BingoFest

26 September Monday

A friend wrote and asked for a recipe. Strawberry Meringue Cake by Ms. Bevelyn Blair of Columbus, Georgia. I was more than happy to oblige, and shared my slightly revised recipe which doubled the amount of milk in the original recipe. When I made the confection in a much celebrated installment of this serial, I announced that it was wonderful, and I went ballistic for it, declared her to be a great genius of the kitchen, and that was that. When I asked how it turned out, my friend said it was good, but the crust (not cake) was chewy and maybe too dense.

So, I think it might be time to revisit the recipe and perhaps concede that there is errata in her work, which doesn’t make her a bad baker and certainly not a bad person. A bad editor, maybe. It clearly says tested cake recipes on the front cover. I wonder if anyone down there in Columbus, Georgia helped her test the recipes, poor thing. A book like this is a lot of work. Well I’d sat here and stewed long enough. I decided to contact Ms. Bevelyn Blair of Columbus, Georgia.

I was a little surprised to see that she had a Twitter account, less so to see that she has two followers and has never sent a Tweet. It is apparently the only way to contact and nag her with annoying questions about how much milk goes in things. But gosh dern it, I’m gonna try! At its core, the dilemma is this- Is there something wrong with the Strawberry Meringue Cake recipe, or should it really be called Strawberry Meringue Bars? Fearing she may not check her social media all day, I had to have another method of figuring out the answer to this question. So, like the great scholars of old, I went back to the source, the manuscript, the scroll, the cave etchings to look for clues. Sift for them, if I may. Get it?

I thought it best considering the season, to start with her selection of pumpkin recipes. What I am looking for is a recipe that is similar to the strawberry one in terms of proportions of ingredients.

Ah, the pumpkin. The strawberry’s oafish cousin. The sweet delicate berries of summer have been crushed by the stubborn and withholding gourd. Hmm, I was just thinking that the pumpkin is often portrayed as empty headed or angry or as a goofy tag-a-long in literature or whatever, media, whereas the strawberry isn’t portrayed at all. Could you imagine the Headless Horseman launching a strawberry at Professor Crane? Where’s the drama in that?

I launch myself back into Country Cakes. Looking for recipes similar to Strawberry Meringue Cake starring pumpkin. There is a Pumpkin Cake recipe which looks very traditional, with whole eggs, oil, sifted flour, the regular cast. Not what we’re looking for. And that’s it. A pumpkin bread. Other than those, it seems she may not have been fond of pumpkin.

Then, a raisin cake, same sort of deal, only with hot water instead of milk. That one looks good actually. The next recipe, Raspberry Cake. OK, ok, it looks similar in that the eggs are separated, the ratio of dry to liquid is the same as the other cake (which in this case could be ruinous). With a batter that is really a dough, I mean, ya can’t fold egg whites into that. One can’t fold egg whites into a dough. Anyway, the whole concept of the cake sounds absolutely amazing, not the least reason being that the entire cake, after being covered in deep red raspberry whipped cream, is showered in finely shaved sun yellow citron, an ingredient I have a really hard time finding, in fact I’ve never found it here in San Francisco. Blair does that sometimes, uses an ingredient that seems really far away from me. Like a product called Vanilla, Butter, and Nut baking flavoring. Ever use that? My new Twitter friend, Bevelyn Blair of Columbus, Georgia certainly has.

Will I try the Raspberry Cake? Yes. Will I wait to see if I hear that she reached out to touch me? Hmm maybe a few days. How thrilling, another mystery!

25 September Sunday

Away with strawberries, raspberries, and the like. On the feast of St. Michael and All Angels (September 29) it is said, the devil pisses on the berry bushes, making them sour until Easter. A strange little tale, sure, and maybe lacking in empirical backup, but it is true that the price goes up. Time for apples, pears, persimmons, and the elusive quince.

It was several years ago that my local corner grocery was carrying fresh quince. October-November, fresh quince time. Now, I had never handled quince before, and I was determined to not make the same ridiculous mistake I had made with the kumquat (another post, forthcoming). Quinces really can’t be eaten out of hand. They need to be cooked slowly and with lots of sweet added. The flavor is ambrosial. There is citrus, apple/pear, rose and other floral do dads. You can make a crisp with it, the same as apples. I am looking for some now. Quince crisp is quite amazing. Recipe ahead.

