| Scones and the City |
Summer!We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you this breaking news story.You can imagine my surprise when I arrived home the other evening to discover fire trucks, ambulances, and police squadrons blocking off my street and a bulky news media van inhabiting my driveway:  View from my front door.It seems the mid-afternoon summer thunderstorm had gotten the best of a very large tree, which toppled over into someone's lawn (not mine, so this is not the important part of the story), taking several power lines down with it. The prognosis was grim. "Ye might not 'ave any powah," a policeman told me. No power? My ice cream!! Hastily fumbling for my keys, I scrambled to get into my apartment and verify the well-being of the latest frozen treat. Fortunately, the Fresh Strawberry and Mascarpone Semifreddo was as buoyantly tasty as it was when enjoyed with some very fine fresh raspberries and a perfect lemon tea:  It's been a while since I've posted, but this is not to imply that my kitchen has fallen idle. I have been busy enjoying the Summer's first crops of blueberries, tucked neatly into a Blueberry-Lemon Sour Cream Coffee Cake:  This cake had superb, rich texture, a tight crumb, and brilliant buttery finish that smacked of sour-creamy-dairy goodness. The berries' natural sweetness melding with the brown sugar swirls contained inside the cake ensured each slice had nearly as much filling/topping to actual cake component. Then I made these almond-chocolate cracks:  If a picture is worth a thousand words, I dare say this one is worth hundreds of misleading ones. I don't suppose the "crack" in the cookie's moniker was intended to connote texture, but as it were, these little bites of chocolate-- initially steamy and deeply cocoa-y straight out of the oven-- became dry, dry, dry. I had been envisioning a moist chocolate mouthful redolent with the warmth of amaretto. Instead, I got nary more than a dark cracker filled with air. Results here are consistent with other cookie recipes thus far attempted from The Sweet Life-- this book shines in other departments (custards, tarts, and souffles; ironically all far more nuanced to prepare). And then I fell in love:  Roasted fresh apricots with chamomile and vanilla. This dessert changed the way I think about The Apricot. All you do is slit the apricots at the seams and roast them in a simple syrup composed of water, sugar, one chamomile tea bag and one vanilla bean. Suddenly you notice that, in tasting the precious ambrosia, the individual components are no longer recognizable as such and it seems there had been traces of chamomile flower and vanilla pulp present within the natural apricot all along. Temperature is integral to experiencing this dessert. Taste it straight out of the oven, and the syrup will glide hot and blistery down your throat, your face flushed after leaning over the pan to imbibe the steamy fruit's floral and fruity perfume. Cold out of the fridge over yogurt and the apricots are the filling of a really yummy pie, fresh, fruity, and chillingly refreshing. Have it lukewarm -- my preference, I think, though I will have to taste it many, many more times, just to be sure -- and you have it all. At this temperature, the apricots are at their most apricoty-ness, with just an ever so slight suggestion of warmth, yet calm and unrushed. This is a dessert to enjoy very, very slowly. Pour a modest glass of muscato and let the fruit laze, laden with syrup, on your tongue. Incidentally, at room temperature the fruit slices are cool enough to the touch that you can giddily reach right into the roasting pan with your fingers and giddily pluck them out of the syrup, licking the dribbles off your fingers afterwards. But of course I don't know anyone who would be so cavalier to eat dessert in such undignified fashion.  11:41 - Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentYe Olde Fashioned Ice Cream Sandwiches There are signs of it everywhere: The down comforter has retreated, fans hum persistently, iced coffees greet bright mornings, cicadas the everlasting dusks. Summer has officially arrived! I just love Summer. It seems there is bounty at every corner, from gardens teeming with flowers and greenery to markets overflowing with berries, melons, and herbs. And Summertime desserts are the undisputed triumphs of distinguished pastry chefs. True, at this time of year there is an unparalleled array of choice, fresh ingredients available to one and all, but heat and humidity lurk in every kitchen corner, posing omnipresent threats to those spectacular roasted peaches and crispy rose meringues. Baking at the height of summer is akin to running a marathon in August at high noon: conditions are defiant and oppressive, yet somehow mirthful. This Summer, being older and wiser (latter debatable), I will aim to make desserts that celebrate ingredients' freshness in their most pure, natural state. In other words, this Summer I will refrain from cranking my oven up to 400 degrees when it is 95 and already baking outside, let alone inside my kitchen. It was at some point last year when I concluded this might be the best course of action, probably around the time I baked one too many trays of cookies in the dead of July and the floorboards had become hot and steamy and the cabinets were sweating. So this will be the Summer of fresh fruit compotes, frozen mousses, classic Parisian tarts with-- of course -- uncooked fruit. I've decided that cooking a custard over a hot stove is perfectly acceptable, though. How else am I supposed to make ice cream? The first ice cream treat of Summer 2007 was Olde Fashioned Ice Cream Sandwiches with Vanilla Ice Cream. With a twist: The vanilla was spiked with malted milk powder, evocotive of the good old days, except more delicious, since the cake part of the sandwiches was gourmet, resolutely chocolately and tasty enough to enjoy on its own. Malted vanilla ice cream really takes me back to the days of my youth when my mom would make me a Malted on occasion of losing a tooth, feeling under the weather, or simply when an Old Tyme treat was in order. We operated a veritable ice cream parlor in our kitchen, using an old fashioned ice cream fountain and preparing plentiful batches of chocolate, vanilla, and coffee malteds. My favorite flavor was always the one I happened to be sipping. The best thing about an ice cream sandwich is its suitability to whimsical consumption, hastily tucked into a napkin and licked off fingers while sitting on the front stoop. I am lucky to live in the heart of a quaint immigrant neighborhood, fresh-off-the-boat in feel, where in warmer months residents' living rooms temporarily relocate to sidewalks and storefronts, octogenarians shuffling around on plastic chairs and watching the world go by. The romantic in me likes to think they are sitting there, clad in their collared button downs and newsboy caps, reminiscing about Old World soccer games played at dusk at the town piazza. Most likely, though, their animated Portuguese is a rousing review of the Yankees' dismal season (Ha Ha!). Enjoy Summer, everyone! 11:12 - Sunday, June 3, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentMy Mother's CheesecakeFor me, life's happiest moments are often synchronized with the receipt of a brand new cookbook. The excitement of poring over new recipes and admiring glossy photographs is so overwhelming that I simply must scurry off to the kitchen and prepare something novel immediately.There is, however, that special breed of recipe that is iconic and does not tolerate even an inkling of another rendition. You might have a blueberry muffin so superlative that with each summer's debut of the most lusciously powdery berries, you automatically reach for just that one cookbook, creased and instinctively falling open to the exact page. And you have your tried and true recipe for soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies. And the one for thin and crispy cookies. And of course there are those particular gingersnaps which comprise the foundation of your culinary reputation. These are the venerable recipes, immutable, substitutes blasphemous. In this vein, the cheesecake section of any given new cookbook is one I read for intellectual amusement, but never in serious pursuit of a new genre to consider. When I crave cheesecake, as I tend to annually for the Jewish holiday known as Holy Day of Cheesecake (or, in some circles, Shavuoth, in part commemorating receiving the scripture seminal to the faith, but everyone knows that the tradition to eat dairy is the most important aspect), I only ever make my mother's cheesecake. This cheesecake is unrivaled: dense and creamy, yet not overbearing; a squeeze of lemon to lend complexity to the rich cheese; and the wonderful buttery crumb of a classic graham cracker crust. This cheesecake is so fantastic that I eat it unadorned, and for those who are familiar with my perpetual wont to guild the lily, this certainly bespeaks the cheesecake's embodied perfection. Do not even think of uttering the words "canned cherry preserves" in front of this cheesecake. The most compelling factoid about cheesecake is that it is one of those few desserts that is globally enjoyed with boundless variations according to local ingredients and customs. Some cultures actually utilize a cheese that is more properly cheese-like -- as in whey or curd -- in the Italianate ricotta cheesecake or German quark cheesecake, respectively. Naturally, such modifications lend entirely different consistencies and distinctions in flavor. My best, uneducated guess is that the American cheesecake -- be it New York style, Chicago style, Philadelphia style, or what have you, is invariably heavier, denser, and more over-the-top than European and Asian counterparts. This is, unabashedly, how I like my cheesecake. Perhaps then it is this dessert that reveals me as a "typical American." :-) 
