The Gift

Los Angeles, California

I collect words. They're my favorite thing. One of my other favorite things is paper. But the best words I collect are not placed on paper. They are put onto a page entitled Writing in my Notes on my iPhone. When I read something that speaks to me with a degree of gravitas, I add it to the collection. When I think of something that I can put into words which feel profound to me, it goes there as well. I experiment a lot with words: words constructed together as posts here on this blog; words written fast and randomly in my journal; words formulated as prayers. I find sentences magical. There is the alchemy of someone stringing words together to form sentences that can really speak to, really emotionally move, mankind.

If you watch certain news networks, there can be, unfortunately, a barrage of disturbing words thrown at you. I listen to NPR which becomes the background to many of my days. But I also listen to music, and I pay attention to lyrics. I am also attentive to dialog in films. My favorite films are those which were originally plays because the dialog is usually stellarly tight, having been toned and honed throughout the play's creation and production.

I once borrowed a book from a friend and found several pages had their corners dog-eared. Upon returning it, I inquired as to the significance of those pages. She replied that she did that when there was something on that page that was particularly valuable, and that she might want to go back to review what was written. I have my own means of dog-earing in screenshots of quotes, my aforementioned Notes collection, as well as clippings from newspapers and The New Yorker (yes, I still read, joyfully read, in print).

Joel was helping me organize my office this past weekend. Ok, organize is probably too strong of a word. Remember the old saying about getting your sh*t together? Well, I'm not setting the bar that high. In that room, my goal is to just eventually get it all scraped into one pile. I frankly think that Marie Kondo would throw up her hands and switch careers if she saw my office. But I digress... In the process of sorting through some paperwork (meanwhile, Joel was sorting through a collection of hotel laundry bags which I insisted I could not throw out as each was a memory of a trip, many with Sandra. See what I mean?). Anyway, one of the things I found in this pile of paper was a Christmas tag. You know, the ones that we write on and attach to the ribbon of a wrapped gift? I remember purchasing these particular tags (one of, oh, about 10,000 which I have collected, and please don't utter a word about this) at Crate and Barrel, back in the day when Crate and Barrel stores were located in malls, and didn't sell much furniture. On the side where you would write the To: and From:, I had written this in red ink:

Bronte, Treat each day as a new recipe to be tried or a faithful one to be improved upon.

I don't recall writing this, but suspect it was something I did for myself one recent Christmas. I have long given myself a birthday present. Something I would not buy myself on any of the other 364 days of the year. The first was an exorbitantly expensive (at that time) pair of Frye boots when I was in college. I've also bought myself a Mason Pearson hairbrush, which is something every woman should own. Over the past few years, I have also given myself Christmas presents, usually cookbooks, following in the tradition of both my mom and myself collecting them. Although, in Christmas 2015, I bought myself a 75-inch Samsung television so I could watch my favorite Christmas movies. It was a step towards addressing a holiday with intense memories combined with loss and loneliness. Did it work? Mas o menos, as watching some of the films was just too painful.

But back to the gift tag. I think this was on the gift I gave myself last year. It was most likely attached to the cookbook which I bought and wrapped for myself, waiting until Christmas day to unwrap. I would have curled up in front of the fire, wrapped in an afghan (blanket, not hound), and then read the book from cover to cover. I don't just choose cookbooks for the recipes, but for the writing as well. I don't often cook from Nigella Lawson's cookbooks, but I buy them all for the delight of her writing. Other favorites: Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte; A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg; My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl (which may very well have been the one that was attached to that tag). Although not cookbooks, my hands-down, very favorite food writer will always be Calvin Trillin. His collection of articles, Feeding a Yen, is a book I often carry with me when heading out to appointments. I can open it to any article and read with delight.

