There’s nothing quite like a big mound of mashed potatoes with a little pool of melted butter in the middle. I only melted that little bit for the purpose of the photo – normally I don’t add more butter – there was butter in the potatoes already, although not much. But doesn’t that make you want to dip your spoon there and take a big mound – and snag a little bit of butter? Good stuff, this.

Fresh spinach hadn’t quite gotten used up, so I hunted for a recipe that included it. Sure enough, found one in one of my holiday cookbooks, Welcome Home for the Holidays (Gooseberry Patch) . The one that generally doesn’t get looked at except . . .during, . . . well, the holidays. But I figured there might be a plentitude of mashed potato recipes. Sure enough, there were. The book gave me an idea, but really I did my own thing here, adding buttermilk (instead of canned evaporated milk, yuk), and my own concoction of herbs (fresh rosemary, chives and Italian parsley from our garden) and a few ounces of Boursin cheese. Lots of salt and pepper, plus a couple of tablespoons of butter. Then I added in the baby spinach that I’d chopped up. It didn’t require cooking, just residing in that hot mass was enough to cook baby spinach. If you use regular spinach you might have to cook it a bit. Or, easier yet, use a box of frozen chopped spinach. And I used Yukon Gold potatoes – my go-to favorite because they’re already almost buttery-tasting.

This would be a great way to serve potatoes, which everybody likes, but make it more healthy with the addition of spinach. You could easily add even more spinach – I used half a pound. It would serve as a really nice bed for chicken, or steak, or a pork chop. Or even fish too. So, it’s very versatile. Nothing fancy. Just plain cookin’ and delicious.

A year ago: Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Cookies with Rum
Two years ago: Beef Tenderloin in Puff Pastry

You see, my DH, Dave, has this book that lives in “his” bathroom. We have two bathrooms on our main living level. The half bath is where lots of people visit . . . but the full bath is really for guests who stay in the bedroom close by. Dave considers that bathroom “his.” And in that bathroom lives this book, Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader).  It resides on the floor just next to the  . . . ahem . . . throne. It contains a jillion snippets of stories, articles, jokes, and general miscellaneous information, suitable for a short read. My cousin Gary gave a similar book to Dave one Christmas, and it finally was so tattered and used it needed to be replaced, so last year I bought him a newer one. Thus.

So my DH brought the book out to me, as I was sitting at my kitchen computer (which I’ll just mention here, is brand new about 3 months ago and it’s already crashed and died this week, so I’m currently typing on my mini-laptop that I usually take on trips). Anyway, I was writing up a post, and he said “do you want to know how eBay got started? It’s not what you think.” I said “sure.” It was interesting. Enough so that I thought I’d share it with you.

The general myth about eBay is that Pierre Omidyar (the genius who did start e-Bay) was talking with his then fiancée (now his wife) Pamela, who was a collector and trader of PEZ candy dispensers and she said something like “wouldn’t it be great if there was a place online where people could trade?”

The real story is somewhat different. Pierre Omidyar is French-Persian, and moved to the U.S. from Paris when he was six years old. His father was attending a medical residency at Johns Hopkins University. Young Omidyar, became positively enchanted with computers and programming. Having graduated from Tufts University in Boston with a degree in computer science, he moved to Santa Clara, California. He did work as a programmer for awhile, then he and some friends started Ink Development Corp, and pen-based computer company. But he veered the company off to an area he thought would be a hot item – internet shopping. And he came up with the name eShop. It was successful (mildly so, enough that Microsoft eventually bought it). Omidyar then decided he wanted to look into starting an internet auction site. He thought that bidding on an object would create more interest, some excitement too. You can look at a more graphic history of Omidyar (and eBay) on eBay’s website.

Over Labor Day weekend in 1995, he stayed home, holed up, and wrote the computer code for an auction-based website. On September 3rd, 1995 he launched it – as ugly, clunky and awkward as it was – merely adding it to an existing website he had already for his internet consulting business. The address of that site was the company’s name, Echo Bay Technology Group. Omidyar tried to register his new “business” as EchoBay, but it was already taken by a Canadian gold mining company, so he shortened it and eBay was born.

