The Annual Golden Loaves

I needed Jeanne's welding gloves this year when I "walked Spanish" at the ad agency. If you don't know what the expression means, look it up in the Urban Dictionary or read Josh Ferris' book Then We Came to the End.

It's something about how pirates used to walk their hapless victims to the plank, forcing them to march on their toes toward the end of the line. Since I was making the toe walk, you can deduce I was scorched that day. It would have been magnificent to walk into the exit interview wearing a pair of red welders' gloves. I only wish I'd known about the gloves in time to wave them high on my way out the door. As it was, I only had time to get my office fridge moved to my friend Spicy Chicken Wing.

When a fridge door closes, somewhere a browser window opens, and that's what happened in 2009. Thanks to SUCCESS Magazine and their fine staff, some amazing people allowed me to tell their stories. Who better to learn from than successful achievers - people who sail under their own flags?

Here then are my annual Golden Loaves, presented to each individual who trusted this castaway and gave me more than the outer crust, enriching my spirit to move forward. If they will call me, I will personally bake their trophy.

Stan Richards, Founder, The Richards Group.
He built an ad agency from the dust up in Dallas. So-called experts told him his design style was all wrong for Big D, but he stuck with it and worked hard. Today you know his agency's work if you've ever heard Tom Bodett say "we'll leave the light on for you" at Motel 6.

What I learned: Hard work can trump talent. If you're willing to challenge yourself, you'll go places that amaze you. Keep ideas simple. People connect with simple ideas, like "Eat Mor Chikin." And never forget respect. Give it, expect it, cut loose from those who don't treat you with it. You deserve it.

Danica Patrick, IndyCar driver.
So I didn't get to interview her, but I understood why after reading her book for a sense of the tremendous pressure and media interest in her ability to perform in open-wheel racing. If she said yes to every request, she couldn't compete. Danica is different; that's obvious if you've ever seen her picture or one of her ads. She did call on me at a press conference; she gave a good quote.

What I learned: Embrace your differences. Believe in your passion, and be passionate in all you do. What makes you different makes you great. Race on, and be good in the pits.

Joel and Victoria Osteen, pastors of America's largest church.
They have such high media interest that they take a big risk every time they agree to open their mouth or be photographed. They are scrutinized on a global scale. They let me in their house, and I saw what's in their laundry room. I have a good idea of what they eat for dinner, which is often at home because fans are eager to swarm them when they go out. I saw, and I'm not telling. They can trust me.

What I learned: Don't be talked into having a down year, despite the economy, the wars, floods and flu. You are blessed with talents so incredible you don't even know all that you have. Hold the door for somebody else, don't be so busy you can't do the small things. Your best year yet is just ahead, and while you're at it, encourage someone else.

There are others who get loaves, too, but until their stories run, I'll have to keep their names a secret. They know who they are, and thanks to them, 2009 turned out much brighter.

That business on the plank is all behind me now. Ole!

Goodbye Oven Burns

Am so excited about a pre-Christmas present I got myself: a pair of welder's gloves. It was a big help when it came to preparing the holiday feasts (see picture). Cooking shops need to stock up on these marvels that I found at my local he-man supply store.

It all started when my friend Monica Bhide, author of Modern Spice, blogged about a burn she received while baking cookies. Fellow foodies immediately joined in on the bloggable conversation. I grumbled about my constant search for oven mitts that actually worked. They have to be able to protect my hands, wrists, and lower arms from the heat. But they also have to be flexible enough so that my fingers are still useable. I've tried many a mitt.

Food writer and blogger Babettefeasts replied, telling of a similar search that was ended when someone halfway across the world sent her a pair of welder's gloves.

Eureka! I immediately hopped in the car and headed to my nearest manly big box store and got the last pair. I must admit they are a smidge large. Apparently there are not many welders with petite hands, but as you can see, they were the perfect protection for me as I pulled the holiday roast out of the oven. And they make such a fashion statement with my red sweater!

