Thinking of Friends

It's the end of the year, and I'm thinking of friends and family who are no longer here to celebrate the seasons and the New Year with us. I haven't written about those we've lost, as I keep my blog on not-so-personal subjects. But like my real life, my blog world is full of valued friends. Most of these, I've never seen or met, and I know only the face they show in their posts. One blog friend was Louise Vee, whose blog was "Months of Edible Celebrations."

Cookbook Wednesday was one of Louise's participatory
blogger activities. She designed the logo shown here.

For many years Louise wrote blog posts that reflected her great expertise on American home cooking history, and shared fascinating images from her archives of culinary ephemera. Louise had blogger friends throughout the world. Many of them participated in her blog events, such as "The Picnic Game" that she frequently held in early summer. Her blog included a list of links to their blogs, which automatically updated to reflect their current posts. Every post she made received a large number of comments from all these friends.

Louise often wrote about her grandchildren, about her friend and housemate Marion, and about her garden. In the last few years, after Marion died at the age of 95 or so, Louise did less and less blogging. Occasionally, she mentioned health problems she was having, but also upbeat things such as that she got married soon after Marion died.

A screen shot of Louise's last Facebook post, August 29, 2018.

Last summer on Facebook Louise shared quite a few photos of her garden and the birds and butterflies she saw there, but she had stopped posting on her blog. In the fall, her entire blog disappeared from the internet, and her Facebook page became a memorial.

For the last days of 2018, I wanted to write a post expressing my sadness at losing this friend that I never met -- in fact, I don't think she posted a photo of herself, so I have no mental image of her appearance. I am sad that she's gone, and I regret the great loss of her whole blog. I had thought her blog would always be a reference for the many unusual cooking topics she covered during more than a decade. That's not what happened.

If Louise's blog hadn't disappeared, I'd link here to some of her great posts and some of her photos. Needless to say, it never occurred to me to make saved copies of her work. Blogs have always seemed to exist in a parallel universe that isn't subject to the same forces that affect us -- but I guess they can be just as ephemeral as real life.

In memory of Louise and her wonderful blog, I am concluding this with an image of a cookbook for Cookbook Wednesday, her invention:

A very early American cookbook, from an era
that Louise knew much about.

The Picnic Game 2014

Chicken Piccata for Louise's Picnic Game, 2014 

Chicken Piccata is an old favorite, featured at traditional restaurants and often cooked at home, for example by my sister-in-law. Thanks to her mentioning it, I started thinking about this classic.

Served with garlic mashed potatoes, Chicken Piccata is on the menu at Merriman’s Cafe in Waikoloa on the Big Island of Hawaii where we are currently on vacation. The cafe is a spin-off of Merriman’s restaurant, one of the originators of Pacific Rim cuisine in the 1980s. Perhaps oddly, Italian/Mediterranean food is very much a part of Pacific Rim cooking. (We speculate that it's because of the longstanding Italian traditions of San Francisco, which IS on the Pacific Rim!)

When I decided recently – a few weeks before my trip –  to try making Chicken Piccata, I found a recipe on Epicurious, but I changed it in several places and especially, I simplified the cooking technique. My recipe made around 5 servings. We ate some hot from the oven with salad (shown above) and some cold with additional parsley: perfect for a picnic.

Specifically, it’s just the thing for the 2014 Picnic Game
sponsored by Louise at Months of Edible Celebrations.

To start the game, all participants have promised to go through the alphabetical list up until the letter of our own contribution, just like the old kids’ memory game. In this game, though, we link to the blog post and recipe of the other picnic goers: just click on the caption of the images for A and B below.

So here it is: I’m going on a picnic and I'm bringing:

A -- Angel Food Cake

B -- Basil Leaves in Caramelized Prawns 

and C -- Chicken Piccata, my contribution:
Check Louise's blog on July 1 for a list from A to Z!

Recipe

Chicken Piccata Ingredients

4 boneless chicken breast halves or equivalent amount boned by hand – skin optional

3 tablespoons butter (less if you left some skin on the breasts)

4 teaspoons flour to make kneaded butter

Additional flour, salt, and pepper for dredging the chicken

2 tablespoons olive oil for browning the chicken

1/3 cup dry white wine

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice plus lemon zest (Don't forget to grate lemon zest before squeezing juice!)