At this point eBay was just a hobby for Omidyar. He was still working full time at his day job – until his internet provider forced him to change from a private account to a commercial one because of the volume of traffic. His fees went from $30/month to $250/month. So, he decided to start charging users a small fee – thinking that he’d hear a backlash about it. Not so – checks began arriving. So many checks he had to hire an employee to handle all the payments. By March of 1996 Auction-Web’s monthly revenue was up to $1,000. April it was $2500. May $5000. June it leaped to $10,000. That’s when he quit his day job.

Next he hired a computer geek, Jeff Skoll, who happened to have a master’s degree in Business Administration from Stanford. What he did first was make this auction web thing a stand-alone site. Up until then it still shared a website for his consulting business, and a site about the Ebola virus (yes, really). Early on, Omidyar had done just a little bit of “advertising,” if you could call it that, by mentioning his auction website on some bulletin boards. So he added a bulletin board at eBay too. Some people began asking questions on the bulletin boards – about how to use eBay, mostly answered by other, more experienced users. Thus giving eBay it’s own (free) tech support. One of the early bulletin board gurus was a man who called himself “Uncle Griff.” A curious questioner once asked him what he looked like. He responded, “I’m wearing a lovely flower print dress and I just got done milking the cows,” which put Griff (Jim Griffiths by name) into eBay lore as their “cross-dressing bachelor dairy farmer who likes to answer questions.” Uncle Griff was so respected on the bulletin boards that finally Skoll hired him as their first tech support employee.

The company was so successful it went public in 1998 – eBay was worth $2 billion that day. By 1999 it was worth over $8 billion. And somewhere in there Meg Whitman (currently hoping to run for Governor in our state) held the CEO reins for some years. What made eBay a bit more unique is that they kept updating the model – adding the feedback feature (rating the sellers) in 1998; then adding PayPal in 2002.

Omidyar and his wife Pamela are worth more than $7 billion (maybe not so much now since this book was published – I haven’t gone to look up the stock’s worth) and they devote most of their time to Omidyar Network, a philanthropic organization that helps poor people around the world get into business. They’ve pledged to give away all but 1% of their fortune over the next 18 years. Omidyar says: “My mother taught me to treat other people the way I want to be treated and to have respect for other people. Those are just good basic values to have in a crowded world.”

Amen. This certain was a departure from my usual food stories, but I hope you enjoyed reading about this as much as I did . . . Carolyn T

Greek cooking isn’t a cuisine I turn to very often. Not that I don’t enjoy it – I do – but I just don’t think of Greek food first. Other types of culinary culture pop up in my mind first (like Italian or French). But we were making a Greek rotisseried leg of lam for a dinner party we had the other night. I needed a side dish to go with it and the grilled vegetable salad, the Syrian pita bread salad, and the Lemon Upside Down cake I’d planned.

I don’t even own a Greek cookbook, but found this recipe in my ancient Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery. It’s a set of 12 cookbooks (you can buy them used – wow, they’re worth $86!). The set was a gift from my then father-in-law in 1966. They offer a treasure-trove of information. I turn to it every now and again and always learn something.  Although they aren’t in-depth about any one thing, there are stories and cultural tales throughout, in addition to thousands of recipes and factual and historical information. Not only can you look up specific ingredients or cooking methods (like horseradish, turnips, frog’s legs, fricassee, [how] to fold or flapjacks) but you can research cuisines (like Chinese, Turkish, German). So, I turned to the G volume for Greek, and spotted this recipe. I did change it just a bit – I didn’t sauté the rice (like for a pilaf) because I just didn’t take the time. I also added chicken broth instead of plain water. But otherwise, the recipe is the same.

And it was perfect for this meal. I made the rice in my Zojirushi Rice Cooker, which made it ever-so easy and it sat there awhile on low until the dinner was done and I was ready to serve. The rice: VERY good, considering that it’s a very simple side dish of rice, onion and spinach. The spinach is added in at the last – I used baby spinach so it took only a minute or two to cook through.

