The Wednesday Chef

My Uncle Oreste

My mother is the youngest of three children. That's her on the far left. My aunt Laura is next to her, my grandfather is the white-haired dude in the middle and on the right is my uncle Oreste. This photo was taken 14 years ago, at my cousin's wedding. I love how happy everyone looks.

They say that birth order really does determine your character and in the case of my mother's family, it's hard not to believe it. Laura, the oldest, was the family peacemaker, protective and a little bossy. Oreste, the middle child, was the quiet one who was always more content watching from the sidelines than being in the middle of the action. And Letizia, the youngest, was the feisty one who often clashed with my strong-willed, stubborn grandfather even if, or because, she resembled him the most.

I think, in a way, that Laura and Letizia have always seen themselves as being my uncle Oreste's buffers against my grandfather. Oreste was by nature a far gentler spirit than my grandfather, who could be so hard on his children. As hard on them as he was sweet on us, the grandchildren. Which is why it is all the more devastating that Oreste has passed, after a short, intense illness that took us all by surprise. His death was mercifully quick, but his illness itself was a shock to our family, in which so many people lived very long lives, some of them nearing or passing 100. Oreste still had so many years ahead of him.

We're not a religious family. We don't go to church and many of us don't believe in God. So imagining my uncle's path now is a difficult, slightly nebulous thing. I wonder, is he in Verona, hanging out behind his wife's dining room chair, wrapped up in the slightly smoky air he left behind? Or is he in Torre San Tommaso, walking back and forth on the country road that joins the cemeteries where my grandfather and grandmother are buried, past the house that we all love so much even if it holds some memories we'd like to forget? Is he in Toronto, whispering in his son Riccardo's ear that he's with him every step of the way, on Riccardo's trip to India later this month to meet his future wife's family, at City Hall when they marry, at everything that still lies ahead?

I like to think he is in all those places at once. And in Berlin and Brussels, too, flashing his infectious grin at his sisters and telling them not to be sad, that he had a good life even if he had to leave it too soon, a good marriage, a son to be proud of. And that, anyway, he'll be with them always - as the knock-kneed little boy who once fell out of a moving car on a family trip, as the proud father of a baby boy who grew up to have his same smile, as the brother who always knew how much his sisters loved him and love him still.

He's all around us, everywhere.

Monastery of Angels' Pumpkin Bread

I always have to read a little before I go to bed. I get all ready - brush my teeth, wash my face, put on my cashmere bed socks (the best birthday present a girlfriend ever gave me) - and then I get in bed, adjust my pillow, fluff the blanket and open a book. If I don't read before turning off the lights, I'm guaranteed to toss and turn for a long while before falling asleep, if I'm able to do that at all.

For the past few nights, I've been re-reading Farmer Boy. I can't tell you how many times I've read it, but we can all be sure it's a fairly high number. The Little House series was my reason for living when I was a child (until Narnia came long and then Anne of Green Gables and Diana Wynne Jones and, oh, let's stop this right now, otherwise we'll be here all day) and when I was at my friend Joan's last year, gripped with writer's block and worry, she pulled Farmer Boy off her shelf and handed it over to me. "Remember this?"

The pleasure I get from going back into Almanzo's world is hard to put into words. Every other sentence plunges me back in time to when I was first reading about how the Wilder men cut and stored ice, packed in straw, until summertime, how Almanzo and his siblings made candy while their parents were out of town, using up all the good sugar their mother warned them not to finish, how Almanzo longed to be given the responsibilities of caring for the family's horses while his father continued to command him to stay away. And, of course, how little, 9-year old Almanzo put away in one regular weeknight dinner what most of us could barely manage on a holiday like Thanksgiving.

None of us (well, as far as I can imagine) are doing anywhere near the amount of physical labor that he was at nine years old. But still. Here's what Almanzo ate on one winter's evening:

1. Sweet, mellow baked beans
2. Mealy boiled potatoes, with brown ham-gravy
3. Ham
4. Velvety bread spread with sleek butter
5. A tall heap of pale mashed turnips
6. A hill of stewed yellow pumpkin
7. Plum preserves, strawberry jam and grape jelly
8. Spiced watermelon pickles
9. A large piece of pumpkin pie

And then (oh, you didn't think he was done, did you?), the family retired to the fireplace and Almanzo ate popcorn and apples and drank apple cider, and he took such pleasure in this and his family and his life that when I read that bit I always fairly burst with the longing to reach out through time and space and dimension to touch his sweet little self or give him a hug. And also eat a handful of popcorn with a glass of cider in the other hand.

Books, man. They kill me.

We think Thanksgiving is such a busy time and we overwhelm ourselves with grocery lists and cooking strategies and forums on whether to brine or not to brine (actually, this lady doesn't), so reading about how the women in Almanzo's family did that kind of work every day, in addition to churning the butter and curing the ham and dying their own wool and cloth so they could sew their clothes and their own rag carpets, among a hundred other daily chores and duties, well, it's humbling.

The resourcefulness and thrift and sheer doggedness is particularly inspiring, as well as mortifying, of course, because I think nothing of throwing out a stale heel of bread or letting those two stray carrots in the fridge whither into sponginess. While I'm far away from ever wanting to move to a house in upstate New York and become a self-subsistent farmer, what I'm trying to say, I guess, is that Farmer Boy is as enchanting to the adult me now as it was to the little me then.