But, let's loop back to that gift tag. I have often remarked (and I am sure have written here, probably more than once) that if you get one good recipe from a cookbook, it was worth the price of purchase. And that is not a bad way to approach each day. Sometimes when you make a recipe, you find it's almost there. Maybe it needed something more -- more sabor, Joel would say, but he usually just means more salt or chilies. I often find that soups need some spiking, a bit of lemon juice, or a dash of sherry vinegar, or even some Louisiana hot sauce. Something that brings the flavor up. And our days can use that seasoning as well. Many people have written or remarked that each day is a blank page or blank canvas, but I think not. For me, the day spreads before you like a recipe. It offers ingredients which are the friends or family you see, or the strangers you encounter. There is the method, which is how you put your day together with the things that you need to do. It will require industry, which is the work required to get things done, and the workout you do each day to keep your head and body straight. Patience, required while marinating, roasting or baking, can come in time set aside for meditating or resting. That spiking or sabor to bring up the flavor comes in many forms, but for me, dancing salsa provides it in a spicy hit. I also appreciate the marination part, in the idea of time out each day, whether in the form of a nap, meditation, or bath. And the celebration of the day's end by a designated cocktail hour or even tea ceremony. Finally, bread broken at the last meal of the day can provide the reward of completing the day's efforts and savoring the results of the day's endeavors. At bedtime, you might want to copy out your recipe, including the changes or tweaking that occurred. For me, that is by keeping a journal, which I know not everyone does, but is essential for me in sorting out all of the thoughts I have swimming around in my head. 

Some recipes simply don't work out. Some are disasters. But maybe that's the time to come back to the faithful ones. The ones that make up your repertoire as a cook. With these, you can prepare as you always do, or tweak a bit. Each day has the same potential to not work out or to be a disaster. But even in that, we have learned something, if we look for something to learn. And that is perhaps the gift I was trying to give myself with that Christmas tag. A thought in the gift of words that mean something to me.  A gift from me to me. And now, a gift from me to you.

Thank you for reading my blog. And, go DODGERS... please, PLEASE GO DODGERS...

A Goose and a Duck Walk Into a Bar...

Los Angeles, California

And so, it was Thanksgiving, and this year we found ourselves, once again, at loose ends. Not that it is a bad thing to no longer have a tradition in place. It allows you a certain footloose quality that is enticing in its flexibility. There were options . . .

The decision was made to stay at home, and cook our own Thanksgiving. Something I have not done since I was back in college, and cooked a full-on Thanksgiving dinner for my boyfriend (yes, same one I referred to in my last post entitled Flying Solo, available right here on this blog for a limited time). Since we were cooking a deux, and we're truly not turkey people, outside of the ubiquitous lunchtime staple of turkey sandwiches, we decided to roast a chicken. But, need I remind you of our footlooseness? When we got to Gelson's market, we got enticed by other poultry.

Billy decided that he wanted to cook a goose. If not for Thanksgiving, then for the dinner party we were having the following Saturday. The free-range goose in question was $89. Eighty-nine bucks! I told him that if he wanted a goose, he should go over to our nearby golf course and shoot one! I wasn't about to lay down ninety dollars for a frickin' goose, unless it was that fabled one that lays golden eggs [I was pretty sure it wasn't, since this one was DYK (dead, you know)]. My first set of brackets to appear in my blog!!! But, I am so digressing...

And then. And then a duck caught my eye! Also free-range, but only about $35. And next to said duck, were fresh "petite turkeys" ranging from around seven to nine pounds. Need I go on to say we came in for a chicken, dissed a goose, and ended up with a duck and a turkey. A fowl turn of events...

As we all do, we cooked way too much food for Thanksgiving. And, for the first time since college, I baked the pie that I had prepared for my boyfriend on that long-ago Thanksgiving. That is a Shoo-fly Pie; a recipe which called for light molasses. This I could not find at my local market. So I bought the molasses I recall my mom and grandmother buying, which is Brer Rabbit. It said full flavor, and turned out to be way too much dark for this pie. Billy had a few slices and reported that he liked it. But it was a far cry from the Shoo-fly Pies we ate when we lived not far from Pennsylvania Dutch Country, one winter when I was eleven years old.

