A Finger in Every Pie

Simple Pleasure

To borrow a very little from Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that there are few things as lovely as a good dinner with good friends.  (Single men and their fortunes notwithstanding.)  Especially there are few things as lovely when it's Nathalie and Josh who are coming to dinner.   

I've known Nathalie ever since we spent a few years sharing a brownstone floor-thru in Brooklyn.  Like all roommates who become true friends, we came to know each other's histories and on-going dramas:  families, first loves, divorces, disaster dates, heart-throbs and break-ups.  We shared meals of cheap Chinese take-out and tossed back margaritas at our Mexican local.  We did have many things in common; it was, however, the moment where she told me about being chased by a wild boar while foraging for mushrooms in the forest that caused me to realize our childhoods had been quite different. 

I was lucky enough to live with Nathalie's heartstopping, other-worldly canvases for several years.  She came with me to my parents for many a Thanksgiving as well as other celebrations; I went to France and spent glorious times at her family home in the Cevennes Mountains with her remarkably warm, forthright and large family, sitting over lovingly cooked lunches and dinners as bottle after bottle of sturdy red wine was opened.

Time passes, lives change, and of course neither of us live in that Brooklyn brownstone any more.  We each have our mates, as well as work and family obligations that demand a fair amount of time.  But we do love to get together, and the synergy is always good.  Nathalie and her husband Josh are just as fond of good food and wine as we are;  Josh (an amazing jazz musician) and G have much to talk about music-wise; and once we've all got a glass or two under our belts, our evenings generally start to devolve into the sort of ribaldry and silliness that lets you know you're truly among friends. 

I wanted to make something really good when we invited them for dinner.  For all the right reasons -- not to impress or flatter -- but simply to give pleasure.  I know that Nathalie is always hoping for lamb when they come to dinner, and I'm always happy to oblige since it's a favorite of ours too.  I thought about Rogan Josh or crisp herbed lamb chops, but settled on Gardiane, a stew from the Camargue which is variously listed as being made from beef, veal, lamb or the meat of bulls, wherever that might be found.  I love the version from Mireille Johnston's lovely old book The Cuisine of the Sun, a forerunner to the explosion of French provincial cooking in this country.  The late Ms. Johnston's Gardiane uses lamb, as well as copious amounts of garlic, some orange zest, and the one ingredient all recipes for this dish seem to agree upon -- olives.  G graciously agreed to pick the olives out of his portion.  He's always gracious about such things -- even about the extra dishes that come with having guests. 

G and I had just popped out of our showers and become nominally respectable when the doorbell rang.  Nathalie exclaimed over the good cooking smells, so I showed her what was in the big blue pot.  "Oooph, La Gardiane, bien sur!" she exclaimed.  "It's a great dish from the Camargue!"  Sometimes I forget that in France people really do know their food.  Drinks were poured, and we went into the living room for apps. 

I kept appetizers easy -- more olives, crudites, G's beloved Manchego cheese (to make up for all those olives), some nice fennel-scented taralli biscuits, and my most favorite party trick of late:  Nigella's Parma ham bundles, which consists of a small chunk of moist dried fig (I cut mine in quarters) smeared with fresh goat cheese and wrapped in prosciutto.  A simple thing, and quite addictive  -- I made them for my friend Katherine's party last fall, and people were impressed out of all proportion. 

We moved on to La Gardiane, a fresh baguette, and a simple green salad: butter lettuce, baby romaine, arugula and avocado.   Nathalie and I switched from the white wine to the red, and Josh and G finished their Glenlivets so they could partake as well.  I really can't quote the conversation at this point, since what I remember of it began to get quite raucous.  Suffice it to say that the lamb dish, which had been cooked gently with garlic and thyme, orange zest and olives, and included tiny carrots and little creamer potatoes that had simmered to tenderness in their jackets right in the sauce, was a success.  The salad too was good, as salad always is after such things. 

Little by little we made our way to dessert.  Nathalie and I cleared plates to the kitchen.  She looked fondly back over her shoulder as a shout of laughter came from the living room.  "When we were in that Brooklyn apartment, we never thought to be here, now, like this..." she said, looking pleased. 

