Years later, I learned that Julia Child called it creme caramel and in Mexico and Spain it was called flan. No matter the name, the process is the same. Here’s how I made enough for four people:

Caramel Custard

I caramelized two thirds of a cup of sugar, dissolved in half a cup of water, in a small saucepan over medium heat. When it had become a golden amber liquid, I poured it into four custard cups.

I used a whisk to combine three whole eggs, three egg yolks and half a cup of sugar. When the mixture was light and foamy, I added two and a half cups of whole milk and a teaspoon of vanilla extract and continued whisking until the mixture was well combined.

I poured the mixture through a fine mesh sieve into the caramel lined cups, put the cups into a baking dish, poured enough boiling water in the baking dish to come up half way on the custard cups and baked the custard in a 325º oven. The custard was cooked in for forty-five minutes when the center was firm but still a bit wobbly. I cooled the custard on the counter for half an hour before I put it in the fridge.

I chilled the custard for three hours before serving. To remove the custard from the cups,  I ran a knife around the edge of the custard, topped the cup with an inverted shallow bowl and tipped it out. While the custard baked and cooled, the caramelized sugar in the bottom of each cup was transformed into a sauce that made a lovely pool of gold in the bottom of each bowl.Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Flowers for my Bubba

It was the grandmothers, the Babas, the Babcias and the Bubbas, who came to Pittsburgh from Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Ukraine, who were responsible for the presence of this favorite East European dairy product in nearly every kitchen in my childhood.

When is the last time you bought a quart of buttermilk? Is it the sour taste, the curdled smear that covers the inside of the glass as you sip it or the fear of drinking spoiled milk that turns you away? Buttermilk is a source of potassium, vitamin B12, calcium and phosphorus, is easier to digest than regular milk and has a quarter of the amount of fat of whole milk. I use it in marinades because the lactic acid in it is a tenderizer. It is the glue that holds the seasoned flour on chicken when I make Southern fried chicken, and buttermilk pancakes and biscuits fly off our breakfast table. If none of this convinces you to pick up a quart of buttermilk at the market, would the promise of cool, low fat, fruit sherbets do the trick?

Whether making ice cream, sherbet or sorbet, the process is the same. I begin with a base, for ice cream it’s a custard of heavy cream and eggs, for sherbet it is milk or buttermilk and for sorbet it is fruit juice or fruit purée combined with water. I add a sweetener to the base and flavoring like vanilla, chocolate or spices. Sweetened pieces of fruit, chocolate bits or chopped nuts are not added until the mixture is semi frozen. Air is the crucial and final ingredient. Without it, I would end up with a rock hard, flavored block of ice. When I’m freezing sherbet in a shallow pan, I use a fork to break up the ice crystals every thirty minutes as the base freezes. If I have forgotten, I used a blender to break up the icy chunks. My ice cream maker freezes and aerates at the same time. The first time I made pineapple sherbet I had two reasons, I was curious about how it would taste and even more curious about whether I could trick my sister into eating buttermilk. Here’s how I made it:

Pineapple Buttermilk Sherbet

I combined two cups of cold buttermilk with two thirds of a cup of sugar and stirred until the sugar was dissolved. I added one cup of drained, crushed pineapple, poured the mixture into a shallow metal cake pan, put the pan in the freezer and stirred it every half hour. In three hours it was ready to serve. My sister liked it, I didn’t mention buttermilk and she asked for a second serving.

He explained that most mornings, he and his father Andrea Borderi, the man with the blue silk tie, the sunny smile and the big knife, made ricotta and mozzarella.

I hesitated for less than a minute before I asked if I could watch the next time they made cheese. He frowned, shook his head and said “No,” and then with a smile he said, “Ma (but), you can come and work if you come at seven on lunedi.” I said yes, of course, I would come. A quick check in the Italian/English dictionary confirmed that I had a date for Monday morning at seven.

I started the day by watching the sunrise over the sea. The colors would have inspired Maxfield Parish. Then, Charles and I had to hurry across the empty Piazza Duomo to the cheese shop. We were greeted with smiles, and with a sweep of his arm, Andre invited us into his kitchen. He quickly looped an apron over my head and tied it around my waist. Charles stepped back from the action, camera poised so as not to miss a shot. I washed my hands and was ready to work.

My first task was to help with the caldron of ricotta. We used ladles to skim the warm curds into slotted, one liter, plastic containers that were then put on trays. When full, the trays were put into the refrigerator. When ricotta is sold, the slotted container is put into a double plastic bag and the whey continues to drain from the curd making it thicker each day until it has all been eaten.

