What’s-in-My-Kitchen Week, Day 6: Good Reading

I used to have a large bookcase full, top to bottom, of just my favorite cookbooks (and a few choice cooking magazines). Then we moved into an apartment half the size of our previous house. Guess what. I discovered that even most of my favorites were dispensable in exchange for the good trade in housing. The ones I parted with had to go to good homes, of course, and were a fine cause for bonding with family and friends over food in a new and different way–conversationally rather than via consumption, for a change. Still, there are some things one values above open shelf space, and a few of the ‘basics’ and a few of my personal favorites really did call out for rescue from the give-away goods enough to move with me–to all of my various domestic locations since then.

Cookbooks are far from Legal Documentation to me: I rarely follow any recipe to the letter. But they are instructional all the same, and highly inspirational. Since I depend on them so much for acting as kitchen muses, two things tend to happen–I almost always prefer cookbooks stuffed with vivid pictures as well as the recipes and descriptive tutorials, and I love cookbooks as bedtime reading and coffee-table books even more than as technical guides for my cookery, when they can stir my imagination without my being distracted by my stirring the pot. Still, I have a good number of cookbooks that are more pedagogical than pictorial and rely on them for my factual education whenever I’m in need.

My kitchen operations aren’t generally terribly sloppy, so I don’t tend to have grease marks and mustard stains all over my cookbooks. However, I am such a mad-scientist in their use that recipes not only get tweaked endlessly as I work but instantly forgotten in their current iterations if I don’t write them down, so I do desecrate my cookbooks by writing in them. They’re the only books I can think of that I have ever written in directly, but when I used to jot notes and stuff them into the pages, pretty soon I had a cookbook with a broken spine from my fattening it too much–if the book was really any good.

I’m very fond, when traveling, of finding local cooking magazines as well, because like any good picture book, they’re well enough illustrated so that I can pretty quickly translate what’s being said–okay, the Hungarian and Czech magazines are not so quickly conquered, but I can still suss out what’s going on eventually. And I love getting a taste of either the local traditions or what’s trendy there as opposed to what’s current here. Talk about tasteful souvenirs of my wanderings.

So, what are my favorites? Betty Crocker, that maven of miracles in the kitchen, is an icon of my childhood and so still keeps her place in my heart and home. For truly basic kitchen science, I’m still attached to the Joy of Cooking (Rombauer & Becker), but I like Alton Brown‘s playful yet factual approach to the chemistry and physics of it all, too. I’ve got a superb Swedish compendium (Mat Lexikonet, above) that a friend edited, not just because she’s such a dear but because in spite of having very little illustration it’s a very thorough encyclopedia of the tools, terms, dishes and ingredients commonly used in the Swedish kitchen, including all of the foods adopted and adapted from other cultures that have become part of Sweden’s rich heritage as a result of their delicious wonders. From our times spent in Sweden I have a few other great cookbooks, a couple of them also edited by our friend Birgit, and chose them primarily because while editing she would sometimes prepare the dishes for photo shoots or, better yet, test them on us who were lucky enough to visit during one of those preparatory periods. America’s Test Kitchen is also a fine source of scholarly information, and the organization’s focus on developing recipes through multiple trials and experiments makes them truly a litmus test for quality control; even though I still play with substitutions constantly I know the science behind my choices better.

For specifics that I love, I go back to a very few books regularly. For breads, I couldn’t beat Bernard Clayton‘s old standard that always gave me the right technique and proportions (in baking, of course, this is a far more fussy matter than in many other practices in the kitchen) and I could play with my variations on a theme as long as I knew precisely where and when and how that should work. My other baking go-to has remained the beautiful Country Desserts. Lee Bailey’s attention in it to lushness and depth of flavor is matched so exquisitely by the glorious photography, and frankly, I love that he emphasizes in this a laid-back approach to the dishes’ presentation that is much more in keeping with my fix-it- and-chomp-it-down mode of operation than any of those dainties that may cause me such heart palpitations when others do the decorative work but keep me waiting too long in my panting desire when they’re in my own hands in preparation. Donna Hay‘s photographers always make her cookery look even more desirable than the descriptions can do (and they can do a lot, I find), so hers are cookbooks and magazines I love to peruse for artful ideas any time.

As I do have a deep affection for pigs, living or cooked, and my kind friend Ellen knows it, she presented me with the lyrical Pork & Sons, which though filled with delectable recipes indeed, is even more a gorgeous photo album of and paean to the French farmers, chefs, butchers and eaters who revere the pig in all of its glory. International love of food–that’s half the reason for reading about it as well as eating it. And as a great admirer of the cuisines of many different cultures, I have always enjoyed reading cookbooks as a form of cultural and social and political as well as culinary history and often enjoy a meander through the tasty pages of books of Indian, German, Thai, Jewish, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Spanish or whatever other places and peoples capture my imagination at the moment. Probably one of my other greatest favorites in that realm is to peruse the local Junior League or church or social club’s cookbooks from American small towns and obscure organizations, because they too have such colorful and thought-provoking takes on what makes them who they are. I will always adore the late, lamented Ernest Matthew Mickler‘s classic White Trash Cooking as both a terrific piece of artistry and one of the most truly compassionate and funny documents of rural American cookery and culture ever to come off a press. Heart-stopping foods, perhaps, but well worth the danger for the love and laughter with which they’re garnished.

