A Life Divided

Many People's Mom's Apple Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:40:00 +0000

It turns out that what I do in the fall is make apple cake. When I realize I've been overenthusiastic about buying apples from the farmer's market, I make apple cake.

When a freak October snowstorm covers the driveway with branches and causes the power to be out for 5 days, I make apple cake. (With the assistance of my tenant, who baked it in his oven since mine--with its electric starter--was out of commission.)

When four young women who are on the Smith College crew team come to my house as part of their "rent-a-rower" fundraiser and move nearly 2 cords of wood onto my porch in 2 hours, I make apple cake.

But really, it's not like I need much of an excuse. If there are apples, I'll make apple cake. And I'm writing this now in the hopes that you will too.

I discovered this recipe last fall on Smitten Kitchen. Deb called it "Mom's Apple Cake" because it was one of her mother's specialties. As it turns out, if you read the hundreds of comments that followed, lots of people's moms made this cake.

There is a reason for that--it's delicious. Also, easy to make and large enough to feed a crowd. The other thing that's nice is that it's forgiving. Each time I make it--either accidentally or on purpose--I tweak it a bit. I swap out the orange juice for apple cider. I use some whole wheat pastry flour instead of white. Maybe I'll cut down the sugar or the oil a bit--or maybe I won't. And each time, it's delicious. The apple to cake ratio is almost even, and the cake crumbles around the apples--or perhaps it's the apples melting into the cake--in a most delightful way. I've brought this cake to parties and to work, I've fed those hardworking Smith students with it as well as my companions in the dark of the freak snowstorm. No matter the circumstances, it is welcome.

One note about baking. The original recipe calls for a tube pan. I didn't have one so the first few times I made the cake, I made it in a 9" by 13" pan instead. This works fine, for the most part. The cake is best when the cake and apples are layered, and that's a bit trickier in the sheet pan, just because it takes most of the batter to cover the bottom of the pan. Still, it's worth it to try to layer, even if you put 2/3 of the batter down and then 2/3 of the apples, then top with the remaining 1/3 of each.

This past weekend, on a bit of a whim, I purchased a tube pan. Except I didn't get the 2-parted tube pan that lets you make the cake right-side up but a one piece tube pan that you have to turn over. Using a pan with a smaller surface area meant that the layering was much easier, and the apples and walnuts were nicely integrated into the cake.

And the bottom of the cake, upon its exit from the oven, was quite lovely:

It did not, alas, come out of the pan clean, even though I had assiduously buttered and floured it. This is what it looked like after I attempted to patch up the bare spots. Still, that it was not beautiful (or whole) did not mean that it was not still delicious.

I know it is nearly Thanksgiving and everyone's cooking focus is on pie and stuffing, cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes. Even so, I hope that there might still be an occasion where a cake like this--sturdy, tasty, seasonal--can find a place at the table.

Many People's Mom's Apple Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

6 apples, MacIntosh, or a mix
1 tablespoon cinnamon
5 tablespoons sugar

2 3/4 cups flour, sifted (Can swap out some of the white for whole wheat pastry flour)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegetable oil (If you cut down on the oil, add more juice or cider to make up for the liquid.)
2 cups sugar (Can go down to 1 3/4 cups; you can also swap out 1/2 cup of the white for brown)
1/4 cup orange juice or apple cider
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tube pan or a 9 x 13 sheet pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.

Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice or cider, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Spread half of apples over it. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a tester comes out clean.

Baking Note: Keep an eye on the timer. I'd recommend starting to check after an hour. If you're making it in a 9 x 13 pan, it will probably only need an hour to an hour and 15 minutes to bake. In my tube pan (which is heavy), it baked in an hour and 20 minutes.

Audiobook Recommendation: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:31:00 +0000

You don't have to look far to find fabulously positive reviews of David Mitchell's 2010 novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet. (If you buy the paperback edition, they're all over the cover and take up the first several pages of text.) The Guardian loved it, as did the New York Times (twice) and nearly every other major paper. The review that interested me most, though, was a very brief one, in AudioFile magazine, about the audiobook version. The first sentence is as follows: "This utterly original and wildly satisfying new novel gets such a dazzling performance here that you are torn between wanting to know how it ends and hoping it never does."

Well, I was intrigued! As it happens, I already owned a copy of Jacob de Zoet, thanks to my friend Derick, who sent me a copy earlier this summer. He'd borrowed Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten, years ago, and when he was housesitting here in January, he read what is supposed to be Mitchell's masterpiece, Cloud Atlas. My own history with Mitchell is mixed. I enjoyed Ghostwritten (read on the train from Varanasi to Delhi in 2002) but never made it through the first section of Cloud Atlas. I am determined to be more patient and try it again, though, especially after Jacob de Zoet (which, apparently in some circles, is considered lesser Mitchell.)

There are many other places to read about the plot and themes of this novel. The thumbnail version is that it's set at the turn of the 19th Century in Japan, where the tiny island of Dejima in the bay of Nagasaki is the only point of contact between Shogun Japan and the rest of the world. Dejima serves as a trading outpost between the Dutch East India Company and Japan, and the Dutch merchants who live there are confined to the island. Enter Jacob de Zoet, a pious and upright young clerk, come to make his fortune so he can return home and marry his sweetheart. At first, Jacob is prized for his honesty, and then not so much. Betrayed by the Chief Resident who at first welcomes his attempts to straighten out years of corrupt dealings, then rejects them when he begins to enjoy the fruits of corruption himself, Jacob is left on Dejima when the chief leaves, demoted and seemingly destined to serve as the whipping post for the weaselly colleague who was promoted above him. But during his time in Dejima, Jacob has fallen rather hopelessly in love with Aibagawa Orito, a midwife given special dispensation to study on Dejima with the Dutch Dr. Marinus. Orito is bright and talented but disfigured by a burn to her cheek, making her seemingly unmarriageable.

In the second section of the book, Jacob is nearly absent, as the focus shifts to a sinister mountain shrine/nunnery where Orito has been brought (against her will) after her father's death. The narration of the story shifts between an attempt to rescue Orito and life in the house of sisters at the shrine.

The third section of the book returns to Dejima but also to the British frigate Phoebus and to its gouty, mourning captain. (It was at this point that I felt like I'd been flung, briefly and happily, into a cousin of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels.)

My temptation is to natter happily on about the plot, but that's not the point of this. I have no doubt that I would have enjoyed reading the book version, but I loved listening to the audio book version. Fat historical novels, when narrated well, turn out to be intensely pleasurable as audio books. The length and breadth mean that you can settle into the story in a different way. I learned that with the Patrick O'Brian books and again with Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Both Patrick Tull (Patrick O'Brian) and Simon Prebble ( Jonathan Strange) are wonderful narrators, and Jonathan Aris, much younger than either, is a fabulous successor to them. I will not quibble that all the Dutch residents have (various) British accents. That the accents are so well done and the narration so seamless is enough. Paula Wilcox narrates Orito's sections, also very, very well.

The book started a bit slowly (for me), and it takes some time to learn the lay of the land, with the plethora of characters--Dutch and Japanese both--to become familiar with. But I felt that I was in good hands with both narrators, and as the book progressed and the plot thickened, it became hard to stop listening. I handed the CDs off to my friend Darnell once I was done, and soon thereafter, I received an email from his wife, my friend Leanna, which said the following: "D was so taken up with finishing Jacob DeZ that he refused all conversation last night and retreated to his chair, where he sat with headphone clamped on, absolutely rapt."

I'm not sure that there's higher praise than that. As for me, it's been weeks since I finished, and I still find myself thinking about it. I think of the plot twists, but I also think of the melancholy but satisfying final pages when Mitchell wraps up his story in the only way the novel reasonably could have ended. I spent 19 hours listening to Jonathan Aris and Paula Wilcox tell me the story of Jacob de Zoet and Aibagawa Orito and the rest, and it still wasn't quite enough. Better, of course, to end wanting more, but a bit sad all the same.

For more on Jacob DeZoet and on David Mitchell, here are a few links:

An article about Mitchell in the New York Times Magazine shortly before Jacob de Zoet came out.

This review in The Millions was one of my favorites.

The Written Nerd is a new blog to me (and one, it turns out that is now defunct), but I quite enjoyed her review as well.

Amanda Hesser's Peach Tart

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:08:00 +0000

It had to be a pretty amazing recipe to get me out of my blog funk, but this one did it. Behold the peach tart, both gorgeous and delicious.

When I bought 2 boxes ($4 worth) of peach seconds at the Farmers' Market last Saturday, I was thinking peach jam or perhaps a crumble. I definitely wasn't thinking about a tart, as I had never actually made a fruit tart before. But I'd noticed up at Food52 that in the contest between this tart and another, this one had won by a landslide, and I got curious. Then I started reading the overwhelmingly positive comments, and then I looked closely at the recipe--the olive oil dough that didn't need to be rolled out, the peaches that didn't need to be peeled, the need for no special equipment. It seemed just the thing to try on a chilly Sunday evening (with the added bonus of the oven being on to warm the kitchen up).

The problem turned out to be the peaches, which, oddly for seconds, weren't quite ripe. By the time I realized that, though, I was attached to the idea of a peach tart and so I gave up the week's eating peaches for the tart. A lesson learned--your peach tart is as good as the peaches you put in it. I'm sure a tart with the seconds would have been fine, but the tart using the better peaches was divine.

