Second because there are free prints in this post that you can download and print as a little gift from my studio to you; and the third because this is still a list of my favorite things.

This is the time of year for lists, not shopping lists, but lists of virtually everything else – lists of the most important world events, top fashion trends of the year, the biggest storms, the sexiest man, the best movies, the most popular celebrities, the most reviled despots, the biggest disasters, the best selling books, and even a list of  top time-wasters.

Print Winter Tree

With these lists as inspiration, I’ve compiled my top ten list of food favorites for 2010, and in a nod to Mr. Letterman, they are listed in reverse order of delight. To celebrate the New Year, I’ve created four prints that celebrate the seasons of the year. They can be downloaded and printed by clicking on the links below each image.

#10 Butter Poached Rhubarb – Combining the best of Julia Child, butter, and the best of James Beard, cream, I melted a stick of butter in a skillet, sprinkled in one cup of granulated sugar and cooked it for about five minutes. When the sugar had begun to caramelize and turned a light brown, I added four cups of rhubarb, cut in two inch slices, shook the pan vigorously to coat the rhubarb and cooked it until it was starting to fall apart. I took the pan off the heat, stirred in two tablespoons of dark rum, and transferred the rhubarb to a bowl set in an ice bath to stop the cooking. Topped with List Entry #4, whipped, it made a gorgeous dessert. This would be closer to #1 if fresh rhubarb were available from my garden year round and if this recipe were not loaded with sugar, butter and cream.

#9 Carrots – I’ve been eating lots of carrots this year, in soups, salads, in fritters, cakes and muffins. Organic carrots, scrubbed and slow roasted with salt, pepper and olive oil complement most any meal. Any leftovers can be mashed with a bit of mayo and garlic and spread on toast for lunch or a rustic hors d’oeuvre.

Print Spring Tree

#8 Cappuccino – Alas, this is one thing on my list that I don’t make in my kitchen; but, the adventure of searching for a café and finding a perfect cappuccino with just the right amount of foamy milk on top merits a place on my list.

#7 Recipe Police – When I wrote about the absence of fish in my pot of chowder I boldly proclaimed that the recipe police would not come to my kitchen to give me a ticket. Little did I know that a Recipe Policeman, in the form of a phone call from an anonymous reader, would phone me and issue a warning that I had neglected to add thyme to the pot. I got away with a warning but I have been careful to add thyme to chowder since then.

#6 Pasta with Raisins and Pine Nuts – So simple, so quick, so delicious! While I waited for the pasta water to come to a boil, I sauteed one clove of garlic in a large frying pan with one tablespoon of unsalted butter and one tablespoon of olive oil. When the garlic had softened but not browned, I added a quarter of a cup of pine nuts. When the nuts where toasted, and the pasta was al dente, I drained the pasta, reserved a quarter of a cup of pasta water, added the pasta, generous handfuls of chopped flat leaf parsley and raisins, and a splash of the pasta water to the pan. I topped the pasta with the mere suggestion of ground cinnamon. Finito!

#5 Chickpea Flour – I discovered that I could make a crisp flatbread by baking in a 450º oven a batter of one cup of chickpea flour, one and a half cups of water and a teaspoon of salt in a cast iron skillet with three tablespoons of oil. Seasoned with salt and a bit of curry powder, an ho-hum soup and toast dinner was transformed into a praise-worthy meal.

Print Summer Tree

#4 Heavy Cream – My favorite comes from local dairies and is not ultra-pasteurized. I like it on oatmeal with brown sugar, whipped, with no sugar added, as frosting on deep, dark, moist chocolate cake, and as a cold topper for broiled apricots, (a treat I learned from my dear friend Didi).

#3 The Open Air Market in Ortigia, Sicily – Chatting with Angelo Cappucio about fish for dinner, choosing blood oranges, smelling the smoky roasted artichokes, sampling wild strawberries, olives, salami and chocolate from Modica is the best way to figure out “What’s for dinner?”

#2 Making Cheese in Sicily – Near the top of my list is the morning I spent in the cheese shop in Ortigia, making cheese with Andrea Borderi. I was welcomed into the small kitchen in the back of the shop, wrapped in an apron and put to work. I learned how to cut, ladle and knead curds as we made ricotta and mozzarella. I make a simple breakfast of a bowl of ricotta cheese, topped with a drizzle of Vermont honey and slices of orange when I’m wishing I were in Sicily.

