Washington Capitals Sweet Potato Pucks & Sticks

Michael (center) plays goalie as one of the Mites on Ice.

February is sweet-potato month. As I child I hated sweet potatoes—mostly because I saw them only at Thanksgiving goopily encased in maple syrup and other sweet substances. Once I realized they could be eaten in other ways I became a big fan. My favorite way to consume them is baked simply in the oven, split open, and smeared with a little butter. I’m always on the lookout for something new to do with them, however.

Last week my nephew Michael requested that I come up with a recipe that relates to hockey. At eight Michael is enthralled with this sport. He drills and plays every weekend with his fellow Northern Virginia Ice Dogs. I’m impressed with the amount of time these kids spend on the ice—and with the lessons they learn, which are as much about teamwork and sportsmanship as about winning.

Michael and his parents have season tickets to the Washington Capitals’ games. They started watching the Caps last year when Michael was in second grade and took up hockey. They were delighted to see the team get better and better as the school year went on.

Sports watchers credit much of the team’s newfound success to coach Bruce Boudreau. Boudreau fascinates me. His face at most games is impassive. He is famous for dressing down his players, however. Thomas Boswell recently quoted him in the Washington Post as saying of his team, “They’re good kids. But sometimes kids don’t do their homework. Coaching is a lot like parenting.” (Michael loved reading this.)

Michael's Bruce Boudreau bobblehead clutches his trophy for Coach of the Year

I have a feeling Michael thinks the Caps’ improved scoring is less due to their coach than to their new eight-year-old fan. Perhaps he’s right. Certainly, the team and its management are going out of their way to encourage family attendance. Michael seldom comes home from a game without a treasured freebie; recently he showed off a Capitals lunchbox of which I am very jealous. And he and his junior team are proud to have been invited to don Capitals uniforms and play as “Mites on Ice” during the intermission at one of the games.

Here for Michael and all young hockey fans are recipes for sweet potato hockey pucks (rolls) and sticks (roasted sweets). Maybe one of these days these treats will be available at one of the Capitals’ games……

Sweet Potato Pucks

This recipe can be made two different ways, to produce a sweet or a savory roll. I personally prefer the savory version, but it never hurts to have a choice!

Ingredients:

enough sweet potatoes to make 1 cup mashed (about 1 medium to large sweet potato)
1 packet yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) sweet butter, melted
1 tablespoon salt
4 to 5 cups flour (part may be whole wheat)
2 eggs, well beaten
2 generous teaspoons cinnamon plus 2 tablespoons sugar–OR 2 generous teaspoons Creole seasoning plus 1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

Instructions:

Wash and trim the sweet potato(es) and cut into manageable pieces. Boil the pieces they are until soft enough to mash. Remove them from the water—but do not throw out the water!

As soon as you can, peel the sweet-potato pieces. Mash them thoroughly, using a little of the water if they seem a little dry.

Measure out 1/2 cup of the sweet-potato water; you may discard the rest. As soon as the water cools to lukewarm (this will not take long), place the yeast and 2 tablespoons sugar in a small bowl, and pour the lukewarm vegetable water over them.

While the yeast is proofing, put the milk in a saucepan over low heat. In a mixing bowl, beat together the mashed sweet potatoes and butter. When the milk is steaming but not boiling, remove it from the heat. Stir the yeast mixture into the sweet-potato mixture, followed by the hot milk, the salt, and 2 cups of the flour. Stir thoroughly, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Let this wet mixture rise in its bowl, covered, until it doubles in bulk (this took me about 1-1/2 hours).

When the batter has risen, stir in 1-1/2 cups more flour. Turn the dough onto a floured board and knead it until it is smooth, adding more flour as needed. As you knead, you have a choice. If you like sweeter rolls, try kneading in the cinnamon and sugar. If you like tart rolls, knead in the Creole seasoning and cheddar. Your final product will be a little sticky but not too sticky.

Using your hands shape the dough into little balls about 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Place the balls an inch or two apart on greased (or parchment-covered) baking sheets. You should have about 24. Allow the balls to rise on the baking sheets until they double in bulk again, at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 375, and bake the risen rolls from 15 to 25 minutes, until their tops are golden. These pucks are best served hot from the oven with lots of butter. Makes about 24 rolls.

Sweet Potato Sticks

Ingredients:

1-1/2 pounds sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more oil as needed
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1 teaspoon salt
lots of freshly ground pepper

Instructions:

Wash and trim the sweet potatoes, and cut them into fingers about 1/2 inch thick. If you want to do this step early in the day, let them soak in salt water until you are ready to use them; then drain and blot them. Do not peel them.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a wide bowl, stir together the 2 tablespoons oil, garlic, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Throw in the sweet-potato pieces, and toss them well to coat them with the flavorings.

When the oven has preheated, place the coated sweet potatoes on a jelly-roll pan (that is, a cookie sheet with low sides). Bake them for 30 to 40 minutes, until they are brown but not black. Turn them at least twice to keep them from burning and sticking to the pan—and be sure to add a little more oil if it is needed to prevent sticking.

Serves 4.

