Betty Lives!

This morning I went about my frenetic activities in the usual way: make breakfast, make lunch, dress my daughter, dress my son, pour Doug’s iced coffee to go, make my tea, pack the knapsacks, get myself dressed, brush teeth, buckle shoes…and so on.  We rushed with the kids to school and then I walked Doug to the subway and we said goodbye.  I started speeding up the street to my yoga class and then got stopped in my tracks  -  literally - by a fire truck protruding half-way out of its company house and 10 somber firemen standing beside it, hands clasped, heads down.  I thought “Shit” and felt ashamed. I had gotten this far into my day without remembering.

People were stopped on both sides of the truck, confused as to how to proceed.  It seemed gauche to walk around them but watching felt like an invasion of their privacy.  9/11  has no prescribed rituals - no red ribbons to wear, shofars to blow or ashes to mark -  and watching the men, and the people on the street, desperate to create a meaningful ritual, makes my heart ache with pain.  I felt the same way watching the aftermath on television.  It was not the site of the towers collapsing that made me weep, it was the site of the people standing along the West Side Highway holding signs up for the rescue trucks that said “You are our Heroes” that I could not see without sobbing.  There we were.  Americans, confident, cocksure and capable, now suddenly stumbling around in the dark to make sense of it and so desperate to do something, anything. On the street this morning we watched the firemen, but it felt like we were still stumbling. Do we bow our heads too? Do we hug them? Shake their hands? Lay flowers at the memorial? Cheer for them?  Hold up signs? So we just stood there and waited until a bell rang and then kept moving, as if we had all been on pause.  I saw a friend of mine from school but since we had both been crying I decided not to engage her.  And then I did the only remotely religious thing that I know how to do: I dedicated my yoga practice to the memory of all those we lost, and came home to cook.

The Mixer, Hand Mixer and Blender Cookbook

Staff Home Economists

Culinary Arts Institute

1954

I have to be honest.  I bought this cookbook for the pictures, which I found to be so cute and so perfect 50’s.  I swoon for technicolor and  line drawings.

Of course, the fact that the book contained a recipe called “Meat Muffins” sealed the deal.  When I said the name out loud Doug looked at me and agreed “Well you HAVE to make those!” The base recipe contains 2 cups of soft bread crumbs, 1 1/4 lbs ground beef, 1/2 lb pork, 1 cup milk, 1 egg, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp MSG, 1/2 tsp thyme, and 1/4 tsp pepper.  The glaze is made from 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup ketchup.  I left out the MSG and added a pinch of granulated garlic but did not change anything else.  The recipe, as you would imagine, gives three different opportunities to use the blender (crumbs, wet ingredients, glaze) of which I took none.  More out of laziness than anything else.  I didn’t feel like cleaning the blender. The meat mixture, which is wetter than I’m used to, is portioned out into a muffin tin and baked for 20 minutes, glazed, and baked for 20 more minutes.  It’s obviously a gimmick, but the seasoning and pork/beef proportions were perfect.  I made roast carrots and creamed spinach with it and the dinner was a huge hit.

The New Settlement Cookbook

1954

Just a quick little entry because I’ve been so mind-blowingly busy (back to school) but also very guilty about not writing.  Before we left Bucks County (boo hoo) I tucked into The New Settlement Cookbook for a pancake recipe to which I added blueberries.  It was, as the other recipes have been, simple and delicious, no fancy beaten egg whites or flavorings.  I can’t say they were my favorite pancakes of all time because I actually like to add cornmeal to mine, but they were tasty and quick:

Over Labor Day weekend my sister and her family came to visit and I convinced her to “guest chef” a recipe for Betty, and she and my nephew Carter took to the task with gusto.

I wanted to make use of our last blackberries before leaving and the Blackberry Roll seemed interesting to me.  You make a standard cream biscuit dough, roll it out into a rectangle, lay some blackberries and  sugar on top.  Ok, no problem.  But then comes the rolling.  The crazy, crazy rolling.  The recipe says simply: “Roll up and place in greased pan”.  Ok, seriously, has anyone ever tried to ROLL biscuit dough that is being weighed down by big berries? It became more of a “Mush and roll, place lumps in greased pan, then fuse lumps into loaf shape.”  I thought it would work because we made sure the berries were still embedded in the dough.  Then the recipe says to sprinkle the rest of the berries around the pan and give the whole thing a sugar shower, one cup’s worth.  After about three quarters of a cup my sister looked up at me in desparation and said, “I’m sorry I just can’t put any more on.”  I sympathized.  It was a lot of sugar.  The berry/biscuit gets baked, but significantly longer than the recipe says which is 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes we cut into it and it was still raw in the middle.  Twenty more minutes was just right to cook the dough through and the berries in the pan had turned into a gorgeous, deep purple compote.  Served warm with vanilla ice cream it was by far the best dessert of the summer, lumps, excess sugar, and all.

Stay tuned this week:  Meat Muffins!