Christmas in Connecticut

When I was just out of college and working for a small newspaper in Florida, I wrote a column using a child's point of view about Christmas in Connecticut. It went something like this:

When we were young, my brother, sisters and I, we had our Christmases in Connecticut. And there would be a flurry of activities encircling Christmas Day that remains warm in our memories, more so than anything we would ever find under the tree.

When we were very young, Mother would dress us in our holiday finery and make us sing in the Norfield Congregational Church in Weston. Sitting on the steps in front of the congregation, we would hold baskets of raisins, nuts and figs and sing "What Shall We Give to the Babe in the Manger?" Often we were caught nibbling on our "gifts."

Each year Father would fetch the Christmas tree, and its arrival at the house always signaled much fussing and excitement, for he would drag the tree through the snow, around the back of the house and in through the basement door. The swirling pattern in the snow left by the tree would become a trail of needles up the stairs and into the living room, where we would watch in hushed voices as Father twirled the lights around the tree limbs.

Each Christmas Father would also make his pilgrimage to Macy's Department Store in New York City, and he would fill an entire shopping bag with Christmas sweets. There were chocolate Christmas balls wrapped in colored foil to be hung on the tree, and we would always whisk them away as quickly as they were hung, popping them into our mouths long before Christmas Day.

There would be candy canes as thick as your wrist, these i nlong sticks that bulged from our stockings. On Christmas Day, we would scoop out the jewel-like candies - butterscotch, mints and "red hots" - from the bottoms of our stockings.

Some nights we would bundle up tightly against the glittering northern winter evenings and go Christmas caroling. Our neighbors, the Howards and Lutzes, would go with us as we trolled the ancient Yuletide carols throughout our tiny community. One child would be appointed to bring along the jingle bells and shake them appropriately.

Sometimes grateful listeners would give us steaming mugs of cocoa or a bit of chocolate for our caroling efforts.

Christmas Eve, we would stay up very late and be permitted to attend the midnight services at Norfield Church. These services were for singing, and as we sang our eyes would glisten with the lights of the electric candles burning in the church windows, as they did each year at Christmas time. Or we could stare at the imitation white doves that were the sole decorations fastened to the Christmas tree in the pulpit. After the services, we would scurry home to our bedrooms, being very still and straining to catch the whispers of the grownups as they rushed to and fro downstairs. The grownups were always the last to retire.

The next morning, dressed in long white flannel nightgowns our grandmother had made us, we would squirm through breakfast, anticipating the moment when Father would strike a fire in the fireplace - where the package wrappings would later be burned - and signal the opening of Christmas gifts. Mother or Father would dress up as "Santa Claus" and distribute gifts. We never had believed in the real merry old elf himself, but still we held fast to the magic of what lay before us under the tree, wondering how in one night, it could all be gathered there.

With the afternoon turkey, and always before its presentation, Father would read us the story of the Night Before Christmas in Texas That Is.

The tale always spoke of the prairie without snow; boots, not stockings, at the foot of the beds, and a Stetson-topped Santa Claus. The reading of the story was to become our own, unique holiday tradition, for we were all born in Texas, and although we had our Christmases in Connecticut, there was a certain responsibility to remember one's birthplace.

One season the book vanished - one of the children later confessing she had lent it away - and we carried on the tradition by reciting the story to the best of our collective memories. As with everything else mystical that surrounds Christmas, one year when we were very grown, we located another copy of the Night Before Christmas in Texas That Is, and the tradition was firmly restored.

My sister Charlotte sent me a tall, thin package this year, which I immediately unwrapped, already guessing its contents: my own copy of the Night Before Christmas in Texas That Is.

During the holidays and on through New Year's Day, no matter the lateness of the evening, we always gathered around the piano, and Mother would play the Christmas carols as we joined her in song.

