Charleston Cuisine: Grill Baby Grill

The most hideous phrase of the campaign, but I sort of had to use it. 

I bought a grill yesterday. A Weber kettle grill. Black. Shiny. Gorgeous. The last one at the hardware store. I was so excited that I ran to the supermarket and bought briquets and ingredients for a grill dinner, but by the time we got the thing assembled it was so late, so dark, so foggy and cold, that I decided to cook everything on the stove grill, a feature of my range that I have never quite warmed to. Plus, it always sets off the smoke alarms.

And so it did again as I made the grilled tuna steaks with melted onions and mint sauce. A fine, unmemorable entree. See my previous comments on the outrageous expensiveness of Louis Osteen's recipes -- and let me add one further negative comment. The title of this book is Charleston Cuisine, but I'm not sure how this tuna reflects the cooking of South Carolina. In fact, as Osteen writes in his headnote: "This recipe is a variation on an old Sicilian preparation. . . "

On the side: Osteen's grilled portobellos. Delicious, delicious, delicious, and I don't love mushrooms. But, again, how is this a Charleston dish? 

And finally: fresh fennel and rice, which calls for a half cup of Pernod. As Osteen writes: "These are relatively unusual flavors for rice in the Low Country. . ."

No kidding.

Charleston Cuisine: Watch Out, Subway

From Louis Osteen's preface to his (grainy and severe) cornbread recipe:

"I cut the hot cornbread into wedges, slice them in half so there's a top and a bottom, slather the inside of each half with lots of butter, layer paper-thin slices of sweet onion over the bottom half, and replace the top. I then have food for which there is no equal on earth."

I doubt it! (I mean, think about it.) But that description is almost enough to make me want to run to the kitchen and make myself cornbread-and-onion sandwich.

Charleston Cuisine: Six People, Two Veal Chops

Six people, two veal chops. That wasn't the plan, but then Stella came over, and then Juliet. So there were six of us and the two little oven-roasted veal chops. And yet somehow, we ended up with leftovers.

Here's how: 

1. I made cornbread. Louis Osteen's recipe in Charleston Cuisine is the roughest, grainiest cornbread I have ever tasted. No flour or sweetener to soften the effect. It was the kind of austere cornbread you imagine some poor guy in overalls taking in his lunch pail to eat in the cotton field with a chunk of salt pork. It was the kind of cornbread you wrap in a bandana and carry for sustenance as you escape to the North. 

2. I brought out the honey. You know, cornbread and honey.  Stella was so enraptured that she did not want her pathetic scrap of meat, though I gave it to her anyway.

3. Juliet doesn't eat baby animals. Actually, she has two rules: no baby animals, and no liver. 

4. The veal chops just weren't that great. 

What was definitely great was the green bean and potato salad, an Alice Watersy dish, the leftovers of which I am looking forward to having for lunch.

Sadly, the Pawley's Island Pie -- chocolate chips, walnuts, eggs, butter and sugar all baked in a crust -- was kind of mediocre. How could this be? We had high hopes, but it turned out soupy and too sweet, though, like the cornbread, it went over big with kids, who ate giant bowls of it.

So, in the end, I only needed two veal chops. In fact, I could have made do with one.

Charleston Cuisine: Muffy and Esau

So very homely. So very homey. So very much what Roseanne might have trundled of the oven for Dan.

That's Muffy's meat loaf deluxe from Charleston Cuisine by Louis Osteen. The recipe looked affordable and easy -- one of the few such recipes in the book --  and so it was. Except the instructions were a disaster. Osteen tells you to put the meat mixture (beef, pork, cottage cheese, onions, eggs, breadcrumbs, chili sauce) in an 8 x 4 inch loaf pan. It didn't come close to fitting.  He also tells you to bake for one hour, but it took more like two. 

I made the necessary adjustments and it was fine. Nothing special. If you're looking for a truly amazing meat loaf try the Judd (as in Wynonna) family recipe from Ronni Lundy's Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes & Honest Fried Chicken. Or Paul Prudhomme's Cajun meat loaf, the recipe for which you can find right here. Can't decide which is better, but both are better than Muffy's.

On the side: Esau's winter greens (good) and mashed potatoes with sun dried tomatoes. Not enough sun-dried tomatoes to repulse my easily repulsed children, and therefore not enough to excite easily excited me. Not noticeably better or different than plain mashed potatoes.

I'd give the first meal from Louis Osteen's Charleston Cuisine a solid, uninspiring B-. 

Hoping for more from tonight's veal chops.

Charleston Cuisine: Sticker Shock

That only looks like a photograph of two little veal chops. 

Actually, it's a photograph of $25.98. 

I haven't eaten a lot of veal in my life, and I now I realize why. Initially the plan was to buy four chops, but I just couldn't do it -- when I saw the final dollar figure on the digital scale, I had to ask them to put two of them back. The whole experience basically ruined my day. Plus, the butcher was kind of mean about it all. 

Which is the first problem with Louis Osteen's Charleston Cuisine: holy s*** it's expensive! He's all about veal, New York strip steaks, crab cakes, fresh tuna, and squab. All these lavish "fat of the land" recipes. I forgot how much I resent fancy chef books. Should be an entertaining week.

