Grillin'

"One of the extraordinary things about grilling, it's a public event. It's a theatrical event. It's a social event. People do not gather around a stove to watch a pot of soup simmer, or an oven to watch a cake bake. But when you grill, instantly, you have a crowd."

Steve Raichlen, author of "The Barbecue! Bible," on NPR's "Morning Edition"

Cookie cake

Leave it to me to bypass meat and seafood recipes in Lourdes Castro's latest cookbook "Latin Grilling: Recipes to Share, From Patagonian Asado to Yucatecan Barbecue and More" and hone in on dessert. Or more specifically on alfajores.

"Found all over Argentina," she writes, "they are made up of dulce de leche sandwiched between two cakey brown sugar cookies. The sandwich is then either dipped in chocolate or coated in confectioners' sugar."

Castro streamlines the cookie effort with an Alfajor Gigante, a dulce de leche cookie cake. Hers is an interesting take.

Dulce de Leche Cookie Cake (Alfajor Gigante)
from Lourdes Castro's "Latin Grilling: Recipes to Share, From Patagonian Asado to Yucatecan Barbecue and More"

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups packed light brown sugar
3 eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup dulce de leche
confectioners' sugar, for dusting (about 1/4 cup)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. You will be using two oven racks, so make sure one is placed on the lower brackets and the other in the center.

Cut out parchment paper circles to fit in the bottoms of each of two 9-inch round cake pans. Butter the bottoms of both pans, top with the parchment rounds, and butter the tops of the parchment rounds. Set aside.

Using a handheld electric mixer or stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Add the eggs and vanilla and continue beating for another 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. If necessary, scrape the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula to fully incorporate the ingredients.

Place the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and stir with a fork to combine. Add about a quarter of the flour mixture to the butter-sugar-egg mixture, beating until fully incorporated. Continue adding the flour in batches until it's all mixed in. The batter will be slightly thick. Be careful not to overbeat the mixture as this will result in a tough cookie.

Pour half the batter into each cake pan. Using a rubber spatula, carefully spread the batter toward all sides of the pan, making sure that the thickness of the batter is level throughout. This is necessary to ensure even cooking. Bake for 20 minutes, or until an inserted skewer or toothpick comes out clean.

Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes in the pans. Run a thin knife blade around the perimeter of the cakes and invert them onto a work surface. Peel off the parchment paper.

Place the cakes side by side with the bottoms facing up. Spread the dulce de leche over the exposed surface of one of the cakes. Invert the plain cake over the one spread with dulce de leche so that the sides of the cakes with the parchment are the insides of the sandwich. Carefully move the cake onto a serving platter.

Dust a generous amount of confectioners' sugar over the top of the assembled cake. Makes 10 servings.

Dulce de Leche
from Lourdes Castro's "Latin Grilling: Recipes to Share, From Patagonian Asado to Yucatecan Barbecue and More"

It is not difficult to make your own dulce de leche; it just requires time and a little attention.

Place an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk at the bottom of a very large pot filled with water. The can should be completely submerged.

Bring the water to a boil, turn the heat down, and allow it to simmer uncovered for 2 1/2 hours. Make sure the can is always covered with water and add hot water to the pot as soon as you see the water level skimming the top of the can.

Keeping the can submerged in water ensures that the milk will cook and caramelize evenly. While there is no danger if the water level drops below the top of the can, the can may burst if the pan goes dry.

Once the milk has finished cooking, move the pot into the sink and run cold water into it to cool the can. Take the can out of the pot and let it cool at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Open the can only after it has cooled completely in order to keep the hot dulce de leche from bursting out.

Japan drinks

In "Drinking Japan: A Guide to Japan's Best Drinks and Drinking Establishments," Chris Bunting talks of sake and shochu, beverages long associated with Japan.

He also takes a substantial and welcomed look at the popularity of beer, whiskey and wine in modern Japanese culture. He provides context and suggestions on where to find the best and most of them, citing hours and atmosphere, for example, and offering directions to get there.

For what many might consider the dream assignment, Bunting "spent a wonderful year up and down the country meeting hundreds of brewers, distillers and bar owners..." He learned of technique and business philosophy. He tasted and took note of regional preferences.

"Today, if you look at a map of Japan's alcohol consumption, you will find the people of Kyushu (including Suye village) drink nearly twice as much shochu per person per year as the rest of Japan... The heartland of sake is the center and north of the main island... The same goes for other alcohols: Northerners like whiskey, Kyoto and Osaka are big on liqueurs, Yamanashi likes its wine. Two prefectures, Tokyo and Kokkaido, drink just about everything to excess..."

Bunting, a British journalist who has lived abroad for a while, celebrates ales and lagers in Japan as well. He sheds significant light on some of the smaller names going up against national brands such as Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory. He gives the country's growing craft beer industry its due, presenting insight and information useful to a variety of travelers, whatever their thirst.

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

"Man with a Pan"

"Other studies suggest that stress is countered by the smells of food cooking in a home, which are received by the brain's limbic system (the ancient part of our mind, which stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system); in other words, the smells of cooking relax us, put us at ease, though we are rarely conscious of it.

