No, this isn’t some new kitchen implement. I wish. You like my pretty purple cast? Could this be one for a mastadon, as big and bulky as it looks. Yesterday, my doctor’s office told me I had a minor broken toe. The foot doctor says oh no, my dear, you have a fractured foot. It’s actually the outside metatarsul bone, but it’s broken in a very strategic place – along the outside edge, broken halfway through the bone. And two tendons attach to it, this long bone, and every step I was taking was pulling on the fracture in two different directions, even though I was only putting weight on my heel. And my foot needs to be immobilized for 6+ weeks. Sigh. And he also said this is the hardest bone to heal of all the multiple bones in the foot. Great news.

So, it’s a cast. I can’t walk on it at all. I can’t drive. And getting in and out of our house is difficult. It’s not wheelchair friendly. Sigh. More sighs. We’ll be sleeping in our one downstairs guestroom, I think. Where’s that darned shower seat?

A friend picked me up at the doctor’s office (thanks, Joan) and delivered my car home later on. And she and Tom fetched the wheelchair in the garage. I tried crutches. Oh my goodness, was I ever unstable on those things. And I tried Dave’s walker that he “lived in” while his leg was healing last year. That’s hard work, let me tell you.

My DH is returning early from his trip, will arrive late tonight. Don’t know what this may mean about cooking. He loves to barbecue, and he’s a pro at breakfast. But other meals? No, he’d rather go out. Or buy out. Maybe I can teach him a few things about cooking in the coming weeks. Whether or not we’ll be able to do the kind of cooking we’re used to in this house remains to be seen. Dave loves good food, but whether he’ll want to actually make it himself? Well, I don’t know. I’m sure I can do a lot of the sous chef kind of work, but he’ll have to do the cooking itself. Last summer when we were under kitchen demolition we created a makeshift kitchen in our front entry hall and I did a lot of cooking in a new Cuisinart electric frypan. Guess he’ll need to dig that thing out again and maybe I can make a few skillet dishes.

So, stay tuned. I’ll let you know how things are going. 🙂

Tweet

Ah, Shepherd’s Pie. A favorite of mine. But not something that particularly comes to mind when the temperature is in the 80’s, does it? I made a batch of this last winter and one lone casserole was still languishing in the freezer awaiting a night when I can’t cook. I’ve been diagnosed with a broken toe (1) and a very severe ankle sprain, and have been advised to use R.I.C.E.: R(est), I(ce), C(ompression), and E(levation). So, frozen Shepherd’s Pie was a godsend last night.

So, just what is Shepherd’s Pie? Traditionally it’s a ground or minced lamb dish with some vegetables, always some peas, a bit of gravy or sauce, topped with mashed potatoes and baked until hot. Its lineage is British. Cottage pie means it’s made with ground beef. Here’s a bit of history from HGTV (yes, really):The magic of pies dates back to King Henry VIII. Legend has it that the British ruler was livid when he found out that one of his abbots was building an elaborate and expensive kitchen. The wise abbot took the wind out of the King’s anger by sending him a delicious, warm pie. Early pies were predominantly made with meat. Two early examples were shepherd’s pie and cottage pie. Shepherd’s pie was made with lamb and vegetables, and the cottage pie was made with beef and vegetable. Both are topped with potatoes.

I had Shepherd’s Pie when I visited England for the first time in 1977. Fell in love with it at first bite. It’s comfort food, to be sure. Kind of a casserole, if you will, but delicious. Great made with leftovers; in fact, I think that may be part of its origin too, since our Shepherd’s Pie doesn’t include a crust, just the thick layer of mashed potatoes. You have a leftover lamb roast and mashed potatoes? What better use of it than to make a leftovers Shepherd’s Pie.

I had Shepherd’s Pie when I visited England for the first time in 1977. Fell in love with it at first bite. It’s comfort food, to be sure. Kind of a casserole, if you will, but delicious. Great made with leftovers; in fact, I think that may be part of its origin too, since our Shepherd’s Pie doesn’t include a crust, just the thick layer of mashed potatoes. You have a leftover lamb roast and mashed potatoes? What better use of it than to make a leftovers Shepherd’s Pie.

