Double delicious

I am stuffed. Full of smiles that make your cheeks ache, and endless hugs--the solid kind that last long enough to synchronize breathing--of laughter, of touches, of love. And then there was the potluck table, groaning under the weight of multiple and tasty savories and sweets, all washed down with wine produced by one of ourown, followed by s'mores at the fire pit late into the evening, and a hearty brunch the next day.

It was a reunion, of family of a sort: 30-some odd years ago, we were young theatre students, so sure of ourselves and so incredibly unsure of ourselves, trying on new personas and discovering who we might turn out to be. Some still work in the industry, many do not, but all agree that they use their degree (or near degree) every day of their life. And all have turned into lovely people I am just tickled to be able to count as friends.

With all the missteps and misunderstandings of our youth behind us, we could truly appreciate and enjoy each other, and we did so joyfully as we devoured the food and each others' tales. And so I offer you these special cookies from a very special  place--my heart.

Giant Toffee Chocolate Cookies

makes about 18

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 lb. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup butter

1 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 tbl vanilla extract
8 oz. chocolate-covered toffee, coarsely chopped
1 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl; whisk to blend. Melt chocolate and butter together in a double boiler set over simmering water until smooth. Remove from water and cool mixture to lukewarm.

Using an electric mixer or food processor, beat sugar and eggs together until thick. Beat in chocolate mixture and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture, then toffee and nuts. Chill batter until firm, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Drop batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto sheets, spacing 2 1/2 inches apart. Bake just until tops are dry and cracked but cookies are still soft to the touch, about 15 minutes. If baked cookies are misshapen from escaping toffee, use a spatula to coax the still-hot cookies back into shape. Cool on baking sheets. Share with friends.

Full day

There is a delicious crispness in the air, the one that the poets among us wax, well, poetically about. The shifted hour means there is a wee sliver of light when the alarm rings (for I can no longer rely on the sun to wake me), and the warm man next to me makes me yearn for hibernation. But it is evening for my Parisian client, who is waiting to hear from me so she can head towards her own duvet, so rise I must.

Bleary-eyed, I wake the sleeping devices on my desk and they beep and blink to life. The file has arrived unharmed from its transatlantic trek, and looks to be in good shape. (Would that it were that easy for us!) I will work, but it will not be long hours of drudgery. Very good news indeed. There is time to join the waking men folk for breakfast.

I suppose I should put on lipstick, don a frilly apron, and produce fresh croissants, but this is a work week, so the toaster will have to do. Little One opts for toast flooded with butter and topped with cinnamon sugar, washed down with cocoa. Darling Husband does the honors, heating up a mug for himself, laced with peppermint syrup (he is no fan of pumpkin spice). I snuggle into his back, and make my own, laced with coffee, for I must be alert to understand the vagaries of smart buses and on-board telemetry (hey, isn’t that what my car has?).

But I am peckish too, and note that the boys’ foray in supermarket hunting has brought home my old friend Crumpet. Toasted twice, smeared with butter, I take a bite. Something is missing, I think, and wonder if there is an open jar of last year’s blood orange marmalade. No, but there is that grape jelly that didn’t quite gel that the boys keep asking for in their lunch. Sure enough, it is perfect, a tangy, sweet foil for the cool crisp morning.

But lest you think this is just a poetic snippet, and that my family treks out into the dawn with full bellies and perfect love in their hearts, a plot emerges: Little One shouts out, "I lost my tooth!" And indeed, there it is, the second this week (I pity the poor parent who will have to deal with two coming in in quick succession, but she will have to take it up with the Tooth Fairy). My day is now complete, with a wry smile for my husband, who knows tonight's date will take on a whole new dimension when we get home. Kisses all around, a trek back into the house for the forgotten bits, and off they go, as the breeze turns to splatty rain.

A perfect start to the day.

Noodling

On a sultry summer's day a lifetime ago, my fresh-faced darling husband and I steered our rusty Opel up a twisty road in Alsace, past the brewery and through a rusty gate to an old house covered in vines. The inhabitants were parents of  a young woman who had spent a year abroad in the same English village as my husband, long before I met him. After meeting the family, we retired to a table in the back, under towering old trees to sip and sup our way through a light meal. Somewhere between the main course and the coffee, the monsieur of the house got up and headed to the kitchen, re-emerging several minutes later with a large pot. He carried it up to the rear of the yard, where happy wagging tails greeted him. Penned up for our visit, it was nonetheless time for the pooches to have their supper, French style--noodles and some gravy.

The image sits clearly with me to this day--the textures, the sounds and the tastes--as we prepared for a jaunt across the Rhine to fill up on French provender and visit the daughter. Her mother, a plump woman with a smile and a way with vegetables passed a few years back, and her father declined rapidly without her steadying love, so it was to be lunch with her family, now situated in the suburbs a few miles up the road, with a husband, three kids and two cars.

We look forward to these visits, a reconnection to simpler days, when we found delight in the possibilities that the future may hold. But alas, a brief message came to us, cancelling our date; her father had passed in the night, and she couldn't bear the thought of entertaining just now.

