White Fluffy Icing

Musings of a reasonably competent home cook.

Archive for category Baking

When Life Gives You Broken Cake, Make A Trifle

Aug 26

Posted by Laura in Baking, Food of Love | 5 Comments

Subject Line: Cake. "Call me."

I’m normally an optimistic, go-get-‘em type of person. I read somewhere once that we should count our blessings, not our troubles, and I try my best to live that way.

But sometimes I need to sit down and have a good cry.

I was recently on an elevator with a middle-aged woman. During our ride, which spanned about 25 floors, I caught a long glance of her. She was exhausted.

I don’t mean college-hell-week exhausted, or I-stayed-out-all-night-partying exhausted, or parent-of-a-child-under-age-two exhausted. She was trim and well-dressed, but she gripped the rail in the elevator a little too tightly. She sighed a little too deeply. Her eyes blinked a little too slowly and stayed closed a little too long.

Just hang on, she seemed to be thinking, the day is almost over. How many times had she given herself that pep talk? What weight was she carrying? Her load seemed heavy.

I don’t know that woman, and I’ll probably never see her again. But she reminded me that we each carry our own brand of troubles — a unique and invisible cross. Some are small and easily managed, some are tremendous and back-breaking. But we all have one.

They’re invisible, so we forget. I forget.

I forget that, outside of a very short list of people, I really have no idea what size anyone’s cross is — or perhaps more importantly, how equipped they are to carry it.

Often, I forget about my own cross.

And actually, the forgetting is usually my own doing. When a painful thought comes to mind, I can physically feel myself suppressing it, without really deciding to. It’s just like swallowing a lump in my throat to keep from crying – a subconscious mechanism to defend my composure.

But then, something will prick through the defense. I’ll see a woman in an elevator, and for all I truly know about her, she’s the most carefree and content human being on earth. But that’s not what I see. I see exhaustion, I see confusion, I see pain. I won’t realize until much later that I was actually seeing myself.

That’s when I know it’s time to have that cry I was telling you about.

I stop, put down my cross, and crumple against it. I take a good long look at it – it bears my old scars and my open wounds, my sorrows and regrets, my shortcomings, my pain. Worry. Anxiety. Fear. I acknowledge, wincing, that it’s really all really real. This is part of who I am. This is the cross I carry.

I remind myself that the appropriate response to injury is not to lash out or seek revenge. It’s not my job to make all things right, to put things back where they should be – and even if it were my job, I wouldn’t be qualified to do it. I would make the wrongs wronger. It is the very definition of futility.

No, the appropriate response to injury is to be hurt. To allow myself to be injured. That’s harder that it sounds. It requires vulnerability, admission, acceptance, and pain.

After all the tears are out, and maybe after pitying myself for a short while, I pull myself back together. Then comes the critical part: I pick up my cross and I keep going.

If I’m lucky – or, better said, if I do it right – I will have learned something in the process.

“Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” -1 Peter 3:8

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Subject Line: Success!

Usually when I sit down to write to you, I have at least an idea of what I want to say, and certainly the recipe in mind that goes with it.  Not so this time.

I sat down to have a good cry, and this is what came out.  Which is all well and good, but what the heck kind of recipe goes with this part of life?

And then suddenly, I knew.

I recently attended two funerals in the span of a week, which is part of the emotional weight I was carrying.  After the wake for the first funeral, I saw an email on my phone from my friend Joy, subject line: Cake, with a photo of a cake attached.  She was having trouble, it read.  Cake trouble.  Call me.

At first glance, when the cake photo was a thumbnail measuring approximately 2 microns by 4 microns, it looked lovely.  Black forest, cherries, chocolate shavings.  Hello, beautiful.  I wondered what the problem could be?

Then I opened the attachment, and boom!  Three fissures had split her cake almost exactly into thirds.  Cake chasms, they were.

“This is for a colleague at the office, for his birthday… tomorrow!  What do I do?” she asked.  She’d already tried inserting skewers to knit it back together (which you can see if you look closely at the photo).  She also tried spackling the layers together with more icing, but it had a whipped cream base, and it was too loose to do much good.  I looked at the clock.  9:00 pm.  Too late for another attempt.

Having ruined puh-lenty o’ cakes in my life, I told her what any baker would:  make a trifle.

What’s a trifle?

It’s a chunked up cake in a bowl, usually sprinkled with liquor or other highly flavored liquid, and layered with whatever filling or pudding type substances you have on hand, and topped with whipped cream.

Hmmm.  How do I make one?

Find the prettiest bowl you have, preferably a clear glass one.  Take a large serving spoon and start dishing chunks of cake into the bowl, until you’ve made a layer.  Add a layer whipped cream or filling or whatever you have around.  Repeat until you’re out of cake or near the top of the bowl.  Finish with whipped cream and more cherry filling.  Shave more chocolate on top.  Pretend you did it on purpose.

You really think that will work?

Yes!  And while your co-workers ooh and ahh over the deliciousness of it all, you can explain what a trifle is.  They’ll never know.  You’ll be a genius.

A couple of hours later, I received another email.  Subject line: Success!, and a photo of a pretty darn handsome trifle attached.  Success.  Shared success.  It lifted my spirit.

I hope it lifts yours.

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I can relate to having high hopes and expectations dashed when a cake doesn’t work out — especially a birthday cake.  I made a lime chiffon cake for Eileen, my mother-in-law, a few years ago, and luckily it turned out well.  In fact, it was so pretty, I wish I’d put it on a pretty cake plate instead of my portable cake saver thingy.

However, if it had collapsed, split, or been struck by lightning, I would have made a batch of lime curd and turned it into a trifle (and still had fun decorating the top the same way).

