Autumn is the bite of the harvest apple.
—Christina Petrowsky
While grocery shopping one day, I found myself drawn to a large display of fruit. Someone had arranged piles of shiny red apples next to boxes of brown-flecked yellow ones, and placed bags of small green apples nearby. My mouth watered as I tried to decide which ones to buy. Then a sweet scent tickled my nose and a wave of memories transported me straight back to my mother's kitchen.
One of her specialties was apple cake. Her recipe involved a simple yellow batter and lots of fresh apples, and the cakes turned out so moist and tender that they didn't even need frosting. I loved digging into a hot, chunky slice of apple cake right out of the oven. But I had no idea how special one particular apple cake would be.
When my daughter was born, I suffered complications and had to spend nearly two weeks in the hospital. I was so ill that I lost my appetite and my strength. Fearing that I would become even weaker, the doctor asked my family to encourage me to eat.
The next day Mother came to visit. I could tell by the twinkle in her eyes that she was up to something. “I made you a surprise,” she said. Setting a package on my bedside table, she whisked off the wrappings with a flourish. There sat a beautifully browned apple cake.
Mother cut a slice of the still-warm cake and put it on a plate she'd brought from home. The scent that wafted up tempted me to try a few bites. The cake's moist goodness coaxed my poor appetite back to life.
And now, twenty-something years later, here I stood in the middle of a grocery store, catching a whiff of Mother's apple cake. How could that be?
I glanced around and spotted a row of freshly baked yellow cakes. The scents of apple and yellow cake had somehow combined. I bought a bag of apples and hurried home to see if I could find her recipe. Suddenly I craved the scent of fresh apple cake warming and enriching my own kitchen and bringing back a little bit of that home-baked comfort Mother had given me all those years ago.
—Anne Culbreath Watkins
Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.
—Jane Austen
This is a very simple apple dish that even kids can make—and everyone will enjoy.
4 large apples such as Northern Spy, Rome Beauty, or Wiresap
4 teaspoons butter
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup raisins
warm water
Preheat oven to 350° F. Remove the core from each apple using a corer and sprinkle the inside of the apple with a pat of butter and a big sprinkle of brown sugar. Set the apples in a greased baking tray. Fill the cavities with raisins. Pour a little warm water into the tray, just enough to cover the bottom. Bake for 30–45 minutes or until apples are cooked through. Occasionally baste the apples with the water in the tray. Serve warm. Serves 4.
I read a recipe the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and think, “Well, that's not going to happen.” The fluffy egg whites that I put on the lemon meringue pie shriveled and shrank. The angel food cake fell. I would not even contemplate making a soufflé. But I don't feel bad about myself. I've come to the conclusion that the majority of bakers can't cook, and most of the cooks can't bake. I consider myself a first-class cook. Unless I can taste something I can't tell the outcome, and baking just doesn't allow for that kind of experimentation.
Without exaggeration I believe that the chicken soup I make is the best in the world. I should know; I have been making and developing the chicken soup recipe for more than fifty years. When I was ten years old my mother put me in front of the sink, gave me a knife, a wooden board, and a chicken and taught me how to clean a chicken. She pointed out the gizzard, liver, and heart (which fascinated me). I remember cutting into the heart and seeing all its sections. (I probably should have become a surgeon.) After the proper cleaning she proceeded to teach me how to make chicken soup. I followed her recipe for many years until one day I tasted a soup made by a lady from Morocco. It was undeniably better than mine and I asked for the recipe. A few of the ingredients surprised me—a major ingredient was vinegar— but I tried it anyway.
Almost everyone knows about the miraculous and medicinal properties of chicken soup. It has been proved that something in the chemistry of chicken soup can heal. I believe it is true, but I also think that the magic of the vegetables that are added to the broth is equally healing. So, chicken soup for the soul is good advice. Try mine; you'll like it.
—Carol Greenberg
But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt…. We dispatched it with great expedition.
—Herman Melville, Moby Dick
4 quarts water
1 2–3 pound cut-up chicken
3 large carrots, peeled
3 stalks celery
1 large onion, peeled
2 parsnips, peeled
4 or 5 sprigs dill
4 or 5 sprigs cilantro
1 bay leaf
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon cumin
2 teaspoons sugar
salt and white pepper to taste
Fill a large pot with 4 quarts of water. Place the chicken into the water and add vegetables. When the soup comes to a boil, add remaining ingredients. Lower heat to low and cover the pot. Cook for 1 hour. Remove cover and cook for 30 minutes. Taste! You might want to add more vinegar, sugar, salt, or pepper. When cool, strain the soup for a clear liquid and return chicken and broth to pot. Serves 8.
When meat is on the menu, I always invite my best friend to help with the dish. That would be Ima.
Ima was my grandmother, my mother's mother. She was born in 1906, the year of the great California earthquake. Ima was an artist in the kitchen. This was a time when the most satisfying part of the day was spent in the kitchen fixing the family meal, not time spent in front of a computer trying to fix the family budget. “Stretching the dollar” was a normal practice for most households back then. She could turn a $2 market bill into a wonderful tasting and filling meal for everyone at the table. Her best recipe, and everyone's favorite, was her pot roast.
Her essential piece of equipment, for pot roast and most everything else, was a large cast-iron skillet with lid. Empty, it must weigh in at over a ton. Now that my grandmother has passed and the skillet became much too heavy for my mother to lift, it belongs to me. Next to me, it's the heaviest thing in the kitchen that gets heated up. I can't prepare a meal using it without thinking of her, often wondering how that small, fragile lady managed such a beast by herself. It has become well seasoned over the decades by a medley of fine meats and veggies. It's only used for low-heat, slow-cooked food, where each of the ingredients needs time to blend with and complement the different flavors. It's my friend and secret kitchen weapon. And yes, it has a name—Ima.
—Bob Griffith
Happy and successful cooking doesn't rely only on know-how; it comes from the heart, makes great demands on the palate and needs enthusiasm and a deep love of food to bring it to life.