I made pumpkin pie for our Thanksgiving feast (we celebrated on Saturday instead of Thursday), but due to a little, er, mathematical error, I roasted about six times too much squash in preparation for the pie (this one, in case you're wondering, which was once again demolished in one fell swoop, but with this crust recipe, the second half of which I used for this tart, which was eaten even faster than the pumpkin pie).

I froze some of the squash, but with all the Advent tea times ahead of us in the next month (the Germans are big on Advent Sunday tea time), I decided to get resourceful and bake something to have on hand during the next few weekends. Pumpkin bread from a monastery in Los Angeles that sells loaves for $9 a pop seemed like a good place to start.

The recipe hasn't changed since the early 1970's, which is a pretty good pedigree, if you ask me. It's a basic sweet bread or tea cake or whatever you'd like to call it, spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg (I also added some cloves) and is quiveringly tender and moist. If you, like me, use Hokkaido (or red kuri) squash, your batter will seem practically fluorescent.

I promise, though, that it will mellow in the oven, turning an agreeable, gingerbread-y brown. The crumb is velvety-soft and fragrant with sweet squash and the spices, while the crust gets all caramelized and toothsome. Some bits of it even crunch. It's a lovely thing to eat. I wanted to add walnuts to the batter, but mine were all rancid, so I threw in chopped pecans, the last of a precious stash from the States, instead. Their earthy crunch is a nice thing to happen upon as you work your way through each soft slice of bread.

My only advice would be to try and make as many loaves out of this one batch of batter as you can. I crammed all of the batter into one 13-inch long loaf pan and ended up having to bake the loaf for an hour and a half, nearly burning the edges. If you bake it in smaller loaf pans, the baking time reduces to one hour.

I let it cool completely, then I wrapped it carefully in plastic wrap and foil and put in the freezer where it'll rest until this Sunday when we have friends over for tea in the candlelight.

But next Sunday, I've already decided, there will be popcorn and apples and cider. And in addition to being grateful for my family's good health and my good fortune in life, I'll be saying a little gratitude prayer for books, my constant companions in this life.

Tell me, readers, what were the childhood books that you loved the most?

Monastery of Angels' Pumpkin Bread
Makes 1 13-inch long loaf or 2 smaller loaves
Original recipe here

3.5 cups of all-purpose flour
3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1.5 teaspoons salt
4 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
2 cups puréed pumpkin or squash
1/2 cup chopped pecans tossed with a spoonful or two of flour

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour loaf pan(s). Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a large bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, oil, water and pumpkin and mix well. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until the batter is smooth and there are no streaks of flour left. Fold in the pecans.

3. Scrape the batter into the buttered and floured loaf pan(s). Bake for 1.5 hours or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Cool the pan(s) on a rack for half an hour before turning the loaves out to cool completely. Wrapped tightly, the bread keeps for at least three days.

Molly O'Neill's Roasted Squash Soup with Cumin

I wish this was my excuse for disappearing on you with nary a peep for the past three weeks, but alas, it's not. I'll just say the following words:

My
Editor
Finally
Got
Back
To
Me
With
Revisions
And
A
Publication
Date
Comma
Holy
Hell
Comma
Which
Is
Next
September
Hyphen
SEPTEMBER
Hyphen
Which
Means
The
Final
Manuscript
Is
Due
In
January
Period
THIS
JANUARY
PERIOD
Even
Though
I
Think
It
Will
Probably
Take
A
Lifetime
Before
I
Am
Ready
For
The
Publication.
Period.

And then my head exploded! It's taken me a little while to gather myself.

So now that you're up-to-date on the state of the manuscript and my nerves, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to and take leave from several food combinations.

Beets and goat cheese.

Carrot and ginger.

Butternut squash and apples.

These are all lovely combinations, it's true! And once upon a time, they were fresh and novel and we gobbled them up with gusto. But, folks, I am sick and tired of them. They make my soul weary. When I see them on a menu or in a cookbook, my eyelids droop.

And it's part of the reason why I've had a butternut squash sitting in the fruit bowl for over a month. Every time I've looked at it, it has bored me to tears.

But last night, I gave myself a stern talking-to (I think you would have approved) - it simply would not do to let that squash slowly rot into oblivion nor would it do to leave the blog silent for yet another day. So I pulled down the brilliant Essential New York Times Cookbook (which holds almost every recipe I've ever clipped from the New York Times and is, quite possibly, the desert island cookbook you've spent your whole life looking for, or at least mine) and went a-recipe-hunting.

It was a rather quick hunt. Right there on page 147 was a recipe from Molly O'Neill (from this article, which I've now read twice but still haven't understood how the recipes fit in with the piece - is it just me?) that has you roast butternut squash and turn it into soup with ground cumin, vinegar (hallelujah!) and cayenne. No apples in sight! (Though there's sugar in the soup, which gave me the heebie-jeebies, just a little bit.)

