Weekly Dish

And a month later…everything has changed again. Such is the nature of caring for an infant, I know, but I’m still not used to how impossibly fast life changes when you are enmeshed with one who measures her life in months rather than years.

I don’t know how the last month went for you, but around here, February stole through our back door when we weren’t looking, hung out just long enough to bluster and spit and stir up the fickleness that is Louisiana weather, and then, just like that, he disappeared.

Thankfully, in his wake, he left us with a baby who has learned that food is good. Which is quite a relief for us, I have to say. In case you haven’t noticed, we pay a good bit of attention to what we eat. Food is, in some sense, what we do: it’s how we spend a lot of our time, how we entertain ourselves, how we commune with each other and with our friends and family. So, for Josie to so violently reject food felt like a rejection of us somehow. I know that sounds ridiculous because it is — she just wasn’t ready yet, as all of you wise moms out there reassured me. And, she’s a baby for crying out loud.

But here’s the other thing I’ve learned about my child through this process: she is some kind of opinionated (I say that in my very best southern drawl). My mother is laughing out loud right now (can you hear her glee?) that I am dealing with the fierce independence that she faced nearly thirty years ago in the guise of another baby with a mind of her own. I’ve been hearing these stories my whole life — how when Mom tried to brush my hair, I grabbed the brush and declared, “Me do it! Me do it!” or if my dad ever actually won the game of Candyland, I would throw the whole board across the room in protest. But I never expected that strong willed streak would show up so early in my own child — it seems that her already-formed opinions have been coded into her DNA.

Regardless of how it got this way, Josie has made up her mind that she will eat on her terms, which means, she is the one who puts the food in her mouth. Once we crossed that hurdle — she grabbed the spoon out of my hand one day — she has been delighted to try all kinds of things.

And just like that, I had to figure out what to feed her. Now, I’m guessing by now that you’ve picked up on the fact that I have a few opinions of my own about food, but I should say that my philosophy is very much in process. Over the last year, David and I have been making a concerted effort to stay away from processed food and to spend as much of our food budget at the farmer’s market on seasonable fruits and vegetables as we can, but we haven’t always been this way. And we could certainly still do better, but we’re trying to stay away from food that has been trucked in from far away and move towards eating the fruits of our neighbors’ harvest.

And so, of course, looking at a jar of pureed bananas and thinking about putting it into my child’s body, I had lots of questions. Even if I buy the organic brand, where were those bananas grown? What kind of farm? How are the workers treated? How long did it take them to get here? How many nutrients were removed in the processing stages they went through to get into a jar that could sit on a shelf indefinitely? I know, I know. I’m taking this way too seriously, you might be thinking. But if I am conscientious about the food I put into my own body, shouldn’t I be even more concerned about a growing, developing body that, for the time being, I have complete control over? I know that won’t always be the case, and so, for now, yes, I’m being picky about what Josie eats. We’re trying to give her only whole foods — and to take Michael Pollan’s advice, mostly plants.

Perhaps my ideas about all of this seem hard-core or militant or just too fussy. But I believe that taste in food is cultivated, and as David and I are working towards intentional habits of eating, we’re bringing Josie into that lifestyle, and we want to prepare her taste buds for it as best we can. I’m not so naive as to think that she’ll never have sugar or refined flour or (heaven forbid!) French fries. But if I can prolong her exposure to those things and increase her taste for real food, then I want to try.
Practically speaking, this decision means that we exert a little bit more effort than opening a jar to prepare her food, but in the grand scheme of things, not that much more. One afternoon’s worth of prep work — cooking, blending, storing — will last us a whole month.

For the month of February in Louisiana, that meant a Sunday afternoon roasting a winter squash and a couple of apples, steaming spinach and Swiss chard and broccoli and carrots, pureeing it all in batches with a little bit of the cooking liquid, and spooning it into ice cube trays and tupperware containers. I also ground some brown rice and oats to make her morning cereal, and we keep whole milk yogurt in the fridge.

Once the prep work is done, meal time is as simple as opening a lidded container or thawing out an ice cube.

Clean-up, on the other hand, is another story.

You all were so kind and helpful as I worked through getting my child to eat; now, I want to know, what kinds of decisions have you made about feeding your kids? What challenges to your kids’ healthy eating have you faced? What should new moms be cautious about?

And, then, I promise, I will stop using this space to obsess about my child’s eating, and Weekly Dish will return to its regularly scheduled programming. Thank you for your patience!

Oh, I wish this post had a different title. I’ve been wanting to tell you about Josie’s forays into the world of solid food for some time now. You’ve all been so kind to be interested in her developments and to comment on how much she’s growing and to let me know that it’s okay that I devote a little bit of this space to talking about her and not just food, even though this is, technically, a food blog.

