To honor three food-and-tale-filled blogging years, let’s revisit a reader favorite: from May 13, 2009, here’s a story about my friend Andie, and also Andie’s mom and Judy Blume, and what we learned about men from them both.

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MOMS WILL BE MOMS, BUT JUDY IS FOREVER

Original post and comments found here.

{ A Mother’s Day tale }

In 1978 just three types of contraband existed for me and my pal Andie Lerner: shoplifted Bonne Bell makeup, those curious magazines in our brothers’ rooms, and Judy Blume’s teen sex novel, Forever. But at eleven, I feared juvenile cosmetics prison and declined the five-finger discount; despite many examinations of our brothers’ covert reads, Andie and I weren’t quite clear on the attraction; and finally, though we’d heard the title whispered and wanted it desperately, we were not wise to the horizontal goods in Forever. We were not actually wise to anything.

What we were was clueless, but lucky – a copy was circulating in our classroom by day, and pedaling home to bedrooms at night. The smudged paperback moved desk to desk – when Mrs. Endicott turned to the board, one girl slid it to the palms of another, and by the time she turned back, the deal was done. Math resumed with two flushed faces, one triumphant and one hopeful – and one day during fractions, the palms belonged to Andie. It was Friday afternoon, and our eyes locked in telegraphed plan: sleepover, toaster-oven snacks and a cover-to-cover inspection – no falling asleep like last time, Andie - of Forever.

Andie lived two houses down from our split-level, in a rambling old Tudor. Her family snacked on flax bread, and ate lentil soup in hand-thrown pottery crocks. Wide oak stairs led to a sunny living room crammed with macrame plants and art books and an enormous black Steinway, on which Andie’s dad would balance a glass of red wine and frequently bang out jazz. My own dad liked to browse tax law, so I found it all thrilling, right up to the day Mr. Lerner met a young woman and left the grand piano – and Mrs. Lerner – behind. Andie’s mom started wearing bangles and scarves and higher heels, and buying potato chips, and was never home. Mr. Lerner’s unfortunate weakness had built a premier sleepover destination.

So it was in an empty house, in the sitting room that held just a sofabed and television, that we holed up with Forever. Our props meant business: sleeping bags, Twizzlers, root beer, at least a dozen pillows and a few of their Persian cats. The fridge revealed one package of cocktail franks, and I’d brought a can of Wiener Wrap – a kind of processed dough you wrapped and baked around hot dogs. We could bake them in the toaster oven. I could sprinkle them with cheddar, and was excited about that, about sprinkling cheddar on Wiener Wraps.

But first, Forever. We literally tore through it – pulling back and forth – until we finally took turns munching licorice and reading aloud, all about Kath and Michael, and what they were doing. But…what were they doing? An hour later we’d read all the words, laughing – ha ha, he called his member Ralph – and while we knew what Judy Blume was saying, sex on a multicolor rug, we didn’t quite know what sex on a multicolor rug, or any rug, was supposed to mean.

So we put the book aside and chugged root beer, and watched TV. They were showing Planet of the Apes, and we were mesmerized by chimp makeup and funny lines. Charlton Heston was yelling about something. “I bet he never had sex on a multicolor rug!” Andie said. I pointed to Roddy McDowell’s ape. “Not him either!” I said. We howled and turned out the lights, and everything on TV was hilarious, and Forever fell to the floor. Eventually we heard a key turn, and a clack-clack down the hallway. “My mom,” Andie shrieked, “get the book!” I reached under the bed for the paperback but couldn’t find it, scrabbling. Mrs. Lerner poked her head in the dark room, then swept in all the way.

“You girls are stillll up,” she said.

“We’re going to sleep, Mom,” said Andie. Mrs. Lerner smelled like sandalwood, and swayed on her heels a little. Instead of leaving, she plunked down on the bed. I breathed in, but inched away. She leaned over. “What’s this?” In one floral-sleeved movement, she brought the book off the carpet.

She took a flashlight from Andie. “What is it?” She shined one spot on the cover. “Oh ho,” she said, “oh yes I do see!” My lungs collapsed. I could run home, I thought, I could bang on the door and I could confess to having the book, but at least I’d be out of here.

Now Mrs. Lerner swung to face us. Andie and I huddled on the sofabed, toward the wall. She turned the flashlight off for a moment, then on again. Then pointed it at us. “So you got this. Okay. Okay. Just tell me one thing, ONE THING.” We held our breaths. “Was it good?”

Was it good. I looked at Andie, who was looking at me. Good? Her mom was still lurching. “Was. It. Good. Was it good for her the first time?”

Oh, now we were truly up a creek. Neither of us had an inkling, but from her wild-eyed jangly look behind the light, we sure needed an answer. Andie looked stricken. So I gave her one.

“Oh yeah, it was great!”

She looked suspicious, pressed the book under her palm. “It was great. The first time.”

It seemed to be working, so I went on. “Yeah, fantastic! Everything was perfect!”

Mrs. Lerner slipped the flashlight off, and was silent for two minutes. I thought she might be asleep.

“Then it’s a LIE!” she yelled. I touched Andie’s arm. “If it was good for her then it is BULL.” She jumped to her feet, and yanked her beaded shawl. “All men are assholes,” she said, “and don’t you forget it.” She reached down, grabbed the book, and left.

Andie and I sat frozen for five minutes. Not until we heard shoes on wood, then shoes hit a wall upstairs, and finally the flump of a body in bed, did we finally start laughing, laughing so hard that root beer came out my nose. We did not discuss Kath and Michael, nor virgins or moms nor multicolor rugs. At two a.m. we went to the kitchen, preheated the toaster oven, and carefully wrapped pink cocktail franks in canned yellow dough. We sat on the brick floor in pajamas and tore open a bag of Oreos, giggling and crumb-faced, waiting for Wiener Wraps.