Years later we would be home from college, still standing around the piano and still singing. One of us might shake a tambourine, another would play along on the guitar.

These Christmases in Connecticut were always white. People still scurried, with frosty breath and apple-colored cheeks, as they struggled homeward with their brightly wrapped bundles.

There were always roaring fires in the fireplace, Christmas sweets from Macy's. And always, hearts lifted in joy through song.

Now we're very grown.

My brother Curt is becoming a dentist. My sister Mary has Christmas in Colorado, and sister Charlotte works in Dallas. Mother and Father must trust the postal system to play Santa Claus for me.

There won't be any fires in the fireplace this year; the weather is too warm for scurrying.

But I know I'll be home again for Christmas in Connecticut.

If only in my dreams.


Postlude: As I re-read this column it strikes me as unbelievably mushy - clearly I was feeling sentimental in 1980 when I wrote it. Thing is, I was truly fond of the snow - the kind that sticks to eyelashes and mittens - the caroling, those bags of goodies from Macy's. The reading of The Night Before Christmas in Texas That Is was a real tradition we worked hard to keep up with, especially in the years when we had to recite from memory. Just a few years ago I actually tracked down the author, Leon Harris, living in Dallas. I told my Father I had talked with the author about the book's special place in our memories. He loved it! He loved this mushy column, too. He was a Texan, after all, keeping Christmas up north.

Read The New York Times story about Leon Harris' passing. And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

(photo of Rosemary Cranberry Christmas cookies tucked inside Dorothy's ruby slippers (almost), in the Singing Wheat Kitchen.)

When Life Hands You Lemons...

When life hands you lemons, make Lemon Chicken Lasagna. That's what friends got for Christmas this year. (I baked it in foil pans and delivered it yesterday.)

You can make a shortcut version by using a 16-oz. jar o' alfredo sauce and deli roasted chicken. I like to make my own garlicky alfredo because it's so easy: just butter, flour, milk (plus garlic). While that is bubbling to a creamy thickness, I cook up a couple of chicken breasts.

Lemon Chicken Lasagna

Cooking spray
1/4 cup butter

2 cloves garlic, squished through a garlic press
1/4 cup flour

3 cups milk

2 Tbsp. drained capers
6 lasagna noodles (give or take; you may have to cut off a couple inches of the cooked noodles to fit in the square pan)
1 cup ricotta cheese (cottage cheese works too, here in the Midwest)
1 3/4 cups shredded cheese (I like to mix it up: mozzarella, a bit of extra-sharp cheddar, and/or some crumbled feta cheese and maybe a smidge of Parmesan)
2 teaspoons lemon zest (use a fine grater and make sure you don't get any of the white pith)
12 ounces cooked chicken breast, cut into edible chunks

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spritz an 8x8-inch or 9x9-inch baking pan with cooking spray; set aside. In a saucepan melt butter and add garlic, cooking over low heat for 1 minute. Stir in flour, cooking until mixture is thick and golden. Increase heat to medium, add milk and cook until thick and bubbly. Stir in capers and 1 teaspoon of the lemon zest.

2. Cook lasagna according to package directions; drain. Spoon 1⁄3 cup of sauce into baking pan. Top with 3 noodles. Spoon 1/2 cup of the ricotta cheese and 1/2 cup of the shredded cheese over noodles. Top with half the chicken. Spoon half the remaining sauce over chicken layer.

3. Top with 3 more noodles, remaining ricotta, another 1/2 cup shredded cheese, and remaining chicken. Add 3 more noodles, remaining sauce, and sprinkle with remaining cheese.

