Strawberry shortcake for my dad

Really, the ten quarts of strawberries that have taken over my kitchen are all my dad’s fault.

“Wake up Dad, let’s go DO something!”

If he didn’t plant a garden when my sisters and I were growing up, if he didn’t take us strawberry/cherry/apple picking at the U-pick orchards and fields around our town, if he didn’t spend nearly every week in summer making a fruit pie or shortcake of some kind, if he didn’t teach me how much better tomatoes and corn and strawberries taste when they’re fresh and warm from the sun, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

My dad will shake his head (I can tell, even over the phone) and laugh at me when I tell him about the stash I brought home, but I think behind that he understands. He grew up on a farm (ask him about tractors and combines some time), he lived the whole “farm to table” “snout to tail” thing about 50 years before it was trendy. For my dad, that was just…how it was.

Nothing says love (or trust) like letting your kid hold your hand with a knife in it as you carve a pumpkin.

He gave me a taste of that life growing up with our garden. Each year, he would till a 30’x15’ plot (my dad just corrected me–it was at least twice that size, enough space for 3 rows each of 3 to 4 varieties of corn) behind our house before walking along the rows with my sisters and me, helping us plant corn, squash, tomatoes, beans, just about anything you can think of.

I want to say we would eagerly watch and wait for the little green sprouts to peek through the dirt, tending and caring for them, but I don’t think it ever occurred to us that this was something special. My sisters and I didn’t know that most people didn’t run out back for broccoli or spend Sunday picking dozens of ears of corn off their stalks. We thought it was fun to watch our dad simmer and slice “caterpillars” off the corn or mash tomatoes through the food mill, and being a good helper by funneling it all into bags for the freezer and dinner in December.

At the beginning of this year, less than two weeks after his 65^th birthday (and only a few days after my 30^th) my dad ended up in the hospital from a heart attack. Knowing that my dad came that close to not being around, that I came that close to not hearing his amused, incredulous “Christina!” when I tell him how many strawberries I bought or calling him to ask what a misfire in cylinder 4 on my car means was the most terrifying moment in my life, to be sure, and I have no doubt that it was a less than a treat for him. Want to really appreciate your dad? That’ll do it.

Dad, we have a 5K to walk in a few weeks (the only time I’ll be able to keep up with you), and you need to be around to say “I told you so” on that far-off day that I have kids who gripe that they like chicken nuggets better than my homemade whatever. I guess, given all the complaints a kid could have about their dad, the fact that I’m pretty much unable to buy tomatoes or strawberries or corn off-season and that I appreciate the finer points of a perfect strawberry shortcake means you did something right.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you and I’m really glad you’re around.

It’s 5 o’clock somewhere

There are two drinks that define summer for me, that embody (em-bottle? em-glass?) Fridays lounging in the shade on my porch or basking in the sun on a rooftop patio with friends: margaritas (good ones, salt required) or vodka lemonade (best with homemade lemonade, light on the sugar). Bastardized gin rickeys now join that list.

I am not a big drinker, I will be the first to admit, and my pretty broad palate when it comes to food is significantly less experienced when it comes to booze. No time like the present to start expanding my horizons though, right? Right!

So many people talk about the gin and tonic as a classic summer drink. If only tonic didn’t make my mouth twist up like a 2-year-old biting into a lemon for the first time; it’s just not something I get the appeal of. But a (sorta) gin rickey? Gin, lime, seltzer, a little sweetener, and a pretty garnish in a tall glass? Yes please.

If it’s not clear from the drinks above, citrus clearly has my heart in summer. And with a little fizz? Even better. Gin just smells good to me; I like its herbalness, it smells like standing in a garden. (And I love this interview about The Drunken Botanist I heard on NPR this week–wine and liquors come from all sorts of plants, that means they count as vegetables, right?! It’s just like V8 juice.)

Any go-to summer drink for you? I also just discovered two great summer beers (Unibroue Ephemere Apple and Dogfish Head Festina Peche) which for me as a non-fan of hoppy bitter brews, was quite the accomplishment.

In a rhubarb jam

I feel like I’m trying to make up for lost time. When I first tried rhubarb last year, it was at the very end of its season and it’s hardly the most popular kid on the block when it comes to the freezer case at the grocery store. So now that rhubarb season has come around again–now closer to its end than beginning–I find myself buying it in bunches by the pound (more accurately, 5 pounds). I just can’t get enough of the color, its pretty red to pink to green stalks, or its flavor that reminds me of sour cherries.

