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We've moved! But not, unfortunately, to Paradise. I've been slowly migrating some of my favorite recipes to a more user-friendly format and adding lots of new content, as well. Whether you've enjoyed this blog in the past or stumbled upon it recently, please follow me to my new website here and follow along.
Xx,
Claiborne 

https://www.cwmilde.com

The tomato soup we have on repeat

Whether your grandma made it from scratch or you drank it straight from the red and white can, chances are, if you were born in the U.S., tomato soup features prominently in your reel of childhood memories. My kids are picky when it comes to tomato soup, pronouncing most restaurant versions "too chunky" or "tastes like ketchup." The version we enjoy at home—a weeknight favorite of all family members—is a version so dead simple, it captures the pure essence of tomatoes and spoils us for all other tomato soups. And this time of year, even though nighttime chills have set in and the neighborhood Halloween decorations have gone up, we can still find plenty of locally grown tomatoes kicking around. Better yet, they're often a bargain because of unsightly blemishes or less-than optimal shapes. I buy them in bulk from Wilklow Orchards at my local Brooklyn market.

You'll find some recipes that ask you to blanch the tomatoes and strip off the skins. I strongly believe you can skip this step for two reasons. 1. If cooked and blended, the skins actually hold a lot of flavor and nutrients. I learned this ages ago during a brief internship at the restaurant Arpège in Paris, where I was fortunate enough to work directly with chef Alain Passard, he who worships at the altar of the vegetable. He used every last scrap of everything and made a delicious ravioli filled with long-cooked tomato skins that melted and mellowed until they tasted like candy. You're missing out if you aren't incorporating them into the soup. 2. With a good blender or a plain old mesh sieve, you can eliminate the undesirable textures caused by errant bits of skin. 

My line in the sand is seeds. A few won't hurt, but if you don't seed your tomatoes all those seeds will cause an unpleasant bitterness. So take them out. But make sure not to lose the super special, not-so-secret ingredient that makes this soup extra bright and tomatoey: tomato water. Tomato water is where a lot of a tomato's flavor resides, so don't throw it out!

Finally, if you're not a fan of heavy cream or prefer a vegan version of this soup, by all means feel free to eliminate or dial it back. I like the way it rounds out the soup and gives it some richness, but I also believe the soup can stand on its own, without dairy. 

Last, but definitely not least, the fixins: There are some who think that the best part of tomato soup is the grilled cheese served alongside it for dipping, and I don't completely disagree. I like to grate together various abandoned ends of cheese onto sliced sourdough, sandwich it, and fry it in butter in a hot skillet. Sometimes I'll cut them into little crouton squares and set them loose on top of the soup. Sometimes, if I have leftover polenta in the refrigerator, I'll cut it into batons, dredge them in a little flour, and fry them in olive oil until the outsides are crisp and brown. Avocado toast or excellent, untoasted bread both make nice tablemates for a good, warm bowl of tomato soup.  

Simple Tomato Soup
Serves approximately 4 

Ingredients: 

• 4 lbs or so red, ripe tomatoes
• 1 small yellow onion, peeled and diced OR 1 small leek white and 1 small shallot, both peeled and diced
• 3 TBS extra virgin olive oil
• a few sprigs fresh thyme and/or a bay leaf
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• salt and pepper to taste
• Basil leaves to garnish

Instructions:

1. Prepare the tomatoes. First, have a strainer handy, set over a bowl. Cut tomatoes into quarters (more if they are large) and remove the parts where the stems were attached. Running your fingers inside the segments, scoop out the seedy bits into the strainer you have set up over the bowl. Once that's done, chop the tomatoes a few times more. Keep the straining seeds off to the side. 
2. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan or le Creuset, heat the olive oil over medium and add the chopped onion (or leek and shallot) and thyme/bay leaf. Sprinkle a little salt on top and sauté over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or so. Make sure not to brown the onions. Add the tomatoes, raise the heat a little, and cover. Cook this way, running at a good simmer but not boiling too hard, around 20-30 minutes or until the tomatoes are soft and falling apart.
3. Get the tomato water ready by stirring the seeds around in the strainer to encourage the liquid to pass through. Discard the seeds; keep the tomato water. 

   

   tomato water

4. Remove the thyme stems/bay leaf from the tomatoes (may require a little fishing). Discard.
5. Blend the cooked tomatoes in a blender until completely pureed. Add the tomato water and blend some more—should be velvety smooth. At the very end, mix in the cream and salt to taste. I don't like to dictate salt amounts, but I will say add enough good pinches, tasting in between, to bring the flavor up. Serve hot with basil scattered on top. 

