February 3rd, 2011

Griddlecakes

I need a break. A time out from my life. Just a few months, maybe, to live someone else’s. Or, better, to live in someone else’s body. Everything will stay the same — the gorgeous husband, the fledgling business, the blog, the family, the happiness I feel about everything except my health.

While in my borrowed body — let’s give me about a year — I’ll do the things that I’ve been thinking about so much lately. I’ll play in the snow with my dog. I’ll organize spontaneous outings with my husband — maybe even hop on a plane for a few days of swimming in the Caribbean. And I’ll definitely partake in the best New Year’s resolution that I’ve ever heard of: Molly Wizenberg’s decision to enjoy more breakfasts in 2011.

With my current body, mornings are a wash-out. I wake up late due to restless nights. I need to stretch, and ice, and pop a pain pill just to sit through my morning coffee and a possible bowl of Raisin Bran. Cooking, if I am lucky, comes later in the day, once I’ve begun to manage the pain.

So this new body is crucial if I intend to wake up and make these griddlecakes as often as I’d like. As yet, we’ve only eaten them for dinner. They transfer flawlessly from breakfast to dinner — made with whole wheat flour for a savory-ness that’s wonderfully dinner-friendly – but I imagine (often) that these griddlecakes would be the perfect pick-me-up early in the morning (the time that I would be waking my new body up), with a cup of dark coffee, slatherings of butter, generous drizzles of maple syrup, caramelized apples, boiled kale, and thick smoked bacon.

We found a bag of the dry ingredients (kind of like gourmet Bisquik) in the pantry at Riverstead bed and breakfast, in Chilhowie, Tennessee, on the final (and favorite) leg of our honeymoon.  I’m not sure why they said the ingredients would make “griddlecakes” rather than pancakes, as all the research I’ve tried to dig up on the subject says the same, ambiguous thing: “American or Canadian pancakes (sometimes called hotcakes, griddlecakes, or flapjacks) are pancakes which contain a raising agent such as baking powder; proportions of eggs, flour, and milk or buttermilk create a thick batter.” A wikipedia search for “griddlecakes” even redirects to the pancake page.

My own understanding of griddlecakes vs. pancakes is that griddlecakes are made with whole wheat flour or some other whole grain flour, and are made smaller and thinner (less fluffy or cake like) than pancakes — but I don’t know where this knowledge comes from, as some things you come to know during your life have hazy, forgotten origins. I do know, though, why they are called Sweet Carolina griddlecakes — the whole wheat flour in the batter is Anson Mills Sweet Carolina whole wheat graham flour. You can buy Anson Mills whole wheat graham flour online, along with a bag of their fine cloth-bolted white flour, which goes into the batter as well.

The rest of the ingredients are the same that you would use for any other pancake, griddlecake, or hotcake batter: milk or water, an egg, baking powder, and salt. You prepare them exactly as you would any other recipe, too, making them as small as silver dollars, or as big as dinner plates. I like to rub butter all over the griddle before ladling on the batter; it browns as the griddlecake cooks, and brown butter is particularly delicious on whole wheat griddlecakes.

With this new body, I’d like to make lots of breakfast recipes, especially those from the new addition to my cookbook shelf, but these griddlecakes would make a weekly appearance on the morning table, at least.

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Whole-Wheat Griddlecakes

Adapted from the Anson Mill’s website, Makes 10-12 griddlecakes
(You can buy pre-made packages of the griddlecake dry ingredients here.)

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1 cup Anson Mills Antebellum-Style Graham Flour
½ cup Anson Mills Fine Cloth-Bolted Pastry Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 large egg
1 ¼ cups milk or water, or a combination of both

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, or more, as needed

Put all ingredients except butter together in a medium bowl, whisking with a fork until just combined. Set an electric griddle on high, or place a large skillet over high heat. Rub some butter onto griddle or pan. Ladle however much batter you’d like onto the griddle (I usually use about ½ of a ladle-full, for small griddlecakes), trying to make the batter fom a circular shape (though non-circular ones are charming in a adorably-ditzy housewife way). Let cook until the edges are looking cooked and you see a couple of small bubbles rising to the top-side of the griddlecake. Lift griddlecake with a spatula, quickly rub some more butter on the griddle, and flip. Cook for another minute or two, until the other side begins to brown, then rub some butter on the side facing up, flip and repeat. (This butter-rubbing makes for deliciously crisp sides.) Transfer griddlecake to a platter and begin again. (Even though I’m almost embarrassed to admit this, I usually slide a tiny pat of butter above the griddlecake on the platter, so that each griddlecake added to the platter will sit atop some butter, and then have more butter laid atop of it, creating the perfect stack of griddlecakes and pats of butter.)

