Weekly Dish

Finally, air I can breathe.

This has been a cool week for September in Louisiana: nothing drastic, mind you, but a hint, an ever-so-slight breeze, whispering the promise of seasonal change. And a hint is all I need to breathe deeply on my walks through campus, filling my lungs with air that is lightened by the chill it carries, leaving behind that old, saggy heaviness of late, damp summer. At least for a time, and a time I plan to enjoy.

That’s the thing I both love and hate about weather in the Deep South: it is always likely to change. People around here often say that if you don’t like the weather today, just wait around for a week or so. That seems especially apt advice during this in-between season, the space in the calendar when summer can’t really decide whether she’s ready to give up her time yet, and autumn is gently edging her way in, one tiny, cool breath at a time, as if waking slowly from a long, sweet dream. For the next several weeks, it will likely be hot, hot, and then cooler in the mornings, rainy some afternoons, hot again, and then cooler still, until, one morning, I’ll wake up, and there will be leaves covering my front walk, and I’ll grab a jacket on my way out the door.

Perhaps it’s because of the seasons that change comes so slow to this part of the world, this sometimes-sleepy bastion of a certain staunch resistance to tomorrow looking too different from today. Autumn had best ease her way in without too much fuss; otherwise, folks might start to get nervous. There are good and bad things about this quality, of course, but being a person who thrives in the middle ground — I may be labeled many things, but an extremist is not likely to be one of them — I particularly like the gradual approach of a new season. It gives me time to anticipate, time to say goodbye to the last of the long, hot days, time to reflect on just how lovely it is to feel that extra spring in my step that a cool nip in the air brings with it.

It also gives me time to make the most of the last of the summer harvest, little signals to remind me that the produce at the market will come in different hues and shapes in the coming weeks, and I’d better enjoy what’s here now, while it lasts.

Some people, I know, have that exact complaint against eating locally and seasonally: because we, in this country especially, are so used to having what we want when we want it, we don’t much care for being told that we can’t have tomatoes in January. And so, our supermarkets ship in tasteless, mealy, pinkish shadows of fruit to meet their consumer demand, losing any connection to the rhythms of an earth that produces in cycles, that figures time in spirals, rather than in one, straight continuous line.

I am as guilty of this mentality as anyone else when it comes to certain things; I’d have to make some serious adjustments to my cooking if I had to do without, say, lemons, or avocados for any extended period of time. But when it comes to what’s available at my local farmer’s market, I’m pretty committed to buying what’s in season while it lasts and then going without until its season returns. If this sounds like a big sacrifice, it really isn’t: after feasting on summer-ripe tomatoes, my tastebuds would refuse the supermarket variety anyway — seasonal, local principles or no.

One of my favorite things to savor while it makes its brief appearance at the market are sweet, fresh figs. For me, figs are one of those lovely seasonal surprises: when the heat around here becomes nearly too much to bear, on those Saturday mornings when I look out at the already-blazing sun and hesitate to venture out for our weekly market trip, I remember those baskets piled high with luscious fruit that only comes around once a year. Most of the time, I ration them throughout the week, slicing up a few here and there to eat with only a tiny dribble of cream, or to top a simple salad with arugula, pecans and blue cheese, and I time myself to run out just as Saturday rolls around again. But, for the last batch or two, as the summer tinges towards twilight and the light begins to carry flecks of autumn’s amber hues, I treat my figs just a little more decadently.

This time around, the lovely Ivonne at Cream Puffs in Venice called for fig desserts just as the last of the fresh figs were appearing at my market, giving me ample reason to cloak these late summer jewels in a heady syrup of balsamic vinegar and sweet vermouth. To balance their deep, dark flavor, I whipped up a feathery pile of mascarpone cheese lightly scented with vanilla and honey. This recipe makes just enough for two, and since I am the only fig-lover in our house, I savored the whole batch, right down to the last drop of syrup (not in one sitting, of course).

