The food companies and marketeers know that if you want Americans to like something, call it Tuscan, or put Tuscany in the name.  I should start a contest for the most absurdly non-Tuscan item that one can find in American supermarkets or on menus in restaurants.   I’ll come up with some kind of interesting prize for good examples.

It’s almost as if to Americans, the only part of Italy that exists is Tuscany, thanks to Frances Mayes and others, despite the fact that most Italian-Americans would trace their heritage to places much further south, where the foods and climate, and even the olive oils are different.

As one learns more about Italy, one learns that Toscana is the home of bread without salt (since salt was taxed by the Florentine government, and avoiding taxes is something Italians enjoy doing,  and evidently i toscani have done this for a very long time), thick steaks on a grill, lots of bean dishes, and particularly peppery, (or even harsh?) olive oils.

I found the following recipe in the Joy of Cooking (copyright 1997), and you’ll have to be your own judge as to how Tuscan the recipe is.  I personally prefer olive oils from Liguria (more floral and light) to those of  Toscana, so mine would miss a little authenticity here. But the beans are still good, and not hard to make.

Classic Tuscan Beans

(according to Rombauer, Rombauer Becker, Becker, et. al. Be your own judge.)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups /1 lb. dried beans (cannellini, pinto or cranberry)
• 12 sage leaves, fresh or dried
• 3 cloves garlic, halved
• 1 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
• salt, pepper

Garnish, for each portion:

• 1 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil, preferably Tuscan

Process:

1. Pick over the beans, removing any detritus. Rinse them. Soak  the beans overnight, or for several hours (I didn’t pre-soak. I just cooked them longer. ). Drain.
2. Combine beans in a large pot with sage, garlic, and 1 Tbs. oil.  Add water to cover by 3 inches. Bring to a simmer, partially cover, and simmer gently until tender, about 1 hour (Don’t boil the crap out of them, because the skins will break.  Trust me here.). Drain.
3. Season beans to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.  Garnish with additional olive oil.

As is the case with many food bloggers, I read a lot about food. (Thank you Captain Obvious!) Over time, I have started to move away from cookbooks to more referential works, such as On Food And Cooking, by Harold McGee, which explains the science and history of ingredients, Michael Ruhlman’s books about chefs and chef training, and works by Barbara Kingsolver, Catherine Friend, and Michael Pollan. And, of course, I also read blogs (shocker!) such as Honest Meat and Bitten, among others. Not all of my reading has been non-fiction or editorial. My Year of Meats, by Ruth Ozeki, is a quirky novel that some might find as a modern day or cross-cultural version of The Jungle, exploring the relationships of people, food production, and choices.

Some Recent Reading

As I have become more aware of industrial food production, and that the industrial production of meat produces significantly more greenhouse gases than transportation (an amazing fact to most people), I find that it is difficult to ignore the politics associated with food production. Disclaimer: The fact that I married a Political Scientist makes it easier for me to find politics in more parts of life. I live in a relatively rural area of the Midwest, where I pass farms that grow corn and soybeans on my way to work as a software engineer. I regularly see the tanker cars of ADM’s High Fructose Corn Syrup going by while I wait at railroad crossings. The health conflicts and the economic conflicts of industrial food production that Pollan and others discuss hits home harder when you can see the ironies and how they affect you and your neighbors, instead of viewing them as issues “for those people in the big states in the middle”.  I think this is why I’ve become interested in groups such as Food Democracy Now!, as well as Slow Food in the US.

All this reading has changed some of my behavior, and the foodways of our household. I am much more aware of what I’m buying, and I do make an effort to buy locally produced food products. (Which frankly I haven’t found difficult to do. I am lucky in where I am situated in this regard.) With a large freezer, and access to local farmers, we can now buy meats from producers we’ve gotten to know, who feed their ruminants grass rather than grain, etc.

I understand that the “locavore” model that I can adopt is not an option for everyone, and that going local won’t replace the need for the large food distribution networks that have been developed to feed our nation. I realize that I can willingly spend more on food than some others can, and that I choose to spend time doing the research or “discovery” necessary to support these habits. I also don’t have children, which means more of my time is my own.

