Luisa Weiss's Blog, page 24

The Shootings

I have started and stopped this post five times so far, because every time I try to start telling you about the fruit cake I made (and loved) last week, I am overcome with the feeling that it is nothing less than obscene of me to be writing about food and holidays and other such similar nonsense when the details of this story refuse to leave my mind's eye.

The thing is, I am so angry. I'm sad, yes, but tangibly, physically, speaking, I am filled with rage. Trembly, white-hot rage. I am so sick of these guns, these guns that pollute the United States, that threaten our schools and movie theaters, of the disgusting hypocrisy of politicians who bleat and bray about the sanctity of life when it comes to the contents of a woman's womb, but are silent - silent - when a classful of children are murdered, all shot multiple times, in a matter of minutes. The craven dishonesty, the glibness behind lines like "guns don't kill people, people kill people" revolt me. Tell that line to any of the parents who were ushered into a separate room last week once all the living children of the Sandy Hook elementary school had been reunited with their parents. Tell that to the children, the babies, really, who hid in a closet silently while their classmates were slaughtered on the other side of the door. Just the thought of children staring down big, black guns loaded with round after round of ammunition in their school and my heart races with fear and revulsion, but mostly rage.

I personally am of the persuasion that guns should not be available to the citizenry at all. That the Second Amendment has long outlived its purpose. I realize I am in the minority among my fellow citizens and that's alright. But what is not alright is that ordinary Americans are being made to live in fear because of the refusal of our politicans to deal with what should be matters of common sense. What is not alright is that once again we all are left to wonder how many more children will be killed before any meaningful change takes place. What is not alright is that the gun lobby has more money and power than any of the other players at the table, unfairly skewing the debate before it even starts.

When I sit back and take a breath, it feels futile and silly to write all this down. What on earth will my little rant do? It will not bring back the dead, it will not comfort the survivors, it will not effect any political change. It's simply more noise added to an already cacophonous exchange that flares up with each incident and then dies down again when the heat cools off. And that may be the worst thing of all.

Rajat Parr's Black Lentil Soup

One thing you should know about living in Berlin is that there is no good Indian food here. None. There are plenty of Indian restaurants, but for some reason they all serve a variation on the same strangely insipid, gloppy mixtures that hold barely any resemblance to the Indian food I ate in Boston and New York over the years. The menus present no hint that India is a huge country, with myriad regions and cuisines (wherefore art thou, masala dosas of my heart?). And forget about anything spicy. Just forget it right now.

Oh, it's sad, alright. Whenever I go to London to visit my friend Betsy, we order takeaway from the Indian joint down the street from her and it is so good, so hot and complex and delicious, that I very willingly forgo all other meals in the city just to have that Indian food again and again. And then I return to Berlin and I hear about some new Indian place that has opened up and I get my hopes up, against my better judgment, and I go and once again am presented with mango chicken or some such train wreck and I feel deeply dejected all over again.

Luckily, a lot of Indian food isn't so hard to make at home. (Though I leave dosas and iddlies to the experts in New York.) Thanks to my father's obsession with Indian cooking, I even have a nice little collection of Indian cookbooks, full of wonderful things to eat. And anyway, it's not like I'm getting out of the house much these days. Hugo's nap schedule takes precedence over all.

I found this recipe for black lentil soup the other day when I staring at a jar of beluga lentils in my pantry and wondering how I'd use them up without a nice piece of salmon lying around to pair them with. Here you parboil the lentils with ginger and cardamom. Then you make a soup base with onions, garlic, butter and a quartet of spices, plus some canned tomatoes and stock, before adding the lentils back to the pot to simmer into a soup. It's very easy and was easily left halfway through when Hugo starting melting down, before being picked up later after he'd gone to bed. (This is often how I cook these days, in fits and starts. Just today I started a fruitcake recipe and literally abandoned it with one bowl already full of ingredients like chopped apples and puréed figs to go outside and run errands with the cranky child. Now that he's asleep, I was able to finish the job and the fruitcake's perfuming the house from the oven. It sounds irritating, but has its own satisfactions, this stop-and-go cooking.)

I added more lentils than the original recipe called for and used less butter and next time I make it, I'd probably purée half the soup, because it looks a little messy otherwise, but these are very faint criticisms. The soup is wonderfully fragrant and spicy and tastes just the way it's "supposed" to, at least to my Indian-starved palate. When you stir in the final bit of butter at the end to melt, it separates and pools at the edges of the soup. It's very nice indeed.

