The Reason

Elisha: Once in an interview at a Pearl District restaurant, I was asked why I got into cooking. I had an answer immediately, although I was cut off by a server’s question to my interviewer. I replied, “ I got into cooking because I grew up eating such terrible food.” I was given a look that clearly revealed that I wouldn’t be his choice for the next line-cook.

Until the age of seven, I remember having delicious food at my grandma’s house in Tennessee. It was typical Southern fare: pork chops, pot roast, mashed potatoes, chicken, and always biscuits or rolls. I also remember eating good food when at home with my mom. My mom occasionally took me out for fast food—which I loved—such as Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits. She tells me that we stopped at a doughnut shop, to her regret, every once in a while on my way to school. Of course, I didn’t regret that one bit.

At the age of seven I moved with my dad, where I stayed until I was seventeen. There I was introduced to strange, bland foods that I was at first reluctant to try. “You never know until you try it,” I was told for my first year of living there. It wasn’t good. First of all, there was never red meat at the table, and rarely any white meat. Also lacking were salt and flavor. We ate lots of vegetables, brown rice, tofu, tempeh, Soysage, and textured vegetable protein. Apparently, according to my dad and stepmother, healthy food had to taste bland. The only seasoning that was ever used was either Tamari or nutritional yeast. I remember one occasion, when my stepmother made mustard soup; I’ll never forget the taste of that most vile bowl of bile-colored yellow soup made with mustard greens and yellow or Dijon mustard. From the color, I think it was yellow mustard. It smelled and tasted like eating warm mustard mixed with water. I took a few slurps, and with no holding back, puked those spoonfuls right back into the bowl. Traumatizing.

Another bad soup experience I had was the vegetable soup that got me in BIG trouble. It was basically potatoes and vegetables in water with a bay leaf thrown in for “flavor.” And it tasted like vegetables in water. My stepmother asked me if the soup was bad, mediocre, or good. With out much of a pause, I replied, “mediocre.” Wrong answer. My stepmother began to bawl at my harsh critique. At least I didn’t say it was bad. Regardless, my dad scolded me for stating the obvious.

Speaking of puking, I remember a few occasions when, while I was eating, I was given herbal extracts to “fortify” my diet. Herbal extracts are mostly grain alcohol, and not good for washing down health brand Cheerio-type cereal. The healthy O’s escaped from my stomach, to land on the floor.

One good thing that I learned from eating at my dad’s house, however, was that homegrown vegetables taste the best. I’ll never forget the taste of those tomatoes kissed by the hot Tennessee sun—oh, and topping those tomatoes with cottage cheese, too. Too bad those only lasted a couple months out of the year. Those summer months were also spent with my mother so I rarely got to sample those delicious homegrown tomatoes.

But I did look forward to spending my summers with my mom. She lived in places like Atlanta, L.A., and New York, and she gave me my first experiences in cultural cuisine such as Thai and sushi at a young age. When I was visiting my mom, I was in heaven. I would finally get my break from eating bland vegetables and tofu; with my mom, I ate flavorful vegetables and tofu along—with long-missed foods such as pizza and hamburgers.

Maybe obtaining the knowledge of what bad food is, and how to detect it has pushed me forward in my culinary conquests to find and make great food. Bland, over-cooked, and/or under-cooked food IS bad food. I am aware of what foods are good for the body, but there is also a place for food that makes you mentally happy. I would rather eat a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos, than a plate of limp, lifeless, un-seasoned asparagus. Period.

Summer Vegetable and Chèvre Pissaladiere

Schatzi: Normally, I’m not a fan of zucchini. I’ll eat it deep-fried (what won’t I eat deep-fried?), or in sauces or stews where the taste and texture are obscured by others, but zucchini have always seemed to me to be a lesser sort of vegetable, like a cucumber gone terribly awry. It’s unfortunate for me then, that zucchini is such a quintessentially summer vegetable. I do love both onions and cheese, however, so when my elder sister finally returned my August 2006 copy of Bon Appetit, and I came across their Cheesy Zucchini and Red Onion Flatbread recipe, it seemed like a perfect appetizer for my upcoming housewarming game night—and it was. This tart/flatbread/pissaladiere is going to make regular appearances in my kitchen this summer, because it was seriously nom-able.

