Digging in America

As far as I am concerned, gophers are narcissistic little jerks. It’s all about them, they do not possess a spark of empathy! I was spared until I came to the States since gophers only live in North and Central America. But they found me eventually. 

I had a garden when I lived in San Diego with massive Torrey Pine trees. Other than bamboo, nothing much grew underneath, so I planted a stunningly striped heirloom kind. In time, they all were felled by gophers, one by one. 

These days, a dramatic agave plant practically collapsed into itself when the gophers discovered it. And the tiny, towel-sized bright green lawn that I allow myself in dry Southern California is peppered with gopher mounds. 

One of my favorite plants was lemon grass that really flourished. I liked brushing my hands over it to inhale its intoxicating citrusy aroma. One morning it was just gone. Not a trace, not a hole where it had been. Nothing. I wondered for a second if I had lost my mind or, if not that, then maybe our gardener had moved it somewhere else? In the end, I knew that the gophers just pulled the whole thing down under. Like I said, no empathy. 

Nowadays, I have a scraggly little lemon grass plant that grows in the dense ground right next to the walkway. Even the strongest gopher isn’t burrowing there. But the plant gives me enough tender shoots to make some outrageously tasty lemon bars. 

The bars have a buttery coconut shortbread crust and a lovely filling with lots of freshly squeezed lemon juice and bright yellow eggs. It’s spiked with lemon grass and not overly sweet, but definitely pretty addictive.

Move over Betty Crocker, (who, even as a made up character, invented the lemon bar)! And you too, gophers!

I found this fabulous recipe in Bon Appetit. I didn’t change a thing, but sometimes I use Meyer lemons instead of regular lemons. I also adjusted the baking time to 30-35 minutes.  

Betty Crocker is a phony

The very first cookbook that found its way into my tiny kitchen after I moved from Germany to America was Betty Crocker's "Dinner for Two”, a slim paperback with a bright red cover. Before her, I made dinner with “Hamburger Helper” which I enjoyed well enough, and tuna casserole with cream of mushroom soup, which I also liked. But I was ready to tackle more complex dishes, and Betty Crocker had one that caught my eye immediately: coq au vin.

Betty Crocker was my Julia Child! I only bought economical chicken drumsticks and cheap boxed red wine and yet, this was just the kind of dish that couldn’t be messed up. The aroma of sizzling bacon wafted through our tiny one bedroom apartment. I   browned the chicken in the bacon fat, which smelled heavenly and became even more intense when I poured in the red wine. I threw in some roughly chopped onions, a handful of plain button mushrooms and some generous pinches of dried, aromatic herbs. When it was all done, I thought this was just the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.

A while ago, when traveling to Provence with our good friends, I suddenly remembered my Betty Crocker days. I ran to the local butcher shop to get some of the ingredients. My French is non-existent except for an exuberant “Bonjour”, so I mostly just pointed. But when I mentioned coq au vin, the earnest young butcher knew exactly what I needed. I don’t remember exactly how it turned out, but we had an excellent evening, drinking lots of cheap and cheerful Rosè and eating something authentic French cooked by a German vaguely remembering an American recipe.

Imagine my surprise when I recently found out that Betty Crocker is a fictional character. It is a little disappointing given my early attachment to her and her recipes. She even invented lemon bars! In the end, I prefer to fondly think of her as a real person. A middle-aged, sweet-tempered brunette that wears a spotless white apron over a red dress who can do no wrong in the kitchen. 

My white wine version of

Coq au Vin

Enough for 3-4

2 strips of bacon

1 1/2 pounds of boneless skinless chicken thighs

2 small anchovies

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, thinly sliced

1/2 tb tomato paste

1 cup of dry white wine

1/2 cup of veggie broth

A few sprigs of fresh thyme or a few pinches of dried

1/2 pound of brown or white mushrooms, sliced 

1 tb Butter

Freshly chopped parsley

1 tb cornstarch 

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook bacon in a braising pan until very brown. Crumble into small pieces and set aside. Season chicken generously with salt and pepper and brown in bacon fat on both sides, a few pieces at a time. Remove from pan. Leave about 1 tb of the bacon fat in the pan and cook the anchovies until they have mostly dissolved.