Rajat Parr's Black Lentil Soup
Makes 6 servings

1.5 cups black (Beluga) lentils
3 cardamom pods
One 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced, plus 2 tablespoons minced ginger
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon garam masala
2 quarts vegetable stock
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
Salt to taste

1. In a pot, cover the lentils, cardamom and sliced ginger with 1 inch of
water. Bring to a boil and cook over moderately high heat until the
lentils start to soften, about 10 minutes. Drain the lentils and
transfer to a bowl; discard the cardamom and ginger.

2. Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in the pot. Add the onion, garlic and minced ginger and and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, 8 minutes. Reduce the heat to low. Add the spices and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 4 minutes.

3. Add the stock, tomatoes and lentils to the pot and bring to a boil over
high heat. Simmer over moderate heat until the lentils are softened and
the soup has thickened, about 1 hour. Stir in the remaining
tablespoon of butter and season with salt. Ladle into bowls and serve.

Tuesday Giveaway!

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the brilliance of Food52, the community cooking site founded by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs that is chockful of incredible recipes, good stories, gorgeous photos and more. (My favorite thing about the site? Well, one of my favorites, anyway. Sneaking a peek into Amanda's kid's lunches! So inspiring.)

But did you know that Food52 also has a shop where they collaborate with producers, shops and artisans to produce exclusive items for the site? If you sign up for an account with Food52, you'll get an email every week telling you about the latest collaboration (or curation). The offer is usually limited, because of the discount included. I love browsing the shop - it's always stuffed with things I suddenly realize I urgently need. To wit: Tongan Vanilla, both in extract and paste form, a touch-sensitive protective screen for the iPad (such a good present for the cook in your life!) and, uh, this writing retreat and cooking class in Tepoztlàn in January (I can dream, can't I?).

If you're still frantically trying to round up presents for the cooks in your life, hie yourselves over to the shop and get going! Food52 is generously offering 10% off almost everything* in the shop for you lovelies until December 31st, 2012 - just use the code WEDNESDAY10 at checkout.

And! Because you guys are wonderful and they are generous, today I'm giving away a copy of The Food52 Cookbook, Volume II as well as a Stocking Stuffer Spice Discovery Set (it's the Unique
Chiles of the World one, which I so covet and which is sold out – 1 ounce each of Marash Chile fine flakes from
Turkey, ground Green New Mexican Chile and ground Aji Amarillo from Peru. The retail value is $20.) 

For a chance to win, please visit the Food52 Holiday Shop and leave a comment below. A winner will be chosen at random tomorrow. Good luck!

*Offer ends December 31, 2012, at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Excludes past
purchases. Limit ten discounts per customer. Excludes travel and copper
offers. Minimum $20 purchase. Offer is subject to change without notice
and is not redeemable for cash or cash equivalent. May not be combined
with any other offer or promotion. Void where prohibited by law.

Ottolenghi's Spice Cookies

Oof. Readers, Hugo was up four times last night (10:15 pm, 12:50 am, 3:00 am, and then 5:30 am, at which point he started to do this adorable cooing, chattering thing that really is the sweetest thing on the planet except that it's 5:30 in the morning, child, and you have kept me up ALL NIGHT GO BACK TO SLEEP GAH), so, actually, I thought if anything, this day's overwhelming emotion would be one of mild exasperation and slight crankiness (on my part). Instead, as the day wound down and we did our little nighttime ritual, I was overcome with melancholia. It's all going so fast, you see. Too fast.

He'll be six months next week. Wasn't he just born? Wasn't it just yesterday that I saw his little face for the first time? Already, I can list little things that he no longer does, that he's grown out of: No more funny wheezing when he naps in the stroller. No more falling asleep in my arms when I carry him around. No more needing to be nursed to sleep at night. I'm already starting to forget what he felt like in my arms when he couldn't hold his head up on his own. When I realized the other day that Hugo was no longer a newborn, and hadn't been one for some time, my mouth went all dry. Slow down, baby, I heard myself thinking, echoing millions of people before me. Slow down, please. Stay my tiny love a little while longer.

Following Hugo's lead, I put him down tonight for the first time without
nursing him. I sang a song, stroked his head once or twice and then
said good night and left the room. I was steeling myself for tears as I
walked out, but none came. I stood in the hallway a long time, listening to him coo
quietly and then grow quiet. I should have felt so proud, I know, of my boy, not even six months old, now able to fall asleep on his own. But
all I wanted to do was cry.

