About Us

Food On Your Face (And Body)

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 21:36:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

It's summer!

Oops. Ok a few months to catch up on. Long story short: It's hot, I made my off-Bway debut here, I went to Norway with this show (that will be coming here in the fall), I had a birthday and you (plus fam) made me not one but two excellent parties, and I've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen.

But not (entirely) in the way you might think.

Also the Lab.

There's no doubt about it, Mouse, my Inner Hippie (or maybe "Natural Woman" is more accurate?) has come back. ("Back", you say? Come on, I wear heels now! Sometimes.)

What has caused this? There are several possibilities. Could it be working on a show that was basically a Passion Play about Climate Change and the very real consequences of our disposable lifestyle? Could it be the fact that I've been spending a lot of time with {PLACEHOLDER BLOGNAME}**, a person who prefers (herbal) tea to coffee, ice cream to cocktails, and hiking/biking/kayaking/salsa dancing/mini golf/writing a musical together to... sitting in a bar? Or could it simply be luck/sharing a dressing room with some like-minded women interested in 'green' answers to beauty/heath problems where 'traditional' (chemical-laden, plastic-encased) products and medicines have failed us?

** Despite a lengthy summit on the plane back from Norway as to what an appropriate blog handle for this person might be, at the time of this writing a decision still has not been made. Suggestions considered and then rejected: The Boyfriend (meh), The Collaborator (dry), King Hakon Hakonsson VII of Bergen (historically inaccurate).

They say when the mind is ready, a teacher appears. In my case it was three of them. Three Wise Women, bearing gifts ... in the form of beauty/health concoctions you can make... from food!

It was like this.

ok, really this is intermission of this 5.5-hr biblical epic play where
if you want you can be Baby Jesus in a photo w/the cast.
Oh, like you wouldn't have done it.

My Gifts of the Magi were as follows.

i. GOLD (aka, OIL CLEANSING)

Dressing Room 1 sat to my left in, well, our dressing room, while we were working on the End of the World show mentioned above. It was perhaps during the third of our five (!) 12-hour tech days while discussing how to reduce our use of plastics and watching videos of her cute 1-yr old son that Oil Cleansing came up. The next day she brought me (unasked!) a small vial to test myself, and I am indebted to her.

If this were a different kind of blog I'd go into depth here about my personal history of 'problem skin', and mention the words 'adult acne' and the incredible frustration of looking for a fix all my life. Also, if this were another kind of blog (you know, the ones where you really learn stuff), I would explain the theory behind OCM and go into depth about options. But this is our blog, and I'm already taking liberties. So folks, read further, but the basic dealyo is replacing your facial cleanser (you heard me) with a blend (proportions vary) of organic castor oil (yes) and another, 'carrier' oil (yes- DR1 and I use sunflower), massaging it into your face at night (no facial cleanser or makeup remover needed), and steaming then wiping it off with a hot washcloth, once or twice a week, or (if you're me), nightly. It all varies, but

Here's how I do:

1 part organic castor oil
2 part sunflower oil

Mix in tiny glass jar. At bedtime, pour quarter-size amount in your hand, then massage into your face. Run a washcloth (I bought a stack of cheap ones for this) under water as hot as you can stand (do not burn yourself!), wring out and press it to your face. Hold there til it cools. Do it again once or twice, then wipe away any residue and splash face with cold water. THATS IT. Maybe some moisturizer.

I know. It sounds extremely counterintuitive (OIL? on my SKIN? for breakouts??). All I can say is it has NOT made me break out more and HAS (so far) made me break out less and my face feels soft as my baby niece's butt. (Too much? Sorry. It's really soft.) Everybody's different (DR1's blend is 5-to-1 and she does it twice a week.) In the morning I use some cetaphil or (gasp!) just water, depending.

ii. FRANKINCENSE (aka, MANUKA HONEY I SHRUNK MY BLEMISHES AND PREVENTED COLDS)

In fairness, it was at least a year ago that The Playwright and I had this important discussion on the rooftop of the bar Brass Monkey, and I may have mentioned it already. As I recall, I was the only one having an adult beverage while Dennis (of past tornado-incident blog fame) and herself were drinking ice water and discussing their latest health food discoveries, and it was here that I heard the words "manuka honey" for the first time.

Mouse, I'll be brief. Get this honey.

Ok. It is not cheap. (Oh hello, Gwyneth, how'd you get in here) but before anyone starts yelling, think how much people pay for good face cream, acne medication, wound salve, and cold medicine altogether, because you can use this honey for all these purposes. It comes from (obviously) really, really savvy and talented bees in New Zealand, and Trader Joe's is now selling it for $10 a pop though I am slightly suspicious and can only speak for the Wedderspoon's at this point. (Someone test drive it and let me know).

For cold prevention: All I can say is I ate a teaspoon of this honey every day all last fall & winter and did not get sick once. This year, I didn't, and I got bronchitis for all of January and have a cold right now (which I am eating honey to try and cure).

For skin, esp acne-prone: Put some manuka honey on your (clean) face. Leave 15-30 minutes then rinse. If you're having a breakout, do this once in the AM and once before bed.

You can also make a hydrating/nourishing face mask by mashing 1/4 of an avocado well with a bit of manuka, smearing/leaving it on your face for 15 min, then rinsing. Here's a picture of me wearing it.

Soft as ... well, you know.

I'll keep this in the kitchen? medicine cabinet? (I'm having trouble figuring out where to store it), at least until all the bees are gone (see 'end of the world' concerns, above).

iii. MYRRH (aka, HOMEMADE COCONUT OIL DEODORANT)

Stay with me, Mouse.

Now if you're anything like me, and you are, at this point you're thnking something like this: , "The Boo has gone off the deep end. She has entered hippie-dippie paradise and I hope she has a great time living there with {KING HAKON HAKONSSON... nope}, but I've been down this Road of Lies before. Sure, we all know that antiperspirant use has been linked to many evils, most notably breast cancer and Alzheimer's, but as the mom in the (excellent) film The Obvious Child says, "I would rather not remember smelling good than live my whole life remembering how I smelled like garbage."

And to that I say ... ME TOO!

That's the thing!! I too have been taken for a ride by all kinds of (commercially produced, in plastic) 'natural' versions. I tried The Crystal in college. I dallied with Tom's of Maine. They worked for like an hour. Or a day.

But when a (different) person who shares a (different) dressing room with you tells you nonchalantly that the substance in her small glass jar is "deodorant.. I make it myself", and that person is notably gorgeous, patchouly-free and Not Bad Smelling, it makes you curious. And when you realize you forgot your Secret and you have to go onstage in ten, and you borrow some of the homemade stuff and it works, for hours after the show and the party... you ask for the recipe.

Here's how I do.

5 T extra virgin organic coconut oil, melted (liquid)
1/4 C baking soda
1/4 C cornstarch
5 -10 drops of essential oil (optional and your choice: I went with lavender)
Whisk the dry ingredients and then pour in the oil, whisking. Store in glass jar.

DR2's recipe uses arrowroot powder instead of/in addition to cornstarch, and mixes tea tree oil with the essential oil drops. At room temp it's like a lotion, in the fridge it is solid but melts on contact with your skin. Apply with your fingers after showering in the AM. That's it.

The whole first week of this experiment I was terrified and carried around an emergency travel-size deodorant stick in my purse for the moment of (I was certain inevitable) failure. It never came. It looks and smells pleasantly like frosting (do not eat), and though not technically an antiperspirant I have noticed it usually keeps me dry. {PLACEHOLDER BLOG NAME} asked me if it is "PH Balanced for a woman, but strong enough for a man". No word on this yet.

Ok, that's all for now. I can feel us losing readership by the paragraph. For anyone wondering what happened to the Food Blog they like, I give you a different kind of potion below, one that, yes, you eat.

THE BOO's M&M&M GLAZE FOR SALMON

Ingredients:
chickpea miso paste
dijon mustard
real maple syrup
salt, pepper

Whisk equal parts mustard, maple, and miso. Liberally spread over salmon fillets and sprinkle salt and pepper. Exactly 23 minutes at 425, skin side down, in the oven. You're welcome.

Love,

The Boo

I am Genius, and So Can You.

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 19:11:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

I have no remaining physical evidence of the miracle which took place in my apartment on Easter Sunday. No image appearing on a slice of toast, no time lapse photography showing a glass of wine disappeared by an elusive Elijiah (see what I did there?), no, not even a single blurry cell phone photo in which one can barely make out the outline of a figure backlit in a halo of warm afternoon sunlight.

Oh wait, there is a blurry photo:

Can you see it? Glowing, ever so slightly? There, next to the brown smudge? No, the other one?

But you can kind of feel the power, right?

Well, you'll just have to take my word for it. Actually, you won't, since you were there and bore witness to the sacred event, but for the benefit of posterity, I am putting this down in print so that, like the gospels, future generations can hear tell of a time when inspiration led to magic and tired mothers could be geniuses.

It was Easter Sunday. Some of us wore frills.

Some didn't. All were hungry. Most were sleepy.

I planned a simple menu which could be executed easily and quickly during morning naptime. It included: Shakshuka, bacon, roasted potatoes, with delicious asparagus vinaigrette provided by the Boo, and fresh fruit and a fruit crisp from The Mother.

We all know, I hope, that when making bacon in large quantities, and especially for guests, one should always make it in the oven. Standing over a splattering pan of bacon grease, flipping and burning yourself and ruining your clothes and generally smoking up the place, when you should be drinking mimosas on the couch, is just dumb. As such, I planned to stick a package on a sheet tray and throw it in the oven a few minutes before your arrival. But there were also the potatoes that I planned to cut up and roast on a pan with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little paprika, which would also take up oven space and time. Then I realized they both would cook at the same temperature, and could therefore go into the oven together (if not for the same duration). And Then--THEN--it hit me. Here's how my thinking went, if you can call pure inspiration, pure TRUTH and LIGHT and GOODNESS beamed directly into your soul, beyond words, beyond rational thought, beyond emotion and petty distractions of human life, "thinking."

I often roast chicken on top of chunked up root vegetables (like potatoes) in the same pan. Classic, right? This serves multiple purposes: 1: makes a delicious one-pot meal with meat and sides, 2: Seasons the vegetables with herbs and juices from the chicken, and keeps them moist, and 3: makes a sort of 'rack' for the chicken which allows air to flow on all sides, so the chicken is moist and the skin crispy, rather than having it sit in the bottom of the pan, stewing in the juices.

Well!

I've seen recipes for oven-cooked bacon which have you lay it on a rack in the pan so the grease drips down to the bottom and the bacon gets nice and crispy. And I've surely seen recipes for potatoes cooked in various fats--duck fat, chicken fat (see above)...

And most of all, a voice inside me seemed to speak, why do two dishes when you can do just one! And thou shalt line it with aluminum foil and not ask questions about the potential toxicity of this and ye shall peel it and throw it away and drink another mimosa instead of getting a cramp in thy arm scrubbing off crusted bits and it will be good.

BAM!

I chopped and tossed the potatoes with just a touch of oil (the bacon would provide the rest of the fat), and seasonings. Spread them on a lined pan, and then carefully draped some nice applewood smoked bacon over the top. Popped the pan into a pre-heated oven at 400 and sat back while the incomparable smell of smoky salty pork overtook the apartment. Flipping the potatoes took a bit of finagling what with the bacon in the way, but it was worth it. When the bacon looked just about perfect, I pulled it out and onto a waiting paper towel. Left the potatoes in a bit longer until they were golden and crispy with fluffy interiors, and then scattered some chopped scallions over the top with a dash of more salt.

Result: I am genius, obvi. But this isn't about me. It was never about me. This is about the future. About sharing this revelation with our children, and our children's children. Its a new day, and this day tastes like perfectly cooked potatoes bathed in essence of bacon, with skins that shatter sonorously against the tooth and bacon that is even and crisp and smoky with nary a smidgen burnt or undercooked and slimy. It's beautiful.

And the shakshuka was pretty rapturous as well.

Love,

The Mouse

Sometimes a Cookie is Just a Cookie.

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 14:47:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

I have nothing profound to say about these cookies. A fact which has kept me from writing to you about them for some time, despite the fact that they are delicious, a cinch to make, and are both dairy free and flourless, which makes them perfect for those of us on restrictive diets/those of us celebrating the upcoming Jewish holiday. I just couldn't come up with anything poignant, moving, touching, funny, or otherwise worth saying about them, and so they've languished for weeks without a mention.

I thought about using these as a way to discuss why I’ve decided once and for all, that I am against diets of the sacrificial, weight-loss type, the kind that inevitably lend moral weight to inanimate, edible food items, and through their inevitable consumption (because we will, at some point, cave and give in and eat eat eat, feeling horrible and disgusted/disgusting the whole time), give us the false sense of BEING Good or Bad, as if these morsels have the ability to taint or cleanse our very souls. But I mean, really? Do you want to hear more about this? I'm annoying myself here.

Then I thought about something more light hearted, like the fact that when you mix up these ingredients, they somehow turn in an instant, into a thick glue-like consistency that caused my forearm muscles to ripple with the effort of moving the whisk through, despite the fact that I pick up and put down an 18 pound solid (and very cute) weight about a hundred thousand times a day. It reminded me of making ‘ooblech’ as a kid, a potent mix of corn starch, water and food coloring which turned solid when enclosed in a fist, and liquid when you opened your fingers. The best was hurling it at a wall while in the liquid state, a little puddle in your palm, which would then burst forth as spattering droplets which shattered upon impact with the surface.

