More Family Food Fad Fines

I had the wonderful opportunity to sit and talk about family recipes with Gommie's older sister, Aunt Quilt, inspired by my recent reading of Fashionable Food.  Here are some of the recipes I photographed, more for posterity than for reading off the blog (I have copies of the originals):

Red Velvet Cake--I think this is Bammie's recipe (Gommie and Aunt Quilt's mother) in Gommie's writing

"The Green Stuff"--A favorite in Aunt Quilt's family

Turtle Cake

Carrot Cake, the one Aunt Quilt made for Gommie's 60th, I believe

Part 2 of Carrot Cake

The famed cheesecake of Mrs. Korm

THE custard pie recipe Aunt Quilt uses, this time chocolate.  She made Coconut Custard for Gommie's birthday,  just omit cocoa and add 2 handfuls of coconut to the custard and then sprinkle more on top of the meringue (which is just 3 whites and 6 T sugar whipped)

Mmmm, I remember buttery-pepper Pasca Manale's shrimp from childhood.

I think I remember sour cream shrimp, too.

We did Bana Caulda at Aunt Quilt's house at least once.  You simmer the above in  an electric skillet then  cook beef, shrimp, fish, and vegetables in it.

Not the family's Shrimp Remoulade but one from the local department store.

Aunt Quilt is a great baker.  Here, Sally Lunn bread.

And biscuits.

Hmmm, I didn't know there was more than cheese in cheese grits.

Watergate Salad--with Cool Whip AND mini-marshmallows!

Aunt Quilt really likes this Milk Chocolate Bar Cake.

These are from Gommie's dessert recipe files, to supplement the ones from Aunt Quilt.  On the second day of our visit, Gommie had found her great-grandmother Grammy's recipes, stashed in a 1915 cookbook put out by a baking soda company, but I totally forgot to copy those before I left.  :(  Next time.  Here are ones I did remember to copy on the last day we were in Texas.

My own typed Coca Cola cake recipe

Bammie's Christmas Lizzies

Bammie's lemon pie, apparent in Gommie's dad's handwriting

A famous "Peach Pie-Cake" recipe

A recipe card Gommie typed for her "hope chest," from Bammie's recipes

They say this is a great Poppy Seed Cake.

Grandma Hungry's sister-in-law's lemon chess pie!

Lemon Chess Pie part 2

"Sister's pralines," meaning those of Grandma Hungry's sister Blythe

Terrible name, apparently good cake--with baby food!

Gommie likes these, too!

Handwritten version, by Gommie, of Mrs. Korm's famous Cheese Cake.

Bammie's Divinity

Bammie's "Red Cake," aka Red Velvet Cake

Bammie's recipe

I think these are Great-Grandmother Hungry's Forgotten Cookies.

Great-Grandmother Hungry's Date Pinwheels

Cont.

The custard pie again.

Part 2

Family Food Fads

Mama brought me home a wonderful book from the library, Fashionable Food:  Seven Decades of Food Fads by Sylvia Lovegren.  It traces the food crazes from the 1920s to the 1990s and thus charts America's always-odd relationship to food.

You know how Michael Pollan says something akin to "eat what your grandmother would recognize as food?"  Well, I think I might have to go back further, because my grandmother started cooking in the 1920s and 1930s and, after reading this book cover to cover in just two days, I can spot the trends.  It's fascinating to know that her Tomato Aspic (yes, she made it and she I even tried it once as a tween; ick.), my dad's fondness for canned pear halves filled with cottage cheese (and sometimes wasn't there cheddar on there, too?) on a bed of lettuce as well as for canned asparagus, the family devotion to yams with marshmallows on top at Thanksgiving, and open-faced bacon, onion,cheddar, and pickle sandwiches browned in the oven come from this era?  From Gommie's mom, in the 1940s, comes Eggs a la Goldenrod and chocolate chip cookies.  Later, from the 1950s, there would be Spam cooked with brown sugar, canned baked beans mixed with bacon and bell pepper and brown sugar, shish kebabs, and Chex mix, called "trash" in my family.  There were even examples of foreign food fads, with hamburger chow mein and spaghetti with sauce from a jar, way back when Chinese and Italian were foreign.  As Gommie learned to cook as a newlywed and then a mom in the 1960s and 1970s, we get pot roast with the ubiquitous Lipton's onion soup mix (one of my all-time favorites), green bean casserole, chili con carne, Swiss steak, grasshopper pie, pumpkin bread, California dip (said onion soup mix in sour cream), rum or Tipsy balls, Tang tea, and lemon bars.  I was floored that I knew so many of the dishes from home on a regular basis and could recognize the rest from friends or one-time experiences, like nut-covered cheese balls, Jell-o Poke cake, chiffon pies, chocolate truffles, those creamy marshmallow-fruit cocktail salads, three-bean salad, and several others.