Pie is of course a great way to use up a big bunch, but I don’t want to overload myself on pie before I even get to strawberries, blueberries, cherries, or peaches. Cake is good too, and I’ve simmered a good amount (4 cups chopped) with sugar and water (1 cup of each) and a vanilla bean (split) to make rhubarb syrup (cook for 20-30 minutes and strain) to add to seltzer or slightly more boozy libations that deserve neon bendy straws and a sunny day on the porch.

But how to keep a little taste of spring around longer than the last crumbs of baked goods or drops of syrup? Jam, of course. I picked up this cute little cookbook at Chicago’s Printers Row Book Fair last weekend and figured it was just the push I needed.

Ginger is a pretty common accompaniment to rhubarb’s tartness, and it’s easy to taste why. The prettiest rosey pink color of the jam looks like it would be overwhelmingly sweet but the tingle of ginger (in raw and candied forms) along with a little bit of sour from strips of lemon zest make this my new favorite thing.

I’m usually indifferent to jam stirred into yogurt, but this jam is perfect for that (and hey! pink yogurt! pretty!); I’ve also been spreading it on a slice of whole wheat bread with dried fruit baked in. It would be so perfect with scones or cream biscuits, and I can’t wait to use this in thumbprint cookies, or even some variation on a linzer tart or cookies.

…Excuse me, I need to go buy 5 more pounds of rhubarb before it’s all gone.

It’s MAGIC! On ice cream!

Oh. My. God. Whatever you’re doing right now, stop. Find coconut oil and chocolate, melt them together, drizzle it over ice cream. Watch it harden, crack with a spoon. Eat. Be happy.

Does anyone else remember Magic Shell, that chocolate sauce that hardened into a crunchy coating when it hit cold ice cream? Or the ice cream places that used to be at the mall that would dip naked ice cream bars into vats of chocolate sauce and then bins of your chosen crunchy bits, turning into customized little ice cream bars? Man, between that place (or Orange Julius) and B. Dalton for my Nancy Drew fix, I could have lived at the mall when I was in middle school.

Anyways, flashback aside, this is that chocolate sauce and it’s so stupid easy it doesn’t seem right to even call it a recipe. Pour this over ice cream as-is or top with crushed nuts or rice crispies, make fakey ice cream drumsticks or ice cream bars and you will be a hero for any summer party. Or be your own hero and keep it all for yourself, screw sharing. Oh, oh! Or stir it into homemade ice cream right when it’s almost done churning for such pretty chocolate chip ice cream.

Most grocery stores sell coconut oil now, it’s all the rage. I like the unrefined version because it still tastes a little coconutty, but  buy what you can find or what you like. Use whatever chocolate you have, or like, too–I had half a bar of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate bar leftover from Christmas, so that’s what I used, but I’m certain this would work as well with milk chocolate, white chocolate, (butterscotch chips??), etc. Add a little pinch of cinnamon or cayenne for a little kick, or a drop or two of mint extract.

Yeah, pie, cakes, elaborate baked goods involving the freshest ingredients from the farmers market. Whatever. I can make my own magic shell chocolate sauce.

Rhubarb pie to celebrate

A year ago today I claimed this little corner of the Internet as my own. I wasn’t sure what to expect, not sure what to write, very little idea of how to take a decent picture, or even who would read what I had to say. And yet here we are, a year and 62 posts later, and I couldn’t be more thankful for everything. So here, have a slice of some birthday pie. Sorry, I forgot the candles, but I do have ice cream.

This recipe embodies everything I hoped this blog would lead to. Last year was my first encounter with rhubarb and I shared it with you; this year, I couldn’t wait for it to show up so I could really explore what I’ve been missing.

Last year, making pie crust involved muttered swears and prayers over bowls and rolling pins, with no discernible rhyme or reason to success or failure. Through some crazy experiments, including learning to render my own lard, I’ve had three pie crust successes in a row–hardly mastery, but as least my confidence has grown leaps and bounds (…I’ve just jinxed myself, haven’t I?).

As much as I’ve learned about cooking over the past year, though, the best part by far has been sharing with you and reading your comments; those connections mean everything to me, so thank you.