The recipe is both easy and unusual. The dough is slightly sweet and slightly salty, the fat provided by a mix of canola and olive oils. There are also 2 tbsp. of milk in there and some almond extract. It looked weird when I first put them in the bowl together (no photo, alas), but they whisked up into a thick, glossy liquid. The dough itself seemed a bit oily, and I was nervous as I pressed it into the pan and covered it with sliced peaches (unpeeled! no blanching!). The topping is a mix of sugar, flour and butter. Amanda Hesser noted that it would seem like a lot of topping, and, indeed, it seemed like a lot of topping.

But in the 35 minutes the tart spent in the oven, the topping melted and turned into a sweet, glossy sheen on top of the peaches. When I looked into the oven the first time, I couldn't believe that I--a person who is accustomed to making baked goods that are tasty but homely--had produced such a gorgeous tart.

I had no whipped cream to serve it with, but Alex and I ate it in silence. Silently, we appreciated the crisp, almond-tinged crust, the soft and just sweet enough peaches, the chewy caramelized bits at the edge of the tart. Until I began to complement my own cooking, and Alex went back into the kitchen and asked if I wanted anymore or could he finish it off. (He didn't really.) Still I was given a stern warning: "Don't bring the rest of this to work!" he said. Point taken.

I am hoping devoutly that there will be at least one more week of peaches, and if there are, I will make this again, perhaps with whipped cream this time. But now that I know how easy this is, I am looking forward to using this tart formula for other kinds of fruit--apples, perhaps, or plums, and in the summer, some kind of peach-berry combination. As Amanda Hesser says in her introduction to this recipe on Food 52, "Every cook needs a good dessert recipe that can be whipped up anywhere." I think this one has just become mine.

Amanda Hesser's Peach Tart
from Food 52

1 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoons kosher salt

3/4 cups plus 1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil

1/4 cup mild olive oil (I used the Trader Joe's extra virgin I had in the house.)

2 tablespoons whole milk (I used 1%)

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

3 to 5 small ripe peaches, pitted and thickly sliced (I used 5.)

Heat the oven to 425 degrees. In a mixing bowl, stir together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon sugar. In a small bowl, whisk together the oils, milk and almond extract. Pour the oil mixture into the flour mixture and mix gently with a fork, just enough to dampen; do not over work it. Then, transfer the dough to an 11-inch tart pan (or whatever similar pan you have on hand), and use your hands to pat out the dough so it covers the bottom of the pan, pushing it up the sides to meet the edge. (Mine didn't go very far up the sides, but I sacrificed that so it wouldn't have holes in the bottom. Hesser says the dough should be 1/8 inch thick.)

In a bowl, combine 3/4 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt and the butter. (Add an additional tbsp. of flour if you have especially juicy peaches.) Pinch the butter into the dry ingredients until crumbly.

Starting on the outside, arrange the peaches overlapping in a concentric circle over the pastry; fill in the center in whatever pattern makes sense. The peaches should fit snugly. Sprinkle the pebbly butter mixture over top (it will seem like a lot). Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until shiny, thick bubbles begin enveloping the fruit and the crust is slightly brown. Cool on a rack. Serve warm or room temperature, preferably with generous dollops of whipped cream

Wednesday Review: Claire Dederer's Poser

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:36:00 +0000

I realize that it may not be fair to begin a post about Claire Dederer's memoir Poser by talking about Elizabeth Gilbert, but so be it. That's what I'm going to do. And I'm not the first person to have done so. Janet Maslin, for one, talks about Eat, Pray, Love in her daily NY Times review of Poser, as do Judith Shulevitz and Emily Bazelon in their interesting conversation about Poser over at Slate. Poser has a prominent blurb by Elizabeth Gilbert on its back cover, and it is the only blurb on the home page of Dederer's website. (The short version--Gilbert loved the book.)

So, Gilbert. Last fall, I had a somewhat ridiculous conversation with friends in which one of them wondered aloud whether Eat, Pray, Love was the worst book ever written. I was incredulous. Because really, if you think Eat, Pray, Love is the worst book ever written, you haven't read nearly enough bad books. I am the first to admit, I liked Eat, Pray, Love, and I don't think it's a bad book at all. I read it soon after it was published; I bought it in hardcover, in fact. I was interested in the India section, of course, but I'd read Elizabeth Gilbert's work previously and knew she could write. Maybe I liked it because I read it before it became a cultural phenomenon, but mostly I liked it because Gilbert is a very good writer. I found her a witty and self-deprecating narrator, and what remains with me, four or five years later, are her meditations on what it means when you make choices that take you out of the mainstream. Gilbert may now be a married, world-famous gazillionaire, but she wasn't when she wrote this book. The crisis precipitating Gilbert's year-long journey was the breakup of her first marriage, in part because she didn't want children. Whatever you think of her pasta-eating in Italy, meditating in India and finding love in Bali, she remains a clear observer of her own life, and there are things to take from it. At least there were for me. Here is Gilbert thinking of the difference between her own life choices and her sister's.

Virginia Woolf wrote, ‘Across the broad continent of a woman’s life falls the shadow of a sword.’ On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where ‘all is correct.’ But on the other side of that sword, if you’re crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, ‘all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course.’ Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.

In Dederer's book, the person who chooses to cross the shadow of the sword is not Dederer--who is married and the mother of a baby daughter when the book opens--but her mother, who, at the age of 32, when Dederer was 6 and her brother 8, took up with a hippie named Larry . . . while continuing to remain married to Dederer's father. Dederer's mother moved in with Larry, mostly taking the kids with her, while simultaneously trying to pretend that nothing had really changed, as evidenced by the fact that the parents were still married. When the book opens, Dederer's brother Dave, now a doting father and husband himself, wants nothing more than for his parents to divorce already. "He sent middle-of-the-night e-mail pleas to my parents, on which he CC'ed me. . . . 'It's time for a divorce,' he would write. Or, 'My birthday is coming. For my gift I would like a divorce.'"

Poser is structured, as the subtitle indicates, around Dederer's study of yoga, which begins when she throws her back out when her daughter is a baby. That each chapter is named for a yoga pose and uses that pose as a means to explore her life could have been a gimmick, but in this book, it's not. And honestly, I don't have a problem with finding a structure on which to hang your memoir. Writing a memoir is a hard enough task--figuring out a way to tell the stories you want to tell is a challenge, and if yoga poses work as your unifying structure, that's fine with me.

Poser follows Dederer from yoga class to yoga class, and backwards and forwards in her own life. In response to both her own childhood and to the expectations of the liberal Seattle circles in which she travels, she decides that the way that she will approach motherhood is by being perfect. And not only perfect but also good. As you might imagine, this doesn't work all that well or make her particularly happy. It frays her marriage and leaves her constantly anxious. As Poser moves along, we see Dederer have a second child, move to Boulder and back to Washington state and go through multiple forms of yoga. What Dederer has in common with Elizabeth Gilbert is her self-deprecating sense of humor and her willingness not to let herself off the hook. She is good company, and it's hard not to root for her--not just in her attempts to do handstands and complicated yoga sequences--but in her life as a writer, mother and wife.

I am of Dederer's demographic (born a year earlier) but not a parent or a yoga doer, despite all the time I've spent in the land of yoga. Still, Dederer's voice is one that is familiar to me, and it's one I enjoyed spending time with. Judith Warner may gripe in the New York Times magazine about Poser being part of the "burgeoning literature of postboomer-female midlife crisis," but I think she's just being churlish. Sure, I'd be glad to read Dederer on any number of subjects, but in Poser, she does a fine job of turning her critic's eye on herself, and for me, that made for a very good read.

(For a good interview with Dederer, see this blog post. I knew I liked Dederer when she mentions E.F. Benson's Lucia books in Poser. I liked her even more when she said that Laurie Colwin was her favorite writer.)

July Recipe Roundup

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 01:50:00 +0000

Today, I did something I don't usually do, which is make two different but related meals for lunch and for dinner. It was mostly because I was home with time to cook and because I spent about $30 on vegetables at the farmers' market on Saturday and was determined to use at least some of them before they'd been languishing in the fridge for too long.

I've written about both of these recipes before, but they are both so good and so perfect for the season, that I wanted to put them in the spotlight again.

The first dish--my lunch, as it were--is early summer orzo, a recipe I mostly made up. It's a mix of vegetables diced into tiny pieces, sauteed in olive oil and then combined with a minimal amount of orzo. I usually make it in the sweet spot of early summer, when both peas and corn are available. I combine these with summer squash, onions, garlic, basil and toasted pine nuts. The key is to have everything cut the same size (i.e., the size of a pea or corn kernel or pine nut or piece of orzo) so that each bite has a little bit of everything in it. The other key is to add the orzo to the vegetables rather than the other way around--this way, the orzo is incorporated into the vegetables rather than the vegetables serving as a complement to the pasta. You could make this with many different vegetable combinations, but I'm partial to the early summer one. Then again, I was amazed that shell peas were still available on Saturday, and I can't imagine we'll see too many more of them after this week's mini heat wave, so I can see making this pea-less, out of necessity. Sprinkle some Parmesan if you like, and you're set for lunch, dinner or a snack. It is equally delicious re-heated.

Here's the recipe, from June 2009: Early Summer Orzo

The second recipe comes from a Mark Bittman "Minimalist" column from the summer of 2004, his Pasta with Corn, Zucchini and Tomatoes. I have been making this dish every summer since then, which I think is the definition of a keeper. So, in the early evening, after I'd come inside sweaty and grubby from mowing the lawn and watering the garden, I found myself, once again, chopping onions and garlic, dicing squash and cutting corn off of the cob. And the sauteing starts off the same way. The key difference here is the tomatoes. Tomatoes wouldn't work in the first recipe because they fall apart, and there, you're looking for intact bits. With this recipe, soupy is fine. You add the tomatoes around the time you put the water for the pasta in, and by the time the pasta is cooked, the tomatoes have broken down, and you have a delicious smelling pan of vegetables on the stove, waiting to be dumped upon the hot pasta. This dish might not be quite as pretty as the other one, but it's equally delicious.