The day dawned with a cold fog that settled in the valley, refusing to budge, like a pall over our visit. There was no warm hearth to welcome us, no groaning table and smelly cheese course, and no papa to slide his chair back from the table to make the dog's noodles. We made our way through the supermarket, and filled our coffers with treasures to mete out in the days and months to come. It seems fitting that the dernier cri in the chocolate aisle this year is fleur de sel, salty tears on our French chocolate.

Summer stretch

"Mom, why do you keep making all these fancy dinners? I mean, like with more than one course and dessert and stuff."

Why? Pretty simple, really: it's a great way to get yet another plate of vegetables on the table. While I'd like to say that the extra vegetables are a calculated effort to make our meal offerings more healthy, it really boils down to a practical matter. With a friend on vacation, I acquired her CSA share in addition to our own--at the end of summer, when things are finally starting to come in after such a slow start. Caprese was an easy choice: my tomatoes, her basil. Less obvious was the tzatziki (her cucumbers and dill) and the baked ratatouille (my tomatoes and peppers, her zucchini). And there's no way that chocolate zucchini cake could be considered healthy in any way. The strawberry sorbet might come close, if it weren't for all that added sugar.

As an added plus, it keeps us at the table longer on a summer's eve, a luxury that will likely disappear in the coming weeks as schoolwork and orchestra rehearsals and their ilk resume for the school year.

I will resume canning and freezing this weekend, as I fear the beans and apples will get ahead of us if I don't. But until then, the table (outside, as long as the weather permits) will groan under the extra dishes. The fancy ones.

Quiet

It is that quiet part of year, where all seems still and asleep. If the rain stops, the only sounds around us are mechanical: no birds or babbling brooks, just freeway drone and heat pumps kicking in. My kids are more likely to be curled up under blankets with reading material than outside building forts. The backlog on my desk is as dry as a business text, except for the green-covered seed catalogue that I have been saving for the depths of the darkness.

And then yesterday happened. After an incredible soggy week, even by local standards, the sun dawned with just a hint of warmth. The warm water in the window-washing bucket actually stayed tepid for the time it took to wash the kitchen windows. I see a few bulbs poking out, and the little green buds are lending the palest of casts to the fruit trees. Of course, the sun is still weak and fleeting, limiting my time outdoors, but it prods me gently to dust off seed catalogues and think about planting some hope. I try to remember what sweet peas smell like and know I will sow some soon.

Fresh food is also at its low point: there are but a few stragglers in the vegetable drawers: a bunch of white turnips, a sorry wedge of cabbage and on the counter a lone acorn squash. I admit to resorting to mixed salad from California as even the local greens have all disappeared, and I'm not willing to give up on crunchy. We count the weeks (three!) until deliveries from the farm resume.

It is California that is saving us these days, as the panoply of citrus explodes at the coop: navel and blood oranges, tangelos, grapefruits, and lemons. Meyer lemons, those jewels of my childhood, warm, golden lemons, sweeter than sweet. I greedily snatched up an armful and gently lowered them into my shopping cart just as a mother lowers a sleeping baby into the crib.

At home, they clamor like children with their possibilities: Meyer lemon cake with honey-lavendar cream. Lavendar picked by the Little One in his gardening class last autumn. And since I'm already infusing the cream with the gentle purple flowers, I do a bit extra, and make a ganache for some truffles. With half a lemon leftover from that forray, I infuse some more cream with thyme, and use that for another herby-lemony combination. The final batch of truffles, to use up the last of the cream, is inspired by the lone comice pear in the bowl that will be my afternoon snack: Williams pear liqueur. I'm thinking I will be popular at pickup time after school with my little white boxes full of hand-dipped brown.

There remain ten golden beauties on the counter. Into a pot of boiling water go six of them, to be halved and salted and put up for Moroccan chicken in the coming weeks. I add chicken to the shopping list, to be ready when the preserved lemons are. And then there were four.

Four little lemons, just enough for a tiny batch of marmelade, perhaps with a vanilla bean. Another jar or two to tuck on the shelf of preserves, with a smear leftover for breakfast this week. It seems odd, preserving winter, but just as those boisterous berries of summer submit to the jar, to release their excess of summer in the dead of winter, so will these lemons impart their tiny, quiet rays of hope in their own turn.

The whole truth

The sign outside Starbucks in Benaroya Hall screams, “Did you know a nonfat grande latte contains 35% of your daily calcium?” I’m reminded of a Six Chix cartoon several years ago, where a granny is being handcuffed, presumably being arrested for fixing the grammar on a billboard: “Got Do you have any milk?” I fight the urge to scour my pockets for a big red marker, and realize there’s not enough room on their snazzy reader board for the whole story. Calcium may be present in cow’s milk, yes, but it’s not in a form that is bioavailable for humans can easily absorb (it’s great for calves)—supermarket milk is fortified with vitamins A and D to help, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the animal proteins in dairy products cause calcium loss (vitamin C would be useful here too, but they didn’t add it to the carton, since it would sour the milk). Unfortunately, along with higher concentrations of calcium, nonfat dairy products also have higher concentrations of those pesky proteins, so they’re no improvement, unless you’ve been convinced that all fat is Evil.

