If you’re not into new gadgets, you may as well skip on by this post. I’d been eyeing this new thingamabob for several months and finally decided to bite.

The company that makes Lékué is in Spain. And when you try to SAY the word, speak it fast – you don’t languish the word out but quick step it fast. The product appears to be made of silicone (like Silpats, for instance – it has a similar feel to it), but nothing says exactly what or how. Other than it can withstand microwaving at 800 watts and the oven up to 400° F. It’s not a hard surface – it’s very soft and pliable but sturdy enough to stay put, although if you have food in the steam case (that’s what I bought – they have lots of other products as well) it will bend. Hence you walk from counter to microwave holding both ends of the Lekue Steam Case with Tray for 1 to 2 Persons.

Obviously the products have met the standards of the EU, since it’s manufactured in Spain. Everything says its very safe for storing, cooking, baking and microwaving. I’ll take their word for it since the EU is far more strict about these kinds of things than we are here in the U.S. Photo at left is from the company’s website. (Yes, they make them in green like mine, or orange or clear.)

What you see there is the smaller of the two types of steam cases. It has a slightly rounded bottom, but the little soft, silicone tray sits inside it (removable because you can cook without it).

Since I’m retired, you’d think I’d have endless time on my hands to cook whatever and whenever with no concern for the time involved. Not so. I don’t know how I found time to work, back when I did. I’m SO busy. I treasure my time at home on the occasional day when I don’t have any plans. The evening I used my new steam case I was pressed for time. I’m guessing you are also, so ride along with me as I explain how I made dinner in about 15 minutes flat.

There you can see my about-to-be cooked dinner. The tray thing is in the bottom – the fish is sitting on it.

Into the bottom I poured in about 1/3 cup of water, then I squeezed a half of a lemon in the water also. The water or liquid is below the tray and although the tray has holes in it, the fluid didn’t come up over the edges. The tray went in and I gently placed the fish on top.

I sprinkled the top of the salmon with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, then I spread about 2 teaspoons of butter as best I could all over the salmon. That part was a bit difficult because the salmon was moist and the butter, although soft, didn’t really want to spread. You can see how well I did there in the top photo.

Next I drizzled the top of the salmon with a little tiny bit of olive oil. I don’t exactly know why since I’d already spread butter on it, but the recipe said to use both. Okay.

Then I sprinkled about a tablespoon of capers on top of that and sprinkled about a tablespoon or more of freshly chopped Italian parsley on top of that. The lid was closed. Easy. Up to this point I think it took me about 2 minutes, including the time it took to walk out to the garden to find Italian parsley. Well, I may be a little off – maybe 3 minutes total.

Into the microwave it went to 2 minutes. I do need to go find my instruction booklet for my Dacor microwave because I think mine is higher wattage than 800, and the recipes are all for 800 watts. So I might need to cook whatever I do make in this at a lower power setting.

The recipe I followed was for fillet of sole, and my salmon was actually quite thin – not much thicker than sole, but I did cook it for 2 minutes, rather than the 1 1/2 minutes suggested for the sole. And sure enough, it was perfectly cooked. Wow.

The rest of the dinner was all ready (yellow crookneck squash and a big green salad with lots of vegetables in it and my favorite Creamy Garlic Blue Cheese Dressing that I make many times a year). I quick-like dished up the vegetables and the salad, then lastly I put the salmon out on our dinner plates and we sat down. It might have been better had I taken the steam case to the dinner table – it would stay hotter longer – but it was still piping hot when we ate our first bites.

What’s GOOD: first and foremost, the speed at which I got this dinner on the table. Wow. The vegetables were left overs, so all I had to do was warm them up. The salad took about 15 minutes to make. The recipe was a good one – we could taste the citrusy aspect of this, and of course, the capers give it lots of flavor anyway. Sometimes fish is just best done the simplest way. It was juicy and tender. Only a couple of little edges (that leaned up against the inside wall of the steam case) were a bit overcooked, but still edible. I’ll watch that next time. So far so good, I’d say, with my new cooking utensil investment. I’ll be trying other dishes. One intrigues me – you can make scalloped potatoes (like au gratin) in no time flat.
What’s NOT: so far, nothing at all. I like this thing, this Lékué and I liked the recipe.