Here's the recipe, from July 2008: Pasta with Corn, Zucchini and Tomatoes

Now, I have two different kinds of leftovers to eat this week, and while the chard and lettuce are still in my fridge, waiting for their turn, I can feel somewhat satisfied that most, if not all, of those vegetables I schlepped home so hopefully on Saturday are going to end up in my stomach rather than in the compost.

Enjoy!

It's a Pie Party! Blueberry Crumble Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:06:00 +0000

So, first I made a pie crust (documented here), and then I made pie. Because even though as recently as a few months ago I was scared of pie crust, I wanted to be part of the pie party.

My friend Gina Hyams has just come out with a book called Pie Contest in a Box, and so she's made me think about pie more than I usually do. And then I read about Shauna Ahern, aka Gluten-free Girl, having an internet pie party. Apparently, thousands of people are making pies and many of them are blogging about it today. How could I resist?

I had to contemplate what kind of pie to make. Strawberries are almost gone here, and blueberries and peaches are not yet in season, though they will be soon. Rather than using non-local fruit, I decided to go for the local but frozen option--the blueberries still in my freezer from last summer's annual blueberry picking expedition.

I scoped out some recipes and relied mostly on a combination of Mark Bittman and King Arthur Flour. I decided that, despite my newfound comfort level with pie crust, I didn't want to make a 2-crusted pie. And given my love for peach-blueberry crumble and for blueberry crumble bars, it made sense to make a blueberry crumble pie.

I tossed the blueberries with sugar, cornstarch, lemon zest, lemon juice and a dash of nutmeg. I made my standard crumble topping from oats, flour, brown sugar, melted butter and walnuts. I topped one with the other and baked. Delicious smells wafted from the oven.

What I didn't do was wait to cut it. It was after 9 p.m., and Alex was lying on the couch, sleepy and waiting for his pie. The King Arthur Flour Baking Book said "Hold your horses." (Really.) Don't even think of cutting that pie until it's cool. But reader, I cut it. I waited until the vanilla ice cream was sufficiently soft, and then I cut it.

And lo, it was wet. Yes, my blueberry pie had turned into blueberry pie soup.

But you know, between the blueberries and lemon, the oats and walnuts, the vanilla ice cream melting in rivulets across the plate, it didn't really matter.

There was pie, and it was good.

Blueberry Crumble Pie
loosely adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, with
additional help from The King Arthur Flour Baking Book

Crust
1 9 inch pie crust (I used Melissa Clark's all-butter Perfect Pie Crust.)

Filling
5 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, picked over, rinsed and dried
1/2 - 1 cup sugar, depending on your preferences and the sweetness of your berries
2 tbsp. corn starch
Pinch nutmeg and/or cinnamon
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp. lemon juice
Dash of salt

Crumble Topping
1 cup whole rolled oats
1/2 cup flour
3 tbsp. brown sugar
4 tbsp. melted butter
1/3 - 1/2 cup walnuts (optional)
pinch salt

Note: I did not bake my pie crust ahead of time. None of the recipes I looked at called for it. However, given the soupiness of the fruit, I probably would blind bake it next time. The outside of the crust was nicely crispy, but the bottom was soggy. That might just be the way of fruit pies, but I'm going to experiment.

Preheat oven to 450.

If desired, partially blind bake pie shell. Good instructions for doing so here: Blind Baking a Pie Crust

For filling, toss blueberries with sugar, corn starch, lemon zest, lemon juice, nutmeg and salt.

Pile berries into crust.

Combine oats, flour, brown sugar, salt, nuts (if using) and melted butter. Distribute over blueberries and pat into place.

Place pie pan on baking sheet (in case of drips). Bake at 450 F for 10 minutes and then reduce heat to 350 F and bake for another 40-50 minutes. (I baked mine for another 45.) Cool on a rack for as long as you can stand it (longer is, indeed, better). Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Freedom from Fear of Pie Crusts

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 03:02:00 +0000

For a long time, I thought the world was split between bread people and pie people. Not bread and pie eaters, but bread and pie makers. Either you weren't scared of yeast and made bread or you weren't scared of the crust and made pie. I was a bread person, no question. I'd been baking bread since I was a teenager and laughed in the face of yeast fear.

Pie, on the other hand, scared me. It was the crust, of course. That delicate balance between flour and fat. How would I know when the butter was mixed in correctly? What if I put too much water in? What about the endless sticking and the attempts to put the sticky sad crust into a pie plate. By the time the crust was done, I was too stressed out to enjoy it.

So, I just didn't make pie. Occasionally I'd buy a supermarket crust for a quiche. But more often, I found alternatives for quiche and stuck with cookie crusts for pie.

I have Melissa Clark to thank for my conversion. Or maybe conversion isn't the right word. But I think I can safely say that I am no longer afraid of pie crusts, and I give Melissa Clark my gratitude. It was her perfect pie crust recipe in In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite that helped me face my fear and overcome it. Melissa's recipe was the start, but there were several other simple things that made this possible.

First, the chopper.

If you mix the flour and butter in a mini-chopper or food processor, you don't really have to think about pastry blenders or wonder about when the ingredients are mixed enough. A few whirls, and it's done. And when you add the cold water, a tablespoon at a time, it becomes clearly apparent when the dough is sticking together.

The second crucial piece is the plastic wrap.

I use this method when I bake biscotti--you spoon the wet and too soft batter onto a length of plastic wrap, which allows you to mold it into a shape that you can freeze until it's hard enough to work with. So it is with pie crust. You dump the messy, sticky mass of flour/butter/water onto the plastic wrap, and in moments, you have a nice round disk all ready to chill.

The last crucial item is the Silpat.

I used to try to roll out pie crusts on a cutting board, and it was frustration incarnate. But from the start of my getting-over-my-fear-of-pie-crust attempts, I realized I needed to change that. I put my Silpat on the dining room table, so there was room to work, with some flour handy nearby.

The marble rolling pin was a gift from my friend Derick 20 years ago. Why Derick decided he should send me a marble rolling pin in the mail from Boston to Eugene, Oregon, I have no idea, but 20 years have now passed, and while the rolling pin has lost its handles, it still works beautifully.

Because the dough is chilled, you can roll it out before it gets sticky. I put a bit of flour down on the Silpat, added a bit more as I was working and turned the dough over a few times. Rolling a pie crust out on a floured Silpat is not stressful, it turns out. Just when you wonder whether the dough is warming up, it's big enough for your pie. Voila.

This is maybe the fourth or fifth crust I've made since I discovered Melissa's recipe and the method documented here, and I've made 2 in the past 2 weeks! Unthinkable even a year ago.

Not that losing my fear of pie crusts is going to make me scared of yeast. I'm just going to have to widen my view of the world just a little bit, now that I am a person who can not only make bread, but also pie.

All-Butter Perfect Pie Crust
from Melissa Clark's In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite

Time: 15 minutes plus one hour's chilling

1 1/4cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

8-10 tablespoons unsalted butter, preferably a high-fat, European-style butter like Plugra, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (Clark's recipe calls for 10 tablespoons; my crusts have been plenty buttery with 8.)

2 to 5 tablespoons ice water (I seem to always need 5.)

1. In a food processor, briefly pulse together the flour and salt. Add butter and pulse until mixture forms chickpea-size pieces (3 to 5 one-second pulses). Add ice water 1 tablespoon at a time, and pulse until mixture is just moist enough to hold together.

2. Form dough into a ball, wrap with plastic and flatten into a disk. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before rolling out and baking.

Yield: One 9-inch single pie crust. Recipe can be doubled for a double crust; divide dough into two balls and form two disks before chilling.

Friday Links: The June Swoon Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:47:00 +0000

So, as typically happens post-blogathon, I fell into a bit of a June swoon. This one was delayed temporarily by the V.S. Naipaul flap, but it arrived nonetheless.

These links have been piling up, and the time has come to share them. I'm hoping that this time of rest in June will stoke my blogging energy again, so that I'll be back more regularly in July. Until then, a lot of links!

The India Links

The New York Times is running a series of pieces about India, and it's not surprising I'm finding them fascinating. A couple of weeks ago, they ran a piece about Gurgaon and how the city has been built up basically without any infrastructure. I had never spent any time in Gurgaon before Sunil moved there, and it is a very strange place. I went to one mall that is glitzier than any mall I've ever been in in the U.S., and I've watched Sunil's street being torn up for a very belated installation of sewer pipes. I've seen the fleets of cars waiting outside the multinational companies whose offices are in Gurgaon, and I've bumped along the truly terrible roads right next to them. It's rare to think of Delhi as organized in any way, but compared to Gurgaon it is.

Jim Yardley's article on Gurgaon

Jim Yardley answers questions about the piece and Gurgaon

The NYT Gurgaon slideshow

The slide with evidence that more than one pink-topped rickshaw exists!

