Sassy Radish

It’s been quite a busy week and with all the time I’ve been putting in the kitchen, I’m going to keep this post short. No long stories to regale you with, just a quick reminder that Mother’s Day is upon us – and I, for one, wish that Andrew’s and my moms were close by this weekend so we could make them a lovely brunch in celebration of the most important job they’ve ever had – taking care of their kids.

But we’re here in Brooklyn and our moms are in Boston. So it’s kind of an IOU to both of them. Moms – we love you and miss you and just want to say thanks on the interwebs!

Continue reading orange poppyseed scones.

My first ever macaroon was an utter disappointment. Our first Passover in the United States brought to our table a lot of surprises. We could just walk into the supermarket and buy our matzo there. Imagine that! Just like people buy bread and eggs and milk – there it was, in a special isle (its own isle!) with a big bright sign that said “Passover Foods”. We were in shock, amazed that this kind of blatant display was in full view of everyone to see.

Back in St. Petersburg, my family would go to this one particular spot in the city where you could get matzo. We would then transport it back where it would reside in our kitchen, among all the regular food items. No one in Russia cleaned out their kitchen free of “chametz” for the holiday – it just wasn’t a practice back then. Plus, on your way back from the matzo pick-up, you kind of had to be discreet with it. Being Jewish in Russia wasn’t particularly hip and if you were too vocal about it, it was downright dangerous.

Continue reading coconut macaroons.

It doesn’t cease to amaze me that while I am never late for dinner, an appointment, or even a party (fashionably late, what?), I can’t for the life of me meet my own deadlines. There’s a lemon tart that I’ve got for you in the next few weeks that was made nearly a year ago, but because I had missed the citrus season was tucked away for the year, leaving me with pangs of guilt. It’s coming, I promise, sometime mid-January. And while I also promise to throw some less waist-challenging fare your way, I firmly believe in indulging, if only a little, around the calendar. I will also try not to be tardy on my own blog. That, perhaps, might be my only New Year’s resolution.

While offering cookies after Christmas is a little bit like responding to a party invite a day after the party took place and promising to make something for it, I’m going to stick my neck out and tell you about these cookies after all. They’re good, very good indeed, and if you are looking for something festive-looking to usher in the New Year, look no further. They’re as sophisticated as cookies get, dressed up in black and white, toothsome, laced with white pepper. They are an adult, black-tie version of the Oreo, an Oreo that at the same time, kind of wants to be a whoopie pie. It’s made for a decadent feast, but then again, who’s ever wanted to have a humble New Year’s party?

Continue reading salt & pepper cookies.

Come Wednesday, Andrew and I are heading back to Boston’s North Shore where we’ll be visiting our families. Our towns are the kind of historic New England towns where the houses are often brandishing signs of the year they were built, the glass in the windows is always thicker at the bottom suggesting a notable age, and the entryway doors are lower and shorter hearkening back to the time when people were simply of a more modest height. We are neighbors to Salem, with its rich and dark history of persecutions, Puritans and propriety. Halloween is a real hoot there, by the way. And nearby is a little town named Marblehead. It’s a coastal town, small, beautiful, quaint. It delivers brutal winds in the winter and a much-needed breeze in the summer off the Atlantic. Sometimes you can spot a lobster or two sunning themselves in the shallow water. Marblehead, like Salem, is also rich in history, and its early sailors are considered the forerunners of the American Navy. It is also a town rich in fishing and fishermen. This cookie here belongs to them.

It’s not often that a cookie hails from the same place as you. And when you find out that it does, you pay attention and take notice. Especially when this cookie comes with a history and a story. On the outside, the cookie looks humble. It is, as you can see, brown and outside of a few sparkly granules of sugar decorating its top – it is a cookie unadorned. And it kind of likes it that way. It’s a cookie that doesn’t boast, isn’t in your face, and just quietly goes about its business with resolve and persistence.

Continue reading ginger rum molasses cookies – joe froggers.

Alas, we have arrived to the season of the cookie, perhaps the most inspired of all seasons because, let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a good cookie? It’s cold outside (and if you’ve been living on the East Coast, ooooh-weee did it get cold, or did it get cold?), you’ve got a cup of tea by your side, and you can’t be expected to have your tea solo, now can you? No, your tea deserves a companion, a partner in crime (if eating cookies is indeed a crime), and nothing accompanies a hot tea better than a simple, humble butter cookie. Also, few things make a better homemade gift around this time of year. Certainly, from the looks of it the butter cookie might come across as too unambitious a player in the Christmas cookie assortment, but it is precisely because it’s so unassuming and straight-forward, that it is the most versatile. Add a bit of lemon zest to it, and I’m a goner.