The soup is punchy and hot and sour (instead of the cream swirled in at the end, I added buttermilk), and a sprinkling of squash seeds (I actually used pumpkin seeds) toasted in oil and cumin provides a welcome crunch and additional top note of flavor. It's a fine little soup, just enough to get me out of my rut, just enough to fortify me as I start to revise the manuscript.

We're almost there, folks! I can hardly believe it.

Molly O'Neill's Roasted Squash Soup With Cumin
Original recipe here
Serves 4

1 large (about 3 pounds) butternut squash
3 teaspoons vegetable or olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds (or simply use the squash seeds from the butternut)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
4 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
Small pinch of sugar
Generous pinch of cayenne pepper
1/2 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil. With a large knife, split the squash in half (scoop out and reserve the seeds, if you plan on using them). Brush the cut side of the squash with 2 teaspoons of oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place cut side down on the large baking sheet and roast until very tender, about 35 minutes.

2. If using the squash seeds, remove any orange fibers from seeds and rinse them under running water. Drain and place on paper towels to dry. Toss the squash or pumpkin seeds with the remaining teaspoon of oil and 1/2 teaspoon of the cumin, and season with salt. Place in a small but heavy pan and toast over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until fragrant and golden-brown. Remove from the heat and set aside.

3. Scoop the flesh from the squash shells or peel off the blistered skin, using a sharp-edged spoon to help it along, and place the flesh in a pot. Add the chicken stock, garlic, vinegar, sugar, cayenne and remaining cumin. Bring to a boil, lower and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

4. Using an immersion blender, purée the soup until smooth and creamy with no lumps. Stir in the buttermilk and heat through. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve garnished with the squash or pumpkin seeds.

Niloufer Ichaporia King's Parsi Tomato Chutney

So, er, this is awkward, since I already told you about a tomato jam in August. And, er, yes, you're right, tomato season is all but over. (Not entirely, but almost.) But I kind of need you to forget all about that other tomato jam and the fact that the tomatoes at the market are dwindling fast. Forget about all that right away. Today. Now.

Because a few weeks ago I made a tomato chutney from this book by way of The Traveler's Lunchbox and, it's the most curious thing, I haven't been able to stop spooning it out of the jar since. It is quite something. I mean, who eats chutney from a spoon? This is not the kind of thing I am usually in the habit of doing. Just so we're clear. But this is no ordinary chutney, no.

This tomato chutney makes my mouth glow on the inside, which is a most wondrous feeling. And it tastes incredible, like a tomato come to life in the middle of an Indian jungle, though I am biased, it's true: you could coat a tomato in tar and I'd probably still want to eat it.

Let me try to describe it at least. Imagine a tomato, all fresh and succulent, cooked down into jamminess with fiery bits of ginger and garlic and rust-colored cayenne. There are raisins, for a little extra sweetness, and cloves and cinnamon, too. But then there's a big glug of vinegar that straightens everyone's collars out and makes your mouth pucker with pleasure. Between the vinegar and the cayenne and all that fresh ginger and garlic, the chutney is incendiary, in the best possible way. 

I could almost guarantee that you will find yourself hoarding it, instead of giving it away as you might think you would after lining up all your neatly-filled crimson jars just after filling them. It's the one thing in my pantry that I can't part with. Not yet.

I like putting it on a cold chicken sandwich, for example. Or dolloping it next to a piece of plain, sautéed fish to goose it up a little. I've eaten it with sharp cheddar on nice bread for a lunch that lingered in my mouth long after I finished. And it's brilliant with eggs, scrambled or fried. Best of all is chopped into homemade egg salad. Good night!

But like I said, I've also eaten it straight from the jar, which I'm a little embarrassed to admit, but you know, sometimes it's just best to be honest about this kind of thing.

Whatever you decide to do with it, the point is: make it. Today. Now. Before the very last plum tomatoes have gone.

And if they already are gone, forgive me, kind reader, for winding you up. It was cruel of me, I know. To make it up to you, maybe I could even send you one of my jars? Maybe. Let me think about it. I'll get back to you.

Niloufer Ichaporia King's Parsi Tomato Chutney
Source: The Traveler's Lunchbox
Makes about four 8- to 10-ounce jars; recipe can easily be doubled

3 pounds (1.5 kilos) ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup finely-julienned peeled ginger (about one 2.5-inch/6-cm-long piece)
1/2 cup thinly-sliced garlic (about one large head)
1 1/2 cups (375 ml) cider vinegar
1/2 to 1 cup (75 to 150 grams) raisins (optional)
2 cups (400 grams) turbinado sugar
1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
1 small cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons salt

1. Open a window or two in your kitchen. Place all the ingredients in a heavy nonreactive pot and, over medium-high heat, bring to a boil, stirring well. Continue to cook, stirring every five to seven minutes (more frequently towards the end of the cooking time), until the chutney has the consistency of a soft jam, about an hour. Be careful not to scorch the chutney.

2. While the chutney is cooking, sterilize four or five glass jars and lids in boiling water or a hot oven. When the chutney has finished cooking, ladle it carefully into the clean jars and quickly screw on the lids. Turn the jars upside-down to cool. If you plan to eat the chutney within a few weeks of making it, there's no need to can it; simply keep it in the fridge.