While I have not bought any of his cookbooks, I do own a copy of Mark Bittman’s Food Matters, A Guide to Conscious Eating. A cynic might call this book a rehash of Pollan and a rehash of How to Cook Everything recipes, to capitalize on the latest food craze. I find this book to be a concise guide to the major issues we face producing food in the world today, and a guide to eating more consciously and healthfully in the same way. Given the other reading I’ve done, there are no real surprises for me in Food Matters, but like the Artisan Bread in Five book, Bittman provides a framework for eating more healthfully within the constraints of our modern age. Bittman lives in the city, so his shopping tips and cooking tips can fit the urban and suburban lifestyles of most Americans. The only real constraint is that you need to be willing to spend some time cooking, rather than buying prepackaged, ready to eat foods.

Since I am a cook, none of this looks hard to me. I could easily adapt to cooking a lot of grains and beans at once, or in a slow cooker, and putting them in my freezer, so I can have them to combine with other ingredients at mealtimes. This might be harder to do if you have a life that is very unplanned and unpredictable, or if you are not someone who likes to plan at all. Like the Five Minute a Day bread, the work ahead makes things convenient for later. Freezer management is an excellent skill to develop.

I’d recommend this book to friends who are new to cooking, or want to make more conscious food choices for health reasons. The sample meal plans and recipes can help. Remember, your choices DO matter, not only to you, but to the world and markets around you. Just as low demand this holiday season made electronic prices drop, changes in how you eat will affect the food industry, as well as your health. For worse and for better.

John R. with a big grin

Here is a recent photo of my FIL.  It was taken during the Christmas holidays.  He’s a bit of a quirky guy, with a wide range of interests.  He is pleased that his research is now available on the Internet, thanks to his daughter and her beloved who toiled away the hours of Christmas week setting up his website.

Despite his new fame, FIL manages to stay somewhat humble (not in small part thanks to MIL, herself a wonderful individual).  When he is not reading history, doing crosswords, or following the St Louis Cardinals, he makes time to write a few lines of poetry.

One of the things FIL and I enjoy doing together is shopping for food.  When DH and I go visit his parents, I often do a bit of cooking, so I like to take FIL with me when I go to buy produce, proteins, and other peculiar comestibles.  Occasionally, he has been known to enlist the help of store clerks to yank my chain on these episodes, but that’s fair, I guess, since I take joy in knocking his socks off by introducing him to things he’d not dreamed were available in central Illinois. (How could we forget the white asparagus incident? Or quinoa? Or being soaked to the bone at the Saturday Farmer’s Market?)

So, this very morning, when I opened my email, I found our jaunts immortalized like this:

Haiku Tours

Cruise foodie fun spots

Kroger–Jewel–or choose Schnucks

Sail isles of Meijers

I am very touched. Thanks, John.

I recently had a birthday that ended in zero.  My dear friend B says that the Scandinavians refer to this as a Round birthday, and don’t focus so much on the number as we do in the US.

My birthday was inauguration day, and I was blessed not only with the new president, but several lovely gifts from friends and family.  One of these, from my husband, is worthy of a blog photo.  It’s an All Clad skillet, which I’ve been wanting for a long time.  I’m still not in the league with the Barrie/Thompson family, but hey, I can still dream.

The Skillet of Skillets

And this would be the BIG one… it’s a 13″ diameter. Plenty of surface area for developing fond.  And yes, I have had it for more than four days, and I’ve not yet cooked with it. Still a little star-struck.  Boy, do I have a fabulous husband. Between this and the Thermapen I got for Christmas last year, I can say that he does understand my love of quality equipment.

Of course, it was also lovely to have Mum and her husband L here to celebrate with us.  Here’s Mum modeling with the Semolina/Whole Wheat loaf we made one evening for dinner.

Mum with our Artisan In Five Semolina-Whole Wheat

Yes, folks, she’s the one to thank for my love of cooking and sewing, and a lot of my skills. Thanks to her, I can barely remember not being able to cook or to sew.

And did I mention that she gave me a bag with 40 Lindor balls as part of my gift?

Yes, this was a great birthday.

Here’s what will unofficially be my birthday cake.  This is an almost flourless chocolate cake with lovely flavors of toasted almonds.  When I have made the mascarpone crema, I used espresso.  The crema is as much of a hit as the cake.  The book this is from is more of a travel memoir than a cookbook, but there are some great recipes in the back.  It would be lovely reading about the Mediterranean Sea in summer, now that Minnesota is very frozen and cold.

Torta di Caprese, cooled in the pan

Chocolate Capri Cake with Whipped Mascarpone Cream, both from Mediterranean Summer by David Shalleck with Erol Munuz

The cake can be made a day ahead, kept in the pan, and wrapped in plastic wrap, and stored at room temperature. Add the confectioner’s sugar at serving time.