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* no illustration of Wiener Wraps; remember what happened last time?

The tangy yellow pie was a triumph, especially the graham-crumb star on top, which they had pictured on page 58. You may want to make up your own design, the book said. Nothing doing. I copied it, certain their six-point star would unlock the door to mouth-watering. Fancy party. I cooked my way through the book step by 1-2-3 step, carefully turning out Tutti-Frutti-Ice Sparkle, Quick Walnut Penuche, Flip-Flop Pancakes and steaming, butter-pat perfect Baked Potatoes.

Baked potatoes had few ingredients – one – but apparently required a recipe. I followed it. Fifteen years and four kitchens passed before I stopped following recipes, before I started jotting yolk-stained notes, before trusting my own hands, before saying why yes, I will make up my own design. Enough experience and the deceptively easy – the omelet, the pie crust, the potato – will come easier. Directives loosen and slide and one day, in your kitchen, you throw in this and take out that, and the recipes serve as inspiration. Your hands trust you.

Still, even the seasoned cook takes steps forward and back. For Summer Fest Potato Week (soon to be Fall Fest),  I thought nothing like baked potatoes, and since no tricks or twists can make them better than they are, I decided to pull my BHG Junior Cook Book and retrace my steps, following the Baked Potatoes recipe exactly as I did in ’75, which is to say, exactly. I found the beloved blue squares basic and soothing, and also found they produced the finest baked potato a beginning cook – or any cook, of any age – can make.

Set oven at 425°. Scrub dirt off potatoes. Stick with a fork to make holes for the hot steam to escape.

Note that the wire brush is not the exact one pictured in the book. Had I the wrong brush in 1975, I might have assumed the potatoes would come out wrong – deflated or something. Guess what? Brush not important.

Put potatoes on oven rack. Bake potatoes 40 to 60 minutes. They will be soft when squeezed with toweling.

And indeed, they are soft when squeezed with paper toweling. I was so enamored with the word. Would you pass me a paper toweling? Mother, I think we are out of toweling.

Cut a cross in the top of each potato with a paring knife. Place a pat of butter or margarine in each opening.

That cross-cutting bit was clear to me but oh dear, butter or margarine. Which one? Also, the BHG illustration (see above, #3) taught me that when dealing with butter, a pat was not just a slice, but a square yellow thickness of your choice.

There we have it. I followed my own junior footsteps and turned out the same excellent, crisp-skin and fluff-center potatoes. I didn’t toy with perfection then and, experience aside, don’t see any reason to now.

Well. You know.

Summer Fest is an annual online celebration of good food and great ideas, featuring food and garden bloggers from around the globe. Every week we share great recipes, stories and tips for marvelous seasonal ingredients. You can participate by visiting the guest blogs to share links or comments – and if you’re particularly inspired, contribute a post of your own. Drop by A Way to Garden for details on how join the party.

THIS WEEK’S LINKS: POTATOES

Alison at Food2: Boil ‘Em, Mash ‘Em, Stick ‘Em in a Stew

Kirsten at FN Dish: Twice-Baked Potatoes

Sara at Cooking Channel: Duck Fat Roasted Potatoes

Healthy Eats: A Day of Potatoes: Spuds for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Caron at San Diego Foodstuff: Hatch Chile Potato Salad

Nicole at Pinch My Salt: Taquitos de Papa, made with leftover mashed potatoes

Caroline at the Wright Recipes: Indian Spiced Potatoes with Chickpeas (Aloo Chole)

Paige at The Sister Project: French Fries to soothe a burnt-out cook’s soul

Margaret at A Way to Garden: Potato Growing, Curing and Storage Tips

Food Network UK: We like spuds

Alana at Eating From the Ground Up: The strange experience of growing potatoes

Cate at Sweetnicks: Bleu Cheese Potato Mashers

Gilded Fork: A roundup of potato recipes

I like everything about fondue.

In the early 90′s Greg and I would go to Geja’s Cafe, the fondue institution in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, a subterranean place with stucco, flamenco tunes and delightfully curtained booths. Called “Chicago’s Most Romantic Restaurant,” it features a massive fondue menu with cheese, beef, lobster, scallops, flaming chocolate. You drink wine for two hours while you wait. You drink wine with four fondue courses, watch wine blaze your dessert, clink champagne. Then, if you are me, you pass out on the table in cheese-wine coma and, for an encore, fall out of a taxi and hurl.

Still, I like everything about fondue.

I like going to buy the cheese, and griping about the cost. Oh well, I always say, handing the cashier our mortgage, it’s only once a year. I love that it’s a one-pot meal, and prying open Sterno, and piling tart apples in bowls and drinking wine while I stir in the wine. I like forks flying, diving, and tangling under cheese. Enough tangled dipping and someone’s bound to drop an apple, or lose their bread. When that happens, tradition dictates that you kiss the person to your right…

…especially if that person is a Josie-loving Lab.  Now break out that set – you know, up in the high cabinet, in the back. Pour, stir, bubble and smooch: enjoy your own fondue night.

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Traditional Swiss Fondue

adapted from The Book of Fondues

1 garlic clove, peeled and halved
1 cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Gruyère cheese
2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Emmentaler cheese
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons Kirschwasser (cherry brandy)
dash white pepper
pinch grated nutmeg

crusty French bread, cut in cubes
1 – 2 tart, firm apples (I prefer Granny Smith) cut in chunks

Rub inside of fondue pot with cut garlic clove.

