So far this year I haven’t urged you, fervently, to cook or bake anything I’ve written up. This recipe is my first fervent call! Oh my goodness, this cake is so darned good. No wonder it was featured in the 2013 L.A. Times top recipe round-up. Read on . . .

The Los Angeles Times may be the only daily newspaper that still has a working test kitchen. As an institution, newspaper test kitchens have kind of slid into oblivion with the cost-cutting going on at nearly every major daily in the country. It’s so sad. I used to look forward to reading the big – really big – food section back a couple of decades ago. The Times still has a food section, but oh, it’s so small. I do read it online occasionally. Most newspapers rely on a bevy of written offerings from a variety of free lance food writers who prepare short stories and provide pictures. So the food editors need only pick and choose, within budget, to include this article, that article, decide which one to “feature,” which ones to discard.

Our more local newspaper, the Orange County Register, doesn’t have a test kitchen. The kitchen shown in occasional articles is the Food Editor’s home kitchen, with photos taken usually by one of the staff photographers. And my guess is that her budget doesn’t allow that very often.

But fortunately, the L.A. Times still tests recipes, still writes articles and has a small coterie of writers who write only for that paper. Like Russ Parsons. Who is likely reaching retirement age. I’ll be sad not to read his short stories when that happens. One of the food writing events at the Times is the annual best-recipe contest. The food section staff cook and bake the “best” recipes from the previous year and narrow them down and down and down. And the results are published in late January to great fanfare.

Anyway, back to this cake. The origin of it is Dario Cecchini’s butcher shop and restaurant deep in the heart of Tuscany – in Panzano in Chianti. It’s a cake his trusty baker Simonetta has been preparing daily for decades. Many people have written about it and there are a few recipes “out there” of a similar style. But this one – oh yes. This one that Nancy Silverton (of La Brea Bakery fame, and now Mozza restaurant) has revised and made possible for a home kitchen. Her recipe makes 2, so I tuned it down, dialed it back and made it for just ONE cake. Although – I’m telling you – maybe you should make TWO and freeze the other one. You’ll be glad . . . . .

Having made it and eaten it, I’ll just say there are very distinct things that are different about this cake: (1) naturally, that it’s made with olive oil as the fat, and GOOD extra virgin olive oil, at that; (2) that it contains 1 1/2 whole oranges, chopped up, peel, pith and all; and (3) the topping is different – sugar, pine nuts and fresh rosemary. And certainly this is a dessert cake, but somehow the pine nuts and fresh rosemary give it a savory tone. And it’s divine.

Raisins are in this cake – and you soak them in Vin Santo, if you have it. That’s an Italian dessert wine, and can vary a lot in sweetness from one winery to another. It’s a common little treat given to nearly everyone after dinner in restaurants in Italy. Well, I didn’t have any, so I scanned my liquor closet and finally settled on a very old bottle of tawny Port. It had faded to a light sherry color and had all kinds of lees in the bottle. I poured it through a sieve and had enough to soak the raisins for awhile. The raisins I have on hand right now are really large – jumbo size and from several varieties of grape, so they’re different colors – in the picture at top you can see one or two that had settled to the bottom of the batter. In the photo at top you can see the orange pith – but you absolutely don’t know you’re eating pith – it comes through clean and sweet.

The oranges are Navels, and I cut off the ends, cut them in half, then sliced into half-rounds and chopped to get a very nice mound of chopped orange stuff. I did that ahead. There at right was the plate full of oranges. It’s not necessary to do this in the food processor, although you can if you’d prefer. Just don’t pulverize them – it’s nice to bite into a little chunk of orange now and then in the finished cake.

The recipe calls for pastry flour. Since I didn’t have that on hand, I went online to read about it – all it means is flour that has lower protein, but not as low as cake flour, which is 7-8%. So, I mixed half all-purpose (10-12%) and half cake flour, to reach an approximate 9% protein, which is the level for pastry flour.

Mixing up the cake wasn’t difficult – eggs, the leavening and sugar were combined for several minutes in the stand mixer, then very slowly you pour the extra virgin olive oil down the side of the bowl and into the batter. If you go too fast it spatters anyway, and it might separate. Slow-slow. Then you add the soaked raisins and the flour mixture in 3 separate batches. Once that’s mixed, you turn off the mixer and use a spatula to fold in the oranges.