I always think that unless you know for a fact that your guests don't have a sweet tooth, dessert is a real priority.  You can always buy a lovely dessert for a dinner party, but there's nothing like creating something yourself.  After all, you end with dessert, so that's where the evening's memory lingers.  Because I couldn't quite fix on chocolate, vanilla, nut or fruit, I decided to make something that would encompass all those good flavors.  I'd never made a panna cotta before, even though it's a dessert I love.  Vanilla bean simplicity was what I wanted, surrounded by a lovely fruit compote.  My citrus loves of the season, cara-cara and blood oranges, were in the starring role, garnished with fresh although out-of-season berries that I simply couldn't resist.  The oranges were supremed in all their colorful glory, and their juices reduced with jasmine-perfumed thousand-flower honey and  a splash of  Grand Marnier.  This was drizzled over the orange sections along with a dose of blood orange vinegar and some grated orange zest.  Left to sit for a while, the orange sections were finally joined by their garnish of berries.  Then each ramekin of vanilla-speckled panna cotta was upended into a ring of all that lovely fruit. 

Fruit and sweet vanilla cream are almost perfect -- but they do need a little something to go with, as far as I'm concerned.   I'd been inspired by Molly's post of chocolate madeleines, and wanted to try my hand at my own version.  Mine ended up being quite different from hers, with resonances of the Pierre Hermé chocolate loaf cake I made a few weeks ago, rich with chocolate, almond paste and lots of crisp pistachios.  Instead of using Molly's luscious chocolate glaze, I included a goodly amount of chopped dark chocolate inside.  Our dear friends were suitably wowed, and especially pleased when they went home with a bag of  madeleines for "laters". 

So we ate and drank, and talked and laughed, as any gathering of friends are wont to do.   And we made plans for further merrymaking:  meals and movies and outings and adventures to come.  Some time ago, N & J were left a family legacy of a tiny cottage in a town near Nathalie's family.  It took quite a bit of doing to make it habitable, but Nathalie assures me that it's now ready for guests, and that our invitation is open.  So perhaps sometime, although not anytime terribly soon,  I'll post of other good dinners with these good friends from a little house in the Languedoc...

A Baking Life

A colleague of mine once looked around her messy, busy classroom, where the bell had just rung.   Her noisy. boisterous high school students, who had been preparing for a debate, finishing research papers and sharing their favorite books with each other began to pack up to leave for the day.  The walls were filled with student work, pictures of far-away places, maps, and quotations on large sheets of colored paper.  She sighed contentedly as she looked at a huge stack of reading journals and writing notebooks on her desk.  "The teaching life is a good life," she said. 

Most of the very good life that I lead is a teaching life, but among some of my other lives is just a little bit of a baking life.  I don't bake professionally, nor do I spend significant daily time near an oven.  But most weeks will see me bake something, or several somethings -- a couple of loaves of bread, some cornbread or popovers or muffins, a cake or two, perhaps a batch of cookies or brownies.  Often I use the excuse of a work/family/social event to indulge my love of baking. 

On Saturday, however, I was able to luxuriate in baking -- along with talking, eating, walking, and general carousing.  I had the pleasure and privilege of a day spent with the glorious and well-named Bakerina.   Jealous yet?  You know you are, and you're going to be even more so if you read on. We've had a number of pleasureable jaunts together, but this was to be our first baking day.  Bakerina, aka Jen, doesn't get to spend as much time around the oven as she might like, either, although I think it's certainly more of a regularity for her than it is for me.  If you're one of her readers (and you should be, really you should), you'll know that she spends her weekday work time in the corporate jungle.  This I must say -- if there's anyone who would both like to and should be baking for a living, that someone is my chum, Bakerina.  She's at home with the accoutrements of baking in a way that I probably will never be.  She's incredibly knowledgeable, not to say scholarly, about food in general -- the history and provenance and science of foodstuffs is part of her daily argot.  And she's a hoot, as well -- funny, charming, easy to spend time with and provides lots of laughs.  I'm sure her all-around delightfulness is what makes her focaccia (pictured above) taste so good.   Someday her bakery will open, and wherever it's located, I, for one, will be there.  So, too, will anyone who loves and respects good bread, cakes, pies, and all the stuffs of the oven that glorify our lives.   Anyone who likes good jam will be there as well -- but more on that later. 