So, some years back I read a recipe in Cooking Light for a jazzed-up version of the dish, and tried it. It added zucchini among other things and contained quite a few vegetables; probably more than the original version would have. It may have used ground chicken, but over the years I’ve reverted back to the lamb. But what’s unique about this is the addition of chipotle pepper AND the use of sweet potato and regular potatoes mixed together. I always – always – make a large batch of this because it’s a great dish to freeze. If you’re not so sure you’ll like it, just make a half a recipe and you’ll have sufficient for several people. If you like Shepherd’s Pie, then you’ll undoubtedly love this dish. If you’re not crazy about hot, spicy food, leave out the chipotle. It’ll be fine that way, just not quite as zippy. The sweet potatoes and Maui onion add a sweetness to the overall dish and some people are turned off by meat tasting sweet. If that’s your M.O., just use white potatoes and regular onions and you’ll have a traditional pie with a zip. I’ve served this to guests on more than one occasion, to great raves.
Printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Since I’m on a nostalgia thing at the moment, thought I’d tell you about this lid. Funny looking thing, isn’t it? Doesn’t look at all like the trendy All-Clad or Calphalon heavy lids you’re used to viewing. I think cooks take lids for granted. You just think they all have to match and look pretty. Am sure some of you have grabbed a lid that really didn’t fit that pan, but it worked. It performed the job for which it was intended. Maybe it didn’t fit tight, that’s all. And they certainly do vary in composition, though. There are stainless ones, aluminum, fancy alloys, copper, glass, bamboo and even some homely variations like the one above made of thin tinny aluminum. And lids have so many uses. They can sit squarely (hmm, roundly?) on their corresponding pans, they can sit slightly ajar to allow steam to escape. Or they can sit widely ajar and consequently drip condensation from the cooking pot onto your counter or cooktop (oh, joy). A lid can be used as a weight (like in a large, tall pot on top of the stuffed cabbage leaves with a brick sitting centered atop the lid, covered in foil) too. I suppose this lid I have could be used as a frisbee as well since it’s so light weight. The photo doesn’t reveal to you the dents around the outer rim. This baby’s seen a few rides – from cooktop to floor.

And its culinary uses, of course, are endless, but what a lid does best – what a lid does for a living is help us cooks retain heat and moisture in whatever we’re cooking. So, here’s to the lowly lid!

So back to this particular lid. It’s precious to me because it was my mother’s – we use it nearly every day. I don’t actually know how old the lid is, but I would guess it’s from the 1930’s, maybe the 20’s. My parents both grew up during the Depression and were children of farming families in and around Turlock, Modesto and Ceres in the San Joaquin Valley (Central California). My grandfather raised tomatoes and a variety of other salad bowl foods. He tried nuts once, too. Money was very hard to come by and my mother quit college to work so she could send money home to keep the farm from going under. How many of our kids would do that today?

My DH cooks breakfast most mornings (that was one of the new jobs he got when he retired – oh happy day – breakfast was never a meal I loved to prepare anyway), and we cook up a single sausage link for each of us. The lid fits perfectly in our Farberware Millenium nonstick pan (that came sans lid) that is used for said sausage. As an aside, the Farberware pan was recommended in Cooks Illustrated some years back when they did a test of nonstick pans. This pan won for the budget category, but they highly recommended it, even if you have to replace it every few years, since it cost a mere $19.95 at Bed, Bath & Beyond. There are two sizes and I have both, but the smaller one is the workhorse in my house. If interested, click on the Farberware link above to view.

So, after my mother passed away, when I found this ugly-duckling lid in the miscellaneous mish-mash of ancient pots and pans in my mother’s kitchen (all put to good use, I assure you), I put it aside for me. You can never have too many lids, right? That’s what I thought. But this lid had one additional problem – other than its age. That is its funny little handle ring. Barely big enough to put a finger through. It’s more like what we’d now buy at the hardware store for 49 cents as a key ring. And gosh-darned difficult to lift up, especially if the lid is HOT. And with today’s big, plushy hot pads, it was impossible.

So now we get to the second part of the story. The other day I wrote a long story about why I attend cooking classes, and one of the items listed was that even though I go to a class based on the menu, or an interesting technique to learn, I almost always learn something, even if I don’t come away with ground-breaking recipes.