In fact, I have a really interesting story from whence the quince crisp recipe cometh. I won’t tell you now, but it has something to do with George Balanchine. Does that wet your appetite?

21 September Wednesday

If you are a cooking enthusiast and live near full service, international grocery stores, you may have a pantry filled with spices, dried herbs, and sauces which come from cuisines other than American-Euro type, whatever that is. When I first moved to San Francisco, I wanted to learn to make all of my favorite international dishes. I made my own garam masala, I learned to stir fry and use Sichuan peppercorns, I’ve made Thai and Japanese curries. But then, what? You make that amazing curry, once, twice, and you still have enough pantry items to last through the next couple years. During the pandemic, on a night when unlimited tacos were called for, my friend went out to find some essential cumin. He returned with the largest single container of spice I’ve ever seen. We must make use. It has come to that time of year, when we need to review what we have, where we are, and whatever.

Yes, indeed, if you are not hopelessly optimistic, you are experiencing the whatever days. Yes, the end of September. I hear everyone saying they are a little tired, and why not? Everything around us is changing. I know I talk a lot about the seasons, but they are important. There are times when it is OK to go with it, and if you are a little tired, well then, take a nap. Back to school, back to the rhythm of work and routine. It’s good, it has its place. Time to plan breakfasts, lay outfits, and pack a lunch.

OK, so back on track. Several weeks ago, I made those lovely roast pork hoagies, then I followed up with some enchiladas. They were delicious, and I find myself strangely uninspired to write about them. I researched the history of enchiladas, and even I can’t come up with an exciting story. Except this, friends. Enchilada means to add chiles. And I think it’s time. It’s time to add chiles. They’re old, they’ve been around for thousands and thousands of years, and they still find their way onto many a North Dakota dinner table. You know the rest. Colonists. Appropriation. Assimilation. Bon appetit.

14 September Wednesday

On this blog, as in life, I enjoy using recipes, discovering new flavors, dishes, and sharing my experience with you. Another great object of cooking is building a repertoire of recipes, things that go from book to brain to self, so that you can create many meals without looking at a book. My risotto, jojos, roast chicken, salsas, pancakes, pizza doughs, curries, stews, soups, pie dough, stir-frys are all things I do without looking in a cookbook. Learning basic techniques, cooking and baking, and foods of different cultures make the creative mind more elastic and can give birth to invention.

Keep a list of what you’ve made, what your lovelies loved, what was fun for you, what was expensive, whatever. This is how you determine what makes it in and what doesn’t. You will be a joyful gourmet!

If you are pressed for time generally but would like some homemade bread with dinner, I suggest you memorize any of the many easy recipes for Naan or Pita. Having these in your repertoire can really make use of the flours, yeasts, baking powders and sodas that are sitting in your cabinet, awaiting their moment on the great stage. Why not give them that moment? They want to be used by you. Sweet dreams are made of this.

If you have an interest in or knowledge of liturgical Christianity, you may know today as Feast of the Holy Cross. I only mention it because it has food implications. Because it is the alleged date that St. Helena discovered the “original cross” from which countless holy relics were widdled and sold, cross shaped foods and red (for blood!!) food is appropriate. What do you eat that is cross shaped? A misaligned hot dog, there’s one.

The herb that was found at the foot of the original cross was our beloved basil, which Italians had no problem with but Greeks, until the end of the 19th century, refrained from using the sacred herb in dishes. Well, what a difference a century makes! Now, basil is a suggested food for the feast. In fact, theological culinarians recommend eating sliced tomatoes (blood) with basil (the cross) and mozzarella (baptized souls) for a real treat. Very oddly, National Hot Cross Bun Day in the USA is the Sunday closest to Holy Cross Day, this year September 11. How are these things decided? The joke is, that when they put all of St. Helena’s relics of the original cross together, they discovered that Jesus was ten miles tall. That’s the joke. It’s in my rep.

14 September Wednesday

Having discovered the recently late QE2 was not a foodie per se, we ask the next most reasonable question- did she drink? If no, we are lost. Of course she did, she the Queen. It turns out, I am way late to this game. When I Googled Queen´s favorite drink, not only did it bring three hundred recipes for Dubonnet and Gin, more popularly known(?!??!) as a Zaza here in the USA, but it also linked to several articles about a run on Dubonnet because everyone and their uncle Tim looked up the queen´s favorite drink and are swilling them in her honor.