Fresh Lime Chiffon Cake
From Cooking Light Magazine, June 2006

FILLING:
1 teaspoon finely grated lime rind
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

CAKE:
Cooking spray
1 tablespoon cake flour
2 cups sifted cake flour (7 1/2 ounces)
1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons canola oil
1/3 cup fresh lime juice (about 3 limes)
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon finely grated lime rind
1 teaspoon pure lemon extract
3 egg yolks
8 egg whites
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

FROSTING:
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice (about 1 lime)
2 1/2 cups fat-free whipped topping, thawed*
Fresh mint sprigs (optional)
Fresh blueberries (optional)
Lime wedges (optional)

(*Naturally, whipped heavy cream would be better… )

To prepare the lime filling, combine 1 teaspoon lime rind, 1/4 cup lime juice, and sweetened condensed milk in a small bowl, stirring until blended. Cover and chill 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 325°. To prepare cake, coat bottoms of 3 (8-inch) round cake pans with cooking spray (do not coat sides of pans); line bottoms with wax paper. Coat wax paper with cooking spray; dust with 1 tablespoon flour.

Lightly spoon 2 cups cake flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine 2 cups cake flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk until well combined.

Combine oil, 1/3 cup juice, 3 tablespoons water, 1 teaspoon rind, lemon extract, and egg yolks in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add oil mixture to flour mixture; beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.

Place egg whites in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar; beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until stiff peaks form. Gently stir one-fourth of egg white mixture into flour mixture; gently fold in remaining egg white mixture.

Divide cake batter equally among prepared pans, spreading evenly. Break air pockets by cutting through batter with a knife. Bake at 325° for 20 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool in pans for 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pans. Remove wax paper from cake layers. Cool completely on wire rack.

To prepare frosting, combine 3 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons lime juice in a small glass bowl. Microwave at high for 30 seconds or until sugar dissolves. Cool completely. Fold into whipped topping.

To assemble cake, place 1 cake layer on a plate; spread half of filling over cake layer. Top with second layer, remaining half of filling, and third layer. Spread frosting over top and sides of cake. Garnish with mint, blueberries, and lime wedges, if desired. Store cake loosely covered in refrigerator for up to 3 days. Slice cake into wedges.

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Don’t wait for a ruined cake to make a trifle, which is a traditional English dessert.  Saveur Magazine featured a killer-looking trifle on last year’s December cover.  And don’t let the special bowl scare you away, either.  You can use a regular bowl, like Joy did, or you can make the small investment in a trifle bowl.  We received one from our friends Travis and Tara as a wedding gift, and I use it all the time… for trifles, and fruit salads, and banana pudding, and layered salad, and… and… and… you get the idea.  Are you sold yet?

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Who Am I To Judge?

Mar 19

Posted by Laura in Baking, Food of Love | 5 Comments

I was in college, I think.  Either that, or a freshly minted graduate.  Early 20s, anyway.  Mom and I had just watched a television biography of a famous performer… Judy Garland, maybe?  I can’t recall the setup, just the conversation.

During the interview, the subject said she’d been singing and dancing all her life, whether onstage in front of thousands, or in the living room for her family.  Performing was in her blood.  It was who she was.  She was lost without it.

I remember sighing heavily when the program was over, and my mother — ever the blunt one — asking simply, “What?”  As in, that was delightful and entertaining.  I like her.  What’s your problem?

I told her I wanted to feel that passionate about something.  I hadn’t been doing any one thing since time immemorial. I was jealous.

Mom just kind of gaped at me.  In hindsight, I know she was waiting for a punch line.  When she realized none was coming, she said, “Laura Denise.”  An admonishment, it was — fully encapsulated within my name.

“What?” came my innocent reply.

She scoffed at me then, rolling her eyes. Annoyed.

“What?” I repeated.Tell me.

“Were you not cracking eggs at age 2?”  Hello.  Are you really this dense?

“Oh.  Well.  I guess I like to cook.  Yeah, or bake.  I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Her feathers were getting ruffled.  I changed the subject.

Food had never occurred to me as a real hobby, much less a life-long passion. It’s more like a way of thinking: a lens through which I see the world. It’s akin to suggesting that I’m obsessed with breathing oxygen — I don’t think about it, it’s just what I do.

I had a similar moment recently when asked to judge a pie contest at the Brazoria Heritage Day Celebration. Who, me? Surely they would want someone more qualified. Someone who has been baking a really long time. Someone who has eaten lots of pie over the years.

Oh, wait.

Having never officially judged anything in my life, I had no idea how to go about formally assessing a piece of pie. My initial plan was to take two bites of each entry. That should cover it, right?

There were nineteen entries, which seemed like a manageable number until I did some quick pie math: two bites of each meant thirty eight bites of pie. Assuming that a typical piece of pie is consumed in about ten bites, that means… good grief! I was about to eat a half of a pie.  Well, it’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.

Of course, being the over-analytical type, I wound up with a methodology. By my fourth piece of pie, I had a little routine down: appearance, then topping, then filling, then two crust samples – one from the center of the pie, and one from the edge. I made copious notes, so I could remember one entry from the next. You would have thought I was building a legal case or something. I was the Ken Starr of pie judging.

And you know what? It was all for nothing, really. The winner, a German chocolate pecan pie, stood out like a scream within the calm.

You know what else?  That winning pie was baked by a ten year old girl named Haley.

You know what else?  Haley won the same contest last year, too.  I mean, is that cool, or what?

Haley is cute as a button, and obviously loves to bake. She’s grown up cooking with her dad, Jason, and her grandmother, Sharon, who lives about a mile away. Being about 25 years ahead of her on the Food of Love curve, and knowing the memories she’s making with them… well, I got a little misty-eyed just talking to her. I’m sure she thought I was a little nuts.

I thought long and hard about whether to ask Haley for her recipe. On one hand, it really was a beautiful pie, and sharing it would be a wonderful thing. On the other hand, if she agreed to give it to me, I’d be left wondering whether she really wanted me to blast it all over the Internet or not. Maybe she would do it to be nice. Maybe she’d regret the decision later.  Is there an age of consent for recipe sharing?

As a compromise, I decided to give you the most successful chocolate pecan pie I’ve ever made. It’s not quite as good as Haley’s, but if she writes in with hers, I’ll definitely let you know.

Congratulations, Haley!  We just met, but somehow, you make me proud.