A year ago May we had a small group of friends who spent a week in a gorgeous farmhouse in Provence. During our stay, a few of us gals attended a cooking class nearby in St. Remy. We met the chef/wife at the local market in town and for over an hour we paraded through the stalls, where she pointed out better vendors, showed us how to choose the freshest of fish, the best of the spices, and shared her favorite food and non-food artisans of the region. Then we exited to her lovely home a mile or so away and helped prepare a meal for the group which was served as the twilight waned, when some of the husbands arrived to partake of the day’s labors. It was a very, very expensive class. Far more than I would normally have spent for a cooking class; albeit, this went from about 9:30 in the morning until about 9:30 at night. And I didn’t really come away with a single recipe that I’ve made in the interim, because I’d made most of the menu items before. But the class was fun. She was engaging and entertaining.

But in the process of the class she pointed to a lid on one of her pots and what was there, but a cork. It was a very nice, elegant lid, with a similar flat Calphalon handle that I have on several of my Calphalon pans. Nowadays lots of the upscale manufacturers make cool (not hip, but non-heating) handles. Mine are older and don’t have that added convenience. So, she or her husband had whittled a wine cork (note that the bottom 1/5 has been sliced off to lay flat and slide ever-so-snugly inside the handle ring) to tuck under the handle and that’s what she grabs
when she wants to remove it. That little tidbit stayed with me until I got home and the first bottle of wine we opened, a Mayo Merlot, the cork became the new handle for my favorite old lid. So, you see, you never know from whence wisdom will come. The most unlikeliest of places, perhaps.

Tweet

A couple of months back when my dear hubby was away on his sailing trip, I drove to Carlsbad (that’s a town about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego on the Southern California coast) to spend the weekend with my friend, Linda. Our friendship goes way back – to about 1987, I’d guess. She used to work for the Los Angeles Times and called on the ad agency I co-owned. The ad agency was sold in 1995, I retired, but over all those years, Linda and I became friends and have been ever since. She’s even traveled with us to Italy and to France.We had two different small groups (all friends of ours) who rented a villa for a week – Villa Catola – in Tuscany. Then, in 2006 a slightly different group went to Provence and rented a fabulous Mas (farmhouse) near Aix-en-Provence. Great fun both times. (If anybody wants more info about either of our European rentals, email me separately.) Linda and I can talk for hours and hours about family, friends, food, cooking, restaurants, books. So, we never lack for conversation when we get together.

Last month, though, in Carlsbad, I requested we go to eat at George’s at the Cove in La Jolla. It’s Linda’s favorite restaurant. We arrived early and sat out on the terrace to enjoy the view. It was lovely. It was warm but not hot, and I wanted something refreshing rather than wine. Normally I’d order wine, but this day I ordered a mojito. They make a good one.

Mojito recipes abound on the internet. I’ve made it at home and ordered the drink in various restaurants, but now I’m enough of a connoisseur that I won’t order it if they use sweet/sour mix. I want real-live-lime and freshly picked mint plus simple syrup. Otherwise I order something else. I’ve even had some interesting variations a time or two.

The history of the mojito is very interesting [who would know?]. It dates back to the 1500’s in Havana when Sir Francis Drake, the pirate, could have devastated the island. He didn’t, but one of his subordinates, Richard Drake, invented this cocktail, called the Draque, Drak, or Drac. During his adventures to seize and conquer other Spanish ports, Drake introduced this concoction (of his own invention) to different Spanish citizens. The Draque, made originally by combining aguardiento (a forerunner of rum), sugar, lime and mint, was served with a wooden spoon and a cock’s tail handle. Mostly it was consumed for medicinal purpose [really, I ask, incredulously?]. In the 1800’s the drink was modified to include rum. The name Mojito comes from the African word mojo, which means to place a little spell.

