School Days Almond Butter and Apricot Jam Bars

Thank goodness I don’t own a firearm. When you live in the asphalt jungle, it’s not hard to feel pushed to the edge by the crowds, the noise and the general lack of consideration on the part of your fellow inhabitants. The concept of going postal doesn’t seem so far-fetched to me. But even without a gun I find ways of expressing my hostility that won’t sentence me to a life in a bright orange jumpsuit, a color I have a very hard time pulling off.
Take last night. My friend Marsha and I went to the Moth, an evening of storytelling that is always fun and funny. The theme was “food” and the line-up included among others, Adam Gopnik and Gail Simmons. They were both fantastic and told riotous and heartfelt stories involving their spouses and their own eating obsessions. During intermission the crowds were insane in the too small refreshment/bathroom area and this aggressive little woman and her meek husband were planted near the door to the auditorium. In my attempt to get back to my seat I said, “Excuse me” three times. When she simply didn’t move I kind of checked her with my shoulder bag and barreled through. Okay, I didn’t “kind of” anything. I pushed her using my bag and didn’t look back, even though I saw that she’d whipped her head around to see who shoved her. And I didn’t care.
I also realized that I’ve been using the bag-shove move since I’ve been carrying a bag. When I was eight I started a new school, the polar opposite of the kumbaya school where we went to the movies and sang “If I Had a Hammer” instead of learning how to add or write. (See my post from two weeks ago). I traded in my fringed suede vest and bell bottoms for my new school’s uniform, a blue and white striped jumper worn with a blue blazer and either a blue or white shirt. In fully embracing this new color scheme I chose to carry a blue and white color-blocked patent leather (except it was vinyl) soft brief case with a brass (except it wasn’t real brass) latch. What? You didn’t want to look like a mod junior executive in the third grade? Really, I was just excited for everything to match and remember grabbing it off the shelf excitedly when my mom took me book-bag shopping at Kress on 39th & Fifth.
I hadn’t owned the bag for more than a week when I discovered its potential as a weapon. I was coming home with my mother from dance class on a packed cross town bus during rush hour. The bus stopped at Central Park West where about 1/3 of the passengers were trying to get off. There was a woman standing blocking the back exit door who looked like the fancy old ladies on cartoons, all puffed out chest, gray hair in a French twist and a snooty up-turned nose. She wouldn’t move out of the way and I couldn’t get to the exit. My mother had been holding the pole on the opposite side of the door from me so we got separated and she had been swept through the exit onto the street while I was still trying to make my way off. Fear of winding up alone on a bus, and anger at the lady about to cause my abandonment nightmare to come true, lit a fire in my belly and I took my mod brief case and whacked the woman on the shins while pushing my way past her, through the door and safely next to my mother on 86th Street. I must have known that what I’d done wasn’t so nice because I remember looking discreetly over my shoulder and seeing the snotty lady leaning over to rub her leg. I believe I caused her pantyhose to run with my brass-like latch and I am still not sorry.

Unfortunately my love affair with my mod color blocked bag was short lived. As with all grade-school obsessions they are fleeting and, for parents, hard to keep up with. I decided I had to have a canvas back pack, for which I was told I’d have to wait until the next school year since the bag I had was “perfectly fine.” This was not good news for me because, being the “new girl” in the class, I was under a fair amount of scrutiny and was very concerned about being labeled “prissy” (aka “nerd/geek/loser” for those of you not around in 1973). As far as I was concerned, I had already suffered enough. I was nauseated with anxiety every day for the first two weeks of school and had a cafeteria door slam on my pinky finger on day one. (Thank the good lord no one witnessed that and I held back my tears of pain.) The cafeteria had been a huge adjustment since at my old school we brought food from home. How I yearned for the tuna or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches my mom used to pack in my Partridge Family lunch box. The new school had creepy things like Chicken a la King and Salisbury steak and I was so hungry.
My niece has just started 1st grade and I have been projecting all of my school cafeteria issues onto her tiny frame and she’s not even a “new girl.” I grilled her about how the lunch room worked. Does she hold her own tray? What does she eat? Drink? Who does she sit with? She answered all my questions as only a seasoned lunch room pro can, with a sigh and a roll of the eyes. “I carry my own tray. It’s green. The sandwiches are already made but you can tell what they are because the wrapping is see-through. I have peanut butter and jelly. Then I have a piece of challah bread which I smush with butter and then I have cranberries. Sometimes I have milk, sometimes apple juice. And I sit with Rosie.” She immediately put me at ease. Although I can’t imagine what that challah bread looks like since her knife skills are pretty sad, if age appropriate.