Silly, right? I know. And yet. The heart is a funny thing.

Hoo! It's probably apparent to everyone that someone else here needs an early bedtime tonight. But before I go, I just need to tell you quickly about these cookies. The thing is, I'm pretty picky when it comes to Christmas cookies. I really mostly just like to eat the ones that Joanie makes. Every year, to be a good sport, I try out new ones, but they're mostly just for show. You know? I'd never really consider adding them to the lineup.

Until now. Seriously.

I'm sure you've heard all about Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's new cookbook, Jerusalem.
It's on practically every Best-Cookbook-of-2012 list, on every food
blog in creation, heck, there was even a profile of them in the New Yorker last
week. I don't have a copy of the book yet, so I can't say a thing about
it, really, except that the recipe for Spice Cookies alone (that I
found online) is so good it's worth the price of the book alone. As my
father likes to say, you really only need one good recipe to make a
cookbook worthwhile.

Ottolenghi and Tamimi say that their
spice cookies, stuffed with brandy-soaked currants, grated chocolate,
winter spices and iced with a sharp, lemony glaze, are meant to be
kissing cousins of that old German classic, Pfeffernüsse, and
an Italian spice cookie that they found in Nancy Baggett's International
Cookie Cookbook. I say that these spice cookies are one of my favorite
things I've baked all year. And get this: I'm going to be taking some to
Joanie's later this week, when we get together for another round of
baking. I can't wait to see what she thinks of them.

The recipe is a little funny. It calls for only half an egg and a whopping 1 1/2 teaspoons of cocoa powder and you "soak" currants in brandy for all of ten minutes, which doesn't really plump a thing. But none of this matters. Just follow the instructions. Whisk together all the dry ingredients, then beat the butter with sugar and citrus peels and vanilla until a heady, fresh scent drifts upwards from your beaters. The dry ingredients are mixed into the wet until a dark, moody dough forms. It looks like freshly tilled earth. It smells like Christmas.

You form the dough into largish balls. I made the mistake of questioning the size of the balls that the authors call for. Surely, no one would want to eat a 5-ounce spice cookie,  I thought. I'm going to make one sheet of cookies as they call for and another in the bite-sizes that I'd like. Silly woman. Don't make my mistake. Make the cookies big.

[Freddie totally photo-bombing the cookie dough.]

When you bake the cookies, the dough balls collapse outwards and then puff up, little fissures forming on their tops. I'd err on the side of underbaking them ever-so-slightly - a few minutes too long in the oven and you'll end up with a too-dry cookie with too-browned bottoms. 15 minutes should be perfect.

While they're still warm, you make a lemon glaze and then spoon it over the cookies. I had to do this a few times (I suspect my cookies were still too hot) to get the thickness I wanted. If you're more patient than me, only once will probably do. Then you glue a few cubes of candied orange peel to the top of the cookies and you let them rest until they've cooled completely.

When you break one open, you might think they look a little dry. Maybe even a little boring. But one bite, one richly flavored bite with the faint zing of citrus and a winey pop of currant against the spiced, chocolatey dough, will cure you of that thought in an instant. The texture of these cookies is a revelation - velvety is the one word that keeps coming to mind. The thin cap of icing provides the most delicate of snaps. If you took away my beloved Lebkuchen for eternity and left these gems in their place, I'd be grateful. That's how good they are. You know how else good they are? So good I've decided not to bake a single other thing for Christmas except for them, again and again.

And with that, folks, I'm off to bed. My preshus will be up in a few hours to ruin my sleep and I must be prepared.

Ottolenghi's Spice Cookies
From Jerusalem: A Cookbook
Makes 16 large cookies

Cookies:
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons (125 grams) currants
2 tablespoons brandy
Scant 2 cups (240 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons best-quality cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon each ground cinnamon, allspice, ginger, and nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 ounces (150 grams) good-quality dark chocolate, coarsely grated
1/2 cup (125 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup (125 grams) superfine sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/2 large free-range egg
1 tablespoon diced candied citrus peel

Glaze:
3 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup (160 grams) confectioners’ sugar

1. Soak the currants in the brandy for 10 minutes. Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, spices, salt, and dark chocolate.

2. Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla, and lemon and orange zest to combine but don't aerate much, about 1 minute. With the mixer or beater running, slowly add the egg and mix for about 1 minute. Add the dry ingredients, followed by the currants and brandy. Mix until everything comes together.

