By Any Other Name

While a great many ugly realities may be laid squarely at the feet of economic globalization there is one positive for which I am of late unrelentingly grateful. My workplace, populated as it is by an extraordinary collection of émigrés to the U.S., has provided me a number of escape routes for dealing with Brainiac’s allergy situation and his attendant sudden inability to eat darn near anything. When my colleagues and I are not breaking into spontaneous choruses of We Are the World after staff meetings, we’re sharing lunch and recipes. It’s not at all unusual these days for a man born in China to show up in the cafeteria with homemade pierogie or, say, for me to bring extras of my latest batch of pho to pass around. Of course, in the way of multiculti knowledge share, we each add our own special touch to whatever dish is on offer. I regularly scandalize my Indian-born colleagues with my insistence on preparing chana masala in a slow cooker and those pierogie are more often accompanied by a bit of lime pickle rather than fried onions and sour cream.


I’m not making as much pho these days what with the whole beef-free thing going on and all. There have been frustratingly large numbers of other dishes that are also no longer on the family menu and I confess that it’s been getting me a bit down. (Someday I will tell you about the tears – copious – that resulted from the salad I now call the Chickpeas of Death.) In sharing my misery, loving company as it does, with co-workers the other day I realized that I already had access to all the knowledge I needed for dealing with the challenge of feeding my husband in this, our new normal. Knowing that most cultures do not eat the volumes of beef, pork and wheat to which we’d become accustomed, I merely had to make the leap from the abstract to the personal. So I did what anyone in that situation would do…I dug my spoon into a friend’s wheat-free, soy-free, and meat-free lunch, declared it delicious, and demanded the recipe.

Which is how I came to be buying a large sack of sabudana - known to me as tapioca – at my favorite Indian grocery. The dish shared with me at lunch that day turned out to be 100% allergen-free (at least for Braniac – given the presence of peanuts your mileage will seriously vary on this point and may actually come to a screeching halt) and amazingly delicious for someone whose only exposure to tapioca was via puddings from a long-ago childhood. As with the aforementioned peirogie and chana masala, I expected that I would not follow the directions precisely but would likely filter them through my own culinary baggage/heritage. Even executed in my own Western-style kitchen, I expected deliciousness and just the thing for feeding to a man who is tiring of borders, culinarily-speaking.


This is not my sabudana*. This is what my sabudana was supposed to resemble - little individual grains of chewy, nutty, spicy goodness. What actually appeared in my pan to was translucent, gelatinous, quivery, alien, and not generally good looking. We all agreed the taste was excellent but...no one could bring themselves to eat all that much of it. I texted news of the failure to the friend who gave me the recipe in the first place and she diagnosed too much water, too much oil and too-coarsely ground peanuts. So, put us down as work to be done.

In the meantime, I'll be in the conference room, working on my very best Cyndi Lauper impression.

* (This is not my picture and I don't know from where it came originally. If it's yours, let me know and I'll take it down or give credit, whichever you prefer.)

The Way to His Heart

Over the years of my parenting I’ve been asked from time to time how it came to pass that my children will sit at a dinner table and discuss their feelings on the kale vs. chard debate or with what trinket did I bribe the Boy to loudly, and in ear shot of his football team, remind me to buy extra beets at the farm market. I’m always pleased and proud to be asked because it was always one of my goals to raise my little humans into big humans who have broad palates, the ability to conduct at least rudimentary cooking operations, and an appreciation for what has cringingly become known as “real food”. I like that, more or less, this is exactly what they’re becoming. Sure, there’s a bit of strangeness going on in what we have come to refer to as The Cheese Rules. And the Girl’s assertion that she is a “half part [sic] vegetarian” who likes cheeseburgers, bacon, shrimp, and pork lo mein but that's it is, I admit, I bit odd. She’s only six and we forgive her a few eccentricities.

I cling to success in this area largely because many of my other parenting goals (see also: screen time, cheerful tidiness, and WebKinz purchases) have gone unrealized. Even as I pat myself on the back, though, I know the truth is that I have been lucky. My family is food-secure, I’ve always had a (more or less) well-appointed kitchen at hand, my children were born and remained allergy-free, and we adhere to no religion-based dietary mandates. It’s not that hard with such advantages in place to raise kids who appreciate a broad menu. You might say it’s been a piece of organic, whole-wheat, fair trade, ever-so-slow, artisanal, shade-grown cake.


For those who are at this very moment reaching for kebab skewers and their little Marsha voodoo dolls, try to contain your glee when I share that the glorious run of household food simplicity has come to a screeching halt. A wheat-free, dairy-free, beef-free, soy-free, legume-free, pork- and tomato-free halt more specifically. And not because of the kids. It’s my all grown-up and heretofore presumed to be food allergy deficient husband who has thrown a wrench into the kitchen works.

Although the verdict is that these allergies are "probably" not fatal, it's not a risk I am willing to take. Provisioning and cooking for my loved ones is among my primary pleasures and I'd really, you know, rather not kill them. I’m learning new techniques, new ingredients (Teff? those Ethiopians are on to something!), and new recipes while he adapts to a future that will be somewhat lower than expected in burgers, Scotch, and salsa. A number of my easy weeknight standby dinners – chana masala or stir-fry, for example - are, quite literally, off the table. There will not be as many canned tomato products this year, but darn skippy we're upping the applesauce. Meanwhile I'm taking another looksee through Fancy Pantry for as yet untried sauces and condiments to liven up our revised roster of available foodstuffs.

Things just got a bit more interesting. If you need me, I'll be in the kitchen working out a decent chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Thy Kindness Freezes

Not long ago I mentioned to a pal that I like to include cleaning out my freezer as one of my spring household re-boot chores. She seemed startled by the admission, as well she might since I am not known around town for my housekeeping prowess. The words “casual” or “breezy” could be applied in this regard and I have not the slightest grounds to argue. Anyway, apparently freezer sorting wasn’t on her spring tidying list (perhaps because her freezer never gets out of order in the first place) but she was a trooper in listening to my recitation of the reasons why I do what I do: the inevitable forgotten package of snow peas, now more grayish than green, the three utterly shriveled and now unusable bananas which had originally been intended for pancakes, a bag of last springs asparagus trimming that I was 100% sure would end up as soup. Well. They’re all gone now and me and my freezer feel lighter than air and ready to take on the next year’s gleanings.