—Georges Blanc
3 pounds beef chuck roast
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 medium onion, chopped
½ cup chopped carrots
¼ cup chopped celery
1 clove garlic, minced
5 small, whole potatoes
½ cup dry red wine or water
In a cast-iron skillet, heat the oil and brown the roast on all sides. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add the vegetables, except potatoes. Fill the empty spaces around the roast with the potatoes. Pour in the wine or water. Cover and cook on low heat for 5–6 hours. Add more water as needed. Serves 6.
This vegetable side dish adds elegance to a dinner party.
4 large fresh carrots
4 green onions
Cut carrots into matchstick-like strips. Drop into boiling water for 1 minute. Remove with a slotted spoon; drain on paper towels. Divide into individual servings. Cut the green onions into long strips and soften in boiling water for about 15 minutes. Wrap a green onion strip around each bunch of carrots and tie gently in a knot. Serves 4.
I'm not going to obsess about this, lose sleep, or get upset, but there are many things I waste time doing that I can't do anything about.
Take an average day. I open the refrigerator and stand in front of it making decisions for a minute or two, dozens of times a day. I do this at least once for each meal and perhaps two or three times between each meal. I stopped sleeping regularly the day my first child was born, so add once or twice a night to that. A minute or two here and there over the period of a day adds up.
Just for argument's sake, let's say I waste thirty minutes a day looking in the refrigerator, a low estimate. Over a year, that's 10,950 minutes of looking in the refrigerator. Take it a little further, say, for instance, the fifteen years since I gave birth to my first child. That's 164,250 minutes. Which is about 2,700 hours. Which is about 114 days.
One hundred fourteen days of looking into a refrigerator in fifteen years. And this doesn't include major holidays or birthday parties or putting away groceries from the supermarket. This doesn't include, “Mom, can you pour me a glass of milk?” or “Mom, I need soda for everyone on the block.” This doesn't include entertaining. And nowhere in here is included time to actually clean the refrigerator and get rid of those things that are growing arms and legs.
And this is just the refrigerator that is in the kitchen. We also have a deep freeze in the garage where we keep things that don't fit in the kitchen freezer. We wouldn't want to run out of food! The market is atleast ten blocks from here!
During the 1960s, the days when very few people worked on Sundays and dads were home a lot more, at least in my neighborhood, we lived in garden apartments. The snow started falling and a blizzard was predicted. My dad and the other dads in our apartment complex borrowed our Flexible Flyer sleds and headed off on foot to brave the storm and go to the only market open in town. This was a little family-run store that normally wasn't open on Sundays, but they were opening so the neighbors could stock up on essentials for the big storm. I remember my dad coming home with two dozen cans of Campbell's Tomato Soup, Oysterettes, hot cocoa, marshmallows, and tons of cookies. His family might freeze to death, but we would die smiling!
Today, if people had to stock up with emergency provisions, they could simply come to my house and go through my freezer. We could feed a family of forty for a month and still have leftovers.
Anyway, thinking about the 114 wasted days of looking in the refrigerator is enough to make even the most stable person slightly depressed, but that's not me. I like to take things to extremes.
So using the same fifteen years as a guideline, I start adding into it other food-related things I do that waste my time. I think about all the bottles of formula and milk I lovingly warmed for my babies in the middle of the night that they gave back to me in the form of curdled lumps on cloth diapers draped over my shoulder while I carefully burped them.
I think of the preparation time for meals, eaten or uneaten. Meals where I'm used to hearing, “What's this?” and “Why couldn't you just make regular chicken?” and “Why didn't you just buy the frozen stuff?”
I add to it time for boiling water, preheating ovens, and waiting for things to rise or cool or set. I think of all the coupons I cut that I never use because I forget them. I think of the food lists that I prepare and leave on the counter instead.
I think of apples I've peeled, crusts I've cut off, and lunches I've prepared that were thrown away in the cafeteria trash pails instead of being eaten. I think of the cookies I've made from scratch instead of simply cutting them and placing them on a tray.
I think of how much time it takes to peel potatoes and how fresh potatoes are so much healthier for growing children than boxed or package or frozen potatoes.
I think of all the time I've spent watching the galloping gourmet, the French chef, those two fat ladies, and Emeril Lagasse.
I think of all the commercials for food I've watched and how many versions of soda commercials I've memorized.
I think of the inside of my oven and how long it might take to clean it.
Then I think of the American Red Cross. I think of the giant scam they played on my generation, telling us to wait a half-hour after eating before we went back in the pool because we might get a cramp and drown. And I think about the thing I heard on TV last month that said none of this was true. Thirty minutes times how many lunches? Wasted? I could have been swimming! I could have been skinny! I could have been in the Olympics.
I think of how long the turkey has to sit in the fridge to defrost and how long it takes to prepare it and all the goodies that go along with it on Thanksgiving. I think about last Thanksgiving when everyone inhaled the meal so they could leave the table and go back to more important things. Like football. Like Nintendo. Like talking on the phone with this week's girlfriend.
And then reality hits, as it always does.
I realize there was no way I can figure out how much time I've wasted on food-related activities. It is just a lot of time. And I am wasting even more time just thinking about it.
And it occurs to me that nowhere in this have I even considered the time it takes to actually eat!
And nowhere in this have I even considered how much time it takes to clean up after eating!
And I think in this time I have been wasting, I could have been exercising or I could have gone for a walk or I could have started the Great American Novel of the Next Millennium.
But, no! I go back to the refrigerator to look in it to see if there is anything good to eat.
—Felice Prager
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
—Lisa Grossman
When you've been standing on your feet in the kitchen for too long, try this restorative.