Savor is also what I plan to do with these in-between days: Josie and I are enjoying late afternoons in the hammock, mornings in the swing, and midday walks around the neighborhood. The best and worst thing about these days — like the figs I love so much — is that they won’t last forever, so there’s nothing to do but drink in as much of the blue, blue expanse of twilight before it fades to night. The best news of all, though, is that if you miss your chance to dwell in the in-between, to savor the last of the seasonal fruit before its time is up, the season will return.

If figs are any indication, it will taste sweeter for the waiting.

This simple little dessert is my entry for this month’s Sugar High Friday, hosted by my fellow fig-lover, Ivonne.

Glazed Figs with Honey-Vanilla Mascarpone

This is the perfect dessert to serve after dinner: whip up the mascarpone and cook the figs and syrup before you serve the meal, and by the time you’re ready for something sweet, the figs will have cooled and the syrup will have thickened considerably. You can serve this hot, but I liked it better at room temperature.

10-12 figs, stemmed and halved
1 T. butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 T. balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup vermouth, port, or other sweet wine
1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. honey

In a heavy-bottomed skillet, melt the butter over medium heat until it bubbles (but don’t let it brown). Add the figs, cut side down, and sprinkle with the sugar. Let it cook for a minute or two, shaking the pan to evenly distribute the sugar. Take care not to agitate the figs too much to make sure they keep their shape. Pour the vinegar and wine on top and cook for 7-10 minutes more, swirling the pan often, until the mixture is reduced by half. Remove from the heat and let the figs and syrup rest (the mixture will continue to thicken as it sits).

Meanwhile, mix the mascarpone, vanilla, and honey in a small bowl until thoroughly incorporated. To serve, place a scoop of the mascarpone in the center of a plate. Surround with figs and syrup. Serves 2.

–Adapted from Sara Foster, Fresh Every Day.

Right after Josie was born, friends in our life brought us food. An age-old expression of community, in many cultures, neighboring women gather around a new mother to tend to the household chores — cooking and cleaning while Mom gets to know her new baby. My mother and sister stayed a few days after Josie’s birth, and I was fortunate to have my husband here all the time — he too is on an academic schedule and so was off for the summer. Still, figuring out what to make for dinner was not exactly the first thing on our minds, so after my mom left, meals prepared by other hands were a huge help.

The first week, my Aunt Anne, who lives in Baton Rouge, brought a big pot of chicken and dumplings, which she calls love food. And they were: homey and warm and delicious, they fed us for nearly a week, and I swear, I could feel my body healing as I ate them. The next week, our friend Kathryn rallied the troops from our Sunday School class to provide meals.

When we lived in Jackson, as one of the only childless couples in a Sunday School class for young marrieds, we cooked a lot of food for new parents. I loved doing it: not only do you get to meet a need for someone, but you also get to go and hold a brand new baby. In fact, I often signed up to take food to people I didn’t know very well, and we met some of our best friends that way. What I didn’t know then is how important that service is: when you’re exhausted and physically recovering and emotionally focused on figuring out how to be parents, food cooked by someone else just tastes better. It becomes more than just physical sustenance; to be really cliche, it ministers to your soul.

And, so, when Kathryn showed up with a simple grilled chicken salad right when my body was craving something green and fresh, and Felicia and Ed dropped off a homey casserole just in time to feed us for a whole weekend, and Sarah brought Italian food the day I had been dreaming of the perfect marinara (which hers was), I felt overwhelmed with love — all through the food I put into my body.

It was more than that, of course — all of these people are dear to us, and it is a wonderful thing to hand over your newborn baby to a friend and watch as she holds the baby’s face close to hers to smell that new baby smell or kisses the top of your baby’s still-soft head or touches tiny fingers and tiny toes in awe of the miracle of new life.

In fact, one of our first friends to bring dinner is one we met through her new baby. Our first Sunday at a new church in a new city, nearly 2 years ago, we sat in front of a couple with a tiny little baby girl wrapped in a beautiful blanket. I will never forget that Sunday because as we walked to the front of this strange sanctuary for communion, I found myself standing right beside this woman and her baby. And I couldn’t take my eyes off of that little face — with the light streaming in from the stained glass windows, she looked like an angel. And, so after the service was over, the couple introduced themselves, and we exchanged phone numbers and, since then, Billy and Garland have become some of our dearest friends.