1/4 cup canned chicken broth ... or use homemade stock from the chicken bones

1/2 large shallot, chopped or sliced very thin

1/4 cup drained capers

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Method

1. If using whole unboned chicken breasts: remove bones and cut meat into ¾-inch-thick cutlets. Optionally, use the bones and some carrots and onion or shallots to make stock. If you remove the skin, also use it to make the stock.
2. Make kneaded butter: mix 1 tablespoon of butter and 4 teaspoons of flour in small bowl until smooth.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dredge chicken cutlets at last minute in flour-salt-pepper mixture. Brown chicken in batches in a frying pan in olive oil, and put them on a cookie sheet. When all are browned, bake them in the oven until done while making sauce in the same frying pan. Baking time depends on how thick you cut them, somewhere around 15 minutes.
4. In pan juices in the frying pan, brown a few slices of shallot. Add wine, lemon juice and broth to frying pan and simmer for around 5 minutes over medium-high heat with shallots and additional butter as needed. Whisk in butter-flour mixture and simmer until sauce thickens slightly, about 2 minutes. Leave on low heat until chicken is done. Add more stock if needed.
5. Assemble dish. To the frying pan add the capers, parsley, lemon zest, and remaining 2 tablespoons butter (if needed). Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Place chicken on serving platter, pour sauce over chicken, and serve. Or place chicken breasts in storage container, pour sauce over chicken, and chill until needed, adding more freshly chopped parsley before serving.

Aloo Gobi for Louise's Picnic Game

I'm going on a picnic and bringing Aloo Gobi, an Indian dish with potatoes and cauliflower. It's a virtual picnic that takes place July 1. So...

Happy Picnic Day

Louise at Months of Edible Celebrations has come back to blogging and is organizing her popular picnic game where at least 26 bloggers create an alphabetical picnic menu, beginning here with A for Aloo Gobi. On July 1, she will post a list of all 26 dishes, with photos!

Actually, I really did bring real, not virtual aloo gobi on a picnic while I was in Aspen recently; I shared it with one of the Tuesday night barbecues at the Aspen Center for Physics. It's a good dish for a picnic because it's supposed to be served at room temperature.

Here's what it looked like towards the end of cooking, before being garnished with cilantro leaves:

Aloo Gobi made May, 2013 in Aspen, Colorado

I first became aware of this delicious dish around 4 years ago when I saw the film "Bend it Like Beckham." As I wrote in an earlier post about this dish, the heroine of the film wants to be a soccer player, and is very good at it, but her parents believe that it's better to make good aloo gobi than to "bend it like Beckham" -- another concept, this from soccer, that I learned from the film. The line is pretty memorable, but what's very memorable is the DVD extra of the film director, Gurinder Chadha, in the kitchen with her mother and her aunties, who watch and give advice while she's trying to explain to her audience how to make aloo gobi. This extra feature is fabulous, maybe better than the film itself.

One of my earlier efforts to make aloo gobi looked like this:

Aloo Gobi made April, 2009 in La Jolla, California

When I eat in an Indian restaurant, I often try to sample the aloo gobi, which always contains a number of spices along with aloo and gobi (cauliflower and potatoes), and sometimes contains tomatoes and sometimes not. An example of the dish with little or no tomato:

Aloo Gobi at Host Restaurant in Toronto

We had a great meal including the above dish a couple of years ago with our friends Rashmi and Kappu. Kappu sent me her aloo-gobi recipe that I followed last month. I didn't have the turmeric and paprika, but I did have all the fresh spices, cumin, and garam masala, a delicious Indian spice blend that's also good on other things.

Kappu’s Aloo Gobi

Ingredients 

1/4 C Oil (Vegetable or Olive)

1 large Onion- cut into thin slices and each slice cut in half crosswise

1 T cumin seeds

1/2 bunch fresh cilantro – leaves chopped and set aside separately.