The curds for the mozzarella had been started before we arrived. Whole milk and rennet had been mixed in a huge stainless steel pot and then heated slowly until it reached 32 degrees centigrade or 88 degrees Fahrenheit. It took about 15 minutes for the curd to form. The curd was in a bucket, a dense mass covered with whey. It was large as a watermelon with texture similar to raw liver. Andrea handed me a knife with a blade that was at least two feet long. To cut the curd, I held the knife with its blunt tip resting on bottom of the pail and pulled the blade through the curd again and again. When it had been to cut it into irregular pieces that were about the size of walnuts, it was drained and put into a large basin.

Andrea asked me to knead ottocento (800) grams of sea salt into it.

When he decided that it had been sufficiently kneaded, the curds were rinsed with  water until his taste test determined that enough salt had been washed away.

The next step involved stretching and shaping. The curd was covered with very, hot water and I was given a three-foot long wooden tool. I mistakenly thought that what looked like the handle was a handle.

After Andrea turned it around, he placed my hands on it, put is hands over mine and together we stretched and squeeze the curd until “Ecco!” The curd had become stringy, tender, fresh mozzarella.

With amazing speed and skill Andrea stretched, cut and braided cheese to form ten braided loaves called treccia. It would be smoked later that morning and offered for sale as affumicata the following day.

Then he pulled a coconut-sized piece of cheese from the mass still in the basin and indicated that I should flatten it into a disc as thin as I could manage. My memory of Lucy and Ethel trying to twirl pizza dough in the air provided the restraint that kept me from trying to do the same thing with this piece of cheese.

I patted, poked and pulled it until Andrea indicated with a quick nod that it was a good size.

I followed him and the cheese to the large cutting board where he handed me two tomatoes, a handful of mixed olives, a few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley and a knife longer than my arm. He covered the cheese disc with two thin slices of ham, used signs and smiles to indicate that I should cut the tomatoes, seed and chop the olives, chop the parsley and put it all on top of the ham.

When I had finished, he splashed it with olive oil, and it took four hands, his and mine, to lift the cheese and its toppings onto a large piece of foil. The last step was for me to tightly roll the cheese into a cylinder with the ham and vegetables inside. That done, he put the cheese roll in a bag and gave it to me.

I shared it and the story of its creation with two new friends who came to our first dinner party in Sicily.

If you would like to recreate the tastes without the travel you could make a mozzarella torte by layering the freshest mozzarella you can find, with the tastiest bits of vegetable and/or cured meat you can imagine, in a straight-sided bowl. Covered, weighed down and chilled it will be perfect served with a smile and a toast to Andrea, THE premier cheese artisan of Siracusa.

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The only role an animal has in my diet is to provide milk that is the decorative element that tops  my cappuccino.

Or the liquid that is magically transformed into an extraordinary variety of fresh and aged cheeses.

I remembered hearing about using ricotta to make a cheese burger and so decided to give it a try.  It was quite simple to do. I put the usual burger toppers, lettuce and tomato, under it  added a few olives, and skipped the sesame seed roll and mayo.  Here’s how I did it:

Ricotta Burger – a real cheese burger!

I began by putting two cups of fresh, whole milk ricotta into a mesh strainer  lined with two layers of white paper towel to drain. Then I diced half an onion and sauteed it in olive oil until it was soft and began to brown.

I put the drained ricotta into a bowl and added one beaten egg, half a cup of bread crumbs, a pinch or oregano, a pinch of dried red pepper flakes and a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley. I formed the mixture into six small patties and fried them in two tablespoons of olive oil until they were brown.

I made a salad of lettuce, tomato, cucmber and a few olives, put the cheese burgers on top and lunch was ready.

Ricotta Burger List

• onion
• olive oil
• one egg
• bread crumbs
• oregano
• dried red pepper flakes
• flat leaf parsley
• lettuce
• tomato
• cucmber
• olives

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At the moment — words fail me.

After a good sleep and with the scent of fresh strawberries in the air, I made a strawberry sandwich for breakfast.

Strawberry Sandwich

I toasted thin slices of Red Hen Four Grain Three Seed bread, smeared it with a thin layer of cream cheese, topped with sliced strawberries and drizzled on a bit of local honey. Divine!

One of the easiest desserts I know is  Panna cotta with strawberries, fresh, simple and fast.

Here’s how I made it:
Panna Cotta

Begin by softening one packet of unflavored gelatin by sprinkling it into three tablespoons of cold water in a small bowl. Avoid lumps by not stirring until the gelatin is soft and has absorbed the water.