But, well, I really wanted to have some good news for you. I wanted to say how much fun it is to share the wonders of fresh fruits and vegetables with my little one. I wanted to tell you how much she loves to sit in her high chair, how she leans forward to welcome the spoon into her mouth, how she can’t wait for the next new food. Instead, I have only this to show you:

Some days are better than others—she seems to tolerate spinach and carrots better than anything else, and yogurt for breakfast is sometimes okay with her. But, very often, she turns her head from side to side, tightly closes her lips, and refuses. If she’s feeling particularly witty, she’ll perform her newest saliva trick and blow bubbles right as the pureed food meets her mouth for a fantastic fireworks display of vibrant green or orange (as you see in the photos above). We’ve tried it all, it seems: mashed avocado; applesauce, both freshly made and from a jar; carrots, in commercial baby food form and steamed and blended by hand; spinach; bananas; rice; oatmeal; yogurt; yogurt and oatmeal with pureed fruit mixed in; butternut squash; sweet potatoes. She seems to dislike it all equally, with rare exceptions.

She’s eight and a half months old now, and I’m starting to get discouraged. So I come to you, dear readers, to ask: What in the world do I do to convince my child to eat? Will she just eventually accept that food is part of her life? Am I worrying too much? Is her dislike of bland food somehow connected to the way I eat? I tend to like my food on the robustly flavored side, and my taste for seasonings seemed more pronounced when I was pregnant; the more well-seasoned, the better. That has not dissipated since I’ve been breastfeeding, so is it possible she has acquired a taste for more flavor than the average pureed fruit or vegetable has? Should we go straight to table food? Has anyone else encountered this problem, or is this my particular punishment for being a picky eater as a child? (So sorry, Mom!)

At this point, I’m willing to try most anything (well, within reason, of course; the point is to get nutrients into her body and to cultivate her taste for healthy foods, so I’m not willing to give her chocolate pudding or ice cream just so she’ll like it. At least not yet.)

She’s usually such a happy thing, disgruntled only for the expected reasons — hunger, discomfort, fatigue. Oh, and when we try to put a spoon in her mouth. So, if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them. I want her to look like this when she sees food coming:

While we’re waiting for the happy, food-hungry Josie to emerge, we have needed food to sustain our own appetites, preferably of the hearty, comforting sort. More often than not this time of year, that comes in the shape of a warm bowl of pasta. Because locally grown broccoli is so plentiful right now, we buy it at the market every week, and this little dish has become something of a standby. I particularly like it with whole wheat penne or tiny shells; the toothsome noodles stand up well to the cloak of creamy, ham-infused sauce. Plus, it cooks quickly, so there’s time for, oh, I don’t know, dancing around a baby in her high chair begging her to open up. One day, I’m hoping I will feed her whatever I’m making, straight from the stove, with minimal cajoling, and we’ll have put this whole baby food stage behind us. I can’t say that I blame her all that much; I’d rather have this pasta than plain, pureed broccoli any day of the week. Wouldn’t you?
Oh, well, in the mean time, at least I won’t be starving.

Pasta with Ham, Mushrooms, and Broccoli

The trick to this being a quick recipe is the order of the steps: if you start the water to boil for the broccoli and pasta, by the time the noodles are done, your sauce should be ready too. In terms of flavor, this is a dish that benefits from frequent sprinkles of salt: don’t save the seasoning step until the end, instead, sprinkle a little in every time you add something new to the skillet.
1 head broccoli, chopped up into bite-sized pieces
16 ounces small pasta shells or penne rigate
4 ounces ham, diced (we used leftovers from a honey-baked ham)
1 t. olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1 t. flour
1/2 cup white wine (if you don’t have wine on hand, chicken stock would probably work too)
1/4 cup milk
2 T. heavy cream
Coarse salt, to taste
Parmesan cheese, grated, for serving

Bring a pot of salted water to boil. You’ll use this pot for both the broccoli and the pasta.

Meanwhile, prep your ingredients: chop the ham, broccoli and onions, and slice the mushrooms and garlic.

When the water is boiling, add the broccoli, and blanch for about 3 minutes; it should be crisp-tender and bright green. Drain the broccoli and set it aside, but reserve the cooking water, putting it back in the pot. Let the water return to boiling, and add the pasta. Cook until al dente.
While the broccoli and noodles cook, heat the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet. Add the ham and cook over medium heat until well-browned. Remove the ham with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add the mushrooms and onions to the skillet and cook over medium-high heat until the onion is beginning to turn golden. Add the garlic slices and stir them in, continuing to cook until all the vegetables are tender. Season well with salt. Rubbing it between your palms, sprinkle the flour evenly over the vegetables, stirring quickly to coat.
Pour in the wine, and cook over medium-high heat for a minute or two, then stir in the milk. Reduce the heat to medium. Season with salt. Keep stirring and cooking until the liquid has reduced by half, about 5-7 minutes. Stir in the reserved ham and broccoli, and finish with the cream. Cook for just a minute more. Serve the sauce over the pasta, and top with plenty of grated cheese.

