Moving Phobia Pear and Stilton Phyllo Cups

When I moved into my apartment I vowed that the only way I’d ever leave was feet first. So far I’ve been true to my word; I’ve lived here for over ten years. Moving is so stressful and awful that I am in awe of people who love to pack and unpack just for the sake of shaking things up. Sure there are those whose lives shift and therefore their housing needs do too. But to those brave souls who just get itchy, I say, “better you than me.”
In my defense, the experience of my last move was so traumatizing that you can’t really blame me for not wanting to uproot my roots. It was a day in which I found myself playing UN peacekeeper between a team of Polish movers and my Peruvian contractor. The contractor was trying to help one of the movers navigate the placement of my new bookshelf unit (a purchase I have since grown to regret) when all of a sudden I heard the worst crack and saw a fault line crawling up the side of one of the shelves. My mouth dropped, my heart raced and my contractor, witnessing my approaching meltdown, started to shout at the mover who shouted back at the contractor—both using their native tongues which meant no one understood anything but the steam coming out of their ears. I was so scared I’d have a crime scene on my hands that I had to drag the mover’s enormous boss from his well-worn seat in the truck fourteen stories below in order to pry the two men apart. Luckily the contractor still had his can of paint and masked the crack. Although now, ten years later, it could definitely use a touch-up and I can’t stop staring at it.
For these past ten years my parents have lived just a seven-minute walk away (I timed it once when my cable went out right before The Sopranos). But this week they volunteered to pack and unpack for the sake of shaking things up and are moving across town. Sweetly, they are returning to the neighborhood they lived in when they were first married. The stories of my mother's early attempts at entertaining are pretty funny but one of my favorites is when she played first-time hostess to her cousin and cousin’s husband. The women were the same age but my mother’s cousin had married at twenty and was living on Long Island. Although my mom married just three years later, her snotty cousin comported herself like she was Sadie, Sadie Married Suburban Lady for those intervening years while casting my mother as pitiful Old Maid (she was anything but, as I learned as an adult). So Mom and (begrudgingly) Dad invited the boring couple over for drinks at their place (“in the city,” as the cousin would have said) before they were all to go to the theater. Mom put out cheese and crackers, Dad mixed drinks and as far as they knew the evening was fine. Until a few days later when my mother heard through the family grapevine that her cousin had reported to my mother's aunt, “She didn’t even serve us a hot hors d’hoeuvre!!” (To really understand how this was communicated you need to imagine someone with the elegant accent of a Fran Drescher and the sneer of a curled upper-lip.) Have you ever? What a witch.
Luckily my parents felt only relief knowing they’d never have to entertain these ingrates again. But that refrain earned a permanent spot in the family private-joke book. Anytime I’m invited anywhere for dinner my mother will say, “Sounds like a great night, but were you served a hot hors d’hoeuvre?” and we’ll crack up. The funny thing is that so many years later Mom actually makes a warm canapé now and again causing her to stock her freezer with various boxes of laminated doughs, the pre-move disposal of which caused her much anxiety. “When are you coming over—I have a freezer full of phyllo dough and you need to take it!!!” (Due to my close proximity I was the only potential recipient of this fragile collection.)
When I arrived at their place I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. My mother was running around like a lunatic as a squadron of men packed up my parents' life, boxes reached to the ceiling, light fixtures were dismantled, walls were bare. There is nothing like the carcass of a soon to be abandoned apartment to give me a stomach ache. (Somehow my father had had the good sense to carve out a little corner of peace where he was reading the Times amidst the mayhem.)
I raced home with my six boxes, the seven minutes being just enough time before they defrosted, where they are now taking up too much room in my freezer. I should add however that they were in the kind of condition completely typical of my mother’s general state of hysteria. They all looked like they’d been opened by a rabid, starving raccoon and several of the phyllo boxes contained only one of the two packs they came with, indicating Mom had purchased a new box without first consulting the freezer as to whether or not she owned any at the moment. And then there were the expiration dates. Anyone up for some freezer burn-infused spanakopita made with "best by September 2009" phyllo dough?
Luckily there was one perfectly intact box of mini phyllo shells which are the ideal carriers for one of my favorite nibbles. They are filled with the best combo—sweet and savory. Sharp Stilton cheese cuts through the warm, slightly caramel-y pears, the pastry cup adds the perfect, delicate crunch and the dried cranberry delivers a pop of much needed color and a little chew. All I need is an invitation to my parents’ new place and in a seven minute cab ride I’ll be serving my parents a hot hors d’oeuvre. And in the meantime, something about this change has me doing a little re-considering. Maybe packing and unpacking for the sake of shaking things up wouldn’t be so bad? Or maybe I should just paint my bookshelves.
Moving Phobia Pear and Stilton Phyllo Cups
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Ingredients
2 Tablespoons butter
3 ripe pears, peeled, cored and sliced
2 Tablespoons pear brandy or rum (optional)
4 ounces crumbled Stilton blue cheese
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