I have never had Dubonnet, and I imagine it will be a while before I do. I like to drink wine, but I´ve cooled to cocktails over the last few years. Harry Craddock, sometime Cleveland bartender and author of 1930´s Savoy Cocktail Book wrote that a cocktail must be drunk quick ¨while it´s still laughing at you¨. I never thought that anyone could drink a cocktail that quickly, and one of my big complaints about cocktails is that they get warm before they´re finished. They must be ice ¨cracking cold¨ as James Beard would say. This led me to the obvious conclusion that cocktail glasses have grown over the years, and my research based on this hunch seems to have validity.

The standard bar cocktail glass back when Harry was shaken´em was 3-4 US fl.oz. Now, cocktail glasses (by which I mean martini glasses) can hold up to 10 US fl. oz. They still make small ones, but people at the bar like everything big, so bars generally stock larger glasses. Because of this, I always found the second half of a cocktail to be a warm, water-logged (if it was on the rocks), mess. So, I stick to wine. It´s too bad we can´t request cocktail glass sizes the way we can control every other aspect of the drink ordering process. Anyway, Bess, here´s mud in your eye.

12 September Monday

I´ve had a few cooking ideas lately have surprisingly long cook times. I thought with my leftover pork sandwich and apple pie dinner, I´d whip up some Jojos, that spiced potato wedge that the people of the Pacific Northwest claim as their own, and they can have it. We did have them growing up in Ohio but never mind. Of course, the whole wide word eats potato wedges, but don´t call them by this colorful and fun-loving eponym. I wonder if there was a Jojo, and if they were flattered to have a dish of tuber chunks named for them?

Any ole whoodalee doodalee, it takes hours and hours first to steam the potatoes, dry them out, season them and let them mature then deep-fry them. I was hoping to toss ´em in oil and spices, put them on a sheet, and bake them in the oven. These should have their own, fun name. Flohos? BroNos? Shakadiddles?

Let me try Shakadiddles for now, and if it doesn´t feel right or good, we´ll try something else.

Shakadiddles- oven fried potato wedges. First, my signature spice blend- sweet paprika, garlic powder, celery seed, white pepper, salt, and a couple teaspoons of corn starch. Toss the potato wedges, skin on please, in a bowl with the spice blend and olive oil. Let them rest while the oven gets good and hot 450F. Below is a photo of the potatoes resting.

Above is a photo of the potatoes resting. What are they resting from? It´s hard to tell because it is a photograph, but if I uploaded a video of the same thing, you´d see that the potatoes are in fact, at rest. Soon, they shall be joyfully showered with a bouquet garni and set to bake, roast, oven-fry or whatever you want to call it. Baking is technically dry roasting, so these would really be roasted potatoes.

The concept of oven-frying as a response to deep frying is fairly new as far as I can tell. These dishes appear in the twentieth century as temperature regulated ovens became more widespread. Breading chicken legs and oven frying has a much higher success rate when you can be reasonably assured that the vessel temperature will remain consistent. It´s definitely easier. Although, and this will need to be a topic for another day, deep frying is in fact not as difficult, messy, or unhealthy as many would have you believe.

Oh my, my tummy is growling and the whole apartment smells like toasted spices. So wonderful. I had to close the windows, it´s too cold outside kids. Now, the house is warm like a big baked potato. Soon, soon, I shall taste and judge my little creation.

First, these are perfect Jojos, I can´t call them anything else. They are too close to being Jojos to masquerade as an original creation. Forget deep frying. These are easy and almost no clean up. These potatoes are good. They are crisp, spicy, and snappin’ at ya fresh. I made them with Golden potatoes, which are a bit more moist than Russets, but not as waxy as the little ones like new reds or some of the little yeller ones.

My dining companion described them as ¨a good start¨ but chose to keep any suggested improvements to himself. Well, they´re fantastic. If you make these, I think you will be loved even more, if such a thing is possible.

So, there they are. I´m just gonna sit here for a minute. Oh, a glass of Rosé? Don´t mind if I do. Oh, and a little roast pork bun? How yummy does it get? The apple pie, the compote center of which is heavenly. Caramel apples, a favorite childhood treat.

There it is, friends. A quiet, peaceful day here in the big bad city. The best of times is now.

12 September Monday

It is a cool, windy, gray, fall day here in San Francisco, a great day to curl up in a sleeping blanket on the floor and write my little thoughts, such as they are, down.