My dad has always reveled in the curiosity of little ones. As I was growing up, the firstborn, I think he was always terrifying my mom by tossing me higher and higher in the air, spinning me faster and faster as he swung me in circles, coaxing me into trying all manner of new things. Now that I’ve given him his first grandchild, I have a feeling that he will turn his daredevilish attentions on my daughter.

Part of what’s magical about grandchildren, I think, is that the wonder of a baby who’s just learning her world never changes, but now, fearing for her safety is my responsibility. Dad gets to enjoy the unblemished joy of my daughter’s laugh when he places her face to face with her first live puppy without worrying about whether or not she’ll be afraid. If she gets upset, he can just hand her back over. The thrill-seeking of adventure has always been a favorite pastime of my father’s, so having a brand new pair of eyes to delight with his antics provides lots of entertainment when we visit, for both Dad and Josie. She lights up when he comes around the corner, greeting her with his big smile and booming voice. He wears the mantle of grandfatherly delight like he’s been doing this for a long, long time. Of course, my mom might tell you that fearing for our safety was never Dad’s territory; perhaps he’s been a doting grandfather at heart all along.

It is fitting then that it was Dad who first introduced me to raw oysters, what seemed to me at the time as the most adventurous of foods. He convinced me to try lots of different things simply by pretending that I wasn’t grown up enough; if Dad thought it would be daring and precocious for me to try it, I desperately wanted to. Which is perhaps the reason I started drinking coffee with my breakfast before junior high. I wonder what would have happened had he declared broccoli and spinach stuff for more mature eaters only.

But oysters it was, and joining my father in raw oyster consumption became something of a holiday tradition around our house; come December, they always seemed to appear in our kitchen, piled in a slippery mound in a colander, awaiting Dad’s famous cocktail sauce and Saltine crackers. That’s still my favorite way to enjoy them, but when I married David, I joined my culinary adventures to a man who does not share my love of raw mollusks. So over the years, I’ve experimented with different ways to cook them, and this is my most recent favorite. It’s perfect for our combined preferences — the oysters are poached just briefly enough to take the chill off, while retaining the silky texture I so love about raw ones.

Because of my association of oysters with the holidays, I tend to buy them this time of year, particularly when we’re having a meal to celebrate something, whether it’s our first Christmas as parents, or the start of my last semester before I start dissertating (Lord willing).Paired with champagne, this dish made for a deliciously simple celebratory meal a few weeks ago, as we toasted the end of our first semester juggling our roles as parents, teachers, and students. As we discussed what kind of eater our daughter would be, we both hoped that she would fall on the adventurous side, willing to try anything. As long as she spends time in her grandfather’s kitchen, I’d be willing to guess that she’ll be as eager to take culinary risks as I was; perhaps she’ll at least join us in our raw oyster revelry. And if not, there’s always this middle ground, which I like just as well so long as I’m sharing it with someone I love.

Poached Oysters with Bacon, Spinach, and Cream

We like to eat this just the way it comes out of the oven, with a couple of slices of bread to mop up the pan juices, but I can also imagine that it would pair nicely with thin pasta or a bed of mashed potatoes.

4 slices bacon, diced
Half a medium yellow onion, chopped
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups fresh spinach leaves, chopped
1 pint oysters, shucked and drained, liquor reserved
2 T. heavy cream
2 T. reserved oyster liquor
coarse salt, to taste
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup Asiago cheese, grated (Parmesan will also work)
zest of 1 lemon
2 T. butter, softened

Preheat the broiler. In a large, lidded oven-proof skillet, cook the bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon pieces from the skillet, reserving a thin layer of the rendered fat (a tablespoon or two). Cook the yellow onion in the bacon fat over medium heat until very soft and golden, around 10 minutes. Add the garlic and green onions and cook for a few minutes more, until the garlic is soft and aromatic.

Add the chopped spinach leaves to the skillet and stir quickly, coating the leaves with the fat and wilting as you move them around the skillet. Add the cream and oyster liquid, stirring to combine, and cook and stir for a few minutes, until some of the liquid has reduced and the spinach is tender. Sprinkle with salt.
Stir in the bacon pieces, and spread the spinach mixture in an even layer in the skillet. Lay the oysters on top of the bed of wilted spinach, nestling them into the liquid, and put the lid on, allowing them to poach for just a couple of minutes, or just until the edges curl up slightly.
Meanwhile, combine the bread crumbs, cheese, lemon zest, and butter.

