Spice Dish

Woman's Work

What I’ve come to realize is that my favorite cookbooks are more than collections of glossy recipes but recollections of memories and values and the wishes and wants of the past.

One such book is “The Complete Family Cook Book” from 1969. This three ring binder of a book is a how-to bonanza. There are charts, tips and recipes for everything. I love the late 60’s illustrations but truthfully the book itself isn’t all that remarkable. What is remarkable about this is what I found inside.

 

This book was given to me by my grandmother. She no longer cooks, and truthfully I think she’s glad for that. I don’t know if she realized what she passed on to me, but it is a treasure trove of my grandmother’s history.  From what I have gathered, my grandmother never really loved to cook. She was very, very good at it, but I think she did it because it was expected of her. She was a 1940’s, war-time bride and navy wife. It was her job.

The Blushing Bride

When I received this book, I understood how my grandmother saw it, as a users manual, instructions for work. Underneath the pile of cut out magazine recipes, hand typed recipe cards and box top recipes there were a few unexpected finds: recipe notes scribbled by my grandfather (who really did love to bake), navy air-mail notepaper that has recipes written on it for sweets that travel overseas well (with notes from a friend named Don who put dibs on the first bite of fudge), a poison antidote chart (my grandma had all boys), and then there was The Home Maker’s Guide, a small booklet given to new San Jose brides by the courthouse where they were married. In it are menu planning tips, home ‘domestication’ tips, recipes, the do’s and don’ts of ‘charm’, and dieting tips.

Underneath that? The pamphlet and receipts from my grandparent's blood tests from August 4^th 1942, Two weeks after they meet and one week before he shipped out.

I know this is an all too familiar story. But, it's not just an old woman's story. It's my story too.

EB

The Most For Your Money

I picked up “The Most For Your Money Cookbook” one day while waiting for a dentist appt. I went to The Great Overland Book Co. on Judah and poked through the stacks. I didn’t have anything special I was looking for, just 30 minutes to kill. Their cookbook section is really small and has mostly newer books, but I dug through until I found this little charmer from 1938.

 

As I paid for my purchase, the clerk chided me “You understand this is in 1930’s money right?” Apparently he thought I was trying to use this book for current day money savers. Not that it isn’t a great resource. This kind of info never becomes obsolete really. I assured him that yes I understood and absconded with my purchase.

 

On the dentist’s couch I flipped through my new find. The inside has the name of it’s previous owner: Annie J Mc Crohan (I found a few possible matches on Google, all of whom were born in the late 1880’s which would fit). The name is written in the script of women of my grandmother’s generation.

 

The Foreword is all about “Stretching the Food Dollar” which includes really practical advice like advocating whole grain cereals at breakfast because they “stretch the dollar like rubber”. The reason I so quickly fell in love with this book though was not only the authors’ sense of humor, apparently new tomatoes “bred to convenient size to suit the shipper, not the consumer” are “only good for kids to throw at cops”, but also their candor. They warn against “the siren call of radio experts who sell us foodless food,” offering a much needed reminder that the concern over food industrialization is nothing new.

 

The recipe I went to was one I remember from my childhood, when my mom was trying to stretch our family’s food dollar, Beef Stroganoff. The recipe is exactly the one I grew up with. It’s uncanny. The taste brought me right back to my family dinner table where I would be scolded for rocking back in my chair, my brother would stuff his cheeks like a chipmunk and my dad would try to make us laugh until the milk spilled. It’s simple, comforting and yes, economical… in the very best way.

Boeuf a la Stroganoff

 

1 lb tender beef

2 tbs butter

1 small onion minced

¼ pound fresh mushrooms, sliced

1 garlic clove, minced

1 tbs flour

1 parsley sprig

Salt and pepper

1 cup sour cream

 

Cut meat into narrow strips. Slowly fry onion and garlic in butter, add steak and brown. Add parsley and the mushrooms. Cover and let cook for 20 minutes. Add flour, simmer until thick. Add sour cream and heat through.

 

That’s it. Total. It’s best, and most nostalgic, on top of wide egg noodles.

Enjoy!

EB

Most Memorable Moments

I'm back from my whirlwind trip and thought I'd share a few of my most memorable food moments with you all:

Hummingbird Bakery on Portobello Road. Delicious cupcakes. Delicious.

Napoleon's Dining Room. Man he knew how to eat.

And then there's these. Most 'memorable' because I can still taste them. Unfortunately.

There's a million more memories. Wine cheaper than water? Vive la France! Korean BBQ in late night London? Love it. Salted caramel yogurt in Paris? A revelation.

Thanks Europe (well except for that exchange rate thing...)

