Food, Photography and Bons Mots
I’ve been making (and enjoying) this soup for a very long time. This corn chowder recipe first ran in the Los Angeles Times on September 30, 1998–21 years ago. The Times food section had a “Quick Fix” column at the time and this recipe was…
Nineteen hundred and twenty two NY Times readers can’t be wrong. That is how many NYT cooks have rated this Guinness cake an average of five stars (out of five stars), some giving the cake rave written reviews sprinkled with praises like “Divine!” and “Insanely…
Do you have filo phobia? Afraid to touch the delicate sheets of filo for fear that they will tear into a million pieces?
If so, this recipe is for you.
It is called Greek Rag Pie and the recipe actually calls for you to rip the fragile leaves of filo dough into little “rags.” If nothing else, the process is cathartic, making up for the times when you stand over the finicky dough and struggle to make it lay flat in your pan. Believe me. I’m a dedicated baklava baker. I’ve been there. Filo can be a challenge.
This recipe is a riff on Greek Patsavouropita, a dish cleverly conceived by Greek bakers to use up the leftover scraps of filo dough they accumulated after baking baklava or other filo dough treats. In reality, it is a variant on traditional tyropita.
This is an excellent recipe. You get crunchy and buttery filo, bursts of briny feta flavor, warm sweet honey– all held together by an egg custard.
Paired with a green salad dressed with a delicate vinaigrette, this is perfect for a light meal. It’s good for breakfast, too. Come to think of it, it would make for an elegant (and unexpected) dessert.
[mpprecipe-recipe:187]
Here is the link to Nigella Lawson’s recipe: Old Rag Pie.
You’re pretty sure to be the only person to bring this salad to the next potluck. It’s unusual. This recipe is adapted from one that appears in Hetty McKinnon’s imaginitive salad cookbook, Neighborhood. I find myself repeatedly going to her cookbooks when I want…
We have a lot of things to thank Julia Child for beyond the fact that she popularized French home cooking here in the U.S. She made cooking cool. She pioneered a cooking show genre that has exploded into the countless cooking shows that eat…
Anyone out there who doesn’t like artichokes? I don’t see any hands.
I think artichokes are a bit like avocados. Even served simply without a whole lot of fuss, both vegetables generate a lot of buzz around the table. Carrots and celery certainly don’t get that kind of respect. Why is that?
I found this recipe for Grilled and Smothered Artichokes in Cara Mangini’s excellent cookbook, The Vegetable Butcher. (Available on Amazon) I loved it! I think I enjoyed it as much for its bounty of artichokes as for the beauty of its presentation–charred artichoke quarters dressed in a tart lemon-garlic vinaigrette and garnished with beautiful caramelized lemon wedges hot off your grill. Your guests will be wowed. I was.
I have to confess that Mangini first got my attention with her book title. The concept of a vegetable butcher is a clever turn of a phrase. Mangini defines a vegetable butcher as “a trusted professional who breaks down vegetables with knife lessons, insider tips and approachable preparations.” Apparently that is exactly what she did when she worked at Mario Batali’s Eataly in Manhattan. In the introduction to her book she writes: “At Eataly, customers walked right up to me with their produce for purchase and I would clean it, peel it, slice it and prime it. I shredded cabbage, shelled fava beans, shaved celery root and prepped case after case of baby artichokes.” I think that’s a great concept. Wouldn’t you love to have a vegetable butcher as a lifeline when you shop at Whole Foods, for example? “Excuse me. I’m thinking of acquiring my first kohlrabi….”
No! Wait! I just looked it up. Whole Foods already has a produce butcher at its 43,000 square foot Bryant Park New York City location. For $1 a pound, they will prep your produce and whisper cooking directions in your ear. (Note the kindergarten-esque graphic advertising the various “cuts” below the lighted Produce Butcher sign shown in the photo below. “Minced” made me laugh out loud. And where is grated and cored? Shredded? Heaven forbid you would want a brunoise or a batonnet.) I know that, if I ever make it to the toney Bryant Park produce butcher, I’m going to ask her to prep a durian right there in the middle of the store. Maybe that is a bit of schadenfreude on my part, but, like my alter-ego Bart Simpson, I do thrive on chaos. ( Jimmy Kimmel tries durian.)
But, back to the book. Mangini presents more than 150 recipes and discusses the preparation and seasonality of almost 100 vegetables in her book. To be sure, she discusses mainstream vegetables like carrots and celery and sweet potatoes but she also showcases some not-so-mainstream vegetables like kohlrabi, rutabagas, and fennel. You don’t have to be a food adventurer to enjoy this book but a careful reading will definitely help you broaden your horizons when you shop the vegetable counters at your local market.