The only thing I couldn’t reconcile, I told her, was a lone bag of cranberries left over from the fall. One bag really isn’t enough to play with in any kind of fun way but, as far as I knew, the cranberries would keep a while longer. Keep or toss, I wanted to know. While my meager tendencies toward thrift and orderliness battled, she calmly walked to her own freezer, took out a package of cranberries and held it up as an offering. “Want them?” she asked. “I won’t use them and will just keep them until they need to be thrown away.” Score! (Aside: this is why you should always share the minutiae of your life with friends and internet. You never know when someone will give you a bag of cranberries in response.)


Two bags of cranberries is enough to make a smallish amount of very delicious chutney, which can be canned or refrozen in a labeled and dated container so you know what it is when the memory of having made it inevitably fades (which it will, even for you young and chippy types). Even more fun, a perfectly lovely chutney can be made with the little bits of whatever else you encounter during freezer cleaning. A cup of raisins? Check. A few tablespoons of candied ginger? Oh, my, yes, yes, yes double check. Some chopped jalapeno? I didn’t, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t.


And that’s one reason I adore making chutneys. There are no real requirements, no chemical reaction to prompt and pray for, virtually no rules outside of minding your sugar and acidity in the event you plan water bath processing. My recipe originally came from my dear college friend Kate, with whom I now speak only twice a decade or so but for whom I would gladly and with no questions asked traverse the world if she called out of the blue and requested it of me, and she in turn learned it from someone named Sabra. That’s what it says at the top of the dot-matrix printed page (hello, old Mac SE and your adorable double-floppy arrangement!), “Sabra’s Cranberry Chutney”. Sabra’s version tends toward the more tangy and sweet, while over the years I’ve cut the vinegar and ancillary fruit but upped the spice and citrus. That’s the way of chutney, friends, and I recommend it heartily.


This time I used those two bags of berries, the juice of the last orange (no more oranges until winter comes again – this last one wasn’t looking to hot but was just fine for juice), some raisins, chopped candied ginger, two cups or so of sugar, and about a half cup of leftover rioja from the night before for an added peppery kick. Cranberries cook down easily and thicken well. Too well in this case, so I added another half cup of o.j. on the back end and called it good. If I wanted to be more authentic I’d have added some vinegar or something pickled, but I’m not totally wedded to authenticity here and I like the final product so that’s that.


Now, as I said, this didn’t make a lot – three cups, maybe. It can be canned and processed in a hot water bath, if you’d like and, if I went that route, I’d have done it in quarter pints and processed just in a largish saucepan - no need to fire up the ginormous canning kettle for such a wee bit of processing. I’d say fifteen minutes after return to full boil ought to do it and there you go. For my part, I placed two well-marked freezer containers back into my newly cleaned and tidy freezer to await use.


And what use might that be?

A Piece of (Red) Cake

Is there anything that you buy, convinced in the moment of purchase that it is 100% a needed and rational purchase, only to arrive home to discover that - damn and blast! - you already own, say, 8 or 10 identical specimens?

Brainiac had this thing a while ago when every time he left the house he came back with a set of queen size sheets. Because I am, myself, a somewhat eccentric person, I didn't say a word until one day I was putting a newly cleaned set away on top of the pile (we never got to the bottom) and the whole of the linen closet collapsed on my head. So I managed to get him to stop buying and only last year managed to divest us (thank goodness for the preschool rummage sale and its needed donations) of seven sets, leaving us with four - two flannel, two sheeting.

Somewhere in the middle of the sheets he had a thing for lamps and bought five in the space of six weeks or so. And I - because this is not a bash Brainiac post - once went through a very regrettable velour tunic phase, ending up with nearly a dozen. Then there's my completely irrational need to purchase each and every magazine featuring a lemon cake and, really, there are only so many recipes for lemon cake.

So. When it came time to produce the birthday cake to complement the Girl's Chinese Dragon-themed party, I was reasonably confident that I had enough of Wilton's red paste to execute the iconic dark red, black and gold design because red icing paste is one of those things that I buy whenever I find myself within a mile or two of a Michael's.

Turns out that I emptied a jar of paste - using the remaining 2/3 of an ounce - along with a drop of black getting to the red I envisioned in my head. A quick (albeit messy rinse) and the jar ended up in recycling, accompanied by my realization that I have never seen one of those jars completely used up. My first jars (lavender and daffodil in color), bought 14 years ago, are still good and quite full even after multiple uses. My mom has jars that are probably not much younger than I. So, you know, that's a lot of red.


(A note on the design: a colleague prepared for me a Chinese New Year-related design that he suggested would be considered good luck for a birthday cake. My attempt to reproduce it came to a bad end almost immediately and thus we ended up with something described by the one person in attendance who might have been relied upon to know the difference - a five year old boy - as "a tiny bit Chinese looking but not really." To this I smiled and asked if he'd like an extra big piece. He did.)

Later that weekend I prepared to make the cupcakes I promised to the Boy's class as part of their Valentine's Day celebration. I told him I'd make any kind of cupcake he desired as long as the recipe did not require a special shopping trip. After a week of snowbound togetherness, his sister's birthday party and holiday weekend company I was in no mood for special acquisition errands and set him down with a pile of cookbooks. Some time later he wandered into the family room, where I sat with a glass of wine and a novel involving oddly modern-minded Dukes and the maidens they love.

"Red velvet!" he declared, smiling and pointing to a recipe from a 50s era church cookbook. I looked, noticed the buttermilk requirement and shook my head. Allrecipes to the rescue with a perfectly doable, no-shopping required alternative, provided by the McCormick company.*

The result, after dipping well into a second jar of red paste:


Adorable, even pre-iced. And very delicious...and a bit like crack to the child who is generally deprived of food color of all types (I am a soft touch when it comes to the combination of holidays and Childhood Magic). I only needed 24 for the classroom, teachers and assorted helpers so was delighted to keep a few back, purely in the interests of research. Thinking to make a batch to take to work, I wasn't sure I really had enough red to pull it off. Turns out, I have nothing to worry about.

Nothing at all, with three jars of red left to plunder. Red velvet for everyone!


* As delightful as the folks at McCormick no doubt are, I feel compelled to mention that I did and do not actually possess any of their own brand of red food color. I used paste I already bought (see above) and used much more than the equivalent of the one ounce of liquid called for in the recipe.

