We went to see Wordplay last night, which is smart and engaging — lots of great interviews with crossword puzzlers like Bill Clinton, Jon Stewart, Mike Mussina, and the Indigo Girls. It manages to make watching a crossword puzzle tournament riveting, and it’s surprisingly touching, too. But I’ve got to wonder, after seeing this movie, is it really only white people who do crossword puzzles?
July 1st, 2006 Caroline
We’ve been getting on Ben’s case lately not to shout at us, to come into the room when he wants to talk to us, the basic conventions of polite society. And clearly our message is getting through. Yesterday, he stood at the top of the stairs with his microphone calling, “Dada! Dada?! I need help building my airport!!”
Later he explained that since no one had responded when the microphone was set on medium, he turned it up to loud. Thanks, Ben.
1 comment July 1st, 2006 Caroline
Tony’s aunt and uncle have been staying with us, having stopped for a couple nights on their way up from Newport Beach (fancy) here
(fancy, fancy). So I felt compelled to make them a little something special for dessert their first night. Normally, I would have researched a bit (ok, a lot) pulling four or five cookbooks off the shelf, comparing recipes, reading up on the techniques I’m unfamiliar with. But we’d only just gotten home from our (fabulous, wonderful) beach vacation, I was jetlagged and stressed out, and so I just went with the first recipe I found in The Baker’s Dozen Cookbook.
Honestly, I like the idea of this cookbook — written by a group of baker friends like Marion Cunningham, Flo Braker and Lindsey Shere — as much as the book itself. I like thinking of these men and women gathering occasionally to hold egg white workshops and ganache seminars. And I’m glad I don’t have to attend, just benefit from what they’ve discovered. And, when I’m in a rush to make a fancy dessert, in fact ignore that they’ve discovered room temperature egg whites make a fuller meringue. I’m not going for perfection here, just impressive. There’s a difference, and I succeeded. It looked beautiful, tasted great, and we had leftovers — what more do you want in a dessert, really?
I’ll give you the recipe as written, and note where I deviated…
Raspberry Lemon Meringue Tart
First make the pastry:
6 tbsp unsalted butter, cool but not cold, cut into small cubes (mine was straight from the fridge, so I nuked it for 20 seconds)
2 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature (or not)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 c all purpose flour
In a medium bowl, use a hand mixer to cream the butter and sugar until light in color and texture, about 2 minutes. Break the egg into a small cup, beat it thoroughly with a fork, measure out 2 1/2 tbsp and discard the rest (I did do this, though the measurement was totally imprecise). Beat it into the butter with the vanilla and salt until just blended. Scrape down the bowl and add the flour all at once, beating in on low speed until the ingrediants are just moistened. Do not overmix.
Turn the dough out on to an unfloured work surface. Finish combining ingrediants by smearing small amounts away from you with a rubber scraper (this is a French technique called fraisage. I used a technique called less messy, by doing the smearing in the mixing bowl.)
Gather the dough up into a flat disk, about 1/2″ thick, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, at least one hour. (You can prepare the dough a day ahead).
Now make the filling:
5 large egg yolks
1/3 c lemon juice (from 1 big lemon)
grated zest of 1 lemon
1/2 c sugar
4 tbsp butter, chilled, cut into small cubes
1 c raspberries or blueberries
To make the filling, whisk together the yolks, lemon juice, zest, and sugar in the top of a double boiler or a small metal mixing bowl. Add the butter and place over simmering water to cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the spoon lightly, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap pressed directly on the surface (poke a couple holes in the plastic to let the steam escape) and refrigerate until chilled, about an hour. This, too, can be prepared in advance.
Now back to the crust.
Lightly flour a work surface and roll the dough out into an 11″ circle, about 1/8″ thick. Lift the dough and center it in a 9″ fluted tart pan with removable bottom. Ease the dough into the corners and press it gently into the pan. Trim the dough flush with the top of the pan. Prick the bottom well with a fork. Freeze until firm, about 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 375.
Bake the tart shell about 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 and continue baking until the pastry is golden brown, about 10 more minutes. If the dough bubbles up at any time, pierce the bubble with the tip of a fork. Transfer the tart to a cooling rack and cool completely (or not).
Spread the lemon curd evenly in the tart shell. Sprinkle the berries on top and press them gently into the filling. Bake until the filling seems set when you gently shake the pan, 20 minutes or so.
While the filled tart is baking, make the meringue topping:
1/4c water
1 tbsp corn starch
1/2 c granulated or superfine sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar (didn’t use it, and didn’t notice a difference)
1/2 c egg whites (4-5) at room temperature
In a small saucepan, whisk together the water and corn starch and heat, whisking, until it forms a thick, opaque paste. Set aside.
In a small bowl, mix the sugar and cream of tartar (if using). In a medium bowl, whip the egg whites until foamy with a hand mixer on low speed. Increase the speed to medium-high and start adding the sugar one tablespoon at a time until soft peaks form. Add the cooled cornstarch mixture and whip to form stiff, shiny peaks.
Heap the meringue onto the baked tart and return to the oven until meringue is lightly browned, 5-10 minutes.
Cool and serve.
July 1st, 2006 Caroline
OK, the new recipes will have to wait. The bags are packed with sand toys and the collapsible fire truck and many books that we won’t have time to read, because it’s vacation with the kids! But it’s still a vacation, and that is good.
See y’all later.
1 comment June 15th, 2006 Caroline
I know, I know, we’re all a little tired of the housewife chic shtick. So don’t read Flanagan, read Jen Lawrence’s thoughtful, balanced review of
To Hell With All That and her fascinating profile of Caitlin Flanagan.