3. Cover with foil. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes before serving. Sprinkle with remaining 1 teaspoon lemon peel. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Remembering the Spritz Cookie

I can still see the boxes, stamped with "Woodward & Lothrop," the first department store in Washington. Grandmother Daisy always carried two WL boxes into our house for Christmas in Connecticut. If you peeled back the layers of waxed paper, you'd find one box filled with cookies shaped like Christmas trees and dyed green. The other held flower-shaped cookies, no food dye. Two versions carefully made, both with sprinkles on top, usually nonpareils but sometimes those hard, BB-sized silver balls. The cookies were colored-coded - if you tasted the green trees (or sometimes pink), they were peppermint-flavored. The no-dye versions were always almond-flavored. Whether attracted by the color or taste, we seemed to go for the peppermints first. Grandmother Daisy might run out of sprinkles at times, so she'd try to cover with a pecan, but we never ate those - unless they were all that was left.

It was years before I understood that these were "spritz" cookies she made using a "Mirro Press," meaning the dough was shot through a tube with a pattern imprint to make the shapes. It was a very 1950s or '60s thing to do - you could make canapes shaped like card suits and other fanciful treats such as "Palate Pleasers," "Nibble Bait" and "Dagwood Delights." But it was the Christmas trees that we held vigil for, little understanding the manual dexterity necessary to pump the shortening, sugar and flour through a press. We just waited, anticipated and chased every crumb when they arrived.

Only the web can (arguably) deliver to more homes than Santa Claus, so here's a Christmas trees recipe using a cookie press.

Eventually Daisy gave me a Mirro Press as a gift, and I have stayed in business to this day, even though the product maker seems to have slipped away. She had to let go of the cookie-making because her hands could no longer grip and squeeze the press effectively. Now I have true insight into that twinge in the hands, but my kids still beckon for their favorite Christmas treat.

I only make the colored version, and only the peppermint.

When you're the main squeeze, you get to decide.

(Photo of Mirro Press spritz cookies lying on a childhood Christmas apron made with loving hands.)

Orange You Sweet!

We're into the full measure of holiday baking now - or in Jeanne's case, a rip-out of her kitchen floor due to measures beyond her control - but Jeanne and I continue to toss ideas and talk about what we love to do for season's greetings, and that's to keep our traditions fresh and sparkling sweet.

Enter candied orange peel, one of my top attractions. It started when I lived on the Sun Coast of Florida. My neighbor Anne Bailey would make candied orange and grapefruit peel, and I was fascinated because it felt very English Country Christmas, very old school. I adopted the tradition as my own, and now it's as much a part of the season as pralines and spritz cookies, which we'll get to in the next few days.

There are plenty of "how-tos" for candied orange peel on the web, but this the method that I stick and stay with. It's sweet, but it's also tangy, chewy and delightfully bright.

Candied Orange Peel, Grapefruit Peel

About 5 oranges or 2 large grapefruits, washed

Cold water

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 cup water

sugar for coating

1. Cut the peel into four sections, then cover with cold water and a teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil.

2. As you chew a denuded orange segment, boil 5 minutes if you're doing oranges, or 10 minutes if it's grapefruit.

3. Drain, repeat the process three more times, but without the salt.

4. In a large saucepan, add the sugar, corn syrup and the cup of water. Stir them over low heat until the sugar dissolves.

5. While this is happening, use scissors to cut the peel into 1/2-inch strips.

6. Add the strips to the pan and boil gently, uncovered for about 40 minutes or until most of the mixture is absorbed.

7. Drain the peel in a colander.

8. Roll the peel in sugar. Place in single layer on wax paper and allow to dry for 2 days (Mama Mia turns her peel over after the first day).

9. Store in an airtight container.

Now that you have this recipe, throw yourself into making Florentines Cockaigne, a candy-like Italian cookie that calls for candied orange peel and an undercoating of chocolate. It's a Rombauer family favorite, according to the Joy of Cooking's All About Cookies. First peel out, then do the cookie.

Now pass the tea and hum a verse of "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm."

Super Quick Chocolate Toffee

While Mama Mia is patiently shaping and rising and kneading dough for holiday gifting, I'm frantically tossing together a few ingredients to create a shortcut toffee before the guests arrive.