Summer In the Kitchen (or Not)

Laurie Colwin related in her delightful cooking memoir Home Cooking the story of a friend who wondered about the herald-of-spring quality in the picnic staged by students at the seminary across the street from Colwin's apartment. "What is it about Episcopalians," the friend asked. "Is it their genes to barbecue?"

I think that when the friend in the story said barbecue she meant grill, although I cannot say for sure because I knew neither party to the conversation. The key to understanding what she meant, I suppose, is knowing whether or not the noun or verb form of barbecue was meant. Given the context, this Episcopalian is going with the verb and is very happy to do so. Grilling may not be in my genes but it's certainly among my preferences for getting good food on the table with a minimum of fuss, a maximum of flavor, avoidance of burgers and dogs where possible, and leaving ample time to pursue some of the other great joys of summer (swimming, gardening, sitting on the back porch watching fireflies, and - shocker! - canning).

In the warmer months, I rely upon three tools (a grill basket, a small cookie sheet that was perhaps meant for a toaster oven, and a set of skewers), a selection of condiments (if you're wondering what on earth made you concoct a batch of jerk sauce now you know) and two bread products (8 inch flour tortillas and garlic bread). From this modest list of necessities, great things can be achieved.

The basket can hold diced potatoes or cauliflower spears or mushrooms or whatever. Sprinkled with a bit of olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper and/or some of that Adobo spice stuff (the bitter orange is really great) and plunked right on the grill, you've got a side dish fit for all comers. The skewers make short work of cooking any combination of meats/fish or veggies, all marinated overnight in Chiavetta's Italian Dressing or the jerk sauce (or even the Hot and Sweet Dipping Sauce). Thread 'em up and put them right next to the basket. They'll cook in minutes in a well-heated grill.

The teeny cookie sheet holds more fragile veggies - zucchini ribbons, say, or maybe red onion strings - salted and peppered and sprinkled with a spare amount of red wine vinegar (or that cheapie balsamic stuff in the green bottle). That, too, can go right on the grill. As for the bread, wrapped in foil (or not), either tortillas or garlic bread will warm sufficiently within minutes.

And that's dinner, prepared and served in roughly 40 minutes, with little cleanup in terms of pots and pans (the foil, once cooled, can be rinsed and used again and again and...). Salsa or steak sauce (Helen Witty has a recipe I've been meaning to try) are nice, as is a bit of yogurt with mango pickle or diced hot peppers. If I've got some good fruit, I might add a bowl or maybe a plate of sliced tomatoes and cheese for company, but these are frills and not at all necessary. A glass of wine, however, improves even this wonderful meal immeasurably.

When the dishes are cleared away and the minor post-dinner cleaning chores are done, it's no small gift have time to spare, something that I suspect even the grilling-suspicious Laurie Colwin and her friend would understand.

Not a NY Times Review Site

So, yes, that canning article was pretty interesting, no? I loved the inclusion of Edon Waycott, the woman who acted as my canning gateway drug so many years ago (and who, honestly, covered the same territory as the piece's focus but better and first) and the mention of community-based preserving co-ops. Lovely! And, like Ace Commenter Catherine I appreciated the nod to resisting the temptation to profile home canning as the next big retro craze.

I did chafe at the bit about canning being a "quasi-political act" if only because there is little more polarizing in our world than politics and even people who share wide swaths of common ground fall out all too easily when politics are brought into the act. You like to make jam, your neighbor also likes to make jam and although you may make it for different, unfathomable-to-each-other reasons (perhaps you're a locavore while he's feverishly preparing for the zombie apocalypse, say) make it together anyway. You might find lots of stuff will taste better as a result.

In other New York Times news, I was fascinated by a recent Op-Ed concerning Michelle Obama's off-the-cuff remarks that, now living in the White House, she doesn't miss cooking. Now, I adore the piece's author, Amanda Hesser, and have gone to great lengths to defend her whenever the opportunity arises (you'd may be surprised how often this actually happens, it's strange the lightening she attracts). But! I think she's off base on this one.

Not that she didn't touch on the right notes. Frugality, health, self-reliance all get shout outs, and rightly so. And I've said often enough (here and here and here and here) that I bemoan the current state of family cooking and wish more kids could be lured into the kitchen, of which the happy byproduct would be less of a burden (yes, Amanda, even for someone who loves to cook the process can be a chore) for the one person who usually finds herself with the job. (For the record, Michelle Obama and I both have two children, full-time jobs - although I'm willing to cop to the fact that hers is a wee bit more demanding than mine - and husbands whose work takes them out of the house more often than not. There the comparison of our lives breaks down - I rarely travel, I have near complete privacy and I seldom am held up as a role model of anything but, still, if someone offered me a highly trained chef to "help" on a daily basis I would require less than a heartbeat to accept. And I really like cooking.)

I don't think this is really Michelle Obama's fight. As much as I share the desire for a very charismatic roll model showing families the way back into the kitchen together, I don't think the solution is to tsk-tsk women who admit that it's just not their thing. Moreover, reading that Obama's well-documented toned arms somehow prepare her for whisking duty leaves me with the same faint queasy feeling I get whenever I hear someone demand of my very tall brother-in-law why he never played basketball. Poor form, that.

And? I'm uncomfortable with the idea that there is one way to be First Lady. Is it really so hard to work with the idea that First Ladies, just like us regular, er, ladies will come with some variety?

Finally, and on a completely different topic, I've been for some time mulling a post about my enduring but conflicted love for All Recipes. Enduring because I almost always find a good starting point for whatever it is I've got a notion to make. From flourless chocolate cake to fish tacos, All Recipes has never let me down. Conflicted because, my word, is there any other site out there which has user reviews so consistently useless (if entertaining)?

Turns out I don't have to write that post because the New York Times did it a little over two years ago,making all the points I'd make if I were going to write about it, which I nearly did but now won't. Go read the article instead. Very entertaining.

Not Too Far From the Tree

Yesterday when the Boy asked, after spying a cello carton of basil, if we could make a pesto for lunch I was tempted to demur. “Basil’s not in season here yet,” I might have said. “This carton came all the way from California.” Or maybe I could have appealed to the his inclination to be more frugal than I with “You know, we could buy two whole basil starts for the same price. Can you wait until July for your pesto?”