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The Brazoria Heritage Celebration was an impressive event, complete with a parade, barbeque, gun show, car show, historical exhibits and demonstrations, and tons of stuff I didn’t get to see.  I’ll definitely be going back next year!

 

Chocolate Chunk Pecan Pie
Adapted from Joy of Cooking

1 baked 9-inch pie crust (use your favorite; my go-to recipe is below)
1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla or 1 tablespoon dark rum
½ teaspoon salt
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into ¼-inch chunks
3 ounces white chocolate, cut into ¼-inch chunks

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Spread the pecans on a baking sheet and bake until toasted and fragrant, 6 to 10 minutes.

Whisk the eggs, sugar, syrup, butter, vanilla (or rum), and salt until blended. Stir in the toasted nuts and chocolate chunks.

Warm the pie crust in the oven until it’s hot to the touch, then pour in the filling. Bake until the edges are rim and the center seems set but quivery, like gelatin, when the pan is nudged, 35 to 45 minutes. Let cool on a rack, refrigerate until cold and hard, then slice. Let the slices return to room temperature before serving, or warm them in a 275°F oven until the chocolate just begins to soften.

 

Pâte Brisée (Pie Dough)
Found on marthastewart.com several years ago

2 1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
¼ to ½ cup ice water

In the bowl of a food processor, combine flour, salt, and sugar. Add butter, and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, 8 to 10 seconds.

With machine running, add ice water in a slow steady stream through the feed tube. Pulse until dough holds together without being wet or sticky; be careful not to process more than 30 seconds. To test, squeeze a small amount together: If it is crumbly, add more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time.

Divide dough into two equal balls. Flatten each ball into a disk (for quicker chilling and thawing), and wrap in plastic. Transfer to the refrigerator, and chill at least 1 hour. Dough may be stored, frozen, up to 1 month.

Makes 1 double-crust or 2 single-crust 9- to 10-inch pies.

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(In Search Of) King Cake!

Mar 7

Posted by Laura in Baking, Food of Love | 10 Comments

I have lived all of my years in the Lone Star State, save for three — and in those three short years, Louisiana stole a piece of my heart.

Right out of college, Matt took a job at a company called CAMECO in Thibodaux, Lousiana (which is now part of John Deere).  I still had a year to go at Southwestern University, and some day I’ll tell you the story of how we “met” (hardly the right word when you’ve known someone your entire life), fell in love, and eventually married — but for purposes of brevity, I’ll just say that I finished school, spent a year working in Houston, and then got hitched and moved to Louisiana.  We’d heard that living in the same state ups your odds of staying married, at least in the first year or two.  Not knowing any better, we were willing to try it.

People back home often asked me how I liked it “over there,” and my pat answer was that it was like living in an entirely different country.  How a place we share a state line with can be so different, I cannot say — but it’s true.  And I loved it.

Of course, one cannot comment on the peculiar culture of Louisiana without mentioning Mardi Gras — and as you’ve probably guessed by now, that’s exactly where I’m going.

It all begins with the three wise men — you know, the ones from the second chapter of Matthew’s gospel.  Every January 6th, the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord — that is, the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles.  I won’t go into the theological details, but let’s just agree that it’s a pretty big deal, and therefore, worthy of a party.

On the Church’s liturgical calendar, Christmas season technically begins on December 25 and runs through Epiphany, on January 6th — what we all simply know as the Twelve Days of Christmas.  Europeans traditionally celebrated Epiphany with huge Twelfth Night parish parties, which featured a king cake.  In honor of the three kings, or wise men, of the Epiphany story, hidden in the cake would be three beans or coins, and whomever found the prizes were crowned the kings and queens of the day.  While the royalty were being outfitted for their office, the Christmas tree was taken down and “plundered,” which means the ornaments were removed, the branches were stripped, and it was stored until Lent, when it was made into a processional cross.  Meanwhile, the kings and queens held court… which is to say, they partied till the break of dawn.  Cheap beads imported from China may or may not have been involved.

I'm ready for my close-up...

These days, Epiphany still marks the end of Christmas season, but it also signifies the beginning of Mardi Gras season.  Along the way, the beans and coins turned into ceramic charms, and then into plastic babies.  Parades were added.  Krewes were formed.  Inappropriate behavior and overindulgence ensued… but one thing still holds true: the king cake.

And that’s all very well and good, you see, but here’s the thing: in the entire time I lived in Louisiana, I met many an expert home cook.  But never, not once, did I have a homemade king cake.  They’re kind of like doughnuts, in the sense that everyone picks them up at a bakery or grocery store, and next to no one makes them at home.  Is it me, or is that odd for a confection with such a rich cultural heritage?

For years, I’ve been casually looking for a good king cake recipe, but never found one compelling enough to warrant an attempt.  Then recently, I made the acquaintance of Jim Gossen, a perfect Cajun gentleman that lives here in Houston, but grew up in Louisiana and still has a home on Grand Isle.  Certainly he’d have a recipe for king cake, right?

Right.  Jim very graciously shared with me that his family enjoys the French version in Julia Child’s Mastering The Art of French Cooking: Gateau des Rois.  Of course!  The recipe I’d been searching for had been under my nose all along.  I eagerly consulted my 2003 anniversary edition of Mastering, and I’m ashamed to say, I couldn’t find it.  Before you suggest it, yes, I checked Volume II, too.  Either Julia can’t write an index, or I can’t read.  Maybe both.

Just as I finished turning every page of the desserts section of both volumes of Mastering, the universe reached out to me.  John Besh shared his king cake recipe via a link on Twitter, and when I clicked through, get this: it was this article by the Houston Chronicle‘s very own Greg Morago.  Sure, John is no Julia — no one is — but the recipe was from his beautiful My New Orleans cookbook, which is basically a love letter to Louisiana and its food culture.  So I had to try it.

As you can see, I went a little over the top with the tri-colored glazes and the beads, and Matt walked in just as I finished utterly destroying our kitchen.  But a funny thing happened when I cut him the first slice and handed him a fork.  He started talking about Louisiana.

