The Virtue of a Cookie

img_1696When I was a child, I was – often to my parents’ exasperation – obsessed with learning about how to do “grown-up” things. I would climb into my mother’s lap while she booted up AOL, giggling at the funny sound of dial up and watching her fingers fly across the keyboard as she composed emails for work. I would follow my dad around and watch intently as he washed his truck, always trying to help out even though all I could reach were the tires. I even insisted on helping feed the dogs, even though the bowls were about half the size of me at the time. That being said, it’s no surprise that I was also very curious about how things worked in the kitchen.

My mother has always been a very traditional southern cook, and I was certainly no picky eater. By the time I was four or five, I began to wonder where all of these wonderful things like chicken and dumplings, sweet potato casserole, country fried steak and gravy, and peach cobbler came from. I carefully watched my mother dredge thin green tomato slices in meal and flour or chop potatoes into hearty quarters for a roast, usually begging to help and pouting every time she said I wasn’t old enough. One Saturday morning when I was about six or seven, I suppose my mother had either gotten fed up with my nagging or finally decided I was old enough to help, so she pulled up my little stepping stool to the foot of the stove, smiling at me and fishing a skillet out of the cabinet. “How do you feel about scrambling the eggs for us this morning?” she’d asked, fishing enough eggs for our family of four out of the carton. I nodded vigorously, rolling up my pajama sleeves. I was ready to get to work. “Everyone needs to know how to cook an egg,” my mother told me as she demonstrated how to crack one on the side of the skillet. “It’s one of those staple foods.” I looked on in fascination, a spatula clutched tightly in my small hand. Continue reading

Comfort Classics: Cheesecake

 

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“There is no lying in the kitchen. And no god there, either. He couldn’t help you anyway….No credential, no amount of bullshit, no well-formed sentences or pleas for mercy will change the basic facts.” –Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw

In describing chef David Chang, Anthony Bourdain gets right down to the facts of cooking: you’ve either got it, or you don’t, and there’s no faking that. Bourdain seems to think that Chang, chef and owner of several New York City fusion restaurants, very much so has this cooking “it” factor. Chang’s restaurants, including Momofuku Noodle Bar, are unapologetically simple, yet Michelin starred. You might even have to wait years to eat there. The success of chefs like David Chang with their boldly simple craft begs the question: is simple, unapologetic cuisine really best? Continue reading

Cannoli Fridays

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When I was in elementary school, I loved Fridays. Of course, that’s not surprising—everyone loves Fridays. However, unlike my classmates at my Baltimore Catholic school, my excitement was not centered on sleeping in, seeing friends, or even wearing something besides my awful plaid uniform jumper (maroon and white, over a white collared shirt and navy tights). All of that excitement was reserved for Saturdays. Friday was cannoli day. Continue reading

"Cooking for Two" cookbook.

The Power of Simplicity: Janet Hill, Fannie Farmer, and Perfect Recipes a Century Later

In her late thirties, high school teacher Janet McKenzie Hill ventured to Boston, where she enrolled at the Boston Cooking School. After studying under American culinary pioneer Fannie Farmer, then director of the BCS, Hill graduated in 1892. She went on to found the Boston Cooking School Journal, which she edited for many years, and author numerous cookbooks, including Salads, Sandwiches, and Chafing Dish Dainties (1899), Practical Cooking and Serving (1902), and Whys of Cooking (1916) (Feeding America). This recipe for ginger cakes—flavorful spice cookies boasting a crispy exterior and a dense, chewy center akin to soft gingerbread—comes from her 1909 volume Cooking for Two: A Handbook for Young Housekeepers.

Version 2Plain Ginger Cakes

½ cup of molasses

1 teaspoonful of soda

¼ cup of butter

¼ cup of boiling water

2 cups of flour

½ teaspoonful of salt

½ tablespoonful of ginger

½ teaspoonful of cinnamon

Stir the soda into the molasses; melt the butter in the boiling water; turn all into a bowl and stir in the flour, sifted with the salt and spices; add more flour if needed, but keep the dough as soft as can be handled. Roll a little of the dough at a time to a sheet about three-eighths of an inch thick and cut into rounds. Press two pecan nut meats into the top of each, and dredge with granulated sugar. Bake in a moderate oven. The recipe will make about twenty cakes.

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