Hmm…what a fun question! Outside of candies or sweets, I think it’d be fun to make a risotto with roasted pumpkin and sage and toasted, crumbled hazlenuts on top.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Your post brought back some terrific memories for me too. I remember baking cookies with my mother. But it wasn’t chocolate chip cookies because she didn’t like them (can you imagine that!!).
My mother made butter cookies and she would give me and my brothers raw dough to play with and I must say, she must not have had a rule to wash our hands first because I remember that after we played with the yellowish dough it was completely gray and disgusting. We made it into nondescript lumps and she would bake the lumps for us and we would each eat our own. We’re all still around so I guess the dirt didn’t hurt us.
Unlike my mom, I love chocolate chip cookies. I also like oatmeal raisin cookies. In my book, Hip Kosher, there’s a recipe for a chocolate-chip-oatmeal-raisin cookie I called The Grand Finale. I always have some in my freezer because my kids would hate it if I didn’t. Here’s the recipe:
Grand Finale Cookies
1 cup all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup orange juice
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups quick cooking or rolled oats
1-1/4 cups chocolate chips
1 cup dried flaked coconut
1 cup chopped almonds
3/4 cup raisins
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Combine the butter, brown sugar, and sugar in a large bowl and beat them with an electric mixer set at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until creamy and well blended. Add the egg, orange juice, and vanilla extract and beat them in thoroughly. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the oats, chocolate chips, coconut, almonds, and raisins. Scoop blobs of dough about 2 inches in diameter and place on lightly greased cookie sheets. Bake for 15–18 minutes or until browned. Makes 3 dozen
chocolate chip cookies
Submitted by an Anonymous Guest
Your wonderful blog conjured up an immediate and vivid childhood picture for me. I was sitting in the kitchen with my mother, watching her bake chocolate chip cookies. Note I say “watching” not learning how to bake. I did put the dough on the teaspoon and carefully used my pointer finger to push it on to the baking tin but the highlight was the opportunity to taste the raw dough.
My mother made the best crispy chocolate chip cookies in the world. To this day I rue the fact that I never showed any interest in getting her recipe. In subsequent years my family has tried many recipes but we never hit the mark. I’m so sorry that I can’t share that recipe with your readers but I know there are many who share my memory of baking cookies with their moms.
Today I am a grandmother and I have the pleasure of baking with my grandchildren. Although I would enjoy munching down my mom’s cookies again, I would give anything to once more share that moment of tasting the dough, breathing in the aroma of baking cookies and being with my mom.
Strawberries
Submitted by an Anonymous Guest
If you have a day mid-June, let’s go strawberry picking at Jones Farm in Shelton. You will not believe the berries! As for your strawberry shortcake recipe — I am honored to have been one of the lucky ones to try this recipe. It will become a family favorite. Last night was among the yummiest meals I have ever had. Thank you two for a terrific evening.
Strawberries Sighted by Cook for Etsy Lunch
I wish I lived closer to Brooklyn. Not just because it’s closer to my granddaughter Lila, age 4, but because I just read that the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket has fresh, wonderful local strawberries. I can almost smell them from where I sit, in Connecticut.
Kitty Greenwald, who makes lunch once a week for the folks at Etsy.com – they call their gathering Eatsy — spotted all sorts of spring wonders at the market – sweet lettuces, green garlic, baby cukes and so forth. But she said she couldn’t resist the berries, big, small, juicy, red and ripe because “strawberries, after months of apples and pears and citrus, shone.” http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/eatsy-cook-in-residence-shares-her-strawberry-and-mozzarella-8383/
I love the dish she made, pairing sweet berries with delicate mozzarella cheese and sharp arugula leaves, a powerful combo of color and flavor, drizzled with just a bit of olive oil and Balsamic vinegar.
I bought berries today too, but mine came from a supermarket. Like Kitty, I choose the berries by color and fragrance, but I know that packaged strawberries can’t measure up as well to the kind she used for the Etsy.com lunch.
Even so, I am having dinner guests tomorrow and plan to use the berries in old fashioned Strawberry Shortcake. This dessert is always a winner and if the best berries are not available, well, a splash or two of Grand Marnier should help.
Old Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake
1 quart fresh strawberries
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons Grand Marnier
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon peel
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk, approx.
1 cup whipping cream
Preheat the oven to 450°F. Wash the berries and slice them into a bowl, sprinkle them with 2 tablespoons sugar and the Grand Marnier and set aside. In another bowl, mix the flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, salt, baking powder and lemon peel. Add the butter and work into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse meal. In a small bowl, beat the egg and milk together until well combined. Add the liquids to the flour mixture and mix until a soft dough forms, adding more milk if necessary to make a smooth dough. Roll the dough to 1/2-inch thick circle on a lightly floured surface. Cut out 8 circles with a cookie cutter. Place the circles on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12–15 minutes or until puffed and lightly brown. Remove from the oven and let cool. Whip the cream with the remaining teaspoon sugar until the mixture stands in soft peaks, but is still pourable. Cut the biscuits in half and place each bottom half on a serving dish. Place the berries and any accumulated juices on top. Pour some of the cream on top. Top with the remaining biscuit halves. Makes 8 servings.
Politics and Strawberry Ice Cream
In case you’re interested, today is Dolley Madison’s birthday and in case you tuned out in history class or don’t remember, she was the wife of our fourth president, James Madison (who wrote the Constitution) and therefore was a First Lady.
Apparently, Dolley was a sophisticated woman and quite the hostess, fond of serving new foods to guests. She is credited with being the first person to serve ice cream for dessert at a White House dinner and she served strawberry ice cream at the Inaugural Ball in 1813.