While I did the dishes, he told me stories I hadn’t heard before, about his time there before I arrived.  He was a young engineer, still wet behind the ears and from out of state, much less out of town.

At the CAMECO offices, a lady named Pat traditionally brought the first king cake of the season, on January 6th.  Knowing that Matt didn’t know a king cake from his elbow, Pat stopped by his desk and told him to be sure and get a slice, which he did.  And sure enough, when he cut into the cake, he hit something rock hard.  Oh no, he thought.  What’s wrong with this cake?!

Immediately his co-workers started exclaiming, He got the baby!  Big Tex got the baby!  Hey Matt, that means you gotta bring a king cake tomorrow.

Great.  Not only was there a foreign mass in his slice of cake, which he would have to somehow politely ignore, but he had no idea why his colleagues were going on and on about a baby.  Or how he was going to produce a king cake on less than 24 hours’ notice.  Knowing him like I do, I’m sure Matt turned beet red while he tried to figure it out.  And having later gotten to know many of the folks that were in the room that day, I’m sure they lapped it up.

What an outstanding example of how food connects us to a time and place. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

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p.s.  While I greatly enjoyed Mr. Besh’s king cake, I still want to try Julia Child’s recipe.  If any of you have time to point a dim-witted food blogger in the right direction on how to find it in a book she already owns, please let me know…

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Food of Love + Foodways Texas

Feb 24

Posted by Laura in Baking, Food of Love, Foodways Texas | 5 Comments

Last fall, Dad and I went out to dinner — one of our infrequent father/daughter dates that I cherish so much.

We were just tucking into our salads when a face and a voice from the past approached our table.  It was Terry, a longtime friend from our hometown, and my dad’s former boss before he retired years ago.  He and Dad exchanged hello’s, then Dad pulled the old “Terry, you remember my daughter Laura?” thing — you know, the you’re-not-sure-whether-they’ve-met-so-you-give-them-both-an-out thing.

Oh, I definitely remember Laura… and her poppy seed tea rings!, Terry said. That’s actually why I came over.

I suddenly remembered — Terry was one of the best customers of my unlawful cottage bakery enterprise from 20 years ago.  Any time I got an order for poppy seed, I assumed it was from Terry.  He loved those things.

Terry went on to explain how his daughter was getting married at the end of January, and while they were planning to serve “fancy wedding food” for dinner, he also wanted to have a buffet spread of casual down-home selections for the guests to snack on while they awaited the arrival of the bride and groom.

You know, the good Bohemian stuff we grew up on, he said.  Stuff nobody makes anymore.  Stuff with love stirred in.

He actually said that: with love stirred in.  Was this a joke?  I started checking the periphery for Ashton Kutcher.

Anyway, I would really really love to have some tea rings for the buffet, he continued.  Would you be willing to make some?  It would really mean a lot to us.

There are many reasons why I don’t cook for a living, and it just so happens that wedding caterer is close to the top of the list of nightmare jobs for me.  (I’m way too much of a tomboy to deal with brides on a regular basis.)  But if ever there were an exception to be made, this was it.

That’s why, several weeks later, I spent a Saturday afternoon making three giant batches of rich yeast dough.  It was like being back in the kitchen of my childhood home — a dusting of flour covered every surface, bowls of fruit fillings were scattered on the countertops, lumps of dough were rising in random places under protective kitchen towels.  Why hadn’t I ever installed that second oven?

Dad came over to help me deliver the six colossal pastries to the old Knights of Columbus Hall.  How many parties and wedding receptions had I attended here?  How often had I kicked up my feet to the Cotton-Eyed Joe on this floor?  And — gasp! — remember The Chicken?!  It was very much like the time I visited my elementary school as an adult, after several years away.  Everything seemed so foreign, yet incredibly familiar.  Places like these are part of my DNA.

Dad and I made a successful hand-off to the wedding planners, and then left them to finish their work.  We attended vigil Mass together across town, and then dropped back by to make sure everything had gone as planned.  By the time we returned, the party was in full swing.

Terry’s 80-year-old mother, Mary Catherine, came straight over to tell me how thrilled she was with the tea rings.  Terry soon joined us, waiting politely for a break in the conversation, but none came, because Mary Catherine was telling me her personal Food of Love story.

She told me about how tea rings reminded her of visiting my grandmother’s house, and how no one cooks like that anymore.  She told me about her trick to making good pork chops and sauerkraut (get a good sear on the meat, then add the drippings to the kraut and simmer long enough to meld the flavors).  She told me about how she still makes chicken soup with homemade egg noodles, served over a dollop of mashed potatoes in the bottom of the bowl, and did my family do that, too?

Mary Catherine also told me that although she’d passed down all these savory recipes to her children and grandchildren, she’d never quite mastered yeast breads, and as such, no one in her family can make kolaches or tea rings.  We spoke of it as a dying art, which it is.

Later, the gravity of that occurred to me.  While dozens of the ladies in my mother’s generation baked these old world pastries, I’m the only person I know under age 50 that can do it.  Dad says that Mom taught Stacie, my sister-in-law, how to bake tea rings, and if that’s true, that makes two of us.  What exactly is happening here?  In two or three more generations, will my great grandchildren even know what a tea ring is?

To many, this probably seems like a trivial concern.  Who cares about old Czech baking traditions in this modern world?   Here’s the point: we’re losing a connection with our heritage.  America is a cultural boiling pot, and that is wonderfully incredible on many many levels, but assimilation has its downsides, too, as our cultural history slips through our fingers.

There are others with stories like mine — stories of how food connects us to our history, and how those foods are slowly fading away.  Some of the foods, I’ve never heard of.  Some, like seafood from the Gulf, I take for granted.

That is exactly why I’m about to turn off my laptop and pack for a trip to Galveston tomorrow.  I’m headed to the First Annual Foodways Texas Symposium.  I was ecstatic when Foodways Texas was founded last summer with a mission to preserve, promote and celebrate the diverse food cultures of Texas — but my excitement was because I know we have so much to celebrate, and I personally have so much to learn.

