Category: food

This week I was in Minneapolis/St Paul visiting a college friend, Molly. I haven’t been there in ages. Things I’d forgotten about the land of 10,000 lakes included all of the charming storefronts in the older parts of both cities and the viciousness of the mosquitoes.

On the drive up, I finally stopped at a restaurant that captured my imagination in 1986, when my mom and I drove up to visit what became my alma mater. Their signs along 94 have always been brutally tantalizing: blue ribbon pie! a pie hotline! home cooking! rated among the 10 best in the nation by Roadfood! Twenty-two years of sweet pastry dreaming were realized when I bellied up to the counter at the Norske Nook in Osseo, Wisconsin and ordered peach pie, a la mode, and a cup of coffee. Worthy of my longing, this was pie as it should be: perfectly flaky crust, firm, slightly tart fruit, sweet goo holding it all together. Total bill was $5. [Clearly from almost every post contained herein, I’m no photographer. Also, I lack balls. The swarm of impossibly blonde, attentive, nice waitresses prevented me from attempting anything more than a drive-by shot.]

Once in the Twin Cities, I continued to eat well. Molly and I stayed up late the second night, gabbing and drinking a bottle of wine (from a cute neighborhood shop) and inhaling a slab of darkly, sweetly smoked salmon made by some local guy whom I need to track down and beg him to ship to Chicago. One afternoon, after cleverly depositing her older kid at a friend’s house, we had a chill lunch at Everest on Grand, one of the only Nepali restaurants in the country. Here I was introduced to the momo, a Tibetan dumpling filled with (in our case) ground chicken and steamed. Momos are served with an intensely hot and smoky sauce, momo achar. They are insanely delicious, and fun as one gets to say “momo” repeatedly….A good time even if you don’t have a 15-month-old with you, but especially fun for those times when you do.

Another day, we feasted on the contents of Molly’s garden: a simple salad of sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, dressed in olive oil with a little feta on the side. Her boys chowed on steamed edamame, also fresh from the vine. And we picked tons of gorgeous Japanese purple beans, but for some reason forgot to eat them.

On the drive home, I stopped at the Carr Valley Cheese shoppe in Mauston, Wisconsin to stock up on some outstanding cheeses. Their snow white goat’s milk feta won a blue ribbon at the American Cheese Society‘s cheese-off, which I’d read about in the local paper whilst eating that pie at the beginning of my trip. Full circle, my friends.

The husband accompanied me to the farmer’s market this morning. Purchases included 2 cute little baby cabbages, several ears of sweet corn, heirloom tomatoes, and cipollina onions. Total spent: $12.

Speaking of, we also made a stop at a new-ish place just north of the park: Cipollina. From the good folks at Milk+Honey, this is now a deli offering great cured meats, cheeses, and sandwiches. And they have the husband’s favorite freak soda, chinotto. We picked up some hot copocolla, bread, and olives…to have with the heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella that’s lounging in the fridge

But our biggest score at the market was a bunch of zucchini blossoms. I’ve been wanting to fry these babies for ages but can never find them. The cover of one of my favorite cookbooks, A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen, sports a gorgeous picture of them (yet upon inspection today, oddly contains but one recipe using the flowers).

Simply the flowers that form on a zucchini vine before the fruit does, zucchini blossoms are an Italian and Mexican delicacy. Usually only the male blossoms (thin stem) are picked. This allows the female (thicker stem) ones to turn into the long green vegetable that gardeners pawn off on their neighbors at the end of the summer. And today, there they were in a little bucket just waiting to come home with me. Felt like I’d won the lottery.

For an afternoon snack, I made a simple batter of beer and flour. Heated canola oil in a pan. Dipped the blossoms first in a beaten egg, then the batter, and delivered them to their deep-fried judgment. A sprinkling of kosher salt. A little sriracha (mixed with lemon juice and vinegar) on the side. A glass of rose to wash it all down. The husband agreed…these blossoms had been very very good. A faint celery stalkiness, earthy leafiness, and overall very very fresh tasting.