The 18 lb weight enjoys some avocado

Then I thought I'd talk about how legend has it our grandmother used to bake every. single. day during our mother's childhood, and that homemade dessert would be served at every. single. meal. And that she did this while raising three kids and before the advent of seamless.com. And how I have one tiny person, a one bedroom apartment, and can barely manage to boil a pot of pasta, let alone make a pie crust on a tuesday afternoon. AND my husband does the laundry. But that these cookies are so simple and so fast to make that even I can do a fairly good impersonation of grandma and have a fresh-baked batch ready by dinner time. I was going to go on talking about how I still, six months in to motherhood, can't seem to get much done and how quickly each day seems to go by and how my standards for productivity have been lowered to the point where responding in a semi-timely fashion (read: three days late) to one email and finishing the dishes in the sink deserves a pat on the back. And then of course I remembered raising and growing and keeping alive another human being is pretty freaking productive and then I fell asleep from BOREDOM because complaining about being tired and busy is like the most boring thing in the world and I refuse to do any more of it.

And then I stopped thinking about these cookies and started thinking about how many other things I am not doing because I'm waiting for something outside of myself to happen--inspiration to strike, a sign to be sent my way, someone to swoop in and rescue me from doing it myself, fear to be miraculously removed from my path, indecision to be wiped away once and for all. And the list was loooong, lemme tell you. Its tremendously easy for me, I've found, to think about doing something without actually doing it. To focus on all the reasons not to do it, or not to do it NOW, or why someone else should really be the one to do it, or to get up and eat another pretzel--just ONE more--before I do.

And really, what is all of that nonsense anyway.

So I'm taking a stance, here and now, to stop waiting. Sometimes inspiration comes. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it shows up when you're busy slogging away. Sometimes it arrives at precisely the moment you sit down to do your work, with hours of uninterrupted quiet stretched ahead of you and the chair that's perfectly soft and shaped to your butt with extra lumbar support. But usually not. Sometimes things you (I) write will suck. Sometimes they won't. Sometimes other people will do it better. (And they'll definitely do it better if you don't do it at all.) Sometimes cookies are profound. And sometimes a cookie is just a cookie. And you write about it anyway. Because its better to write than not to write. Because they're yummy and your sister should have the recipe.

You're welcome.

Love,

The Mouse

P.S. Speaking of inspiration, I will forever love this interview on the subject.

Chocolate Brownie Cookies (Courtesy of Bon Appetit)

3 cups gluten-free powdered sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 large egg whites
1 large egg
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3 tablespoons cacao nibs preparation

Place racks in lower and upper thirds of oven; preheat to 350°F. Whisk powdered sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a large bowl, then whisk in egg whites and egg; fold in chocolate and cacao nibs. Spoon batter by the tablespoonful onto 2 parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing 2" apart. Bake, rotating sheets once, until cookies are puffed, cracked, and set just around the edges, 14–16 minutes. Transfer baking sheets to wire racks and let cookies cool on pan (they'll firm up). DO AHEAD: Cookies can be baked 3 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.

Raising (and feeding) A Mother

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 03:04:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

Can you hear me, quietly, sheepishly tiptoeing back to the land of the living? the land of the writing, blog posting, full sentence making? I've been honing my skills creeping around my apartment avoiding the landmines of creaky floorboards in a one bedroom housing a sleeping infant, so perhaps i've snuck in here unnoticed. Which is just fine, since I have to admit I've been a little terrified of sitting down to write anything touching on my past four months (already?!) as a new mother. You see, I understand the fact that I am now, technically, a Mother to a small person who lives in our apartment, despite the Husband and I frequently turning to each other, slightly confused, to ask when her parents are coming to pick her up. I get that she is my child, carries my DNA along with a hint of my smile emerging on a face which so strikingly resembles her handsome father. I get that I carried her for nine months (who could forget), and will absolutely never ever forget the day she announced her arrival ten days early, insistently, quickly, willfully, almost, but thankfully not quite in a taxicab in midtown manhattan traffic. (And I will never forget the ridiculously delicious burger from here that was delivered to my hospital room two hours after I gave birth. Gotta love NYC. And my husband, the best doula anyone could ever ask for.) I will forever remember the sensation of this brand new, tiny person, being placed on my chest and instantly, as if to say, 'man, it was cramped in there!' straightening her spindly long legs to do a full downward dog with a strength no one-minute-old should possess. She has hardly stopped moving since, and at four months old, is determined to prove to us that were it not for gravity, she would be standing already, strong chunky wrinkled thighs planted firmly on my lap. And yet, for all of this, I still can't quite wrap my brain around the fact that I am now, A Mother. I suspect some seasoned vets out there might say this takes a lifetime of readjusting and learning continually as the job description shifts daily without notice.

If I thought pregnancy changed my relationship to food and nourishment, well, these early days of being a mother have taken it to a whole new level. First of all, I was a hungry pregnant lady but I'm a RAVENOUS mom-person. Then there's the fact that I am feeding and growing a person with my own body. It's like living in a science fiction novel. or the zoo. And finally there's the issue of the fact that, for how instinctual it is, breastfeeding is actually way freaking harder than you'd guess. Those first few weeks were a struggle for all of us and suddenly the act of feeding someone I love, a well-documented favorite pasttime of mine, took on epic, identity crisis proportions. My sole 'job' and 'purpose' as a mother, it seemed, was to feed this tiny, mole-like human, and every two hours my ability to do this was tested, my tentative, quavering hold on this new title took another blow, and I ended up, a hormonal, sobbing mess. It was, despite the thrilling, magical presence of this new love affair in our lives, a rough patch. When we'd finally found our groove and returned to the doctor a month or two later to find out our little one was in the 90th percentile for weight (now its up to 96th. stay tuned), I couldn't have felt a surge of pride greater if you'd told me she'd gained early admission to Harvard. So this is how the Jewish mother obsession with feeding one's child begins, I thought. Just last week, I remarked in a moment of tired mom insanity, that perhaps our daughter (96th percentile, remember) wasn't eating enough. The Husband, wisely, declined to engage in this speculation.

She's developed a taste for whale tail.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Very true. But I think, really, it takes a village to raise a mother. It's easy to forget in the blur of sleepless nights and feeding the baby and changing the baby and gazing at the baby and learning the baby's cries and trying to piece one's sore body back together, and marveling at how nothing will ever ever be the same, that one has to also care for oneself. Which occasionally involves eating. I've written before about the particular gift of food and why its sometimes just exactly what our body and soul needs, and its never been more true than as a new parent. There were the meatballs our aunt made and delivered the first night we were home from the hospital which were moist and comforting and stick to your ribs in just the right way. There was the golden crispy roast chicken with velvet gravy our mom made, along with an infinite number of other meals and groceries and pretty much anything we could possibly need, delivered nightly along with the kind of reassuring hugs that only a mother is capable of providing, and a firm and loving banishment to the bathroom for a shower while she held the baby. There were the cookies from the Boo, warm and so delicious, and the middle-of-a-tuesday italian sub you tracked down and delivered when an intense craving struck. There was the email from Chef Josh with a long list of menu items and the request that we pick four things for him to make and deliver to us that first week, and the caveat that there was no use in being polite and telling him not to bother, that he'd just pick them himself and drop them at our doorstep (we had moroccan chicken tagine, kale and sausage stew, vegetable lasagna and an assortment of amazing vegetable sides). There was the casserole made by my oldest childhood friend (a mother herself) portioned into single servings and freezer ready, and delivered without expectation of coherent conversation, followed by near weekly visits with armfuls of baby equipment, endless texts responding to inane and anxious new mom questions, and swooping in to change diapers while we ate. And there were the two rolls of frozen homemade cookie dough, one popped into our freezer for future use, and the other popped into our oven, perfuming our apartment with that cozy and nostalgic scent of butter and chocolate, while the friend who brought them (a mom and midwife, lucky me!), cradled the baby and tirelessly helped show me how to feed her. There's the college cliche of a true friend holding your hair back while you vomit, and then there's the reality of a truer friend holding your boobs and your baby while you sniffle and rub your tired eyes and give it one more try.

Four months later, we are forging our way as a little trio, and I've slowly returned to the kitchen. I'm learning to take off some training wheels, little by little, tiny victory by tiny victory. I'm learning to mother the way I've learned to feed my baby, slowly, patiently, with faith, and a lot of support from the village. I still love (and often need) deliveries of food and help, whether from seamless.com (I should own stock) or relatives, but I'm also back to cooking for my family. Baking, even. Which feels particularly impressive since it involves reading, measuring, and math, indicating that I am, finally, getting a bit more sleep.

And so it continues. Each day we wake up far too early, to the sounds of squealing and grunting and kicking from the crib in the corner of our room and a round face that beams fresh each morning when she spots me up above, no matter that my hair is matted to my head and my shirt stained. And each day we do our best, gobbling up each giggle and gurgle like there's an infinite supply, feasting on chubby toes and leftover late night thai, and indulging in cuddles and cake and the occasional anxious, overtired, insecure cry. And each day I try on this new title of Mother, noting how the shape of my body and heart and soul have changed a little here, a little there, so it requires tugging and pulling, adjusting and altering. And the thing I've realized is, our daughter doesn't really care if it fits perfectly. And if that's not reason enough to go on and have another slice of cake, I don't know what is.

Love,

The Mouse

**One of the major mom victories I've had thus far was solving the mystery of our two month old's near constant crying, nightly meltdowns, and love/hate relationship to eating, by discovering that she is sensitive to dairy. As in, I can't eat dairy because she can't eat dairy. Which sucks for me, but honestly, the trade-off is worth it. And I'm finding some satisfying substitutes for the things I miss (nothing can replace cheese, sadly), including this cake, a vegan olive oil cake. Meg, from my fiction group, first made this for us, before I was dairy free, and I was amazed that a vegan dessert could be so delicious. Better yet, it's not only vegan, but subs maple syrup for refined sugar, so you can really feel virtuous when you eat half the cake. And best of all, for those of us who have limited time, whether between diaper change and bath time or between rehearsal and sleep, this is pretty much the easiest thing ever, involving two bowls and a whisk.**

Chloe Coscarelli's Lemon Olive Oil Cake (from Chloe's Vegan Desserts)

2 Cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 Cup extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 Cup Maple Syrup
3/4 Cup water
1/4 Cup lemon juice
2 Tablespoons lemon zest (about 2 lemons)
1 Tablespoon lemon extract
Powdered sugar and/or fresh berries for garnish

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a bundt pan

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, maple syrup, water, lemon zest and juice, and lemon extract. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and whisk until just combined. Do not overmix.

Fill the prepared Bundt pan evenly with batter. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the caek comes out dry with a few crumbs clinging to it. Rotate halfway through the baking time. Cool the cake completely before unmolding.

Garnish with powdered sugar and berries.

The Best French Toast I Ever Celia

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 17:00:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

Happy after Hanukkah and almost Xmas. Oh my god. Here's where I'd go into a song & dance routine about my Slacking Shame and how long its been since I posted except that I think making everyone read excuses now would just be piling insult upon injury like stevia on wheat germ flakes. You and I have been just far too distracted of late. But instead of apologizing, I am going to make it up to everyone with the BEST and EASIEST SHOWSTOPPING WINTER BREAKFAST RECIPE of all time. Seriously, I can't believe I haven't blogged this yet because it's always a hit, and maybe you should make it right now.

Hey, does anyone want to see a picture of my niece?

Blogosphere, Celia Mar Cordova. Celia, Blogosphere.

Wait that was from a while ago, look at this one:

Who's a smiler?? Is there a robot on your onesie? Aw is that funny? It sure is.

What was I saying? Oh, yeah. So. Maybe you have a guest you want to impress. Maybe you have a very busy week, or you have kids, or both, and you have no time but you want something to get out of bed for. Maybe it's Christmas Eve and you have NO will to cook anything outside of the Big Dinner Menu that is looming. Basically, you want to have a Very Special Breakfast without breaking a sweat. Impossible, you say. I say, No. And then I say, Make Overnight French Toast.

It goes like this. The NIGHT BEFORE you wish to knock some socks off (yours or anyone else's), cut 12 one-inch thick slices of soft supermarket Italian bread (or french bread, or challah) and arrange tightly in a buttered baking dish (9x13). Butter each slice.

I call this one "A Baby Prepares".

Ah, theatre family jokes. Oh, speaking of...

Never too early for this one. I think there might be rock n roll in her future though:

Look at the hand!

In a bowl, whisk 2 eggs with 1 2/3 C whole milk and 1/4 tsp salt, and pour evenly over the bread slices. Cover with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge. Go to bed.

We said go to bed, Celia!

Come on!

That's better.

(No Aunts gave any babies wine during the making of this)

Mama says Naptime.

In the morning, roll out of bed and say breezily, "What about some french toast? It'll take me two seconds." (Note: do this even if no one else is there.) Prance into kitchen. (Same.) Preheat the oven to 425. Remove the plastic wrap from the baking dish. The bread will have absorbed all the custard during the night. Awesome! Sprinkle the slices with sugar and put the whole thing in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and golden. BOOM. Pass the maple syrup. Brown n crispy outside, hot n custardy inside. Mind Bendingly Delicious, Stupidly Easy, and Sexily Impressive. You may never make french toast in a pan ever again.

My point- which I hope you have figured out by now -is that this breakfast is very special because it is SO good but also because it is so simple it can be made while COMPLETELY distracted by something else. Like , say, this.

"Narcoleptic Baby", shot on location at the Mouse House.