I should probably confess first that the butter cookie, the sablé, is my favorite type of cookie in the world. Throw a macaron in my direction and I’ll gladly, and gratefully, eat it. But give me a butter cookie, a tender, melt-in-your-mouth rich morsel of the perfect marriage of butter, sugar, and eggs, and I will be yours forever. It’s that easy. And no, while Andrew didn’t woo me with sablés, he sure appreciates a good cookie when he sees one. And this cookie that I got for you today is that cookie. It is perfection embodied and it comes in such a delightfully small size, that you could have a couple and not feel like you’ve just made a mess of things. One bite and the cookie melts in your mouth.

Continue reading lemon butter cookies.

And the kitchen counter was covered in flour. As was the kitchen floor. And my face. And my hair. And shhhhhh, parts of my camera! Oh recipe development, you are a mess-maker! Not that I didn’t know that. But I think the chaos created in my kitchen was of an unprecedented level. And I can’t wait for more.

That’s a peach shortcake above that you see. I figured that because I like shortcake (and I’m not alone in this, am I) I shouldn’t be limited to just strawberry shortcake. We’ve got but a short window when strawberries are in season and after that, it’s just not the same, though with a little sugar and balsamic, there are miracles to be had. But, still, the season is woefully short, especially if you love strawberries as much as I do. Or shortcake for that matter. And last time I checked, there wasn’t a soul in the world who was going to (willingly) refuse shortcake: all that butter and whipped cream? Yes, please. Thus, I decided to extend the shortcake idea well into the summer months, when stone fruit, such as peaches, comes in full swing at my local farmer’s market.

By now you probably know that I have this unabashed love of rustic dessert. If you ask me to choose between a chocolate tart and a chocolate bread pudding, inevitably, the bread pudding will win almost every time. Crumbles, buckles, brown bettys, slumps, spoon cake, pudding cake, buttermilk everyday cake – hold my attention more than their fancier cousins. The dessert, I’d want to eat in my pajamas, on my couch on a quiet evening; kind that looks better messy than perfectly composed.

Shortcake biscuits benefit from fruit that has been allowed to steep in its juices, usually facilitated by the addition of sugar. On its own, the biscuit is dry and crumbly, but ladle some fruit with some sugary juices in the middle of a halved biscuit, and a few minutes later, the fruit begins to penetrate the crumbly surface. Peaches, especially right now, tend to run on the sweet side, so I add a tiny bit of lemon juice to up the tartness just a bit. Mixed with a few spoons of sugar and left alone, the peaches transform into a lovely uncooked compote of sorts.

I originally wrote up this recipe, upon Jennie’s invitation, for the Cuisinart blog as a guest post. I’m not sure when the post is going up, but I couldn’t wait to share it with all of you. I tested the biscuit recipe and came up with something that can either yield a more rustic and chewy biscuit, or a more traditional crumbly one, depending on what you want to do. So I’m offering you a whole wheat and an all purpose versions here. With this exercise alone, I have found new respect for coming up with new baking recipes – testing batches, adjusting your ingredients, is nothing to scoff at. Not that I ever did. But the process can be laborious, intense, at times frustrating – but in the end, if you are patient and persistent, immensely rewarding.

This upcoming Sunday, I’m embarking on testing chocolate cake recipe for cupcakes I’m making for a friend’s wedding in October. I’m going to enlist Andrew and a part-time photographer to capture the messes and the hands-on details. Operation “Wedding Cupcakes” is about to commence. I see flour everywhere. Brace yourselves.

Continue reading peach shortcake.

Lest you think of me as a cool and hip individual, I should probably set the record straight. For a certain length of time in my childhood, H. G. Wells’ novel “Time Machine” was my favorite book in the world. I was obsessed to the point of a tantrum, refusing to admit that time travel was a thing of the fantasy world. I wanted time travel to be real. But if you asked me why, I couldn’t really tell you. I wasn’t trying to change the past or alter the future. I was just fascinated with time travel. Now, of course, I’d be glad to have a time machine on hand, if only to go back in time and tell my fifth grade self that New Kids On the Block were totally going to make a comeback. It would have quieted my weary mind.

But, I am pretty sure, I’ve discovered a time portal and its name is cinnamon toast. Cinnamon toast (I swoon as I type these words) – is magical. Really. It’s as if I’ve come full circle with it. Back to my childhood years. And all it took was one bite.

I know that I’m losing all of you now that you’re going, what, cinnamon toast? You’re writing about cinnamon toast? But I beg of you to hold on a minute and let me explain. The inspiration, the time-travel, was possible because Molly wrote about the cinnamon toast her grandmother used to make and told her readers – this is not just some toast you put sugar and cinnamon on. This is a cookie. This is special. This – is not to be missed.