EB

Baked Beignet Strawberry Shortcake

This is a recipe with a fun, festive, yet slightly tragic beginning. The fun, festive part? It is derived from beignets and was made for a birthday party. The slightly tragic part? They’re baked. The birthday gal loves beignets, but due to doctors orders, can’t eat fried foods. Tragic no?

I experimented with beignet dough and plain pate au choux until I came up with something that was light, fluffy, and sturdy but still puffy on the inside. While a single puff would be just fine with a dusting of powdered sugar and a cup of coffee, it was a birthday party so I happened to pile these up in a mound and cover with a strawberry glaze. All I have to say is that topped by fresh, organic strawberries and served with vanilla gelato, this made for one hell of a strawberry shortcake!

  

Could this be made with ‘real’ beignets? Of course, and more power to you if you do! But if you are another tragic soul for whom fried foods is verboten, then give this a shot. I promise you won’t miss the fry.

Baked Beignet Strawberry Shortcake

Beignets:

1 cup water

1 ½ sticks salted butter

1 cup flour

4 large eggs

Preheat over to 400*. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Bring water to boil in a medium saucepan. Add butter and simmer until melted. Remove from heat. Add flour by ¼ cups and stir well until combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating hard with a spoon or thick whisk, until each is incorporated into the dough. Drop dough by tablespoons full onto pans and bake for 30 minutes or until puffs are golden.

Glaze:

½ lb fresh strawberries

½ cup granulated sugar

½ lb powdered sugar

¼ cup cream

Chop the strawberries into small pieces and sprinkle the granulated sugar over the top. Allow to macerate for at least an hour, stirring occasionally. Pour the strawberry liquid into a large bowl and add the sugar. Whisk together. Add the milk a tablespoon at a time until smooth.

 

To assemble:

Spread a circle of puffs on a cake plate. Top with a smaller layer, then a smaller until topped by a single puff. Drizzle glaze as desired over tower of puffs. Sprinkle strawberry pieces around, and on top of puffs. Serve with vanilla gelato.

 

 Happy Birthday Stephanie!

EB

Summer Fling!

Okay. Yes I’m a teacher. When people find out they invariably say “ooh you’re so lucky to have summers off!” Yeah. No. I don’t get summers off. I’m a newbie on the professorial circuit and I’m still paying my crappy schedule-summer session-not getting paid dues. However, I do get a day or two off a week during the summer. Which yes, is awesome (although a paycheck would be awesomer!) I am going to take full advantage of these few precious days. I plan to not only catch up in the blogging world but to also to make the most of the summer by doing all those things I've yearned about all winter like:

Photo by pedrosimoes7
1. Go to PARIS!

2. Go to a ball game or two.

3. Catch up on This American Life at the gym.

4. Go organic in the garden.

5. Improve my Spanish.

6. Explore my city with Mundane Journeys.

7.Read. For fun. Honestly. Just one book!

8. Drink beer and go for the brass ring.

9. Cook from my sorely neglected, ever growing collection of vintage cookbooks.

10. Go to the park. Manshelf?

What will you be doing with your summer?

EB

 

The Love Affair Continues

It was a long, gorgeous weekend. With visitors in town, it was time to play tourist, which always is a way to not only show pride in the city I adore, but do and discover things I never would have without the tourists in tow.

First there was the boat ride to Alcatraz...

Then up the Chestnut steps to Sterling Park...

 
And of course the Easter Parade at Dolores Park...

Then we sent them on their way over the bridge.

It really was a great weekend. I fell in love with my city all over again.

EBS

Fifty Two Fridays

San Francisco

I know I've been a little MIA lately but I am around I swear. Just ask Victoria! You can find the both of us over at Fifty-Two Fridays. What goes on over there? Well, you can check out the adventures of two ladies who live 2,913 miles apart (exactly). Every Friday we each post a pic of what's going on on our side of the country.

Manhattan

Come visit us!

EB
 

Ms. Toklas is Guilty

“Cook Books have always intrigued and seduced me” says Alice B. Toklas in her famous cookbook of 1954. She likens the way they held her attention to the way murder mysteries held Gertrude’s. It was in those novels that she encountered murder most foul…. until it was found in her own kitchen. She notes that it was France and it was wartime, time and prepared food were at a minimum. The fishmonger had no time to prep the fish for her. If she wanted carp… she would have to kill, scale and filet it herself. And so she does.

She struggles with just how to go about ‘dispatching’ the animal in her market basket. She decides to just whack it at the neck with a knife until it is “dead, killed, assassinated, murdered in the first, second and third degree” after which she falls “limp” into a chair and waits for the police to come and take her away.