Summer Vegetable and Chevre Pissaladiere

I made a few changes (improvements!) to their recipe both out of necessity and based on my personal preferences. Alouette sucks, and though it was suggested, I just picked up some chèvre and stretched it with a little cream cheese. If you’re going to use a cheese spread, I recommend the eminently superior Boursin. If there had been any at WinCo, that’s what I would have bought. Also, tubes of refrigerated pizza dough (such as Pillsbury), like that suggested by Bon Appetit, in a word, suck. They always have a nasty biscuit taste to them, so I just got some real pizza dough. Trader Joe’s and WinCo both have decent ones, or it’s very simple to make one’s own. And if like me, you’re out of parchment paper, brown paper bags make a great substitute (just try not to use the inked parts). If you get plain chèvre, just season the cheeses with fresh or dried herbs to taste; I used fines herbes with a little rosemary (because I like it).

nonstick olive or vegetable oil spray
1 package refrigerated pizza dough
1 4- or 6-oz package herbed chèvre
2 oz cream cheese
3/4 cp finely shredded Parmesan cheese, divided
3 T chopped fresh Italian parsley, divided
1 small red onion, halved and sliced into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
1 7- to 8-inch-long zucchini, sliced into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
fresh ground black pepper
salt
olive oil
cornmeal

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with nonstick spray, then sprinkle with cornmeal.
2. Mash the chèvre and cream cheeses into one another, adding fresh ground black pepper and herbs to taste if using plain cheese.
3. Unroll dough onto parchment. Spread half of herbed cheese over 1 long half of dough, leaving ½ -inch plain border. Sprinkle with half the Parmesan and 2 tablespoons parsley. Then fold plain half of dough over filled half, but do not seal the edges. Spread remaining herbed cheese over the top and sprinkle with remaining Parmesan.
4. Arrange onion rounds in a row down the center of the long side of dough. Arrange a row of zucchini on either side of the onion. Lightly sprinkle or brush vegetables with olive oil; sprinkle with salt and fresh pepper.
5. Bake until puffed and deep brown at edges, about 24 minutes. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon parsley before serving.

Cheerfully thieved and adapted slightly from Bon Appetit, August 2006.

Apple Cake

fresh out of the oven

Schatzi: I’m not sure why, but I was haunted by apple cake recently. While perusing Slashfood at work (don’t tell!), I came across this intriguing recipe, and that same day came across this one in the New York Times while randomly trolling for cake recipes. And while going through Fashionable Food by Sylvia Lovegren, I found yet another similar recipe in the Seventies chapter. Apparently, I was fated to make an apple cake.

According to Lovegren, “Apple cakes of various types were extremely popular in the Seventies, both with Suburban Gourmets and their urban brethren. [ … ] This recipe was copied at many a club meeting across the country in the Seventies—but unlike other such formulas, it still tastes good. And it doesn’t have a particularly strange texture, although it is very moist. I believe the original recipe first appeared in Sunset magazine in the early 1950s.”

I used the NYT Teddie’s Apple Cake recipe, though mine differs slightly. For one, I am mad for brown sugar, and use it whenever I can, so I substituted half the sugar for dark brown sugar—next time, I would probably use only golden brown sugar. I’m also a bit of a spice addict, and this recipe seemed so richly fruity that it required more spice. So I added extra cinnamon, as well as some nutmeg and a dash of allspice (more like Bunny’s Apple Cake recipe). That’s the gingerbread coming out in me yet again. The Fashionable Food recipe, and the one Lovegren mentions in Sunset both contain chocolate, in the form of cocoa and melted chocolate, respectively, but I don’t see that as necessary. The end result of my cake was a moist, old-fashioned cake of the highly fruited variety with just the right amount of spice. The dark brown sugar gives it a mild caramel flavor and a slightly gooey texture, and it’s great warm or cold, plain or a la mode. My brother-in-law gave it a “delicious” on the “Okay-Good-Delicious” scale.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

“And we had fruit cake and pound cake and doughnuts and two kinds of preserves, Marilla.” —LM Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Schatzi: For my first entry to the Cake Bake-a-thon I chose an old favorite, Brown Sugar Pound Cake. It’s a recipe I found in Cooking Light in April of 2000; I must have made it a dozen times since then, and no one has ever not loved it. I have always loved pound cake, appreciating its rich flavors and smooth texture, as well as enjoying how often it made appearances in my children’s literature, being historically a very popular cake. As brown sugar is another favorite of mine, this recipe couldn’t help but be a winner. The brown sugar gives it a subtle caramel flavor, and the breadcrumbs make a crisp crust enclosing a finely-crumbed interior. They also make the cake just slide right out of the pan. This time, I used half dark brown sugar and half light brown sugar, due to being low on the latter, which intensified the flavor. And since my sister asked, yes, you always pack brown sugar!

didn't even last two days

Pound cakes of yore got their name as a convention for remembering the recipe: a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, and a pound of eggs—plus flavorings, of course. Now that we have baking powder, lighter recipes are used. Being from Cooking Light this recipe is lighter than most, though fatted milk can obviously be substituted for skim if you prefer. I think the use of brown sugar gives the cake a big flavor without a big impact on your waistline.

