Today we had a snow day in New York. Public schools were closed, which means that I didn’t have to get up at 6:45 this morning. Even though the snow is still falling outside I think everything will return to normal tomorrow and by 8:30 am I’ll be back in the classroom with 25 five-year-olds to teach.
This pie comes from Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook. A lot of people look down on Betty Crocker, but I love this cookbook. The pies are great, and so are the cookies, and there are some great cakes and quick breads too. What’s more the pictures are totally groovy and there’s all sorts of antiquated advice about pleasing husbands and table service with or without servants (sadly, ours is a no-servant house 100% of the time). Just stay out of the salad section, there’s a little too much aspic in there for my taste.
This particular pie, which they call White Christmas Pie (NYC does look kind of like this pie today, all white and fluffy), is a serious keeper. It reminds me of a pie my grandmother makes, where you fold whipped cream into the custard, rather than laying it on top. This …]
Last year, after I whined about the price of nuts in New York, my mom said she’d see if she could get me some nuts wholesale through one of her suppliers (if you didn’t know, she has a shop in Los Angeles). A month or so later, a guy comes by and delivers a 25-pound box of nuts, half almonds, half pistachios. 25 pounds! I got a bunch of bags and portioned out the nuts and stacked them in the freezer. We made it through the almonds fairly quickly, a short roast in the oven and they made a perfect snack. The pistachios however, lingered. Maybe it’s the shelling, and the fact that we’re lazy, or the mess that we make eating them. I’m not sure why, but a year later we still have the better part of 12-1/2 pounds of lovely bright green pistachios in our freezer. That is about to change. . . .
When we left for our European vacation this winter we asked our komsije (neighbors) if they could check our mail and keep an eye on the apartment. When I came back, not only were there piles of mail of the coffee …]
I am sitting here, in a friend’s apartment in Berlin with snow falling outside and fireworks going off, thinking of an appropriate way to sum up the past year. It was hard, it was a struggle, it was difficult and heartbreaking on so many levels for so many different people. In a year of hardship there were also a lot of wonderful things that happened: I started grad school and found a career that I truly love, my boyfriend completed his Masters degree and created a beautiful thesis project and, perhaps best of all, my grandmother survived her hip replacement and a heart attack and is up and walking and laughing again. It only feels appropriate to end this year with something a tart, and a little sweet, and hope that next year (and the next decade) will be a better.
I first made this cookies over ten years ago and I have made them every Christmas since. I usually create a sort of gingerbread UN, with gingerbread men from all around the world: a Scottish guy with a kilt, a Japanese woman wearing an elaborately decorated kimono, a French man with a striped shirt and a cigarette hanging from his mouth.
These are hands-down one of my favorite, and one of my most popular cookies. When my mom’s godson was smaller, we used to make these together and he’d always ask for them when he came to visit. One of my uncles always takes home three or four to eat with coffee. Because of all the molasses and spices, my college roommate used to call these the “bully of the cookie jar.” He meant that in the best of possible ways.
As I sit here eating barley soup I would like to focus on what I’m not doing:
I am not writing a research paper
I am not cobbling together a portfolio
I am not getting high on Sharpie fumes while making a picture book
I am not even lesson planning
I am just sitting here enjoying the quiet in my head. And the barley soup.
Last night I had my last class of the year. Our final project was creating a “big book”, essentially a very large picture book (mine was 13″ x 19″), and an accompanying lesson plan. It was so much fun to see the books my classmates had made, they were so beautiful and creative, and some were just awe-inspiring. Everyone also brought in food and drinks to share. I had been wanting to make these tarts even since Ashley wrote about them on Not Without Salt. I’m so glad I did. Warm and spicy, tart and creamy, light and fluffy, they were a wonderful winter treat*. I had one for breakfast this morning.
Let me tell you a story:
Once there was this girl who really liked this boy so she thought she’d make him bread pudding. Not just any bread pudding, but a chai bread pudding, where the milk is steeped with spices and tea and the final dish is rich, flavorful and complex. She looked through her cupboards and was happy to discover that she had most of the ingredients on hand, which was good because spices like cardamom can be expensive. She went over to his apartment to make this bread pudding in his (and what is now their) tiny kitchen. She warmed the milk, mixed in the whole spices and tea and let it all steep for an hour. She mixed the milk with eggs, and added the bread and let it soak for a half an hour. She put it in a big pan and put that in an even bigger pan and put all those pans in the oven (along with some hot water to make the bain marie) for fifty minutes. She pulled the bread pudding out of the oven, perfectly browned and beautiful and it tasted. . . . awful. One thing this …]
There is a place at the farmers market that has the best pumpkin bread. It’s very soft and spicy and the perfect accompaniment to hot apple cider. I’ve wanted to recreate it and after I made pumpkin pancakes a few weeks ago and decided to use the leftover puree to try my old pumpkin bread recipe again.
You know what? It’s pretty good. It’s really good with plum jam. It was good enough to send a mini loaf to a friend for her birthday.
Still, it’s not my ideal bread, so I’m going to keep searching.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that my mother is an excellent cook. She is a master with fish. She is a whiz with cauliflower. She used to make us the most beautiful birthday cakes (before we began demanding ice cream cakes from Baskin Robbins, silly children that we were). However, she started her own business when I was still toddling around the house, drawing on the walls. This meant that she often didn’t have time to make dinner, sometimes she didn’t get home until we’d already gone to bed, and I have vague memories of her coming in late and kissing me goodnight.
So our father cooked many of our weeknight meals. Like many fathers, he is excellent with red meat. Sitting here, 3000 miles away, I can picture his hands forming ground beef into hamburgers, kneading in sauce and molding the patties. My dad also makes a superlative omelet. Oftentimes, when it was just he and I at home he would make a large cheese omelet for us to share in a perfectly seasoned cast-iron skillet he and my mom received as a wedding present. The only desert I can ever remember him making (besides scooping ice cream …]
These have been one of my favorite cookies for a long time. When I was putting together care packages for our not-so-near and but-very-dear they were part of the lineup. Crumbly chocolate cookie flecked with toasted coconut and filled with sour cherries and chunks of dark chocolate. What more do I have to say?
Amir wanted a tiramisu for his birthday and so a tiramisu was made. It felt like too simple a dessert for a birthday, you’re basically just assembling ingredients. It’s like building a lincoln log house with cookies.
I tried to make it more difficult by making my own ladyfingers, which sadly, didn’t work out so well, a fact I blame entirely on the tininess of our kitchen and complete lack of counter space. (It’s not a good idea to leave your cookie sheet on the stove and then try to pipe your ladyfingers onto a hot cookie sheet, they deflate immediately, fyi.)
I did have to make coffee and zabaglione, so I felt there was some sort of effort made, and I made an unholy mess in the kitchen, which takes a certain amount of skill.
|
|
