phew

Bike ride.


Sunset.


Wine club.

woman on the verge

All I do lately is proofread. That's not true: Sometimes I edit.

Look, it's Chester!


The yachtsman has been away for ten days, but now he's home and claims to be working on a Yachtsman Recommends. I am working on not having a nervous breakdown. Wish me luck!

stop whatever you are doing & make this soup

Because you know what? I am on a cold-soup roll, which isn't some kind of bun that's served with vichyssoise, it is the unstoppable momentum achieved by making two delectable cold soups in a row. First there was the Thai Squash Soup, and now I offer you this: Creamy, Garlicky Gazpacho. Don't usually like gazpacho? You'll like this version. Don't usually like garlic? Use less. Don't usually like cream? Seriously? You don't usually like cream? That's fine; there's no actual cream in this creamy gazpacho; the soup gets its velvety richness from my new favorite food, sheep's milk yogurt (all other yogurts are dead to me now). This soup will be your new best friend, which is good, because no one else will want to come near you for a solid 24 hours after you've eaten it. But like I said: If you don't usually like garlic, use one clove instead of two.

A few other notes:

* This soup is so easy to make, you have no excuse not to try it.

* The recipe calls for a garnish of fried Parmesan crisps, which are easy to make when they don't totally fail (see below), but if you don't feel like exerting the extra effort, just grate a little cheese over your bowl before you eat. Or don't—the Parmesan is not essential.

* Go on now, start cooking.

Creamy, Garlicky Gazpacho
Adapted from the New York Times, which in addition to recipes also publishes all the news that's fit to print. Who knew?

6 tablespoons grated pecorino Romano
2 large tomatoes (about 1 pound), cored and roughly chopped


1½ cups (12 ounces) plain sheep’s-milk or regular yogurt [Use the sheep's milk. That's an order.]
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
12 basil leaves, roughly chopped, more for serving
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
2 scallions (white and light green parts), roughly chopped
2 ice cubes
1¾ teaspoons kosher salt, more to taste
1½ teaspoons red wine vinegar, more to taste
Pinch cayenne pepper
Ground black pepper to taste.

1. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Spread 2 tablespoons cheese into a thin layer in skillet; let melt and brown on bottom, about 30 seconds to one minute. Use a spatula to flip cheese; let cook until evenly browned on both sides, about a minute more. Transfer fried cheese to a paper-towel-lined plate. Repeat with remaining cheese, working 2 tablespoons at a time. Break fried cheese into large pieces. [About half the time, my browned-on-one-side layer of cheese squinched up into a tasty but unattractive blob when I tried to scoop it up with the spatula for flipping. The rest of the time things worked out OK.]


2. To make soup, place tomatoes, yogurt, olive oil, basil, garlic, scallions, ice cubes, salt, vinegar, cayenne, and black pepper in a blender. Purée until smooth. Taste and add more salt and vinegar, if necessary. Pour into small bowls and garnish with pieces of fried cheese and chopped basil.


3. Resume whatever you stopped doing earlier.

guest post: lucky lady & m. labee

[This week's guest post is by my sister, Lucky Lady, who makes the prettiest aprons you'll ever cook in, and the lovely M. LaBee, who I plan to one day kidnap and imprison in my kitchen, where he will spend the rest of his life baking for my pleasure. Lucky Lady and M. LaBee have teamed up here to...oh, you'll see. I will hopefully be back later this week with another delicious cold soup to share with you, but if I don't have time to post, Team Zucchini on Top, as they're called, tell me there's plenty more where this came from. And thank god for that, because it apparently takes a village to write a bl*g.]

Homage to Peanut

As you may or may not know, we (M. LaBee and Lucky Lady) are the godparents (well, we may have decided we were the godparents, not told anyone, and had him baptized on our own time, but who’s counting?) of a little dog called Peanut (you may know him as Chester Arthur Miller). It also turns out we are a guest-bl*gging superteam heretofore known as “Zucchini on Top.” Being that we are superbl*ggers and Peanut’s godparents, we decided to do a guest post in the little man’s honor. We looked high and low and found this charming book,


which had the perfect recipe for our homage to Peanut. So the two of us trotted on down to the farmers market to shop. Most of the ingredients we needed for the PupCakes have a very short growing season, but we managed to find everything we needed:


We started by making the bodies of the PupCakes with a special cake recipe called Betty Crocker Super M@%#t (for those of you who don’t know, for M. Labee and Lucky Lady the word moist is a lot like the word bl*g for our bl*g mistress—disgusting) to which we added eggs, oil, and water. Then, being the hard workers that we are, we mixed the batter by hand instead of using the beaters.