The recipes for many of the above are a bonus to all of the history (and many of the recipes are included just for edification, sounding awful), from the effects of Prohibition on fine dining (ruined it and the American palate) to the struggles of cooking under the ration system during WWII, which was then followed by the excesses of meat and alcohol in the 1950s.  A side narrative involves the influence of refrigeration and the obsession with chilled or frozen dishes.  And throughout most of the decades there was, according to Lovegrean, a huge separation between food for women and food for men, most clearly delineated by ladies luncheons and the tearooms of the 20s and 30s and the barbecues of the 50s.

What's also fascinating about the book is the continuity of sweet, creamy/gooey, and processed food (oh, the love of mini-marshmallows, Miracle Whip, Cool Whip, creamed condensed canned soup, and canned fruits and vegetables) from the 20s all the way to the present--oftentimes all mixed together!  What doesn't continue is the focus on homecooked food.  Intriguingly, Lovegren focuses on the homecook until the 1980s when all the foods and fads she discusses are clearly restaurant-based, with Alice Waters and California Cuisine, Wolfgang Puck, Paul Prudhomme, etc etc etc.  Even the recipes she includes in this part are beyond the pantry and skills of many regular homecooks.

I wonder, if she could add the last few decades, what she would write?  What were the trends of the 00s and now the teens?  She'd have to write about the rise in gluten-free and other allergen-free diets, the anti-carbs diets, the Paleo diet, and all the vegetarians and vegans.  Also, there would need to be something about the influence of the Food Network, internet food sites, the demise of Gourmet, and even Pinterest.

And yet still I make for my kids some of those dishes my mom made for us from her mom and my dad's mom.  Only, I don't use dried onion soup mix anymore.  Just real onions.


Next up:  The History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell, which is much less likely to be familiar, as it starts with ancient Egyptian bread, Viking dried fish, and Roman cheesecakes!

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Note:  These are all taken from my family recipe archives and are not from the book!

Milk Toast or Eggs a la Goldenrod

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon flour

milk

hard boiled egg

toast

            Brown flour in melted butter, until thick paste.  Add milk slowly, forming white sauce.  Pour over toast, grate egg, add salt and pepper to taste.

                                                                                                                       

Gommie Hungry

Mom's Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 ½ cup sifted flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup shortening

¾ cup brown sugar (firmly packed)

¾ cup granulated sugar

2 eggs (Eggbeaters also work)

1 teaspoon hot water

1 cup nuts

2 cups oatmeal (quick or regular; uncooked—old fashioned regular are best)

1 teaspoon vanilla

14 oz. chocolate chips

            Cream shortening until soft.  Add sugars gradually, cream until light and fluffy.  Add eggs (1 at a time), beating after each.  Add vanilla and hot water.  Sift in dry ingredients.  Add nuts, oatmeal, and chocolate chips.  Bake at 375°F for 8 minutes. 

                                                                       

Bammie (Gommie's mom)

Spam

¼ cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon vinegar

¼ teaspoon mustard

liquid from spam or 2 drops of water.

            Pour mixture over spam.  Bake at 350°F for 20 minutes.

                                                                                                                        Gommie Hungry

Baked Beans

4 slices bacon

½ cup chopped onion

2-1 lb. can Pork and Beans

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon mustard

1 teaspoon ketchup

chopped bell pepper

            Cook bacon until crip, drain and crumble.  In 2 tablespoons of drippings cook onion and bell pepper unil tender but not brown.  Add with bacon to beans and other, mixing well.  Put in 1 ½ quart casserole dish.  Bake uncovered at 350°F for 20-45 minutes.

                                                                                                                       Gommie Hungry

Trash 

1 box Crispex (2+ quarts)

2 quarts stick pretzels

2 quarts Cheerios

4 tablespoons Worcestershire

1-2 teaspoons garlic powder

1-2 teaspoons onion powder

            Spray with Pam.  Microwave 8-10 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes.