Then there’s that little problem of the caffeine in the coffee part of the drink. The jury is still out on just how much milk you have to add to the coffee to counteract the widely-known fact that caffeine leaches calcium from the body. It would appear that a mostly-milk latte is an improvement over just a dash of milk, but there is no clear consensus—we just don’t know.

Clearly, that grande latte is not as great as the reader board makes it sound (unless you’re a very sleepy calf). So what to do? It’s not like there are no other sources of calcium out there, with better bioavailability and no calcium-leaching animal proteins. Indeed, the list is long and varied: Molasses, dark salad greens, cabbage, broccoli, green beans, cucumber, peas, soybeans, squash, beans, nuts, cocoa, kiwi, maple syrup, brown sugar, tomatoes. Did you note those foods also are a great source of other good things as well? And did you notice that cocoa was on the list?

The problem here, though, is more than the nutrients and their inner workings in our bodies. Michael Pollan Eater’s Manifesto deals with this subject extensively, noting that we have abandoned traditional diets in deference to the scientists, whom he likens to high priests on the altar of the church of nutritionism. His thesis is that by focusing our attention on the small bits—vitamins, minerals, etc.—that make up our food, we are headed down the wrong path. We blindly follow scientists who identify and sing praises for the nutrient du jour (just read the papers for the latest study on [name nutrient here] found in [put food name here]). This somehow assumes that these scientists even know what they all are, and more importantly, that they completely understand the living dynamic of how nutrients interact with other foods and in our bodies. In other words, we don’t know a lot more than we do know.

I doubt I can change the world by going door-to-door with my message that people are following the wrong religion. Which is why I shall continue to buck the trend and quietly (and not so quietly) eat food, real food, that I prepare myself whenever possible. And it shall include my morning cup of cocoa, made with a rotating selection of politically correct chocolate products and either homemade soy or almond milk. Not to mention that even with my indulgent chocolate spending habits, it’s cheaper and frankly, tastes a whole lot better. Maybe mom did know best: she certainly is a lot more forthcoming with the full story than the green mermaid.

February bites

A good friend of mine started a part-time job last week at a local non-profit. I talked to her yesterday, and she noted how working at the same thing all day was mentally quite fatiguing. I couldn’t agree more: my days have been a flurry of emails and actual, real-life paying work, which leaves precious little time for digesting new information and writing. So, after sending off various and sundry invoices (there is a silver lining to the work cloud), I whipped up a few quick tidbits in between ticking things off my to do list.

Michael Pollan and I curled up with a cup of cocoa last night (actually, I don’t know what he was having, since it was only the words in his book, In Defense of Food that actually saw me in my jammies), and I laughed out loud when I got to his rule about avoiding foods “containing ingredients that are … unpronounceable.” For as long as I can recall, the menu posted at our couscous bash lists ingredients so folks can make the choices that work for them. And at the bottom, it reads, “this cook doesn’t use fillers or weird polysyllabic ingredients (except zucchini).”

Darling Husband wanted to go dancing the other night, and I was feeling sluggish, so I motivated myself by dressing up and putting on a face. I think back to those peer-pressure days in high school when I got up early to put on makeup every day, and what a freeing moment it was when my Darling told me he disliked the smell of makeup and how it made kissing me less pleasant. I have learned over the years that his instincts are usually spot-on, and the Washington Post confirms it—makeup may help us feel good, but it is only skin deep, as women slather mercury, asbestos and formaldehyde on their bodies and then wonder why pregnancy seems elusive or they’re feeling bloated. The database at http://www.cosmeticdatabase.com/ reassures me that my Burt’s Bees stuff is fine, but the stuff I used to battle my teenage zits contains endocrine disruptors. And unfortunately, the soap I use to wash the makeup off scores higher on their toxicity scale than the makeup itself. It’s a bit daunting to wade through the ingredients list, but I shudder at the thought of my father’s lye soap, which would no doubt meet Pollan’s requirements.

Alaska’s in-flight magazine tempted me with a blurb about the Chocolate Fest in Portland last weekend. Darling Husband was ready to jump in the car without packing so much as a toothbrush, but I reminded him that we had children who can’t manage without us for the weekend (yet). He was crestfallen, as he had clearly hoped to witness and partake of the world’s largest truffle. Undaunted, I prepared our own little chocolate fest, a tray of representatives from Amore here in Bellevue, Recchuiti confections in San Francisco’s Ferry Building (just a few of those left), and a big box of truffles from Kingsbury chocolates in Alexandria. I can tell you that we made a dent in all the boxes, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but our sampling was less than scientific, which is how it should be.

Frozen coconuts

So we’re back to food safety. As we hunker down to winter fare, when we face a seeming dearth of fresh food, it seems normal that we should turn to boxes and cans and the freezer instead of the garden or the farmer’s market. But all is not well in Grocerilande: it appears that we have yet another case of tainted food, this time a frozen coconut dessert that contains the Listeria bacterium, as well as a particularly damning story showing high levels of harmful pesticides in everyday supermarket produce.

