Food, Photography and Bons Mots
I’ve always enjoyed soup. It is my idea of comfort food. There is something wonderful about the chemistry of making soup. You put all those healthy ingredients together and (sometimes) voila! For the last few weeks my love affair with soup has taken on a…
First, pomegranate molasses is readily available. You can do this. Second, this butter cake is absolutely delicious. I don’t have the words… I discovered pomegranate molasses some time ago. I shop at a local Jons International Marketplace and they have not one but several brands…
Happy spring!
Who doesn’t love warm-from-the-oven rolls on a pretty spring day? Make them hot cross buns warm from the oven and slathered with cardamom-scented frosting and you are sure to swoon.
Some food historians tell us that the first hot cross buns were probably baked during the Middle Ages when a 12th century monk marked the sign of the cross on buns that he distributed as symbolic treats to celebrate Good Friday. Over time, it has become a tradition in many Christian communities to enjoy the delicious buns each year on Good Friday. Other historians suggest that the origin of the cross-marked yeasted sweet bread was far earlier, dating back to Roman times when a distinctive cross was carved into the surface of the bun to both facilitate the easy division of the bread into four parts and to pay homage to the four seasons. Buns marked with crosses were excavated at Herculaneum, an ancient city that was destroyed along with Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
The baking and consumption of hot cross buns has not been without controversy and superstition.
England’s 16th Century Renaissance Queen Elizabeth I endorsed a law to limit the sale of the sweet buns to funeral days, Christmas and Good Friday, believing that the pastries represented a Catholic challenge to the legitimacy of her Protestant reign. England, you will remember, had just gone through religious upheaval under Bloody Mary, Elizabeth’s predecessor and half-sister. Mary, married to Philip II, Spain’s dour Catholic king, had tried to restore Catholicism as the state religion in England and the couple hoped to undo the Protestant Reformation’s effects across Europe generally. In the process, a lot of people died. Understandably, Elizabeth was more than a wee bit edgy about possible religious intrigue in her court. Nevertheless, Elizabeth’s law was widely ignored. People clandestinely baked the buns in their homes and risked being busted for the culinary felony. (Some sources posit an alternative theory about Elizabeth’s hot cross bun law, arguing that Elizabeth, rather than having a religious motivation, supported the laws limiting consumption of the buns because she feared that her subjects would misuse the buns’ supposed supernatural powers. Frankly, this story sounds like a bit of clumsy revisionist history to me–16th century “fake news.” )
Other superstitions developed about the consumption of the buns. Many believed, for instance, that the baking of the buns protected sailors from shipwrecks. Others believed that hanging the buns from the rafters of one’s house warded off evil spirits and that baking the buns on Good Friday would confer qualities to the buns that would prevent them from molding and render them edible for a full year. Still others believed that the buns, when dried, had supernatural powers to heal wounds. Accordingly, old buns were dried and ground and sprinkled into wounds. (Ouch!) It was also thought that hanging a bun in one’s kitchen would protect that kitchen from fires and ensure a year of successful baking.
OK. Enough history.
This recipe is adapted from one that appears in a wonderful baking book titled The Hot Bread Kitchen by Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez and the bakers of Hot Bread Kitchen. East Harlem’s Hot Bread Kitchen is distinguished both by the fact that it produces exceptional artisan-quality breads and by its business model. The bakery operates a six month baker training program for immigrant women that provides paid training while also helping the women hone key skills like English as a second language, bakery math, and science to make them more employable. Remarkably, Hot Bread Kitchen places 100% of their job-seeking graduates in full-time, fair wage positions. Here is a link to a great video about the bakery. At a time of so much negativity, it is reassuring to see a project that is successfully helping people who are new to America become self-sufficient: Hot Bread Kitchen Video on You Tube.
Here is a link to the Hot Bread Kitchen website: The Hot Bread Kitchen Website.
(You can buy The Hot Bread Kitchen cookbook here.)
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I was recently at a restaurant in downtown Santa Ana where I foolishly let myself be talked into ordering the house’s kale salad. I’m usually a hard sell when it comes to kale, but I liked the young waitress’ enthusiasm as she assured me that…
You know how it is when you just plain crave baked beans. This rich baked beans recipe will satisfy your cravings and throws in healthy sweet potatoes to boot. And, then there is the complex smoky flavor of chipotle peppers. What’s not to love…
At dinnertime, my mother always placed a bottle of salad dressing on our kitchen table next to a bowl of pale iceberg lettuce pieces. Always Wish Bone. Always Italian.
