Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, the day that many Americans have been anticipating since this time last year. For most Americans, Super Bowl Sunday is celebrated with an all day party and an unending spread of finger food.

Pre-game activities begin after lunch, the game, liberally dotted with commercials, starts at six, is interrupted by the half-time show, then more of the game, and finally the wrap-up. It’s no wonder that most hotels offering Super Bowl packages have a four-day minimum stay – it must take at least two days to recover.

I’m not a football fan. My mind wanders with the interminable delays. I worry about mortal injuries to the referees and camera operators when I see enormous bodies, protected by even more enormous plastic helmets and shoulder pads flying through the air and landing in heaps. I’ve been told that the creative commercials that debut on Super Bowl Sunday are enough reason to watch but I’d rather be putting finishing touches on Super Bowls, Super Platters and Super Sweets to sustain Super Friends who are eating and drinking, cheering and booing in front of the television.

One Super Bowl party website suggested, “serve everyone’s favorite high fat, finger-licking snack foods. After all, your television set is the focal point, not the food.” (Those are fighting words to a cook.) Another site suggested serving “salami, pepperoni, cheese whiz, chips and dips, beer and hot sauce, zingers like salami & cheese stuffed pepperochini.” (I wonder if beer and hot sauce is new mixed drink?) Tailgate classics like Buffalo wings, chili, and layered dips are all possibilities, but I want Super Food, healthy food that is not fussy to prepare and has enough flavor to be a bit of a distraction from the game.

Chickpeas and chickpea flour, also called besan and gram flour, are on the Super Food team I’m inviting to be part of my Super Bowl menu. They taste good and are an excellent source of protein, fiber, iron, potassium and B vitamins. It takes only a minute to make the batter for Besan flatbread that can be served either hot from the oven or at room temperature. It meets my requirements for a super finger food.

Hummus, a party regular at my house, is also a Super Snack. This blend of ancient ingredients – chickpeas, sesame seeds, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil is readily available at the market but when made at home it is absolutely fresh, with a minimum number of ingredients and is preservative free. When combined with warm pita bread, it is a complete protein that will build muscles so necessary for passing and blocking on the gridiron. (Not bad for a non-sports writer!) Best of all, homemade hummus costs half as much and is at least twice as good as store bought. I took a bowl of hummus, surrounded with carrot sticks to a potluck lunch last Sunday and it disappeared before the chocolate chip cookies.

Here’s how I made Besan Flat Bread and Hummus: … read more

Last December, after I had mailed out the final gift boxes of cookies to friends, I realized that I had forgotten to save cookies to serve to Christmas Eve visitors and any of Santa’s helpers who might stop by.

Out of time, frosting and cookie-baking energy, I wondered if the adage, “less is more” was true and then I remembered my breakfast in bed at the Colony Club twenty years earlier.

The Colony Club, established in 1902, was the first social club for women in New York City. It is an elegant and very private club with members whose last names range from Astor to Whitney. I spent a weekend there as the guest of my friend Jean. She was my guide in the culinary world and to the rarified dining of the Colony Club. As we planned my trip to New York, she took me under her wing and insisted that my day begin with “perfect Colony Club cinnamon toast” served on a tray in my bedroom. Perfect cinnamon toast? I had my doubts but Jean was a Manhattan matron with a sophisticated palate who was not to be denied. She ordered my breakfast, it was perfect and I’ve never thought of cinnamon toast in the same way since. Inspired by that memory I decided that Colony Club Cinnamon toast would be perfect Christmas Eve treat. Here’s how I made it: … read more

Lynda came yesterday afternoon so that we could hear Judith Jones speak about her new book in Norwich, Vermont.

Judith Jones was Julia Childs’ editor and she was talking about her new book, The Pleasures of Cooking for One. I enjoyed her earlier book, The Tenth Muse and look forward to learning from her new book.

I was delighted that Lynda spent the night and that we had time to play today before she returned to her home and husband in the Northeast Kingdom. Breakfast this morning was simple, we sat in the sun and had pears and clementines, tea, English muffins, homemade marmalade and fig jam.

I made the English muffins yesterday afternoon while Lynda was traveling on the interstate. Like so many other things, homemade English muffins are so much better when you can pronounce all the ingredients used to make them and count the ingredients on one hand and a finger if you count water.

Here’s how I did it:

… read more

Halloween is a holiday when imagination runs wild. Whether you are going to a party or a parade, this is the holiday to join the masquerade.

The possibilities are endless – you can present yourself as a superhero or a world leader, a puppy or a princess, a vampire or a bunny rabbit.Halloween treats are everywhere, free when you call out “Trick or Treat” at the home of a friendly neighbor.