So, when Garland arrived with black bean quesadillas and a huge container of wonderful, fresh salsa, I wanted to cry — it was just our kind of food, which she knew, and it felt like the continuity in a great big circle of community. When their daughter, Wilhelmina, was a newborn and we were just beginning our friendship with them, David and I kept the baby a few times and cooked for them a few times, and tried to make sure they were occasionally getting out of the house without the little one in tow. Walking with them through the first year of Wilhelmina’s life prepared us for parenthood in ways we couldn’t have imagined at the time: we’ve watched them figure out what to feed her as she started on solid food, how to manage discipline and bedtime routines and, most recently, potty training. Since Josie has been here, they have loved us in so many tangible ways — we have their car seat and their infant swing and their batting gym and plastic bins full of Wilhelmina’s adorable clothes.

A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday when the temperature had nearly reached 100 degrees, our air conditioner went out. Spoiled as we are by modern conveniences, being stuck in a small house with windows that are painted shut and a sweaty 3-month-old felt like a major catastrophe. After a couple of hours as the thermostat inside climbed towards the 90-degree mark, we called Billy to see if Josie and I could come over for a while to cool off. Garland was out of town, so Billy had Wilhelmina by himself, and Garland’s sister and her daughter were also staying at their house. In the midst of all of that, he persuaded us to come and stay until the air conditioner got fixed. He changed the sheets on their bed, set up a portable crib for Josie in their room, and insisted that we make ourselves at home.

That kindness is the sort that, even after you’ve known someone for a long time, still manages to be surprising and remarkable — perhaps because it is so rare in a culture of busyness and self-sufficiency. It is also the sort that gets communicated in the gifts of food. Long after Garland’s satisfying meal, I found myself thinking about it, especially the salsa. I’m sure partly because nursing a baby causes your body to crave good, fresh, real food. But also, I think, I also craved the care that went into making it: the thoughtfulness it took for Garland to know me well enough to know that I would love it.

And, so I’ve recreated it in a myriad of variations, depending on what I have on hand and what I’ve found at the farmer’s market. Each time I do, it tastes better — not as good as I remember hers tasting, but really good still — packed with fresh, clean flavors and a healthy dose of the sweet memory of kindness.

Exactly what friendship — and the food it brings — should taste like.

Peach Salsa

2 ripe peaches, diced
2 avocados, diced
1 bunch cilantro, rough chopped
2 hot peppers (I used hot banana peppers here, but I’ve also used jalapenos), finely chopped (I leave the seeds for spice, but if you’re sensitive to heat, remove them before chopping)
1 small cucumber, finely chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion (about 1/4 of a medium one)
Juice of 1 lime
Sea salt, to taste

Toss together the peaches, avocados, peppers, cucumber, and onion. Squeeze the lime juice over and sprinkle with sea salt. Toss gently to combine. Serve with chips or quesadillas. I imagine it would also be a nice accompaniment to grilled fish or shrimp.

*Ivonne and Lis are hosting the second annual Festa al Fresco; this salsa would be the perfect thing to take to an outdoor gathering. But, I’ll have to warn you, here in Louisiana, a virtual patio party is the only kind I’d be willing to attend: it is still way, way too hot to spend more than the time it takes to get from front door to car outdoors. But, if I were in Toronto…that would be a different story.

Towards the end of last semester, I made a careless scheduling mistake in one of my classes — I miscalculated the number of minutes each student could have for his or her presentation, and it took me a good day to figure out why we kept running out of time. When I explained my error to my students, I told them I didn’t know how I could have come up with those numbers. One of my especially clever students raised her hand and said, “Do you think it has anything to do with your brain shrinking? I read in an article that pregnancy can cause your brain to decrease in size.” Now, of course, I know that science indicates that actual brain size has nothing to do with intelligence or with the brain’s ability to function properly. At the same time, I have to say that pregnancy has, at times, made me feel like part of my brain has gone inactive or shorted out on me. I am usually a very organized, task-oriented person, and all of a sudden, I have turned into a chaotically scatter-brained crazy woman. And the baby isn’t even here yet!