Happy Winter!

Love,

The (Aunt) Boo

(who will never be known as 'Aunt Boo', ever)

Eating While Pregnant

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 21:46:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

Though you'd never know it from my presence here (or lack thereof), the last few (lets say six) months have been an absolute bear, full of activity, stress, excitement, deadlines, to-do lists, and lots of growth (in more ways than one). All of a sudden, I turn around and here I am, sitting on an inflatable "birth ball" at my desk, nine whole months pregnant, unemployed, with a quiet internal clock tick tocking away at all times in the back of my head counting down the time until life changes forever.

It's been quite a ride.

Six months. And I thought I was big THEN.

One of the very first things you hear upon visiting the doctor and finding out that yes, indeed, you do have a little passenger along for this ride and no, you're not the one in a million who took not one but two defective pregnancy tests from different brands that you made your husband go out in the middle of the night to Duane Reade to get where he ran into your mother, naturally, and had to pretend he was there on an urgent mission for tin foil, is that there are certain things you must not eat for the next 10 months. These include but are not limited to: alcohol, raw fish, cured meats, deli meat, pate, some fish, most soft cheeses, anything unpasteurized, runny egg yolks, and organ meats. I leapt with joy (as much as I was able, being as exhausted and in caffeine withdrawal as I was) when my doctor actually suggested caffeine as a way to treat headaches while I couldn't have painkillers. Turns out a cup a day is no big thing, thank the lord.

Almost all of these "don'ts" have mixed evidence to support their ban (this woman just wrote a whole book about debunking some of this conventional wisdom), and my doctor has been reassuringly relaxed about the whole thing: "If it didn't make you sick before, it probably won't make you sick now. Just be smart and don't get cold cuts from some disgusting deli on the corner." She even permitted a glass of wine a week after the sensitive first trimester. Which is great, because all of this fear-mongering, worst case scenario-ing, tsk-tsking, it's not about you anymore, right when you're trying to come to terms with what this all means for YOU and your LIFE and your PARTNER, especially for someone who takes comfort and pleasure and finds community and even identity through food, is a real bummer. I remember early on, reading a blog post by someone bemoaning this whole restrictive, shaming approach to pregnancy eating and claiming that the amount of stress it induced in her was likely more harmful to her baby than just having a damn sip of wine or a piece of salmon sushi. I remember scoffing at it, thinking I would never be that wound up pregnant lady and that I could hold off on a few of life's pleasures for a few months, no problem. Cut to me, six months pregnant, in Spain on our babymoon, wiping tears away as I talked to my doctor on the phone, convinced after getting violently but temporarily ill that I had contracted Listeriosis and threatened the life of our baby from the cured ham I ate at the bar the night before. (This, mind you, after asking my doctor explicitly about this before our trip and being told by her, "I ate proscuitto all through my pregnancy. Have some ham, you're going to Spain.") Turns out it was more likely the churros for breakfast, cod fritters for lunch, and cream-filled pastry for dessert that did it than some rogue bacteria. Overeating is overeating, pregnant or no.

oh, but those churros were worth it.

The point is, I've been thinking about my experience eating during pregnancy a lot lately, mostly because a) thinking about eating is what I do, pregnant or not, and b) because pretty much the second most popular question I'm asked after, "how do you feel?" is "have you had any weird cravings?" and I've realized a few things.

First, the pregnant stomach is a decisive stomach. At least in my experience. While normally, my plague of indecisiveness hits hard at dinner time, when ordering in versus eating what we have in our fridge, pad thai versus arepas versus a turkey burger takes on epic proportions, since housing a demanding and frequently hungry guest with her own set of taste buds, things have become much simpler. I wake up from a nap and want lasagna. Nothing but lasagna. One trip to the store and a short time later, I am waddling out of the kitchen barefoot with a casserole dish, an image you and the Husband got a lot of mileage out of. A group of friends is debating where to go for dinner, and wisely and sensitively, ask the pregnant lady what she would like. Instantly, the milling about on the sidewalk ends as I declare we will be eating burgers and take off down the block. In a sea of, is this okay? is this normal? is the baby okay? am I okay? how will I know what to do? I'm never going to know what to do. I have to resolve all of my issues in the next six months before I am fit to parent, the clarity with which my body has approached eating is a relief. It's as if my stomach is reminding me, we know what to do. Don't waste your precious time. Trust your instincts. From what I've heard, pregnancy is a great precursor to the endless stream of advice and opinions and judgment one gets from every possible source as a parent. Strangers, grandparents, newspaper articles, doctors, celebrities, everyone will have an absolute truth about the right and wrong way to do things, and from what I can tell, it is a parent's job to sift through this, say thank you, and check in with one's own gut, one's own child, and one's own values and intelligence to decide what is right for each of us. For me, this process has started with eating during pregnancy. This welcome decisiveness of my body with regards to what it wants and needs has been a necessary antidote to the noise.

Eating during pregnancy has also been the first experience I've had in balancing my needs with my baby's needs, an essential lesson for parenting, I can only assume. Sometimes I want a second piece of chocolate cake. Does my baby NEED this cake? Is a ton of refined sugar the best thing I could give her? Probably not. But is it dangerous? Nope. And sometimes a happy mother is what's best for her and sometimes that's what we go with. And then there are times when I'm not hungry, but the kick in my ribs tells me someone else probably is, and while I could happily get a milkshake and be done with it, I have a bowl of kale and an organic egg because she needs her greens and she needs her protein and that's important to both of us. As I obsess about my fears about losing my identity, how one can possibly balance being an artist and being a mother, and how the course of my future will be shaped by bringing this person into the world, I am already practicing how to maintain balance. How to take care of myself and of her. How to honor not only my needs but my desires, all while recognizing, meeting and protecting hers. All in a day's lunch.

And finally, that sweet tooth I thought I lost for good back about a decade ago? Turns out it was just lying dormant. No wild cravings to speak of, but my love for all things baked and sweet has returned with a vengeance. It feels like a throwback to my college days when a cookie the size of a dinner plate just wasn't big enough. Even sweet breakfasts, which I normally abhor--cold honey-dipped cereal, pancakes with syrup, muffins--have caught my eye again. What does it all mean? Who knows. Will it disappear again once this little one is on the outside, or were the past ten years just a salty blip? Who is to say. Chalk it all up to the great big mystery that is motherhood and life. I'm just along for the ride, trying to savor the uncertainty rather than spit it out.

In honor of my newly rediscovered taste for dessert and the special sweetness of this time, despite the panic, anxiety, and never-ending to-do list, I give you these brownies, which I have made about three times since getting pregnant and always to rave reviews. I love them because intensely sweet though they are, for the potato chip lover in me, they've also got a punch of salt. A sweet and salty balancing act, just like pregnancy. Also, while I absolutely adore Ina's Outrageous Brownies, I swear I end up spending like $50 on the ingredients each time I make them. This has all of the outrageousness at a more economical and manageable price, another welcome bonus for those of us rapidly hemorrhaging money and likely to continue doing so for the next 20 or so years.

36 weeks and counting! Tick, tock...

Love,

The Mouse

Photo courtesy of the Food Network. Each time I have made these, I've neglected to take a picture. Chalk it up to pregnancy brain and the fact that no one wants to stop eating them long enough to snap a shot.

Salted Caramel Brownies
from The Barefoot Contessa: Foolproof

1/2 lb (2 sticks) unsalted butter
8 oz plus 6oz Hershey's semisweet chocolate chips
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
3 extra-large eggs
1.5 tablespoons instant coffee granules, such as Nescafe
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
5 to 6 oz good caramel sauce (not dulce de leche, which has added milk or cream)
2 to 3 teaspoons flaked sea salt

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a 9x12x1.5 in baking pan.

Melt the butter, 8 oz of the chocolate chips, and the unsweetened chocolate together in a medium bowl set over simmering water. Allow to cool for 15 minutes. In a large bowl, stir (do not beat) together the eggs, coffee, vanilla, and sugar. Stir the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and allow to cool to room temperature. Make sure not to skip this step or the chips will melt and ruin everything. :)

In a medium bowl, sift together 1/2 cup of flour, the baking powder, and salt and add to the choocolate mixture. Toss the remaining 6 oz of chocolate chips and the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour in a medium bowl and add them to the chocolate mixture. Spread evenly in the prepared pan.

Bake for 35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. As soon as the brownies are out of the oven, drizzle the caramel over the top of the brownies. If you need to, microwave the jar until its pourable and stir until smooth. Sprinkle the brownies with the sea salt. Cool completely before cutting.

Making History (and Lunch)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 22:21:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

What does making history look like?

Well, when it comes to us, it looks a little something like this:*

And then, this:

A rehearsal with the Hart Sisters always features snacks. This cornucopia brought to the table by our fearless director and honorary sibling, JMK, who arrived bearing an overly large CSA delivery.
(The cherries may or may not have made it into the play.)

Okay, so maybe it's not the kind of history-making on the scale of say, Napoleon or Rosa Parks (what does this say about me that those were the first two names that came to mind?), and it likely won't make it to the pages of any newspaper or textbook, but for us, it's kind of significant.

Our first time together on stage.

Is that true? Can it be? Aside from the loosely scripted theatrical events you and our neighbor Jessie used to stage in our livingroom around age 10 which featured me, confused and usually forcibly costumed by you in a tutu contraption of some sort, I think this really may be the first time that on an actual stage, in front of an actual audience, we will be acting together.

Wild.

In the narrative of my own personal history, its also fairly significant in that I'll be acting on stage, with my sister, while featuring a sizable bump stand-in for the next generation of Hart ladies. Whether she will take her own turn on the stage down the road, who knows. But I have a gut feeling (hee hee) she'll appreciate a good snack. This may also be my last theatrical foray before I officially enter Parenthood and a whole new phase of learning to be a Mom/Actor/Writer/Social Worker/Balanced Human Being. Woah. Maybe let's not go there yet....

Anyway, as you know, this historical moment will take the form of a reading of the play, Kate and Anne Marie, by Deron Bos, at the Culture Project's Women Center Stage festival. In another bit of narrative/history/significance, this will bring me back to the place where I spent three years in my first real job out of school, the place where I learned what 'New York Theater' really looks like, where I planted some seeds of my future social work life, and where manys a lunch were consumed.

Which brings me to the play: structured around a series of lunches between Kate and Anne Marie, it could not be more apropos for two sisters who know a little something about friendship, about talking to one another, about examining one's life and then having a good laugh at it, and of course, about snacks.

I hope people come.

Where should we eat afterwards? Let's discuss. Over lunch, perhaps?

Love,

The Mouse

*Actually, it looks way better than this, trust us. We looked cute that day. The Mouse may be a little extra puffy these days but the images you see may appear puffier than they are.

Summertime Steak and Secrets (Revealed)

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 18:27:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

It's SUMMER in the city! And my farmer's market basket runneth over with delightful discoveries I can't wait to share in this post. I'm sure it will make up for the fact that our last post was in the SPRING.

Ahem. And now, a song.
(Sung to the tune of "Summertime")

" Summertiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime..."

" And the roses are blooooomin'...."

(NY Marble Cemetery, East Village. So tiny and pretty!

Did you know it was there! I didn't til yesterday)

" I'm in American Theatre ... Mah-ha-ga-ziiiine..."
(Special thanks to The Mayor for informing me of this just as I'd been rejected for a job for the fourth time that week.)

" I also learned recently
You can free-eeze bananas"

" They will look like this .... But be perfectly fine."

(Pry the peel away with a knife and cut into chunks while still frozen (for smoothies)

or wait til they thaw and scoop out the mush (for banana bread).

(I'm starting the verse again, two three four:)

"And Summertime..."

"Means an amazing Photo Opportunity..."

Let's zoom in.

"For announcing the biggest... MouseBouche News of All."

Mouse and MINI MOUSE!!!!! aka MY NIECE.

That's right.

Originally, I had no idea how I could make this lovely news relate to the flank steak made for me last week by my wonderful, witty, and generous writer/foodie friend GlitterBoy (I asked him to name himself for this post, and he did not disappoint). But then I thought about some other news that has made this month - this week!! - special. Wendy Davis in her pink sneakers standing up (literally!) for women and families everywhere. DOMA No More and Marriage Equality on the horizon. Love Triumphing over Fear. Good taste triumphing over Paula Deen.

I'm sitting here writing this post on Pride Weekend, and it might be the second day of Juice Cleanse talking, but I think that Glitterboy's Flank Steak for Two is the perfect recipe for this moment. He cooked this for me last weekend at his Brooklyn apartment, hovering intently over a cast-iron skillet and wearing a fetching pair of shorts. It was meant to thank me for accompanying him on guitar at his solo show the night before, but I have to say I got the better end of the deal, because I know I'm going to make this over and over. It is intensely flavorful and luscious. It is great for hot weather since it only requires about 8 minutes at the stove. And it can be easily doubled - tripled, whatever! - to feed your family - whatever form, shape, or size that happens to be.

Now I just need a cast iron skillet. Oh yeah, my birthday's next week. :)

And babies eat steak, right?

Love,

The Boo

Glitterboy's Flank Steak for Two, in His Own Words

I marinate the steaks two hours before cooking, using a sauce made of olive oil (1/3 cup), Soy Sauce (two teaspoons), Honey (1/3 cup), pepper, two cloves of minced garlic, and some rice vinegar. Plastic freezer bag, and in the fridge (you can also do this overnight). Use a cast iron skillet, very hot, with some oil and some onion. Throw both steaks on the skillet and flip after 4 minutes. The onions will carmelize in the sauce quite nicely as well. Cook on the other side for about the same duration, plate, and serve with everything green. (The Boo: we had a pile of arugula and some roasted asparagus.) If your guest is feeling a little adventurous (The Boo: I was!) add a dollop of fresh garlic pesto on top.