It still is a rum based drink with lime juice, sugar, mint and some soda water. Mild. Lazy. Easy. Minty. And did I say refreshing? I found the coolest video on how to make a mojito at the Bacardi website. If you’ve never made one, go check this out. Here’s the direct link, and you have to enter your birthday to prove that you’re over 21 to continue (yea, right, from a website?). If that link doesn’t work go to the main Bacardi website to get to it. It’s even got some swinging music to go along with. As I write this it’s still morning, so it’s a tad too early to make a mojito right now, but maybe later today I’ll plunk-me-down on our patio and have a long, slow slurp and give myself a little spell. With my foot up, I know.
Printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

What’s in a name, you ask? Well, you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway. With my lame ankle resting high, I’m feeling a bit frustrated and cheeky today. A name means a lot. It either grabs your attention, or it doesn’t. Before I started this blog, I considered about 30 different names. With an advertising background, I’m very tuned into words. How they lead you in different directions. How they can mislead just as easily. How they can “hook” you into reading more. That’s one of the secrets of writers but particularly with literature writers – getting you to read more than the first page. Or the first paragraph. That’s one of the things I admire about the novelist Jodi Picoult. She grabs me in the first few sentences. She did with My Sister’s Keeper, and she did again with Plain Truth. My daughter, Dana, is hooked on her books at the moment, and she has purchased and read most every one she’s written, so I have a stack waiting for me as soon as I can get to them.

But, I digress. We’re talking about blog names, aren’t we? I wrote down all these names. Considered them. Scratched some out. Edited some more. Added additional ones because I wasn’t pleased with my short list. Then I Google searched on those names. As I worked my way down my list I had to scratch off the first one. The second one. And that one. Darn, that one too. My list shortened up in a hurry! It wasn’t that they were all food blogs, but they were product names or tags, or somebody’s personal website or book. I was a tad discouraged. Since there are hundreds of food blogs out there in the blogosphere, I had to find something that was me. But not like everybody else. One of the things I’ve learned is that if I want to keep this site going, the name has to be something that people remember. So it couldn’t be all that complicated.  Carolyn Cooks is the name of a book already.

So you can have a little laugh, here are some of the other names I considered: The Recipe File (too blah sounding); The Adventurous Fork (I really liked that one, but it’s already used); The Imperfect Recipe (think anybody would really want to read that?); Feed the Soul with Wine & Food (too long and I’m not much into Zen either); Food Sketches (oops, she’s a food artist); The Recipe Stack (BORing); Knife & Fork (sorry, that’s a store); Reading, Writing Cook (blah); Recipe Redux (I like it, but do you think people would remember how to spell it?); So Many Recipes, So Little Time (catchy, but don’t know if people would remember such a long name); Have Fork, Will Travel (I like that one still, but it implies that I travel all the time and that it’s more about restaurant eating than cooking, don’t you think?); and It’s All About Taste (well, that might work, but not very exciting). So, I chose Tasting Spoons. So, tell me, did I make the right choice?

I came up with the name Tasting Spoons before I considered, really, any further meaning other than it related to food. But as I contemplated it, I remembered that in a drawer inches away from my Dacor gas range I have a nest of these beautiful, small, silver-plated spoons. And a couple of forks. They don’t all match, but they all belonged to my dear hubby’s mother Helen. Some of them have a beautiful scrolled T on the shank. The others have some lovely viney leaf whirls with no initial. They’re probably the old fashioned kind of tea spoons. I polish them up now and then, but they get a lot of use. As I cook, I taste. Often. Does it need more salt? Pepper? A dash of thyme? A little sprinkle of my fancy salts perhaps? Rather than keeping these spoons closed up in the felt-lined case with all the other miscellaneous table silver pieces we own and almost never use, I decided to be more practical. I use them, and have done so for about 10 years. I love these spoons, and I often think about Dave’s mother as I dip and sip. Helen was a gracious lady, and I think she’d be very happy that a blog was named after her spoons, mismatched as they are. She wouldn’t have a clue what a blog is, but as she watches us from her perch in heaven, I think she likes it. If you have some odd spoons in your closet, dig them out and use them as your Tasting Spoons, won’t you?

Tweet

Is he not adorable, I ask you? And look at that wooden spoon he’s holding! In recent years, Hollywood has found a direct route to movie success with animating and personalizing animals – penguins, dogs, and now a impecunious rat. I haven’t even seen the movie yet and I already love it, since it’s about Remy (the above clever, cute rat) who aims to become a famous French chef. But, as a rat, how could he? As a rat, he’s abhorred in the kitchen. So, he hitches up with an unlikely young man who works in the kitchen (as a janitor of all things) of a top-notch, but about-to-lose-its-stars Parisian restaurant. Remy whispers instructions to this young man, and saves the day by making ratatouille.