"Did you ever wonder why, at every party, the kitchen is the most crowded room? Why it's a pleasure to walk into a home when a roast is in the oven or a Bolognese is simmering on the stove? Bills are easier to pay when short ribs are braising. A working kitchen is a natural stress reducer."

Michael Ruhlman, in "How Many Parents Does It Take to Roast a Chicken?" from John Donohue's "Man with a Pan: Culinary Adventures of Fathers Who Cook for Their Families"

As is a bowl

"Cherries bring with them a certain frivolity, a carefree joy like hearing the far-off laughter of a child at play. Their appearance, in deepest summer, comes when life is often at its most untroubled. A bag of cherries is a bag of happiness."

Nigel Slater, in "Tender: Volume II, A Cook's Guide to the Fruit Garden"

Pie it is

And so pie it is.

Strawberries for cheap

I get a full flat of strawberries for cheap from the farmers' market, intending to share with people back at the house, relatives who had come to visit on a Sunday afternoon.

Since they leave unexpectedly before I return, however, I find myself with a whole lot of strawberries. Their loss is my gain. Just as well, I say, and dig into dessert books on the desk for inspiration.

From "The Grand Central Baking Book," for example, by Piper Davis and Ellen Jackson, I figure out how to devise a terrific filling for fresh strawberry pie.

From Jennie Schacht's "Farmers' Market Desserts," I am tempted to try a strawberries and cream cake roll.

And from "Rustic Fruit Desserts" by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson, I toy with the idea of a rhubarb cream cheese pie with fresh strawberries. The options, it seems, are endless.

Gloppy, soggy pie

Slate has a piece on pie. It is wicked, meant to turn readers off the sweet treat. But, of course, it has the opposite effect on some of us.

Among the highlights:

"Unlike the tart, which sits low and topless in a shallow pan with a svelte layer of topping, pie requires a hefty piece of bakeware with outward-sloping sides, practically dooming the pastry to collapse.

"And unlike a torte - a short and modest cake combining fruit and nuts in balanced proportions - most modern pies rely on giant reservoirs of loose filling or inches of piled custard and whipped cream.

"A slice of strawberry tart with coffee is the perfect overture to a postprandial drink, a late conversation, or a night of love. Eat an oozing slice of strawberry pie, and it's time to look for Tums and go to bed."

To hunt and gather

This I know for certain:

I will not forage. A walk in the woods for me is just that, a walk. I can not fish. I do not have the time or ability. I will not hunt either. I can not ever see myself picking up a gun and shooting something.

But I can appreciate Hank Shaw's efforts in doing so. And I can appreciate the meticulous way in which he writes about his favorite foods in "Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast."

On fruit, to wit:

"North America is home to so many native fruits that all but the most obsessive of foragers will never taste them all. There is the hackberry, the barberry, the mulberry, the mayapple and so many varieties of gooseberries and currants that even taxonomists have trouble keeping track of them all.

"There are, of course, wild strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries; these you know already. But they have friends, like the huckleberry, cloudberry, dewberry and thimbleberry.

"Crab apples are native, as are Juneberries and hawthorn. There is wild plum, goose plum, beach plum and Canada plum. There is a sweet cherry, sandcherry, chokecherry and chokeberry..."

The list is mind-boggling.

Shrimp on the brain

Edited by C.J. Jackson, director of the Billingsgate Seafood Training School at Billingsgate Market in East London, "Seafood: How to Buy, Prepare, and Cook the Best Sustainable Fish and Seafood from Around the World" is a comprehensive volume with more than 300 classic and contemporary recipes. It checks in at a remarkable 400 pages.

I find myself flipping past sections on tuna, trout and scallop, for example, but hone in immediately on shrimp. I have two-pound bags of shrimp in the freezer waiting to be cooked. I have shrimp on the brain. I begin to think of shrimp gumbo with okra and bell peppers, of pan-fried shrimp with olives and tomatoes, and of spicy shrimp with garlic. And I smile.

Shrimp Gumbo
from C.J. Jackson's "Seafood..."

6 Tbsp. butter
2 1/4 pounds raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined
4 Tbsp. crab meat
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
4 ounces okra, trimmed
1 large red bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 14-ounce cans tomatoes
4 1/4 cups shellfish stock
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs of thyme
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 Tbsp. file powder
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the shrimp in batches and stir-fry over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes or until cooked. Lift onto a plate to cool.

Add the crab and flour to the butter, cook over low heat for 3 to 4 minutes or until the flour is golden brown. Add the cayenne, onion and garlic, and cook for a further 3 minutes.

Stir in the okra and bell pepper. Pour over the tomatoes, stock, herbs and lemon zest. Bring to a boil and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes until thick.

Stir the shrimp into the gumbo to warm through, add file powder, and season to taste. Serve with rice and Tabasco sauce. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Pan-Fried Shrimp, Olives, and Tomatoes
from C.J. Jackson's "Seafood..."

