Absense

Nearly 3 months have passed since my last post, and lots has been going on to prevent the posts (not all good!). Our trip to NY was great until the last night, when we hit a deer outside of Ely, Nevada, on the lonliest highway in America (it was). Thanks to Onstar, we finally got some help, but it was a pretty grim 24-hours, which included a trip in a 14-foot U-haul over the remainder of the lonliest highway (7 summits along the way!). We came home to find that my Mom's house had burned down (we got the news in about Ohio), then she had a stroke, and then I broke my arm.

Things improved in late September when we headed east again for Laura's wedding--really wonderful (see her blog, thelittlehouseinthecity.blogspot.com). Now we're looking forward to hosting Laura and Weston for the west coast celebration, along with about 2 dozen family members and close friends. I will get some posts up about the celebration--I promise.

Road Trip!

We're headed east for nearly a month, passing through Wilson, WY, to visit friends, Cleveland Ohio, for a family reunion of Tim's family, and Fort Greene, where we will be staying in Anne's new apartment. I'll try to report any good food we find along the way. We will also visit friends and attend a wedding in Connecticut.

Summer Dinner

Our good friends Diana and Walt Altorfer were in town this weekend, and we enjoyed some relaxed summer meals with them--breakfast, lunch and dinner. One night we had grilled lamb shoulder (from Mr. Bledsoe) with summer squash from the garden, farro pilaf and green salad (with lots of cherry tomatoes from our vines). The next night my mom, brother and friend joined us for tri-tip from the meat lab, more squash (along with some eggplant), new potatoes and a greek salad (tossed). Diana took this picture.

A Very Good Cake Recipe with Fruit

One of my all-time favorite easy dessert recipes was given to me by Darrell Lund, Darien’s superintendent of schools, when I was serving on the school board. “A Very Good Cake Recipe with Fruit” is one of the easiest cake recipes imaginable. The most time-consuming part is pushing the fruit into the batter. This makes a quick and easy dessert for guests, and the cake is delicious. These are Darrell’s instructions:

Here is a simple but very good cake recipe in which you can use virtually any kind or combination of fresh fruit.
3/4 cup sugar
8 tbsp. butter or substitute
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs or equivalent (eggbeaters, etc.)
1/4 cup mixed sugar and cinnamon (I use a crystallized brown sugar for added texture)

1. Butter a 9" spring form pan
2. Cream butter and sugar
3. Add flour, baking powder, salt and eggs and process thoroughly
4. Spread dough in spring form pan
5. Add fruit
6. Sprinkle with mixture of sugar and cinnamon
7. Bake in 350 degree oven for 60 minutes (I place cake in lower shelf of oven)

Be very generous in your use of fruit. Press them into dough (which is quite soft). Fresh raspberries are particularly good, as are blueberries. You really can use virtually any fruit, including those from cans or jars when not available fresh. It tastes lightest and best when eaten about 30-45 minutes out of the oven.

Lemon Verbena Ice Cream
I have lots of lemon verbena right now, so I decided it would be good in ice cream, paired with the cake. It was unusual, delicious, and the perfect accompaniment for Darrell’s cake.

Ingredients
1 cup loosely-packed fresh lemon verbena leaves, rinsed & dried
1/2 cup milk
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
pinch of salt
6 large egg yolks
optional: a dried leaf of lemon verbana, to crumble in the just-churned ice cream, or a very-finely chopped fresh leaf

1. In a saucepan, warm the lemon verbena leaves with the milk, cream, sugar, and a pinch of salt. Once warm, remove from heat, cover, and let steep for one hour.

2. Use a strainer or slotted spoon to skim the lemon verbena from the cream & milk mixture and squeeze the leaves to extract as much liquid as possible back into the saucepan.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs together in a small bowl and slowly pour in the warm cream mix, whisking constantly. Pour the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan and cook, stirring continuously with a heatproof spatula, until the custard leaves a trail on the spatula when you drag your finger across it. Immediately strain the custard into a bowl. Stir until cool.

4. Chill thoroughly, and then freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. When done, crumble a dried verbena leaf in the ice cream, or finely-chop a fresh leaf and stir that in.

Summer Salads and Salsa

Black Bean & Pepper Salad
Since I was only making salad for two (with lots of leftovers for lunch the following week), I only cooked ½ pound of black beans, which I seasoned only with salt when cooking. If I do this for the wedding, I’ll add the various seasonings the recipe suggests: thyme, oregano, chopped onion and bay leaf. Canned beans also work with this recipe, and two 16-ounce cans are about right for the ingredients below. The timing for the beans may vary; check after about an hour. They should be tender but still hold their shape. Drain completely. It’s best to put the vinaigrette on the drained beans while they are still warm and add the vegetables just before serving for the best color. Taste the finished salad and add additional salt, hot pepper, or vinegar, as needed.