When I was in Alexandria, across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., I had a free afternoon to explore a bit. Besides an incredible chocolate shop (up some narrow stairs, I found Kingsbury Chocolates) and a great chili joint (I slurped up the Frito-chili pie at Hard Times Café), I went hunting for a letterbox at Gadsby’s Tavern. The day was incredibly clear, but bitterly cold. I descended the steps near the tavern’s north end, where thoughtful restorers had created a cutaway view into the ice well. Unsuccessful in finding my quarry (though I did locate a cleverly disguised geocache), I read the historical marker. The well served as an underground storage area for ice cut from the Potomac in winter, offering a way to cool drinks and refrigerate foods into early summer. It is empty now, but for two artfully arranged hay bales, and the Potomac is not frozen—yet.

I scratch my head and think how odd it is we should think to consume a frozen coconut dessert in January, when it was made months ago, and it’s really too cold to be thinking about slurping popsicles anyway.

An intrepid researcher also released his findings today: apparently, when kids eat conventional fruits and vegetables, they show traces of organophosphate pesticides. If they switch to organics, the markers in their urine and saliva disappear. What’s more, the markers show up in higher concentrations during the winter months, when we tend to import more foods. There are no surprises here, but the alarm is sounding because this is the same family of pesticides that the EPA was supposed to remove from the food chain. Chuck Benbrook, chief scientist of the Organic Center, dares to speak aloud what is on the tip of many of our tongues: "Given the almost daily reminders that children are suffering from an array of behavioral, learning, neurological problems, doesn't it make sense to eliminate exposures to chemicals known to trigger such outcomes like chlorpyrifos?"

Indeed. Once again, I bypass Grocerilande and head over to Co-opville, where I pick up some lovely local thin-cut pork chops (they will be paired with an apple past its crisp prime), some local blue potatoes (“Mommy, why do they call them blue, when they’re purple?”), and some fuchsia red-stemmed chard. Our plates are beautiful, dark like the season, but colorful and delicious (and organic) nonetheless. Dessert is an indulgent square snapped off a bar of Kingsbury chocolate (with essence of orange, dried cranberries and pecans), also dark like the season. But not frozen.

On cocoa and airports

It is mid-morning, time for my cocoa break, and my thoughts logically turn to cocoa experiences on the road.

A cup of cocoa at an airport Starbucks was predictably disappointing. While not more overpriced than normal, the pale drink was bland enough that even Number One took one sip and asked, “Is there any chocolate in here?” I was relieved to know it wasn’t just me, but the long line at the counter (the fog had delayed many flights other than ours) dissuaded me from returning and demanding more chocolate.

As I reach into the cupboard for cocoa, I hesitate between Ghirardelli and Green & Black. Against my better judgment, I took the boys to Ghirardelli Square, which one tour guide now rates as “nothing more than a shopping mall.” The child in me recalls the factory that produced chocolate stars, and if you were lucky, Mom would spring for the little cardboard box shaped like the chocolate factory. The chocolate tastes different, and the place has truly become a tourist trap. I caved and bought the kids overpriced ice cream (at least it was Dreyer’s, from Berkeley); while we were waiting, Number One noted that a waitress was assembling a massive clutch of balloons in the back corner. Hoping to avoid a balloon Grinch incident I hailed our wait staff, and let her know of my allergy, but to no avail. Ten bites into my eight-dollar sundae, the latex-bearing waitress headed straight to our alcove. I picked up my bag and dashed to the nearest exit, but the clueless cookie followed, wanting to ask how far away she needed to be to keep from causing a reaction. If she’d had an ounce of sense, she would have been able to deduce the correct distance by how far from her I kept backing away—on the sidewalk. And Little One was clearly torn: here was his well-earned ice cream, and leaving it wasn’t something he wanted to do. Balloon Lady was standing between us, waving kryptonite at this Mama Bear. Not a good situation.

Then Number One, now officially a teenager, did something to make my heart soar: he barked at the waitress, forcing her to back off, then proceeded to find a paper cup and transfer Little One’s ice cream sundae to it. Unable to locate a spoon, he grabbed a straw. I am immensely proud of his composure in this situation, especially given that I would think having your mother freaking out on the sidewalk would be socially mortifying. I do have to add that I was extremely disappointed at the restaurant: no wait staff offered to help him, or even acknowledged that there was a problem that might require a manager (or a refund). Even the surly cable car brakemen could teach them something about customer service.

On the last day of the conference, my favorite waiter added a few cocoa packets to the breakfast buffet. Nestlé’s in a pouch is not my idea of real cocoa (nor is anything declaring “just add water” truly food), but I discovered it could be made relatively palatable with the addition of cream from the coffee station.

I decide on the Ghirardelli this morning, but make a note to myself to try the Dagoba drinking chocolate that I’ve seen appearing on market shelves recently. They’re in Ashland, and they may have the space on the shelf that was once reserved for my childhood.

Celebrate!

Today is National Chocolate Day, an auspicious occasion by any measure. I really want to take the opportunity to celebrate by getting up to my elbows in obscene amounts of the stuff, but am stuck at the keyboard, trying to overcome writer’s block on a campaign speech for election to the board of directors of ATA. Make no mistake, I have no aversion to intellectual effort, and I’d really like to be elected, but it really seems a pity to spend such an important holiday slaving away on mere words.

