Bringing Up Bonaparte

Odd Toddler needs a name change. His tyrannical ways and his sense of entitlement have caused The Carnivore to call him Napolean more than once in the past week. And he seems nonplussed by my pregnancy and the exhaustion I've been laboring under since his 48-hour hospital stay last week. His beautiful and dependable sleep routine has been chunked, and he now insists on being taken from his crib no later than 6:00 am on a daily basis. We are often awakened by his demanding shouts over the monitor as he yells, "MAMA, MAMA, MAMA" in military-precision staccato barks over and over and over and over again until I come stumbling into his room.

Of course, if I take into account that I am going through caffeine withdrawal while I wean myself and The Unborn off of coffee, then maybe I am just reading too much into Odd Toddler's behavior.

This afternoon, Odd Toddler insisted on being held while I made dinner, no easy feat considering I had to stand over the stove and whisk a roux for half an hour while juggling Odd Toddler with one arm. If you believe everything you read, pregnant women are not supposed to lift anything heavier than 30 pounds. Its a good thing he only weighed 29.5 pounds yesterday at his doctor visit.

Last night, feeling fatigued from a few nights of fighting with Odd Toddler over his bedtime, being slightly nauseated from being in my sixth week of pregnancy while at the same time battling pregnant sweet-tooth cravings, and desperately wanting to do something nice for myself and the ever-supportive Carnivore, I stood on the menu desk and started pulling down cookbooks. I hit the jackpot in Betty Crocker's Cookbook where I found the brownie recipe to beat all others. I haven't had the best luck with brownies the last few times I've made them, generally just running into trouble getting the texture right and cooking them for the hair-splittingly perfect amount of time, and I wasn't in the mood for something overly sweet last night to begin with. This recipe was crazy easy to make, not cloyingly sweet, and came out with a nice flaky skin on top while remaining chewy on the inside. And (if only I knew what I did to make it happen), for once the brownies stayed of uniform height across the top, not sinking in the middle as so often happens when they cool. This is a new favorite.

BUTTERSCOTCH BROWNIES

• 1/4 cup shortening (man, this stuff really grosses me out)
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (not self-rising)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (according to The Carnivore, walnuts are a Yankee thing - whatever- to appease him, I used pecans instead)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt (I used kosher, of course)

1. Heat shortening in 1 1/2 quart saucepan over low heat until melted.
2. Remove pan from heat, and mix in sugar, vanilla and egg.
3. Stir in remaining ingredients.
4. Spread batter in a greased 8x8x2 square pan.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.

Brownies usually last for a week around here. The Unborn was a big fan of these however, and we ended up polishing off half of them last night. This is going to be a long and high-calorie pregnancy.

(photo of adoring parents fawning over their terrible-nearly-two-year-old taken by the handsome, brilliant and talented Josh Brown)

At Long Last

I clipped a dip recipe out of Parenting magazine MONTHS ago, but was irritatingly unable to find all the ingredients I needed. Wasabi paste and dried fish flakes just aren’t readily available in small Southern college towns apparently. I searched for a couple of weeks, checking four different stores before admitting partial defeat. The only defeat I could cop to was the partial kind because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fully give this one up. Wasabi paste seemed like something I SHOULD have around, particularly since The Carnivore and I love spicy food so much. And wasabi always makes me giggle when it makes my nose itch while I eat it.

After a time, I came across wasabi powder, and so I picked some up to keep around. Just in case. I figured that if I never found the paste that I would just figure out how to make it from the powder. The dried fish flakes, also called bonito, continued to flummox me. Under normal circumstances, I might have just gotten pissed off and thrown the recipe away, but this dip sounded so stinking yummy. And if there is something I want, I will move heaven and earth to make it happen.

When my big city friend Tisha was in town recently, I moaned to her about my difficulty finding the ingredients I need around here. She promised to pick up the wasabi paste and the bonito when she got back to San Francisco. I knew it might be a little while, but she has never let me down. I started to practice a little patience.

Sure enough, when we came back from Virginia last month, there was a package from Tisha with the stuff I needed. For a fleeting moment, I thought about what it must be like to live in a city where everything you need is just around the corner. Then I remembered how cold it was in San Francisco in July, and how high the tax rates are in California, and I figured I should just be happy that I have friends who are willing to indulge their small-town pals.