Arabesque: Earnest Summation

We had friends over -- he's for McCain, she's for Obama, don't know how that possibly works but they seem happy and we successfully avoided the topic for the entire meal which was a small/ENORMOUS miracle -- and finished the Arabesque experiment last night. 

The highlight: Turkish layered cheese pie, a crispy-soft-salty-cheesy fillo dish, unbearably delicious, which I cut into diamonds and served as an appetizer. Followed by tagine, about which I have nothing new to say so will say nothing.

I made 52 recipes out of Arabesque over the last month.

Worth the Price of the Book: 6

Great: 7

Good: 26

So-So: 10

Flat-out bad: 3

A terrific cookbook, but I have a gripe.

Claudia Roden first became famous for her encyclopedic 1968 Book of Middle Eastern Food, which was reissued a few years ago. A few minutes of cross-referencing reveals that a lot of my favorite recipes from Arabesque previously appeared in that first book. The lamb tagine with dates, gum mastic ice cream, chickpeas with turmeric, spicy shrimp, harira. Granted there are new recipes and some minor revisions of old ones -- but enough to justify buying Arabesque if you already have the Book of Middle Eastern Food?

Short answer: No. 

Quick Update

Tomorrow night  I'm going to pull out Claudia Roden's Arabesque for one last cinnamony, eggplanty dinner. 

I was going to "do" an Italian cookbook next, reflecting the wishes expressed in Isabel's poll. But after a minor altercation the other night, decided that Mark should choose the next book. And so he has. No, it's not Great Recipes of the NFL.

Mark's pick: Charleston Cuisine by Louis Osteen. I've studied some of the recipes, examined Osteen's photograph ("jolly"), and will be fasting today in preparation for this new chapter.

Arabesque: Ouzi

Oh God, that picture is enough to make me consider vegetarianism, but it was the best I could do with everyone sitting there waiting for me to get done with the photography so we could start dinner.

The name of the dish is ouzi. Here's Claudia Roden in her Arabesque headnote: "A central part of every grand Arab feast is lamb -- shoulder or leg -- cooked a la cuillere (to such a tenderness that you can eat it with a spoon) accompanied by rice with ground meat and nuts."

This ouzi was not spoonable, though I have made such a roast before and it was indeed fit for a sheikh. This was firm and slightly dry, very nice with some of the pan sauce. My father ate fourths while teasing me about politics. 

On the side, I served beets with yogurt (B) and zucchini with vinegar, mint, and garlic (A-). 

The kids ate the lamb and nothing else. But as of yesterday afternoon, I'm down with that. I will serve dinner, and encourage them to try it and love it, but if they don't -- hey, I'm copacetic. It's the Bread and Jam for Frances approach, and it worked for the badgers, so maybe it will work for us. 

Arabesque: Lesbian Food

Lesbian food. That's what Mark calls everything I've cooked out of Arabesque, whether or not it's even LEBANESE.

Totally bugs me. 

I need a new family or I need a new cookbook. Probably both, but one is easier to replace than the other so I guess these are the death throes of Arabesque.

I'm in a terrible mood.

I made another Claudia Roden/Middle Eastern dinner last night:

-Moroccan chickpeas

-Eggplant pilaf

-Cucumber and yogurt salad

-Sauteed escarole with caramelized onions. 

Nothing spicy, nothing gross (unless you count eggplant and leafy greens, which you shouldn't), nothing smelly, nothing visceral.

Owen sits down and lets out a wail. He pokes at the microscopic pile of chickpeas I have placed on his plate.

 

Owen: Chickpeas? You made chickpeas? You know I don't like chickpeas.

Tipsy Baker: You just have to taste one chickpea. Just one. (This is how low my standards have sunk. I, who was forced as a child to eat everything from liver to frozen peas.)

 

Owen: What?? Chickpeas are bitter. You know I hate chickpeas.

Tipsy Baker: Why are you staring at me, Mark?

Mark waves to the array of food I have placed on the table with a thin smile.

Mark: You've set up some pretty harsh tests, here.

Tipsy Baker: What are you talking about? I asked him to eat a single chickpea.

Mark: I mean, this is challenging food.  I object to that stuff in the rice.

I'm not sure how I maintained my famous madonna-like composure. I'm sure the second goblet of wine helped. 

I know Mark would rather be dining on PastaRoni, upon which he subsisted before we married. And he has often said he wishes that food came in a pill. I can see that for a man of simple tastes, living with my cooking style might be a monumental drag. And I guess I should appreciate his patience, tolerance, sense of humor, willingness to eat Lesbian food when what he really wants is a bag of Fritos, etc. etc. etc. 

Is he a saint, or what?

But I do wish he would restrain  from offering critiques of our meal while Owen is listening, and I wish he would cover me as I fight the battle of the freaking chickpea. And I don't think he should have made Owen toast with jelly as soon as dinner was over.

Anyway, the eggplant pilaf was fabulous, and it was all that "stuff" -- roasted eggplant, pinenuts, currants -- that made it so. Isabel ate a lot of chickpeas, and had seconds of cucumber salad. So that's something.

I'm still in a terrible mood.

Arabesque: Kataifi

That's kataifi, a vermicelli-like pastry I found in the freezer at Haig's grocery, right next to the fillo dough. 