We thoroughly enjoyed the roast pork sandwiches at the opera (fancy) where not only did we hear the classics, a brand-new piece written by a composer friend, Texu Kim was premiered. All around wonderful happy day.

Now, I am home, alone, on day 3 with several servings of roast pork. I could probably enjoy another sandwich with it today, but after that I will need something new. Taco Tuesday this week will be pork enchiladas.

Learning to love in leftover land can be tough. There is only one meal that can ever be served exactly as was in leftover form: The Thanksgiving.2 Turkey, stuffing, you name it, can be plopped right onto the plate, heaved into the microwave, and bob´s your uncle. All other foods need to be sandwichized, saladized, souped, or saucified. I have always thought that leftovers were sad. They look like they´ve been mishandled, or carelessly packed away, semi-stored, with grumpy sharped edge foil, or wilted, demurring Saran wrap. The other thing that is so heartbreaking I could cry is when someone determines that a tablespoon of wild rice pilaf is going to make a gratifying snack later on, and puts it in a little plastic container of solitary confinement where it goes insane, like a leopard pacing in an enclosure yearning for the wild. Why, why, why, do that to the poor little fella? Did no one, not one person, have room in their monstrous bellies for one tablespoon of wild rice pilaf?

Anyway, yeah, leftovers can be tough. You don´t want to waste anything. Enchiladas, yes. A joyful heart maketh a cheerful countenance.

What then, for the rest of the week?

12 September Monday

The first question I have ever been asked. Why cubed apples instead of sliced in an apple pie? I have done both, and what are the differences? Apple pies, apple pies, apple pies. Some have crumble topping, some are single crust, some are double crust with all manner of decoration. The shape of the apple pieces, however, seems to be crucial. It´s interesting isn´t it, all the manners of apple pie toppings, but not a lot about the bottom crust. It should be an all butter and flour crust, easy and easy.

The best pie crust I ever made with my own two hands is the cream cheese crust devised by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Why not use it all the time? Because I have another favorite, from the Book on Pie by Erin Jeanne McDowell. It´s the rough puff which requires a few turns and roll outs before baking, giving it layers like puff pastry. It´s good, nay, important to have an all butter pie crust in your repertoire. But we´re here to talk about the apples.

Granny smith? Honey Crisp? Golden Delicious? This is another thing that people can get really weird about, I mean, honestly. Some people like the Granny Smiths the best because they are not sweet, and the sweetness can be adjusted with sugar. I don´t always like them because they get samey, and sometimes it´s not as applee a flavor as you like. I like to use a combination of varieties-a few grannies, a little jazz, maybe even a Fuji or two. But now here´s where things get, well, they get a little funky.

The first time I made McDowell´s apple pie, I did the first one in her book (with the brilliant addition of apple cider). It was during the pandemic and the height of listlessness. There were too many apples, the crust came out beautifully cooked, but the apples were underdone. The friend with whom I shared my pastry noted that the apples had been sliced and not cut into chunks as he was accustomed to. Wait a minute, I thought, I´ve baked lots of apple pies and have never once considered how the shape of the apple pieces might affect not only the cooking time, but the texture of the end result.

Sure enough, the next recipe in Book on Pie is for her personal favorite apple pie, which among a few other small differences…………requires the fruit to be cut in large dice!! OK, so I made the second recipe several months ago, and voila, a more cooked, soft but still holds its shape apple piece. I must remember this. A pie is still a pie as time goes by.

One more element- I do find that the apple type can affect the baking time, which can be tricky if the crust is too baked. The granny smiths always keep their shape better, but can be too chiffy in texture. The pie I made yesterday was a combo of grannies and honey crisp. I cut the grannies into a small dice and the honey crisps into larger dice. They came out the same doneness. It was fun. Mix it up.