My final India link is unrelated to Gurgaon. A few weeks ago, I had one of those frantic meet-in-the-aisles-of-Trader-Joes catch-ups with an old friend. She had her 3 month old baby in a front pack (last time I'd seen her, she had only a toddler; now there are 2!) and was supposed to be buying food for dinner. While her very patient baby waited, we gabbed hurriedly in the frozen food aisle. And she told me about a blog I'd never heard of about Indian food. The blog, Eat and Dust (a play, of course, on the title of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's 1975 novel, Heat and Dust, made into a movie in 1983 with Julie Christie, Greta Scacchi and Zakir Hussein) is written by a British woman, Pamela Timms, who's lived in Delhi for a number of years with her family. (Her husband is the South Asia correspondent for the Telegraph.) Her specialty is Delhi street food. I've only begun to explore the blog, but it's right up my alley.

A Telegraph article about Pamela Timms (They call her the "Delia of Old Delhi.")

The Obituary Links

It seemed an interesting coincidence that on the day when there were already all these India-related pieces in the NY Times, there was also the obituary of M.F. Husain, one of the most famous painters to come out of modern India:

M.F. Husain

Husain died at 95. It was clearly a bad week for talented nonagenarians, as the next day, obits for the travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor appeared.

I had only vaguely heard of Fermor before Anthony Lane wrote a fascinating profile of him in the New Yorker in 2006. It may only be available to subscribers, but it's totally worth a read.

Anthony Lane on Patrick Leigh Fermor, 2006

Anthony Lane's response to Fermor's death, June 2011

Patrick Leigh Fermor Guardian obit

Patrick Leigh Fermor New York Times obit

The Local Links

We've had good news and bad news here in Western Massachusetts in the past 10 days or so.

The good news is that Amherst College, my alma mater, has named Carolyn "Biddy" Martin to be its 19th president. She will be the first woman president and the first openly gay president. Amherst was founded in 1821 and went coed in 1976. That's 155 years of being a men's college. When I was there in the mid-late 1980's, it felt more like a men's school that let women attend than a truly coed college. That's changed in the past 20 years, certainly, but this is a big step, and I'm delighted that they've finally taken it.

Amherst's announcement on Biddy Martin

New York Times piece on Biddy Martin

The bad news came a few days later. Our beloved local video store, Pleasant St. Video, announced that they are closing in July. They've been a fixture in downtown Northampton for 25 years. I've been a member for 16 of those years; I joined when I moved back to this area in 1995. Not only do they have a great collection, it's the kind of place where you might run in to pick something up and end up staying there much longer than planned because you're chatting with the folks at the counter or watching whatever movie is playing on the TV in the corner.

They are going out on their own terms, at least. The store didn't close overnight, and they are undertaking a fundraising effort to save their huge, varied, quirky collection by having people donate to the Forbes library in Northampton. For every $8 donation, they'll give Forbes a DVD. They're letting people donate generally or to save specific titles. (I wanted to save "Slings and Arrows," but someone else had claimed it, so I saved the films of Mira Nair instead, even though I haven't actually seen all of them.) It turns out that you can donate credits to save films also, and I have more than 30 credits on file with them. (I always bought credits in advance, and I have to admit that I wondered when I bought my last batch of credits last fall whether I'd use them all before the store closed.) I've already donated some to bolster my crush on Bill Nighy by saving the UK version of State of Play and a somewhat obscure but quite wonderful British film called The Lawless Heart, which Alex and I watched years ago and which I've always wanted to see again. I have a bit more time to decide. Meanwhile, according to the local NPR station, they raised $20,000 the first week, about a third of what they need to save whole collection. Let's hope the momentum continues.

Pleasant Street Video's Save the Catalog page

The local NPR station on Pleasant Street's Closing

The Valley Advocate on the end of Pleasant Street Video

V.S. Naipaul is a pompous ass: an addendum

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 22:40:00 +0000

I wanted to add one more link to yesterday's list of links about V.S. Naipaul's recent comments about women and writing.

Roxana Robinson wrote an eloquent piece about the dangers of views like Naipaul's and how they're reflected in the way books are read, judged and rewarded these days. One of the key paragraphs:

Naipaul’s pronouncements are antediluvian. I won’t dignify with a response his comments on the mastery of the household; Diana Athill, the editor-turned-writer whom Naipaul denounces, is quite right to treat his maunderings as absurd. But if we can agree that this is absurd, then why do the numbers show, year after year, that our literary culture supports Naipaul’s belief? Why is it that men’s writing receives more prizes, more attention and more public acclaim than women’s? How is it that we accept this as a cultural norm?

"Do Women Write 'Tosh'?": Roxana Robinson's response.

I also wanted to post a quote, which is pretty much the first thing I thought of when I read about Naipaul's comments, in particular his comment about women's "sentimentality, the narrow view of the world . . . And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too."

Years ago, in graduate school, I read Annette Kolodny's essay, "Dancing Through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism." (The full text can be found here.) I don't remember many of the details, but there's one bit that remains, after all these years. It's this:

The (usually male) reader who, both by experience and by reading, has never made acquaintance with those [sex-related] contexts [out of which women write]--historically, the lying-in room, the parlor, the nursery, the kitchen, the laundry, and so on--will necessarily lack the capacity to fully interpret the dialogue or action embedded therein; . . . Virginia Woolf therefore quite properly anticipated the male reader's disposition to write off what he could not understand, abandoning women's writing as offering "not merely a difference of view, but a view that is weak, or trivial or sentimental because it differs from his own."

Virginia Woolf said that in 1929; Annette Kolodny wrote her essay in 1980. It's now 2011; isn't it time to move on? Aren't there other, better ways to spend our time than having to defend the writing of half the population against one arrogant bastard (as eloquent as some of those defenses have been)? Maybe we could actually be writing instead. Imagine.

Friday Links: The V.S. Naipaul is a pompous ass edition

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 19:09:00 +0000

Not surprisingly, V.S. Naipaul's comments earlier this week that he found no woman author equal to him have provoked an outpouring of comment. Naipaul went on to say that Jane Austen, in particular, was overly sentimental, and that his former editor, Diana Athill, wrote "feminine tosh." Let's hear it for open-mindedness and humility, Sir Vidia!

Here's a roundup of some interesting links about the controversy.

First, the Guardian's piece on Naipaul's original comments.

A few sum ups from American publications:

Delia Cabe in the Boston Globe

The Christian Science Monitor

Salon.com

A few responses from writers who happen to be female:

Diana Athill's response, also in the Guardian: Naipaul's attacks "just made me laugh."

The lovely Diana Abu-Jaber on NPR: From One Writer to Another: Shut Up, V.S. Naipaul

Jennifer Egan (no stranger to controversy about gender and writing) in the Wall Street Journal: "He sounds like such a cranky old man."

A Quiz

The Guardian included a quiz to see whether people could determine the gender of the writer by a paragraph, as Naipaul claims he can.

Take the quiz yourself.

I got 7 out of 10 right. What was more interesting to me was that there was only one passage (from Mary Wesley's novel Harnessing Peacocks) that I actually recognized, but it turns out that I'd actually read 6 of the 10 books on the list. (And of the 3 I got wrong, I'd read 2 of the books--go figure!)

About the photo:

I thought I'd be like the L.A. Times, which used a picture of Jonathan Franzen in an article about Jennifer Egan winning the LA Times book prize (and Jonathan Franzen losing it). So, I'm heading this with a picture of that pervasive sentimentalist, Jane Austen, so as not to have a photo of Naipaul on my blog. So there.

The Last Word

This last is a blog post linked by my old grad school pal, Kristen Lindquist, on Facebook. I'm grateful to her for it. I think this serves as an excellent final word, of the many that will be written, about Naipaul and his opinions.

Dawn Potter: A small response to V.S. Naipaul

May showers bring June flowers

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:32:00 +0000

So, I was all set to do another wrap up post like last year's "Thoughts on 31 days of blogging," but here it is, 10:22 p.m. on 5/31, and any further thoughts I have on 31 days of blogging are not particularly coherent. Though this moment does, in fact, feel emblematic of the whole blogathon. You can have a plan, but sometimes other things get in the way, and then you need an alternative. And if you're a person who told yourself that you were going to finish the goddamn blogathon whether you liked it or not, then you're going to finish it however you can, even if you have to limp a bit across the finish line.

I don't know if I learned anything new, really, having done this 3 times now. I still know that I would have trouble keeping up with daily blogging for more than a month. But I also know that I really do like blogging, and it gives me impetus to continue. The one bit of advice I have for future blogathoners is to plan, plan, plan, and when you think you've planned ahead enough, plan some more. I felt pretty good through week two, and then I looked at my list of ideas for posts and I'd used most of them already, and the second half of the month started looking really, really long.

Thankfully, just when I was in need of a last post to get me safely into June, my flowers cooperated. I woke up this morning to discover that my oriental poppy (which, for reasons I don't understand, I seem to have planted right next to the compost pile) went from having one bloom to eight, overnight.

And while the clematis does not quite have a grasp on actually growing up the broken ladder as it's supposed to, it does seem to have mastered producing flowers for the first time, so that's something.

And with that, I wish everyone a happy June! Thanks for reading.

Memorial Day Wordle

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Mon, 30 May 2011 16:24:00 +0000

It's always fun to do a blogathon wordle. The past two years, I've done them on my own. This year, it's a sanctioned blogathon theme day! My only problem with wordles is that I find it difficult to do just one of them.

I couldn't decide which one I liked better, so I did both. What's interesting is that the wordle only seems to capture words from the past few days of blogging. Surely if I'd done this earlier, there would have been ample mentions of both rhubarb and cake, not to mention chickens. Instead, I have a Delhi metro/rickshaw-centric wordle, which is interesting in its own way.