Good gravy, two posts in succession that contain the word “fried.” Did I mention that I’m joining my local gym tomorrow morning?

The husband and I went to one of those new-fangled couples baby showers in Oak Park on Saturday.

In addition to champagne, crustless sandwiches, and beer there was a sundae bar featuring toppings and delicious ice cream from The Brown Cow in Forest Park. With five flavors and more than a dozen things to sprinkle or squirt on top, repeat visits were mandatory. Wisely, we were provided with small dishes.

After the party, a couple of husbands went for fried chicken from White Fence Farm (the carry-out location in Riverside). Here is the perfect chicken: juicy meat, crunchy skin, tasty straightforward batter. I think it’s the standard against which all other fried chicken should be measured. The guys brought home some sides but the only one I was interested in, pickled beets, were absent. People liked the sweet fritters. For me, it was all about the chicken.

Last night the husband and I had another light dinner: a chilled bay scallops salad on a bed of greens with big ciabatta croutons. At least, that was the plan. Rather than turn on the oven to make the croutons, I popped 2 slices of bread brushed with olive oil into our ancient toaster oven. And walked away. To sit at my desk and write a blog entry. This blog. This blog about cooking.

Surely you can guess what happened next.

The red plums I picked up at the farmer’s market on Friday needed attention. The only logical solution was to make a trifle, a wonderful British invention to use up stale cake (what?) and very ripe fruit. Any summer fruit will work, as will a variety of cakes: genoise, pound, biscuit.

The trick is to get the cake to absorb the fruit, which is often laced with booze. I pureed half of the plums with a little sugar in the Cuisinart. We also had a couple of peaches that weren’t going to keep much longer, so I added those. A dash of Torres Grand Torres because that’s the only fruity liqueur we had on the shelf. It made a lot, so I stored the leftover puree in the freezer and will use for Bellinis or frozen whiskey sours or maybe you don’t drink as much as we do.

You don’t have to use pastry cream, but it’s a nice addition. Beat the whipped cream until pretty thick, adding a bit of sugar.

In a glass bowl with straight sides (or use a pyrex pan), assemble in the following order:

cake

fruit puree

sliced fruit

pastry cream

whipped cream

Repeat until you’re at the top of the bowl. Finish with the whipped cream and one last layer of sliced fruit. Chill at least an hour before serving. Eat the leftovers for breakfast

I followed the instructions for making the fruit puree from a recipe in this cookbook, which is from the talented folks at Tartine in San Francisco. Wow, this place looks beautiful.

Am headed to Oak Park (the OP) tomorrow to see a friend for gabbing and baby holding. Physically incapable of showing up at someone’s house empty-handed, this afternoon I turned on the oven and made a cake. There’s nothing like baking on a really hot day.

This recipe came to me from Bon Appetit, which used to have a section featuring reader’s recipes. Reading the October issue in 1995, I was captivated by the preamble to a recipe from Karin Korvin in Santa Monica. Her family had hosted a foreign exchange student from France who could cook but one thing: chocolate cake. Like Elodie the student, at the time I only knew how to make one thing well, also a cake. Turns out hers is an easy but elegant chocolate cake I’ve now been making for years.

Of course I’ve made a few tweaks: namely, adding salt and vanilla. Note on ingredients: use good chocolate. I’m a fan of Belcolade, as mentioned earlier, but any other premium brand will work well (Scharffen Berger, Lindt, Callebaut). And as for vanilla, use pure extract. Nielsen-Massey makes the best. Truly, the expense is worth it. With so few ingredients, it really makes a difference if you cheap out.

10 oz bittersweet (or unsweetened) chocolate, chopped

1/2 pound unsalted butter

5 large eggs

1 1/4 c. sugar (add another quarter cup if you’re using unsweetened chocolate)

2 t. vanilla extract

5 T. flour

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. kosher salt

Heat oven to 325F. Butter and flour (I use Baker’s Joy) a 10″ springform pan. Or if you are baking for a smaller crowd, use two 6″ springforms. Keep one for yourself and pawn the other off on the neighbors.