It isn’t just that I haven’t been posting. The holidays were nuts for us — we spent a lot of time away from home and our computers, and then getting back into the rhythm of a school schedule always makes life extra busy at the beginning of a semester — perhaps, it makes sense that I would take a blogging break until I’m in a more regular routine and things have settled down a little. No, the really troubling part of this whole brain chaos is that — I don’t know if I can make myself say this – I don’t really feel like cooking.

I am, of course. Cooking. Just not anything very interesting. I find myself poring over my new, glossy, pretty cookbooks and feeling completely at a loss for how to decide what to make. Part of it is that I am overwhelmed by what is actually happening in the formation of this new little person in my body. I feel so much pressure to make sure I am getting the right nutrients to help him or her grow that I find myself relying on familiar recipes (all of which you already know about).

Another part is that in some ways, I feel like all I do is think about food. I wake up starving, and if I don’t eat every two hours or so, especially in the mornings, I have dizzy spells. David’s favorite joke these days is, “Have you eaten all three of your breakfasts yet?” By the time dinner rolls around, I’m still hungry, but I can’t bear to really think about what to make. So, we have roast chicken and vegetables. Again.

I’ve only found one remedy for this culinary dry spell: baking.

Now, I know that sounds contrary to maternal instinct and, well, just plain good common sense. In order to gain a healthy amount of weight and get the nutrients the growing baby needs, one should avoid refined sugar and high-calorie sweets. So goes the conventional pregnancy-book wisdom.

But, the making of sweet, pretty things makes me so happy. It isn’t really the eating of them — although I won’t lie and say I don’t love that part too. It’s the sheer joy of putting them together.

Perhaps I’m still in holiday mode — my sister-in-law, Hannah, and I had such a lovely time whipping up fun treats in the kitchen, and then, before I knew it, her weeks here had passed and we were all on the road for Christmas celebrating, and then, to move Jon and her to Texas.

Or, maybe, it’s the weather. It has been wet and cold here for weeks on end, and if I don’t see more than one day of sunshine in a row soon, I’m likely to hide under my covers indefinitely. Folks in the Pacific Northwest, my sincere condolences. I don’t know how you do it.

Whatever the reason, after a long, long hiatus, I have not a menu or a quick dinner recipe to offer you, but what has been a bright spot in several a dark, rainy January day for me: a lemon cupcake.

I first made these for our friend Billy’s birthday right before we left for Christmas holidays, and I used the last of the Meyer lemon crop in these parts to make another batch not too long ago. The cake part of this recipe comes from the ever-reliable Rachel at Coconut and Lime: I adapted her Lime & Buttermilk cupcake recipe to suit my hankering for a lemon-only affair. To make the lemon flavor even more pronounced, and because I had some left over from a round of holiday gift-making, I filled the centers with lemon curd. Frosting, in my opinion, should match its partner: heavy buttercream works well with a hefty chocolate cupcake, but for these lighter, lemony ones, I opted for a dollop of plain whipped cream and a garnish of sugared rind.

If you need a pick-me-up in the midst of a hectic schedule, a rainy day, or simply the doldrums of winter, one of these cupcakes might just inject some sunshine into your soul. And if you’re six months pregnant and without the inspiration for a single meal, they might just make you feel like a cook again. Or, maybe that’s just me.

Lemon Sunshine Cupcakes

There are a variety of ways to make filled cupcakes, but most of them require some sort of assembly after the cupcakes are already baked. I wanted to see what happened if the curd baked right along with the cupcake batter. You won’t get a neat pocket of filling right in the middle of your cupcake that way; instead, the curd sort of soaks the whole cake, so that each bite is bursting with lemon flavor. Be forewarned: eating these cupcakes does make for sticky fingers.

For this recipe, I like long, thin strips of lemon zest, which you can get with a claw zester or with a really sharp vegetable peeler.

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
Juice of 1 large lemon
Zest of 3 large lemons
About 1 cup of Lemon Curd
Half pint of heavy whipping cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with baking cups, aluminum or paper, and spray with baking spray. Stir together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. With a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs and continue beating, until the mixture is well-combined.