Molly also warned these would be heavenly, downright addictive. Jennie tweeted they are to be dubbed “cinnamon crack”. And I was intrigued. Anything that’s covered in cinnamon and sugar is a welcome addition to my life.

It’s funny how you read about a recipe and are instantly ignited to run to your kitchen and make it. Except you never stock any white bread and it’s eleven o’clock at night and while you’ve been known to make goulash at one o’clock in the morning, you’re not exactly running to your nearest bodega at such late an hour on a school night. So you’re forced to wait and wonder if, indeed, these are as good as the claims are, meanwhile you are reading tweets about how these little guys should be renamed as “cinnamon crack”.

And so I finally went out and bought some white bread, cut them into diagonal quarters. Melted my butter and brushed it onto the bread and dipped each side in cinnamon sugar. Which, by the way, let me tell you – it takes a strong person not to lick his fingers in between the dipping. That cinnamon sugar scent – oh my! Strangely though, even as I was going through the motions, I didn’t make the connection that this kind of cinnamon toast was a favorite snack of mine when I was growing up in Russia.

And yet, it was not until I bit into a cooled-off toast, with a cup of tea at my side, that these toasts, like tiny little time-machines, instantly transported me to the time when I was five and lived in snowy St. Petersburg, where my mother tried just about everything to get me to eat. A finicky eater, (who isn’t one at five years old?), few things excited me food-wise. But anything covered in cinnamon and sugar was definitely something I could get behind.

And so, my mother, in a stroke of brilliance or desperation, devised to make me these cinnamon toasts. White bread in Russia came as these big loaves that look very much like Italian bread here does. She cut the loaf thinly into slices and lightly dipped each of the pieces in milk on both sides, careful not to soak the bread, and then dredged the sides in cinnamon and sugar. She then baked these shimmering toasts until they were crispy and the house smelled like sweet cinnamon heaven. I could have licked the air, it was so good.

These were promised to me as dessert, provided, of course, that I ate my dinner. Which I did. In a heartbeat. And then, I was left to my own devices with a plateful of cinnamon toasts and cups of hot tea with milk. I think those were some of my happiest moment: alone in the kitchen with my cinnamon toast and tea. I can tell you that to this day I could be made infinitely happy by a cup of tea and a simple cookie. Such as this toast.

Now, were you to ask me, which do I prefer, the cinnamon toast of my childhood and the brainchild of my mother, or Molly’s buttery and rich cinnamon toast, I’ll tell you honestly – Molly’s. And I know that my mother, reading this, would agree. Because anything tastes better when it’s dipped in butter. It’s just that simple. But my mother’s toasts are pretty darn good too, especially if butter is the sort of thing you’re supposed to stay away from. I’m keeping both recipes within my reach because they connect my present and my past, bringing me full circle.

I might not have a real time machine on hand, but I have have this cinnamon toast. And that’s way, way better.

Continue reading cinnamon toasts.

When I was in sixth grade, I joined the Girl Scouts at the great urging of my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Sledge who, by the way, was a cool, cool lady. Apparently, it was the thing to do in our class, as all the girls joined and I succumbed to peer pressure. Mrs. Sledge happened to be our troop leader – she spent years in the Girl Scouts, ever since she had her daughters, who were now all grown up, married, and with kids of their own.

As a newly-minted Russian immigrant, trying to fit into a new school and make friends, I took her words as gospel and promptly joined, though the Scouts reminded me of the Young Pioneers Organization in the USSR. Since then, I was generally mistrustful of all groups where you had to pledge membership, and though I wanted to conform and be accepted, conformity, at its center, scared me. I tried to sell this idea to my even more skeptical father. Girls Scouts, I explained, were supposed to unite young women and boost confidence and morale. To which my father’s response was, as usual, “Read more books.” But while he wasn’t a buyer, he certainly didn’t stand in my way – he too wanted me to make friends.

At first Girl Scouts seemed to me a musical version of home-ec classes. We did nothing more than gather in the music room and sing songs and learn how to sew on buttons. Well, the other girls had to learn how to sew on button. This kind of stuff is passed to you by your Russian grandmother at a very young age. I could sew on a button at four and around eight, I tried to knit a sweater. Anyway, songs and sewing got old really fast for me, but I liked the camaraderie and wanted to befriend as many girls as I could, so I stuck around. Attrition wasn’t going to be looked upon kindly. Middle school was a tough place for a new kid with an accent, odd clothes and an affinity for beets and cabbage.