Leigh, Michael, and David at a Caps Game

A Country Mardi Gras

Le Rendez Vous des Cajuns (Courtesy of David Simpson, LSUE)

My favorite part of Louisiana is a place I have visited only by listening to its music, Cajun Country. Southwestern Louisiana is a sort of country cousin to New Orleans. It is inhabited by a mixture of Cajuns (French Acadians who were expelled from British Canada in the mid-18th century and who became peasant farmers in the South) and the descendents of Black Creoles. Their culture and music are a remarkable blend of French, American, African, Native American, and Island influences. Most of the Cajuns speak English, but a number of residents, particularly older ones, speak French dialects as well.

My main contact with this area is a radio program called Le Rendez Vous des Cajuns, staged weekly in Eunice, Louisiana. The program is hosted by Barry Jean Ancelet, a professor at the University of Louisiana (Lafayette). It airs partly in English but mostly in Cajun French. It showcases the two major music styles of the area, Cajun and Zydeco (an outgrowth of Black Creole music).

Ancelet grew up speaking French at home and has raised his five children in French. He explained in the introduction to the book Cajun Music and Zydeco by photographer Philip Gould (1992, LSU Press) that he only discovered the music of his region while studying in France. A non-Cajun musician who played “la musique de la Louisiane” in Nice counseled the young Barry Ancelet to go home and talk to Dewey Balfa, a legendary Cajun fiddler. Ancelet took the musician’s advice and has been involved in promoting Cajun and Zydeco music ever since.

The Rendez Vous began in 1987. It is part of a revival of French language and culture in southern Louisiana outlined by Barry Ancelet in two journal articles, “Negotiating the Mainstream: The Creoles and Cajuns in Louisiana” in The French Review (Volume 80, number 6, 2007) “Cultural Tourism in Cajun Country: Shotgun Wedding or Marriage Made in Heaven” (Southern Folklore, Volume 49, number 3, 1992).

The struggle of French speakers in Louisiana mirrors a larger debate about what it has meant to be an American. In the early 1900s and particularly beginning around World War I Louisiana and the nation as a whole experienced a wave of nationalism that tried to force all Americans into a single mold, to define what it meant to be an American by sameness. As my grandmother used to say, if we were all the same, we’d all wear the same hat—and wouldn’t that be boring? Or as Ancelet wrote more forcefully in The French Review, Teddy Roosevelt (one of the leaders of the “one America movement”) and his ilk do “not seem to have understood that people from all over the world came here to America to participate in a new experiment based in part on allegiance by choice.”

French-speaking children Louisiana schools were not only taught in English but forbidden by law to speak French anywhere on school grounds. Over the decades this bilingual culture started losing a great deal of its identity.

Beginning after World War II and most strongly since the late 1960s southern Louisiana has seen a revival of popular and official interest in French culture and in the music and folk practices that gave much of this colorful area its personality.

According to Barry Ancelet, when the Rendez Vous des Cajuns was first planned no one was sure whether the program would be in French or in English. “Ultimately it was done in French because I was the host and I did what I wanted to do once the microphone was turned on,” he recalled in Southern Folklore. “It might not have worked, but it did.”

All was not settled on the first night, he went on to explain, particularly since the program received funds from the National Park Service. “At a meeting held specifically to address [the language] question, one Park official commented that the program’s federal funding required that it communicate to Americans. Cajun musician and cultural spokesman Dewey Balfa retorted, ‘But we are Americans. In fact, this two-hour show every Saturday night is one of the only indications I have that the money I turn over to Uncle Sam every April 15th is coming back to me in anything but interstate highways.’”

Eventually, the question of language for the Rendez Vous was settled resoundingly in favor of French, although no one is a purist, and English is smattered throughout the broadcasts. The music played is in some ways new to northern listeners and in other ways familiar because of its multicultural and folk roots. Listening to it is like being invited into a new neighbor’s living room and being enchanted to find that you have a lot in common with each other—but also a lot to learn from each other.

With Mardi Gras just around the corner I wrote to Barry Jean Ancelet to ask whether he by any chance cooked. He certainly does! In fact, he boasted that he won his wife with his Shrimp Creole. For Mardi Gras he shared his mother Maude Ancelet’s recipe for Mardi Gras Gumbo—as well as the following story:

We make large quantities of this recipe (x10) for those who gather together to eat after our traditional Ossun Mardi Gras Run, a procession of revelers in masks and brightly-colored costumes that winds its way through the rural neighborhood visiting, singing, dancing, and collecting the ingredients for the gumbo. Some households contribute rice, onions, parsley or sausage, but ideally the offering is a live chicken that the revelers are expected to catch in the open fields. This is not easy to do, and the hilarity resulting from grownups and children alike running through ditches, over barbed-wire fences and under barns is part of what the households receive in return for their generous gifts. The procession is typically about 12 to 14 miles long with 15 to 20 performances. By the end of the day, the revelers have developed a mighty appetite and are eager to eat the fruits of their labor.

I wouldn’t want to try replicating the Ossun, Louisiana, Run in Hawley, Massachusetts, where the snow would definitely cramp the style of revelers. I love the way in which food, music, terrain, and celebration mingle in this story, however, and I think anyone who lives in the country can identify with the community spirit behind the Ossun Run.