Gommie Hungry

Pot Roast

3 lb. roast (chuck, pot, shoulder)

1 package dry onion soup mix

2 cups water

6 potatoes, peeled, cut in 1” cubes

1 onion, cut 1” squares

1 package carrots, peeled and sliced

1 green pepper, cut 1” squares

            Place roast in pan with soup mix and water.  Cover with foil; bake 350°F for 2 hours.  Add potatoes, onion, carrots, and pepper.  Cover with foil and continue to bake until tender (45 minutes).

Gommie Hungry

 Hamburger Chow Mein

1 lb. ground beef

1 chopped onion

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 cup diced celery

1  1/2 cup water

1 small can sliced water chestnuts, drained

14 oz. bean sprouts, drained

4 1/2 oz. sliced mushrooms

1-2 tablespoons soy sauce

3 tablespoons cornstarch in 3 tablespoons water

            Brown beef with onion, add salt, pepper, celery and water.  Bring to boil.  Cover and simmer 15 minutes.  Add remaining vegetables, heat until hot.  Combine cornstarch and water; add to mixture.  Cook until slightly thickened, stirring constantly.  Serve over hot cooked rice or chow mein noodles.

Gommie Hungry

Green Bean Casserole

2-16 oz. cans whole green beans, drained (can also use frozen)

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

½ cup milk

Dash pepper

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1-2.8 oz. can of French-Fried Onions

            Combine soup, milk, soy sauce and pepper.  Stir in green beans and ½ can of onions.  Bake at 350°F for 25 minutes or until hot; stir.  Top with remaining onions.  Bake 5 minutes.

                                                                                                                       

Gommie Hungry

Swiss Steak

1 pound beef round steak, cut ¾ inch thick

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 tablespoon cooking oil

1-16 oz. can tomatoes, cut up

1 small onion, sliced and separated into rings

½ cup sliced celery

½ cup sliced carrot

½ teaspoon dried thyme, crushed

            Cut meat into 4 serving-size pieces.  Trim fat.  Combine the flour, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper.  Coat pieces with flour mixture.  In a large skillet brown meat on both sides in hot oil.  Drain fat.

            Add undrained tomatoes, onion, celery, carrot, and thyme.  Cover and cook over low heat about 11/4 hours or til meat is tender.  Skim fat.  Serve with hot rice or noodles. 

Gommie Hungry via Better Homes and Gardens

Pumpkin Bread

Makes 2 loaves

3 cups sugar

3 ½ cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons each nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon

4 eggs

2 cups fresh or canned cooked pumpkin

1 cup oil

½ cup water plus ½ cup apricot or peach brandy (or another ½ cup water)

1 cup each chopped pecans and raisins (optional)

            Preheat oven to 325°F.  Combine sugar, flour, soda, salt, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon in large electric mixer bowl.  Mix eggs pumpkin, oil, water (or brandy) and combine with dry ingredients; beat until well mixed.  Fold in pecans and raisins.  Bake in large greased Bundt pan until cake tests done, about 1 hours and 30-45 minutes.

                       

Gommie Hungry

Tipsy Balls

Makes 100 balls

small 12-oz. box vanilla wafers (3 cups)

4 jiggers whiskey

3 tablespoons karo syrup

1 cup powdered sugar, dissolved (?)

2 cups chopped nuts (fine)

            Mix, roll in balls, coat in powdered sugar. 

Pop's mom

                                                                                              

Crème de Menthe or Grasshopper Pie

Just a note—Crème de Menthe gets much stronger with age! 

2 cups whipping cream

7 oz. marshmallow cream

¼ cup crème de menthe (or to taste)

            Whip cream and then add crème de menthe.  Then add marshmallow cream.

Pour into crust.  Freeze.  Remove from freezer 20 minutes before serving.

Crust

1 stick melted oleo

24 chocolate cookies (1 ½ cups crumbs)

            Combine and form to pie plate, chilling for 1 hour before filling.

Gommie Hungry

Tang Tea aka Russian Spice Tea

1 cup instant tea

1 cup lemonade

1 cup Tang

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

            If pre-sweetened ingredients are used, no additional sweetener is needed.  Otherwise, add 1 cup sugar.