A year ago: An essay about food trends for 2009
Two years ago: Spinach and Berries Salad (that’s the salad that’s up there at top – my Tasting Spoons photo)

Awhile back I made this recipe, but decided to alter it just a bit from the last version. I wanted a pronounced lemon flavor, and wanted the lamb to be utterly tender, so I marinated the meat for 24 hours, turning the bag a couple of times during that period. I used a larger leg of lamb (Australian boneless, from Costco), so have changed the recipe to accommodate that. If you have a smaller roast, just reduce the marinade quantities some. The recipe is very forgiving. The lemon juice, however, helps to tenderize the meat, so it needs contact with the protein for a longer period. Steven Raichlen’s recipe is a good one, and I merely enhanced it, I believe. It comes from his book, The Barbecue! Bible, a book I turn to over and over again for grilling ideas.

The result? The meat was utterly tender and very tasty with the oregano rub and the hint of lemon. The lemon did not overpower it at all. I used our Meyer lemons, since we have so many of them right now. You have lemons? Use this recipe for a lovely meal. If you don’t have a rotisserie, just grill the roast over heat until it’s brown, then away from the heat (indirect cooking method) until it’s cooked through to your liking. Rare? Take it out at 140. Medium? Remove at 160. Our roast was not an even thickness, so we removed it at 160 and the center was still nicely red/medium rare. Delicious. The leftovers will go into my favorite Shepherd’s Pie with Chipotle Sweet Potatoes. A real treat and one Dave and I always enjoy.

A year ago: Pork Ragu on Pasta
Two years ago: Triple Chocolate Torte with Raspberry Sauce

If you enjoy a tart, citrusy dessert, this one is a must fix. If you like pucker-power, but with a sweet and sour finish, you need to make this cake! I’ve made a lemon upside down cake before (with almonds), but it was a PUDDING cake, not an upside down cake. So it’s similar. But different. This one is definitely in the style of the old-fashioned pineapple upside down cakes my mother used to make, with the canned pineapple rings and a maraschino cherry in the center of each ring. Remember those? Some of you may be too young to remember them – a favorite dessert from the 1950’s.

What I have right now is lots of Meyer lemons, with probably another 30 hanging on the tree yet. So last Sunday I decided to feature lemon in every possible way. It was in all but one thing I made. Really. In the lamb marinade, in the dressing on the grilled vegetable salad, in the dressing on the Syrian pita bread salad and in this dessert. We were celebrating our friend Bud’s birthday, and he’s a particular fan of lemon anything.

First you make a lemony brown sugar layer in a large nonstick frying pan (a 10-inch preferably). You add the thinly sliced lemons (devoid of seeds, of course), butter and brown sugar. That gets boiled briefly, and you carefully place the lemon slices in a decorative manner. Then you make the batter. It contains lemon zest in it, but no lemon juice. You whip up the egg whites to lighten the batter – but it’s a bit difficult since you’re only using 2 egg whites – hardly enough. But it helps. Pour (if you can) or place small globs of the cake batter on top of the lemons, and I eventually used a dampened finger to spread the batter as best I could. There isn’t enough batter to completely cover the pan. If you look at the photo above you can see some little holes all over the cake – that’s where the juicy lemon layer oozed up through the cake. Or where I couldn’t quite spread the cake batter! So then it’s baked. Simply baked. When done, you let it rest 10 minutes, then carefully turn the pan over and let it sit. It took a couple of minutes before the cake slid out onto the serving plate.

Ideally, serve this warm. It wasn’t warm by the time I served it (I suppose I could have re-warmed it briefly, but I didn’t). And I added a big dollop of sweetened whipped cream. I happen to think that you NEED highly sweetened whipped cream for this because the cake is SO tart. But use your own judgment. If you use regular lemons, I think you might need even more sugar in the cake. Or more brown sugar in the glaze. Or sprinkle the finished cake with a little bit of granulated sugar – or some of that pretty larger-grained sugar I’ve seen in some places. Just be aware, this cake, although sweet, is also VERY tart. Everybody liked it, though. A LOT. I’d definitely make this again. Can’t wait to eat the leftovers, actually! With more sweetened whipped cream.