Toss half of the zest with a teaspoon of sugar and set aside; stir the rest in with the butter, sugar, and eggs.

Stir the buttermilk and lemon juice together in a glass measuring cup with a pouring spout. With the mixer on low, add the liquid and flour mixtures alternately, until the batter is thick and creamy.

Fill each muffin cup a little less than half-full and make a well in the center. Fill the well with a spoonful of lemon curd. Top with the remaining batter, to cover the curd. Bake for 18-22 minutes, until the tops are just beginning to brown.

When the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with whipped cream and top with the sugared zest. Keep in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

PS: If you are reading this post, I’d just like to say THANK YOU for returning. After so many glimpses of my very fat cat in a Santa hat on your computer screen, I’d completely understand if you never came back. I truly appreciate all of your comments and emails and the simple fact that you’ve checked in again to see if I’ve managed to post again. I am also terribly behind in responding to those kind comments and emails, so if you’ve written and not heard back from me, please accept my sincere apology for my silence. If pregnancy has taught me anything, it’s that I can’t know what the future holds, so I won’t make any promises I’m not certain I can keep, but I will say that I hope to be a more regular presence, even if it’s just to tell you about another fun sweet that’s emerged from my oven. Just promise you won’t call the pregnancy nutrition police, okay?

PPS: After catching up on my blog reading, I was delighted to discover that Garrett at Vanilla Garlic and Cheryl and the Cupcake Bakeshop are collecting cupcake recipes! Head over to their sites to check out more ways to spend a rainy day baking on January 29th.

A couple of quick announcements:

First, today is the last day to nominate your favorite food bloggers for this year’s Food Blog Awards over at the Well Fed Network.

Second, the Menu for Hope campaign has raised over $17,000, which is amazing for the first week! You still have until next Friday to bid, and cool prizes are still being announced.

Third, (and I’m sorry this isn’t food related) I just finished my last-ever paper for a graduate course! That’s right, from here on out, the academic work I do is completely up to me (well, except teaching, but I love that part). Scary, but also liberating. To celebrate, David and I have a day of shopping planned (what I’ve wished I was doing for the past two weeks, instead of working on this paper and grading), but when we return, more holiday cooking is in store…Stay tuned!

I’ve been writing lately about yummy things that I like to make and give away recently largely because I love the spirit of giving the holiday season inspires. In the midst of your baking and shopping for those you know and love, I’d like to encourage you to also think about giving to those whom you don’t know, to those who are in need.

Menu for Hope is a fundraising campaign started by Chez Pim and supported by foodbloggers worldwide. This year, proceeds will benefit the United Nations World Food Programme, an organization that works to distribute food to needy populations across the globe.

So, how can you participate? Well, first check the amazing list of food-related prizes over at Chez Pim. Decide what you’d like to bid on, and follow these easy instructions:
1. Go to the donation page at First Giving.

2. Make a donation. Each $10 will give you one raffle ticket towards a prize. Please specify which prize or prizes you’d like in the *Personal Message* section when confirming your donation.

3. If your company matches charity donations, please remember to check the box and fill in the information so A Menu for Hope can claim the corporate match.

4. Please also check the box to allow us to see your e-mail address so we can contact you in case you win.Your e-mail address will not be shared.

5. Check back at Chez Pim on January 15 to see who the winners are.

In other foodblogging news, nominations for this year’s Food Blog Awards are open over at the Well Fed Network. After you’ve made your donation to Menu for Hope, head over to Well Fed to nominate your favorite blogs in a variety of categories!

For this month’s Paper Chef competition, the required ingredients include:

1. Vermouth
2. Cranberries
3. Sparkling drink
4. Something wild

with a celebration theme. Cranberries and a sparkling drink are easy enough, especially this time of year, and although I’ve never actually had vermouth, I understand that the sweet red version is akin to sherry or port, both of which know their way around my kitchen quite well.

The something wild part, however, I was not so sure about.

Wild berries? Not this time of year. Wild animals? My pregnancy-induced aversion to meat says no. Wild…and crazy?

