SuspendedAnimation

father's day

These are the cinnamon rolls beside which all other cinnamon rolls are not cinnamon rolls but rather insipid slices of supermarket white bread. We have been making them for special occasions for ten years. The only quibble I have with this recipe is the icing. The icing is kinda pointless, isn't it? We expect to see icing. It has no particular flavor; doesn't add much texturally, either. Eh. I make the icing, and the ones we're eating on the spot, I drizzle a modest amount of icing on them. But the real gift-that-keeps-on-giving aspect of making something like this for someone for breakfast is, the honored one is entitled to the leftovers for the next few days. We freeze them. I don't think the icing does well for re-heating the buns, so the leftovers are naked.

Why does it seem as though I work the word 'naked' into virtually every post?

This particular Father's Day I am doing a lot of cooking. Howie is smoking a big rack of ribs, and he has also taken responsibility for the greens. The menu:

Smoked pork ribs
Coleslaw
Mustardy potato salad
Collard greens

Strawberry-rhubarb shortcake

So a few words about the rest of the menu:
Coleslaw: traditionalist. I like the shred fairly fine, and always like the slaw best when it's a mixture of green and red cabbage with a good amount of carrot, for that confetti color effect. Nothing else but a bit of onion or scallion and a a thin dressing of vinegar, sugar, mayonnaise, salt and pepper.

Potato salad: what I've come to is a variation on a mustard-dressed potato salad some friends made for us once. the dressing is mostly oil, vinegar, lots of stone-ground brown mustard and a very modest amount of mayonnaise—just enough to mellow the sharpness of the mustard a bit—and nothing else in the potato salad but the boiled potatoes and a little scallion, though parsley can be good in it too (the little girl loathes parsley, so we try not to harrass her with it if we can do without it). I know some people like to cook whole potatoes and then chop them, but I prefer to cut them into 1" to 1.5" pieces, skin on, and boil them in well-salted water with a quartered onion in it.

Um, and I love sweet pickles, but their presence in potato salad drives me to a murderous rage.

Strawberry rhubarb shortcake: I've already posted my shortcake recipe elsewhere on this blog. The rhubarb part is from a recipe in one of Deborah Madison's cookbooks for 'rhubarb fool' (rhubarb puree mixed with creme anglaise, folded with whipped cream. very nice). Sliced rhubarb cooked down to a puree with sugar, a few strips of orange rind, the juice of the orange, and vanilla bean. Sliced strawberries stirred into the chilled puree, spooned in a split shortcake, topped with whipped cream. Rhubarb is one of those foods that people seem to love or hate. Greenish, big rhubarb is not worth anyone's time, I think, but gorgeously red, small rhubarb really does justify its existence, and it can be a lot better than strawberries when the strawberries themselves are not superior ones.

Okay, back to the kitchen with me. Neither barefoot nor pregnant but today: highly domestic.

balls

Spaghetti and meatballs--what did you think I meant?

I feel pretty horrible, which is not surprising, being a failure and good-for-nothing and general waste of human space little bit blue and all; but for someone of limited ability and potential, I'm a reputable cook; and I thought that making spaghetti and meatballs might make me feel better. As I type this, Howie is taking over the rudimentary boiling-the-pasta part of the process, while I record for you the recipe. I really wanted to post the wonderful illustration of Frances the badger eating her plateful of spaghetti and meatballs from Bread and Jam For Frances, but we haven't bought a scanner yet, so no luck there--google did not come through for me this time.

This is not a particularly inventive recipe, and I will brook no complaints about the authenticity of this or that ingredient. I'm not forcing anyone to make this, especially because it contains cruel, cruel veal. So leave the damn veal out if you're not interested in torturing your fellow creatures! I do recommend, however, finding a guaranteed-BSE-free source of meat. I may be lax about generating nasty karma, but I am fairly vigilant about limiting potential prion consumption.

And another thing. Like some of my other recipes (which can be viewed all in a slice by clicking the 'nourish thyself' category), you may note that amounts recorded have a tendency to be imprecise. And that is because I cook by sight and intuition, and don't measure much ... so perhaps that might be a signal that, even though I have a reputation for being a cook of some substantial talent (which reputation has been promoted principally by myself), I might not be the best source for recipes. I've not had any feedback on this matter. In fact, you might say that when I offer a recipe, it's so useless as to amount to nothing more than unsubstantiated boasting and vainglorious self-celebration of my putative gastronomic achievements. Crowing over my culinary prowess. Etc. That's as may be, but at the moment I'm going to have to settle for that, because I need some bucking up; so I beg your indulgence.