Following Claudia Roden's instructions, we tossed it with a half pound of melted butter, spread half of it in a big cake pan so it resembled a bird's nest. Filled the nest with milk pudding and 

topped with the rest of the kataifi. Baked. Unmolded. Drenched with a syrup flavored with orange flower water. 

Basically, that's the m.o. with all these Middle Eastern dessert: you sweeten after baking. I like. I like too much. And this one, a recipe from Claudia Roden's mother, was my favorite. 

Sometimes those nutty baklava-like pastries are too sweet, and the fillo gets soggy, like damp paper towel. But this was creamy -- the pudding absorbs the syrup better than nuts -- and the kataifi stayed crispy, like shredded wheat before you add milk. But, well obviously, better.

Banana Muffins

Got up early to make muffins (Bread Bible recipe) using overripe bananas I had put in the freezer, of which I have approximately a dozen, some of them several years old. 

(Probably more than you needed to know.)

I took one bite and realized that I had forgotten to add the sugar. The muffins tasted like bananas and baking powder.

Mark liked them and didn't even notice. Isabel thought they were "a little weird." And Owen said, "These muffins are too sugary!"

A discerning crowd, my family.

Arabesque: Less Steak, More Beans

Those are the last pistachios I'm going to buy for a while. Extravagant!

Lean times coming to our house. I'll leave it at that. Yesterday I considered brushing the mold off the pita bread and serving it. I also considered using some rancid walnuts instead of opening a fresh pack.

Didn't. But that's where we're at, and I think it's going to get a lot worse, no matter who is elected. (In case you were wondering, the Baker is voting for Barack Hussein Obama. This terrorist food is so doggone good!)

Meanwhile, I bought new pita and opened a fresh pack of walnuts and here's what I made, all of it out of Claudia Roden's Arabesque:

Chicken Fattet. You poach chicken, remove meat from bones, and pour the chicken and some of its broth over a bed of toasted pita, bake, and top with mint-spiked yogurt. Kids wiped off the yogurt, refused to touch the pita, liked the chicken. Resembled last night's fabulous chickpea dish, but not as delicious. And more expensive. And harder.

Muhamarra: Walnuts, pomegranate molasses, and moist bread pureed to a paste and spiced. Serve on a plate as a "salad." It tastes wonderful but there's something disgusting about the texture. Something .  .  . masticated.

 

Eggplant with Pomegranate Molasses. Roasted eggplant coarsely chopped and tossed in a sweet-tart dressing. Not great.

Pistachio cake. See photograph. A souffle-type pastry -- nubbly and green -- over which you pour rose water/sugar syrup. Damp and sweet and lovely and reviled by children.

Tonight: Leftovers.

Tomorrow: Stone soup.

Arabesque: Chickpeas & Zucchini Pancakes

That was one of the strangest, most fantastic things I've ever made: Chickpeas with Toasted Bread and Yogurt (Fattet Hummus Bi Laban) from Claudia Roden's Arabesque. 

You cook chickpeas until tender and toast some pita. Mix yogurt with tahini and fry a handful of pine nuts. Then spread the pita on the bottom of a dish, pour over the hot chickpeas along with some of their liquid, and top with the yogurt and pine nuts. 

I was struggling to describe this myself, but I'll quote Roden: It "may sound heavy but it is surprisingly light and delicate in the eating, and the mix of textures, temperatures, and flavors is a joy."

Beautifully put. An incredible dish. 

Also: easy.

On the side we had zucchini pancakes. My mother used to make zucchini pancakes that were just egg and shredded zucchini, and after we got over being fooled by the word "pancake" my sister and I turned against them. 

It would be hard to turn against Roden's messy, delicious zucchini pancakes because of all the mashed feta cheese and herbs (dill and mint) which, to quote Roden again, "lift what is an otherwise bland vegetable."

Having said that, I'm not sure my children even tried them, but I am trying to avoid screaming fights and dinner table power struggles. So I let it go.

For dessert: Milk Ice Cream with Gum Mastic and Rose Water.

Here's Roden's headnote: "A brilliant white milk ice cream with a chewy texture made with sahlab, the ground-up root tuber of  a member of the orchid family, is very difficult to make successfully at home, so here is a modern version that I also love. It is without sahlab, so not chewy, but the traditional flavoring of mastic and rose water give it a special appeal."

I saw gum mastic at the Spanish Table the other day, bought a little jar to make this ice cream. I was hoping for something exotic, rosy, and maybe just a tiny bit chewy. This wasn't it. This was a "brilliant white," superrich ice cream with no discernible flavor of rose or gum mastic (whatever that tastes like.) And it was wonderful.

I still wish it had been chewy, but for that I may have to go to Beirut.

Whimsical Bakehouse: An Earnest Summation

This is what "Fling" looks two days later. Not even half eaten, picked at, melting, sagging, altogether depressing. 

Three pounds fatter and rather frustrated, I'm ending the Whimsical Bakehouse interlude. But before I do my breakdown of the recipes, a few words of appreciation.

It's a fun book to flip through, as the cakes are colorful, playful, unpretentious. The introduction by Meredith Vieira -- who randomly wandered into Liv and Kaye Hansen's Ardsley, New York bakery to buy a princess cake for her daughter -- is sweetly gushing: "You'll know you're there by the tinkle of the bell, the wave of warmth, and Kaye's smile. . ."