We took a little roam around Astoria on Saturday, buying and sampling various and sundry of its delights, and made plans for a return date to the neighborhood.  We barely scratched the surface of the culinary wonders on Jen's home turf, since we were eager to get back to her kitchen and start baking.   Lloyd, Jen's charming male counterpart, cheerfully put up with having his Saturday intruded upon as we embarked upon her signature white-wine focaccia, the bizarre but delightful olive cookie known as scourtins, and chocolate ginger cake.  Truthfully, most of the baking was done by Jen.  I was busy doing things like knocking over racks of cooling scourtins, and pretending to bake the chocolate cake for which Jen had already done all the mise-en-place while I was making a run for more muscovado sugar.  Sometime during all of this, Jen opened the glorious bottle of champagne she'd extravagantly insisted upon for our delectation.  The day became rosier and rosier -- clearly not due to just the heat of the oven.  All afternoon, Jen kept tucking more goodies in my take-home bags -- a pound of dark Wilbur chocolate, a half-loaf of Greek Tsoureki bread, all kinds of things.

When it came time to leave (or rather when G had finally negotiated the dubious glories of driving to Queens in order to pick me up), I schlepped downstairs with bag upon bag.  Not just the provender of our shopping trip, nor simply the spoils of our glorious baking were weighing upon me.  You see, I am one of the very lucky customers of Bakerina Kitchens, and I used this opportunity to go pick up my order of luscious homemade preserves from the source itself.  Much of her stock of wares sold within hours of going live. Your fingers should run, not walk, to Bakerina Kitchens, where there are still a few jars of jelly as well as light apple butter for sale.  I have it on good authority that other lovelies will be available just as soon as they've been preserved.  I got my reserved Paradise jelly, Damson butter and received a lagniappe of glorious Damson jam. 

The remainder of my weekend was set off delightfully by all of these goodies.  Last night and tonight our dinners were accompanied by what was simply the best focaccia either G or I have ever tasted, and then there was lovely chocolate ginger cake for dessert (thank goodness for all this great stuff, since I did have to make a really good dinner tonight: potato-leek soup, roast chicken, salad and focaccia and chocolate ginger cake.  After all, Tony's in the hospital -- we have to keep up our strength).  My hunch about the scourtins making a great biscuit for cheese proved correct.  And this morning's fresh hot popovers were accompanied by Damson jam -- at least they were until I abandoned the popovers altogether and began to spoon jam into my mouth, directly from the jar. 

So I'll live on these goodies for a while -- but Jen and I have promised each other a further joint foray into the baking life, to take place in my kitchen.  I won't have to wait that long for more of the wonderful baking of Bakerina, however.  There was this chocolate kuchen (the famed Fanny's Special Chocolate Kuchen, from Lora Brody's Growing Up on the Chocolate Diet) that we'd planned to bake on Saturday, but didn't quite get around to, what with the champagne and the gabbing and all.  It was a bit sad, since the mere description of this kuchen made my mouth water.   Jen apparently got busy after I left, and has promised me that if I meet her after work tomorrow, some kuchen will be mine.   I told you you'd be jealous. 

This Thing of Ours

"Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in." 
       - Michael Corleone, Godfather III
        - Silvio Dante, The Sopranos

There's an art to creating the perfect menu for a television event that looms large.  For some people, their Superbowl menu is the crowning achievement of their own version of television-dinner theatre.  For others, it's Oscar night, and the menu they'll create for an Oscar party. 

At our house, it's dinner á deux with the Sopranos.  For weeks, I rack my imagination to find the menu that will be just right for the season finale -- or, like tonight, for the new season's first episode.  Tonight is a special case, of course.  We and the rest of the Sopranos-addicted world have been waiting for, count 'em, twenty-one months.  No surviving television program has ever made an audience wait that long between seasons.  And sadly, this is probably what we love about this show.  Like its main character, the show can get away with its own arrogance.  The Sopranos know that even if we try to get out, they'll pull us back in. 

Back to dinner; what to make?  Fortunately, the show is rife with meals both eaten and described.  I've long toyed with the idea of making either Carmela's famous baked ziti or her lasagna, lovingly described in several episodes.  When G weighed in on the question, lasagna was the clear winner, since it's a favorite of his.  The Sopranos industry has come out with a new cookbook, Entertaining With The Sopranos, a follow-up to their best-selling The Sopranos Family Cookbook.  I don't own either of these, since from the samples available, the recipes appear to be fairly mainstream and similar to others that could be easily obtained through other sources.  However, in the interest of being faithful to my obsession, I did some searching and found reprints of "Carmela's Lasagna."  Honestly, I wasn't impressed with the recipe.  I have a feeling that Carmela would do better than that, so I set out to create my own version. 