When the oysters are curling up at the edges, remove the lid, and stir them into the spinach. Spread the crumbs on top and broil briefly, just long enough for the crumbs to crisp and brown, about a minute (but watch carefully). Serve immediately, with crusty bread, if you like.

Is it Thanksgiving already? Are you sure? Well. I’d better get busy. It’s the first Thanksgiving for the little one, and I’d hate for her to look back through the Weekly Dish archives the year of her birth and see that I posted not one holiday recipe for her first food-obsessed holiday. Not that I’ll be cooking for her exactly, as her repertoire of food experiences includes only avocado, sweet potato, and banana so far. But I am planning to make a butternut squash pudding, reserving some of the roasted flesh for her to sample, so that counts for something. Her first Thanksgiving vegetable perhaps.

I guess with a baby around, it’s inevitable that a person becomes obsessed with firsts. Nearly everything is a first for Josie — just in the last month, she’s grown her first teeth, sat up by herself for the first time, tasted her first solid food. I know, I know, all of you who don’t have a baby are rolling your eyes right now. I know because I used to do the same thing — who wants to hear about someone else’s baby’s first teeth, anyway? It happens. Babies get teeth. And they have to sit up some time, so there inevitably must be a first time. Yawn. I swore I wouldn’t be one of those moms who oohed and aahed over her kid’s various universal — and therefore terribly mundane — developmental accomplishments to folks who could care less, so I won’t bore you with the details.

And yet. I have to just say that it is incredibly amazing to watch a tiny little person discover something utterly new. Do you remember the last time you discovered something really, truly new to you? It doesn’t happen that often in our adult lives, but for infants, virtually everything is a miraculous introduction to the world from a new vantage point. Even just the sound of her own voice takes on monumentally delightful proportions when she learns how to vary the pitch, volume, or use of spit to make new squeals, sputters, or growls.

Partly because of the sheer delight she takes in all things new and partly because I am particularly fond of the holidays, I am trying to make a special effort to establish celebratory traditions for our family this year. And, of course, a good deal of what makes a celebratory tradition in my definition of the term is food.

I know my posting this last year has been sporadic, but over the coming week, I hope to share with you the food I am making for Thanksgiving. (Maybe even every day, but I won’t make any promises.) Some recipes will be old, some will be new, some will be a combination. We are traveling to Mississippi to celebrate the holiday with our family, so I have plans to spend the next several days preparing my culinary contributions, recording them here as I go.

As I get my Thanksgiving dishes ready, of course I’ll need something to snack on as I cook. I’ve made this dip for a couple of years now around this time of year, and for whatever reason, I’m just now getting around to sharing it. Probably because it’s one of those things I seem to make at the last minute, when we need an appetizer to take to a Halloween party or a neighborhood art show or to a last-minute fall dinner with friends, and I never quite seem to get proportions written down or photos taken. Finally, though, I’ve tinkered with the recipe and taken exact measurements (and even a photo!). If you are buying canned pumpkin for a pie or some other Thanksgiving dish, I highly recommend saving one for this snack — it’s easy, tasty, and looks pretty on the table. Plus, it’s nicely suited to stand up equally well to a platter of carrot sticks and radish slices as it is just plain-Jane crackers. Or, if you’re feeling especially holiday-decadent, David likes it with the hottest variety of Zapp’s potato chips (but don’t you dare take that shiny metallic chip bag to Thanksgiving dinner; I do not want to be blamed for treading on what may be the most sacrosant of all food-related occasions, at least in this country. Turkey every, single year? That, my friends, is one heck of a stubborn tradition.)

So, here we go, kicking off Josie’s first-ever week-before Thanksgiving cooking extravaganza. She may not understand exactly what’s going on, and experts say that she won’t really remember. But just in case, I want the scents and sounds and sights of the holidays to be forever tinted with a joyful flurry of kitchen activity. From the very beginning.

Since I missed posting on her first Halloween, here’s a photo to make up for it. She was a happy pink leopard who growled at all the other trick-or-treaters. And we took this dip to the Gatewoods’, our dear friends, for a pre-trick-or-treating cook out. It was almost as big a hit as the pink leopard.

Spiced Pumpkin Dip

This is a highly adaptable recipe, one in which the proportions can be varied widely. I have made it with twice as much cream cheese and half as much pumpkin, and vice versa, mostly depending on how much leftover pumpkin I had on hand. After several tries, this is my favorite ratio, both for flavor and texture, but if you have a crowd to feed with this dip, you can certainly increase the cream cheese to use a whole package. I also like it to have quite a punch in terms of spices, but if the amounts of paprika and cumin seem like a lot to you, start with one teaspoon of each and add as you see fit.