At this point you do something else a bit different – you let the batter rest for 10 minutes. Why, I don’t know. The only thing I can think of is that the batter is fairly thick, and in order to get the fruit (oranges and raisins) to not sink to the bottom of the tube pan (which they might do anyway) if they’re allowed to sink in the mixing bowl first, then when you pour it into the tube pan they’ll be at the top and perhaps not sink to the bottom before the lifting/leavening keeps them suspended. At any rate, the batter is poured into a buttered and floured tube pan.  You probably could use a springform pan, but the recipe indicates a tube pan – since the cake is dense (but not really heavy) it will cook more evenly in a tube pan. A Bundt pan will not work because those pans assume you’ll turn the cake upside down, and the top here IS the top in the finished cake. The cake top is sprinkled with granulated sugar (a really nice touch and you do taste it’s crunch in the finished cake), then toasted pine nuts and lastly you sprinkle on minced fresh rosemary, which sticks in the little crevices.

The baking was simple enough – but requires you to visit the oven every 10 minutes. It’s baked for 10 minutes at 400°, then you turn it down to 325° and bake another 10. Turn the pan around, and another 10, and another 10, until it’s baked a total of about 40 minutes. I should have measured the internal temp, but didn’t. The cake is cooled in the pan, then you’ll want to run a knife around the inner tube, and a spatula slid around the bottom to make sure the cake releases completely. Then you very, ever-so carefully turn the cake out onto your outstretched hand and forearm and carefully place it on a platter or cake plate. You will lose some of the pine nuts and sugar. The cook gets to eat those flying pine nuts (I only had about 10-15 of them fly off). My cake did have a few indentations – I suspect it’s from the amount of fruit. It did not detract one iota from the flavor. You’ll not care a bit.

At Mozza, Nancy Silverton makes this and serves it with olive oil gelato she’s developed. I’ll be trying that. It’ll be posted here if it’s good. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, I’m going to go cut myself another sliver of this outstanding cake.

What’s GOOD: oh gosh. Every single, solitary thing about this cake is exceptional. The taste – the oranges, the texture of the cake, which is light, surprisingly, the rosemary I loved, the pine nuts, and the sprinkling of sugar on the top that becomes slightly crunchy. Divine. Next time I am going to make sure I use small raisins – or I’ll chop the raisins – they were heavy so I think they did sink.
What’s NOT: nothing except you do need to have fresh oranges, and if you can find Vin Santo, fine. Otherwise use white port or a light port. Don’t use sherry – it would come through in the flavor. Do use really good olive oil too – this isn’t exactly a cheapo cake!

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Oh my goodness, is this ever fantastic. The problems with this are: (1) finding good, tender and rich brioche bread; and (2) keeping your fingers out of the finished pastry. They are just so delicious. The base is a thick slice of brioche bread (the one above is about 1/2 inch thick, maybe just slightly thicker), spread with a ground almond and butter mixture (an almond cream, it’s called), spread with a little bit of apricot jam, some almonds sprinkled on top and baked briefly, then generously sprinkled with powdered sugar.

The other morning we were at one of my book group meetings, at our friend Peggy’s establishment, (Peggy & Gary own it along with their son) Mead’s Green Door Café in old-town Orange. Every other month we meet at their little café and enjoy a latte or cappucino and some lovely treat Peggy has baked while we discuss our current book selection. Peggy and her husband used to own a restaurant in Orange, but sold it a few years ago and bought a derelict building and spent over a year renovating it to the Café it is now. Cute as a bug, Old-world style, country-ish, eclectic, offbeat, catering a lot to the young Chapman University crowd nearby. They serve vegetarian and vegan food only, with usually at least one GF item too. They specialize in breakfast and lunch. Peggy does 90% of the baking. Peggy’s #1 seller (of her pastries) is her sweet potato scone, which is delish also, I can attest!

