Easy Does It

So these past few months has been crazy with work and work travel, so I am first apologizing for being all busy, and for being such a workaholic, my friends, and am instead offering up this Peach Bourbon Ice Cream as a token of my summer love to you all.

My re-entry into normal, civilized life is slowly happening.  I’m rediscovering what it’s like to take an hour to myself to read or think or just be.  I am also trying to worm my way back into my abandoned and forlorn kitchen.  I’ve found that said kitchen is more apt to forgive me if I come bearing gifts like Bell’s Oberon Ale, lemons, fresh lettuces, basil, and ripe peaches from the market.

Speaking of peaches, these days they are heaven-sent.  Piles of them at the market inspired a Sunday ice cream endeavor this past weekend amidst the birthday parties, brunches, and catchings-up with friends.  As always, I turned to David Lebovitz but thought the recipe needed a bit more than the plain old Peaches’n’Cream schtick.  So I used brown sugar and bourbon and voila, I now have Peach Bourbon Ice Cream at my fingertips and it is a lush, dreamy type of thing to have within reach.

Contemplating the power of thunder storms, the kindness of my friends, the support of my family and the dreams of a future seem all so much more lovely when scooped up and savored along with this ice cream.  If you are lucky enough to have an ice cream maker, go ahead and try your hand at this (feel free to omit the bourbon for my less alcohol-friendly readers), with perhaps a generous sprinkle of candied pecans or blackberries on top.  It’s an easy way to reacquaint yourself properly with the summer you might have been missing these past few months, and with friends old and new. 

With A Cherry On Top

I’d like to take a second to talk about pie.

Back in Arizona, we only reserved our pies for Very Special Occasions, like Thanksgiving.  I don’t even think Christmas regularly made the pie-rounds. Seriously.  Only Thanksgiving.  This seems to make sense in a place like the desert where pie, especially fruit pies, is just not that commonplace.  We were no Oregon or Michigan, what with their cherries and black berries and strawberries and blueberries (if you’re sensing jealousy here, you’re on the right track.)

Fastforward to me being an adult.  Or some version of whatever an adult is.  And I. LOVE. PIE.  I love it all the time, here, and there, sitting down, standing up, on a table or in a chair.

I just discovered two weekends ago that our farmers market sells two kinds of cherries. Regular cherries and something called “Pie Cherries.” Excuse moi? Cherries made for pie!? I didn’t even know what to do with myself for a few moments, I was so dumbounded.  As soon as I emerged from my cherrie-reverie (cherr-everie? It's a thing, I promise you), I bought a ginormous box of them and ignored all the naysayers that say pie cherries are too sour to snack on.  Please.  Tart is good and these cherries are bomb (and even more bombastic in this, what may just be the Best. Pie. Ever.)

I think you could probably tell at this point in my Tart Cherry Pie scenario that I had never made a cherry pie.  I can’t recall even trying a homemade cherry pie in the past (instead, they were always of the maraschino-store bought-variety).  This pie was sweet, tart, homey, and incredibly inviting, and while my latticework might need some ..er…work, don’t hold it against the pie.  It was my own goofy hands that forgot to actually weave the lattice crust.  Silly hands.

I  loved having a lazy Sunday morning after an insanely busy June to listen to Radio Lab and pit pounds of cherries.  My table was a mess, my hands were expertly covered  in cherry-juice, yet I was very responsible about this pie and made the crust for the dough the day before (I planned ahead! Who? What!) and then journeyed through the streets of DC and the tunnels of the Metro to Veeb’s house for her Sunday Ice Cream Social Birthday Extravaganza.  And then said (still warm) pie was literally gone in 7 minutes. 

In short, it was a damn good Tart Cherry Pie. (The splash of bourbon I added only made things even more fantastic, I might add).  Cherry up, folks, before the summer gets too long gone.

Like A Child

There’s something deliciously comforting in re-creating treats from your childhood.  It’s better than a flashback; it’s more like a rediscovery of memories, of delights, of possibility.  For just a few seconds you glimpse your dreams from long ago, and instead of looking at them with that horrible adult eye of logistics and reasoning and numbers, you simply delight in your hopes.  You dream far and wide and look forward with excitement rather than planning and worry.  While gobbling up something familiar yet new, it’s better than before because it’s slightly more sophisticated, maybe a bit healthier, and it actually seems possible to move forward through your adult days with that restored wisdom of childhood.  