Okay, it's a little much, but sometimes nice is nice.

The tone of the book is encouraging and relaxed, as opposed to, say, Rose Levy Berenbaum's unforgiving Cake Bible, which implies you need a PhD to bake a butter cake.

 

Having said all this, Whimsical Bakehouse isn't precise enough for the amateur. I've detailed those lapses in my posts, and they're reflected below in my assessment of the "recipes" for finished cakes. 

On the other hand, almost all the recipes for the components of said cakes (chocolate glaze excepted) are excellent. 

Over the last week I made 9 recipes from the Whimsical Bakehouse:

Worth the Price of the Book: 1

Great: 1

Good: 4

So-so: 1

Flat-out bad: 2

A solid, middle-of the road performance.

I'm going to finish up Arabesque this week. Isabel has posted a poll on the right side of the page, so if you have an opinion, please vote.

Whimsical Bakehouse: Fling

Yesterday was all about "Fling," and as you can see, I didn't have an easy time of it.

The most elegant cake in the Whimsical Bakehouse, "Fling" -- at least as it appears in the book -- is a glossy chocolate-glazed beauty festooned with flat, colorful discs of chocolate. 

I started by baking three layers of chocolate chip pound cake (worked fine) and making the whipped chocolate ganache for filling.

Just about every cookbook contains at least one jewel of a recipe, and whipped chocolate ganache may be the crowning achievement of Whimsical authors Liv and Kaye Hansen. Essentially, you melt chocolate, then add cream. Freeze. Whip. Spread the fluffy, delicious ganache on your cake.

Miraculous. 

Then I tackled the chocolate glaze. Complete disaster. I've made many chocolate glazes, usually the easiest of icings, but this one behaved like oil, slipping off the cake rather than sheeting and adhering smoothly, a problem for which the Hansens offered no solutions. I muddled through, patching chocolate wherever I could, but never managed to cover every raggedy surface of cake.

Finally, I melted the wafer chocolate for the decorative disks and piped circles on a sheet of parchment, something the Hansens make sound straightforward. And so it was, though I ended up not with delicate, flat disks but lumps. 

My sloppy "Fling" does not appear related to the Hansens' "Fling," which is an extraordinarily pretty cake. If you ever get hold of a copy of Whimsical Bakehouse, check out page 56. The dots on their cake look like bubbles, or party balloons, floating across a matte chocolate sky.

Fortunately, no one seemed to care how my "Fling" looked. It was a tall, powerfully rich cake -- not my thing at all, but extremely popular with children.

Whimsical Bakehouse: Lemon Ginger Cream Cheese Cake

Pretty, but a cop-out.

Yes, definitely a cop-out. The Whimsical Bakehouse is all about gaudy, lavishly decorated cakes (which is why Owen chose it) and I am cherry-picking the easy ones that you don't even need to frost. 

I guess I should change that, but I find cake decorating stressful and maddening! You can't fix your mistakes, you can't fake it, you can't add a little more cumin and make everything all better. You're just left there with your pathetic, lopsided creation that resembles a 5-year-old's pottery project.

Which is why I play it safe and stick to boring recipes, like lemon ginger cream cheese cake. Very moist and richly flavored -- with lemon zest, lemon juice, powdered ginger and chopped crystallized ginger. Here's what authors, Kay and Liv Hansen have to say: "The combination of lemon and ginger makes this cake a great choice for any summer party. . . you will get rave reviews."

I like that Hansen energy!

Were my reviews raves?

Isabel : Good, except when you bite into a piece of "that candied ginger stuff."

Owen: Lemony. Really "stuffing." (?)

Mark: Why did you have to put in those ginger pieces?

Not quite raves, but respectable. I think the gist of the criticisms is: Let lemon cake be lemon cake, don't try to smarten it up with all that elite, "Georgetown cocktail party" ginger stuff.

I do need to tackle a more ambitious Whimsical project next. Maybe "Fling" or "Ode to Jackson Pollock."

Whimsical Bakehouse: Cupcakes

"Why are you so negative about this cake book?" Isabel asked me earlier. I felt her tone was a little pissy.

"I'm not," I said.

"Yes, you are." Definitely pissy.

She's right. I'm negative about this cake book. Not sure why, but I have some theories that I'm still working out and will share in the fullness of time.

So, I made Whimsical Bakehouse vanilla cupcakes for Owen's class birthday party. He wanted them glazed in chocolate and decorated with these adorable homemade chocolate bumblebees, as they appear in the book.

I actually purchased the special chocolate and candy dye to make the bees, but discovered I lacked the will to execute the project. I foresaw hours of finicky work, much frustration, and eventual failure. Valuable time I could spend compulsively monitoring the election.

Instead, I slapped on some buttercream and sent the cupcakes off to school. Isabel and her cousin Edie ate the leftovers.

Whimsical Bakehouse: Crazy Swirls

The agony this ugly cake caused me.

Meet "Crazy Swirls," baked and decorated according to the instructions in Liv and Kaye Hansen's The Whimsical Bakehouse, a lively, chatty volume that I bought when I was preparing to bake my sister's wedding cake a few years ago.

