Second-term pie

Whether we are better or worse financially, philosophically, socially or emotionally, we still need pie. And pie is what we have, without the meringue.

Sweet Potato Pie
from White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford

Dough

1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. lemon zest
2 egg yolks
2 1/2 cups flour

Filling

3 sweet potatoes
4 sticks cinnamon
5 star anise
1 orange, quartered
2 Tbsp. melted butter

Custard

3 cups crème fraiche
4 whole eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt

Honey meringue topping

3 egg whites
2 cups honey, reduced by half

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

For the pie dough: Cream the sugar and butter. Add the dry ingredients and gently mix. Incorporate the vanilla extract, lemon zest and egg yolks. Form into a ball and let rest in the refrigerator.

Roll the dough to fit a 12-inch tart pan. Top with parchment paper and cooking beads and bake blind for 12 minutes. Set aside to cool.

For the sweet potato puree: Bake the whole sweet potatoes and all the aromatics on a sheet tray at 350 degrees F until tender. Scoop the meat and pass through a chinoise. Set aside to cool. In the meantime, mix the custard base and fold into the cooled sweet potato puree.

Pour into the cooked tart shell and finish cooking until set, about 35 minutes.

For the honey meringue topping: Whip the egg whites until stiff and incorporate the hot reduced honey. Top the cooked sweet potato pie and broil until the meringue gets a toasted color. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Lemon cake

"The room filled with the smell of warming butter and sugar and lemon and eggs, and at five, the timer buzzed and I pulled out the cake and placed it on the stovetop.

"The house was quiet. The bowl of icing was right there on the counter, ready to go, and cakes are best when just out of the oven, and I really couldn't possibly wait, so I reached to the side of the cake pan, to the least obvious part, and pulled off a small warm spongy chunk of deep gold.

"Iced it all over with chocolate. Popped the whole thing into my mouth."

Aimee Bender in "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"

A cupcake day

Any day when cupcakes are involved is a good enough day.

Weihachten in Deutschland

"There is no better place in the world to celebrate Christmas than in Germany. No country I know takes it more seriously. And no other place on earth is still able to infuse the holiday with such a sense of solemn tradition and beauty. Weihnachten in Deutschland still retains a sense of the sacred and the divine.

"Maybe it starts with the run-up to Christmas, the four Advent Sundays beforehand filled with endless afternoon teas with friends, crunching through all manners of homemade Christmas cookies or moist Stollen or dense fruit bread. 

"Perhaps it's because tradition here dictates that the Christmas tree not be decorated until the day before Christmas Eve, drawing out the thrill until the very last moment. 

"Maybe it's the brass bands at Christmas markets or the Christmas markets themselves, all lit up and smelling of warm Gluhwein and sausages. 

"Or perhaps it's the candlelight. In Germany, people still put candles, lit candles, with actual flames, on their trees instead of electric lights. (A bucket of water for emergency dousing lurks behind every tree.)"

Luisa Weiss, in "My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes)"

More kale

Kale and White Bean Soup
from "Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best"


1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 ounces very thinly sliced pancetta, diced
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 medium to large bunch kale, washed, thick stems cut away and leaves sliced across into 3/4-inch-wide strips
1 tsp. coarse salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 cups homemade or reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup cooked or canned cannellini, navy beans or other white beans, rinsed and drained
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Heat the olive oil in a 4-quart low-sided soup pot or Dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat. Add the onion and pancetta and saute until the onion is softened and both are browned, about 12 minutes.

Add the garlic, stir and saute until fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Add the kale and stir thoroughly to coat the leaves (and to de-glaze the pan slightly with their moisture).

Season with 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper.

Add the broth, stir well and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, lower to a simmer and cook until the kale is almost completely tender, 10 to 25 minutes.

Uncover the pot, add the beans and simmer for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the lemon juice and turn off the heat. Ladle the soup into four shallow bowls. Makes 4 servings.

Blue Bottle eggs

Because we need food to go with those cups of coffee.

Catalan Eggs with Braised Greens and Tomato Sauce
from James Freeman and Caitlin Freeman's "The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee: Growing, Roasting and Drinking, with Recipes"

Tomato Sauce

3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 14-ounce can tomato puree, or about 1 1/2 cups pureed fresh tomatoes
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

Greens

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 pounds chard, chicory, kale, escarole or a combination, cut into ribbons about an inch thick
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
grated hard cheese, such as Parmesan or Pecorino Romano
4 poached eggs

To make the tomato sauce: Heat the olive oil in a medium nonreactive skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and saute until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Then add the tomato puree and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes taste and smell sweet and less acidic, about 20 minutes for canned tomatoes or 10 minutes for fresh. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To make the greens: Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Carefully add the greens, watching out for popping oil. If using a mixture of greens, start with the sturdier greens, such as kale, and add more tender greens, such as chard, a minute or two later. (Escarole takes even less time.)