Pour in wine and lemon juice; cook over medium heat until bubbling. Turn heat to low and gradually stir in cheese with wooden spoon or, for easier cleanup, a heatproof silicone spatula. Cheese will melt, but cheese and wine will appear separated.

In a small bowl blend cornstarch with Kirschwasser. Add to melted cheese mixture and continue to cook, stirring for 2 – 3 minutes, until mixture comes smoothly together. Watch carefully and do not allow fondue to boil. Season with white pepper and nutmeg, and serve immediately.

Serves 4 as a first course; double recipe to serve as main course.

A word about heat: whatever your fondue heat source, it’s a balancing act. You want it high enough to keep fondue melted, and low enough not to burn. Despite best efforts, you’ll nearly always find a small patch of burnt cheese on the bottom. French-speakers and true fondue fans love this treasure and call it “la religeuse,” the nun. I call it holy good snacking.

This is not new. If given a deliberately vague task I freeze and wait for purpose, which often doesn’t show but finally did, when I carved a mission from this meme-me-me: I’d share seven foods from my past, each with a small story. You, dear reader, pick the one you like – or the least boring, whichever comes first – and the most-voted food gets cooked and blogged here on Simmer, recipe, story and all. Thank you, Susan for your too-kind words and, indirectly, the gift of one blogging day made a little less random.

S’mores Tarts Baking at an upscale Chicago pastry shop, I was expected to devise new desserts for the case. New desserts that would please both customers and our novelty-driven boss who, if he sensed a trend, would have sold chocolate-dipped pig ears and motorized cake. I came up with S’mores tarts, novel in 1995, composed of graham tart shells, milk chocolate ganache and fluffy house-made marshmallows which we would – big finish – set ablaze in front of the crowd. Seemed like a winner, and all went great until we actually blew out flames, and a lady in the window shrieked heavenward that she’d seen our spit hit the tarts. So much for blaze theater.

Curried Mushroom Soup In high school Behavioral Science class, we had a semester-long project in which we’d be pretend-married to another student, and live on a budget, and work out issues, and all types of situations designed for maximum teen discomfort. One assignment required hosting a dinner party with other “couples,” and after planting my pink Converse Hi-Tops at mom’s stove to make Curried Mushroom Soup – a mature-sounding dish from her files – I served it in our dining room to twitchy, bickering pairs who’d rather be somewhere else. Dabbing soup off my ripped jeans, I considered that this might be how adults spent their days.

Stuffed Leg of Lamb In a combined young-bride and young-chef disaster, I once pounded, stuffed and rolled a boneless leg of lamb to entertain Greg’s law firm colleagues. The evening started with our crotch-sniffing Dalmatian and a clogged sink, continued with undercooked, untied lamb and finished with a wailing fire alarm. In truth, the mustard-garlic-whatever stuffing was delicious – but who among you would ask me to do it again?

Tortelloni with Gorgonzola Sauce In the post-college summer of 1990, Greg and I backpacked around Italy. One night in Bologna we splurged on a real restaurant, a place called The Black Cat, set on a square with flickering jar candles, wrought-iron tables and people in clean clothes. After slurping cheap red wine we ate carpaccio with parmigiana, lemon and capers, fat cheese-filled tortelloni in Gorgonzola sauce, and tiramisu. It may be the wine, the summer or the fact that an argument caused me to leave, walk away and come back, but it is still, many dinners later, the best I ever had.

Linzer Torte The classic Austrian dessert is just fruit jam under latticed almond crust, but the buttery dough is tricky, melting, fragile. Especially if you’re rolling dough in a small city bakery in July, and daft owner lady won’t pay for air conditioning, and still takes orders for Linzer Torte. You might get heat stroke and threaten to quit, right there over the breaking dough. Yes you might. But you’d never blame a torte this good.

Marjolaine When I ran a catering company, The Happy Ending, I supplied restaurants with Valentine’s Day desserts. One year I filled an order for 300 pieces of Marjolaine, a labor-intensive classic made with hazelnut meringue, genoise, and two buttercreams. At the time I worked out of my house, and with no catering staff and a sleeping toddler, it was just me and Marjolaine in the all-night kitchen. For hours I baked, whipped, stirred, threw spatulas and wept. All the while I Love Lucy played on my tiny kitchen TV, the Scotland episode where Lucy dreams it all. I know this because I saw it three times; I was at my table so long that Nick at Nite ran it three full times before sunrise. Three. If you vote for Marjolaine, rest assured it will be well-planned. One cake, no Lucy and Simmer off to bed.

Spaghetti Carbonara When I returned home on college breaks and my sister was in high school, we liked to whip up this spaghetti-bacon-egg bonanza late at night – and for a short obsessive time, every night. When I picture the bubbling cream and parmigiana and yolks it boggles my mind, a mystery how I made it through those snack years without total stomach collapse, or gaining 500 pounds. Because that would surely happen now if, at 42, I began lounging with midnight TV, two-liter Diet Cokes and pasta straight-from the-pot. Iris was my Carbonara ringleader, insisting the more cheese, more spaghetti, more talk shows the better. Our parents were asleep, we had metabolism on our side and to flop down and share one blue bowl again, even a few strands, my stomach would gladly say yes.

So. One of these memories gets cooked. If it’s Marjolaine or lamb, please give me plenty of notice so I can prepare, respectively, with extra sleep and string.

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Update 1/28: WINNER! S’mores Tarts it is, announced here. Voting over, but if you wish to leave a request – like lamb, oh you people – feel free. And thanks for playing along.