1 head of garlic
olive oil
1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree
4 ounces cream cheese
2 t. ground cumin
2 t. Hungarian paprika
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
2 t. coarse salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and set your cream cheese on the counter to soften. Slice off the top of the garlic head and remove the loosest layers of the papery skin (you don’t need to peel it entirely — just get rid of the stuff that comes off easily). Place the whole head on a square of aluminum foil and bring the edges up all around to make a little pouch. Before twisting the top to seal it closed, drizzle the garlic with a little olive oil (about a teaspoon). Roast for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and open the foil pouch to let the garlic cool.

When cool enough to handle, squeeze the cloves from their skins into the bowl of a food processor. Add the remaining ingredients and process until very smooth. Taste for salt and spice — you may need to add a little extra. Sprinkle the finished dip with extra paprika for garnish. Serve with crudites, pita chips, or crackers. Or, if you’re feeling especially indulgent, Zapp’s potato chips.

This summer, my sister came to stay with us. Nine years my junior, Elizabeth is the baby of our family; our two brothers occupy the middle territory, sisters flanked on either end. That makes me the oldest. By the time baby number four came along, my parents were well into the throes of a life structured around sporting seasons: our white mini-van scooted from one field to the next, and later, one town to the next, as my brothers batted and kicked and threw their way through boyhood and on into adolescence.

So, soon after my eighth birthday, when my mom announced that a baby was on the way, I faithfully knelt beside my bed every night and prayed for a sister. Now, as is true of most siblings I’m sure, there were certainly days I understood why people often said you should be careful what you wish for. Especially as I ventured into the teenage years with a toddler close on my heels, prying into my make-up cabinet, my telephone conversations, and my many purses, I often wondered what in the world I’d been thinking. Compounding the dissonance caused by our age gap, she moved into my room right about the time I started high school. She was seven, went to bed early, and wanted to sleep as bodily close to me as possible. I was sixteen, cultivating a fierce independence, and wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

Then, I left for college, and somewhere along the way, we became the greatest of friends. We’ve tried to retrace our steps, to figure out where and how we made the transition, but now, it’s hard for me to remember a time we didn’t talk often about any and everything.

When she decided that she wanted to be around for the first few months of my daughter’s life, I was delighted. When she said she’d also like to learn her way around the kitchen while she was here, I was even more excited. David and I have taken turns teaching her what we know and what we like to make — she and David have made biscuits, loaves and loaves of bread, scones of several kinds, and stacks of cookies. My contributions to her culinary prowess tend to lean more towards the dinner side of things: at my request, she’s made risotto, crab cakes, shrimp scampi, and scads of salads. She’s gotten better at slicing and dicing, become quite adept at simply dressing a salad, and learned her way around a frying pan.

Mostly, though, she’s cultivating her taste in food, which, as far as I can tell, is one of the best ways to ensure success in the kitchen: to know what tastes good. She comes back from our grocery store with a pungent, creamy wedge of blue cheese and a crisp apple, or slices up an avocado and tops it with a squeeze of lemon and a good handful of salt. True, when it comes down to the doing, she’s more baker and I’m more cook — she’s precise and measured to my haphazard and experimental. But what we share is a love of simple, fresh ingredients, enhanced by other simple, fresh ingredients, and that means that either of us can go into the kitchen and whip up a quick snack or meal that the other one will love.

This salad requires neither great skill nor great know-how, but I have to tell you, when Elizabeth and I threw it together as one of the last summer lunches we’d share, it felt like a most fitting end to the time we’d invested in sharing kitchen space.

What remains true for me — and one of the things I love most about cooking — is that the creation of food means the creation of memories. When Josie is older and I tell her stories of her first summer in this world, those stories will involve Harry Potter, her dad’s manic baking, her Aunt Elizabeth at the stove, and a kitchen full of love and laughter.

And that, friends, is what summers, kitchens, and sisters are made for.

A word about salads and dressings: every cook certainly has her salad preferences, and I tend to be rather finicky about mine. I like the greens salted, rather than the dressing (so no salt in my dressing recipe). And, I’d just as soon have as much “topping” as greens, so the fruit/vegetable/cheese combination carries its fair share of weight. Also, I prefer a tangy dressing to an oily one, so my proportions may seem a bit off. Most vinaigrette recipes call for twice as much oil as vinegar, but that’s too much oil for my taste. Adjust as you see fit.