Savory Tarts

It has been many years since I originally posted my recipe for savory tart (aka slim quiche), and since then I've gotten lots of requests for a recipe for its variants, which I tend to post often on instagram. I bake these quite a bit, as they make nice use of random greens that accumulate in our refrigerator after overly optimistic greenmarket runs. They're a great way to use up radish tops and carrot tops that would otherwise get composted. You can mix in other green odds and ends, such as different combinations of chard, kale, arugula, spinach—and feel good about cutting down on your food waste. Without further ado, the recipe. Please feel free to vary as you see fit—that's what it's all about. 
 

Savory Greens Tart
makes 1 10-inch tart 

Crust

Ingredients: 

• 4 ounces (1 stick) cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces 
• 1 3/4 cups flour (all-purpose OR 1 1/4 cup all-purpose and 1/4 cup whole wheat)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• a few tablespoons ice water

Instructions: 

1. Have a 10-inch removable-bottom tart pan ready. Any shallow pie pan works, really, and you can use 9 inch (you'll just have leftover). In a food processor, combine flour and salt, then pulse in butter until it's blended in tiny, coarse chunks (pea sized). Start pulsing in the ice water a few drops at a time, until you get a shaggy mass that's just starting to pull together. Don't add too much water! Once you can press it into a ball, remove from processor and pat into a disk, then wrap in parchment or plastic and refrigerate until firm, about an hour. (*note: you can also make the dough by hand by rubbing the butter into the flour with your palms and fingertips)
2. Preheat oven to 400°. You'll need to blind bake the tart shell. Let the dough come to room temperature for 15 or so minutes, then roll out into a uniform, thin sheet, somewhere between 1/16" and 1/8" thick. Nestle dough over and into the tart pan, pressing gently into corners and against sides. Trim excess with kitchen scissors OR, my preferred trick, roll a rolling pin over the top to lop of the excess. Press against the sides one more time. Prick bottom all over with the tines of a fork, then refrigerate some more (20 minutes or so) until dough firms up a bit. Press together any dough leftovers and use for a smaller tart, or for patching any cracks in the baked tart. 
3. Remove tart mold from fridge and press a sheet of foil on top of dough. Fill with some sort of weight, like dried beans, uncooked rice, or even pennies. Bake in the oven 15-20 minutes, then carefully remove the foil and bake another 5-10 minutes, until golden brown and firm. Cool the shell and save, wrapped, for a day or so—or freeze for future use. 

Greens and feta tart

Ingredients:

•  2 TBS butter or olive oil
• 4 scallions, entire whites and green parts (except for roots), sliced thin
•  Equivalent of 1 large bunch of greens, washed and patted dry. I like to use a mix of radish tops, chard, spinach, kale, arugula, etc. in whatever amounts I have. Keep in mind these cook way down, so what seems like a lot becomes next to nothing!
• optional: 1/4 cup dill and/or parsley
• sea salt & pepper
•  8 eggs
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese, heaped high

Instructions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Chop greens into 1/2" slices, including all but the toughest stems (if you're using kale). Chard stems are quite tender once cooked. Put a large skillet on the stove over medium heat. Add olive oil or butter to pan and melt, then add scallions. Saute for a few minutes, then add your greens and sprinkle some salt over them. Saute, stirring occasionally, until they are wilted and have released their liquid. Add dill if you're using, and saute a couple more minutes. Once greens are uniformly wilted, their stems are softened, and liquid is mostly gone, they're ready. Taste and add salt and pepper if they need it. 
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, cream, and 1/2 tsp. salt for a few minutes, til blended. Set aside. Take out the pre-baked tart shell and put it on a baking sheet. Patch any cracks that may have formed using a bit of leftover dough. Arrange greens in the tart shell, then scatter feta evenly over them. Carefully drizzle the egg mixture over the greens until they are almost, but not quite, covered. You do not want the mixture to go right up to the top, or else it will expand and overflow during cooking. Put tray in the oven and bake for about 20-30 minutes, or when custard no longer jiggles in the center. Check it after 20 minutes, turn, and continue cooking/checking every 5 minutes or so. Some like it just barely set, some prefer it toasty on top. Cool for a few minutes before serving.

Turnip Hummus

It's February. Even if you were, as my family recently was, the accidental recipient of *TEN POUNDS* of candy conversation hearts via Amazon (that's a whole lotta love), nothing exciting usually happens during this month. If you're a CSA subscriber or farmer's market shopper and live where winters are cold, you can't escape root vegetables, either. You may choose to avoid them—that's understandable—or you can wholeheartedly embrace them and get creative, as we've been trying to do. 