Take two:
Click on them for the full effect. And then try a wordle of your own! The Wordle site has all the info on how to do it and all the options (there are many!).

On this Monday holiday, I have some vegetables to plant and a 9th birthday party to attend. I'll be back tomorrow with some final thoughts on this month of blogging, that is, amazingly, just about over.

False Indigo in bloom

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Sun, 29 May 2011 23:02:00 +0000

Just in time for the end of May and the end of the blogathon, the false indigo has bloomed. (I wrote about the false indigo first here in 2008, updated it here in 2009 and triumphantly reported its first real blooms here last year.)

Given its current state of bloom, I think I can safely say that the false indigo is here to stay:

In 2009, the year after I planted it:

In May, 2010:

May 29, 2011:

Saturday Photo: Lal Mohammed, Jaipur

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:30:00 +0000

After my Delhi Metro post the other day and the expression of relief that I didn't have to deal with rickshaw wallahs so much anymore, I realized that I was maybe being a little bit unfair. Every once in a while, a positive rickshaw experience occurs, and occasionally, it even gets documented.

The man in the above photo is a Jaipur rickshaw wallah named Lal Mohammed. Here is how I ended up taking his photo.

In January, 2006, I was in Jaipur, where I lived for a year in 1999-2000, to see some friends and revisit old haunts. (And, yes, to shop at the huge Anokhi store there.) Because rickshaws in Jaipur have no meters and always require haggling, I did a lot of walking. But one place I couldn't walk was to Jaimala's house. When I had lived in Jaipur, Jaimala and her mother and sister Mala had lived in the servants' quarters behind Sunil's house, where I was living. But in the years since, they had saved enough money to first buy a plot of land and then to build their own house. Two years earlier, I'd gone out with Sunil to see them and their house, which had just been completed weeks earlier. They had since added more rooms, and Jaimala invited me for lunch on my last afternoon in Jaipur.

But how to get there? The house was on the edge of Jaipur in what was becoming a new development. I had never taken the bus in Jaipur so had no idea where to start. I couldn't go home on the bus with Jaimala because it would be Sunday, and she would already be home. Jaimala and I sat in front of Sunil's house, where she still worked for his tenant, and pondered the dilemma for awhile. Until Jaimala beamed at me, and said in Hindi, "I know, Sue-didi--Lal Mohammed can bring you." "Who is Lal Mohammed," I asked, reasonably. "A rickshaw-wallah," she said, going on to say that Lal Mohammed had brought them home on occasion and knew where they lived. "But how will we find Lal Mohammed?" I asked. I thought of all the rickshaw wallahs in Jaipur and wondered how he might be found. Jaimala looked at me as if I were dim. "I have his mobile number," she said. "We'll phone him."

Now, this would seem very logical to me--it's very clear to me how much life in India is now entirely dependent on a massive number of people having mobiles. But then, I hadn't quite grasped it yet.

Jaimala called Lal Mohammed on his mobile. It turned out that he wasn't far away, so he came over in his rickshaw, and we made the arrangements. And so, two days later, I myself called Lal Mohammed's mobile phone and told him I was ready. He came to my hotel and picked me up. We drove out to Jaimala's new house together. And while Jaimala and Mala and their mother and I gossiped and ate and caught up, Lal Mohammed also ate a plate of Jaimala's excellent curry-chawal. While Jaimala and Mala and I wandered through the nearby fields, chatting with women picking peas, looking at houses in early states of construction, Lal Mohammed watched cricket on TV.

Afterwards, we all drank tea. Jaimala and Mala wanted photos of themselves in front of their house, so I took several (one is below). Mala asked if I would take one of Lal Mohammed as well, and so I did. (That's Mala and Dolly, the dog, on the right.)

Lal Mohammed got me to the train station in plenty of time, and I paid him the sum we'd agreed on. (I can no longer remember what it was, but it was not exorbitant in any way.) He bid me farewell, and I went into the station to catch my train back to Delhi.

I haven't been back to Jaipur since, but I like to think that Lal Mohammed is still driving his rickshaw and that if I needed to, I could call him on his mobile, and he could take me where I needed to go with a minimum of fuss.

Friday Link Love

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Fri, 27 May 2011 15:00:00 +0000

The Lyall Links:

I've been a fan of New York Times London correspondent Sarah Lyall for a long time. Her recent piece, about President Obama's visit to London this week, was as entertaining as ever. (Her piece about the royal wedding was also excellent.)

I can actually remember the piece that made me take notice of Lyall way back in 1998. It was this obituary of Sir Anthony Glyn, an author known for "spirit and diversity." It was the first time I'd been so entertained by an obit, and it led to my increasing interest in reading obituaries, especially those written by that master, the sadly departed Robert McG. Thomas, Jr. (Although he is gone, his best efforts were collected into an edition, 52 McGs.)

The Carrington Links:

This week's most fascinating obituary was that of Leonora Carrington, British surrealist painter, sculptor and writer who lived much of her long life in Mexico. Thanks to Gina Hyams for linking the extensive Guardian obit, which includes many great details, including that during WWII, Carrington's family sent her nanny to Spain in a submarine to fetch her home! There was a New York Times obit today that was also interesting though not as comprehensive (and not written by a cousin of Carrington's, as the Guardian obit is). The image above is one of Carrington's.

The Grammatical Link:

As one who is perhaps a bit too over-fond of em dashes, I had to appreciate this screed against their overuse in Slate earlier this week. I have to admit, though, that the writer's attempt to use em dashes at every opportunity to prove her point reminded me of when I was in high school. In a protest against what we considered William Faulkner's excessively long sentences, we all attempted to answer our exam essay question on Intruder in the Dust in a single sentence. It's been a long time since that happened, but I suspect we used a few too many em dashes then, along with more semi-colons than any of us have probably used in anything since!

And on that note, Happy Long Weekend!

Delhi Metro Love Updated

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Thu, 26 May 2011 23:51:00 +0000

I've written about my love for the Delhi Metro before, in May of both 2009 and 2010, and I saw no reason not to do the same in 2011. Prior to my most recent trip to India, my love for the Delhi Metro was limited to the trips I was able to take between a few stops in central Delhi and up to the railway station. I still spent much of my time in rickshaws and taxis and occasionally buses. Being able to get around Delhi almost entirely by Metro was a fervent wish rather than a reality.

Thanks to the Commonwealth Games, though, Phase II of the Delhi Metro was complete before my arrival in January 2011, and in the 11 days I spent in Delhi, I spent A LOT of time on the Metro. My love, if anything, is even greater than it was before. I claimed--after my 50 minute, 23 rupee ($.50) ride between Gurgaon and the railway station--that if one could marry a public transit system, I'd consider it with the Delhi Metro.

The key numbers in all of this are 3 and 500. Three is the number of rickshaws I took in those 11 days in Delhi. Prior to this, I often took more than 3 rickshaws in a single day. 500 is how many rupees I put on my Metro card; when I left, there were 100 rupees remaining.

Riding the Metro was, above all, predictable. There's not much in India that I can say that about, but with the Metro, it was calmly, reassuringly, predictable. You walked down the stairs into the station. You put your bag through the scanner and let the security person run a wand over you. You followed the well-marked hallways to your platform. You looked at the electronic signs which accurately told you when the next train was coming. And then the train came when it was supposed to. Yes, of course, there was some jostling while entering the cars, especially at rush hour and at the bigger stations. But again and again, that was my experience. Amazing. The stations can be full and bustling, but they can also be empty. There's no place to sit, and security guards are visible everywhere. Even if you were inclined to either misbehave or try to camp out, you wouldn't get very far.

And then there are the ladies cars.

The first car of every train is reserved for women. Very, very occasionally I would see a man or two in the ladies compartment. Much more often, I would see men, upon realizing where they were, either leaving speedily of their own volition or being encouraged volubly to leave by the many women around them. I do understand that the ladies compartment is of less use to couples, families, and, of course, men, but for me, it was a godsend. It was usually much, much less crowded than the rest of the train, for one thing. It was crowded at rush hour, of course, and I had to stand with some regularity, but I never saw it packed to the sardine levels of the rest of the cars. It's not that I didn't see the occasional lady misbehave in the ladies compartment--there was certainly some aggressive rushing to seats and unfair saving of seats--but for the most part, it was pretty calm.

An added bonus--the people watching was great! Cameras are forbidden in the metro, and the main reason I wished I'd had a camera on my Indian cell phone was so that I could have taken some photos of the fascinating outfits I saw. The metro seemed populated by people from all strata of society. There were college students talking on the mobiles ("Mummy, can you send the driver to the Green Park station--I'm on the Metro and will be there in 10 minutes."), working women, women with children, women with bundles, women in jeans, women in saris, women in all manner of sandals, many of them wearing flesh colored toe socks beneath. (It was winter, after all.) I realized, in the Metro, that I'm not used to seeing Indian women's legs--because they're usually covered either by a sari or a kameez--but in the Metro, I saw legs, mostly jean-clad legs, every day. There were women reading and napping and many, many women talking on or looking at their mobiles. I myself read several books while on the Metro, though I never napped.

The unexpected part of taking the Metro so much was how much I walked. On the one hand, there was a Metro line that went to all of the places I go most, so I could hop on and off with ease. On the other, when I traveled farther afield--and even when I was just going back and forth from market to station--I had to walk. Once it was clear I could (mostly) get away without taking rickshaws, I didn't want to take them at all. If the choice was between haggling with yet another rickshaw-wallah or walking, I walked. One day, to my amazement, I discovered (thanks to my iPod pedometer) that I had walked 24,000 steps. No wonder my feet were so sore!