The New Settlement Cookbook

1954

Twenty years ago this month I traveled to Paris for the first time. A string of fortuitous circumstances led me to the home of Madame Isabelle DuPasquier where I lived joyously - with a view of the Eiffel Tower out my window - for five months. Isabelle has four wonderful sons whom I know well and with whom I have been honored to celebrate various marriages and the arrival of many children. Over the years they have welcomed me into their homes and we have come to consider ourselves family. Sadly, I have had almost no occasion to welcome them in New York; Very few of Isabelle’s extended clan have visited. Until this summer. Almost twenty years to the day from my arrival in Paris Anne-Sophie, the daughter of Isabelle’s oldest son who I have known since she was six months old, came to stay with us in Pennsylvania. She is a beautiful, gentle, intelligent girl and when I watched her playing with my children I was so moved. When she left on Thursday night to go back to New York I cried and I’m sure the poor child thinks I’m nuts. But it’s hard to explain to a 21 year-old the meaningfulness of one chance meeting on a hot August day in Paris that has lead to 20 years of love shared. And how lucky I feel.

While with us she had some funny observations. Bucks County is apparently “not really the country”. I know what she means. In France when you talk about “the country” you’re not talking about a place where you can get in the car and be at a Giant supermarket in 10 minutes. On fat people she had this to say: “I’m sure we have some in France, but they don’t go out.” She was also amused by the local agricultural fair where I had promised her nothing but sheep, pigs and tractors but where they also happened to have a booth selling hot tubs. And Oxyclean.

She loved picking fruit with us and before she left we made special fruit tarts in her honor. The recipe comes from The New Settlement Cookbook and it was straightforward enough even for me, a committed non-pastry cook. First, make cookie dough (2 TBl butter, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 egg). No problems here except that the house we’re renting doesn’t have measuring cups so I had to use a tea cup (which I’ve heard is exactly 8 oz) and hope for the best. They were very sticky when I rolled them out and difficult to transfer to the baking sheet but other than that they were fine. Then I made pastry cream (3/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/3 tsp salt, 2 eggs, 2 cups milk or cream, 1 tsp vanilla). I didn’t have vanilla so I flavored the cream with orange peel instead. Other than that no changes. It is significant to note that “directions” in this book are often just one or two lines and there isn’t a lot in the way of cooking times or temperatures either, they just assume you know. I guess I got lucky. The only newfangled thing I did was to paint the cookies with a little melted chocolate because they just didn’t seem sweet enough. Then I spread them with the cream and let the kids go crazy with the berries.

I have to say I did not love the cookies-as-pastry-crust thing.  I prefer a crisper shell. But you can’t really go wrong with a cookie/chocolate/cream/berry combo so they all got eaten. Anne-Sophie, who is extremely polite and would never have said otherwise, claimed that she like them too.

The New Settlement Cook Book

1954

In looking back over the last year I can say with confidence that there are recipes that improve with age, such as those for pork. There are also recipes that withstand the test of time (see any number of them on this blog), and there are even recipes for which the passage of time has been a disservice, like corn bread. But I’ll get back to all that in a second.

We are out in Bucks County, PA for the month. It is our second summer here and as a total city child raising total city children herself, I deeply appreciate and feel grateful for the opportunity to be here. I love staring out at the woods while I write, I love the fact that there is NOTHING to do and the kids just have to get used to that, I love the ease of jumping in my car which is oh-so-conveniently parked in the driveway with the knowledge that wherever we go, there will be an available parking space waiting just for us. Most of all, I love picking my own fruit at the nearby Solebury Orchards which is family-run and forgoes things like hayrides and Ye Olde Country Fudge kitsch. Unlike this year, in which we rented August only and relocated, last year we rented from June through September and came on the weekends. We would wake up every Saturday morning and drive to the orchards to get our fruit - cherries in June, Blueberries and Raspberries in July, Blackberries, cherry tomatoes and Peaches in August, Apples and Pears in September. For me it was magical and for the kids it was eye-opening to learn about how we get our food and also about seasonal availability: Sorry my little loves! No cherries in September! In August there are still some blueberries and raspberries left and when we got here we managed to pick a few quarts along with the blackberries, peaches and tomatoes. It’s so zen to stand in an orchard and pick fruit, foraging into the tree to find hidden clusters of berries, and we’re getting really good at it. I’ve outlined three simple rules for optimum picking:

1. Go deep. The best fruit is usually hidden under foliage.
2. Look both ways before diving in. I’m not saying it’s a dangerous sport, I’m just saying I nearly took my eye out last week on an errant blackberry branch.
3. Make it a family affair. Kids: go low; Mom: go center; Dad: go high. We can strip a bush in minutes.

With all that work I believe the berries deserve respect so I craft individual desserts that maximize their flavors. Last week we had a Blackberry Fool, Chocolate Ganache with Raspberries, Peach Shortcakes, and a Blueberry/Peach crumble. The crumble was made from leftover corn bread which brings us back to this recipe. I only brought one old cookbook with me, but fate intervened in the form of The New Settlement Cook Book, which the owners of the house just happened to have. It’s a classic and it’s absolutely amazing. As the cover says: 3,332 home-tested recipes, easy to follow, economical, delicious. The book includes a Bride’s Kitchen Primer and Meals for children and invalids. The story behind the book (which, in 1954, was up to its 31st edition) began with a Mrs. Simon Kander who worked with immigrant women in Milwaukee in the latter part of the 19th century. Mrs. Kander was part of a committee who taught the newly-arrived women how to function in their new country, including how to prepare American food and they, in turn, brought their home recipes to her. The book is still in print as are some older versions.