We were back in Chicago two weeks ago to dedicate dad’s headstone, and after the service at mom’s we hosted another group, smaller this time, and another identical tray: corned beef, rye bread and pickles, kaiser rolls, cookies and cakes. The kind of spread he loved but we were eating, there in now-just-my-mother’s kitchen, and though we had plenty to feed the crowd I still considered pulling the big red pot from her cabinet and stirring some onion soup. That’s what I see; to another cook full of memories but free of that one, it will be just good soup, but doesn’t that bear repeating? Living with what we have, moving forward, happy to slurp just good soup.

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From December 18, 2008. Original post and comments here

When a person is down – in general, in trouble, or in mourning – friends often say things like “take care of yourself,” and by all means I agree, take care. But how? Some friends say this in summary, a tag line at the door. Wearing winter coats and tying on scarves, they hold you by the arms and look you in the eye. Take care of yourself. Some mean please don’t fall off the edge, others mean stop taking care of others, and the most well-meaning and practical wish you to actually take care of yourself. Physically. As in eat carrots, get sleep, drink more tea.

Good advice, and like most healthy ideas, easier said than done. The unfortunate eating started before my father was even gone, first in a hospital at 3 am, where a meal of M & M’s does not seem like a bad thing. My mom had asked me to find her a Hershey bar – so I wandered noiseless halls for a vending machine, which I found, but without Hershey bars. I studied the candy through the glass – B6, C8, D4 – to decide what substitute would be best. Three Musketeers wasn’t right, Twix too fussy, and Snickers – a bit heavy before sunrise. M & M’s might last us all night, while we watched Dad sleep and snow fall through the dark, one chocolate bite at a time.

By the next evening people filled my mother’s living room, bearing crumb cake and cookies and eager, oversized pies. It was then that I made the ludicrous decision to eat no carbs in that house, no matter what chocolate, rye bread or Bundt cake was put on the counter. It is worth noting that I am generally one with the carbs, and most days I require lots of Saltines, and brown sugar, and oatmeal. But here I was sure that without structure, I’d mindlessly eat through the days and in a week, the fog would lift and I’d regret it. No, I would not comfort myself with the good stuff, and under that dazed plan I found I didn’t even mind the parade of cousins and friends plowing through said good stuff. Annoyed at being shooed out of the kitchen – take care of yourself, don’t do anything! – I contented myself with a pile of breadless corned beef, salty black olives, and sliced cheese.

A few days later we were driving home, and just above the sadness I sensed a small triumph – I had not given in. No cookies, brownies or bread had passed my lips. Aha! Grief meant losing, but not losing control. I stared at winter roads for hours, thinking I miss Dad already. But I will not have to buy new jeans.

Back home, I quickly succumbed to baguettes, then bagel chips, and then biscotti, all brought by friends – until eventually I found myself standing in the kitchen on the phone, nibbling idly at a friend’s turtle brownies while my mother recounted her meeting with the bank. You can make a pretty good dent in a 9 x 13 brownie pan when you’re on the phone, believe you me. This would not do.

I opened the fridge and realized it was empty. Kind friends had delivered all sorts of temptations, but it held no real supplies. A quick trip to the store felt good and routine; filling the shelves felt even better. By the time I was melting butter I knew the answer, and it had nothing to do with jeans. Rules and sadness don’t mix, and being stuffed and served by well-meaning friends, no matter how well, is only part of what you need. In my kitchen, alone with a soft black dog and a blue pot of onions, I could think, and cry, and laugh and dab my eyes over soup. That is doing whatever you need to do, and taking very good care of oneself.

French Onion Cider Soup

2 small onions, thinly sliced
1 Golden Delicious apple – peeled, cored and diced fine
1-2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon flour
16 oz apple cider
1 quart (32 oz) chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
salt & white pepper
nutmeg

crusty bread
sliced Gruyere (or other Swiss cheese)

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium-low heat and add the onions and diced apples. Stir briefly to combine, then cover to let ingredients steam, about 5-7 minutes, checking and stirring occasionally. Remove cover and stir mixture frequently, until onions are deep golden brown and apples soften completely, almost disappearing.

When mixture is a deep golden brown (bottom of pan will also have browning) turn heat to low, then add flour and 1/2 cup of the apple cider, stirring constantly to form a sticky, combined mixture.

Add chicken broth, white wine and remaining apple cider to the pot, deglazing browned pan and stirring onion-apple mixture into broth. When onions have broken up into the broth, partially cover soup and simmer on low for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown, slightly reduced and thickened. Season with salt, white pepper and nutmeg to taste.

To serve:

Preheat broiler. Place oven-safe soup bowls (2-4, depending on portion size) on a rimmed sheet pan.

Place thick chunks of crusty bread (toasted is even better) in bottom of oven-safe soup bowls. Ladle warm soup over bread to almost, but not quite, fill the bowl. Top with slices of Gruyere cheese, allowing a slight overhang. Slide pan with soup bowls under hot broiler to melt cheese. Watch carefully – cheese will frequently melt, brown and bubble in less than a minute. Remove carefully from oven, and serve.

Soup (minus bread and cheese) serves 2-4 and keeps, refrigerated, for several days.*

* this is a good soup to make ahead, as flavor only deepens the next day. Re-warm soup before assembling the bread and cheese bowls, then ladle and serve as directed.

Isn’t that nice? But before my mother objects, let’s rephrase: one sweaty Chicago summer, my brother and I nearly killed each other nailing two boards into a tree. We pounded rows of crooked nails into little boards for steps, and as high as we could get, two larger boards for seats. It wasn’t much, but it was up in the leaves, perfect for neighborhood spying and perfect for summer reading. I would make two separate climbs before settling in: one toting a snack-filled Partridge Family lunchbox, and another dragging a library bag full of books.