Of course, after all the waiting on this recipe, I dragged my feet for another couple of weeks and finally got down to business this weekend. As it turned out, the dip took about 4 minutes to prepare (after about 6 months of pre-prep, of course) and it was the coolest, most unique dip I’ve had yet. I’m hooked. The flavors are so complex, the texture is perfect and the taste is so refreshing, especially after being subjected to so many salad dressing-based dips. Loving it.

SPICY LAYERED DIP

• 8 oz package cream cheese
• 2 tsp prepared wasabi paste
• 1/3 cup bonito (dried fish) flakes
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced

1. Cut the cream cheese block in half horizontally so you have two thin slabs.
2. Place one cream cheese half on a serving plate and spread wasabi paste on top.
3. Sprinkle on half of the bonito flakes and place the remaining cream cheese half on top.
4. Pour soy sauce over the layered cream cheese and sprinkle with the scallions and remaining bonito flakes.
5. Serve with crackers and raw vegetables.

Interestingly, it was the dip that cemented what I had been suspecting for a few weeks. Maybe it should have been obvious by the way I was drinking less coffee, or the way that the smell of my baby brother’s feet made me gag. It certainly was a big tip when I heaved the first time I opened the pack of dried fish flakes and the putrid smell hit me. And then I sat down and ate most of the dip in one sitting.

So I finally broke down and took a pregnancy test…

The Baby Gourmet

It has not escaped my attention that most of the pictures I use here were taken in my kitchen. Our days are varied, but Odd Toddler and I always manage to spend time together in the kitchen, whether he is helping me unload the dishwasher, taste-testing everything I make, or just playing with a big stack of pans. He has made me proud with his willingness to try any food, and especially with the pleasure he takes in eating. If I hold out a spoon, he comes running, mouth open. He will sample whatever I am making, and then he always rewards me with a big smile and a hearty "Mmmmm." I love it.

We went to Earth Fare today, my absolutely favorite grocery store around here, but one in which I step foot no more than once a month. I could go broke there. Everything is organic and the selection of cheeses and produce is to die for. I have gone up to the deli counter many times to ask the cooks for help with making substitutions in a recipe, or just for general advice about a specific dish. This has often resulted in three of four of them coming out from behind the counter to read the entire recipe and to ALL give me tips. In a pinch, I have even called them on the phone.

Now that I am much more confident with cooking, and since I wasn't in a hurry (for once), I strolled slowly around the store, noticing things I hadn't seen before and which I wasn't even sure were available around here. I was particularly excited to see walnut oil, an ingredient that has popped up in more than one recipe now in Cooking For Mr. Latte, New York Times food writer Amanda Hesser's collection of columns that I am currently reading (for a hilarious blog about her, go here). I had been paging right past those recipes, mildly irritated that she calls for so many things that would send me bouncing from store to store in my often fruitless searches for ingredients. I intend to backtrack now in the book to find her recipe for walnut cake.

I pointed out endless items to Odd Toddler today. "Whole wheat couscous," I would say. "Mmmmmm," he would respond. There were samples of aged gouda at the cheese counter. I took a small bite, savoring the delicious pungency of the cheese, and then popped the rest of it into Odd Toddler's open mouth. He closed his eyes, "Mmmmm" he said, rubbing his belly. I'm pretty sure I kissed my little gourmet 12 times while we were there, tickled to death that he has as much fun with food as I do.

I have always wanted to try the deli items or their salad bar, but have been either too cheap or in too big of a hurry. Today was a beautiful exception. I perused the choices for a few minutes, sure that I would get a small portion of tabbouleh, but also craving some sort of a sandwich. I leaned towards the spinach pie for a minute or two, but then my eye was caught by the hummus wrap. I nearly drooled while I place my order. With a Gerolsteiner (a sparkling, sharp-tasting, mineral water that my German friends turned me on to) and a chocolate mint cookie bar to round out the meal, I relished every bite of my purely decadent lunch.