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For a few days I considered not posting this recipe, just cuz this brownie dessert is super-sweet and cuz marshmallows aren’t one of my favorite things. But some people really like sweet-sweet desserts (or brownies) and some people (children?) think marshmallows are the cat’s meow.

The first disclaimer here: I didn’t make these myself. It was from a Phillis Carey cooking class, and that picture above was my serving at the class. But what got me to thinking about them was the little square I took home (of this). I waited 2 days, and had it with a mid-afternoon cup of coffee, so the over-the-top sweet wasn’t quite so over-the-top. With that, I decided I’d post it anyway, but with just one tweak (a little less sugar).

First you need to line the 9×13 pan with foil – including long flaps on at least 2 sides so you can lift these out of the pan after baking. Then you line up inside the pan the graham crackers, slightly overlapping them. A few are kept aside for crumbling on top. Then you melt the chocolate and butter together, add sugar and egg, then vanilla and flour. That mixture is poured over the prepped graham crackers and baked – actually it’s slightly under-baked because you bake these a 2nd time with the topping.

On top of the hot brownies you sprinkle chocolate chips and marshmallows and bake again for 3-5 minutes. If you have a kitchen torch, you can also lightly brown the marshmallows. Then while that’s hot, you press the remaining graham cracker chunks on the top of the sticky, melting marshmallows. You cool these, remove from the pan and cut into servings. The recipe indicates it’ll serve 15. I think it would easily serve 18 – because – as I said – these suckers are sweet.

What’s GOOD: the chocolaty flavor, for sure – I think my favorite part was the brownies themselves. If you’re a fan of marshmallows, well, you’ll love these. If you like graham crackers, and the whole s’mores thing, you’ll be in nirvana. I’d think children would be enchanted with this recipe. Throw a few M&Ms on top of the sticky marshmallows and they might be in heaven. I wouldn’t do that, but that’s cuz I don’t love overly sweet desserts.

What’s NOT: nothing at all, unless you’re averse to marshmallows or grahams.

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Are these unusual? Probably not. But I made them for a reason. The recipe came from my DH’s father, Charles. His loving Dad, who was a traditional patriarch of the family, and only helped in the kitchen under duress. Or, unless he was preparing cocktails. Or, related to this recipe, he did sometimes invite friends over for cocktails and a pancake dinner.

Here’s how this went: our oldest grandson was visiting and my DH was telling a story. My DH does that a lot – he’s also the king of the phrase – “never let a few facts get in the way of a good story” – that latter sometimes to my embarrassment because once he gets it in his head about some nuance of a story – he’ll tell it that way over and over even though the facts are wrong and even though I’ve told him time and time again that he’s got it wrong. Oh well, I love him anyway!

Dave was telling a story about how one late November when he was away at college (this would have been about 1960 – he went to Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania – where his mother was an alumnus), he decided to skip his Wednesday classes and leave after his Tuesday ones (2 days before Thanksgiving) and drive the 5 hours home to Ocean City, New Jersey. He surprised his parents when he arrived at about 6:00 pm, to find they were having a party. A party where everyone was very dressed up (like suits and fancy dresses), but they were serving cocktails and then they were about to have a sit-down dinner of pancakes and sausage! His dad cooked all the sausage and bacon in the kitchen and kept it warm in the oven. They always made their own patties of sausage because for many years the family owned a gourmet market in Dave’s home town, and his dad, among other things, could butcher meat. He was also a bank director some years later. But he knew how to make a good batch of sausage (and no, we don’t have his Dad’s recipe for that) and the chunk of sausage was always shaped into a big 2-pound lump, then squared off like a brick and sold, as in a “brick” of sausage. His Dad also had some kind of a big electric griddle to plug in in the dining room, next to his chair at the end of the china and crystal-set table. He held court, so to speak, from that chair, turning now and then to flip or pour more batter on the griddle. He had a reputation for throwing these pancake dinners – well, he also did pancake breakfasts too, with tons of bacon, sometimes kidneys were served (this back in the day when no one thought a thing about eating quantities of organ meat), always home made sausage patties and gargantuan stacks of his “famous” buttermilk pancakes.