Fortunately, good sense carried the day and I recognized that that my son, bless his heart, 1) saw and recognized basil in a container that did not actually say basil, 2) remembered that basil is a key component in a traditional pesto and 3) did not ask me to make him pesto for lunch but rather asked if we could make it together and 4) unlike many of his pals, will actually eat something that doesn’t actually look all that great (green + slimy is so attractive to eight year old boys in so many ways but why not in the form of food?). After only a moment’s prevarication, I decided that these points ought to be rewarded. We bought the basil.


His job: everything. He stemmed, rinsed and dried the greens, shredded the cheese and figured out proportions of nuts, garlic, oil, salt and pepper, grinding and tasting his way to a rather nice sauce.



A mom could get used to this. And if it's true what some guy in the New York Times said about pesto maybe being a wee bit less than au courant, I suggest humbly that he run out at the earliest opportunity to find himself an unjaded eight year old for whom pesto is less a cultural touchstone and more just a delicious lunch he can make (mostly) by himself.

The Best Sauce

If my kitchen smells a bit peculiar at the moment, it's only because I embracing a notion to be productive. The oven is packed with a peach-blueberry crisp, chocolate chip muffins and a pumpkin pie while the stove top entertains my largest stockpot simmering the makings for chicken broth (for pressure canning experiments) and a bit of roasted veggie pasta sauce. The aroma around here isn't bad, just strange.

Some of these will find their ways to friends' houses and others are meant for us here at home, but what almost all have in common is that they would not have been possible today had I not canned, frozen or otherwise stored the key ingredients months ago. I haven't been able to do any food shopping for almost three weeks and not for the first time am I thankful for spending the time I do stocking our pantry. Remind me of this, will you, when come late summer I complain about drowning in apples or tomatoes or whatever is vexing me at that moment?

The fruit crisp is our dinner party offering. I rashly promised to bring dessert without actually thinking about what I might produce. With the day upon me, I peered into cupboard and freezer until - a ha! - inspiration struck in the form of two bags of frozen blueberries to pair with a pint of canned peaches. A quick crumble on top and off we go. I love fruit crisps hot, warm or cold, with cream or without and will take almost any opportunity to share my devotion. If peach is good and blueberry is better, surely together they'll be fantastic, right? Let us hope.

The roasted veggie sauce is saving tomorrow's lunch. I've got some wagon wheel pasta on hand - my favorite for brown bagging because they don't have to be cut, twirled or slurped - but no commercial sauce. No problem. I pulled a pint of the roasted veggie sauce off the shelf, poured in a half a cup of leftover merlot and just like that, there's tomorrow's lunch.

These are just two examples of the sheer convenience of having a stock of homemade convenience foods. On other recent days I've opened salsa for snacks, pickles to brighten a plain meal, and diced tomatoes for dirty rice. Blackberry jam filled thumbprint cookies made to cheer a friend, while tomolives graced more than one martini glass. In nearly three weeks of what I had thought of as sub-optimal food procurement I've been astonished again and again by how little we actually needed and missed.

Even while I extol the virtues of home canning, though, I have to confess that it's true that similar benefits could be had with careful shopping for commercial goods. Still, I think we can't overlook the empowerment that taking more charge of one's food brings. I know the origin of every ingredient in every jar I opened, hugged the people that stood beside me filling them, pint after pint after pint.

This week the pantry associated with the local medical clinic put out a call for assistance, looking to fill their rapidly dwindling stocks. With three weeks of near-zero food-related expenditures thanks to decisions we made six or seven months ago, my family's mandate is abundantly clear.

What an extraordinary privilege.

Sue responded to my onomatopoeia post with a note wondering if I had been having a migraine. I don't actually know much about migraine headaches - my own kinda, sorta, we don't really know what's wrong with you diagnosis is that I get cluster headaches. One of the hallmarks of clusters is that one might have several in a given period of time followed by time headache-free. Mine, assuming they are cluster headaches (which seems to be the best guess), are unusual because they include the flashes of light and often nauseate me - two things more characteristic of migraines - and they can last more than 15 hours. I was lucky because from the time I became pregnant with the Boy up until about a year ago I rarely suffered from headaches of any kind. I seem to be in a cluster now and, although it's not the worst I've experienced, it's still kicking my butt. Badly.

With the backdrop of feeling frazzled from a newly dissipated headache (the pain is gone, but the general rattledness associated is the gift that keeps on giving) coupled with arriving home later than expected this afternoon meant that my planned dinner of pasta shells with crab and peas (in cream sauce - yum) wasn't going to happen. So here I was, late, with the kids in smash!boom! mode and no thought what to do about feeding them. I managed to pull it off and after dinner it occurred to me that my own personal methods for dealing with these kinds of situations might be useful to someone else.

Tonight I ended up making a crustless quiche of five eggs, half a small onion, a cup of frozen peas, a few ounces of leftover ham (diced), a chopped carrot, a bit of shredded manchego cheese and half a cup of flour. All of this mixed together and baked at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes did the trick for an entree, served with brown rice simmered in beef broth, mashed sweet potatoes (roasted over the weekend and stored in the fridge against just this kind of need) with cinnamon. My total hands-on time was well under 30 minutes and I felt fairly pleased with myself when all was on the table and with only a slight amount of trauma on my part.

Crustless quiches are a great choice for busy cooks - eggs, a bit of flour and pretty much whatever else you like are all you need. I've used kale, chard, mushrooms, olives, parsnips, broccoli, all kinds of cheeses and even salsa. Not only are crustless quiches delicious, but they have the added virtue of using up bits of leftovers that aren't enough for anything else.

I try not to feed my family too much in the way of pasta, but do rely on two forms for those days when I'm really pressed. Angel hair, orzo and couscous each cook up very quickly and take on all kinds of diced or chopped veggies easily (I like to include a bit of sauteed garlic and onion, too). A light sauce of chicken broth thickened with cream and warmed through makes a nice topping that comes together easily.

One of the chief benefits of doing as much canning as I do is that there are a number of products in my repertoire that amount in reality to nothing more than homemade convenience foods. Having roasted tomato sauce, applesauce, mixed pickles and more on hand means that, when push comes to shove, there is something that can be relied upon to dress up a quickly produced and more humble offering. Scrambled eggs with applesauce isn't an unheard of dinner plate around here and nor is a lightly seasoned roasted chicken breast with mixed pickle and fruit salad. Knowing I have a cupboard full of ready-to-go foods made by me with ingredients that I either grew, picked or purchased in season is the ultimate in dinner planning.