This little number, which blew me away, is so easy to make. Disclaimer here – I didn’t make the one you see above – Peggy did. But it’s so very easy, I was fairly certain you wouldn’t mind me showing you hers. If I made this now, I’d be gobbling it down. The recipe came from Sunset Magazine (earlier last year). First you must start with good brioche. Maybe one of our local bakeries (like Panera or Corner Bakery) will have it – I’ll have to look. You slice it thick (the recipe said 1-inch; I think Peggy sliced hers closer to 1/2 inch. Anyway, thick brioche. Then you spread the top with a little apricot jam, then a mixture of butter, granulated sugar, salt, egg, and half-and-half that’s been whizzed  up in the food processor. Then the top is sprinkled with almonds and sugar. Baked for 20 minutes or so, sprinkled with powdered sugar. Done. Very easy. Very special.

What’s GOOD: certainly the taste is first and foremost! These things are just delish. Worth making. You can make the almond cream ahead and it will keep for several days. The almond cream makes more than what you’ll use to make 8 – so perhaps cut down on the quantity first time.

What’s NOT: really nothing.

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It’s a little hard to tell there’s a sauce on this but the mascarpone is what gives the pasta a shine (a shine in food means either fat or sugar). When this says “sauce” it doesn’t exactly mean it’s a “cream sauce” as in a cooked, thickened sauce made with cream. The mascarpone is the only creamy substance in this and it’s so very easy to just stir it (and toss and toss) into the hot pasta. It just melts. Yum.

There’s something about shrimp and pasta. They’re one of those matches that just work in the culinary world. The palate and taste rule here. Or maybe in this case it’s the mascarpone cheese which provides the bridge between the two. Whatever it is, it works. If you’re looking for something nice to fix for Valentine’s Day, this would be a good one. It satisfies, for sure, with the pasta, and the shrimp (especially if you buy big ones) make it a treat. The dish is NOT hard to make at all – just get everything ready ahead of time.

One unique thing here is the use of sliced garlic. At the cooking class with Phillis Carey, she explained that sliced garlic is her new go-to method. It doesn’t brown as fast (however, you do need to cook it over medium heat – higher than that and the garlic, no matter sliced or not – will burn, and that you don’t want). I have this gadget – Chef’n Garlic Slice. The photo I found at Williams-Sonoma, though the link is to amazon. It’s about $12.00, I think. Anyway, the peeled garlic cloves go into the top, you put the lid on and begin turning the top and thin, perfect slices come out the bottom. Bingo!

The sliced garlic isn’t quite as intense in flavor, either. So you can use a bit more than usual and not overwhelm the dish or someone’s palate.

Anyway, back to this dish. Shrimp are cleaned, deveined and if you choose, slice them in half (through the back so you have 2 perfect halves that curl up so cute when you cook them. Phillis calls them swans when they do that. Okay. Anyway, the shrimp are tossed with lemon zest, salt and pepper while they wait to be called to the pan. First you heat some butter in a nonstick pan (use a big one because everything goes in there eventually). The garlic is added and a tiny bit of red chili flakes and it’s cooked for a whopping minute. Then you add the shrimp and cook that for about 3 minutes, then add the dry white wine (Phillis used Pinot Grigio) and lemon juice briefly. I added some mushrooms to this – because I had them – and because I thought they’d taste good in this dish.

Meanwhile you will have cooked the linguine in very salted water until it’s just barely done but still with a bite (because you cook it some more in the pan). And it’s here where you must save some of the pasta cooking water because it’s used in conjunction with the mascarpone cheese to make the sauce. Lastly you add the pasta to the shrimp mixture, toss and toss and toss, then garnish with lemon zest and fresh basil, salt (maybe, but probably not) and pepper. This dish requires more salt than usual – if you don’t heavily salt the water, then add salt at the end.

Here’s where I detoured – I did add some Parmesan cheese. Just because I can. It added a nice fillip to the dish, I think. But you don’t have to. I also used a whole lot more basil because the original recipe calls for just 2 T of basil shreds. Definitely not enough. If you prefer, you could add Feta cheese to the pasta instead of Parm. That would be a very interesting combo – and a good one, I think. And I also added some sauteed mushrooms too – I cooked them in a separate pan in a little bit of butter, then re-added them to the finished dish to heat them through before adding the mascarpone, etc.