3. Gently knead the dough in the bowl with your hands until it is uniform. Divide the dough into 1¾-ounce (50 gram) chunks and roll each chunk into a perfectly round ball. Place the balls on 1 or 2 baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing them about ¾ inch (2 cm) apart, and let rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

4. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Bake the cookies for 15 minutes, until the top firms up but the center is still soft. Remove from the oven. Once the cookies are out of the oven, allow to cool for only 5 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack.

5. While the cookies are still warm, whisk together the glaze ingredients until a thin and smooth icing forms. Pour a tablespoon of the glaze over each cookie, leaving it to drip and coat the cookie with a very thin, almost transparent film. You may want to repeat this step for a thicker glaze. Top each cookie with 3 pieces of candied peel placed at the center. Leave to set and then serve, or store in an airtight container for a day or two.

Capuliata

Okay. Let's say you've recently come into some sun-dried tomatoes. And not just a few, but a good couple of handfuls, maybe even an entire paper bag full. What on earth am I going to do with all these sun-dried tomatoes?, I can hear you asking yourself. Aren't they so 1998? Aren't we all so over them?

Why, yes, dear reader, I do believe you have a point. I personally think the sun-dried tomato shark was jumped at the precise moment when people started putting sundried tomatoes in their bagel dough. With slivers of them already polluting every pasta sauce and sandwich spread I came across, it was at the bagel store that I decided I never wanted to see another sun-dried tomato again. And so, over the next decade, I did my very best to avoid them at all costs.

Until my Sicilian uncle (of course it was him) introduced me to something called capuliata.

Capuliata is nothing more than sun-dried tomatoes whizzed to little bits, put in a glass and topped with olive oil. You can add a dried chile to the mix or dried oregano or garlic, if you like, or you can keep it plan. What's important is that the capuliata always be covered with olive oil (which keeps it from spoiling). It's intense, this stuff, but it totally rehabilitates the sun-dried tomato. Capuliata is so good, you'll find yourself hoarding it. Max and I once finished a whole jar in less than a week. I do believe some competitive eating might have been involved.

But what do you do with capuliata, I can hear you asking. Well, you can use it as a crostino topping, or dollop it alongside some cured meats for an antipasto. You can use a few spoonfuls to dress pasta, along with copious amounts of chopped parsley and grated pecorino. You can spread a dollop of it on a nice crusty sandwich along with something smooth and cool to calm down the flavors, like ricotta (I'd add some arugula, too). Or you can, like my husband does, eat it from the jar with a spoon. (Only recommended for the diehards, though - my mouth would explode if I tried this.)

As you can probably already guess, it makes for a really nice present, especially when jarred in a pretty Weck glass. As long as there's always a thin film of oil on top, capuliata will keep for up to a year, though I very much doubt it would ever languish in anyone's pantry that long.

You hardly need a recipe, but here's how I do things:

Capuliata

Find yourself some sun-dried tomatoes. My most recent batch of capuliata came from 8 1/2 ounces of sun-dried tomatoes (240 grams). Put them in a food processor and pulse them until they are finely chopped. According to taste, add a healthy pinch of dried oregano and/or a dried chile to the processor before pulsing.

Wash and dry some jam jars (I was able to fill two). Fill the jars with the chopped tomatoes. You may have to push them down a little, but do not stuff the tomatoes into the jar too hard. Pour good-quality olive oil into each jar, pausing halfway through for the oil to slither into all the nooks and crannies, until the capuliata is covered with a thin film of oil. Close the jars. Store in a cupboard for up to a year (no need to refrigerate after it's been opened, as long as there's always some oil on top).

Christmas Covets - A Holiday Gift Guide

Every year, I am surprised by the sudden arrival of the holiday season. And every year, I run around like a madwoman in late November and December, trying to get my act together and feeling supremely incompetent in the process. It is tiresome in the extreme. So this year, figuring that Hugo wouldn't exactly allow me more time to sort this stuff out, I started to write down my gift ideas for the loved ones in my life in August. AUGUST, people. I am such an old lady. It will probably surprise no one that I will still have to run around like a madwoman in order to get it all ordered and made on time, but at least I know what I am getting everyone and that already feels like a triumph.

Here, in the meantime, are some of the frivolous, delicious, luxurious and lovely things that I covet and that I think you might like, too - to either give or receive.