I ultimately decided the Whimsical aesthetic -- bright, clangorous color combinations -- wasn't one I embraced. But I kept the book on the shelf anyway, and Owen recently chose it as "his" cookbook. Now I have to make some effort to work from it for a few days.

For the joint birthday party of Owen and his cousin Stella, I made my first Whimsical creation:

1. I baked a walnut caramel cake -- three rather delicious layers of toast-brown butter cake.

2. Made the coffee mousse filling.

3. Broke the extremely friable cake while stacking and filling with coffee mousse. Sad, but fixable.

4. Whipped the egg whites for Kaye's buttercream and "boiled" the sugar syrup for 7 minutes per the instructions. The sugar caramelized. I poured it into the egg whites nonetheless. Hot, brown soup, sloshing around in the mixer. A minute later I poured it all down the drain.

5. I whipped more egg whites for Kaye's buttercream and this time SIMMERED the sugar syrup for 7 minutes. The sugar didn't caramelize. I poured it into the egg whites. Hot white soup sloshing around in the mixer.  A minute later I poured it all down the drain.

6. See #5, but this time instead of soup, I got glossy, sweet, snow-white meringue to which I added a pound and a half of butter in tiny clumps. Beat for ten minutes. If you've never made meringue buttercream, it's a silky miracle. When it works.

7. Crumb coated the cake.

8. Divided the buttercream into five different bowls, and colored each with a different hue on the yellow-orange-pink spectrum, per the instructions.

9. Put blobs of frosting all over the cake.

10. Chilled the cake.

11. With a warm spatula, scraped off the lumpy ridges of buttercream to yield a moderately smooth, piebald orange-pink cake. 

12. Decorated with white buttercream squiggles. Voila, Crazy Swirls.

Took to Justine's house, adorned with candles, cut, ate, sent leftovers home with Checka who proclaimed it her "dream" mocha cake.

Mocha cake?

So far, achieving whimsy has been exhausting, expensive, and fattening.

Whimsical Bakehouse: An Interlude

I am taking a short break from Arabesque for reasons I will explain. 

A while back I decided that my family members (a.k.a. prisoners) should have a say in choosing the cookbooks from which I cook our meals. Big of me, don't you think? Isabel started us off with the Cuisine of California, and now it's Owen's turn. 

It was his birthday this week and he chose The Whimsical Bakehouse cake book. I tried to convince him to change his mind, as this is basically a book of elaborately decorated, garishly colored party cakes.

He declined. 

Fair is fair and I will give it my best shot, though cake decorating is not my forte.

I asked Owen to explain his choice:

Tipsy Baker: Why this book?

Owen: Because I like desserts and cakes and stuff and sweet things.

Tipsy Baker: But I have a lot of dessert books. Why this one?

Owen: Because it has a lot of pretty designs and it's a challenge and you've been doing this a long time and I thought you should get on to something more fancy.

Tipsy Baker: Anything in particular you want me to make?

Owen: The spotted cake. And "Summer Nights," and "Sunflower."

Tipsy Baker: What was your favorite book we've cooked from so far?

Owen: The Alaska cookbook. Because we went to Alaska and I thought it was amazing. And I kind of liked -- what was it called -- oh yeah, the baked Alaska.

Tipsy Baker: What is your favorite thing to eat?

Owen: Lamb steak.

Ed. note: Lamb steak? What the hell is lamb steak?

Arabesque: The Falling Down Drunk Baker

Actually, I didn't fall down, but I did fail to make a photographic record of the Middle Eastern banquet -- all cooked from Claudia Roden's Arabesque -- that I served at our first Office party. You can see it sloppily arrayed on the table there, but when I checked my camera this afternoon, I discovered, to my horror, that in my merry inebriation I took no decent pictures of: 

-hummus (delicious, the usual)

-baba ghanouj (delicious, the usual) 

-stuffed grape leaves (more delicious than the Trader Joe's usual. Not difficult to make.)

-Moroccan potato and olive salad (EXTRA delicious, unusual)

-bstilla (delicious -- but called for chicken thighs which I can barely look at, let alone eat.)

-Lebanese rose pancakes (EXTRA delicious! Very unusual. These are tiny yeasted pastries that you dip in orange water syrup then top with creme fraiche and rose petal jam. I ate fifty of these. Sadly, not an exaggeration.)

I did manage to photograph the guests, dressed up as characters from The Office. In the photo above, from left to right, we have Dwight, Angela, Toby, Kelly, and Michael. I was a middle-aged Pam. We ate a lot and watched the first episode of Season Five.

Then I staggered to bed, woke up at 4 a.m., and wanted to die.

Arabesque: Sorry Mom!

I just had to get that off my chest. I grew a little overheated in our final conversation last night, which happens when I hear the words S**** P**** and have drunk a couple of glasses of wine. Sorry, sorry, sorry! I am actually considering suspending my blog until we've solved this presidential election crisis. 

Kidding.

Otherwise, the evening was swell. We made my two favorite dishes from Arabesque thus far:

-Lamb Tagine with Dates and Almonds. The first time I read this recipe I knew I was going to love it: Rich, tender meat stewed with sticky dates and topped with crunchy fried almonds, all of it bound together with a honey-flavored sauce. Claudia Roden suggests omitting the traditional honey, as she thinks it makes the tagine too sweet, but I went for the full measure and did not regret it. This tagine is not just the best dish I've made from Arabesque, but one of the best I've made since starting Tipsy Baker, right up there with Niloufer Ichaporia King's cardamom cake. 