Most of the hummuses I've tried have been pasty, with a slight oily sheen and a coarse texture. I have only tried making hummus once, and the result was much the same, only less tasty. The hummus wrap, with thick crunchy slices of cucumber and carrot, nestled on a cloud of romaine and sprouts, was just oozing with the lightest, creamiest, dreamiest, fluffiest hummus I've had the pleasure of tasting. I tried describing it to The Carnivore, and he reminded me that a friend of mine is taking some free cooking classes at Earth Fare and he suggested I join her. I had been tempted before, but now I'm convinced. I will be RAIDING their website tonight to see if I can find the recipe for that hummus.

The tabbouleh was a disappointment at the first bite, not as vinegary as I tend to make it, but it grew on me quickly. The flavors were much more delicate than I am used to in tabbouleh, and it took a few bites before I could fully appreciate it. The grains were nearly smothered by chopped fresh parsley, more than I ever would have dared to use, but it worked perfectly. Parsley is so often used only as a garnish if its fresh, and overcooked when used in soups and pastas. The grassy taste of the herb, just this side of bitter, was enhanced by the olive oil and the juicy, flavorful chopped tomatoes in the dish. Now I want that recipe too.

Odd Toddler helped me eat everything, of course, and the tabbouleh was his favorite. I felt I would pop with pride over my adventurous little foodie son, until we got home and he popped a piece of dog food in his mouth and said, "Mmmmm!"

Babes in Thailand

Efficiency was the name of the game this weekend. Between sleepless nights, friends visiting from out of town, time changes and the amount of time it takes to stuff a toddler into a costume two days in a row, there wasn't a lot of time for cooking over the past few days. Matter of fact, I served microwave popcorn for dinner on Saturday night, much to the utter delight of Odd Toddler, who parked himself between me and The Carnivore and grinned alternately at us as he stuffed kernels into his mouth for the better part of the evening.

On Monday evening, much as I tried to convince myself we would stay home and stick with our usual routine, I was smart enough to extend the Efficient Meal Schedule one more evening and serve a new stir-fry recipe, thus allowing Odd Toddler and I to make the eleventh hour decision to attend the firehouse shindig with my mother and her always entertaining vanload of circus clowns.

For the second evening in a row, I brought home a glassy-eyed, overtired, party-pooped toddler who skipped his bath in favor of going straight to bed. I can't remember another evening when he actually ASKED to go night-night.

HALLOWEEN IN THAILAND RED CURRY VEGETABLES

• 1 Tbs peanut oil (I used two Tbs - no need to scrimp here)
• 3 tsps Thai red curry paste (found at Publix)
• 1 small onion, sliced into rings
• 1/2 lb tofu, cut into cubes (blech! - I skipped this ingredient for obvious reasons)
• 1 red bell pepper, seeds removed, cut into strips
• 1 green bell pepper, seeds removed, cut into strips
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh Thai basil leaves (no luck finding basil of this particular ethnicity - settled for regular Southern American basil)
• 1 (14-oz) can coconut milk
• 1 Tbs brown sugar
• 1 Tbs soy sauce (needs two Tbs)
• 1/4 lb snow peas
• 1 small zucchini, cut crosswise into strips
• 1 can bamboo shoots, drained
• I also added: 1 can baby corn, drained...
• ...and 1/3 head napa cabbage, shredded
• 2 cups cooked jasmine rice

1. In a large skillet or wok over medium heat, stir together the oil and curry paste until well-combined.
2. Add the onion and that nasty tofu (if using), and cook until the onion is translucent or that godforsaken tofu begins to sear.
3. Remind me to tell the story of how my mother traumatized me with a tofu recipe when I was a kid.
4. Add the peppers and the basil. Cook and stir until the peppers start to get tender and their colors brighten.
5. Add the coconut milk, brown sugar and soy sauce and stir to combine. Let simmer for 5 minutes.
6. Add the snow peas, zucchini, bamboo shoots, corn and cabbage. Cook for about 4 minutes, until snow-peas are just crisp-tender.
7. Serve over rice. I found the creaminess of the sauce to be much less overpowering if drained slightly before ladling the veggies over the rice.

The tweety-bird-disguised-as-a-pumpkin costume was an incredible thrift-store find of my sister-in-law Georgianne. The recipe is courtesy of the AJC Food Section, along with the usual tweaking from yours truly. And yes, my constant repetitious recipe-sourcing has made me consider renaming this blog "Cooking My Way Through the Atlanta Newspaper."