At least, all of that seems possible after a batch of Strawberry Rhubarb Poptarts. 

I got strawberries and rhubarb from the market.  Again, Kim Boyce’s rustic rye tarts went out the window and I instead scrambled to find a recipe for poptarts.  My favorite kind growing up were the brown sugar variety… the strawberry ones seemed too fake and chemically flavored to entice me enough to toast them  up before school.  Yet here I stand, Strawberry (with rhubarb! At least!) poptart in hand and damn if I’m not a little bit in love.

I couldn’t find an ideal recipe, no matter how I tried. So, I smooshed a couple together and got something pretty wonderful. For the dough I went off Smitten Kitchen’s poptart guide, though I used all-purpose, whole wheat, and rye flours (which I have completely fallen in love with, by the by. So creamy! So dreamy! Oh, rye.) I also couldn’t find a strawberry rhubarb jam that seemed just right…so, inspired as I was by a baked rhubarb/strawberry dish in this month’s Bon Appetit, I turned it into a jam instead (also, it has bourbon. Ahem.)

From one of my favorite movies, "Stranger Than Fiction."  This is when Will Ferrell brings Maggie Gyllenhaal "flours."  I'm officially on my way to multi-flour Gyllenhaal glory.

I will say that a measure of a dish's success is based almost exclusively on how fast it disappears.  Since I brought the poptarts to my dear friend Lina's housewarming party, (also known as L-Diddy, also known as my Indian Sister...and congrats again on the new marriage and house, Chris and Lina!) where I had several strangers come up to me to rave about poptarts with loud thank you’s and hugs, so I’d say that it was a success.  These little guys are  suitable for both special occasions and everyday breakfasting, but maybe not your toaster because these puppies are oven-toasted, thankyouverymuch.

Chin up, adults.  Have a poptart and remember what you were like as a kid.  Start that dreaming again, no logistics allowed, and let’s get ready for an epic summer, shall we?   

Let's Have A Toast

I had a big plan to make some of Kim Boyce's rye-crust tarts with a strawberry rhubarb compote this weekend, but sometimes things just don't turn out the way you plan.

Instead, they turn out better.

Faced with half an hour to make a summery dessert I grabbed my ice cream maker, a lemon, the strawberries I'd intended for the tart, and...wait for it...champagne.  Opa!  Summer time!  Let's raise a glass, shall we?

Usually when I make a pint of sorbet or ice cream it lasts us for..a week, at least.  But this pint lasted...between three people... twenty minutes.  Actually, less than that, but who's counting?  I'm fortunate enough to have snagged a quick photo or I might have assumed I'd have dreamed the whole thing up.  Summer is here!  I can feel it in the air, and I captured this pic to prove I had in my hands, too, for a few minutes at least.

Strawberries, lemons, mint, champagne.  Could it get any better?  I think not.  Especially when this goodness is mushed about, frozen, and still tickles your mouth with the last bit of bubbly that makes champagne so extravagantly lovely and fun.   Friends, I have brought you summer, just in time, but now you can cheers with your spoons rather than glasses; besides, drinking champagne now seems so last season.  Let's dig into this Strawberry Lemon Champagne Sorbet with spoons instead.

Cheers, summer of 2012.  Cheers indeed.

Wild Things Cake

After these past few weeks in DC (besides a quick, glitter-filled, sunny stint in Vegas), I'm almost convinced that I unknowingly picked up and moved myself to the upper Northwest.  One day it's heavy rains and gray clouds, and the next is a breezy, crisp, sunny (not to mention perfect) day. 

I repeat.  Weather is so weird!  DC weather is the weirdest!

But these perfect peeks at the sun are absolutely the best.  Picnics, bike rides, farmers markets and more, all without the gross humidity and ungodly amounts of sweating.  It truly is a springly miracle and I don't mind a week of rain if I get sun for the weekend. 

I'm actually needing a bit of sunshine right now.  One of my favorite children's book authors, Maurice Sendak, passed away this week and I just feel a bit...afloat.  I didn't know him , but I felt like I did, and his drawings and stories were one of the strongest anchors of my childhood.  One of my favorite books, Where The Wild Things Are was a lovely, fantastical, imaginative story, and, I'm trusting, a reflection of the type of man he was as well.

I think I speak for all my fellow Wild Things friends by saying: "Oh, please don't go--we'll eat you up--we love you so!" 

