My sister (on the right) and me

It has been two years since those two ubiquitous words “Hello, world!” appeared on the first page of my newly-hatched blog. You would think that I should have been a blogging pro, having spent several years reading various blogs from their inception to  celebrity status. But no, my blog started out on an impulse and I was like a startled rabbit, scrambling to come up with a name, design, and a theme. I did not think for a second that I would have to pronounce the name of my blog EVERY SINGLE TIME I found myself surrounded by fellow food bloggers. It did not cross my mind that I would have to recite the etymology of my blog’s name at every meeting, conference, or workshop.

I was happy with my choices in my self-absorbed little universe, completely unaware that there are other human beings out there who would be reading my words and having a hard time relating to my seemingly innocuous and vague word associations. I wish I could go back in time and change some features of my blog, but as I am not on speaking terms with any branch of physics that would enlighten me to the ways of making a time-travel machine, I have reconciled with my blog being the way it is, awkwardly named and verbose. I find it charming, if unpopular, and decided to embrace it and plunge forward, damn the SEO and Google Search.

I do not want to deceive you that I am an utterly impractical person, but opportunism usually comes to me too late in the game, and I scramble to salvage what remnants I can. One day soon I will publish another blog that will exemplify everything I learned since I started blogging. It will be a site some of my blogging mentors would be really proud of.

It might be serendipitous, but today I was nominated for a Food Stories Award by Lisa of Parsley and Sage. I hate to admit it, but it felt a little bit like back in high school when one of the most popular, gorgeous guys asked me to go out on a date. (We lasted for almost four years, which made me reassess the pecking order and realize that the high school hierarchy is bullshit. This does not mean that I expect to rule the blogosphere for the same time.) Lisa, you have made my day! Thanks for all the smiles that appeared on my face today:)

The rules of the game state that I have to write one random fact about myself to be considered for this nomination. So I am sitting here chewing on my virtual pencil not because I cannot come up with a random fact, but because I cannot pick one from the many. OK, here we go. When I was in eighth grade, I won an essay contest titled “What You Know about Traffic”. Instead of winning a few hard cover books as I expected, my reward was a curse: I had to compete in the town’s bicycle race. It was on a weekend and the course ran from our school, through the city park and on throughout closed-for-the-traffic city streets, which were lined by eager-looking parents and students. I was a socially awkward child and riding a bike was not a boasting point for me, as I considered myself lucky if I avoided the trucks and crazy motorcycle riders on my way to my friend’s house. Here I was exposed in front of my whole town, my crush included, trying to navigate the curves of an “8″ drawn on the concrete of the playground, trying not to touch the lines and attempting in vain to keep my front wheel straight enough to balance through the ten yards of an “as slow as you can go” stretch. Do I need to reiterate that I finished close to the bottom two? And all because I could write?

In order to further qualify for this award, I have to nominate at least five bloggers whose writing I enjoy, which was even harder than coming up with a random fact about me. I encounter talented writers every day and every day someone’s words seduce me. Here are my favorites who have not been chosen yet:

The Kitchen Witch: Dana has a great sense of humor and her everyday stories usually make my stomach hurt from laughter. I wish I had her penchant for snark. I turn to her blog whenever I need a dose of weirdly colored sunshine.

Anecdotes and Apple Cores: Who does not feel the effects of Monet’s beautiful writing? Even when the fates deal her hand after hand of ugly, she keeps on writing, offering us insightful pieces of her soul.

Rose Water & Orange Blossoms: Maureen Abood’s writing is wistful, evocative, and beautiful. In every sentence you can feel the love for her family and her Lebanon.

Food for the Thoughtless: I have no clue how I stumbled on Michael Procopio’s brilliantly written blog, but I don’t care. Every post he writes is a literary gem, an essay worth of publishing in the best of magazines.

Sasa Sunakku: I did not expect to discover such fresh and beautiful writing when I clicked on Sasa’s Harissa Carrot Salad recipe. But I was smitten from the first click and even though she does not update her blog as often as she did, I await every post with eager anticipation.

Lentil Breakdown: Adair is the master of the metaphor and her wit can slice through the toughest armors. The only predictable thing about her posts is that they will make you smile.

You might wonder about the significance of the photo. It was one of the best vacations: me, my sister, and my girls in beautiful Montenegro. And I like the way I looked. yes, I am that vain:)

As a child I quieted my nomadic spirit by immersing myself in books and traveling vicariously through various lands and various times. I could not accept the static of my life and hoped that some genius would invent a time machine and liberate me from the shackles of my existence. I was a sensitive child, easily seduced by a mere trace of romanticism and adventure, and I followed hundreds of fictional characters throughout their escapades all over the globe and beyond, sometimes as an observer and sometimes as a vicarious participant.

On Friday mornings I would run around the corner to the closest newspaper kiosk to grab one of the first issues of Politikin Zabavnik, the best children’s magazine of all time. They would frequently feature illustrations of boys and girls dressed in ethnic costumes with bubbles above their heads teaching you how to count in the language of that particular country. As I had already fallen in love with the languages, by the time I was in fifth grade I knew how to count to ten in dozens of them.

The next obvious gateway into the world was music. I have attended music school along with the regular elementary school, and studied the theory of music, as well as piano. Listening to the great composers transported me instantly far away from the wooden desks that bore the words carved by hundreds of little hands before me. I walked the clean streets of Vienna with Mozart, shivered in the cold wind of the steppes with Tchaikovsky, rode the unsaddled Gypsy horses with Brahms, and followed a graceful swan around its lake with Saint-Saëns.