2 cups water
non-aluminum saucepan
2 ounces dried peppermint leaves
4 ounces juniper berries
12 drops sandalwood essential oil
3 drops peppermint essential oil
cheesecloth
storage bottles with lids
Put the water into the pan and add the juniper berries and peppermint. On medium-low heat, bring just to the boiling point. Remove from heat. Cover and allow to come to room temperature. Stir in the essential oils. Strain through cheesecloth into the storage jars. Seal. To use, add ¼ cup to a pan of warm water large enough to soak feet. Stir and enjoy.
My daughter is from China, and one of our kitchen delights is helping her learn about her native country's rituals and festivals, which means cooking different culinary delicacies. Fall brings the Autumn Moon festival, dedicated to the Moon Goddess Heng-ugo. This is one of China's three major festivals in which families feast and then walk under the full moon holding lanterns to honor the Lady in the Moon. It is traditional to eat moon cakes on this day, and I was determined to make them with my daughter. After looking up recipes on the Internet and discovering how complicated they are to make, I settled on a simpler, less traditional method. They were a hit with both of us.
—M. J. Ryan
¾ cup sugar
½ cup butter
1 ounce lowfat milk
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon almond extract
2 cups flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
Preheat oven to 350° F. Cream sugar and butter. Alternate adding liquids and flour and baking powder, beating well after each addition. Flour a rolling pin and board. Roll dough out to 
-inch thickness. Cut with glass or round cookie cutter. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes 8 round cookies.
My first memories are all of food. I remember plucking chicken feathers with my mother, grandmother, and aunt, the smell of fresh flat bread. My mother was born in India of Jewish Middle Eastern parents. My family mixed many of the tastes of those lands and cultures into their cooking. There were flat breads like pita from the Middle East mixed with curries from India. Whatever country we passed through we added another dish, including matzo ball soup for European Jews and Chinese stir-fries for the west coast influence of Vancouver, Canada.
But nothing is like the smell of curry. Both my grandmother and mother made their own curries, which permeated the entire house. I would stand and breathe it all in; the aroma took me to open markets, belly dancers, temples, and palaces. I would watch my mother peel garlic bulbs and add cumin, coriander, and pepper. A few times I tried to ask her what her recipe was, if she could say how many garlic bulbs or measure the cumin, but she shook her head. No one in our family did that—measure anything. Every time my mother made dahl—a lentil curry—or her tomato chicken soup, it tasted just a bit different because she didn't measure.
Mother never learned Hindi or much Arabic from Grandmother, and unlike her mother, never appreciated the music of either India or Iraq. She went to English schools and learned everything English. The food and listening to her and my aunts and uncles talking about India in our kitchens is all I have of that faraway place.
—Devorah Stone
Homemade cookies are favorites around our house, and when our daughter Laura still lived at home, she sometimes surprised us with an unexpected batch. So one day, returning from an afternoon of running errands, my husband, Allen, and I were delighted when the inviting scents of something baking greeted us at the front door.
I stepped into the kitchen to see Laura hovering beside the stove. “Something smells good,” I said. “What are you making?”
“Cookies!” she replied with a huge grin.
“Yummy.” I put my things away and turned back to her. “What kind?”
“Peanut butter,” she said proudly. We all loved fresh-baked peanut butter cookies, especially when they were warm from the oven. “They're almost ready,” she added. Allen joined us and waited expectantly, plate in hand, while the cookies finished baking.
A few minutes later, Laura announced, “Time!” She grabbed a couple of pot holders and opened the oven door. A cloud of spicy scents wafted out. Then she gasped, “What in the world?”
She set the cookie sheet on a pad on the countertop and we all stared in amazement at the puffy, lightly browned things dotting the pan. They didn't look like cookies at all. They looked just like biscuits!
“Oh, no!” she cried. “What happened to them?”
I burst out laughing but managed to ask, “Did you do anything different?”
“No! I made them by the same recipe I always use.” Dismayed, Laura frowned at the big, puffed-up pastries.
“Well, let's see how they taste,” I suggested. Cautiously, we each sampled a cookie. They had a pleasant, peanut-y flavor that was only slightly off balance. Laura and I liked them just fine, especially when we added glasses of ice cold milk. By night, most of the biscuit cookies had disappeared.
Now years later, Laura has a family of her own, and I wonder if I should mention those long-ago peanut butter biscuit cookies. Maybe she'll want to bake them for her brood. I bet my grandchildren will love hearing the story and then devouring a plate of their mom's special biscuit cookies!
—Anne Culbreath Watkins
A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
—Anonymous
I am still convinced that a good, simple, homemade cookie is preferable to all the store-bought cookies one can find.
—James Beard
Here are two classic cookie recipes sure to please cookie lovers in your household.
2 tablespoons flour
pinch salt
1
cups shredded coconut
2 egg whites
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 325° F and lightly grease a cookie sheet. Mix sugar, flour, salt, and coconut in a large bowl. Stir in egg whites and vanilla extract. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake for 20–25 minutes, until cookies turn golden brown. Remove from pan immediately and cool completely. Makes about 1½ dozen.
¾ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup finely cut pitted dates
cup finely candied cherries plus about a dozen extra cut into quarters
1 cups crushed corn flakes
Preheat oven to 375° F and grease a cookie sheet. In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and mix well. Mix in milk and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder, and salt, and beat well. Stir in fruit. Shape dough into balls, about 1 inch across. Roll in corn flakes. Place about 2 inches apart on greased cookie sheet and put cherry quarter on top of each cookie. Bake 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove immediately from pan. Cool on wire racks. Makes about 5 dozen.
Every few months, Alf and I invite a few coworkers over for a do-it-yourself dinner, usually tacos. We find the self-assembly concept helps break the ice and keeps us busy while our stomachs are growling for some eats. Though our offerings are simple fare, our kitchen counters are known to be clean, most of our plates aren't chipped, and portions are always generous. Best of all, nobody ever complains.
The table is bedecked with a colorful variety of plastic bowls containing shredded lettuce, slices of tomatoes, diced onions, cubed cheese, and our special hot sauce. The largest bowl contains the steamy meat mixture. All this is spooned by diners into dozens of warmed taco shells. The food's salty and spicy, and so's the conversation. Vegetarians can simply omit the meat, so everyone can be satisfied with our menu.