But the Metro's presence in South Delhi has led to new possibilities. At some stations, including Green Park, there is a fleet of cool battery-powered rickshaws which run between the station and nearby markets for a fixed price (15 rupees in Green Park). Plus, the drivers all wear nifty Vodafone caps.

Two brief notes on rickshaws. Sunil called me one day, very excited. He had seen a "Radio Tuk Tuk" driving by his house. In Delhi and Gurgaon, radio cabs are common. But a radio rickshaw? A totally new thing.
I only rode in a radio tuk tuk once, on my last day in Delhi, and I didn't, alas, call it ahead of time. It just happened to be going by when I was looking for a rickshaw to the station, and even though the driver was slightly hesitant about going against the rules by taking a passenger without a reservation, he eventually agreed and asked me for the same price to the Metro station I'd been hearing from regular, non-radio rickshaws (and then asked for baksheesh when we got there). But while I was in that radio tuk-tuk, en route to the metro for my last day of metroing and walking around Delhi, I spotted a rickshaw with a pink roof and lettering that matched the signs in the Metro. "Women Only," it said.

The Metro has brought more changes to Delhi than I can name, but that, certainly, is one of the more memorable ones.

Rhubarb Ginger "Downside Up" Oatmeal Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Wed, 25 May 2011 21:05:00 +0000

Much to my surprise, I discovered that in today's "Good Appetite" column, Melissa Clark writes about rhubarb upside-down cake. There must be rhubarb upside-down cake vibes going around in the universe because I made a similar cake just yesterday. I'd certainly think about making Melissa's cake at some point, but that will have to happen later. First, I want to make yesterday's cake again, if only so I can have a bigger piece of it. I brought it to a work gathering and looked on a little bit sadly as wedge after wedge was eaten by my colleagues, including the ones who proclaimed not to like rhubarb. I was selfless enough to take one piece home for Alex, but I left the rest there, and when I came in this morning, it was all gone. Sigh.

I have Food 52 to blame (or, really, credit) for this one as well. When I did a search for rhubarb, the first recipe that came up was the one for rhubarb curd (shortbread). The second was for rhubarb ginger downside up oatmeal cake. I was intrigued. I clicked. I baked.

I've never made a cake quite like this before. First, I don't think I've ever made an upside down cake. And I've never made one in a cast iron frying pan. I may have made a cake with oatmeal in it at some point, but the details are fuzzy. But, having done this once, I would do it again without hesitation. This is really an excellent cake.

First, you melt some butter in a cast iron (or other ovenproof) frying pan:

Once the butter is melted, you take it off the flame and spread a cup of brown sugar across the bottom:
On top of that goes a layer of rhubarb mixed with grated fresh ginger:

And on top of that goes the cake batter:

The cake batter process was interesting in and of itself. You mix rolled oats with boiling water and butter. You mix the dry ingredients in another bowl. When the oatmeal mixture has cooled, you add an egg, some vanilla and more sugar, and then mix in the dry ingredients.

The cake one way:

And the other:

There is little I would do differently. I might think about replacing the fresh ginger with crystallized ginger (or maybe not). I did replace 1/4 cup of all purpose with whole wheat pastry flour. But there's not much else to change. The slight taste of oatmeal is lovely with the rhubarb, reminiscent of a crumble. The cake was moist and flavorful, with a little zing from the ginger, some tart from the rhubarb, mellowed out by the oatmeal and the sweet cake. It really was just all around delicious. My only regret was that I hadn't brought some vanilla ice cream to eat with it. No, I take that back. My only real regret was that I didn't get a bigger piece. I'm not sure I could give it higher praise.

Rhubarb Ginger Downside-Up Cake
from thirshfeld at Food 52

For the rhubarb::

2 1/4 cups fresh rhubarb, 1/2 inch slices
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter

For the oatmeal cake:

1/2 cup thick cut rolled oats
3/4 cups boiling water
1/4 cup unsalted butter, 1/4 inch cubes
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

In a mixing bowl combine the oats with the boiling water. Add the1/4 cup of butter. Set aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Gently melt the butter in a 10 inch cast iron skillet. Remove it from the heat. Spread the brown sugar evenly across the bottom. In a large bowl mix the ginger and rhubarb. Spread the rhubarb evenly across the brown sugar. Set aside.

In the empty rhubarb bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

To the cooled oatmeal add the egg, both sugars, and vanilla. Mix to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until combined.

Spread the cake batter evenly across the top of the rhubarb. Place into the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Remove from the oven when done and let cool for 5 minutes before inverting onto a cake plate. Let cool for 20 minutes before slicing.

8-10 slices

A Spinach Revelation, and a Failed Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Wed, 25 May 2011 02:48:00 +0000

I usually take advantage of my Mondays at home to cook for at least part of the week. Yesterday, however, I got sidetracked. First, I made granola. Then, I made cake (more about that another day). While I was making the cake, I was also making my first batch of rhubarb ginger jam. In the midst of all that, I ran errands, did some work, gardened in the drizzle, did laundry (including the caked-with-dirt-from-gardening-in-the-drizzle gardening clothes). Somehow, I forgot to make dinner. I had the fixings for a nice salad, but it was chilly and damp, not really salad weather.

What I did have, I realized as the afternoon edged toward evening, was a lot of spinach. A pound and a half, to be precise. I thought about spinach and green garlic soup; I thought about my tried and true spinach soup, but I wasn't in a soup mood. And then I remembered that Deb at Smitten Kitchen had written a few months ago about baked spinach, which she called, in fact, the "best baked spinach," and that seemed like just the ticket. The full recipe called for 3 pounds of spinach, and I only had half of that, but I figured the recipe was easy enough to halve, which I did. I'm going to send you over to Deb's post for the instructions. Suffice it to say that the spinach is, in fact, delicious. Also easy, though there are several steps (which makes sense, since the recipe is one she pieced together from several Julia Child recipes.) Once the spinach is wilted, you saute it in a bit of butter.

After it's dried out, you add a bit of flour, and once that's absorbed, some stock or cream, depending on how decadent you're feeling. (I used 1/2 asparagus stock and 1/2 1/2 and 1/2.) (I couldn't resist writing it that way.) Then you mix with some cheese, put it in a baking dish and top it with some breadcrumbs and more cheese, and you're done.

I didn't have any baked spinach to compare this too, but it was delicious, and I will absolutely make it again, this time, a full recipe. And I might not even share.

But then we come to the failed experiment.

One of Deb's suggestions was to use the spinach as a bed for a poached egg. This seemed like a fine idea to me except that I can't really make poached eggs. Alex, on the other hand, is a poached egg master, so I just cede the making of poached eggs to him. Last night, however, he wasn't there, and I was on my own if I wanted a poached egg. I thought about just making a soft-boiled egg instead, but then I remembered recently having read something about making poached eggs in the microwave and I decided to give it a try. I found what I had read--a short piece in Bon Appetit. Unfortunately, I began my experiment after I'd read the piece but before I read the comments, which suggested that it might be more complicated than it appeared on the surface. The Bon Appetit method involved putting the egg in water in a cup, covering with a saucer, and cooking on high heat for 1 minute, and voila-- a perfect poached egg was supposed to appear.

My microwave is ancient, however, and nothing cooks in one minute. My general calculation is that something that takes 1 minute in a newer microwave takes at least 3 minutes in mine. As a compromise, I set the timer for 2 minutes. But when the buzzer went off and I checked, the egg was only partly poached. I put the saucer back on and turned it on for 2 more minutes. About a minute in, there was a crash loud enough to send the cats scurrying to the basement in fear. When I opened the door, thankfully I didn't find a smashed dish and egg everywhere. I did, however, find the saucer catapulted to the side, along with some water and a bit of egg. What was left of the egg was closer to hard boiled than soft-boiled. It was rather sad looking, in fact.

Only then did I think to look at the comments, both of which said there were too many variables, and it hadn't worked. I had to agree with them.

Still, all was not lost. A piece of Hungry Ghost eight grain bread, topped with half the spinach, topped with the remains of the egg, turned out to be a delicious dinner.

Two lessons learned: The spinach is a winner.

And, at least for the moment, I will leave the poached eggs to Alex.

Meatless Monday: Vegetarian Tortilla Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Mon, 23 May 2011 18:33:00 +0000

It began with the tortillas. One of my colleagues picked up a packet of corn tortillas from a local Mexican restaurant at lunch one day and brought them back to the office. The package was hefty, so she offered me some, which I took home, put in the fridge and half forgot about. But one day, a week or so later, I was thinking about what to make for dinner, and I remembered the tortillas. I had a yen for some sort of tortilla pie or casserole, with vegetables and beans and cheese, something warm and comforting, hearty and wholesome. I looked up recipes and found all manner of variations--with meat, without meat, with tomato sauce, with large quantities of salsa, etc.-- but I didn't find exactly what I was looking for.

No matter. This is the kind of dish where improvisation works fine. After all, how wrong can you go with tortillas, vegetables, beans and cheese? On one burner of the stove, I set to sauteing some onions and garlic, to which I added 2 cans of black beans and a package of frozen corn. On the next burner, I sauteed some spinach with a bit of garlic.

Then, I made what turned out to be a crucial decision. I had a little can of chipotle chilies in adobo sauce in the house. I pureed these and added a teaspoon to the bean/corn/onion mixture, which gave it a kick without excessive heat. (This meant I didn't have to dump in a whole jar of salsa later to avoid blandness.) Once everything was cooked, I began to layer. On the bottom of the dish went a layer of tortillas (3 or 4), overlapping. I covered these with half of the bean/corn mixture. Then I added about half of the spinach. Grated cheddar followed, along with dabs of salsa.