With these simple meal solutions generally at hand I can cope with just about anything come the dinner hour, whether it be a headache, a late meeting or just your standard-issue energetic offspring bouncing around the kitchen demanding to know "is dinner ready yet?"

On a long ago Monday morning I arrived at work to find my boss dabbing at tears and sniffling. Being the wretchedly self-centered person that I am, my mind turned to things that could make me share her sadness - was our department being eliminated? Was the bonus pool smaller than expected? No. She'd argued with her fiancé. Phew! Comforted that I shared not her problem, I inquired as to the nature of the quarrel.

"He laughed at me because I think we shouldn't add stuff to the spaghetti sauce. I mean, if the company wanted it there they'd have put it there in the first place, right?!" she wailed.

Turns out the happy couple had been making baked ziti for dinner on Friday evening. My boss' intended added some herb or spice to the jarred sauce and she objected on the aforementioned grounds. Now, this was my boss. On the one hand, if she wanted to assert commercial spaghetti sauce purity, I was going to line up right behind her (saving my battles for issues affecting the bonus pool, say). On the other hand, I was utterly stupefied by the intensity of her opinion on the matter.

I asked if she'd never added salt, pepper or butter to frozen corn (leaving aside that it's possible to buy preseasoned frozen corn), or red pepper flakes to pizzeria pizza. In fact, I pointed out, with this line of reasoning one could argue that if the ziti company had wated its product enjoyed with sauce of any kind it would have put it there (leaving aside also that it's possible to buy canned and frozen presauced pasta).

I don't remember if I convinced her that a little oregano in the Prego was no reason to argue. I do remember thinking that if no one ever messed with commercial products to make them closer to personal tasts then few people were likely to learn to cook at all these days, what with home ec being eliminated from school curricula and the knowledge not really being handed down generationally as it was in the past.

Futzing around with the offerings of Kraft, Lipton, et. al., may well be the path to relying on those companies less. It's not that far a leap from adding garlic to a rice-and-butter mix to realizing that one can add both garlic and butter to plain rice, resulting in a healthier, tastier and cheaper meal. Lately I'm excited about learning to make my own cheese and hamburger buns. But I couldn't even consider these projects if I hadn't myself back in the day added a bit of something to a jarred or canned whatsit and worked forward from there.

I've made it plain here that I'm not among Sandra Lee's greatest fans. Truthfully, though, my feelings are complicated. "Semi-homemade" may not be a long-term goal I'd advocate, but I'd say that these days it's a totally honorable path to journey on the way to "I made it myself."

There's something about autumn that inspires to me to cook. Sure, summer has the fresh veggies and fruits and so on and I always greet warming weather with a resolve to act as if I live in one of Peter Mayle's books but the problem is that I actually don't live in one of Peter Mayle's books and while all those fresh, minimally-treated veggies and fruits are lovely they don't offer much in the way of comfort. Plus, when it's 9,000 degrees in one's kitchen making a tian or some other summer dish isn't so appealing. Hence, my predictable tiring of sauteed green beans and salade caprese.

But fall....now there's some comfort, food-wise. You've got your squashes (so far we have seven - ! - butternuts growing), your cabbages, your kales and chards, not to mention apples and pears and nuts. With a few roasts in the freezer and the addition of some hearty grains, well, I feel cozier just thinking about it.

Our daytime temps haven't fallen all that much but there is an overnight chill and slight zip to the air that tells of the coming changes. Along with those changes my thoughts move to pot roasts, macaroni and cheese, apple crisp and mulled cider. My body might be healthier in summer what with the extra daylight for outdoor activity and the sheer variety of fresh produce available, but come fall my soul revives. Perhaps it's a kind of reverse seasonal affective disorder?

I'll finish canning the peppers and tomatoes like a good girl, all the while looking forward to the first pumpkin I'll smash up into butter (lots of brown sugar and candied ginger with this - oh, how lovely to think about it) and the first big pot of bigos. And I'll need to check up on my supplies of cocoa powder (hot chocolate), molasses (gingerbread) and cinnamon (baked oatmeal).

I'd better start today. There's another flock of geese overhead and there's not a moment to lose.

One of the sticky wickets of writing a blog that includes canning as its narrative hook, if you will, is that just about the time of year when hits spike and I get lots and lots of questions, I'm busy doing the same thing as my corespondents are doing and my posting level drops off dramatically. Like those of you who arrive here having searched for pickle or jam recipes or who are wondering how long to water bath your green beans (hint: don't - pressure can them instead) or want to know if you can use those ferny bits of the dill plant if you don't have any heads (hint: you can), know that this blog is still active, I've just been doing the same things you're doing. A lot.

So much so, in fact, that I remarked to Brainiac that I feel as if I am running a small and spectacularly understaffed (not to mention fairly unprofitable, at least in the commonly understood sense) manufacturing concern. Not that I don't include the kids in the processes underway in my kitchen - they're both old enough now to shuck corn, trim beans and destem blueberries - but sometimes canning and other preserving requires nothing so much as brute force and many strong hands to chop, mash, twist and lift.

This past Sunday I stood in my friend's kitchen (not My Girlfriend's Kitchen, but an honest-to-goodness girlfriend's kitchen) with three other women and had what I can only describe as a canningbee, enjoying the benefits that eight strong, capable hands bring to bear on this whole canning business. We canned plain tomatoes, roasted tomato sauce, dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, brandied blackberries, peach/blackberry/strawberry jam, blueberry jam and something else that I can't remember. After five hours of companionable working, our husbands and children joined us for dinner. It was an altogether delightful day, reminding me how much easier long, intense projects can be when they're accomplished with friends. I never could have hoped to put up such a variety of foods in such a short time, but as our talk veered from Betty Ford to Brazilians (uh, not the people...the other Brazilian) to being in the middle of parenting vs. caring for parents, the day passed quickly, companionably and productively.