It won’t surprise you to hear that many of my favorite reads, both then and now, feature food. But what I really love are books that don’t announce they’re about food – they just are: Heidi toasting cheese in her Alps, Jo March eating apples in the garret, Mary and Laura pouring maple in the snow. These were the bits I read and reread, and then snacked and read again. Don’t even get me started on The Bobbsey Twins’s luau and the pig roast. Now that was a page-turner.

Lucky for me – or no accident at all – my daughter tasted books the same way. Here’s a list we compiled together of great culinary reads for kids, all so good and so timeless, this adult likes to sample them now. They run from picture books to young adult (or 41-year old adult.) Do you have a favorite food read, or a great food scene you never forgot? Add yours to the list. Happy (and Hungry) Reading.

Fanny at Chez Panisse Alice Waters, 1997

Truly charming story-plus-cookbook by a culinary royal. Alice Waters describes how her young daughter, Fanny, spends her days at mom’s famous Berkeley restaurant, sorting tiny eggplants, hiding in stock pots and watching chefs at work.

Bread and Jam for Frances Russell Hoban, 1964

Frances will only eat bread and jam, so her mother gives it to her for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I would like to reenact this as “Deep Dish Pizza for Marilyn.”

Blueberries for Sal Robert McCloskey, 1948

The classic picture book of blueberry picking, a bear cub, mothers and life in Maine.

Amelia Bedelia Peggy Parish, 1963

I always liked the many good qualities of free-spirited Amelia Bedelia: she was a tall, skinny smiler, and she cheerfully screwed up everything. I particularly admired the way she could neutralize any angry person by feeding them lemon meringue pie.

In the Night Kitchen Maurice Sendak, 1970

Though there was controversy over the depiction of a nearly baked-in-a-cake naked boy, all I saw was a fantastical look at how a bakery worked overnight. Sendak’s illustrated world – especially with flour and sugar – never fails to stop me in my tracks.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Eric Carle, 1969

The classic caterpillar eats every food in sight, until he finds all he really needs is one plain and perfect green leaf. Truth? I didn’t want him to eat the leaf. I wanted him to keep eating salami and ice cream.

Eloise in Paris Kay Thompson, 1957

I was lucky to inherit a stack of 60′s-era Eloise books, and Paris was my favorite. Her champagne cork necklace! Baguettes! Dinner at Maxim’s! It was all rawther delicious.

Little House in the Big Woods Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1932

I could blog every day for a year about the Ingalls family and how they rest in the mind of most every woman I know – but for now I’ll just serve highlights: maple syrup snow, sideboard of pies, sour pickles, a crackling pig’s tail. Onion wreaths in the root cellar. So memorable were Laura’s food passages that they eventually filled The Little House Cookbook, as noted in this lovely post by Paige Smith Orloff.

Strega Nona Tomie DePaola, 1979

A wise Italian witch with the power to conjure up pasta. What’s not to love?

Heidi Johanna Spyri, 1880

One of my all-time favorites, the story of a Swiss girl and her grandfather in the Alps is really about toasting golden cheese, curing sausages, warm goat’s milk, and soft white bakery rolls. Do not be fooled by the jacket copy. It’s all about the food.

Anatole Eve Titus, 1956

And here is where Simmer readers fall down. Yes indeed, I love a book about a mouse, a mouse who wears a beret and tastes cheese in the cheese factory. When I first read it – decades before the pear incident – I was dazzled by his little scarf, and all those Bries and bleus.

Strawberry Girl Lois Lenski, 1945

A terrific book I never forgot – Lois Lenski’s story of hard living for rural Florida “crackers,” a detailed, often sad picture of Birdie Boyer and the tough world around her. Strawberries are everywhere, all about growing them, picking them, eating them. A classic for 9-12 readers.

James and the Giant Peach Roald Dahl, 1961

This book made me dream of waking up, rolling over and eating chunks of peach from the wall. Enough said.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone J.K. Rowling, 1997

Oh sure, there’s dueling and wands and danger, but what thrills me at Hogwarts is dessert. I mean, Dumbledore claps his hands and profiteroles fill the hall. Magic, or what?

Moments after finishing my first pot of caramel sauce – first melted sugar, first caramel anything – I pulled up an apron corner, wrapped the burning handle and carried it down twenty-seven steps, past an audience of snickering older students, past my teachers, not breathing until the pot finally reached the hands of a famous West coast chef standing onstage, waiting with a microphone and tapping a plate.

At twenty-three I cooked more than most and baked swell pound cake, but the fact remained that I’d been in culinary school just 32 days. Famous Chef was visiting to perform a cooking demo, his advance food prep so demanding that a scroll-length memo was issued to teachers, lists and diagrams attached.

Dori was my bench partner, and we were deep in earnest chopping, piles of 1/4-inch carrot dice, when our teacher, Chef Karmin, pulled my jacket from behind. “You two,” he said, handing us a stapled sheaf, “I have a job for you. Make sure your knives are sharp.”

He turned to leave, and I glanced at the list.  Searing tuna, burning sugar, chopping exotics. “Um. Chef,” I said, “it’s just…Chef, we haven’t done any of this. This stuff.”

He talked out the door as he left. “It’s not too bad,” he said, “and you’ve got oh, two hours. You can do it.”

We gaped. Dori looked sick. I regretted those gobbled croissants off the sheet rack, now rising as we grabbed steels and began frantically honing knives. I finished quick but Dori kept sawing, blade flying like a mad violinist. Back and forth, back and forth, five minutes gone and the list untouched.