And just as I was getting really bored with the whole girl power get-togethers, we went on a camping trip. A real, sleep-in-the-tent-and-make-food-over-a-fire-camping-trip. We hiked, made gorp, slept in sleeping bags, and brushed out teeth with baking soda and water. And we made s’mores.

S’mores might not seem like anything special to you, dear readers, but that maybe it’s because you grew up with them. S’mores came to me at the age of twelve, like a bat mitzvah rite of passage, only instead of a anxiety-filled Torah portion, s’mores conjured up glee and delight [apologies to all who read their Torah portion with glee and delight.] Everything about a s’more was new to me: the marshmallow: burnt, and gooey; the chocolate: melted and oozy; and the graham cracker: crumbly and honey-sweet.

Graham crackers and I fell into an instant and torrid love affair. One bite sealed the deal. I couldn’t get enough. The slight kick of cinnamon, the hint of honey, the restrained sweetness – they all spoke to me. I made my parents buy a box with every grocery run. For years, graham crackers were my go-to snack.

It would seem natural that I would have tried to make them at home, but it had never occurred to me, until Karen DeMasco’s book made its way to me, that graham crackers could be made at home. Yes, hello world, meet the slowest learner in the history of learning. That’d be me. I could have googled it or something, but sometimes the most obvious things aren’t so obvious? Having made them now, I can tell you that I will never, ever buy a box of honey graham crackers again. It just doesn’t compare. At all. Out of a box, they’re fine, but made at home, they’re just about heavenly. The dough comes together in a pinch and after some chilling and meticulous cutting (I blame my grandmother for all my kitchen OCD tendencies) – you have the cutest, tastiest graham crackers you could imagine. Buttery, laced with honey and cinnamon, it’s a decadent cookie on its own. But paired with some dark chocolate (think Scharffenberger!) and some homemade marshmallows (easier that you think!), your homemade s’more will reach a new sophistication.

Now, all I need to do is plan a camping trip and bring these along. Maybe I wait a few weeks until it warms up?

Continue reading honey graham crackers.

Dear readers, I think I finally got it – I feel totally and wholly American, and it’s taken me twenty-one years (minus two weeks) of living in the U.S. to achieve that. The moment arrived over the Super Bowl weekend when I finally made these cookies. On this most American of weekends, I did the single most American culinary thing – I made these chocolate chip cookies. You would think that I’d have felt this way after getting my citizenship at eighteen, but I didn’t. You see, a piece of paper is different than a rite of passage. And making these cookies has been a multi-year right of passage.

To me, as I was trying to assimilate into all things American, the chocolate chip cookie was the Holy Grail of American baking. No, not just baking – America itself. It was the secret passage to everything I was trying to learn; encapsulating that elusive cool I was after. Baking them made me feel entirely and completely native, like I finally belonged, like I was born here; as if part of my natural childhood included bake-sales, Sesame Street and “Hop on Pop”.

I also felt that these cookies were a way to people’s hearts. To charm my high school boyfriend’s mother, I baked her chocolate chip cookies the first time I came by the house. I felt that cookies can warm anyone’s heart, can build many bridges, bring smiles and good memories to come. I can’t say if it was the plate of cookies that charmed her, or just me, but I’d like to believe that the cookies had a lot to do with it – we were an instant hit and grew very close through the year. In fact, I confess the relationship lasted a few years too many on the count me being unwilling to lose this woman from my life – she was and is that amazing. But all that aside, baking those cookies on that fateful day, was the first serious cooking step I took. It was the first time I was keenly and consciously aware of connecting with people through food.

A chocolate chip cookie is as ubiquitous in most American baking repertoire as it gets. Try and say you have a unique chocolate chip cookie recipe and you might see a few raised eyebrows. It’s a little like saying you’ve a radically different recipe for an apple pie. Everyone’s got a recipe and when all is said and done, let’s be honest here, there’s not that much variation from one recipe to another in most cases. But to find a chocolate chip cookie that is truly remarkable, the kind that makes you, upon taking a bite, do a double cake, the cookie that offers not just sweetness, butter and chocolate, but some complexity as well – now those cookies are rare and we remember the moments. In my experience, truly exceptional chocolate chip cookies offered the salty and the sweet, the butter and the malt, hints of toffee and caramel. One note morphed into the other, constantly evolving and changing on your tongue.

