Category: winter

Braising Winter Vegetables

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

Here’s what I learned this week. Short and Sweet. Those winter root vegetables. Over it? We still have some time you know until tender sweet greens begin to show up at the farmers’ market. I’ve done my fair share of roasting parsnips, beets, carrots and potatoes these past few cold months. But now I know something more. Braising isn’t just for meat. It turns out vegetables take quite nicely to the low and slow method.

I came across an article in The Washington Post  written by Molly Stevens author of the cookbook: All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking. And I believe in her method and I’m an advocate of the four things she says every good braiser needs to know about this art form.

Just about any vegetable can be braised. Stevens stays away from summer squash because of the mushy results. Earlier this week I braised a bunch of beet greens, escarole and a couple of carrots together and the flavor was outstanding.

Four is the magic number here. Here are Stevens’ four parts to braising:

  1. there’s the vegetable (s), main ingredient
  2. liquid, a small amount
  3. seasonings
  4. fat in the form of butter, bacon fat, olive oil, etc.

I would actually add one more: time. How much time have you got? Two hours? Leave the vegetables in large chunks. Twenty minutes? Cut them smaller. Just keep whatever size you’ve decided on uniform throughout all the vegetables going into your pot.

Actually, I think there’s a sixth factor: A covered pot.

Here’s what I did. First, I gave a rough chop to a giant-sized head of escarole (which braises down to very little in the end, by the way). Then I gently sauteed a shallot and a few cloves of garlic in about two tablespoons of butter and one tablespoon of olive oil. I did not let the garlic brown.

Then into the pot with the garlic, shallot (seasonings) and the fat (olive oil and butter) went the greens and two carrots (the main ingredients)–I chopped these small–I did not have two hours.

Next, I added way too much chicken broth (store-bought)–the liquid. If I had just added enough at the beginning to cover the bottom of the pot that would’ve been perfect. I would then continue to add a little more at a time as it evaporated. However, the resulting soupiness was easily fixed. At the end, I removed the lid, turned the heat up high and let it all bubble away. I stayed right there at the stove watching it the whole time.

That’s the idea, I believe. Like cooking risotto. A little bit of liquid at a time. Let it almost all evaporate (without putting your vegetables in danger of scorching) before you add a little bit more, then a little bit more.

Keep the pot covered and when the vegetables come to the desired consistency, take the pot off the heat and add a little bit more butter or a drizzle of olive oil. Finally, a thrifty pour of balsamic makes it all so very nice.

 

 

Grandma Gert’s Irish Soda Bread

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We began the day with green milk and Irish soda bread for breakfast and will be wrapping up what’s left of the holiday with frozen pizza. It’s almost 6 pm out here in the Midwest. The sun is still shining. The skies are blue and filled with the promise of spring (50°– still a bit chilly for me, but I’ll take it!).

I grew up in a town that celebrates St. Patty’s Day with a big parade down Main Street and pubs bulging with people wearing shades of green. Just about every year, following church, my family would take our place along the parade route and wait…and wait…for the first sirens to scream or the shots to blast a patriotic gun salute.

One year when I was a kid, my grandparents took me to the parade. We nabbed a great sunny spot on the corner across the street from my elementary school at the time. Bag pipes began to blare as men in kilts came marching by. Over the music, I shouted to my grandmother, “What do they wear under their kilts?” Before Grandma Gert could get out her best guess, I dropped to an army crawl position and tried as best as I could to take a peak.

Grandma told that story over and over again every year around this time–she even told it to my own children. Her reminiscing always ended with a generous laugh, that to this day I can still hear.

This is her Irish soda bread. There’s not a lick of Irish in any of us–Gert included, yet she embraced this holiday like she embraced every occasion that would gather us all around the table. She told me she had gotten the recipe from an Irish woman who lived in her building when she and my grandfather were first married. I know she’d love that I’m still making it, thinking of her all the while.

  • 4 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, cut into cubes
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 1 1/3 cup buttermilk

1 egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 350 F

Whisk to combine flour, baking soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Using a pastry blender or two butter knives in a scissoring, criss-cross motion, cut in the butter.

Add raisins, mix well.

Gradually add buttermilk, mixing together until you have a soft (and slightly sticky dough). Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead, 1 minute only.

Shape into two rounds loaves and place each on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Flatten each loaf slightly and score an “X” across the top of each.