When it comes to this pie, it seems a crying shame to wait until strawberries appear to enjoy rhubarb. Since their seasons overlap for just a few short weeks around here, half of rhubarb season is already gone by the time summer’s opening act takes stage. Why not enjoy spring’s sweetest offering on its own merits? I think it’s earned its moment in the spotlight.

If you’re a rhubarb newbie like me, this pie is a great place to start. Rather than muddling flavors with strawberries, rhubarb stands on its own here. Its tartness is tamed with just enough sugar to make this a for-real dessert, juices are thickened simply with flour into the prettiest mauve-y pink oozy filling, cinnamon adds just enough to bring out the full range of rhubarb’s flavors.

Cheers to year two everyone–thanks for sticking around. There’s pie on the counter and ice cream in the freezer, please help yourself.

Happy Mother’s Day!

The very first picture of my mom and me

How do you tell your mom how awesome she is? It doesn’t seem enough to just say it. A card, or flowers, or brunch…none of those things is really my mom (also, being four states away makes brunch plans difficult). So for my mom on Mother’s Day, here’s how to make a soft-boiled egg.

Lest that sound completely random (more random than anything else I write? Probably not), there’s a story. Two years ago, my mom and I went to Italy (luckily my mom happens to think I’m a good travel buddy). On our first morning at the hotel, she spotted some contraption with simmering water and a bowl of eggs among the rest of the breakfast treats–how very European, we thought! My mom’s near-immediate response was to tell me how she used to love when my great-grandmother would make soft-boiled eggs when she was little, served in tiny egg cups with tiny spoons.

One egg and a few minutes later, my mom tap, tap, tapped the top of the shell open…to a nearly raw egg. Unfortunately there was no sign or anything about how long to leave the eggs for the desired doneness, so oops. We laughed and tried to figure out how to hide the fact that we clearly failed at apparently the most basic of cooking tasks. Ah well, we would get it right the next morning… and of course the next day ended up with a solid hard boiled egg.

I think we tried different variations nearly every morning of our trip and it became a running joke, but in my mind it was also a testament to just how memorable the women in my family are.

My mom and me, then

There was a lot about that trip–a lot about my mom in general–I could point out as a reason she’s amazing and inspiring. Her confidence in me–my ability to hike nine miles a day and more recently her confidence that I can do a 10k with her–makes me feel like I can do anything. I aspire to be in as good a shape as she is!

Mom and me, now. My mom’s arms would put Michelle Obama’s to shame.

She got me into cooking and showed me how good it feels to share good food with good people; she’s (nearly) a certified master gardener, I’m proud when I don’t kill my houseplants and love growing my little pots of flowers every year. My mom got her executive MBA while working full time with three kids under 13, and was a senior executive at a Fortune 1000 company until she decided to leave on her terms and go after her passions. She inspired me to get my Masters degree and while I may not aspire to her level career-wise, damn it, my mom kicks ass (sorry Mom) and I love bragging about her.

My mom is the funniest person I know, and knows that sometimes you just have to take the crap life hands you and laugh (Fine! Fiiiiinnnneee!). She has the best taste in movies, taught me how important a good hug and a good handshake are, always has my back (and has no problem telling me when I’m being an idiot), and is the reason I love to travel and be outside and can’t imagine moving too far from the water. Her home is my aspiration and inspiration.

This kind of derailed from my original story but I guess the point I’m trying to make is simply this–Mom, you’re awesome. And I finally figured out how to make soft-boiled eggs so we don’t embarrass ourselves the next time we’re in Italy.

Cure for the crazies

Sometimes I’m a little crazy. Five people coming to stay for three days in my two-bedroom apartment? Perfect time to  start a dozen different projects that have been on my list for a year into the few free hours I can eke out after work! And hey, can’t have my guests go hungry, best make granola, a batch of carrot cupcakes, blackstrap molasses ice cream with pecan praline (um, yum), and…well, at least I had one easy thing on my list.

Everyone needs a go-to dish for when you’re slightly crazed–last minute guests, forgotten party you promised a dish for, or just bordering on hangry (my new favorite word=hungry+angry. Because who hasn’t been there?). For me, this is that dish.

More than a dip, kind of a spread, it’s all delicious however you use it. Plus–and this is key–it takes all of 30 seconds to make and can be made with pretty standard cupboard fare. Dump everything in the food processor, turn it on, scoop it into a pretty bowl (or don’t, I know how demanding the hangry can be), devour. Pita chips, crackers, vegetables, spread on a sandwich instead of hummus…all are perfectly valid and perfectly delicious options.