Here’s a taste of Jen’s essay:
[Flanagan] writes the way she writes — gorgeous, inclusive prose, followed by a surprise sucker punch to the kidneys — because she knows it will incite rage, generate buzz, increase her stock, and allow her to call the shots with her publisher and the media. She presents the way she presents so that she can, in fact, have a successful writing career and still be at home in time to make a hot meal. She has constructed a persona that works for her; that her words leave deep wounds among her fellow mothers is irrelevant. Heat sells better than light.
And now I’m going to post some more recipes here so you aren’t stuck making Flanagan’s burritos.
1 comment June 15th, 2006 Caroline
Cooking energy and writing energy never used to go hand in hand for me. When I was working on my dissertation, I would fuel my writing with periods of Snapple iced tea and Hershey’s kisses (my very-vanilla stimulants of choice), not stopping to cook a proper meal for a while. Then when the writing was going badly, I would cook and cook and cook: breads, cookies, elaborate, multi-course dinners. It was always one or the other.
Lately, though, cooking and writing energy seem to be coming together. Recently I was in a lull with both, though I didn’t realize it until one day when I got annoyed with Tony for cooking the boys scrambled eggs for lunch, the dinner-of-last-resort I’d been counting on making them. Thinking back, I realized we’d pretty much been alternating pasta and eggs for several days.
As for my writing, I’d heard an interview with Kenji Yoshino and decided that his new book, Covering, would give me the perfect structuring metaphor for my essay in Mama, Ph.D. Except I hadn’t read the book, nor could I find it in the local bookstore, and I kept forgetting to order it on Amazon (yes, I can give you the link but I still haven’t purchased it). It was all quite elaborate procrastination, of course, an excuse to avoid writing.
Thankfully, the lull seems to be fading. We went away for the weekend with good friends, and the prospect of a weekend at the beach got me digging out magazine recipes I’d been meaning to try. For our two nights away, we packed one small duffle bag of clothing and five bags of groceries. I made this baked egg dish (delicious), grilled zucchini pizza and mushroom pizza (pizza on the barbecue! a first for me, and a hit with the kids) and also these maple sugar breakfast rolls (which I’ll make again, because they’re easy, tasty, and I only used about a quarter of the maple sugar the recipe called for, so I have plenty left over). Finally, I made these nice almond shortcakes, which are so much like wheatmeal biscuits or hobnobs, I may never have to buy them again (delicious with raspberries and cream, or just get out the Nutella jar).
As for the writing, well, I’ll still go look for Covering. But in the meantime, my first column’s up, my second is suddenly drafted, and I’ve got some other ideas percolating. So in fact, I should stop with this and get to that!
2 comments June 11th, 2006 Caroline
I found this recipe in a recent Saveur, a magazine I’d about given up on. The writing was seeming pretentious, the recipes nothing I was interested in making… But these cookies are simple and delicious.
12 tbsp butter, softened
1/3 c sugar
zest of one orange
1 c flour
3/4 c ground, unblanched almonds
2/3 c toasted white bread crumbs
Beat butter and sugar until pale and well combined. Add orange zest and beat again briefly. Add flour, almonds, and bread crumbs and beat again until a soft dough forms (I did this all — from grinding the almonds and bread crumbs to mixing the dough– in the food processor).
Transfer dough to a piece of plastic, shape into a 3″-wide log, wrap with plastic and refrigerate overnight.
Preheat oven to 300. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Unwrap chilled dough and slice into 1/4″-thick circles. Arrange circles on baking sheets, about 1″ apart, and bake until golden, about 20 minutes. Transfer to wire racks and let cool.
Serve with whipped cream and berries or nutella.
1 comment June 11th, 2006 Caroline
At bedtime sometimes, Ben and I play the “I love you…” game. You know, “I love you brighter than the sun,” “I love you deeper than the ocean.” That kind of thing. Though sometimes we get kind of silly: “I love you crispier than potato chips,” “I love you fluffier than a pillow.”
Tonight, Ben said “I love you saltier than capers and bacon.”
Yes, even the fakin’ bacon is nice and salty.
June 8th, 2006 Caroline
Reading Beyond Beowulf put alliteration on my mind, and now I’m seeing it everywhere. Enjoy this fabulous sentence from Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (a book we should all read, by the way):
“It remains to be seen whether the current Atkins school theory of ketosis–the process by which the body resorts to burning its own fat when starved of carbohydrates–will someday seem as quaintly quackish as Kellogg’s theory of colonic autointoxication.”
June 5th, 2006 Caroline
Yes, it’s time now for something completely different, a brief break from the boys, the baking, and the book. I’ve got alliteration on my mind because I’ve just finished Beyond Beowulf, the sequel to Beowulf. What? You didn’t know it had a sequel? Well, it didn’t, not until recently, and it is a roaring good read. Honestly, I picked it up the other night, hoping to be lulled quickly to sleep by the gentle rhythms of the iambic pentameter; two hours later, I was still wide awake, racing to the poem’s end.
Now, I’ve always loved a good epic. I learned Latin in high school and happily read all twelve books of The Aeneid in the original. Eventually I took lessons in Greek, too, though I never did well enough with it to get more out of Homer’s poetry than I had in translation. Still, despite undergraduate and graduate degrees in literature, I’d never read Beowulf. I still haven’t, but now I not only want to read that, but then I want to reread Beyond Beowulf. Truly — it’s a lovely story of a people trying to find a new place to live, plus it has trolls that dissolve into inky stains when they’re touched with fire. What more do you want from a book?
June 3rd, 2006 Caroline