Print Fall Tree

#1 Contact from Friends – I am cheered and delighted when I hear from friends, whether old or new, by email, telephone and even snail mail. It doesn’t matter if the message is lavish praise, a complaint, or a correction – you are there, reading what I write, cooking what I cook, improvising, improving recipes and sharing your discoveries. You bring me joy. Thank you and please stay in touch.

The turkey carcass was precariously perched on a jug of gravy and a bowl half filled with roasted cranberry sauce. Mashed sweet potatoes flavored with chipotle peppers and mashed white potatoes rested side by side in one container and a forlorn slice of pumpkin pie wrapped in plastic sat on a small bowl of gingered whipped cream. After I found the lemon for my tea, I began to deal with the wealth of leftovers by topping the piece of pie with the whipped cream and eating it.

I made run-of-the-mill turkey sandwiches dinner-worthy by making sandwich rolls with the leftover sweet potatoes. These yeast rolls are not difficult to make but need to rise twice before baking so I got started as soon as I’d read the paper and emptied the dishwasher. Here’s how I made them:[/donotprint]

Sweet Potato Rolls

I dissolved one package, about two and a quarter teaspoons, of active dry yeast and two tablespoons of sugar in three quarters of a cup of warm milk in a medium mixing bowl. I covered the bowl with a towel and waited for the yeast to make the milk foamy. It took about ten minutes. Then I added one cup of room temperature mashed sweet potatoes, three tablespoons of melted unsalted butter, half a teaspoon of kosher salt, one egg to the milk mixture and three cups of all-purpose flour and beat the dough with a wooden spoon. When it was well combined, I stirred in enough flour, about a cup more, to form a soft dough. I turned the dough out onto a floured board and kneaded it for about five minutes, until it was smooth and elastic. I put the dough into a bowl that had been smeared with butter, covered the bowl and put it in a warm place to rise. In about an hour and half, the dough had doubled in size. I gently folded it in on itself to deflate it, (I’m not one who punches anything), and then formed the dough into twelve balls. I put the balls of dough into a buttered, nine-inch square pan, covered them and put the pan in a warm place for about forty-five minutes, until the dough had risen a second time. I baked the rolls in a preheated 375º oven until they were golden brown, about twenty-two minutes.

The sweet potatoes I used were seasoned with chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and had a bit of a chili zing. If the leftover sweet potatoes in your fridge are topped with marshmallows or sweetened with maple sugar, reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe or omit it.

I made turkey noodle soup for Saturday night supper but wished that I had made the turkey gumbo soup that my friend and fellow painter, Kathy described to me over coffee on Sunday morning. Here’s the recipe she shared:

Turkey Gumbo Soup

Boil a turkey carcass in eight cups of water for one hour. Remove the carcass from the pot and pick the meat from the bones. Drain and reserve six cups of broth. Combine four tablespoons of flour and four tablespoons of bacon grease in the bottom of the soup pot and cook over medium heat until the mixture is a rich dark brown. Add one cup of chopped scallions, one cup of chopped celery and four tablespoons of chopped parsley to the pot and saute for five minutes. Add the broth slowly to the vegetable mixture, stirring until well combined. Add three bay leaves, half a teaspoon of thyme, one cup of chopped, smoked, hot sausage and three cups of leftover turkey meat. Simmer over low heat for one and a half hours. One pint of oysters can be added for the last five minutes of cooking. To finish the soup, add one tablespoon of file powder just before serving. Soup should not boil once the file has been added. Remove bay leaves and serve gumbo in a large, shallow soup bowl over a generous mound of white rice.

This year we are having dinner at the Bartletts. I’m making cranberry relish, sweet potatoes and dessert and looking forward to being with friends. I’ve made extra sweet potatoes, pre-holiday leftovers, and I’m pretty certain that our hosts will send us home with turkey for sandwiches. I don’t think it would be polite to ask for the turkey carcass, but I’m planning to make turkey gumbo even if I have to cut Kathy’s recipe in half and make it with a roasted chicken from the grocery store. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

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There will be weeks of  marathon of mixing, stirring, slicing, dicing, creaming and blending. It was time to make meals that are simple to prepare, have a limited number of ingredients and are even better the second time around. Corn Chowder is one way to do that.

