There are few books I’ve read more times than Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. Any time I have a rough day or just find myself in need of reading material before bed, I pick up one of her two collections of food essays and get transported back to her world in 1980s- and early-1990s- New York.
She wrote about the best ways to do the classics, including roast chicken, shortbread, and biscuits. She wrote about surviving dinner parties, in an age when everyone has food allergies. She wrote about organic food a decade before the organic movement took off in the U.S. She wrote about being a coffee addict who collected leftover brew from other people’s cups to make iced coffee, and being a salt fiend who “if nothing salty was around…simply ate salt.” And she did it all with warmth and humor.
Have you ever tried Cheerwine? I look my first sip a few weeks ago, after spying it at Blue Apron Foods in Park Slope.
Despite the name, there’s no alcohol here, just a bright (one could also say, cheerful) burgundy color reminiscent of cherries. This extra-fizzy, cherry-flavored soda from North Carolina, has a long history; the same family has been overseeing its production since 1917. The kind that comes in a retro bottle, like the one above, uses cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, which is probably why it tastes about 10 times better than Cherry Coke. Available only in the Southeast until just a few years ago, various versions of the soda pop can now be bought online.
After about 14 months of recipe testing and photography for my cookbook, I am finally finallydone. No more waking up every morning and consulting the massive spreadsheet of recipes and the to-do list. No more schlepping to any of the three New York Chinatowns for ingredients (unless I’m teaching a class or blogging for Appetite for China.) No more months of eating Chinese food almost every single day.
It’s a little bittersweet, actually. I really enjoyed the cookbook writing and photography process, as hard as it was. But it is nice to finally be able to cook different cuisines at home again. It’s funny — while many fellow Americans try out Asian food to spice up their home cooking, I couldn’t wait to try out (after a year in which my diet was 95% Chinese food)…tuna noodle casserole.
We’ve all seen deviled eggs countless times before, but what about deviled mushrooms? My first encounter was in James Beard’s American Cookery, that wonderful trove of American recipes that date back to when the U.S. was a wee infant. Though the practice of adding hot spices to eggs appears to date back to Ancient Rome, the term “deviled” came into common usage in the US in the late 1700s to early 1800s to refer to any spicy dish.
The index of American Cookery shows a couple handfuls of recipes for foods we used to devil often, including crab, scallops, beef bones, and veal kidneys. They all used either cayenne or Tabasco for flavoring. I ended up making the mushrooms, with a bit less oil and a bit more Tabasco than the recipe calls for; what was considered spicy generations ago is considered mild now.
One of my first New York apartments was on Smith Street, where I lived from Fall 2005 to Summer 2006, when the area was already gentrified and rents were becoming pretty high. However, there were very few good dining options on Smith at the time. We had one incredible restaurant, Saul, and a few solid standby's, such as Zaytoon's and Cafe LuLuc, which was downstairs from my apartment. Most were bland or forgettable.
Flash forward to Spring 2010, when I moved back to New York after three years away. Smith Street was nothing like I remembered. Smith and Court Streets had become a dining destination of Brooklyn. So many noteworthy restaurants had already opened or would open in the coming months. Char No 4, Clover Club, Buttermilk Channel, Prime Meats, Watty and Meg, Seersucker, the list went on and on.
I’m currently looking for more art for my new apartment and stumbled upon this Cheese is Love print from artist Lucy Knisley on Society6. What size to get, a modest 8″x10″ or a large gallery 22″x28″? I just had brie with bread for dinner and writing this post is making me want even more cheese.
I recently saw these New York neighborhood plates on West Elm’s site and fell in love immediately. The whimsical black-and-white line illustrations, drawn by artist James McNally, depict Dumbo, Coney Island, Central Park, and Chelsea. They remind me of both old Saul Steinberg illustrations for the New Yorker and vintage children’s books.
If he does a part II series with Park Slope and Red Hook plates, I would seriously consider using them as wall decor.
While itching to bake cookies last week and flipping through The Essential New York Times Cookbook, I came across a recipe for “jumbles”, revised from a recipe that a Times reader had sent in to the paper in 1878.
Jumbles? I had never heard of them, but the ingredients looked like the ingredients in your average cookie recipe, except with the addition of sour cream. Amanda Hesser described them as “crisp and buttery and trilling with freshly grated nutmeg.” I was intrigued.