This winter, I've had turnip hummus on replay. I know, it doesn't sound too sexy and it's probably not an actual, true hummus, but I promise it's delicious and easy, and you should try it if you're looking to put some turnips to good use. You roast the turnips whole and skin-on (my preferred way to cook beets, as well), and blend them with a liberal amount of tahini, roasted garlic, and lemon juice. If you have a more powerful blender you'll get an ultra-smooth, whipped texture, but you can use a food processor or crappy blender for a slightly more rustic vibe. The recipe: 

Turnip Hummus:

Ingredients: 

• 3 medium turnips, scrubbed
• 2 garlic cloves, peels on
• 2/3 cup sesame tahini (stirred well)
• 2 TBS fresh lemon juice
•  1/4 tsp ground cumin, or to taste
• 2 TBS olive oil (if needed)
• 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

 Instructions:

1.  Preheat oven to 375°. Wrap turnips and garlic cloves loosely in a foil packet, add a splash of water, pinch the foil shut, and place in a baking dish in the oven. The garlic cloves will probably be ready in about 30 minutes, or when soft. Roast turnips for about 45 minutes to an hour, or until soft enough that a knife tip easily pierces the turnip. (check regularly, as ovens and turnips vary!)
2. When done and cool enough to handle, chop the turnips a few times (skins included) and squeeze garlic cloves out of their skins (discard skins). 
3. Put all ingredients except olive oil in your blender and blend until very smooth. If  tahini was very solid you may need additional olive oil. Taste for salt and add a bit more—and more lemon juice—if needed. Serve at any temperature, and add a swish of olive oil and/or a sprinkle of zaatar.

With roasted carrots

 

A word about ramps

Ramps, those stinking starlets of Spring, are here for their brief season. Chances are, if you live in the Eastern states or midwest, you can’t escape their presence on menus, in farmer’s markets, CSAs (like our excellent Local Roots), and now even in some supermarkets. The question is, are they being foraged into oblivion? There’s hot debate about that. Although they're often photographed as impossibly lush shag carpets on forest floors, many botanists and pro foragers assert that, if harvested en masse, roots and all, they can’t properly regenerate and may go the way of the dodo. Others insist they're a weed and will outlive our own destructive presence on this planet. Whatever the case, it’s best to be safe and opt for ramps that are sustainably harvested, which ideally means leaves-only, or a few bulbs taken without removing the root stock. Lani’s farm, one of my favorite NYC greenmarket vendors, sells their ramps this way. If you forage for yourself, you can do this by digging around the ramp bulb and slicing just above the woody rootstock to free it—that part's not edible, anyway. Cover the rhizome back up so it can propagate the next year.


Although ramp bulbs taste phenomenal pickled, grilled, sautéed, and cooked just about any other way, you really don’t need the bulb to enjoy the essence of ramps. The leaves, as my grandfather would have said, “will put hair on your chest”—meaning they’re pretty feisty in their own right. I whir them into pestos with carrot or radish tops, puree them in soups, and use them to make one of my favorite things ever: ramp butter. Below is a dead simple recipe for ramp butter (Try it on warm cornbread. You’re welcome.), plus a sprightly soup that makes use of all the alliums of Spring and requires just a few ramps mingled amongst their tame cousins. I throw the leaves in raw for maximum potency, but if you have an important meeting coming up or your digestion is on the sensitive side, you can simmer them in with the rest of the vegetables until they’re wilted. The color won’t be as brilliant, and the flavor? A more demure announcement of Spring.
 

Ramp Butter
Soften about ¾ stick of unsalted butter at room temperature. Chop the leaves of about 8 ramps very finely—mince them up! Fold them into the butter and mix in a nice crystally salt like fleur de sel or Maldon until you get the taste right.

 



 






Allium, Potato, and Buttermilk Soup 
Serves 6


Ingredients:

• 2 TBS unsalted butter
• 1 large leek (or 2 small ones), white and palest green parts only, chopped
• 1 small onion or shallot, or ½ med. onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 large clove garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
• 4 ramps: bulbs, stems, and leaves (or substitute scallions)
• 3 medium-sized waxy potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 3 cups unsalted chicken stock or vegetable stock, plus water as needed 
  
• Sea salt to taste
• ½ cup good buttermilk (not fat free)
• ¼ cup heavy cream, or to taste
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• Optional garnish: chopped chives and/or chive flowers

Instructions:

1. Prepare ramps: Wash thoroughly and slip the outer membrane off the bulbs. Chop off and discard any roots. Remove bulbs and stems, then roughly chop them. Chop the leaves and put them aside until the very end (if you’re using scallions do the same). 
2. In a large heavy pot or Dutch oven, heat the butter gently until it melts, then add the leeks, onion, and ramp bottoms. Sprinkle a little salt over them and sweat them gently for about 7-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Make sure they do not brown at all!
3.  Add garlic and potato and cook for about 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, then pour in stock. Raise the heat to bring to a boil, lower to a simmer, and cook, covered, until the potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes or so.  
4. Once potatoes are tender, throw in the ramp leaves and whir in the blender or with an immersion blender until very smooth. If you blender is not great you can run the whole thing through a strainer afterwards.  
5. Add the buttermilk, heavy cream, and lemon juice and add salt until it tastes right—the soup should not taste salty but all the flavors should assert themselves. If the soup is too thick, add a little water until the consistency is right. 
6. To serve: I prefer this soup chilled but it’s good warm, too. You can swirl a little cream or crème fraîche on the top and scatter some chopped chives or chive flowers. 