Chowder is defined as any of a variety of soups, made with milk, enriched with salt pork and thickened with flour. It has been around since the sixteenth century when it was considered “poor man’s fare”. The word chowder may come from the French chaudiere, a pot used by fishermen in France to make a hearty fish stew by cooking fish with milk and vegetables, or it may come from jowter the Old English term for a person who sells fish.

Made with bacon, potatoes, corn and milk, the soup I made was chowder without fish because the closest fish to my pot was a twenty minute drive through the snow and eliminating trips to the market was part of my new resolve. I’m confident that the recipe police will not come to my post holiday kitchen to give me a ticket. Here’s how I made it:

Corn Chowder

Although traditional chowder is flavored with salt pork, I used half a pound of bacon cut in half-inch strips to give the soup a smoky taste. I cooked it in my large stockpot over medium heat until the fat had rendered, about ten minutes. I added two medium onions to the pot and when the onions were soft and translucent, I stirred in one heaping tablespoon of flour.

After the flour had cooked for two minutes, I stirred in two cups of water and one pound of unpeeled, yellow potatoes that had been washed and cut into half-inch cubes. When the water began to boil, I lowered the heat, covered the pot and cooked the soup. When the potatoes were tender, I added one pound of frozen corn kernels, three cups of whole milk and one Knorr vegetable bouillon cube. I heated the soup, without letting it boil, and simmered it for five minutes to cook the corn. Topped with a handful of chopped, flat-leaf parsley and a big grind of black pepper the soup was ready to serve in bowls that had been heated in the microwave.

I served the bowls of steaming chowder with wedges of hot corn bread that I had baked in a cast iron skillet and then slathered with butter. This dinner made us forget that the thermometer read minus two and it was good enough to turn the most persnickety recipe police officer into a lifelong friend. Best of all there was enough soup for dinner the next evening and lunch the day after that.

Chowder has become a winter staple and I make a vegetarian version by using a couple of tablespoons of unsalted butter instead of bacon. When gluten intolerant friends come to dinner, I leave out the flour and serve a bowl of saltines for the more tolerant diners who want to thicken their chowder by crumbling crackers into their soup. Corn chowder is transformed into fish chowder by adding, after the potatoes are tender, three quarters of a pound of mild white fish, cod or haddock, cut into one inch chunks. The soup is simmered until the fish is cooked, about five minutes.

If the recipe police have invited themselves to dinner, I replace the corn with two cans of clams and the water with clam juice and serve a most presentable clam chowder.

Click here to download and print an ingredients list and recipe.

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Matthew and Alison have a “veg” box from Riverford Farm delivered every Thursday. The organic vegetables and fruit come in a reusable cardboard box and are accompanied by seasonal recipes and news from the farm. The “veg” box, augmented with a bit of meat or fish, milk, cheese and eggs and miscellaneous items like fresh ginger and hot peppers from the grocer at the train station, is the center of their healthy and sustainable diet. This week’s box had leeks, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, parsnips, fennel, potatoes, onions and baby bok choy.

On Thursday, we had “veg” box stir-fry and bok choy with black beans for dinner. Here’s how Matthew did it:

“Veg” Box Stir-Fry

He washed and sliced enough leeks, carrots, cabbage and broccoli to fill a medium bowl, about four cups. For the sauce, he combined a tablespoon of soy sauce, a tablespoon of white wine vinegar, a heaping teaspoon of cornstarch, two teaspoons of hoi sin sauce, a tablespoon of toasted sesame seed oil and a tablespoon of sugar in a small bowl. He heated two tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large pot, added three small, whole, dried chili peppers, two cloves of garlic and a one-inch knob of ginger root, both minced. As soon as we could smell the garlic and ginger, he added the vegetables. After the vegetables had cooked for five minutes, he added the sauce and cooked the vegetables for two more minutes.

It took less time for Matthew to cook the bok choy than it took for me to set the table and serve the stir fried vegetables.

Bok Choy with Chinese Black Beans

He rinsed and quartered three heads of baby bok choy, put a splash of vegetable oil, about two teaspoons, one clove of minced garlic and a tablespoon of rinsed, salted Chinese black beans and the bok choy into a cast-iron frying pan over medium-high heat. After the bok choy had cooked for a minute, he added a tablespoon of white wine, turned the bok choy over and cooked it for another minute.