I encourage readers to explore the world of Cajun and Zydeco music for themselves. Listen to the Rendez Vous des Cajuns live via the internet one Saturday on KVRS-FM. Buy a CD of Dewey Balfa, Iri Lejeune, Clifton Chenier, or any one of the other wonderful musicians Cajun Country has spawned. An LSU website devoted to Cajun and Zydeco music is a good place to start looking.

YouTube has many clips of these musicians. It also offers an authorized clip of the film Dance for a Chicken: The Cajun Mardi Gras by Pat Mire, which depicts a Mardi Gras Run—as well as link to the site on which you can view the entire film.

While you’re listening to your music OF COURSE you’ll need something to eat. Here is Maude Ancelet’s gumbo recipe to get you dancing.

Maude Ancelet’s Mardi Gras Chicken & Sausage Gumbo

Ingredients:

3 onions, chopped
1 large bell pepper, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup oil
1-3/4 cups flour
1 gallon warm water
1 4-to-5-pound fryer, cut up (Ancelet notes that an old hen makes a good gumbo but takes 1 to 2 hours longer to cook!)
1-1/2 pounds fresh pork sausage
4 teaspoons salt
1-1/2 teaspoons red pepper (Cayenne)
black pepper to taste
green onion tops, chopped
parsley to taste, chopped

Instructions:

First, make a roux using 1/2 cup each of the onion and bell pepper, 1 stalk of celery, and 2 cloves of garlic along with the oil and flour. (Save the remaining vegetables for later.)

According to Barry Ancelet the roux is the most important part of the gumbo. I have used a lot of his words in the instructions that follow because they reflect his passion for the cooking process. This basic roux recipe can be used for stews and sauces piquantes as well as gumbo. If you want more roux flavor in your gumbo, you may increase the amount of roux, but be sure to observe the same proportions: always start with more flour than oil.

Set the roux vegetables in a bowl by the stove. They need to be ready to throw into the pot to “stop” the cooking at the crucial moment.

Heat the oil in a heavy pot. When the oil is very hot, add the flour. Keep the fire on medium. Constant stirring is a must. Don’t answer the door if there’s a knock. Don’t answer the phone if there’s a ring. A roux needs your undivided attention. Your eyes should be riveted to the inside of the pot the whole time.

About halfway through the cooking process the roux will become more liquid, but it will thicken again to paste consistency as it nears completion. Making a roux shouldn’t take longer than 15 minutes. Remember, stick with your stirring spoon. It’s easy to burn a roux but just as easy to succeed with diligence and patience. As you become experienced, you will find that you can cook with a fairly high fire, but at first it is safer to reduce the heat until you get a feel for what is called “stopping the roux.” This involves recognizing the desired color (a rich brown for gumbos, a golden brown for sauces); adding the chopped onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic; and removing the pot from the fire, still stirring all the while. The heat of the roux cooks these ingredients and gives the roux a seasoned taste.

After you have added the vegetables and removed the pot from the heat, you are ready to continue with your gumbo.

(Unused roux can be stored in the refrigerator for at least 2 months. Barry Ancelet cautions readers to be careful to remember what it is, adding that children who mistake roux for chocolate are in for a disappointing experience.)

Slowly add the gallon of warm water, stirring. Return the pot to the heat and bring it to a boil. Lower the fire and let the mixture simmer for 15 minutes. While it is simmering, in a heavy skillet brown the pork sausage well. Remove the sausage, and cut it into bite-size pieces. Add it to the gumbo. Drain the grease from the frying pan, and add about a cup of water to get up the residue from the sausage. Add this to the gumbo for flavor. Add the remaining vegetables and the chicken, plus the salt and the pepper(s). Let simmer for 35 to 40 minutes. Add the chopped onion tops and parsley. Make the gumbo ahead of time so the flavors can steep. Serve over hot rice.

Serves 10.

Barry Ancelet stirs up some gumbo (Courtesy of Barry Jean Ancelet).

A King Cake for Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras is a time of taking chances—so I decided to try once more to make a King Cake. Readers of this blog may recall that I tried making one at Epiphany and was less than thrilled with the result. My mother taught me to persevere, however, and luckily King Cakes are eaten in Louisiana from Epiphany straight through to the beginning of Lent. I sifted through many different recipes identifying the cake elements that most appealed to me and went to work.

I’m actually very happy with my new cake, although the filling gushed into the middle so I didn’t end up with the classic ring. Mine was more of a round blob. Nevertheless, it puffed up beautifully and tasted like a sweet, creamy coffee cake.

Like the previous King Cake, it concealed a quarter (more authentic bakers would use a bean or a toy Baby Jesus) within its yeasty folds. The person who found the quarter in his or her cake was crowned King or Queen for the Day.

So—from my house to yours—here is a King Cake recipe. The biggest trick is to take your time; since it uses yeast this cake can’t be rushed. It’s a big cake so you’ll help your sanity and your waistline if you have young eaters in the house. Feel free to cheat a little and ensure that one of them gets to wear the crown! As you can see from the picture below that’s what we did at our house.

(Don’t tell Michael!)