The problem is that I'm a big fan of Lasagna Bolognese, which uses a bolognese-style meat sauce, besciamella (or bechamel) sauce, and Parmesan cheese layered with lasagna sheets.  G, however, favors the more popular American-style lasagna, based on Lasagna Napoletana, with layers of ricotta, mozzarella and sauce al ragú, a long-simmered "Sunday Gravy" style red sauce.  This, admittedly, would be closer to Carmela's lasagna, since  the family is originally from Avellino, near Naples.  Carmela's version of the dish is described by Bobby Bacala in Season Four, Episode Five:  Bobby raves to Uncle Junior about what a good cook Janice (who's putting the make on the recently widowed Bobby) is.  Junior, having known what a manipulator Janice is since she used to steal from his wallet as a little girl, tries to disabuse Bobby of his illusions.  He tells him that the lasagna Janice is serving him is clearly Carmela's doing, since it has her signature "sweet sausage and the basil leaves under the cheese."  Bobby won't hear it, since Junior "always thinks the worst of everyone." 

Meditating on Carmela's lasagna led me to wonder exactly how Janice got the pan of lasagna (and whether or not, if I lived in an alternate television-based universe, I could get one too).  I'm not sure that Carmela would cooperate with Janice's scheme to win Bobby over by making a pan of  lasagna for her.  Carmela might, however, have made it as part of being on "Ziti Patrol", which is when the wives take turns feeding the household of someone who's had a recent loss -- a fairly frequent occurrence in their circle, of course.  In that scenario, she would have given it to Janice to take over to Bobby's.  Janice would then have palmed it off as her own, which is not at all unlikely.  Another possibility is that Janice might simply have stolen a tray of lasagna out of Carmela's freezer.  I wouldn't put that past her, either.  After all, we're talking about a woman who stole someone's prosthetic leg. 

I finally decided to create a hybrid.  I 've made my own sauce Bolognese instead of ragú, but with sweet sausage in addition to the beef and prosciutto.  I'm going to forego my beloved béchamel, and use the many kinds of cheese so dear to G's heart, along with some fresh basil tucked into the layers.  And although I don't have a pasta machine, I did search out fresh lasagna sheets, so the result should be good.  I'll let you know what "the boss" thinks later on, when I serve it up with garlic bread and salad, and later on, cannolis.  Let's hope it's a dinner as well as an episode worth waiting 21 months for.

Season Six Premiere Lasagna

SAUCE
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 chopped onions
2 finely chopped peeled carrots
6 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 oz. prosciutto or pancetta, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. rubbed sage, or several fresh sage leaves, chopped
1/2 cup dry vermouth or 1 cup dry white wine
1 lb. lean ground beef
8 ounces sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
Salt and pepper to taste
1 26-ounce box Pomi chopped tomatoes with added puree
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon golden brown sugar
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

LASAGNA
1 lb. fresh lasagna sheets
2 15-ounce containers ricotta cheese (or 2 lbs fresh ricotta from a dairy)
1 generous cup mixed grated Parmigiano- Reggiano and Locatelli Romano cheeses (about 3 ounces)
1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, squeezed dry
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 large eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 - 1 cup finely chopped fresh basil
4 3/4 cups grated mozzarella cheese (about 1 1/4 pounds)

SAUCE
Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, carrots and garlic; sauté until softened, about 10 minutes.  Add prosciutto or pancetta and sage; sauté for a few more minutes.  Break up sausage and saute with other ingredients until browned.  Add ground beef to the pan and sauté until cooked through, breaking up meat with back of spoon, about 5 minutes.  Add vermouth or wine, and cook until the liquid boils away.  Add remaining ingredients.  Cover and simmer until flavors blend, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour.  Discard bay leaf.  Cool.

LASAGNA
Preheat oven to 350°F. Cook noodles in large pot of boiling salted water until almost tender, about 3 minutes. Drain; lay out on lint-free dishtowels to absorb as much moisture as possible.

Combine ricotta and 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese in medium bowl. Mix in spinach, parsley and nutmeg. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Mix in eggs.

