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What Happened to April
Sorry guys. I’ve been missing this place.
I went home for a baby shower. Joe and I made a little mix cd to give as a tiny thank you to all the amazing women who gave us gifts, many of them obviously handcrafted with love. It was supposed to be Springy, and Agreeable, so that even my grandmothers would like it. You can listen to it too, right here. (the mix I lined-up to play right after our mix is really good too–French and sexy.)
Want a close-up of that little painting Joe made for the cd cover? I know I do:
My only selfish request for the shower brunch was that there be cinnamon rolls. My mom makes the recipe that was copied off of Cinnabon, as in the all rights reserved Cinnabon, the one you hope is in the airport so you can sneak off and get a small box of chewy frosted dough.
Is there anything quite like seeing a dozen adults queue up to buy themselves cinnamon rolls?
a sample gift:
What else?
I made this easy quinoa tabbouleh and thought about how healthy and worthy I was, eating quinoa and even pronouncing it properly under my breath. (instead of “keen-wa,” there used to be days when I said “qui-noAH.” Whatever. The point is, it has a lot of amino acids.)
I watched the first episode of “Dresscue Me.” You can download it, free, from iTunes. Joe was almost too stressed out by the estrogen-energy to watch; which I say as a warning before you get the whole family in front of the television.
I read a bunch of great books. The last three on that list were particularly fun to read. If you need a little great writing in your life, a little reminder of how immediately enticing a story can be, get The Imperfectionists from the library. I almost read it twice, just to make it last longer.
Don’t forget about this almond pastry Easter recipe I wrote about last year.
Just because I wasn’t around here doesn’t mean I wasn’t reading your lovely blog posts, and funny tweets, missing your thoughtful company, and clicking your delightful links. I was.
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Cake Walks
I spent some time advocating that we have a cake walk at our wedding in place of handing out plates of cake. Though I rarely encounter them outside of small Midwestern fairs, I love the idea of cake walks. Have you ever played one? Basically they are bingo + musical chairs + winning homemade cakes. You usually exchange a fair ticket for a chance to go around a circle a couple of times, hoping they call the number that you step on when they stop the music.
We couldn’t figure out how to swing it in the fancy hotel reception (and ended up having delicious tiramisu anyway) but this album cover just reminded me.
Yummy. The album cover was designed by Studio Aad for an album put together by Irish artists to raise money for Oxfam.
I first saw it on the How Blog.
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Radish Snack
MAV posted a lovely little how-to for eating radishes with butter and salt. I associate this snack with summer, when their crunchy cool heat is more refreshing, but radishes are in stores these days too and their red is so cheerful.
ps: Don’t forget to cut off the greens as soon as you get them home. The greens are water hogs (dehydrators), and grocery stores just leave them on to prove how fresh the vegetables are.
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Mint Tea
Before the riots, I’d read about Tunisia because of tiny Tunisian restaurant on a side street in Cambridge. Every time I go to this restaurant I accidentally walk past it because the sign is so demure and the windows have beads hanging over them, so you think for sure they are closed and your heart sinks. But it’s just a ruse–they are open! I found Baraka Cafe because of a forest green guidebook that I bought when I first moved to Boston. This guidebook had an uncanny knack for recommending restaurants that I liked. Compared to Yelp, it was almost prophetic in its ability to actually predict how I would feel once in the restaurant, which is all one really wants to get out of a good restaurant review.
Anyway, I love going to Baraka because of the woven bench seats, the swinging beads in the door, trying to read the specials that have been scrawled in cursive, their oniony zaatar coco, the tiny space between you and your neighbors, but most of all because of their mint tea. The tea comes in a silver tea pot with small gold etched glasses to pour it in, and it is so dark, minty, and deeply sweet that I want to pick up the tea pot and hide it from my companions for the rest of the meal. But then I remember that we can just order another pot if we run out, and I try to relax.
It has always seemed to me that it would impossible to duplicate their mint tea, because it’s made in their shadowy kitchen, and I have a red tea pot, not a silver one, and surely there are secret ingredients, like mint leaves they only grow in the window boxes of Morocco. But that did not keep me from trying when I saw the mint tea recipe in the New York Times Cookbook.