Le Roi du Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras King Cake

Ingredients:

for the cake:

2 packets yeast (do not use instant)
2 teaspoons sugar plus 1/2 cup sugar later
4 to 5 cups flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
the zest from 1 lemon (save the lemon to make juice for the glaze)
1/2 cup lukewarm milk
5 egg yolks (you will not need the whites)
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) sweet butter at room temperature

for the filling:

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon flour

for the glaze:

2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
the juice of 1 lemon
a little water if needed
food coloring as needed

Instructions:

Place the yeast and the 2 teaspoons sugar in a small bowl. Cover them with lukewarm water, and allow the yeast to proof for 10 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl combine 3-1/2 cups of the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, the nutmeg, the salt, and the lemon zest. Stir them together thoroughly (I like to use a whisk for this).

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and pour in the yeast mixture and warm milk. Stir in the egg yolks, and combine the mixture thoroughly.

When the batter is smooth, beat in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. (This takes a little while but eventually works.) Place the dough on a floured board, and knead it, adding more flour as needed. Your dough may end up slightly sticky but should not stick to the board.

Knead the dough until it feels smooth; then knead it for 10 minutes more. Don’t be discouraged. This kneading is what gives the final product its wonderful puffiness.

Place the dough in a buttered bowl, cover it with a damp cloth, and allow it to rise until it doubles in bulk. This will take at least 1-1/2 hours and perhaps more.

When the dough has risen, punch it down. Using your fingers, pat and stretch the dough to shape it into a long, short rectangle, at least 24 inches long and 6 to 8 inches wide. Let the dough rest while you beat together the ingredients for the filling.

If you want to, place a quarter or a bean in the middle of the dough. Gently spoon the filling down the center of the strip of dough. Fold the edges up over the filling to form a cylinder that encases the dough. Pinch the edges together to seal the filling as well as you can. Your seams don’t have to be perfect; they will be hidden by the glaze.

Pinch the ends of the cylinder together to form a ring, and place it on a silicone- or parchment-covered baking sheet. Let it rise, covered, until it becomes puffy, about an hour. Preheat the oven to 375.

Bake the King Cake for 25 to 35 minutes, until it is golden brown. Remove it from the oven, and allow it to cool completely.

For the glaze: beat together the sugar, vanilla, and lemon juice, adding a bit of water if needed to make the glaze thick yet pourable. Divide the glaze in three, and color the three glazes purple, green, and gold. Drizzle them artistically over your cake.

Serves at least 12.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Creole Potato Salad

Next Tuesday is no ordinary Tuesday. It marks the holiday of Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), also known as Shrove Tuesday and Carnival. The day before the beginning of Lent was officially added to the Catholic calendar in 1582 by Pope Gregory XII. The good times have been rolling ever since.

Mardi Gras is a day of excess. Diets are broken. Jazz is trumpeted through the streets. Costumes are worn. In New Orleans the day is the highlight of the year. The Louisiana-based company Zatarain’s (manufacturer of my favorite Creole seasoning) is working on a petition to ask Congress to make Mardi Gras a national holiday. This campaign may just work: ever since Hurricane Katrina many Americans have felt a special kinship Louisiana and its residents.

I obtained this recipe from the helpful people at Zatarain’s. The colors of Mardi Gras are purple, green, and gold so I made the recipe more festive by using baby purple and gold potatoes. I threw in a bit of the tops of the scallions to give the salad a touch of green. The salad is refreshing and not too heavy, with a little zing; the Creole mustard has extra vinegar so there’s no need to add that to the mixture.

Ingredients:

3 pounds baby potatoes (you may use red if you don’t have purple and gold)
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup Creole mustard (Zatarain’s makes this, of course!)
1/3 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon Creole seasoning (again from Zatarain’s; I used a bit more because I love this seasoning)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1-1/2 cups diced tomatoes
1/2 cup crumbled bacon (optional but delicious)
2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions (scallions)

Instructions:

Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water until they are fork tender but not soggy. Drain and quarter them.

In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise, mustard, sour cream, Creole seasoning, and sugar. Add the warm potatoes, and toss to coat them with the dressing. Add the tomatoes, bacon (if desired), and scallions, and toss lightly.

Cover the salad, and refrigerate it for at least to hours to let the flavors blend. Serves 12.

Getting Ready for Mardi Gras: Anna, Gaby, and Michael don masks and beads.

An Oscar Nibble

For many years I regularly wrote a food column just before the Academy Awards. I made a point of seeing most of the nominated films (certainly all of the nominees for best picture) and coming up with a suitable recipe for several of them.

Sometimes I replicated food actually consumed in a film. More often I created a dish that merely worked thematically with a picture. For example for Traffic I created poppy-seed dressing to reflect the film’s focus on drugs. For Titanic I made North Atlantic salmon on a bed of lettuce—iceberg, of course! I loved putting together these recipes and articles.

In addition to writing about the Oscars, I used to celebrate them in a big way. My guests in Hawley-wood weren’t necessarily as well dressed as the ones in the big theater in Hollywood, but we probably had as good a time—and we had a lot less traffic to combat.