Taco nights are the perfect occasion to experiment with cheap wines. Everybody brings whatever is on sale at their local supermarket, so we never have duplicates. Red, white, we have it all. No matter what's on the label, there is something for every palate. Responsibility dictates that we also offer juice, iced tea, water, and cola. Nobody ever complains.
Appetizers? To begin the festivities, we set out a few bowls of popcorn or pretzels just before our guests are due to arrive.
It's our belief that you shouldn't feed your face if you don't feed your brain. Therefore, we suggest a topic to our guests to stimulate conversation around the table. Past topics have included dental nightmares, our town's expensive garbage dump, and any friends who aren't present that night.
After the eats, you gotta have the treats. Dessert used to present a major dilemma for us. Oh, what to serve? A frozen cherry pie, butterscotch pudding perhaps? Not only was there the problem of preparation but also the hassle of needing more clean (not to mention unchipped) dishes.
It took us awhile, but we finally hit upon a surefire winner dessert for our taco nights. We break open several cartons of icecream, and every guest can select his or her favorite for a cone. It's clear why nobody ever complains!
—Roberta Beach Jacobson
The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Attractively folded napkins add a nice touch to a dinner party. Here are two easy ones.
All that is said in the kitchen should not be heard in the parlor.
—Scottish proverb
Whenever I get a whiff of cabbage cooking, I have a childhood vision of my mother happily committing kitchen mayhem. Knife flashing, she's flaying cabbages from my father's garden into a thousand crisp slivers soon to be scourged with pickling salt on their way to becoming sauerkraut.
On canning day, a shivering kettle packed with Mason jars sings a nervous jingle under its steamy breath. Yanking a jar out of the bath with a pair of tongs, she bangs it down on the cutting board, scoops up some of the fermenting cabbage, and dumps it into the jar. While she pounds it violently down with some kind of wooden club, an implement that I don't recall ever seeing at any other time, my fingers pinch my nose in the universal Cabbage Anthem: “P-U!”
Since Greek and Roman times, garlic has been called “the stinking rose,” and nobody seems to know why. Oh, the adjective is clear enough, it's that “rose” part that puzzles people. While both the whole head and the single clove bear some resemblance to a rosebud, garlic can't compete with cabbage when it comes to being both odiferous and roseate.
Anthropomorphic though the cabbage head may be in size and weight, cosmic engineering spared it both a nose and a brain so that, unlike us, it never has any worrisome scents of itself. With its head tenderly cupped in a bonnet of demure outer leaves curling like the creamy petals of an opening rosebud, the freshly severed cabbage already emits the rank perfume of passed gas, albeit faintly. Drop it in boiling water and the cabbage becomes as potent as an enraged skunk in mating season. Yet, I love it as I would the most fragrant rose.
Why do I love it? Let me count the ways. I can boil it, stuff it, bake it, sauté it, or eat it raw. It's almost calorie-free and yet loaded with vitamins and minerals. It's cheap, ubiquitous, and a four-season, fair- and foul-weather friend. By any other name, the cabbage would still be sweet.
—Nan B. Clark
Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
—Ambrose Bierce
“Cream cheese and green olive sandwiches on pumper-nickel bread.”
“Ecstasy is a glass of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth.”—Alexander Pushkin
“Iceberg lettuce with Wishbone Italian dressing: the height of gauche for the foodie crowd I run with.”
“Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce stirred until it becomes soup.”
“Wish I had time for just one more bowl of chili.”—Kit Carson's last words
Cocktail weenies: “Straight out of the jar—I don't even want to know what's in 'em.”
Sardines: “My wife won't come near me after I've devoured a whole tin in one sitting.”
Spam: “I love it broiled, served on white bread with lots of mustard.”
Almost every person has something secret he likes to eat.
—M. F. K. Fisher
Bless her heart, my mom really tried to teach me the domestic necessities of life. After all, she was an interior designer in college. She must be so ashamed. I can't even sew the simplest thing—all hail the Buttoneer!
And as hard as she tried to teach me to cook, just last night I goofed again in the kitchen. My darling hubby, Carey (who usually makes meals for us), had gone to the stor e for a couple of items. When he came back in and looked at the stove, he sighed. “Sweetheart,” he said—with just a tinge of frustration—“you're supposed to brown the meat and then put the taco seasoning and water on it.” Oops!
Other goofs I've made in the culinary department are legendary. Don't even think of asking my brother about the oatmeal bricks—ahem, cookies—I made when we were teenagers. (I thought it said 3 cups of flour instead of 1—honest mistake!) And then there was “Quichegate,” when I embarrassed my spouse at a party we threw for fellow youth workers. After we cooked the quiche, Carey discovered that I had poured the liquid egg and cheese mixture over the ready-made crust (so shoot me, I take shortcuts) without taking the crust's liner off first.
But Mom, if you're reading this, all is not lost. I learned so much from you. Really! You never worked outside the home, but you always worked at making the inside of our home, particularly the kitchen, an oasis.
Oh, and thanks for praying for a husband for me—who can cook!
—Dena Dyer
When baking, follow directions. When cooking, go by your own taste.
—Laiko Bahrs
Fall means Halloween, and you can easily bring the spirit into your kitchen.
In our opinion food should be sniffed lustily at table, both as a matter of precaution and as a matter of enjoyment, the sniffing of it to be regarded in the same light as the tasting of it.
—E. B. White
I don't like to say that my kitchen is a religious place, but I would say that if I were a voodoo priestess, I would conduct my rituals there.
—Pearl Bailey
Here's a substantial dinner that will make the house smell fabulous!
