Frenchified Popcorn

The day after Thanksgiving always brings a ton of cooking and chef supply catalogs in the mail.  Do you get as many as I do?    I page through and admire the many "fantasy" holiday table settings, linens and cooking gadgetry and then try hard to resist the urge to purchase as they try hard to convince me that I need that crap.    I always get a kick out of what "specialty item of the season"  Chuck Williams and crew  insists I now need.    

This year was no different.  So on Friday, like clockwork,  I was paging though the Williams  Sonoma, Chefs, and Sur le Table catalogues,  alternately coveting and laughing at the various goodies.    

How did we ever get along without fully automatic espresso machines, milk frothers, yogurt makers, fruit dehydrators, panini presses, plug-in woks, or (seriously) electric raclette makers?   

Twenty years ago the air popper popcorn maker was the new big deal.  Everyone rushed out and bought one, including me.   Just as quickly I gave it away.   Using air to pop the kernels might save a few calories but to my palate the method left lot to be desired.  If the catalogs are any indication these single use appliances are still quite popular.   Not with me.  I can't t encourage the use of appliances that do just one thing. 

Just use a pan and a small amount of oil.   Do it this way because it tastes better and unless you are eating the entire batch you don't have to worry about the extra calories from two tablespoons of oil.  Don't get me started on the health perils of  microwave popcorn.  That stuff is just gross when you think  about it.       

I keep a Ball jar of popcorn stashed in the pantry for emergency appetizers and impromptu movie nights.   Due to a last minute change of plans  we were unplanned guests to a Thanksgiving celebration so I souped up a batch with some French herbs and garlic butter.   

If you haven't made popcorn 'old school' in a long time don't worry, it is a bit like riding a bike.   Use my trick for determining when the oil is hot and then keep the pan moving to avoid burning.   Don't try to pop the last kernel -- just take the pan off a moment earlier than you want to.

One taste and you will be giving away your air popper as I did.   You just don't need it.     Sorry Chuck.  No special equipment is necessary.

Frenchified Popcorn

 

Twenty Minute Honey-Glazed Duck Breasts: (A French Friday with Dorie Make Up Post)

For some reason duck is not so much a 'cook at home' type dish in the United States but it should be. There are quite a few merits to cooking duck at home but primary among them is that when you do you can have it the way you like it.    I stopped ordering it out because most restaurants seem to think it should be slathered it in sweetness of some sort.    Thats just not my bag.  

Give me a savory duck any day.   

A good savory duck dish reminds me of the way chicken used to taste 20 years ago before the chicken industry turned most grocery market chicken into the mostly tasteless vehicle for sauce we have grown all to familiar with these days.   

I realize that Dorie's twenty-minute honey-glazed duck breast recipe has honey in its title but it is something of a misnomer.  The small amount of honey in this dish is nothing compared to the syrupy, fruity glop some of my local restaurants insist on preparing it with.    

Today is a "cooks choice" day for French Fridays with Dorie where the Doristas can choose anything form the book they wanted to cook.   Their selections are something of a Rorschach test of their cooking personalities!    All my selection will reveal is something my fellow Doristas already know:  I'm always late.

This was a recipe selection designated a couple of weeks ago but one which I was determined to make so I choose it for today.  Vinegar sauces with poultry are a favorite of mine and the light touch here knows its place allowing the rich duck flavor to come through nicely.

The leftovers made a tasty duck salad over greens the next day.  

Twenty Minute Honey-Glazed Duck Breasts
  

 

Twenty Minute Honey-Glazed Duck Breasts

Lamb Tagine with Chickpeas and Apricots

Today is Wednesday, and with this  post,  I am beginning to see the value of food blogging memes such as "Wordless Wednesday", "Photos Only Fridays" and my favorite:  "Only Recipes on Every Other Month's Second Thursday".    I would normally eschew all things  "wordless"  as wordlessness is not a value I would normally cleave to.  Please don't act shocked!  For me, the wordless food post is akin to dining alone; and dining alone when you are on the crowded internet is as sad as not dancing at your own prom.    

Besides, it takes more than side dishes to make food into a meal doesn't it?.  We crave conversation!  Who among us would not choose to have a portion of healthy conversation to digest along with our food? 