Add onions and cook for 8 min until soft. Add garlic and cook another minute. Stir in tomato paste until well combined and fragrant. Add chicken back into pan and pour in white wine and broth. Tuck in thyme and crumbled bacon and bring to a simmer. Cover and put into the oven for about 50 min or until chicken is tender. After about 30 min turn chicken. 

Meanwhile, cook sliced mushrooms in butter until tender and all liquid has been evaporated. Season with salt and set aside. 

When chicken is done, take it out of the pan and thicken the juices with a little cornstarch slurry. Put chicken back into the sauce, add the mushrooms and sprinkle with parsley. Enjoy with a crusty baguette. 

Carbonara in German

Italian is such charming language. All the words sound melodic, even the most benign ones kind of sing. Like the word Carbonara, which basically means something like charcoal burner. It also happens to be one of my favorite pasta dishes. A simple fare: just pasta, eggs, cheese and bacon, although our Italian friend Luigi thinks it’s "tow hevy". My point is that we Germans actually have a version of Carbonara too, but I am sad to say that we call it noodles with ham. That’s the basic difference between romance and germanic languages.

The German take on Carbonara is a hearty, rustic dish. I like it especially when I stop at a cozy mountain hut on a hiking or skiing trip because it reminds me of winter holiday during high school. My girlfriends and I rode a train, then a bus and finally we had to hike 1/2 hour with our heavy boots and unmanageable skies and poles just to get to the lift. That was hard work! After some fast runs and a few tumbles and when we were sufficiently cold and wet, we were starving. Everything tastes good after being outside for a long time, but especially a big plate of carbs with deliciously salty ham, creamy eggs and gooey cheese.

When I make the noodles now, it’s usually a last minute dinner, more like an afterthought. I lightly brown sweet-smokey Black Forest ham in butter. Then I add cooked wide egg noodles and sauté them until I have a few brown and crisp spots here and there. I throw in a handful of cheese and stir in a couple of well-beaten eggs. I give the hot pan a little swirl so the eggs have time to stick to the noodles and the cheese has melted. A deft sprinkle of chives adds a little sparkle.

I like Carbonara in any language.

Carbonara German style

Feeds 2

6 oz dried egg noodles, Pappardelle works well too, cooked and drained

4 oz of Black Forest ham, diced or cut into wide strips

1 tbs butter

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 - 1/2 cup of cheese (anything goes: white Cheddar, Swiss, Monterey Jack) grated

1 tbs chopped chives, parsley will do

Quick

My very first introduction to the Civil War was by reading the epic “Gone with the Wind”. Most memorable to a naive 14 year old was Scarlett O’Hara’s tiny waist size, (an unimaginable 17 inches!) and smashing Rhett Butler’s famous line: “frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”. Of course there was also the brutality of the war.

Oddly enough, during this time in history, the basis of banana bread was laid. As people were starving and labor was in short supply, cooking and baking needed to be quick. Traditional bread making took too long, so breads were leavened with baking soda instead of yeast and called quick bread. A lot less time consuming, it needed just a few basic ingredients: flour, baking soda or powder, eggs, shortening or such and some kind of liquid, like milk. By adding sugar and other flavorings, a palatable bread was made.

I like all kinds of quick breads, but most of all, I like banana bread. It just hits the spot sometimes. It works great when I need something speedy in the morning, or when I am on a road trip. If I can find a coffee shop with a proper latte, then there is usually a piece of quick bread that goes with it. The thick, moist slices come wrapped in glossy plastic, and I can never resist the bright colors of a pumpkin or lemon bread.

Here’s the problem with baking banana bread: it calls for super ripe bananas. And while I like eating my bananas firm and yellow without a hint of a brown fleck, Kevin likes them very ripe. And just when the bananas that I have set aside for baking have reached that mottled-with-brown-spots stage, Kevin finds them, and they are gone!

But once in a while, I can salvage a few, and then I bake them into my very favorite banana bread. It has chocolate in it too, so it’s very decadent and smells just so unusually good when it comes out of the oven; the earthy sweetness of warm bananas with melted chocolate and cinnamon. I sneak tiny pieces whenever I go into the kitchen, and then the quick bread is gone way too quickly.