My assigned partner was ambitious but nervous, moved slow in the kitchen as she thought before moving. Dori asked permission to peel potatoes, carried tiny handwritten points on scaling fish. She measured the carrots. Now she ground knives while I studied the list, bobbing her tiny head and dark brows. It would be a long two hours.

The list gave her fits. We were to prepare complete versions of Famous Chef’s dishes, all requiring various first-try skills: searing tuna with lavender and peppercorns, shaving priceless deep woods fungi, braising eggplant he’d carried in-flight.  I flinched at the clock, flabbergasted. Why would the powers entrust rookies, one more neurotic and green than the next, with their crucially high-priced plans? The last task was dessert, a bread pudding. Soak currants in rum, okay, bake brioche, I don’t think so, and make caramel sauce.  Caramel sauce from scratch. Melting sugar. I looked up and saw Dori across the room, hunting for books about tuna.

The brioche was mercifully baked by advanced students who, delivering bread and surveying our challenged kitchen, got the best laugh of their day. We struggled down the list, producing a string of near-disasters until there was fifteen minutes left, and we’d finally reached the caramel. A little butter, some sugar, how hard could it be? While Dori mulled the perfect pan, I dumped sugar in the pan we had. She returned to the stove and saw me cranking the heat.

“We can’t do this,” she said. “We don’t know what what we’re doing. I don’t want to do this.”

I told her me either. I have no idea, but we have twelve minutes left. They are waiting for us.

“What, we have to go in there?” Good god, I’d met someone crazier than me. Stirring water into sugar, I was lifted by this thought.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s watch it. It’s supposed to bubble, then turn colors.”

“Someone set a pan on fire last week,” she said. “They walked away and it caught fire.”

“Uh-huh,” and I looked at the clock. “It’s bubbling.”

“Take it off,” Dori said, “it’s turning!”

“Not yet,” I said. It doesn’t look right. I had no idea how it was supposed to look. But not yet.

The clock ticked and the color inched forward with each second, now gold, now golden.

“TAKE IT OFF,” Dori begged, “we’ll get it wrong. It’s wrong.”

I swirled the pan, by now pleasantly deviant, blind but going for broke.  I didn’t know anything but knew enough to keep going, despite Dori yelping and the hot breath of time. Better too much than too little, better mahogany than beige, trust whatever it takes to get this thing done.

Now the color was toffee and it smelled like caramel, only better. I showed Dori. “What do you think?”

“OH MY GOD they are in the auditorium.”

“Okay…now.”

We yanked it off, whisked in the butter, the vanilla and cream. Dori! I think we made sauce.

She nodded her brows – well, I guess – but would not walk in there.  So I ran across the hall clutching an apron-wrapped handle, running as fast as any person who is late with scalding liquid. The sauce shimmered left to right as I wobbled down the aisles, passing students step by step. Most had already interned, already worked the line, and here’s me with unsupervised caramel, not breathing, feeling naked but getting it done. Finally, I climbed three stairs to the stage and gently set the pot on the table. Empty-handed, I stepped back to leave.

“Let us thank our little helper,” Famous Chef boomed, and while the students were roaring, he glanced at the sauce and whispered to me. “Color could have gone longer.”

My face burned. Hey – if it was up to my partner, you might have been looking at clear.

Still, I was grateful it hadn’t been said at the mike. Chef isn’t too bad, I thought, everyone has to fly blind sometime, he must know. The Chef motioned for me to stay, stay up there; things seemed to be working out.  Then he drizzled our sauce on the plate, and held it up to show the crowd. “It should not look like this.” 

Okay. Maybe not.

He paused and raised it higher, so caramel stripes dripped off the rim. “But alas, this is how it looks today.”

Josie’s sundae: vanilla bean ice cream, caramel sauce and fresh cherries

Make your own caramel sauce – it’s taste years away from jarred and the perfect pair for ice cream. Think you can’t? Of course you can. As in all caramel matters, I recommend not thinking at all. Run sweet and blind. It comes out better that way.

Classic Caramel Sauce

1 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup water

1 cup heavy cream

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

pinch sea salt (optional)

Put the sugar in a medium-sized heavy saucepan. Pour water over the sugar, swirling until sugar is “moisturized.” Cook over high heat until sugar dissolves. Dip a pastry brush in hot water and use it to brush down any crystals from side of pan – OR – cover pan with tight-fitting lid to steam off crystals, then remove to continue cooking.

Continue cooking over high heat, watching closely, until mixture starts to turn a rich amber color, but does not smell burned. Remove pan from heat and carefully add the heavy cream, whisking. Mixture will puff and steam, and some sugar might harden. Return pan to heat and cook, whisking, until mixture appears smooth. Remove from heat and add butter, stirring to smooth. Finish by whisking in vanilla and, if desired, generous pinch of sea salt.

Serving: serve sauce hot, first cooling to desired thickness. May be refrigerated for several weeks and reheated in microwave or on stovetop as needed.

Makes 2 cups, enough for several ice cream bowls and more than a few spoonful snacks.

adapted from Favorite Old-Fashioned Desserts, by Pat Bailey

In 1978 just three types of contraband existed for me and my pal Andie Lerner: shoplifted Bonne Bell makeup, those curious magazines in our brothers’ rooms, and Judy Blume’s teen sex novel, Forever. But I was a fearful eleven-year-old who declined the five-finger discount – and despite many examinations of our brothers’ covert reads, Andie and I weren’t quite clear on the attraction. Finally, though we’d heard the title whispered and wanted it desperately, we were not wise to the horizontal goods in Forever. We were not actually wise to anything.