Beat egg yolk with a teaspoon of cold water, then brush the top of each loaf with the egg mixture.

Bake 30 to 40 minutes until nicely browned.

 

Roasted Carrot Soup

~ Katherine ~ 1 Comment

The Hubbas thinks I’m crazy. I just showed him what I go through when I come across a recipe that interests me. I research many of the ingredients, sometimes spending an entire afternoon going off on tangents. I never thought to include the flurry of articles that educate me in my posts until today.

Maybe he’s right. I might be nuts…which makes me think of hazelnuts and how toasted hazelnuts could be used in place of the pancetta…and when is the season for hazelnuts anyway? And is Italy a major exporter? How again do you say hazelnut in Italian? Oh yes, nocciola… And biscotti! I’ve never made biscotti before. How is that possible….?

Rounding third base and back to home she comes…

Around this time of year in Madison I can get a hold of some sweet locally grown carrots from Tipi Produce, Evansville, WI.  For me, other than eating them right out of the refrigerator, the next best thing would be to roast them. I’ve been hanging on to a recipe for roasted carrot soup by Elizabeth Minchilli, who lives in Rome and writes about delicious things in Italy, for quite some time now.

 

A somewhat thick soup, it has so many of my favorite flavors: caramelly sweet carrots, pancetta and balsamic vinegar. This is the perfect meal for which to transition from winter to spring.

Let’s make it together…

Roasted Carrot Soup

2 pounds carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch slices

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil  (Have you seen this article in last weekend’s The New York Times? Italy Growers Wary of Olive Oil Fraud as New Law is Weighed ?)

4 sprigs rosemary

1 tablespoon butter

1 large leek, white part only, rinsed and finely chopped ( I found this link useful: Jacques Pepin’s instruction for washing and chopping a leek)

salt

freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup white wine*

*I used a Sauvignon Blanc for its crispness and acidity and found this explanation helpful Dry White Wine. If you’d rather use dry Vermouth because it will last a lot longer in the refrigerator than an opened and corked bottle of wine and it can be more cost effective, here’s an article that educated me on the classic aperitif  Vermouth 101 and this one on brands 3 Dry Vermouths.

1/2 cup cubed pancetta ( short-cut: I found a package of pancetta already cubed in the grocery store.)

balsamic vinegar (An interesting article and maybe someday I’ll spring for the good stuff–a little goes a long way and it lasts forever Everything You Need to Know About Balsamic Vinegar)

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The Method

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Place carrots in a bowl with 4 tablespoons of olive oil and a teaspoon of salt. Use your hands and toss the carrots well.

Onto a sheet pan, arrange the carrots in a single layer and tuck the rosemary sprigs in between. Drizzle any extra oil from the bowl over all.

Roast the carrots until they are soft and the edges begin to darken. You may have to flip them over half way through to get color on both sides. Pay attention to the aroma in your kitchen. Make sure it stays pleasant. We don’t want the carrots to burn.

In the meantime, put the remaining tablespoon of olive oil and the butter in a large pot (I used my Dutch oven) over medium heat. Add the leeks, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and the pepper. Cook until the leeks are completely softened–do not let brown. This should take about 30 minutes. Keep it cooking slow. Your kitchen will begin to grow warm and delicious.

Add the white wine or vermouth (whichever you’ve decided on) and let bubble for a minute or so.

Take the carrots out of the oven and remove the rosemary sprigs. Add the carrots to the pot, stir and add enough water to the pot to cover the carrots by an inch and a half.

Cover and let simmer for 30 minutes. Let it all cool down and using a food processor, puree until smooth. You will most likely have to do this in a couple of batches. Be careful it’s not too hot. Using a potato masher would probably work well too although the soup might not be quite as smooth. I prefer the rustic texture of a few bites of carrots.

The soup can be thinned a bit with a little warm water, broth or milk (cream would make it decadent for sure).

Heat a small frying pan and add the pancetta, cooking it until it’s browned and crispy. This is where I would bet toasting some hazelnuts and roughly chopping them would taste delicious and would make this soup a vegetarian choice.