 
 
 

Inner worlds, outer worlds

A couple of nights ago at the family table, we paid tribute the great Stephen Hawking, who had left this world in the wee hours of the morning, and whose magnitude we wanted to make sure the kids appreciated. We parents and the big girls got appropriately science-nerdy and then a bit existential as the discussion flowed from black holes to cosmic energy, to the notion of a holographic universe, and then on to Elon Musk’s assertion that we are living inside a computer simulation and that A.I. is really in control of us all.

The five-year-old, who would rather be building Legos than pretty much anything else, normally stages a complete shutdown during such discussions; talk about meerkats, dino trucks, and Captain Underpants is more his speed. But on this occasion he got a thoughtful look on his face and waited politely to slip into the next gap in conversation.

“I used to live in the outer world,” he said. “And now I live in the inner world.”

We all fell silent, kind of spooked, waiting for him to throw open some goosebump-raising window onto a previous life—perhaps even provide a clue to an unknown realm. We urged him to dig deeper.

“I was in the outer world and then…and then you bought me from the monkey store and I’m in the inner world now.”

I’m not sure what the takeaway was from the conversation, but we all fell silent and resumed enjoying the no-brainer chicken dish I’d put together on the fly moments before. It's a one-dish meal that will by no means solve the riddles of the universe, but it's kind of everything in our inner world, on a weeknight, when we don't feel like scrubbing more than one pan but we do feel like something warm, tangy, saucy, and restorative. It's amenable to infinite variations and can be prepped ahead, refrigerated in the pan, and pulled out when you're ready to roast. It's genius in its own right.

************

“It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.”
—Stephen Hawking

One Pan Chicken with Lemons, Caperberries, Potatoes

Serves a family of 4-5

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken, cut into 8 pieces
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 leeks, including whites and all but the very toughest green parts, chopped fine
• ½ lemon, cut into slices then quarters
• 1 medium tomato, chopped
• 8-10 whole giant caperberries, drained (you can substitute green olives)
• 4-6 medium potatoes, cut into quarters or sixths (leave skins on if organic)
• Splash of water
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions: 

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Pat chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. In a baking dish (or huge skillet) large enough to fit the chicken without crowding, spread out the leeks, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, then drizzle with olive oil. Next, add the lemons, potatoes, tomatoes, and caperberries. Splash a small amount of water (a few tablespoons) in the pan. Put the chicken pieces on top of everything so that none of the pieces are touching, and drizzle on some olive oil—a fairly generous amount. 
2. Bake the chicken, basting every 15 minutes or so with the cooking liquids that are generated, until the pieces are done and the top surfaces are nicely browned—about 40-50 minutes, but everyone's oven is different. (If you're not sure, cut into one of the thighs along the bone; if there's still blood the chicken could use some more time)
3. Serve hot, with the pan juices and a little of everything else, including the lemons. 

Seeded Winter Slaw

This is the salad I keep coming back to this winter. It’s like a song stuck in my head, except there’s a bit of a different riff each time, depending on what vegetables happen to be in the fridge that particular day—and we've been wealthy in winter vegetables thanks to our Local Roots CSA share. The basics are the same: celery root, apples, and beets, all julienned matchstick thin. Sometimes I throw in some shredded cabbage, other times fennel bulb, sliced wisp thin. If I’ve come into some sunflower sprouts or lacy micro anything, I’ll throw those in too, to remind myself that Spring is right around the corner. Another punchy addition is quick-pickled shallot, which is easy enough to make if you don’t mind the extra step and just a tiny bit of advance planning. Always, I dress the whole thing up in a tart apple cider vinaigrette and scatter crunchy seeds on top with abandon. This salad—or slaw, or whatever you'd like to call it—is sturdy enough to keep until the next day with minimal change in texture…and the color is undeniably pretty. May I present:

Seeded Winter Slaw

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cup shredded raw cabbage (leaves sliced thin)
  
• 1 cup finely julienned raw celery root*
• ½ cup finely julienned raw beetroot*
• 1 small apple (keep the peel), cored and julienned*
• 2 TBS sunflower seeds 
• 2 tsp poppy seeds (more if you'd like)
• Pinch of flaky sea salt 

*To julienne the vegetables, cut away the outer peel and discard, then either use the thin ⅛" (not super fine) setting on a mandoline**, OR do it by hand: cut vegetables into very thin cross sections, about  ⅛" thick, then crossways into matchsticks of about  ⅛" thick.  
 