Dolly (they dropped the “e”) Madison ice cream was popular when I was growing up and I remember they had interesting flavors too, like brickle chip. The strawberry ice cream was rich and it was loaded with chunks of fruit that I remember as icy to the teeth because the pieces were so big and fat, not little strawberry tidbits.
I haven’t seen Dolly Madison ice cream around where I live, though I know it is available somewhere. I’ll be looking for it. I’d like to try the strawberry flavor again to see if it is as good as I remember.
Fresh strawberry ice cream, especially if it is packed with lumps of fruit, doesn’t need any embellishment. No cones or whipped cream or sauce. On the other hand, toasted coconut crumbles can’t hurt. Try it:
Toasted Coconut Crumbles
1 cup packaged coconut
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons dark rum or Grand Marnier
1 tablespoon melted butter
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a bowl, mix the coconut, brown sugar, rum and melted butter. Place the mixture in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 8 minutes, tossing the ingredients once or twice, or until the coconut is lightly brown. Remove from the oven and let cool. Great topping for ice cream. Makes about one cup
The Gefilte Fish Chronicles
Yesterday my son-in-law Jesse (www.jessehertzberg.com) posted about my new blog. He also mentioned that he is “the world’s most enthusiastic lover of gefilte fish.” Sorry to say he’s never tasted my gefilte fish. For one thing, his wife, my daughter Gillian, is horribly allergic to fin fish. Second, the process of making gefilte fish is too painstaking and time-consuming.
How do I know? Many years ago, when I was fishing around (pun intended) in the food business to figure out where I wanted to stake a claim, I did some catering. A client wanted gefilte fish for one of the Jewish holidays.
Try to find carp in Fairfield county, Connecticut!
I wanted authentic gefilte fish. To me that meant carp, pike and whitefish. Off I went to Riverdale in the Bronx, where of course, a couple of fish stores had what was needed.
I minced the fish by hand. Food processed fish is too pasty.
I mixed that together with all the other ingredients and made stock with the bones and skin.
I shaped the mixture into small ovals and poached them to perfection in the stock.
If you go to a supermarket to buy gefilte fish, you’ll find them in jars, though some places have the homemade kind. Either way, what you see are overly large, grayish-beige pieces that aren’t at all appetizing. It’s no wonder that people who have never tasted gefilte fish grimace when you suggest that the stuff might actually taste good.
I wanted mine to look lovely. To be the Jewish equivalent that would look, smell and sound as enticing as the luxurious and legendary French Quenelles with Nantua Sauce.
I decorated each oval with a small tulip design carved from carrots and scallion greens. To hold the flowers in place I brushed them with strained, thickened fish stock.
They were gorgeous. They were tender, delicate and sumptuous. A wonder on the palate.
They had taken about 8 hours to prepare.
That was the first and last time for me. I now buy gefilte fish at Geshmake Fish on 236th Street in Riverdale. They sell it in a roll, not individual portions. It’s not homemade but it is quite good and only takes a 10 minute detour on my way home from New York City to my home in Connecticut.
The Morning Coffee Habit
I’m one of those people who needs coffee as soon as I wake up and then again a few times during the day. An addiction? Maybe. But this is the way it’s been since I was age five or six and my Aunt Roz and Uncle Mac came to live with us. They were newly married and hadn’t found living quarters. Aunt Roz, who loved children, volunteered to get up with us in the morning and get us ready for school.
Her idea of breakfast was coffee. To be fair, it was a lot of milk with coffee mixed in. But it was coffee just the same and that’s how the coffee thing started.
Right now I’m slowly sipping the morning brew, a blend of Hawaiian Rainforest and Brazilian that has a nice, rounded and pleasant taste. It’s a good combo for iced coffee too.
This morning’s coffee was made in my new electric coffee maker. Last week I finally put away my beloved old coffeemaker. I say “beloved” because I’ve had it for over 15 years and “put away” because I couldn’t throw it out. It still works unbelievably well and is the best coffeemaker I ever had. It’s a Braun electric drip model that I bought after I tested one for an article I was writing for Consumer’s Digest Magazine.
This old thing never died and made perfect, hot coffee every time. I wish they still had that model (in stainless steel), but it no longer matched anything in my kitchen and everyone I knew made fun of me for keeping it so long.
Why throw something away when it still works?
So I didn’t. I put it in a cabinet in the garage just in case my new coffeemaker, which is beautiful and blends in with all the other appliances, doesn’t work out. So far, so good. The coffee this morning is delish.
My New Blog: Kitchen Vignettes
In my 30 years as a food journalist I’ve written articles about almost everything in the culinary world. What’s in season. What’s new. Holiday specialties. How-tos. And I’ve written about cookware and cookbooks and kitchen tools and about diets and health food.
I’ve seen trends come and go, new ingredients and new varieties of old ingredients appear in the market and so on and so on and so on. There’s a serious side to food journalism and I am proud to be part of it.
But what I have always found most appealing is the personal side of food writing. And I think other people do too. Of all the comments, letters and email I’ve received over the years, most have to do with the pieces I wrote about my own experiences. Like the time my Dad tried to fix our old Milkshake machine and somehow there were two extra pieces he couldn’t put back. And the time when my cousin and I went fishing, using twigs and diaper pins because we didn’t have real fishing rods.
I think people are interested in this stuff not because they are necessarily interested in me or even in the recipes that I always provide at the end. It’s just that my memories evoke someone else’s. It feels good to remember that grandma always made macaroni and cheese when you came to visit. It makes you laugh when you think back about the time you watched your big brother eat his first raw oyster. It makes you feel emotionally attached recalling that your best friend showed you how to eat with chopsticks.
Food memories can make you chuckle or cry. They bring moments of poignancy. My first food memory is from when I was 5 years old. Now I have a lifetime full of them.