Now to serve: Ladle a little soup into a bowl, sprinkle pancetta on top (along with as much pork fat as your conscience will allow) and finish with a light drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Ms. Minchilli recommends this balsamic on her website La Vecchia Dispensa and in my opinion, would make a nice gift. Seriously, a little of this on a hunk of parmiggiano reggiano, or lightly drizzled over vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries…

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New Jersey, 1974-ish, sharing a carrot with our pet rabbit, Peter. At first I couldn’t remember into which file I placed the photos of the roasted carrot soup, so I grabbed this one. At least it had a carrot in it.

Ciao!

 

Beans in Broth Always

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

 

I made beans. Tamar Adler, chef and author of An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace inspired me. Legendary food writers, M.F.K. Fisher, Clementine Paddleford and Elizabeth David inspired her. This is well-trusted advice on how to make beans plump and tender and make you want another bite.

Begin when you are not feeling hungry. Begin when you remember that you’ve been wanting to give these beans a go. Begin where you are.

Gather two cups of dry cannellini beans (beans should be of your choice, the process is the same except for lentils). Put them in the pot and fill with water–about an index finger over their heads. Cover the pot and leave them soak overnight.

The next day, drain the beans, return them to the same pot and add the following:

  • vegetable scraps (carrot peels, celery tops, onion peels, fennel fronds and stems) or cut up a stalk or two of celery, rough chop a carrot (no need to peel), chop an onion in half or quarters–the idea being you add what you have on hand.
  • fresh parsley, a bay leaf, garlic cloves (however many you like, these are your beans), salt and pepper.

Pour in enough cool water to cover. According to Adler the beans should appear to be bathing, not drowning. Add a long drizzle of your best olive oil.

Bring to a rapid boil then immediately lower to simmer and cover. It has taken me no less than three hours to get these beans cooked to perfection, possibly more. I make these in the morning when I’m going to be home all day and I’m able to eat them that night in time for dinner. The aroma that fills your kitchen will be one of nurturance and peace of mind–a savory meal is on its way. Remember to taste the broth as it cooks and adjust the seasonings to your pleasure.

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Adler defers to Clementine Paddleford’s (from  The Best in American Cooking) instruction of how long beans should simmer. I don’t believe I will ever need it put another way.

“…until beans have gorged themselves with fat and water and swelled like the fat boy in his prime.”

Taste five beans. If they are all soft to their very middles, they’re done. If even one of them doesn’t meet this requirement, keep on simmering.

One last bit of bean advice that Adler pulls from The Best in American Cooking is downright sexy

“a cooked bean is so tender that the mere flutter of your breath should disturb its skin right off.”…..

All you need alongside a bowl of your beans is a slice or two of toasted, crusty bread, rubbed with a clove of garlic, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with grated parmeggiano reggiano cheese.

Later in the week, build upon that humble pot of beans by adding slices of broiled sausage, pasta, sauteed spinach, more parmeggiano and olive oil.

 

 

 

Let’s Begin Again

~ Katherine ~ 4 Comments

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My Darlings,

It’s been too long.

And it’s so hard to jump back in when you’ve been away.  Let’s begin somewhere, anywhere and see where we wind up.  Okay?

In all this time, I’ve been thinking about what this blog means to me.  We’re coming up on a three-year anniversary and although some things have changed in my life and within this blog, most things — the core of what I’m trying to do in the kitchen and how I live my life are the same.

Simple, simple, simple.  Feeding myself and my family whole and honest foods, the fewer the ingredients the better, wasting very little.  Taking the time necessary to simmer, caramelize, bring out the primary flavors of my childhood —

garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese, lemon, parsley, toasted slices of good bread.

I’ve had another birthday.  The more I seem to try to get lost within all this aging, the more I keep bumping into myself. Take for instance, my hands.  Always submersed in warm water, reaching in and out of a hot oven, floured at times, oiled…. I’ve taken them for granted and now they need my care.  I’m thinking a good moisturizer and nightly hand massage.

When I look at them, I see a few more light brown freckles resting on skin that looks a little more… “softened” to me than I remember.  Tender blue veins, like swollen rivers, carry my life out to the tips of my fingers.  They are my mother’s hands and they are her mother’s hands.  I notice also the vertical ridges in my ring-finger’s nail.  Those belong to my Nana.  And I know this because I used to paint her fingernails for her when I was just old enough to get more polish on her nails than her fingers.