Combine two tablespoons of sugar with a quarter of a cup of milk or cream, (I use raw, whole milk from the farmers’ market), and heat gently, (about twenty seconds in the microwave), stirring until the sugar is dissolved,

Add the softened gelatin, stir until it is dissolved. You should not be able to see or feel any bits of gelatin. If necessary, reheat for ten seconds more to melt the gelatin. I use a one pint, microwave safe, measuring cup but a small sauce pan over low heat will also work.

Add milk to make two cups, stir in one teaspoon of vanilla and pour into four, half cup ramekins. Chill til set.

Top with fresh strawberries sauce made by gently mashing berries sweetened to taste with the sweetener of your choice, i.e. sugar, honey, maple sugar.

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Panna Cotta List

• 1 packet unflavored gelatin
• 2 T  sugar
• 2 c milk
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 pint strawberries
• sweetener of  choice, i.e. sugar, honey, maple sugar

Six Variations – beginning in the upper left, nasturtium petals gave a peppery punch, rose petals added a sweet scent and flavor, chive flowers are pretty but the onion flavor is too strong; bottom row – chopped dried cranberries, (my favorite because they add texture, a sweet/tart flavor and good color), chopped walnuts worked well, and the last, mint leaves gave a fresh scent but the texture of the leaf wasn’t good with the softness of the cheese, (next time, I’ll roll the cheese in minced mint leaves).

Dried apricots, currents, minced fresh mint or basil, chopped olives, diced sundried tomatoes are other possibilities.

Small rounds of yogurt cheese combined with dried fruit, chopped nuts or minced herbs served with crackers make a pretty and interesting appetizer served with a glass of wine.

Here’s how I made the cheese.

Yogurt Cheese

To drain the yogurt, I put three cups of yogurt in a ceramic colander lined with soft cloth napkin and put the collander into a bowl to collect the whey. Forty eight hours later, I had nineteen ounces of whey and five ounces of thick, creamy yogurt cheese.

The cheese is fairly bland with a bit more tang than cream cheese, a perfect foil for flavor enhancement.

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A bowl of yogurt topped with warm plums would be delicious and pretty. Here’ how I did it.

Stewed Plums

I brought eight, halved and pitted, red plums combined with couple of tablespoons of water to a boil, then reduced the heat and stirred gently. When the plums became a lumpy, brilliant magenta sauce, I turned off the heat and added sugar to taste. Plums vary in sweetness, this batch needed nearly three tablespoons of sugar.

A bowl of yogurt topped with a generous serving of the still warm plums. Gorgeous, a blues-chasing breakfast.

a note about the painting -The original is twenty three inches square with one of my signature painted borders. This watercolor painting was licensed for use on dessert plates by a dinnerware manufacturer.

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Stewed Plums List

• 8 red plums
• sugar to taste
• yogurt

Yogurt is extraordinarily simple to make.  Here’s how I made it.The only special equipment needed is an instant read thermometer. Milk is transformed into yogurt by bacteria fermentation.  A tablespoon of plain yogurt, either homemade or store bought, is the source of Lactobacillus, called the ‘starter’.

Yogurt

Begin with a quart of milk – raw, pasteurized, full fat, skim, or 2% fat will all work. Heat the milk to 180 degrees to get rid of any uninvited bacteria. In my microwave it takes about four minutes. Boiled milk makes a mess so I keep a close eye and check the temperature every minute.  Cool to 105 degrees.

Stir in one tablespoon room temperature yogurt. Mix well and pour mixture into individual jars or into one large container. Cover containers and place in the ‘warm environment’. I use a small cooler with a tea towel in the bottom, two large tin cans filled with hot tap provide the necessary warmth.  An oven can also be heated with hot water.

Fermentation takes a between four and seven hours in a warm, between 100 and 106 degrees, environment. Check the consistency of the yogurt and the temperature of the ‘environment’ every hour. If it cools to below 100 degrees reheat hot water in the tins. Yogurt is ready when it has reached the consistency of custard.

This recipe makes a quart of yogurt that will fill four eight ounce canning jars. Refrigerated, the yogurt will last til the Farmer’s Market next Saturday. Remember to save a tablespoon of yogurt to use as the starter for next weeks batch.

More ‘starter’ will neither speed the process nor make better yogurt. Too much ‘starter’ results in sour and watery yogurt.

Plain yogurt is great on its own, or can be dressed up with the addition of fresh fruit or berries. Vermont maple syrup on top is heavenly.

Yogurt cheese is a post for another day.

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I used my KitchenAid mixer to whip the cream until the butter was massed on the blade leaving a pool of milky buttermilk in the bottom of the bowl.