Some time ago I read an essay by Amy Dacyzcyn, of Tightwad Gazette fame, bemoaning our tendency to live as household islands. When every house on every block has its own copy of the latest hit movie, its own 28 ft. ladder and its own canning kettle, the need for neighborly collaboration on the picking of apples (assuming apples are to be had in someone's backyard in the first place) and the making of sauce with liberal movie-watching breaks is minimal. But handling the job alone can seem too big to do alone so...the movie, ladder and kettle sit idle, waiting for some burst of energy to deal with it (and missing apple season in the process) or the realignment of our twin needs for in- and inter-dependence that may never come. Dacyzcyn argued for the financial benefits that come from sharing tools and collaborating on work whereas my concerns have more to do with health and community. Still, the core of the matter is the same: used to be that every farm collaborated on the work for which, say, the shared thresher was required with no threat to any given farmer's need to feel "free and independent", as the Little House books so quaintly put it. How did we get from feeling little conflict between sharing tools and labor and our zeal for self-determination to a state where every house on the block needs to be outfitted for any eventuality as though no one were around for miles?

I suspect the reason could have something to do with no longer needing to cooperate with each other to see to basic survival. Or maybe it's issues relating to 20th century immigration patterns and difficulties in getting that blasted melting pot working or the increasing professional options open to women or...heck, I'll just be frank and lay it out there that I don't know. Haven't a clue. But while we wait for some erstwhile grad student to get a grant to study the problem I recommend grabbing a friend and a few pounds of blackberries and making some jam together. Even if you manage to leave Betty Ford and Brazilians out of the conversation, both the process and the result are bound to be excellent.

We missed the opening day of my favorite farm market last week, something to which I haven't totally come to terms. I'm planning to make up for it tomorrow, though, and the family has been put on alert that as soon as the last morsel of breakfast passes their lips we are heading out. Because I am being vehement in a way that I usually reserve for, say, contract negotiations or vacation planning, no one is quite sure what to make of my enthusiasm.

The truth of the matter is that I've become enamored with the idea of a 100 Mile Diet. I love the farm market for its retro charm - something that fits in quite well with my general inclination toward old furniture, big band music and dusty used book stores. But I like shopping farm markets because I find that my values are increasingly aligned with its presence in my community, what with my growing interest in relocalization (not just because of oil-related stuff - although that's certainly SUPER IMPORTANT enough to warrant capital letters - but also because I think that close communities are healthier than what we've currently got going). And if one is to not eat anything that one's great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food then a farm market really comes in handy. And "mine" is great - produce, dairy, meat, honey, breads...it's all fab and I am deeply in love enough to go even when the forecast calls for rain, as it does for tomorrow.

I'm careful to temper my enthusiasm, though. I think there's a real danger that beleaguered moms could (fairly) regard farm markets as just another stop they're being asked to make "for the children" in addition to all the other places we (as a society) believe they should be going, and one more stop for which the time needed to accomplish it will further eat (ha!) into the available time for actually preparing the fresh, organic stuff purchased.

Moreover, I'm concerned about the trend toward markets-as-entertainment. My market has musicians serenading, a children's activity tent, pony rides and more. Now, don't get me wrong, this is all fun stuff. The danger is that using these methods to attract families back to farm markets (and I do hope it's families who are being attracted and not just moms) could serve to reinforce the idea that many people have acquired that food should be entertainment delivered upon them and not something in which they should take an active interest for their own health and that of their communities. (For similar reasons, I cringe at in-store child play centers being installed in my local supermarkets. Sure, I love a few quite moments as much as the next woman and, if they come in the canned soup section, so what? But I fear that taking such quiet moments will only remove my kids further from the source of their food, not to mention eliminating them from a very important economic and financial function. We've all heard our older relatives talking about the price of bread back in 1948, for example. If our kids are sequestered in play areas - sponsored by processed food manufacturers, natch - will they have such an economic memory? Or will they more likely grow up lacking the ability to compare the then vs. now of the economy they'll inherit?)

So I'm taking my kids (and husband) tomorrow, in the rain. And we'll together choose bread, eggs, chicken, bison, cream (raw?! yum) and lots of radishes and greens to get us through the coming week. The children will enjoy a slice of cinnamon bread and Brainiac will buy a cup of coffee. We'll all carry a (brought from home) bag and work together to put our purchases away. It'll be a pleasant way to spend an hour or so as a family but, more important, it's an investment in the way I hope our lives will unfold and I cannot wait.

Earth Day seems to have influenced the Boy Wonder: "Mom, when I'm a grown-up, I'm going to make a law that says that people need to make sure they recycle and stop buying so much stuff. Oh, and quit buying big big cars to drive when they don't really need to. And so they stop littering. And share more, 'cause the earth is the only place we have to live and we shouldn't ruin it for everyone."

The downside of his enthusiasm is that I'm having a hard time getting on board with his youthful optimism that me remembering to bring my cotton bags to the farmer's market (met with an arm pumping "YES! Go mom!!") is going to do all that much to further his goals. The upside is that I now have a much easier time convincing him that running out to the compost pile twice a day is something both important and useful and he's actively whittling down his "wish list" of hoped-for possessions ("Mom, I don't really need magnet toys since I already build with my Legos and they seem more useful for having fun.") He's more eager than ever to help in the garden mulching and weeding and generally helping our little sprouts along. Our conversations on the matter of environmental issues have been a useful lesson to me in taking joy from small events in the face of larger and vastly more grave concerns.

One of my abiding interests, conservation-wise, also fits nicely in with my general obsessions regarding food and food preparation. To wit, we're building a solar cooker. I've long found the idea tempting, for we don't air condition much (by U.S. standards, anyway) and I am always motivated to reduce generation of additional heat during the long and humid Philadelphia summer. Now seems like a good time to act on the interest.

On the one hand, I think that using a solar cooker could be a useful tool for busy family cooks much in the same way that slow cookers are in the sense that even less time could be spent fussing and monitoring food as it cooks. On the other hand, there is a greater need to let go of control, to eat the food when it is ready and not demand a certain time for dinner, that could prove problematic for families that rely on split second timing to accommodate everyone's work, sports schedules and general busyness. Because Brainiac and I have promised each other that we'd actively avoid this approach to life - so far quite successfully, I think - I have high hopes that adding solar cooking to my food preparation repertoire will be highly successful experiment.

Not to mention all the new recipes to try (did you see? Beer bread!). There's not to much making a virtue of a necessity when I think I'll enjoy the process so much, eh?

I had plans this morning to come here and share more ideas of what you can do with the cornmeal you undoubtedly ran out and bought so you could make cornbread. Instead, I am typing this from bed where I am also bidding goodbye to the last notions I had that I am not actually sick.

