Tuesday, May 05, 2009

A Homemade Life: some cabbage, some cookies

Won't win any beauty pageants, but Molly Wizenberg's cream-braised cabbage is my favorite dish from her book. You cut cabbage in eighths, brown well in butter, then braise in cream for forty minutes. Since my kids are silly and my husband moderate, I ate almost the whole bowl. As Wizenberg puts it: "Cabbages may be homely, hard-headed things, but with a little braising they're bewitching. Cut into wedges and cooked slowly in a Jacuzzi bath of cream, they wind up completely relaxed, their bitter pungency washed away and replaced with a rich, nutty sweetness. My stomach coos like a baby at the thought of it."

My stomach coos like a baby at the thought of it. Only a very few writers can get away with lines like that. Wizenberg totally does, but I get uncomfortable even typing that sentence in quotations. 

Isabel helped make Jimmy's pink cookies, a plain buttery dough that we cut into hearts and topped with kirsch-spiked icing. Jimmy is the "gay husband" of Wizenberg's friend Rebecca who also has a "straight husband" named John. It's a cute story. Jimmy is the source for Wizenberg's recipe for Dutch baby pancakes, which I intend to make tomorrow for breakfast.
 
Jimmy's pink cookies are delicious. My stomach coos at the thought.

See? Not me. Like red lipstick and the pencil skirt, I just can't pull it off.

4 comments:

  1. Who calls it Dutch baby and who calls it German pancake? Is it a soda/pop, cart/buggy thing? I like the name Dutch baby much better, but was raised on German pancake. Maybe I can force my tongue to switch.

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  2. We called it "hot oven pancake" which is the most boring name of all.

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  3. Dunk anything in butter and cream for 40 minutes and it will probably taste pretty good. I'm a new Slate fan as well. I've been reading every day!

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  4. Cabbage is a vegetable which is composed of water but contain potassium, magnesium and vitamins that help our body. Many people like to prepare salad or another kind of recipe. You mus to approach all the propeties this vegetable.

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