Everything else turned out quite good. We dry-brined the turkey, then roasted it. With this, we had roasted brussels sprouts; yam puree which was flavored with both orange juice and zest, and bourbon. We had the apple cranberry sauce (see recipe in previous post entitled Flying Solo available...oh, just have on at it). But the real hit of the weekend was the duck. The recipe was from Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte, and it was easy and delicious. Billy's mom was here with us, and we invited his nephew and the girlfriend. Girlfriend, Deanne, is a vegetarian, but she, rather ecumenically I thought, had a bite of the duck. Lucky thing she didn't eat much actually, since I had forgotten how few people a duck serves. In the future I will make it just for Billy and me. The leftover meat will be delicious in duck tacos or tamales, or in a pinch, quesadillas. The duck is cooked with ginger and soy, so I'm totally going for the fusion thing here.

The secondary gain on the duck was in that I got a lot of duck stock, and a nice amount of duck fat. I roasted potatoes in the duck fat, but I'm really jonesing for double-frying-up some frites with it, or maybe doing one of those rosti jobbers. Something with crisp potatoes, duck fat, and salt. Be still my heart...

Ginger Duck

1 duck             (fresh or thawed overnight in the fridge), giblets removed
1 onion,           peeled and cut in half, or 3 shallots, peeled
2 stalks            celery, cut into 3-inch long pieces
2 teaspoons    ground ginger
1/2 cup             sugar
1/2 cup             soy sauce
1 teaspoon       sea salt
1/2 cup              sherry
1 small bunch watercress, washed and trimmed

The day before serving, stuff the duck with the onion and celery. Place it, breast side up, in a large dutch oven, and add enough water to half cover it. Add ginger and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat so that it simmers gently for one hour.

After an hour, flip the guy over. Add sugar, soy sauce and the salt. Continue simmering for another hour. Turn the duck breast side up once again, and simmer for one more hour. Remove from heat and let cool. When you can handle it without scorching the digits, remove it carefully from the pot (I used a large, wide fish spatula that I rarely use for fish but find it comes in handy in other applications such as this). Use care as the duck will want to fall apart after so much cooking. Cover and refrigerate. Pour broth from the pot into a bowl and chill.

The following day, scrape off the layer of fat that has formed on top of the broth. Our friend, Amanda, says to throw it away, but I implore you not to! Set aside; freeze or use within a few days. Remove one cup of the broth to use when roasting the duck; freeze the rest. It is delicious when used to cook rice, or whisked into a 'blond roux', then adding cream, sauteed mushrooms, and slivers of leftover bits of duck or turkey and tossed with pasta (riffing on Turkey Tetrazzini here). But let's get back to the duck.

Bring the duck to room temperature, and place in a roasting pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add the sherry and the one cup of defatted duck broth to the roasting pan; place in the oven. Roast uncovered for 30 to 45 minutes, basting occasionally with the drippings in the pan. The duck is done when it is heated through, and the skin is crisp and a dark chestnut brown.

Transfer duck to a serving platter lined with watercress (using the stems to disguise where legs and wings have fallen off, if that has occurred).

Four servings.

Again, as I wrote above, it was easy; it was delicious. And, it will be made again, probably soon. I haven't used the rest of the broth. When I see it in the freezer, I always think of the Marx Brothers movie, Duck Soup. Groucho said that it was a reference to their mother, Minnie's, cooking. Evidently, she was such a bad cook that when she prepared soup, all the brothers would duck soup. And, on that note... I thank you for reading my blog. Thanksgiving is pau (over, finished, done)... Oh-oh, here it comes! Happy Hanukkah and a very Merry Christmas to you all!

Pretty Good Cookies

Los Angeles, California


I have to tell the truth. It's not really April. Its way past April, and I am fudging on my commitment to write at least two posts each month. Truth is, I've been on hiatus, and I will explain this shortly in a soon-to-be-published post entitled Hiatus. But I just couldn't go there after the last post. I needed some time out (from many things), and I needed to put down something that wasn't sad. I needed something life-affirming. I needed . . . cookies.