Deconstructed Pesto

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Fri, 10 May 2013 23:56:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

Yes I am alive. It has been so long since I blogged. Sorry.

So, it's spring! And, let me get this out of the way, I made these.

Fiddlesticks - sorry, fiddlehead- ferns.

Mouse, I'm aware that no one likes a hater. So I hasten to assure you there will be no actual Hating on anything fern-related or otherwise in this paragraph. But - and I hate to be This Girl again - I don't really have much to report. These curly green cuties, if you haven't heard of them, are second only to the almighty Ramp as a coveted herald-of-spring, short-season delicacy. I had somehow never had them before. I was at Whole Paycheck when I saw them, mounded on a bed of ice, and began scooping them into a plastic bag with a manic Food Blogger's Gleam in my eye. Surely, the Spring Blog post to end all Spring Blog Posts!

They were fine.

Bright and coquettishly furled like vegetable escargot, kind of an asparagus-meets-butter-lettuce or something I'm boring myself. They are delightful blanched and then briefly swirled in a pan with a little butter and lemon and salt and maybe garlic. Do not eat them raw because apparently only deer (?!) have the stomach for that. Were they tasty? Yes. Transcendent? Proustian? Blogworthy? No. Everybody calm down about the fiddlehead ferns.

Oh look, I blogged about them.

Ok I know what you're thinking: "Man, the Boo came back from Kentucky in a really cranky mood!" And you'd be half right --- I'm never good with the Down Time and uncertainty between gigs, as I may have mentioned. But it's nice to be back in my kitchen, and having produced not so much as a slab of almond-flour banana bread for my hungry cast mates (for shame!!) the entire time I was gone, I feel I owe us all a little spring cheer - or at least advice on how to create some.

I love pesto -raw, bright, herb-drenched, parmesan-laced, oily goodness - on just about anything except vanilla ice cream (Anything's possible, of course.) But - maybe because I didn't own a blender of any kind until recently? - I make a version more akin to the Splendid Table's "Chopping Board Pesto", where you just pile the various ingredients on the board and have at it with a big knife, then pour oil all over it til it sticks together. The result is more like a wet salad than a smooth sauce but I think it gives a kind of leaves-and-flowers visual and a fun texture to the pasta or whatever it is holding it up. Recommendation: If, like me, you are in one of the shall we say Low Carb Professions, you may want to try spooning it onto strands of baked spaghetti squash, comme ca:

Spaghetti squash (R) with Cauliflower Pesto (L), a la the Smitten Kitchen recipe.

(Full disclosure: There is also a purchased, chopped meatball hiding underneath the veggies.

Don't judge me.)

This is not a recipe really, just an idea - the basic structure can be adapted to really any kind of green herb or veg/nut mixture you like. I've made mint-almond, cauliflower-walnut, sage-pistachio - or was it walnut? - and of course your basic basil-pine-nut type. I felt really guilty about working this way, like I was too lazy to make a sauce or something, but then I noticed the sly liner note in the Smitten Kitchen cookbook: "Or just make like an italian grandmother and do it all by hand."

Ha! NOT Lazy. AUTHENTIC.

To get you started, see below. Improvise! Write and tell me about it in the COMMENTS. If you quail at the thought of going without a recipe, follow the Splendid Table one for starters (but I like to put the cheese in with everything else).

Happy chopping!

Love,

The Boo

1. The Boo's Deconstructed Basil Pesto

via Splendid Table

Ingredients

Handful or two? of basil leaves, chopped

garlic clove, chopped

one handful? pine nuts, mashed/chopped

grated parmesan, good amount, to taste

salt

pepper

oil

Chop everything up together in a big pile and transfer to bowl. Slowly pour olive oil over in a thin stream while stirring it up with a fork, just enough for it to stick together and clump. Taste and adjust. When you like it, spoon it over hot pasta or spaghetti squash strands or whatever you like, and toss to combine.

2. The Boo's Deconstructed Cauliflower Pesto

(basically Smitten Kitchen's but with what I had in the pantry)

Ingredients

most of a small head of cauliflower, chopped into crumbles

maybe 8 sun-dried tomatoes -the dry kind - chopped (more if you like more)

one clove garlic (def. not more with this), minced

1/2 C walnuts

grated parmesan, i dont know, 1/2 C to a C?

salt

pepper

olive oil

Same dealyo as above, though it won't really clump as much or perform as sauce-like. The 3 tbsp of oil she calls for should actually do it . But again, up to you!

A cake for Spring (and Breakfast)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 20:23:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

I'm not much of a baker anymore, a fact that the Husband often laments. I first came to cooking through baking, as I think many people do, and I used to enjoy the methodical, detailed instructions and found it comforting to know that one must really follow the exact steps to come up with a successful product. No scary riffing or improvisation expected. And I've always been a very good rule follower. But over the years as I've gained some confidence in the kitchen, I've come to enjoy the freedom of trusting my taste and tweaking recipes as I go and to be increasingly frustrated by the precision, patience, and multiple dirty dishes required of baking. Coinciding with this was the mysterious disappearance of my sweet tooth, which miraculously and somewhat controversially reappeared recently without so much as a Hey, how ya been.

Which is how I found myself making this cake. It seemed a perfect compromise for me: practically a one-bowl wonder, nicely unfussy but pretty in presentation, not too sweet as balanced by the sour lemon, and not too healthy (despite the yogurt) as balanced by the copious amounts of cream dolloped and cascading down the slice. And a very welcome taste of a very welcome new season. (There are bursting buds on the tree outside my window! They make the discarded plastic bags hanging off the branches look so whimsical!)

We ate it as dessert with Easter dinner, but it is equally appropriate with a cup of afternoon tea, or for that matter with morning coffee. I realized the next day when I brought the leftovers to work, that it suspiciously resembles the top of a muffin. And I'm just fine with that.

Love,

The Mouse

Lemon-Blueberry Yogurt Cake with Lemon Cream

Adapted by The Kitchn from Gourmet, Serves 8

For the cake:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup granulated sugar
Zest of one lemon (about 1 1/2 teaspoons)
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg 1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt (whole or 2%)
1/4 cup milk
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (no need to thaw)
1 1/2 tablespoons turbinado sugar

For the lemon cream:

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons store-bought lemon curd

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in the middle. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Flour the sides.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Place the granulated sugar and lemon zest in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large mixing bowl. Using your fingers, rub the zest into the sugar until it is the texture of damp sand and smells like lemon candy. Add the butter and beat in a stand mixer or with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla and the egg. Add the yogurt and beat well.

At low speed, beat in half the flour mixture until just combined. Then beat in the milk and remaining flour mixture.

Spread batter evenly in the pan. Scatter berries over top and sprinkle evenly with turbinado sugar. Bake until cake is golden-brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a rack and cool for 10-15 more minutes. Remove parchment and invert onto a plate.

Meanwhile, using an electric mixer or immersion blender with a whisk attachment, beat cream and lemon curd on high speed until creamy, smooth and thick. It should be about the consistency of regular yogurt. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve. Serve cake warm or at room temperature, dolloped with lemon cream.

Everything is better with butter. Even tomato sauce. Even fiction.

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 23:00:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

So I'm probably like the 200 millionth person to try, and subsequently extol the virtues of this revelatory recipe, but that's not going to stop me from writing you about it. It's that good. And yes, butter has a lot to do with it, but equal parts of the goodness comes from the simplicity, the near magic that occurs when four simple ingredients come together in a way that is just SO right it makes you sigh, wipe your plate clean, and sigh again.

As you know, I've been part of this amazing little fiction writing group for well over a year now, a group which came together somewhat spontaneously, serendipitously, leap of faith-like, when four (now five) ~~ingredients~~ people came together to try out a (for many of us) new medium. What's come out of this is so much more than any of us anticipated, an artistic home, a motor which keeps us moving forward, a buoy that keeps us bobbing to the surface when we would have otherwise been sunk long ago. And what's come out of each of us, has been surprising and exciting, little pieces of ourselves, down on paper, images and ideas and people who come to life each week as we gather and read and listen. It's really phenomenal.

Of course, since I'm involved (along with a few other serious foodies), there's been a lot of eating as well as writing. Somewhere early on we transitioned from the rotating host providing snacks, to a full-on dinner at each meeting, of which I am--natch--a big fan. I swear my writing has improved tremendously since we implemented this. Of course, as the lovely J-Bow pointed out in a meeting recently after reading a section of my novel, "there's a whole food theme going on in this book..." So maybe it's seeped into my work a bit as well.

(Exhibit A, from one of my chapters:

If it weren’t for the platter of cold cuts on the kitchen table, little rolls of salami and ham and turkey and yellow and white cheese tucked into concentric circles ringed with wet, wilted lettuce leaves, you would never know anyone had died. That platter’s always a dead give-away. It’s the same platter we had on that same table when Uncle Jeff died in that swimming accident. And it showed up about three other times I can remember—one for each of my mother’s sisters. The only thing that ever changes is the lettuce. Sometimes it’s curly (Judith), sometimes it’s shredded (Suzanne), and sometimes it’s those huge flat green leaves that unroll to the size of a ceiling fan (Anita). Today the table is pushed out from the wall, I guess so people can get to the food from all sides, which would make sense if we were expecting a crowd, which means that whoever set this thing up, didn’t know my mother very well.)

Anyway, for me, too often providing dinner for the group involves calling up Rocco's for a Grandma Pizza and salad (so delicious, highly recommend) as I rush from work to home to printing out my pages and neatening up before the group arrives. But the other day, I just wasn't up for this. I wanted something cheap, and something from my kitchen. And my options were somewhat limited, as I had about 45 minutes to shop and prep and do the dishes. That's when I thought of this sauce. Shopping for it takes about 10 minutes, costs less than ordering a pizza, and the whole thing can be ready in 45 minutes with only about 10 minutes of hands on time. Toss together some greens with good olive oil and vinegar and you have an absolutely lick your plate delicious meal. Also, the sauce magically tastes like its been cooking for hours, so you get a ton of credit.

Here's my deep thought of the day: to my mind, some of the best fiction--or I should say, writing in general, or for that matter, art in general!--comes when few, simple ingredients: a painfully honest line, a character who comes to life with one stroke describing the way their jacket falls over their shoulders, a truth that is rendered so simply and precisely we cannot help but see the deepest parts of ourselves reflected back; collide at just the right speed and velocity and time and space to create something utterly beautiful. Not to put too fine a point on this sauce, because, let's be honest, it's tomato sauce, but this, like so many good recipes, does the same thing. Make it, and have a delicious, cheap, and comforting dinner that might just make you a better artist as well. Hey, I'll take inspiration wherever I can find it.

Love,

The Mouse

Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onion

MAKES 3 CUPS

8 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed
1 (28-oz.) can whole, peeled tomatoes in juice, crushed by hand
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and halved lengthwise
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Bring butter, sugar, tomatoes, and onion, to a boil in a 4-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat; reduce heat to medium-low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until flavors meld and sauce is slightly reduced, about 45 minutes. Discard onion, and season sauce with salt and pepper before serving.
**One time I made this, I left half the onion in and pureed it with some of the sauce. I also put in a clove of garlic, whole, to simmer along with the sauce. Both of these options were lovely, though not completely necessary. It'll be delicious either way.

O, Juicer, Juicer, Juicer (or, why i dont want to go to organic avenue anymore)

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 04:45:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

Namaste, from Kentucky.

A bit of local news.

"You have to be reductive to talk about your life. Otherwise you would have to explain every single detail of your history just to try and make a tiny point." - Lila, 'O Guru, Guru, Guru' by Mallery Avidon
(my current project and return to THIS wonderful theatre festival!! Opening 3/22)

Just a community of like-minded individuals.

Oh my god it has taken me forever to post. It is embarrassing, and so I'm going to confess it up front: I have been slacking for none of the reasons you might think. I mean, yes I am in rehearsal for a project that is proving emotionally and mentally rigorous in the greatest of ways. It is true that at the end of the day I am left with only enough brain space to evaluate "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and a strong desire to go to bed at like nine thirty. It is true that I've been floating in a strangely cloistered world with ten other women engaged in beautifully intense and particular discourse about the nature of happiness, god, family, the search for meaning in one's life, and the correct way to wrap a sari. I could easily claim I'm just way too distracted/ drained to talk about food. (As if that could ever be true.) But really, I've had enough down time to post what I want, which is just a simple food-related discovery and isn't going to be hard to explain. AND honestly, the reason I haven't yet is that I've been SO hung up, somehow, on how it has to be THE PERFECT BLOG POST (funny! educational! insightful!) (Really- this from the woman who posted the marmot video), that I have for the first time given myself blogger's block - !! - ie, have become too paralyzed to write anything at all. WTF.

Pause to note that, once again, I may have let my character start bossing me around.

So, deep breath.

All I really want to do is just say

That I bought this ...

... and it has literally changed my life.

Accidentally deleted original photo, had to take a screen shot of instagram version,

it's too boring to explain, it will never happen again.