Maybe my enjoyment of that book and its cousins is really just because I’m a little trashy myself and feel so at home among the people whose crusty, hardscrabble, can-do, make-do good cheer and affections would accept pretty much anybody at the table, so long as I eat what’s put in front of me gratefully and don’t spit on the floor. White Trash is one cookbook I could never bear to write in, come to think of it, so perhaps there is something with a whiff of the sacred about great cookery books. All I know is, they’re close to my heart and so I keep ‘em close to my kitchen too.

Foodie Tuesday: Sweets from the Sweet

I knew we’d hit the neighbor jackpot yet again. We have a history chock-full of fine neighbors between us, my husband and I, of that sort who are not only great to chat with at the mailbox but offer help and led tools when they see projects underway, share their mystical gardening secrets, and advise on who’s the best resource for automotive care, where there’s still an independent pharmacy in town, or what the local ordinances are on right-of-way maintenance.

But we all know that the best neighbors of all have not only generosity in their hearts but also food in their hands when they show up at the door. Rhonda was known to trade her fresh-picked raspberries for our over-abundant plums. David–actually the manager at our then apartments–went door to door delivering home-grown green beans, tomatoes and zucchini that he and his wife grew in the ‘bonus’ plot on the complex’s property. Peter rang the doorbell at our place in Tyee bearing bending boards of fantastic barbecued meats and salmon and vegetables.

Add to this that we had not only other great neighbors but also heroic postal carriers, pest treatment and HVAC specialists, and remodeling contractors who have become admired friends, and you know that our standard for being spoiled is very high.

So when we moved to our current home, perhaps it was only par for the course that our new next door neighbors would arrive with welcoming smiles–and food. But what food! We didn’t have to lift a finger for anything other than unpacking and furniture-dragging for at least three days after arriving in this house because we were handed an enormous platter laden with an assortment of deliciously varied homemade salads, another piled with home-baked breads and rolls and biscuits, a plate of tender, moist cream cake, and a gallon pitcher of sweet tea. If it hadn’t been love at first sight, it would surely have to have been at first bite.

I'm a lucky chick, having such sweet neighbors!

The flow of gustatory glories has continued unabated (and ably washed down with Mr. Neighbor’s lovely wine-selecting and punch-making skills as well as his fine Scotch collection) from that day forward. You will have no trouble believing and understanding when I say that we are devastated that these neighbors have retired and have the temerity to plan to move back to home territory in another state. Who will phone us in Canada when our sprinkler system fails during a hot spell, to tell us that they’ve already hired the company that installed it to do repairs before we come home? Who will deliver our entire stash of newspapers they collected over our out-of-town trip, updating us on the rest of the neighborhood or sharing delightful stories of their own adventures? And who will show up at random, numerous and very welcome times bearing, say, cake or cookies or pie, or a handmade bread cornucopia with a massive vegetable-and-floral display in it at Thanksgiving, a gorgeously crafted Bûche de Noël at Christmas, a sprightly spring assortment of cookies and cupcakes and jellies at Eastertime?

The answer, as you well know, is that it is our turn to become those neighbors, to show up unannounced with that very special something-extra whenever we can, to lend tools and perhaps the hand to use them, and to spread the joy of hospitality whenever and wherever we can. The torch–or the torchon de cuisine–has been passed. I hope I’m up to the task!I’ll probably start with something supremely simple like the nut-and-seed crackers that have no real recipe and change every time I make them. They make a handy vehicle for dips, salsas and salads when I want a quick bite of lunch or a not too terribly naughty snack. This time they were thus:

Nut and Seed Crackers (and Tuna Salad)

8 cups of finely chopped mixed nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, pecans, macadamias, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds) tossed together with about a cup of grated extra sharp cheddar cheese plus coarsely ground salt and black pepper and good chile powder to taste, all mixed with just enough water to clump together into ‘dough’ and rolled or patted onto a non-stick cookie sheet (I use a silicone lining sheet in the pan so I can be extra lazy on the cleanup), and then baked at 325-350 degrees F (depending on your oven) until golden brown. I let these ones cool in one big slab and then just broke them into uneven pieces about the size for carrying, say, some bacon and cheddar cheese dip or guacamole or seasoned labne or some tuna salad. Tuna Salad, around here, is nothing more than a good quality tinned tuna (one of the brands that cooks its filet directly in the can and adds nothing other than a little salt; I like High Seas and Tuna Guys and can order it online from both, but there are other excellent sustainable-fisheries purveyors as well) seasoned with ground pepper, dried or fresh dill, smoked paprika, yellow ‘ballpark’ style mustard and sometimes chopped capers, and bound with good mayonnaise until slightly creamier than just glued together (spreads better that way).

This combination may not exactly constitute sweets for neighborly delivery, but then we know that the sweetness derives just as much from not needing to fix any food oneself, if only for a brief moment. Or for days on end, if you happen to get one of our neighbor’s fabled deliveries!