For twenty years, I was after making such a cookie. I baked numerous different recipes. I added nuts, I played with sugars, I made them chewy, or crunchy, or in-between. There were large cookies and small ones. There were mounds and there were flat ones. There were cookies with chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, chocolate disks, chocolate hand cut pieces. Some results were notable, and some were forgettable. But nothing, until now, has been transcendent. This cookie is different. And the proof was in the pudding, or the dough, to be more precise. The batch I brought to the Super Bowl party, vanished in minutes; ditto for the batch I brought in to work. My friends raved, my coworkers raved and even I raved, someone at work admitted that it might have been the best cookie they’ve ever had. I believed them – they were, pretty much, the best ones I’ve had too. Perfectly crispy on the outside, chewy as you got toward the center, no piece without chocolate, and a hint of salt to accent the chocolate – they were, in one word, sublime. Worth the wait, the extra effort and the purchase of a kitchen scale solely for the exercise. Assimilation has been accomplished, even if, from time to time, I do prefer stuffed cabbage to chili, borscht to tomato soup, and Russian gingerbread honey cakes (coming shortly!) to these cookies. What I learned through the twenty one years, is that I prefer to straddle both cultures with one foot firmly set in each, drawing from the best of both worlds, old and new to form my own voice and my own story.

Continue reading ultimate chocolate chip cookies.

There are two week until Thanksgiving. Two. Short. Weeks. And as tradition would have it, I’m hosting again. And though, it’s my favorite holiday, you know how much I’ve thought about the menu? As in, sat down, really thought about it, without getting distracted or bogged down by work? Um, let’s just say I’ve been way better prepared in the past years. As in months before my menu was finalized and set. And this time? Well, I’m still mulling it over. Two. Weeks. Before. Can you sense the slight panic in my voice? So tonight, I’m sitting down with a pad of paper, a stack of books and magazines and finalizing it all. I will be well-prepared this year. I just have to keep saying it to myself over and over until I’m fully organized for the holiday.

Every year, I bring back a few dishes that have gathered a loyal following: the porcini mushroom soup – my favorite soup as a child; and the pumpkin bread pudding souffle (please ignore ugly pictures, this is an amazing dish!), inspired by the incredible Charlie Phan of the Slanted Door in San Francisco. Part souffle, part bread pudding, it wins new fans every Thanksgiving at my table. And this time of year I’m a little pumpkin obsessed – I’ve even snuck them into cupcakes. And seeing pumpkins at farmers’ markets makes my heart sing – the beautiful spread of orange cheers me up on a cold, gray autumn morning. I can’t help but smile to myself when I see them – so bright and cheery! And when I take walks in my neighborhood, coffee in hand, my camera dangling at my side, looking at all the brownstones with their pumpkins and harvest wreaths – I think it’s moments like these that I fall in love with the Northeast, and New York, in particular, a little more every time, realizing that despite the cold winters, short daylight hours and more layers of clothing than sounds reasonable, this is my home. This chilly, rainy, short-on-parking-space city is my home. The thought of living elsewhere makes my heart ache.

This is the season where I tend to do a lot of walking in my neighborhood. Every Saturday, in fact, before I head over to the farmers’ market, I take a walk around the brownstones, sipping coffee, taking pictures, watching dogs chase pigeons. And after my walk and market visit, I come home, my bags overflowing with produce. Lately, there have been lots of squash, apples and pears in my bag. And pumpkin. I cannot resist pumpkin, try as I might. Just putting it as my dining table centerpiece cheers up my whole apartment.

Roasting pumpkins is incredibly easy and rewarding. And while, it’s easy enough to pop open a can of it at home (when you didn’t plan ahead, which often happens to me), if you have a little extra time on hand, and want to fill your home with the most comforting, delicious smell – you should give it a go. An hour at 400 Farhenheit or so (check online as I tend to just sort of eye my roasting time) and you have fantastic, soft, freshly-roasted pumpkin. I have to restrain myself from eating it right away armed with a spoon, a little butter and some fleur de sel.

But I’m not here to tell you about eating roasted pumpkins, delicious though they may be. I’m here about these swirly, pretty brownies here. More like a pumpkin chocolate coffee cake (since when do we complain chocolate?) they are tremendous. I mean, tremendous. Moderately sweet, moist, and chocolatey, they are really perfect to have on hand the morning after Thanksgiving. When the turkey somnolence has not worn off and you can barely even put a pot of coffee on, these will revive you back to normalcy. In fact, I have visions of myself, dirty dishes in the sink (because I am not washing them the same night, no way no how) coffee in one hand, this brownie in another sitting on my couch in pajamas while my father has an argument with himself about politics and my mother tries to get me to start cleaning. In fact, the prospect of eating these the morning after turkey day, takes all the anxiety away about not being adequately prepared. In fact, I’m even looking forward to it. And it makes two weeks seem like a very long time away, indeed.

Continue reading pumpkin swirl brownies.