It is comforting to know that my hands are a sort of looking-glass into the past, connecting me with the strong, working women of my family and that they are always with me in the daily rituals of chopping, stirring, kneading and washing.  They appear when I’m putting a bandage on my child’s skinned knee, jotting notes during a chef interview, hanging clothes out to dry, holding my husband’s hand on one of our walks.  They remind me that I’m not the first and I’ m not the last but in some way, will always be.

I Made Oatmeal Because I Love You

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

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It’s Monday and everyone in my family is back to some place else.  The husband has returned to his office, the children to their respective classrooms.  Since I work from home, having them all leave the house this morning is like a rambunctious office party come to an end.  The quiet has been restored and I am all that remains (along with a bit of a mess).

A good month has passed since I’ve spent some time with you.  I’ve been writing regularly for Madison Magazine about all the great food trends Madison foodies can look forward to in this exciting Midwest city.  Mostly I get to do what you all know I love most — talking with those who work hard to make us good things to eat and listening to their stories.  Nice work, right?

I’ve noticed that before a deadline, while I’m organizing the story in my head, I’m also laboring over a hearty dinner, like roast chicken and vegetables. But I’m not just throwing a bird in a pan, I’m researching countless recipes on how to do it well.  I’m obsessing over why some chefs butter their birds prior to oven time and why others do not.  I’m baking from scratch loaves of bread.  I’m keeping my hands busy which is some how freeing up my brain to work out the details and timeline of my assignment.

As we get closer to deadline, the feast is over.  My family goes into starvation mode.  I am working and am in “the zone”.  If you’re hungry for dinner at this stage in my assignment better get started on making your own cheese sandwich and expect no apologies nor sympathies from me.  This is when I myself am living only on cheese, granola bars and apples.  We power through.

The day before the assignment is due I begin encouraging myself to make it to the finish line with thoughts of baking chocolate chip cookies or maybe pulling out the brand new pasta machine that I got as a birthday present last year (finally!) as a grand reward.

At last, the assignment is in and mom (a.k.a. the woman who will gladly feed us again) is back in the kitchen and in business.  And so she begins from the beginning with breakfast.  Something warm and filling to bring us all back to life like this steel-cut oatmeal recipe made with whole milk and almond milk and what I like to call the love spices: cinnamon, ginger and a pinch of allspice.   Get a whiff of these lovelies snuggling up together in a simmering pot on the stove.  Feel all that warmness rising up from your sleepy core?  That’s love and it’s all for you.

From this month’s issue of Food & Wine magazine: Creamy Steel-Cut Oats with Dried Cherries and Almonds

  • 1/2 cup dried sour cherries
  • 1 cup whole milk or cream
  • 1 cup unsweetened, unflavored almond milk
  • 1 cup steel-cut oats
  • 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp. ground ginger
  • 1/4 tsp. ground allspice
  • 1/4 tsp. kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
  • 1 Tbsp. pure maple syrup, plus more for drizzling
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds, plus more for topping

1. In a small bowl, cover the dried sour cherries with warm water and let stand until plumped and softened, about 15 minutes.  Drain the cherries and discard the soaking water.

2. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine the whole milk, almond milk, and 1 cup of water and bring to a boil.  Stir in the oats, cinnamon, ginger and allspice and the 1/4 tsp. of salt.  Cover and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the oats are al dente and the porridge is creamy, 20 minutes.

3. Stir in the cherries, maple syrup and almonds and season with salt.  Serve topped with more maple syrup and almonds.

** I used dried cranberries as that’s what I had on hand, without soaking them.  I added them with the spices to the boiling milk.  I also used vanilla-flavored almond milk since that’s what was in the fridge.  This oatmeal is so good that I’ve added dried sour cherries (always available in my northern neck of the woods) to my shopping list.

This Holiday Season I’ll Schedule Time to Notice

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

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Every day I sit at this kitchen table in small light, nothing but a sheet of blackness in the window and I begin making the day’s list of so much to do.  I bet this morning’s list looks a lot like yours: shop, wrap, bake, address Christmas cards, pick up extra bulbs to replace the ones outside on our lawn that won’t light. Attempt to lift and move a fully decorated and lighted tree from a cracked tree stand into a new one.  This last one is giving me a quiet giggle.  It’s just so ridiculous.  How the hell are we going to do this?

