It has been too rainy for tomatoes and potatoes to thrive but the patty pan squash plant in my garden has been working hard to keep my spirit up.

It is often used as a “pan for baking a patty” therefore the name – patty pan. It is also called sunburst squash, scaloppini, button squash or patisson.

The feminine name and demure behavior of my plant cause me to think of it as a she.  Certainly less insistent than her Italian cousin zucchini, she doesn’t overrun other plants with exuberant vines or produce so many squash that I have to resort to late night squash deliveries to unsuspecting neighbors. Blossoms with long stems, (the male flowers), are plentiful and a tasty treat, either as an addition to an omelet or stuffed, battered and fried to be served as an appetizer.

Small squash, the size of quail eggs, are lovely roasted with potatoes, carrots, oil and garlic.  Medium squash, up to six inches in diameter, blanched in boiling water for five minutes, stuffed with a mixture of sauteed vegetables and cooked rice, topped with cheese or seasoned breadcrumbs and baked, are a perfect vegetarian main course.

Patty pan squash larger than six inches star in my favorite carrotless carrot cake.

note: If you think patty pan squash is a strange ingredient in a cake, take a look at this recipe on my friend Drick’s blog by clicking here.  I’m amazed!

Here’s how I did it. … read more

Seeing Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in Julie & Julia reminded me of food before Julia Child and how it all changed when Julia came into my kitchen.

Before Julia, salad was a wedge of iceberg lettuce topped with bright orange salad dressing poured on top. Cakes, either chocolate, yellow, or spice came as a mix. Mayonnaise was not something one ‘made’. Onion soup was a brown powder to be mixed with sour cream as a dip for potato chips. Cheese was American, Swiss or cheddar. Seasoning consisted of salt and pepper and perhaps a decorative sprig of curly parsley that was pushed to one side before whatever it was decorating was eaten. Shallots, capers, garlic, leeks, fresh herbs, and olive oil were exotic ingredients found in foreign kitchens.

In 1967, newly married and living across the road from The French Market, in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC, I considered lunch from the French Market  a treat. It might be a sandwich on a crusty baguette with rare roast beef, salami, brie, or pate, with butter, or Dijon mustard. Some days I chose an assortment of salads – mushrooms a la Grecque, carrots in mustard vinaigrette with fresh dill, marinated green beans with olives, and potato salad in lemon vinaigrette. I was hooked.

I loved the scent of garlic, lemon rind and parsley that the market’s butcher minced for the lamb roasts he skillfully turned into perfect replicas of duck decoys that waited in the meat case until clever cooks roasted and served them.

Another man prepared escargot. He pushed cooked snails into shells and then filled them with a mixture of sweet butter, garlic, parsley, and ground almonds. I knew I was a foodie, an term that did not exist in 1967, when I bought two metal snail pans, two small forks, and two snail holders, metal tools that looked like eyelash curlers gone wrong. Snails were easier than macaroni and cheese.

Other than snails, I cooked simple dinners, familiar fare – pork or lamb chops, hamburgers, or chicken breasts, boiled, baked or mashed potatoes and frozen corn or green beans. The only cook book I owned was a paperback called Cook Book.

Then, on September 27th, 1967 Julie Child came into my kitchen when a friend gave me Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Until that moment, I hadn’t occurred to me that I could cook the sort of food that came from the French Market. I began reading and discovered that I had already met the first requirement – I was indeed “servantless”.

I read ‘Mastering’ as if it were a novel, struggling with the weirdness of spelling and pronouncing French words such as pâte à choux and crème pàtissèrie. I discovered that vegetables could be carefully cooked, and sauced, and read about complex desserts with amazing names.

I decided that bifteck hachè à la Lyonnaise would be my first Julia dinner. Yes, I was feeling bold, but after all, its English subtitle was Ground Beef with Onions and Herbs. French hamburgers!

Here’s how I did it. … read more

Some days, nothing works. This is a perfectly normal watercolor painting of a basket of blueberries. When I painted it, and when I scanned it, the basket was shades of yellow and brown and the berries were BLUE. Somehow the upload went wrong, a promise of things to come.

When friends come for a visit and spend the night breakfast often goes on for an hour or two. We start with cups of tea and coffee, sharing the paper and considering how to spend the day. Breakfast is a cooperative affair, I cook, volunteers set the table and pour the juice, and conversation begins in earnest.

Blueberries are ripe for the picking, and last Sunday was a perfect day to find a pick-your-own blueberry patch.

Summer has arrived in Vermont. It’s 83 degrees in the shade. At the farmers’ market, I saw the biggest Spanish onion I have ever seen. After the farmer assured me that no steroids had been used, she went on to say that the onions were sweet and mild. I thought, “Perfect for gazpacho,” that wonderful raw, Spanish soup served cold. Plans for dinner came together quickly, along with the tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers I needed for the soup I chose three curried vegetable samosas from the “Taste of Africa” booth and headed home.

Although many cooks use a food processor or blender to make a uniform soup I like the taste and appearance of hand cut vegetables. Here’s how I did it: … read more