For vinaigrette:

• 1 tsp Dijon mustard 
• 1 tsp honey 
• 2 TBS apple cider vinegar 
• 7-8 TBS extra-virgin olive oil (or sunflower oil) 
• Hefty pinch of sea salt 
• A couple cranks of ground black pepper

Instructions:

1. Mix up the vinaigrette in a small bowl: whisk together mustard, honey, and vinegar. Whisk in oil very gradually so that it does not separate. Taste it as you go, until you achieve just the right tartness. Add salt and pepper to taste. 
2. In a medium bowl, toss all vegetables and apples, adding the dressing gradually and tasting occasionally, until you've gotten the right amount—you don't want it too heavy or greasy, and you will most likely have some dressing left over. 
3. Toss with a couple big pinches of flaky sea salt and the seeds, saving a few extra to put on top of the salad when serving. If you're adding sprouts or microgreens, wait until the very end so they're still spritely when served. 

Variation: Quick-Pickled Shallots
To quick-pickle shallots, simply remove the outer layer of skin from the shallot and discard. Slice the shallot very, very thin crosswise. In a small bowl, mix a bit of vinegar (2-3 TBS) with a pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt until dissolved. Toss the shallots in this mixture and allow them to stand at room temperature for an hour or two (stir occasionally if they're not covered). 

Variation with pickled shallots and sunflower sprouts

**A note about mandolines: If you're interested in investing in one, the Japanese Benriner is relatively inexpensive on Amazon (I've linked to the older, cheaper version). They're great for slicing things very thinly, making French Fries, and julienning all sorts of stuff. You've been warned, though: they will just as easily remove a chunk of your thumb, as I've done. 

Beginnings

Twenty years ago this month, New York City’s January air welcomed me with a fresh slap. I arrived trailing a suitcase and a folder full of resumes on thick paper. I also carried a binder case filled with my CD collection, whose contents hinted at former lives: “le Meilleur de Flashdance et Fame,” purchased in a bout of homesickness and nostalgia from FNAC in Paris during the previous post-college year, huddled reluctantly beside the Grateful Dead and Widespread Panic CDs still hanging around from high school (I was too sentimental to jettison them).

At first, I crashed at the little-used apartment of my godparents, in the East 70’s, where it was easy to pretend I had fast-forwarded over the hard first part of life in New York. I worked my way through the Pellegrino and Sancerre that stocked the fridge, until I was told in polite but unmistakable terms that it was time for me to find somewhere else to freeload. I took a bus crosstown through the park and landed in the living room of Em and Jo, dear hometown friends who told me I could occupy their sofa bed for as long as I needed to, the assumption on both sides being that I was closing in on a job and would soon be able to afford an apartment of my own (ha!).

When I wasn’t interviewing or checking my email at an internet café somewhere, I was getting in touch with anyone at all in the city who would hang out with me during the chilly days; the city has a way of shaming the idle and plus, there was so much to see. A guy I knew who was creatively employed had time during those long weeks to show me the New York sights I should know, like the lobby of the Chrysler building, and Grand Central Oyster bar, which had recently suffered a fire that sent tiles from its vaulted interior raining down like so many fall leaves; the ceiling still had a wounded, blistered look, but waiters bustled about and lunchgoers bent over their chowder as though nothing had happened. It was there that I learned to love raw oysters on the half shell. I checked out every museum I could and followed up nervously, a little desperately, after interviews—most of which yielded something along the lines of “we don’t currently have any paid positions, but if you would be willing to accept an unpaid internship…” I laughed at the thought of living unsalaried in New York City for any length of time, even though I knew I was lucky to be enjoying that life, if guiltily, for an interval.

In the evenings, and the early mornings before work, I looked forward to time with my roommates, because we laughed together non-stop and had known each other as children. In the mornings over coffee we watched Pat Kiernan on New York 1, and when everyone was home from work we drank cheap wine and rehashed the weekend’s escapades. Around that time the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal broke on the living room’s boxy TV, and we howled in disbelief when the grinning, big-haired shot of Monica flashed across the screen, looking like a high school graduation picture of someone we might have known peripherally not too long ago; she was our age. With each new sordid layer exposed we sat more riveted: the stained dress, the outrageous duplicity of Linda Tripp. “What the fuck?” was about all we could say to any of it*.