Friday Link Love

Friends, I have had the flu. Or something like it. For the past week, I have felt little better than death warmed over. I have been tired and cold and my throat has hurt and sitting upright for more than twenty minutes has made me want to weep quietly into my mug of hot water and lemon. Forgive my absence, is what I'm trying to say.

My appetite was on the fritz as well, so even though I baked a cake for a friend's birthday just before the germs engulfed me entirely (this cake and, lo, it was good), and made myself a few invalid lunches (Better Than Bouillon, you complete me), I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to tell you about any of it. Woe!

But enough bellyaching. You don't want to hear about how a little flu can crush one woman's spirit to live or at least shower, do you? Instead let's talk about what other people have been up to. Why, some of them even make me want to get out of bed again:

Intellectualizing the salad: Nancy Silverton writes a manifesto on salad-making, most of which makes me want to cheer out loud (except the part about eating with your fingers). Now to track down some Little Gems.

Speaking of salad, Amanda Hesser likes hers "bruising" and "feisty". A woman, and a salad, after my own heart.

Have you ever heard of a chutney sandwich?

Desperately seeking heartburn: Brandi and Brandon make homemade hot sauce that sounds pretty fierce. Now what are the chances I'll find Fresno chiles anywhere in the Federal Republic of Germany?

Jenny and Andy's brilliant blog is about the cooking life when you have small people living in your house and eating at your dinner table, but their recipes (and wit) work for the childless, too. Case in point: this post on Truly Truly Divine Peanut Butter Sauce which turns out to be the only thing I'd like to eat right this very moment.

Canned creamed corn in a stir-fry - really? I admit, I am totally intrigued.

Oh, to live in Los Angeles with a yard and a farmer's market around the corner and a husband to make you an after-work snack consisting of homemade tortilla chips, quacamole and margaritas... Warning: Heather Taylor's webisodes might possibly make you green with envy.

It's Friday, which means Max comes home tonight for the weekend. Ever wonder what our Friday nights look like? The lovely Sarah Copeland of Edible Living dug a little deeper, here and here (bonus wedding photo!).

And with that, lovely folks, I hope you have a great weekend. Here's to Friday nights, showering and good health!

Liana Krissoff's Canning for a New Generation

A few years ago, I spent a day with my colleagues brainstorming new book ideas. We were hunkered down in the Soho apartment of the parents of our editorial director (they were generous, it was big) and, armed with pens and pads of paper, we went around the table and talked about the kinds of books we wanted to publish. I had made a list of four book ideas that I really wanted to pursue, but today, sitting here, I can only remember one.

Because after that brainstorming session, I went back to the office to check my email one last time before leaving for vacation the next day and there, sitting in my inbox, sent at about the exact moment that I was telling my boss and my colleagues that I desperately wanted to publish a modern, updated book on canning and jam-making, pickling and preserving, was an email from one of the company's authors, laying out her vision for that exact book.

Kismet! Fate! It was hard not to run to the CEO of the company right then and there, begging him for approval and, oh, some money, too.

A few weeks later, we had a deal. Liana would write a comprehensive book on canning and preserving, chockful of recipes that were new and interesting. She would leave behind the fuddy-duddy and slightly snoozy tone of all the older canning books. She would mine the preserving techniques of other cultures and she would include recipes for what to do with those fermented long beans you spent precious time finding in Chinatown and then putting up, all the while making sure that readers' hands would be held as they went from making their first batch of strawberry jam to their very own Indian lime pickle.

In Liana's own words, "The recipes are for people a little bit like me...who upon hearing 'pickle' remember Mom's sweet watermelon-rind pickles ice-cold out of the fridge, but also think of the dollop of goodness that goes on top of a bowl of curried lentils, or the dainty dish of tsukemono pickles that might come with the sashimi at a good sushi bar. Those people for whom 'ferment' means not just full-sour dills bobbing about in a crock of cloudy brine on the Lower East Side but also spicy red kimchi. And those of us who, while thoroughly enjoying a sweet, thick slather of classic peach preserves on toast every now and then (or, okay, often) might prefer a tart-sweet black plum jam spiked with fragrant cardamom, or a small spoonful of fig preserves with port and rosemary alongside a wedge of veiny blue cheese and a thick slice of dark bread."

That was exactly the book I wanted to publish.

As Liana worked on her book, she'd periodically send me photos of her pantry shelves that were filling at an alarming rate. Jar after jar of jams and pickles lined the room. It was like a settler's dream. Sometimes, if I was lucky, Liana would even send me a few things to try: a delicately-set grapefruit jam, tea jelly or, my very favorite, that plum jam flavored with cardamom.

In the end, Liana's manuscript turned out to be even better than I could have imagined on that hot day in August when her email first hit my inbox. It was big. It was comprehensive. It was interesting. And it was funny.

Take, for example, Liana's headnote on making her own sauerkraut:

"Although it may seem as if you're having - as my husband said when he walked in on me with my arms elbow-deep in a mass of pale-green shreds - 'a difficult immigrant experience', squeezing cabbage and salt together to make sauerkraut is fun."