I served the pie yesterday to a second guest. When we were done he said ¨That´s funny, I´ve never had a pie with the apples cut into chunks like that, I always thought it was slices.¨

11 September Sunday

The wicked spell that was California´s worst heat wave so far finally being broken, the kitchen was open and in full swing. After the sobering trip to Lig´s, I returned home with not quite enough time to do everything and not quite the right ingredients. Never mind, I made a few adjustments. First, I decided to make tomato basil soup to start, which I did exactly the way I had in Ohio. It´s hard to go wrong with that one folks, especially if it is based with your own homemade chicken stock. Instead of the Polish Honey Cake I had planned, I made an apple pie, which I´ll share some thoughts on momentarily, when I am ready. I bought the beautifully on sale pork loin, rubbed with a spicy mix of the avocado honey, cayenne, Tabasco, vinegar, shallots, thyme, rosemary, and garlic. I let ´er soak for a good eight hours, then I roast that baby on a bed of sliced onions for no less than four and a half hours in a slow oven. We made hoagies with these, which were delicious. I´m putting a few more together today for Opera in the Park.

OK, I´ve always had a little tip or rule of thumb, perhaps it is something my mom does, or maybe it´s common knowledge and everybody and their mother does it-

Don´t make pie crust or pastry when other things are cooking in the kitchen, particularly boiling or simmering. Why? Because the butter melts very quickly in a room with boiling water steaming up the air. Bake pies first when the kitchen is coolest. I knew this, yet I was out of time and had to. The results on the pie weren´t disastrous but it was very slightly frustrating, the pastry was a little stiffer almost like layers of croissant or oddly, something that has yeast in it. I also had to bake it in the convection oven (but didn´t turn the convection feature on!) result being the bottom crust was slightly under baked, it wasn´t raw, one of the greatest tragedies of pie baking, but it could have been crisper. Man, how many times have we said that!?

Honest to god, Benji, you need to learn to take a better photograph. Look at your foot standing there. Anyway, that is the pie. It looked so much better in real life.

Another thing that surprised me was the amount of honey I needed to use for the pork. I didn´t have enough honey for the honey cake which was the other reason I went with apple pie. It was a really nice dinner, looking forward to the leftovers today and tomorrow. I could make pork tacos, a mole or some such sauce to serve with rice, or make a pasta sauce with it. Also, I could use it as a filling for savory doughnuts. Many amazing things.

11 September Sunday

This week we experienced the last full moon of summer, the harvest moon. The gathering in. The reorganizing, the structuring, the hunkering down for fall leading us to winter. As I´ve said before, or at least intimated, the effects of this season change are not so dramatic in California, so lovers of it need to find more symbolic ways of observing it. Perhaps that is why Pumpkin Spice things are so incredibly popular here, as well as Halloween shops that open seasonally, usually on the 5th of July.

It is definitely fall. There is a moment every year- it must be the angle of the sun, or an earlier setting time, but we step outside, take a breath, and summer is over. Also, the temperature dropped twenty degrees, so I reopened the kitchen.

Since ancient times the market where food is stored and sold has been a crossroads for all of humanity great and small, strong and weak, getting by and barely holding on. It has been this way, I imagine, since cities began. This would have been a good thing to remind myself of when I alighted the 33 bus in San Francisco yesterday afternoon, right in front of Large Innercity Grocery Store, henceforth known as Lig´s. Every city in America has at least several Lig´s- a wearhouse hell-shit nightmare of sugary cereals and slaughtered animals where the universe´s lost and tortured souls wander aimlessly up and down aisles often with nothing in their hands. I imagine these folks are waiting for the dirigible that will dock soon in the bakery, welcome them aboard and take them to a distant galaxy where they will be restored, made whole. Each man, woman, and child seems to be seething with rage or in the throes of a manic episode. Couples openly feuding over how many ounces of mustard can be afforded. Women screaming at their brood of children to shut up, put that down, put that back. I saw a man openly cursing a Family Size pack of paper towels for not having anything in this MF Lig´s. Everywhere, plastic containers of aging potato salad, violently discarded lottery tickets, shattered jars of pickles. Near the coffee and tea, a very old man with bulging eyes standing perfectly still. It is not just a grocery, it is a tableau from Inferno. And I realize that when I am here, I am part of it. The others look at me and wonder what my deal is, and what am I looking at? They see me as an equal, which disgusts and offends me because I like to think I´m better than them. Yet, here we are in the same checkout line.

Yes, yes, I know, I went to save money. I went to get larger quantities of cleaning supplies. Yes, they claimed some food products at a savings. However, it appeared yesterday that the savings happened by Lig´s not stocking the products in the first place. Still, I did manage to find some good apples (literally) and potatoes. But, did I really save save SAVE anything? No, because I had to leave behind some of my illusions about the world being a beautiful and fair place. I never want to go there again, and I want to go right now.