At night, after everyone had retired to their rooms, I would drift off to the otherworldly sound of steam pipes clanking and groaning, something powerful and mysterious asserting itself within the walls of the prewar building. Finally, by the next month, my quest for a job panned out and I’d started looking at apartments: dusty, unbelievably expensive little boxes. I ended up taking one in the west 80’s, near my friends: a tiny basement studio I couldn’t afford, but which had a quasi-kitchen with a black and white linoleum floor that was evocative of something, and a Magic Chef stove—potential for me to experiment and create feasts, even if I had nowhere to serve them. As for the job, they wanted me right away. It wasn’t the position in food media I'd sought—it was with a group of shelter magazines—but my rationale was that at least by getting in the kitchen I would be close to food. The title was Administrative Assistant, with the potential for writing opportunities and upward mobility; this much turned out to be true, quickly, even if I never did muster the requisite enthusiasm for faucets and furniture. I worked for Hearst, in a building on West 55th St. whose front door led straight across the street to the original Soup Nazi, lunch lines and all. During that time I ate mostly bagels and lentils and pasta, and occasionally soup.

Those New York beginnings weren’t edgy or cool or opulent as the mythical ones you always hear about; I was no Patti Smith. Late 90’s NYC had already lost its frisson of danger for the most part, the East Village a playground for post-college kids like me. The soundtrack to “Rent” already sounded contrived and outdated. But as with all the best beginnings, mine were built on kindnesses and connections, and the everyday incandescence of a new, big city. When you’ve lived somewhere else, you think you know yourself as an extension of that town, until you move and that layer is ripped away, leaving you open to everything the new place hurls your way. I felt at once exposed and cocooned. And then at some point during that year, without even noticing, I’d grown a shell—thin and fragile at first—that marked me as a New Yorker.

Over the next couple of years, the friends who had made my first days in New York so colorful and warm flew away like butterflies. New York, for them, had been a post-college palate cleanser—something I truly expected it to be for me, too—and other places beckoned them with more permanence. I’d met someone fortuitously at a party (do people even meet this way any more?), and that someone turned out to be my husband, with whom I began a new, big chapter whose roots sank deep into the city’s pavement. His friends became my friends, and eventually many of us ended up in Brooklyn, where we have added a growing family of friends to the bunch, including many children—a whole other wonderful and still bewildering thing.

There were endings among the beginnings. The building where I’d worked my first real job was torn down to make way for a taller, more efficient one, and I don't even recognize that part of town anymore on the rare occasion when I go there. The boy who’d taken me to the Oyster Bar died suddenly, I heard, a few years after I’d lost touch with him. Then there was 9/11. The attacks shattered the city while we were living downtown, within viewing distance of the blazing towers and close enough that our apartment filled with acrid smoke when we fled, leaving a window open. For a time it felt like the world was ending and our neighborhood's fences fluttered with hopeful, awful "missing" pictures until they faded or fell or were taken down, but in spite of the feeling of unbelievable fear and sadness, resilience eventually won out.

As for my old CD collection, those that weren’t sold at a stoop sale are buried in a drawer somewhere, and my children will never know what it’s like to pop in a disc, because any time they want music they just tell a speaker what to play.

Would I live anywhere else? Could I? Of course. Everywhere I visit, it seems, is a reminder that things could be easier, slower, and for better or worse, less full and noisy. I think we’ll stay put for a while.

Caccio e Pepe
Serves 1 (multiply for company)

Ingredients:

• 4 oz. dried spaghetti noodles 
• Salt (for the water)
• 1/2 c. finely grated pecorino Romano cheese
• Freshly ground pepper (about 1/2 tsp., or to taste)

Instructions: 

1. Fill a big pot of salted water (should taste like the sea) and put it on to boil. Once it's boiling, add pasta and monitor closely. Have a skillet at the ready alongside the pot.  
2. Once pasta is almost done, put the skillet over medium heat and ladle about half a ladle full of pasta water to start, then mix in cheese and pepper vigorously with the back of a spoon until cheese is fully dissolved and the mixture is creamy and thick; you may need to play around with the amount of water. Turn down low. As soon as the pasta has reached the al dente stage (only way to know is to keep trying it—should resist slightly between your teeth), scoop it out with tongs and transfer to the skillet, where it will cook for another minute or two. Stir constantly until noodles are coated with the creamy sauce; drizzle in a little more pasta water at a time if it seems to dry. 
3. Serve immediately, sprinkling with additional grated cheese and pepper. 

I wish I'd had this Roman classic in my back pocket all those years ago—it's frugal, simple, quick, and comes together almost magically.

*I have come to admire the advocacy work Monica has done against cyber-bullying and regret to remember her for that moment in time.



 

Something Else

About 10 years ago, when I had two toddlers under three, I dragged my sorry self into a holistic doctor's office. I could write an endless list of complaints I had at the time, but to sum it up, I felt like complete crap and thought that surely I must not be long for this world. After filling out forms and going through basic health questions, I moved on to a doctor-led dissection of my lifestyle. It was here that she pounced on our evening routine, which involved cooking two dinners—one for the kids and one for us parents—separated by an elaborate bedtime routine and all of it wrapping up somewhere around midnight, about five hours before the younger child awoke. 