At right is a photo of Charles, probably when he was in his late 40’s. Cigarette in hand. I could have cropped out the cigarette, but that’s the kind of photography thing that was done back then. Sorry it’s not a better photo – I took it at an angle in order to get rid of reflections since it has a glass cover. He was a very  handsome man.

Anyway, Charles also had a reputation for making a mean cocktail. That particular evening, Dave asked what he could do to help? His father said you can take over making the cocktails. Dave’s first “order” was for 2 rye highballs (rye whiskey and water, in this case) and he served them to one of the couples. Dave went back into the kitchen to start making some other drink. In a minute his dad came into the kitchen with the 2 glasses in hand, motioned to Dave, went to the kitchen sink and poured the two drinks down the drain. He said, “son, you need to learn how to make a cocktail – here in our house we make them long and we make them strong.” For sure, Dave never forgot!

So, there’s the background story! In telling this tale to our nearly 20-year old grandson, Logan wasn’t interested in the making of the drinks, but he asked Dave if we ever make the pancakes. Dave glanced at me with a quizzical look since Dave doesn’t do anything except man the outdoor grill and wash dishes. I said yes, but not for years – I’d look for the recipe, though. In amongst the few recipes Dave had when I met him was one very yellowed 3×5 card that’s titled: “Your Dad’s Buttermilk Pancakes.” About 10 years ago we went to Gloucester, Massachusetts, after Dave’s Aunt Louise died (Dave’s maternal aunt), and in amongst her things were a few recipe cards, including one in Dave’s mother’s handwriting, “Charles’ Buttermilk Pancakes.” So the recipe had legs and a reputation.

Back to last week – that next morning I whipped up a batch since I had buttermilk on hand, thank goodness. These pancakes are a cinch to make – and no, there isn’t anything unusual in them at all – flour, soda, salt, sugar, eggs and buttermilk. We had the left overs for breakfast this morning, quickly zapped in the microwave.

My preference is for thinner pancakes, so I actually added just a tetch more buttermilk to the batter. I truly don’t like thick pancakes, and the batter as written was too stiff for my liking. I’ve also changed 2 other things in the recipe below – scant the soda (I could taste it in the finished pancakes) and the salt. Otherwise, the recipe is just like it was in Charles’ time. (I never met his Dad, as he died when Dave was about 30, 10 years before I met him in 1981.) Dave may have never made a rye highball since (current versions use ginger ale rather than water according to the brief search I did on the internet), but he sure learned how to make them that night and he loves to tell stories about his Dad’s pancake dinners.

It must have been popular back then to have breakfast food for dinner. Was it holdover from the food shortages of WW II, when meat was scarce? Occasionally, my parents used to have waffle parties on Sunday nights. This would have been in the early to mid-1950s. And my mom would make a moderate mound of sausage or bacon, and she would set up the waffle iron on a sideboard in our dining room and my mom would man the waffle station (my recollection is she used the Bisquick version). The big treat was mid-way in the meal my mother would bring out a big bowl of freshly whipped cream and defrosted (sweetened) strawberries mixed through it, and that last waffle with that topping became dessert along with fresh, hot coffee. I hunted all over internet images trying to find a photo of the kind of rectangular cardboard box with a metal top and bottom that used to be the only way you could buy strawberries (other than fresh) in a frozen form. Couldn’t find a one. Oh well.

What’s GOOD: well, mostly it’s the memories. We enjoyed the pancakes – they were the penultimate in tenderness (remember my adage: buttermilk = tender). They browned beautifully and they were thin, to my liking. If you want plain and simple pancakes, these fit the bill. Complex? No. Nuanced with extras? No. Gourmet? No. Just plain, ordinary pancakes.
What’s NOT: nary a thing.

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Years ago, when I was in the advertising biz, we had a very talented art director on our staff from the Philippines, named Dolf. He was an American, but so loved his native country’s cuisine. A couple of times he brought chicken adobo to our festive potluck lunches – his version from the Philippines, a wet braise kind of dish. But this post is NOT about the Filipino version, which is altogether different. Not just a little bit different, but a lot different.

