This mug comes from the Frankfurt Christmas market
I meant to post this for Gourmet Unbound’s February round up but somehow between taxes, and school, and teaching, February 1st came and went without my even realizing it.
While in Berlin I became addicted to something known as glühwein, which means “glow wine,” an appropriate name considering the radiant effect it can have on one. You can buy it on the street for about €2 and for an extra euro they’ll add a shot of amaretto or rum. It’s a wonderful drink and economical too, it warms you up, brightens your spirits and makes the grey skies and snow seem a little less dismal.
A few weeks ago I had my old roommates over for dinner. It was a cold night and as they had braved the elements to trek out to my Brooklyn apartment I felt it was only right to have something warm and fortifying (and fortified) waiting for them. This wonderful mulled port was the answer. Simple, easy, it makes the house smell great and makes you feel even better.
Bishop
adapted from Gourmet, February 2006
All you need is a bottle of ruby port, an orange, and about 8 whole …]
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 …]
When I cook, I try to use mostly seasonal, local ingredients. However, there are times, when say I’ve just come back from a trip where I’ve been eating mostly sausage and potatoes, when all I want to eat is the vegetable soup that my mom used to make from a recipe that came from Weight Watchers some 20 years ago. In such as a case as that I might just buy zucchini and some tomatoes that were grown in some far off place where it’s currently summer and call it a day. After the starchy excesses of Berlin I was craving this soup something awful. It’s super simple, easy to make but feels really good.
Stockholm, Sweden
I feel that I’ve been everywhere in the past month or so, visiting friends and family in Los Angeles, Berlin, Stockholm and Paris.
Berlin, Germany
While it was nice to be away, and to see new places, it feels really good to be home again. I spent the first few days just lazing around the house, cleaning, organizing, and cooking. I made vegetable soup and croissants. I’ve sorted through the piles of mail, and life is returning to normal. When I begin to tire of normal life my film should be developed and I’ll be able to relive my adventures all over again.
Hallo from Berlin! If I’m a little absent from these here parts it’s because I’m putting on twenty five layers and enjoying the freezing cold temperatures while trudging through the city. Thankfully there’s gluhwein (a hot mulled wine) to be had, which warms you up for 3 euros or less, if only New York had such things. . . .
I’ll see you when I get back, and I’ll tell you all about it once I get all my film developed. In the meantime, check out the latest roundup of Gourmet Unbound!
tschüs!
* photo credit goes to Amir. If I had taken this photo it would have been a lot more crooked.
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.
“the pure luxury of a cloudless sky, designed not to please the flesh but solely to please the eye;”- Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
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