The doctor looked at me in vague horror as I sheepishly finished describing all of this to her. "No wonder you feel the way you do! You're pouring all your energy into other people." She was right, and someone with a medical license didn't need to be the one telling me this.
The truth was, the last thing I was trying to do was martyr myself—I simply love to cook and hadn't yet figured out how to be efficient about it. More importantly, having a later, adult dinner was a way to feel human and eat exactly what I wanted to, and enjoy the meal (and a glass of wine or two) with the other grownup of the house once all the kid toys were kicked to the margins of the room and the sippy cups were stowed in the dishwasher.

But this daily slog was wearing me out more than it was giving me fulfillment. Fortunately, 10 years and another kid later, I've gotten saner about evenings, and that has enabled me to survive an increasingly complicated life. One of our crutches is getting takeout here and there; no shame in that! Another trick: teaching my older kids—11 and 13—how to cook, and assigning them dinner some nights (if you're going to have kids, you might as well raise helpers, right?). But then I have a few "something else recipes" in my back pocket: the tasty, wholesome ones that can be served two different ways, but which we all sit down to enjoy together. I serve them with punchy, add-on garnishes that instantly gin up the flavor for more sophisticated (or spice-tolerant on our case) adult palates. I'm all for getting away from the concept of kid food, but in reality some of the hotter, stronger flavors don't fly yet; I hope this will soon change. 

The soup recipe below is my new favorite fall "something else" recipe. It's also a change from the version I had on repeat for way too long, which relied on ample butter for comfort. The one below is vegan, but that's really just a side bonus. The flavor profile is tangy, bright, and clear and makes me believe it wouldn't be hard at all to give up dairy (for a day).

Butternut Squash Soup With Lemongrass and Red Curry Oil
Serves 4-6 (more if you are serving kids' portions)

Ingredients: 

• 2 TBS vegetable oil (sunflower, coconut, olive, or similar)
• 1 small yellow onion
• 1 tsp. ground coriander seed
• 1 very large butternut squash (or 2 small ones), peeled, de-seeded, and cubed*
• 1 stalk lemongrass
• 1" section of fresh ginger, peeled and minced very fine
• 1 pint (approx.) unsalted vegetable stock/broth*
• 1/2 can (less if you prefer) full-fat, unsweetened coconut milk (I prefer the canned kind since it's creamier, but you can also use about 1/2 cup or more of the lighter kind that comes in cartons)
• Juice of 1 lime
• Sea salt to taste

 
Ingredients for garnish: 

• 2 TBS virgin coconut oil
• 1 TBS minced ginger
• 2 TBS Thai red curry paste (the brand I use is Thai Taste)
• Fresh cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

 

Instructions: 

1. To prepare lemongrass: remove  2 or 3 outer tough, woody layers and discard them (or reserve for stock). Chop off the dry, wispy tops and root end. What you should be left with is a long core that is still relatively tough but feels slightly damp and alive. Put this on a cutting board and with the blunt side of a large knife's blade, pound the lemongrass up and down on all sides to tenderize it. Now, with the sharp side of the blade, mince the lemongrass finely. 
2. In a large sturdy saucepan or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-high heat and add the onion and ground coriander, and a sprinkle of salt. Stirring occasionally, sauté for about 5 minutes, or until the onion is slightly translucent (do not brown). Add the squash and minced lemongrass and stir around a couple of times, then pour in enough stock to reach halfway up the vegetables. Bring to a boil then quickly lower to a simmer and cover. 
3. Meanwhile, make the red curry oil. In a small skillet, heat up the coconut oil for a few minutes. Add the ginger, sizzling briefly, then add the red curry paste. Cook, stirring, for a couple of minutes to bring the flavors up. At this point, add a few drops of water until the consistency is liquid (drizzle-able) but not watery. Reserve in the pan until you're ready to serve the soup.
4. Simmer squash mixture for about 25-30 minutes total, checking occasionally. Stir in ginger after about 20 minutes. The vegetables are ready when the squash is soft and yielding when pierced with a knife, but not gone to mush.
5. In a good blender, whir the vegetables and their liquid until they are velvety smooth with no lumps (do this in batches if it won't all fit in the blender at once—you can mix it together in the pot afterwards). Add the lime juice and 1/2 cup coconut milk at first (stir if separated), taste, then add more if you like. Rinse out the pot you used for cooking, then add back the blended soup and turn heat to low, adding more stock or water if it seems too thick. Important: now taste and add salt bit by bit until the flavors are where you want them. I don't like including precise salt measurements in my recipes, since everyone's tastes are different and the other ingredients vary. 
6. Serve soup hot in bowls, then swirl in red curry oil and scatter with cilantro leaves if desired. Offer extra garnishes at the table. 