Lemon Bars

Makes 25 bars

1 cup flour

½ cup butter, softened

¼ cup powdered sugar

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons grated lemon peel, optional

2 tablespoons lemon juice

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

2 eggs

powdered sugar

            Heat oven to 350°F.  Mix flour, butter, and powdered sugar.  Press in ungreased quare pan, building up ½ inch edges (8x8 or 9x9).  Bake 20 minutes.

            Beat remaining ingredients with electric mixer on high about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy.  Pour over hot crust.

            Bake 25-30 minutes or until no indentation remains when touched in center.  Cool completely in pan on wire rack.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Cut into 1 ½-inch squares.  

Gommie Hungry

And as an added bonus, 

Mrs. C's Cheese Ball

2 packages cream cheese

1 can deviled ham

            Mix cream cheese and deviled ham.  Chill.  Serve with crackers.

Reading in the Kitchen

"As long as you taste curiously, and watch and feel and listen, and prick your way toward food you like, you will find that you become someone about whom people will say that cooking seems to come naturally, like walking.  They will say it and it will be true."

Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal:  Cooking with Economy and Grace is that rare cookbook--more prose than prosaic instruction, more musings than exact measurements.  And while I usually prefer to follow exact recipes from standard cookbooks (and I do that a lot, from the many books I have), this book inspires me to want to cook, giving me the confidence and the ideas how to do it, without really giving me too many recipes.  Take the chapter "How to Stride Ahead."  Adler describes cooking all your vegetables as soon as you get home from the market so that you have the not-quite-raw ingredients for meals the rest of the week---they can be turned into delicious dishes with little work, which means you are much less likely to let them rot in your fridge. "By the end of the week, you will have eaten vegetables a dozen ways a dozen times, having begun with good raw materials only once." Her description of her dance from roasted vegetables to sauteed greens is beautiful.  And easy looking. Her first chapter, "How to Boil Water," similarly suggests how easily a meal comes together with a pot and water, as it has for 10,000 years. (See articles in NYTimes here.)

Adler was an editor at Harper's before she ever stepped foot in a professional kitchen.  But a stint at Prune (with chef-cum-writer Gabrielle Hamilton) and then at other restaurants turned Adler into an accomplished cook.  Thankfully, following in the footsteps of M.F.K. Fisher, she has written about it both at Salon and in this her first book.  I'm only a few chapters into it because I read a bit and then muse upon it.  And cook!  Yesterday, between chapters, I made black bean soup for my lunch and broccoli noodle soup for our dinner.  And I'm ready to be back in the kitchen for dinner again today.  Where I'll be cooking a meal based on Adler's dictum to use what you have between reading such enticing sections as "How to Make Peace," "How to Weather a Storm," and "How to Drink to Saints."

Reading Amanda Hesser

I just finished Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte, a memoir-cum-cookbook adapted from the years she dated and then married Mr. Latte. I'm late in reading this, a book that came out years ago, but enjoyed it just the same. Particularly because, with our weekend at the grandparents', I could leisurely read in the middle of the day, full chapters at a time, while the kids played.

And while she records a very food-intense world--she was a food writer at the NYTimes, knew Julia Child, and regularly dines with Jeffrey Steingarten--a world as foreign to me as many of the fancy NY restaurants she visits, I enjoyed vacationing in her NY foodie world, mainly because I just haven't enjoyed cooking recently and most of it has, until the beginning of our CSA last week, been a chore. Maybe that is the nature of trying to cook organic, local, and seasonal in suburban Connecticut as spring warms into summer; maybe it's what happens when the kids just want the same thing over and over; maybe it's what happens after almost a month-long emotional eating binge--perhaps it's a subconscious fast.

Coincidentally, while reading her book, I was also in another food-intense world. Because food is something Ma, Gong, and Goo do well. The birthday weekend started at dim sum in Flushing, with two new favorite dishes for me--sauteed bean leaves and this churro-like dough wrapped in a white noodle and slathered with hoisin sauce. Plus, we enjoyed all our usual favorites, like Sis's love affair with don ton and custard buns, shumai and ha gao and ha chung (noodles with shrimp). Bud discovered and devoured shrimp in several guises. Then we continued to the Chinese grocery, where Sis and Bud stared for an entire half-hour at all the fresh, live seafood, including crab, lobster, fish, eel, turtle, and frogs! (Bud had earlier seen a lobster on a truck and wondered if the lobsters were going to an aquarium; "nope," I said, "dinner!" I don't think he believed me, even when we were standing in the grocery store). We wrapped up our outing at not one but two bakeries.