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
12 large raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined, tail left intact
splash of dry sherry or dry white wine
6 tomatoes, skinned, seeded and chopped
large handful of mixed olives, pitted
salt
freshly ground black pepper
handful of basil and flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion, and saute for about 5 minutes until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for a few seconds, then add in the shrimp and cook over high heat, until they are just turning pink.

Add the sherry and continue cooking for 5 minutes, stirring, until the alcohol has evaporated. Add the tomatoes and olives and cook for a further couple of minutes, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes start to break down. Season well, and stir in the herbs. Serve immediately with fresh crusty bread. Makes 4 servings.

Spicy Shrimp with Garlic
from C.J. Jackson's "Seafood..."

4 Tbsp. olive oil
6 garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp. dry sherry
9 ounces raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add the garlic and red pepper flakes, and cook gently for 2 minutes.

Add the sherry and shrimp, increase the heat and stir for 5 minutes, or until the juices have reduced by half. Season and serve with crusty bread and a crisp salad. Makes 4 servings.

Cake and company

Because sometimes we just need a slice of cake. (And, apparently, onion rings.)

Meals on wheels

Heather Shouse does the legwork so we don't have to. In "Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels," the Chicago resident chases down a number of meals-on-wheels in cities across the United States.

She talks to the women and men behind Curry Up Now in the Bay Area, for example, and RoliRoti, whose chicken, potatoes and porchetta I have yet to taste. She tracks down Roy Choi in Southern California, whose "fleet of four Kogi trucks reportedly did $2 million in sales its first year on the streets."

She goes to Portland and Seattle, too, to New York and Philadelphia, New Orleans and Austin, and points in between, giving us plenty of food ideas to pursue the next time we find ourselves in those places. She makes us hungry.

Seeing green

I am a sucker for orzo. And cooked broccoli.

So I find myself drawn to Heidi Swanson's Orzo Salad, from her second cookbook "Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen."

The dish promises to be light, tasty and healthful. It will work itself easily into the rotation. These days I have been seeing green. Happily.

Orzo Salad
from Heidi Swanson's "Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen"

fine-grained sea salt
1 1/2 cups whole wheat orzo
5 cups raw broccoli cut into small florets and stems
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup creme fraiche
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 small ripe avocado, peeled, pitted and sliced

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Salt generously, add the orzo and cook according to the package instructions. Drain, rinse with cold water and drain well again.

In the meantime, cook the broccoli. Bring 3/4 cup water to a boil in a large pot. Add a big pinch of salt and stir in the broccoli. Cover and cook for 1 minute, just long enough to take off the raw edge. Quickly drain the broccoli in a strainer and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Drain well and set aside.

To make the pesto, combine 2 cups of the cooked broccoli, the garlic, most of the pine nuts, the Parmesan, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice in a food processor. Drizzle in the olive oil and creme fraiche and pulse until smooth.

Just before serving, toss the orzo and the remaining cooked broccoli florets with about two-thirds of the broccoli pesto and the lemon zest. Thin with a bit of warm water if you like, then taste and adjust if needed. You might want to add a bit more salt, or an added drizzle of lemon juice, or more pesto.

Gently fold in the avocado. Turn out into a bowl or onto a platter and top with the remaining pine nuts. Makes 6 servings.

Eating meat

"In central Texas, you don't hear a lot of people talking about the piquancy of a restaurant's sauce or the tastiness of its beans; discussions are what a scholar of the culture might call meat-driven."

Calvin Trillin, in "By Meat Alone" from "Trillin on Texas."

(A review appears in Publishers Weekly.)

Dumpling diplomacy

"'You're the new smoking police,' I tell Thorne when he sits back down. 'From now on you can give out citations.'

'What is a citation?' he asks, and takes a drink of Sprite.

'A ticket,' Tony says. 'You can write up smoking tickets and hand them out on the street to anyone you see smoking.'

Thorne laughs, and then the dumplings come and they're boiled, not steamed or fried, and a little doughy on the outside and delicious. We dip them in a small round dish of soy sauce and vinegar that sits on the table, and our little ship is righted again."

Susan Conley, in "The Foremost Good Fortune: A Memoir."

Lemon like sunshine

We are not into chocolates, hearts or chalky Valentines. But we do find ourselves craving lemon doughnuts. With or without coffee. We want sunshine when the weather has been gray, dull and overcast. We want daffodils when all we have seen in a while have been brown and bare and boring. We want bright light and sweetness. We want spring.

Golden opportunities

Lunar New Year celebrations boast deep-fried dumplings and steamed cupcakes, too. We can not resist either and get to enjoy both.

Still-life with oranges

We try our hands at artistic. We are impressed.

On the table

My mother cooks to mark the Lunar New Year, the start of the Year of the Rabbit. Time flies when we eat. Just yesterday it had been the Year of the Tiger.

Who knew?

NPR has an interesting piece on Lunar New Year's feasts in the Caribbean island of Trinidad.

"(In) Trinidad, Chinese food is staple fare," Ramin Ganeshram writes. "We eat fried rice once a week. Chow mein is as common as a casserole. Stir fries with calabaza pumpkin, taro root and hot pepper are everyday foods, and soy sauce is a regular ingredient in brown stewed meats."

We never suspected.