CAKE:

Serves 10-12

• 12 Tbs (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for the cake pan.
• 8 oz. unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 cup (3 oz) whole almonds, toasted
• 2 Tbs flour
• 6 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs. confectioner’s sugar for dusting (optional)

1. Place rack in the middle of the oven, and preheat to 300 degrees F.  Butter a 9 inch cake pan and line the base with a circle of parchment paper.  Butter the paper.
2. Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave or over a double boiler, stirring to combine them. Cool and set aside.  Grind the almonds to a flour-like consistency in a food processor.  Set aside.  Beat the egg yolks with the sugar on high speed until light yellow and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.  Fold in the chocolate mixture. Fold in the almond flour. Beat the egg whites to soft peaks in a separate bowl, then carefully fold them into the batter.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread in an even layer.
3. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out dry.  Cool completely on a wire rack.  invert from the pan onto a plate, remove parchment circle, and invert back onto serving plate.  Dust the top with confectioners sugar.
4. To cut the torta, run a long, thin knife under hot water.  Shake off the excess water, keeping the blade clean for each slice.  Serve with a dollop of the crema on the side.

MASCARPONE CREMA:

• 3 large egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 8-9 oz of mascarpone
• 1 Tbs dark rum or other liquor, or 2 Tbs espresso
• 2 large egg whites at room temperature
• 1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
• 1/8 tsp salt

1. Beat the yolks and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until the mixture is light yellow and ribbons fall from teh beaters when they are lifted up.  Add the mascarpone and flavoring (rum, espresso, etc).  Mix at low speed and blend until smooth, then at high speed until soft peaks form.
2. Using clean, dry beaters, beat the egg whites in another bowl on low speed until foamy.  Add salt and cream of tartar, then beat, increasing speed in increments, until stiff peaks form.  Fold the whites into the mascarpone mixture.  Keep refrigerated.

The crema can be made 3 to 4 hours before serving.  If it separates a little bit by becoming thin on the bottom and still fluffy on the top, give it a gentle stir to make it smooth throughout before serving.

On Monday night, due to a snowstorm, our first quilt guild meeting of the year was very lightly attended by the few diehard officers and people who had an agenda item.  And Gail, who braved the elements with us.  This made my introductory speech as a new president a bit less nerve-wracking.  Attendees had much better odds on the door prizes, as well.  We’ll be going through most of this again at the February meeting, but now I’m not nearly as nervous.

And that’s worth a lot.

Here’s my first sewing project for 2009- from the Friday Night Apron pattern from Vanilla House Designs.  This was quick to make, and used less than 1.5 yards of fabric, total.  I might make the apron skirt a little wider the next time, and skip the gathering of the bib sections.

Who says a cook must look frumpy?

The fabrics are from Rowan’s line for Westminster Fibers, which I had leftover from making baby quilts last year.

As someone looking for “real” food, i.e. not processed food, but yet someone with a life outside my kitchen, I’m always looking for recipes and techniques I can fit into my life.   The No-Knead Bread craze, altered by Cook’s Illustrated in the last post to Knead Only 10 times Bread is one of those techniques that now fit nicely in my life.

Artisan-In-Five loaf ready for baking

While trolling Amazon to decide how to spend a gift certificate, I happened across Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  The authors are from Minneapolis, so they’re almost locals.   I found a copy at my local library, and checked it out.

It is important to remember that the “5 minutes a day” refers to the active time you are working with the dough, but that the elapsed time of the process is longer.  Again, the idea is to make it workable with your life.

The techniques are simple. The basic idea is that mixing a lot of dough in a few minutes and keeping it in the fridge allows you to bake off a loaf when you want it. As someone said (I wish I knew whom),  “If you’re going to be lazy, you need to be efficient”. How can you not like a way to have fresh bread for dinner every night for a week that requires very small amounts of work each day?

So far I have only mixed one recipe- a 100% whole wheat bread.  The results have been tasty, though I think I need more practice before I will have the technique perfected.  One of the things I like about this book is that the authors don’t just make the basic white bread.  There are recipes for brioche, for rye breads, for multigrain breads, and recipes for sandwiches, salads, etc. to have with the breads. The book also explains how to partially bake loaves, so you can freeze them.  More nifty ways to fit good homemade bread into modern life.

Bread After Baking

If you click on the link above, Zoe shows how to use the basic doughs in other ways, too.  The Bacon and Eggs In Toast from January 6th looks like a real winner.  From reading the blog, it looks like they have a second book in the works, so their technique IS taking off.