Have you ever made ratatouille? Most people haven’t. It’s a labor of love, I assure you. I made it once, years ago, and must have decided it was w-a-a-a-y too much work and have never made it since. Not that I didn’t love the taste. I did. And I’ve had it in France too. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that ratatouille is a layered vegetable dish. Unctuous is what comes to mind. In the directions of any French cookbook, each vegetable is cooked separately – blanched in new salted water – because you don’t want any vegetable to contaminate or take over the flavor of another. Then the vegetables are combined and baked into silkiness, usually served in a wedge with a simple salad.

Fortunately for us, a fellow blogger and writing pro in the Bay Area at World on a Plate decided to take on Remy’s ratatouille and make it her own. She adapted it from Thomas Keller’s kitchen (world famous The French Laundry in Yountville). I won’t say making this is exactly easy, but her version doesn’t require the labor of love of my one attempt years ago. I might even be tempted to try it again with this recipe. But first, I need to go see the movie! As soon as my ankle heals, I’ll be gettin’ there.

Click HERE to go on over to Jeanne Brophy’s blog and her recipe. And, in case you’re not sure of the pronunciation, it’s rat-ta-too-ee, or rat-ta-twee.

Tweet

No recipe today! Yesterday I misstepped off our boat and turned my ankle completely sideways. Crunch. I’m very laid up yesterday and today; can barely, barely walk. Dave rolled me in one of the yacht club’s grungy rolling carts (used to haul gear from boat to parking lot and vice-versa) from our boat to our car. No way could I walk the block-long dock distance. Once home, Dave fetched my father’s cane which has been collecting dust in the front closet. My ankle is very swollen and hurts like heck if I put any weight on it.

SO, thought I’d wax poetic about cooking classes, since I may not be cooking for a few days.

Recently, several people said to me one of the following: Why the heck do you go to cooking classes? You certainly don’t need to go to cooking classes. Don’t you have enough recipes already? You’re already a good cook, why do you go? You could be teaching the classes yourself, so why would you go? So, to those questions, my answers are:

I go to cooking classes because:

• I really, really enjoy them, so it’s like recreation to me; maybe you go to a scrapbooking class, or watch television, go to a game, lie on the beach, whatever it might be that floats your boat;
• Learning to cook different things is a challenge; or watching somebody else prepare something I’ve made for years, in a new and unusual way, which makes me think;
• My friend, Cherrie and I enjoy doing this together – it’s like girlfriend bonding time;
• Yes, I have enough recipes to last several lifetimes. I’ve been a recipe collector for my entire adult life (that’s 4 1/2 decades, last count), and I’m still a recipe clipper;
• Particularly I enjoy attending a class demonstration by a well-known cookbook author. Joanne Weir is about my favorite, but Phillis Carey is a close second. And I’ve attended countless others as well, a few I’ve written up in previous blog posts. More often than not I end up buying the cookbook, unless I’m disappointed in the food prepared. And in those instances, I can always look at the cooking class as entertainment. The bonus is that we get to eat, too!
• I count myself lucky – this is after years and years of attending cooking classes – if I come home with just one – yes ONE – recipe that I’ll make myself. I once heard someone say about buying record albums – if he bought one album and there was just one – just one song that was a keeper, he felt he’d made a good investment. On occasion I’ll come home with no recipes I’ll have the desire to prepare, but not usually.
• I have become a bit more circumspect about the menus – I really read them well before deciding to attend a class. I don’t need to learn knife skills. Or basics, like sauces. The class needs to have some kind of hook – maybe like “summer entertaining,” or “spring vegetable extravaganza.” That kind of thing.
• It’s not always about the recipes alone, either. Even though a class may not be about a cooking technique, I almost always learn something I didn’t know. You may find that hard to believe, but it’s true. It may be nothing more than watching the chef cut up something differently – like a very unusual method of cutting zucchini that I’ve used time and again since. Or seeing a chef use a Meisermeister peeler, which has become my all-time favorite. Or learning about the unusual spices used in Indian cooking.
• And probably last, but not least, watching somebody else prepare a full menu of food gives me ideas. More often than not, the chef will talk about why she/he put certain foods together, why they’re good on the palate, why they look good on the plate (the aesthetics are important too). Or maybe it’s just the idea that using cardamom pods in making homemade iced tea will give plain-old iced tea an added boost of flavor. So, that’s why I love going to cooking classes.