Next we filled the PupCake pan with batter:


Once the PupCakes were safely nestled in the oven, M.LaBee decided he needed to eat the batter that was left in the bowl. “What are you crazy? Have you ever heard of a little thing called Salmonella?" Lucky Lady asked. Apparently the answer was no, because here is what happened next:


Halfway through the baking of the cupcakes, the professional baker on the team (M. LaBee) decided the PupCakes needed to be rotated (who does this?):


The PupCakes came out of the oven in a blaze of glory not unlike the blaze that the Down East Dilletante’s car went up in, except that they weren’t on fire at all, we just wanted to give DED a shout-out and let him know we were thinking of him and his burned-up car.


While the PupCakes were cooling we went about the business of coloring the dough for Peanut’s appendages. This was a long and arduous process that involved lots of Lucky Lady yelling at M. LaBee things like “Hold her down!” and “More! Faster, goddamn it!” and “You are going to have to shake it harder if you want anything to come out.” All of a sudden it seemed like we were making a weird porn instead of dough, but we are a team that really likes to give it all we’ve got:


Then there was the rolling and cutting of said dough:


The end result of the cut-out dough pieces was weird and even a little gross looking, but we promise, it all comes together:


Halfway through the baking of the appendage dough we realized we were out of peanut butter, which we needed for the frosting (Peanut’s coat). So, much to M. LaBee’s delight and Lucky Lady’s horror we had to make a trip to Mac’s Market. It should be said that the village where Lucky Lady lives was without a grocery store for a number of years. Shortly after LL and her mister moved to the village, Mac’s Market opened with the promise of providing groceries. It didn’t, they lied. Lucky Lady thinks it is basically an overgrown convenience store but M. LaBee disagrees and describes this horrible store as “Nirvana” and the “Lady Gaga of grocery stores.”

This is a picture of M.Labee driving Lucky Lady’s car and laughing maniacally about his Mac’s trip windfall:


A hardhat Lucky Lady forced M. Labee to wear in this photo as punishment for being so gleeful about said trip:


Once home again, we focused on the frosting: We had to mix peanut butter with vanilla frosting in order to get the proper shade for Peanut’s coat:


Then we frosted those bitches:


Now, I bet you’re wondering how that is going to become a PupCake. Well, frankly, so were we. A bit of panic ensued, there was some yelling and running around, followed by a dog escaping the house. Once we had the dog safely stowed we put the PupCakes on some white paper to get a clean slate to look at:


Then magically, this happened:


PupCakes! We love you, Peanut!

beautiful, edible blossoms

I don't know what you're doing this Saturday, but if I didn't have to work all weekend I would sign up for crankycheryl's Beautiful, Edible Blossoms workshop at Red Wagon. I'll be jealous if you go, but you could mitigate any hard feelings by inviting me over and serving these,

Photo by crankycheryl, stolen by me from her bl*g

which you'll learn to make at the workshop. Beautiful, edible blossoms, indeed! You can sign up by calling Red Wagon at 802-482-4060.

guest post: His Momma

[This guest post is courtesy of my mother-in-law, who just happens to be one of my favorite people in the world, and also one of my favorite cooks. If you know her or have been lucky enough to eat at her table, I imagine she's among your favorites, too. And after reading this you'll see that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Or the bacon grease doesn't fall far from the bacon, is more like it, though my mother-in-law has been known to eat a piece of fruit, whereas my husband has not. And don't let her fool you: This woman can cook both Southern delicacies such as Oklahoma Ham Loaf and haute cuisine. Oklahomans: Please don't get mad that I just excluded ham loaf from the haute cuisine category.]

In Praise of…..

It is with fear in my heart that I sit down to add my writing to the esteemed group who have been tapped to write guest posts for the “summer bl*g.” I love my daughter-in-law, and as much as I love her, I love her blog…the humor, the pictures, and the tasty recipes. In fact, it is the highlight of my day when she posts, and the cloud that covers the sun when she doesn’t. Her culinary friends and family are erudite and sophisticated in their cooking, eating, and conversations about food, and the idea that I need to match them…intimidating. So, methinks, what do I have that is unique? Immediately I knew. BACON FAT!