Melt the butter and chocolate in a metal bowl over a pot of simmering water. Make sure no water can get into the bowl. Stir until smooth and remove bowl from the pot. Meanwhile, beat eggs and sugar until pale yellow and very thick. Beat in vanilla. Sift remaining dry ingredients over egg mixture and fold until combined. Gradually pour in the melted chocolate and butter, folding until combined. Pour into the pan(s) and bake on a cookie sheet for 20 minutes. Cover with foil and bake until a tester comes out crumbly (in between wet and dry). Cool on a rack, then remove sides and bottom of pan.

Once cooled, a little well will have formed where the cake has fallen. This means it turned out right! At this point, you can sift powdered sugar over it, pour on a thin layer of chocolate ganache (spiked with espresso or brandy), top it with fresh or even thawed frozen raspberries. Serve with softly whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Or just eat it straight up. It’s quite rich, so cut slivers unless you’ve got a table full of gobblers. Stored at room temperature, it will keep for a couple of days.

After a weekend that was heavy on pizza, light on veg, tonight the Husband and I returned to our salad-eating ways.

I’d just read a sweet article in the September Bon Appetit about slow-roasted tomatoes. Just in time: having picked as many ripe ones from my mother’s garden as I could carry, the pile in the veg basket wasn’t long for this world.

So I made the tomatoes this afternoon. It took hours and the apartment smelled heavenly all day. Having collapsed into sticky, yummy heaps, they were incredibly fragrant and had turned a gorgeous shade of red.

I used some of the tomatoes’ steeping oil for a quick balsamic vinaigrette to dress a pile of baby arugula. Spooned the tomatoes on top of the greens, added sliced fresh mozzarella on the side, also some crusty bread which made for an excellent tomato delivery device. Gorgeous summer evening on a plate!

Feeling that we’d redeemed ourselves a bit, we then watched a crazy thunderstorm by candlelight. Hope the tornado sirens were kidding.

A friend who moved to London was back in town on business; she graciously shared her Sunday afternoon with us. Apparently the British Isles are seriously lacking in Mexican cuisine, so we ambled up the street to Picante for tacos and burritos. A sliver of a storefront, you can dine on site only when the weather cooperates. Which today it did. Fresh, fast, and very tasty. Nowhere else have I seen “white boy tacos” on the menu (hard shell, we’re told).

After that we were hot and thirsty. And desirous of people-watching. So we ambled a little farther up the road to hipster ground zero. That’s right: the Pontiac. Love it, hate it, but be honest and admit it: their lemonade-based cocktails are dangerously refreshing and sitting outside whilst drinking is what we Chicagoans love to do during our brief summers. With so many opportunities for snarkiness walking by, we couldn’t help but enjoy ourselves. After several rounds which included a few unexplained free beers for the Husband, we also ordered fries, which come sprinkled with herbes de provence (including lavender). And then home. To bed.

I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, where there’s been a farmer’s market since the 1920’s. We loved going there as kids, and rarely missed a Saturday.

Someone was always stationed at the entrance with a litter of puppies or kittens to give away. There’s a restaurant in the middle that served tantalizing stacks of pancakes. We never ate there. The “Office” was staffed by a no-nonsense woman and featured an array of baby pictures, each with a sassy caption. Amish ladies in long dresses and bonnets sold fresh eggs and insanely buttery cinnamon rolls. We ate a lot of those. Hippie people sold incense and flowing dresses. Cute boys worked at the butcher’s counter. A candy stall made the whole place smell like caramel corn. Farmers’ wives and kids sold tons and tons of produce.

This week I was in town and stopped by. No puppies or kittens, heaven help me. Being a Friday, most of the stalls were closed. But there were a few Amish ladies. And cute boys cutting meat. The caramel corn machine was cranking away. And…blueberries and plums galore, grown about 10 miles away in southwestern Michigan.

Maybe the best dish isn’t revenge, served cold. In last week’s New Yorker (you know, the one with the controversial cover), Yoni Brenner makes the case for employing more subtle ways to let your cooking do the talking.