*Stock-making tip: You can make your own vegetable stock, using the peels and seeds as a base. Put these in a medium pot along with the following: discarded lemongrass husks, a small chopped onion and/or leek, a smashed garlic clove, chopped celery or fennel, a chopped carrot, a bay leaf, a few peppercorns, and a strip of kombu (aka kelp - if you don't have it, that's fine!). Add just enough water to cover and simmer for up to an hour. 

 









 

 

When life gives you lemons...bake

2017 has been weird. I wasn't going to write about it, but for much of the year I've spent way too much time in hospitals, as a visitor to (and advocate for) loved ones who, before this year, were perfectly healthy. One of them—my husband—is walking around in the world now, but the other—my Dad—has been through a bitch of a struggle for the past two months, and just when we think he's on his way, something else happens. Podcasts and our trusty wagon have propelled me back and forth to D.C. to see him. Coffee is my friend.

The other portion of the time, when I'm not fumbling to catch up with my kids and make up for lost time and make it to school, I'm either ignoring the news or peering out at it,  terrified, through the cracks between my fingers. The whole experience of 2017 has left me feeling hollowed-out, discouraged, overstretched but still inadequate. But here's the wonderful cliché of it: cooking really does help. It helps me do and make something tangibly good for my family, and it's an activity I can engage in with my kids when we need to re-connect. The familiar rote actions—of clicking on the stove burners, tapping eggs on the counter, chopping onions, smelling butter in a hot pan—take me out of my head and into my hands and senses. Baking is particularly, soothingly, mechanical: as long as I pay attention to the measurements, I don't really have to think all that much.

One night, as I arrived back into Brooklyn from D.C., the house was quiet and dark and everyone was already in bed. I opened the fridge, numb from the long drive, and stood a while in the glow, assessing our provisions; for some reason we had a glut of lemons in the fruit drawer, and they were starting to go soft in that way that means you should use them before you find them fuzzy and oozing all over your apples. We also had a container of quark, which I’d bought from the excellent Hawthorne Valley Farm store out of curiosity and then promptly forgotten about. I went to bed, slept like Punxsutawny Phil, and woke up the next morning with an idea to make a not-too-sweet lemon and quark loaf cake, something that would be more like a quick bread and capable of spanning breakfast, snack, and dessert. I did some research online and modeled my recipe very loosely off of one I found in The Guardian. And I baked.

What is quark? If you’re not familiar, it is often labelled a "fresh European-style cheese," but I think of it more as a cross between yogurt and sour cream—denser than regular yogurt but less mouth-coating than sour cream. By ounce, it is lower in fat than sour cream but a little bit higher than whole milk yogurt. In the U.S., you can find it at some natural food stores or international groceries. Our German friend and former au pair, Mari, cooks with it often, which is why it was on my radar in the first place when I found it at Hawthorne Valley. According to her, she uses it in about 80% of baked goods.
One day last year, she and my 10-year-old made a trip to a German bakery in New Jersey and came back with delicious, fluffy quark ball doughnuts; we all fought over them. That was my introduction, and while I haven’t yet tackled those coveted doughnut balls, I was pleased with how the lemon cake came out: tangy, a little bit springy, vivid and humid as a July night. It is a cake in the sense that a pound cake is a cake, but lighter. I find many lemon cakes cloying, and this one is not—and the flavor, thanks to the quark, is more nuanced.

This little cake won't heal your loved ones or cure the world's ills, but it's a good one to bake and enjoy during a March snowstorm, and to share with friends…if it lasts long enough.

Lemon Quark Cake

• 7 fl. oz. quark (just shy of a cup in a liquid measuring cup)
• 3 fl. oz. sunflower, canola, or olive oil (olive oil imparts a stronger flavor)
• Zest of 2 large lemons (3 lemons if small)
• 2 TBS fresh lemon juice
• 5 oz. (¾ cup) sugar
• 2 eggs
• 7 oz. (1 ½ cups + 2 TBS) all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 pinch of salt

For the glaze:

• 3 TBS fresh lemon juice
• 2 oz. (½ cup) confectioner's sugar

Instructions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Butter the inside of a 4.5" x 8.5" loaf pan (or similar size).
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the quark, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, and eggs. In another, small, bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until just combined—do not overmix.
3. Scrape all the batter into the prepared loaf pan and put in the oven. Bake for about 35-40 minutes, rotating about halfway through. All ovens are different, so start checking after 30 minutes. You'll know the cake is done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely.
4.  Make the glaze by simply whisking together lemon juice and confectioner's sugar until well blended. When the cake has cooled, run a sharp knife around the edge of the pan to loosen it, then free the cake by carefully inverting it into a dish towel, then onto a serving tray. Drizzle or brush the glaze over the top of the cake, making sure to coat the edges liberally. If the cake lasts more than a day, wrap and store it in the refrigerator.