SPANISH ADOBO is a spice mixture, and is meant to be liberally applied to pork chops (and allowed to sit there, so it becomes a marinade) and grilled – it’s cinchy easy to make. I saw a blog post from one of the varied ones I read, and it was called pork chops adobado. Since I’d not heard the adobado (rather than adobo) part before, I started sleuthing. Adobo is the spice mixture, but once you put it on some kind of meat and grill it, it becomes a food preparation, so it’s the adobado or adobada. I read what wikipedia had to say about it, then did a search and came to a recipe at epicurious that sounded just right.

In the explanation, wikipedia says of ancient cooking:

Animals were usually slaughtered in the coldest months of winter, but surplus meat had to be preserved in the warmer months. This was facilitated through the use of adobos (marinades) along with paprika (a substance with antibacterial properties). Paprika gives a reddish color to adobos and at the same time the capsaicins in paprika permit fats to dissolve to the point of allowing tissue penetration, going deeper than the surface.

If I interpret what that says, it means meat was marinated for long periods of time, like months – yikes. From winter to summer? So, by using a paprika-based marinade, they were able to preserve meat without refrigeration (obviously) and the capsaicins (that’s what gives heat to peppers) in it allowed for better absorption. Spanish (or Mexican) Adobo is a oil and spice paste that’s spread on the pork up to a couple of hours ahead of grilling. It’s a mixture of oil, paprika, dried oregano, fresh garlic, ground cumin, hot chili flakes, fresh lime zest, salt and pepper.

I slathered this mixture onto 2 pork chops and 2 steaks. It’s a heady mixture – not only with spices, but it has some heat. If you’re averse to hot spicy food, eliminate the chili flakes. I used half-sharp paprika (a mixture of mild and hot), so it was plenty hot for me. The recipe calls for mild paprika. The paste marinated on the chops for a couple of hours (in the refrigerator), then Dave grilled them. First they’re browned – and I mention this only because with the reddish paste on them, it may be hard to tell when the chops are truly browning as they’re already brownish red before you put them on the grill. After they’re grilled on both sides just to get grill marks (if you can see them), you move them over onto an indirect area of the grill, loosely cover them with an upside-down foil pan, or with foil itself to finish cooking. Use a meat thermometer and take them off when they’re just done!

You can vary the heat depending on what kind of paprika you use. Please don’t use grocery store paprika – it doesn’t cut the mustard. (Oh, ha! I made a joke . . . 🙂 Here is a link to Penzey’s page for Hungarian paprika. Many high end markets now carry premium Hungarian paprika – do seek it out. And do refrigerate it. Penzey’s also sells Spanish paprika, but that is the smoked variety. Perhaps cooks in Spain do use the smoked, but I’d try it without the first time. And if I tried it, I’d use half regular and half smoked. The smoked goes a long way.

Be SURE to use a meat thermometer – the chops took much less time than anticipated. Ours were about 3/4 inch thick, and only took about 10 minutes cooking time. And?

What’s GOOD: the adobo spices were a big hit. I loved it; so did Dave. We have found a new, local purveyor of pork, and this first try was great – the meat was tender and juicy. The paprika and other spices hit a great flavor note for both of us. It was a quick preparation – and some nights that’s exactly what’s needed. I’ll be making this again and again.
What’s NOT: I can’t think of a thing. We loved this, big time.

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Just got through reading one of the most in-depth articles ever – about cocoa (photo above from King Arthur Flour). You might not think you need to know more about cocoa, but if you’ve noticed the grocery aisles lately, you can now find a variety of cocoa types on the shelves, and unless you know the differences, you might make a big mistake using a different kind (like Dutch process) in your Grandma’s old-favorite chocolate cake recipe.

The folks at King Arthur Flour sell 5 different types of cocoa powders. I own a couple of them, and only know the simplest of rules – if the recipe calls for baking soda you can use Dutch process (or regular, actually). If the recipe calls for baking powder, you only want to use regular cocoa. But there are so many, many nuances of chocolate in the different types.