Hmmm. Well, I am not wild and crazy. In fact, anyone who knows me will tell you that I am quite the opposite: pajamas and a movie suit me much better than any night out on the town (especially these days). But, I do know some wild and crazy people. In fact, one of the people who has been in my life the longest who fits that description is also one of the women who taught me a good deal about the pleasures of food and cooking: my Aunt Emily.

Aunt Em is the youngest of five children, the oldest of whom is my father. Many stories circulate about which of them — the oldest and only boy or the youngest girl — got into more trouble as a kid. Apparently, by the time Aunt Em came around, my grandparents were so tired, she did exactly as she pleased. Or so the stories go.

By the time I knew her, she was the cool aunt who invited me up to her farmhouse in the summer, let me eat absolutely whatever I pleased, did flips off of the diving board when we went to the pool, and could waterski as well as any of the teenagers at the lake. Especially compared to my sweet, mild-mannered mother, Aunt Em was the picture of let-your-hair-down wild and crazy fun.

And, man, could she cook.

And so, although I know an actual person cannot be an ingredient, the spirit of Aunt Em is certainly what inspired this creation. One of my favorite desserts that she makes is something she calls Savannah Cake, made by mixing sherry custard and torn-up angel food cake and refrigerating it in a mold. The finished cake is iced with whipped cream and served with raspberry sauce. It is beautiful — the bright red of the berries and the white of the cake — but it is also delicious.

So, for my Aunt Em-inspired Paper Chef entry, I recreated her Savannah Cake, with a few alterations. For starters, I made a champagne cake, a bit denser than angel food, but airy enough to hold the custard well. The champagne flavor of the cake also provided a nice counterpoint to the vermouth in the custard, my second adjustment. And finally, I made a cranberry sauce with lime, instead of the raspberry sauce, usually made with lemon. Truly, a celebratory dessert, it would make a delightfully different birthday cake, or a fitting end to a fancy, celebratory dinner.

I love the custardy texture of this cake, and the flavors of the vermouth and champagne do play nicely together in your mouth. But, for me, the cranberry sauce makes it — the lovely, tart berry puree coats each sweet creamy bite with the perfect tang of contrast. Next time I make it, I won’t sweeten the cream for the icing — it doesn’t need it, and I think the cream could stand alone.

This cake also requires a celebratory spirit in the kitchen — it’s quite a process to make all of the individual parts before assembly, and then you have to wait until the next day to try it! But, when you do, the anticipation will make the celebration that much sweeter. Or, shall we say, wilder?

Wild Aunt Em’s Savannah Cake with Cranberry Sauce

For the cake:
2 3/4 cup cake flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
10 1/2 T. butter
1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
3/4 cup champagne
6 egg whites (set aside the yolks for the custard)

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.

Cream the butter and 1 cup of the sugar. Add the champagne and flour mixture alternately to the creamed butter and sugar, mixing well after each addition (or just leave the motor running on your mixer like I do). Pour this batter (it will be very thick) into a large bowl and set aside.

Wash the mixer, and beat the egg whites with the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar until soft peaks form. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of the egg whites into the batter to lighten; then, fold the whites and batter together. Pour into a greased cake pan and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the edges are light brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Put the cake on a rack to cool.

For the custard:
1 envelope unflavored gelatin, softened in 1/2 cup cold water
6 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup sweet vermouth (or sherry)
1/4 cup water

Beat the egg yolks until light yellow. Add the sugar and continue to beat. Stir in the vermouth and water; add the gelatin. Cook this mixture in the top of a double-boiler over simmering water (the highest temperature you can manage without the water boiling), and stir, until slightly thickened, somewhere around 15-20 minutes. The custard will coat the back of a spoon, but it won’t get terribly thick until it’s chilled. Set aside to cool.
To assemble the cake:
1 pint of whipping cream
1 cup sugar

Whip the cream and sugar together, and divide in half. Stir half of the whipped cream into the cooled custard; cover and refrigerate the rest. Mix the cream and custard well. Tear the cake into pieces and fold the cake into the custard-cream mixture. Pour this into a greased bundt pan and refrigerate overnight. The next day, ice with the remaining whipped cream and pour the cranberry sauce on top so it runs down the sides. Serve slices with more sauce.