Now you know - as does everyone else who has talked to me for longer than ten seconds recently -- that I have gotten really "into juicing" of late. This past Yom Kippur I decided, mostly because you were doing it, that I would give fasting a go. But because I'm me, "fasting" was not going to mean anything so crazy as Not Ingesting Anything, oh no. I settled on a "juice cleanse" as a way of making it through the daylight hours, took myself straight to Organic Avenue and dropped let's say $27 on 3 (delicious) 16-oz juices (yep). It was so much easier than I expected that I thought, why not keep this going for five days. After I emerged from the experience energized, clear-headed, and a few pounds lighter, I was hooked, and decided I wanted to make liquid fruits and vegetables a permanent part of my diet.

I'm sure you're way ahead of me at this point, but there's at least one problem with this plan for a working actor living in NYC. (Multiply the cost of those three juices by five....)

They say that when the mind is ready, a teacher appears.

Just stay with me.

About a month ago, I found myself on a Suburban Transit Bus, traveling back to the city from New Jersey. I had been to see my Fairy Godmother in a play there (a production now running in Seattle FYI), and I'd decided to take the bus back with some of the cast members. I was chatting to one of the actresses when she pulled a neat little plastic mug with a fetching handle and a gray screw-on lid out of her knapsack . It was full of an enticing and familiarly green frothy mixture. I eyed it enviously and asked her where she got her green juice, already wondering if I could manage to justify the $9 for an OA smoothie in the AM. Which was when she said the four words I most needed to hear:

"I Have The Nutribullet."

I hear there is an infomercial for this product that's been in circulation for a while now, but I'd never seen it. Uninfluenced by advertising, following only her recommendation and my own intuition, I went home that night and ordered it from Amazon, shipping it to Louisville ahead of me. When I arrived, it was waiting at my door, and it's pretty much been Love at First Blend. This user-friendly, no-mess, petite-but-powerful blender/extractor/whatever has already paid for itself probably three times over and I am not looking back. I'm not juice-cleansing or fasting, just starting my day with one of these for breakfast. (I should note here that it's not a juicer - it's pulverizing whole fruits and vegetables, not pressing juice from them, etc.) The basic proportions are: 50% leafy greens, 50% fruits, throw in some seeds or nuts of your choice (or don't), add water to the 'max' line, and let 'er rip. As I type, I am preparing myself for rehearsal with a delicious concoction of chopped kale, frozen mango chunks, and fresh ginger, with a little bit of cinnamon and agave syrup. It is really good.

(If anyone has the 'Bullet, another favorite Boo recipe is: 50% baby spinach leaves, then: one small apple, 1/4 avocado, squeeze lemon, cinnamon, some walnuts, 1/4 coconut water, then regular water, blend.)

I'm very excited about this. And I'm aware that I might sound like I've joined a cult or something. But is it really that? Or just a community of like-minded individuals who may have stumbled on some useful knowledge that they wish to pass on to others, and if so, is there anything inherently wrong with that?

Ok, back to work.

Can't wait for your visit!

Love,

The Boo

Victories and Failures, Mouse Style

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:31:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

I've been feeling a bit out of sorts lately. Is it the stars? Mercury? Winter? A climate that goes from a wet 18 degrees to a sunny 60 in mere days? The ill-advised return of Smash to prime time? Whatever it is, it is wreaking havoc in my kitchen and making me consider a part-time job at Seamless to subsidize my ordering habit.

Danger! Danger! Something here is just not right.

You see, I've been making mistakes. Big, embarrassing, teeth-gnashing mistakes. And as we were commiserating about this the other night, you over a tart which had you on the verge of tears, and me with swollen pruney fingertips from having picked beans out of a pot of chili one at a time (more on this later), our lovely friends mentioned that it was actually really nice to hear us talk about these gaffs. And I think they're right. Because sometimes you need to share the shame to air it out, you know? Okay, I think I just hit on my daytime therapy talk show tag-line. Share to air it, girl! I'll shout from my big puffy chair before the DJ drops the hammer and I dance up the aisles to Crazy by Gnarls Barkley.

At work, we talk each week about our Victories and Failures. Yes, it's actually on our team meeting agenda (ah, social workers). The idea is to share and let go of some of the inevitable failures we're carrying around, (which--spoiler alert! never really turn out to be failures in the way you thought they were once everyone throws their two cents of support and perspective your way), and to acknowledge the victories, which in this line of work, can feel too few and far between if you don't go looking for them (again--spoiler alert! There's always one, even on the darkest of weeks). So I'm gonna do that here. Because in each of these mistakes, there was some smidgen of a victory, and maybe even a worthwhile lesson.

Disaster 1:
Look at that chicken. Doesn't it look beautiful? Succulent? Golden and crisp just how you like it? And don't you want to snag a bite along with some of those cute potatoes and mushrooms slathered in that ruby pan sauce?
WELL DON'T.
Because it's raw. RAW, I tell you. Undercooked, wet, rubbery, and sad.

Failure: Okay, so nobody died. And nobody got sick (despite the Husband wolfing down an entire thigh before agreeing with me that it wasn't done). But I mean, come on. Chicken thighs bested ME? I rushed through it because we were hungry, and I didn't trust my instincts, instead consulting a whole slew of recipes all of which gave varying cooking times and temps, mostly for boneless thighs which take a lot less time to cook, obviously. And we all know how it ended. Major fail.

Victory: So I tried this new thing that I think I got from America's Test Kitchen or something, and which maybe is meant more for duck breast or pork chops, but I thought was interesting to try with the chicken and which I would do again. Instead of heating the pan, adding fat, and then putting the chicken in the pan, you start with a cold pan and cold chicken, skin side down. Then you turn up the heat and let it sizzle together. With duck, the idea is that this renders more of the fat from under the skin, and then the skin crisps up perfectly, frying in the hot fat. I found the same happened with the chicken, and I ended up with beautiful crispy skin, the likes of which I have not achieved before. And I think since it ends up cooking in the rendered fat, you can add less oil or butter to the pan. Any real chefs or food scientist types out there can correct me if this is a terrible idea, because obviously I am not ashamed to admit I know nothing. Hello, I served raw chicken. But the skin was beautiful, and the fact that I plopped the chicken back in the oven, got up and googled early signs of salmonella while it cooked, and then ate it (it was delicious) the next night for dinner, unscathed, definitely counts as a victory.

Disaster 2:

Is that a bag of beans, you say? Why yes it is. Why do you have a bag of beans, Mouse, you might ask. Well they had to go somewhere after I picked them out of the vegetarian chili I was making, and it wasn't going to be the trash (though it probably will be in about 48 hours).
So we had this superbowl get-together this weekend and I was feeling pretty great because I had nothing scheduled on Saturday and had been home sick on Friday and rested up and was planning to spend the weekend cooking. There was going to be a salad, and cornbread, and texas chili and mexican corn, and brownies, and for the non-meat eaters, a vegetarian chili. And since I was feeling virtuous and unhurried, I decided to get bags of dried beans instead of cans. They taste better, are cheaper, and are easier to carry home. I soaked them overnight on Saturday and set to work on Sunday to make the chili. I made a little sofrito and sauteed some other veggies and seasoned and added cans of tomatoes, and then, in a final fatal step, I dumped in the beans. And it was in that moment, as they cascaded into the pot and sank to the bottom, tangled up in the pile of veggies, that I realized my horrible mistake. You see, adding acid (in this case, tomatoes) to dried beans during their cooking, will stop them from cooking. You will wait and simmer and wait and simmer, and your beans will stay CRUNCHY. Or at least, this is what I've read, and what I discovered on another occasion upon adding lime juice to a pot black beans before they were done cooking.

Failure: I'm not sure whether the real failure here was dumping the beans in before thinking it through, or the insanity which proceeded this, when I decided the only way out was to strain and pick out the beans by hand and then go buy a slew of cans after all. Would it have turned out fine if I left them in? Maybe. Who's to say. The point is, don't add acid til the end. It's just not worth it.

Victory: The chili was tasty, and no one knew the difference. And it was a very meditative exercise in patience and letting go, to stand over the sink and sift through a pot of soup, breathing, and picking out two pounds of beans one tiny infuriating pebble at a time. Plus you can bet I thoroughly learned this lesson. And avoiding another failure equals a victory in my book.

But the real victory? These brownies. Which I also made and which I have no photos of because they were so stunning you might go blind looking at them.

Hard to screw up, no electric beaters to clean, heart-meltingly good, they'll have you feeling like a genius again in no time. Trust me.

Love,
The Mouse

Salted Caramel Brownies from Barefoot Contessa: Foolproof (ha. I just realized the book's title is shockingly appropriate)

Ingredients
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter
8 ounces plus 6 ounces Hershey's semisweet chocolate chips
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
3 extra-large eggs
1 1/2 tablespoons instant coffee granules, such as Nescafe
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
5 to 6 ounces good caramel sauce, such as Fran's (despite Ina's warnings, I used dulce de leche sauce and it was damn fine.)
2 to 3 teaspoons flaked sea salt, such as Maldon

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9 x 12 x 1 1/2-inch baking pan.

Melt the butter, 8 ounces of the chocolate chips, and the unsweetened chocolate together in a medium bowl set over simmering water. Allow to cool for 15 minutes. In a large bowl, stir (do not beat) together the eggs, coffee, vanilla, and sugar. Stir the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and allow to cool to room temperature (see note below).

In a medium bowl, sift together 1/2 cup of the flour, the baking powder, and salt and add to the chocolate mixture. Toss the remaining 6 ounces of chocolate chips and the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour in a medium bowl and add them to the chocolate mixture. Spread evenly in the prepared pan.

Bake for 35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Don't overbake!

As soon as the brownies are out of the oven, place the jar of caramel sauce without the lid in a microwave and heat just until it's pourable. Stir until smooth. Drizzle the caramel evenly over the hot brownies and sprinkle with the sea salt. Cool completely and cut into 12 bars.

Mme Arkadina's Gluten Free Banana Bread

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 19:23:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

As you've pointed out, it's 2013. The year, I'm happy to say, has started with a bang - an influx of new newness: projects, insights, colleagues, experiences, and, of course, recipes.

I'm in my pajamas at 2PM, there is a sweet and nutty aroma coming from my oven, I'm somewhat lightheaded and optimistic from Day 1 of my now-monthly 'Juice til Dinner' 5-day cleanse, and I don't have to be anywhere til 9PM, when I will remove said pajamas and go sing 'Gold Dust Woman' at a Fleetwood Mac Tribute Night with these guys:

"Mac Attack" to benefit spring music fest in Louisville KY

(where I'll be blogging again late Feb - early April!)

It's a perfect winter Sunday afternoon.

Or, I guess, would be, were it colder outside. Or even cold. A friend of mine just tweeted that he saw a magnolia tree in full bloom on the Lower East Side. But why quibble? We are facing the End Times. Let us focus on what we love. Let us fiddle while Rome burns. Let us eat cake.

Or this.

Not your mama's banana bread.

Unless your mama is gluten-free, then maybe it is.

Ok. Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Banana Bread. Or, to be more specific, the insanely, improbably, how-is-this-possible delicious, no butter, no sugar, no flour, I-dont-understand-but-I'll-bake-it-again chocolate chip banana bread recipe passed on to me by our mutual acquaintance and 'Downtown' Theatre Luminary Mme Arkadina (one more week to see Seagull FYI).

I freely admit my skepticism upon first hearing about it. Words like "cardboard" and "glue" came to mind, as did "crumbly" and "sad". But MmeA swore up and down that it was "amazing", and ever inclined towards treats both delicious and digestive-tract-friendly, I could not help but try it out.

I have now made it three times and tested it upon several people (though it occurs to me I don't know what YOU thought yet? but I've already started the post...) and feel confident in recommending. I mean, it's REALLY tasty and NOTHING in it is bad for you. Nutty from almond flour, moist from ripe bananas and a bit of coconut oil, sweetened (though not much) with agave syrup and vanilla, and flecked with semisweet chocolate chips, it is nothing short of a miracle. Eaten for breakfast, it will both delight you and keep you full, something that never happens to me when I eat baked goods.

A caveat: if you can't eat nuts, you can't eat this. Almond flour/meal is made from almonds. But if you can ...

The recipe came to me via Arkadina from this GF blog which looks intriguing. I'm going to post my version here below as I did make some tweaks and liked them. Happy Baking!

Love,

The Boo

Mme Arkadina's Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

(based on "The Bomb" Banana Bread recipe at NourishingFlourishing.com)

Ingredients

(makes 1 loaf)

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

2 tbsp agave syrup

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 tbsp vanilla

2.5 C almond meal (or almond flour, but I found I prefer the meal)

1 scant tbsp cinnamon

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 325.

Spray loaf pan with baking spray, or line with parchment.

Squeeze bananas right in their skins over a bowl, mashing them up and then just peeling away the peel. Add all other wet ingredients (eggs, agave, coconut oil, and vanilla) to the bowl and mash/mix up thoroughly. Mix all the dry ingredients (almond meal, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, chips) and add to the wet. Mix thoroughly. Spoon into loaf pan and bake for exactly 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean (top will brown). Let cool in pan.

New Years Revolutions

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 18:50:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

It's 2013! I know, big news.

The other day one of my clients told me he only makes "New Years Revolutions," which I found supremely awesome and perfectly fitting. After all, the new year is just that--the commemoration of another revolution of the earth around the sun. So I'm making some New Years Food Revolutions for myself. Because research (and every single day of my life) has proven that small changes are more likely to last than an epic upending of everything all at once.

Here goes.