11:13 - Thursday, May 24, 2007 - comments {1} - post commentThe Colors of Spring Never mind that I am huddled here under a flannel blanket and woolen socks, wondering just how many days we are into the second half of May. It is fully Spring, and I would like to share with you all a most marvelous seasonal treat: Lavender-Lemon Pound Cake.  This baked good is yet another stalwart champion from Claudia Fleming's The Last Course. It offers the same smooth, buttery, and tight crumb of a traditional pound cake, but with an exuberant lemony-ness that would be over the top were it not for the craftily subtle addition of lavender. Dried lavender is what's specified in the recipe.....and also what is conspicuously absent from the shelves of Boston's usual suspects (Whole Foods, Trader Joes, etc.). Rather than poison myself and substitute sprigs from the dried lavender arrangement that graces my bathroom -- which potentially had been coated in toxic spray, but I can't be sure -- I opted for a lovely lavender jelly I just found at the fantastic Farmstead Cheeseshop in Providence (http://www.farmsteadinc.com). I used this syrupy concoction in lieu of the simple sugar syrup for the cake's finishing glaze and then topped slices of the cooled cake with more lavender jelly. The unfathomably delicious result had spoonfuls of delicate lavender positively melting into the joyous lemon. As the introductory photo to this post suggests, I have played a bit with rhubarb this Spring. Unfortunately I can't get nearly as excited about this ingredient as I can about lavender and lemon. I let recent success in teaching myself to finally enjoy avocados, olives, nuts, and even raw tuna to get to my head such that I thought I could trick my taste-buds, which have maintained a staunch "we hate rhubarb" for a good twenty-eight years now, into letting just one teensy tiny root vegetable slip by. Nope. I made rhubarb sorbet with rhubarb-vanilla compote and served it with a plain frozen yogurt and fresh raspberries. The only elements I enjoyed were the plain frozen yogurt and fresh raspberries. The plain frozen yogurt was fantastic, actually. I used the plain "Greek style" Trader Joe's brand yogurt, to which I added nothing more than a spot of sugar and then churned away in the trusty Cuisinart. The end result was tangy and refreshing, and would be even more complex, I suspect, when made with the real thing, Total brand Greek yogurt.  
01:03 - Friday, May 18, 2007 - comments {2} - post commentHow Much is that Mango in the Window?Great news! According to this article from the NYT:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/dining/02mang.html?ref=dining Indian Mangoes hitherto sold only in their homeland may now soon be available nationwide! Truth be told, until this morning I didn't even know this genre of mango existed. Now, though, I am beyond possessed by that photo. I think I can even detect golden juices of the Indian exotic dripping, tantalizingly, onto my keyboard. That imported mango may very well be all I want or need out of life. Meanwhile the two little inferior mangoes I purchased just yesterday in Watertown, MA have been left idle and snubbed on the kitchen counter. Here's the $64k question, or, in this case, the $5 question: If these shiny new mangoes cost suppliers $5/lb wholesale, how much will the consumer need to pay and how much will the consumer be willing to pay? And how much more would a food-savvy consumer be willing to pay? Tasting this mango, at least for the first time, seems to be more befitting of a "broadening horizons" expenditure, rather than ticking off items on a grocery list. Life experiences are not summed up in price tags. And even if they were with the imported mango, they certainly would be a lot cheaper than a plane ticket to Mumbai. So a question for you, dear readers: Would you be willing to pay, say, $10 for the privilege of tasting a ripe Indian Mango? 10:36 - Sunday, May 6, 2007 - comments {2} - post comment
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Home User Profile Archives My Cambridge Blog A Very Favorite Food Blog Food, Transport & Random Thoughts Blog Recent Entries - Summer! - Ye Olde Fashioned Ice Cream Sandwiches - My Mother's Cheesecake - The Colors of Spring - How Much is that Mango in the Window? - A Spring Ice Cream Party - We can have our Matzah Cake and eat it, too - Maple Ginger Ice Cream - ‘Twas the night before…..maple sap - Beware The Fruits of March |
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