Thoughts of Halloween disguises and Halloween treats got me to wondering. Could I disguise an often overlooked and sometimes disparaged vegetable, rich in vitamins and minerals and low in calories, in a Halloween treat?

I was thinking about parsnips. To be honest, I have never been a parsnip fan; I’ve cooked them, served them and composted them, generally in that order. My past attempts have been dry, woody, insipid or simply uninspiring.

Time to let my imagination run wild, time to dress up a parsnip as a sweet treat. Grated parsnip, combined with nuts, dried fruit, and sugar, held together with flour and egg, fluffed up with baking powder and oil, disguised in a silver fluted skirt – Say Boo! The costumed parsnip was on its way to the Halloween party. Here’s how I did it. … read more

When the ingredients list on the side of the box of any prepared food is longer than a centimeter (half an inch) I don’t buy it. This pronouncement was the beginning of a grocery store game for my sons when they were too young to “sound out” words like disodium inosinate or monoglycerides. Rather than dealing with arbitrary decisions like, “No,” imposed by a tyrant, (me), the ingredients list was undeniable. My sons are grown now and my grandchildren play the game and I still check the length of ingredients lists.

The cracker aisle at the market is a special challenge. The ingredients list for simple, no frills saltine crackers is longer than three centimeters (one inch) and includes partially hydrogenated cotton seed oil and high fructose corn syrup. Not what I want to serve with soup made with carrots, onions and dill from my garden and milk from a nearby dairy.

According to the Farmers’ Almanac, hardtack, the predecessor to crackers, originated in New England in the 18^th century. It is a simple cracker made from flour and water. Baked hard and dry and stored properly, it lasts forever, or at least long enough to be a dietary mainstay on long sea voyages.

Legend has it that crackers were the creation of Massachusetts’s baker, Josiah Bent. He combined a common kitchen mishap, over-baking a batch of biscuits, with Yankee ingenuity.  Inspired by the sound they made when chewed, he introduced the crisp biscuit as a cracker.  More than two hundred years later, the G. H. Bent Company in Milton, Massachusetts is still baking hard tack with just two ingredients, wheat flour and water.

Alas, the cracker has changed radically since it simple beginnings. There are whole grain, gluten free, low fat, no fat, salt free, cheese, herb, poppy seed, sesame seed, naturally flavored, and artificially flavored crackers waiting in the cracker aisle hoping for a ride in your shopping trolly.

You can turn away from the fancy boxes and follow my centimeter rule if you make crackers rather than buy crackers made by faraway food corporations. You can say no to crackers shipped hundreds of miles, in excessive packaging, supplemented with un-pronounceable ingredients and preservatives and sold at prices that rival designer chocolates. Homemade crackers are delicious, simple to make, and won’t make a shocking dent in your food budget.

Crackers can be seasoned and shaped to suit the occasion. Served with local cheese they are an elegant snack. Homemade crackers spread with butter and jam will be welcomed with a smile. Rye cheese sticks and a glass of wine say welcome to friends. I have two cracker recipes that I modify to suit my needs. Here’s how I do it. … read more

Gossip has it that Peter Peter the pumpkin eater, and his wife were having domestic difficulties.

Perhaps Mrs. Peter would have been happier if Mr. Peter had been willing to expand his diet to include other squash rather than sticking to the somewhat dry, perhaps a bit boring, pumpkin. Don’t get me wrong. Pumpkins have an interesting past, after all Cinderella would have had to walk to the ball if there hadn’t been a pumpkin in her kitchen.

Pumpkins, like all winter squash, grow in the summer and are harvested when the fruit and seeds have matured fully and the skin has hardened into a tough rind. Summer squash is in the market all winter and winter squash is available in the late summer, fall and winter. It might be less confusing if winter squash were called Good Keeper Squash and summer squash were called Eat Soon Squash.

The assortment of Good Keeper Squash at the farmers’ market this week included varieties I’d never cooked. I bought carnival, acorn, buttercup, butternut, and Hubbard squash. The bag weighted twenty-three pounds!  That’s a lot of squash – dinner party time! I invited friends to a squash sampling dinner party, and began to consider how to include five varieties of squash in one meal. I set guidelines – there would be no baked or mashed squash topped with maple syrup, brown sugar and/or marshmallows. I decided to roast a pork loin to accompany the squash. With others bringing an appetizer, a salad and a dessert I had four hours to cook. Luckily, my range has two ovens.

Dinner was a success, a autumn harvest meal with friends and conversation interspersed with irreverent jokes including one whose punch line was “They’ll call us vegetables.” It’s not a stretch to say that each of our friends is a Good Keeper.

Here’s how I did it: … read more