Men who cook

I didn't grow up around men who cook.

My grandfather excelled at taking naps after dinner, sitting in the white wicker chair, pretending to be awake, omnipresent cigarette hanging from his fingers. My grandmother had kitchen duty, complete with new fangled Weight Watchers food and jars of dried herbs on the table. She served me stew with calamari in it, and green cheese, while harboring a secret passion for reese's peanut butter cups that my family knew nothing about until just before her death.

Mimi cooked, I think. I have memories of holiday meals at her house and I assume that she cooked many of the same recipes that my mom makes. I remember Helen the housekeeper made amazing pickles (I have the recipe, but remain fearful that in making it, the pickles won't taste as good as they do in my memories). Mimi and I did try to make a gingerbread house from scratch one year. It was great fun, and more than a bit lopsided. At this point, PopPop only exists in vague memories and stories related to photographs. One might have included him at the bbq, but never near the kitchen.

My dad, well he makes good pancakes on weekend mornings when we visit, and somewhat reluctantly mans the grill. When I was a kid, he'd bake loaves of bread to give to the neighbors as Christmas gifts, and at one point he grew his own grapes and made wine. Was it any good? I'll have to ask.

But MEN WHO COOK seems to be a recent phenomenon, and I've been overwhelmed by them for the past few weeks. First my friend Matt, who proceeded to take over my mom's kitchen and turn out masterful food each night. Reduced to sous chef, I made the pizza dough for his pies (soy crumbles, fresh mozzarella and raisins, for one), and the salad to accompany his pasta with yellow squash. Matt even preferred to do the grocery shopping.

Then there's Jim, who for his 70th birthday published a cookbook of his recipes and stories. We had dinner with Jim and my Aunt Chris last week. The cioppino was fantastic, the salad dressing of anchovy paste, lemon juice and a little of the marinating liquid from some artichokes was excellent, but the peach cobbler was unbeatable. Even Allen, a professed lover of crisp, who is usually ambivalent at best about cobbler was wow-ed. My version of Jim's cobbler contains raspberries and the last of the carolina peaches that we brought home. I hope it's half as good.

We finished our vacation (aside from a less than memorable stay at the Super 8 in Galliapolis (that's Gall op o lees, to those of you who aren't familiar with the home of Bob Evans) at my sister's house, where her husband made a delicious fish stew for 12, served over croutons. My contribution: egg salad sandwiches for our lunch at the pool the next day.

It's great to be back home, now with a pile of veggies from the CSA to cook from. We'll see what comes from that.

DB: Milano Cookies

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

My grandfather died when I was in elementary school -- maybe second or third grade. After that, my grandmother moved to Pennsylvania to South Carolina and eventually remarried an old friend, Les.

I don't know whether it was Mimi or Les who chose the snacks that we were offered when we went to visit after school, but my mother was a strong woman to turn a blind eye to their 6pm offerings of Hilton Head Ice Cream (double chocolate or lemon custard, usually), chocolate eclairs, See's Candies that they ordered by mail, and yes, Milano cookies.

I haven't eaten Milanos much since then. The occasional reception, or airplane snack box I suppose, but I set out to replicate them on a really damp, rainy night. The cookies baked on a silpat came out somewhat sticky, those on standard cookie sheets had to be chipped off the sheet. I couldn't decide, which if either, I preferred. By this afternoon, however, some time in the cookie tin had mellowed the texture and they sure are tasty.

TWD: Plum Brioche Tart and Honey Vanilla Ice Cream

Vacations require a bit of planning ahead. So when I started making this tart, I also began working on the ice cream recipe for a few weeks from now.

The plums, fabulous -- the brioche crust, not my favorite. I love brioche (If you've never made Dorie's snails or the Belgian bread Craquelin, consider adding it to the top of your "to bake" list.) I think I'd just prefer more of a pastry crust with this yummy filling. Or maybe I'd prefer that my husband look at the color of the crust, rather than the nut and sugar topping, when asked to "see if it's getting too brown."

Now the ice cream, that's good stuff. I often struggle with recipes for ice cream, as they are usually too eggy for my liking. I took some liberties with Dorie's recipe, swapping 1/2 & 1/2 for one of the cups of cream, and reducing the egg yolks from 6 to 3. I chose not to strain my custard as well, preferring the specks of vanilla bean. The result was delicious, but the attempts to photograph the last spoonful before it was eaten were not successful.

TWD: Katherine Hepburn Brownies

In past cafeteria life --high school, college, job at college, job at high school-- I ate lots of brownies at "celebratory" cookouts. There were the cakey brownies, puffy and bordering on tan in color, and the dense brownies, a bit chewier but still lacking in any substantial chocolate flavor. As with most mass produced food, neither type of brownie was satistfying. I can still picture the dense one, dark, gooey, and sprinkled with powdered sugar and sitting on a white cocktail napkin, leaving a square of grease behind when I start to take a bite. After the first disappoiting bite, I'd follow it up with a slice of slightly underripe watermelon, and maybe a White Rock soda.

During those college years, my brownie needs were met by a family friend. She made truly excellent brownies, thick, chewy, moist, studded with chocolate chunks, and frosted with chocolate buttercream. They'd arrive in the mail -- still in the aluminum pan, carefully concealed underneath layers of foil and plastic wrap, no worse for 800 mile trip they'd made from South Carolina to Maryland. After the first one, I'd leave the knife, sticky with crumbs and frosting, in the pan, making it so easy to carve off yet another little square. Years later, I managed to acquire a copy of the recipe, and I made it once, remembering the huge pan we consumed at my parents' house in the days leading up to my wedding. In my own kitchen, the brownies were good, but not the same. I still treasure the recipe, but rarely find myself with the time and ingredient combination to whip them up.

I always have the ingredients for the Katherine Hepburn brownies sitting in my pantry. They combine the chewy, gooey texture I love with cinnamon (which I doubled for this recipe) and coffee. For things like this recipe, I cherish the extra large jar of instant coffee that I keep on hand only for my mother in law. I loved these brownies, and immediately took them to Allen's lab so that I didn't eat the whole pan. Only now, I'm searching for the memories to go with them.

*While these looked and tasted great, they looked rather blah in photos. Haven't mastered brownie photography yet.

TWD: Perfect Party Cake

The perfect party cake requires the perfect party guests. And they're coming tonight!

Dorie's perfect party cake with homemade strawberry rhubarb jam and the buttercream frosting, minus the lemon zest and vanilla because I got distracted.

27 June

I've seen my kids pick up my speech and mannerisms. I don't know where she got her 'phone persona'.

26 June

We set out for the pool, but only made it halfway before the chain fell off.