But now, thanks to Terry and Mary Catherine, I realize that I might actually be carrying a small torch for one of those diverse food cultures.  Now it’s personal.

I hope to see you in Galveston.

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A Very Special Pie

Feb 19

Posted by Laura in Baking, Food of Love | 11 Comments

A horticultural miracle.

My mother made every effort to attend parties and weddings.  Without a darn good reason, not accepting an invitation was, well, rude.  If they like us enough to invite us, then we like them enough to go, she would say.  I didn’t really understand this as a child, especially because my mother’s most frazzled moments involved darting around the house in bare feet, makeup partially applied, simultaneously telling my dad which tie to wear, my brother that tennis shoes were not acceptable, and me to put down that book and get dressed, for crying out loud.  It’s a wonder we ever got out of the house.

The part about being rude didn’t sink in until middle school, when I started receiving event invitations of my own.  The first time I told Mom I wasn’t going to Little Johnny’s party because he [is mean] / [is weird] / [smells funny] / [insert juvenile excuse here], she quickly put me in my place.  How would it feel, she asked, if you had a party, and no one came?  Decorations up, invitations sent, special outfit on, and then no one showed? I admitted that it was a pretty rotten scenario, and after that, I became quite the party-goer.

But as strongly as she felt about parties, Mom went to even greater lengths to attend funerals.  She went to funerals for people she’d barely met, without knowing a single other person in attendance.  Why?  It’s not for the deceased, she would say, it’s for their family. I didn’t understand that either – wouldn’t the family be more occupied with their own sadness than keeping tabs on attendees?

What I didn’t realize is that the truly sad part for the immediate family begins after the funeral, when life goes on and abandons them in their grief.  Before that, there’s simply no time.  It’s a whirlwind of activity, very much like planning a wedding on about three days’ notice: food, flowers, lectors, pallbearers, officiants, details, details, details.  Don’t even get me started on figuring out what to wear.  How bone-deep awful would it be to do all that for a mostly empty church?  What would that say about the deceased?

That’s why I had such mixed feelings during my own mother’s funeral.  I was stressed about the arrangements, and I was worried about giving the eulogy.  Seeing my mother in her casket was completely surreal.  But the giant offset to all that was the throngs of people who were there, some from far-flung places, and their tremendous outpouring of love and support.  I’ve never been in a sadder, more anxious, happier place in my life.

Now, when people ask me what they can do to help a friend who’s lost a loved one, my immediate suggestion is to attend the funeral, if at all possible.  It matters more than you might think.  That being said, I also understand that there are myriad reasons why some people simply can’t attend a funeral.  That’s why I want to tell you about what Janet did.

About a week after the funeral, the doorbell rang.  It was my neighbor, Janet.  Next to her was a small tree in a container, with a pretty stained glass cross hanging from one of the branches.

I wanted to give you something to honor your mom, she said.  It’s a Meyer lemon tree.

What she didn’t know was that my mother adored homegrown lemons.  She used to give gifts of pre-measured lemon juice with a recipe attached for lemon pudding or some such, and instructions on how to freeze it if they couldn’t use it right away.

Carnage.

And of course, as a cook, I use lemons all the time – and Meyers are my favorite.  It was an incredibly thoughtful gesture, and I immediately started fighting back appreciative tears.

But there was just one problem: I’m a terrible gardener.  The worst, actually.  I have a gruesome trail of dead houseplants, vegetables, herbs, and yeast starters in my wake.  One of my irrational fears while pregnant was that I’d be tasked with keeping a real human baby alive.  (Seriously.)

Normally I would have delegated tree stewardship to Matt, who is almost as good at growing stuff as building stuff – but as a budding entrepreneur, we both knew our little citrus gem wouldn’t be top of mind for him, either.  His solution? An automatic watering device.  Or, as I like to call it, my plant nanny.

A year later, there were exactly thirteen lemons hanging on my mom’s tree.  I was astonished, and thrilled.

About the same time, I was browsing Mom’s ridiculously large cookbook library, researching mincemeat pie.  Mincemeat’s popularity is on a steep decline, but it was quite popular as recently as a couple of generations ago — so I made an educated guess that an older cookbook would have the depth of information I wanted.  Sure enough, I found a goldmine: Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook from 1965, with an entire chapter on mincemeat.  Bingo.

But that’s not even the best part.  When I took the book off the shelf, I immediately noticed a little flag sticking up, marking a page.  Ladies and gentlemen, would you like to guess which chapter it opened to?  Why, that would be “Beautiful Lemon Pies,” of course.  The first recipe of the chapter is “Best-Ever Lemon Meringue Pie,” with a note in my mother’s handwriting: Delicious!

"Delicious!"

And that, my friends, is why mincemeat research was postponed until next fall.  I went home and made Meyer lemon meringue pie instead.  In the process, I learned that people go absolutely bonkers for lemon meringue – bonkers, I say!  I can’t remember how many people said, “Ohhhhhh, lemon meringue is my FAVORITE.”  Who knew?  And haven’t these people ever eaten chocolate?!

How this information had eluded me before, I don’t know – it probably has something to do with the fact that I’m more of a cake baker than a pie maker.  What I do know is that Mom is still giving me recipes and nudging me in new directions.  If I’m lucky, it will take me the rest of my life to sift through all of her cookbooks and find her other notes – sort of like an Easter egg hunt for the ages.

What a wonderfully comforting thought.

All because of Janet and her very special tree.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Best-Ever Lemon Meringue Pie
From Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook, 1965

“A Farm Journal 5-star special”

Baked 9-inch pie shell
1 ½ cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/3 cup water
4 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1/2 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel

Meringue
4 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar

Combine 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 1/2 cups water, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in saucepan; heat to boiling.

Mix cornstarch and 1/3 cup water to make a smooth paste; add to boiling mixture gradually, stirring constantly; cook until thick and clear.  Remove from heat.

Combine egg yolks and lemon juice; stir into thickened mixture.  Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture bubbles again.  Remove from heat.  Stir in butter and lemon peel.  Cover and cool until lukewarm.

Preheat oven to 325°F.

