Category Archives: recipe

Oatmeal cake with pears and chocolate chips

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Oatmeal cake

A perfect pear. It’s such a nice phrase, and such a rare and wonderful object to find in real life. There’s something so hopeful about waiting for a pear to ripen. You buy a few hard, golden green unblemished boscs. You put them somewhere safe and you wait for that one day that they’ll be perfect. Not mushy, not hard, just sweet and yielding. But there’s no guarantee they’ll be sweet once they ripen! You don’t know! They could be mealy and bland. And the wait for them to ripen is like marking the passage of time – they change before your eyes, almost as you watch! In my house it’s a very rare pear that makes it to perfection without insult and abuse. They’re dropped, they’re played with, somebody sneaks little bites and then puts it back when they realize it’s not ripe. Somehow I miss the fleeting moment of perfection. And I have bruised, scratched, soft and overripe pears. Which is exactly why pear cake was invented!

This cake has ground oats inside, to give a nice oaty flavor and texture, and rolled oats on top for crispy crunchiness. It has cardamom, which is a mysterious but lovely flavor, and very nice with pears. It’s a nice cake to have with coffee in the morning, but it’s sweet and special enough to have with a glass of wine after dinner. Maybe with some ice cream or lightly whipped cream. It’s very quick to put together.

Here’s Big Youth with Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. Time is running and passing, and you better get it right this time, but wait…there is a next time! If you miss the moment of ripeness – bake a cake!!
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carrot cashew fritters

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carrot fritters

Somewhere in the last decade I lost the ability to put a sentence together in such a way that you could start at the beginning of it and find your way to the end with the sense still in tact. See? You’re scratching your head, you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about! I don’t know! Words used to come easily. I could write a 10 page paper on feminist film theory in an afternoon. And it would be good! I don’t know what happened, exactly, but the ability to put words together slowly eroded, leaving me, confused and muttering, trying to explain my thoughts to anyone who would listen.

I feel like it’s been getting better, lately, though, because I’ve been exercising my sentence-forming-ability. Taking it out for short runs every day, and putting it through its paces. Nothing too strenuous or stressful, nothing too complicated. I took two days off, watched a lot of cartoons on cable, and I feel like it’s all gone again! Sheesh.

Anyway – I’m back, and we’re making crazy food here. These carrot cashew fritters were the product of a nearly empty fridge. We had some carrots, we had some tarragon I wanted to use up. We had some fresh ginger. Would that be good with tarragon? Yes! It would! I wanted to use chickpea flour, but either I used it up, or it got lost in some strange nether world of odd flours in my overburdened cupboard. Pushed to the back behind the toasted barley flour and the tapioca flour and the masa harina, it was all like, “I’m out of here! She doesn’t even know I’m around any more!” So I used urad flour, which imparted a nice earthy taste to the sweet bright carrots and ginger. But you could use chickpea flour or even just regular flour, if you don’t happen to have a cupboard spilling over with bags of strange flours. The secret surprise in these fritters is mozzarella cheese! It makes them fun to eat, when it gets all melty and delicious. We ate these with a tamarind-chipotle sauce that I made a little bit too hot, but which Malcolm liked anyway.

Here’s John Buddy Williams Band with Saturday Night Blowout, my absolute favorite song at the moment. Since words have failed me, we’re going with an instrumental. Doesn’t it prove that you don’t really need words to say what you’re feeling? It’s a whole conversation.
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Homemade tortillas and pigeon peas & greens