-Almond Pastries in Honey Syrup. Honey and almonds again, in a very different format. This was a baklava-style sweet, but instead of building up several dozen layers of nuts, butter and filo you roll your lovely nut filling -- which is flavored with orange flower water -- into a long filo tube, bake, slice, and drench in syrup. Not tricky at all, and wonderful.

 

Unfortunately, I was so distracted by our political argument that I forgot to send my mother home with any leftovers. Something else I'm sorry about.

Arabesque: Harira

"I'm actually glad I didn't go out to dinner with Juliet tonight because instead of missing something really gross I would have missed this," said Isabel, serving herself a second bowl of harira, the classic Moroccan Ramadan soup that contains (among other things) beef marrow, chopped meat, chickpeas, lentils, tomatoes, saffron, ginger, flour (!), and orzo.

I think that was a compliment. 

Arabesque: Lebanese Pizzas & Turkish Shampoo

A quickie this morning because, because, because. . . 

Those are Lebanese lamb pizzas, which looked ravishing in the photograph in Claudia Roden's Arabesque. Prepared and shot by me, they look a little untidy, but still kind of appetizing, no?

And so they were, though I'll not rush to make them again. My children were very unenthusiastic.

On the side, I made Roden's roasted red pepper, tomato, and apple salad, a Moroccan dish that sounded so strange I had to try it. It was actually not strange at all and very tasty, one of those cooked, relishy salads you might eat with pita bread.

And for dessert: Turkish rose water rice pudding. 

This was INTENSELY rosy, which according to Arab folklore will give you an INTENSELY rosy outlook on life. So that's something in its favor. Mark said this pudding tasted like "delicious shampoo," and though I generally love milky, aromatic desserts, I had to agree. 

Arabesque: Prawns & Fattoush

Isabel and Owen are slowly warming to shrimp. I think Isabel ate two of Claudia Roden's Prawns with Garlic and Coriander. 

I think she picked one piece of toasted pita out of the fattoush, which was a giant Lebanese salad of lettuce, purslane, tomato, cucumber, green pepper etc. etc. tossed with a sumac dressing. 

I think she ate a single grain of the raisin-and-pine nut pilaf, left over from the other night. 

I don't believe Owen ate anything at all. I'm a little tense these days, so I'm picking my battles. I let this one go.

After dinner we settled in on our new couch to watch four episodes in a row of The Office. We're trying to catch up with season 4 so we'll be ready for season 5 which premieres on Thursday. I know. I'm an awful parent rotting their brains this way instead of reading them Dickens by candlelight. But it's really fun.

In the first episode we screened, the dorky central character, played by Steve Carell, takes a job as a telemarketer and works alongside an Indian man who brings in a Tupperware full of golden rice pilaf for dinner in his cubicle.

Abruptly, Owen jumped up and said, "That really makes me want to eat the rice stuff you gave me tonight. Do we have any left?"

Tipsy Baker: "It's in the refrigerator, it's cold, and you have to get it yourself."

Owen raced off and prepared himself a bowl of cold Turkish pilaf, which he ate avidly. Then he got another. Then he told me he wanted me to serve pilaf again tomorrow. 

Suggestible boy. I think he has a future as an eater if I play it just right.

Arabesque: Chicken Soup for the Soul Sick?

Financial meltdown, that pitbull in lipstick, job anxiety.  .  .

Interesting times, these. And yes, I feel cursed.

I never read any of those Chicken Soup for the Soul books back when they were popular, and honestly, the Turkish chicken soup (official name: Barley Soup with Yogurt) I made last night did nothing for my soul. 

"This Anatolian peasant soup with the delicate flavor of mint and saffron is magnificent," Claudia Roden writes in one of her typically seductive Arabesque headnotes. 

Not quite magnificent, but tasty and very easy. You simmer the carcass of a roast chicken in water for an hour, strain off the stock, pick off any meat clinging to the bones, then add to a pot of sauteed onions with some barley and saffron. Cook gently for half an hour "until the barley is swollen and tender" (did she crib that from a Judith Krantz novel?) then add lots of chopped fresh mint and two cups of whole-milk yogurt.

I know the Greeks and the Turks hate each other, but I thought this hearty, tangy soup tasted a lot like Greek avgolemono. (If you ever need a recipe for avgolemono check out Diane Kochilas' outstanding Food and Wine of Greece -- or email me.)

Sadly, though, whether you call it avgolemono or yorgutlu corbasi or pho or Campbell's, chicken soup will never cure what's ailing the Tipsy Baker.

Arabesque: Turkish Delight

Night #2 of the Claudia Roden/Arabesque experience.

Prepared the Turkish roast chicken with pine nut and raisin pilaf. The chicken was, as always, chicken. But the pilaf was kind of exciting -- spicy, buttery, fluffy, profoundly delicious. I also made a lemony Moroccan pear-and-leaf salad (cute name) and tried to distract myself from pilaf by eating lots of salad. Didn't entirely work.