Stir to wilt the greens evenly and make more space for more greens. Cook until the greens are emerald green and wilted but still crunchy, 5 to 7 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To assemble: Divide the greens evenly among 4 plates, making a nest of each. Put a poached egg on top. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Then spoon the tomato sauce over each. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

Slowing down

"No matter what I cook, I always take with me the core lessons that traveling and cooking in Italy have taught me: a respect for flavor and quality, the habit of supporting communities of artisan food producers, and the craft of cooking, from making pasta to curing meat.

"Yet the most important lesson is appreciating the value of spending an entire day (or three) cooking one meal, and then slowing down to savor every bite."
 
Matthew Accarrino in "SPQR: Modern Italian Food and Wine"

Skating

"To get to work, some days I'd skate uptown first and cut back through Central Park, sailing through the aromas wafting from the chestnut-roasting vendors, the hot dog and shawarma carts, the syrupy burnt sugar of the peanut and cashew men.

"Other days I'd dip down into the thirties so that I could skate through Koreatown, with its smells of kimchi and its modest barbecue joints in the shadow of the Empire State Building...

"If I worked the early shift, I'd take off after lunch service and skate down the east side of the island, stopping in the Indian groceries to wander through the spice aisles, once in a while treating myself to something unfamiliar, like the pungent, gummy asafetida, which went from having a truly objectionable stink when raw to a pleasant garlic-meets-leeks vibe when cooked.

"One week I'd try yellowtail sushi in the East Village, and the next week I'd save up money to sample the tamarind-dipped crab rolls at Vong..."

Marcus Samuelsson in "Yes, Chef: A Memoir"

Passion for pie

"On Thanksgiving, I discovered pie. Until then, I had only known apple pie, but Neda's grandmother baked rhubarb, sour cherry, pumpkin, and peach, taking each out of the oven just when the fruit was bubbling around the edges. Not surprisingly, it became my favorite holiday and the beginning of a lifelong passion for pie."

Donia Bijan, in "Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen"

Boo

Because it is Halloween.

 

To cook

"As I said, you don't have to cook. You can get through life perfectly comfortably without lifting so much as a wooden spoon. Fine. Do that.

"What I want to say is that if you do decide to go through life without cooking, you are missing something very, very special. You are losing out on one of the greatest pleasures you can have with your clothes on.

"Cooking can be as passionate, creative, life-enhancing, uplifting, satisfying, and downright exhilarating as anything else you can do with your life. Feeling, sniffing, chopping, sizzling, grilling, frying, roasting, baking, tasting, licking, sucking, biting, savoring, and swallowing food are pleasures that would, to put it mildly, be a crime to miss out on.

"Add to that the buzz, the satisfying tingle that goes down your spine when you watch someone eating something you have made for them, and you have one of the greatest joys known to man."

Nigel Slater in "Appetite: So What Do You Want to Eat Today?"

Live things everywhere

cutting greens

curling them around
i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
strain against each strange other
away from my kissmaking hand and
the iron bedpot.
the pot is black,
the cutting board is black,
my hand,
and just for a minute
the greens roll black under the knife,
and the kitchen twists dark on its spine
and i taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere.

Lucille Clifton, quoted in Kevin Young's "The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink"

Sweet victory

 

When the home team wins the division, we bake in celebration. 

We head into the kitchen and pull together a pear and cranberry oatmeal crisp, a fall favorite. It is the least we can do.

The dessert proves entirely sweet, like victory itself.  

Fair food

Grains on the brain

Oh, what I would do for access to a waffle maker.

Among the first things I would try to make: cornmeal and oat waffles from partners and prolific food authors Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough.

Cornmeal and Oat Waffle Mix
from Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough's "Grain Mains: 101 Surprising and Satisfying Whole Grain Recipes for Every Meal of the Day"

4 cups coarse, whole-grain yellow cornmeal
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cups spelt flour
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup baking powder
4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon

Whisk all the ingredients in a large bowl, taking care that the baking powder is evenly distributed throughout. Spoon or pour the whole kit and caboodle into a large container and seal tightly. Store up to 3 months in a dark, cool pantry.

To make 3 waffles, scoop 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons of the mix into a bowl. Whisk in 1 large egg, 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 2 tablespoons nut oil (walnut, hazelnut or pecan) or 2 1/2 tablespoons melted and cooled unsalted butter.

Mix well and set aside for 10 minutes while the waffle iron heats. Then make the waffles in the iron according to the manufacturer's instructions. Serves about 24, with a heaping 9 1/2 cups of mix.