We then went home and savored the fresh fruits while contemplating what we were going to grill. Soon, Goo and I were side-by-side in the kitchen, goodnaturedly competing to shape the best pizza dough for the grill. This was followed by "chicken on the bone," fried tofu in peanut sauce, stir fried cauliflower with shrimp, sauteed Asian mix (two way, one with soy sauce and garlic; the other with miso), and two birthday cakes. Today, after a morning of oatmeal with fresh fruit and pastries from the bakery, we made our own wontons when we got back from the beach. We ate these with steamed and stir fried vegetables and two kinds of noodles, wide white and thin, long yellow. And I'm betting we won't leave before there is another meal. After the ice cream man comes by.

Sure, it's not the world of Armagnac and arugula, but I think Hesser would appreciate the family's interest and immersion in all things edible. The book, the weekend--it all makes me want to cook again.

(Though, one of the foods I really wanted to try from her book, oatmeal cookies with orange zest, wasn't included as a recipe, even though it was mentioned twice! I guess I'll have to experiment. Though maybe it's Quaker's Vanishing Oatmeal Cookie, a box-label recipe she likes, with zest added).

Kolaches, Sweet Kolaches

After waiting almost a month, because my issue was lost and the replacement was delayed, and worrying that I would never get it, I have received my copy of Saveur, issue 121: The Texas Issue. And I have been so excited reading all about the food, food history, restaurants, chefs, and recipes of my state: chili, Whole Foods, kolaches, CFS, pinto beans, chuck wagon cooking, German potato salad, BBQ with white bread, dewberry cobbler, Liberty Bar (in S.A.), Texas caviar, pecan pie. There's even a blog I now love, called Homesick Texan, about a Texan foodie who lives in NYC (which reminds me to read through the whole Times's list of 50 best food blogs, as this is one of them.). If I were a better cook and a better writer, it could be me! She even has a whole post about my beloved Ranch Style Beans!!! (she also features Blue Bell ice cream, King Ranch Chicken, Luby's, kolaches, and a whole host of other goodies).

Did I mention kolaches? I'm on a kolache kick. What's that, you say? (and you say it "ka-lotch-eese). It's a sweet yeast pastry filled with various (usually fruit) fillings, primarily Czech in origin and found in Central Texas. My favorites are the apricot, cream cheese, and cottage cheese kolaches from Prasek's. I have my maternal great-grandmother's recipe, from my Aunt T, but now I understand that my mom has procured my Aunt J's mother's recipe as well. I think we might just have to make kolaches when Gommie visits. What's not to love? Sis will love the pastry and Bud will love the filling. And I'm much more comfortable working with yeast. And if that doesn't work, my wonderful mom is apparently bringing some Prasek's kolaches in her suitcase! Which is the perfect gift for a "Tex-pat" like me (for others, see the Homesick Texan's list)!

But back to Saveur. Sure, there are lots of pictures of beef and I just don't eat that anymore (which, among other things, probably disqualifies me from being a true Texan anymore) but I have fond memories of it. Just like I do of Texas: I might not live there (or even visit often) but I love it. And if you come to Connecticut, I'll serve you up some Texas-sized hospitality. Maybe even with some kolaches!

-=-=-=-=-

Great-Grandmother's recipe for Kolatches (her spelling) from Her Friend Mrs. M

(Start the rich yeast dough first, then make all three of the fillings if you want to make a big to-do of coffee-time--any hour of day or night!)

Place in large mixing bowl and blend until softened

1 cake compressed yeast

2 tablespoons water

Add the following and beat until smooth to form a sponge . . .

2 tablespoons sugar

tall can of evaporated milk (note: 12 oz)

1 cup flour (not sifted)

Set above in warm place to double in bulk. Then return to mixer, punch down and mix in the following producing a smooth satiny dough, actually too soft to be handled . . . .