But best of all, the manuscript was smart. Liana teaches you how to make kimchi and then gives you a recipe for pork and kimchi dumplings. She tells you how to make Chinese plum sauce and then gives you a recipe for Mu Shu pork using the plum sauce. She tells you how to make a Sidecar using the Brandied Cherries from the previous page. Liana comes up with all these great new staples that you just have to have in your pantry and then gets your mouth watering with dinner recipes that actually use them.

We got Rinne Allen, a talented photographer, to do the photography for the book and her lush, thoughtful images paired beautifully with Liana's recipes and pithy prose. The two would meet, week after week, at Liana's house in Georgia and Rinne would shoot what Liana was working on that day.

The book is divided into seasons, so there are four main chapters and then, within those chapters, Liana splits the recipes between fruits and vegetables. For those of you intimidated by preserving and canning (hot water baths! botulism! equipment!), Liana demystifies everything in soothing, sensible terms. She makes you feel capable and safe. And, really, her recipes will have you chafing at the bit to get started, whether you're a novice or not.

Liana's philosophy, when it comes to jams, is that the less commercial pectin you use, the more delicious your jams will be. And so, with a few exceptions, her recipes for jams, jellies, preserves and conserves are made without commercial pectin and the amount of sugar she uses lets the bright, beautiful flavor of the fruit shine through. Always.

Shall we look at a quick sampling of some of Liana's recipes? Let's. I'm hungry.

Tomato and Cashew Chutney, Simple Pickled Jalapeño Slices (that you use, then, to make a Sliced, Braised Beef Sandwich, yowrrr), Candied-Pickled Apples with Star Anise, Minted Cranberry Relish with Walnuts, North Indian Carrot Pickle, Honeyed Fig Jam with Sesame Seeds, Achar Segar (what, you didn't know how to say "Indonesian Pickles" in Indonesian?), Pineapple Jam with Chinese Five-Spice, Quince Slices in Cinnamon Syrup (that you later use in a Persian lamb stew), Nuka, also known as Japanese Fermented Bran Pickles, and Hibiscus Jelly.

(Who else is hungry now?)

(But don't worry, the classics are here as well: Strawberry Jam, Apple Butter, Raspberry Preserves, Cherry Jam, among many others.)

Canning for a New Generation, much to my utter delight, turned out to be even better than I could have ever hoped for on that hot day in August when it was just a twinkle in both of our eyes. Liana put an enormous amount of work into the book and her passion fairly jumps off the page. It's a delight to read and is an inspiration in the kitchen. It's beautiful to look at and it's an incredible resource. Take a look at that cart up there: It holds all the jams I've made in the last three months, most of them done with Liana's book open on the counter. Raspberry Mint Jam, Plum Cardamom Jam and Holiday Cherries are just a few of my favorites. And one day, I like to dream that I will have an actual pantry like Liana's to line with identical jars filled with all the season's bounty. It will be grand.

Are you scared of jam-making and preserving? Liana will hold your hand. Are you bored with the plain pickles and jams you already know how to make in your sleep? Liana will lead you down the path of international pickling and preserving. Of all the many cookbooks on my bookshelf (and there are many, so many), this is the one that most consistently gets "borrowed" and not returned. Quite literally. I've had to ask my very kind former employers for a replacement copy of the book more times than I care to admit.

So, maybe, when you buy a copy, if you buy a copy, think about getting two. Then chain one to your kitchen counter so that no one can ever take it from you, or deface it with a big black marker ("Property of Geraldine! Keep Out!") so that no one will want it, and give the other one away. You'll thank me for this tip later.

John Willoughby's Tagine-Style Lamb Stew

We came back from Greece, where the heat nearly felled us as we attempted to see the Acropolis, to a Berlin that had a chill in the air, not unlike the one that usually hits New York in early October. You know, when the sky is blue, but you find yourself needing not only a wool jacket, but a scarf, too, while brittle leaves crunch and scatter on the sidewalks. Okay, I thought, time to haul out the winter suitcase from the basement, time to put the warmer comforter on the bed, time to pick apples for apple butter and pull out the heavy pots for stew.

I couldn't stop thinking about my grandmother's pot roast, you see. Or about shredded pork. Lamb stew. Pot au feu served with hot mustard and grated horseradish. In other words, meat, meat and more meat. From one day to the next, salads and light dinners made up of flatbread and meze were out the window, gone the way of the mosquito and the drippy peach. Now was the time of thickened gravies and spoon-tender meats.

Well, at least until the next heatwave hit. Today, sitting in my office with hot sun streaming through the window, it feels a little silly to tell you about this lamb stew that requires cold temperatures and at least one article of wool clothing to be worn by the cook at the time of preparation. But I swear that last weekend it was just the thing to spoon over deep plates of couscous and eat, gathered at the table with friends who tried to guess every single ingredient in the pot.

Since that's a rather dull exercise anyway, I'm going to come straight out with it for you guys. It's a crazy mix. There's lamb shoulder and butter and onion. There is a trio of warm spices (cumin, coriander, cinnamon) and apricot jam and red wine vinegar and garlic. There are chickpeas and red pepper flakes, prunes and parsley. In short, this stew holds everything but the kitchen sink.