4 boxes 15 piece mini phyllo shells
¼ cup dried cranberries for garnish

Directions
Preheat oven to 350
In medium skillet melt the 2 tablespoons butter, add pears and brandy. Stir gently until golden brown.
Remove to bowl and cool slightly. Then roughly chop into ½” pieces.
Transfer pears to medium bowl and add Stilton and nuts.
Meanwhile, place phyllo shells on a baking sheet and bake 3-5 minutes till hot and crisp.
Let shells cool slightly then fill each shell with a heaping teaspoon of the pear mixture.Garnish with a few dried cranberries and serve.
Yield: 45 hot d’hoeuvres

Kitchen Dreams Strawberry Cheesecake No-Churn Ice Cream

Walking into a Williams Sonoma is a bit like sending me to Temptation Island: I can look but I can’t touch. Really what that means is that I can buy only for others, not for myself. You see, when your kitchen is space challenged, and your purse strings are tightly tied, you need to carefully choose your batterie de cuisine. You must ask yourself which kitchen appliances are necessities and which are luxuries. There is no room at the inn for the superfluous.
It was with more than a little big kitchen envy that I made my last trip to W-S to buy a wedding gift. If “thou shalt not covet thy friend’s All-Clad” was a commandment, my place in Hell would be secure. I should say that my initial feelings when I walked into the store were of the generous and happy sort. I was excited to sift through my friend’s registry, checking out what she still needed and what was “complete.” She is wonderful and so is her fiancé and she loves to cook. In fact, I’m hoping for a dinner invitation. But even after selecting a 13” skillet I found myself lingering wistfully in front of the All-Clad display. You see my baking pans may be mature, but my circa 1989 seven-piece Revere Ware cookware is decidedly first apartment.
My yearning didn’t stop with grown-up pots and pans. They were just the beginning.