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Tortilla & pigeon peas

In my short acquaintance with masa harina I’ve become very fond of it. It has such a mysterious taste. It taxes my limited descriptive powers. Almost sweet, a little floral, maybe. I think the corn is treated with lime. Is that the flavor? I want to use it all the time, in a million different ways! I’ve already made pupusas with it, which I think turned out very good! And I made something else, but I don’t remember what it was, because I didn’t write about it, and this blog has become my auxiliary memory. (It’s very convenient!) The other night I tried using it to make (as I understand it) its main reason for existence – tortillas! I don’t have a tortilla press, but that didn’t stop me, because I don’t have a pasta machine, and we made good pasta. Turns out it’s not that simple with the tortillas. They were delicious, but they weren’t pretty! They’re harder to roll out than pasta, and they stick to the counter and fall apart, and generally made me feel a little cranky and sweary. They were worth making, though, and I’d do it again, but I think I’d make them smaller and call them tortilla chips. I think they’re fine if they’re irregularly shaped…it adds to their appeal! I fried them in a shallow pool of hot olive oil. And burned my finger! Do not dip your finger in hot oil! Don’t do it! We ate the with rice and pigeon peas sauteed with broccoli rabe and tomatoes. Very nice!

Here’s the Clash with 1-2 Crush on You, because that’s how I feel about Masa Harina! There, I’ve admitted it to the world.
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Mushroom white bean bisque

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Mushroom white bean bisque

In art and music people speak of combinations that are almost magical. Certain musical pitches combine to make chords that profoundly affect the emotions. Certain colors, when combined, seem to hum in your vision. I believe there are flavors like that, too. Some flavors just seem to go together so perfectly that they become a more perfect whole. Sometimes it’s unexpected flavors, and I’m constantly hoping to discover some brand new-good-for-you combination that makes your taste buds do a little dance. Sometimes it’s a well-known mix of flavors that just makes sense. White beans, sage and rosemary, for instance. With olive oil and balsamic, garlic & shallots. Or mushrooms, sage and rosemary. So, I thought to myself, one long day at work, dreaming about what I’d make for dinner when I got home…why not white beans, mushrooms, sage and rosemary? I had quite a bit of couronne bread left, and I thought I’d make a soup to go with it. I like mushroom soup, but I don’t make it very often, because I use my mushrooms up so quickly in other ways. Plus, it’s hard to make it very pretty. So I decided to combine it with white beans. I know! They’re not very pretty in soup either! But…I added two handfuls of fresh baby spinach, and suddenly it was a lovely pale green color. A sage green color, appropriately! Not a hard soup to make, and very satisfying…light yet substantial, very savory and flavorful.

Here’s Hummin, by Cannonball Adderly, because that’s what the perfect combination of elements seems to do!
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Cardamom rabadi with champagne mango & salted pistachios

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rabadi

I find it fascinating that different cultures have similar recipes, especially when they involve not-so-simple techniques. The other day, Isaac and I made paneer, which, it turns out, is a lot like making ricotta. Did they teach each other? Did somebody in each country accidentally drop lemon juice in their boiling milk and say, “hey….”? I’ve been reading my Indian cookbooks (those by Julie Sahni and Madhur Jaffrey), and I was excited to come across recipes for rabadi. This is milk, boiled and then simmered for quite some time, until it becomes a lovely, slightly sweet pudding-like consistency. It’s thick and creamy and tawny. It’s very delicious! And the method of making it is quite similar to dulce de leche, except that you don’t add sugar, so it’s not as caramel-y. How did people discover these things? That if you whip egg whites they become stiff, or that if you cook milk for hours it becomes a comforting pudding? I like the simplicity of this dessert. It’s really just milk! I added a tiny bit of cardamom, and a few spoonfuls of sugar, and that was it – it was delicious by itself, but it was even nicer with some perfectly ripe champagne mangos, some pretty strawberries, and a handful of roughly chopped salted pistachios. This is a nice dessert for summer time, because you serve the rabadi chilled, and it’s perfect with whatever fruit is ripe. The next day I blended the leftover rabadi with the leftover mangoes and pistachios, to make a delicious thick frothy drink.

rabadi

And here’s the perfect song for this! Hot Milk, by Jackie Mittoo. He’s the best!
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crispy lacy almond cookies

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crispy almond cookies

I’ve always wondered if I could smell or taste or feel in a dream. It’s all a little vague, but I’m fairly sure I can see and hear. Exactly how much are dreams like movies, anyway? Surely since smell and taste are so closely related to memory, and dreams are fantastical jumbles of memory, these senses should play some part? I just didn’t know. Well, last night, my dream provided solid and concrete evidence that I have a sense of smell in my dreams. I dreamt that I was making black beans (as one does in one’s dreams, right?). In my dream, I went to sleep, but woke up hours later with the house on fire, and the terrible smell of burnt black beans in my nose. The panic! The guilt! Well, I woke up in real life, after waking up from the dream in the dream, and I was sure that I could smell smoke! But I couldn’t, and the sense of it passed, and I went back to sleep. Have you ever smelled or tasted anything in a dream?