Dear Diary (this has nothing to do with food)

I was jerked out of a beautiful sleep at 3am by the sound of Odd Toddler crying on the monitor. I turned on the picture to the video and saw he was standing up in his crib, holding his hands out towards the door, and stomping angrily in place. I waited for a second to see if he would lay back down and go back to sleep (as he often does), but his crying only got louder and more frantic.

I got out of bed and went to his room, lifting him out of his crib. He put his head on my shoulder and wrapped his legs tight around me, ceasing the crying right away (which ruled out teething pain as the problem). I went to sit in the rickety creaky old rocking chair in his room, but that started him fussing again. He gave me The Look and pointed towards the door, so I got back up and took him to the living room where I sat down in the Snuggle Chair. He put his head back on my shoulder, laid his stuffed Baby Bop between my chest and his, and I rocked him for about 20 minutes. When I was sure he was asleep again, I walked back across the house towards his room. The instant I crossed the threshold into his room, his head popped back up off my shoulder and he started fussing again. It was now 3:30am.

Frustrated and exhausted, I let him pick up the supplies he needed from his crib (his other dinosaur, my basting brush, and, inexplicably, the lid to my last Chapstick) and I took him into my bedroom. The Carnivore scooted over, gave up one of his pillows (because Odd Toddler cannot sleep unless he has a pillow with a leopard-print pillowcase to lay his head on), and we all three snuggled up in the bed together. Odd Toddler laid his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. I breathed a sigh of relief (too loudly apparently) and closed my own eyes. Within seconds, Odd Toddler was sitting up and grunting, pointing towards the door. "You want some water?" I asked. "Yesshh," he answered.

I got back up, went to the living room, found his water sippy cup, and headed back to bed. Odd Toddler sucked greedily on the sippy, tucked it next to him, gathered his dinosaurs into his arms, and laid his head back on the pillow. I did the same.

Just as I was drifting back off to sleep, Odd Toddler climbed over me, slithered off the bed and stomped loudly into the kitchen. By the time I got in there, he was hanging from the handle on the refrigerator. "You want some milk?" I asked. "Yesshh," he answered, grinning maniacally. I retrieved his milk sippy cup from the fridge and gave it to him. "Dadoo," he said (his version of thank you), and we traipsed single-file back into my bedroom. We both climbed back into bed, waking The Carnivore once again, and assumed our sleeping positions.

No sooner had I drifted back off than Odd Toddler tapped me on my head and violently shook his milk sippy (translation: This is empty and I need you to get me more milk ASAP!). I stood back up, grumbling fiercely, and went back to the kitchen to refill his sippy.

Finally, after everything seemed well with his world, Odd Toddler laid his head back on the pillow, and I started to fall back asleep. Apparently though, Odd Toddler was not sleepy. Every two minutes (I know because I would look at the clock, close my eyes, and the next thing I knew, I was struggling back up out of sleep, looking back at the clock to see that only TWO minutes had passed), Odd Toddler would lift his foot up and kick me in the head. After six or seven kicks, he sat up in bed and began grunting again. The Carnivore made an angry noise, so I hooked Odd Toddler under my arm, grabbed two pillows and headed to the living room.

On normal difficult nights, Odd Toddler and I sleep head to toe on the living room sofa. This is extraordinarily uncomfortable for anyone who is larger than two feet tall, but for some reason it works every time (except this one, of course) to soothe the terroristic tendencies of my beloved child. I laid our pillows at each end of the sofa, pushed the coffee table up against the sofa so that Odd Toddler couldn't roll off in his sleep, and got a blanket out of the linen closet. We both laid down, everything seemed to be perfect, and I started to drift back off. Again. Odd Toddler sat back up and grunted. Again.

He slithered over the coffee table and waddled into the kitchen, where he pulled out his seat at the table and reached for his bib. I checked the time (4:45am) and just stared at him. He grunted once and then twice, stomped his feet loudly, and pointed at the fridge. "You want a bowl of cereal?" I asked incredulously. "Yesshh," he answered.

And amazingly, it only went downhill from there.