What’s GOOD: You don’t get the feeling (taste) that you’re eating a creamy pasta. This is nothing like using heavy cream, or a carbonara. There is just 1/2 cup in the entire dish that serves at least 3 people. It’s different – loved it with the shrimp. If you’re a bit light on the shrimp, cut them into pieces, but it looks quite pretty to serve it with the cute shrimp curls. Altogether delicious.
What’s NOT: nothing, really. I liked it from the get-go.

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If you’re a regular reader of Bon Appetit, then you know Andrew Knowlton. I have always enjoyed his “take” on the culinary world. He travels a lot and always has an opinion about things. But this January issue had a list of things he is telling us about – and I just don’t know, Andrew. You’ve maybe gone over the edge. I’ll tell you all about it . . .

The article is titled The Year 2014 in Preview. He predicts the next big ingredients, cuisines and cities that will shape what and how we eat.

1. Pancakes for Dinner. Well, if you read my post about pancakes for dinner for my DH growing up, and waffles for me and my family growing up, this sounds right down the same alley. But no, it’s not. He says they’ll be savory pancakes with fillings like sea urchin, squid, smoked sturgeon. Sounds dreadful to me. But then, blini with caviar has been around for a century or so (but I don’t eat that, either, do you?)

2. New feathery fronds – he says we’ll be seeing bronze fennel as the new garnish. I’ve never heard of it or seen it and we certainly don’t live in a culinary backwater. I found a photo on the web, see right.

3. A Boilermaker. It’s a drink, of sorts. It used to be a tiny shot glass of whiskey down inside a big glass of beer and you drink it together. Andrew says you’ll have the beer and the whiskey alongside each other. Well, okay. I don’t drink beer or shots of whiskey, so he won’t find me bellying up to the bar to order that one.

4. The next big food town: Pittsburgh. The winners in recent years were Houston, Charleston and Nashville.

5. The new “in” cuisine will be Filipino. He cites Smalls in Chicago, Qui in Austin and Maharlika in NYC as places that currently highlight the food of the Philippines.

6. Za’atar – I might agree with him on this one. Za’atar is a spice blend from the Middle East. You can buy it in many countries or make your own. Or buy it at one of the spice purveyors you know. It’s good stuff, but I don’t know if it’s going to be that wildly popular. We’ll see.

7. A new trend in restaurant design with a “living green wall,” a wall of hanging ferns, ivy, even succulents. I haven’t seen such a thing; maybe you have. He’s seen them at 4 restaurants so far (NYC, Miami, DC and Charleston).

8. Cheese that will rival or one-up Burrata – Fossa, Scamorza and Cloumage. I’ll be watching for them.

9. A new fish for the diner’s table – the porgy. It’s upstaging branzino, he says. They’re abundant, inexpensive, mild-tasting and work well for whole-fish serving because they’re small. But every porgy is loaded with small bones. I won’t be ordering that anytime soon.

10. Egg Yolks. Well, not just egg yolks, but dried egg yolks, cured, aged, grated over pasta, and even sugared and sprinkled on top of crème brulee. Really? I’ll be looking for that.

That’s it, folks. What do you think?

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Ever since Christmas my usual high level of cooking interest has waned a bit. I really didn’t over-indulge much over the holidays (a good thing), so I wasn’t scrounging low calorie meals particularly, though I prepared a few new ones, all with dismal results.

I also have been spending an inordinate amount of time sitting with my leg up on an ottoman. Why? Because I had a skin cancer removed from my right lower leg on December 24th and had no idea when I made the appointment that the regimen was rest-rest-rest. (The office forgot to mention that part to me or I’d have waited until after Jan. 2nd.) It’s hard to cook meals from a sitting, semi-reclining position.

Perhaps I mentioned it some days after the 1st of January that after the doctor admonished me severely (she could tell I’d spent too much time on my feet) that I truly did sit with my leg UP. And languish. And get bored. I read. I watched TV, I caught up on some of my magazine reading. The wound itself is much larger than even the doctor thought it would be. It didn’t really hurt except the first couple of days. On the skin surface it looked about the size of a penny, but using a MOHS method of surgery, that sucker had spread out underneath, so the wound was big, slightly larger than a silver dollar. Now, 5 weeks out, it’s maybe slightly larger than a quarter and closing in. But it’s an open wound that must be carefully bandaged every 3 days (my DH does it for me as it’s in a very awkward place to try to do it yourself) with special cream, a sealing bandaging thing, leg wrapped and then I have to wear a compression stocking all day (promotes healing, they say). I can’t get tap water on the wound (for fear of infection) so have to cover my leg in a plastic bag every time I shower. Big nuisance. And no, my dr. did not want to do a skin graft.

