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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Pumpkin Love

Blessed cool has arrived in Georgia, at least in the evenings. There is so much inspiration in a change of weather. Feelings of revitalizaton, renewal and energy. Going along with these happy emotions are creative desires to get back into the kitchen and bake. I made some pumpkin scones the other day which met with a happy reception and the spice in the glaze lingered on your tongue for a long while afterwards. Essential autumn in a bite.

Pumpkin Scones

1 cup white all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t each cinnamon, nutmet, cloves and ginger
1 stick of cold butter, cut into pats
a few teaspoons of half and half
1 egg

Mix everything together with mixer until it forms a mass. Pat into a flat circle with your hands, and place on cookie sheet which has been covered with parchment paper. Use a pizza wheel to put the circle into wedge shapes. Bake in 425 oven for 15 or so minutes, watching - do not let it get brown.

First glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1 T milk

Mix and spread by waving spoon back and forth across scones

Second glaze

1 cup powered sugar
2 T mil
1/4 t. each cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger

Mix and wave spoon the opposite direction over scones.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Food for a Funeral

There is a common human need to comfort with food when someone has died. The thinking goes that the bereaved have to eat and will not feel like cooking, and that nuturing is a quality I can fully understand, but what is appropriate to make? What would be palatable? I don't want to make something like fruit salad that would get watery in a day, or tossed salad that would wilt. Dessert seems cavalier - something sweet in such a bitter sad time. It is too hot for casseroles and it would be too heavy anyway. I am trying too think of the perfect dish that would be interesting enough to cause the family to consume it, for a second or two taking their minds away from their grief. I am putting too much into this process. I know I cannot do away with their mourning by feeding them, I cannot bring solace with food. All I can do is try. That is all we can do.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Anticipation

While Carly Simon's song "Anticipation" was commercialized, I could relate to equating the song with food. Now when I hear it, I think more of longing for ketchup than love. Almost certainly that is a sign of aging.

The anticipation of a thing is really almost better than the thing itself; the longing for, the building up. My favorite time of the weekend is Friday night, or Saturday morning early before it all starts up and hurriedly rushes by, the happy freedom, the quiet joy of being at home with my sweet husband, life at my own pace. I have always been appreciative of domesticity and the joy in the simple life and that has not waned as I have gotten older.

I am anticipating a drippy Southern-style tomato sandwich on white bread for lunch that I will have to lean over the sink to eat. Although I am a born and bred Yankee, I have lived much more than half of my life in the South and truly enjoy more than a few Southern things - the aforementioned sandwich in particular. It must have mayo, and the bread has to be white (and I am a whole-grain girl through and through.) It is quintessential summer in the south.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Cuke Explosion

We have been blessed with gifts of cucumbers from several friend's gardens, and just in time for the holiday weekend. Cucumber and yogurt is a natural and most refreshing combination - I am reminded of a cold soup that Crescent Dragonwagon describes in one of her cookbooks - they cuke and the yogurt pureed with onion and a touch of salt and pepper as an antidote to 95 degress and 100 percent humidity. I think I will also make my mom's summer salad of tomates and cukes cut into chunks with red onion and sour cream, or alternately oil and fig vinnegar.

Primal

Murphy, our golden retriever, and I go for an early morning walk every weekday, usually around 5:30. Pre-dawn is a peaceful time in our neighborhood, which is lit by streetlights and our neighbor's house lights. We take a slightly different route each morning because I tend to get bored, and for Murphy to get his share of assorted sniffs. We see rabbits almost every morning, and once we came upon two tiny bunnies in the center of a lawn, and they manically hopped in different directions when we went by. The birds are stirring and sleepily beginning their morning chorus, and the insect noises have settled down.

Just now we were coming towards home at the end of our walk, two houses away. Something - there! streaked across the street. I thought it was a small dog, but it was so stelthy and swift I was not sure. Then, in the yard next to me 15 feet away were two light animal figures. I had to squint to see, thinking that the silent creatures were small deer, but no! They were coyote, two of them calmly and silently exploring the yard just feet from me. They were not oblivious of our presence but were wholly unconcerned and continued their quiet quest for food. Then, ghost-like, they were gone.

We had heard that there were coyote in our area, which is an older, established neighborhood surrounded by some remaining farmland. Cats and small dogs have disappeared, and we get notices by email that we should be watchful, but to be see these beings was shocking. The sudden confrontation with the primal world out my doorstep on it's hunt.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Most Important Thing

There are so many elements that contribute to making a great dish and to being a thoughtful cook. Time is one element, but really it is not so important because I believe you can make the most exquisite grilled cheese sandwich. Quality, locally grown ingredients are paramount and nowadays most of us have access to farmer's markets with locally grown produce and interesting tidbits to pick up and experiment with - the jar of homemade jam, a great salsa, an odd melon you had never seen before. The local bookstore carries a super abundance and variety of cookbooks and cooking magazines sure to inspire you to creativity.

