Sorry, I Didn't Even Notice You Popovers

I was looking for a pair of tickets (“which will be sent to you in an unmarked envelope” the Telecharge guy had said) when I became overwhelmed by clutter. I went from stack to stack—magazines, bills, folders of writing projects, recipe clippings, books I’m meaning to read and on and on. And it hit me. Why do I have so much junk in here? Do I really need to keep the 2006 editions of New York Magazine’s “Cheap Eats” and “Best Doctors in New York?”
Are they even considered the best and the cheapest anymore? And what about all of the catalogues from which I will be ordering nothing? Oh, and the five books I’ve made it half way through before moving onto the next? Something had to give. And then I remembered something I heard a wise woman once say, “Never leave a room empty handed.”

Marilu Henner. I know. I can’t believe I just quoted her either. Elaine from ‘Taxi’ has been a healthy living guru for years and spreads the word on everything from the thrill of a dairy-free life to organizing your home.
But she’s right. If you remove something that is out of place every time you leave a room and put it in its rightful place (or get rid of it altogether) you will have a clean, clutter-free life in no time at all! So, I decided to take a fresh look at my apartment, as if I was walking in for the first time.

Bad idea. Where do you stop? After trying to tackle all the obvious surfaces and sorting things into put away, throw away, give away (I came up with that on my own!) I thought about all the unnecessary stuff lurking behind doors of cabinets and closets, drawers and shelves and I started to feel my chest tighten with anxiety. Would I ever really fulfill Marilu’s directive? Live an organized and calm life? And did I really care enough to dive under my bed to sort through the bags of tights I once wore everyday in my old office life and now never consider in my current jeans life? It’s like the way Martha Stewart has a recipe for ketchup. I mean come on, Heinz isn’t good enough? When does madness stop and acceptance begin?
One thing that did really surprise me was how accustomed to disarray I had become. I’m a very clean person and a pretty neat one too. But with a fresh eye I realized I’d gotten used to this tableau of semi-litter. Like that crumpled dryer sheet. I’d done my laundry three days ago and had been stepping over it ever since.
Wake up lady and pick up your stuff! I also found a sock I’d tossed on my closet floor when I’d discovered a hole in the toe and was running late so I pulled out another pair from my sock drawer and left holey just lying there. And let’s not even start on the leaning tower of New Yorkers that sat mocking me from their perch on the coffee table. Oh dear.

Aside from all the scraps of paper, stacks of periodicals and piles of I’ll-get-to-that-later-stuff I started noticing some lovely things I had stopped seeing and appreciating—works of art by my niece, a bowl I’d bought in Mexico and, on the red wall of my kitchen the framed pages of a Royal Baking Powder cookbook I picked up at flea market five years ago. They have been hanging there ever since and I have yet to bake a single one of the recipes. Until now.

I had never made popovers before and I couldn’t believe how easy they were. I only had a muffin tin but after this experience I may break the bank and cough up the $ for an official popover pan. These would be great cracked open and spread with a little jam, or as a vessel for scrambled eggs or chili or just plain—so easy, so good and right in front of me the whole time. And yes, I found my tickets.
Thank you Marilu!

Sorry, I Didn't Even Notice You Popovers
Adapted Royal Baking Powder Cookbook
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Ingredients
2 Tablespoons Canola oil, divided
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon butter, melted
1 cup milk

Directions
Preheat oven to 450

Pour 1/2 teaspoon canola oil in each cup of 12 cup muffin pan. (If you have a six cup popover pan, more power to you. Use that instead and place one teaspoon oil in each cup.)
Place in preheated oven for 5 minutes

Sift flour and salt in a large bowl

Make a well in the flour and pour butter, milk and eggs into well
Whisk until smooth
Pour into heated muffin or popover tin, filling the cups halfway
Bake for 20 minutes