Sisters Summer Salad

Salad greens, to cover two plates
1 peach, diced
1 avocado, diced
2 handfuls sea salt
A healthy smattering of cracked black pepper
2 ounces of creamy blue cheese
Balsamic vinaigrette (recipe follows)

Lay half of the peach and avocado on each bed of greens; sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper (the cracked pepper really makes this salad — don’t skip this step!) Scatter the blue cheese atop each salad and drizzle with vinaigrette. Enjoy with someone you love a lot (like your sister).

Simple Balsamic Vinaigrette

1/4 cup good balsamic vinegar
2 T. honey
1/3 cup olive oil

Whisk the vinegar and honey vigorously to incorporate. Drizzle the oil slowly into the vinegar mixture, whisking all the while.

At home with my precious new baby girl. Please meet Josephine Hannah, who we’re calling Josie. She was born on May 11 at 5:28 a.m., weighing in at 8 pounds, 11 ounces, and measuring 20 3/4 inches long.

I am slowly returning to the joys of menu planning and cooking and I hope to return to the blogosphere shortly with recipes and menu reports. In the mean time, I hope all of you are enjoying the bounty of the season; we certainly are. In fact, Josie’s first outing was to the Farmer’s Market!
Happy summer to all!

March is a month of many celebrations in our little family. David and I were married on the 10th, and his birthday falls on the 25th. It’s also, in this part of the world, the beginning of my favorite season: spring.

This March felt especially monumental in our lives: David turned 30, and we celebrated 6 years of marriage, the last one where it will be just the two of us living in our house. It’s funny how the expectation surrounding the birth of a child makes everything seem like such a big deal; maybe it’s just the hormones, but I have felt a sense of urgency to mark occasions by celebrating with more fervor than usual (and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am even in my non-pregnant state an occasion kind of girl).

David was not thrilled about the prospect of turning 30, so I put that celebration on the backburner for a while and concentrated on our anniversary. Usually, I cook a romantic dinner and wear my wedding dress for the evening. Silly, I know, and not very possible this year due to this person protruding from the front of my body. And, I didn’t feel much like spending such a beautiful weekend inside cooking either, so we came up with a new plan. David orchestrated an afternoon picnic and afterwards, we decided to head out to see a movie (neither of us could remember the last time we actually watched one in the theater).

My only job was to come up with a dessert we could have when we got back home with our take-out, and it I knew it had to be an occasion-worthy one — one of the traditional gifts for six years of marriage is sugar, after all.

Over the Christmas holidays, we had the chance to meet and visit with our good friend Tee’s brother, Griff, who also loves to cook. Over Sunday lunch, we got on the topic of cookbooks. When I told him I had just been given Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, he immediately recommended her recipe for a dessert called a diplomatico. The suggestion stuck with me, and when I wanted something special to make for David, Hazan’s recipe is where I turned first. I altered it a little, adding a pronounced hazelnut flavor in with the chocolate, but I stuck with her basic formula.

The end result was both lovely and delicious; the chocolate filling is light in texture but heavy on flavor (especially if you use really good chocolate) and the cake turns velvety soft under the influence of its coffee-liqueur bath. You could make a fancy chocolate frosting to go on top, but a simple layer of whipped cream was all it needed, in my opinion. After you have the cake made and cooled, the dessert comes together very quickly; the set-up time it needs makes it the perfect thing to make the day before you need it.
In fact, it was so good that after it served as a celebratory sign of the six years I’ve been married to the love of my life, I convinced David to let me throw a small party in honor of the thirty years he has been alive. He agreed, as long as I promised to make this cake again, a sure sign that this was a dessert worthy of both occasions.

Chocolate Hazelnut Diplomatico

7 t. sugar, divided
4 eggs
6 ounces good, semisweet chocolate (extra, for garnish)
2/3 of a baked pound cake
1/3 cup frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)
1 1/4 cups very strong coffee (I used hazelnut flavored coffee)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
Toasted hazelnuts, for garnish

First, make the chocolate filling. Separate the eggs, and beat the yolks with 1 t. of the sugar until pale yellow. Melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler. Pour the chocolate very slowly into the yolks, whisking constantly until thoroughly incorporated. Beat the whites on high until stiff peaks form. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of the whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten; then, fold the remaining whites in with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon very gently, being careful not to stir the air out of them. Set aside.

Next, line a baking dish or deep bowl with a damp dishcloth or cheesecloth, letting the edges hang over. Mix the coffee, frangelico, and 5 t. of the sugar in another shallow dish. Slice the pound cake thinly, and dip each slice quickly into the coffee mixture. Line the cloth-lined dish with a layer of cake slices, making sure to fill in all gaps (the wet cake smooshes well, so don’t be afraid to press small pieces into any holes). Spread a layer of the chocolate mixture on top of the cake. Repeat with remaining cake and chocolate, finishing with cake. How many layers you get will depend on the size of your container. I used a 4-quart round bowl and had 4 layers of cake (3 layers of filling). Cover the top of the dessert with the cloth and refrigerate for at least a few hours, preferably overnight.