Silence is a good choice if you are unlucky enough to be dining at my Aunt Christine's house.   If that were the case you might get good food but you certainly won't get scintillating conversation.   Every day is wordless Wednesday Christine's as most meals are served in silence.  Mostly this is because by the time dinner is ready her guests have usually been  treated to at least four arguments between Christine and her fifth ex-husband.  How is that for an appetizer?  

Maybe that should be five arguments with her fourth husband?       By the way, we call him her "fifth ex-husband" even though they are married because, well,  we all know where this one is going. Or at least we continue to hope...  

Dining with Aunt Christine's husband is a fate that would move most atheists toward prayer just to avoid.  Talk about the proverbial walking through a mine field.    One never knows just what will set him off.   I once asked him, "how is your son was doing?" and he ranted for 20 minutes about "those Wall Street crooks who steal from elderly people on pensions".   He was of course talking about his own son, a stock broker who lives nowhere near Wall Street.  My aunt sets him off just by reminding him to wash his hands before sitting down at the table.  

Our coping mechanism is to sit and eat in silence.   Trust me, its better that way. 

But I digress.   

Today is Wordless Wednesday and we have photos to share with you:  

As I was saying, sometimes bloggers actualy have nothing to say about food or its appearance.  Wordless Wednesday comes in handy for those times. For me, blogging about this particular dish is certainly one of those times so thank god its Wednesday and I won't have to resort to telling you about the many members of my family who don't want to eat lamb because it is 'gamey'.   Where do they eat this poor gamey lamb anyway?  I think they may have had some terrible lamb as a child because its not that hard to find tasty cuts of lamb that are fantastic.   

I never ate much lamb as a child although I did take care of a ewe named Talulah one year at summer camp when I was 11 years old.  The life expectancy of a sheep is also 11 years so I think it is safe to say Talulah  ended up in someone else's tagine many years ago.   Suffice it to say I didn't recognize anything about her in this dish, so I will have to keep the story of Talulah for another lamb centric post at a time in the future to be determined.  .  

I genuinly  loved this dish and will certainly want to make it again the next time lamb is on special.   That in and of itself isn't much of an anecdote to share over dinner and it isn't enough to keep up my end of the conversation while we sit around this virtual table and consume our tagine.   I don't know anyone who has ever made it, referenced it, liked it, or even ordered it in a restaurant.   Thank god for Wordless Wednesday. 

Stews are pleasing to make and eat, but they aren't necessarily the most photogenic of dishes, are they?   Hats off to bloggers who have somehow managed to take appetizing  photos of foods such as this!  Personally,  I find that the photographic challenges make them a bit less lovely to blog about.  That and the fact that I don't have much to say about them other than that tagines are just North African stews cooked in a clay pot called a "tagine" -- which is a remarkable coincidence when you think about it.

Nope.  This week I have nothing about this dish I can relate to with you in order to make the  narrative more appealing while you consume this tagine with me today.  Sometimes folks I go to the well and I come up dry.  Tagine.  What can I possibly say about tagine?

Good thing this is Wordless Wednesday.      

Lamb Tagine with Chickpeas and Apricots

 

Lamb Tagine with Chickpeas and Apricots
(Adapted from Bon Appetit) 

"Bundt Cake Gladys" aka "Vanilla Bourbon Bundt Cake

You have probably heard the seasonal music playing in the stores and elevators around town and couldn't believe how the momentous day seems to arrive earlier and earlier each  year.  The familiar smells of the season  catch your notice as they waft through the kitchens of your neighborhood and you begin to realize...yup, its time.  

Yes, its National Bundt Day today.  Once again my clearly demented blog friend Mary, The Food Librarian,  is leading the charge to celebrate her favorite baking art form: The Bundt Cake.  Mary's devotion to the iconic round cake is certainly unrivaled even if it does leave me shaking my head in wonderment at her energy levels each year.  Every bundt season she offers up her bundt 30 days in a row culminating today when all those who are celebrating with her offer up their own.    Its a regular bundt orgy. 

 Last year's National Bundt Day post had a short footnote about about my grandmother's bundt pan (the oldest pan I own) and how, despite it being one of those cheap supermarket pans made of a lightweight aluminum and showing sufficient signs of wear and tear, I'll probably never get rid of it.   She probably had a dozen of them during her lifetime but this was the one she had at the end so, in my mind, she had it forever. I'm just too sentimental about it to get rid of it.  

It seemed fitting for this year's effort to share with you the only cake she ever made in it: She called it  "Bundt Cake Gladys"  but you can call it Vanilla Bourbon Bundt Cake.  Just know that I never will.