Kale and onion quiche

Because we could all benefit from more kale in our diets.

Sprouting

Flipping through Sara Forte and Hugh Forte's cookbook "The Sprouted Kitchen," I am most intrigued, I think, by soba and salmon. It is what I gravitate towards. It seems I am a noodle girl at heart.

Soba Bowls with Tea-poached Salmon 
from Sara Forte's "The Sprouted Kitchen: A Tastier Take on Whole Foods"

3 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
2 Tbsp. tahini
2 Tbsp. agave nectar
grated zest and juice of 1 lime
3 Tbsp. tamari or soy sauce
2-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
1 bunch broccoli
2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
pinch of sea salt
3 bags green tea
1 Tbsp. peppercorns
1/2 cup mirin or dry white wine
1 1/4 pound wild salmon fillet
1 (9.5-ounce) package soba noodles
4 green onions, white and green parts, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup white or black sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

In a small bowl, whisk together the sesame oil, tahini, agave nectar, lime zest and juice, tamari and grated ginger until smooth. Set aside.

Cut the broccoli into small florets, including some of the stems. Combine the broccoli in a bowl with the olive oil, garlic and salt, and spread on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven.

In a saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a gentle simmer. Turn the heat down to low, add the tea bags and peppercorns and steep for 3 minutes, then discard the tea bags. Add the mirin to the poaching liquid.

Gently slide in the salmon, skin side down. Cover, and cook until the salmon is just barely cooked in the middle, 8 to 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillet. If in doubt, it's better to undercook the salmon a bit rather than overcook it.

Remove the salmon to a plate and flake it with a fork (you will notice a natural grain). Set aside and loosely cover with foil.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the soba noodles according to package instructions or until al dente. While the noodles cook, chop the roasted broccoli. Drain the noodles.

In a large bowl, toss together the warm noodles, broccoli, dressing, green onions, and half the cilantro.

Divide the noodles among four bowls, top with a portion of the salmon, and sprinkle the remaining cilantro and the sesame seeds on top. Serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

Bacon poetry

We spot this in a market on Haight Street in San Francisco, near the meat counter no less, and have to laugh out loud.

Aisle 8, Baking

"The next night, I'm smack-dab in the middle of grocery. Aisle 8, Baking Supplies, a.k.a. Ground Zero for the Holidays. Here sits nearly every baking ingredient known to America.

"My aisle's off-white tile stretches from the hip-deep freezers of meats to one of the store's Action Alleys - a kind of shopping-cart thoroughfare, clogged with a holiday baking center display.

"On the right are salts and spices; sugars white, brown, artificial, and unrefined; Jell-O products ranging from gelatin and pudding mixes to No-Bake Cheesecake kits and pudding cups; marshmallows of different flavors, colors, shapes, sizes, and, with the inclusion of Fluff, consistency; nuts in varying degrees of dismemberment; graham cracker crusts, chocolate cookies, and shortbread; canned pie fillings of fruit and pumpkin; chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and baby M&Ms; dry milk powder; flaked coconut; cocoa; and canned milk that's been evaporated or sweetened and condensed.

"The left-hand shelves start out savory, with cornmeal, flour, gravy thickener, bread crumbs, and multiple variations on Shake'n Bake; veer into sweet with cornmeal muffin mix, nearly limitless cake mixes, cookie and bar mixes, flavor extracts, leavening agents and cornstarch; and terminate in fats with lard, shortening, and oils."

Tracie McMillan in "The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table"

"Eating Well, Living Better"

Michael Fenster, a cardiologist and trained chef, puts his profession and passion to work in "Eating Well, Living Better: The Grassroots Gourmet Guide to Good Health and Great Food." It is a practical, if somewhat overblown, volume.

His tone is occasionally too folksy. "If you've come this far, dear reader (and even if you were to put this book down now this very instant and walk away, you are still a dear reader)..." And his reliance on medical studies and statistics might alienate a general audience.

But Fenster pulls no punches and goes for the goal: a sustainable, healthy and delicious "food program." It is admirable. He calls junk food "weapons of mass consumption." His advice on healthy eating and portion control hold merit.

By including four chapters' worth of cooking tips and recipes, Fenster gives readers something tangible, too.

He relies on natural spices to wake up the palate, incorporating garlic, ginger and thyme, for example, in a Caribbean-inspired broccoli and cauliflower dish simmered in coconut milk; cayenne and black pepper in pumpkin cornbread; and a lemon-curry hollandaise in a smoked salmon pizza.

For those willing to look past Fenster's verbosity and philosophizing, this book is full of tried and tested advice and delicious dishes.

(A version of this review appeared originally in Publishers Weekly.)