Reduce oven to 350 degrees

Bake an additional 15 minutes until dark golden, puffy and risen

Cool slightly and serve immediately

You Can't Judge an Ugly But Good Cookie By Its Cover

The other day I was channel surfing and stumbled upon “Australia” playing on HBO. The movie, starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman and directed by Baz Luhrmann, was released last year with the accompanying holiday epic fan fare—Oprah flirting with Hugh (because she is human), and so impressed that Nic gave such a fabulous performance despite the heat of the Australian outback and
the fact that she was pregnant! What a brave trooper she was. Then the movie opened to eh reviews and went away.
I had meant to see it because Hugh Jackman is my husband—only we’ve never met and he is married to someone else. A minor technicality. Nicole Kidman, her immobile facial features to one side, is a talented actress (don’t give me a hard time on that…remember The Hours and her rubber Virginia Woolf nose? She was great.) Baz Luhrman is a really creative and innovative director (I loved Moulin
Rouge). How bad could a sweeping adventure filled (supposedly) with romance, and did I mention Hugh Jackman be?
Pretty bad. You just can’t judge a movie by its cover. Didn’t I learn this with the Godfather III years ago? One of the biggest duds of all time and for no good reason—I & II are among the best movies ever. We still had Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, Mario Puzo and sadly, Sofia Coppola. But can you really place an entire flop on one woman’s shoulders? Yes, but that’s not the point.
Now think about “Slumdog Millionaire.” To hear someone describe the movie (“an orphaned, abused, impoverished teenager becomes a contestant on ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,’ no one believes he knows the answers, they beat the crap out of him and we learn how terrible his life has been!”) would you ever have thought it was going to be as wonderful as it was?
The point is that what looks good often turns out to be bad and what looks unappealing often turns out to be good.

Take hummus. Not so good looking but very tasty.
Same goes for pulled pork. A pile of pork on a plate? Not pretty. But bite into a warm, crusty roll filled with juicy, spicy, sweet, salty and smoky pig? Delicious.
The reverse would be a wedding cake. They’re beautiful.
How many times have you, (ok, I mean me) waited till the bitter end of what
was already an endless evening of ceremony, cocktail hour and a half, four course dinner, dancing and toasts for the banquet coordinator to wheel over that gorgeous cake you’ve had your eye on all night, endure the wedding singer’s ‘the bride cuts the cake’ and anticipated the unmistakable thump as the waiter drops (it’s been a long night for him too) the piece of cake in front of you at your long- ago abandoned table? Then the rush of disappointment as your hopeful fork tries to make its way through that chewy coating of sickly sweet fondant still hoping it will hit the jackpot of vanilla buttercream, passion fruit puree and the delicate crumb of a light yellow cake only to wind up stabbing a dry, dusty flavorless white cake filled with an overly sweet chocolate-y mousse filling. And yet, I still have faith that one day the cake will be worth my wait.

One sweet that has the honest, good sense to know it isn’t pretty are “Brutti Ma Buoni” aka “Ugly but Good” cookies. These are Italian and I won’t go into the fact that there are many versions of these cookies from various parts of Italia because I am not Italian and am already anticipating being corrected by those who are. Just make them and know that they live up to their name in every way. The smell of the orange and nuts of these cocoa-y, not too sweet meringues baking in the oven is transcendent. I chose Mario Batali’s recipe because he’s a great chef and actually personifies the name of these biscotti, giving them even more cred.
Brutti Ma Buoni, Ugly But Good Cookies
Adapted from Mario Batali, 2001
Printer friendly version

Ingredients
4 egg whites, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons flour
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
Zest of 4 oranges
1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts
1/4 cup chopped almonds
1/4 cup pine nuts

Directions
Preheat oven to 325

Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper

Place white in bowl of electric mixer and whip to soft peak
Add sugar steadily and beat 2 minutes

Stop machine and add flour, vanilla, zest and cocoa powder
Mix for 1 minute and stop machine
Stir in nuts quickly and place 2 inch blogs on cookie sheets, 1 inch apart
Bake 30 minutes until crisp

Remove and allow to cool on pan for 10 minutes.

Remove cookies and cool completely on rack.

Yield @ 30 cookies

What Are You Doing Here Bacon? Maple Walnut Cookies

There is the thinking among some that bakers, as opposed to cooks, are the more rigid of the two. I’m not going to debate the point since I would not be able to disprove the thesis. Baking does not lend itself as easily to the improv that cooking inspires. There is a chemical chain of events that must occur for the proper results. I like it that, when you follow the rules, I mean recipe, the reward is something sweet and delicious. It is that mind-set that causes me to recoil, I mean take notice of things that are out of, or don’t know their place.

Recently, however I feel like the lines are more blurred than ever. For years I have passed a drugstore on the corner of Central Park West and 62nd Street. I’ve never been inside and never really considered it until the other day when I happened to round the corner and glance into the store. My stride halted suddenly when I noticed not one, but two out of place items hanging in the windows. Two very elaborate leather jackets hung from hangers each topped with a jaunty cap.
Okay. Let’s consider the scenarios that would inspire someone to purchase leather outerwear at a drug store. (Not to mention these specific tacky, I mean fancy, jackets.) I suppose someone could be visiting from, say, Florida, and staying with their offspring in the apartment building upstairs from the store. While they unpack they realize, “Oh no! I’ve left my leather jacket at home! Is there a nearby store where I can replace it RIGHT NOW??!!” And all they have to do is go downstairs. Or maybe they’re picking up some shampoo and a pack of dental floss when something soft and buttery catches their eye, there is a nip in the air and lo and behold, they’ve bought a new jacket. Yeah, I’m not convinced.
Last week I saw a pre-Thanksgiving commercial for Shop-Rite Supermarket advertising sales on seasonal holiday food items…as well as a great deal on an Acer computer.
Okay, again. What in the world would cause someone to think that while they are picking up a can of cranberry sauce and a Butterball turkey it would also be a great idea to grab a new laptop. Don’t bother doing any research, going to the new Apple store or even to PC Richard. Just throw it in your shopping cart and hop on the 12 items or less line. It makes no sense! Food and technology don’t belong in the same store.