Dessert: milk-and-almond pudding which you make by gently simmering milk with sugar, ground almonds, and rice flour until it thickens into a delicate, ivory-colored porridge. Pour into pretty dishes and chill. Garnish with pistachios.

I am aware that many people do not share my ardor for this type of sweet, which tastes like a divine perfumed Junket. If you're a lover of molten chocolate cake, tiramisu, or brownies, you might want to skip the milk puddings. But if you like dainty, aromatic desserts, you will taste Roden's milk pudding and wish you'd been raised in Istanbul.

Arabesque: I Hope You Like Eggplant

The world is falling apart, but the Tipsy Baker will not blink. She will keep cooking. And when her bank fails and she loses her job and her country goes to war with Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and Spain all at once, she will not blink. She will keep cooking. She may not sleep, but she will never, ever blink. 

Last night I started a new book, the (so far) very alluring Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey & Lebanon by the legendary Claudia Roden. It's a handsome volume, despite a handful of unflattering lamb shank shots. We'll be eating a lot of lamb for the next couple of weeks. Also, dates, orange flower water, and eggplant. 

I launched our tour with a Moroccan dinner. The centerpiece was a plate of "deliciously aromatic" kefta kebabs, which are meant to be skewered and grilled over coals on the streets of Marrakech, but can also be formed into burgers and sauteed on a stove in the California suburbs. (Roden is relaxed about these adjustments, which I appreciate.) The kebabs are basically beef patties flavored with cinnamon, ginger, and bounteous chopped herbs, primarily mint, and they were a big hit with a 7-year-old American boy. Tolerated by an 11-year-old girl. Adults: very pleased.

On the side: the excellent, unfortunately named mashed eggplant-and-tomato salad (see above), which was untouched by children, much loved by everyone else.

Dessert: Fruit Salad with Honey and Orange Blossom Water. Good, but not as good as it sounds.

I have two small gripes with this book so far:

 

1. Roden goes on at length about the centrality of bread in these cultures, but offers no recipes. 

2. I absolutely HATE it when authors like Roden don't specify quantities of salt in ground meat recipes. With most foods -- stews, stir-fries, sauces -- you can taste as you go. But you can't "salt to taste" a meatball or kefta kebab before its cooked (unless you're crazy), nor can you effectively add salt once it's started cooking.

Fortunately, I have run into this problem before and have figured out my own ratio: A teaspoon or slightly more of salt per pound of ground meat. 

But I resent having to use it!

Alice Waters: The Earnest Assessment

Judged strictly on the deliciousness of the recipes, this is by far the best book I've cooked from since I started Tipsy Baker. 

When I began the Alice Waters project I had planned to cook from all of her books, and so I did. But the title I ended up gravitating to was The Art of Simple Food. It's the only book from her oeuvre that is truly geared toward the home cook. Instead of pigeons, beef cheeks, and purslane, the recipes call for ingredients -- eggs, chicken, spinach -- that anyone can find in the local grocery story. You don't need a mandoline, propane torch or wood-burning oven. You don't need a sous chef.

The writing is tone-deaf. You won't stay up nights reading this book for its wit or graceful prose. But if you are looking for straightforward, excellent recipes (try the cream biscuits, the cornbread, the apple tart, the Caesar salad, the Bolognese sauce, the meatballs, the steamed sole. . .) you will never be disappointed.

 I mean that quite literally: Never.

Based on the forty recipes I tried, here's my breakdown:

Worth the Price of the Book: 10 (!!!)

Great: 15

Good: 12

So-So: 3

Flat-out bad: 0

Pretty amazing if you compare it to some of my past experiments. And pretty amazing given that I started this project with a major grudge against Alice Waters.

Tomorrow: Arabesque by Claudia Roden. 

Alice Waters: Pickled Watermelon Rind

Pickled watermelon rind. A longstanding goal of mine. Achieved.

If you grew up reading Laura Ingalls Wilder you might understand how this concept wormed its way into my consciousness. Pickled watermelon rind appeared in every description of big farmhouse suppers, alongside the ham, fried chicken and gravy, biscuits, roasted venison, hot fried donuts, and dried apple pie with pitchers of fresh cream.

To make this preserve according to the recipe in Alice Waters' Fruit, you peel off the watermelon's green skin, pare away the pink flesh, and are left with the crunchy white layer in between. You cut this into small squares, soak in brine overnight, then cook in a sweet-tart syrup with some lemon rind and spices. Jar.

 It's quite lovely to look at, very tasty, and definitely exotic.

 

Alice Waters: Spaghetti, Meatballs & Goodbye

Amazing dinner. Amazing pasta night! Spectacular finale to the hugely successful Alice Waters experiment. She may speak in a breathy, babyish voice and prefer to address only to her elite friends, but her recipes really work, damn it.

Justine and Stella joined the usual Wednesday night crew to make Waters' spaghetti and meatballs (Simple Food) with some focaccia (Simple Food) on the side, just in case we didn't get enough carbs. 

The pasta was, as usual, tender and lovely. The meatballs: fluffy and flavorful. The focaccia, well, it was tasty enough, but I'm loyal to my old Jack Bishop recipe so this is one I'll probably not bake again.

Dessert: A staggeringly delicious and buttery free-form apple tart (Simple Food)  with leftover clove ice cream (Chez Panisse Desserts.)