Unfortunately, the cake disappeared so quickly that I barely snapped a picture of the last piece.

cooking spray
3 T dry breadcrumbs
3 cp all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cp butter, softened
2 cp brown sugar
1 T vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 cp skim milk
1 T powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 325°. Coat a 12-cup Bundt pan with cooking spray, and dust with the breadcrumbs.

2. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl; stir well with a whisk. Beat the butter in a large bowl at medium speed of a mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add brown sugar and vanilla, beating until well-blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with milk, beating at low speed, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

3. Spoon the batter into prepared pan, trying to not disturb the breadcrumb coating. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 5 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack, and remove from pan. Cool completely on a wire rack. Sift powdered sugar over top of cake.

Note: You can use a 10-inch tube pan instead of the 12-cup Bundt pan. Just increase the oven temperature to 350º.

from Cooking Light, April 2000

Think of all the cakes!

Schatzi: One of my favorite memories of my tutu dates back to elementary school. I was spending the night at her house, and as usual, she had fallen asleep fairly early in the evening, leaving me to my own devices, most likely reading, playing tea party with her good china, or watching movies. It was very late at night, probably one or two in the morning when she woke up, also as usual. I was perched at the end of her king-size bed, watching some movie (probably Willow), when she awoke, and she asked me if I was hungry. When I told her that I was, she told me about Marie Antoinette saying, “Let them eat cake!” and then we made a chocolate cake and ate it. Even though I now know that story is apocryphal, and isn’t even about cake but brioche (something else my tutu makes), sitting on my tutu’s bed eating cake in the wee hours of the morning is one of my fondest memories.

Early cakes were basically breads, but sweet, and the two remained largely interchangeable until the modern era, after our conversion to a sweet and savory opposition. The modern cake developed in the seventeenth century, with spice and plum cakes similar to our present day fruitcake. In the eighteenth century, cakes began to have air beaten into the eggs for leavening, instead of relying on yeast to rise (as still seen in in the baba, kugelhopf, or kulich). The nineteenth century saw the dawn of the Golden Age of Cake Baking (at least by my reckoning) with the debut of bicarbonate of soda, and then baking powder, which vastly improved the baking process, leavening cakes that had previously required endless beating by hand. Also helping matters were the wider availability of refined sugar and quality white flour, and also increased control over oven temperatures, leading to innovations such as angelfood cake. Even with the difficulties in baking, nineteenth century cookbooks typically devoted more attention to cake recipes than any other foods. By the Twenties, cookbooks listed “spice cakes, angel cakes, devil cakes, sponge cakes, fudge cakes, date cakes, nut cakes, prune cakes, jam cakes, pound cakes, fairy cakes, buttermilk cakes, chocolate cakes, eggless cakes, burnt-sugar cakes, mocha cakes, sunshine cakes, maple cakes, marble cakes, and checkerboard cakes, frosted, filled, and iced with chocolate, coconut, marshmallow, lemon, orange, whipped cream, mocha, caramel, pineapple, maple, maraschino, and brown sugar.”

Leafing through some vintage cookbooks recently and noting the variety and sheer number of cakes mentioned, I realized that we don’t make cakes so much anymore. Cupcakes are so In they’re Out by now, and pie remains a heavy contender—even I am likely to choose it over cake if asked—but unless the occasion is a birthday, wedding, or anniversary, cakes seem to be fading into oblivion, particularly those made from scratch. Not only are cakes relegated to ceremonial events, but they’re also usually store-bought—and not very good at that. Why? Why have we abandoned cakes—for we have abandoned them. Time was when any housewife would have a arsenal of cakes in her baking repertoire. There would be a cake ready for company, should some arrive, as well as cakes of all kinds for snacking and dessert. Though I still know some older women who follow this practice, it is a rare habit these days, one mostly now found when perusing late nineteenth and early twentieth century literature (for example: in addition to the wedding cake and a revered family coconut cake, Eudora Welty’s Delta Wedding refers to “the ever-ready cake”, and a caramel layer cake, Lady Baltimore cake and a birthday cake play prominent roles in other works).

So why have we drifted from this plethora of cakes? I’d guess that there is nowadays a perception that cakes are somehow difficult, when they are actually simple enough that children can be accomplished bakers. After all, cakes are mixed together, then left in the oven for a half an hour or longer. Granted, baking cakes requires fairly precise measurements and is often more like chemistry than the slapdash approach that can be taken with other foods, but compare this procedure to baking cookies, which are always in multiple batches and require a great deal of attention. Many don’t even need frosting, or get by with a glaze or dusting of confectioner’s sugar. What is so hard about that? Nothing, that’s what.

In recognition of cake and its ease, I aim to bake at least a cake a week this term. That’s right, I will juggle work, full-time school, and some semblance of a social life, and still have time to bake cakes! When one runs out, I’ll just bake another! And most of the recipes will be entirely new to me! Gauntlet, you have been thrown.