So, if you’re a home baker and have interest, head over to KAF and read the article written by PJ Hamel. They made several different recipes for chocolate things with all the different cocoa types and show you the difference in photos, but also describe the differences in the taste. The article is well worth reading and book-marking for future reference. KAF, as I mentioned, carries a very wide variety of cocoas you can buy. I’m a fan of their products (and no, they don’t pay me anything to say that!). If you sign up for their email stuff, you’ll hear about it when they offer free shipping. But you  need to be a reader of their blog in order to hear about the recipe developers and their baking efforts.

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Everybody’s talking about Brussels sprouts lately. And I couldn’t be happier. I don’t know how many recipes I have here already, but there’s always room for more. This one’s a good addition, and would make a really nice side if you’re having guests.

The recipe came from Marie Rayner’s food blog (The English Kitchen). I lightened up her recipe just a tad. I used bacon instead of pancetta and I used just a little bit of cream rather than nearly a cup. Then, it happened that I only had fresh wheat bread, so my bread crumbs came from that, but they were just fine – it was just a little harder to tell when the crumbs were toasty brown, that’s all, because they were already brown in color. Minor problem really!

First the Brussels sprouts were cooked in lightly salted water, cooled, halved. Then I cooked a slice of thick bacon (cut up into tiny pieces) and later a small bunch of sliced almonds were browned in the bacon fat too. Then the Brussels sprouts were added in, to soak up the little tiny bit of bacon grease there was in the pan (if you use regular bacon you’ll want to pour off most of the fat). Then they’re poured into a flat gratin dish (I used a 9 inch ceramic pie plate, which was the perfect size for a pound of Brussels). The bread crumbs are browned in the same cooking pan with a little bit of butter until they’re lightly toasted. Cream is poured over the Brussels sprouts, then the crumbs are mixed with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and that’s sprinkled over the top of the Brussels sprouts. Bake for 18 minutes. That’s all there is to it. Easy peasy.

We had the remainder of our dinner all ready to go, so as soon as the Brussels sprouts came out of the oven, we were ready to plate everything. The cream (which I’d poured mostly on top of the cut sides of the Brussels sprouts) was almost completely absorbed into the Brussels sprouts – it was barely moist on the bottom of the dish. Thank you, Marie, for such a great recipe!

What’s GOOD: everything about these are good. The crunchy bread crumbs and cheese? Oh yum. The tender Brussels sprouts are so very tasty. The almonds also add a nice little crunch. A great recipe I’ll be making again.
What’s NOT: Well, it does take a bit more prep time than just simmering Brussels sprouts, of course, but it was well worth the effort. When we have a fairly plain protein for our dinner, I like to do something a bit more elaborate for the side dish.

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Are you looking for a super-easy dinner with salmon? You’ve come to the right recipe – this one’s so simple – as long as you’re willing to do the cedar-plank thing on the grill.

Not taking a lot of time to hunt for a recipe this time, I just googled “cedar plank salmon.” The #1 recipe came from the Food Network. It’s a Steven Raichlen recipe, but from what I read, Bobbie Flay must have had him on his BBQ show and prepared this dish. What convinced me was the 5-star rating. I read through some of them – a few people didn’t like the quantity of mustard or thought it was bitter. My thought is that they used cheap Dijon. If you use the real stuff, particularly the Maille brand, there won’t be any bitterness. I did reduce the quantity of both mustard and brown sugar, and we were ooohing and aaahing as we ate it.

First we soaked a cedar plank (one worked for the portion we were grilling, but you might need 2) for about 2 hours in cold water. Then the plank itself went onto a medium-hot grill for about 4 minutes. That gave it time to steam-out most of the water, but got the plank super-hot. Then my DH turned the plank over and carefully placed the lightly slathered and brown sugared salmon fillet (pictured at left with the slather and sugar ready for grilling) on top of the plank. The lid was closed, the heat reduced just slightly, and 10 minutes later the salmon had reached 135°F and it came off. When Dave lifted the lid the last time (he checked the temp of the fish twice) a big plume of smoke engulfed him and burned his sinuses a little. He had a honkin’ headache for the rest of the evening, poor guy. Beware of that, my friends! He said the plank was slightly in flames too, but it didn’t reach the fish. Obviously, you toss the plank once it’s used. You could also do this in the oven, I suppose, but not with the cedar plank – unless you do it at a lower temp. You don’t want that kind of smoke swirling around in your oven.