The other day my friends Treefrogdemon and SpottedRichard asked about a thin crispy cookie. I made one, with rum and coarse salt. But Spotted Richard said she’d imagined something with almond. And so, to be honest, had I. So I tried again. I had two leftover egg whites, and I decided to use them to make a light, thin cookie with almost no flour. (I was worried that this would be one of those occasions that I waste a whole cupboardful of ingredients trying to use up two egg whites, but luckily these turned out very tasty!) They’re thin and lacy and crispy, almost like almond toffee.

Here’s Yellow on the Broom, by Jean Redpath, because I think Treefrogdemon and SpottedRichard will like it, and because springtime is here again!!
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Vegetable, french lentil, potato ragout

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Vegetable french lentil ragout

In which Claire goes on and on about The Two of Us, part 2 of 2.

Did I mention that we recently watched the Claude Berri film, The Two of Us? Oh, I did? I’ve told you that I loved the film, and some of the reasons why. But there was more to it than that. The film spoke to me, about things I’ve been thinking about the last few weeks. I saw myself in some of the characters in a way I don’t usually with most films. I wonder if everybody feels that way when they watch The Two of Us, because the film is so human and honest that it feels universal? Such specific things resonated, though. An old, old dog, loved more than anything in the world. A bright, energetic 8-year-old boy, who doesn’t quite understand why you’re upset by the way he acts. The father’s anxious-angry-loving face was so dear and familiar. And then there were the animals. Pepe is a vegetarian. Not a common or popular position in the French countryside at the time, it would seem. The rest of the populace was trying to find a way to scrounge some meat during the deprivations of WWII, but he proudly announced that he only ate vegetables. By choice. Not because that’s all the rations allowed. His wife raised, killed, and cooked rabbits. But to Pepe, that wasn’t an option, because he knew the rabbits. He loved the rabbits. Exactly in the way he loved Claude, though he was a jew, because he knew him. It reminded me of the film The Shooting Party, in which a parallel is made between children who save their pet duck from a duck hunt, as though she’s the only duck that matters, because she’s their duck, and the fact that the accidental shooting of an old man is only important because they know him. All this in the context of WWI, in which surely it was only possible to kill other humans in fear and ignorance, because you didn’t know them, and they were the enemy. In the way Claude, the little boy, would have been to Pepe, before he knew him.

Anyway…I wanted to make something to go with my couronne bread, and I decided to make something Pepe might eat. So I made a ragout, which as I understand it is a stew substantial enough to be a meal. This was hearty, because of the potatoes and french lentils, but they weren’t the stars of the show. We also had zucchini, broccoli rabe and tomatoes, and white wine and capers for brightness. So it had a certain lightness, despite being completely satisfying. Not the prettiest thing I’ve ever made, but right up their with the tastiest.

Here’s Nina Simone with Turning Point. A devastating, complex song, told with the simplicity of a child’s voice. A revelation of prejudice that makes it all seem so idiotic and unnecessary.
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Couronne bread

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Couronne bread

The Two of Us, by Claude Berri, is one of the most perfectly beautiful films I’ve seen. During world war II, an eight-year-old Jewish boy is sent to live in the country with his landlady’s parents. The story is based on Berri’s memories of his childhood, and it has the beautiful glow of a child’s perspective filtered through memory. With the ease that children approach friendship, Claude takes to Pepe, the old man. And Pepe loves him back, not realizing, as he weaves frightening tales of Jews as villains, that the boy himself is Jewish. There’s such a simplicity and grace to the film – it has a feeling of effortlessness and honesty – that the emotional impact is powerful and immediate, and it took me a while to realize just how intelligent it is. Pepe, as played by the incomparable Michel Simon, is so human – so wonderful in some ways, and so flawed in others. Without moralizing or judging, Berri provides a vivid illustration that prejudice is born of ignorance. In the context of the war going on around them – tragic news on the radio, threatening posters around the town – Pepe’s bigotry, which seems innocent because he’s so sweet, takes on a looming dangerous shadow.