Listening to popular music brought me closer to my international peers, and I spent interminable hours taping songs in English, Italian, French, and Spanish from the radio and trying to catch the lyrics, which I would learn by heart and sing again and again throughout the day. No one around me knew any better, and only my older self shudder much later at the gibberish I tried to pass on as the actual songs.

Around the time I was twelve, I started traveling abroad and for the first time experienced life in a foreign country. That summer I spent two wonderful weeks with my grandmother Njanja and a group of Serbian tourist on a Russian sleeping car with a giant samovar* and an elegant dining car. We visited Kiev, Moscow, and Leningrad, and as much as I loved the dense, dark bread and yellow curlicues of butter, I detested all three types of caviar they served at every meal at every hotel that housed us. I also blushed every time I saw a young, rosy-cheeked Russian soldier from the window of our tour bus, imagining that he smiled at me.

We took a road trip with another family entering Romania at its most northern point and driving south all the way to the Black Sea. That was the year I saw “Jaws”, and nothing in the world could make me step into the water deeper than my knees. We continued on to Bulgaria along the sea coast, spent a night in Sophia where my sister and my friend drank the distilled water from the plastic inserts that my parents froze to keep the food cold in the coolers and where I had one of the worst earaches in my life.

I went to Austria with my choir, and when we read “The Third Man”  and saw the movie a few years later in college, I brought back the memories from the Prater, feeling the wind in my face as Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles rode the big wheel. I don’t remember what we ate, but I remember the smell of burned human flesh from the crematoria in Mauthausen concentration camp that still lingered in the air after more than forty years.

I spent a day in Hungary with my Aunt and cousin from Vojvodina and ate a marvelously spicy beef stew in a restaurant nestled in an old-fashioned windmill right out of Don Quixote. I spent a month visiting another Aunt and Uncle who lived on the border of Germany, France, and Switzerland, taking care of their small children while they worked and practicing my rudimentary German with shopkeepers in their little town. One of their friends was a train hostess and on a weekend, she took me along on one of their trips north along the East German border, past Hamburg and onto the island of Sylt. As much as I enjoyed the trip, I felt as if I were at the end of the world on the small island surrounded by icy waters of the North Sea.

My curious mind and nomadic feet keep me moving to this day. Visiting different locales and learning about the people and their culture is still one of my biggest passions. But life somehow intervened and made me work around three kids, very limited finances, and even less free time. I packed my bags and boarded a plane several times, but my adventures became virtual and vicarious more and more. Living in the U.S. allowed me to reach beyond the borders and experience the world through food, and even though I know it is not the same, I embrace the opportunity and take advantage of my circumstances.

I want my girls to look beyond the horizon and become true citizens of the world. They are seasoned travelers whose faces break into wistful smiles when a plane flies over the car on I4o5. They hum foreign songs and download the apps for languages. They huddle over the geography atlas and quiz one another on world capitals. It makes my heart sing when they ask me to make Thai noodles, a spicy Indian curry, or a Morrocan tagine. They are adventurous and inquisitive, their young palates already developed enough to pick out nuances and identify the spices.

Through food they continue to learn and explore. They embrace the unknown and yearn to break out of their space as much as I did when I was a girl. And I want more than anything else to give them the strength to spread their wings and take on the world.

HUMMUS

A friend of mine spent a year in Tunisia with Peace Corps in the late 80s and when he came back, we spent days together while he talked and I listened, mesmerized. I would bring wine and he would make something to eat. He made me my first hummus which became a staple snack food in my family.

Ingredients:

• 1 can garbanzo beans (you can drain and rinse them, or you can save the liquid)
• ¼ cup tahini paste
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• juice of ½ lemon
• ¼ cup water (or the liquid from the beans)
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 3 Tbsp olive oil + 1 tsp for garnish (optional)
• ½ tsp paprika for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Place the beans, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, water, and salt in a blender. Puree until smooth (you may have to stir the contents a few times to mix). Pour into a bowl and garnish with olive oil and paprika. Serve with pita chips or vegetable sticks.

Last year: Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo

When the times get tough financially, my instincts kick in and the survival mode becomes default. But I don’t really change my modus operandi, as frugality is somehow ingrained in me, and I just keep on doing what I do best: digging through my pantry and my freezer and putting healthy, nutritious, appetizing food in front of my girls, playing with ingredients, pimping up the leftovers, and offering colorful and enticing meals that would make them appreciate all aspects of the culinary world.

Sometimes the prompts come from them, if they feel inspired and creative – in  the rare moments when they are not entranced in a fantasy play or a puppet show. But most of the times it takes a few minutes poring through the contents of my legume drawer or taking inventory of every refrigerator shelf to come up with a perfectly balanced meal that would be cost-effective, creative, flavorful, and overall nutritious.

It breaks my heart when I see food being wasted. I collect the tough asparagus stems, cauliflower stalks, celery leaves, and lettuce cores to make a vegetable stock. I salvage the roasted chicken carcass with all the gelatinous deposit on the bottom of the pan and make a hearty chicken stock. I collect egg whites for a future angel food cake, and pork fat for the day I feel inspired to render lard. I place parsley and cilantro stems in bags and add them to stews and soups, reluctant to waste even a smidgen of the goodness they impart.