I grew up in Oklahoma. It is the land of fresh vegetables, cooked until the grayness appears, and fresh slaughtered meats, fried. There is no real way to cook without bacon fat if this is your point of origin. My grandparents, in the small Oklahoma town where they lived, often rushed to the aid of a family whose home had been “burned out.” As I think of it, I have no idea why so many houses burned. It was a very small town; how many houses could there have been, really? But, it seems they often did burn (perhaps owing to liquor, which was illegal and therefore plentiful), and the neighbors rallied to provide the necessities. Ubiquitous among the clothes, blankets, and furniture, was a Crisco can of bacon grease. This was when the can was metal and did not bear the marks of either butter flavor or “do not fill with hot liquid.” Truth was, if one was to cook in those parts, one could not without an adequate supply of bacon grease. So, this flavor pervades my youth….and truthfully, my early years of marriage. I am here today to bring to you the wonders of bacon grease. Let me list its uses:

• Rubbed on the outside of potato skins before baking, it imparts a wonderful flavor and crisp skin
• Green beans sautéed in bacon fat before parboiling, with a bit of sugar added—sublime
• Biscuits, dipped in liquid bacon fact before baking—heaven
• And the ultimate Southern delicacy...CHICKEN FRIED STEAK WITH CREAM GRAVY

(To those of you who have just turned away in disgust I say, “Ye of little faith.” That is also what they say in Oklahoma at “dinner on the grounds” of the local Methodist church, but that is another story for another day.)

Here is the recipe. You must follow it faithfully for the proper results, a mélange of crispy coating and creamy white sauce. In fancy restaurants they laud the meat used, but the truth is that it makes no difference what the meat is once you encase it with coating, fry it up, and cover it with a blanket of white. In my family, cube steaks were the meat of the day.

Season the meat well (no chicken or veggie substitutes allowed) with season-salt and pepper. Mix flour in a separate bowl with more salt and pepper. (When you consider the cholesterol, think nothing of the sodium.) In another bowl, mix several eggs with whole milk, quantities being commensurate with the amount of meat.

In a cast iron skillet of good size heat a generous amount of bacon fat, say halfway up the side of the pan. (Oh, please, do not whine to me about where you get that much bacon fat. If you are eating this, you are having bacon for breakfast every morning and pouring the fat into your own Crisco can.) The grease (not oil, grease) should be hot enough to start to sizzle when the meat enters it, but not so hot that it burns rather than cooks.

Author's note: If you think I am cooking this so I can take a picture to show you, you are out of your mind. If I make it, I eat it. Therefore, these must suffice.

Well-seasoned cast iron skillet

One of perhaps six packages of bacon you will need to produce the quantity of bacon fat necessary. Note, I have eaten some of it...and don’t touch my Crisco can!

Dip each piece of meat in the flour mixture, then egg mixture, then back into the flour. There is no shaking here, as you want a thick coating to absorb every delicious molecule of bacony goodness possible. Into the hot fat each piece goes, but do not crowd. The temperature must remain level, and the coating must remain surrounded by grease in order to achieve the perfect golden crust.

After all the meat has been fried, the gravy must be made. DO NOT SKIP THIS PART. Any fool can fry meat. Pour off all the bacon fat but 2 to 3 tablespoons. (You can save this delicious grease, made even tastier by the beef juices, for another round of steak or Southern fried chicken.) Add some of the seasoned flour, enough to make a roux. (If you do not know how much this is, you should not be making this.) Stir it around until thoroughly mixed and beginning to bubble. Slowly add whole milk, stirring constantly until it is a creamy consistency. Too much milk and you have “race-horse” gravy; too little milk and you have a thick paste. Let it bubble for a few minutes until the floury flavor is gone. Pepper well and pour over the meat upon serving. It is good accompanied by mashed potatoes, fresh spring onions, sliced tomatoes still warm from the garden, and the green beans I mentioned previously. If you must, some biscuits to soak up the extra gravy will be acceptable, though in my part of Oklahoma, Wonder bread would do.

That’s it. I need to go and take a statin now.

renaissance literature 101: pop quiz

Q: Would a berry by any other name taste as sweet?

Fig. 1

A. No. These may look good, but strawberries are the most delicious.

Fig. 2

For tomorrow: Compare strawberries to a summer's day. Hint: Summer's lease hath all too short a date, which is why we're now eating raspberries and blueberries.

Class dismissed.

dog days

It’s still hot. And I’m still not complaining. But I am moving very, very slowly. On Tuesday afternoon I walked a mile and a half to the auto mechanic’s to pick up our car. It was 100 degrees and the heat was viscous. Walking was like wading. After fifteen minutes I’d traveled only a few yards.

Hours later and a third of the way there I stopped at a corner store to cool off and buy a drink, but the store wasn’t air conditioned and there was a $5 minimum for debit card purchases, so I left my 99 cent bottle of water sweating on the counter. Back outside I contemplated hitchhiking, but the mere thought of extending my arm, let alone sticking up my thumb, was exhausting, so I carried on. Left foot. Right foot. L e f t . R i . . .