Bellocq's Afghani Chai - I haven't tried this handmade-in-Brooklyn tea yet, but the description alone is bewitching: "A hand-crafted evocative blend of Organic Assam black tea, organic red
poppy flowers, green cardamon, star anise, ginger, clove and black
pepper." Poppy flowers in my chai? Yes, please. Comes packaged in a gorgeous yellow or blue caddy, if you like.

 

Rare Tea Company's English Peppermint Tea - I first heard about the Rare Tea Company from Amanda Hesser. While their white and black teas are very nice, it is their English Peppermint that is truly special. It deserves a spot in every tea cupboard in the land. It seems expensive, but you need only a pinch of the Cornwall-grown stuff at a time - it's quite strong and incredibly fragrant.

 

Garden Place Cards - perfect little stocking stuffers, these would definitely upgrade your next dinner party.

 

Iginio Masseri Panettone - Apparently, this is the best Panettone in Italy. We will be spending Christmas at my aunt's house near Nice and I'd love to have one of these shipped there in advance of our arrival. (For all you bread geeks out there, if you want to try to make this yourself, here's a semi-comprehensible recipe.)

 

Johanna Flores's Matte Porcelain Cups - Teatime has never been so chic! Pour your fragrant peppermint tea into one of these elegant little cups, matte on the outside, glazed and shiny on the inside, and kick all those mismatched mugs in your cupboard to the curb. I can't decide which color I love the best. The pistachio? The lilac? The charcoal?

 

Theo Fig Fennel and Almond Chocolate Bars - On the Seattle stop of my book tour, my media escort brought me to the factory store of Theo Chocolate, an artisanal chocolate company. It was a heavenly place - you could try every single chocolate bar they make! My very favorite bar (I bought bundles of them to give as gifts) was the one flavored with figs, fennel and almonds. It sounds a little weird, I know, but this chocolate is divine, especially during the holidays. It's rich and spicy and not-too-sweet. A really unique and delicious treat. (Though I dare you not to go to their online store and come away with about 17 other bars in your cart.)

 

iitala Piano Serving Spoons - I'll never get over how timeless and elegant these serving spoons are. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano for iitala, they are modern heirlooms.

 

 

Manshroom by Amy Ross - Okay, the price tag on this one admittedly pushes this into fantasy-gift area, but I adore this weird and wacky collage by artist Amy Ross and think it would look amazing in a kitchen.

 

Jane Mount's Ideal Bookshelf - this is a more affordable piece of art for the kitchen, a graphic representation of a New York chef's favorite cookbooks.

 

Haeckel's Sea Squirts Wooden Puzzle - Need something to do to wile away the hours of your holiday break? Right now, all I want to do is assemble this gorgeous puzzle while drinking tea, nibbling cookies and sitting by a roaring fire.

 

Astier de Villatte's Conserve Vase - I have been lusting after this vase for the better part of the past decade and think it would look equally amazing stuffed with flowers in your living room as it would filled with all your worn wooden spoons on the kitchen counter. (I keep thinking I should DIY this with an empty tomato can and some white paint.)

Homemade gifts - for those of us more interested in making edible presents, here are my favorites from the archives:

Carolina Braunschweig's Apple Butter

Karen DeMasco's Cashew Brittle

Amy Scattergood's Harissa

Tartine's Panforte

And if you have a copy of My Berlin Kitchen (hey, another brilliant gift idea!), the Austrian Früchtebrot (fruit bread) from my friend Christine is also a great one for gifting (each batch makes four small loaves that keep well for a while). During the next few weeks, I'm going to attempt perfecting Stollen and making Bethmännchen, classic German marzipan confections. I'll keep you posted, of course!

Making Springerle

Last Friday night, I put Hugo to bed and tip-toed out of the bedroom as I usually do, hearing him settle into his crib for the night as I closed the door behind me. I walked carefully down the hallway and into the warm, golden-lit living room where my mother sat on the couch, surrounded by the last few weeks of New Yorker issues. I waited twenty minutes, mostly for my own benefit, since nary a peep was coming from the back room, then put on my shoes, took the car keys and walked out the front door. For the first time since Hugo's birth, I was going out on my own.