1) I will put my fork down in between bites. Sometimes I catch myself watching a stranger funnel food into his or her mouth, their fork moving in a continual circle from plate to piehole back down to plate again and I just want to be like, TAKE A BREATH, DUDE. And then I'm at dinner and somewhere halfway through my entree I look up from my plate and am like, oh, THAT'S what my husband's face looks like! How handsome! And I realize I haven't looked up from my food since it was set down in front of me twenty minutes ago. There's all sorts of scientific and philosophical arguments for eating slower that I don't need to bore you with here. Mostly, I think I missed out on some pretty awesome meals in 2012 (and the 30 or so years before that) by flying through them, and I really don't want to do that in 2013. There's just too many good bites out there to savor.

2) I will make pasta. At least once. I have this weird fear of making pasta. Which is so silly because its so simple and I've made far more complicated things. But something about this feels like something a "real cook" makes, and I'm just little old me, right? I'm not Someone Who Makes Their Own Pasta. Right? Wrong. Someone Who Makes Their Own Pasta is just someone who one day sits down and you guessed it--makes her own pasta. So face the fear and do it.

3) I will make at least one stinkin thing out of All About Braising by Molly Stevens. Much like the infamous hovercraft circa 1987, I put this cookbook at the top of my christmas list a couple of years ago (I think I even blogged about it. Oh--there it is! For shame.), and have hardly touched it since. Enough with the bad feng shui of items taking up space in my home that serve only to make me feel guilty. I will cook something from this tome or I will give it away to the first person who comments below. Guilt, I release you.

4) I will visit this store. Its ridiculous that I have still never been to Kalustyan's. And now that I have put that in print, the foodie police may come and drag me away in handcuffs made of garlic scapes. But really, I have to go. And it's right around the corner from my work so I have no excuse.

The actual and entire size of our kitchen in 2013, where the magic of Christmas lives.

5) I will cook for my family more. Some day when we host our family for Christmas there will be enough chairs for everyone to sit down and there will be a big huge table to pull those chairs up to and there will be a real fireplace instead of the yule log on netflix and there will be a mantle with stockings over said fire and there will be about 100 times more counter space and room in the kitchen for people to visit and no ovens that die mid-turkey roasting, and a dishwasher so we can use real plates and maybe a few other things. But until then I will keep cooking and I will not wait for a holiday to share it with our family. Because it's just too freaking fun and joyful and gratifying to not do it more often.

6) I will eat more fruit. Okay, this one is pretty straightforward. I don't eat enough fruit and I need to.

7) I will turn off during meals. I'm not one of those people who answers my phone at restaurants, but I have been known to pull it out with my wallet at the end of the meal, or to get up from my kitchen table table to silence a ring during dinner. At work, I often eat in front of the computer. I have no doubt this is both bad for my brain and my butt. So, I will take mealtimes to consider what's happening between me and the plate, me and the person at the table with me, or me and my own thoughts. I will daydream, I will look at the forkful as it makes its way to my mouth, and I will silence and hide my phone (turning it off will be saved for next year. We're talking baby steps here.)

8) I will know my fridge better. I have thrown out a disgraceful amount of food because I've let it waste away, forgotten, at the back of my fridge. Just this morning I cut up and used half an onion without looking first to see that there was already a leftover half an onion PLUS a leftover quarter of an onion, wrapped up and tucked away in the back of the bottom shelf. I will stop being ageist against my groceries, and will treat my elders with respect and dignity. And in this small, cold corner of my ktichen, I will wage a private war against consumerism and waste. Okay, well, at least I'll try to clean the crisper more often.

9) I will stop wasting money on bad food. And speaking of waste...Far too often, I hear myself saying, "Oh, we can't eat there, it's too expensive. And then the next thing you know, I'm blowing $30 three times a week on takeout and more money than I care to add up on drinks out with friends and overpriced lunchtime salad bars. 2013: the year of quality over quantity, delayed gratification, vs immediate semi-satisfaction.

Here's to a year of good taste and good company, and the peace and time to savor it all.

Love,

The Mouse

Fairy Godmother Xmas Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 18:39:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

MerryandHappyAfterChrismukkahAndBoxingDayAndAlmost2013!

(deep breath)

Christmas Eve in Princeton NJ, just before community carol singing.

What a good time! I once again spent a dreamy Xmas Eve with the BFF Fam in NJ and then hightailed it back to NYC for Maybe one of the Best Xmas Day Feasts Yet. This one deserves special mention because it was the first Mouse House-Hosted one and went swimmingly. I was very happy to be one of three Supporting Player Apartment Kitchens contributing to the We-All-Live-In-The-Same-Building Yellow-Submarine-Style Holiday meal. I would say Honorable Mentions go to Your Husband's intoxicating and fragrant three-days-in-the-making Pernil and to the Mother's wonderfully juicy despite-broken-oven-and-emergency-relocation-while-cooking Turkey.

But since we both agree that maybe we're kind of maxed out on the Full-Meal-Photo-Recap of Big Holiday Meals, I'll stop there and focus in, as you requested, on one particular treat.

No, not that.

(My Xmas Present from the BFF's 3-year old, approved by Mama and requested from shopkeeper as "for my fairy godmother (!!) who is very sparkly". (OMG))

No, not that either.

( But isn't that cool? This was in my tip jar at the "Christmas Eve Eve" gig. A good omen!)

Getting Closer...

(BFF child in question. Now, imagine a dessert version of this image...)

... you got it!

("Peppermint Cream Squares", courtesy of thekitchn.com, a first-time recipe Chez Boo.)

Yes, Mouse, if I learned anything in 2012 it's that I know an exciting dessert when I read one. If a recipe leaps off the page at me, inspiring curiosity and wonder and demanding special mail-order ingredients, well then Amazon here I come and I probably won't regret it.

Everyone liked these, skeptics and sweet tooths alike. They are a perfect xmas confection: cool with peppermint, festively colored pink and white, rich with shortbread crust and a salty-creamy-sweet cream cheese-powdered sugar-crushed mint filling. It's basically 'The Nutcracker' in a baking pan.

The recipe says that for those who like "a strong mint flavor", peppermint extract may be added to taste, 1/4 tsp at a time. I am happy to say that I resisted this temptation (I'm often a "strong flavor" girl), and followed Ina Garten's advice to always make a recipe strictly to the letter the very first time. Having tasted these I now think that to add more mint would take it from delicious white-christmas treat to something more along the lines of Crest White Strips. Not as tasty.

I used Bob's Sweet Stripes Soft Mint Candies, as the recipe suggests. One bag made two batches of cookies with some mints left over. I did run them through the cuisinart, though I also tested out the hammer method and that's pretty fun. I recommend doing this the day before, or maybe just first to get it out of the way.

I also do have parchment paper on hand for these occasions and this recipe needs it.

You make a shortbread crust which is super easy as it involves no kneading or rolling out, just mushing it into a pan with your hands. I didn't have an 8X8 pan so I just used my 9x13 pyrex and pressed the dough into a square leaving some empty pan space. It worked - the dough held its shape and the filling didn't run over much. You chill 1/2 C of the dough while the rest goes in the oven.

While it's baking, you whisk the filling:

Powdered mints, confectioner's sugar, cream cheese, and milk.

The shortbread comes out when it's half done and cools for 10 min. Then you pour the filling on and spread it around. Some reserved, chilled dough is grated over the top with a cheese grater (or just crumble it, but it looks nice this way.)

It bakes again, cools again, and you finish it with more peppermint/sugar powder while it's still warm. Cool it comPLETEly before lifting out and cutting into squares.

Perhaps a new holiday staple, and I thought we had those down. Just goes to show, plus ca change, plus cookie recipes to be discovered. I'm pasting the recipe below and will bring some by later. God Bless Us, Every One!

Love,

The Boo

The Kitchn's "Peppermint Cream Squares"

For the shortbread:
1 C butter, softened (I used kerrygold unsalted and cut it into pieces for faster softening)
1/2 C powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 C all-purpose flour

For the filling:

30 soft mint * candies
1 C powdered sugar, divided
1/4 C cream cheese (i'd let this soften a bit too)
2 tbsp whole milk
Peppermint extract (optional) (but try without)

* must be SOFT not the hard peppermints you're thinking of, or they will wreck your food processor. Think the mints from old-fashioned restaurants that kind of dissolve in your mouth. Or just order Bob's.

Heat oven to 350.
Line 8x8 baking dish w parchment paper so that ends hang over sides (see link above for picture). Coat parchment and exposed parts of pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Make shortbread: beat butter until creamy. Scrape down sides of bowl and add sugar. Beat again til light and fluffy like frosting. On low speed beat in flour and salt until dough comes together/no more flour visible.

Scoop out 1/2 C of the dough and refrigerate in covered container.

Scrape remaining dough into baking dish. Press the dough flat with buttered hands, pushing into corners and smoothing the top. Bake 20-25 min until dough is turning golden at edges. Remove from oven and cool for 10 min.

While dough bakes,make the filling. Put soft mint candies in the food processor and pulse until they have broken down into powder with pieces no larger than rock salt. (again, I recommend doing this ahead). This "will make an enormous racket". (Alternatively, you can put them in a sealed bag and smash with a hammer, which is fun.)

Mix powdered candies with 1/2C of powdered sugar and set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the cream cheese and milk. Add the remaining 1/2 C powdered sugar and 3/4C of powdered candy mixture to the cream cheese. Whisk to form a thick paste. Taste and add extract in increments if you'd like a stronger flavor. (Like I said, don't do this.)

When shortbread is cooled but still warm, pour peppermint cream mixture over it and smooth into corners. Remove reserved shortbread dough from fridge and grate or crumble it over the peppermint cream layer.

Bake for another 10-13 minutes until edges are just starting to bubble. The crumbled dough on top will remain pretty light-colored.

Remove from oven and let bars cool in pan 15 minutes. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of peppermint powder/sugar over the top while bars are still warm.

Let bars cool completely, then lift from the pan (by edges of parchment) and cut into squares.

The Chicken at the End of the World

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 06:11:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

Happy Winter!

Xmas Tree on the porch of The Porches Inn, North Adams, MA

It's 12:01 AM on 12/22/12, which means the Winter Solstice has passed, and we are all still alive, praise {Insert Mayan Deity Here}. You, A-Mac and MD have just left my place after our annual Solstice Dinner, which means I have been consuming wine since early 12/21/12. As such, I'll try to keep this short, sweet, and coherent.

I've been back in NYC for twelve days now since A-Mac and I returned from a two-week gig up in the Berkshires that was, on several levels, the stuff that dreams are made on.

Even though we had to wear our own faces all the time.

(My) first snow of the year!! glimpsed from hotel window

Just another day at the office

Sabine, the Porches Inn Cat, stares at the fire. (There's a fireplace.)

I'm well aware that a lot is going on in our world at the moment. Certainly there's been enough new things to blog about in the time since I returned from AvantShangriLuminatiCamp. And I'm aware that if I AM going to yammer on about My Winter Vacation in the hills I could at least talk about the incredible Museum where we worked, the beautiful and challenging piece we were there to rehearse, the Dream Team Playwright/Director/Composer triumverate I have only dreamed of, or at least the memorable acoustic gig I played in a local sports bar/restaurant, singing in front of a popcorn machine between two flat screen TVs. These are all important.

But all I really want to talk about ...

... is breakfast.

So, you fill out the little card and hang it on your door at night...

... and in the morning, this happens.

(L to R (basically): chocolate croissant, juice glass, adorable silver 'lunchbox', black mug, grapefruit juice, half-and-half, coffee thermos, NY Times.)

Yes, the Porches Inn in North Adams, where we were housed for this gig, is a pretty stellar joint. It has a lot going for it : rural charm, proximity to famous museum, fireplace, 24-hour outdoor hot tub. But the feature which has ruined me for all Actor Housing going forward is

- three words -

Complimentary. In-room. Breakfast.

Let's see it again, shall we?

I mean, if you can imagine a more Boo-Friendly amenity I'd like to hear it.

You choose coffee or tea, type of juice, type of pastry, type of milk!!, and either local news or NY Times. Oh, and when I requested fruit instead of pastry? I got it. Apple & orange. I mean I still can't get over this . I really can't.

I figured, well, I'll do that for the first few mornings. You know, until I get sick of it.

(I never got sick of it. Oh, yeah, and all our meals were catered. And ... scene.)

But nothing gold can stay, and so it was that we finished the project with tears, laughter, harmony, weight gain, and good memories. I found myself back in NYC, forlorn, bleary-eyed, and - gasp! - having to fix my own breakfast. Oh, the hardships of re-entry.

Fortunately, we do have The Commons downstairs, and so far no one there has noticed when I'm wearing pajamas. Also fortunately, the five-pound bag of The Roasterie 'Kansas City Blend' coffee I ordered (from, yes, Kansas City) arrived while I was gone. And most fortunately of all, I remembered that I like to cook.

And when you find yourself in the kitchen feeling, for whatever reason, just a little out of practice (read: lazy/whiny), it's good to have a reaally simple, shall we say Foolproof recipe to which you can turn.

Chicken with Shallots, from Ina Garten's new cookbook, "Foolproof", which The Mother gave us both for Hanukkah. Good timing.

This is the chicken I made for you guys tonight and I think I can say it was a hit. I recommend it for a busy winter week like this because it is FAST, Easy, and yet also somehow Fancy-Seeming and special.

Happy Winter and Room Service for All!