And then I recall the words of fellow chocolate-lover Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, that fabulous French gastronome whose day job was that of magistrate. He notes that chocolate is, “above all, helpful to people who must do a great deal of mental work.” (« Le chocolat est très convenable aux personnes qui se livrent à une grande contention de l'esprit »)

So there you have it. It’s not a matter of either/or. I must do the chocolate work to be able to write that speech. Which is why I’ll move the space heater upstairs to the kitchen and work on flavoring the latest incarnation of the auction truffles. In case you’re still searching for a suitable way to celebrate, I append the result of my mentally taxing research below.

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon extra virgin coconut oil

Coarsely chop the chocolate and place into a clean bowl. Heat the coconut milk and oil to nearly boiling. Add the milk mixture to the chocolate and stir to melt the chocolate evenly, working quickly. Refrigerate the chocolate until firm, about 2 hours. Using a measuring spoon, scoop up 1 teaspoon of chocolate, and quickly roll into a ball about 3/4-inch across. Chill until firm and coat as desired. Makes about 30 truffles.

The good, the bad, and the tasty

Sweet cream butter. Nope, sorry, butter is bad: you should use margarine or canola oil. No, wait, those trans fats can clog your heart up worse than a cork. Butter isn’t so bad after all, but only in moderation. Top of the pyramid.

We seem to be getting a little pudgy as a population: the finger points at fat. We should stick to fat-free foods, then we can have as much as we want, guilt-free. Oops, now we seem to have an obesity and diabetes epidemic. Maybe a little fish oil will help after all.

Everyone knows that you shouldn’t drink too much, it’s not good for you. But, wait, red wine keeps the French healthy. Two glasses a day should do. But hold on, drinking can increase the risk for cancer.

Chocolate. Clearly something this good must be evil. But wait, the bioflavonoids in high-cocoa content chocolate can be good for your heart. So eat your chocolate—for now. Someone will no doubt notice that chocolate bars are candy, and as vital as it is to my life, I know that I must enjoy it in moderation.

Honestly, it makes me wondered what happened to common sense. I can hear my grandmother repeating, “Moderation is the key.” (I somehow envision a woman I’ve never met cast in this role, in a flowered apron and snapping beans on her front porch.) Our fad-riddled society has us moving from the newest to the latest with lightning speed. Last year it was all blueberries and red wine. Now it’s pomegranates and 70% chocolate. Who knows what next year will bring? It really doesn’t matter: if we look to tradition to guide our choices, we will find that the wisdom of ages automatically builds in moderation.

With that in mind, I started recipe development work (a euphemism for messing about in the kitchen) for a dessert offering for the kid’s school auction. The dessert portion of the live auction can really move, as there are never enough to go around – by design. Add to that the fact that we tend to be über-responsible adults most of the time, and the desserts are usually out of this world.

I’ll fall back on my tried-and-true Chocolate Stout Cake, the richest chocolate cake I make, but I wanted a second offering to accommodate our vegan/allergic/pc-even-at-a-party compatriots without making them feel they were sacrificing anything. I had toyed with a pot of drinking chocolate and an assortment of cookies, but my tests weren’t going well. Even the boys were picking at our test subjects. Not good. Then Saturday, pure serendipity: I reached into the magazine holder and pulled out a Bon Appétit at random. It was a Christmas issue from 2003. I opened it, to see a page of truffles. The (compact fluorescent) light bulb went off. After a quick web search, I found a way to make truffles using vegan ingredients. Saturday evening’s ganache passed muster, and Sunday was spent trying different taste combinations, and learning hand-dipping (Darling Husband thinks that the clean-up for the latter should involve him—why should I get to lick my fingers all by myself?). A quick trip out for dessert wines, and British neighbor stepped up to the plate for the first round of testing last night. We have the wine chosen, and a few winner truffles. We’ll have to do at least one more round of tasting, but she’s assured us that she’s up for it. Brave woman.

Soy Truffles

1 cup high-quality dairy-free chocolate
1/4 cup full-fat soy milk
1/3 cup extra-firm silken tofu
1 tsp. vanilla or 1 Tbl. liqueur

Chop the chocolate and place in bowl. Blend soy milk and tofu together until smooth. Heat the soy mixture until very hot, but not boiling. Working quickly, pour the hot soy mixture into the grated chocolate, stirring constantly until smooth. Beat in flavoring. Cool in refrigerator 1-2 hours. Shape into balls and chill. You can cover and decorate them as for any truffle.

Of course, now that I’ve made these truffles using soy (which is still “in” for pre-menopausal women, but still a high allergen food), I’m wondering if I can find a way to use other non-dairy ingredients with similarly tasty results. Watch this space!

All things Irish and chocolate

‘Tis the season to run around madly, trying to get everything done before we leave—nothing major, just a remodel and the taxes. And then there are the 1001 items to tick off our list, answering questions like, “where can I get a SIM card for my mobile phone?” “Where’s the nearest off-license?” and my personal favorite, “where will we buy our food?”

I took some time today with a map, trying to figure out just where we’re staying (and how to get there from the airport), and discovered it’s just two stops up the tram line from the Dundrum Shopping Centre, which, I learn from their Website, is open extra hours for St. Patrick’s Day. I also note, with some disappointment, that I can eat at McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, or (gasp!) TGIFriday’s, after stimulating the economy at The Body Shop, Tommy Hilfiger or even Build-a-Bear. When I can’t go any further, I can always grab a mocha at Starbuck’s.

