Beginner's Luck

Mostly over the past couple of years I have been happily oblivious of the insane buzz about macarons taking the internet by storm. But ages ago I did clip from Gourmet or Bon Appetit a page on macarons from Pierre Herme, and every time I flip through my loose-leaf kitchen binder I think, gotta try that sometime! (I've had an on-and-off again relationship with both magazines since about 1990, but it was never true love and it is definitely now all off since Gourmet folded unceremoniously. I remember when I was in high school my brother had a friend whose mother was a devoted reader of Gourmet for decades. The top of her kitchen cabinets was a carefully cataloged collection, year by year, each year month by month in proper order. Something about those serried magazines made a lasting impression. They bespoke a kind of house proud accomplishment that was about a million miles at least distant from my own upbringing.)

The time finally arrived last week with mixed results.

The very first sheet was absolutely perfect. And then the following three sheets sprawled and crinkled and looked nothing like macarons. They were delicious, mind, but not photogenic. I was stumped by my beginner's luck and did a fair amount of reading to try and understand what might and might not have happened, but don't consider myself any more enlightened now than when I pulled that second tray out of the oven what was the difference. Especially since it turns out that according to every one of the forty-three macaron blogs I subsequently browsed I didn't do anything right with the first sheet.

Another one of life's mysteries!

A Lasting Relationship

As a reader of cookbooks I am by conventional standards promiscuous. Over the past twenty-five years several hundred volumes at least have sojourned through my bedroom. Some lingered for months on my bedside table, only to retire at last and never return. (The Joy of Cooking, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, vols. 1 and 2) Others stayed only a few nights before the spark of attraction flickered out and died. (Everybody Eats Well in Belgium, Mrs. Fields Cookie Book.) But interspersed among my many flings with food in print, a handful of relationships endure. When I tire of my latest crush, they are always waiting on the shelf alive to my touch. In the middle of the night, when sleep heads out for a late night snack, they join me uncomplainingly in bed and keep me company as I wait for sleep to return. No matter how faithlessly I sometimes treat them, they never disappoint me. And like any rich and lasting partner, they continually surprise me with new pleasures.

Among the faithful few is Nancy Baggett's All-American Cookie Book. The big batch gingerbread recipe is my staple for the holiday season. When I want to make a good impression, I bring a box of turtle bars. When I just want to please myself, I make a batch of best ever snickerdoodles. And then there are the brownies supreme, the raspberry cream cheese swirl brownies, the key lime frosties, the date rocks...The book is good as gold (with a few exceptions) but the standouts are the bar cookies. For years I've bookmarked this recipe for brown sugar pecan sticky bars, and last weekend I finally gave them a try.

In a word: I love you Nancy Baggett's All-American Cookie Book!  XXOO from I Ate What I Am!

A Happy Marriage

This fall has been tough, but not without bright spots. Case in point:  last night's pizza dinner. I got home around 5:30 and was scrounging in the refrigerator and found a package of soy chorizo and some shredded mozzarella and an onion rolling around in its own peeling dry skin. I had a half bag of Tipo 00 flour also in the cupboard, and five minutes was about all it took to get my dough started. Despite my stated preference for a fermented crust, the same-day variety actually has its own charms. It is a lot like a pita really. The texture isn't as chewy as it gets later, and the flavor isn't as sour, and that seems totally fitting for a Monday night.

The soy chorizo is a very convincing meat substitute. And marries well I think with my world series crush Bengie Molina.