I'd like to think that he might have enjoyed sharing a slice of this French Lemon Yogurt Cake with me, and we could talk about the importance of children's literature, general adventuring, wild rumpus-ing, dreams, and the various whatnots of our lives.

Or maybe you could enjoy some French Lemon Yogurt Cake with the people who inspire you in your life too.  This cake isn't very hard at all, and is actually perfect for picnics and your own adventuring, (with your favorite Wild Things, who always love a good cake, of course).

"Then from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat, so he gave up being king of the wild things."

Crunch Time

It seems like every week that passes I’m more and more convinced (and surprised) by my crazy need for the crunch.

Since I was a kid I always put potato chips in my sandwiches or crispy fries in my burger (Hello! They needed that little extra somethin-somethin.)  My mom loved (and still loves) to call me out that I "just crunch too dang loud" when I eat chips.  Har har, Mom.   .... but seriously, I'm sure I do.  Call me crunchy, call me granola, but at least I have something to back it up: my ever-present, super-necessary, crunch factor.

I came across this recipe a few weeks ago in an Ayurvedic cookbook called Eat, Taste, Heal which has been fascinating on all levels, not the least of which are some pretty stellar cooking recommendations, such as these Spicy Crunchy Chickpeas. 

Weird? Maybe.  Crunch factor? Yes.  Awesome? Heck yes!

The thing is, these are as spicy as you want them to be, and include ingredients you should hopefully already have in your cupboard.  I mixed together what I had on hand:  turmeric, coriander, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper, curry powder, cinnamon, garam masala, cumin, smoked paprika… then just cracked open a can of garbanzo beans, rinsed them, threw on a few tablespoons of my muy awesome spice mixture, and was done. 

After tossing the Spicy Crunchy Chickpeas onto the cooking tray and popping them into a low-heat oven for about 45 minutes I suddenly I had a pretty healthy (and tasty!) crunchy snack that was not a chip (I'm sorry chips, I will always love you, but sometimes I need something that's actually good for me).

These are great for munchies before dinner parties or get-togethers, and make for most-excellent travel snacks.  Also, this is budget-friendly (extra score).   So many positives, no negatives!  I love things like this: simple, crunchy, and ready before you know it.  Thanks ancient Ayurvedic wisdom!

How To Be A Baller

I’m pretty sure that everyone loves a good meatball. Except, of course, those who don’t eat meat which is quite a conundrum, but for those of you who are fish-friendly, Jamie Oliver has proven once again that he is a badass and a baller (and I've proven that my puns get worse with age).  Let me introduce to you Fish Meatballs or as the Italians like to say "Le Migliori Polpette di Tonno." Que sexy sounding, no?

Oliver (or can I call him Jamie? At this point, after so many recipes I’ve tried of his, I feel like we should be on a first-name basis) has pretty specific instructions in Jamie’s Italy to use Swordfish or Tuna (fresh, uncanned). However, sometimes a girl needs to think on her feet when her local Harris Teeter doesn’t seem to have any of those varieties, and instead I chose a steak-like Mahi Mahi, combined with a can of tuna, and the next thing I knew I had a bubbling pot of meat(fish)balls that was loved by all. Another amazing thing about these meatballs is that they have pine nuts (!) and cinnamon (!!) along with parsley and oregano and truly...I was in swoon-mode. So was everyone else at the Oscars viewing party I brought them to, where we had dishes like mine that I’d nicknamed “Moneyball Meatballs”, “Girl with the Dragon Rat-TATOO-ouille,” and “My Week With Marilyn Martini.” Aren't my creative friends super awesome?  I think so.

These meat(fish)balls weren’t difficult but meatballs are of the more labor-intensive variety of food to make anyway…but you can’t blame them, it’s just in their nature what with the sauce-making, the fish-cooking, the ball-rolling, the pan-frying and such. But the effort put into these meat(fish)balls are worth the work, I promise. Even more than having meatballs on top of spaghetti, I’d prefer mine in a crusty/toasty loaf of bread, with-- who knows?--maybe some arugula tossed in and I’d call it a damn good day.

Here’s a sweet little throwback for you guys: let’s all remember our favorite meatball song from childhood:

On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.


It rolled off the table,
And on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out of the door…

...and I forget the rest, but that comes with age too.  In conclusion, enjoy Jamie's Amaze-Balls Meat(fish)balls!