I festooned my living room with movie posters. One year my local video merchant even gave me a few cardboard promotional cutouts to add to the décor. One of them drove my little dog crazy. I just couldn’t keep the poor creature from trying to defend me from the big guy in the living room with a gun (Bruce Willis advertising Last Man Standing).

Nowadays, however, I hardly make it to the movies AT ALL—and I’m on the road too much to plan an Oscar Soiree. I still love to watch the Academy Awards, however, and I wanted to acknowledge them, however briefly, on this blog. So I’m posting a simple recipe in homage to this year’s feel-good nominated film Slumdog Millionaire, a rags-to-riches romance set in Mumbai.

I SHOULD make Pani Puri, the popular Indian snack both mentioned and consumed in the film by the young hero Jamal (Dev Patel). Pani Puri is a delectable bite—a small fritter-like substance deep fried and filled with spice. It’s the sort of snack it’s more convenient to buy than make, however. So instead I’m making a nibble my family always enjoyed when I lived in India as a teenager, spiced cashews. (I give a batch to my brother David every year for Christmas.)

They’re simple and tasty—and if you happen to be hosting an Oscar party they’ll come in handy.

As for my own Oscar party, there’s always next year. Meanwhile, I’ll be glued to the TV on Sunday evening………

(Courtesy of AMPAS)

Slumdog Millionaire Indian Cashews

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon cumin seeds (if you have a mortar and pestle, grind the cumin a little to release the oils)
1 teaspoon garam masala or curry powder
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound raw cashews

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

In a bowl combine the salt, cumin, and curry powder. I have made the nuts tasty but mild; if you want more flavor, add more cumin and curry! Mix well.

In a frying pan melt the butter. (I prefer to use a large cast-iron pan that can go straight into the oven.)

Add the cashews and stir to coat them thoroughly. Sprinkle on the spices and toss well. If your frying pan is ovenproof and large enough to accommodate a single layer of cashews, place it in the oven. Otherwise, transfer the cashews (and all their flavorings) to a cookie sheet. Place the nuts in the oven. Bake them for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

Remove the cashews from the oven and allow them to cool completely on paper towels. Store them in an airtight container until they are all gone. (This doesn’t take long in our house!

Makes about 1 pound.

Valentine Chocolate-Chip Blondies

I seldom suffer from writer’s block. On the rare occasions on which it strikes my brain and fingers there is only one foolproof solution: chocolate. I pop a truffle or a chocolate kiss into my mouth. Suddenly I can write.

Why and how does chocolate affect our brains? Scientists have a number of theories about its chemical properties. Here are a few possibilities: It stimulates us. It soothes us. It is good for our hearts. It prevents cancer. It is an aphrodisiac or mimics the feeling of being in love. It resembles certain drugs in its effect on our psyches.

None of these theories has been proven. Perhaps the scientists studying chocolate want to take their time. Certainly it is difficult to imagine a more appealing substance to keep under the microscope for years on end.

I believe that much of chocolate’s effect is psychological and cultural rather than physiological. One of my first memories of chocolate is the heart-shaped box of chocolates my father presented to my mother on Valentine’s Day when I was three. Chocolate represents love in our culture. When we receive it as a gift or pop a piece into our mouths we experience the feeling of being cherished.

This Valentine’s Day I’m giving quite a few people that feeling. I’m following my own taste, however, in presenting a chocolate treat that is not too chocolaty. I’m not a girl who is easily wooed by triple chocolate cookies or chocolate lava cake. I prefer my chocolate tempered with other flavors.

Consequently, the chocolate in these blondies is really a co-star. Their easy, tasty recipe comes courtesy of La Prima Catering. La Prima is a business-oriented catering company in the Washington, D.C., area. General manager Graham McCulloch brought some of these blondies to a party at my nephew’s school. When I raved the company kindly shared the formula.

Of course, La Prima president Dave Evans first had to cut down the proportions since he usually makes enough blondies to serve several hundred people! I am grateful for his perseverance.

You may change the recipe a bit if you like. The blondies are chewier and sweeter if you firmly pack the brown sugar, add another half stick of butter, and cut back to 2-1/2 cups of flour. My sister-in-law Leigh likes them this way. I’m fond of them just the way La Prima makes them, however—pretty and sweet but not too sweet.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

La Prima Chocolate-Chip Blondies

Ingredients:

1/4 pound (1 stick) sweet butter
2 cups dark brown sugar lightly packed
2 eggs, beaten
2-3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1- 3/4 cups chocolate chunks or chips

Instructions:

Grease a 9-by-13-inch pan. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Combine the butter, sugar, and eggs together. Beat until smooth.

Combine the dry ingredients, and stir them into the butter mixture. Add the chocolate chips, and stir until you have a stiff batter.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. You will need to press it down with the palm of your hand in order to get it to hold together and fill the pan. Bake the blondies until they are a very light brown and not wet (25 to 30 minutes).

Cool the blondies on a wire rack. Cut them into 12 rectangles, and cut each rectangle diagonally into two triangles. Makes 24 triangles.

Be mine!

Father Abraham

I’m a big fan of the 16th president of the United States. Abe Lincoln has plenty of people to sing his praises today on his 200th birthday, however, so I’m going to write instead about another Abraham born on February 12. My father, who died in 1998, would have turned 90 today.