Later note: this did come out tremendously tasty, and it cheered me up for about an hour, but then I fell back down and I still can't get up. So I think that dashes any hope I had about marketing Meatball XR 750mg as the next miracle mood disorder remedy: the SMRI (Selective Meatball Reuptake Inhibitor).

Tomato Sauce with Meatballs
3/4 lb. 'meatloaf mix' (equal parts ground veal, beef and pork)
1 egg
about 1/2 c plain dry breadcrumbs
a few generous grindings of fresh nutmeg
many generous grindings of fresh pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 oz. freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 small clove garlic, through a press

1 small onion, finely chopped
virgin olive oil
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

Thoroughly mix meat with crumbs, eggs, seasonings, cheese and garlic.

Heat a generous amount of olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and stir until fragrant. Form meat mixture into small balls, the size of a walnut, and brown in the olive oil. The onion will brown as well. Add tomato and bring to a lively simmer; reduce heat and simmer, covered, 20-25 minutes. Makes enough meatballs and sauce for 1 lb. of spaghetti or linguine, serving 4-5 adults generously.

Watch what you eat

Step away from the blackberry cobbler!
Yes, it's blackberry season in the mid-atlantic region, and the same biscuit recipe I use for strawberry shortcake, offered up earlier, is also my recipe for cobbler topping. Less than a week ago, the Jellybean commented at the table, "I wish we knew how to make blackberry cobbler." "Pardon me, I replied, nettled, "I am perfectly capable of making a blackberry cobbler." And so I did. And she was perfectly capable of eating it. And it was perfectly capable of staining her mouth a most alarming shade of blue, and you should have seen the bathroom sink when she was done brushing her teeth.

No other especially interesting news to report. I'm in transition from one drug to another, so there's good odds I will no longer awake in the night with the surface of my skin aflame, which--though diverting in its way--was not especially conducive to perfect repose. My classes started today, and though I launched the day just dripping with Atti-tyood, I'll say that this semester, if my mental state carries me through, should yield less ennui than my past experiences.

Such is life chez Jilbur. *yawn* Anyone heard any good jokes lately?

Sesame Candy

It's all about the sesame candy.

It was the one thing--besides water, tiny swigs of milk and the occasional small serving of a fruit or vegetable--that I seemed to be able to eat at my worst over the past week or so, and as my appetite improved (I'm kind of entirely normal right now, and fishing for a publisher's advance on The Ectopic Diet: How to Lose A Pound A Day While Sobbing And Keening) the inexhaustible craving for sesame candy continued unabated. I went through a good generous-sized bag of the bulk 'sesame crunch,' purchased on a whim from our local health food store. And that's a good thing, or every waste receptacle in my house would have been full of cellophane wrappers from the ridiculously tiny pieces of candy that are like those in the pic I found.

There are no ingredients listed on the plastic bag from the store, but I'm assuming that the candy consists solely of toasted sesame seeds and honey. According to the Nutrition Analysis Tool 2.0, just one ounce of this SuPerFood has the following valuable nutritional content (given in percentage of daily recommended intake for women in my age group which is *gulp* 31-50): Calcium: 20% ; Phosphorus 18% ; Iron, 12% ; Thiamin, 15% ; Niacin 8%. All in a delicious matrix balancing carbs, fiber, protein and fat in a delicate dance of crunchy goodness.

Nothing much else to say, except: keep up the good work, sesame crunch! and: Insomnia waning; appetite returning; mood lifting--I'm disgustingly resilient. Got what I hope is my last blood test today, but not worried about it; and generally, I'm giving permission for my hits to return to their pre-crisis level as all you nice people cease to wonder whether Jill's going to crack anytime soon. I'm not. I'm sure I'll be shoveling out the self-pity at some point in future, since I can be depended upon to work that angle periodically--but until then, I think I'm about to return to my usual, less melodramatic brooding about things like housework and my child's dental development.

Woe there, little dogey!

My family is all trickling away from me.

First, today: we met my in-laws for Father's Day brunch, and according to plan, the Jellybean went with them for a two-night visit. By the way, I'm considering revising my theory about the supplemental dining-out tongues that I suspected the in-laws to possess, because the excruciatingly mediocre restaurant where we ate met with their vocal and enthusiastic approval. I'll just disclose now that I have decided on a matter of policy: not only do I hate every food containing portabella mushrooms, but on principle I hate every restaurant that has anything with portabella mushrooms on the menu. And I double-hate (doubleplusungood! bad restaurant!) a restaurant that advertises a food as containing 'wild mushrooms', and said food instead contains that insipid* cultivar, the egregious portabella. You know, not only are they not wild--they're not even a distinct variety. Portabellas are just big crimini mushrooms--and criminis are just darker and slightly denser than white mushrooms, and more or less identical in flavor. The Wonder® Wheat Bread of the mycological world. I know I increasingly sound like a food snob--but really, I'll bet you a Chick-Fil-A® sandwich I'm not.