My freezer is a repository of oddly shaped bags containing fish heads, shrimp and lobster shells, chicken gizzards, and stock. There are labeled plastic containers with leftover tomato sauce, chopped herbs, and duck fat, along with neatly wrapped packages of beef and lamb bones destined for a soup.

The girls rarely know what they will have for breakfast or dinner, because I employ all my resources when I start to contemplate it. They are adventurous and open to new culinary challenges, which makes my thought process much easier.

School lunches are limited in creativity as they have to be stored in a locker for hours, eaten within fifteen minutes and relatively easy to handle. They eat outside and have no access to a microwave. I smuggle a Ferrero Rocher treat or a square of dark chocolate in their paper bags to give them a sense of adventure.

This week they had state testing and school let out earlier, which allowed me more freedom with their mid-day repast. They arrived from school famished and I had a perfect meal for them every single day, taking advantage of the amenities I had at home, excited to offer them something different than the usual sandwich or wrap fare.

True to my nature, I had to be frugal, and most days the lunches were spruced-up leftovers. But every single time their faces lit up and they brought the plates to the kitchen licked clean.

These tostadas elicited a whole lot of squeals. I loved how my girls’ faces alighted with excitement when I poked the eggs and released the yolks. This lunch did not cost me anything, but a few minutes of my time and some kilowatts of energy. But it made my daughters feel special, loved, cherished, and adored. And in the times when every dollar spent has to be spent wisely, that’s the only thing that matters to me.

LEFTOVER TOSTADA WITH POACHED EGG

Ingredients:

• Corn tortillas
• Remoulade (recipe bellow)
• 1 Roma tomato, diced
• Black bean and corn salsa (recipe bellow)
• Jack cheese, shredded
• Poached eggs (recipe bellow)
• Cilantro

 Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450F. Place corn tortillas on a cookie sheet. Spread remoulade all over the tortilla. Spoon salsa and diced tomatoes on top. Sprinkle with cheese and place in the oven. Bake for five minutes until the cheese is melted. Take out of the oven and place each tortilla on a separate plate. Place a poached egg on top, sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

Remoulade:

Mix together ½ cup of mayonnaise, 1 tsp of capers, 1 tsp of lemon juice, 1 tsp of Dijon mustard, a bit of salt, and 1 tablespoon of chopped dill.

Black Bean Salsa:

Combine 1 can (14oz) rinsed black beans, 1 cup frozen cor kernels, 1 chopped jalapenñño, ½ shopped onion, salt, pepper, and lime juice.

Poached eggs:

Heat the water in a small stainless steel pot until it boils. Turn the heat down to simmer. Add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar. Break an egg into a ramekin and pour it carefully into the boiling water. Fold the egg white over the yolk with a spoon and cook for 1 minute. Using the slotted spoon remove the egg and place it onto a plate covered with a few layers of paper towels to absorb the moisture.

Eton Mess

I prefer to stay home for Mother’s Day. I relish the moment I hear the first whispers of my girls as they tiptoe into the kitchen and start preparing breakfast for the family, trying in vain not to make any noise as they pull pots and pans out of the cupboards. I am comforted by the familiar sounds that meander around the hallways and arrive at my doorstep: the hissing of oil when it meets a hot pan; the crackling of egg shells; the grating of the whisk against a plastic bowl; bacon starting to sizzle as its edges curl and brown; the hypnotizing whir of my hand mixer; the subdued thuds of drawers getting shut.

I stretch like a spoiled Angora cat and play along, feigning sleep, as I squint through one eye at a time in anticipation of their arrival to my room. They open the door and enter in a solemn procession, valiantly trying to stay focused, but by the time they reach the backboard of my bed, they explode in giggles. Chattering excitedly, they approach offering gifts of food they lovingly prepared for me and laid on a silver-plated tray covered with a starched damask napkin. One long arm proffers a bright and still fizzing Mimosa, and I sit up against the pillows, the tray safely resting in my lap. They jump on the bed, surrounding me, racing each other with colorful and thoughtful home made cards, covering my face and my hands with tender kisses.

The three of them are all the crowd I need to feel happy. And this Mother’s Day, we’ll stay home and spend all day indulging our taste buds and surrendering to whimsy. My oldest will make a couple of Mimosas and we’ll clink the glasses, toasting to mothers everywhere, and sending virtual kisses to my sister in Germany and Mother in Serbia.

 Baked Eggs with Bacon, Cheese, and Grits

Southern Belle’s Buttermilk Biscuits 

 Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting

 Basic Blueberry Muffins

Pain Au Chocolat 

 Rose Bread (Pogača Ružičara)

 Pound Cake with Strawberries

Some of my favorite bloggers have compiled lists of their favorite, delectable Mother’s Day recipes. I always find inspiration there!

Recipe Girl

Shockingly Delicious

Elana’s Pantry – Gluten Free Recipes for Mother’s Day

Katherine Martinelli

Shiksa in the Kitchen

Closet Cooking

This is a post I wrote a while ago, but it contains some of my favorite Mexican dishes. Moving to southern California was like “Open, Sesame!” for me – I encountered so many culinary treasures previously hidden. I left the photos unchanged, just like I submitted them to Rick Bayless’s Twitter contest. I hope at least one of these meals will inspire you for Cinco de Mayo.

I ate my first taco at a bowling alley in Highland, Michigan, in 1986, while accompanying my ex-husband’s sister and her friends to the meeting of their bowling league. And I did not care for it at all. I found out later that taco meat is highly seasoned with cumin and at the time I was put off by it. The texture of avocado reminded me of melons, and melons and I do no keep good company. I found the green mushy fruit bland and not deserving of my time.