This growing old stuff is for the birds! My back had fits from so much forced sitting, so I did make a few trips to the chiropractor. Then my left knee acted up – a pulled tendon or muscle – I think (from what, I don’t know), and after about 5 visits to the chiropractor for that one, it’s back to nearly normal now.

In between times I was up some, down a lot. After about a week of this forced rest stuff, at one of the follow-up visits to the dermatologist I asked the nurse if I could be “up” to fix dinner. She said oh, of course you can. You can lead a normal life, but just spend a few hours a day with your leg up. Ah-ha! I was back in the kitchen and my DH was a very happy camper I can tell you for sure!

I defrosted some chicken one night and made a chicken and artichoke heart sauce to go over rice. It was awful, I thought. But I had way too much left over to throw out, so I re-engineered it and made a casserole with pasta and cheese, hoping the cheese would enhance the flavor. No. After 3 meals of it (4 chicken breasts to start with) we threw out the remaining. I was glad to see it go. I made a new salad dressing and didn’t like it at all, but hated to throw it out, so we ate it, not liking it one bit.

Then we discovered that our freezer part of our refrigerator/freezer in the garage – that holds most of our frozen meat, including the Berkshire pig meat, steaks, roasts, chicken, fish, etc. that I keep on hand all the time – was on the fritz. Oh dear. I tinkered with it for a few days, finally bought a freezer thermometer and was aghast when I discovered the temp was only 28°F in the freezer. No wonder the salmon I took out was almost bend-able. Finally we unloaded most of it (with the fish, I had to throw away all but one piece of sole as it had defrosted) into thermal coolers with dry ice, bought a new upright freezer at Best Buy, on sale, and waited until it was delivered 2 days later. I shopped for plastic boxes, just the right size, to store things in, that would fit on the shelves. Then I catalogued all the meat in there and re-positioned everything so I now can go to the pork box and pull out what I want. And I bought a white board so I will know (I hope) what’s IN the freezer all the time.

We also bought a small refrigerator freezer for the garage too. It was on sale as well. It’s quite small, but has enough room to hold a turkey in November and has room for the myriad of plastic boxes that contain all kinds of jarred stuff that I don’t have room for in the kitchen refrigerator. Do you have stuff like that too? Like a jar of harissa with just a tiny bit I’ve used, some preserved lemon, walnut oil, specialty mustards, lots of different nuts that I don’t use much, 2 huge jars of maraschino cherries that I use in December when I bake Bishop’s Bread. A reader (thank you) sent me a link to a farm in Washington State, near Yakima, that sells maraschino cherries that don’t have that wicked red dye in them. I ordered a jar (Tillen Farms) and it will sit there unopened until next December. I hate to throw away the other 2 jars, though. You can see that new jar sitting on the middle shelf. Sometime soon I’m going to make a list of everything in those plastic boxes in the refrigerator (I have another white board to go on that door too) so I’ll know at a glance what’s there. And I won’t have to open the refrigerator since I’ll have the list on the whiteboard on the front. That extra package of hot paprika that Janet gave me for Christmas. Check. The hazelnuts. Check. Asian plum sauce. Check. Hoisin Sauce. Check. Hazelnut oil. Check. Ah, 2 jars of preserved lemon. Check. Mint sauce from England. Check. Garlic jam to serve on cream cheese. Check. And on and on it goes. Getting organized is hard work!

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Why is it called Fifty-Year Apple Cake, you wonder? Because it’s a very old-old apple recipe. Not, as I thought, that it has something to do with heirloom apples. And the photo above doesn’t exactly show you that this cake is mostly apples, cloaked in a small amount of batter that merely binds the apples together. Well, there’s the crumb topping added on top, too. But still, it’s mostly apples.