I’ve wanted to make the Barefoot Contessa’s peanut butter and jelly bars as a nod to everyone’s memories of Back-to-School since I first saw her make them on TV. But I’ve been finding myself more into almond than peanut butter these days so I did a little tinkering with her recipe and made it a bit more appealing to grownups while still keeping the childhood feelings alive. The crust is both buttery and kind of sandy in texture. Apricot and almond is a great combo but if you prefer a different jam, go for it. Using honey roasted almonds to sprinkle on top give a great sweet and salty crunch. These bars are thick so you’ll either want to cut them really small or use an even bigger pan so they are a bit thinner. There is plenty of dough to play with. In fact, after covering the top sufficiently I had some left over. Regardless, they are delicious and with a glass of milk you will feel like someone who loves you very much packed you a special treat in your lunch box. As for my mod brief case, a simple plea to my grandmother resulted in the canvas back pack I had coveted. Did you know if you fill your knapsack with enough books a simple twist of the shoulder can inflict a fair amount of pain to anyone who is standing in your way? Just saying.
School Days Almond Butter and Apricot Jam Bars
Adapted from Barefoot Contessa at Home, Ina Garten 2006
Ingredients
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups (18 ounces) creamy salted almond butter
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 cups (18 ounces) apricot jam
2/3 cups honey roasted almonds, coarsely chopped

Directions Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch cake pan. Line it with parchment paper, then grease and flour the pan.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until light yellow, about 2 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the vanilla, eggs, and almond butter and mix until all ingredients are combined.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture. Mix just until combined.
Spread 2/3 of the dough into the prepared cake pan and using your hands and the aid of piece of wax or parchment paper, press and spread over the bottom evenly.

Spread the jam evenly over the dough with an offset spatula or knife.

Drop small globs of the remaining dough evenly over the jam. Don't worry if all the jam isn't covered; it will spread in the oven. Sprinkle with chopped nuts and bake for 45 minutes, until golden brown.

Cool and cut into squares.

What Happened to Summer Fruit Cobbler

I feel like I’ve been stood up by summer and I’m not sure what I did to offend him. He’s my favorite season, I greet him with open arms every year and yet these last few months have been...meh. This week’s weather is such a rude awakening for those of us who refuse to let Labor Day signal THE END OF SUMMER. I was planning on squeezing every drop of warmth out of September but so far it’s been cold, rainy and grey. Fittingly, I just lost my sunglasses.
What happened? Memorial Day started off with a bang—beautiful weekend, good friends and food. But then things never really got off the ground. Maybe I didn’t honor the season properly and so Mother Nature is punishing me. I didn’t run outside enough. I only had a handful of al fresco meals, I didn’t walk the High Line at sunset or go to a concert in the park. And the worst offense? I never made it to the beach. What a slap in summer’s face! For that reason alone I feel responsible for Irene.
I’ve always billed myself as someone who hates change but I am rethinking that statement and changing it to “I hate transition.” That’s the really painful part for me, the feelings of letting go of something you aren’t ready to let go of, the anticipation of the unknown and the journey to that unknown. Yuck. But once I get to the other side I am fine. Does that make sense?

Like when I went away to college. The weeks leading up to my departure were totally fraught. I had to find the courage to admit to my parents that I’d mishandled my summer job earnings and would need to borrow money for my mauve Marimekko comforter and electric Olympia typewriter. There were dramatic farewell dinners with friends I would see again in a month. There was the packing up of my grandmother’s apartment for her permanent move to Florida. I was such an anxious wreck the night before my own departure my mother gave me two Valium. The second because I threw up the first.
But the point is that once I got to school I was completely at ease in two days. My response to transition is historically always the same, yet I forget it every time I am confronted with change. There was one summer that ended with me in the back seat of the station wagon for the drive back to the city, the cage of gerbils I’d been assigned to watch before the start of 2nd grade balanced on my lap and my feet resting on the portable TV wedged behind the driver’s seat. When my father came to my side of the car to shut the door he saw the most forlorn look on my face. To this day he brings it up whenever we talk about Labor Day. So my end of summer blues is nothing new and you’d think that I’d be able to comfort myself by saying, “Here you go again. Stay the course. You’ll be fine when you get to the other side.” But I don’t. Or I can’t.