I discovered cilantro purely by chance. Mother was visiting at the time and we were shopping for groceries at a local supermarket. We bought some nice looking green beans, but when we cooked them they had a specific taste that we could not stand. We deemed the beans spoiled, rotten, contaminated, and threw the whole batch away.  The next day I went to the same supermarket to inspect the beans because I bought them before at the same place, and they were fine. When my nose approached the vegetables another smell, forceful and overbearing, got my attention. The green leaves next to the beans resembled Italian parsley, but when I rubbed them between my fingers, I thought I would just keel over and die. Poor, innocent beans were as healthy and fresh as they could be. They were just positioned next to cilantro, which usurped and overpowered their taste without a thought. And every time a family member would come to visit from Serbia, I would put them to the cilantro test. We are proud to be extremely adventurous in culinary matters, but not one of them liked it. Or to be more precise, we all just hated it.

For a while I avoided Mexican food, enjoying almost all the other world cuisines available to us. But I am a curious person, always looking to broaden my horizons, and it irked me to think that there was an abundance of dishes I was neglecting based on my underdeveloped palate. If I could eat liver, brain, Rocky Mountain oysters, snails, shellfish, feta cheese, and gorgonzolla, I could learn to like cumin, avocado, and cilantro. At the same time I started watching cooking shows on PBS  and my passion for food came at me full strength. I started exploring this undiscovered territory slowly adding small amounts of cumin to my ground beef. I would buy the wrinkly, ugly, almost black avocado, and cut it in half, just to stand mesmerized by its pristine green pulp. I mastered the deceptively simple art of taking the pit out and started making my own guacamole. Little by little the cumin and avocado grew on me, seduced me, and made me fall in love with them.

Cilantro had a more arduous fight ahead of it. I’d pick it out from salsas in Mexican restaurants and became resigned to an eternity of not being its fan. I love to cook with herbs and spices. I have always grown my own, and every morning, for years, the first thing I do after a sip of coffee is to go out and look at my pots. I could not stand the thought of not being able to enjoy so many dishes just because I could not stomach the cilantro. So I braced myself, bought a bunch, snippped a leaf or two in pico de gallo or a salsa, and surrendered. It was definitely a battle. Over time cilantro won.  I even learned to love it. Mexican food in our house became a staple.

And then we moved to Southern California and tasted our first fish taco. At a work potluck Christmas party, Ricardo brought home-made posole. Enrique made ponche spiked with tequila, Joe and Lupe brought spicy carne asada, Juan made chorizo. My Mexican neighbors send plates with tamales and lured the Beasties to stay over for some caldo de res and horchata (having three girls their age did not hurt). My mind was spinning. Where was all this coming from? So I started learning again.

In the spring of this year the College Kritter and I went to Yucatan and Cozumel over Christmas break. That was her present from us for graduating high-school, getting enrolled in a University and turning eighteen. It was her choice destination. And I was her choice companion. I will have to write about our adventure another time. But we discovered another variation of Mexican cuisine dining in Playa Del Carmen, Valladolid, and Cozumel. We avoided tourist traps and ate in the restaurants that locals frequented. Queso relleno, poc chuc, huevos motullenos, cochinita pibil, negro relleno, ceviche… We were in culinary heaven. In every restaurant we talked to waiters and cooks (Kritter speaks fluent Spanish and I can get by with what I picked up from co-workers, adding odd words in Italian), got the recipes, and vowed to replicate the dishes at home. I bought the “tortilladora” from an old woman in Valladolid, and decided to start making my own corn tortillas.

A couple of weeks ago Rick Bayless started a contest on Twitter. He tweets a recipe in 140 characters, we make it, photograph the finished dish, mail the photo to him, and hope to become winners of his newest cookbook Fiesta at Rick’s. I participate every time. It has become a much anticipated event in our household. My photos have not won me the book yet. But the journey that Rick took us on is a gift by itself. Every single recipe is a jewel, bursting with flavors, well balanced, assertive, and addictive. We are looking forward to Mondays when he puts out the new recipe, hidden in abbreviations of the tweeterese.

My love affair with Mexican food is only growing stronger. I do not think it will ever end. One of these days I am taking on the ridiculously long process of making the Yucatecan specialty cochinita pibil. I have already bought the banana leaves and stashed them in the freezer. Until then, Mondays at Rick’s will be more than sufficient to keep the flame growing.

WEEK ONE, POBLANO RAJAS

” Sear 1.25# bnls chix brst; cool, cube. Brn 1 onion,add 3 grlc,2 poblanos (rstd,pld,slcd),6 oz chard,1c broth,1c crema.Boil2 thickn.Add chix “

WEEK TWO, ENCHILADAS VERDES

” Rst 1#tomtllos,1 on,3 grlc,3 serranos;puree;sear n oil 2 thkn;simr w 2c broth,.5c crema.Oil,micrwv 12 torts,roll w rstd veg,sauce, chs, bake “

molcajete y tejolote (aka "el serdo") I bought at the Valladolid farmers market

WEEK THREE, TROPICAL BEACH CEVICHE

” 8oz slicd raw scallops+1c grapefrt j:45 min.Drain;blend 2/3c juice,1-2 chipotles,4 rstd grlc,2T br sgr.Mix w scal, red on,trop fruit,jicama “

Vladimir Jovanovic, my cousin extraordinaire, edited my photo

WEEK FOUR, CHIPOTLE GLAZED RIBS

“Proc 4 grlc,6T ancho,4t sugr&peppr,5t salt,1t oreg,½t cumin.Rub 4 slb ribs;ovrnite.Bake 300 75 min.Blend:7oz chiptles&3/4c honey.Grill;glaze”

I was in my early twenties when I first encountered the All-American Cookie. Where I came from, mothers and grandmothers turned their noses disdainfully at a cake that had less than four layers, many of my friends in grade school had hands-on experience with Swiss meringue, and cookies definitely came from a box bought at the grocery store.