The recipe comes from John Willoughby's article in the New York Times on how to make savory stews without that tedious first step of browning meat (which, beyond the tedium, also spreads oily filth around my kitchen, irritating me to no end). (In fact, I'd say the step of browning meat is probably at the top of the list of reasons why I hardly ever, ever, ever buy meat to cook at home.) (Do you guys now think I'm insane for calling the gentle spatter of browning meat "oily filth"?) (Oh, parentheses, I like it in here.)

His lamb tagine has you basically simply dump all the ingredients into a pot at once before stewing everything together until the meat falls apart with a gentle nudge. Now here's the funny thing: I wanted to cook the stew for a dinner party on Saturday night, but because I didn't want to waste any time on Saturday cooking (my Saturday hours are preshus), I decided to make the stew the day before, figuring that all stews benefit from a little ripening. Wouldn't you say? But on Friday, as my stew-cooking drew to a close, I was rather taken back as I stared into a pot of lamb soup that looked absolutely nothing like the lush, moody photograph of the stew in the paper.

My stew was wan and gray, even a little thin. Vaguely gruel-like. Instead of looking like the kind of lusty fare you'd imagine gorgeous women in a harem feeding each other, my stew looked like boarding-school stew. (I've never attended boarding school, but I'm pretty sure I read every English book ever published on the subject before I turned 16 years old and have also been blessed with an active imagination. Therefore I am an authority. Also on Moroccan harems. Thank you, good night.)

Huh, I thought. That is peculiar.

Was my German lamb shoulder to blame? Or the low lighting in the photographer's studio? I stared at my tagine-style stew for quite a while on Friday afternoon, completely stumped. Food coloring? I thought. Molasses? Did I miss the red wine? Finally, at a loss, I resigned myself to serving our guests a grayish dinner. This hardly qualified as a kitchen disaster, but all the same, I told myself that worse things had happened. I'd survive the humiliation. It might even taste good. I put the stew in the fridge and went on my way.

The next evening, I pulled the pot out of the fridge and carefully scooped off the top layer of bright orange fat that had risen and solidified overnight. I don't think you have to do this step, but lamb fat can sometimes taste a little...barnyardy and I didn't want that adding to the already unfortunate visual. Then I started to warm the stew, adding chopped prunes instead of the apricots that the original recipe called for. They swelled and plumped in the fragrant gravy, adding sweetness to the air. Just before serving, I added lemon juice and some chopped parsley. Somewhere in a Moroccan harem, someone's stomach growled.

And wouldn't you know. In that last half hour, the stew changed color entirely, going all mahogany-colored with little shimmering dots of oil, bobbing chickpeas and nuggets of prunes and lamb in varying shades of rich, warm brown. Just like the photo. Just in time.

A few minutes later, doled out to a table of hungry guests who seemed especially charmed by the prunes, that whole pot of stew was gone. The chickpeas and prunes all velvety-soft, the lamb swollen with flavor. I even had to bring out spoons for some of our eaters who had been staring rather forlornly at the sweet-savory gravy, brightened by the lemon and parsley, pooled at the bottom of their plates after the couscous and bulk of the stew was eaten.

Just like a bunch of English boarding-school students, really, heading for warmer climes.

John Willoughby's Tagine-Style Lamb Stew
For the original recipe, click here.
Serves 6 to 8

2 pounds lamb shoulder
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small onion, grated (about 1/3 cup)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup apricot preserves
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 20-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup chopped prunes
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Cooked couscous, for serving

1. Trim excess fat from the lamb and cut into 1-inch cubes. If your shoulder was sold to you with the bone and joint still in it, add it to the pot while you stew the meat for additional flavor (discard before serving).

2. In a Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the lamb, onion, garlic, pepper, salt, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, red pepper flakes, apricot preserves and vinegar and cook, stirring frequently, until the aroma of the spices is strong, about 5 to 7 minutes. (Do not allow the meat to brown.)

3. Add chickpeas and stock, bring just to a simmer, then reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer gently until the lamb is very tender, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate overnight.

4. Twenty to thirty minutes before you're ready to serve, pull the pot from the fridge and gently scoop off the orange layer of fat that will have risen to the top. Put the pot over medium-low heat, adding the chopped prunes, and bring the stew to a very low simmer. Continue to cook, uncovered, until the pieces are nicely plumped, about 10 minutes more. Remove from heat, stir in the parsley and lemon juice, and serve with couscous.

Honeymooning

Within two days of arriving in Greece, all the worry and anxiety of the days before evaporated. We traveled by ferry from Athens to an island called Serifos, staying in a house that a cousin of my mother's lent to us. With no Internet connection and no phone line and hardly a soul around us, there was nothing to do but swim, read, contemplate the impossible beauty around us, eat sun-warmed figs plucked off the tree next to the front door, swim and read some more. Thank goodness.

I read five books in the first week. Actually, if we're going to get technical, five books in five days. Yes, this is the kind of crazed bookworm I am. If given some free time and a stack of books (or a Kindle, as the case may be), I will plow through them like a house on fire. Look out.

We walked through hilltop villages where everything was as white-cubed and blue-domed as in the picture books.

We held our breath as we swam, goggled, through crystal-clear water. We saw black sea urchins, holding on tightly to the rocks, and schools of fearless small fish that darted towards us again and again.

We met Greece's silent majority: Street cats.