He ate two bowls of Cheerios and then asked for a banana. I got yesterday's half-eaten banana out of the fridge, but he balked at it not having a pointed end (which, I might add, was only missing because HE had bitten it off). I got another banana and asked him if that one would do. He nodded and I peeled it. And then he balked at that one too. I carried him to the fridge and held him in front of the open door while he pondered his choices. He finally picked out some leftover steamed broccoli, but then got angry with me when I took 15 seconds warming it up.

Once he was finally full, and it was 5:15am, I gave up and started the coffee. We sat on the sofa together and I found some old Scooby Doo cartoons on TV, which delighted him. Everything seemed to be going well again. He snuggled tight against me, pulled the covers over his lap, and leaned his head against my shoulder while we watched the cartoons in the dark. An hour later, he was still awake and I, even after two cups of coffee, was falling asleep sitting up. At 6:30am, I woke up The Carnivore and asked him to take over so that I could get some sleep. Just as I was falling asleep, Odd Toddler opened the door to the bedroom, yelled "MAMA," and slammed the door loudly enough to wake the dead. The Carnivore rushed in and scooped him up, and I finally got to sleep.

An hour later, I heard the phone ringing, but was able to ignore it and stay partly asleep. Until, that is, my cellphone started ringing. And then the house phone rang again immediately. It was obvious who it was. It was my mother. And she was NOT going to be ignored. Dazed, I got out of bed and stumbled into the living room just as The Carnivore picked up the phone. Odd Toddler smiled at me, and then his head fell onto a pillow, his eyes shut like lead weights and his mouth fell open. It was 8am, and he was finally asleep. Since he is in the living room though, that prohibits me from getting busy in the kitchen, and the ONLY thing I want to do when I'm this frustrated and sleep-deprived is to try some new recipes and then get online and blog about them.

So I poured myself some coffee and decided to go upstairs to my office to get some work done. As I walked up the stairs, in my brain haze, I managed to spill coffee on not just a few stairs, but on EVERY SINGLE stair. The Anal Carnivore (argh, that isn't really a picture you want in your head, is it, of an anal carnivore?) will be appalled when he sees the mess I just made.

It is now 9:30am, and Odd Toddler is still, blessedly, asleep. I, on the other hand, am coming apart at the seams.

Vegetarian Confidential

I am apparently only capable of doing so many things food-related before I hit overload. I can make food, I can write about food and I can read about food, but not all at the same time. Lately I've been in a reading-about-cooking kind of place, and whether there aren't enough hours in the day or whether its a matter of stage fright after reading the masters, I haven't recently felt the urge to write about food as long as I'm busy reading somebody else's food memoirs. Especially when its as thrilling and downright trashy as Kitchen Confidential. I am of course watching the television show as well, though it pales in comparison to the book (as is almost always the case).

I spent much of Sunday afternoon reading out loud to The Carnivore. I quoted entire pages, hooted with the hilarity of it all, and brimmed over with newfound knowledge. Most of the book requires Google's vast translator abilities (because we can't ALL speak New York kitchenese) and now I keep wanting to try out my new vocabulary. Alas, I'm having a hard time working "mise-en-place" into casual conversation.

In the restaurant expose (where is the accent mark that goes over the final letter when trying to sound like 60 Minutes?) section, the author goes into a tirade on my people:

"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The
body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold. Oh, I'll accommodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a "vegetarian plate," if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of
grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine."

The man is a former heroin-addict who writes like he's on a cocaine bender (see also: Elizabeth Wurtzel), so its hard to be insulted by his rantings. And besides, since I eat seafood and dairy, I can at least pretend I might be cool enough to run in his Big City chef circles. As if.

Regardless, I had one of those rare Sarah-might-grow-up-to-be-a-chef-after-all epiphanies this week, and I'm excited by the feeling of invincibility it has instilled. A few weeks back, when I was dragging around with a sinus infection and feeling more than a little sorry for myself, I skulked through the living room and glanced at the television, where Giada de Laurentiis was licking her lips and spreading some sort of gruyere and mustard concoction on thick hearty slices of sourdough bread. I sat on the coffee table (a no-no), transfixed and eager to see what she was making. I was disheartened when she slapped some turkey on the magnificent-sounding cheese spread, but was intrigued again when she pan-fried the sandwiches in olive oil. Doped up on pain medicine, I headed straight upstairs to download the recipe.