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup soft shortening

2 1/2 cups flour (approximately, not sifted)

Cover dough and let rise until doubled, then punch down in bowl and work out air bubbles. Turn onto floured board (using minimum to retain softenes of dough), and pat or roll out to 5/8-inch thickness. Cut in rounds of desired size; en route to cookie sheet dip in melted butter or margarine. Filling (one or all of the follwing should be cooled and ready to add not (my note: ??confusing??)--pressing a spoonful in center of each round. Makes approximately 4 dozen 2 1/2 to 3 inch kolatches.

Prune or Apricot Filling

Combine as listed in saucepan--then cook, stirring constantly, until thickened . . . .

1/2 cup sugar (or to taste)

1 tablespoon cornstarch

#2 or 303 can of "stewed" dried prunes or apricot halves

Cool before using--with "sweet topping" (details later). Makes enough to fill approximately 2 dozen.

Cottage Cheese Filling

Blend together in bowl, mixing thoroughly with a fork;

1 cup dry ( note: well-drained) fine-curd cottage cheese ("homemade preferred")

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar (or to taste) (my note: it might read 1/4 cup; hard to decipher)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon melted butter or margarine

Filling is ready to use--with "sweet topping". Makes enough to fill approximately 1 dozen kolatches.

Meat Filling

Place in skillet and cook slowly until well-done and lightly browned;

1 lb bulk pork sausage

1 large onion (finely chopped)

1 clove of garlic (crushed)

1 tablespoon pepper

salt (to your liking)

Drain off excess fa (or remove mixture from skillet) and cool Spoon on dough rounds, but instead of baking open, bring dough up around filling to form rolls--then place, seam downward, on cooking sheet. Makes enough for approximately 2 dozen "rolled" kolatches.

Sweet Topping to be sprinkled over fruit and cheese-filled kolatches is made as follows:

Combine in bowl and mix with pastry blender until light and crumbly:

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

4 tablespoons butter or margarine

Now, in this order, top each of the fruit and cheese kolatches with "some" of the following:

Sweet topping

Chopped nuts

Melted butter or margarine

When filled, likely the dough will have risen the necessary 10 to 15 minutes--therefore kolatches will be ready to bake.

Bake kolatches (all types) in 400-degree oven 20-25 minutes, or until puffed and nicely browned. Remove and brush or dribble over tops at once melted butter or margarine.

Serve warm or cold--with coffee a must!

For quick kolatches, the up-and-coming Mrs. M uses roll mix, sayin git's not as rich but will do in a pinch.

A note: "From article in newspaper"

(the recipe was typed on lined school paper with a few handwritten notes and faxed to me by Aunt T)

See also Saveur's strawberry kolache recipe, as well as cottage cheese kolache filling.

Amuse Bouche

Just a few morsels:

• What color is your hotpad?  An article in the NYTimes talks about nutritional gatekeepers, or the people who are most responsible in a family for the food it eats.  Apparently, there are five kinds:  giving, methodical, competitive, healthy, and innovative.  There's a test you can take to identify your type.  I came up a true Heinz 57, a combo of allmost all the types (except competitive) with none dominant.  Maybe that's because I'm just starting to find my footing as a homecook.  I would've said I was a "giving" cook, the kind that "are enthusiastic about cooking and specialize in comfort food, particularly home-baked goodies."  But I also try new recipes and ingredients, try to make healthy alternatives, and am a slave to a recipe.  
• Today, Bud came home with a recipe for cake from one of his teachers.  Apparently, they've been reading A Cake All for Me, which presents a recipe for cake in nursery rhyme, and Bud said he wanted to make it.  Well, I have all the ingredients, including--gulp--3 sticks of butter!  So we'll be doing that this afternoon.  Makes me wonder how many children's books with recipes an integral part of the story (as opposed to children's cookbooks) there are.  I know of Growing Vegetable Soup, Apples!Apples!Apples!, Thunder Cake, and All in Just one Cookie.  More on this after some research (and more and more and more and more).  And a report on the cake when we've made it.
• It's actually just as well that Bud brought home a recipe he wants to try.  Ever since reading about the temptations of an empty cake stand, I've wanted to bake something, especially the olive oil orange cake in the article.  I even have a cake stand (which stands, safely, in the basement for now because it is glass).  
• We're hoping to join a CSA (community-supported agriculture) in our area, which means we'll get a box, one share, of produce each week of the growing season (starting in June, through October).  I'm really very excited.  We'll get to try new foods, become acquainted with our local farmers, support local agriculture, visit the farm, and supplement our own garden efforts (which, as you remember, were destroyed in the storm last year, much to everyone's chagrin; the kiddos have been planning this year's crop since then).  YAY!!!
• Otherwise, there have been so many tempting recipes and ideas on Mark Bittman's Minimalist columns and Bitten blog recently:  the anti-ramen, chocolate mousse, chopped salad, and two links to Mike Licht's blog NotionsCapital about food blogs and Girl Scout cookies.  