Cranberry Sauce

12 ounces of cranberries
1 cup water
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1 cup sugar

Cook the ingredients over medium until the water boils. Then, cook for another 10 minutes, just until the cranberries burst. Force this mixture through a strainer.

I have posted many a recipe on this site that I have labeled “Comfort Food.” Dishes that merit this distinction, for me, need to accomplish two things: the cooking process itself should be slow, patient, comfort-inducing, and the eating experience must create warmth and happiness. These two categories cannot be separated, and my suspicion is that it’s because somehow I can taste the care that goes into comforting dishes. You’ll find that most of my comfort foods involve a good bit of stirring. As I have written here before, stirring is therapeutic in ways no other activity is for me. But also, the stirring process infuses the air with smells that remind me of other days: days shared with people I love, days spent cooking for those I love, days enjoying the simple process of creating a warming, delicious dish of food. This comforting cooking process should fill my house with feelings of calm and peace, and in these busy days especially, friends, I welcome the scents and sounds that bring those feelings.

A lot to ask from a simple dish of food, you say? Well, a body has to eat, but sometimes a soul also needs to cook.

When I saw that Ivonne (a long-lost sister I have only discovered in the last year–we are certain that our families, particularly the women, are kin, at least culinarily speaking) and her cohort, Orchidea, were requesting dishes of comfort, I set my sights on the ugly fall tomatoes at my farmer’s market and a hefty hunk of butter.

The process for this simple, simple sauce is neither complicated nor labor-intensive, but it does take time. I like to make it on a cold, dreary day, when I can curl up on the couch with a blanket and a book in between recipe steps. When it’s finished, David and I can sit down in a house filled with the rich scent of roasting tomatoes, and enjoy the way this velvety sauce coats our noodles and our tongues with a soft blend of tomato and butter.

Fresh tomatoes are my recommendation for the best flavor, but high-quality canned ones will do in a pinch. If you have tomatoes you put up from summer (I freeze batches of roasted ones), those will work too, but my favorite way to make this is to start with fresh tomatoes (I bought these out of a box that read “fall tomato rejects, 3 for $1″), roast them until they fall apart, and then simmer them with the other ingredients for a long, long time.

Angel Hair with Buttery Tomato Sauce

2 - 2 1/2 pounds tomatoes (should yield 2 cups tomato puree)
Olive oil
Coarse salt
Cracked black pepper
1/2 stick (4 T.) butter
1 medium yellow onion, quartered
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 4 pieces
1/2 pound pasta (I like angel hair for this dish)

Preheat the oven to 425. Wash and core the tomatoes, and cut them into large chunks (for medium-sized tomatoes, quarters work fine). Place them in a single layer on a greased baking sheet, close together, and drizzle with olive oil. Toss with your hands to coat the tomato pieces with oil. Sprinkle liberally with salt and cracked pepper. Roast. The time depends on you — I leave them for at least an hour and then check; they should be easily mashed with a fork and beginning to brown where the salt has landed. Remove and let cool. When cool, process in a food processor or blender to make a smooth puree.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the onion and carrot pieces. Cover with tomato puree and simmer (don’t boil!) for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

When the sauce is almost done, cook the pasta to desired tenderness. Remove the vegetable pieces with a slotted spoon and serve them on the side. Plate up a mound of pasta with a ladle of sauce and a pat of butter. Eat, and be comforted.

The U.S. South, as a geographic region, is often pigeonholed as one monolithic entity, all of us southerners grouped into the same slow-talking, barefoot-going mass. But think through just the culinary traditions, and you’ll see quite a variance from one part of the South to the next. Take the simple idea of barbecue. Now I grew up in Mississippi, only three hours from Memphis (or for the more adventurous, an hour and a half from a joint in the middle of nowhere called Letha’s), so I will tell you that barbecue means ribs, plain and simple. And I like mine dry. But just ask folks from Texas or North Carolina to describe barbecue, and you’ll see. They have definite ideas about what goes in the sauce, and those ideas vary widely. Oh, and they also have very definite ideas that their state’s barbecue is the absolute best.