When I was small I assumed that my father was a namesake of the more famous Abe who shared his birthday. As I grew older I learned that this was unlikely since OUR Abe was born in the spa town of Ciechocinek, Poland. His family came to the United States when he was less than two years old.

According to archival information at Ellis Island, the Weisblats arrived on the Holland-America Line ship the Nieuw Amsterdam on December 20, 1920. So the first name was a coincidence—one that made it easy to remember my father’s birthday.



My father was the first member (of many) in his family to go to college. Earning a Ph.D. in agricultural economics, he had an eclectic career in the foundation world. We lived overseas a lot. When we lived in the United States, I loved to visit his offices in Rockefeller Center. They seemed ideal places in which to work. He always had art on the walls. He always had pleasant people to talk to down the hall (mostly women; my father loved women). He always had a couch for visiting and napping. And he always had a spectacular view.

When people asked the teenage me what Abe Weisblat did for a living, I usually said that he talked on the telephone. That was all I ever saw him do. As I got older, I realized that his lengthy conversations on the phone constituted hard and effective work. He had a knack for getting people to listen to each other, for explaining the work and point of view of one person to another person with different training and/or nationality.

He loved his work, and that example has been a challenge for his children. My brother who likes but doesn’t really adore his career tends to be ambivalent about the whole idea of working, wondering perhaps why he doesn’t get the same kind of satisfaction my father did from his labors. I love my work but make very little money from it. I’m reluctant to find something different and more lucrative do to, however, since my father taught me that work is supposed to be fulfilling.

His marriage provided an equally difficult example to live up to. He and my mother were an ideal couple. They were smart, knowledgeable, loving, and charming in completely different ways. They always respected each others’ talents, although they didn’t always agree. My father used to say that always agreeing with someone would be boring. Their life together was never boring.

Beyond the family my father also shone. He was simply wonderful with people. He had an interest in just about everyone he met, and he loved to mentor younger professionals in the foundation world and in academia. He never felt jealous of anyone else for an instant.

One evening at Singing Brook Farm a group of us were discussing the play The Trip to Bountiful, in which an elderly woman is obsessed with returning to the childhood home in which she remembers being happy. We each took turns identifying our own Bountiful, our special place that represented home and security and happy memories. When my father’s turn came, he explained that his home wasn’t geographic. It was people. And many of them were in the room with him. What a gift!

My father seldom cooked so I don’t have a lot of recipes to share from him. His favorite meal when he was alone (which wasn’t very often) was a jar of pickled herring, a martini, and some matzo. He liked to boast that he only needed one fork for this repast since he could use the same one for the martini olive and the herring!

For company he did occasionally like to put together a salad of lettuce, oranges, and red onions. (He usually got someone else to wash the lettuce and slice the oranges and onions!) Here is my adaptation of that recipe. He usually tossed it with a classic French vinaigrette, but I like to make it with my maple balsamic salad dressing. Enjoy making and eating it—and think of a father, mother, or grandmother whose birthday is near. Let’s wish them all a happy birthday and cherish their presence or their memory.

Uncle Abe’s Orange and Onion Salad (with a little twist from Tinky)

Ingredients:

half a head of Boston lettuce (more if the head is very small)
1 orange, peeled and sliced thinly
1/3 red onion, peeled and sliced thinly
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1/2 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions:

Break up the lettuce with your fingers. Place it in a salad bowl with the orange and onion slices.

In a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine the vinegar, syrup, garlic, mustard, water, salt, and pepper. Shake thoroughly. Add the oil, and shake again.

Pour a third to half of the vinaigrette over the salad, and toss well. Add a little more if you think you need it. (Leftover vinaigrette may be stored in the refrigerator for up to a month; just be sure to bring it to room temperature and shake it again before using it).

Serves 4.

I didn't actually slice everything as thinly as I should have--but I hope you get the idea!

Happy Birthday, Miss Anthony!

Susan B. Anthony (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

February is chock full of holidays and commemorative days. My second grade class staged a presentation in which our teacher, Miss Asman, asked each of us to represent one of these days. I was assigned a few words about Charles Dickens, who was born on February 7, 1812.

A ham even at that early age, I made the most of my role. Nevertheless, I was secretly jealous of the person who talked about Susan B. Anthony, born on February 15, 1820. I had read a book about Miss Anthony’s life and her participation in the struggle for women’s rights. I thought she was an inspiring person to talk about. I still do.

Born near Adams, Massachusetts (not far from my home in Hawley), Susan B. Anthony was brought up Quaker. Well educated and articulate, she became active in abolitionism and the temperance movement. In her early 30s she found her true calling as one of the strongest voices this country has ever heard arguing for women’s rights and suffrage.

Along with her friend and colleague Elizabeth Cady Stanton she formed the National Woman Suffrage Association. She also wrote and lectured extensively. She actually cast a vote in 1872, although she was arrested and tried for violating the law. She responded to her sentence with an eloquent speech in which she said, “It was we, the people, not we the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the union.”