Proustian Pineapple Tarts

Food memoirs recalling lost relatives and disappearing food traditions are some of my favorite essays. An article in the WSJ (linked to Tara Parker-Pope's Well blog) talks of one woman's memory of her Ah-Ma's pineapple tarts prepared for Chinese New Year. Her grandmother died before she could impart the technique and the granddaughter has never found a tart quite like it . . . until she spends a day with some aunts and cousins, making the specialty just as her Ah-Ma had.

What strikes me about this poignant essay is how similar I think it must be to my kids' own Ar-Ma's (and Gong's too) memories of foods from her homeland which are difficult if not impossible to make or get here. Every meal at Ar-Ma and Ar-Gong's house includes tales of foods that were--what their mothers served at feasts, what fish or desserts they can only get in Bangkok, how Flushing's bakeries' buns just aren't as good, or how the one place that made noodles almost like home has just closed. It's bittersweet to hear these, knowing how good it must have been, how hard to let it go. My own food nostalgia--for things in Texas that are best there (BBQ and Chicken Fried Steak), or that I can't get up here (mainly, Ranch Style Beans), or that my mom will always make better than I can (or, well, just more mom- or home-like)--is minimal in comparison but allows me to empathize even more. I know Mama experiences her own losses when she can't even easily procure the ingredients here in Connecticut that her mom gets in the city or doesn't know how to make a particular dish from her childhood. She has tried to gather recipes from her mom but it is a work-in-progress, mainly because no recipes exist and so the cooking of the foods must be observed and recorded, which is more difficult than it sounds. But still, they try, knowing it is worth the effort, for Mama and now for the kiddos.

-=-=-=-=-=
A Few New Year's Recipes From Mama's Family Cookbook

Abalone and Mushroom Sauce
Ma and Gong would make this for Chinese New Year’s, but didn’t for a while because it was too expensive and not very good. It’s better now, though, and we really enjoyed this for 2003.

Abalone: smaller pieces better, cooked, Chinese label from Mexico: eg: ‘Pacific Brand’

Thinly slice abalone; reserve juice in can. Heat oil, add garlic and soaked/sliced shitake mushrooms (*place dried mushrooms in cold water and let soak for a few hours or overnight; soaking water can be saved and used. Warm water can be used if in a hurry). Add abalone juice and corn starch (dissolved in water), boil. Add touch of black soy sauce for color and taste if desired. Toss abalone in sauce to heat. Serve with rice.

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Dad’s Taro Paste
Cut taro into inch pieces. Place in pot, water to cover. Boil slowly with sugar and pinch of salt. When cooked, remove from heat, let cool. Add touch of oil (or coconut milk), mash in water. Freezes well. Serve with sticky rice, ice cream, ginko nuts (below).

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Ginko Nuts
Choose ginko nuts that are white, medium sized, with no spots. Crack open with a nutcracker. Peel off skin if the nuts are larger than a thumbnail. Rinse quickly to retain flavor. Add to cold water, heat to boiling, add sugar to taste. Cooked when the nuts are a sallow yellow color. Turns harder/chewier the longer they are cooked.

For a ginko drink, use more water. For a ginko dessert, add taro paste or red dates. This was Mom and Dad’s wedding dessert.

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Seven Vegetable Soup
Traditional soup for the seventh day of the Chinese New Year. Very subtle and refreshing. Be careful, if you cook them too long, the veggies get mushy.

Seven vegetables (celery, mustard greens, leek, radish, spinach . . .).

Cut veggies, separating top leaves from bottom branches. Cut radish into rings, cut into 6 pieces. Heat chicken or pork broth. Heat oil, add sliced/soaked black mushrooms and garlic. Stir-fry turnip and branches, except leeks, celery, spinach, when soft, remove to broth. Add rest of vegetables, soften and add to broth. Flavor with a touch of dark soy sauce and Maggi if necessary. If sour, add fish sauce to compensate.