We were clueless, but lucky – a copy was circulating in our math class by day, and pedaling home to bedrooms at night. The smudged paperback moved from desk to desk, and when Mrs. Endicott turned to the board, one girl would slide it to the palms of another, and before Endicott turned back, the deal was done. One fine day during fractions, the palms belonged to Andie.  It was Friday afternoon, and our eyes locked in telegraphed plan: sleepover, toaster-oven snacks and a cover-to-cover inspection – no falling asleep like last time, Andie - of Forever.

Andie lived two houses down from our split-level, in a rambling old Tudor.  Her family snacked on flax bread, and ate lentil soup in hand-thrown pottery crocks.  Wide oak stairs led to a sunny living room crammed with macrame planters and art books and an enormous black Steinway, on which Andie’s dad would balance a glass of red wine and frequently bang out jazz.  My own dad liked to browse tax law, so I found it all thrilling, right up to the day Mr. Lerner met a young woman and left the grand piano – and Mrs. Lerner – behind. Andie’s mom started wearing bangles and gauzy scarves and higher heels, and buying potato chips, and was never home. Mr. Lerner’s weakness had created a premier sleepover destination.

So it was in an empty house, in the sitting room that held just a sofabed and television, that we holed up with Forever.  We meant business: sleeping bags, Twizzlers, root beer, at least a dozen pillows and a few of their Persian cats. The fridge revealed one package of cocktail franks, and I’d brought a can of Wiener Wrap – a kind of processed dough you wrapped and baked around hot dogs.  We could bake them in the toaster oven.  I could sprinkle them with cheddar, and was excited about that, about sprinkling cheddar on Wiener Wraps.

But first, Forever.  We literally tore through it – me pulling, her pulling  – until we finally took turns munching licorice and reading aloud, all about Kath and Michael, and what they were doing. But what were they doing?  An hour later we’d read all the words, had a laugh – ha ha, he called his member Ralph – and while we knew what Judy Blume was saying, sex on a multicolor rug, we didn’t quite know what sex on a multicolor rug, or any rug, was supposed to mean.

We set the book aside and chugged root beer, and watched  TV.  They were showing Planet of the Apes, and we were mesmerized by the chimp makeup and funny lines.  Charlton Heston was yelling. “I bet he never had sex on a multicolor rug!” Andie said.  I pointed to Roddy McDowell’s ape. “Not him either!” I said. We howled and turned out the lights, and everything on TV was hilarious, and Forever fell to the floor.  Eventually we heard a key turn, and a clack-clack down the hallway.  “My mom,” Andie shrieked, “get the book!”  I reached under the bed for the paperback but couldn’t find it, scrabbling.  Mrs. Lerner poked her head in the dark room, then swept in all the way.

“You girls are stillll up,” she said.

“We’re going to sleep, Mom,” said Andie.  Mrs. Lerner smelled like sandalwood, and swayed a little on her heels.  Instead of leaving, she plunked down on the bed.  I breathed in, but inched away.  She leaned over.  “What’s this?” In one floral-sleeved movement, she lifted the book from the carpet.

She took a flashlight from Andie. “What is it?” She shined a spot on the cover. “Oh ho,” she said, “oh yes I do see!”  My lungs collapsed.  I could run home, I thought, I could bang on the door and I could confess to having the book, but at least I’d be out of here.

Now Mrs. Lerner swung to face us.  Andie and I huddled on the sofabed, toward the wall. She turned the flashlight off for a moment, then on again. Then pointed it at us. “So you got this. Okay. Okay. Just tell me one thing, ONE THING.” We held our breaths. “Was it good?”

Was it good. I looked at Andie, who was looking at me. Good? Her mom was still lurching. “Was. It. Good. Was it good for her the first time?”

Andie looked stricken. Neither of us had an inkling, but Mrs. Lerner’s wild-eyed look behind the light demanded an answer.  So I gave her one.

“Oh yeah, it was great!”

She looked suspicious, pressed the book under her palm. “It was great. The first time.”

It seemed to be working, so I went on. “Yeah, fantastic! Everything was perfect!”

Mrs. Lerner clicked the flashlight off, and was silent for two minutes. I thought she might be asleep.

“Then it’s a LIE!” she yelled.  I touched Andie’s arm. “If it was good for her then it is BULL.”  She jumped to her feet, and yanked her beaded shawl. “All men are assholes,” she said, “and don’t you forget it.”  She reached down, grabbed the book, and left.

Andie and I sat frozen for five minutes. Not until we heard shoes on wood, then shoes hit a wall upstairs, and finally the flump of a body in bed, did we finally start laughing, laughing so hard that root beer came out my nose. We did not discuss Kath and Michael, nor virgins or moms nor multicolor rugs.  At two a.m. we went to the kitchen, preheated the toaster oven, and carefully wrapped pink cocktail franks in canned yellow dough. We sat on the brick floor in pajamas and tore open a bag of Oreos, giggling and crumb-faced, waiting for Wiener Wraps.

——————

* no illustration of Wiener Wraps; remember what happened last time?

Emily Dickinson

After more than a year’s worth of Simmer, I’ve concluded that blogging is much like phoning your family. Some days an outburst and others, just “Everything okay? Bye.” For example, I was going to tell you about the pumpkin dog biscuits I baked for Cleo, but…I know. We talked about Cleo yesterday.  Or what Greg, um, had for lunch, or how Jean made me laugh – oh dear, did I mention her the other day?  You get the picture. Purposeless blogging is a lot like aimless talking, a lot like that check-in call with your mom, your friends, your sister.

Whether you love or dread those calls isn’t the point; the point is there’s always someone on the other end you can trust, and with whom you love to be aimless. After moving from Chicago to Kansas, my sister and I would talk – quite literally – all day. At the time, she was fighting cancer and I was nursing a newborn. Like long distance chain-smokers, we’d hang up one call and minutes later, start another. She forgot to say this, I forgot to tell her that. We lost Iris when she was 26. Twelve years later I wake up, still think our dual catty thoughts, and reach for the phone.