Susan B. Anthony died 14 years before women achieved the right to vote. She is nonetheless remembered as a pioneer in that effort and as a remarkable person, both an indefatigable warrior and the beloved “Aunt Susan” of younger feminists. Just before her death in 1906 she gave her final speech, which ended with the rallying cry, “Failure is impossible.”

Last week my friend Peter suggested that as a food writer I should pay culinary tribute to Miss Anthony’s birthday. I called the Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester, New York, and asked whether the people who worked there had any idea what she liked to eat. To my delight I was informed that they had just been discussing this topic. Sue Gaffney kindly sent me the text of a letter draft from 1898 in which Miss Anthony was responding to a group of college juniors who wanted the recipe for her favorite cake.

Miss Anthony couldn’t find the actual recipe. (It’s reassuring to know that someone of her stature could have trouble finding things since this is one of my own more frustrating habits.) Instead she gave her correspondents a sponge-cake outline:

Dear Junior Girls: My favorite cake is the old-fashioned sponge, made of eggs, the whites lashed to a stiff froth, the yolks beaten thoroughly with cups of pulverized sugar, a pinch of salt, a slight flavor of almond. Into these stir __ cups of flour – first a little flour, then a little of the white froth – and pour and pour the foaming batter into a dish with a bit of white buttered paper in the bottom. Clap into a rightly tempered oven as quickly as possible and take out exactly at the proper minute, when it is baked just enough to hold itself up to its highest and best estate. Then don’t cut, but break it carefully, and the golden sponge is fit for the gods . . .

Well, the dickens is to pay – I can not find the old cook book – so just put in any good sponge cake recipe for me, and then add: “It matters not how good the recipe or the ingredients may be, the cake will not be good unless there is a lot of common sense mixed in with the stir of the spoon.”

My helpers and I didn’t quite follow Miss Anthony’s formula, but we came close. We substituted vanilla for almond extract since one of the kids in the neighborhood is allergic to nuts. It seemed a little odd making a feminist’s birthday cake with boys, but I was impressed that these young males had actually heard of Miss Anthony (two of them had coins with her face on them). And after all part of feminism is part of making sure that the traditional “feminine” arts like baking are open to both genders. So I offer kudos to Michael Weisblat, Carson Carr, and Sam Duffett.

We topped our sponge cake off with a little raspberry sauce and whipped cream. It was indeed fit for the gods. I guess we must have blended a sufficiency of common sense into the bowl.

The Susan B. Anthony House is hosting a birthday luncheon on Wednesday, February 11. Journalist Lynn Sherr, author of Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words, will be the featured speaker. At the time of this posting tickets were still available on the house’s web site. If you can’t attend the celebration, feel free to make this cake at home.

From left to right: Sam, Michael, and Carson take turns lashing egg whites to a stiff froth.

Susan B. Anthony Sponge Cake

Ingredients:

5 eggs at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 pinch salt
1 cup flour
raspberry jam or sauce for garnish (optional)
whipped cream for garnish (optional)

We ended up with ONE girl. Michael's friend Anna Capper stopped by in time to break off pieces of cake.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cut a piece of wax paper to fit the bottom of a 9-inch tube pan.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat together the egg yolks and extract until they lighten. Gradually beat in half of the sugar.

Wash your beaters thoroughly. Beat the egg whites and salt until they form soft peaks. Gently and gradually beat in the remaining sugar. When the peaks are glossy and beginning to stiffen, remove the beaters from the bowl.

Fold a quarter of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture. Pour the remaining egg whites on top, and sift the flour on top of them. Gently fold the flour and egg whites into the batter.

Delicately pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake until it is a golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Invert the cake over a cooling rack and let it cool completely before coaxing the cake out of the pan. This will probably involve running a knife delicately around the sides of the pan and the tube. Peel off the wax paper.

Gingerly break off pieces of the cake. Serve with or without jam and whipped cream. (With is better!) Serves 10.

Snow Day: Boston Cream Pie

Sous chefs Anna (left) and Mavourneen (right)

I used to jump up and down when I looked outside and saw fresh snow on the ground. Once I got old enough to shovel and drive through snow it lost a lot of its charm for me. I still like being reminded that it can be a source of joy and play, however.

My mother and I are visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew in northern Virginia to get away from the ice and snow. Last week the snow followed us here for a couple of days, much to the delight of young Michael and his friends.

Unplanned snow days are perfect holidays for kids. The kids don’t have anywhere to go. (In fact, in many cases they CAN’T go anywhere.) They don’t have any extra homework. And they have mounds of cold, malleable snow to slide around in and hurl at each other.

Michael and his friends spent most of the morning last Wednesday outdoors trading sleds, throwing snowballs, and generally frolicking. By mid-afternoon some of them were beginning to long for a little indoor activity. I asked for volunteers to help make Boston Cream Pie. Several kids offered to EAT the pie (and in fact they all ended up getting some), but my most stalwart helpers were Michael’s neighbors and friends Anna Aguto and Mavourneen Carr.

The girls signed up, of course, to bake a “pie”—and they did look a little surprised to discover that Boston Cream Pie is a cake (so named because pie pans were more common than cake pans in the 19th century, and because the recipe supposedly originated in Boston’s Parker House Restaurant). They were terrific sous chefs nonetheless.