My eyes set on the Breville Dual Disc Juice Extractor. Oh, if only I had this $400 magic liquefier I would become a completely different person! I’d ignore the fact that it’s too tall to fit under my counter, join a CSA and start juicing. I’d be one of those people who wakes up at 5AM, runs four miles and downs a glass of fresh squeezed kale, carrot and ginger to start my day. My skin would glow, I’d lose some of my skinny-fat and I’d never succumb to a pecan danish ring again. After sensing the overeager greeter just feet away I figured I’d better stop staring and moved it along.
An ice cream maker! Here we are in the middle of a heat wave and what would be a better present to me?! With summer’s fruits about to fill the Greenmarkets to bursting I’d become my own creamery. I love peach ice cream and it’s so hard to find but with the Cuisinart Supreme Ice Cream maker I’d find it right in my freezer! So what if I could buy 60 pints of Ben and Jerry’s for the price of the 32 pound machine, this ice cream would have my name on it! And then I got to the espresso machines. I’d never seen such sophistication! With just a press of a button on the Delonghi Gran Dama I’d be sipping a cappuccino, easing into the morning while allowing the caffeinated charge to take over and send me with a boom into the day. Think of how much I’d accomplish! I’d finally clean out my closet, file my pile of paperwork and maybe finish my book proposal. Being so productive seems worth the $2500 and two feet of counter space, no? My reverie was interrupted by Overeager Saleswoman’s “Can I show you something?” I demurred and made a right, right into booze-land.
After coveting the Cuisinart Electric Wine Cellar (room for 12 bottles! I could entertain!) I was feeling a little poor-me until I spotted the Margaritaville Frozen Concoction Maker and had a flashback to a hideous dinner party. (I didn’t just risk offending the hostess because she never bothered to retain my name.) I was not a guest. I was acting as sidekick and dessert maker for a chef-instructor friend at a McMansion in Westchester, one of several evenings in which I played this role for a time and not the only one where the lady of the house said, when asked about the workings of her Wolf range, “Oh, I have no idea! I’ve never turned it on!” and screamed for the housekeeper to come and guide us. At this particular dinner Princess Hostess wanted a Mexican theme and had purchased the margarita maker for the occasion. That appliance she’d learned how to use. The other guests (bankers and the women who love their wallets) got so drunk that by the time I began my demonstration of molten chocolate cakes they had disappeared into the media room and all I could hear was the jeering and cheering at some football game. The whole thing left a terrible taste in my mouth. Why couldn’t she use a blender like most people who want to make a frozen drink? Did she really need to use up counter space (and $350) for something she’d probably only remember to crank up on Cinco de Mayo? It seemed so excessive.
When the store manager handed me my gift, wrapped and ready, it was time to say good-bye to my bloated kitchen fantasies and appreciate the way I’ve figured out how to feed myself successfully without all these gizmos. My Braun coffee maker may be 15 years old but it turns out a tried and true cup of joe morning after morning from its perfect little nook next to the stove. And if I’m craving an espresso jolt, there’s a Starbucks on my corner. I hate kale, carrot and ginger juice and if I were the kind of person destined to rise at 5AM I think my inner clock would have figured out how to wake me by now. A wine cellar? The purchase of this mini fridge wouldn’t increase the square footage of my apartment and transform me into the hostess with the mostest. I’ll continue to keep my bottle in the mega fridge and make my way to the bottom one glass per night at a time. I had resigned myself to buying my Haagen Dazs at the Korean market across the street from the Starbucks when I saw this recipe for no-churn strawberry cheesecake ice cream in Leite’s Culinaria, a great culinary website. Somehow by using condensed milk and cream, and allowing extra time to freeze, you wind up with ice cream. This tangy, sweet, fruity and graham-y dessert really tastes like strawberry cheesecake and made use of two appliances I already own and consider necessities—my Kitchen Aid mixer and my blender. Who needs an ice cream maker?! As for the All-Clad, I’d gladly make room for those bright and shiny saucepans. Anyone looking to buy a 20 year old set of Revere Ware?

Kitchen Dreams Strawberry Cheesecake No-Churn Ice Cream
Adapted From Leite's Culinaria, May 5, 2011 via Spread a Little Joy, Kraft 2010

Ingredients
One 8-ounce package Philadelphia-brand cream cheese, softened
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, washed and hulled
3 graham crackers, crushed into small pieces

Directions
Beat the cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, cream, and lemon zest with a mixer on medium speed until creamy and thoroughly blended. It may look curdled at first, just keep mixing till smooth.

Scrape it into a resealable container and freeze until almost solid, about 4 hours.
Puree the berries in a blender until smooth.

Beat the frozen cream cheese mixture with the mixer until creamy. Using a spoon or spatula, add the strawberries to the cream cheese mixture along with the graham crumbs and stir to combine.

If you use the mixer for this you will wind up with a uniform, pink look--I prefer the marbled effect. Return the ice cream to the resealable container and freeze until firm, about 8 hours.

Remove the ice cream from the freezer about 15 minutes before serving and let stand at room temperature to soften slightly. Scoop and enjoy.
Yield 1 1/2 quarts.