We photographed every sunset and felt a million miles away from everything we'd left behind. It was just the two of us. Just the way it should be.

Whenever we saw horta on a menu, we ordered it. There was feta galore and there were tiny fried anchovies and, by the side of a small beach one day, a plate of pork meatballs that could redefine the genre. We dragged the meatballs through a smear of tzatziki and munched, hot, cold, crunchy, smooth, while we watched a teenager walk in from the water, a speared octopus in hand.

It occurred to me at some point that in my adult life, I have never had a vacation that lasted for two whole weeks. The Europeans are onto something here. As the days melted into another and I started forgetting if it was a Monday or a Thursday, I practically saw the tension lift off my body like steam and gently float away.

When our time on Serifos came to an end, we took leave of the impossibly clear water, the sprawling fig tree, the stone floors and the dirt road in front of the house and boarded a ferry, heading to Milos and then Santorini.

It was lovely there, but we missed the stark, lonely beauty of Serifos. Our quiet little beach. Our dirt road. Our fig tree. The sound of waves each night as we fell asleep.

But really, that's just splitting hairs. I still found it possible to fall more in love with my husband every single day. Feeling like I hit the jackpot for getting to spend the rest of my life with him. In fact, even when the trip came to an end, it was hard to feel sad. We got to go home together! Our lovely, cozy, homey home.

Honeymooning, man. It's pretty great. In fact, I've decided we'll be needing a honeymoon every year. Stopping at one just seems silly. Wouldn't you say?

I'll be back with new posts, recipes and more in a day or two. It's so good to be back.

Mark Bittman's Tomato Jam

You know what's funny? It just occurred to me that in a little less than 24 hours, I'm going to be on my honeymoon in Greece. What's not so funny is that that sounds terrifying. Because in the meantime, sometime in the course of this day, I have to attach the manuscript of my book (at last count clocking in at just under 100,00 words) to an email and send it to my editor. And then I have to get up from my desk, turn off the computer and go away for two whole weeks.

Sometime soon, when I have a little more time, I'd love to tell you more about what a psychological trip this whole writing-a-book experience has been. There have been so many moments of absolutely hideous self-doubt, treacherous late-night thoughts about failure and a lot of real frustration, anger and sadness. But there have also been these strangely exhilarating moments, too, like the other night when I was really killing a chapter and I suddenly felt so seized with energy and power and happiness, yes, that my hands started to tremble as I typed.

That feeling, in that moment, was worth all of the other ugly stuff that came before. And right now, now that I'm scared stiff once again and am stuck trying to scrounge up a few more final words from my tired old brain and it's like squeezing water from a stone and I'm once again convinced that I am a hack and a fraud and should just go ahead and change my name to spare myself the humiliation of publication, I am trying to remember how glorious the other night felt.

Because that night I thought,

This feels so good that I never want to stop writing.

You guys, that was in the top five best feelings of my life, I'm sure of it. Right up there in the Number 2 spot.

I'm nowhere near done; my manuscript still needs a lot of work. There will be edits, rewrites, more edits, tears, self-doubt, misery and hopefully, along the way, a few more moments of that exhilarating happiness that crop up when you least expect them. But I did it. I got the first draft done, bird by bird, drip by drip.

I did it.

I did it.

Now because, as I mentioned, my brain right now is like a dry old stone, like a pumice stone that's been abandoned by the side of your bathtub for about three years and is practically cracking in half it's so dry, I'm going to keep the rest of this brief. (You have been so patient and so kind while I've been so quiet here lately that I feel awful leaving for two more weeks, but you understand, right? You know? That this isn't just a honeymoon for me and Max, but also the world's best-timed and most-needed vacation? That directly after pressing "send" on the most terrifying email of my life, I luckily have no choice but to go away and not turn on a computer for 13 whole blessed days?)

We are flying to Greece tomorrow to spend a week at a cousin's house on an island in the Cyclades and then, because we are honeymooners, we're going to spend an entire second week on the islands, too. Two entire weeks of vacation. I don't think I'll quite realize what kind of a luxury that is until we're there. We did not, when we booked the trip long before my appendicitis struck, have any idea that I would be writing up until the day before we left. I've never gone away on a vacation so unprepared. All I know is at what time the ferry to the island leaves Athens. I guess we'll figure out the rest when we get there.

A few weeks ago, back before I dove under entirely, I made a batch of this tomato jam. I'd come into some plum tomatoes for cheap and they were really good ones, thin-skinned and deep red and flavorful. I made the jam, barely paying attention, as with most things lately, other than writing. I filled two small jars with it and had just enough left to tide me over through lunch.

Tomato jam is a funny thing; sweet when you're expecting salty, savory when you're expecting sweet. I spread it on a piece of crusty bread and topped it with a fried egg, the gooey yolk sort of swimming into the hot, sweet jam. It made for a very tasty lunch-for-one-standing-up-at-the-counter and would have been an even better breakfast, especially if I had taken the time to sit down and eat like a civilized person. And perhaps added a few strips of bacon to the plate.

The original recipe says you have to consume the batch within a week or so, but I canned it with no ill effects by simply filling the very hot jam into sterilized jars, screwing the lids on tight and turning the jars upside-down until fully cooled.