My first American cookie experience involved the dough that came from a tube. It did not catch me completely off guard as it followed a gigantic mountain of nachos chips drowned in melted Velveeta cheese, and an odd ritual of passing thin, unfiltered cigarettes from hand to hand, around and around (which I found very unhygienic). I figured I’d roll with the local customs, having accepted a long time before the old adage “When in Rome…” Nachos tasted pretty good, particularly when chased with a sip of beer from a bottle – a deliberate act of defiance, as every single one of my male friends and relatives would shudder at the mere thought of imbibing the amber liquid without the proper glass (emphasis on proper).

Refrigerator cookies in a tube were the cheapest we could find, but once I meandered around bodies sprawled on the floor, squinting to avoid smoke, I stuffed two or three freshly baked cookies in my mouth and threw my head behind in bliss, giggling, convinced that I have figured out the secret of life on Earth. I wish I had thought of writing it all down, as the euphoria dissipated by the morning, and the revolutionary Eureka! moment vanished.

I learned in time that it was not a weird version of Marlboros that we were passing around, that nachos tasted much better with real cheese, and that cookies were a fool-proof way to anyone’s heart. I could smoothly adjust to the cultural shock as I did not have my Serbian matriarchs breathing down my neck and admonishing me for taking the easy way out.

My sister-in-law smirked disgustedly at perfectly balanced billowy whites and creamy yellows in my Iles Flotantes, but could not stop smiling when I made a batch of peanut butter cookies. I spent hours roasting and grinding hazelnuts, mixing them in a fragrant dough, cutting out tiny one-inch circles, baking them, making small sandwiches with crème anglaise in the middle and dipping them in chocolate ganache, only to hear some of my co-workers complain that my petit-fores were too sweet. Next time I brought oatmeal raisin cookies to work, and everyone thought I could part Lake Michigan.

Once I became a mother, I surrendered to the unbeatable appeal of kitschy and gawdy birthday cakes my daughters wanted as they went beautifully along the pink and purple sequined dresses and feathered tutus they ogled whenever we went shopping. It’s what’s on the outside that counted, and again I rolled with the accepted, but feeling just a little bit guilty when I cut through the cake heavily topped with unbearably sweet turquoise or fuchsia frosting that clung to my palate, as I heard Mother’s tsk, tsk, tsk in my head and remembered masterfully assembled delectable tortes of my youth.

Chocolate chip cookies were the family favorites, but I started making sugar cookies just because I knew my girls would be happy: pink and red for Valentine’s Day, brown and orange for Halloween, red, white, and green for Christmas. That it was less of an effort than making crepes or a cake with summer fruit – desserts that Mother would declare utterly pedestrian and not worthy of guests – was just a bonus for which I was immensely thankful. After all, Mother was not in the kitchen with me.

And then I started reading food blogs and I could not stop. I discovered people who could weave magic with their words, people who captured a perfect moment with their camera, people who were on “per tu” with French cooking, and people who made stunning, perfectly decorated cookies. I was in awe as I pored through the posts, admiring the patience, creativity, and dexterity of cookie-makers, envious of their skill and artistry.

I don’t consider myself an accomplished baker and I am sure Mother would agree. Yeast does not scare me any more and I don’t think twice about pulling my 25-pound bag of Five Roses flour out of the pantry to play with a cake or two. But decorated cookies were one of last culinary bastions I was determined to conquer.  And conquer them I did, indeed! Even if I spent days analyzing, reading, listening, and watching before I even pulled the butter out to soften. Even if I set my iPhone alarm to go off every minute when the cookies were in the oven, just to monitor their progress and attain that perfect hue of barely golden edges. Even if I stayed up until way past the witching hour to finish decorating them, feeling like Bugs Bunny trying in vain to get rid of colorful swirling circles in front of my eyes. (You know the cartoon I’m talking about, right?)

I am sure that skinny, unfiltered, fragrant cigarettes won’t make an appearance at my house any time soon, and neither will the mounds of Velveeta-smothered nacho chips. As for the cookies, I have to say that I have come a long way since the cheap, refrigerated dough version. I tasted them, bite by delectable bite, and even though the experience did not reveal the secrets of life, I felt at peace with the world around me.

My bouquet of cookies will join hundreds of different baked goods on Saturday, April 28, for the annual LA Food Blogger Bake Sale that supports Share Our Strength organization founded to eradicate kids’ hunger. All over the country, food bloggers are coming together, surrounded by clouds of powdered sugar and cocoa, sending off heady whiffs of vanilla, coconut, and lemon, and setting up the most amazing displays of cupcakes, cookies, truffles, caramels, pies, and brownies.

If you are in the neighborhood, visit us at BLD Restaurant in Beverly Hills for a chance to experience Candyland live! Last year I made four different kinds of truffles. You can read about my experience in this post: Casting Bread Upon the Waters. To see the list of all participating LA bloggers, click on the Bake Sale logo on the right.