Another day, then, for the empanadas, cornmeal waffles, polenta, and spoonbread. Today my food concerns are a bit more pedestrian - what to feed the kids when thinking of food at all leads to unwelcome lurching in the mid-section?

There's always eggs and toast, of course, although I find that cooking eggs while I'm under the weather does nothing at all for improving my physical state. Buttered noodles work well, particularly rotini, the shape of which seems to distract the kids from noticing that I have neglected to add veggies or meat to the bowl (if I'm up to it, a generous sprinkling of grated Parmesan and some cracked black pepper in my bowl are wonderfully self-nurturing).

If soup is called for, I break out one of my boxes of pre-made broth. I do try to keep homemade on hand, but it's usually frozen so doesn't work well for last-minute needs. You can buy excellent organic veggie and chicken broths at many groceries these days, making them great pantry staples, so don't feel shy about keeping and using them. Heated broth with maybe some diced onion, frozen peas, a bit of kale and some of those teeny-tiny dried ravioli or tortellini make a great, last minute soup that's quick and delicious. You can also use celery, drained and rinsed beans, rice or anything at all that you have lying around and looks good and before you know it soup's on and you're off the hook for another few hours.

I've also been known to make beer bread, serve it warm and buttered along with applesauce or a clementine or something and call it a day (this approach has the added benefit of resulting in leftover bread, so you can serve it again the next day if events regrettably come to that). Because the bread has all of three ingredients it's crazy fast to make, the only requirement being that you need to remember to get it started a little more than an hour before you want it (maybe an hour and a half before, to include mixing and cooling time).

No matter what is served and no matter how it is made or procured, don't forget to include the kids in what you are doing and why. As impatient as you may feel and as intolerant of spills and dropsies as you might be (believe me, I have bitten my own tongue so often that it may well be perforated), tolerating kitchen mayhem now could lead to you one day hearing, as I did today, "Mommy, if you need to lie down it's o.k. I will pour Entropy Girl's juice and grind the coffee beans for you. Would you like some cinnamon toast?"

And with that, I feel better already.

I have a confession to make.

For all my enthusiasm about real cooking and baking from scratch (not to mention my zeal - bordering on the annoying, I realize - in encouraging others to do the same) I have long nursed a deep, dark secret that is in direct opposition to these ideals. I hope you will not think less of me when I reveal that...

...I use (and enjoy) those Jiffy corn muffin mixes. I've managed not to feel to much guilt about this, what with the mix priced at roughly 3 for a dollar and the fact that David Rosengarten himself once declared their perfection for certain applications (although plain old corn muffins weren't among them). Plus, the mix and its results clearly pass the Michael Pollan Great-great-grandmother food recognition test." With these justifications in my corner I could remain blissfully unrepentant.

Well, maybe not so blissful nor so unrepentant. The idea of homemade cornbread nagged at me. I knew that it would not be hard to make and I knew that I already had even single necessary ingredient in my kitchen. I wish I could say I also knew why I never actually made my own, but I do not. Last week I stumbled upon the push I needed.

I don't recall how I found Stop the Ride but I am glad that I did. Stephanie, bless her heart, is sponsoring a Make it From Scratch contest and upon reading her proposition I almost immediately came up with two ideas (one being cornbread and the other being a tutu for Entropy Girl, but that is a subject for another post).

And that is how I came to make cornbread.



To make a 9X9 pan of cornbread, mix well together one cup each of all-purpose flour and cornmeal, 1/3 cup white sugar, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 t. salt, 1 cup milk, 2 eggs and 1/4 cup softened butter. Pour batter into a prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes in a pre-heated 425 degree oven. The bread should be slightly golden brown on top and a skewer inserted into the center will come out clean. Allow to cool for 5 minutes or so before attempting to remove from the pan. This is nearly as fast, just as easy and even better tasting than the mix.

That I silenced that nagging voice reminding me that cornbread is easy and delicious is even more satisfying than this simple recipe. Oh, and if you're balking at purchasing cornmeal on the ground that it makes no sense to have a single-use ingredient on hand (a very logical argument) go ahead and buy some anyway and later this week we can talk about empanadas. In the meantime, enjoy the cornbread and the accompanying pleasure of having made it from scratch with your very own hands, no boxes involved.

Every now and again I take a long hard look at whatever it has been that's been making up our meals and think, "No. I simply cannot eat X, Y or Z again. Cannot". When this happens I actively set about introducing new dishes to my repertoire to stave off the boredom that is the bane of family cooks everywhere. About a year and a half ago, I banished risotto, swiss steak, and meatloaf from our table and substituted various kale- and chard-based dishes, bolognese sauced pastas, and vegetable curries. Past culinary love affairs included such things as quiche, stir fries, and pot pies. Once in college I was mid-bite from a plate of spaghetti con aglio e olio when I realized that I must stop eating spaghetti immediately. That was my last bite of the stuff for almost 8 years.

Now it's time to get rid of kale, bolognese and curry, at least as regulars. Part of the fun of replacing dishes in heavy-rotation is the experimentation before settling on whatever will become our new staples. At the moment I'm leaning heavily toward short ribs, pressed sandwiches and stuffed peppers. The options for all of these are virtually limitless and I confess that I am thinking of reviving a long-abandoned favorite in a new way - risotto stuffed bell peppers maybe? What about a leek and sundried tomato risotto in red peppers? Or pumpkin and feta version inside green ones? This, I think, has some possibilities.

In other news, I am somewhat relieved that Brainiac will be travelling over Valentine's Day. We've never made a big hairy deal about the day, maybe exchanging cards and favorite candies (I sometimes get an entire roll of chocolate Necco wafers, about which I feel endlessly spoiled) but then again maybe not. Despite our very casual approach to the day - which was true even in our dating and pre-kid years - I've always felt called upon to produce a special dinner for him, outside not only the realm of whatever our staple entrees might be but also whatever indulgences in which he might typically indulge.

So, as I like to do and will do with the flimsiest of excuses, I peruse all kinds of websites, magazines and books looking for the perfect Valentine's Day menu. The trouble is, so many of the "romantic" ingredients in heavy editorial rotation are things that he wouldn't touch if I paid him. Shellfish, mushrooms, asparagus, lamb, artichokes, runny cheeses, caviar, berries - all things he will not eat, full-stop, and all things that loom large in Valentine menus. So I try to punch up the things I know he likes and while very often he is thrilled (he is very much a man comforted by the familiar) I am usually nonplussed. But this year, he will be away and likely eating his dinner from the hospitality room of a conference center and I will be free to cook anything I want free of my self-imposed pressure to create some kind of chef d'oeuvre culinaire de l'amour.