Another layer of tortillas followed, and then the beans and corn, spinach, cheese and salsa. You could add more salsa, tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes, if you wanted the mixture to be wetter. You could put other vegetables in with the beans and corn. I'm still wondering why I didn't think to add red peppers. You can skip the spinach, if that's not your thing, but it's an easy and delicious way to get some greens in painlessly (if you (or your children) are looking for painless ways to greens consumption). Don't skimp on the cheese, which is a mistake I made the second time I made this. (It was still good, but not quite as delicious as the first time.) Finally, add one more layer of tortillas across the top, and grate more cheese to finish it off.

These top tortillas will crisp up when you bake it, and they will add some nice crunch to the dish.

This is not the loveliest or most photogenic dish, admittedly. But it's filling and tasty and very easy to make. I recommend eating it with cubes of avocado and a bit of sour cream.

Not long ago, I went to the Mexican restaurant and bought my own hefty packet of Cinco de Mayo corn tortillas ($1.75 for at least 30 tortillas that are much more substantial than supermarket tortillas). With the weather seeming to have forgotten that it's actually late May, I suspect there will still be at least a few opportunities to use them!

Vegetarian Tortilla Pie

10-12 small corn tortillas, Cinco de Mayo or other quality brand if possible
olive oil for sauteeing
2 onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans black beans (or 1 cup dried beans, soaked and cooked)
10 oz. frozen corn (or corn from 3-4 ears, if in season)
1 tsp. pureed chipotle chilies
1 10 oz. bag of spinach leaves, washed
4-6 oz. sharp or extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated
salsa to taste
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375

Saute the onions and 2 cloves of garlic in 1 tbsp. olive oil until the onions are soft but not brown. Add the black beans and corn. When mixture is warm, stir in the pureed chipotle chili, making sure that it's spread out through the mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste.

In a separate skillet, heat another teaspoon of olive oil and saute the third clove of garlic, briefly. Add the washed spinach and saute until spinach is wilted. Put into a colander and press to squeeze out any extra water. Chop finely.

In a casserole dish (I used an 8.5" x 12" Emile Henry lasagna pan), put a layer of tortillas across the bottom. It's fine if they overlap. Layer on half of the bean/corn mixture and half of the spinach. Add salsa to taste. Sprinkle not quite half of the cheese over the top. Repeat with another layer of tortillas, beans/corn, spinach, salsa and cheese. Top with a final layer of tortillas with the remaining cheese sprinkled on top.

Bake in 375 oven for approximately 20 minutes. Serve with chopped avocado, sour cream, more salsa, and any other garnish you wish.

Serves 4-6

Coconut Macaroons

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Sun, 22 May 2011 22:37:00 +0000

If you find yourself making things like rhubarb curd or the kind of ice cream that calls for custard, you will find yourself in possession of extra egg whites. Not that you were thinking of tossing them, but if that thought has ever crossed your mind, banish it immediately. Even if you are not the type to eat egg white omelets (as I am definitely not), there are many ways to use those egg whites. Put them in a little container, and if you fear that you will not use them up quickly, freeze them, with a note of how many there are.

David Lebovitz, the pastry chef, writer, blogger and author of that fabulous ice cream book, The Perfect Scoop, knows about the extra egg yolk conundrum. And on his site, he has a page called "Recipes to use up leftover egg whites." There are 15 recipes on that page, and I suspect all are wonderful, but I haven't been able to get past the first one I made--coconut macaroons. They are easy to make, delicious and addictive.

Lebovitz's original recipe calls for the macaroons to be dipped in chocolate. I am usually all for dipping things in chocolate. If there is a choice between chocolate and no chocolate, I almost always choose chocolate. However, in this case, I'm not so sure. The first time I made these, I brought them to a work gathering. Half were dipped in chocolate and the other half plain. To my surprise (because I have many chocolate loving colleagues), more people preferred the plain ones to the chocolate ones. The chocolate was distracting, almost, from the lovely coconut flavor. I've included his instructions for the chocolate dipping, but if you don't have the time or inclination (or are, heaven forfend, someone who doesn't like chocolate) know that these are fabulous just as they are.

The process is quick and easy. Basically, you dump all of the ingredients in a skillet and heat it up. Lebovitz says to cook until it begins to scorch, and I found that a little bit alarming the first time I made them, but it's pretty clear when they're done cooking. The ingredients are a sticky mass, and your kitchen will smell delightfully of coconut. At that point, once the batter is cool, you can refrigerate or freeze it to use at a later time. Otherwise, you put the batter onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment or a Silpat and bake.

Mine were in for exactly 18 minutes, but I didn't check on them, as I probably should have as they are a bit over brown. Still, they are chewy and coconuty and delicious, and if there is a better way to use leftover egg whites, it might be a while before I find out!

Note: This recipe calls for 1/4 cup flour. Though I am not a Passover expert, I would assume that if you replaced the flour with matzoh meal, they could be a wonderful and welcome Passover treat. (These will chase the memories of macaroons from a can out of your mind posthaste.)

Coconut Macaroons (with optional chocolate)
Adapted from David Lebovitz

4 large egg whites
1¼ cups sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon honey
2½ cups unsweetened coconut
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

In a large skillet, mix together the egg whites, sugar, salt, honey, coconut and flour.

Heat over low-to-moderate heat on the stovetop, stirring constantly, scraping the bottom as you stir.

When the mixture just begins to scorch at the bottom, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Transfer to a bowl to cool to room temperature.

(At this point, the mixture can be chilled for up to one week, or frozen for up to two months.)

When ready to bake, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Form the dough into 1 1/2-inch mounds with your fingers evenly spaced on the baking sheet. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until deep golden brown. Cool completely.

To dip the macaroons in chocolate, melt the chocolate in a clean, dry bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in a microwave.) Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap. Dip the bottoms of each cookie in the chocolate and set the cookies on the baking sheet. Refrigerate 5-10 minutes, until the chocolate is set.

Approx. 30 cookies

The Greedy Gardener

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Sat, 21 May 2011 21:19:00 +0000

Because I bought blueberries and basil at the Tuesday Market in late April;

And because then I bought leeks, onions, parsley, a hot pink echinacea and three $3 perennials -- a globe thistle, a Cupid's Dart and one I can no longer remember at the Saturday Market in early May;

And because then I stopped at the Hadley Garden Center and picked up another tub of strawberries to supplement my collection as well as a few more asparagus crowns to put where last year's asparagus didn't reappear;

And because at last week's farmers market, I felt compelled to buy another cat mint and more parsley;

And because John Bator, gardener extraordinaire, kindly agreed to buy me $10 worth of plants at the annual Pascommuck Conservation Trust plant sale (which, despite the fact that it happens about 5 minutes from my house, I knew I wouldn't get to early enough to get anything good, and since John was running the sale, he'd be there in any case);

And because John was especially generous and got me 4 plants for that $10--a gaillardia, a Veronica Spicata, an anise Hyssop and one other I can no longer remember;

In short, because of this case of garden greed I've shown over the past month, is it too much to ask for the sun to stay out long enough--or, at least for the rain to stop falling long enough-- for me to plant it all?

The aerial view:

Reclaiming a bed, again: Or, a new home for my lettuce

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Fri, 20 May 2011 21:35:00 +0000

A few years ago (2 blogathons ago, to be precise), I wrote about trying to reclaim a bed in my backyard, one below a stone wall/rocky outcropping sort of place. The bed was filled perennial weeds, and I despaired of ever planting anything there.

Alex, however, had a solution, and he told me that if I put down several layers of cardboard or newspaper and put new topsoil on top of it. I could have my bed back. Well, for the past two years I've done just that. And on the one hand, it's meant that the bed was only partly, instead of entirely, filled with weeds. On the other, no flower I planted there ever did particularly well. It's cool and damp and on the shady side, and even part-shade annuals weren't very happy.

I was fretting over this and fretting at the memory of the neighbor's cat lying down on top of my newly planted greens last year (immortalized, for eternity, in haiku form) when I had one of those AHA moments. Flowers might not like the cool and shady and damp conditions in the stone wall bed, but lettuce certainly would. Why couldn't I put the lettuce and spinach and chard in a place that the greens would like but the cat might not? I considered the fact that I might just be a genius, and then I set to planting.

Admittedly, the cool wet weather of the past few weeks is the kind of weather lettuce likes. But still, fingers crossed, the experiment seems to be working! If I see the neighbor's cat near there, though, I may have to take that back.

Rhubarb Roundup 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Thu, 19 May 2011 21:16:00 +0000

Every year, I do a rhubarb recipe roundup post. This year's was prompted by, as always, the sight of my massive rhubarb plant outside my kitchen window. Then, there was an email from my colleague Nancy Eckert, she of the chicken-drawing talent, that said "Rhubarb Curd just might be my most favorite food of the moment. It is heavenly." That got me thinking about other rhubarb delights I haven't tried yet (since my experience with rhubarb curd is only a few days old). And then, there was a message in my inbox this morning from Deb at Smitten Kitchen with news of her new post on Rhubarb Streusel Muffins. And I knew that the time had come to do a rhubarb roundup (as I have done in 2009 and 2010 both). I'm going to arrange the various recipes according to type, in an attempt to be useful to those who want to use rhubarb in a particular way in addition to those who just want to make a rhubarb-something and won't know til the right recipe appears. I will also indicate those I've actually made as opposed to those I've just drooled over longingly.