Love,

The Boo

The Boo's Room Service Recovery Chicken, or Ina Garten's 'Chicken With Shallots' from 'Foolproof'

*I do not own an ovenproof skillet, so I browned the chicken in a pan on the stove and then transferred it to a roasting pan for the oven part. Also, Ina calls for "boneless, skin-on" chicken breasts which I couldn't find. My breasts had bones (you know what I mean) and it was just fine. *

Ingredients

4 skin-on chicken breasts

1/4 C minced shallot (1 large)

1/3 C fresh lemon juice

3 tbsp heavy cream

4 tbsp (1/2 stick) butter, diced, room temp

1/2 C white wine

3 tbsp canola or veg oil

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

Preheat oven to 425.

Heat oil in skillet over med high heat for 2 min until it starts to smoke.

Place chicken breasts, skin down, in oil and leave them for 4 - 5 min.

With tongs, turn them over and put the skillet in the oven for 12-15 min. (or, like me, transfer to roasting pan, and put in oven.)

Meanwhile, on stove, mix shallots, lemon juice, and wine in a saucepan over med-high heat. Cook until reduced to about 2 tbsp.

Add cream, salt, pepper and bring to a boil.

Turn off heat and add the diced butter. Swirl the pan to melt the butter. (Don't reheat, says Ina, or sauce will "break", something that the Mouse explained to me and I still don't understand what it is.)

Take out the chicken and pour the sauce over it. Serve.

Pork Chops ala Wednesday Chef

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:25:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

I know it's the holiday season and our heads should be full of sugarplums dancing and mulled cider and candy canes and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. But today I'm thinking about pork chops. Specifically, these pork chops, which are so deceptively simple its almost silly and so delicious you will find yourself doing even sillier things like swiping your finger across the clean plate to get one last salty slick of meaty juice. Actually, for this task fingers are nice, but a fingerling potato is nicer. Take note.

The other day, the site where I work had a special delivery of free vegetables from the CSA which normally has their pick-up at our building. I stuffed a bag with all the tiny yams and sweet potatoes, carrots covered in dirt, radishes, parsnips, sunchokes, bunches of bok choy, and yes, fingerling potatoes, I could carry. I mean, I really stocked up. Free fresh from the farm veggies! It was almost as good as a christmas bonus. For days we ate roasted roots, sauteed and mashed, and stir-fried. And one night, too bored by chicken, pasta feeling too heavy, my wallet too thin for steak, I remembered seeing this recipe which had made me drool (and not just from jealousy) and thought it would be the perfect pairing with the last veggies rolling around in the crisper. I was skeptical at first, what with the minimal ingredients and the copious amounts of salt, and let's face it, its fairly easy to dry out a pork chop, but it really does work. Before we drown in a sea of christmas cookies and rum punch (and don't forget the latkes), make yourself a porkchop. Simple and unadorned, its the perfect antidote to the holiday season overdose.

Look here for the recipe from the Wednesday Chef and try not to die of jealousy.

Love,

The Mouse

Just like that:

and then that:

and then this:

and then yum. Trust me.

MouseBouche Gets Published!

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:50:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

It's Election Day, we survived Hurricane Sandy and three days in the dark, we had midnight Halloween snacks by candlelight, your theatre company raised a ton of money, you saved some clients' lives, and I opened a show ...

all of which deserves discussion. But for now I think I'll just limit this post to the Really Big News...

...Someone paid us to write about food!!!

A hearty electionsandyweenblackoutlifesavingtechweekopening round of applause to the good people at YourTango.com for commissioning two articles from us about the intersection between LOVE and FOOD for their "Breakfast Love and Dinner" series. (A personal shout out to them also for providing the titles, as I've never been any good at that.)

Without further ado, here's "9 Ways to Celebrate a Special Occasion On the Cheap", from The Mouse

&

" 4 Incredible Love Lessons We Can All Learn From Cooking", from The Boo.

My original assignment was "How Writing a Food Blog With My Sister Has Helped my Love Life". I volunteered for that one just to find out what I'd say. :))

More soon. Hope all of our readers are safe, warm, AND VOTING!

Love,

The Boo

I am Meatloaf, and So Can You!

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:56:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

I am writing this to you from the jury holding room at New York's criminal courts. What could be more American than bearing witness to a centuries old justice system, stepping into a pillared court house, and grousing about doing your civic duty? In that spirit, I'd like to share with you another pillar of American culture, the meatloaf.

Have you ever asked yourself the question: why don't I make meatloaf more often? Probably not. And yet, this is exactly what I said to myself the minute I made this recipe for the first time. It's high in protein, not terrible for you, easy to make, makes amazing leftovers (for what is better than a meatloaf sandwich?), and, I've found, in these days of visiting friends with newborns, when it is practically criminal to arrive without a meal, highly portable. And did I mention it's freaking delicious, especially when you add my little secret twist?

Okay, so it's turkey meatloaf. Which maybe some true patriots will disagree is actually meatloaf, but I have to say I prefer it. Our mother always used to season turkey meat for burgers or meat sauce with a dash (or more) of worcestershire sauce. What I didn't know then, was that worcestershire is made partially from anchovies, which contains umami, that depth of flavor and extra oomph that hits you in the back of the mouth in that place just under your tongue that gets all worked up when something tasty is coming its way, and which is noticeably lacking in bland meat like ground turkey. I just thought it made it taste more like beef, which was a good thing. This recipe uses a copious amount of worcestershire as well as other umami-packed ingredients like tomato paste and ketchup, which is, I think, what makes it so dang tasty.

As mentioned, I added a little twist, which may make some other patriots question the Americanness of this particular meatloaf, (patriots, perhaps, like those whose grandparents immigrated here but who think if you get stopped for a traffic violation and you look kind of brown and kind of illegal, you should be asked for your papers. but I digress), but which I think makes it that much more American for its melting-pot nature, and what's more American than progress and improvement? We know I love the picadillo, another meat-centric comfort food dish that the Husband grew up eating, which involves olives and raisins--an odd-sounding combo if you're not used to it, but totally transformative. The sweet and sour and salty seemed just right for punching up a turkey meatloaf, so I threw some raisins and olives in when I made this a few weeks ago. It was a good move, and one which I've continued to replicate when I've made it since. Take it or leave it (I know our Auntie will recoil in disgust when she reads this), or try something else that's more to your liking--sauteed mushrooms, chopped walnuts, apple pie, whatever.

The photo I received while at work, from the Husband who was very pleased
with his lunch.
Note : the meatloaf sandwich above is not to scale. It is very, very large.

Whether you're nervously stress eating as we lead up to the most American of days on November 6th, you need some comfort food to get you through the last gasps of this neverending campaign season, or you're planning a results-watching party with a group of friends, I'm telling you, for the love of this country--Make this.
Or show me the long form of your birth certificate.

Thank you. God bless you. And may God Bless these United States of America.

Love,

The Mouse

Turkey Meatloaf ala Ina Garten, by way of the Mouse House

3 cups chopped yellow onions (2 large onions)
2 tablespoons good olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (1/2 teaspoon dried)
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup chicken stock
1 1/2 teaspoons tomato paste
5 pounds ground turkey breast (this is a LOT, so i used a little less, and adjusted)
1 1/2 cups plain dry bread crumbs
3 extra-large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup ketchup
Optional: 1/2 cup or more green olives, 1/2 cup or more raisins

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In a medium saute pan, over medium-low heat, cook the onions, olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme until translucent, but not browned, approximately 15 minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce, chicken stock, and tomato paste and mix well. Allow to cool to room temperature. Combine the ground turkey, bread crumbs, eggs, onion mixture, olives and raisins in a large bowl. Mix well and shape into a rectangular loaf on an ungreased sheet pan. Spread the ketchup evenly on top. Bake for 1 1/2 hours until the internal temperature is 160 degrees F. and the meatloaf is cooked through. Serve hot, at room temperature, or cold in a sandwich.

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 00:17:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

Do you think I can post a recipe if I ate it before I could take a picture because I did not foresee it as being blogworthy in any way?

Well, here we are.

(I can't believe I'm even posting this, both because of the number of other things I should be doing right now (though that is also the exact reason to post it!) and because it's -- well, really not at all an actual "recipe". It involves no cooking. It might not even be Food, if we're going by the Pollan definition.

But for this hungry, hopped up and (suddenly) busy bee, it'll do. And I thought maybe others with limited energy and time (like yourself, the busiest Bee - er, Mouse - I know) might appreciate.)

The Boo's May I Suggest Incredibly Fast Post-Rehearsal, Pre-Audition, Pre-Other Rehearsal, and
Weeknight-in-Cold-Season Chicken "Stew" For One

"Ingredients"
1 can Chicken-and-Rice Soup (I used Healthy Choice)
1 large handful torn raw kale leaves (or other dark green)
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tbsp? chopped parsley (and/or whatever other herbs you have lying around)
1 squirt of Sriracha hot sauce
1 squirt lemon
Salt/pepper

Bring soup to a simmer in pot on stove.
Add everything else.
Taste for seasonings. Stir a few times.
When kale is wilted/cooked, it's done. Yummy.

If you have any fresh ginger that would be great in there too. You're welcome! Take your vitamins, get your beauty sleep, and buy tickets for this foot-stompin', roof-raising, beautiful show, running November 1 - 18 at the Beckett on Theatre Row. It's good for what ails ya.

Love,

The Boo

A Magical Root

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

I've spent a considerable amount of time extolling the wonders of the beet, it's sweet, earthy flavor, its deep purple stain, its rough, hairy exterior hiding a smooth, silky texture that is neither potato, nor carrot, nor melon, nor radish, but is also a little bit of all of those things, its ability to pair perfectly with everything from cottage cheese to beef...

But this is not about the beet.

Sure, the dish you see above was delicious, and got rave reviews: "the highlight of my meal!" said Cousin Sam, "The beets are fantastic!" said our very discriminating uncle, "They weren't disgusting!" said our mother the beet-hater. "I just want to cry while I hold my cookie!" said the wise and self-reflective 3 year old in attendance (also, she ate some beets). But I'd like to draw your attention to the sauce dolloped not so artfully atop this dish (I never claimed to be a food stylist). For in it is an ingredient often overlooked, unsung, or just plain mocked.

Horseradish, people.

who knew it was so beautiful? not I.

What else, praytell, enhances the flavor of both a cocktail, and a roast beef? What is strong enough to blow up your skirt, singe your nasal passages, and put hair on your chest, and yet can be trusted to encrust a delicate piece of salmon or top deviled eggs? Horseradish.

It makes a frequent appearance at Jewish holidays, atop the oft-maligned gefilte fish or whole and unadorned on the seder plate, and at sunday dinner tables all over the UK. But did you know it is it is also "widely used in research for immunohistochemistry labelling of tissue sections, e.g. in biopsies of subjects suspected to have cancer."? Or that it can be used to treat everything from "urinary tract infections, bronchitis, sinus congestion, ingrowing toenails and coughs." (I'd have to do some more research to know whether one ingests it or rubs it on one's feet to deal with the toenail thing.) And I'm pretty sure that raw, it could be used as a biological weapon. How badass is that???

But seriously. I think it's time we paid more attention to horseradish as a condiment/flavoring/pancaea. I'm not sure hard core foodies would say horseradish actually contains umami, that magical mysterious fifth taste found in things like parmesan, tomatoes, fish sauce, and ketchup, but it comes damn close with its mix of spicy, sour, bitter, and tang (from the vinegar that gets added to the prepared stuff). I'm all for adding it to sandwiches, spreading it on cheese and crackers, stirring it into salad dressing, heaping it on hash browns, dolloping it on a bagel and lox, and introducing it to a few more drinking buddies beyond Ms. Mary. Oh, oh, and what about a take on fried chicken wings with a creamy horseradish dipping sauce!

I'm getting carried away. I just wrote an entire post on horseradish.
But really, ATTENTION MUST BE PAID.

Make this and you'll know what I'm talking about.
If you have an ingrown toenail, let me know how that goes too.

Love,

The Mouse

Roasted Beets with Horseradish Creme Fraiche
from Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers with Lucques

4 bunches different-colored beets
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon diced shallot, plus 1/4 cup sliced shallots
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 cup crème fraîche
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
1/4 cup heavy cream
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Cut off the beet greens, leaving 1/2 inch of the stems still attached. (You can save the leaves for sauteing later—they are delicious!) Clean the beets well, and toss them with 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1 teaspoon salt Place the beets in a roasting pan with a splash of water in the bottom. Cover the pan tightly with foil, and roast for about 40 minutes, until they're tender when pierced. (The roasting time will depend on the size and type of beet.) When the beets are done, carefully remove the foil. Let cool, and peel the beets by slipping off the skins with your fingers. Cut them into 1/2-inch-thick wedges. While the beets are in the oven, combine the diced shallot, both vinegars, 2 teaspoons lemon juice, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a small bowl, and let sit 5 minutes. Whisk in the 1/2 cup olive oil. Taste for balance and seasoning. Whisk the crème fraîche and horseradish together in a small bowl. Stir in the heavy cream, remaining 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice, ⅛ teaspoon salt, and a pinch of pepper. Toss the beets and sliced shallots with the vinaigrette. (If you're using different-colored beets, dress each color in a separate bowl so the colors don't bleed.) Season with 1/4 teaspoon salt and a pinch of freshly ground black pepper, and toss well. Taste for balance and seasoning. Arrange on a platter and dollop (more artfully than the Mouse) on the beets.

Bringing It: Rosh Hashanah Plum Tart

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

Happy New Year!

Let it be known that I started writing this post as soon as I walked in the door from the family dinner where I served the item to be discussed below. I think that's a first.

"... the late August abundance of italian prune plums, which i find better cooked than eaten out of hand."