The corn bread recipe is sweet and simple: 1 and 1/4 cups flour, 3/4 cup corn meal, 4 TBl sugar, 1 egg, 3 tsp baking powder, 1 cup sweet milk, 3 TBl butter and 1 tsp salt. No whole kernels, no jalapenos, no cheese, and (god help us) no margarine. I happened to have made bacon that morning (ok, maybe it was intentional) so I used bacon fat instead of butter in the bread. It was perfect! We split it open warm, spread it with honey and ate it on the grass. I actually entertained thoughts of living full-time in the country for at least six minutes.

Two days later I used the stale cornbread mixed with chopped pecans, sugar and melted butter to top off the crumble which I ate for both dinner dessert and breakfast the next morning. As my friend Jill would say: “It was BEYOND!”

The Omelette Book

Narcissa Chamberlain with Drawings by Hilary Knight

1955

Apologies to those who have been waiting for a new entry. The last week of July was bananas because I was getting ready to move the brood out to Pennsylvania for the month of August and also preparing for the arrival of the daughter of friends of mine in Paris who will be staying with us. I wanted to make something before I left so I grabbed this book with the intention of preparing something quickly. The book itself is interesting to me primarily because it contains a chapter called “Meat Omelettes”, and she really means meat here, not just the classic breakfast meats. There are recipes for omelets with sausage and ham (obvious choices) but also for omelettes with pork, kidneys, calves liver, leftover roast lamb, and chicken. From what I can tell, Chamberlain wrote one additional cookbook about the foods of France (which explains her use of the French spelling for omelet) and also some home decor books. The other point of great interest is the illustrator, Hilary Knight, who clearly had himself quite a career in cookbook design before Eloise came along and distracted him. His drawings, which grace the beginning of each chapter, are entirely characteristic of his style.

I was breezing through the meat chapter when I came to one that incorporates my beloved blood sausage, the dark knight of the sausage universe. Blood sausage is seen so rarely in this country that when I spot some I buy it no matter what and toss it in the freezer. Then I hoard it like a squirrel and wait for the perfect recipe to come along. The omelette Nancéenne, in addition to six eggs, calls for chopped parsley and one chopped, sautéed onion . These are combined with the eggs to create two flat omelets which are stuffed with sliced blood sausage that has been sautéed in butter. The omelet is garnished with two tablespoons of (more) browned butter combined with 1/2 teaspoon “meat extract” and chopped parsley. For the meat extract I used some glace de viande that I had in the fridge but otherwise I altered nothing. I served it with a green salad and a nice chilled Rosé and it was tasty, although perhaps not the highest use of a fabulous ingredient.

Best Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes

1931

This is one of the oldest books I have and one of the most challenging to interpret for modern cooking. It was printed by Walter Baker & Company which was a division of General Foods and all the pictures are full color and depict rich and luscious chocolate desserts. Baker, you might realize, is he of “Baker’s Chocolate” and the book was written to promote the use of his product. I had been wanting to try it for a long time but felt hesitant because, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m an awful baker. But we went to Hershey Park recently and it was a vile, crowded experience filled with bad chocolate at every turn (not to mention adults shrieking at the site of walking Hershey Bars and children begging to be photographed with the Twizzlers). So upon our return I launched myself into this little book to find something chocolate AND edible.

The Chiffon Chocolate Pie had a great photo, and I’m a sucker for a great photo:

The ingredients are:

3 Squares Baker’s Unsweetened Chocolate, cut in pieces

2 1/2 cups cold milk

1 1/3 cups sugar

1/2 cup cornstarch

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbl butter

3 egg yoks, slightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1 baked 9-inch pie shell

3 egg whites

6 Tbl sugar

Forgive me Walter, but in 1931 you probably had the best (the only?) chocolate on the market. Not so much in 2008. Today it’s quite possibly the worst so I took the liberty of substituting the three squares of Baker’s for an equivalent amount of Scharffen Berger unsweetened. The directions are contained in one tiny paragraph, and to the best of my knowledge it goes something like this: The chocolate is melted with milk (I used the microwave because the called-for double boiler would have taken all day) and then the sugar, cornstarch and salt are added. The mixture is thickened over heat and finally the butter and egg yolks are added. Unfortunately, because I am a crappy pastry cook, I didn’t realized that the filling really needs to be thickened completely on the stovetop. I cooked it until it was thick-ish and figured it would thicken further in the oven but I was WRONG. The filling was a little soupy, which also made it difficult to spread the meringue, as you can see. The shell is pre-baked, the chocolate filling is added, the meringue is spread, and the whole is baked for 20 minutes.

Soupy or not it was still chocolate and still pie, and therefore delicious.