Vinaigrette (combine all ingredients in a small jar or blender; this is enough for a whole pound of beans)
1 Tb. lemon (or orange) juice, plus zest from ½ lemon (or orange)
1 Tb. Sherry wine vinegar
½ tsp salt
½ tsp crushed cumin seeds
½ tsp crushed coriander
¼ tsp paprika
4-5 Tb. olive oil
1½ Tb. chopped cilantro
1½ Tb. chopped mint
½ -1 finely chopped Serrano or jalapeno pepper
1-2 finely chopped garlic cloves

Vegetables (for a pound of beans)
1 small red onion, chopped (or you could use 3-4 scallions)
½ cup each of green, yellow, and red peppers, cut into small squares (or somewhat more)
1 stalk of celery, cut into small squares
Additional cilantro for garnish

Gazpacho Salad
I didn’t have any whole tomatoes, so I cut up grape tomatoes for this. In late summer this dish should be terrific with local tomatoes in the farm stands. This is a layered salad that looks good in a deep glass bowl. The original recipe is from The Vegetarian Epicure, by Anna Thomas. I made about ¼ of this recipe and it was more than enough for two.

Salad ingredients
1 red and 1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
4 fairly firm tomatoes, diced
2 cucumbers, seeded and chopped (best not peeled, so use English or farm stand, not waxed)
1 sweet or red onion, chopped or thinly sliced (soak briefly in cold water if using red)
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Vinaigrette
½ cup olive oil
½ cup good-quality red wine vinegar
2 garlic cloves, finely minced
¼ tsp ground cumin
2-4 Tb. chopped parsley
2 tsp. chopped shallots or green onions

Arrange the vegetables in thin layers, sprinkling salt and pepper as you go. Start with a layer green peppers, and then add tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, red peppers and so on until vegetables are used up. I ended with a layer of peppers on top, but anything is ok. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and chill for several hours.

Yellow Tomato Salsa
Combine the following, and allow the flavors to blend for about an hour. Serve with chips, or with grilled chicken, fish or steak.

2 large diced yellow tomatoes
1 Serrano chile, seeded and finely chopped
1 Tb. lime juice
1 clove finely chopped garlic
1 tsp. sugar
¼ cup diced red onion
1-2 Tb. cilantro
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Wedding Menues

Laura is getting married in September on Shelter Island. She's hoping to have a taco truck (!!!), and if she does, I told her we could manage the rest of the food ourselves. So I've starting trying out fiesta-themed salads, which are also a great addition to whatever we happen to be grilling, now that summer's almost here. Saturday I made a black bean salad from Green's that I've been making for years--still a winner. I also did another "old faithful" from back in the days when I did some catering--gazpacho salad, which combines the ingredients for gazpacho into a layered salad. Again, still good, and a definite possibility. For the steak we were grilling I made a yellow tomato salsa from Barbara Pool Fenzl's Seasonal Southwest Cooking. Barbara was the cooking school teacher last summer when I went to Rancho La Puerta, and her book has some great-sounding appetizers. I'll post the recipes in my next post.

Home Improvements

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, and it's too bad, because we've had some great meals. Green garlic is in at the farmers' market, and I've been putting it in everything. But in the meantime, we've been doing some home improvements, and I thought posting some photos would be a great way to show what we've done. The next post--when it stops raining--will be the outside improvements.

The arms on the slipcover on one of our PB sofas developed big holes, so we had to get new ones, and this time we upgraded the fabric a bit and bought the sage-green ones. I wanted off-white, but since Rosy, our poodle, spends a lot of time on the couch, that seemed like a bad idea. We're thinking about moving our dining room rug, which matches a bit better and would lighten up the room. What do you think?
The biggest change we made was to install plantation shutters on the windows in our living room and dining room (and over my desk near the kitchen). They are a great improvement over the venetian blinds that were here (came with house), and we'd love to do them throughout--but pretty expensive.


These are the new sparrow sheets we bought from Pottery Barn (which unfortunately does not make king size shams). I switched around some lamps and artwork to better match the new colors. The PB sheets are great.

Teitel Brothers

When I’m in New York, I love to shop at Teitel Brothers on Arthur Avenue, but last year I didn’t get up there. Because I was about to run out of dried porchini mushrooms, which I buy there by the pound ($39.00), I decided to see if they did online sales. They do! As I was looking through the offerings, I noticed they were selling bulk salted capers, which several of my newer cookbooks call for. They are $4.49 a pound at Teitel, whereas the small jars I’ve managed to find at Corti Brothers and Taylor’s Market in Sacramento are around $4 for a 2.2 ounce jar. So I bought two pounds, shown in the quart-jar on the left, plus a one-cup jar. (The small jar is in front.) The capers are kind of large, but I can always chop them if I want them smaller.

I also bought a pound of sun-dried tomatoes ($3.99, also sold loose), two cans of Italian tuna, and some risotto rice. The shipping charges were a bit steep ($16.73), but considering how much I would otherwise pay for salted capers or dried porchini mushrooms, the online shopping made sense. If you can get to Arthur Avenue, however, you should make the trip!