I mulled over the turkey issue for the past week or so. The sandwich was so simple that I couldn't do what I often resort to, which is just skipping the meat and continuing with the rest of the recipe. After all, that would result in nothing more than a fancy-schmancy grilled cheese sandwich in this case.

And then came one of those inspirations I've been praying would begin to come naturally for me, that Aha! moment when you realize how to take a completely unusable recipe and make it your own.

VEGETARIAN VENETIAN PANINO

• 4 oz gruyere, grated
• 1 Tbs butter, at room temperature
• 1 Tbs Dijon mustard
• 1 small garlic clove, chopped
• Poblano pepper
• Red bell pepper
• Onion slices, to taste
• 4 huge hunky thick slices of fresh sourdough bread
• 3 Tbs olive oil

1. Blend the gruyere, butter, mustard and garlic in a food processor until thick and smooth.
2. Put the peppers on a foil-lined baking sheet and broil in the oven at 500 degrees, turning every few minutes, until skin of the peppers is charred, about 10 minutes. Place the peppers in a bowl and cover with a towel; let sit for 10 minutes. Peel and discard the skin of the peppers; remove stem and seeds, and slice into thick strips.
3. Spread the cheese mixture over one side of each of the four slices of bread. Arrange the peppers and onion over 2 of the slices. Top sandwiches with the remaining bread slices, cheese side in, pressing gently to adhere.
4. Heat oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Cook until golden brown and heated through, about 4 minutes per side.
5. Serve hot.

These sandwiches were out of this world yummy. Even The Carnivore agreed, though I had suspected he would have a problem with substituting roasted peppers for turkey. Sadly, I served the sandwiches with Broccoli & Cheese Soup (a little too much cheese in this meal, thanks anyway) and the soup couldn't really hold its own against the beauty of the panini. Gonna have to try out some new soup recipes. Especially now that I've read how easy it is to make your own broth for soup bases (though Anthony Bourdain would shudder to know that I will be bastardizing it by making it vegetarian, of course).

The Sweetest Thing

Post-vacation reality set in with a vengeance today. Thursdays are my toughest day of the week to begin with, but when you add in the work that doesn't get done when self-employed people are out of town, well, suffice to say it is taking some juggling to keep all of my clients happy right now while I trudge through a mountain of paperwork. I finally made it to the bottom of a week's worth of mail today and found an invitation for an event tonight that I would have loved to attend if it weren't for bad timing. This started the day off on a bad note to begin with.

Too much work piled up, coupled with saying goodbye to my father (we have been known to go as long as three years between visits), made for a sulky Sarah. This afternoon, when I started growling with frustration on the phone, Mom suggested I go home and have a good cry. She must have mistaken me for one of her other daughters, because I don't have time to cry.

I comforted myself by working my butt off to knock my to-do list items down, and then I spent time going through the photos I took last week. The one above, with Odd Toddler kissing his cousing Emily, was so sweet as to make me roll my eyes until the former English major in me started to make connections. Kissing is to sweet as sweet is to...dessert. Aha!

Before I got sick, and then left town, I had purchased the ingredients to make Seven-Layer Cookie Bars from a recipe I cut out of the AJC Food Section recently. Tonight, since we had salad with leftover Blackberry Vinaigrette (which was even better on the second day), Lenny's Lasagna with San Marzano tomato sauce, and baguettes with an olive oil and herb dipping sauce, I was freed up from cooking duty. Leftover night is necessary since Thursdays are so hectic, but it is the act of whipping something up in the kitchen that relaxes me on a nightly basis. I found the remedy for all my ills in this little square of newsprint.

SEVEN-LAYER COOKIE BARS

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs (I got out most of my frustrations by pounding a package of graham crackers until they bled)
• 12-oz package of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 12-oz package of milk chocolate chips
• 12-oz package of butterscotch chips
• 1 1/2 cups flaked coconut
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 2 (14-oz) cans sweetened condensed milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Coat 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
3. Melt butter and pour into baking pan.
4. Sprinkle crumbs evenly on butter and pat them down to even out.
5. Sprinkle semisweet, milk chocolate and butterscotch chips evenly over crumbs.
6. Sprinkle with coconut, then with nuts.
7. Pour milk over layers.
8. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until mixture bubbles and browns on top.
9. Let cool.