Could I teach cooking classes myself? Well yes, probably I could. I’m sure I could. Do I want to? No. Too much work. WAY too much work and not enough monetary benefit. That’s why I don’t quibble when I have to pay $50-$75 for a class. I’m quite happy to let somebody show me.

And, as I’ve mentioned before, I used to be a huge fan of Sur la Table. I still love the store, but I’m very down on the cooking school. About a year ago the company at large let go nearly all the cooking school staffs and hired (unknown) professional chefs. The cooking schools are now separate profit centers, and each day there is a class at a Sur la Table anywhere in the country, most of the time anyway, it’s the identical class and menu in all of their stores, prepared by the staff chef or one of his/her minions. They have very, very few well-known chefs – guest chefs – anymore. Cherrie, Darlene and I, who were regulars at their classes, have all individually complained.

I even wrote a blistering letter to their corporate office complaining about the chef who is in charge at their Newport Beach store. I’ve watched him in action, and truly question the wisdom of his hire. He’s arrogant and self-serving. I simply won’t go to classes there anymore. They are very basic and elementary too, which I don’t need. But, probably I’m an aberration for them – I’m an experienced cook and want more difficult subjects. Therefore, Cherrie and I have begun looking elsewhere to attend classes. I’ve mentioned the private classes we attend at homes in Coto de Caza. And we also go to A Store for Cooks. And our favorite is Our House, South County, but it may be closing down soon. Phillis Carey teaches at Great News in San Diego, so we’re thinking about trying that out one of these days. It will mean an all-day expedition, that’s all.

Since I’m on the subject of cooking classes, perhaps, for those who are uninitiated in this venue, I’ll mention that there are two kinds of classes: demonstration and hand-on. I suppose if I really needed to learn a specific technique, I’d want a hands-on. But with most classes of 20-30 people, you may not get a choice as to what you prepare. Meanwhile, everybody else does the prep on the other menu items and you don’t benefit or hear about their learning curve. Recently, when Cherrie and I went to Wine Country and attended classes at Ramekins in Sonoma, at one of my classes all I was given to do was slice, thinly slice, a red onion. Yawn. Therefore, Cherrie and I balk at going to hands-on classes anymore. We’ll mostly attend demonstration classes. That way we get to watch everything being prepared, we hear about all the steps and missteps along the way. If you do enjoy cooking, you really should try going to some classes. Your family might be thrilled to see some new things on the dinner table. So, you want to go to a cooking class with me? For now I’m going to get a bag of ice for my ankle.

Tweet

Lest you think that I bake a pie, cake or cookies nearly every day, I don’t. I made this about 2 weeks ago when our daughter, her husband and grandchildren were here – we had 9 for dinner, and I made two pies. The leftovers from this are long gone. But, here’s the story . . .

What a funny name, Millionaire Pie, huh? This recipe goes w-a-a-y back in my life. For a couple of difficult years (during my first marriage) I lived in Oklahoma City. A born and bred California girl sometimes doesn’t adapt well to such a different place. Lots of things contributed to my unhappiness there: the obsession – absolutely maniacal obsession I’m talking about – with football for one. Hunting and fishing for another. Beer for one more. I don’t do football, hunting, fishing OR beer. I didn’t drink much during that time in my life – I hadn’t discovered wine yet, but beer was not on my list at all. The weather was another formidable obstacle (wind, more wind, heat and tornadoes). And shopping was not what I was used to. Yes, there was one department store, but mostly it was out of my price range. Yes, there were drug stores. And yes, there were grocery stores, but they didn’t carry lots of the things I was used to – fresh tortillas for one thing. Fresh fish for another thing.

