A Lucky Pasta

Life gives us every opportunity to ponder that classic question, "What's for dinner?" Or lunch, or breakfast, brunch, tea time, the cocktail hour, let's not get caught up in preciseness here, the point is, what do I stir up for a certain special occasion?

Jeanne has a guest coming over from about 8 states away. This is her story to tell, so I won't wander off about his longtime New Yorker background (though he now lives in the West) or his love affair with coffee and Italian food. I'll simply suggest that coming soon, she'll have many chances to whip up something delicious. Jeanne, my tip for you is: Try the Danny's Lemon Pasta.

You'll find it in Ruth Reichl's second book, "Comfort Me With Apples," (Random House, 2001). I mentioned earlier that I'm in a Reichl state of mind, and the reason appears to be as M.F.K. Fisher (another brilliant star in the culinary firmament) described in her work "With Bold Knife and Fork" (Smithmark, 1968) - simply, that recipes that are "Tried and True" are the ones you turn to again and again.

I've tasted my share of succulent mysteries over the years, from "Mountain Oysters" (a misleading sobriquet if there ever was one) to fire ant eggs and maguey worms (and that was at Four Seasons). When you find a recipe what works for you, stick and stay with it. (Any dish that catches fire by itself is automatically ruled out.)

I'm trying hard not to gush here but Reichl has that wonderful sense of the kinds of dishes we're all looking for: good taste, accessible ingredients, easy prep, results that deliver on the promise. We can't all stop what we're doing and waltz into Le Cordon Bleu for a brushup on skills. What I love about Reichl's work is, she knows who we are, and what we love. She knows, and she points us where we need to go.

The Danny's Lemon Pasta is a Reichl derivation based on a dish she enjoyed at actor Danny Kaye's house. Read the book for a great description of that adventure; she always seems to be having them (and how I envy her that). The beauty of this pasta dish? It's not only delectable, it happens fast.

Danny's Lemon Pasta

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 pound fresh egg fettuccine
2 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon zest
salt
freshly ground black pepper
freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Melt the butter in a deep, heavy 12-inch skillet and stir in the cream and lemon juice. Remove the skillet from the heat and keep it warm and covered.

Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water until al dente, 2 to 3 minutes. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking liquid and drain the pasta in a colander. Add the pasta to the skillet with the lemon zest and 2 tablespoons of the pasta cooking liquid and toss well. (Add more pasta cooking liquid 1 tablespoon at a time, if necessary, to thin the sauce.)

Season the pasta with salt and pepper and serve with Parmesan cheese.
Serves 4.

(Reprinted with permission by Ruth Reichl)

Jeanne, consider adding a few chopped kalamata olives, whose flavor plays well with the lemon essence, and a chiffonade of fresh basil to the top of the pasta. Bon chance! I know you'll love this dish.

What Ho, the Beautiful Brownie

A funny thing happened on the way to searching for a copy of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." No one in our circle of friends or family seemed to have the book. Certainly I didn't inherit one from my mother: Her repertoire consisted of tacos, chipped beef on cornbread, tuna casserole and salmon croquettes. Some nights she just couldn't bear to come up with anything - and served only cinnamon toast and cocoa, which to a kid was an excellent culinary out.

Nothing like French cooking was going on in our Connecticut house. Too bad; we had great access to mussels and clams. Over time I've thought the lack of a good souffle in my life needed rectifying. Like a hound to the scent, I nosed around for Child's cookbook, but the recent joi de interest in the "Julie and Julia" movie seems to have sparked a run in the cookery bookery shelves. If you've ever found yourself lost in the cookbooks section of any bookstore, you know how frustrating it can be to cope, like having your last egg in the cartoon fall to the floor. All the kings horses and that sort of thing, and you're still at an impasse.

There I was, lost in stacks of books when I came across three that grabbed me, all by Ruth Reichl, the former New York Times restaurant critic now with Gourmet Magazine. I'd always been curious about how critics divide and conquer the science of taste in a sauce, a soup or I don't know, a flambe? What are they tasting for? How do they know it's the right taste, because it tastes right? And that means what? Where do they get this knowledge? How do they know what they know?

I picked up Reichl's "Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table," (Random House, 1998). Not only is she a wonderful storyteller, she peels back the layers on how she developed her delicious know-how. And then there are the recipes.

I don't know about you, but when I find a recipe that tastes great and works out the way it should, I stay loyal for life. That is why I have never, never had to resort to a tuna casserole or a salmon croquette.

Straying back to the point, just turn to page 244 in Reichl's book for a beauty of a recipe, "Artpark Brownies."

Brownies are highly regarded in Texas and often on the dessert menus all over Dallas, fangled up with chocolate sauces, cookies or ice cream. Do give Reichl's brownies a go. They're my new favorite, and may I suggest, Jeanne, that you try them on the gentleman caller who's coming to town? Why not make them now and freeze them so you can eat them in anticipation?