For meringue, add salt to egg whites; beat until frothy.  Gradually add 1/2 cup sugar, beating until glossy peaks are formed.  Stir 2 rounded tablespoons of meringue into lukewarm filling.

Pour filling into cool pie shell.  Pile remaining meringue on top and spread lightly over filling, spreading evenly to edge of crust.

Bake at 325°F about 15 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Cool on rack at least 1 hour before cutting.

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I Further Resolve…

Jan 22

Posted by Laura in Baking, Food of Love | No Comments

It's officially called Cashew-Date Bread, but I call it Pantry-Cleaner-Outter Bread.

Sooooo, what if your kitchen needs more of a detox than your diet does?

It never fails that in January, I can barely close my pantry door for all the food stuffed in there.  It reminds me of trying to get away with “cleaning” my room by shoving it all out of sight.  It was exceedingly obvious to me that no one in the history of the world had ever thought of such a clever concept.  I was a genius!  I know you know what happened next: Mom walked in, went straight to the closet, opened it, and a heap of crap tumbled to the floor.  Then I thought SHE was a genius.  Oh, to be eight years old again.

That closet from the early 80s is my post-holiday pantry of today.  And don’t even get me started on the freezer — extracting something from that overpacked thing is like playing a hard-core game of Jenga.  Freezer Jenga.

There are two factors at play here: First, I probably do more cooking in November and December than the rest of the year combined.  Okay, well… that’s a stretch.  But it’s a lot.  And there are tons of stray ingredients still hanging around — soldiers left on the battlefield, if you will.

An almost full package of crystallized ginger, because I needed one ounce for a recipe.  More panko than any one person should legally own.  And ohhhhhh, the cranberry inventory.  When the fresh stuff hits the produce aisle, I start hoarding it like the apocalypse is coming, and half of it winds up in the freezer.

Second, I have the luxurious problem of receiving quality ingredients as gifts during the holidays.  Which I love, by the way.  This year, I have about five pounds of pecans left, and a mixed case of cane syrup and sorghum molasses.  I tell ya, if everyone had my problems, the world would be a better place.

I fancy myself as a bit of an amateur test kitchen cook all the year round, but in January, the experimenting really gets out of hand. I try all sorts of new stuff, based solely on all the surplus.  When it’s over, I usually feel like I’ve Tom Sawyered myself into cleaning out the kitchen, but hey, I have a clean kitchen.  And I almost always learn something new.

For example, at the moment, I’m focusing on the pecans.  There’s no room for them in the freezer, and they always go rancid more quickly than I expect.  The thought of tossing out five pounds of beautiful Texas pecan halves… well, I don’t even want to think about it.

Consequently, I’m about halfway through a study on pecan pie.  Light syrup vs. dark syrup vs. cane syrup vs. sorghum molasses.  White sugar vs. brown sugar.  Adding melted chocolate.  Adding chocolate chunks.  You get the idea.  I’ve already made some serious tweaks to my standard recipe, which, to be honest, wasn’t all that great. When I finish all my “research”, I’ll let you know the results.

In the meantime, I have a bread recipe that I use every January, because it can accommodate almost any combination of dried fruit and nuts.  That means it’s perfect for all the bits of this and handfuls of that that are lying around.

It’s a humble little loaf — the oats and wheat flour give it a little body, and it’s ever so slightly sweetened with honey.  With a house smelling of freshly baked bread and a pantry that’s under control, I could almost forget all about the Christmas decorations I shoved into the guest bedroom…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Cashew-Date Bread
From The Bread Bible, by Beth Hensperger

1 cup plus ¼ cup warm water (105° to 115°F)
2 tablespoons (2 packages) active dry yeast
Pinch of sugar
1 cup warm buttermilk (105° to 115°F)
½ cup honey
½ cup rolled oats
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1½ cups whole-wheat flour
¾ cup coarsely chopped pitted dates (or whatever dried fruit you have on hand)
¾ cup coarsely chopped raw cashews (or whatever nuts you have on hand)*
About 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, or bread flour

Pour 1 cup of the warm water in a small bowl. Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the surface of the water. Stir to dissolve and let stand at room temperature until foamy, about 10 minutes.

In a large bowl using a whisk, or in the work bowl of a heavy-duty electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine buttermilk, remaining ¼ cup warm water, honey, oats, butter, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Add the whole-wheat flour and yeast mixture. Beat until creamy and smooth, for about 3 minutes. Add the dates, cashews, and all-purpose flour, ½ cup at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough that just clears the sides of the bowl is formed.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes, dusting with flour only 1 tablespoon at a time as needed to make a soft and springy dough. Take care not to add too much flour. Push back any fruit or nuts that fall out during kneading. The dough will have a slightly dense and sticky quality.

[If kneading by machine, switch from the paddle to the dough hook and knead for 4 to 5 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and springs back when pressed. If desired, transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead briefly by hand.]

Place the dough in a greased bowl. Turn to grease the top and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm area until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1½ hours.

Gently deflate the dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Grease the loaf pans — either two 8½ x 4½-inch pans or five 6 x 3½-inch pans. Divide the dough into 2 large or 5 small loaves. Shape the loaves and place them in the pans. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until level with the tops of the pans, 30 to 40 minutes.

Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 375°F. Bake large loaves 35 to 40 minutes, and the small loaves 25 to 30 minutes, or until brown and sound hollow when tapped. Transfer immediately to a cooling rack. Cool completely before slicing (because it won’t slice well when hot… or do like I do, and use an electric knife immediately!).

*When I use cashews in this recipe, I leave them raw. For pecans or walnuts, I toast them. In fact I almost always toast nuts before baking with them, whether the recipe directs me to or not.

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Lagniappe: A Note From Tom

Dec 20

Posted by Laura in Baking, Lagniappe | 1 Comment

Remember Tom, from Williams-Sonoma?  He helped me breathe while resisting the urge to buy all those vintage culinary books at his store.

You might have thought I was exaggerating when I referred to him as The Most Helpful Sales Guy in the History of Retail.  Which would be understandable, really, because I have been known to embellish this thiiiis much (thumb and forefinger spaced exactly two microns apart) on occasion.  But not this time — I have proof.