I had made the filling (which has to chill) the day before, but the girls helped with every other step of the process—mixing, baking, filling the pie, creating the glaze, and applying the glaze. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner they went just a little wild with heart-shaped sprinkles on top, but the final product was lovely, festive, and consumed before sundown.

I hope we cook again soon. In the meantime, here is our recipe. The filling and glaze are from Dede Wilson’s fun new Birthday Cake Book (published by Harvard Common Press).

This is all that remains of the snow in Virginia.

Boston Cream Pie

Ingredients:

for the filling:

1-1/4 cups milk (whole milk or lesser milk mixed with cream)
1/4 cup sugar
3 egg yolks, at room temperature
2-1/2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 pinch salt
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla

for the cake:

1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk

for the glaze:

3/4 cup heavy cream
1-1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
7-1/2 ounces semisweet chocolate, VERY finely chopped

Instructions:

for the filling:

Place the milk in a medium nonreactive saucepan. Bring it to a boil over medium heat; remove it from the heat and keep it warm.

Meanwhile, whisk together the sugar and egg yolks in a medium-size bowl until creamy. Whisk in the flour, cornstarch, and salt until smooth.

Pour about 1/4 of the warm milk over the egg yolk mixture, whisking gently. Add the remaining milk, and whisk to combine. Immediately pour the mixture back into the pan, and cook over low-medium heat. As soon as the mixture begins to boil, whisk vigorously and cook for 1 to 2 minutes to keep the filling from scorching. It should be thick enough to mound when dropped from a spoon. Remove from the heat and whisk in the vanilla.

Allow the filling to cool, stirring occasionally to release heat. When it is almost at room temperature, scrape it into an airtight container, press some plastic wrap on the surface to keep a skin from forming, snap on the cover, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, until thoroughly chilled.

for the cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 9-inch-round cake pans.

In a large bowl, cream the butter until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the sugar, mixing well. Beat in the yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add them alternately with the milk to the butter batter, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

Wash your beaters so that they are clean for the egg whites! In a small bowl, beat the whites until soft peaks fold. Fold them into the batter, and pour the batter into the pans.

Bake the layers for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on racks for 10 minutes before removing from the pans. Cool the layers completely.

for the glaze:

Place the cream and corn syrup in a large saucepan, and bring them to a boil over medium heat. Remove the pan from the heat. Immediately sprinkle the chocolate in. Cover the pot and allow it to sit for 5 minutes. The warm cream will melt the chocolate. Gently stir the ganache until smooth.

for assembly:

Place one cake layer on a large serving platter. Spread the filling evenly over the layer, and top it with the other layer.

Pour the chocolate glaze on top. Gently spread it toward the edges. Allow it to drop down the sides. You will have a little too much glaze, but your helpers will help you eat it.

Refrigerate the cake for at least 1 hour (up to 6 hours) before serving. It is best eaten on the day on which it is made. Serves 8 to 10.

Biscuits for Candlemas

I celebrated Candlemas for the first time in graduate school. Teri Tynes was a creative force both in my American studies program and in our apartment complex, the Casa del Rio. One February 2 she brought a group into her ground-floor apartment. We sat in a circle on the floor, lit candles from a central flame, and shared our creative dreams. It was a night of bonding, of mystery, and of humor–in short, of illumination in many senses of the word.

Also known as Groundhog Day, Imbolc, and Brigid’s Day, Candlemas is poised between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. It marks the midpoint of our coldest season. Candlemas is an old pagan holiday and an agricultural one as well, a time at which we can at least imagine we sense stirrings of life in the cold ground. Even when snow banks dominate the landscape it’s comforting to observe that the sun is rising a little earlier and a little higher than it did in January. As the sun starts to come back, I always find myself a little more alert and a little more creative. And I find it easier to laugh at life’s small mishaps.

Traditional Candlemas foods are grain based in keeping with the day’s association with agriculture. They are often round and golden as well to evoke the sun; pancakes and crepes are popular edibles for this holiday. I’m following this tradition by making biscuits, a welcome treat at any time of year.

The recipe below comes from The Virginia Hospitality Cookbook. Put out by the Junior League of Hampton Roads, Virginia, this book is a goldmine of traditional regional recipes like Brunswick stew and crab cakes. The biscuits are also pretty darn terrific.

If you’d like to see what my talented friend Teri is up to now, visit her blog, Walking Off the Big Apple. She uses her fertile imagination and her historical knowledge to give her readers a new perspective on New York City.

Happy Candlemas! Light a candle and get your creative (and of course culinary) juices flowing……

Teri Tynes

Virginia Hospitality Country Biscuits

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg in a measuring cup with enough milk to equal 2/3 cup liquid, lightly beaten

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 450.

In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Using a pastry blender or knives, cut in the shortening until you have small crumbs.

Stir in the egg and milk until there are no dry particles. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and gently knead it for a moment or two until the dough holds together. Do not over handle the dough. Roll the dough out into a 1/2-inch-thick rectangle. Cut into 12 biscuits (you may get 11 or 13!). Bake the biscuits for 8 to 10 minutes, until they are light brown. Makes about 1 dozen biscuits.

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.