I'm doing my best to hoard one jar for the depths of winter when we have no sun and no tomatoes and the pink sunsets that still steal across the sky these days are long gone. But I don't really get to complain yet. After all, I've got two weeks of sunshine awaiting me. Two weeks of beaches and books and walks and balanced meals and more tomatoes than I will probably know what to do with. Two weeks to spend time with Max and sleep in and go swimming and let the knot in my back unwind at last. Two weeks to remind myself every day that I did it, I did, and that that is the whole thing, the work, the accomplishment, the thing I set out to do. Two weeks to be grateful and happy for the chance.

And with that, I should go. I have to gather myself, have to let go, have to tell myself it's okay, have to tell myself to be proud, have to press send, have to howl with glee and terror, have to cry, just a little, have to pack, have to go.

I'll see you soon.

Mark Bittman's Tomato Jam

Makes 2 small jars with a little left over
Click here for the original recipe

1.5 pounds ripe plum tomatoes, cored and coarsely chopped
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tablespoon fresh grated or minced ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or cayenne 

1. Combine all ingredients in a heavy medium saucepan, Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring often.

2. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until mixture has consistency of thick jam, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning, then pour into hot, sterilized jam jars, screw the lids on and turn the jars upside down to cool completely.

Clementine Bakery's Banana Cake

As promised, dear readers, I come bearing cake. Not just any cake, mind you, but the best banana cake the world has ever seen, if you will allow me some superlatives. This is not banana bread, in case you're wondering; it's nothing rustic and it's not remotely acceptable for breakfast. This is cake, rich and tender as all get-out and sporting a gorgeous cap of creamy-sour frosting.

To tell the truth, I made the cake for you. Because yesterday this blog turned six years old. Six. Six! If this blog was a child, it would be in first grade! It would be reading. And telling jokes! If this blog was a dog, it'd be middle-aged! I think that calls for some celebration. And what, pray tell, is a celebration without cake?

Six years is a long time. And it's a preposterously long time for a blog whose originator speculated it would barely last a year. The fact that it's still around and kicking and featuring unbelievably delicious cake is really, in no small part, due to all of you coming here and reading and cooking and commenting and all the rest of what you do. So I made you all a cake. You have no idea how much I wish I could have shared this actual cake with you, slice by slice.

When the book is published, do you know what I'm looking forward to the most? The book tour, is what. Because then I'll finally be able to meet some of you in person instead of just sort of vaguely knowing that you're out there. In fact, when the going gets rough, that's what I think about, I really do. It peps me right up. Puts a spring in my step.

But back to the cake. Hoooo, people. The cake. It is so good. It's super-tender and amazingly not-too-sweet and fragrant with bananas and velvety and moist and the frosting (which I changed a little from the original recipe, to make it a little less sweet) is the perfect foil for it, though I suppose if you left off this frosting and topped it with, say, something dark and glossy like this, I wouldn't kick it out of bed either. My friend Suzy, who I consider to have terrifyingly high standards when it comes to food, gave it high praise. As in, halfway through her first slice, she stopped eating, put her fork down and fixed me with a serious look. Then she said, "This is really good." Then she went home with a doggie bag and ate another piece after dinner which, according to her, never happens. Never ever.

The recipe comes from Los Angeles's Clementine Bakery and is, really, the holy grail of banana cakes, as far as I'm concerned. It even keeps well for a day or two, though it beats me how on earth you'd manage to keep it hanging around for more than a day, unless you were the kind of nut who bakes cakes for her blog and then has to run around the city delivering leftovers for friends lest she eat the entire thing all by herself. And best of all, it is so easy to make - no layers, no complicated mixing techniques. Just a bowl, some ripe bananas, a mixer and you.

I lessened the amounts of cream cheese, butter and sugar in the frosting, but then I added a little extra crème fraîche instead of sour cream, because I think that deeply creamy, sour flavor would be nice to underline. Plus it gave the frosting a little sensuous floppiness, instead of leaving it a stiff spackle. Which I think is sort of crucial when it comes to simple cakes like this one.

Now go forth and bake! And thank you for being here. And happy blog birthday to, uh, me!

Clementine Bakery's Banana Cake
Makes one 10-inch round cake plus a few extra cupcakes, or one 9 x 13-inch rectangular cake
The original recipe is here.

Cake:

2 2/3 cups pastry flour or 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour minus 2.5 tablespoons
2 2/3 cups sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large or 4 small very ripe bananas
3 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Into a large bowl sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, mash the bananas with an electric beater until smooth. Mix in the eggs, one at a time, until each is completely incorporated, then mix in the buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Finally, mix the dry ingredients into the batter just until thoroughly combined.

3. Pour into a 9-by-13-inch greased pan or a 10-inch round cake pan (you might have enough batter leftover for a few spare cupcakes). Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until golden-brown on top, a toothpick inserted comes out clean and the cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool on a rack.

Frosting:

6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2 ounces butter, room temperature
1/3 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons crème fraîche

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a medium bowl with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth and there are no lumps. Add the butter and whip until incorporated, then add the powdered sugar and the sour cream. Beat until the frosting is very smooth and lump-free. Frost the top of the cooled cake, then slice and serve.