I know exactly how Alice felt. Meet Inky and Blinky:

I found myself recently having more than one conversation with meat eaters who really, really want to believe that animals come wrapped in cellophane. I readily admit I put on my animal blinders while being carnivorous at times, but I am also one to face my fears so… off to the live fish market I went.

My father used to take me to do this when I was a kid. He’d let me pick out our rubber band wrapped, pincher adorned dinner.  I would, without fail, ask to keep them as pets. I would never watch him plunge them into the pot. I just couldn’t.

This was on my mind as I stood in front of the crab tank and chose two. It really did feel strange walking down Mission street with live animals in a bag… but that’s how it should be. Right? I mean we should know, not just where our food comes from, but we should know our food.

I had a talk with Inky and Blinky before I too committed murder. And yes, it really felt like murder. I thanked them for giving up their little crabby lives and I promised to do them justice.

Once cooked, I laid them out on the counter. Their ‘fur’ was silky soft and just called to be petted. After I made peace with what I had just done, I set to cleaning and cracking them. As soon as I thought I was dealing with ‘dinner’ and not ‘animal’ there were the insides. The brain, the melted fat, the gooey, gooey matter had to be scraped out and washed down.

  

Once the act was completed…. dinner was served. It was the most deliciously sweet crab I have ever eaten. Designated Eater Mimi, not a big crab fan, adored it. It was so rich, and there was so much meat that we could not eat our way through both the crabs. Mimi was going to toss the remaining legs. I would not hear of it. Inky and Blinky gave their lives! I was not about to waste a single piece. I would not allow them to die in vain. This may sound a bit melodramatic… but I truly felt this way. And I guess that was the whole point of the thing right? Alice, I feel you girl. As for Inky and Blinky? R.I.P. Thank you.

EB

My Last Supper

My Last Supper by Melanie Dunea has been an obsession of mine for a while. As a photographer, Ms. Dunea captures the essence of very famous chefs and their dying wish meals in pictures. It's not your same 'ol bio and 'what are they cooking now' type of book. It's a collection of those last shebang dying wish meals.You know the game… you have time for one last meal on earth… what do you eat? Who do you eat it with? Would Tony Bourdain gorge on Grays Papaya? Would Wylie micro-freeze something? Would Ferran Adria make faux-food or something from his mother’s kitchen? Would Eric Ripert dine on bone marrow? I’m not tellin’ because I highly recommend you check out the book. The photos alone are worth it, but the real treat is some of the very surprising food items that find their way onto these chef’s tables.

I personally play this game A LOT. The menu always seems to change though and some strange things find their way in there. Granted… it would be a feast, and not much of it makes sense… but some of the common items on my Last Supper menu include:

 

• Lobster
• Truffled cheese
• Oysters
• Soup dumplings with vinegar and ginger
• A really good bowl of ramen
• Toro nigiri sushi
• Spiced, brown sugar bacon
• A San Francisco Dungeness Crab
• A carnitas taco
• Mac n Cheese
• Chocolate cake & peppermint ice cream for dessert
• All washed down with lots of champagne

 
What would yours be?

EB

Dime Store Pulp

The James Beard Cookbook how do I love thee? Let me count the ways….  Seriously I could wax poetic about this little paper-bound piece of fabulousness for pages. First off, it is a 95c paperback edition that has a whiff of cheap, dime-store, trashy, pulp novel about it. It has green painted page edges, which nobody does anymore. My edition is from 1966 and features a plump, latter day Beard on the cover stirring up a sauce to place, delicately I’m sure, on the rotund oysters laid out before him.

There are no glossy ‘food-porn’ shots, just skillfully drawn, 60’s-mod sketches of “Cold Dunk Sauces,” appetizers on sticks, and assorted vegetables along with illustrations of sour faced pigs partitioned off into “Fat Back,” “Picnic Ham,” and “Head Cheese” portions and a diagram of lettuces to be used in “Vegetable Salads.”

The book starts off with a list of “Practical Don’ts” which really are practical and still relevant today. Beard starts off this list with “Buy good food, and buy often” noting that you shouldn’t “buy food you don’t need just because it’s cheap.” Here Here!

 

This 518 page jem has recipes for everything from “Anchovy Butter” to “Wine Merchant’s Sauce” and “Aspic” to “Yorkshire Pudding” but have I made a single recipe? Not a chance. And why not? Because this fantastic piece of culinaria has taken up residence in my purse. If I’ve got a few minutes before class or a long line at the bank, a few minutes with a mug of coffee or a tardy friend, out pops Mr. Beard and I’m off in my head whipping up “Braised Beef, Bordeaux Fashion” or reading up on the origin of the hors d’ouvre.

Thank you Mr. Beard.

EB