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.)

A is for apple pie

"A is for apple pie. The nursery rhyme lives with us from our earliest years and culinary memories. As does the scent of autumn apples steaming in a pie; pouring hot, silky, vanilla-flecked custard over thick gluey-appled pastry triangles; pushing a clot of thick yellow cream on to the sugared pastry top with your fingers; or dropping a cold scoop of the best homemade vanilla ice cream over the summit, the hot beating the cold into melting submission.

"Apple pie is the alpha and omega of pies - well, at least of sweet pies - and there are, I'm sure, as many versions as there are cooks, but that is the joy of it.

"From cheese crusts and spices to crumble tops and gooky molasses-sugared tops punctuated with scrunched walnuts; from the plainest pie to the traditional winter welter-weight warmer, apple hat; from rhubarb and apple to apple and quince, apple and raisin, blackberry and apple."

Tamasin Day-Lewis, in "Tarts with Tops On or How to Make the Perfect Pie"

Thai one on

Restaurant art

Hashing it out

We like corned beef hash as much as the next fellow. And we always like a good poached egg. These inevitably get us going.

Talking "Taco"

"Mexican food is at our state dinners, in elegant presentations. Mexican food is in our school cafeterias, packaged as chimichangas or in bags of Fritos, in convenience stores heating on rolling racks, waiting for the hands of hurried customers.

"Mexican food sponsors college bowl games such as the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl and buys naming rights for sporting venues such as the Taco Bell Arena at Boise State in Idaho. Mexican food commercials blanket television airwaves hawking salsa and hard-shelled taco packets and high-priced tequilas and imported beers promising a day at the beach.

"Mexican food fills our grocery aisles, feeds underclassmen, sits in our freezers and pantries, is the focus of festivals, becomes tween trends or front-page news - and if you don't know what I'm talking about, ask your kid about spaghetti tacos.

"That wonderful culinary metaphor the melting pot has absorbed Mexican in this country just like so many immigrant cuisines of the past - but in a demanding way, unique from other traditions that have penetrated the American palate.

"While there are more Chinese restaurants than Mexican in this country, Mexican food is the easier sell... While pizza is the best-selling and farthest-reaching item of Italian-American cuisine, its rise and that of pasta and subs is only relatively recent; the United States, on the other hand, has loved Mexican food for more than 125 years - bought it, sold it, made it, spread it, supplied it, cooked it, savored it, loved it."

Gustavo Arellano, in "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America"

Hunger

In his empathetic account "The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change," former Wall Street Journal reporter Roger Thurow ("Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty") focuses on a group of smallholder farmers in western Kenya, "a paradoxical region of breathtaking beauty and overwhelming misery."

Without modern equipment and valuable fertilizers, these farmers struggle to feed their families throughout the year and produce enough crops to make money to send their children to school. They believed "education was the surest route out of poverty."

They try hard to stretch their food supplies from one harvest to the next. The time in between - when prices soar with shortages "and parents scramble for whatever income they can find and scrounge whatever assets they can sell to afford daily nourishment" - is known as "wanjala," the hunger season.

In chronicling their plight, the author also discusses the efforts of the One Acre Fund, founded not long ago by Andrew Youn, a social entrepreneur with an MBA from Northwestern University. The organization works to provide farmers with "access to the seeds and soil nutrients and planting advice" that would normally be unavailable to them.

By documenting their collaboration, Thurow paints a sobering but ultimately hopeful picture of a continuing food crisis in Africa and some of the things people are doing to mitigate it.

(A version of this review appears in Publishers Weekly.)

Crumble, her sweet

"Five minutes later, a generous slice of rhubarb-apple crumble arrived, warmed in the small kitchen and served with a side of fresh cream, whipped staunchly into a thick, puffy cloud.

"I sat for a minute, contemplating the crumble's imperfect bumps and dull brown color. The pale pink and sometimes green slices of rhubarb poked out of the sides and lumps of rogue topping decorated my plate.

"Where the crumble had baked against the dish, a sticky crust of caramelized fruit juice and sugar had formed. It looked like a tarte that had done a somersault in its pastry box and arrived bruised and battered. There was nothing perfect about it.

"Except its bright flavors. Except its comforting warmth. Except that it was exactly what I wanted and needed. I savored each juicy-crunchy bite. It was wonderful."

Amy Thomas, describing dessert in "Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light (and Dark Chocolate)"

Fava bean Friday

The fava beans go from this

 to this

to this

in the span of a Friday afternoon. It is time well spent.

What the French do

Part cultural study, part memoir, part children's food guide, Karen Le Billon's "French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters" is a breezy, useful volume for hurried parents looking to keep their kids well-fed.
 
A mother of two young girls, Sophie and Claire, the author recalls the year her family moved from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Pléneuf Val-André, France, her husband Philippe's hometown on the Brittany coast.

She compares North American eating habits to which they had been accustomed (e.g. fast-food consumption, constant snacking) to French norms they needed to learn along the way.

"French parents gently compel their children to eat healthy food. They expect their kids to eat everything they are served, uncomplainingly. They ask them to spend long hours at the table (where they are expected to be extremely well behaved)..."

In due time, Le Billon (Eau Canada) drafts a set of rules for her daughters, strategies she believes readers can easily follow as well. Parents should "schedule meals and menus," for example. "Kids should eat what adults eat: no substitutes and no short-order cooking."

Her tone is straightforward, generous and gentle. That Le Billon concludes with a small collection of kid-friendly recipes - including a Five-Minute Fish en Papillote and Clafoutis (sweet cherry soufflé) - helps make this foodie manifesto all the more accessible.

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

Producers and purveyors

In an effort to highlight local producers and purveyors, Seattle resident Leora Y. Bloom talks to a cross-section of people in the eye-catching volume "Washington Food Artisans: Farm Stories and Chef Recipes."

Meet Stina Booth, for example, and her husband, John Richardson, who run Booth Canyon Orchard near Twisp. They "take turns driving their truck across the Cascades to bring their apples and pears to Seattle so that someone is always at home taking care of the trees." 

Or Pete Knutson of Loki Fish Co. in Seattle, who resembles "a Norwegian fisherman... movie-star handsome, aging with craggy wrinkles in all the right places." He is similarly attached to his trade - when he's not fishing, he's teaching at Seattle Central Community College. Knutson is "an activist in the fishing industry" as well.

The author also collects recipes ranging from spiced albacore tuna with stone fruit chutney to goat cheesecake with pears and honey. They will have denizens of the Northwest and beyond drooling - most ingredients can be sourced nationwide.

Clare Barboza's sumptuous landscape and food photos complement the narrative nicely. They give sight and sound to an admirable group of people committed to the health and well-being of their customers and their communities.

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

Without question

Because in life there should always be cake.

You and me

A visit to Umami Burger yields a port and stilton burger, topped with port-caramelized onions and blue cheese. It proves an excellent yield.