I know I promised a post about pickled watermelon rind, and it's coming. We opened a jar and nibbled at it while making our pasta tonight. But I failed to take a striking picture when there was natural light and the stuff is GORGEOUS. It deserves the star treatment. So, I'll post about this excellent preserve -- and offer my earnest summation of the Alice Waters experience --  in a few days when I return from a short business trip.

Alice Waters: Shrimp & Salad

Over the last few days I have been cooking extensively from the Alice Waters oeuvre, but a lot of it has been too undramatic to mention. A really terrific creamy cucumber salad. A pretty good braised duck. Another fine angel food cake. And so on.

 

But as this is my penultimate Alice Waters night, I feel compelled to issue a report. Once again Alice, my onetime nemesis, gets. . . and A+. Her sauteed shrimp and garlic (Simple Food) and Caesar Salad (Simple Food) are both astonishingly good. This was a messy meal we ate with our hands, but it was much appreciated by my finicky family. I think Isabel consumed one shrimp and a pound of salad. Owen ate two shrimps, a few Romaine leaves, and several dozen croutons. But no one threw a tantrum or even complained, and everything was delicious. 

What a triumph.

I am frankly astounded by how successful Alice Waters' Simple Food has been at helping me produce relatively popular weeknight meals. More on this later. Meanwhile, must  go help Isabel frost her Alice Waters chocolate cupcakes.

Tomorrow: Homemade spaghetti with meatballs and an apple tart.  Bonus: Pickled watermelon rind. 

And then we kiss Alice good-bye and move on to warmer climes where we will begin experimenting with filo dough, rosewater, and gum mastic.

Alice Waters: Zzzzz

No matter how you feel about eating beets, they're kind of pretty. Though my blotchy photograph and half-assed food-styling doesn't really do them justice.

That's a walnut beet salad out of the Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook. Nice, but nothing to get excited about. Served it last night with plain poached salmon (Simple Food) and fried peppers and capers (Simple Food.) 

Dessert was a possibly too-tart rhubarb crisp (Desserts) topped with a monumentally wonderful, ivory colored, faintly exotic clove ice cream (Desserts). I don't know why I waste my time making fruit sherbets when ice cream is so much better.

Except, of course I know. 

I'm beginning to bore even myself with elegant, understated Alice Waters-style food. I will try to shake it up a little over the next five days of organic baby lettuce and homemade mayonnaise. And then. . . . ?

Alice Waters: Lasagne & More Sarah

A staticky radio broadcast of the Republican Convention accompanied the preparation and consumption of Alice Waters' tomato and cheese lasagne (Pasta, Pizza, Calzone) and cherry sherbet (Desserts) on Wednesday night. 

Our evening, condensed:

Checka: Do we have to listen to that noise?

Tipsy Baker: Yes.

Dita: I would like some ice in my wine, if you don't mind.

Tipsy Baker: I can't BELIEVE she just said that. No, not you Dita, I was talking about Sarah Palin.

Checka: How's middle school, Isabel?

Isabel: Fine.

Checka: Do you have any new friends?

Isabel: Not really.

Checka: Any interesting classes?

Isabel: I don't know.

Tipsy Baker: Did you HEAR that?

Checka: This lasagne is heaven!

Isabel: It's too cheesy.

Tipsy Baker: It's not worth making fresh pasta when you put it in lasagne.

Checka: Oh, I disagree. These noodles are very delicate.

Owen: Can't we turn off that noise?

Tipsy Baker: Be quiet, I'm listening.

Dita: I like McCain.

Tipsy Baker: What's wrong with being a community organizer?

Isabel: I don't want any sherbet. I don't like cherries.

Tipsy Baker: I'm tired of sherbet, too.

Isabel: All these Alice Waters desserts are fruit based.

Tipsy Baker: Aren't most people terrified of pit bulls?

Checka: You're really obsessed. I think we need to leave.

Tipsy Baker: What did you say?

Alice Waters: Cornbread & Ratatouille

Struggle though it is to wrest my attention from Sarah Palin, I did manage to focus on Alice Waters long enough to make dinner last night.

Cornbread 

Ratatouille

Pan-fried pork chops

The cornbread was ravaged by many possum-like hands before I even put the rest of the meal to the table. For the last decade I've only baked sweet, cakey cornbread from an excellent recipe given to me by Mark's grandmother. I was sure no one would like Waters' cornbread (Simple Food) which calls for almost no sugar. I was wrong.

Predictably, the ratatouille (Simple Food) was less popular, though it was pretty fantastic. Ratatouille is a miracle dish, so much more than the sum of its off-putting eggplant/zucchini parts, managing to taste oily and rich without actually being oily and rich. How does that WORK? 

Pork chops (Simple Food) were the skinny kind. Tasty and easy. Nothing more to add.

I think I overstated my growing fondness for Waters in my last post. Saturday, when I caught her underwhelming Slow Food panel performance, I was in a semi-traumatized, any-liberal-port-in-a-storm state over the prospect of Vice President Palin. Over the weekend, I was convinced that I was watching a horror movie. Now I'm wondering if it won't turn out to be a comedy.

Only time will tell. Meanwhile, I'm going to try not to let the unfolding political drama affect my judgment on important matters, like Alice Waters and her cookbooks.