But, even the non-baker/candy-maker will be awed at the ease and elegance of this holiday chocolate toffee treat. It's a recipe I've been using for years that was handed to me scribbled on a piece of notepaper. (You'll probably find something similar all over the Web.) It's one of those happy surprises you put together when you have no time.

It's got a surprising ingredient that you really don't need to reveal.

Chocolate Toffee

40 saltine crackers (1 sleeve)

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips and/or chopped bittersweet chocolate

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup sliced almonds, toasted

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a jelly roll pan (10x15x1) or rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper (or foil). Line the crackers in a single layer on the parchment paper in pan.

2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture boils. Let it bubble for 3 minutes, without stirring. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Immediately pour mixture over crackers. Bake for 5 minutes.

3. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over top; let stand for 5 minutes, then spread melted chips evenly over all. Top with sliced almonds. Cool completely, then cut or break toffee into pieces.

Bread for My Friends

Today in the Singing Wheat Kitchen I wrapped my arms around bread, because tonight is the annual "just the women" cocktail party on our neighborhood street. You've got to hoist something to the communal table, and I'm not one to make rum balls. I like a handcrafted bread you can dip into an herb-infused olive oil or top with a fine Montenebro from Molto Formaggio, our house of cheese in Dallas. Gimme the salty over the sweetie any day.

I wonder if the scent of baking bread slips through the cracks in our doors and windows and fills our street with irresistible aromas? Just yesterday a neighbor stopped in to place an order for croissants and crackers for a big party on Saturday. I'm not open for business, but my door is open for my gal friends, and from there it's an easy stroll to the kitchen, where dough can change hands. Anyone who has a passionate love for bread will get served.

I was on a mission to see what happens if you take the dough from the Pain a l'Ancienne recipe found in "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" and stuff it with proscuitto and pepper. This dough is a real hands-off kind of heavy dough that doesn't want much manual labor. It is supposed to stay in a gassy, bloated state. I'm crazy about this recipe because most of the work happens in the fridge, and the taste results are absolutement wonderful, like fresh bread for Madeline and Miss Clavell in their old house in Paris. You can freeze it or bake it off as a pizza, a baguette or a fine square of foccacia.

I won't really know the end results of the "proscuitto and pepper" experiment until I cut the baguettes into rounds for the cocktail party. First glimpse looks good, though. I did drop one of the baguettes in the oven - it rolled off the back of the inverted cookie sheet I was using, just rolled off. With quick hands, I hefted it back in place, spritzed everything with water and slammed the door. You can't let a minor slip define your success.

Here is a Pain a l'Ancienne recipe that is available via the web but is absolutely Peter Reinhart's work. And what marvelous work he does.

Pralines for the Holidays

Decorate all the sugar cookies you wish this holiday season. For me, nothing says "Christmas treat" like the old-fashioned praline.

My Grandmother Mimi had an incredible affinity for chemistry (and taught it). Her method of praline-making is unlike most you'll find today. As kids, we eagerly awaited the arrival of her pralines. She made them in Texas and would drive across the country to our snowy doorstep in Connecticut, box in hand.

When Mimi made pralines, she always melted some of the sugar separately until carmelized, then mixed it into the milk and sugar combination already on the stove. Why this step is important I don't know, but her pralines were always perfectly turned out and the first to disappear if we also had spritz cookies, divinity and those fried dough confections known as "rosettes."

There is a temperamental chemistry to pralines. For instance, a lesser grade sugar can ruin a batch. If you don't cook your mixture all the way to soft-ball stage, it can turn into syrup. Wait too long to spoon it out of the pan, and you can be stuck holding a fine batch of crystallized sugar. It's chemistry, it's timing, it's patience you need to get the feel for it.

My sister Mary believes she did not inherit the "feel," but she always gives me a big bag of shelled pecans every Christmas. My sister Charlotte did inherit the knack, and she's quite the family expert now. Here is her recipe, which doesn't require the separate carmelization step.