The fact that we have a second fridge allows me to keep a big dough bucket cold without any problem, so I think this book will be one I’ll try many recipes from.   I’ll try and get pictures of some results to post next time, too.

From Cook’s Illustrated Magazine, January 2008

Since the dough can be left alone for 8 to 18 hours, it’s easy to mix this up in the morning (or the night before) then bake it for dinner. The baking method (pre-heating the Dutch oven) assures a crusty country loaf. It’s amazingly easy. You’d never believe you baked such a good looking loaf with such great crust.

Equipment:

• Dutch oven with metal knob on lid
• Mixing bowl
• Spoon
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Liquid measuring cup
• Plastic wrap
• 10 inch Skillet (size not too crucial.)
• Parchment paper (wax paper won’t work)
• Non-stick cooking spray

Ingredients:

• 3 cups (15 oz) all purpose flour
• ¼ tsp instant (bread machine) or rapid-rise yeast
• 1 ½ tsp table salt
• ¾ cup plus 2 Tbs. water (7 oz), at room temperature
• ¼ cup plus 2 Tbs. (3 oz) mild-flavored lager (Miller Lite, etc) beer
• 1 Tbs. white vinegar

Process:

1. Whisk flour, yeast, and salt in large bowl. Add water, beer, and vinegar. Using rubber spatula, fold mixture, scraping up dry flour from bottom of bowl until shaggy ball forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.
2. Lay 12- by 18-inch sheet of parchment paper inside the skillet and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead 10 to 15 times. Shape dough into ball by pulling edges into middle. Transfer dough, seam-side down, to parchment-lined skillet and spray surface of dough with nonstick cooking spray. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until dough has doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with finger, about 2 hours.
3. About 30 minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to lowest position, place 6- to 8-quart heavy-bottomed Dutch oven (with lid) on rack, and heat oven to 500 degrees. Lightly flour top of dough and, using razor blade or sharp knife, make one 6-inch-long, 1/2-inch-deep slit along top of dough. Carefully remove pot from oven and remove lid. Pick up dough by lifting parchment overhang and lower into pot (let any excess parchment hang over pot edge). Cover pot and place in oven.
4. Reduce oven temperature to 425 degrees and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove lid and continue to bake until loaf is deep brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into center registers 210 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Carefully remove bread from pot; transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 2 hours.

When I visit my in-laws for the holidays, I have an urge to make The Big Classics.  I think it is because we didn’t necessarily have the big classics at home growing up, and I want to know how to make them.  And since my in-laws like to eat, but don’t like to cook, and I like to cook, it gives us all an opportunity, and me a bit of a stage.  After all, if Christmas isn’t a special enough occasion, when will we have one?  Most of us are unlikely to host the Queen of England or the President of the United States, or any other foreign dignitaries, for that matter, in our homes.

We went to central Illinois for Christmas, and we brought a crown roast with us from Minnesota.  I ordered it from my local meat shop on the day I brought my favorite butcher a present.  DH picked up the roast the day before we left for Illinois, and we put it on ice.

On the day of the Big Dinner (actually the day after Christmas),  I got the meat out of the cooler, and started to prep.

I wish I had a before picture, to show what the roast looked like when I started in on it.  The first  thing to do, to make it a showpiece, was to clean the bones of any remaining tissue above the chop part of the crown, a.k.a Frenching the bones.  I think that there must not be many apprentice butchers to give this work to, or not enough demand for Frenching of bones these days for meat shops to do it, as it is a lot of work.  I learned after a bone or two that there is a method to it, but I still spent half an hour at it.  My audience might not have cared that I took the time to do this, but I wanted to prove I could.  And again, why not?

Frenched Bones, ready for the next step

The next step was making a rub for the meat. I don’t remember exact proportions now, as I was doing this on the fly, but the ingredient list included dried sage, fennel seeds, salt, pepper, and some juniper berries. I rubbed this on the meat inside the crown, and at the base of the crown, below the bones.

After that, DH and I spent the time to make little frilly paper hats for the bones, for when we served the roast. Again, why not? The beauty of this recipe, after the Frenching, is that the oven does all the work, leaving time to do such things as make frilly paper hats.

Here’s what it looked like when I served it.

The Crown Roast on the Dinner Table

It was well worth the effort. Delicious. Enough for more than two meals for six people. And we got a giggle out of the paper hats. I think I’ll take this picture to show the butcher. He’ll get a kick out of it.