A year ago: “Great Coffee Cake” by Marion Cunningham
Two years ago: Lemon Sponge Pudding

You want a tasty grilled vegetable salad? Oh gosh, is this one ever good. My friend Linda T. came to visit last week and she told me all about this recipe, telling me I just HAD to make it. It fit in perfectly with a rotisserie Greek lamb dinner I made last night. I doubled this recipe, and have just a little bit leftover after serving 7 people. Everybody liked it. I loved it. The recipe came from Ellie Krieger at the Food Network. I followed it to the letter.

Simply put, it’s nothing but grilled vegetables (bell peppers, onions, zucchini and eggplant) with a red wine vinegar, oregano and olive oil dressing drizzled over it, with some freshly cut tomatoes and crumbled Feta cheese. And some mint. The BEST part is you can make it up a few hours ahead (Dave was busy on the barbecue for quite awhile, he was quick to tell me) and let it sit at room temp until you’re ready to dress it and get it ready for serving. I poured it into the new bowl (pictured above) that Linda gave me for Christmas (thank you, Linda). Goes perfectly with my dishes. I didn’t have one of those curly edged bowls. Now I do. And I’ve got this great recipe which would be good any time of year.

Am sure you can change the ingredients a bit – use more or less of anything. But this combo of peppers, zucchini, eggplant and onion was perfect. A winner of a recipe.

A year ago: White Chocolate Bread Pudding
Two years ago: Seared Steak Salad

Multi-vegetable soup, Italian style, with some rough torn bread croutons on top. Missing from the photo: the tendrils of fresh basil and cilantro that were supposed to be sprinkled all over the top.

Ribollita. Sounds like it ought to be a girl’s name. The Italian word actually means “reboiled.” So if you lived in Italy you certainly wouldn’t want to be named Ribollita! Historically it’s a Tuscan soup – a method of re-serving minestrone soup – the next day – and making it different with the bread, beans and greens. Ribollita always contains cannellini beans and some greens like kale or Swiss chard. I’ve had this at restaurants now and then, but wanted to make my own. My friend Linda stopped by for dinner after having a crown put in, and she wanted something she didn’t have to chew. This fit that need very well. And it’s very healthy (only 14 grams of fat for a 1 1/2 cup serving). Mostly it’s vegetables, although I added in some ham cubes because I had them. You could also make this without the meat.

The preparation – you could probably make this soup in less than 30 minutes if you had all the vegetables ready to go. There is a bit of chopping and mincing involved (onions, carrots, celery, leeks, garlic, kale, Swiss chard, mushrooms, zucchini). I used my handy-dandy Alligator Dicer which made fairly quick work of the chopping. I also rely on my favorite broth made with Penzey’s soup bases. It’s just SO easy and no storing of those big cardboard boxes of stock on your pantry shelves.

The result? It’s worth the work. I read a variety of recipes for this soup and discovered that you can just about do your own thing. So I did. I added oregano – next time I’d add some rosemary, or maybe some Herbs de Provence. I added the ham and kale. I’d read a recipe in an old Sunset Magazine for this soup and it showed the rough torn bread cubes floating on top of the soup, so I decided to do it that way too. This may not wow your audience, but it was certainly delicious and healthy. The bread cubes are essential, so don’t eliminate that part – they provide aesthetics and some crunchy texture. I had ample to send a small care package home with Linda and enough for two portions to go into my freezer’s “soup library.”

A year ago: Guacamole
Two years ago: Orange Jalapeno Vinaigrette

There’s another photo of our wine cellar – different angle. With a few empty wooden wine boxes on the lower shelves (they did contain wine, but we just keep them there for the looks). And if you have sharp eyes you’ll see on the left side a couple of little boxes of ScharffenBerger chocolate. I really need to bring those upstairs because they’ve likely oxidized down there in the wine cellar.