Charlotte's Pralines

2 cups of sugar (we recommend Imperial)
3/4 cup milk (Charlotte uses 5/8 cup Half and Half and 1/8 cup skim milk; Mama Mia has tried 2/4 cup of whole milk and 1/4 cup whipping cream, why not?)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 and 1/2 cups pecan halves or pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon of butter

1. Combine sugar, milk and baking soda in a 2- or 3-quart saucepan.
2. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Keep your eye on it as mixture will rise to top of pan.
3. Continue cooking to soft-ball stage (about 238 degrees on candy thermometer).
4. When a little mixture forms a soft ball when dropped in cold water, remove from heat.
5. Add pecans, vanilla and butter. Beat until candy starts to take shape and lose its gloss.
6. Drop quickly by tablespoons on wax paper.
7. Allow to cool. Store in airtight container. Makes 18-30

Here's another version, pralines from Paula Deen, using more ingredients like brown sugar and dark corn syrup, which to me could get exceedingly sweet when sugar is already the largest ingredient in the pot. I think I will try it, though, since I've never heard of allowing the cooked mixture to cool 10 minutes before adding the nuts, butter and vanilla. Again this is a chemistry thing - vanilla can evaporate if you add it into hot liquid, but letting it cool? My concern is getting the mixture out of the pan before it can harden like a rock.

Today I didn't have pecans on hand, but almonds I've got, and they do well. In fact, if you read this history of the praline, you'll see that "sugar almonds" were an ancient, early form of the praline.

Be sweet now.

(Photo of almond pralines with vintage Santa Claus mug made by the Holt Howard company, getting along nicely together atop Mimi's marble turtle table.)

Soup's On

Jeanne's, what's on your stove today?

It's a wintry day in Dallas and for this, I like a hearty soup and loaves of fresh bread that can fill the air with warm aromas, promoting the senses that all is well. If you're facing high winds (as I know they are in Tennessee, according to the warnings for the Smoky Mountains region), a cold drizzling rain without the hint of snow or even a certain mistful feeling due to waning twilight, get out your big knife and get into a good roasted red pepper and eggplant soup. The one featured in Bon Appetit takes time and effort, but the results are a spoonful of something wonderful.

This soup is thick, it's loaded with veggies, it makes a goodly large batch to freeze or share with friends. It is a very charming soup - but do allow enough time to work your way through it. You'll be chopping eggplants, red bell peppers, leeks, onions, garlic and fresh herbs, but you'll feel thankful in the end.

There was real flour power in the Singing Wheat Kitchen today - I took dough from the Pain a l'Ancienne recipe featured in the "Bread Baker's Apprentice" book, made two baguettes and knocked back two balls of dough for the freezer (for future pizza dough) and set two more balls in the fridge to make foccacia tomorrow. What a wonderful, versatile bread dough for dividing and conquering. The baguettes turned out very rustic-looking but tasted marvelous, like French bread. They would be even more terrific if loaded with pepper and proscuitto. I must try this.

The bread recipe recommends using a plastic dough scraper, so I hauled my boots over to Sur La Table and nearly swooned with all the goodies they've got on their shelves for the holidays. If you're looking for Christmas ornaments shaped like wheels of cheese, an espresso machine or peas in a pod, this is the place. I had to force myself to focus on the scraper and look straight ahead, neither to the left or right. Have you seen the colors they're doing on immersion blenders these days?

You can work in a quick trip like that if you're allowing the dough to rise, but don't overdue it. Don't get lost in a Whole Foods aisle on the way home, browsing the chocolate like it's research.

Get back home and get the chopping done for the soup. Once those flavors are in the pot and filling the air, you can butter up your bread knowing that the soup's on, the day is done and good things will happen.

(Photo: Loafing around at Home Slice Bakery in Dubois, Wyoming. By John H. Ostdick)