When we were having a big group at our house one recent evening, I wanted a delicious mid-winter kind of dessert. We are in a Bible study group that’s ongoing, reading the whole Bible in a year (our whole church), but synopsized in a book called The Story, NIV: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People. We get into the most interesting discussions in this group. There are 12 of us if everyone makes it, and we’ve been meeting weekly since late September with a break for Christmas. We enjoy each other. We’re all members of our church, but some of us didn’t know one another. It’s been a very pleasant bonding experience. And I’ve enjoyed having an excuse to bake since I don’t want lots of left overs hanging around for me to snack on.

Anyway, we’ve been hosting it at our house up until now and I’ve served dessert each time. A couple of times someone else helped out. Last week I scanned through my to-try recipes and decided on this one. I will tell you that I erred in the making of this recipe, but it actually didn’t make any difference. It was only now, days later as I’m writing this – and beginning this post that I went online and tried to learn more about the original recipe. That’s when I learned who Emily Luchetti is (a pastry chef in San Francisco). That’s when I realized that the recipe I had put into my MasterCook file was Cheryl Sternman Rule’s riff on the cake. If I’d gone back to her blog post and read it again before I started, I’d have realized it, but I was in a hurry and didn’t. Anyway, I got a little confused about the crumb topping. In actuality, the original recipe didn’t HAVE a crumb topping. That was Cheryl’s addition, among other things. She also took out the walnuts and raisins, switched out some brown sugar for white, and added a whole lot more apples. All of those things are good, and it made for a delicious cake nevertheless. One I’d make again, no question! But I’d be wary of the mistake I made – adding some of the topping to the dry ingredients, which didn’t have any negative effects; it just isn’t necessary, that’s all.

At left is a photo of the apple/cake batter before it’s spread out in the pan.

What I did find online is a video of Emily Luchetti making the original of this cake – if you’re interested  – you do have to sign up (free, but you know at some point they’re going to start charging for viewing the videos). The video of Emily will start playing, then it will stop and you have to sign up in order to see the rest of it. If they begin bugging me via email, I’ll just unsubscribe. I don’t know about you, but I get about 30 or more advertising emails a day – all websites I’ve signed up for for some reason and they send me something every day or two, 365 days a year. Some I like to get, but they send things way too often. Annoying.

Emily’s cake didn’t have any brown sugar in it, and half as much apples, so it was a bit more cakey, I’d say, than the recipe you’ll find below. I kind of liked this version, though it’s not true to the original. You’ll find many recipes for a Fifty-Year Apple Cake online (from some heirloom cookbooks, for instance). Even Emily says it’s probably more like 75 or 100 years old since it’s been around so long. She suggests you use a juicy apple (not a Pippin or Granny Smith, which she reserves only for pies). Cheryl used Fuji because it’s what she had. You can also use Gala or Braeburn or Pink Lady. Cheryl didn’t peel the apples at all, just cored and chopped. I mostly peeled mine. The addition (or substitution) of brown sugar gives the cake a much more caramely flavor. One that I liked.

At left is the batter all spread out in the pan. In making it, the apples are chopped and you make the cake batter using vegetable oil as the fat in it, add the topping and bake it in a 9×13 parchment lined baking pan. Once cooled, you cut it into squares and serve with powdered sugar, crème fraiche (Emily’s recommendation because she thinks the cake needs something a little tart on it rather than something sweet), sweetened whipped cream or ice cream.

There below right you can see the cake with the topping on it – ready to bake.

What’s GOOD: a great showcase for good, juicy apples. The cake is dark from the brown sugar and cinnamon (the only spice). It’s a moist and tender cake, worth making. The crumb topping gives it some crunch. Really delicious in every way. Yes, I’d definitely make it again.

What’s NOT: can’t think of anything I didn’t like.

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Pretty much, I’ve had a love affair with sourdough my whole life. But for the last 20 years or so I didn’t have a sourdough starter going. I first bought one back in the 1960s, and I baked bread regularly and often made pancakes and waffles, and had a great recipe for a dinner roll too. But then I got out of the habit and finally I’d let the starter go too long between feedings and the batter had expired, so to speak. I kept it in one of those cute little crockery spring lock containers and it just sat in the back of the refrigerator. But with it and other living organisms, eventually it ran out of fuel or food and if you don’t keep it going by feeding it flour and water every so often and allowing it to bloom, brighten, develop its yeasty presences, it will die of old age. This was years ago, of course, but when I’d opened the crock and sniffed the contents I knew it was a goner.