But.....“after all, tomorrow is another day”.

Banana Bread

Recipe from Orangette with just a few minor changes
This quick bread is a little unusual as it has no fat of any kind and so it’s a little more springy than your typical quick bread. Also, it’s baked in a square pan instead of a loaf pan.

3 very ripe bananas (the size doesn’t much matter; medium to large works)

2 large eggs
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces (no bigger than chocolate chip-size)

For topping:
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter or spray an 8-inch square pan and dust lightly with flour.

In a medium mixing bowl, mash the bananas well with a fork or potato masher. Add the eggs, and stir well to combine. Add the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and vanilla, and stir to mix. Add the chocolate and stir briefly. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and set aside.

In a small bowl, stir together sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the batter in the pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Canned goods

One of my all time favorite funny phrases has to be “open a can of whoop-ass”. Not that I use it very often, but it sure makes me grin every time I hear it. I think it's meant to be a genial threat, that I will unleash a great deal of pain on someone who has offended me. However, I can never keep a straight face when I try it out, and neither can anyone else when I deliver it with my slight German accent.

Speaking of cans, I don't keep a lot of them in my pantry. Although there are a few things that are great out of a can: tomatoes, coconut milk, tuna and beans, for the most part, I buy fresh. Except, cans do come in really handy when we go river rafting. Then all bets are off. Especially during the latter part of a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon we eat mostly canned goods and stuff with lots of preservatives.

But that doesn't mean we don't have some pretty awesome meals. One year, our friend Mark even made a turkey dinner with stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, the whole works. We only draw the line when it comes to Dinty Moore beef stew, which one of the boatman has tried to sneak in, I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole! But we always have cans of Pringles for lunch; the chips stack perfectly, taste deliciously artificial and stay crunchy. We carry canned beets, tuna, olives, artichoke hearts, peaches, corn. The cans happily bounce and bang around, get smashed in big rapids and no harm is done. Big nylon nets of beer cans hang off the boats to chill in the icy Colorado River for the evening.

A great meal out of a can on one of these trips are salmon cakes. Using a big griddle, we have a whole bunch of them sizzling in no time. Even when we resort to tinned salmon, egg beaters, canned bread crumbs and lemon juice from a plastic lemon, they still are really tasty after a long day of rowing in the hot sun.

No reason to open a can of whoop ass ;)

Salmon Cakes
Makes 5 - 6 cakes


2 6 oz cans of skinless and boneless salmon
1 egg, beaten
2-3 tb dried breadcrumbs
1 tb mayonnaise
1 tb Dijon mustard
1-2 tb freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 scallions, finely chopped or 2 tb finely chopped parsley
3 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, diced
salt, freshly ground pepper







Drain salmon and using a fork, break apart into even-sized pieces. Mix with egg, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, mustard and freshly squeezed lemon juice. If too dry, add more mayonnaise and if too wet, use a few more breadcrumbs. Stir in scallions or parsley and sun-dried tomatoes, season to taste with salt and pepper. Form into 5 - 6 cakes and sauté in olive oil over medium heat until cooked through and golden brown.

Cuppa Soup

My dad is a pretty lousy cook. But to his defense, he's always been surrounded by women that cook really well. I don't think he saw a need to get in the way. Dad's contribution to our meals was ordering boxes of individual combat rations for the German federal armed forces.

Stashed away in a cellar, he used them for his hunting and fishing excursions. He also ate them when, for some inexplicable reason, he was sick of a good home-cooked meal. My sisters and I always pilfered his boxes and didn't even care that we had to sneak down the steep steps into our scary dark cellar. We just loved the super hard cookies, jam and cheese out of toothpaste tubes and the dark chocolate.

Living by himself now, Dad does however have a few meals up his sleeve. For one, he can make a decent cup of coffee. He can also fry a mean trout by using tons of butter and then debone it expertly. And he can make a really good tomato soup. When he had an abundance of homegrown tomatoes one year, out of desperation he opened the only cookbook that was laying around. It was a book-of-the-month-club one from the sixties and had exactly one tomato soup recipe. As for the rest of his diet, he probably still has some of those rations.