We evaluated dinner as we ate it. The texture of the crisp bok choy and the sweet/sour sauce on the stir fried vegetables were pluses, forgetting to remove the whole chili peppers before serving the stir fry was a negative. We awarded dinner four-stars.

On Saturday, I bought a pint of strawberries and a small container of double cream, (heavy cream in Vermont), at the train station market so that I could make strawberries and cream French toast for Sunday breakfast. Here’s how:

Strawberries & Cream French Toast

I rinsed the strawberries, removed their leafy caps, sliced them and combined them with a tablespoon of sugar. I toasted four pieces of sunflower seed, whole-wheat bread. I combined two eggs, two tablespoons of cream, a teaspoon of sugar and a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg in a shallow bowl. I put the toasted bread into the egg mixture, set it aside for ten minutes, turned the slices over, waited ten minutes more so that the bread would absorb the eggy mixture, and then sauteed the bread in butter in a medium cast iron frying pan over low heat.

I found a whisk and recruited Matthew to whip half a cup of the cream. When the French toast was golden, I sprinkled each serving with a teaspoon of sugar, added a generous helping of strawberries and a scoop of whipped cream to each plate. We sat in the sun, enjoyed our breakfast and tried to decide what we should make for dinner.

Here’s a link to the Riverford Farm website. If you live in the UK you may be able to arrange to have a Riverford box delivered. Whether or not you have a veg box delivered, the Riverford site has a great variety of recipes here.

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My Improv Partner in the Kitchen

I was well over fifty with a lifetime of cooking under my belt before I ever had the opportunity to choose a cooker from scratch. All those years accepting whatever stoves came my way, in sixteen moves to apartments and houses, city to country and back again, not counting temporary quarters in makeshift kitchens from the Middle East to the Baltic, I was never conscious of pining for any particular brand or model. But when finally faced with an irreparable stove, I surprised even myself by declaring that all I wanted was an Aga.

Had I been influenced by a constant diet of British novels? Iris Murdoch and Barbara Pym aside, I cannot deny that my ideal concept of hearth and home has been shaped by World of Interiors, glimpses into stone-floored cottages under thatch, with crockery cluttered kitchens inhabited by adorable Jack Russell pups napping next to the ubiquitous enameled Aga, its tea kettle steaming away on.

“Don’t worry”, I told my husband, while trying to explain how the nine hundred pound cast iron British behemoth functions with no controls while it’s on 24/7, “I don’t think you can get one in the States.” I should have known he’d see that as a challenge.

It was February in Baltimore. We were snowed in without a cooker. We didn’t even own a microwave — still don’t.  By the next morning Rob had found an Aga dealer in North Carolina who would sell us a two-oven model that had been in a New Jersey warehouse long enough to merit a deep discount, assuming we had no problem with its discontinued color, Hunter Green. Walter, the authorized installation man, would drive from Charlotte, North Carolina to meet the truck with the disassembled Aga coming from Elizabeth, New Jersey. They’d arrive the following Monday, weather permitting, for the two-day job of constructing our new stove.

My husband spent the next five days without a hot meal making sure the kitchen floor would support the enormous load, having the gas tap moved several feet, and reading everything he could about this mysterious piece of engineering manufactured in England since the ’30s, invented by a blind Swedish Nobel physicist in 1922. I was reading too; cooking with the Aga was going to be different. I was shocked to find that cooking classes, or a demonstration at least, were recommended for new Aga owners. I had no intention of doing that — we were leaving for  Istanbul in a matter of weeks, and the nearest Aga dealer was over four hundred miles away. I’d have to figure things out my own way.

My husband is a director of documentary films. My job, as the producer, is all about organization, planning and not going over budget. But no matter how careful the preparations, we’ve learned in the world’s far-flung places the value of flexibility.  An affinity for improvisation and adaptation is essential to our work. I believe that goes for the rest of life too, especially in the kitchen. The Aga, seemingly an impetuous choice, was one sprung from deep intuition, like love at first sight. After a brief period of getting to know each other, she’s proved over time to be my faithful kitchen partner, never failing, generously forgiving even when I’ve failed her. She’s there to lean against, warm on cold winter mornings, boiling the tea kettle ever so fast, having cooked the Irish oatmeal overnight in the simmering oven (no stirring). She’s at home in any situation; toasting four fat slices of homemade bread at once, drying delicate herbs, baking a buttery tart crust to perfection or making pizza directly on the floor of the roasting oven. She handles a dinner party for eight with ease, making me look far more competent than I am. Her calm green presence encourages me to weather any storm.