ALL AMERICAN SUGAR COOKIES

The recipe for sugar cookies is a basic one that can be found anywhere. Royal icing recipe came with the Wilton’s jar of meringue powder. For the tutorials and videos on mixing color with icing and decorating cookies visit Sweetopia, Sweet Adventures of Sugar Belle, Bake at 350, and Lila Loa. My educational train ride through their blogs brought me many moments of inspiration, awe, joy, and admiration.

Ingredients:

For cookies:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks, 230gr) butter at room temperature (not too soft)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg (it should be cold)
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp lemon zest or ¼ tsp lemon extract

Royal Icing:

• 1 lb (a little less than 500gr) powdered sugar
• 3 Tbsp meringue powder (Wilton’s brand has vanilla and cream of tartar, so you don’t have to add any)
• 6 Tbsp warm water

Directions:

Mix together flour and salt in a medium bowl. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, and lemon zest (or extract). Add the flour and mix until thoroughly combined.

Turn the dough on the counter and shape into a disc. Wrap in plastic and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Dust the counter with a bit of flour and flatten the dough with a rolling pin to ¼ inch thickness. Cut the shapes as desired using various cookie cutters. Place the cookies on a cookie sheet covered with a piece of parchment paper. (If you are making cookie pops, insert the popsicle stick in the base of the cookie with your right hand (if you are right-handed), keeping your left hand atop of the cookie to prevent the stick from piercing it; if the stick is bare on the back, take a piece of dough and patch the spot). Place the cookie sheet wit the cookies in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Bake your cold cookies for 10-13 minutes, depending on your oven. Let them cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet and transfer to the cooling rack.

In a large bowl combine powdered sugar and meringue powder. Add warm water and mix with a hand mixer for 10 minutes. Let the icing rest, to allow air bubbles to disappear.

It’s a quarter past three and they’re at the gate, their long fingers clutching the bars. They pretend they are in jail, and when I turn the key to liberate them, they shuffle across the brown-colored concrete of the courtyard, howling in make-believe despair, arms flailing, their eyebrows turned into apostrophes, their backpacks magically turned into iron shackles, putting an unbearable weight onto their hunched shoulders. They nudge each other while they take the stairs, two steps at a time, and arrive at the apartment door giggling, the jail game forgotten, another one already brewing.

They race each other through the doors of their bedroom hoping to make it first to the bathroom, leaving behind a trail of discarded jackets, notebooks, and shoes. Their shrieks of delight echo around the house and follow them when they emerge from their sanctuary in a tangle of long legs and intertwined arms, my beautiful middle school bunch of tumbleweed.

They skip into the kitchen inhaling the smells wafting from the stove or the oven, trying to guess what surprises I might have for them. Their senses are already discernible and they twist their heads left and right trying to find the best nose angle for deciphering all the aromatic ingredients that combine to fill the house with the unforgettable smell of comfort and security.

In between sniffing and inquisitive glances, they bombard me with short, explosive recaps of their day, overlapping each other’s excited expressions, competing in speed-talking and emphasis, until I manage to get a vivid picture of all things wonderful and horrible that marked their day.

While I lay the white plates on the counter, they drag papers from their backpacks and run back, elbows working overtime to ensure the coveted front position. I shift my eyes from the serrated knife zigzagging through the buttery crumb of the cake and look at barely marked essays and math tests, a smile of pride alighting my face. I carefully place yellow slabs on the plates and scoop a few heaping spoonfuls of sliced strawberries that yielded to sugar, becoming softer and pliable. The cake thirstily absorbs the scarlet juices as the red fruit triangles glisten like jewels. A dollop of whipped cream, barely kissed by sugar, nestles comfortably on top, like a snow cap on a mountain. A light dust of powdered sugar wafts from my fingers and settles over the plates.

They squeal and yelp, their eyes wide open in anticipation, their excitement more than enough to show their gratitude. As I hold the plates and start toward the dining room table, they encircle my waist with their arms, snaking around me lovingly, resting their heads on my shoulders, the soft hair tickling my neck. I lean my head to one side, and then the other, inhaling their sweet smell, dividing my time equally between a straight strawberry-blonde and a wavy light brunette, elated and saddened at the same time that my girls are taller then me and heading out with ever accelerated speed.

They settle at the table and poke at their treat reverently, the forks leaving trails in bright red juices and coloring the pristine white of the whipped cream pink. When the forks cut through the mound, the shrieks and yelps are silenced for a moment. They proceed slowly, allowing barely warm strawberry-soaked cake to melt on their tongues, savoring harmonious flavors that play pleasant sensory games with their taste buds.

They bring their clean-looking plates to the sink and retreat again to the room, their faces basking in afterglow. For a long time I hear only rustling of paper and dull thuds as they pull their overweight text books off the shelves and down to the floor. I wrap the remaining pound cake and wipe pink strawberry drops that speckle the counter top, still smiling from the retreating line thrown my way: “I am so happy you are my mother!”

POUND CAKE – AN AFTER SCHOOL DELIGHT

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
• ½ tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 1 stick (4 oz, 4 Tbsp, 115gr) of butter at room temperature
• 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• ½ cup milk
• powder sugar (optional)
• strawberries (optional – if you choose to use strawberries, slice them and place them in a bowl with some sugar (1 Tbsp per cup) to macerate for 30 minutes before serving)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 9×5 loaf pan.