But all is not American here: the anchor stores are Tesco and Marks & Spencers, along with one I’ve never visited before called Harvey Nichols. While Tesco and M&S are UK ‘imports,’ they do well with providing local produce and products (see my musings about flown food); however, The upscale Irish store’s marketing copy focuses on the local.

To wit: Harvey is featuring carrageen moss, traditionally used as a remedy for colds and flu, but that can also act as an alternative to gelatin for desserts and savoury dishes. Since I’m trying to fight off a cold on the eve of flying, I am sorely tempted. But then I read on, and my knees go weak: artisan chocolate bars created in Limerick, with “slightly left-field flavour combinations” such as Gin & Tonic, Sea Salt, Wild Flower, Lime & Black Pepper and Star Anise & Ginger. But wait, that’s not all: a chocolate truffle tribute to that very Irish cocktail, the Black Velvet (made from equal measures of champagne and Irish stout).

******

With chocolate on my mind, Number One Son reminded me that we needed to make a cake for Darling Husband’s birthday. Since we’ve both been trying to stick to very healthy fare before our departure (in anticipation of blowing the rotation diet in a huge way), I thought I would try the chocolate cardamom combination on a GF cake base. We took it with to the school community gathering this evening, and amazingly, there was some left, but only because the kids decamped to the carousel before we pulled the cake out of hiding!

Chocolate Cardmom Cake

1½ cups GF flour (Bob’s Red Mill, contains garbanzo flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, ‘sweet’ white sorghum flour and fava flour)
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process; I used Green & Black)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. xanthan gum
¾ tsp. salt
1¼ cup milk (cow, soy, rice, almond, etc.)
1/3 cup butter, margarine or shortening
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
½ tsp. ground cardamom

Preheat oven to 350°F; grease an 11”x7” pan, set aside. Blend all ingredients with food processor or mixer until thoroughly blended. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until cake tester comes out clean. Cool, then garnish with melted chocolate, chopped smoked almonds and chopped hard toffee.

Homemade Valentines

When I was a little girl, I would spend a considerable amount of time searching the Hallmark rack at the drugstore for the one card that was both a Valentine and birthday card for my Big Brother. And every year, my mother made a sticky chocolate cake in a heart-shaped pan. Seems she knew better: homemade is closer to the heart.

I now have a friend who's a Valentine baby. Since she's a dear friend, she gets a showy cake from me (with three kids, I know she's not going to do it herself). Last year she got a Persian love cake, decorated with edible flowers. This year I set about baking while still under the influence of the Theo confections consumed Sunday. I figured the combination of chocolate, cardamom, caramel and salt would work equally well in a cake. I started with a nutty flourless cake, dipping into my stash of Theo chocolate (nothing but the best!). I delivered it yesterday evening, after her kids were in bed, and she was generous enough to share a slice. Seems my hunches were right.

Blissful convergence

Sunday was a wide-open day with great plans, none of which actually were completed, but it managed to turn out to be a great day nonetheless. We did get the vacuuming done, but the other tasks were overshadowed as we took advantage of the mild weather (sorry, New York), and went for a long hike through an ancient forest overlooking the lake. Feeling virtuous, we had no problem curling up with books for the remainder of the afternoon. At least, that’s what I did, but my Dear Husband took the boys off, all hush-hush, something about the hardware store (quite suspect, since he’s not that kind of husband).

I skimmed an issue of Food & Wine magazine from this summer, where they compact pithy sound bites about eco-epicureanism into a six page spread—including pictures. All the names are there, Pollan, Lappé, McGee, Planck, and Chef Anthony Bourdain, who notes that though he supports the movement, “…my only real concern is ‘is it good?’” I also moved forward a few pages of Lappé’s Grub: it’s so rich that I can only consume a few pages in one sitting, needing time to digest things before nibbling more.

Anyhow, upon Dear Husband’s return, he laid out his cunning plan: He had wanted to surprise me with it Wednesday evening, Valentine’s Day, but I was slated to teach (thanks to snow days). Adaptable fellow that he was, he had confided with British Neighbor’s husband, who was in a similar bind, with in-laws arriving midweek. The men folk agreed that they would indulge their wives Sunday evening, with an after-the-kids-are-in-bed chocolate and wine tasting. However, the poor gent forgot he wasn’t twenty anymore, and a full day of skiing left him completely knackered. We were on our own, it seemed.

I was summoned to a candlelit spread of seven wine bottles and an obscene assortment of chocolate. I knew that even I couldn’t possibly manage that much, so we pared it down, opening two bottles, a 2004 Pine & Post Washington State Merlot and a 2004 Laforet Pinot Noir (from Burgundy, and near Beaune, one of the places we liked to stop for our breakfast on the road trips of our early years together. He is incurably romantic.) Then we got down to some serious chocolate tasting. The star of the evening was chocolate from Theo, a Fremont-based bean-to-bar operation that uses only organic and fair-trade cacao beans. I know their 3400 Phinney bars from the co-op, and have to admit, this is serious stuff.