The salmon needed nothing else – perhaps I could have served it with a little wedge of lemon – but it truly didn’t need it. It was a tiny bit crispy along the edges (from the brown sugar) and the mustard added just a lovely character to the fish. It was perfectly done, juicy, flaky. Delicious.

What’s GOOD: rip-roaring easy and tasty. That’s about all I can say, it should be enough for you to try this super-simple recipe. Good enough for guests too. I haven’t tried oven roasting this, but it should be easy to do that if you don’t want to cedar plank it.
What’s NOT: nada, nothing!
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Every year when my wheat-allergic cousin comes to visit I try to find a few new recipes to try. Things that he’d like while he’s here, but also a couple that he might enjoy making at home. And if I were to tell you these cookies are every bit as good as peanut butter chocolate chip cookies made WITH flour, would you believe me? Well, you should, because I’m going to be making these just for myself cuz they’re that good!

After making them (actually Gary made them while I sort-of supervised) I took one to try. Oh my goodness. They were absolutely fantastic. And I mean really fantastic! They have a very light crumb – as you’ll see from the recipe below – they have nothing but smooth peanut butter, brown sugar, soda, salt, an egg and vanilla. Oh, and the chocolate chips. How easy can that be? The recipe makes a very short texture – I mean buttery, crumbly (and there isn’t any butter in it except the smooth peanut butter) cookie. Rich, though. And with such great flavor.

You cannot use high-end peanut butter in these – we bought regular plain-old JIF, the smooth version. Apparently folks at King Arthur Flour have tried this with the Laura Scudder’s, for instance, and it just doesn’t work (too dry and crumbly for some reason). So do seek out JIF (not low fat, not low sugar, and not crunchy). The dough is very easy to mix up and the chocolate chips added in at the last. The recipe below makes just 18 cookies. When I make them I’m going to double the recipe. Gary took all the cookies home with him (he and I each ate 2, so he took home 14). Therefore, I’m going to need to make them sometime soon.

What’s GOOD: they’re fabulous. As long as you like peanut butter; and chocolate chips, then you’ll love these cookies. The fact that they’re GF is nearly beside the point.

What’s NOT: not a thing that I can think of.

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It’s not a new tidbit here, that I love cookbooks. Now, there are collectors, and then there are collectors. I’m just a general all-purpose cookbook collector. I own about 300 or so now, and have given away at least another 150 or more. I tell myself that I do NOT need one single solitary additional cookbook. Ever. But I just can’t seem to help myself. I do occasionally order one because I just have to, that’s all. Others I’ll put onto my wish list at amazon, hoping that family or friends will buy it for me for my birthday or at Christmas.

If you haven’t noticed, cookbooks are one of the hottest selling genre of books these days. Didn’t used to be so. It seems like amazon sends me an email every few days (maybe it’s weekly) telling (touting) 2 or 3 more new cookbooks that I should look at and perhaps buy. There’s probably a special tag in the amazon servers just for me (and others like me) that says “sucker” or “easy” where it comes to buying cookbooks. You think?

The shelves you see at left reside in our family room, right next to the kitchen. Actually I’ve culled some out of that since I took that photo a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, I have a sofa-table just a few feet away that is a repository for stacks of stuff. Magazines I haven’t gotten to yet (and have been there for at least a year!), books I’ve pulled out of the shelves above and never re-filed, then I’ve stuffed some other cookbook into it’s slot. The depth on that sofa table is about 16 inches or so. Mostly more cookbooks. People give me books (not always ones that I’ve requested) and they have no home, exactly.

As of a year or so ago I created a cookbook annex up in my office (upstairs). I think I have 3 shelves there, and mostly they are books I don’t refer to for cooking. Most of them are memoirs and some rather esoteric cookbooks that are pretty to look at, but not to cook from.