Over the past few months, I'd left Hugo a handful of times with my mother or mother-in-law during the day when I had to run an errand or meet a journalist to promote the book. But I was never gone longer than an hour or two and I'd never left him in the evening before. Dinners out or a movie night with Max were a distant, hazy memory. But earlier that week, my friend Joanie had called me to say that the annual Springerle evening, when she and our friend Ann get together to make the molded, anise-flavored cookies for Christmas, had been moved up by a few weeks because she needed to have hand surgery in December. Did I want to come? Around 7:00 pm on Friday? She'd already asked my mother if she wouldn't mind babysitting. (Max was in Kassel.) With only a tiny squiggle of adrenaline at the thought of leaving Hugo at bedtime, I said yes.

When I got to Joanie's, things were already in full swing. In the kitchen, Joanie's mother-in-law's East Prussian gingerbread dough,
so thick with honey and flour that Dietrich, her husband, had to use a
drill to mix it, ripened on a chair wedged next to the fridge. It would get rolled out and cut the following week. The big batch of the Springerle dough, fluffy with beaten eggs and sugar, was in the living room on the dining table. Between Joan, Ann and my mother, their collection of wooden Springerle molds is practically museum-worthy. The wooden molds were spread out all over the table as Joanie and Ann worked, armed with little brushes, mounds of flour for dusting and sharp-pointed knives to clean out crevices if some errant dough got stuck.

First, they selected a mold. A shell, perhaps, or a lamb carrying a
flag, or a winged angel. Then they dusted a bit of flour into the clean
mold. After that, they pinched off a lump of dough corresponding in size
to the mold, rolled it into an egg-like shape and then dusted that
liberally with flour, too. The lump of dough then was pushed firmly onto
and into the mold and the edges were trimmed. All that was left was to
very carefully peel the formed dough off the mold and lay it onto the
anise-strewn cookie sheet. We did this over and over again until all the
dough was gone and the cookie sheets were filled with tiny
masterpieces.

The unbaked cookies have to rest overnight before being baked. The key to Springerle
is not letting them brown in the oven, though they do develop little
"feet", like French macarons, as they bake. When they're done, Springerle
look like they've been formed out of clay. This might lead you to think
that they don't taste very good, but they are my favorite of all the
Christmas cookies, delicate and sweet, with that haunting anise flavor.
They store well and although they do get very hard with time, all you need to do
is slip a slice of apple into their tin and they'll remain slightly
cakey instead of rock-hard. (Though rock-hard is actually how I like
them, the better for dunking into tea.)

When we were finished, we cleaned off the table, putting all the molds
into the empty bowl, sweeping up the leftover flour, scraping the molds
clean and wiping down the table. Then Joanie heated up a pot of borscht
while her husband Dietrich and I set the table. We ate the hot soup,
dotted with spoonfuls of sour yogurt, with slices of dark bread. It was
warm and cozy. As always, at Joanie's house, I felt my most calm and
comfortable. But the minutes were ticking by and I soon found myself getting antsy, checking my watch. I wanted to be home again, just
down the hall from my sleeping baby. So I said my goodbyes, got back in
the car and drove down the emptying highway towards Charlottenburg.

Back home, things were as I had left them: My mother on the couch, Hugo asleep in his little crib. But it felt like the world had just expanded somehow. A tiny glimmer of my old life was visible again. Or, no, I guess I'd just seen a tiny glimmer of my new life, the one where Hugo no longer needs me near him 24 hours a day, where I can once again leave the house at times without him, feeling both liberated and like I've left a piece of me behind. It was thrilling and a little bittersweet, too.

Want to make your own Springerle?

King Arthur Flour

Martha Stewart

Food52

Delia Smith's Pancakes with Lemon and Sugar

I woke up last weekend with a craving for pancakes. So I dutifully marched into the kitchen with Fannie Farmer stuck under my arm, whipped up a half-batch of serviceable buttermilk pancakes and tucked in, putting three aside for the next day, because it is my opinion that cold, day-old pancakes crisped up in a hot oven are one of life's great delights.

But as I ate my pancake breakfast, I had the dull realization that my craving was not being itched, as it were. The pancakes were fine, but they were so...solid, so thick and fluffy. For once, not in a good way. In fact, I thought I could hear a distinct clang deep in my belly with each swallow. It was rather odd.

This isn't what I wanted, I thought as I chewed. How much of my breakfast do I have to eat before I can throw in the towel? And then I realized what the problem was. What I had in front of me were classic American griddle cakes (as Marion Cunningham calls them). But what I'd really wanted were English pancakes! Thin and light, like crêpes, and topped with nothing but a squeeze of lemon juice and a scattering of sugar. That's what I wanted, right there. (Don't you hate realizing stuff like that just as you're finishing a meal?)