The Sauce-y

First, my first, best and favorite rhubarb recipe of longstanding, the astonishingly delicious (and very easy to make) Rhubarb-Ginger Jam.

I've also had my eye on this lovely rhubarb sauce from Tea and Cookies.

Molly at Orangette recommends this rhubarb with white wine and vanilla bean.

The Cake-y

I'm very tempted by this big-crumb coffee cake, originally from Melissa Clark's column in the NYT, written up by Deb at Smitten Kitchen.

I also have my eye on this homey-looking rhubarb cake. (This blogger made--and praised--Marion Cunningham's Fresh Ginger Cake, which is how I discovered the blog.)

There's also Darina Allen's Country Rhubarb Cake, first written about in the New York Times and then adapted by Luisa at The Wednesday Chef.

These are not exactly cake, but I wasn't sure where to put them. Knowing how good everything else from Good to the Grain has been, I'm even more eager to try these rustic rhubarb tarts.

The Crumble-y

Here we have Molly at Orangette's Rhubarb Crumble.

Not to be confused with Deb at Smitten Kitchen's Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

This tasty rhubarb cobbler was originally from Smitten Kitchen, but I made and enjoyed it last year as well, and wrote about it in last year's Rhubarb Roundup

I also made Sweet Mary's rhubarb-oatmeal bars, also delicious.

The Fancy

I haven't yet embarked on any kind of fancier recipe involving rhubarb, but should the occasion present itself, I'd certainly think about one of these.

Rhubarb Meringue Tart, from Tamasin Day-Lewis by way of Orangette

Rhubarb and Ginger Brioche Bread Puddings, also from Tamasin Day-Lewis by way of Epicurious

One of the beauties of the month of May is that good rhubarb recipes are as plentiful as the rain drops that will not stop falling on our heads. We may be in the midst of a stretch of gray skies and wet days, but at least there is a lot of rhubarb to eat until the sun comes out again.

The Good Wife goes on summer vacation: or, the pleasures of watching a single show

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Wed, 18 May 2011 21:59:00 +0000

The Good Wife concluded its second season last night, and the accolades are rolling in. There have been laudatory sum ups in the New York Times and Salon, among other places.

I'm a bit sad about the end of the season. For the past few months, I've been watching The Good Wife faithfully on Tuesday nights, and I've been reacquainting myself with the pleasure of keeping track of a single television show. I've never been a heavy TV watcher, more out of circumstance than out of intent; for 6 years in my 20s, I had no TV (or was out of the country and also had no TV). When I came back from India in 1995, I ended up with a TV from my grandparents' house but didn't get cable so that I only had access to 2 clear channels and 1 fuzzy one, if I moved the TV into the spot with the best reception. It was only 5 years later, when Emily and Liam sublet my apartment for a year and they invested in $5 a month "reception cable" (which Em told me I had to keep!), that my TV access expanded.

For a few years, $5 was an amazing deal--30 some odd channels, including a number I wasn't paying for. In the years since, it's become less and less of a deal--now I pay $14 a month and basically only get the networks, plus C-Span and the Home Shopping Network--but I still find myself resistant to paying more for real cable because the reality is that I really only have the time and energy to keep track of one show in real time. (What I watch while on the treadmill or elliptical trainer is another story!) This is Emily's influence as well--back in 2000, she told me I needed a TV show and suggested that I start watching The West Wing, which I did, very obediently, until the last season got tedious and then it ended; then, Gilmore Girls was my one show until that ended as well. I tried Grey's Anatomy until it got too soapy and silly, and since then, I've been floundering around TV show-less until I found the Good Wife, early in its second season.

I watched the first season in a pleasurable marathon over Thanksgiving break, caught up with the first episodes of season 2 mostly via iTunes and then finally, when I returned from India at the end of January, started making sure I was home Tuesdays at 10 p.m. to watch it. I know this is old-fashioned. I know I should have a DVR or access to On-Demand (which, alas, you don't get with $14 cable). But I don't. And given that it's only one show, I like the routine, the catching up, the time set aside to do this one thing, once a week.

Admittedly, all of the meaningful TV I've watched over the past few years--The Wire, Six Feet Under, Slings and Arrows, even Sex and the City--I've watched on DVD, some in sips, some in gulps. And there are ways that I prefer that immersion. (I loved this Sam Anderson piece in Slate about watching the final season of Six Feet Under on DVD months after the show had ended on HBO. I too was like a hysterical Victorian woman while watching the series finale.) But I like the ritual of a once a week show, not to mention the knowing what's going on in real time. (I still remember getting an email from my brother saying how sad he was when Nate died on Six Feet Under--and it was several years before I started watching the show!) (Apologies if that was a spoiler, but given that SFU ended almost 6 years ago, I think it's okay.) It's kind of fun to be current on one thing, at least.

There are lots of smarter and savvier people writing about why The Good Wife works. I'll just say that it's well-written, well-acted, sometimes soapy, often funny, occasionally sad, occasionally suspenseful and almost always interesting. I love seeing so many characters from The Wire pop up in guest roles, and I love the rotating cast of judges and opposing lawyers (Martha Plimpton, Mamie Gummer, even Michael J. Fox). I love Alan Cummings, I love Archie Panjabi, I love Christine Baranski and her cowboy right wing boyfriend. I think Julianna Margulies does a great job in the center of it all.

And then there are the recaps. Honestly, one of the new pleasures of TV now is the recaps. I love the recaps. This is maybe also why I can only watch one show--who has time to watch TV and read all the recaps too? My favorite is probably Jada Yuan's recap at New York Magazine (without which I wouldn't know that Kalinda is referred to as "sexy boots of justice" by a large online community), but the LA Times does a good one as well, and then there are the recaps on the blogs, too many to name, though Alan Sepinwall's is a highlight and one I can't find at the moment which counts how many gasps the recapper had per episode. A person could spend a lot of time just reading recaps (not that I know anything about that . . . )

Anyway, if you haven't yet discovered the Good Wife, I'd definitely recommend a combination DVD/re-run/iTunes viewing to get through the first two seasons and keep yourself entertained this summer. But when fall rolls around, settle down on your couch at 9 p.m. on Sunday nights* and watch it in real time. It will be worth it.

*I am of mixed feelings about the new time slot as it goes up against whatever is on Masterpiece Theater on PBS. It's not that I watch much Masterpiece, but occasionally I do. And if The Good Wife were up against the new season of Downton Abbey, I don't know what I would do!

Marion Cunningham's Fresh Ginger Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Dickman) — Wed, 18 May 2011 01:42:00 +0000

This cake, I realized as I was making it on Sunday, carries on my tradition of making plain cakes, those delicious though not decadent and, sad to say, not particularly attractive cakes. (Plain cake number one on this blog was this Lemon Cornmeal Cake and plain cake number two was the Blueberry Buttermilk Cake.) Plain they may be, but I think of them as plain in a stalwart, upstanding kind of way. Just because they are plain does not mean they are not delicious.

This ginger cake is actually very similar to the Fresh Ginger Muffins that Molly posted about on Orangette a few months ago. The process is exactly the same--the cake has a bit more sugar than the muffins and is supposed to have cake flour in it, but otherwise, the ingredients are the same as well. And the process is also interesting in that Cunningham uses ginger in a way I've never used it before. You take chunks of ginger, skin and all, and whirl them around in a food processor or mini chopper until they are chopped to bits. Then, you add a bit of sugar and heat it on the stove until the sugar melts, leaving you with a sticky, lovely smelling mess, to which you add lemon zest. This is what gives the cake its lovely gingery-lemony flavor.

The wonderful thing that I realized is how excellent this cake--delicious enough on its own-- would be as a base for other things. Cunningham suggests serving it with sliced mango and whipped cream. (Yum.) I made it specifically to go with the Rhubarb Curd (Double Yum.) But I can also imagine a ginger-lemon blueberry cake, to name one. (Minus the ginger, this recipe is already quite similar to the blueberry buttermilk cake linked above.) Despite the plainness of this cake, it's moist and light and very flavorful. I can already see it becoming a regular in my repertoire! Meanwhile, it might be the slightest bit more photogenic if the rhubarb curd wasn't exactly the same color, but you can't have everything!

Fresh Ginger Cake

(adapted from Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book)

Makes two 8" cakes

Ingredients:
1/4 cup ginger, unpeeled, cut into large chunks
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons lemon zest with a little white pith (I used the zest from 2 1/2 lemons.)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups cake flour (I used all-purpose)
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter the cake pans.

Cut the unpeeled ginger root into large chunks. Put the ginger into a food processor and process until it is in tiny pieces; alternatively, mince by hand. Put the ginger and ¼ cup sugar in a small skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the sugar has melted and the mixture is warm (this takes only a minute or two). Set aside to cool. Zest the lemon and add it to the cooled ginger mixture. (Cunningham says to do this in a food processor; if you have a Microplane-type grater, there's no need.)

Put the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer (or, a mixing bowl, if you plan to use handheld beaters or mix by hand). Beat the butter for a second or two; slowly add the remaining 3/4 cup sugar, and beat until smooth. Add the eggs, and beat well. Stir in the buttermilk, and beat until blended. Add the flour, salt, and baking soda, and beat just until smooth. Add the ginger-lemon mixture and mix well.

Spoon the batter into the buttered cake pans. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool the pans for 5 minutes, then turn out onto racks until completely cooled.