In a medium bowl, stir flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, cream butter with sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs, and mix until well combined. Add flour alternating with milk until smooth.

Pour into the pan and flatten the top surface. Bake for 55-60 minutes until done (I usually stick a bamboo skewer in the middle and if it comes out dry or almost dry, the cake is done.) Let it cool off for 5 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Serve dusted with powder sugar, with macerated strawberries and whipped cream, or with everything, as I did.

I met Christianna of Burwell General Store blog last May at a BlogHer Food conference in Atlanta. We stayed up one night over a bottle or two of really good red wine and a sparkle of friendship was ignited. Even though both of us call Southern California our home, we have been getting to know one another mostly through emails and Twitter. We have so much in common and talking to her feels as if I were speaking to an old friend who can finish my sentences and predict my next thought.

Christianna started Recipe Swap in December 2010, and I joined the wonderful group of bloggers about a year ago. Each month she picks a vintage recipe from an old cookbook she unearthed at a flea-market and throws a culinary challenge to us: we have to be creative and use our inspiration and imagination to twist the recipe, mold it to reflect our personalities and tastes, and give it another life and another form. Every month, on the day when our posts appear, I read the stories and innovative incarnations of the same recipe, delighted each time by unique approaches to a simple list of ingredients.

We have tackled jelly cake, wild rabbit with vegetables, hot slaw with mayonnaise dressing, maple syrup cake, Toll House cookies, zabaglione, and wild rice dressing, and I am mesmerized again and again by the limitless possibilities of the human mind to modify, adjust, and re-create.

Since December of 2011, we have been working through the book The Second Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places, compiled in 1954. Our recipe for April is Tomato Pudding, a specialty side dish offered by Hotel Dilworth, a B&B in Boyne, Michigan.

I had never eaten bread pudding as a child in Serbia; it was a dish I discovered only when I landed, wide-eyed, on the shores of the New World. When I looked at the ingredients for tomato pudding, I sat speechless for several minutes, blinking in confusion, trying to envision a butterfly emerging from a non-descript cocoon hiding in this unappetizing pile of stuff. Bread, boiling water, tomato purée, and a whole cup of brown sugar?

As the fog slowly lifted, ideas started coming to me tentatively. I locked on panzanella, a wonderfully simple Italian peasant dish that combines chunks of crusty, stale bread and sun-ripened tomatoes. But even though I live in Southern California, sun-ripened tomatoes are not here yet, and the bland, store-bought, perfectly round, soulless impersonators could not make the salad sing.

But then I thought of tomato soup and imagined a crispy, golden-brown grilled cheese sandwich on the side plate next to the bowl of soup.  Once I firmly grabbed that idea by its tail, I clung onto it, delving deeper, putting the plan of action together, with a vision of a comforting meal filled with assertive and complimenting flavors.

Instead of using fresh, inferior tomatoes from the grocery store, I bought a few pounds of meaty Roma tomatoes and roasted them to intensify their sweet notes. I added a roasted red pepper to add a bit of smokiness and texture, as well as another punch of sweetness. I mellowed the harshness of onions and garlic by roasting them, too, and threw in a bunch of thyme and basil to bring out the bold taste of Italian summer in the country.

For the grilled cheese sandwich, I chose to pair a robust and hardy Tuscan-style bread with mild and barely nutty Gruyère cheese and slowly caramelized onions finished with a balsamic vinegar reduction. The sandwich mimicked the deep flavors of the soup with a hint of smokiness and that wonderful agro-dolce note.

Once again, I felt an immense sense of accomplishment as my girls and I sat at the table and started eating. The soup was hearty and satisfying, the sandwich a perfect accompaniment with its crunchy texture and mild, melting cheese that trapped caramelized onions in its strings.

I am grateful that I am a part of the vintage Recipe Swap and proud of yet another successful metamorphosis. This is a busy time for both Christianna and me, but now that I have moved even closer, I don’t need a crystal ball to imagine the two of us sitting under the awning of a restaurant somewhere along the Pacific Coast Highway sipping a glass of crisp Prosecco, while the waves break against the beach just a few yards beyond.

CREAMY ROASTED TOMATO AND RED PEPPER SOUP

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs Roma tomatoes (about 10 larger ones)
• olive oil
• coarse salt
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped into large chunks
• 6-7 garlic cloves, unpeeled
• several sprigs fresh thyme
• a few basil leaves (optional)
• coarse salt
• olive oil
• 1 large red pepper, roasted, peeled, deseeded, and chopped into large chunks
• coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

 Directions:

Preheat the oven to 300F.

Slice the tomatoes in half lengthwise and place, cut side up, on a cookie sheet brushed with olive oil (I dipped the cut side into the oil on the bottom and then flipped the tomatoes up – it seemed easier than sprinkling them with oil afterwards). Season with salt and bake for several hours, until shriveled and dark red in color.

Turn the heat of the oven up to 350F. Place onions, garlic, and thyme on a cookie sheet (I used a cast iron skillet), sprinkle with salt and a little bit of olive oil and roast for 25-30 minutes, until softened.

Discard the thyme and squeeze the garlic cloves out of their peels.

In a heavy soup pot combine the tomatoes, roasted onions, garlic, and red pepper. Add 4 cups of water, season with additional salt and freshly ground pepper and heat until the first bubbles appear. Turn off the heat and puree in a blender in batches until creamy and relatively smooth. (Be very careful as the lid can fly off the blender once it starts and you can get burned by hot soup – yes, I am talking from first-hand experience!)