My brain, swollen with heat, throbbed against my skull. Sweat pooled at the front of my bra and tickled as it rolled down my back. There was a sharp little pain at my hip.

Zipper? Rough seam?

Bug! Caught in my waistband. Biting me. I pinched it dead through the fabric of my skirt, its carapace crunching between my fingertips. I considered crying. Too hot.

The last quarter mile before the garage was on a busy, shadeless road. Sun everywhere. The roar and exhaust of a passing bus sent me seeking refuge at the nearest business, a Christian bookstore. The interior was deliciously cool. I darted past the clerk and feigned browsing while the sweat turned to salt on my skin. 199 Promises of God; Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God; Eat the Cookie, Buy the Shoes: Giving Yourself Permission to Lighten Up; What Does God Expect of Us?

What does God expect of us? The clerk sidled up next to me and started asking questions of his own. Could he help me find something? Was I looking for anything in particular? Did I know the store took special orders? I was weak, vulnerable. No matter that his intentions were clearly to sell, not convert: One glass of ice water and I’d belong to Jesus.

Outside again, it was like I never left. The heat enveloped me, settling across my skin, filling every pore. I didn't have the will to go on, but I didn't have the will not to go on, either. WWJD?

On the corner of my mechanic’s lot is a tree, and I stopped in its shade to dig my keys from my purse. Opening the car door was like opening a preheated oven, a blast of burning air spilling forth. I drove with the windows down, nearly to my destination before the air blowing from the vents was no longer a searing desert wind. By the time I arrived at my friend Amy’s, my skin was slick and prickly, hair damp, skirt plastered to the backs of my legs. Inside her house I bogarted the chair in front of the fan and tilted my head forward to let the air oscillate across my neck. “I made cold foods,” Amy called from the kitchen. Chilled Thai Squash Soup. It was so good I gave myself to Jesus.



Naw. But I did have seconds, and made a batch of my own the next day. This is the perfect food for a hot summer evening: cool but a little spicy, deeply flavorful without being the least bit heavy. Slurpable. Refreshing. Delicious.

A few notes:

1. When I first tasted it I assumed the squash in the soup’s name was something autumnal, acorn or butternut maybe, but it’s made with “yellow crookneck squash.” Which is just your basic summer squash, the one that starts appearing this time of year, piled precariously next to its green doppelganger, zucchini.


2. The recipe here is more or less as it was published in Bon Appétit. Amy added sugar, so I added some, too, a scant teaspoon after the squash, and a little more to taste after I’d pureed the soup—the sugar isn't meant to sweeten, it should deepen. You'll need salt, too, though the amount will depend on your stock, your curry power, your taste buds, and whether you're trying to replace all the salt sweated from your body on that long-ass walk.

3. I’ve now eaten this with both nonfat yogurt and non-nonfat crème fraîche, both of which were scrumptious, and the cilantro shouldn’t be skipped, either.

Chilled Thai Squash Soup
From Bon Appétit
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cups chopped onions
2 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon Thai red curry paste
1 teaspoon curry powder


1 pound yellow crookneck squash, trimmed, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 cups (or more) broth
1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
Sugar, salt, & pepper to taste
Plain nonfat yogurt
Chopped fresh cilantro

1. Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions and sauté until soft and golden, about 5 minutes. Add garlic; stir 1 minute. Add curry paste and curry powder; stir 20 seconds. Add squash and sauté 1 minute. Stir in 2 cups broth and coconut milk and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium and add teaspoon of sugar. Boil gently until squash is soft, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool slightly.

2. Working in batches, puree soup in blender until smooth. Season with salt and pepper and more sugar to taste. Transfer soup to a bowl and chill until cold, at least 2 hours. Thin with more broth, if desired.

3. Ladle soup into bowls. Spoon dollop of yogurt into center of soup in each bowl. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro and serve.

hot

This is not a complaint: It is hot. Hotter than hell. Hotter than a $2 pistol on the Fourth of July. Hotter than a June bride in a featherbed. Hotter than Georgia asphalt. Hotter than high noon in Death Valley. Hotter than...oh, you get the point.

Tonight after work:


Followed by a creemee.

whoopie!

It was a banner weekend, my friends, complete with swimming, sailing, and reading for hours in a porch swing. Dark & Stormies were consumed. Chester learned to swim (I catch myself saying that we taught Chester to swim, as if we had anything more to do with it than throwing the ball into the lake). Did I mention there were homemade whoopie pies? Happy Fourth of July to me.