Back in my early wine-drinking heyday of the 1980’s I did drink Chardonnay. But I never really liked it – it’s too acidic for me. With the exception of one label – Kistler. That’s it. The only one, and a bottle of Kistler Chard today will set you back about $50. I think we have one bottle in our wine cellar, and it’s about 15 years old. We should be drinking it. Soon.

I also like Sauvignon Blanc, particularly Cloudy Bay (from New Zealand). And Fume Blanc from Ferrari-Carano. My DH keeps reminding me that I have a stash of Cloudy Bay (a very fresh, clean white wine from New Zealand) in the wine cellar that I need to drink.

Once in awhile we will enjoy a Riesling, as long as it’s not too sweet or acidic. Grey Riesling can be very dry, actually, so you can run the gamut of sweet to tart and low to high acid in that wine type. You can also have a sweeter Riesling that has a lot of acid. The kind that almost gives me sores on the inside of my mouth like I’ve overdosed on fresh pineapple (that happened to me once when we were in Hawaii – I had no idea that eating too much pineapple could cause mouth sores, did you? I mean, I didn’t eat THAT much!). Anyway, I seem to have a narrow spectrum of wines that appeal to me. My hubby calls me a cheap date these days. Most often when we go out I don’t even order wine.

But then there’s champagne. But I’m going to write up a separate essay about champagne, or sparkling wine .  . .

So now, down to the subject at hand. What do I use when I’m cooking:

WHITE WINE: If we happen to have some open, I’ll use that. But usually we don’t, because neither of us drink much white wine. So I go to other options. If I don’t have Vermouth available, then I’ll go hunting in the wine cellar for something – generally we have some generic kinds of white – maybe a bottle of Chardonnay (usually because somebody gave it to us since we don’t buy it). That works. Fume Blanc or Sauvignon Blanc are both almost herbal wines – they’re made from grapes – that’s not what I mean – but when you stick your nose into the glass you’ll almost smell an herb garden. I won’t use Riesling in cooking – generally it’s too sweet, and since most Rieslings are on the acidic side (even though sweet) you can’t add lemon juice with that to make it so. Just don’t use Riesling in cooking. But here’s what I DO use:

DRY VERMOUTH: First of all, I keep a bottle of Vermouth quite close to my stove. It’s nothing very expensive – somewhere I was told that Trader Joe’s vermouth is actually quite good. The best thing about Vermouth is that even though you open the bottle, it doesn’t deteriorate – it stays the same forever. With a normal bottle of wine you’d have to drink it or use it within a fairly reasonable time. Most likely Vermouth has been stabilized with some neutral spirits so it doesn’t spoil. That’s why it has a long shelf life, even when it’s been opened.

SUBSTITUTIONS: If I had neither a generic white wine or vermouth, I’d use some chicken broth. Maybe with a little added fresh squeezed lemon juice. Or if the dish could handle it, I’d use half apple juice, half water with a little lemon juice. I store a container of frozen apple juice concentrate in the freezer just for things like that. I also keep small cans of pineapple juice in the pantry to use in marinades and things like that. The other option is VERJUS – (means green juice) an unfermented grape juice from under ripe grapes. A perfect solution, I think, although it’s a bit hard to find and not inexpensive. It contains NO alcohol. And it’s on the tart side (some cooks use it in lieu of vinegar), so be careful. Use less than the quantity called for in your recipe and taste it before adding more.

There are resources abounding around the internet on this subject:

Gourmet Sleuth

About.com: Home Cooking – this site has an amazing list of substitutions for oodles of alcoholic beverages, including liqueurs.

The recipe came from a December, 2008 issue of Bon Appetit, in an article about the foods from the Fairmont le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec. I’m sure that’s why I stopped to read this recipe, because it came from that hotel – le Chateau Frontenac.