Artpark Brownies

2/3 cup butter
5 ounces unsweetened, best-quality French chocolate
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup sifted flour

Preheat oven to 400.
Butter and flour a 9-inch square baking pan.
Melt butter and chocolate in double boiler, over boiling water.
When melted, add vanilla and set aside.
Beat eggs and salt in a mixer. Add sugar and beat at high speed for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture is quite white.
Add chocolate and butter mixture and beat at low speed, just until mixed. Add flour and combine quickly, until there are no white streaks.
Pour batter into baking pan and put in oven. Immediately turn oven down to 350 and bake for 40 minutes. (The normal toothpick test will not work on these brownies but if you want to try pricking them with a toothpick, it should come out not quite clean.) Do not overbake; these brownies should be fudgy.
Makes 12 brownies

(Reprinted with permission by Ruth Reichl)

End of Summer Peach-Blueberry Slab Pie

My pie-baking spurts mimic the seasons. Rhubarb pies and fresh strawberry pies are springtime favorites. Today the focus is on end-of-season peaches from the farmer's market. But my peach pie soon became a combo pie when I discovered —as I was slicing the peaches—that many of them were well past their prime. Most went onto the compost heap. Luckily the freezer was full of blueberries I stashed there after a Costco spree at the height of blueberry season.

So this slab pie, inspired by Grandpa Schulz is Peach-Blueberry. Sometimes just apples. Sometimes apple-rhubarb. Michelle got the idea to toss fresh bing cherries with the peaches when we were playing in the kitchen one day. (She pitted them, so I was happy to oblige! Michelle also lent a hand, or two, to roll the top pastry over the fruit.)

The key is to use a total of 8 cups of fruit.

Peach-Blueberry Slab Pie

3 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
1 egg yolk
Milk

1/2 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
5 cups sliced peaches
3 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, do not thaw)
1 recipe Vanilla Glaze (below)

1. For pastry, in a large bowl, stir together flour and salt. Use a pastry blender to cut in shortening and butter til mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Lightly beat egg yolk in a glass measuring cup. Add enough milk to the egg yolk to make 3/4 cup total liquid; mix well. Stir egg yolk mixture into flour mixture; mix well. Divide dough into two-thirds and one-third portions.

2. On a floured surface, roll the larger portion of dough into an 18x12-inch rectangle. Transfer carefully into a 15x10x1-inch baking pan (jelly roll pan). Pastry should hang over edges of pan. (I roll pastry around rolling pin and then unroll over baking pan.)

3. Preheat oven to 375 F. For filling, stir together sugar and cornstarch. Add peaches and blueberries. Toss to coat. Spoon into prepared crust.

4. Roll remaining dough into a 16x11-inch rectangle. Place dough over fruit. Bring bottom pastry up and over top pastry. Seal edges with tines of fork. Prick top of pastry surface all over with fork.

5. Bake in preheated oven about 40 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on rack. Drizzle with Vanilla Glaze.

Vanilla Glaze
In a small bowl stir together 1 1/4 cups sifted powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, and enough milk (5 to 6 tsp) to make of drizzling consistency.

Slab Pie, the History

Thanks for the bread salad recipe. So glad you wrote it down as we tossed it together. Tried to recreate it by memory the other day, and it just wasn't the same. That dash of camaraderie was missing, methinks.

As for slab pie, funny you should ask. Am just about to start making one. I rarely make the same one twice, but you know how that goes. Since it's the tail end of peach season, I bought way too many at the farmer's market the other day and now they're begging to be mingled with blueberries (always have a stash in my freezer).

But first, a little history of slab pie. My grandfather was a baker and one of his specialties was apple slab pie. He did a mean rhubarb slab pie too. Instead of using a pie pan—he had 11 children and even two pies were barely enough to go around. So he rolled out the pastry to slip onto a jelly-roll pan, tossed fresh fruit with sugar, cornstarch or flour, and maybe cinnamon, then piled it on top of the pastry. Then he tucked the fruit in with a top blanket of pastry and baked. When golden brown, it got a drizzle of vanilla icing. The finished wunderbar was a rectangular skinny pie to be eaten out of hand like a brownie. Altho I prefer a plate because of the a la mode factor.

That's the history. The reality is, I'm about to make one now. Fresh peaches and blueberries. Recipe and photo to come, because I still can't figure out how to post photos to this thing.

She can cook, but can she master technology?

Salad Days and a Recipe

Jeanne and I recently met up in the small Western town of Dubois, Wyoming, where we stayed with the town's baker, Jacki Blakeman of Home Slice Artisan Bakery.

I had met Jacki a year ago during a photo workshop (she was the subject) and had accepted her invitation to spend a few weeks with her and work in her bakery, located in a red farmhouse sitting in a quiet meadow. Jacki bakes loaves that preserve the town's Swedish tiehack history - grain breads, sourdough, even a heady Swedish limpa bread. The star of her loaves is Twila's 10-Grain Bread, first developed by her mom when she was town baker.

These days, it seems nearly impossible that anyone can make a living baking bread for a town of about 1,000, but Jacki's been doing it for four years. I wanted Jeanne to come and see Jacki in action, from the morning dough risings to the evening delivery at the lone grocery store, near the Wonder Bread.

While there, Jeanne and I did some cooking for Jacki and naturally, we created something for using up leftover bread. We didn't name the dish but I'll call it "Happy Bread Salad," because when everything's going well in the bakery, Jacki likes to say the bread is "happy today." Enjoy!