Then a couple of weeks ago you’ll remember I wrote up a post about my DH’s father Charles’ buttermilk pancakes. That got me to thinking, longingly, about my favorite sourdough and its wonderful tasty benefits. I enjoyed Dave’s dad’s buttermilk pancakes, but not nearly as much as I love the flavor and even the spongy texture of sourdough. So, when I saw a package of sourdough starter I jumped at it and bought one. As I’m writing this, the starter is still in its infancy of development. At its first mixing, once it sits for 4 hours, you mix more bread flour and water into it for 7 straight days and you need to keep it at about 90°F day and night, feeding it once a day. Then, and only then, will the sour part of it have progressed so it’s taste-able. Each evening I scoop out a cup of the bubbly fermenting batter and throw it out, and add in another mixture of flour and warm water. I stir it all around until they are no lumps and cover again with plastic wrap and let it get a nice warm glow for another 24 hours. Finding a place in my kitchen with a consistent 90° temperature was a little difficult – the warming drawer doesn’t go that low. The oven obviously doesn’t. I finally settled on putting it on top of my toaster oven, just 3-4 inches below the fluorescent under-cupboard lights in my little butler’s pantry. We’ve just had to leave those lights on day and night for the last several days. That drives my DH crazy – he’s a stickler about turning off lights – and I do forget now and then to turn off a light somewhere in the house. We both do.

Once I’ve finished the 7-day feeding schedule I’ll be able to store a few cups of starter in the refrigerator and hopefully it will keep for a week without getting into trouble. I suppose I could set up an alarm on my iPhone to remind me once a week to feed the starter, couldn’t I? Like maybe every Saturday morning, perhaps.

You can buy a sourdough starter package mix as I did. You can also make your own – there’s a good tutorial over at King Arthur Flour, if you’re interested: sourdough starter. At the cookware store I purchased the package you see at right. Buying the package makes it quite simple. As I recall, it was about $5.00. The sourdough starter I bought years ago was from Alaska and I certainly had many conjured thoughts over the years about the old “sourdoughs,” they called them, the solitary gold miners with their trusty pack horses, and the stories about how they would mix up the batter the night before and store it inside their sleeping bags next to their bodies, or on the horse, next to the horse’s hide, where it would keep warm. Because warmth is key here. This new starter I bought claims to be a San Francisco style. Now I don’t exactly know what that means – but San Franciscans do believe their sourdoughs are better than anybody else’s. The bread certainly is – there’s just nothing quite like the real thing – that musty, fusty sour smell from freshly baked sourdough bread that is ubiquitous on restaurant tables in SFO. We can buy sourdough bread here in Southern California, as you can in most places here in the U.S., but it ISN’T like the loaves from there.

Because I was anxious to try some sourdough pancakes, instead of throwing out the 1-cup of batter the other day (day 3 of its 7-day growing period), I used that one cup to make a small batch of sourdough pancakes. Perhaps they weren’t quite as powerfully sour as they’ll be after I continue getting the dough more sour as the days go by, but they were awfully darned good.

This batter I’m brewing is all made with bread flour – because the starter package is aimed at baking bread, not making anything else. So, I mixed in a little bit of all-purpose flour (because the batter was just slightly too thin, if you can believe that) and the other ingredients before pouring little dollops into a hot nonstick pan. I didn’t even grease the pan. It didn’t need it because I’d added just a little jot of canola oil to the batter. You don’t even need to butter the pancakes, either. Thin little sourdough pancakes somehow don’t need butter – but syrup yes. But they’re even good plain because they’re very moist.

What’s GOOD: Well, I loved it – loved that spongy chew to every bite. As pancakes go,I love thin ones, so these ticked all my sourdough hot buttons. And it was even sour, which I liked and I’ll like it even better once the dough is finished it’s 7 days of fermenting.
What’s NOT: if you don’t want to hassle with a sourdough starter, the feeding, mixing and nurturing you have to do with it, you may not like it. But the flavor of those finished goods. Oh, yes! Worth it, I hope.

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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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