And still I am not willing to give up on summer completely. I’m not starting school so I don’t have to draw such a thick line on the calendar after Labor Day. It won’t be grey and gloomy forever, there will be sunny morning runs left to take, meals to enjoy outside, sunsets to marvel over. Right? Wrong. It won’t be the same. The light is different in September from what it is in June, the leaves are more of a green-brown than a green-green and the evenings take on an eerie chill.
In June I was bemoaning not having a strawberry-rhubarb pie for my birthday dinner but eased my pain with the knowledge that at some point I would go to Briermere farms to pick one up. Actually, my sister and I ended up grabbing three pies and I saved the strawberry-rhubarb one for last. When I finally went to cut myself a slice last weekend it was too late. The top was covered entirely with a snowfall of white mold spores. How appropriate. And it was entirely my fault. I didn’t freeze the pie but just left it in the fridge, saving it for that moment when I was really craving it. And now it is too late. I could try to recreate it using frozen fruit but it wouldn’t be the same and I need to learn this lesson once and for all. You can’t put things off! I should have been seizing summer moments all along.
So I am giving up. Or rather, admitting to myself that I missed some opportunities these last few weeks. I am sure I am not alone in my feelings and felt somewhat validated last week when the Times food section did a piece on final bites of summer. I love a good cobbler and Sam Sifton’s blackberry version looked delicious and rustic baked in a cast iron pan—I could pretend I’d been to a cabin in the Adirondacks! I decided a trip to the farm stand was in order for the last of the gorgeous peaches and berries and it was worth it. Topped with a biscuit crust the cobbler is bright and very juicy, better to eat in a bowl with vanilla ice cream than on the plate I went with. If you are not a lemon fan, just use two teaspoons. It is the perfect comfort food to help ease the transition from summer to fall. I know I’ll be fine once I get there.
What Happened to Summer Fruit Cobbler
from the New York Times, August 31, 2011
Ingredients
5 cups of blackberries (OR I used a combo of blackberries, blueberries and sliced peaches)
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
Pinch salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
1 egg
1/2 cup milk

Directions
Heat oven to 425 degrees. Butter a 9-inch cast-iron skillet or 8-by-8-inch baking dish. Place the fruit in a large bowl, and add 1/2 cup sugar and the lemon juice and zest. Gently mix until the sugar dissolves. Transfer to the skillet.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and 1 tablespoon sugar. Add the butter and, using a fork, work it together with the dry ingredients until the mixture is coarse.

In a separate bowl, stir the egg and milk until combined. Pour over the flour and butter mixture and stir to combine into a smooth dough.
Using your fingers, place clumps the size of golf balls of dough on top of the fruit mixture, pressing down slightly to create a rough-textured, cobbled crust.
Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar and bake until the top is golden brown, about 30 to 45 minutes. Allow to cool slightly before serving.
Yield: 8 servings.

Try Not to Kill Anyone Banana Muffins

The weekend before last I nearly killed Niece Two. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but at the time I didn’t know that I’d be joking about it a week later. It started innocently enough. She was chatting away, as most shockingly verbal three and a half year olds are wont to do, and exclaimed, apropos of nothing—non-sequiturs being another trait of the shockingly verbal three and a half year old—how exciting it was to watch my brother-in-law use a nutcracker on a walnut. “It has a ginormous shell and then he cracks it and inside is a really, really big nut!”
When I was a kid my grandparents always had a large, shallow bowl on their coffee table filled with dusty walnuts and almonds still in their shells. A metal cracker rested on top of the nuts for when my grandfather was in a nutty mood. He’d make a big show out of cracking the walnuts, and thinking they’d be as yummy as peanuts, I always accepted his shelled offering. Somehow I had nut amnesia and would forget how unlike a yummy peanut the walnut was, pop one in my mouth and regret it as soon as the roof of my mouth invariably began to itch.

With this memory in mind I asked Niece Two, “Do you eat the nuts Daddy cracks?”

“Yes! I love them!” I was skeptical.

“Really? You’re sure you eat walnuts?”

“Yes! I’m super positive.” Big mistake. Never believe a three and a half year old.