Happy Bread Salad

You will need:

good lettuce-style greens, about 3 cups
some leftover bread such as sourdough, about 2 to 3 cups torn up
a handful of olives, sliced or chopped (if using kalamata, remove pits)
a sprinkling of feta cheese
tomatoes, chopped
olive oil
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 green onions, sliced
fresh lemon juice, about half a lemon
fresh ground pepper

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the bread pieces on a baking sheet, drizzle with some olive oil. Toss to coat, then allow to brown in the oven about 8 minutes (Jeanne says no more than 10 minutes).

2. Place bread in a large bowl, add the garlic, the lemon juice, 2-3 tablespoons of more olive oil and toss.

3. Add everything else and toss to combine.

Serve this bread salad as a main dish, paired with the wine you have on hand, why get crazy over the proper pairing when the idea is to just feel relaxed about the meal after a day at the ovens? We ate this dish using chopsticks, just for grins.

Want to know more about Jacki's bakery? You'll find it on the web at: http://www.duboishomeslice.com/index.html#

Jeanne, tell about the Rhubarb Cherry Slab Pie we did at the bakery.

Fear of Frying

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you get an idea, dismiss it, and it won't leave you alone? Lingering like the smell of garlic, it says to you "just think about it. Try it!" And here's the intriguing aspect - if you take a step toward learning more about your idea, something happens physically. You get nervous. Your negative self-talk takes it up a notch. Your heart quickens, your nerves feel zing and twangy. The more you think about your idea, the more the barriers come up and the mind says "nah, not happening."

That's how it feels to me when I consider taking classes at Le Cordon Bleu. The critic in me sez "Don't those chefs look angry and stressed on those TV programs? Why would you want to be around that? Your French is terreebleh. Where's the lettuce to pay for it? You already know how to bake bread, what's the drive to learn brioche?"

I dunno, dunno, dunno, but the idea keeps hitting me like spattering grease. When it feels all wrong, that's the time to pay attention and take one little step that isn't so fearful. So my step was, I applied for more information online. That led to a phone call from someone at the school, but I was not at home when it happened. I carried the phone message with me on a trip to New York, figuring that I would feel more emboldened up there in Big Apple and would call them back from my very busy and important life. And then I went all poulet, poulet, poulet; couldn't do it. Too chicken.

I woke up today and said OK, time for another little step: Just return the phone call. Dial it! Blessedly, I got the voicemail and left a message. Breathe, breathe sweet oxygen.

Unless the website is out of date, Le Cordon Bleu doesn't have a bakery program in Dallas, and that may lead me to other culinary schools. It's a mystery at this point, like whether the boiling sugar will truly reach hard ball stage, but it's worth pursuing with the curious mindset of a journalist. I'll pretend this is all research for a story; then it won't be ABOUT ME but about readers and their interests.

For now, it's enough to tell myself this: The leaps we fear the most are the ones that take us the farthest. This is why I bake souffles and make croissants - to see where they lead. I love it when they turn out right. And after all, the world's greatest gourmands, chefs and restaurant critics had to start just like me, breaking some eggs.

Ruth Reichl, would you like to try my croissants?

Butter Up

John just called out from inside the fridge, "Hey, there's enough butter in here to start a war!"

Think about that: Could you do battle with butter? Grease the skids? Beat your enemy just by filling the air with the smell of homemade croissants - wouldn't that weaken anybody's will? Where did I read about Army bakers during the war, who were envied by the German bakers because the Yanks had better flour?

Anyway, I have all this butter on hand because you need at least 5 sticks for every batch of croissants. Why, you wonder, am I baking croissants when I need to be looking for gainful employment?

Well it's like this: Croissants are the ultimate sensorial wonder, a great comfort food. They smell delicious, taste buttery rich, look marvelous, the dough feels soft to the touch, and if you play the "French Cafe" CD from Whole Foods when you're making them, that's five senses you've whipped up. How many senses are you igniting when you type into a cold, heartless computer screen? Maybe you get two, sight and touch. I'm getting five, FIVE. And the sixth sense is, they make me feel better.

Recently I made up a batch of my herbed croissants to take up to Manhattan for Ellen Christine. Ellen is an amazing hat maker whose products I cannot resist. She admires my bread; I love her hats, it's very simple math. I carried bagfuls of croissants on the plane, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. If you get hungry and don't feel like paying $10 for who knows what from the airline, you've got bread, baby. Beats the Honor Bar system in any hotel room.

Once I got to Chelsea, where Ellen has her shop, I stopped at the corner liquor store for a bottle of bubbly, since Ellen's birthday was also just around the corner. Waltzing into her boutique with croissants, champs and a cheerful heart I thought yes, this is how life is supposed to feel. We toasted. We traded witty repartee - she is a master of the cheeky comment. Then Ellen sold me a darling red patent leather pillbox hat. Maybe I'll wear it to Le Cordon Bleu to check out pastry classes. If Julia could wear pearls, couldn't I wear red on my head?

Hey Jeanne, do you want to know how to make croissants? Got 3 days? It's a work of art kind of process.