GRILLED CHEESE WITH GRUYÈRE, CARAMELIZED ONIONS, AND BALSAMIC REDUCTION 

(I had a leftover clove of roasted garlic from the soup and I rubbed the insides of my bread with it, but. It gave the sandwich another layer of depth, pairing well with the garlic in the soup.)

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 large yellow onion, sliced thinly
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 tsp coarse salt
• country style bread (I used Tuscan Country Bread from Trader Joe’s)
• Gruyere, sliced
• butter

I would like to wish Happy Easter to my family and friends who celebrate today. May your eggs be victorious, your lamb succulent, and your day filled with happiness and laughter.

Христос воскресе!

It’s spring break week and every day seems like a Sunday. Most of my friends have packed their bags and left sunny California for even warmer, more tropical climates, and I cannot wait to hear their stories of culinary escapades and see their sun-kissed faces once they return to reality.

The girls have been going to the pool every day for a few hours and we are taking walks down to the beach, breathing in the ocean air with full lungs, happy to call this amazing town our home. I let them be lazy, grateful for the moments when they envelope me in their elongated teen limbs and plant soft kisses in my hair and on my cheek. We hug a lot these days and stay in a clinch for minutes, an intertwined statue of femininity at its most fragile state, and at the same time the epitome of strength.

I went to the drugstore on the last day of school and brought home a bag of small, luxurious, nice-smelling, and utterly-meant-to-spoil items, promising them a day of pampering, the three of us the only patrons of the exclusive spa. They ogled pretty bottles and jars and giggled with anticipation, only to leave and continue playing with their Barbies, excited by the interruption, but eager to get back to their stories.

They are starting to like boys just a little bit, but their affection is aimed exclusively at out-of-reach young actors like Asa Butterfield and the adorable kid who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. Their male schoolmates are still the specimens of an icky, unknown, and hostile species, but I observe the sudden attention they pay to putting together outfits they would wear to school  and at the same time exhale in relief when they innocently pull the plastic box filled with Barbies from underneath their bed.

I indulge them in the kitchen and ask every morning if they crave something special. They stretch their arms and yawn, look at one another, the sleep slowly fading from their semi-closed eyes. This lazy week allows me to to spend time with breakfast and I love the feel of not rushing and expanding my options to include anything they might desire.

Invariably, on one of the mornings, they decided in unison that they wanted biscuits. Biscuits used to intimidate me.  I viewed them as spoiled Southern Belles, finicky and over-sensitive, fragile, pouty, and easily offended. I dreaded the thought that they might turn on me, scorn me for not belonging, and refuse to play nice. But I was determined to win them over and prove that a Southern Slav is as skillful as any Southerner below the Mason-Dixon line to tackle their snobbish peculiarities. I wanted to be accepted into their inner circle–big hats, mint juleps, and fainting spells with the necessary vapors included.

Coming out of the oven they were gorgeous, golden around the edges and pale in the middle, filling the kitchen with their comforting aroma. They perched perkily on the plate, and when the girls reached for them and opened them up, they were flaky, tender, and light, with a crumbly crust. They thirstily accepted the first yellow pad of butter, perfect in their seeming simplicity. I felt vindicated and for just a second I thought I heard the reverberating echo of horses’ hooves disappearing into the distance, as the breeze brought a touch of Southern humid heat into our California home.

There are certain things I learned on my quest to attain the perfect, flaky, light biscuits:

1. The butter has to be really cold. I don’t own a food processor and I mix my dough by hand. That’s why I borrowed Mother’s grating method for keeping the butter chilled. The more time the flour, the dough, and the biscuits spend in the fridge, the better.

2. Do not overwork your dough, or the biscuits will be tough. I cut my biscuits in squares to avoid the remnants form the circles, as they always make for tougher biscuits, having been rolled several times.

3. Once you shaped and placed them on cookie sheet, you can cover them with a plastic wrap and freeze them. To bake them, let them sit at room temperature for 10 minutes.

4. The biscuits should be eaten immediately.

5. If you don’t have buttermilk, you can make your own in minutes. Measure ¾ cup regular milk and squeeze 1 Tbsp of lemon juice. The acid will slightly curdle the milk and turn it into buttermilk! You can use it immediately.

SOUTHERN BELLE BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all purpose flour*
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 8 Tbsp very cold butter
• ¾ cups cold buttermilk

* I was not able to find White Lilly flour that everyone recommends for quick, flaky breads, as it has much less gluten then the all-purpose flour. Next time I will have to experiment and substitute some of the all-purpose flour with cake flour, just for comparison.

Directions:

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Using the side with the biggest holes on your grater grate the butter as quickly as you can. Mix with a fork and add buttermilk. Mix until combined. Turn the dough onto a very lightly floured kitchen counter and knead just a few times. (The dough will be slightly wet). Wrap in the plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 20 minutes to allow butter to cool off.

Preheat the oven to 475F.

Turn the dough out on the lightly floured counter and flatten into a rectangle with a rolling pin without pushing too hard and overworking the dough. It should be about ½ inch thick. Using a sharp knife (or even better a pizza cutter) cut into 2 inch squares. Sprinkle with a little flour and place on a cookie sheet. (If the time allows, put the cookie sheet in the freezer for several minutes to ensure that the butter stays chilled.) Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden. Serve immediately.

Last year: Rosemary Focaccia