I remember, oh so well, the first time I saw that beautiful hotel, standing right above the river, the St. Lawrence. I was about 15 and my parents and I were on a long weekend trip from where we lived for a couple of years in Newport, Rhode Island. We didn’t stay in the hotel in Quebec– oh my goodness, no – way beyond our budget, but we were properly impressed with the place. (Back then it wasn’t owned by the Fairmont.) I never forgot seeing the hotel. I wrote a story for my English class some time after that, with a little history of Quebec and the hotel. That I remember too, plus the slight markdown I got on my report because I failed to put the le in front of the Frontenac. I remember that, and other humiliating things like losing a spelling bee in 7th grade because I didn’t know how to spell chrysanthemum. You can bet your bottom dollar I never forgot how to spell it after that! 

Sorry, I got sidetracked there. Anyway, this very French-style meat pie just sounded interesting, with an Italian twist perhaps, using Italian sausage instead of deer meat or elk or whatever would be appropriate for a wintertime meat pie. But mostly it’s chicken thigh meat, mushrooms, shallots, and garlic in a nicely thickened flavorsome brown gravy with some Madeira wine in it. I do think the Madeira makes this dish – it adds a background character to the sauce that you just can’t quite identify. Browning the mushrooms and shallots also provides a real flavor depth too. Not just cooking them, but browning them.

This made a very impressive company dinner – it’s way too much work to make for a weeknight family meal. It will serve more people than the original recipe suggested ( I think 8, rather than 6) too. It was delicious. Next time I think I’d just use puff pastry on top – a whole lot easier. I didn’t care for the pastry crust – maybe it was too thick for my taste. Am not sure, but it wasn’t as light and flaky as I would have hoped. But even with that, the entire dish was special. Deeply flavorful – kind of like a chicken & sausage stew – really that’s all it is – but with a pastry top crust. And definitely don’t eliminate the Madeira – it’s essential!

A year ago: Roasted Stone Fruit Olive Oil Madeleines
Two years ago: Marinated, Grilled Provolone

Do you, by chance, have a package of fresh cranberries gathering moisture in your refrigerator – - – like I did? Leftover from the holidays? I’d stuck the package down in the bottom of the produce drawer and forgot all about it. I could have frozen them, but I thought I’d make this instead. A few berries needed to be tossed, but mostly the cranberries were still in good shape, considering that they’d been in my refrigerator for about 2.5 months! I’m embarrassed to tell you that I still have a package of cranberries left over from Christmas 2008 in my freezer. Shhhh.

And what an easy recipe this is. About 8-10 years ago I found this in the cookbook owned by a friend, Janet, called The Cranberry Cookbook by Beatrice Ross Buszek (it’s out of print). I also found it on the internet, though, so it doesn’t appear to be anybody’s “original.” I do like pudding cakes – my favorite being lemon. I have Marcel Proustian memories when I think about Rita’s lemon sponge pudding cake – they’re friends who live in England. But this one is cranberry, and what a festive dish this is. And easy to make besides.

First you cook up the cranberries in water (about 5 minutes), then you add sugar mixed with cornstarch, plus a little jot of freshly ground nutmeg, and cook it about a minute until it’s just nicely thickened. That gets poured into the bottom of a 8×8 glass baking dish. The cakey topping is flour, sugar, baking powder (no salt, interestingly enough), butter, milk, raisins (I used currants), dates (I didn’t have any so eliminated that part) and walnuts. Once that’s mixed up you kind of spoon small blobs of it on top of the cranberry part and into the oven it goes for about 55 minutes.

Above left, the cranberries on the bottom with the blobs of batter on the top, ready for the oven; right, just out of the oven, nicely golden brown.

Served with a bit of vanilla ice cream on top, this makes a very nice dessert. Homey. Comfort food. Probably more ideal for December, but it tasted pretty darned good in February. Don’t use any dish larger than an 8×8 pan as you’ll end up with more cake than pudding, and it’s the tart-sweet pudding part that makes this. I liked the chopped walnuts in it too – gave it good texture. It keeps for several days, although the topping won’t be as crispy as just baked. Ideally serve it warm.

A year ago: Pear Cranberry (Vanilla) Crumble
Two years ago: Almond-Crusted Orange Roughy