The recipe calls for loose Ceylon tea, which sounded terrifyingly specialized enough to get me to take the T to the Indian market in Central Square. Once there, I realized Ceylon was actually just black tea. But I was glad I ended up at this market because you also need two bunches of mint, and they sold mint bunches superfluously, for $1.50 each, like it was totally normal to use loads of mint for one afternoon’s drink. So I got my mint bunches and my enormous container of loose black tea and some naan because they had that for pretty cheap too and I am sick of dry old pita.
So all you do is put the mint, tea, and sugar in a pot to boil, and then leave it to steep, and then hope you have something with which to filter it. I did not, so I used the lid of the pot to keep the leaves out, and then tried to get most of the loose tea out with a strainer.
I also didn’t have a container big enough to hold all the hot tea, so I used a bowl. Looking at this picture, you might get the feeling that this recipe was right on the money, just by how you can see your future swirling into the cooling dark water. And it was. Make this when friends are coming over, so you can drink it all right away.
Jennifer’s Moroccan Tea
from page 33 of the New York Times Cookbook
10 cups water2 tablespoons loose Ceylon (black) tea
2 large bunches mint
3/4 cup sugar
Combine everything in a large saucepan or teapot. Bring to a boil, them remove from heat and let steep for 5 minutes.
Strain the tea, however possible. And serve! I also saved some in the fridge and drank it cold through the next couple of days. Never quite as delicious as the first hot serving though.
Originally printed in “Home is Where the Party Is,” a wonderful article to read if you feel like fantasizing about Moroccan food.
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A Clear Hot Soup
Mussels are one of those things that you should feel proud when cooking. I always begin my mussel projects feeling very satisfied that I have brought these glossy black creatures home and will fearlessly make something of them. You can’t say me at 21 and me now are the same person, I have advanced this far.
Though there is nothing better than steaming them with wine, shallots, garlic, butter, parsley (…whatever else) and eating them with bread, this soup jumped into my mind the other day. I hadn’t made it for a year, but I remembered its description and title “a clear hot soup” and because it was cloudy and cold, it sounded delicious. If you are living in similar atmospheric conditions, it might appeal to you as well. It only has a few ingredients, so you will need something else to fill you up for dinner. Personally I’m not good at planning complete meals, so I made this, and then around 9pm Joe and I circled back for a second dinner. I’ve included more extensive mussel cooking directions at the bottom, if this is your first time.
A Clear Hot Mussel Soup
created by Nigel Slater, printed in The Kitchen Diaries, a lovely book
Serves 2-3 or more as an appetizer
a 2-lb bag of Mussels (this the typical grocery store size)*
3 cups Chicken or vegetable stock
a small hot red chili pepper (I could only find a jalapeno)
the juice of 2 limes
a little salt and sugar
a handful of cilantro leaves
Steam the mussels with a little bit of water in a heavy pot, with a lid, over high heat. After a few minutes, most of them will open wide. Pull those out while the others have a chance to cook. If a few at the end don’t open, throw them away.
In a separate pan, bring the stock to a boil. Cut up the pepper, get rid of the seeds, and chop up the rest of it. Add the pepper, the lime juice and a pinch of sugar and salt to the stock. Turn the heat down to a simmer.
Pull the mussels out of their shells (I use my fingers, don’t worry if they try to stick to the shells and look like sad little creatures) and add them to the soup. Add a little of the mussel water from their pan. Once you’ve ladled it into bowls, dash cilantro on top of both.
*When you buy the mussels, they give you a plastic bag to take them home in. Keep the bag open so they can breath all the way home. I keep them on ice in a bowl in the fridge, sometimes with a damp towel on top. They can keep that way for a day or two. I scrub them under cold water before putting them in the pan, throwing away any that have opened already. If they’ve opened a little bit, squeeze them and they might close again. If they don’t close, leave them for dead. Sometimes a little hairy bit called a “beard” will peep out of the shell. Pull the beard as far away from the shell as you can, hold it taut, and cut it away with a knife.
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The ol’ One-Two Cranberry Punch
Is it unfair that I have waited until the day before Thanksgiving to casually mention to you the one recipe that could actually transform your day tomorrow? Unjust, that just when you were settling in with a whiskey sour in one hand, and three books in the other that I suggest you go back to the grocery store and find these five ingredients? Perhaps.