Back to my list, I’ve decided to include the word: Joy somewhere on that list so that I will remember to notice the happiness that is always available inside this holiday flurry.  Like waiting patiently for the frosty glitter to settle after you’ve given the snow globe a good shake.  Finally you can see the skaters.

Yesterday, chopping down a Christmas tree — a Canaan Fir — a new type for us, with my husband and children was that moment.  We walked through a forest of trees only to come to the owner’s home on the other side.  Sitting on a weathered wooden box trailer was an old man in a scratchy grey and white beard, wearing a Carhartt – looking winter hat with ear flaps and smoking a stubby hand-rolled cigarette.

We took a much needed break from all the trekking up a ragged hill to find the perfect tree and followed my husband as he walked up to the old man to say hello.

It turns out he was the original owner of the Christmas tree farm.  His only intention when he first started out in the seventies was to grow a couple of trees and sell them at a makeshift roadside stand for $7 a piece in hopes he’d make enough money to buy a new pick-up truck.  Today, forty years later, his son owns the farm, one of the most popular just outside Madison.  My husband asked if he ever got his new pick-up, the seventy-four-year-old smiled and said, “No.”

After telling our kids to do well in school and not to date until they are in their twenties, we were back on our way through the wooded lot where we found our tree.

Top 10 Reasons Why I Need Winter

~ Katherine ~ 1 Comment

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10. To wrap myself up in a long, quilted coat, a scarf, hat, mittens, wool socks and boots right at dawn and go sit on a folded blanket on my front porch bench, sip a mug of steaming coffee while listening to the gentle chorus of winter birds.

9. To breathe in the ice crystals and feel them melt inside of me on a brisk walk in the woods.  Like sipping hot chocolate through a cold cloud of freshly whipped cream.

8. To ice skate on an outdoor rink not far beneath a sleepy sun swathed in frost peering out from behind a grey-white sky.

7.  To hear the sound of snowflakes as whispers from others, from somewhere in another fold of the universe, brush against your bright pink cheek.

6.  To know the crunch of snow beneath your sturdy boots as you walk the same path you’ve walked in autumn, summer, spring; only now it holds your footprints.

5.  Because pies smell so much sweeter baking in a kitchen with steamed-up windows.

4.  To be cradled by your favorite chair, the blanket around your shoulders softer now, the open book on your flannel lap, a quiet companion.

3.  Twilight.  Alternating deep shades of blue and purple, blending to crystal black.  Skeletons of trees in the distance.  Their branches point to stars that glitter like chips of ice.

2.  To “borrow” our children’s sleds, moms race for that one quick run together.  Our children yell with surprised excitement, “Hey!”  while chasing clumsily after us.  They take back their colorful snow-sailing ships.

1.  The Silence.

 

 

The Education of a Home Cook: This Week’s Tips

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments
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Artwork by award-winning, Wisconsin artist, Jamie Heiden; used with permission.
http://jheidenphoto.net/about/

It doesn’t take much to convince me that farmers work hard.  Within the past ten months or so I’ve toured a family owned and operated dairy farm where a couple hundred cows need to be milked every day.  Every day means every day — through a snow storm, below zero-face-stinging-toe-numbing-arctic temperatures, a tornado advisory; even on Christmas.  The health and happiness of these cows are given top priority by the farmers who are determined to take care of the land without the use of pesticides and bring us (home cooks and our families) good milk, cheese and ice cream.

More recently, I had the opportunity to interview a Master Butcher as part of an article I’m writing for a local women’s magazine.  We talked mostly about what it means to run a small farm: the back-breaking work, the long hours; but also about the genuine concern and respect these farmers have for the animals they choose (at great financial cost to them) to raise in a humane way.  The result is a flavorful cut of meat, the origins of which the consumer knows.

Hard work reaps fine rewards.  Whether on the farm or in your kitchen, sometimes taking that extra step, having to wash that extra pot, will lead us to good food that we’ve created with our own hands.  There are, however, ways to make our lives in the kitchen easier.

Which leads me to the first home cook tip of the week: let’s get a good digital thermometer so we know exactly when that delicious grass-fed cut of meat is cooked to absolute perfection!  As luck would have it, in this month’s issue of Cook’s Country magazine (a publication of the America’s Test Kitchen), digital thermometers were rated and I have the Top model as well as the Best Buy for you respectively:

Thermoworks ChefAlarm Model – TX1100 at $59 http://thermoworks.com/ and Polder Classic Digital Thermometer/Timer Model – THM-362-86RM at $24.99 http://www.polder.com/.  These thermometers are hands-free. Perfect for making candy and fresh buttercream frosting as well!