I sent Tom a link to the post last week, and he wrote back with a very gracious note, along with three recipes that look amazing.  They were obviously meant to be shared:

Hi Laura:

Thank you for your kind words and great posting.

I have attached a few recipes that you and your readers might enjoy.  The Stuffed Pear Salad is from Cooking Light, I have made it so many times that I added the chart of how much for how many people.  The other two were my mother’s favorite things to make at Christmas time.

I wish you and all your loved ones a Blessed Christmas and all the best in 2011!

Tom

Was I right or was I right?  Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty.

Thanks, Tom — and all the best to you and yours as well!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stuffed Pear Salad
from Cooking Light, 1996
(I couldn’t get Tom’s very cool chart to display correctly in HTML. If you’re interested in scaling this up, email me at whitefluffyicing (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll zip you his original.)

½ cup nonfat ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons golden raisins
1 tablespoon honey
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 firm ripe red pears
½ teaspoon lemon juice
2 cups torn watercress or other lettuce
Piquant Dressing (recipe below)
1 ½ tablespoons pine nuts, toasted

Combine first 4 ingredients in a small bowl, stirring well. Set aside.

Core pears; cut each in half lengthwise. Brush cut sides of pears with lemon juice.

Place ½ cup watercress on each individual salad plate. Place one pear half on watercress on each salad plate. Spoon ricotta cheese mixture evenly onto pear halves. Drizzle Piquant dressing over pears, and sprinkle with pine nuts. Serve immediately. Yields 4 servings.

Piquant Dressing
¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, stirring well. Yields ¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Apple Cranberry Pie

Pastry for 9-inch two-crust pie
3/4 cup brown sugar
¼ cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 cups peeled, sliced tart apples
2 cups Ocean Spray fresh or frozen cranberries (whole or chopped)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine

Preheat oven to 425ºF.

In a large bowl, combine sugars, flour and cinnamon. Add fruit, mix well, turn into pastry lined pan. Dot with butter. Cover and cut slits in top crust. Seal edges.

Bake 40 minutes or until golden brown.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cranberry Nut Loaf
“This was my mother’s favorite thing to bake for people or serve at Christmas every year.”

2 cups all-purpose sifted flour
1 cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons double-acting baking powder
½ teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup shortening
¾ cup orange juice
1 Tablespoon grated orange rind
2 eggs, well beaten
½ cup chopped nuts
1 cup fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped

Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Combine orange juice and grated rind with well beaten egg. Pour all at once into dry ingredients, mixing just enough to dampen. Carefully fold in chopped nuts and cranberries. Spoon into greased loaf pan (9x5x3″). Spread corners and sides slightly higher than center. Bake at 350°F for about 1 hour, until crust is golden brown and toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from pan. Cool. Store overnight for easy slicing.

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This Is It, Ya’ll

Dec 7

Posted by Laura in 2010 Bon Appétit Covers, Baking, Cover Announcements | 29 Comments

The last Bon Appétit cover of 2010 has arrived, and I can hardly believe it.  Where did the year go?

Remember what I said a few weeks ago about cake vs. pie?  A perfect case in point: this glitzy cake couldn’t be any further from a humble sweet potato pie if it tried.

At first glance, my reaction to the cover photo was: Lord have mercy on my soul. A three-dimensional chocolate bow will do that, or so I hear.

Then I looked at the recipe.  My first reaction there was: Whoa.  Two entire magazine pages for one single recipe.

And my second thought was: Lord have mercy on my soul.

Then I actually read the recipe, and it’s not nearly as crazy as it looks.  I felt even better when I read this issue’s letter from the editor, because there I learned that this is a recycled cover from 1984, and that it has been their most requested recipe for the 26 years since, “generating more mail over a longer period than any other recipe.”

This is good news, for two reasons: a) It must be a darn tasty cake, and b) It can’t be that hard.  (Famous last words, anyone?)

I have high hopes that this is the dessert I’ve waited all year for: challenging but doable, and impressive in both the looks and taste departments.  For the record, the turkey freaked me out waaaaay more than this.

p.s. Interesting to note that this recipe is not (yet?) available on the Bon Appétit website… any guesses as to why?  Because it’s also in the new BA Desserts cookbook?  Or perhaps the recipe developer didn’t give permission?

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Oh SNAP!

Dec 3

Posted by Laura in Baking, Food of Love | 6 Comments

What do homemade gingersnaps have to do with the Houston Grand Opera?

It’s no secret that I’m a lover of Houston — I came out and told you so last summer.  And actually, I had this grand plan of writing a series of posts about my fair city, beginning with a discussion about how underrated Houston’s food scene is.  Well, procrastination is the thief of time, as they say, because Bryan Caswell beat me to it.

I certainly don’t mean to insinuate that Caswell and I are in the same league — being one of the best chefs in Houston, he has about ten thousand percent more street cred than me, and about a zillion times more reach (his editorial made the front page of cnn.com, after all).  But I’m also not about to try and write what he already said so elegantly, either.  If you haven’t read what he wrote, you should: check it out here.

So let’s agree that Houston has a fantastic dining landscape that next to no one knows about.  Done.

On to the next Thing I Love About Houston: its world-class arts scene.  That’s right: world class, baby!

Consider the following facts:

  • Houston is second only to New York City for the number of theater seats in a concentrated U.S. downtown area.
  • Houston is one of only five cities in the U.S. with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines of opera, ballet, symphony, and theater.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts Houston is Texas’ oldest and most prominent museum, and is the fourth largest art museum in the United States.
  • One of the most important private art collections in the world, the Menil Collection, is in Houston.
  • The only intact Byzantine frescoes in the Western hemisphere are housed in Houston’s Byzantine Fresco Chapel.
  • In 2008, Yahoo! Travel listed Houston’s Rothko Chapel as one of the top 10 U.S. places to see before you die. Rothko Chapel is also on National Geographic’s list of the world’s “most sacred places.”
  • The Houston Museum of Natural Science is the third most visited museum in the U.S., behind the Smithsonian Institution and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Crazy, right?  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  I had to stop myself.  (For more, start here.)