There is one thing that makes this dip extra special–namely, pomegranate molasses. If you’ve never tried–or heard of– it, it’s a great little secret ingredient in everything from salad dressings to a marinade for grilling meat or vegetables, or even drizzled over strawberries. Tangy and tart, it provides a depth to the dip that you can’t quite put your finger on. (Ok, maybe pomegranate molasses isn’t “standard” cupboard fare, but it should be! And it actually lasts a long time in the fridge, so if you can find some it’s worth a purchase. Otherwise you can easily cook down pomegranate juice with some sugar and lemon juice until it’s nice and syrupy–look, Alton Brown even has a recipe!)

In any case, thank god for easy recipes in between frantic project-doing, apartment-cleaning, cupcake-baking, and general chicken-sans-head-running. Molasses is blitzed together with toasty cumin and spicy cayenne, walnuts, roasted sweet peppers, olive oil, and bread crumbs. Done. If nothing else for my guests, I knew this would go over well.

So I may make myself crazy, but at least I make some damn good dip too.

Getting deep on deep dish

If you go down a checklist of what makes a Chicagoan, I’m still an East Coast transplant. I think no hot dog is complete without ketchup. I root for the Cubs and the Sox (unless the Sox play the Indians, then it’s Cleveland pride all the way). Soda is soda, not pop. The appeal of craft beer is lost on me–or any beer for that matter, though I’m working on it. I think thin crust pizza is where it’s at.

However.

On a rare gluttonous occasion, deep dish calls. Some Chicagoans say deep dish is only for tourists who eat at Uno’s, and that the best Chicago pizza is the extra thin cracker-crust. Personally, I like both for what they are. A monstrous bread/cheese/stuff/sauce casserole, deep dish is a one-slice meal and most certainly has its appeal–when it’s good.

Cooked in pans as ancient as the Cubs last World Series appearance, the crust somehow comes out flaky and buttery and golden and crisp as the most perfect croissant, but with midwest heft. The reverse-layering of cheese/stuff/sauce goes to show Chicagoans’ ingenuity when it comes to food. It keeps the crust from getting soggy (the bane of all good pizza is a soggy crust, also why I don’t like NYC-style pizza), protects the cheese from burning, and is overall just one of those “Oh. Duh.” moments. As for the “stuff,” sorry, deep dish is not meant for just cheese and sauce. Peppers, onions, chunky mushrooms, spicy sausage, yesss.

It’s funny how the nine years I’ve lived in or around Chicago have made their mark on me. While I still like ketchup on my hot dogs, they seem naked and bland now without sport peppers, and I’m somewhat distraught that I can’t find them at a grocery store back home (poor misguided Wegman’s stock guy, your confusion made me sad). The difference between “downtown” and “the city” actually makes sense. Trying to navigate somewhere that the streets aren’t laid out in a nice, organized grid would confuse the hell out of me now. Holding a conversation about the Bears and actually following a game no longer makes me laugh out loud at its impossibility. I appreciate the unique pride (and gloveless pain) Chicago has in its 16″ softball games. And I will whole-heartedly come to Chicago’s defense if anyone tries to compare it unfavorably to any other city.

I love this city, my adopted home. I know it has its problems, which aren’t insignificant, but what city doesn’t? Its neighborhoods and lakefront, culture and history, quirks and perfections, and of course its food from pizza to farmers markets–these make Chicago great to me, especially when I can share them with you.

The problem with mediocrity

I can only plead ignorance. No one told me carrot cake was this good. True, I knew it included some of my favorite things–spices, nuts, and cream cheese frosting–but somehow every time I’ve encountered it, it’s just tasted of mass produced bleh that didn’t even seem worth trying to redeem. And so I didn’t.

I was wrong. So, so wrong.

My few run-ins with carrot cake usually went like this: a half-eaten, generic, leftover grocery store cake appears by the communal coffee pot at work and I, who should know better by now, help myself to a slice. It doesn’t taste anything like carrot, only vaguely of spices, and the frosting (which tastes nothing like cream cheese and inevitably includes tiny frosted carrots, because how else would you know what flavor this cake is supposed to be?) peels off like putty. If there are nuts at all, they are sad little crumb-sized pieces not worthy of the warning label “This product may contain nuts.”

