What Were They Thinking?

I discovered this little booklet tucked inside an old cookbook. Frozen puff pastry has always been something I enjoy cooking with--we had Turkey Wellington for Thanksgiving and I still have a package of puff pastry in the freezer--so I leafed through, looking for inspiration. The elegant presentation on the cover led me to expect some high class gourmet fare.

Mile high  chicken pie? Count me in! But sweetbreads? Not something I've ever even tasted--nor seen for sale.  And what's in the rest of the directions--canned chicken a la king and canned carrots? Oh, my--this must be a recipe from the Fifties. I should have realized it wasn't for me anyway with only one clove of garlic.

The sausage and oyster croustades sounded interesting--then I saw that the sausage called for was canned Vienna sausage. Canned oysters aren't a deal breaker for me--if they're smoked oysters--but gravy from a package is.

I love looking through old cookbooks and seeing how tastes and skills change over the years.  My grandmother's recipes often involved gelatin and almost never garlic. She cooked from scratch for the most part. And vegetables were cooked into submission. My mother's repertoire was pretty daring for the Fifties--Coq au Vin! Bouef a la Mode! Lasagne! (light on the garlic though.) But even she couldn't escape the canned cream of mushroom soup that figured in many a casserole.

Today, I think, there's a good emphasis of fresh vegetables--kale, anyone? I find myself tossing it into many a dish. The pandemic has given lots a folks a renewed interest in cooking. and the internet puts a myriad of recipes--ethic and otherwise--at our fingertips.

I think I'll look there for something ethnic to do with that package of puff pastry in the freezer. 

 

Another Window

I see blogs as windows into other places, other lives. And a new window -- one that I've been hoping for -- has just opened. My very good friend Louise Langsner has begun a blog called The Garden Kitchen -- " a blog about food: growing, foraging, cooking, sharing, enjoying. It’s about adventures in the kitchen…alchemy, discovery, amazement."

Louise is one of the very best, most creative cooks I know.  We've been friends for over thirty years and I've enjoyed many an incredible meal at her house. She has a way of combining unexpected ingredients that is nothing short of genius.

Louise cooks for the students at Country Workshops and seems to be capable of conjuring up a meal for twenty without breaking a sweat.  She's also a dedicated gardener and her cooking is informed by the wonderful fruits and vegetables grown on the Langsner farm. Her first post, inspired by a recent trip to Italy, describes the cucina povera of Puglia and Southern Italy.  

If you like to cook or to read about good food, if you enjoy gardening, if you want to look through yet another window, hop over HERE and meet my extraordinary friend Louise!

Two Very Different Books

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain was one of a stack of books I received for my birthday and I devoured it at once. I'd read excerpts of it in The New Yorker and was eager to continue this wild, irreverent exploration of the culinary underbelly.

We rarely eat out -- and even more rarely do we eat at restaurants of the sort Bourdain is describing-- but I found myself fascinated by his account of the interplay between the various members of a restaurant's staff. The drama! The choreography! The planning! The testosterone! The bitchiness! 

I'm a pretty good cook -- resourceful, innovative, organized -- but I wouldn't last five minutes  in the world Bourdain describes. I sure enjoyed peeking into  it though.

And I will never order fish on Sunday or Monday.

~~~

About as far away from Bourdain's kitchens as one can get is These is my Words by Nancy E. Turner.

Based on Turner's family memoirs,  this story is told in the form of the diary of Sarah Prine, 1881- 1901. Traveling with her family on a wagon train into the Arizona Territories, Sarah encounters almost every kind of danger the frontier has to offer. Her indomitable spirit carries her through an unsettled childhood, an unhappy marriage, motherhood, widowhood and more. 

Sarah's voice is real and compelling -- and in spite of all the perils and hazards of her life, there's a wonderful humor in this book. I was reminded of Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies -- and that, is high praise.