8 cups water
1 3-pound broiler-fryer chicken
2 large carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
¾ teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 10-ounce package frozen peas, thawed
Bring water, chicken, carrots, celery, pepper, poultry seasoning, and ½ teaspoon of the salt to boil in large saucepan. Simmer, covered, 1 hour. Remove chicken from broth, reserving liquid. Allow chicken to cool until it can be handled. Remove chicken from bones. Discard bones and skin; chop chicken and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and remaining salt. Add ¼ cup reserved broth to flour; stir until soft dough forms, adding additional broth, if necessary. Knead dough gently on lightly floured surface until smooth. Roll out to ¼-inch thickness and cut into 1 × 3-inch strips.
Bring remaining liquid to boil in large saucepot. Add dumplings; simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes. Add chopped chicken and peas and simmer until heated through. Makes 6 servings.
Some of the best memories I have from my childhood are of the times when my father baked homemade bread. I remember watching him knead the dough with his strong hands and hoping he would make some of it into cinnamon rolls. My brothers, sisters, and I would wait with eager anticipation while the bread baked in the oven, its enticing aroma permeating the entire house.
After I married, I wanted to share the pleasure of homemade bread with my own family. So I invited my father into my kitchen, and with his help, I baked my first two loaves of bread—potato bread. It was easier than I thought, and the loaves, though imperfect, were fragrant and delicious. After that, I began making bread regularly, and now my family enjoys eating the bread as much as I enjoy making it. There is something very satisfying about seeing my family enjoy bread that I made myself, even when one of two loaves is gone before it has completely cooled off.
What is it about fresh bread that is so appealing to the senses? People are drawn to a warm, golden loaf as bees to nectar. Round, golden goodness, sliced and served with soft butter, rapidly vanishes from the Thanksgiving table. Sticky cinnamon rolls, piping hot from the oven, disappear faster than a bowl of salty-sweet kettle corn.
I bake my bread the old-fashioned way—blending the dough with a wooden spoon and kneading it with my bare hands. People sometimes ask me, “Isn't that a lot of work?” And sometimes it seems that way. It is easier to pull a store-bought package off the shelf. And yet, aren't the greatest pleasures the ones you worked hard to achieve? The fruits of my labors are themselves a gr eat reward. But there's more to it that that. I love to see the eager expressions on my children's faces when I place the dough into the oven to bake. And then, to see their smiling faces and hear them say, “Mom, you make the best rolls.” Well, that makes it more than worth it.
And maybe someday, one of my children will come up to me and say, “Mom, will you teach me how to make bread?”
—Rebecca J. Gomez
Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.
—James Beard
This old-fashioned bread requires no yeast and therefore no time for rising.
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1½ teaspoons salt
1 cup cornmeal
2 cups buttermilk
¾ cup molasses
1 8-cup tin can
Sift all-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Stir in cornmeal and whole wheat flour. Add milk and stir well, then add molasses. Grease 8-cup tin can and fill it with the mixture. Cover with aluminum foil. Place can in kettle with cover. Add 3 inches of water, cover, and bring to boil. Steam 2½–3 hours, adding water to keep level up. When cooked, remove from steamer and let stand 10 minutes before uncovering and removing from can. Makes 1 loaf.
If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.
—ROBERT BROWNING
Bread is the warmest, kindest of all words. Write it always with a capital letter, like your own name.
—FROM A CAFÉ SIGN
I am going to learn to make bread tomorrow. So you may imagine me with my sleeves rolled up, mixing flour, milk, salt, etc., with a deal of grace. I advise you if you don't know how to make the staff of life to learn with dispatch.
—EMILY DICKINSON
Of all smells, bread; of all tastes, salt.
—GEORGE HERBERT
The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight.
—M. F.K. FISHER
Without bread all is misery.
—WILLIAM COBBETT
[Breadbaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world's sweetest smells…. There is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel. That will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.
—M. F.K. FISHER
Bread deals with living things, with giving life, with growth, with the seed, the grain that nurtures. It's not coincidence that we say bread is the staff of life.
—LIONEL POILNE
Bread is like dresses, hats and shoes—in other words, essential!
—EMILY POST
All sorrows are less with bread.
—CERVANTES
And the best bread was of my mother's own making—the best in all the land.
—HENRY JAMES
You can never own too many wooden spoons. That's my philosophy anyway. Some people keep bulky scrapbooks of their travels. I stop in kitchen stores, hardware stores, department stores, and gift shops to buy wooden spoons. A glance at the pitcher on my counter holding the spoons is the same as looking at a map hung on the wall with pins in it—it's a chronicle of my travels.
Someone once told me that, in medieval days, the wooden spoon was willed to a descendant or friend. It held value in the society. I can see why.
I prefer the older spoons, or the ones I buy in Scotland. The new spoons that I find in chain stores in the states are too short, too flat, and too square. The old spoons have long, lean lines, and oval bowls. They fit into the nooks and crannies of cookware. They are the wands of my kitchen magic.
My favorite wooden spoon is one of my mother's. I believe she bought it in Woolworth's or whatever dime store was nearby in the early 1960s, before I was born. That spoon plays a part in all of my earliest memories. The handle is a deep, dark brown now, a well-seasoned color. It smells clean, yet still woody enough to remind you it was once part of a live tree. The bowl itself is almost black.
I call it “the pudding spoon” because I remember that we always used it to cook pudding. Since chocolate was the pudding of choice in the house, is it any wonder that the spoon took on the deep color? On a cold, dreary day, my mother would say, “Let's make chocolate pudding,” and off to the kitchen we'd go. She'd let me stir it, and I learned to read the feeling and the texture of the wood moving through milk and chocolate so it wouldn't stick and burn to the bottom.
My mother never considered herself a good cook. Her mother had run a tearoom, and her grandmother did all the cooking and baking in the hotel she and her husband ran in the 1920s and '30s. People came from miles around to eat Bertha's cakes and baked goods for the traditional four o'clock coffee and cake. My mother never felt she was in their league.
But my mother's food was wonderful. It was simple, tasty, and filling. It was made with love. And even though the pudding began as a mix, it was still comfort food.
I still call it “the pudding spoon.” And I still use it to make pudding out of the box.
