kale) was the hit of the week), and what a week it was . This is a big, peppery, leftovers salad, and I highly encourage playing around with ingredients.  Have fresh peas? Blanch them quickly and then throw them in. Need to get rid of some waxy red potatoes? Boil them briskly and then slice them into this salad. Truly, I think this tasty salad could just be a gateway to whatever is fresh and in your fridge. Seriously, we're using leftover lamb here. I see no reason to not clean out other parts of your pantry. As it is, the crisp celery next to the bitter arugula, the piquant horseradish mixed into the creamy buttermilk: friends, this is as perfect for the dead of winter as it is the heyd...

I have always had a sweet tooth. I don't remember a time when I didn't want cake before  dinner. But we now know that sugar could well be killing us . What's an avowed sweets craver to do? Enter Samantha Seneviratne.  The New Sugar and Spice , her first cookbook, is no low-sugar desserts invective. Instead, it's a cookbook that outright celebrates dessert in all its sugary glory. However, she balances all that sweet with an affection for cinnamon, black pepper, ginger, cloves, and herbs. She argues that we should have our cake, no doubt eat it too, but also ensure that we're not overwhelmed with sugar blandness. Desserts should be returned to a nuanced complexity wherein sugar plays a superb supporting role. Her blog Love, Cake  is a joy, for her photographs are high contrast, high beauty and her writing is delightful. Such expectations carry over into this cookbook, including her introduction where she marries memories of her deceased brother to an ov...

This has not been the best of weeks.  A week ago on Saturday my aunt died.  My mother called early in the morning to tell me, and such an announcement was not a surprise; my mother's oldest sister had been diagnosed with cancer a while back, and this past summer, I said my goodbyes.  That July, my thin aunt declared that she hoped to make it to August, when her granddaughter got married, and once she made it to that late-summer wedding, we all dared to hope that she would make it through Thanksgiving.  Once early December came and she turned 81, we all pulled for her to make it through Christmas and New Year's.  My aunt had determination. About a year ago, my aunt discovered that I loved to cook--something that probably startled her, given my mother's own anti-cooking stance.  She asked my mom to give me her recipe box, which my mother mailed to me.   The box is full of cake and cookie recipes (peanut brittle, pumpkin cookies, coffee cake, powd...

Adapted from Cookbook #20:  I'm Just Here for More Food:  Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking Recipe: Pound Cake* *And yes, I did take a little bite off of the corner of the pound cake.  I was willing to sacrifice the picture in order to have a piping hot taste of pound cake fresh from the oven.  This cookbook is rather clever in its setup.  Alton Brown teaches you the methods of mixing and then expects that you will begin to see the patterns of putting together a recipe.  So instead of listing in each recipe all of the steps for the Biscuit Method or the Creaming Method or Straight Dough Method or the Muffin Method, each chapter has an introduction to the method with all the science bells, whistles and gee-gaws we have come to love and expect from Alton Brown.  After you figure out the method, his recipes become more outlines than programs, and you get to have your own wiggle room.  He, of course, explains precisely why you want the Creamin...