1 t turmeric

1/2 t paprika

  salt to taste

2 to 3- Serrano or any green chillis – chopped (depending on how hot you like)

2 large whole tomatoes, chopped

3-4 cloves garlic – minced

2 T fresh ginger – peeled and grated

1 med – large cauliflower, broken into floweret

3 medium potatoes – peeled and cut into 1” cubes.

2 T water

1 t Garam Masala

1 T unsalted butter or ghee

Directions

Heat oil in dutch oven, or large pan with cover, over med- high heat.  Add onion and stir till translucent.  Add cumin seeds.  Cook until onions are light brown – do not burn them. Stir.  Add turmeric, paprika and salt; stir.  Add chillis, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, potatoes & cauliflower and mix till everything is well coated.  Add 2+ T water, stir and cover.   Reduce heat to medium low and let simmer for 20 minutes until the cauliflower is cooked. Stir and add Garam Masala, stir again.  Sprinkle 1 T of unsalted butter or ghee, and cilantro leaves on top of the curry, cover and turn heat off.  Let it sit for as long as possible before serving – up to 15 min.

p.s. Do not cook after adding the garam masala.

Bon appetite

Louise's Picnic Game Logo:
See This Post for Details

Artichokes for Louise's Picnic Game

Louise at Months of Edible Celebrations is organizing a big virtual picnic among all her blogger contacts. I'm participating in this picnic; my contribution, representing the letter A, will be steamed artichokes with mayonnaise. While I'm at it, I'll also put in some asparagus, and avocados from the fabulous Santa Barbara Farmers' Market.

Last Saturday I wrote about cooking artichokes -- see this post:

Artichokes

I described how I begin by trimming the sharply-pointed leaves, then I steam the artichokes and cool them off. If you picnic with me, don't forget -- whole steamed fresh artichokes must be eaten with care by scraping the soft part from each leaf with one's teeth. Artichokes are the only food I know of where instructions for eating them are as important as instructions for cooking them! If you are fearful, you can buy jars with just the soft interior leaves, marinated and ready to put in a salad, but it's nowhere near as fun as working with the big, tough thistle just off the stalk:

I just love seeing all the different kinds of artichokes in the market, and I'm equally excited about avocados and asparagus. I also steam the asparagus, and serve it chilled with vinaigrette for a picnic (or fresh from the steamer with butter.) Here's what you can see at the market here:

The avocado vendor:

I guess being away from home, where artichokes and avocados don't grow, makes me appreciate this all the more. I eat ripe avocados with lemon juice and salt, but of course they too can be made fancy or added to salads. And of course there's always guacamole, but it doesn't start with my letter A.

Picnic Game Day

Happy picnic day: don't forget to check Louise's blog for a complete list of 26 picnic foods in alphabetical order! My post,

A-Apricot Cobbler

has been up for around a week. There are 16 recipes for desserts and sweet baked goods, and a very interesting Portuguese dish that starts with "X" among the delicious foods for this virtual picnic.

The Picnic Game from Louise

Louise at the blog Months of Edible Celebrations is hosting a picnic!! She just announced this game today, inviting bloggers to celebrate by bringing a full alphabet of picnic treats. Louise assigned me the letter A: I'm "baking" for the picnic even though my reality right now is a condo in Aspen, Colorado, where I have no pantry supplies whatsoever. I'm looking forward to getting home in a few weeks, and baking in my own kitchen where I keep flour, baking powder, and where I have many baking dishes!

Well, I'm going on this virtual fantasy picnic, and I'm bringing:

A -- APRICOT COBBLER

Other bloggers will be bringing foods from B to Z.

Here is a photo and recipe:

Apricot (or Peach) Cobbler
Preheat oven to 400°F.

Make the filling first:
1 1/2 lb ripe apricots or 9 to 10 ripe peaches
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (2 for peaches)
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon or lime juice
3/4 teaspoon almond extract

Cut apricots in quarters. (Or peel the peaches and cut in 6-8 slices each). Toss all the ingredients together in a 9-inch round or square glass or ceramic baking dish. Let stand until juicy, about 30 minutes or as long as it takes to make the topping.