Spread 1/2 cup sauce over bottom of 13x9-inch glass baking dish. Place a layer of noodles over sauce, overlapping to fit. Spread half of ricotta-spinach mixture evenly over noodles. Sprinkle chopped basil evenly over ricotta-spinach mixture, and then top with 2 cups mozzarella cheese . Spoon 1 1/2 cups sauce over cheese, spreading with spatula to cover (sauce will be thick). Repeat layering with 5 noodles, remaining ricotta-spinach mixture, basil, 2 cups mozzarella and 1 1/2 cups sauce. Arrange remaining 5 noodles over sauce. Spread remaining sauce over noodles. Sprinkle remaining 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese evenly over lasagna. Cover baking dish with aluminum foil. Bake lasagna 30 minutes; uncover and bake until hot and bubbly, about 30 minutes more. Let lasagna stand 15 minutes before serving.

Serves 8-12, depending on appetites.

Postscript:  This was absolutely sumptuous, but made far too much for a 13x9 inch baking dish.  Either you'll need a much larger lasagna pan, or else you can do as I did and make another smaller dish of lasagna for the freezer. 

Baking My Own Chimera: Pineapple-Pecan Brown-Butter Upside-Down Cake

I'm not sure if it's best called a hybrid, a chimera, or simply another fiendish experiment from the AFIEP test-kitchen -- but I do know that it was a success. 

These days I seem to need an excuse to bake, since time is of the essence what with work, more work, courses taken and courses taught.  Recently, a family brunch for out-of-town cousins at dear old dad's fit the bill quite nicely. 

I started with thoughts of  pineapple-upside-down cake.  A plethora of pecans brought pecan pie to mind. Then there was the memory of last summer's brown-butter nectarine cake, with its rich nut-brown scent and caramel-colored crumb.  These all united in my mind to form the vision of a deeply caramelized cake, crunchy with pecans and sticky with glazed pineapple.  I remembered that my mother had always put a few pecans in the topping for pineapple upside-down cake (instead of those scarily fluorescent maraschino cherries).  She liked a grating of  nutmeg in the batter, too.  Browning the butter and using a fresh pineapple would take it a step or so out of her realm, but with a kiss blown heavenward, I approached my laboratory.  Thus a new cake, a sunny confection to tide us from the last of winter's tired fruits to the hope of spring's fresh produce,  is born. 

Pineapple-Pecan Browned-Butter Upside-Down Cake
This makes two cakes.  Perhaps I'm just greedy (let's face it, there's no perhaps about it), but I think, especially in these harried times, that if you're going to bake, you might as well make two cakes.  One goes to brunch, the other stays home and gets shared piece by piece with neighbors, workmates, and best-beloveds during late-night dessert time. 

Topping
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, plus more for cake pan
3/4 cup light muscovado or light brown sugar
pinch of salt
1 fresh pineapple, quartered, cored, and cut into 3/8 inch thick slices
1 cup toasted chopped pecans

Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp. salt
2 1/2 sticks (10 oz.) unsalted butter
3/4 cup light muscovado or light brown sugar
3/4 granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp. best-quality vanilla paste or extract

Preheat oven to 325 F.  Butter two 9-inch round layer pans well.

Melt the 4 tbsp. of butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat; add brown sugar and salt.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is foamy and pale, 3 to 4 minutes. Pour the topping into the prepared cake tins; swirl them to distribute it evenly. Arrange fruit slices in concentric circles over topping; fill in all the gaps between pineapple pieces with plenty of chopped toasted pecans, pushing them down well into the brown sugar topping.

Whisk together  flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt in a small bowl. Melt the 2 1/2 sticks of butter over medium heat.  Cook slowly until brown, stirring all the while.  If the butter burns a little, strain it to get rid of the dark sediment -- the butter will still taste good. If it burns a lot, toss it out and begin again.  Let the butter cool to room temperature -- it should begin to solidify.  Beat it in a large bowl with both sugars until creamy.  Add eggs, beating them in one at a time.  Beat in the vanilla.  Lightly stir in the  flour mixture until just blended.  Divide the mixture between the two pans, spreading it lightly and evenly over the pineapple-pecan-caramel topping. Bake for  30 - 35 minutes; start testing the cakes at 20 minutes to make sure they're not browning too quickly.  Remove when a toothpick or cake tester comes out more or less clean; cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out carefully from the pan, replacing on the top of the cake any pineapple, nuts or caramel that stick to the pan. 

I'm sure I don't have to tell you how good I think this would be with some excellent vanilla ice-cream.  At brunch, however, we ate it as part of a somewhat comprehensive dessert course, alongside fruit salad with Greek yogurt and wildflower honey, and slices of Pierre Herme's Chocolate Ginger Apricot Loaf (to which my only fiendish additions were extra chocolate chunks and an impulsive handful of bright green pistachios).