To be sure, there are traditions that appear consistently across the South, but many regions have distinct specialities that you can’t find in other places. In the hill country of Kentucky, where some of my mom’s family is from, they make these wonderful concoctions called ham biscuits, homemade biscuits slathered with butter and topped with the best ham I’ve ever eaten. In southern Louisiana, of course, Creole and Cajun cooking reigns supreme; jambalaya, etouffee, and gumbo aren’t likely to appear as frequently in other parts of the region.

In Mississippi, I grew up with frequent tutorials in frying–a staple method in most parts of the deep south–and what I would call good southern comfort food. When asked, my brother Jason requests what I think of as the quintessential comfort meal: fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and black-eyed peas with pepper jelly. Oh, and homemade biscuits, which we smear with butter and honey. Southern food, for us, also meant wild game: my dad and brothers all hunt, so baked doves, roasted quail, and dry-fry (fried venison) were also big parts of our meals.

If the blogging event Food Bloggers’ Geography: Southern Style, put on by My Husband Cooks, had fallen at a different time in my life, I would love to have whipped up one of these dishes that so represents the culinary heritage of my southern family. But, alas, I had to go back to the days before the nausea set in to find something appropriate.

In the first few weeks of pregnancy, I felt hungry all the time. Mostly for salty, crunchy things. I ate olives by the handful and although I am usually not a potato chip girl, if they were near, I could eat a whole bag. One Sunday for lunch, after a heavy rain had knocked some of the not-yet-ripe fall tomatoes from the garden on the ground, we fried them up for what is, in Mississippi anyway, the quintessential southern summer sandwich: a BLT. Instead of ripe red tomatoes, I used the fried green ones, whose tartness works well with the bacon. Instead of lettuce, I added our garden arugula, and I loved the peppery flavor against the salty crunch of the bacon and the spicy coating of the tomatoes. If this were a traditional southern BLT, it would have to have homemade mayonnaise on it, but since I’m avoiding raw eggs, that wasn’t an option (and storebought mayonnaise is never, ever an option). Good, crusty bread is also a must: I used ciabatta for this one; sourdough also works.

I’m sorry I don’t have a real southern “recipe” to offer, but if you dig around in the archives, you’re likely to find many a southern dish: the South has, in many ways, defined the kind of cook I am. I’ve fried green tomatoes here before, so in case you want to make BLT’s with stray fall tomatoes, here’s how to do it.

I’m excited to see how other folks interpret “the South”; you can head over to My Husband Cooks and find out on Sunday.

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.

I made these yummy muffins for some new neighbors who moved in across the street a few weeks ago, and I’d been waiting for the right time to post about them. As soon as I heard Alanna’s idea for this month’s Sugar High Friday — Surprise Inside — I knew this recipe would do the trick.

The cake part of these muffins is buttery and dense, almost shortbread-esque, with a hint of almond. Once you take a bite, though, you get a burst of orange. A dollop of marmalade makes its way into the center of the muffin as you’re filling the muffin cups, but you’d never know it to look at these muffins from the outside once they’re baked. Which is one of the things I love about making them for other people — a real surprise!

The bittersweet tang of the marmalade plays perfectly against the buttery almond flavor of the muffins, and while these probably don’t serve as a particularly balanced nutritional breakfast, they make a delightful afternoon snack, especially with a warm cup of tea.

The best part about making them on the spur of the moment is that I usually have all of the ingredients already on hand — no trip to the store is necessary. The new neighbors must have liked them — they invited us over for drinks the next week!

Marmalade Muffins

2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 stick butter, melted
2 large eggs
1/2 t. almond extract
1/2 cup sliced almonds
About a half cup orange marmalade

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Sift the dry ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and melted butter. Whisk in the eggs, and then stir in the almond extract. Add the dry ingredients to the wet all at once, folding until well-combined, but being careful not to overmix.

Grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Fill the cups half-full with the batter. Top the batter with about a teaspoonful of marmalade. Fill the cups the rest of the way full and sprinkle with the sliced almonds.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are slightly brown. Cool before serving; the marmalade inside will be very hot!

–adapted from Muffins A-Z by Marie Simmons