I am reminded of Chef Bourdain above: not only was it local and organic, it was beyond good. The aftertaste of just one bite of the cardamom caramel with smoked almonds (they couldn’t fit the sprinkle of sea salt in the name) carried me through drafting the last two paragraphs.

Have you ever taken the leaf off a mint plant and put it in your mouth? That’s what their mint ganache was like. Intense, surprising, furtive, nothing like the cloying sweetness of a Campfire mint. The only downside was that it didn’t work well with the Merlot. The sweet Pinot Noir, however, fit the bill nicely. The fig, fennel and Merlot confection was complex, the Scotch smooth, the Earl Grey too subtle for our taste. The single-source bars reminded me of different bottles of wine, each reflecting the life of the vine, the weather, soil, and neighboring plant life. Venezuela’s 91% was almost powdery, its ingredient list the epitome of simplicity: cocoa beans (Venezuela) + sugar. We both agreed on the pleasing properties of the 75% from Ivory Coast.

When we first met, our courtship included many candlelit evenings that lasted into the wee hours of the morning. I remember one evening when we watched a candle extinguish itself, as spent as we were. And late last night, as I slid the last bite of cardamom caramel into my mouth, the candle went out on its own.

I also recall how decadent I found my new European love, who treated this straight-laced American to chocolate for breakfast, in the form of a croissant slathered with Nutella. And now, twenty Valentine’s Day later, he continues to fill the corners of my life with chocolate.

French home ec

The year I met my husband is a year rich with memories. We were both serving as foreign language assistants for the French Ministry of Education, there to both help teachers and improve our French. Bourges was and is a small town at heart, and many families opened their doors to us as a group and individually. One family in particular delighted us with multiple invitations, to dinner, to a road rally, archery competition, and just to hang out. They had a son who was being forced to take the French version of Home Economics. In this country, there's one day in the life of the high schooler that stands out for the inviting odor. It's the day when Home Ec students make brownies. I'm pretty sure the teacher did this to ingratiate themself with the students--and it worked. (True confession here: I didn't take Home Ec, but managed to convince my counselor that wood shop was for me. I already knew how to make brownies, I wanted to learn about power tools.)

At any rate, this French teenager by came home with a recipe for the French equivalent of brownies, mousse au chocolat. My dear husband (well, just boyfriend at the time) just couldn't believe you could make it with just three ingredients: sugar, eggs and chocolate. So, he snagged the boy, and they hunkered down in the kitchen to make it together. We were treated to a yummy mousse for supper.

A few years later, living in a tiny student apartment in Freiburg, the light of my life pulled out that recipe and made it for me again. This was probably the moment I realized he was a keeper, so I kept him. That old ragged recipe has pulled him out of many a tight spot since then, making him shine in both my eyes and those of my mother and my girlfriends.

Alas, he found himself in such a position earlier this year, but stopped short: I wasn't eating eggs. How could he make mousse without eggs? Not for him those pseudo-mousses, relying on gelatin or whipped cream for their light fluffy texture. He is a purist.

Well, we think we've found a suitable ersatz, in the unlikely guise of tofu. Yup, tofu. Inspired by the little tub in the deli case at the co-op, I whizzed up some tofu and chocolate last night. A dash of vanilla extract helped, though I'm pretty sure some Grand Marnier would have really helped. All told, I probably need to experiment a bit with brands of both tofu and chocolate (the flavor of the chocolate seems to some through more strongly without the interference of sugar), but we were quite satisfied, after exhaustive research, including highly scientific double blind testing.

A happy love habit

Growing up in California, the chocolate store for special occasions was See's. It was just too expensive for "everyday" chocolate. Ah, but one of the things I learned when I was losing weight was to focus on portion size: I was eating the right things, just too much of them. Since I was limiting the amount of chocolate I ate, I convinced my dear husband that we (he) could afford to shop at See's to keep me in chocolates.

With the dietary restrictions put in place more recently, though, he was a bit at loose ends: his love currency was off-limits because of the milk content. The See's web site, while delightful and enticing, is completely devoid of nutritional information, and the attractive black-and-white boxes only contain composite ingredient lists. But, if I didn't already know how much my husband loves me, I do now. The light of my life went down to the store and had the lady in the nice white uniform produce an ingredients list for every dark chocolate soft center they had (I don't waste my time with nuts). The result of his research was a quarter-pound box under the tree with See's Dark Molasses Chips and Dark Patties (chocolate vanilla caramel).

Unfortunately, the box now weighs considerably less than a quarter pound. But that weight seems to have gone to my heart.

Heat, no brownies

That's right, five days after the storm, and I've got a girlfriend still without power. Her genius husband (really, he is excruciatingly intelligent) finally figured that it would be more energy-efficient to hook up the generator to the blower motor on their gas furnace than to run electric space heaters. So they're warm.