Yesterday, waiting for Hurricane Irene to blast Baltimore with high winds and possible power outages, I filled a clay pot with Spanish Fabada beans and the water I had soaked them in the night before. I added sea salt, some good olive oil, a handful of fresh sage, a few cloves of new garlic, and popped it into the roasting oven where the radiant heat brought it to a swift boil. Then, (I don’t believe in skimming) covering it with a clay lid, I slid the crock into the lower (simmering) oven for the rest of the morning. When I’m using the hottest oven I loop a length of red ribbon over the Aga rail as a reminder. I’ve been known to forget that I’ve something in there. Lady Aga is capable of burning dinner to a crisp without a hint that it’s happening. Fumes are vented outside and there is no flame. Luckily, spills just burn away so cleaning is never a concern.

After lunch, the day grew darker and more humid but we still had hours to go before the storm reached us. In a power failure, the heat stored in the Aga remains up to thirty hours. Though fueled by natural gas, the vent motor is electric so that without electricity no more heat can be generated. If vented directly into the chimney, an Aga doesn’t require electricity.

When the beans were done, beautifully firm and creamy inside. I placed a skillet on the boiling plate and added a glug of olive oil, then chopped sweet red pepper, a small yellow onion, two very ripe heirloom tomatoes and a splash of balsamic vinegar. After a few minutes, I scooted it over to the simmering plate still stirring gently.  A few more minutes and I had a lovely sauce, I threw a couple of basil leaves in and took it off the heat to begin layering the tomato mixture with beans scooped from the clay pot into a shallower clay vessel. I used a spoon to make a space for a hunk of leftover slow-cooked pork shoulder, set the dish to bake in the roasting oven for about a hour, long enough for the flavors to blend.

I refrigerated the remaining beans with their cooking broth in the big clay pot, the makings of a tasty soup. With two fresh loaves of olive bread in our fairly well stocked pantry I felt prepared, power outage or not, for the next couple of days.

Our candles and oil lamps stood by as it rained hard into the night. Strong winds whipped the trees but the storm, less damaging here than was predicted, left us unscathed. We woke to sun shining on a litter of leaves and branches distributed about the garden. Internet service is down. This day will be spent on the porch, reading the actual newspaper, counting our blessings, and eating well.

To learn more about Gardner Films here’s a link to their Facebook page.

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A gluten free, complete protein it was called the ‘mother of all grains’.

With all of this to recommend it, I decided to add it to my pantry. My first quinoa creation was a resounding failure – a mushy mixture that tasted like wet laundry, (Actually, I have never eaten wet or dry laundry, but that’s the best description I can come up with).

Clearly, it is important not to overcook it and to add flavor at each step of preparation.

My second try, a salad inspired by the fresh flavors of tabbouleh, was a great success with no resemblance to wet laundry. Here’s how I made it:

Quinoa Salad

I rinsed two cups of quinoa in cold water to get rid of the bitter coating before putting it into a heavy bottomed, shallow pan over medium high heat. Ten minutes of constant stirring and the seeds were light brown and aromatic.

Initially the quinoa stuck to the bottom of the pan, but when it was ready it began to dance around in the bottom of the pan, (perhaps inspired by the reputation of its tumble weed cousin).

With the pan off the heat I stirred in two cups of vegetable broth, then increased the heat, brought it to a boil,  reduced the heat, covered the pan and left it to simmer until al dente, about eighteen minutes. I drained the remaining liquid from the quinoa, and set it aside, covered for five minutes, before fluffing with a fork and transferring to a large bowl to cool. These steps resulted in a flavorful and non mushy base for the salad.

I added two cans of rinsed and drained beans, one soy and the other white kidney, the chopped leaves of a bunch of flat leaf parsley, half a cup of sliced scallions, a pint of halved cherry tomatoes and the zest of one large lemon.

For the dressing, I combined the juice of the lemon, a large tablespoon of grainy Dijon mustard, half a cup of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.