-Sarah Leah Chase, Nantucket Open House Cookbook

(Longtime readers will recall that the above words signify The Boo's unhealthy obsession with said Chase cookbook, since she committed them to memory upon first reading Chase's "Purple Plum Crunch" recipe (yes, republished by Ina) years ago. She now cannot mention, eat, or think about prune plums without muttering this phrase inanely like some kind of fruit mantra. Oh, and lest she forget, The Mouse also likes to helpfully repeat it every time plums come up in conversation (surprisingly often). It's like that South Park when Cartman can't even think of the song "Sail Away" without having to sing the entire thing...? Anyway.)

As I mentioned in my last post and will probably repeat, I am Super Excited to greet Fall. And I'm just going to keep it real for a second and say I'm maybe more excited than usual this year because, for me, the summer of 2012 .... sucked. Yep. Winter/spring was great (work! love! income!). Then, come June, all of it, in the words of the great Eddie Izzard, "slowly collapsed, like a flan in a cupboard."
(He was talking about the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but that's basically the same thing as my life.)

Fortunately, I'm a big girl now and I recognize these droughts for what they are: droughts. End of career and personal life? Probably not. Hard? Yes. But there's always a choice. I could have spent all summer lying on my floor complaining to the fan. Or, I could do what I did: lie on the floor 60% of the time, and spend the rest in Spiritual Boot Camp. I read kind of every helpful Text I could get my hands on. I went on Yoga Retreat (Thanks Mom!) . I talked to various Advisors. I - yes - cooked. And..

I re-enrolled in "Shouting Aerobics"!

...which is totally not what it's called but it makes me giggle every time I say it to myself.
And when you're sweating through 60 -75 minutes of cardio while also shouting positive statements like a New Age Cheerleader ("I GIVE! MY BEST! THE REST I LET GO!!"), you feel A) AMAZING, there's no way around it... and B) SO RIDICULOUS that it helps (at least the first time) to keep a little NYC snark on hand for balance. Whatever gets you through the squats.

Best Plum Tart (pre-cooking)

I think I really thought I was so out of shape that if I went back to class I might actually die. Like, I just flat-out couldn't and wouldn't make it. Then I did. And THEN, after not dying, I had two Big Thoughts. One was "I am capable of more than I think"... and, right on its heels: "... and I should be acting like it more often."

Attention Must Be Paid: The Mother's showstopping version of Beatty's Chocolate Cake (L), (so light and fluffy yet so deeply chocolatey!) and your take on Smitten Kitchen's Apple Charlotka ("more apples than batter") (R), both of which graced the Rosh Hashanah table. (Why don't I have a picture of The Aunt's cheesecake? Too busy eating.)

What if, I thought, I really, actually, did my best, in everything I do? What if I brought my best game to every task, no matter what, even if my best isn't that amazing on everything? What would that be like? I decided I am going to spend this Fall finding out. Or, as I put it to Mr. Poet at our lunch the other day:

" I'm making a plum tart for Rosh Hashanah...

and it is going to be the Best Damn Plum Tart I can possibly make! "

Here it is.

We clinked our (second round of) bloody marys together, and I went off to buy 14 italian prune plums...whichifindbettercoookedthaneatenoutofhandohmygodicantstop.

The experience was a great mix of improvisation and careful attention to detail. I went basically with Dorie Greenspan for both the filling (layer of jam, layer of plums, walnuts and sugar on top) and the crust (her Sweet Tart Dough). But I threw in a little cassis liqueur as homage to Chase. And I mistakenly bought an 11.5-inch pan when the recipe is meant for a 9-inch pan. ("Oh no don't burn it!" - alarmed Mouse Text.) But I decided I would just refrain from preheating too long, and then watched it like a hawk. It worked out great - I like a thin crust.

Moral of the story? Success! The crust did not burn or tear. The plum juice did not ooze excessively. And it was consumed - almost entirely! - by our discerning family! And I felt GREAT for having given my all to something and done it to the best of my ability. On one level, you could say it's just a small thing that doesn't have anything to do with Big Life Issues. On another, it makes me realize again how everything, actually, IS connected ... because the feeling of Kicking Ass in one area just makes you want to Bring It in others. A good reminder to always Give Your Best ... then, the Rest You can Let Go.

Happy Fall (again),

Love
The Boo

The Boo's Best Plum Tart

Ingredients

Crust:

Make Dorie's "Sweet Tart Dough" (scroll to bottom of page for recipe). Follow her instructions exactly except the part about the 9-inch pan. For this recipe, you want my happily wrong proportions (11.5 - in tart pan with removable bottom). Crust-making-phobics (of which I am one) will note joyfully that you don't have to roll it out -- just press it into the pan with your fingers and chill that s*t for at least 30 minutes.

Filling

12-14 italian prune plums (ok if they're large you'll use fewer, I think I had about 10 in there. If you have extra, roast them and put them on your oatmeal, your chicken, anything.)
1/4 C plum jam (I used Sarabeth's "plum and sour cherry spreadable fruit", but my tart was quite tart. If you like things sweeter, maybe use regular sugary jam)
3 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp chopped walnuts
A splash (2 tbsp?) of cassis liqueur if you have it
1 tbsp cornstarch

Halve and pit the plums and put them into a bowl. If they're big plums, maybe slice each half again. Toss with cassis and cornstarch and set aside.

Mix walnuts and sugar in a bowl. Set aside.

Take out chilled tart shell and set on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, or a silpat, or whatever.

Spoon jam into chilled tart shell and spread across bottom.

Arrange plum halves or slices in concentric circles on top of the jam, starting at the outer edge of the shell and working your way in.

Scatter sugar/walnut mixture over the fruit.

Cover in plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Now, maybe with like 5 minutes to go, preheat the oven to 425.

Remove plastic wrap from tart! (I almost forgot to do this), and put baking sheet with tart on it in oven for 20 minutes. (at 10 minutes give it a glance and check speed crust is browning).

After 20 minutes, take it out, tent it loosely with foil (to keep the crust from getting too dark) and put it back in for another 10. It's done when the crust is a lovely golden brown and the fruit is bubbling.

Let cool for at least 45 min, then remove outer ring of pan and slide the rest (with bottom) onto platter, Serve warm or at room temp.

So Long, Summer. It's Been Real.

noreply@blogger.com (The Mouse) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Dear Boo,

Have I told you about my realization that our country's school system has ruined my life?

No, not in any of those boring child left behind, teaching to the test, slipping through the cracks kind of ways. Mine is a far worse affliction.

I cannot, no matter how many years of real life I have under my belt, get past the feeling that summer = free time and fun, while fall = anxiety, anticipation, homework. As a result, I spend two months of the year feeling perpetually ROBBED as I truck myself to and fro, home to work, work to home. And then, come this time of year, I suddenly kick into overdrive, ready for something to HAPPEN. As the weather gets cooler, I find myself practically at the edge of my seat, picking out my first day of school outfit and cracking open that composition notebook. So while in some ways it's hard to say goodbye to summer (AGAIN), having as usual, not eaten enough tomatoes, not wiggled my toes in the sand enough, with three sad peaches (the first I've had this season!) languishing on my kitchen table looking a little sad and out of place, and only about a hundred freckles to my name, I'm also sort of ready for a change, you know?

But let's not be too hasty.

Below: the summer smorgasbord of loveliness that has become somewhat of a tradition...

Shrimp tossed with some fish sauce, lemon, cumin, coriander, and garlic, grilled on our lovely All-Clad grill pan, a wedding gift which is a summer savior for those of us cityfolk with ZERO outdoor space. (Again, ROBBED.)

Grilled flank steak and chorizo with a different version of my new favorite sauce.

Potatoes with butter and herbs, endive, avocado and mango salad, and off to your right--don't be deceived by the terrible placement--a bowl of the most delicious, indulgent, thumb-your-nose-at-fall corn dish.

So, our friend ED, who technically knew the Husband before he knew me, but who, as it turns out, is dating my old co-worker who I knew and loved way before I knew him, and who I wrangled into joining my theater company and who then got conned into playing the love interest in that little play I wrote and who I recently spent a weekend in the wilds of the Poconos with, reading a hundred plays in four days and cooking up a storm, and who is currently the tyrannical leader of some fantasy football ~~nonsense~~ endeavor that my Husband, aka Dream Act This, is valiantly competing in, prides himself on the fact that he makes one dish very well. He is an odd eater, to say the least, with objections to perfectly harmless things like POTATOES and BEANS and TOMATOES, which makes it difficult for me to count him among my friends. But, he makes a killer Mexican corn. As he's originally from Mexico City, I feel safe in claiming this dish has some authenticity to it. At least when he makes it.

Here's the deal:

Cut the kernels off a bunch of earns of corn. Throw them in a pot/sautee pan with a bunch of butter (like a whole stick for let's say, 6-8 ears?) and salt and let em cook. Stir in a great big blob of mayonnaise, and one of sour cream. Dump in a bunch of chili powder, "so it changes color some", and cook to your liking. Taste and adjust, taste and adjust. Throw in a generous amount of grated cheese (queso fresco or cotija or some such), and squeeze in the juice of a lime. Taste again for salt. Serve. Summer street food at its best.

Boo, I know fall is your favorite season, and I have to say after the blazing summer we just survived, I'm eagerly looking forward to the turning leaves and turned-up collars. But before we succumb completely, make a batch of this and hold onto summer just a little bit longer. Maybe we can eke out one more lazy day before it's back to school.

Love,

The Mouse

Back to School (Almond Flour, NYC)

noreply@blogger.com (The Boo) — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Dear Mouse,

"Sorry when I go dark

It must have been I forgot about the spark

Sorry when I go lame

I got no reason I should ever complain..."

-Don Chaffer, 'Son of a Gun', coming SOON to NYC's Theatre Row (November 1-18)

It's happened. Our Auntie's Labor Day BBQ has come and gone, everyone's putting up "first day of school!" pictures of their kids on FaceBook, and I just brought home a striped burgundy cardigan from the Free People sale rack. True, the Equinox is a couple of weeks away and there are still peaches at the Greenmarket... but there's no denying that Autumn is nearly upon us.

I, for one, am thrilled. For one thing, orange-yellow-wine-colored-smoky-windy Fall has always been my favorite season, and for another I'm going into rehearsal again!!! after a Very Quiet Summer (not my favorite).

My friend Mr. Poet has this great way of describing the phenomenon of the way creative jobs often lead to other creative jobs...

... or, as he puts it, "Gig Babies".

Actual (not Gig) Baby: Newest Addition to the Poet Family! Just had to share.

I woke up thinking about the show, and how this particular Gig Baby, like so many, came not from any conventional hiring process but from relationships: a recommendation from another artist who knew me and thought someone else should too. And, because there's almost nothing I can't connect to food, I was also thinking about the "gig baby" phenomenon as regards recipes; how new/shared recipes naturally lead to other new discoveries.

Also, I just met our costume designer and there's nothing like the word "lingerie" to make you get Very Interested in Lower Carb Alternatives to your favorite dishes.

The point is, I made this chicken.

The Boo's Parmesan Chicken: A Family Staple Makeover. Read on.

Now, Mouse, I know you think you recognize this from, say, any weeknight at our house growing up, when The Mother would come in from a long day of Living Truthfully Under Imaginary Circumstances and have to put something on the table. That simple dish, of chicken breasts dipped in melted butter and rolled in 'Italian-Style' breadcrumbs and Kraft Parmesan from the green can, has always been one of my favorite meals of all time. It could not be easier or more comforting, and I often whip this up in my own kitchen when Circumstances have gotten just a little too Truthful.

Then, Enter my New Best Friend:

Almond Flour. It's Flour ... Made of Almonds .

I'm sure you see where this is going.

Long story short, the "gig baby" that resulted from my recent love affair with Dorie Greenspan's Isphahan Rose Cake was ... well, anything and everything that can be done with this nut flour. One night, I was making sweet potato fries in the oven and I impulsively rolled the little orange sticks in almond meal as well as olive oil. OMG. Sweet, nutty, textured, high-protein and delicious. A revamped version of The Mother's classic chicken recipe seemed inevitable. Here it is, below. In my version, almond flour replaces the breadcrumbs, olive oil replaces the melted butter, and a layer of "Enjoy" (caramelized onion jam, which The Mother likes to call by one particular favorite brand name) added just to liven things up.

And now I'm off to make a peach tart with (you guessed it) almond flour crust.

"Enjoy".

Love ,

The Boo

The Boo's Almond-Crusted Parmesan Chicken With "Enjoy"

(Warning: There are no measurements in this highly forgiving and improvisational family recipe. But you kinda can't go wrong)

Ingredients:

boneless, skinless chicken breasts (i sometimes cut in half to make them skinnier/crispier)

Kraft Parmesan Cheese from the can (this ingredient stays)

Almond Flour or Almond Meal

"Enjoy", or your favorite brand of savory onion jam

olive oil

salt/pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Make a pile approx half parmesan, half almond flour on a plate, enough to coat all your chicken. Add salt and pepper to this mix, to taste. Sometimes I add herbs de provence too, if I have them. Coat a chicken breast in olive oil and spoon/slap some Enjoy all over it as well (it won't all stick and it'll be messy - recipe still in progress) and press each into parmesan/almond pile. Flip and press the other side. Place in baking pan/roasting pan. Repeat with each chicken breast. Feel free to add more parm/almond coating to the breasts when they are in the pan, covering up bald spots. Bake in oven for 45 minutes. They should be golden/brown and a little sizzly, and juicy not dry (but done!! No pink! of course). ENJOY.