And, because I am continuing to have great luck with Marcella Hazan’s recipes from her cookbook: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, I need to share my latest lesson learned and last tip for this post: When you’ve grilled your T-Bone steak to your liking, (and while it’s still on the grill) rub a crushed clove of garlic on the bone.  This will give your steak a gentle taste of garlic and an amazing aroma will fill the air.  Then once you’ve moved your steak onto a plate, drizzle on a little extra-virgin olive oil.  Do not put olive oil on your steak before grilling as “the scorched oil imparts a taste of tallow to the meat…”  — Marcella Hazan, from her recipe “La Fiorentina –Grilled T-Bone Steak, Florentine Style.

And always, sit back, relax and enjoy a good meal with great company.

 

From the Baker’s Rack: Winter Reading

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

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The snow is coming down.  The kids are in school and perhaps together we are staring out our respective windows at the same wintry scene.  There is so much on my mind.  There is always so much on my mind — but lately thoughts are coming down like fat snowflakes, swirling then piling high around me.  The only thoughts sticking are the one or two I manage to catch on my tongue.  I am feeling frozen and heavy like the rabbit the kids found in our backyard yesterday.  Before someone goes and gets a shovel (or pokes me with a stick as in the case of the poor, stiffened bunny), I need to thaw and make a move– any move and that is the purpose of this post.  I am making a move, despite the storm blowing outside, I am keeping everything calm and warm and focused inside.  I am getting something written (cue a quiet “hooray!”).

At this moment, the stars seem to be aligned in this cozy, softly lit home.  I have my coffee pot back.  My little French press met its demise two weekends ago, when my daughter accidentally tried to put a wooden pepper mill down on the counter driving it first through the fragile little pot, sending shards of glass into the bowl of salt I keep next to the stove.  I am writing on a new laptop this morning as well.  For months I’d been using an old one – a heavy, bulky dinosaur piece of technology, that believe me, you do not want to have on your lap.  The heat coming off of it alone gives new meaning to “pants on fire”!  I waited patiently (weeks!) for this computer — this light, quick, perfectly unbroken laptop to go on sale and here it is and here I am.

It seems I only know two speeds these days: super-fast, creating a blur of everything around me and sleepy-slow, where I avoid walking anywhere near the couch for fear I may collapse into hibernation.  It is the season to slow down, however I need to keep writing, ideally next to a window letting in a stream of strong sunlight.  I need to stay on middle ground — keep my fingers moving and trust that I am where I’m supposed to be.  There is no other place for me at this moment than with you at my kitchen table.

I also have an “all-or-nothing” type of personality.  Either I give something one-hundred-percent effort or I don’t do it at all.  These days I’ve been doing a lot of nothing-at-all with regards to my writing.  In a clear sign of avoidance (blame it on a lack of Vitamin D?), I’ve been organizing — cabinets, cookbooks, cooking magazines, the linen closet, the kids’ drawers.  And each night in bed, I’ve been reading anything about food:  Saveur, Bon Appetit, Cooks Illustrated.  I’ve cracked open Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, and Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink.  I just finished Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton and am looking forward to picking up the memoir, A Girl and Her Pig: Recipes and Stories, by JJ Goode and Chef April Bloomfield next.

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by the late and beloved Marcella Hazan andmy newly acquired treasure, already has olive oil and butter stains marking the pages of recipes I’ve tried.  This instructional cookbook has been compared to Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and both Alfred A. Knopf publications were edited by the legendary Judith Jones.  As I’ve read in many reviews, this is the book — the authority on Italian cooking.  Any holes in your memory of cooking with your Italian grandmother can be filled by Marcella — the universal Nonna.  Rest in peace, you certainly live on in my humble little kitchen.

The snow is slowing down and so am I, but first I’d like to leave you with a few final thoughts: Food is good–even better when you can take the time to taste it.  Even better when there is someone with whom to share it.  And, it’s a wonderful thing to be able to write about it — to offer not only my food stories, but yours as well.  Our memories of meals is something we all have in common, a place in which we can begin again and again.