Sometime around 2003, I decided to giddy-up and take advantage of all this stuff going on in my backyard.  I started visiting exhibit halls and attending museum events, and I was ever so lucky to cross paths with Stephanie right about then.  In addition to her sparkling personality, she also has a degree in art history, and to this day, I still somehow manage to persuade her to attend museum events with me.  Which would probably be no big deal, except that she has to answer all my neophyte questions. Questions like, Err, what’s with all the naked nymphs? Answer: These artists wanted to study the female body, and they couldn’t very well paint a naked lady, because then she would cease to be a lady, right?  Ohhhh, gotcha.  (wink, wink)

With my visual arts tutorial sufficiently underway, I turned my attention to the performing arts.  I decided to buy season tickets to the Alley Theatre one year, the Houston Ballet the next year, then the Houston Symphony.  The only trouble was, I didn’t have a “Stephanie” for any of those.  Ah, but that certainly didn’t keep me from dragging Matt along.  And when I’d wrung every drop of art appreciation out of him and hung him out to dry, I finished my tour by subbing in a rotation of buddies.  It was actually fun, all that artsy platonic same-sex serial dating.  But I digress…

Read the rest of this entry »

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The Hangover

Dec 2

Posted by Laura in Baking, Food of Love | 7 Comments

There are many ways to cure a Thanksgiving food hangover.

Going to Vegas ain’t one of ‘em.

Matt and I slipped away on Friday for our very first trip without The Boy, and it wasn’t until we were on the plane that I allowed it to sink in.  I thought that surely a sudden pediatric fever, family emergency, or a phone call from a client would derail us.  (I wonder if the stress of these past few years will permanently leave me in “hope for the best, plan for the worst” mode.  Is that called growing up?  Is this what maturity is?  Lord, I hope not.)

Once we checked in, it took a few minutes for us to stop reaching for laptops that weren’t there.  After that, we blinked at each other for a while.  Then we let our hair down and hit the strip, and Stella got at least a little of her groove back.  I didn’t do too bad, either.

It was wonderful.

Thanksgiving was wonderful, too, actually.  Aunt Denise, our acclaimed holiday hostess, called a few weeks ago and asked, Would it be okay with ya’ll if we had crab stuffed flounder instead of turkey this year? I mean, is the Pope Catholic?  Is the sky blue?  Bring it ON, sister.  I mean, aunt.  Whoever you are.

We decided that if there was some form of pumpkin on the dessert table, we could still call it Thanksgiving.  In that same vein, I also felt compelled to check the cranberry box on the holiday form, somehow, some way.  My new Twitter buddy, Joel, suggested a cocktail, which would have solved all the world’s problems — except for the delicious fact that Aunt Denise was book-ending the flounder experience with sangria AND her famous egg nog.  (Hic.)

This dilemma persisted until Wednesday morning, when Dad and I were finalizing the set list for our day-o-cookery together.  The November issue of Bon Appétit was nearby, and after a few page flips, I had it: Cranberry Salsa with Cilantro and Chiles.  Dad tried to talk me out of it, which means he cocked an eyebrow, but I was not to be dissuaded.  I’d discover something fun or I’d go down in flames.  (Luckily, it was the former.)

So, cranberries and pumpkin safely revered, we settled on making a chicken and sausage gumbo to accompany the flounder.  Based on a recent comment from Cheerleader Lisa about how terrific a lightly spiced, gently cooked apple is, and how crusts and heavy sweeteners and ice cream can actually get in the way, I suggested that we make a simple crust-free apple crisp, lightly enhanced with a little ribbon cane syrup Dad brought back from the Heritage Syrup Festival in Henderson, Texas.  It would be a lighter option on the dessert menu.

Clockwise from top: pumpkin-ginger cheesecake with maple pecan glaze, triple chocolate mousse cake, and apple crisp. Pumpkin bread pudding was at the next stop...

Because Matt and I would be heading over to his family’s gathering afterward, and because my mama taught me to never show up anywhere empty-handed, and because Matt’s favorite food in the whole wide world is pumpkin bread, and because I’m generally a glutton for punishment, I added Bobby Flay’s Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Spicy Caramel Apple Sauce and Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise to the list.  Start the IV now, doc, because this story’s headed for a food coma ending…

But you know what?  Probably due to all the parental supervision, I didn’t overcook anything, I didn’t drop anything, and I didn’t leave any entire dishes behind.  (Psst. Dad, I’ll cook with you anytime.)

This means that during the meal, instead of stewing over whatever I’d forgotten/dropped/smashed/over(under)cooked, I was able to sit back and enjoy it more.  And here’s what I came up with: I have one heck of a terrific family.

I’m not going to go into every dish that was on the table, because we’d be here all day.  Suffice it to say that everything was terrific, and that if I spent the rest of my life on a treadmill, I wouldn’t burn it all off.  My Aunt Pam and Uncle David were there, and my cousin Jason joined us too, whom I haven’t seen in a million years.  And get this: Jason is a closet pastry chef.  He must be, because when I tasted his triple chocolate mousse cake, I couldn’t decide whether to weep or slap the table.  Dude, where’ve you BEEN?

Looking around the table, I realized how multi-talented everyone is.  First, everyone can cook.  Really cook.  Unk is essentially an artist, Dad and Matt seem to know how everything works (table discussion included the mechanics of milling sugar, which started when I asked why I can buy ribbon cane syrup but not just plain old sugarcane syrup…), Jason will forget more than I’ll ever know about website design (he sent me an email with a handful of tips a few months ago that I’m still digesting), and David, Pam, and Aunt Denise are wicked gardeners.

That’s not even close to being an exhaustive list of their talents.

So I sat there, looking down at my flight of desserts, coffee at the ready, listening to the conversation.

And for the first time in a while, I was grateful.  Bone deep, tear-flicking grateful.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Spicy Caramel Apple Sauce and Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise

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