Grandmother's handwritten recipe books were a tribute to the many friendships she forged throughout her life. All of her old lady friends I remember from my childhood are named throughout its pages.  Those were the days when the best way to get delicious recipes was simply to swap them with your friends -- and she did a lot it.  Each recipe was attributed to the friend who gave it to her by renaming the dish itself in her friend's honor.  A  quick look through the book will get you such delights as "Persimmon Cookies Mary Alice",  "Lobster Bisque Babs", and "Oysters Winifred".      There was never any reference as to where Mary Alice, Babs, or Winifred themselves got the recipe.  I'm sure my grandmother didn't care. (Bloggers take note.)    

Not all of the recipes from her friends would be considered all that edible by today's standards...or mine frankly.   "Meatloaf Billie" (made with packaged onion soup mix and a can of  "mixed vegetable medley"), and "Beef Stroganoff Maudie" (one of many items featuring cream of mushroom soup) just haven't made it  into my weekly rotation the way they did her's.  The previously mentioned "Lobster Bisque Babs" actually calls for combining three kinds of Campbell's Soup and adding cooked lobster!   She insisted it was quite enjoyable, but I never let her prove it to me.

I'm quite sure had she lived long enough to see the emmergence of cable TV personalities she would have loved Sandra Lee.    I'm also pretty sure that this would have caused me more pain than anything else she could have done.    

But "Bundt Cake Gladys"?  That cake is another matter entirely.  

As children we were enthralled with its moist texture and sweet, pecan candy-like topping.  Sure it had some bourbon in it (or rum) but not so much that Child Services would need to get involved.  

As adults we were horrified to learn that she made it by doctoring up a yellow cake mix.   

How horrible!   How tacky to use a mix!   How unhealthy!   How... um, can I have another piece?   

Yeah, we hated ourselves for loving it so much but we just couldn't help it.  Even today when I bring this to a family gathering we laugh at how it is an odd throwback to another time.   We chuckle at the notion of  'foodies' such as ourselves, precise and descriminating tastes, sitting down to a big chunk of Pillsbury stuffed with Jello Instant Pudding!  ...and then we have a second piece. 

      

I know I could take the time to figure out the recipe using scratch ingredients (its a basic chiffon cake), in truth I know my sentimentality extends to more than just the pan, but also to the recipe itself and the photocopy of the hand scribbled notes my grandmother left behind.  The recipe was, more than likely, found on the mix box but for which she named after her longtime friend,  Gladys.  

Be sure to mosey on to  Mary's blog, The Food Librarian, and check out the celebration that is National Bundt Day.   (I'll see you there 'cause I'm going to have to talk her out of that egg nog bundt cake recipe she featured yesterday. OMG!)

What are you doing to celebrate National Bundt Day?   Do you have any similar doctored up food recipes of yesteryear that you continue to enjoy today?

Vanilla Bourbon Bundt aka "Bundt Cake Gladys"

 

 

My Grandma's Saffron Poached Pears

These are my grandmother's pears.   The recipe comes  from the quirky handwritten recipe books she left behind.   A dessert so beautiful and so easy to make.  It could never be said that her recipe style tilted to the exotic so its surprising  that she even knew what saffron was.

They don't really look like they would cause anyone issues do they?

I was reminded of my grandmother's pears several weeks ago while watching a new season sitcom.   Except for one scene the entire show was unmemorable -- as typically so many of the new shows are.   In this scene the main character inadvertently discovers that the copious notes his therapist had been scribing throughout supposed years of therapy were nothing more than nonsensical doodles and scribbles.

On screen much hilarity ensued.     Off screen I didn't think it was very funny.  It reminded me of the years I spent with my grandmother.  And Dr. Milo.

You see, years ago I was given the unexpected chance to read my former therapist's session notes.   They were written in the tiniest cursive I had ever seen a man write.  Nearly 3 lines could fit into each line of the regular student notebook paper he used.    This, and his brevity allowed for 4 years of 'on again off again' therapy notes to fit on 3 pages of paper.  

Despite the risk I might discover something I wouldn't  like I quickly decided I was curious enough to read them through.     Was reading these even legal?    Despite my trepidation the experience was for the most part was oddly comforting and not at all that surprising.   It was somewhat akin to flipping through a friend's old photo album and once again enjoying the faces you hadn't thought of in years -- even the faces of those who had once caused you pain.