I wonder what I could make myself for a solo Valentine's Day? Perhaps brie and mushroom canapes to start, followed by shrimp and scallops in a spicy cream sauce and finishing with raspberry coeur a la creme. Then again, perhaps takeout Chinese with the kids will be more my speed on the night in question.

Either way, I know I will miss Brainiac. Whatever I eat, it will be a poor substitute for a hug and a roll of chocolate Necco wafers.

Despite living for most of my adult life in and around Philadelphia, I somehow managed to avoid direct personal contact with scrapple, a food that, like the cheesesteak and soft pretzel, is strongly associated with the region. (Right now I feel I ought to advise you that you may want to think twice about clicking that scrapple link. Like sausage, law and perhaps also reality television, some feel it best to remain ignorant of scrapple's makings.) It's not that I had what you'd call a strong position on scrapple, just it always seemed like the kind of thing that I was probably better off avoiding if possible. Which it was.

But earlier this year we invested in a stand-alone freezer and accessorized it with shares in both a steer and a pig. The pig arrived with several packs of organic, hormone-free, free-range scrapple. Brainiac and I both felt tested by its presence at our house and resolved that it would not be wasted. Yesterday morning we acted on our resolve and I sliced and fried (in a well-seasoned cast iron pan) the very first scrapple of my life.

No one could be more surprised than I to discover that scrapple is actually quite good. Properly prepared, scrapple has a texture somewhat akin to polenta* - browned and crispy on the outside, meltingly tender on the inside. It is earthy, meaty and very, very rich - as befits a dish made with bits of the pig that I ordinarily pass with only so much as a shudder. I couldn't eat more than two small slices, but Brainiac and the Boy Wonder both managed to pack away more.

I'm chalking this up to a growth experience. While I am no longer afraid of scrapple and will certainly enjoy the remainder currently in my possession I can't imagine a time when I'll seek it out. Still, I am pleased to be in the scrapple-eating side in a world that is highly unevenly divided between Those Who Will and Those Who Won't. I am a girl who will.

* One of the ingredients in scrapple is cornmeal, which serves as a kind of mortor for all the bits and pieces of other stuff. When I described the texture of scrapple as polenta-like I had a giggle, because in my grocery I can buy "polenta" for something north of $3.00 a pound whereas cornmeal mush - the exact same thing, but for being a slightly finer grind - is more like $1.50.

I learned two things while making tonight's dinner:

1) Italian sausage bounces, and;

2) Reheating couscous on the stovetop is not the best idea for best results

What the rest of the household will learn from my making tonight's dinner:

1) I always keep a can of the cheap spaghetti sauce on hand "just in case", and;

2) I'm not afraid to use it

When my sisters and I were young our mother was a Cake Lady. You know who I mean, every town has at least one. She was the woman that other moms would turn to for their Holly Hobby, Mickey Mouse and Garfield cake needs (those of you who weren't alive in the late 70s/early 80s would be surprised at just how large those needs were - and this was before the surge in children's party character licensing we see today when it's possible to find a pan for the most obscure of interests and virtually every movie short of Boogie Nights). She made wedding cakes, Christening cakes, graduation cakes, end-of-softball-season cakes and other confections in such numbers that my memories of childhood are practically themselves sugarcoated. It was rare that there wasn't a cake around either baking, being decorated, cautiously carried to the car for delivery or cast aside as a dud. We got the duds in our lunchboxes.

Our friends, of course, thought this was fabulous. Cake all the time! What's not to love? Except, of course, constant exposure even to the awesome dulls and after a while we collectively stopped eating much cake at all. Duds sat around uneaten and undesired until they hardened sufficiently that they could be thrown out without the attendant guilt of wasting food and, once it became possible by the early 90s to buy an airbrushed cake in virtually every supermarket, mom gradually went into Cake Lady retirement.

Among the legacies of my cake-filled youth is the ability to produce simple icings for almost any requirement without a recipe or really much thought at all. Mom never taught me (she preferred to keep her kitchen to herself) but somewhere along the line I - and perhaps my sisters, too - picked up all kinds of frostings from glazes to the less tasty but more substantial decorator icing, suitable for roses and borders and other things you need to keep their shape. Come to think of it, the only "icing" I can't make from memory is fondant, which I suspect is because Mom disapproves of fondant and seldom consented to its use.

Last night I made the following chocolate icing for brownies for the Boy Wonder's school holiday party. Recipes for chocolate icing abound and there are probably at least three for everyone who has ever made any - I, of course, think mine is the best. I also think it's the easiest, a feature not to be underestimated as far as I'm concerned, especially this time of year when we're all so busy. This is a general-purpose spreading icing, suitable for brownies, a layer cake, sugar cookies or - let's be honest withourselves here - just spooning directly from the bowl into the mouth. You may see some recipes that require cooking, evaporated milk, separating eggs and so on and while these may produce perfectly pleasant icings I assure you that they are all unnecessary.

For a nice, general-use chocolate frosting, soften a quarter-cup of butter in a mixing bowl. When nicely softened (you can press a finger into the butter with little resistance), add a one pound box of confectioner's sugar and, say, a cup of cocoa powder. Start adding milk (I use 1%, but used both skim and whole successfully) slooooowly, about a tablespoon at a time until the frosting starts to form. Keep adding the milk until you get the consistency you like. If you accidentally add too much milk, mix in more sugar or cocoa powder. Taste liberally! It'll help you adjust the ingredients to get to where you want to be. Some folks like to add a pinch of salt and a bit of vanilla - I find them superfluous but, hey, it's your icing. Your frosted baked goods can sit out overnight or a couple days covered - the sugar and chocolate keep the milk and butter nicely protected for a short time.

Mom comes out of retirement every so often, mostly to make wedding cakes. These she has made for each of my sisters and me, as well as our friends who remember the birthday cakes she made for their own childhood parties. As even the youngest of our girlhood friends is now in her 30s these wedding cakes are becoming fewer and further between and her stretches of retirement longer and longer. The cake-filled bits of our lives exist now primarily in photographs and the ability to make almost any kind of icing, whenever we need that fix of memory combined with necessity. All except that fondant, of course.