I’m an unrepentant foodie. I love food. Cooking is a delight for me. I love phographing food. I love reading (and writing) about food. I love exploring international markets in search of new foods and new recipes. Travel, for me, was always as much about food as it was about anything else.
I didn’t grow up that way.
My mother, who grew up on a rural farm in the American South, did a lot of things very well, but she had a lot on her plate and had very little time (or money) for food and cooking. She did bake exceptional holiday pies, but our everyday fare was pretty plain–white bread, Campbell’s soups (tomato and mushroom), Wish Bone salads, and a mystery meal she called “goulash.”
When I grew up and started exploring the world of food, I was amazed by what was out there. (Brie! Who knew????) Homemade minestrone. (No way!) Artisanal breads.( You’ve got to be kidding me.) Salads that combined textures and interesting ingredients and that were dressed with homemade dressings. (Wow! Wow! Wow!)
Here is a recipe for a wonderful salad and homemade salad dressing. The dressing is a garlicky Caesar-wannabe. I clipped it out of Gourmet Magazine back in July of 1981. The recipe appeared in a column in Gourmet that printed reader recipes. In this case, it was Trudy Hamm Reid and she was submitting her husband’s recipe under the title Neil’s Romine Salad with Garlic Vinaigrette. Trudy was pretty proud of Neil’s recipe, saying that he made “the most fantastic salad.” I agree. Way to go, Neil!
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Today is Pi Day. (Today also is Einstein’s birthday, if you have forgotten.) So, of course, there was no question what type of recipe should be featured on Blue Cayenne. Pie. Make that a delicious peach pie. If you’ve forgotten your math, Pi…
I was out of vodka. For years I’ve relied upon my neighbors to loan me a little of this and a little of that–a couple eggs or a cup of milk. But…it is an entirely different thing to call a neighbor and ask…
This recipe for Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Chickpeas, Tahini and Avocado has everything–good proteins, healthy cruciferous cauliflower, peppery watercress, and beautiful Cara Cara oranges. Did I mention there are avocados, too?
And, oh! those Cara Cara oranges!
I’ll admit that I’ve fallen head-over-heels in love with Cara Cara oranges of late. Sweeter and more nutritious than a regular naval orange, their intense pink color is spectacular. I don’t exaggerate when I say that you will gasp when you first cut into one. They are that pretty.
Cara Cara oranges have only been around for a short time. The orange was discovered in 1976 in Venezuela where an enterprising hybridizer crossed a Washington navel orange with a Brazilian Bahia navel. They were first imported commercially into the U.S. market in the 1980s and for awhile were available in very limited quantities. Now, however, they are grown in California, Florida and Texas and they are shedding their “boutique orange” label.
The flavor and beauty of this orange has not gone unnoticed among foodies. One website describes the Cara Cara this way: “…notes of berry flavors similar to blackberries and raspberries but overall taste like orange candy.”
I confess that quote about Cara Caras made me giggle. It reminded me of the florid prose you find on bottles of wine. You know the ones: ” Blessed with a bold, mouth-filling style and a concentration of ripe fruit flavors and silky supple tannins, this seldom-available cuvee boasts lush lingering jammy black cherry flavors complemented by the warm spicy notes of toasted oak, marshmallows and rich custard pie. With notes straight from the earthy wooded forest floor, this wine is blessed with an exceptional gout de terroir. There are no hard edges here but definitely a long, 35-second finish.” What?
Cara Caras have a relatively short season, winter to spring, so you need to buy them now.
And, trust me; this orange has absolutely no hard edges and a spectacular smooth finish that you won’t soon forget. Its gout de terroir? Words escape me.
Here is the salad recipe:
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Here is the Amazon link to Melissa Clark’s book, Dinner-Changing The Game: http://Amazon Link to Melissa Clark’s Book.
Oh, we strategized. We’d be at our computers at 9 a.m. sharp, fingers poised to click the button that read “buy Hamilton tickets” the moment the digital clock struck nine. Then, The Segerstrom Theatre would place us into a “virtual waiting room” where the…