And it takes place in the French countryside, in summer! They eat outside and drink copious bottles of homemade wine! They chase each other and their elderly dog around gorgeous fields and meadows! And, as you can see in the trailer, there’s a lovely and intriguing loaf of bread on the table throughout most of the film. I decided to try to make this bread! I believe it’s called a couronne, because a bread of that name is made in Lyon, and I believe they’re in Lyon because that’s what the sign on the train said. To be honest, what I actually made was my version of a French baguette in circular form. I’ve long wanted to make bread that had this texture – chewy crispy on the outside, and not so finely crumbed on the inside. I think this turned out that way! It’s really good! And pretty! I read a bunch of different recipes, and then combined them in a fly-by-the-seat-of-my pants kind of way. But it seems to have worked, so I’ll tell you what I did step by step.

We had a Vegetable, french lentil, potato ragout with this, and it was a perfect meal.

Georges Delrue wrote the music to The Two of Us, and oddly enough, years ago I fell in love with a song he wrote for Jules et Jim called Brouillard. I set some super 8 footage to it a while back. So that’s what this is.
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Pizza dumplings

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Pizza dumplings

The other night we made dumplings loosely based on our vision of the dumplings in Kung Fu Panda. While we were eating them, we all talked about the different kind of things we could fill them with. Malcolm came up with the idea of pizza dumplings. He wanted them to be like the earth, with layers. An olive for the core, a layer of cheese, a layer of sauce and a layer of dough. So that’s what we tried to do.

Malcolm is writing an essay for school about what he wants to be when he grows up. I’m going to share some excerpts with you. Remember, this is still a work in progress – he’s at the prewriting stage. Here we go…

Bang! Pishhh! “Hey, chef I need 3 pies.”
In my opinion being a chef is very fun.
I want to be a chef because I like to cook with my mom and she says that I have great ideas for cooking. One of my favorite things to do is invent and cooking is like inventing.
I want to travel so I can go to Scotland and find out what they eat there. Then I will learn how to cook food all over the world.

I hope he will!

Here’s Desmond Dekker with Sugar Dumpling.
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Baked asparagus custard with arugula and tarragon

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baked asparagus custard

Yesterday morning I was feeling a little tired and discouraged. I decided to tag along with David on a bike ride up the towpath that runs between the river and the canal. I pedaled along, looking at the pebbly path, because going over the big ruts makes my back hurt. Which makes me feel old. Then I looked up. The late morning light glowed in the early spring leaves so beautifully it almost hurt. Against the dark tangle of branches, the small leaves hummed with a bright hopeful light. A light that’s only there this time of year, and doesn’t last very long. Well!

I think asparagus is a little like that. It’s so vivid and slender and pretty. It tastes like early spring. You wouldn’t want to eat it all summer, but you do want to eat it now. I like it best lightly steamed with butter and lemon, but you can’t eat it that way every time! So I try different things. I’m not sure what made me think of this, and I’m not sure what it should be called. It’s not a custard, exactly. It reminds me of Stouffer’s Spinach soufflé. When I was a child, that was the special thing to have with our steak. It’s not a soufflé, because there’s no bechamel, and the eggwhites aren’t whipped. But it does feel special. It’s quite light, but substantial enough to serve in slices. It would be nice with a light tomato sauce or red pepper coulis, but it’s flavorful enough to serve as it is. And it’s quick to make!

In Blackalicious’ Green Light – Now Begin, they say,

No more of that sittin’ in a slump and uh
No more of that coulda-woulda-shoulda junk
No more of that waiting for the inspiration, innovation

Or a green light–now begin

That’s right!!
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