Gently stirred together and served at room temperature, it was a crowd pleaser at a vegetarian dinner of three substantial salads.

notes: any canned beans will work, you may want to brighten the taste with the addition of a bit of wine vinegar, the parsley could be replaced with basil, purple onion instead of scallions, a minced chili pepper or a bit of cayenne pepper would add some heat. Add or subtract flavors to suit your palate.

Download and quinoa salad recipe with an ingredients list here.

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Watercolor painting by Carol Egbert

Saturday, white puffy clouds danced across the cobalt blue sky, the grass was freshly mowed and my Kindle was giving me that ‘come hither’ look. It was a day to make one of my favorite (nearly) no-cook, (almost) zero effort dinners. This dinner has four steps:

• Determine menu
• See what’s in the pantry and fridge
• Go to market for what isn’t
• Pull dinner together

Charles and I decided to split the tasks. I decided we would have roasted chicken with pink ginger sauce, sesame noodles and a nectarine salad. I found soy sauce, cayenne pepper, vinegar, canola oil, garlic, honey, sesame seeds and sesame oil in the pantry and mayonnaise, sour cream, catsup and pickled ginger in the fridge. Charles went to the market to get a rotisserie cooked chicken, a box of pasta, scallions, fresh ginger and some nectarines. I got lost in my book and snoozed a bit.

When I woke up, I put a large pot of water on the stove over medium heat. In less than half an hour after Charles returned from the market, we sat down to an Asian inspired summer dinner. Here’s how we did it:

Sesame Noodles

I salted the pasta water, turned up the heat and, when the water was boiling, stirred in half a pound of linguini. I made the sauce for the noodles and Charles carved the chicken while the noodles cooked. For the sesame sauce, I used a wire whisk to combine a quarter of a cup of soy sauce, one tablespoon of sugar, one teaspoon of minced garlic, one teaspoon of minced fresh ginger, one tablespoon of red wine vinegar, two tablespoons of toasted sesame oil, a wee pinch of cayenne and three tablespoons of canola oil. After cooking for seven minutes the pasta was tender, a bit softer than the usual al dente, but just right for a salad eaten at room temperature. I put the drained pasta into a large serving bowl, poured the sesame sauce in and tossed the noodles until they were coated with the sauce. I cut three scallions into thin slices and sprinkled them on top.

Download and print sesame noodle recipe with an ingredients list here.

When he had finished carving the chicken, Charles made the Pink Ginger Sauce.

Pink Ginger Sauce

He combined one tablespoon of finely minced, pickled ginger with two tablespoons of mayonnaise, two tablespoons of sour cream, one teaspoon of catsup, a pinch of cayenne and one teaspoon of fresh lime juice. He put a generous puddle of sauce on two dinner plates.

In twenty minutes, we had everything ready but the nectarine salad. Charles cut two nectarines into thin slices and I mixed up a simple sauce of a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of honey, a teaspoon of lime juice and a pinch of salt. He poured the sauce on the nectarines, gave them a quick toss and put a serving on each plate. I added a serving of sesame noodles to each plate, Charles added a drumstick and a thigh to his plate and I choose a wing and a breast for mine.

We made dinner in less than thirty minutes and there were enough leftovers for lunch in less than five minutes on Sunday. It was fun, quick and collaborative. There is lots of room for substitution in these recipes – pasta can be any shape you like, I used linguini fini; lemons can be substituted for limes; leftover roast beef or pork can stand in for the chicken; apricots, peaches or melon alone or in combination would make a lovely salad; and, maple syrup is a wonderful substitute for honey. Pickled ginger is found in the sushi cooler, if you can’t find it, use a teaspoons of minced fresh ginger root. The absolutely essential ingredient, not to be omitted, is a snooze – either before, during or after dinner.

Download and print pink ginger sauce recipe with an ingredients list here. 

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The dark pink lentils in my pantry, labeled either as Red or Egyptian lentils in the market, don’t have a seed coat so they will disintegrate into a smooth puree as the soup cooks. Here’ s how I made it.

Lentil Soup

To begin, I sauteed one leek, one onion and three medium carrots, all cleaned and sliced, in one tablespoon of unsalted butter and one tablespoon of olive oil for about five minutes or until they were softened.

Then I stirred in flavors from the East, two large cloves of garlic, crushed, one tablespoon grated fresh ginger, one rounded teaspoon ground cumin, one teaspoon turmeric, half a teaspoon ground coriander and a large pinch of crushed red pepper flakes and cooked another minute before I added two cups of rinsed red lentils and five cups of water.