The cake isn’t offensive, I still eat my slice, but I won’t even remember it ten minutes later, the only evidence a wadded up paper napkin and a few rouge crumbs on my desk.

And this is why mediocre food is really terrible; it’s not that the cake actually tastes bad, it’s that it’s uninspiring. It’s easy for great food to be inspirational, and bad food at least inspires me to never ever combine those ingredients again. But mediocre food? It just makes me think I wasted calories eating it. And I really hate thinking about calories.

I’m not saying all food should be drop-your-fork-and-drop-to-your-knees amazing. Shoot, for every post here I probably made a dozen average dishes or meals that weren’t worth the effort to type up, but if I’m going to eat cake, it had better be some damn good cake.

Back to the carrot cake. Last weekend I tried a sample of grocery store carrot cake mix, which was just good enough for me to say “Oh. Hey. I could make this.” (Sometimes I feel bad for grocery stores and their samples. I’m sure it’s not their intention that I taste and forgo the box in favor of making it from scratch.)

Flipping through a few cookbooks and combining bits and pieces of recipes from two of my baking bibles, I think I came up with something that is definitely better than mediocre. I may have, in fact, taken a bite of slightly warm, gooey-frosted muffin/cupcake hybrids and actually mumbled through a mouthful of delicious, “Why didn’t anyone tell me carrot cake was this good?”

This carrot cake is packed with everything I think it should be. Carrot, of course, makes its presence known in no uncertain terms; crunchy chunks of walnut will not be ignored (sorry Alton Brown, you were wrong on this count);   raisins plump up to better, juicier versions of themselves. And the spices? Let me put it this way: these cupcakes were under a heavy glass cake dome and I could still smell them every time I walked past.

And last but not least, though these are delicious without any frosting at all (dare I suggest they’re almost breakfast-worthy?), I would actually suggest doubling the frosting recipe to make sure you get a good ratio of frosting to cake–this coming from someone who generally scrapes off frosting like a picky six-year-old.

Now, of course, this discovery makes me question what other mediocre dishes I’ve eaten that could be spectacular. I think I have some more tasting to do.

Everyone wins at egg wars (and happy birthday sisters!)

The last time I remember my sisters’ birthdays coinciding with Easter, we were kids and Easter baskets, dying eggs, and scrounging under sofas for plastic eggs full of pastel-colored malted milk balls was still fun in an un-ironic, I’m-totally-not-just-reliving-my-childhood type way.

Happy birthday blondies!

As my sisters and I were raised good Catholic children (five years of Catholic school cured me of that PDQ, ask my mom sometime about my eight grade teacher calling home to ask if my mom knew I said I was an atheist), Easter was a Big Family Thing. And big family things usually meant trips to Cleveland to celebrate (aka feast) with either of our parents’ extended families.

Most memorable were the Easter egg hunts at our Aunt Sandy and Uncle Greg’s house with our cousins. There was always an egg in the mailbox and probably one on top of the ceiling fan in addition to the usual under chairs and in flowerpots. And we each had to find our own hidden basket–no hinting if you found someone else’s.

After the egg hunt were the egg wars. Much like the current March Madness, egg wars were based on a bracket system: pick one of the hard boiled eggs we had decorated the day before and pick your opponent. Small end to small end (we would have made Jonathan Swift proud), we’d smash our eggs together. Whichever egg was unscathed went on to compete against the other intact eggs–yes, my family is big enough they there were usually more than three rounds of this. My Uncle Greg and cousin Danny were the master at egg wars while the rest of us just waited for our wounded eggs to make a reappearance later in the day in the form of deviled eggs, usually courtesy of my Uncle Dave.

Once an egg champion was declared, it was off to church then on to my grandparents for lunch/dinner with an impossible number of people squeezed into their basement. And there was always lamb-shaped butter. I loved the lamb-shaped butter. The cousins would congregate upstairs around the Nintendo and the do-do-do-do-do-do of Mario Brothers and would only bug the adults to ask where the frozen strawberry dessert was…or maybe that was just me (that recipe to come soon).

I say all that to say this: Happy Easter everyone, and more importantly happy happy 27th birthday(s) Erica and Laura. I wish you success in all things, from your current creative endeavors to the next time you face off against someone with only a blue hard boiled egg on your side. If nothing else, you can always make deviled eggs.