The real thing, the most important thing is care and love. Like any hobby or activity, one can just do it - we all need to eat for sustenance and you can mindless place food in mouth and chew. Ever since I became aware of good cooking and the creative process of planning, preparing and serving a great dinner or loaf of bread to my family, I have felt that there is nothing more satisfing I could do with myself. There is nothing so gratifying and whole-making as this endeveour. I love the act of it, the science of it, the healing nature and calming effect it has, and the sweet wholesomeness of being in my kitchen DOING. Life is very good.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Sanctity of Watermelon

I would like to sing an ode to the watermelon. On Saturday, K and I bought a watermelon at the farmer's market in town and bought it home with the other various vegetables and fruits we found. Last night after dinner, K cut it. From the moment he sliced it, from the sound it and the sweet fragrance, we knew this was it. Like the Polar Express cry "The First Present of Christmas!", everything about this watermelon sang "The Best Melon of Summer!" It was perfectly sweet and red, none of that tang and white-pinkness associated with a non-ripe melon, and the crunch was firm and refreshing. It was remarkable also in that it was seedless because usually seedless watermelons are less sweet. It will be breakfast and lunch because we could not let this perfection sit in the refridgerator and turn to watery slush. Summer distilled into the essence of a square bite of melon.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Initial Inspiration

When I was 16 years old I decided I would become a vegetarian. My mom told me she was not going to cook a bunch of weird food, so I made a pot of lentils and that is what I ate for a week. Things have gotten better since then.

Inspiration can come from so many places. Sometimes I can just look at my pie shelf full of cookbooks and remember a recipe idea, or sometimes it is seeing an ingredient at the farmers market that invokes a dish. I remained a vegetarian from the age of 16 until I was pregnant at 29, very occasionally eating crab or shrimp, and this was due to realization of the actuality of meat, and that just did not inspire me at all. In Biology class a friend and I had hatched chicks for our project, and her family had a family farm, mostly horses but some poultry. All summer we went north and visited the chicks and named them. In the fall her grandfather slaughtered them and she showed them to me in the freezer.

My first cookbook in college was the wonderful "The Vegetarian Epicure" by Anna Thomas. It extolled the delights of vegetarianism with amazing recipes, some of which I still use thirty five years later. It was also a brand of vegetarianism laden with cheese, lots of fats, so was not really healthy for every day cooking. Still, the mood of the book set my cooking style, and I was young and poor and pretty thin so at that point it really did not matter that I ate cheese and cream. In Iowa, where I went to college, I even joined a co-op for the raw unpasteurized milk with the cream on top. What I wanted most in the world when I was 18 was a good set of cookware and I lusted after Le Cruset, French enameled cast iron.

Back then I made cakes without a mixer, beating by hand, experiment after fun cooking experiment. I moved to Lexington, Massachusetts to live with my family again for a while to save for my wedding. I traded in my big van and bought a car and worked at a local bank in the charming little town of Concord, absolutely delightful. I made treats for my family and collected my beloved Le Cruset and other kitchen items from a shop in Concord. That Christmas I made for my family my first plum pudding and because it had meat, I did not partake but took a lot of pleasure in my parents and sisters enjoyment of it.

There was an incredible Chinese restaurant in town where we went to lunch from the bank, superior quality food that in itself inspired. There was also a great health food store in town that I enjoyed that had unique ingredients and whole grains. How exciting! I bought a cast iron grinder to make my own flour. I envisioned myself as a pioneer farm wife, an Amish woman, an independent thinker who could survive anywhere by shear force of my cooking skills. I admired the strong woman of literature but at the time I was traditional and really subserviant in my own life. I had the outlet of books and dreams, but I was getting ready to get married "because that is what you do next."

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Hello World!

This is my first blog and I have a few trepidations. It feels somewhat to me like writing in a diary or journal and then letting the world have open access to your intimate thoughts. I am trying to channel my yoga teacher, "No judgement," so here goes. I am Kim and for my entire life I have expressed myself through my kitchen. Mostly it has been love and nurturing of my loved ones, because to me cooking is primarily an expression of care and at it's most extravagant, of love. At times I have wondered if I should have gone to culinary school but part of me hesitates to take it that far for fear it would exhaust me and then I would have cut off one of the greatest joys in my life. I am most content in the kitchen. I am purely happy when baking, but since my husband and I have restricted sweets to once per week, our waistlines have benefited (especially his, darn those female hormones!)this particular outlet has been curtailed.

I intend for this to be an experiment, because another primary source of "outletting" for me has been writing. I have always loved the written word and have always expressed myself better with the written word than the spoken word. I have always loved the transporting that a good book does for me.

One of the motivators for writing this is first of all, to see how it all works. Putting your words down on a page for others to read and possibly comment on - scary! Having those same people have a positive reaction to the particular way I put those words down - pretty great.

It is late June and a Sunday. K and I are relaxing after a bit of morning busyness -running at the park with our "baby" Murphy, who is a darling 4 1/2 year old golden retriever, and a quick stop at the grocery. I am experimenting tonight with turkery burgers which K is going to grill. We use a charcoal grill for flavor - vastly superior to gas. I am mixing roasted eggplant into the ground turkey for moisture, and adding soy sauce and Marmite for umami. Kind of excited about this! We bought those real thin new buns that only have a hundred or so calories and they are so good and moist, so as not to detract from the meat. Also I made potato salad from my Mom's tried and true recipe - red potatoes, celery, onion, hard boiled eggs and I used a bit of sour cream this time.

K has the baseball game on, which is his particular love. He is a fantasy baseball rockstar and he truly loves all aspects of this.

Well, that is it for now, here goes, I am hitting "publish".....