—Christiane Van de Velde
In the childhood memories of every good cook, there's a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot and a mom.
—Barbara Costikyan
Now you never need to rummage through drawers to find a utensil.
tin coffee can
wrapping paper with design of your choosing
clear glue
clear polyurethane varnish
paintbrush
Clean and dry the can thoroughly. Measure the height and circumference of the can, and cut out two pieces of wrapping paper slightly larger than these measurements, one for the inside of the can and one for the outside. Spread glue on the piece for the inside. Insert this piece inside the can carefully and press it against the walls. Make cuts in the paper at the top of the can so that the paper can be glued down to the outside of the can.
Glue the second piece of paper to the outside of the can, making sure the excess is at the bottom this time. Cut the projecting paper so it can be glued to the underside. Let dry. Apply two coats of clear polyurethane varnish, and let dry thoroughly before using.
I'm sure most of my bonding with the women in my life took place in a kitchen. Even as a young child, I was always welcome to join my mother, grandmother, aunts, and older cousins for a cup of tea and some good ol' fashioned female bonding. Of course, in my younger years I would sip hot chocolate in the place of tea, but I still felt like one of the girls!
Mostly, these kitchen get-togethers would take place during the holidays when the men were in the living room looking over pictures of a recent hunting trip or playing cards. When it came time to cook the feast, my grandmother was usually the “head chef” in preparing the large meals needed to feed so many people. She would assign everyone to specific duties, and I was never left out. I always had the best job of everyone: assistant to the head chef! I learned a lot from my grandmother. Things like how important it is to keep a clean kitchen because you never know when unexpected company could drop by, and most important, how to cook and bake. I've taken these things with me to my own kitchen.
Although I am a long way from home these days and my grandmother has since passed on, I have my own female-bonding parties in my own kitchen with my girlfriends. The ritual hasn't changed much. Lots of tea, cooking, and storytelling. Of course the men still stick together in the living room, most likely wondering what we girls are always giggling about. Sometimes, late in the evening, these get-togethers morph into a good ol' fashioned East Coast Kitchen Party!
—Andrea MacEachern
Here's a great vegetarian dish for a crowd.
9 dried lasagna noodles, uncooked
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup dry white wine or water
1 9-ounce package frozen artichoke hearts, thawed and chopped
½ teaspoon dried basil, crushed
salt and pepper to taste
1 15-ounce container lowfat ricotta cheese
¾ cup finely shredded Asiago cheese
1½ cups shredded mozzarella
Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions. Drain, place in a bowl of cold water, and set aside. Place flour in a small bowl and stir in milk until lumps are gone.
Heat olive oil over medium heat in a small frying pan. Add onion and garlic and sauté until wilted. Add wine or water and cook 1 minute. Add milk mixture and cook until thickened. Add artichoke hearts, basil, salt, and pepper; take off heat.
Preheat oven to 375° F. Mix the cheeses together and set aside. In a lightly greased 9 × 17-inch baking dish, lay down three noodles. Dot half the artichoke mixture on top of the noodles. Sprinkle half of the mozzarella-Asiago mixture over. Repeat. Top with the remaining three noodles and sauce. Cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and cook 20 minutes more or until bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes. Serves 8.
For the past thirty years, since I was a little girl, my family's main gathering has been Thanksgiving. From the far-flung corners of the country and, sometimes, the world, everyone gathers around the Thanksgiving table. Often, there are as many as sixty of us.
Since none of us live in mansions, the VFW hall is rented in our small New England town. The enormous kitchen allows us to chat as we prepare the meal. Smells of roast turkey, mashed potatoes dripping with butter, small green peas, well-seasoned stuffing, and pumpkin pie waft through the room, urging us to eat. The cooking is split up among the families, and everyone tosses in a few dollars toward the hall rental fee.
In the early years, the women would set up, we'd all sit around the massive trestle tables and eat, and the women would do the dishes while the men plugged in the television to watch football. By the time I was in high school, immersed in the teachings of Gloria Steinem and Simone de Beauvoir, I decided that wouldn't do. I unplugged the television and marched the men into the kitchen to wash dishes in the enormous metal sinks. Now, doing the dishes and putting them away has become one of the beloved rituals of the day for both men and women, who delight in the mountains of soap suds and the stacks of clean, crisp linen dish towels.
Over the years, several boxes of decorations accumulated, soothing tensions. It's difficult to remain angry at someone across the table when you have a small table and chairs populated by grinning Pilgrims and Indians in between you. Realistic? Of course not. Helpful? Definitely.
The most important box was one that appeared at one of the first Thanksgivings. There were family tensions leading into the holiday that year. I can't remember what they were, but at the time, it was High Drama. So someone—we never found out who—placed a large cardboard box just inside the front door. The box was marked “Egos.” As each member walked into the hall, the Ego was left at the door. Then you could hang up your coat, take off your boots, and start participating. There was some nervous laughter at first, but as the day progressed, everyone relaxed.
The tables were set up, the food completed and placed out on the buffet. The youngest member who could speak said grace. We ate and talked, and, most important, laughed. During these meals, we laugh and laugh and laugh until we ache.
As people departed, they retrieved their egos (they must have—we were left with an empty box), but the entire atmosphere was mellow. Perhaps some of the arguments started up again. Perhaps some were dropped. But, since that year, every Thanksgiving holiday has been a day of truce. It's been a day to put aside your disagreements and partake in the joy of family. It's become a day to give thanks for the myriad blessings in our lives as we cook together in the kitchen.
—Christiane Van de Velde
Hospitality is not my gift. I'm nervous when friends come to dinner. Is the house clean enough? Did I get the dirty laundry in the washer? Will the food taste good?