I used to tell my father, struggling for calm, that now she was a gift, the best parts left to carry, a gift like a warm stone in your pocket. Eventually he accepted that, and I believed it; but anyone with loss knows that gift comes chained to your core. And my, does it drag around. Still – if there is grace to be saved in losing a sister, it’s the wonder in finding women so attuned to your loss, so keen to your rudderless state that, with shocking kindness and intuition, they offer themselves as your own. We can never replace our sisters; but what comfort, what faith lies in knowing that a sisterhood can, and will, find you.

Though I did nothing to deserve it, sisterly gifts found me:  friends, cousins, aunts, artists, bloggers, writers and cooks have all lightened that weight in coffee shops, on the page, in their kitchens, in my kitchen. Recently the dear, talented geniuses of The Sister Project generously hosted my small – but vital – sister story, and you can read it here.

I haven’t yet shared this on the blog, these bits from the wings, because it was my desire to keep Simmer a relatively joyful, delicious place. But I’m deeply gratified – and surprised – by reactions at The Sister Project, from both those who want to know and those who know too well.  I shouldn’t be, but am, surprised at the welling, gut feelings on loss. I’m not at all surprised to find a sisterhood willing to share.

Or maybe we haven’t discussed this yet because, you know, one needs to save stories for all those daily calls. I mean, posts. Thank you, gentle readers, for being an enormous set of friendly ears, every day.  And now – be you sister, mother, friend, or even a smart sensitive guy, get yourself over to the brilliant Sister Project, and poke around; there is family, there is food, there are stories, and if you look long enough, you’ll find treasure in every corner.

* Oh, I’m sorry, is this blog supposed to be about food?  Okay. We come from a food-obsessed family, so no better way to honor my sister than by exposing her secret snacks of shame (which weren’t so secret): Butternut bread slices fried in butter, spread with jam; tossing late-night spaghetti carbonara; drinking Hershey’s Syrup from the bottle, mixing pretzels into peanut butter and – my favorite – eating Lipton Sweet Iced Tea mix with a spoon.  You know, it’s not half bad.

“Okay. Shh.”

“I have it!”

Later, he would propose that what I shared with the housekeeper was not anticipation, but martyrdom. “That’s not how she described it,” I said, “and you know, everyone in the audience felt bad for her.”

“Yeah,” said Greg, “exactly.”

Whatever the name, it’s always present: a bride will demand more icing, sleepover child won’t like onions, and wait, you’ll need water with that pill.  Over-thinking, yes, but a particular brand, one of cause-and-effect, and a mixed blessing. Being ready makes life smooth and being kind makes life good, but the constant pull of awareness can, and will, set you apart.

It will poke you in small ways at the wrong times. At a recent dinner event I was seated between Greg and a smiling corporate publicist. She had blinding teeth and a still, groomed ponytail; she chatted left to right about running her last 10K, but I suspected that within the hour, she would need chocolate.

The first course was served in a synchronized flourish of plates. This was a very fancy affair, with predictably affair-tall food, but I’m no easy target. Done right I’ll eat both high and low, and though I’m not quite what you’d call jaded – more like hugely jaded – one day after chef school I stopped ooh-aahing every garnish and leaf.  Still, this course was lovely, and the servers met a room full of stylish diners, feigning indifference to their glee.

Here is what they saw: chic edible puzzles arranged on white rectangular plates.

They saw two ceramic squares with wasabi and lemon herb sauce, and next to them, a Tiffany box-sized ice cube. A well down the center burst with upright crustaceans – one lobster tail, two speckled crab legs and two meaty prawns, fat as steaks from the sea. A twiggy iron fork harpooned it all together, and that was the first course. Gifts from the deep, one raw bar per person.

Here is what I saw: a waiter’s worst nightmare.

Even as oohs and aahs were stifled, I saw what hell this course would bring.  The plating was so precise that it left no room for shells, lemon rinds, or tails. The rectangles were shallow, and it didn’t take a chemist to see that giant ice cubes, already glistening, would soon melt across the dish and leave a small but briny sea.  I glanced around the table; my well-heeled seatmates were diving like ice fisherman, cracking shells and dipping chunks. Water began to seep past the plates and down the napkins, toward all those pressed pants.  I turned to Greg – who was waiting for it - and leaned over.

“What.”

“It’s really nice…aren’t they nice?”

“Yes.”

“But…kind of a mess.”

He was pulling crab meat.

“The ice cubes.  They’re melting all over.  The plates are filling up.”

“Yes.”

“The waiters won’t be able to pick them up.  They need room on the edge.  The…crab shells are spiny.”

“And?”

“They’ll hurt their hands.”

He blinked.  “The shrimp are great,” he said. “but there’s so much here.”

Why. Why? No one else was thinking shellfish cuts, or sodden linens, or how to balance a dish full of arctic melt.  They were just eating. My PR neighbor cheerfully spooned drowning wasabi, but professed to a severe obsession with chocolate.  Seated among them I wished for a different head, oblivious and nicely level, but it did not come. Resigned, I picked up the skinny wet spear and ate my beautiful seafood, and since it wasn’t exactly tragedy and since I am no martyr, I did not further discuss what might happen.

Even though, of course, it all did.

—————————

* So – what’s with the slobby sketches?  Well my friends, turns out there are some places where it seems – gasp – inappropriate to photograph food, and this was the best I could do.  Given the end scene of struggling waiters and dirty sea water, I kind of wish I had.