When we had new carpeting installed underneath the family room shelves a year ago I had to unload that entire shelf system. Oh my gosh was that difficult, time consuming and back breaking. I sorted through the books when I went to return them, and tried my best to group them and I did give away another 20 or so. Problem is that some barbecue books that really belong on the 3rd shelf left had to go on the bottom shelf because they’re tall. Really tall, and they won’t fit anywhere except at the bottom. I’ve considered using a Dewey decimal system, but no, that makes no sense since all the books, just about, are within one small, really narrow group of numbers. Because of the variety of heights, I can’t group all similar genres together.

Some years ago when I subscribed to Eat Your Books, the site that helps you find recipes within your own cookbooks, I entered most of my cookbooks into my own site there. I’ve mentioned it numerous times here, that if I want to find a recipe for chicken and artichokes, for instance, I can go to my site at Eat Your Books and enter those two items and it will give me a long list of the different recipe titles, the book they’re from on my own bookshelves, and the list of main ingredients. I use it all the time. Far better to sit at my computer than to stand in front of that bookcase for 45 minutes hunting. I love that site.

Today I was catching up on my blog reading and really enjoy the varied things I find (read) on the Eat Your Books blog. This one has to do with Anne Willan. She’s the American author, chef, and owner of the La Varenne cooking school in Paris. She and her husband have lived in Paris for a long, long time. If I ever have the inclination, and the time, on some trip to Paris I’m going to sign up for a class.

Anne Willan has just published a new book, a memoir type with recipes: One Soufflé at a Time: A Memoir of Food and France, and I ordered the hard copy just yesterday. Once I’ve read it, I’ll let you know what I think of it. Cookbooks I always order in hard copy; memoirs about cooking as well; nearly everything else goes to my Kindle.

In the meantime, though, I have some other books that require my attention. I’m doing the review in one of my book clubs of The Submission: A Novel. I read it last year and highly recommended it to everyone I met. Because I couldn’t stop talking about it, our selection committee chose it to read in my AAUW book group for 2014, and of course, no one else was willing to do the review, so I’m it. I’m a little intimidated about that because there are some very sensitive religious and ethnic issues in that book, and generally, in that group, anyway, we don’t choose books that have that kind of potential discussion problems. Fortunately for me, Seattle (the city of) selected that book in it’s read-a-book program, and they have a very detailed guide available with discussion questions. So I may be able to use those without having to figure out for myself how to squeeze through a minefield of religious issues to have an open discussion. No one in my group is Muslim, and perhaps I’m overly concerned, but I think it will take a sensitive hand (voice) to keep the discussion from getting out of hand. I’m also supposed to be reading any book by Alice Munro for one of my other book groups, but haven’t even started on that one. My 3rd book group, fortunately, I’ve already read the book. Just today I also ordered 5 more books on my Kindle. Just finished reading  The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice. A novel about 2 young girls sent to a convent in Venice and both become musicians of note. Both are taught by Vivaldi. I’ll be writing that up on my left sidebar in the next day or so.

To get back to the reason I started this post, on the Eat Your Books blog, they discussed a Cookbook Tree of Life that has been created by Anne Willan (the print pictured at left, photo from the La Varenne website). I immediately clicked through to the source article at zester daily, and then further to Anne Willan’s blog post to take a look at it. In a nutshell, Anne laid awake one night thinking about her own family tree (framed copy) in her closet, and began thinking about whether cookbooks, as a collective group, could also have a comparable family tree. She must have spent months researching this, and narrowed the field to the first four cookbooks printed prior to 1500. And then expanded the tree in width and height to reach the breadth of books about 100 years ago. The cookbook tree covers the period of 1674-1861. From what I can see, the 16” x 20” $65 limited edition print would be a keepsake. I’ve thought about ordering one for myself, but I lack wall space anywhere near the kitchen to hang it. Besides, do I need it? No. But do I want it? Yes. But . . . I’ll try not to order it. Perhaps you’d like to, though.