That was a digression.

So, Howie and I left the Jellybean with her grandparents and waved as they drove off, with my daughter urgently and repeatedly reminding me that I should call her 'at 7:55.' Which was rib-tickling to me, and also was making me cry. It may sound like a good thing for me to have time away from my girl (or, more to the point, for her to have time away from me), but candidly I like having her around. For instance, I like doing stuff like this with her: After the goodbyes were said, Howie and I took an hour or so for a walk in the cutesie open-air-mall town and then drove back home so that he could start preparing for his trip tomorrow morning.

Yeah--he's leaving me for the whole week. Coming back in the wee hours of Saturday morning, so that he can party up with a bunch of his ultra-specialized colleagues (Homo technocranius) at their Special Conference in northern California, and so he can make me pant jealousy over the endless supply of cheap, delicious Mexican food that he will no doubt be eating whenever he can duck out of the conference long enough.

The Jellybean will be back home with me for two nights before making another trip to visit her other 'Grammy,' so I'll be on my own for a total of three nights over the next five.

So that will unofficially make me a Single Girl, just briefly, won't it? Somehow it doesn't feel the same (at least in anticipation) as it did in my twenties. I don't know if it's the house in the suburbs, or ... or what! But I suspect that 'being single' is not going to have any other effect than not having a regular dinner, or going out for an hour or two without having to account for my whereabouts. Pretty dull stuff.

In other news: I am now baaa-ing politely in the wake of the Netflix bellwethers. Ohhhh sweeeeeet Netflix. My queue beckons with its DVD releases that were never, ever available in the local Blockbusters. I contemplate my future leisure opportunities, my ass growing ever-larger and lumpier now that I have the incentive to spend an increasing number of hours gaping at the television, watching The Triplets of Belleville or Standing in the Shadows of Motown or, heck, Guys and Dolls. Something sedentary to do on days the Yankees aren't playing, or when they are indulging in the occasional (accursed) day game!

I will leave you with the recipe of the cake I made for breakfast in honor of Howie's paternity. It's an adaptation of an almond cake in Deborah Madison's The Savory Way.

Blueberry Peach Almond Coffeecake

Cake:
3 oz. almond paste
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. unsalted butter
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 c. sour cream
1.5 c. flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
yet more almond paste [optional]
1/2 c. blueberries
1 small peach: peeled, quartered, and sliced crosswise

Crumb topping:
1/3 c. sugar
1/2 c. flour
1 oz. almond paste
2 Tbl. unsalted butter
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 325°F ; grease and flour an 8" square pan.

First make crumb topping by combining ingredients in a small bowl and blending with fingertips until it forms large, cohesive crumbles.

For cake: In food processor, combine 3 oz. almond paste with the sugar and process until thoroughly combined. Add eggs, one at a time; then sour cream; then flavorings, processing after each addition. Transfer mixture to a large bowl. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the moist in three batches, stirring gently with each addition. If desired, break up some additional almond paste into little pieces and fold it into the batter.

Put about 2/3 of the batter in the prepared pan. Distribute the peaches and blueberries over the batter. Drop remaining batter on top, trying to cover all; use a spatula to increase the coverage, but don't get obsessive about it. Sprinkle the topping over that, and bake in center of oven about 55-60 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean near the center of the cake.

*two posts in a row with the word 'insipid.' Let's see if I'm on a tear! In fact I wish I could find a way to include the word 'vapid' in this one, too. And now that we're on the subject, Howie might object since he's the gardener in the family, but 'aphid' would look very nice somewhere around here ... if you can think of any other '-id' words, kindly leave them in comments because this is quite suddenly an intense interest of mine.

pleased to report!

Abandon any hope of fruition.
Man, I love that one. I love how it sounds all grim and inexorable, but under its obstinate and flinty shell, there's just Life is not about winning something. It's just what you're getting, moment to moment. It's precious--icing is superfluous.

In other words: Better. Not giddy, not overflowing with joy. But, definitely an improvement. Earlier this evening, I actually chanted aloud my hatred for contour sheets as I wrestled to get our guest room prepared for my dad and stepmother, who stopped over tonight on their way elsewhere, and then tried to fold the rest of the load of laundry. Contour sheets were invented just to torment me, I know it deep within the marrow of my bones. And I even have a reasonable strategy for folding them--it's just that my perfectly sane, rational strategy doesn't work, because the sheet knows what's coming and does a little spasmodic performance just when I'm trying to get all the corners folded into each other.