Just before serving, whip the cream with a teaspoon of sugar until soft peaks form. Turn the cake out of the container onto a platter or cake stand. Frost the sides and top with whipped cream; garnish with chopped nuts and shaved chocolate.

–Adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Even though we traveled to Mississippi to see our families over the weekend, David and I spent this Thanksgiving Day at home. The semester schedule is hard on Thanksgiving holidays — we both had class on Wednesday and decided that getting up early to travel on Thursday was too stressful. Besides, David’s brother, Jon, and his wife, Hannah, are spending some time with us in between moves, and Hannah and I have always talked about how fun it would be to cook our own holiday meal.

And that is exactly what we did. We took our time, assembling and prepping on Wednesday so we wouldn’t have too much to do on Thursday, and made everything from scratch. I am notorious for overdoing everything, and when we sat down to make out the menu, I could tell that narrowing down a Thanksgiving spread to a simple dinner for 4 would be no easy feat.

But, in the name of a relaxing, stress-free holiday, I practiced all of the self-restraint I could muster and decided on a simple menu. The mother of a student I tutor brought me a quart of Spinach Madeline, so that was a for-sure side dish. David wanted to be in charge of the bird, so we sent him and Jon on a quest for an organic free-range turkey and let them take over that part of dinner. The other things we decided on were my grandmother’s cornbread dressing, which she taught me to make last Christmas; the World’s Best Green Bean Casserole (sans cream of mushroom soup, thank you, Alanna); cranberry sauce; and my great-grandmother’s sweet potato pie.

On Wednesday, we made cornbread, baked and mashed the sweet potatoes, made the cranberry sauce, and assembled the green beans minus the topping. It was a luxurious day of cooking — no rushing, no panicking, no worrying. And when Thursday came, all that was left was the bird and the dressing.

Oh, and the most ceremonious part for me: the setting of the table.

I come from a long line of women who have adorned their tables with beautiful things: fine china, cut-glass stemware, and sterling silver appear on my mother’s and grandmother’s dining room tables at every special occasion (and on many ordinary days too). These things are not necessary to enjoy a special meal, to be sure, but I love that I have them.

One of the benefits of getting married in the small southern town you grew up in (and marrying a boy from a nearby small town) is that people still feel like it’s important to arm the bride and groom with every dining accoutrement they could possibly need for their whole lives. And there’s something very sweet about that for me — that when my grown children come to dinner at my house with their families, we’ll feast on the dishes I was given on my wedding day, years and years before anyone could know what my life would turn out like.

We don’t pull out the china and crystal very often, but when we do, I feel like I’m pulling out all of the people who saw me through to this point in my life, all the people who came and celebrated with us when we married, all the people who wanted us to have pretty things and share them with our family.

My favorite of these possessions is a silver chest that belonged to my mother, filled with the pieces my grandmother has been giving me for what seems like my whole life. On my sixteenth birthday, when I opened up my gift from her to find a spoon, a knife, and two forks, I’ll admit that I didn’t quite know what to think. But, now, after many more of those birthdays, and other people adding to the collection along the way, it fills me with joy to pull out those lovely pieces and use them to share food with people I love.

On this Thanksgiving Day, of course I was thankful for the three people who immediately surrounded our small, simple Thanksgiving meal. But I love that I felt the presence of so many others who have contributed to kind of cook, hostess, and person I am. If only my table were bigger.

Dressing (not stuffing) is a staple at my family’s holiday events. My grandmother makes it every year, and every year, the aunts sit around and talk about how somebody needs to learn how to make it like she does (much like all of the other family recipes, there are no official written instructions).

So last Christmas, my sister and I followed Grandmother around the kitchen, snapping photos and scribbling down notes about what she was doing. This year, David’s brother and his wife are sharing Thanksgiving dinner with us, so Hannah and I are attempting to replicate the famous dressing.

I should say a word about southern cornbread dressing: it is not very similar to stuffings of other kinds. It’s more kin to a savory bread pudding, moistened by eggs and stock until it can be pressed into a dish, baked, and cut into squares. The oven browns the top into a lovely crunch, which gives way to a soft cloud of egg-enriched cornbread, flecked with celery, onion, and scallions.

I’m recording Grandmother’s instructions here, as Elizabeth and I observed, but after Hannah and I have attempted to follow them, I promise to update with more specifics. Grandmother’s been doing this so long, she can almost move around the kitchen combining ingredients blindfolded, so quantifying what she was doing was quite a challenge.