But she's craving comfort food, and I can hardly blame her. You can only do so much soup and tea. She wants brownies, but no power means no oven--her gas one has electronic controls. So here's what I told her to do. Fire up the charcoal grill--in the backyard--and grab the Dutch oven out of the camping gear (mine lives in the regular cupboard since I use it even when not camping). Take some brownie mix, or mix up your favorite recipe if you're feeling ambitious, and dump the whole mess into the pot. You might want to butter your pan, but mine is so cured nothing would dare stick to it, especially not a buttery batch of brownies. Now, take the whole covered mess out to the grill, use nice long handled tongs to put 16 coals on top, leaving 8 coals below. Set the timer for 20 minutes, then come and pull the pot off the coals. Another five minutes and you can scrape the coals off the top and use them to roast weenies or whatever. You could cool the brownies and cut them into pieces, but I'm not inclined to do that. Grab a spoon instead. They should be nice and gooey and make you forget all about wind and trees and downed power lines.

Celebration of Lights

With the power back on, we're back to the task of celebrating. The hard-working linemen got us back on the grid just as the sun was going down. There was great jubilation all around--as you can imagine. But we decided that we still wanted to share our suppers, so the neighbors, whose freezer had barely anything in it, cooked up the thawed spaghetti sauce (being British, they call it ragú sauce, which is of course a brand name here).

I threw together a pot of my vegetable curry. Brown onions in oil and butter, add curry paste and garam masala, throw in chunks of firm tofu, garbanzo beans and simmer. Ten minutes before serving, I place broccoli on top to steam. Basmati rice is in the rice cooker with a generous pinch of saffron to give it a beautiful color and flavor.

For dessert, I needed to use up milk, so I made chocolate soup: 1 cup of milk to 3 oz. good quality semi-sweet chocolate and 1 T of Dutch process cocoa powder. Heat milk, add chocolate & cocoa, stir it to melt, then pour into serving dishes. I've got a set of little espresso cups from IKEA that I use. We had German Christmas cookies, satsumas and comice pears to dunk in the chocolate. We didn't sing, but we did enjoy!

Cocoa

One of the hardest things to give up has been that lovely bacon-and-eggs breakfast that I indulged in when nursing our youngest. Between losing weight and dietary restrictions, I might indulge in the occasional hash browns, but the Full Irish must, alas, be but a distant memory, at least for a while.

To compensate, I've been indulging myself with a mid-morning cocoa.

Now, as a child, breakfast was not my thing. My mother used to jokingly remind me that as a baby, I liked two big meals: one mid-morning, one mid-afternoon. I'm still not a morning person, as our exchange student has learned (I may look awake, but I'm not), and I still don't like most breakfast foods. If I can't have a greasy mess, forget it.

So, after putting in an hour or two at work, I shuffle upstairs and make myself cocoa. Last year at this time, I was using eggnog, thinned with milk (too thick otherwise), but this year, doctor's orders means being creative. I've been experimenting with Silk Soy Nog. It's quite good with Green and Black's Hot Chocolate. Other good combinations are made with almond milk (Blue Diamond's vanilla Almond Breeze is an excellent base). My standby is vanilla almond milk with Ghirardelli Double Chocolate, but I have a whole collection of chocolate to add to hot (almond) milk: the aforementioned Green & Black's, which also comes in an incredibly tasty version called Maya Gold, with cinnamon and chili; Ghirardelli's collection, including the double chocolate, hazelnut (once that's back on the menu) and mocha (for mornings where I need a kick start); and the old standby of Cadbury drinking chocolate. I'm fortunate to have my husband's work colleagues who visit regularly from Ireland, and they keep us in good supply (I trade them peanut brittle and jelly bellies for it).

My mid-morning cocoa break is now over, and I shall get back to work.

Winter Light

Driving over the hill yesterday, the light struck me: that pale, thin winter sunshine. There were dark clouds behind the mountain, which stood out brightly in its new white coat. And the bare trees reminded me of Paris this time of year. There is an elegant beauty to the leafless trees lining the boulevards, and great pleasure in tucking into a good bistro meal on a cold night.

Tonight we were all home, miracle of miracles in this season (it does seem to be busier than ever this year). Dinner was "home bistro"--steak au poivre: I sautéed round steak (local, grass-fed beef), deglazed with a little Cabernet Sauvingnon (electric reindeer?!) and finished off with some sour cream (Tofutti, since it's not a dairy day). A sprinkling of cracked pepper to garnish. French fries from the oven, perfect for pushing through the sauce on your plate. Steamed fresh organic green beans rounded things off. Salad was mâche, radiccio and frisé with avocado and tomato in a raspberry balsamic vinaigrette.

The boys devoured their chocolate St. Nicholauses, while we noshed on cookies from the giant tin, and we had an interesting discussion about why they're hollow, and what it would take to make them solid. My dear husband insisted that the traditional ones were hollow, and had me running around town to find them. I finally found inexpensive ones at the drug store--Russell Stover makes them. They had all kinds of fillings: marshmallow, caramel, but he wanted 30 for his team, and insisted they be hollow.

Anyhow, we talked about how it was much harder to make solid chocolate shapes, since molten chocolate shrinks and leaves dimples as it cools, just like wax when you create candles by pouring. It reminded me how I had been reading Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate by Alice Medrich, and she talked about how she had naïvely made her first truffles with untempered chocolate. She was doing it all wrong, but there were distinct advantages: they had to be eaten fresh, which meant they tasted better, and they melted at a lower temperature, which, if you ask me, makes for a more sensual experience. Not that little boys don't smear chocolate all over their faces anyway.