I covered the pot, brought it to a boil, reduced the heat to a simmer and cooked until the lentils were tender, about forty five minutes.

To finish the soup, I stirred in two teaspoons of vegetarian soup base, one diced zucchini and a tablespoon of fresh lime juice, adjusted the salt and pepper, and simmered for five more minutes.

Two slices of buttered toast and a bowl of lentil soup, a perfect dinner for a chilly Spring evening.

Download and print lentil soup recipe with an ingredients list here.

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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.

Bifteck hachè à la Lyonnaise - French Hamburger

I cooked half a cup of diced onions in a tablespoon of butter over medium heat until they were translucent, about ten minutes and then combined them with three quarters of a pound of lean ground beef, a tablespoon of butter, half a teaspoon each of salt and pepper, a pinch of thyme (purchased from the French Market), and one egg. I used a wooden spoon to mix it all together, and then made four patties that I chilled for half an hour.

Carefully following directions, I rolled the patties lightly in flour and dusted off the excess. The floured patties went right into a tablespoon each of butter and oil that had begun to foam in my cast iron skillet. I followed Julia’s directions, cooked the hamburgers for about two minutes on each side and then put them on a platter while I finished the sauce.

It was simple, pour out the fat, add half a cup of liquid and boil rapidly until thickened. The recipe suggested either stock, beef bouillon, red wine, white wine, dry white vermouth, or water.  I used red wine and remembered to scrape the bottom of the pan to dissolve the tasty brown bits into the sauce. Finishing the sauce meant removing the pan from the heat and swirling in two tablespoons of butter that thickened the liquid into a light sauce. With mashed potatoes and green beans waiting at the table, I poured the red wine sauce over the hamburgers and dinner was ready.

Wine sauce – red wine sauce on a hamburger – Who knew that it could be so simple, so tasty, so French?

Download and print cookie recipe with an ingredients list here.

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Windmills Power Pumps Sea Water into Salt Pans

I saw saltpans along the shore of the Mediterranean where harvesting sea salt has been a tradition since the 8^th century BCE when the Phoenicians established Motya, a small island off the coast a few miles south of Trapani.

Tiles Ready to Cover Harvested Sea Salt

Sea salt obtained from solar evaporation contains a variety of minerals that make it more soluble, more easily absorbed by food and add flavor – all good reasons to use it.

We visited Erice, a medieval village often in the clouds near Trapani.

Every street in Erice is paved with with stones set in this pattern.

Crest on a Wall in Erice

Old and New in Erice.

On Tuesday, we visited the fish market. It bustled with cooks choosing tuna, swordfish, squid, octopus, cuttlefish, mackerel or smaller, unfamiliar fish. Rather than ordering pasta or couscous with seafood for dinner that evening, I ordered pasta with Trapani style pesto. I hadn’t expected the pesto to be red but it was delicious. Donna, the cook, invited us into her kitchen and with Charles as the translator, she shared her recipe and explained that she used a food processor but a mortar and pestle was more traditional. Here’s how she did it:

Pesto Trapani Style

She lightly toasted four tablespoons of blanched almonds in a dry frying pan. She peeled and seeded six ripe, plum tomatoes and cut them into chunks. After the almonds were ground to a fine powder in the food processor, she added two medium garlic cloves, peeled, a generous cup of fresh basil leaves, two tablespoons of fresh mint leaves, the tomato chunks, half a cup of olive oil, a pinch of sea salt and three grinds of pepper. She pulsed the mixture in the food processor until it was smooth and used a spoon to encourage the basil leaves into the tomato puree. Donna topped the cooked pasta with pesto and three slices of eggplant that had been dipped in olive oil and cooked on a grill until tender and slightly charred.

Traditionally, this cold pesto is served on steaming, al dente busiate. Busiate is pasta made by winding a thin strips of fresh pasta, one at a time, around a Sicilian knitting needle, sprinkling it with flour and sliding it off to dry. This effort is repeated until there are enough noodles for four people. Fortunately, this pesto has enough zing that I will serve it on linguini from a box when I make it. With or without eggplant, pasta with pesto Trapani style is a New England dinner option to keep in mind when the snow has stopped flying and tomatoes and basil appear in the market.

Download and print pesto recipe with an ingredients list here.

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