At the time I lived there (this was the early 70’s) there was not a single place in Oklahoma City where you could buy fresh fish. Zip-zero-nada. Frozen was all that was available, and very a meager selection at that – mostly fillet of sole, cod or shrimp. Or frozen fish sticks – those were available in most markets. But that was IT. Cilantro? They’d never heard of it. There were very few good restaurants – at least that I thought were good. Oklahoma is a BEEF state, so you can find steaks and burgers and not much else. In the ensuing 30 years, I’m certain the restaurant and grocery situations have improved. I don’t mean to give OKC a bad rap, but I found it really tough to be a very imaginative cook. Fortunately I didn’t stay there long.

But during those two years my family frequented a modestly upscale cafeteria called Furr’s. It’s still going strong in about 6 states. Unlike the buffet dining establishments now popular here in Southern California for the big-on-appetite and short-on-funds, in the 1970’s this was a fairly nice restaurant, and all their food was home made. I don’t remember much about the place now but this was a favorite dessert. The origin of the pie – and hence its name – was that during WW II there were lots of food items cooks couldn’t get, and if you were able to find pineapple and walnuts, you must be rich (a millionaire). And while I lived there the local paper printed the recipe for this pie. There is a website out there called copykat recipes (famous and not-so-famous restaurant recipes), and it has a similar one for this pie as well in case you want to research this or other restaurant favorites. Its version suggested using Eggbeaters or similar product in lieu of the raw egg, which is probably a very good idea.

It’s a baked pie shell, filled first with a butter/sugar layer that firms up when refrigerated, then it’s topped with pineapple and walnuts, folded into whipped cream. Not difficult. And if you used Trader Joe’s pie crust shells it’d be a cinch. I didn’t, so made a short tart shell and put it into a regular pie plate. Once baked and cooled, I filled the shell and covered the completed pie with plastic wrap and refrigerated it until ready to serve. I used fresh pineapple, and added more than the recipe indicated and also sprinkled additional pineapple and nuts on top of the pie. It will hold for a couple of days, but I think it’s probably better to serve the same or the next day. So, here’s to the old Furr’s.
Printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

I’d forgotten about this salad and how much I love it until last weekend when I went to Joan’s daughter’s home to greet their newly adopted infant, and Joan had made it as part of a lovely luncheon. Joan is rather “famous” for this salad – it’s one other people request too, not just me. We used to have season tickets to our local summer symphony series, and we’ve had many a picnic dinner on the lawn at the amphitheater, and every time Joan and Tom would attend I requested she make this. And she graciously gave the recipe to several people. So, thanks very much, Joan. I needed a salad for an outdoor dinner, and this just fit the bill.

Nothing about it is hard. It probably takes about 40 minutes to make it, including boiling the pasta. Be sure to not overcook the pasta. You don’t have to use penne, but that’s the way Joan makes it, and that’s the type I prefer too. You can add more sun-dried tomatoes if you wish – her recipe calls for 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup. I used 1/4. And our basil plant is proliferating, so I pruned it back for this salad. The basil is crucial in my opinion. It also will keep a few days, although it’s best the day it’s made.
Printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

My photo is missing something – the topping of whipped cream and chocolate curls. Sorry about that. We had two different pies that night and this one went in a flash, so I had to grab the last piece for a picture.

Silk pie was popular during the 1960’s and maybe it’s even older than that. I had it at a bridal shower way back then, and was amazed at the texture and subsequently was served it several times by others. It’s kind of a mousse type whipped filling. And that’s my guess as to why it’s called a French Silk Pie. It is whipped up – a lot – to a mousse type consistency.

The recipe calls for raw eggs. The chocolate silk is not cooked at all – the pie shell is, but the filling is merely beaten up and chilled. Remember when we used to use raw eggs all the time? I still do when I make Caesar dressing. I used raw eggs in this recipe because I bought the eggs from a supermarket, where I know the eggs have been stored (chilled) well and there is, supposedly, very minimal risk of salmonella. If you had any concern, though, about the raw eggs, I’d just use double the amount of egg whites rather than yolks and whites or use Eggbeaters instead.

If you’re not much for homemade pie crusts, this could easily be made in a ready-made graham or chocolate graham shell. Or even crushed Oreos would work too. Since it’s so fluffy and light (although I will admit this is FAR from low calorie!) it needs some kind of texture.
Printer-friendly PDF

Tweet