One Thanksgiving I thought I had it made when we won a complete turkey dinner with all the trimmings. “What are we going to do with a whole turkey dinner? There are only two of us,” my husband had asked. In the spirit of the holidays, I said, “Invite some friends?” It would be easy—no cooking. On Thanksgiving morning we set the table with our new china and headed to the grocery store to pick up our dinner. At the deli counter, I gave my name to a hair-netted lady with bags under her eyes. The chill of the large cardboard box she boosted over the glass display case numbed my fingers. I mumbled a thank you and scurried to the parking lot.
“Glenn, it's cold!” I exclaimed, yanking open the car door.
“What?”
I pushed the containers around. “It's cold. Everything. It's all refrigerated.” I hopped in the car. “We'd better get home and start warming it up. Our company will be here in an hour!”
In emergency mode, we raced up the apartment stairs, lugging the box. Glenn called our friends and told them to come an hour later.
“Three-twenty-five for four hours,” I read from the label on our fully cooked turkey. Glenn spun the dial on the oven. “Four-fifty for an hour should do it.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, it's cooked. We're just warming it up.”
“Won't it burn?”
“We'll keep an eye on it.”
I pulled out baking dishes to warm sweet potatoes, corn, gravy, green beans, dressing, and a cookie sheet for rolls. During the next hour we frantically scooped food from plastic containers to baking dishes and transferred them in and out of the oven and our miniature microwave.
Our guests were amused by the situation, and everyone eventually got fed. A good time was had by all. After the last person had left, I wedged the last container in the refrigerator while Glenn washed the plates. We'd managed to use every bowl, pan, and serving dish we owned.
Glenn folded the dishtowel, then we dropped onto the couch. “Well,” he said, “it wasn't a total disaster. Everything tasted good.”
I leaned back on a throw pillow and said, “But I think it was more work than if we'd cooked everything ourselves.”
We still laugh about that day.
—Sara Rosett
If there is food in the house, a guest is no worry.
—Pashto proverb
Something as simple as mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving should be easy, right? But I've had them watery, lumpy, pasty, cold. Here are some tricks for making sure you get great mashers.
A good meal soothes the soul as it regenerates the body. From the abundance of it flows a benign benevolence.
—Frederick W. Hackwood
It occurred to me while shopping for last year's Thanksgiving dinner that it's the food that makes a holiday special. Holidays in my family have come to mean a repetition of recipes that were a hit at some holiday meal or another.
My eighteen-year-old grandson would not consider it Thanksgiving without the awful Ham Rollups I've been making for him since he was three. They consist of sliced ham luncheon meat, cream cheese, and dill pickles. My youngest grandchild insists on an appetizer of chicken wings, hot from the oven, dunked in bottled ranch dressing. She'll probably eat them all and ruin her appetite for the great turkey and spiral ham that will be the main course of the huge meal.
Then there's my daughter, who insists on artichoke heart dip. One year, thinking to make it a little different, I used crab meat instead and “absolutely ruined” the meal for my daughter. You cannot mess with holiday tradition in my household. The law is, “Do not change the recipe.” To do so is sacrilegious.
I love to try new recipes, and sometimes they are a big hit with the family—as long as the family gets their old favorites too. One year I made a really difficult cheese cake. I've been sorry ever since; it became an instant new tradition. This recipe is not only difficult to make, it's costly, but I dare not try to get through a holiday without it.
So I sigh happily as I buy the tried-and-true ingredients, thinking that in time, my daughter will be struggling with the recipe and thinking about me, or some young bride will be saying, “Your grandmother made what?”
—Gloria Conly
Eating is not merely a material pleasure. Eating well gives a spectacular joy to life and contributes immensely to goodwill and happy companionship. It is of great importance to the morale.
—Elsa Schiaparelli
Here's a fun activity for the younger kids to do while you are busy with the Thanksgiving dinner—or any time you don't want them underfoot in the kitchen.
large needle
heavy thread
hard Lifesavers (or other candy with holes)
any breakfast cereal with holes, such as Cheerios
popcorn
miniature marshmallows
Thread the needle and tie a knot at one end. In any order he or she wants, child threads the candy, cereal, and popcorn onto the necklace. Child ties the two ends together, places around his or her neck, and eats as desired.
I'm a health nut. Fried, canned, frozen, or otherwise processed foods never pass my lips. With one exception. Each year when Thanksgiving rolls around, I have to have my mom's green bean casserole, complete with fried onions on top. When I was growing up, the specialness of the dish was enhanced by the fact that we only had it on Thanksgiving. Even if I begged her to make it other times—my birthday, for instance—she refused. I was sure she was the greatest cook in the world for creating such a concoction. It was only in my twenties that I discovered the recipe actually came from the fried onion can. However, my disillusionment has not dimmed my hankering for it when turkey day rolls around, nor has becoming aware of all the fat, cholesterol, and carbohydrates it contains. I just close my eyes and open my mouth and enjoy.
—Jerry Jefferson
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
—Mark Twain
1 10¾-ounce can condensed cream of mushroom soup
½cup milk
dash of pepper
2 9-ounce packages frozen green beans, cooked and drained
1 3½-ounce can French fried onions
Preheat oven to 350° F. In 1½-quart casserole, stir soup, milk, and pepper until smooth; mix in green beans and ½ can onions. Bake for 25 minutes; stir. Top with remaining onions. Bake 5 minutes more. Makes about 4 cups.
Every Thanksgiving we travel to our friends Barb and Bill in Santa Barbara for the long weekend. The visit has a pattern to it that revolves around food. We arrive on Wednesday and eat in. Thursday is of course the holiday. Friday we eat leftovers. Saturday night we take our friends out to dinner to thank them for the visit. Our dinner on Wednesday has become a tradition: homemade pizza and salad using greens from their garden. We arrive from Northern California around three, and sit down at the round table in their kitchen corner to catch up.