But still--that's the sheet's problem, not mine. I do not have to choose to take on the neurosis of my bed linens. I have other, better ways to expend my energies.

For instance, today I made challah. This recipe almost got lost. It was my great-grandmother's recipe, and the same challah was made by her daughter, my great-aunt. Aunt Rita died about two years ago, and though she'd given me the recipe long ago, of course I'd lost it. Neither of my sisters had it, but Aunt Rita's daughter-in-law did, and she gave me the recipe--just a list of ingredients. The original recipe is for something like six loaves--calls for five pounds of flour. A "baking of bread"--I guess that's why the bags are five pounds ... I adapted it for the bread machine, to make a measly two loaves. It's unlike any other challah I've ever had. A very fine, stiff crumb.

Bubbi's Challah
1 2/3 lb. white flour
2 eggs (+ 1 yolk later, for glaze)
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. oil
1 1/2 tsp. yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chernishke (also called black caraway seed, or kolonji--available through penzeys.com)
About 1 1/3 c. water, depending on conditions

Put ingredients in bread machine, liquid first (start with 1 c. water and check during the first kneading to adjust for a soft, springy dough). Put machine on 'dough' setting. At the end of the cycle, punch down, knead briefly, and form into two loaves. Let rise in bread pans until doubled in bulk. Beat an egg yolk with a pinch of salt and a Tbl water and brush tops of loaves. Bake at 350°F for about 35 minutes, or until nicely browned and, you know, done.

P.S. The part about this baking of challah that brings it right back to the sphere of my daily chaotic messiness is this: yeah, I set about making the dough, when I had a half dozen other things going on--including my sheet-wrestling match--and forgot all about it, twice. I didn't get the loaves into the oven until almost midnight. And here I am, in the wee hours, about to get the loaves out of the pan to cool off so that I can stagger off to bed. But: it's all good. Challah for breakfast tomorrow!

Why you envy me

Because my man can smoke a 7.5 lb. 'picnic' pork shoulder until it falls apart with a whisper-touch into shreds of smokey, mouth-melting bliss.

[Well--okay, not a whisper-touch. More like thirty minutes of the two of us strenuously going at it with two forks each until there was a big mountain of pulled pork in a bowl, and a greasy pork bone and a small pile of blackened pork skin--and just a little bit of fat--lying on the foil-lined cookie sheet where the 'picnic' had rested. Why so little fat? Because, my friend, over the course of 9.25 hours, the rest of the fat had been slowly marinating the meat at low temperatures amid plumes of hickory smoke.]

Because my dinner included not only a generous portion of these shreds of porky goodness, but also excellent homemade coleslaw, pickled beets, and mustardy new-potato salad, and Brooklyn Weisse beer.

Because I've got three plump packages of the leftover pulled pork snuggled up in my freezer, so that a month from now I could be musing: Hmmmm, what to have for dinner? I know--homemade pulled pork sandwiches!

Don't hate us because we know how to barbecue. There's at least a dozen of you who may read this that I'd invite over for pulled pork sandwiches in a heartbeat.

Why people call my husband a lucky man

This was actually the second four leaf clover that Howie found during our fabulous weekend-with-friends on Chesapeake Bay. The first one he let the Jellybean bring back to show everyone; she promptly lost it in--you guessed it--the grass; so that was a remarkably ephemeral pleasure. Apparently, according to one of our friends, it's not that hard to find a four-leaf clover, but it does take a kind of dharmic approach--an illustration of this slogan:
Abandon all hope of fruition.
Howie agreed. You can look and look and look for the four-leafer; as long as you're striving, it will elude you. But if you just let go and look at the grass, within a pretty short time you find that you are just looking. at. a. four. leaf. clover.

But I take it back; that's not a really good illustration of the slogan, because I have just implied that if you abandon all hope of fruition, you will be rewarded with fruition. Sorry! Not necessarily.

The method described above, though, is the more happy-making method of seeking a four-leaf clover.

It doesn't hurt to follow up with strawberry shortcakes, though.

The Charminge Towne near (if ten miles is near) the house we stayed had one somewhat miserable grocery, that didn't even have Bisquick--the shortcake ingredient recommended to me by Our Friend Who Knows such things (I didn't even eat a biscuit until sometime in my twenties--I always thought of them as a goyish thing, but now I know that--even if that is true--it won't do to let the Gentiles keep their claim on that kind of good stuff). So I got Jiffy Mix instead, and the shortcakes were pretty fine, because the berries were mighty fine.