But I am nothing if not patient. (Snort.) The next day, I had to delay gratification once again to make short work of the leftover pancakes, but then! The day after that! I practically flew into the kitchen the moment I woke up.

Armed with Delia Smith's recipe, and with Hugo corralled and momentarily preoccupied by the insane joy of holding Freddy the Firefly IN HIS HANDS OMG!, I got to work:

Flour and salt in a little mound in a bowl, eggs whisked into the mound, followed by a bit of milk and water and a drizzle of melted butter. Delia says you should whisk this mixture manually into smoothness, but I dumped the lumpy mixture into my mini food processor and blitzed it instead. Much less work for a more even, perfect result and zero zero zero lumps in the thin, cream-like batter. (Plus, this way you don't have to sift the flour. Sneaky!)

I wiped some of the remaining melted butter into my skillet and poured in a few spoonfuls of the batter, tilted the pan around and cooked the pancake until spidery lines of caramelization formed on one side and I could flip it to cook the other side. In less than 15 minutes I had a stack of pancakes, all feathery-edged, on the plate.

At this point, Hugo had lost all patience with Freddie, his little bouncy chair and the outrage of not being held, so with Hugo in one arm and a half a lemon and the sugar jar within reach of the other, I finished up the prep work. Each pancake got a generous squeeze of lemon and then a sprinkling of sugar before getting folded up into quarters and plated neatly.

Then, and I admit this with only the slightest bit of shame, I ate every last one with my hands. Or hand, more accurately. Hugo could only look on with what I imagine was a mix of envy and slight shock.

Aggressively sour and crunchy with sugar, but still delicate and barely eggy and light, they were the very best pancakes I've had in a long while. They had the added benefit of being just exactly, precisely, what I wanted to eat. Oooh, don't you love it when that happens?

Delia Smith's Pancakes with Sugar and Lemon
Makes 12 thin pancakes
Note: The recipe can easily be halved.

110 grams (4 ounces) all-purpose flour
A pinch of salt2 eggs200 milliters (7 fluid ounces) milk mixed with 75 milliters (3 fluid ounces) water
50 grams (2 ounces) unsalted butter
Granulated sugar
1 lemon
1. Put the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour and break the eggs into it. Then
begin whisking the eggs,
incorporating flour from around the edge of the bowl. Gradually add small quantities of the milk and
water mixture, still whisking. When all the liquid has been added,
use a rubber spatula to scrape any flour from around
the edge into the center, then pour the batter into a food processor and blitz until smooth and lump-free.

2. Melt the
butter in a pan. Whisk 2 tablespoons of it into the batter. Use the rest to grease the pan, using a bit of paper towel to do so before you make each pancake.

3. Put the pan over high heat to get it very hot, then turn the heat down
to medium and put 2 to 3 tablespoons (depending on your pan size) into the hot pan. As soon as the batter hits
the hot pan, tip it around from side to side to get the base evenly
coated with batter. It should take only half a minute or so to cook; you
can lift the edge with a knife to see if it's tinged gold. Flip the pancake over -
the other side will need a few seconds only - then simply slide it out
of the pan onto a plate.
4. Stack the pancakes on a plate as you finish the rest, then sprinkle each pancake with freshly
squeezed lemon juice and sugar, fold in half, then in half again
to form triangles, or else simply roll them up. Serve sprinkled with a
little more sugar and lemon juice.

Sam Sifton's Thanksgiving

A few weeks ago, I came home to a cardboard package waiting in the mail. Inside was Sam Sifton's slim book titled simply: Thanksgiving, and then, further down on the jacket, How to Cook it Well. Well, I thought, sliding the book onto the coffee table, who needs a whole book on this subject?

But later that evening, I opened the book and started to read. After all, it was just 125 pages long and I'd long been a fan of Sifton's writing. When, by the end of the intro, I had started to laugh out loud as I read - a book about how to prepare Thanksgiving dinner, people - I know he was onto something.

Sifton's manifesto is a total delight. It's bossy and funny and endlessly useful. I'd say it deserves a spot on every wedding registry or housewarming gift list. It covers everything: the turkey, yes, and the sides and dessert. But it also tells you what to do with turkey stock and how to use up the leftover food. It tells you what not to eat on Thanksgiving (salad! garlic! chocolate!) and how to avoid disaster if you decide to deep-fry your turkey (braver souls than I). It has RULES and IDEAS about things as varied as the music you'll be listening to when you start to cook to just how cheap the cookware you use can be. It is, at turns, soothing and stern, funny and very focused. I have not enjoyed myself as much reading a book on food in a very long time.