I recently read that NPR effectively reaches a much greater audience than FOX News. A delightful fact to share at your next cocktail party, and when I heard that I thought of this recipe and wondered how many people have Pepto-Bismoled their family’s holiday with this pink mash. I doubled the recipe and it still took me only ten minutes to put together. Here it is frozen, as it will stay tonight, but tomorrow it will slowly defrost until there are just icy shards mixed in with the bits of fresh cranberries, specks of horseradish and onion, all deliciously creamed together with sour cream and sugar. Wow!
Here’s the recipe, copied directly from the pages of NPR (I make both of the recipes on that linked page—the other one is for fans of vinegary-ginger-garlic cranberry delights).
- 2 cups whole raw cranberries, washed
- 1 small onion
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons horseradish from a jar (“red is a bit milder than white”)
Instructions
Grind the raw berries and onion together; I use a food processor for this, and you have to be careful to keep it choppy, not pureed. The cranberry and onions should be in sliver form.
Add everything else and mix.
Put in a plastic container and freeze.
Early Thanksgiving morning, move it from freezer to refrigerator compartment to thaw. (“It should still have some little icy slivers left.”)
The relish will be thick, creamy and shocking pink.
Makes 1 1/2 pints. I double it because people literally heap it onto 1/4 of their plate, and it’s a must on day-after sandwiches.
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Crumbs on the Counter
On the roadtrip, amongst dozens of delicious meals, I got positively sick of eating out. I longed for a full loaf of bread on the counter, a large wedge of orange cheese in the fridge, a gallon of orange juice, a toaster, a cupboard of simple soup possibilities, a bag of corn tortillas waiting to be tossed on the stovetop, a can of refried beans. The warm pictures of handcrafted meals that 3191 miles apart often fills their pages with are not, as I have been sometimes suspicious, glorified Martha Stewart-esque “perfect home” moments, but just a captured second of the delight we can create in our meager kitchens. Meager yet mighty kitchens. The magical satisfaction you can create with an avocado, a jar of mayonnaise, a pepper grinder, and a few slices of bread cannot be overstated. Or how about a slice of pumpkin bread–perhaps the world’s easiest bread recipe–slathered with peanut butter? Unstoppable.
I was recently puzzling over the treats that Winter promises us–Fall brings cider, apples, doughnuts, cute jackets that aren’t really warm, garlicky cranberry relishes–and wondering what they were. Early evenings? Extensive Netflix queue revamping? A higher percentage of red wine receipts? More balling and fuzzing of the sweaters? Maybe it’s that brisk and icy encouragement to stay inside for the evening and rummage through the tea bag selections, put in a good 45 minutes of vegetables chopping all for the sake of a murky stew, puzzle over a tricky pizza dough recipe, or find ways to live off a homemade loaf of bread for a few days.
Both photos from the lovely aforementioned 3191 Miles Apart.
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Brioche & Cheese
At Jeffrey’s Grocery in New York City, I ordered a brioche roll with butter and manchego cheese and it was delicious. I had to make a little note to myself so I wouldn’t forget what an easy classy snack to make. A Continuous Lean has a good collection of photos of Jeffrey’s; they were the ones that inspired us to visit.
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Sandwiches Lately
Peanut butter & eight banana slices.
Egg & lots of Old Bay.
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October Sunday
On Saturday night Joe and I were casually doing research about how to spend our Sunday afternoon when we learned Sunday was the absolute last day we could pick our own apples. Urgent message. As we all know, Midwestern and Easterners agree that if you didn’t pick your own autumn apples you might as well not live here at all. A colonial dame you are not.
On the other hand, as a young couple we have never really partaken in that other autumnal thing: pumpkins.
At the orchard: a chicken royale.
Russell Orchards really knows how to work their barn aesthetic.
Discovered Edible Boston‘s new issue. So pretty. They use matte paper and lots of colors which just feels classy. I would like to write an article for them someday.
What should I make with all these apples? Why does our hunter-gather instinct kick in so much that we have to restrain ourselves from racing to pick dozen of apples when most recipes request around four apples? How about cheddar and apple scones from the smitten kitten? I mean kitchen. Kitchen.