That whet my appetite, though, and when we got back from the trip, I bought local berries from our second-favorite (because not organic) local farm, and made my favorite shortcake. This is an adaptation from a recipe by Deborah Madison, but that was for a cobbler recipe. I use this for cobblers and shortcake. If you make it with the vanilla bean, it's better than with the extract ...

Shortcake
1 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
1 Tbl. superfine sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1/2 vanilla bean or 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 Tbl. butter
1/4 c. half-and-half cream
1 egg

Preheat oven to 400°F.
Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and 1 Tbl. sugar in a medium bowl. If using vanilla bean, split it lengthwise and use the tip of a paring knife to scrape the seeds into the dry ingredients, and then use fingers to rub them into the mixture. Add butter, cut into small pieces, and cut into dry ingredients until mixture is the texture of cornmeal. Beat together the cream and egg, adding the vanilla extract if using it. Add to dry mixture, reserving about a Tbl. to glaze the shortcakes later. Stir together until almost all combined with a fork; then turn mixture onto a board and knead briefly just until it all comes together smoothly. Then shape into a circle, about 1/3" thick and 7" diameter. Cut into 6 wedges; brush with reserved egg and cream; sprinkle tops lightly with additional sugar. Remove to a foil-lined baking sheet and bake about 13 minutes, or until just starting to color on top. Cool on racks; split to fill with sliced, sugared berries and top with lightly sweetened whipped cream.
These shortcakes freeze well. Reheat 30 seconds in a microwave.

ain't jemima

What you are witnessing is the forlorn spectacle of 75 frozen pancakes and 28 zip-lok bags.

It all began innocently enough ...

Did you know that frozen pancakes are a quick, convenient and tasty weekday breakfast for choosy young children? No--not while they're still frozen, you quarterwit. Just microwave for 1 minute on a pretty flower-shaped brightly colored plastic plate from IKEA and bam! Fancy breakfast is served, with a drizzle of pure maple syrup. Hey--wait--don't let syrup get in your hair! rrrrrrghhhhh.

No, thank you, bam! notwithstanding, I do not care, at this moment, to kick it up a notch.

Well, my husband (I am tiring of referring to him as SuperHusbandMan, despite a recent vote of confidence--somehow it sounds as though it's meant at his expense, though the awe my dear man inspires is utterly sincere) makes pancakes almost every Sunday, so--clever buggers that we are--we were in the habit of popping the leftovers into a zip-lok bag for just such a potential purpose.

Indefinitely, it appears.

It also appears that we haven't mastered the fundamentals of arithmetic, nor observed that even at her most pancake-voracious, the jellybean opted for pancakes, at most, twice a week. Generally she favors these.

So there you have it: that's the quantity of pancakes that an inefficient pair of adults can accummulate between June 2002 and March 2004. Now that I have so much room in my freezer, I can rush out and buy half a dozen frozen pheasants just in case friends drop by unexpectedly.

Breaking news: I have just been nominated the Polly's Pancake Parlor of crawling life by Larvae Monthly Digest, on behalf of our grateful backyard compost heap.

Thank you ... thank you ... thank you all.

mmmmmmm, kale

"I don't want the macaroni and cheese! Please, can I have more kale?"

That's really only a slight exaggeration. Okay, so we weren't really having macaroni and cheese. It was campanelle with some kind of hard sheep's cheese (Manchego I think), olive oil, pancetta, onion and black pepper. So like any self-respecting 6-yr. old, jellybean was trying to flick off all the offending particles (though the cheese didn't bother her at all--it's not that different from the romano in boxed mac 'n' cheese, except that it tastes good), even going so far as to try to pry open the curled pasta shapes to cleanse their interiors.

She chowed that kale, though, and Howie and I were smirking at each other every time (3) that she asked for another helping.

Like a lot of parents of a certain type (please don't ask me to 'type' myself, but I recognize the flavor is all I'm sayin') we get a big kick out of our offspring liking something that kids aren't s'posed to like. I remember on a certain defunct mama forum an entertaining and candid discussion about the class differences in this phenom. So for us, we try not to boast about the bean's fondness for california roll, and any food including black beans.

In the case of kale, though, it probably helps that I have on more than one occasion served it baked until half-crunchy completely enveloped in heavy cream. Organic heavy cream, naturally. But still. The bean still refers to this as 'potato chip kale,' because the crunchy parts were ... chip-like.