After a decade of this ritual, we all know our assigned duties. By five Barb is making the dough—a thin pastry dough that she spreads out with her fingers on large baking sheets. We open the red wine. Bill rolls in around six, and it is his job to trim the bacon and dice the kalamata olives. He's already done the yeoman's share of his work by growing the tomatoes that have gone into the pizza sauce that is standing by. Goat cheese, mozzarella, and anchovies for one pie (I detest them) complete the toppings. We're in no hurry. More wine is drunk. By seven Barb pops the pizzas into the oven and I take out the salad ingredients and set the table. In ten minutes the pizza is piping hot and we ar e digging in. I don't even like pizza particularly, but I can never get enough of theirs.
Such simple food, no earth-shattering conversations—just four friends getting together over time to enjoy eating together around the kitchen table year after year. The pleasure is in the history, in the simplicity. Oh yes—and in the pizza.
—M. J. Ryan
Believe it or not, Americans eat 75 acres of pizza a day.
—Boyd Matson
After you bake the crust, add the toppings of your choice and bake another 6 minutes, or until toppings are bubbling.
1 cup flour
pinch salt
cup hot water
2 tablespoons olive oil
Preheat oven to 400° F. Combine flour, salt, water, and olive oil in a food processor and knead 5 minutes. Let rest for 5 minutes. Roll out onto a pizza pan. Bake 6 minutes or until crispy. Remove from oven. Makes 1 10-inch pizza crust.
Newly divorced friends should never be abandoned on holidays, and seeing how Nan and I had our divorces well behind us, we were glad to come to the rescue. There would be four of us, girlfriends from high school, thirty-some years down the potholed road of life, slightly used, maybe a bit wrinkled—talking turkey on Thanksgiving. It would be like transforming the worst of times into the best of times. Nan and I would inspire them, talk them out of the funk that seems to descend upon a woman the first weeks or months after a divorce, when her entire world seems topsy-turvy.
It was our first time preparing a turkey together, but we were a great team. We were confident we could deal with the thawed bird and whip up a splendid feast for our friends in need. Their husbands may have failed them miserably, but we wouldn't! This was a 14-pounder, with the works. Nan and I started at 6:30 in the morning. We peeled potatoes, diced onions, chilled the wine, rolled pie crust. I set the table with my best (okay, only) china and Nan's crystal. We stuck to a strict time schedule, otherwise we'd never be ready in time. Our guests were due at 2:00 P.M., dragging their wounded hearts.
We finished just in time. Two o'clock on the dot. The salad and the pies were in the fridge. The mints were on the table. Everything was elegant, the perfect setting to console two confused souls.
It was 2:30 P.M., then 3:00. Nobody came. We shrugged, we tested the doorbell. We checked the warming turkey, the dressing, the rolls. At 3:15, I nervously dialed my friends' numbers. Nobody answered at either apartment. So Nan and I waited some more, sampling the dip. Why not just eat while we wait? When we finally carved the turkey, it was getting dark outside. It was far from the special soul-bearing celebration we'd imagined, and we were feeling both stood up and let down.
It wasn't until the next day at work that we learned what happened. We'd prepared our grand dinner the Thursday before Thanksgiving!
—Roberta Beach Jacobson
Here's a project that will add a rustic look to your table—perfect for Halloween or Thanksgiving.
28 12-inch long strands raffia
twist tie
star anise
hot-glue gun and glue sticks
Bunch all the raffia except one strand, and tie one end using the twist tie. Divide the bunch into three groups of nine, and braid each. Make the braids into a circle about 3 inches across. Use the remaining strand of raffia to tie the braid together by making a knot. Cut ends. Remove the twist tie. Put the star anise over the knot and hot glue to the braid. Makes 1 napkin ring.
The next time you need to make something special for kids, consider making cupcakes in ice-cream cones. I made these for my three-year-old's birthday party. Much less messy than cake! Simply prepare the cake mix according to directions and spoon the batter into flat-bottomed ice-cream cones, leaving about one-third space at the top. Place cones in a muffin tin and bake according to pack-age directions. Allow to cool completely, remove from pan, frost, and decorate.
Kids make me nervous. They always did, even when I was one. I feel awkward around them, and they seem to sense it.
When my brother Jack and his wife, Eileen, asked me to mind their children—four of them—overnight, I recoiled in horror, but agreed. When I arrived, my “wards” greeted me at the door.
“Hi, kids,” I said with artificial brightness.
“Hi,” they mumbled. They were sizing me up, I could tell.
Greg was eleven, Lynn nine, Kenneth seven, and Kristin five.
“You're older than Daddy,” Lynn stated. “Why aren't you married?”
“We don't allow smoking here,” Kenneth warned.
“You can sleep in my room,” Kristin offered.
“I'm making drinks,” Greg said, adding, “smoothies.”
“Make mine strawberry,” I said, watching their wariness lessen somewhat. They offered to read the TV Guide aloud, even stay up until midnight as, they assured me, their parents allowed. My smirk sent them into squeals of giggles.
Eventually the kids settled down in front of the TV for an evening of gunshots and car crashes, and managed to all go to bed at a reasonable hour. My happiness—I had been dreading bedtime—was marred only by my apprehension about what was to come in the morning—a real test, since I was far from anyone's idea of a cook.
Morning began at six—rare for this bachelor on weekends.
“What kind of eggs you want?” I asked the seated foursome.
“Poached,” said Greg.
“Soft-boiled,” Kenneth mumbled.
“Sunny side up, please,” Lynn requested.
“Shirred,” ordered Kristen.
Shirred? I wasn't even sure what shirred eggs were. “Right, five orders of scrambled, coming up.” Muffled giggling reached me as I broke the first egg. I'd learned the first rule of cooking for kids: fake deafness. Somehow it worked, and they ate up.
The kids swarmed around me when their parents arrived home and it was time for me to leave. “They really like me,” I told Jack.
“Sure they do. They probably got away with all sorts of things you weren't even aware of.”
I wish he hadn't said that.
—Allen McGill
That's something I've noticed about food: whenever there's a crisis if you can get people to eating normally things get better.
—Madeleine L'Engle
Food is not about impressing people. It's about making them feel comfortable.
—Ina Garten