In my painful lack of patience, I skipped the last step and ate a piece with a spoon. It was worth it. Now if the rest of the batch would just harden up...

Deferred Gratification

The Carnivore and I took our first vacation together in more than three years this past weekend. It was a long time coming, and it was sorely needed. My sister was getting married in Virginia and it was my first chance to see my dad in over a year. My other sister has a baby 4 weeks older than Odd Toddler, and this was the first time she and Odd Toddler set eyes on each other. It was love at first sight. They did a LOT of kissing. My brother has posted some of the photos of the kids, along with some pictures of my incredibly gorgeous sister at her wedding, on his site.

After five days away, we were glad to get home and I was happy to be in my kitchen again. We ate fabulously while we were gone (we were on the coast after all), but I get such pleasure from cooking that I spent three hours this afternoon working on tonight's dinner. A few weeks ago, a friend of my mother emailed a recipe for Blackberry Vinaigrette. Paula was aware of my new salad dressing fixation and the recipe she sent was the signature dressing at a golf course in Tennessee for which she was once a chef. The recipe intrigued me greatly but was low on the instant gratification scale. The first step was to make blackberry vinegar, a process that takes at least a week. I am not a patient person.

I had several aborted attempts to begin the vinegar, but finally began steeping it nearly two weeks ago. By the time it should have been ready though, we were leaving town and I was sick to boot. So I left the beautifully tinted vinegar in the refrigerator and headed East, thinking of the vinegar no less than twice a day while I was gone. This morning, nearly giddy with anticipation, I went to the store to get the rest of the ingredients.

BLACKBERRY VINAIGRETTE

• 1 cup blackberries, fresh or frozen (I used frozen - the only fresh ones I could find looked downright nasty at the supermarket)
• 1 pint cider vinegar
• 1/2 Tbs minced shallots
• 3/4 Tbs Dijon mustard (this was a hard one - I have neither a 3/4 Tbs nor a 1/4 Tbs measuring spoon - did a little bit of guesstimating here)
• 1/4 cup blackberries from vinegar, pureed and pressed through a sieve (easier said than done - plan for some extra time here)
• 1 1/2 cups olive oil (I used only 1 cup - I like to lean towards the vinegary side)
• 1/2 cup honey
• pinch of kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp minced garlic

1. Add blackberries to cider vinegar and let stand in the refrigerator for at least one week. Remember that a watched pot never boils.
2. Strain out 1/2 cup of the blackberry vinegar and whisk it together with the shallots and the rest of the ingredients.

This was BY FAR the best of the dressings I've had the pleasure of making. I served it over a mix of baby greens, thinly sliced red onion, and crumbled feta cheese. It had a terrific, layered mix of tastes, yet none of them were overbearing. The berries added just the touch of tartness, balanced perfectly by the sweetness of the honey and the acidity of the vinegar. The Carnivore was a big fan as well. I'm wondering now how weel this would do in some of my cold bean or pasta salads. Will have to think on this. In the meantime, I will be eating salad daily for the next few days while I savor the beauty of this vinaigrette.

On a side note, I also made Lenny Robinson's Favorite Lasagna tonight, but this time I used the leftover San Marzano tomato sauce that I had frozen a few weeks ago. Eureka! For now at least, I think I have found the best use for that sauce. It added a delicate tartness to the lasagna that went well with the rich custardy ricotta filling. Still, while the tomato sauce married perfectly with the lasagna, I've yet to be convinced that the expense of those particular tomatoes is worth the mediocrity of the finished sauce. We ate at an Italian place in the la-di-da section of Richmond this weekend where they served an incredible red sauce that bowled me and The Carnivore slap over. My sister practically drank the stuff. She and her husband live across the street from the place, and they eat there often. I'm hoping to convince them to ask the chef for the recipe.

When we returned to town yesterday, waiting for us was a package from my West Coast friend Tisha. She had sent dried fish flakes, wasabi paste and wasabi powder, and I can finally make the dip recipe that I have been staring apoplectically at for the past few months while I cursed the lack of specialty markets in the small-town South. I am beside myself.

It is nice to see that patience does have a place in my world, and that seemingly everything really IS better when you have had to wait for it. Not that I want to make a habit of it or anything...