Then I got to the last very line from of my very last session with Dr. Milo:

"T  - has found steady peace but should always work on his grandmother pears". 

I never figured out what that meant exactly.

* * *

Dr. Milo died two weeks after he wrote that last entry.   It was my last session not because he had died but rather by my choice and mutual agreement.   Successful "moving on" also meant moving on from him and it was time.  His unexpected death just following my departure, however, was unexpected only to his patients;  it seemed his friends and family knew he had been sick for a very long time.   I remember wondering if wrapping things up at that time was really my idea?

It was some 15 years after that last visit when a big brown envelope arrived in the mail postmarked Ft. Lauderdale , a place I had never been.  The unfamiliar return address written in unsteady handwriting didn't  yield any clues to its origin.    I could tell something important was inside as a big swath of packing tape was wrapped around its closure to indicate that  its sender could not trust its contents to simple adhesive and saliva.

A slim, tightly sealed #10 envelope made of  dark velum was inside and a small small note written by Dr. Milo's partner was attached.   I had met him only a few times when bad timing would have us both awkwardly walking into the office space they shared at the same time.  I tried to figure out if he was Dr. Milo's partner or if he was his "partner".   It turned out he was both.   Or "both".

***

I began seeing Dr. M as a 21 year old.  I was living with my grandmother when she had discovered I was gay and then quckly pushed me out of the closet unwillingly and without my knowledge.    My still young lifetime of striving to be invisible had not prepared me for the public display she had thrown me to.   In case you wondered what those dreams people get about being naked in a crowd of people are about --  they are about my twenties.     

Not all of the sudden attention was bad. Quite a bit was supportive and loving -- but in her case, the microscope she had trained on my every move those years was not only intense but also terribly out of focus.  I was never sure if she had leaned to retrain her sights on 'me' instead of 'it'.

Dr. Milo gave me the tools I needed to work through those years and let go of them.    Or so I thought. 

***

So there I sat with three sheets of notebook paper crammed with tiniest writing I had ever seen and a magnifying glass.  The note from Dr. Milo's "partner" explained that he had recently found my file while going through Dr. M's things and, after reading them through (!),  thought that I would want to read them too.   

I did and I did.  Evidently I had neglected one last homework assignment from Dr. Milo:  

"T  - has found steady peace but should always work on his grandmother pears". 

Which is exactly what I did last Sunday after being reminded by a TV program of some unfinished business:




Grandma's Saffron Poached Pears:

Zinger Blended Herbal Iced Tea aka "Molto Mocktail"

Blah blah blah.

As you can see I am somewhat at a loss for words these days.    The fellow Food bloggers I've been running into this weekend at the Food Buzz Festival have been telling me that this is normal and I shouldn't get too concerned.

"Its perfectly normal!  It happens to everyone!"

No man likes to hear those words no matter the context but they were just assuring me there will be plenty at the festival  to inspire me and I hope they are right.    I just haven't been doing much in the kitchen to report on.

And with this post I can't escape the feeling that it is kind of like scraping the bottom of the barrel to post on iced tea.   But I'm going to do it anyway.

This effort was once again inspired by my sister.  I have to keep them simple for her.   She called last week during a late season heat wave.  They seem to get later and later each year, don't they?  I know its raining now and you aren't really in the mood for iced tea right now but with weather patterns being what they are it will soon be scorching again and now you will be ready.

Also,  I have to post something and this is what I got.    She had  invited some vegan friends of hers over to her house.  "They don't drink dairy and don't drink beer", she complained.  She said she served them iced tea but they complained and said it was "gritty".       Yes, my sister can mess up iced tea.  Yup.

Turns out she had made it with a powder.       Where did she get her genetic material?

The Ina inspired this one and all you have do to make it your own is stand in front of the herbal tea section at the supermarket and choose from your favorite flavors.    The Red Zinger seems to make it though.    I usually brew this one up pretty strong and then dilute it to taste when I drink it.    

To give this drink some 'pizazze' try floating some soda water on top for a spritzy summer 'mocktail'.    I'd garnish it with some orange or lemon slices myself but my sister, who wears flats and can't be persuaded to do something nice her hair couldn't be persuaded here either.   She said it "didn't suit her style".    Huh?   

Do you think she was adopted?

Zinger Blended Herbal Iced Tea, aka "Molto Mocktail"