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Normally I don’t talk much about movies here on my blog. Like many people, I’m fairly addicted to my electronics (2 Windows desktops – one in my upstairs office – and this one in the kitchen, my iPad, iTouch and my iPhone; and then there are 3 TVs in our house plus my Tivo, and my DH’s and my gift to each other before Christmas, a Sonos system too). With the iPhone you get Siri, the voice, the intelligent voice in newer iPhones, which I don’t use as much as I should. I asked Siri the other day “how old is Judi Dench?” She responded: “Judi Dench is 79 years old.” Wow. Cool.

This was just after going to see Philomena, the true story about an Irish girl who got pregnant in her teens (Ireland, c.1948), was sent to a Catholic convent home for unwed mothers, and was required to sign a contract to give up her child. And she had to agree to serve 4 years of indentured servitude at the convent to pay back (supposedly) the cost of the convent caring for her during her pregnancy and the delivery, and for the child. The young mothers were allowed to spend 1 hour a day with their children. And then her son was adopted at age 3 and the young mother (superbly played by Judi Dench) watched helplessly as he was driven away. Eventually she was released, married and lived a full life. But she visited the convent many times trying to find out about her son. I don’t want to spoil the story – just go see it. It’s wrenching (the convent nuns were despicable). But some parts of it are heart-warming too. And Judi Dench was just phenomenal, wrinkles and all. Which posed the question of how old she is. After I pulled into the garage I sat there with my iPhone and couldn’t remember how to GET to Siri to ask the question (usually I just type in the question in Safari, the internet interface). Eventually found it – hold down the home button until Siri starts.

So, what does that have to do with “her?” Well, it’s a movie just out by that name. Joaquin Phoenix (I only saw the trailer of it) plays a very depressed about-to-be divorced guy who has a phone with some kind of AI (artificial intelligence), surely more advanced than we have today, but something similar to Siri. In the movie, the girl-voice, Samantha, has a personality (the voice in the movie is Scarlett Johanssen). And she definitely interacts with the guy. She gently wakes him up, tells him about his work schedule, gives him advice and of course, he takes “her” everywhere. He falls in love with “her.” And that’s really about all I know.

Skip forward to yesterday. I was reading my blog reader (I opted to use OldReader after Google axed theirs), was looking at AppAdvice, a very prolific blog about apps for smart phones. I can barely keep up with the blog traffic on that site since their creators post 10-15 a day. Anyway, the first one in the queue was this one, and it caught my eye because it had Siri in the title. It actually comes from BuzzFeed, if you want to go to the source.

So, the guesswork is that the Siri gurus at Apple decided to have some fun with Samantha. They’ve given Siri a personality as well (at least when it relates to Samantha, the female voice in the movie), and apparently she doesn’t much like being compared to Samantha. I haven’t tried this on my iPhone, but this is what it says she responded:

Siri are you her

No. I don’t spend much time with purely fictional characters.

Siri are you her

No. Her portrayal of an intelligent agent is beyond artificial.

Are you her

No. You know that it’s just a movie, right?

And speaking of movies, we went to see Saving Mr. Banks a few days ago. Oh, what a darling movie! It’s the true story of Walt Disney (played by Tom Hanks) negotiating for the movie rights with P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), the very British author of Mary Poppins. I had an event here at my house for 7 lady friends of mine – it was a fund-raising event that I offered to my PEO group. They paid between $28 and $35 apiece to come to my house for tea and scones and to go to the movie. I served two scones (I made my Buttermilk Scones and the newest ones, Savory Herb Buttermilk Scones), clotted cream, home made lemon curd, jam (huckleberry marmalade) and 2 kinds of tea. Then we left my kitchen in a disaster and I took them all to see the movie. Oh, I also served the Butternut Squash Bisque too. I was tickled because Emma Thompson in her character as P.L. Travers  is quite addicted to her TEA and it plays a regular part in the movie right up to one of the last scenes. When I planned this event about 5 months ago I just thought doing something kind of British (tea and scones) would relate some to P.L. Travers in the movie. Oh yes, it did indeed! Everyone had a grand time, me included, and the movie is well worth seeing. Emma Thompson was so ultra-perfect for the part. You’ll see her act as she’s never acted before. Oscar-worthy in my book.

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