Finding Love in a Beanman

My life clearly revolves around food. Twelve years ago I met my husband in a Mexican restaurant. He managed the place; I was dating the cook. Frijolero's shut down probably 10 years ago now, but people around town still speak fondly of it. Staffed completely by artists and musicians, most of them surly to the customers, and all of them crazy good looking, it was an extremely popular place to hang out. Bands played there a few nights a week, and the restaurant shared an alley with three bars, so there was always an interesting crowd of people filing in and out. I spent entirely too much time there. If you consider that the restaurant occupied the former spot of A&A Bakery, a place my mother and I frequented during my childhood, then the story becomes even more ridiculous.

The Carnivore and I didn't get to know each other too well during that time, but we ran into each other over the years following the demise of Frijolero's, at parties, at shows, here and there around town. We would say hello and go about our business. I saw his band play a few times at the 40 Watt and I remember idly thinking that I might be interested. But never enough so that I felt inclined to act on it.

Eight years ago I saw him at a V-Roys show at the Georgia Theater and I gave him a hug. We still laugh about that hug. The fateful one that spawned a romance we never expected.

Our first date was Thanksgiving weekend 1997. The relationship started slow and went nowhere fast. The picture above was taken on Thanksgiving Day the following year. We were finally admitting we really cared about each other, though we never would have copped to falling in love. That took yet another year together.

Truly, we were made for each other. Early in the relationship we spent a long lazy Sunday together. We drank coffee and read the newspaper cover to cover, strewing sections from one end of the living room to the other. We didn't talk much, except to read something aloud to the other, or to discuss where our next meal might come from. I remember thinking I might have met my dream man.

The following summer The Carnivore housesat for a friend of his, and we spent most of our free time on the back for two weeks, reading, discussing politics or music, eating. The Carnivore played his guitar a lot, and I wrote in my notebook. He claims that is when he began to think we really had a future.

We are fairly solitary people. We like being together, but we'd be perfectly happy to spend day after day out here in the country, cooking and reading and spending time with Odd Toddler, but alone from anybody else. Its not that we are completely antisocial, just that we enjoy our peace and quiet.

We spent our honeymoon in a beach house on Folly Island. We went out to eat every night, and we hit nearly every thrift store in Charleston in one single day, but for the most part we spent our time sitting on the second floor porch, with a stack of books and newspapers by our side. The tourist season was over, and we had the beach mostly to ourselves. Just the way we like it.

On Friday we will celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. Since we will be out of town on our anniversary, we went out to eat together a few days ago at the most obvious place we could think of. A Mexican restaurant of course.

Black Bean Chili

I do not get sick often so when it does happen, I crave warm, nourishing, spicy foods. When I was a teenager I got hooked on the healing properties of spicy food. I have distinct and beautiful memories of my mother giving me a plate of spaghetti doused in jalapeno pepper juice when I was under the weather and congested up to my gills. This may seem like an odd combination, but one should never underestimate pepper juice and its singular ability to clear clogged nasal passages.

One of my favorite and now-defunct restaurants, The Normaltown Cafe, stocked all of its tables with pepper juice, right next to the usual suspects of salt, pepper and Tabasco. This is one of the many things to love about the South. Normaltown Cafe was the master of the meat and three, and it was nearly impossible to eat there without ordering their beautiful (and gas-inducing) cabbage. The cabbage became spectacular when it was drowned in the pepper juice. I was known to upend the juice over my plate and squirt everything but the cobbler.

In addition to the physical healing, there are numerous scientific studies regarding the emotional well-being of those who eat large quantities of hot peppers. Endorphins are released when the taste buds are screaming, and this is good for all manner of down-and-outness. Healing on all fronts would be much appreciated right now.

*****

BLACK BEAN CHILI, serves 6 -8

• 2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 poblano peppers (or 1 bell pepper), seeded and chopped
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can corn, drained
• 1 can Mexican-style diced tomatoes, liquid included 
• 2 cups vegetable broth (or water)
• 1 Tbs hot sauce
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp oregano

1. Heat the oil in a large heavy pan over medium heat.
2. Add the onions and saute until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the peppers and saute until tender, about 3 minutes.
4. Add the garlic and sauté for another 30 seconds.
5. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes or until thick.
7. Serve with grated cheese, sour cream, and extra hot sauce, if desired.