Which brings me to bacon.
As they (whoever ‘they’ are) say, “Everything is better with bacon.” Which I agree with when it comes to pancakes and eggs, a cobb salad, meatloaf or bacon wrapped scallops. What I haven’t been able to accept is the use of bacon in my baking life. Vosges Chocolate makes Mo’s Bacon Bar in both milk and dark chocolate,
pastry chef & author David Lebovitz created Candied Bacon Ice Cream and Gramercy Tavern is serving a Milk Chocolate Bacon Tart. What is going on here?

So, thinking it isn't fair to 'knock it till I try it,' I figured I’d better tackle this fusion of savory and sweet before I jump on my oven waving a wooden spoon and ranting.

There are variations of this recipe all over the internet, with accompanying raves. Basically it's a Toll House cookie, swapping the chocolate chips for the bacon and the vanilla for the maple syrup. While approaching the idea I thought it might be nice to candy the bacon a bit just to try and balance the smokiness. Then I thought, while staring at the pile of bacon and feeling a little sick, what else goes with maple? Walnuts!
Yes, I broke my own no-nut rule just to give the cookie another dimension in case the bacon was too pronounced. I also poured a little maple syrup in the pan while I toasted the nuts trying to capitalize on the maple-walnut theme. Do you have to do either of these extra steps? No. Could you just throw in the nuts as is and cook the bacon in the microwave, sans sugar? Sure. It’s up to you. If you dare to make these at all.

The reviews were most definitely mixed. If by mixed I really mean pretty bad: "Foul" (Dad) "I love you but these are terrible" (Mom) "What is that weird taste?" (Friend 1), "I pretended there wasn't any bacon and ate three" (Friend 2), "I might like them more if I hadn't just eaten chorizo" (Friend 3). What did I think? You know when something is both disgusting but also kind of good and you can't decide? They are sweet, salty, smoky, buttery, chewy and surprise, bacon-y. And I ate several. But then I thought, "Why am I doing this?" I'd rather have a BLT and a chocolate chip cookie for my lunch. So, if you want a leather jacket go to the Wilson's House of Suede and Leather, buy your computer at Best Buy and keep bacon off my dessert menu. Some things are not better with bacon. In fact, these cookies would be delicious without it.

What Are You Doing Here Bacon? Maple Walnut Cookies
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Ingredients

½ cup butter, softened to room temperature
6 Tablespoons granulated sugar
6 Tablespoons packed light or dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 Tablespoon maple syrup
1 cup + 2 Tablespoons all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
Pinch salt
½ lb bacon, caramelized and de-fatted (see below) OPTIONAL
1 cup chopped maple candied walnuts (see below)

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 375, line two cookie sheets with parchment paper

In small bowl or bag combine flour, baking soda and salt

Cream butter and sugars in electric mixer with paddle attachment until light and fluffy

Add egg and maple syrup to butter and sugar and beat on medium to combine
Slowly add flour mixture and mix to combine on low

Stir in bacon (or not) and walnuts
Chill for 10 minutes.

Drop by 2 teaspoons or mini 2 teaspoon ice cream scoop leaving at least 2 inches between cookies
Bake 8-11 minutes till golden

Cool in pan for 5 minutes then on rack till completely cool

Yield: @45 cookies
Caramelized Bacon

Ingredients

1/2 lb bacon, not thick cut
¾ cup light brown sugar

Directions

Heat oven to 350

Place sugar in shallow dish

Add strips of bacon and turn to coat each side completely
Lay bacon on rack set over foil wrapped baking sheet with rim or large broiler pan
Bake bacon until dark golden brown, turning once, about 10 minutes per side
Transfer bacon to rack to cool (Do not place on paper towels-bacon will stick because of sugar)

When cool, pull obvious fat away from meat

Chop bacon into small pieces

Candied Walnuts

Ingredients

1 cup walnuts, chopped
2 Tablespoons maple syrup

Directions

Heat medium skillet over medium-high heat

Add nuts and shake until they smell toasty and nutty

Carefully add maple syrup, it will sizzle

Stir nuts to coat with syrup and continue to stir until dried and medium dark brown, don’t burn.
Pour into medium bowl and cool