Earlier in the day my father had been commanding everyone who walked through the kitchen to eat one of the bananas that were rapidly passing their prime. I refused to comply because one, I am a woman of a certain age and don’t eat something because my father tells me to, and two, I am really not a banana fan. I like my fresh fruit to quench my thirst, not induce it. But I do like the flavor of banana and thought I would donate the two I was told to eat to a baking project with the nieces.
Involving them in the decision process is always a negotiation. Niece One thought muffins would be a good idea and Niece Two lobbied for cupcakes, despite the fact that she has rejected every little cake I have ever made for her. Knowing Niece One is an older sister in the model of her aunt (me), I just sat back and watched as she skillfully convinced her little sister that really, muffins and cupcakes are the same thing. (For all of you who don’t realize that a blueberry muffin is basically a vanilla cupcake with a handful of berries thrown in, she is right.) Niece Two was swayed and we moved on to assembling our supplies, including the half cup of walnuts I’d found in my mother’s freezer.The great thing about the recipe I found was that the ingredients and the labor were easily divisible by two. Each girl got a banana to smush, an egg to crack, two big splashes of wet ingredients, two cups of flour to pour, etc. All was going swimmingly and their lessons in sharing were put into practice beautifully. The last step involved each niece grabbing a handful of the walnuts I had pre-chopped and tossing it into the big bowl of batter. I handled making sure everything was mixed completely and then ran inside to get an ice cream scoop to portion out each muffin.
We were almost done filling the pans when I noticed a rash on Niece Two’s right hand. Now normally this wouldn’t be a big deal. She is actually a pretty rash-prone girl and my sister is constantly rubbing her with various doctor recommended creams after her bath. But this wasn’t an ordinary gathering of a few red splotches. This thing was on the move. I literally watched as red welts crept up her arm, across her shoulder, up her neck and around her tiny face, resting for good on her forehead.
“OH MY GOD!” I screamed, forgetting the first rule of taking care of children—never get hysterical if they aren’t.

“What? What?” she said, her eyes searching mine for reassurance I was unable to give.

That’s when my sister swooped in, calmly but quickly scooped up her daughter and headed for the medicine cabinet.

At that moment Niece One, always the expert, shook her head and delivered her verdict, “It was the walnuts.”
“But she only touched a few!” I said defensively, feeling so guilty and wondering what my sister was doing in the bathroom.

“Yeah, she ate some batter too. I saw her.” They must have been licking their fingers when I went inside to get the scoop. Another lesson learned. Never leave children unattended with a bowl of sweet, uncooked anything.
My sister returned with poor, little Splotch-o who had just been dosed up with Benadryl and seemed entirely cheerful. And then the most amazing thing happened. As quickly as the tide of rash had overcome her, it receded. It really just disappeared as if it had never been there. To say I was relieved is almost making a mockery of just how anxious I had been. I was elated and realized I exhaled for the first time in a half hour. And then another amazing thing happened: the major side effect of the Benadryl hit Niece Two almost as hard as the rash. One minute she was laughing and eating her grilled cheese. The next her head hung from her neck and her eyes practically rolled to the back of her head like a junkie. The girl who stopped napping a year ago slept for two hours.
When all was said and done I didn’t even want to look at these muffins. But I did and Niece One and I ate them. And as hard as they were to enjoy without the newly allergic co-chef, they were delicious, moist without being gummy (a pitfall of many a banana quick bread), sweet without being cloying and just banana-y enough. When the weekend was over I packed them up in Ziploc bags, excited to know that they’d be waiting for me on my next visit. Except they won’t be. A few days later Irene caused a power outage that my parents lived with until the Wednesday after the storm. I’m very sorry for that. And I’m also very sorry for the overwhelming loss of a freezer full of my baked goods. Along with the banana muffins we’ll have to toss half a pound cake, a batch of coffee blond brownies, and a bag full of pre-scooped cookie dough. Now I need to focus on rebuilding our sweet supply. This time with no walnuts.
Try Not to Kill Anyone Banana Muffins
from Diana Rattray, About.com
Printer Friendly Version
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 large bananas, ripe, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional!!)

Directions
Line 18 muffin cups with paper liners.

Cream butter and sugar with an electric hand-held mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add bananas and vanilla and beat until smooth.
Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture, alternating with the sour milk or buttermilk. Stir just until dry ingredients are moistened; gently stir in the optional chopped nuts.
Spoon banana muffin batter into liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake at 400° for about 15 to 18 minutes, or until tops are lightly browned. Cool banana muffins in pan on rack for a few minutes; turn banana muffins out onto rack to cool longer. Serve banana muffins warm.
Makes 18 muffins.