Besides, my other pledge was to include a recipe in every other post, so that I could consider what I was doing here as a sort of a food blog (delusional, but humor me). Ok, that didn't exactly turn out as planned, and that's not to mention dubious entries like that Graham Cracker Mush thing, or the Popcorn thing (even though I do think I prepare amazing-tasting popcorn). So, here is the one enlightening thing I've been doing lately. I've been reading happier books. All the books about people growing up in Afghanistan or fighting evil in Scandinavia (see previous post: The Girl with the Stupid Tattoo, available here, free, and for a limited time) were, frankly, wearing on me in my recent state. One shouldn't need psychotropic drugs just to get through their book stack. So I decided to hop on the happy train. I started in my stack of unread books, and found one that had been gifted to me several years back. It is Cooking for Mr. Latte, by Amanda Hesser. This one got me to sleep (since I read at bedtime) in a contented state of mind, with visions of sugarplums instead of heinous crimes.


You have to love a food memoirist who actually shares a recipe entitled: Frosting Minus the Cupcakes. When my mother was in the hospital this spring, I spent time in her room (in an uncomfortable chair. Why? Why?!?!) with my feet propped on her bed, cataloging Ms. Hesser's recipes on a lined tablet. It's been my go-to cookbook (even though it is ostensibly a food blog with recipes) of late. And here are the cookies, ta-da!


Chocolate Chunk-Pecan-Coconut Cookies


2 sticks         unsalted butter, softened
1 cup              sugar
1 cup              packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large           eggs
3 cups            all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon    baking soda
pinch              sea salt
24 ounces      best quality-bittersweet chocolate, chopped into 
                              chunks, shreds & all
2 cups             toasted chopped pecans
1 cup                grated coconut


Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease two large baking sheets. In a mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk, cream the butter with the sugar and light brown sugar until it's good and fluffy like a mousse. Add the vanilla and eggs and keep beating until it's smooth.


In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add it to the mixer in small portions, beating it on low until blended in before adding more. Once the dry ingredients are all in there, pour in the chocolate, pecans and coconut. Fold them in by hand, with a spatula -- it is a bit of a workout, but the best way to coat the ingredients evenly.


My mother (Note: this is Amanda's mother, as I've copied the recipe verbatim) likes to chill the dough a little (30 minutes or so) before baking, which helps the cookies hold their shape better when baking. Then she uses an ice cream scoop to drop the dough onto the sheets. She flattens them lightly with her fingers, so they spread evenly. They should be about 1/2 inch thick and two inches around before baking. Bake for twelve to fifteen minutes, until lightly browned on the edges and cooked in the center. Cool on racks. Store in a cookie tin (Oh, come on. That's a little bossy!).


Makes two dozen large cookies.


Ok, so here we go. In spite of my snide commentary, Ms. Hesser's recipes are excellent, and easy to follow. And also, despite my damning-with-faint-praise title above, these are pretty amazing cookies. It makes an inordinate amount of dough, and for those of you clever enough to figure out how to use one and-a-half eggs -- you go and make a half of a batch. I made a dozen large cookies following the recipe exactly, but froze the other half of the dough. I'm planning to bake that half this week to greet approaching house guests. This should have them eating out of my hand.


One last note, Ms. Hesser's story about these cookies is that they were finishing up a stay at a vacation home (I don't know, Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard or something, I can't remember) and wanted to make a sort-of kitchen sink version of cookies to use up ingredients in the larder. This tells you (in case you didn't already know) that you can change out the nuts and play around with the chocolate, if you like. I used a lot of different bittersweet chocolate that I had around the pantry, including different percentages which rendered some of the chocolate extra-bittersweet. I even threw in some Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips. Just hit the ounce requirement, mas o menos.


If you love these cookies, and/or I've piqued your interest in Amanda Hesser, feel free to check out her foodblog here. I intend to read other books by her, sometime after I finish the very thick World of Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. Did you think I was kidding about reading happier books?


So, did Cooking for Mr. Latte cheer up the sodden mess I call me? Did eating these cookies do the trick? Well, no. And no. But everything helps a little. And I will try to explain this in my coming posts. Stay tuned . . . and thank you once more for hanging in there with me and reading my blog!