I had even less to do with the making of those whoopie pies [thanks, T&I] than I did with teaching that puppy to swim, but I did find out where the recipe came from. Happy Fourth of July to you.

guest post: my greek stepmother

[This is the first of a few guests posts you'll be seeing over the coming months, this one from my Greek stepmother, one of the best cooks I know.]

I’ve been fixated on sour cherries since last year when some friends told me they make the most delicious cobbler ever. I scored two quarts at a farmers market, baked that cobbler, and was in love. But when I returned for more, their short (two weeks? two days?) season was over.

This summer, when I spied trees laden with tart cherries at a local farm, I bought all the farm stand would sell me (believe it or not, there was a waiting list for those cherries)


and spent the next 24 hours pitting, cooking, and freezing the little darlings (frozen, pitted cherries are nearly as delicious as fresh), in hopes that maybe, possibly, this year I will eat my fill.

The chore was not easy. I mean, it’s not like lifting heavy rocks, but it still left me with a stiff back and neck. Each one of those soft, tiny orbs needed to be stemmed and the pit removed, preferably without damaging the fruit’s fragile shape. This job requires patience, at least three back-to-back podcasts of This American Life, and a superior ability to multitask so that when your granddog escapes out the front door midway through the process you can launch a search party (I’m looking at you, Chester Arthur Miller).


I acknowledge that I am one of those people who enjoys the obscure, the hard-to-get, the fleeting. That tiny character flaw has brought me more trouble more often than I would like to (or will) admit.

Sour cherries, however, are completely worth it.

As a reward for pitting all those cherries, I treated myself to a Sour Cherry Gin Muddler, courtesy of last week’s NYTimes.


Then I made Sour Cherry Clafoutis, a light, airy dessert that was perfectly complemented by the presence of tart cherries—delicious.

By the time you read this, the ridiculously short, fragile sour cherry season will probably be over, and I will be harvesting my freezer to try Claudia Roden’s Little Meatballs With Cherries.

Just to be completely clear, my freezer is chained and locked.

Note: I used Montmorency cherries, a variety of tart cherry that is bright red with clear juice; the other type is Morello, which are purple with dark, staining juice and more sour. Both are delicious and will work in these recipes; just wear a rubber apron when you pit the Morellos.

Sour Cherry Gin Muddler
From Melissa Clark at the New York Times, who calls this a cross between Kat Kinsman’s sour cherry cocktail and a classic aviation cocktail. I call it a delicious way to drink gin, which, to be completely honest, is perfect straight from the bottle.

1. Place three pitted sour cherries and a thin lemon slice in the bottom of a rocks glass. Add half a teaspoon or so of sugar and muddle until the cherries are smashed up but not pureed.

2. Pack the glass with ice and top with gin. Float a teaspoon or two of maraschino liqueur on top (or the juice from a jar of maraschino cherries, assuming you have high-quality ones without a bunch of dye and additives; which of course you do, if, like me, Manhattans are your winter drink of choice.)

Sour Cherry Clafoutis
From Gourmet Magazine, May 2008, created by Dana Cree of Veil, in Seattle

5 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup Amaretto
½ cup flour, sifted
½ teaspoon salt
3 egg whites
¼ cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
About 2 pounds (1½–2 quarts) fresh sour cherries, stemmed, and pitted

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly butter a large baking pan (round is nice if you have one) and cover the bottom with cherries.

2. With a stand or hand mixer (I used a stand mixer, which was quick and easy), whip the egg yolks and sugar to a thick pale ribbon. Whisk in Amaretto until combined. Fold in the flour and salt. Set aside.

3. Whip the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Add the sugar and continue whipping until stiff and glossy. (I did this first because I was too lazy to wash the egg yolks off the beater, but if you, too, are lazy, proceed quickly with the rest of the whipping so it doesn’t sit around very long.)

4. Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks.

5. Fold the cream into the yolk mixture in two batches. Fold the meringue into the batter in two batches.

6. Cover the cherries with clafoutis batter, pressing slightly as you spread and encouraging the batter to fill any crevices between the fruit. Bake 20–25 minutes (more or less, depending on the size of the pan), until golden brown and set. Serve immediately (best) with vanilla ice cream, or even cold, which is surprisingly good as well.


[Hello, bitches, it's me again, here to let you know that I was lucky enough to both taste the clafoutis hot out of the oven and eat a leftover piece cold the next day. For breakfast, if you must know. I highly recommend it either way. Or even better, both.]