Grandmother’s Cornbread Dressing

1 batch cornbread (she makes it with buttermilk, but I don’t have the exact recipe. I’ll post the one Hannah and I use later, but Grandmother says the Jiffy mix works in a pinch)
Half of a bunch of celery
2 yellow onions
Olive oil and butter
Half a bunch of scallions or green onions
6 eggs
1 bag Pepperidge Farm stuffing
A handful of Saltine crackers, crackers
2 1/2 - 3 cups chicken or turkey stock (we roasted a chicken earlier in the week, so we would have homemade)
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the oil and butter (enough to properly sweat the vegetables) in a skillet. Dice the celery and yellow onion, and slice the green onion, white and green parts. Saute the celery and onion in the oil and butter over medium-high heat until translucent. Add the green onions and cook for another minute or two.

In a large bowl, crumble up the cornbread. Beat the eggs and mix them in. Dump in the soft veggies, the stuffing mix, and the crushed crackers. Stir with a long-handled wooden spoon until well-combined.

Here comes the tricky part. You have to pour in the stock until the dressing reaches the “right” consistency. This is what it should look like (only half that quantity):

You can pour more stock on top of the dressing as it cooks if it looks like it’s getting to be too dry, but you want to be able to easily mold the mixture into a casserole dish. It should stick together without a problem, but you don’t want it to be soupy.

Press into a casserole, and bake for 45 minutes, or until it browns around the edges.

Recipe courtesy of the cutest, sweetest Grandmother I know (and my cute, sweet sister, Elizabeth, who helped record it):

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Dear readers, I am sorry for my unexpectedly long absence. I know you are all tired of looking at those bunny cupcakes (as am I). Many real-life circumstances have conspired to keep me away from the kitchen and the computer, but I hope that I will be back to my regular blogging self shortly. In the meantime, I have a few suprises to share with you (at least one of which will partially explain my hiatus).

First, a surprise arrived on my doorstep yesterday! The very thoughtful and kind Mairead, who writes a blog called Fill Up on Bread, packed a box full of goodies from her homeland of Australia for this round of Blogging By Mail, a fabulous event where food bloggers are assigned the glorious task of sending a little slice of their culinary tradition by post to a fellow blogger. Mairead was assigned to me, and I know she thought her package would never arrive (she posted about it’s send-off over a month ago)!

But arrive it did, and how happy it made me. One of the things I particularly liked about this package is that Mairead attempted to represent the various parts of her culinary heritage: for her upbringing in Ireland, she sent the classic Twinings Breakfast Tea; to represent time she spent in India, three boxes of delicious-sounding masala mixes arrived; and then, of course, there’s Australia. Sweets from Down Under included chocolate biscuits called Tim Tams, which have made the perfect companion to an afternoon of Melbourne’s Vittoria coffee, and chocolate bars called Cherry Ripes, an interesting combination of tart cherry, coconut, and dark, rich chocolate.

One of the things I’m most excited about experimenting with is macadamia oil; I’ve never even heard of it, but I bet it makes a fabulous salad dressing. Next are two native Australian condiments: rosella jam and mango mint chutney. I’m thinking that the jam would be lovely on French bread with a slice of white cheddar cheese for breakfast. A Mexican dip mix sounds like the perfect thing to take to a party I have to go to this weekend, and last but not least, an array of fragrant Australian spices, for which I will have to do some research (fun!) to figure out what to do with them.

Mairead, thank you, thank you, for such a thoughtful and exciting array of flavors from around the world; I can’t wait to try them all.

But, it may take me a while to do so, due to my second surprise. You see, one of the reasons I have been away from the kitchen is because in the first trimester of pregnancy, one’s appetite tends to do bizarre things. That’s right, I’m going to have a baby, and so far, the baby has not wanted me to eat anything very interesting. In fact, opening the refrigerator door often sends me running in the other direction. I’ve been lucky to have avoided sickness, but the faint feeling of nausea, especially induced by smells, has been ever-present, so cooking has not been much fun. Nor have I really felt like standing in the kitchen: pregnancy makes you more tired than I could have imagined. My friend Betsy gave the best description I’ve heard so far: she said she felt like she’d been drugged. David has been a trooper–preparing meals and fetching snacks out of the fridge so I don’t have to open it. Everyone says that the second trimester–which is only a couple of weeks away–is much better, so I’m hoping to be back to blogging, and most of all to cooking. I miss it.

I hope this fall finds all of you out there cooking up wonderful things, and I hope to join you soon.

If you’re interested in what other folks have sent and received for Blogging By Mail, check out the running round-up over at Dispensing Happiness.