Of course I snatched the tomato soup recipe, it's perfect with a grilled cheese sandwich; one of my favorite classic American combinations. The soup can be made with either fresh tomatoes or tomato paste. Funny as it might be, I actually prefer making it with the paste. Cooking the paste slowly in butter brings out a robust, deeply intense tomato flavor. Slowly sautéed onions offer a little sweetness, while lemon peel adds a bright note and some zest. Dotted with rice, the soup becomes a little more hefty. I sprinkle it with finely chopped chives or parsley for a nice contrast to the bright orangey-red, and eat it with a crunchy, creamy grilled cheese sandwich.

Beats the armed forces rations.

Tomato Soup

Adapted from “Das neue grosse Kochbuch”, Berteslmann Publishing ca. 1963

Serves 4

Just under 1/2 a small can (2.5 oz) or 1/2 tube of tomato paste

alternately, use 3/4 pounds of fresh, ripe tomatoes, chopped

2 tbs unsalted butter

1 small onion, finely diced

4 cups water

1/3 cup long grain white rice

piece of lemon peel

salt, pepper, sugar

parsley or chives

Let butter melt over medium heat and sautée onions for about 8 minutes, or until golden, don't let them get dark. Add tomato paste or fresh tomatoes and cook for a few minutes, stirring frequently. Pour water into pan and add lemon peel, bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes. Let cool, purée in blender and return to pan. Bring back to a simmer, add rice and cook for 20 minutes on low heat, stirring every once in a while so rice doesn't stick to bottom of pan. Season with salt, pepper and just a little sugar. Sprinkle with herbs and serve with a grilled cheese!

Cakey

Last week I went to my rowing club's holiday pot-luck party where I immediately got tipsy on a yummy cheese fondue. All I did was follow instructions to dunk the bread cubes into the Kirsch before I dipped them into the cheese! So it was good that I also found an impressive array of desserts. My friend Alex and I compared notes on our picks. He was telling me that while he definitely goes for the more gooey, runny, creamy ones, his wife Terri, who normally avoids gluten, splurges now and then on cakey sweets. They probably remind her most of the things she used to eat.

I've never even thought of the division in desserts in this way, but looking at my plate, I was thinking that I must definitely be the cakey type. It all started when I was a little girl. At the family Kaffeeklatsch, I never went for the pretty and fancy cakes, the involved ones, with soft layers and creamy fillings. If the dessert wasn't just plain cakey, then I just ate a ham sandwich.

I even feel the same way when it comes to French desserts. I admire all the beautiful creations in the Paris pâtisseries which look like little art pieces. I also love the fancy macaroons in every possible color. But in the end, they are all just too sweet, too soft and too sticky for me.

However there is something else in France, and that is a Madeleine. A tiny sponge cake in the shape of a scallop shell, it was supposedly invented by an eighteenth century French pastry chef named, surprise, Madeleine.

Although I've never read anything by Marcel Proust, I've heard that Madeleines will always be connected to his crazy long, 3000 page novel “In Search of Lost Time” where he dedicates several pages to this bite-sized cake.

A cute little Madeleine is golden brown on the shell side, and buttery yellow on the opposite. Pretty to look at, light and airy, it's not too sweet and perfectly well, cakey!

Orange Zested Madeleines

Makes about 1 1/2 dozens

adapted, with a few minor changes, from my cousin Carol's recipe

You do need a non-stick Madeleine mold pan

2 large eggs

1/3 cup sugar

2 tbs honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

Zest on orange

3/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

4 tbs unsalted butter, melted

additional cold butter for mold

Beat eggs and sugar in a bowl for about 4 minutes until pale yellow and thick. Mix in honey, vanilla and orange zest. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into bowl, gently fold in the dry ingredients. Add the cooled and melted butter, gently folding into batter.

Press plastic wrap directly onto surface of batter and chill for at least 3 hours (can be made a day ahead).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and position rack in center of the oven. Using your fingers, rub cold butter into each mold, making sure all the surfaces are covered. Drop one scant tablespoon into each buttered mold. Bake for about 10 minutes to a golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove pan from oven, invert and quickly knock madeleines out of pan. Serve soon!

PS Cool mold completely before baking again