And as I read, I realized something crucial about this book. Yes, it's true that you might not need all the recipes Sifton proposes. You may already be devoted to your aunt's cranberry jelly, your father-in-law's stuffing or your grandmother's candied yams (although I cannot wait to try Sifton's Braised Brussels Sprouts with Buttered Bread Crumbs and Pecan Pie, not to mention his Turkey Gumbo the next day). But the far larger deal is this: bringing all the elements of a Thanksgiving feast together, not just food, but everything, from the prep work to the drinks you serve to the seating arrangements, is a daunting endeavor. I would dare say just the thought of it has scared plenty a would-be hostess or host off the idea altogether. But Sifton has set out to make you feel brave and capable. With this book, he holds your hand and cheers you on all the way. It's a total kitchen essential.

***

I sadly won't be cooking a Thanksgiving meal this year - we'll be in Kassel in a too-small kitchen - but these are my perennial Thanksgiving must-haves, in case your menu still needs fleshing out:

Hashed Brussels Sprouts

Peas with Onions and Mint

Roasted Squash Purée with Apple and Ginger

My stepmother's Cranberry Orange sauce

Butternut Squash Pie (but with this crust)

Felicity Cloake's Perfect Fried Egg

I love you all so much, I really do. Thank you, thank you, for your fantastic, encouraging comments. I'm feeling all energized and excited. Did you know that would happen? I didn't! Hooray!

Without further ado, let's get to the fried eggs. I don't know about you, but I'm never happy with my fried eggs. Either the bottom browns too quickly while the yolk is still raw (and, folks, I like a runny yolk), or I end up flipping the egg out of impatience and then the yolk is overcooked and the white is rubbery. Every time I would make a fried egg, I got irritated that the platonic ideal - a set, tender white and a runny yolk - eluded me. But, I confess, I didn't think beyond that. And since Max doesn't like fried eggs at all - he prefers scrambled - the easiest thing was simply to acquiesce to his preferences most of the time instead of figuring out what I was doing wrong.

Except, I really like fried eggs for breakfast or, better yet, on top of things like leftover herbed millet or stewed greens or even a plate of spaghetti. I was getting a little sick of all those scrambled eggs. And so when, on Twitter the other day, I clicked on this article by Felicity Cloake, it felt a little bit like kismet. Finally, finally!, someone was going to tell me how to do a fried egg right.

Felicity Cloake very diligently assembled and tested all the different methods for egg frying, from José Andres's to Delia Smith's, Cook's Illustrated's to Jamie Oliver's, Lucinda Scala Quinn's to David Rosengarten's, even Nathan Myrhvold's sort of wacky sous-vide version, before settling on the following method, which - I tested it yesterday for breakfast - really is perfect.

First, you melt a lump of butter in a pan over low heat. Then you slide in a cracked egg (she has you crack the egg into a bowl first, but that seemed too fussy for me). Then, and this is the crucial bit, you cover the pan with a lid (I used the lid of my pasta pot, which was just slightly smaller than my frying pan's circumference), leave the heat on low, set the timer for 3 to 3.5 minutes, depending on whether you like your yolk totally runny or sort of half-runny and when it rings, you remove the lid, slide the egg onto your plate, season it with salt and pepper and EAT it.

Fried egg perfection! The white is set, the edges just ever-so-slightly frilly and crisp, the yolk is still molten, but not raw. Ooh, I gobbled it up so quick, Hugo did a double take. It turns out that all these years, I'd had the heat turned up too high! And I was missing the lid. I'm so thrilled to have finally cracked the code. Here's to many fried eggs in our future. Hugo, for one, can't wait.

(Yes, he has blue eyes!! My child has blue eyes! He turned 5 months old this week.)

In totally unrelated news, I wanted to share the thrilling news that My Berlin Kitchen was chosen as one of Amazon.com's Best Books of 2012 in the Food Lit category! And the Goodreads Choice Awards are now in the semifinal round, so you can vote again, if you like. Thank you.

Here's to a lovely weekend with lots of fried eggs for breakfast for all of us. Here's to you lovely people and your encouragement. And here's to lots of new posts coming up. Wheee! I can't wait.

See you next week!