So far, I’ve found Mangini’s recipes to be several cuts ( shameless pun. sorry.) above the norm, too. She’ll have your mouth watering with recipes like Cauliflower and Caramelized Fennel Soup, Smashed and Seared Beets with Chimichurri and Goat cheese Crema, and a Late Summer Ratatouille baked under a butter, parmesan and oat crust. Oh my!
Here is my adaptation of her recipe for Grilled and Smothered Artichokes.
[mpprecipe-recipe:75]
Which “vegetable” is actually a berry, has the highest nicotine content among all vegetables, and is 95% water? (Hint: Chinese ladies once used the dye extracted from this vegetable’s skin to polish their teeth to a then-fashionable gray hue.) It’s the eggplant. Who knew? (Don’t…
This is the easiest vanilla ice cream recipe ever. You should make it now before you are priced out of the vanilla aisle! During normal times, vanilla, approximately 80% of which is produced in the hardscrabble African island-nation of Madagascar, is the second most expensive…
For me, it’s Snickers bars, refried beans, candied corn, and vanilla ice cream. (No. I don’t eat them together.)
We’re talking about comfort food today, or, as the dictionary defines it: ” food that is enjoyable to eat and makes the eater feel better emotionally.”
Potato chips are most often identified as the top comfort food in America, but a comfort food can be any food that relieves stress and makes a person feel safe. For example, writer Anneli Rufus, in an article titled “How comfort foods work like Prozac”, confides that she finds comfort in small sourdough buns she purchases from a neighborhood shop: “In a certain cheese shop in my town, there is a rack of rolls. Gleaming golden outside and airy, stretchy, satiny inside, they’re sourdough and only vaguely square as if cut by clowns. One fits in my palm, then my sweatshirt pocket, which it must because this is the acid test by which I define comfort food: It’s small. It’s portable. It can be consumed silently. My comfort food must never call attention to itself. It must be dazzlingly bland, like Zen koans. Rolls. Marshmallows. Mochi. One round bowl of rice.” (Rufus is a recovering anorexic who is working to mend her relationship with food.)
There are gender differences in identifying comfort foods. According to research conducted at Cornell, women find comfort in snack-related foods like candy and chocolate while men prefer more meal-related comfort foods such as pasta and casseroles.
But why do we equate foods with well-being?
Studies show that the foods we enjoy are often tied in our minds to the positive memories and associations they evoke. Those foods make us feel safe, calm and cared for. It could be Mom’s minestrone or the chocolate cake we were always served on birthdays or the Snickers bars we hoarded every Halloween.
Foods also affect brain chemistry. State University of New York (Buffalo) psychology professor Shira Gabriel quotes studies that have shown that sugars and starches cause our brains to release seratonin, a neurotransmitter that triggers a sense of well-being. Salty foods, on the other hand, cause the release of oxytocins, the so-called “cuddle” chemicals that give us the same comfort that we get when we get a hug from a friend. So, a sociable person who feels isolated might reach out for a culinary hug with a salty snack like a bowl of pretzels while a piece of Amedei Chaou chocolate might calm someone down when the oven breaks down just as the first guests arrive for an important party. (Considered by some to be the best chocolate in the world, you can buy a 50 gram bar of Amedei Limited Edition Chaou chocolate on Amazon for $21.15. That’s about $191 a pound–a guilt-inducing indulgence that might trigger its own crisis eating binge.)
Not everyone agrees, though. The University of Minnesota did a NASA-funded study where 100 subjects were shown 18 minutes of clips of sad/upsetting movies (Sophie’s Choice, Armageddon and The Hurt Locker) after which they were fed various foods–some comfort, some not. All their subjects reported feeling “awful” immediately after the movie clips. What surprised the researchers, though, was that all the study’s subjects, regardless of what they ate, felt better after the passage of a short amount of time. Their conclusion? People are remarkably resilient and the effect of comfort foods on moods is transitory at best. (Interestingly, some of the subjects quit the study after watching the three movie clips, so remember to paste a reminder on your TV not to queue up those three films to binge watch on Netflix.)
This broccoli and cheddar cheese soup seems to push some definite comfort buttons for me. I’ve never had an especially close connection to broccoli but cheese and I have a long and happy relationship.
[mpprecipe-recipe:72]
This recipe is adapted from one that appears here: Averie Cooks’ Recipe for Cheddar and Broccoli Soup
For the love of plums… I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold –“This is just to say” by William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams…
