July is the time of year when I go in for my yearly physical. This year, the results came back fine and dandy as usual, except for one tiny thing — I have a slight iron deficiency. Of course, that's very minor in the spectrum of problems a doctor can phone you about, but it's also a little crushing to not get the same "everything looks great! keep doing what you're doing!" remark from years past.
"Eat more lean red meat," I was told. "Or more dark leafy greens."
It's great to have a legitimate excuse to go find out and find a nice juicy steak or burger, stat! But really, I definitely would not be able to keep doing that every day to meet my iron requirement. This is where the kale comes in.
How can you tell you've found the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe? I guess one logical answer is if you stop trying other chocolate chip cookie recipes. Another answer, I've discovered, is if you crave the cookies so much you would bake them in the middle of a heat wave.
I should probably also mention that my apartment doesn't have central AC. Last week, when it was about 95 degrees during the day for 3 days straight, I had to blast my rickety old air conditioner for 2 hours before my studio cooled down. But it was worth it just to be able to turn the oven on for an hour to bake these chewy, delicious cookies.
If I had to name one favorite food from childhood, the food I can remember eating with total abandon, the clear answer would be watermelon. In family photo albums, there are pictures of me sitting on a stoop or a kitchen counter, at age 2 or 3, happily biting into slices of watermelon bigger than my head. Sometimes there would be watermelon juice dribbling down my chubby little arms. Sometimes I would be in mid-bite, concentrating too hard to look up at the camera. Often would be a huge smile on my face.
You know how childhood favorites can come and go? Not true with me and watermelon. Even today I look forward to summer every year primarily for the ripe watermelon available everywhere, from farmer's markets to my corner bodega.
I woke up on my 30th birthday last week just itching to bake. It was supposed to get up to 90 or 95 degrees that day, but I figured I could squeeze in some quick cookie-baking before my apartment got too warm.
Recently I started baking more with whole wheat flour, as you might have seen in the post on Whole Wheat S’more Cookies. In addition to its healthier aspects, whole wheat flour just gives cookies a nice extra nutty flavor. And if you add bananas and old-fashioned oats to chocolate chip cookies, there’s no reason you can’t have them for breakfast, right?
Well, it has been quite a week! Since turning in my edited galley pages for my cookbook, I've been busy testing out new recipes for both Brooklyn Galley and Appetite for China. And celebrating the end of a long project usually means a cocktail somewhere in the mix.
I've been trying out this Rosemary Salty Dog cocktail for the last couple of day. If you've never had a Salty Dog, it's basically a drink with grapefruit juice and vodka or gin in a glass with a salted rim. It was likely concocted in the early 1950s by the same man who came up with the Bloody Mary.
This cocktail just screams summer to me, possibly because of the icy grapefruit flavor, or possibly because "salty dog" word association brings up nice thoughts of saltwater, beaches, and playing with dogs. My brain works in mysterious ways.
Last weekend, it was finally gorgeous out after a month of rainy and chilly weather. Instead of lounging in the park, I spent most of it holed up indoors, editing the unbound galley pages of my cookbook, giving it the final check before it got sent to the printer. I barely left the house, sipped many cups of coffee, and snacked on an embarrassing assortment of sweet and salty junk food. (The telltales signs of an intense period of work.)
Yesterday morning at 11am, I packaged it up and sent it back to my publisher. I sank down on my couch and let the sense of relief sink in.
I got inspired to bake these whole wheat s’more cookies after seeing Moonrise Kingdom on opening weekend and getting all happy-nostalgic for summer camp.
I’m a total sucker for anything set in the 1960s or related to the New England coast, so I was completely sold on the movie after seeing the trailer in May. Set on a New England island around a “Khaki Scout” summer camp, the movie involves two 12-year-olds who make a pact to run away together and the scout troop that searches for them. There’s budding romance, intrigue, quirky art direction that’s a Wes Anderson signature, and a kick-ass soundtrack. The movie kept me grooving for days to this particular Francoise Hardy song that was stuck in my head.
Yesterday I wanted to bake a cake. Sure, it was a Monday, but since finding out over the weekend that my cookbook was now available for pre-order on Amazon (!!!), I wanted an excuse to celebrate. Or more accurately, I wanted an excuse to eat cake.
But not a cake with frosting or layers or anything that required more effort than a Monday evening calls for. Then I remembered a recipe for French-style yogurt cake in Molly Wizenberg’s A Homemade Life that I had bookmarked a while back but hadn’t had time to try yet. It’s an old-fashioned dessert that home bakers used to make by measuring ingredients in a yogurt jar. (Dorie Greenspan has also said this was one of the few desserts that French women actually make at home, given that in France amazing pastry shops are pretty much everywhere.)
A delicious-sounding cake that didn’t take much effort? Sold.