Do you have an undiagnosed case of mageirocophobia?  That would be a fear related to some form of  cooking.

If you do, you are not alone. People have all kinds of specific phobias about food and cooking. Apparently, there are people who are afraid of ketchup. There are people afraid of sticky peanut butter.  And, there are poor souls who have a deep-seated fear of cheese. (I’m not making this up.) Those fears even have fear-specific names: arachibutyrophobia (peanut butter), motuusequusphobia (ketchup) and turophobia (cheese)–tongue-twisters all.

More mainstream is a fear of baking bread and working with yeast. Anecdotally, I have a friend, a superb cook, whose eyes glaze over when I suggest she bake bread and I’ll confess that I’ve had my own tense moments waiting for the yeast to froth and activate.

If you count yourself among the yeast-phobic but would like to give bread baking a go, here are a couple of excellent guides to yeast baking:

Yeast-Sally’s Baking Addiction

Yeast-King Arthur’s Flour

And, to speed you along your way toward anxiety-free bread baking, here is a spectacular recipe (I don’t use that word often here, so pay attention to this one!) for a Jalapeno Cheddar Bread. I’ve tested the recipe several times and it is as close to no-fail as I think you can come in bread baking. The resulting baked boule (a round loaf of bread in “baker’s talk”) is delicious, too–and beautiful! I remember the first time I baked this recipe, my out-of-the-oven-slathered-with-butter-first-taste reaction was a loud-enough “Wow!” to bring Sweet Juliet running into the room to check out the commotion. Juliet runs a tight ship.

Here is a photo of the crumb and a tasting slice slathered with cultured butter.

Here is the recipe.

Now I’ve got to go and clean my kitchen. There is a phobia for that, too. It is ataxophobia, a fear of clutter, untidiness and disorder.

[mpprecipe-recipe:253]

This recipe is adapted from one that appears here.

It’s September, people! It’s fig season here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Buy figs now while you can during their excruciatingly short season from August through early October.

Figs, a member of the mulberry family, are among the oldest fruits consumed by humans. That said, figs are not actually fruits. They are syconiums–sac extensions of the branches of fig trees. The sacs are filled with flowers. Each flower produces a tiny fruit and a seed inside the sac.  (Do I detect snoring out there? I thought this bit of fig information was pretty damn interesting. Then again, I’ve been pretty much in lockdown since March.)

And history! Figs have quite a history.

Archaeologists have found evidence of fig trees at ancient neolithic sites dating back to 5000 B.C.

Renaissance artists like Caravaggio (below) captured both figs’ beauty and the spirit of Renaissance indulgence in their still life paintings.

Franciscan missionaries introduced fig cultivation to California in 1769. The self-pollinating mission figs have anchored California’s love affair with figs ever since!

Here is a savory-sweet tart recipe that can be served as an entree or as a dessert. (I enjoyed mine with a green salad dressed in a vinaigrette.) The figs give the tart a rich sweetness. The gorgonzola cheese adds a savory hint of  bitterness on your back palate although you can sub in goat cheese for a milder savory flavor. The generous drizzle of honey that you add just before serving makes this tart swoon worthy.

Enjoy this one!

[mpprecipe-recipe:250]

Musaqa’a.

Musaqa’a is a Palestinian eggplant, chickpea and tomato bake with inspired spicing–somewhat reminiscent of Greek moussaka. The recipe I’m using here is adapted from Chef Sami Tamimi’s and Irish food writer Tara Wigley’s new cookbook, Falastin. The recipes are Tamimi’s and the writing is Wigley’s. In the Introduction to the book, Wigley writes that the cookbook is a love letter to Tamimi’s heritage and to his mother.

Let’s get the “P” and the “F” out of the way first. Tamimi is a Palestinian chef who co-authored the best-selling cookbooks Jerusalem and Ottolenghi with Yotam Ottolenghi, the prominent Israeli/English chef. In the Introduction to the book, Tamimi explains that there is no “P” in Arabic and so it is common to use the term Falastin interchangeably with Palestine. Hence, the name of the book.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, Falastin is a cookbook of wonderful flavors and over one hundred recipes. The cookbook’s aim is to showcase Palestinian foods but to do so with innovative flourishes. The recipes in the book are geared for the home cook–perhaps a natural inclination for Tamimi who came from a family of seventeen children.

Here is a link to a YouTube video of Tamimi and Wigley preparing some of the recipes from the book: Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley Cook From Falastin.  The Baby Gem Lettuce with Charred Eggplant, Smacked Cucumber, and Shatta recipe looks pretty great.(Shatta is a spicy condiment made from fresh or semidried green or red chiles.) That salad is definitely going on my “To Make” list— if only because the idea of smacking cucumbers makes me giggle. (I’m easily amused these days.)

Apparently, the Musaqa’a  is a recipe with all sorts of iterations. Eat it as a casserole dish with a dollop of yogurt and a side of steamed rice. Eat it for breakfast on toast. Tamimi recommends serving it on top of a baked potato.  The options are endless.

[mpprecipe-recipe:247]

Tamimi’s and Wigley’s cookbook Falastin is available here.