For topping:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar mixed in
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk OR 1/2 c. milk plus a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar
2 or more teaspoons of cinnamon-sugar for sprinkling.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 teaspoon sugar in a bowl. Blend in the butter with your fingertips or a knife until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in the buttermilk with a fork just until combined. Do not overmix.

Drop rounded tablespoons of dough on top of the filling; leave spaces in between the blobs to allow topping to expand. Sprinkle with remaining 2 teaspoons cinnamon-sugar.

Bake cobbler in 400 degree oven until fruit is tender and topping is golden, about 30 minutes. Cool slightly, about 15 minutes, and serve warm with ice cream.

APRICOT CAKE

While I'm thinking about apricots and what I could do with them -- another good picnic dish with apricots would be a traditional Polish fruit cake. Similar recipes appear in many traditional Eastern European cuisines -- I always knew it as a Jewish tradition before friends gave me a Polish cookbook a couple of years ago.

I include a scan of the cake recipe, with my notes on how to make the depicted cake:


Click on this copy of the cake recipe with my notes to see a full-sized version.

Unoriginal Whole Foods Salad

At her blog Months of Edible Celebrations, my Blog Friend Louise is having a picnic. Each person brings -- that is, blogs -- an item, corresponding to a letter of the alphabet, and posts a corresponding blog entry on that item. [Sorry if this was confusing: it's a virtual picnic, based on a kids' game, with bloggers all over the country and maybe further than that.]

I'm not really doing any original cooking and recipe experiments these days, so I volunteered for the most Unpopular letter, and I'm bringing Unoriginal Whole Foods Salad from the Salad Bar. This also gives me the opportunity to talk about Whole Foods Market, one of the places I shop. (Inspiration for my series on shopping came from Blogger Lydia at The Perfect Pantry. This is my Unoriginal month.)



I love to shop for high-quality cheese, meat, bread, bulk spices, olive oil, and produce at Whole Foods. But in a pinch -- like needing a picnic -- they also offer freshly made sushi, a steam table buffet (which I admit to not trying due to steam-table prejudice), a large prepared foods counter (pricy but very tempting), and a big salad bar: today's source of our imaginary picnic.


So, to play Louise's picnic alphabet game, I say I'm going on a picnic, and I am bringing the following beautiful and wonderful recipes that have been posted:

A- Almond Joy Pie (Marjie) @ Modern Day Ozzie & Harriet

B- Baked Beans (Kasha) @ Grub and Stuff

C- Chocolate Picnic Cake Janet @ Dying for Chocolate

D- Dutch Funnel Cake (Julie) Sporadic Cook

E- Easy Blender Chicken Pie (Juliana) @ Simple Recipes

F-5 Bean Salad-(Barbara) @ Moveable Feasts

G- Granola Bars (Stephanie) @ Fun Foods on a Budget

H- Herb and Cheese Pasta Salad (Reeni) @ Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice

I- Incredibly Fruity Raspberry Cakes (Tessa) @ Raspberry & Chipotle

J- Jeweled Picnic Bars Rochelle @ Rochelle's Vintage & Frugal Recipes

K- Kaltschale (Cold Fruit Soup) Petra @ Kaffeeklatsch

L- Long Island Lemonade Cocktail (T.W.) @ Culinary Types

M- Mushroom Tart (Cynthia) @ Gherkins & Tomatoes

N- Nut Roast (Johanna) @ Green Gourmet Giraffe

O- Olive Nut Bread (Chaya) @ Chaya's Comfy Cook

P- Pomegranate Mousse Cake (Chef Dennis) @ More Than a Mouthful

Q- Quiche (Chaya) @ Sweet & Savory(also does comfy cook)

R- Raspberry Chocolate Macarons-(Anne) @ Anne's Food

S- Spicy Glazed Shrimp and Veggie Kabobs (Tamara) @ God's Perfect Promises

T- Turkey and Pear wraps w/ Curried Aioli!! (Heather) @ Girl Chef

U - AND now it's up to me. I'm going to Whole Foods, and select my favorites from the salad bar and maybe a package of sushi too:
Unoriginal, Unimaginative, Uncreative, and giving me Undeserved status in this picnic game --