Oprah's Long Goodbye Turkey Burgers

I’ve never understood why otherwise normal seeming people turn into raving lunatics when they are on television. Even as a kid, when I was home with the flu, I thought it was so weird that the “next contestant on The Price is Right looked to be suffering from a seizure when they were directed to “come on down!” The crying, the jumping up and down, the hyperventilating, they were spent before making they had a chance to guess the price of a “brand new” Amana Radarange. I’ve never been one for big cheers. I can’t imagine yelling, “You go girl!” and I’ve already established that I would never scream, “woo-hoo!!” So it would follow that I would find Oprah and her extraordinarily enthusiastic audience to be completely irritating. I’d like to think that if I had ever been in her studio I would have kept my calm even if she presented us with a Pontiac, a cart full of her “favorite things,” or even a trip to Australia. (Although, if I had indeed gone to Australia I certainly would have screamed and probably hyperventilated when Hugh Jackman arrived on her stage via a zip line.)
The countdown to Ms. Winfrey’s last show started in the fall and I can’t say I cared at all about Oprah, the Farewell Season. I blame her for all the hollering since as we know, everything starts at the top. Listening to her introduce a celebrity guest got so wearying, what with the treacly, hyperbole and the over-the-top welcome, “JulIA ROBBBBErrrts!!!!!” followed by the mental breakdowns of her surprisingly attractive audience. (Click here and here to enjoy videos that capture it all so perfectly.) So, I never watched the show in real time. I would DVR it once in a while if I happened to hear a guest I was interested in was appearing and then fast-forward through those first few minutes of mayhem. But I am a sucker for keeping up with the Zeitgeist so I set the recorder to tape the final five shows, aka The Longest Goodbye Ever.
The parade of sobbing celebrities was nauseating, as was her false modesty. I never trust anyone who has to remind people just how humbled they are. No one who is truly humble would even attempt to achieve the kind of success Oprah has. Why couldn’t she just accept the hosannas with a smile and move on? And speaking of moving on, she’s leaving her little syndicated show to focus (and appear) on her OWN television network. Talk about ambitious. So why are we even saying farewell?
What I’ve always found disturbing is just how much power this woman has: the Oprah Effect, Oprahfication, The Church of O. There is a fine line between fan and follower and unless someone has been elected into an office I think it can be a little dangerous for one individual to hold so much sway over the millions who hang on to her every word. Was giving Suzanne Somers and Jenny McCarthy’s questionable treatments for cancer and autism a platform (and implied credibility) a “good thing”? (To quote another queen of media.) I’m not so sure. We know how she felt betrayed by James Frey’s fictional non-fiction (their rapprochement took up two of her final episodes. Snooze.), how devastated she was by the abuse charges leveled at her girls’ school in South Africa, how horrible defending herself against the Texas cattlemen was. In other words, the woman could still make mistakes, or use her influence in a less than completely responsible way, and the loyalty of her audience was not shaken. Just read the viewer comments on Oprah.com if you are a doubter. Her people adore her in the fiercest of ways.
At the same time I think her power has been used for good in ways that have changed the culture forever. I hate the word, but she is a game-changer. She made her stage a safe place for victims of every sort of abuse (and it certainly helped that she could empathize in an honest way) and took away the stigma that had no business plaguing them in the first place. Her show gave dignity to those noble souls who were suffering from illness or tragedies almost too painful to witness. She brought attention to every population fighting discrimination and gave them a voice. And she got people to read and read well. So does the truly good outweigh the sanctimonious bad? Maybe so.
Oprah’s confidence allows her to make proclamations both big and small. We know how she likes her food and she made a celebrity out of her former chef Art Smith. Unfortunately, it was at Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago where she found what might be “the best turkey burger in the entire world.” But I won’t hold the Donald against these delicious alternatives to a beef burger. No, they aren’t dessert but they’re filled with the yin and yang of sweet and savory: apples and scallions, Major Grey’s chutney and smoky chipotle Tabasco and then topped with a super easy pear chutney. When my mother, whose grill played a key role in their creation, announced they were now one of her “favorite things” I thought, “What have I done? Is it the Oprahfication of our dinner table?” Until I realized the only sounds I heard were the calm, appreciative yums from the crowd. No screaming, no jumping and everyone was still breathing.
Oprah's Long Goodbye Turkey Burgers
Adapted from Oprah.com
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Ingredients
1/4 cup thinly sliced scallions
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
3 Granny Smith apples , peeled and diced
1/8 cup canola oil
2 1/2 pounds ground turkey
2 Tablespoons salt
1 Tablespoons ground black pepper
2 teaspoons Tabasco chipotle pepper sauce
Juice and Zest of one Lemon
1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped
1/4 cup Major Grey's Chutney
Pear Chutney for serving (see below)

Directions
Sauté the scallions, celery and apples in the canola oil until tender. Let cool.
Place the ground turkey in a large mixing bowl. Add sautéed items and the remaining ingredients. Shape into 10 or 11 five-ounce burgers. Refrigerate for 2 hours.
Season the turkey burgers with salt and pepper. Place on a preheated, lightly oiled grill. Grill each side for 7 minutes until meat is thoroughly cooked. Let sit for 5 minutes.
Yield: 10-11 burgers

Pear Chutney
Adapted from Oprah.com
Ingredients
1 Anjou pear , peeled and diced
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 1/2 cups Major Grey's Chutney
1/4 cup dried currants or raisins

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°.
Toss the diced pears with the cinnamon and salt. Bake on a parchment-lined cookie sheet for 10 minutes.
Cool and mix with the chutney and currants or raisins.
Yield: 2 cups chutney