Serve with lots of good maple syrup.

Note: I don’t have true recipes for the caramelized apples and the kale, but if you would like to make them, follow these loose guidelines.

For the apples:

Peel and chop 4 granny smith apples, then place them in a bowl and sprinkle some lemon juice over them to keep them bright and crisp. Add a good knob of butter to a pan and melt it over medium heat. Add some sugar, about a fourth to a half cup, and let the sugar caramelize in the butter for a while, 10 minutes maybe. Once the sugar turns a nice amber color, add the apples. Cook them, stirring occassionally, until they are tender on the inside, with caramelized outsides — be careful not to break them up while you stir. Use a light hand and a silicone spatula. Add some cinnamon towards the end.

For the kale:

Buy some good kale at a farmers market or decent grocery — nothing with wilted leafs or huge, thick stems. Prepare the kale by stripping the leaves from the stems (my dog loves to eat the stems) and tearing the leaves into small pieces. Wash in a salad spinner and then add kale to a pot or dutch oven. Add water — for a bunch of kale I add about two cups of water or homemade chicken stock — and a good knob of butter and begin cooking kale over medium-low heat. Cover, let cook for a while, 20-30 minutes, then uncover, add a good pinch of salt, and continue cooking until almost all of the water is gone and the kale is silky, tender, and delicious.

January 7th, 2011

the comforts of carbonara

I adore Molly O’Neill. You too, right? She’s a former restaurant critic (current columnist) for the New York Times; a food writer who’s the envy of every aspiring blogger. She’s written for a slew of food magazines, and won awards for her New York Cookbook. She’s kind of a big deal.

January 3, 2011

Her latest cookbook, One Big Table, is also wildly popular — and for good reason. It was researched over many, many years; Molly visited different regions of the country, spending weeks or months at a time, before retuning home to process, write, and cook. Then she spent years in the kitchens of Americans who’d recently immigrated into the United States, learning how they tweaked their homeland’s recipes to accommodate for the ingredients unknown here, or to allow for the inclusion of New World ones. Finally, she spent a year holding potluck dinners across America, where all sorts of people came to compete in recipe competitions and share their favorite dishes.

guanciale

Instead of following the memoir-cookbook trend, writing a travel journal of her time on the road, Molly chose to stick to the recipes she found, creating a tome of American cookery. The recipes are unadulterated, not tweaked to suite Molly’s own tastes, or changed to make things easy, more accessible. They are the real deal — 100% Americana.

A quote by Clementine Paddleford in 1960 is included in One Big Table’s introduction:

We all have hometown appetites, every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown left behind.

It’s a quote that sums up the intention of One Big Table – Molly sought out these hometown appetites, expelling the notion that ‘Americans don’t cook’ with the many varied regional recipes, lovingly prepared by second, third, sixth generation cooks everyday. But it’s also a quote that stopped me short.

guanciale

I’m not sure I have a hometown appetite. I can’t say I’m a bundle of longing for the cuisine of my youth. Save for a few family recipes (tulta and piange, two recipes made with spinach with names made up by our family  — “tulta,” derives from “torta,” which means “cake,” since it is a spinach and rice cake, and “piange” in Italian means “cry,” which I cannot explain save for the spinach stuffing being so good you might cry.)

Molly writes that she has “never known a food-obsessed person who did not have someone in a cotton apron… standing behind them;” but she’s never met me. When I picture the people who guided me toward my obsession with food, it’s the faces on covers of cookbooks, the celebrity chefs on cooking shows, and the men and women in the kitchens at my favorite restaurants.

pasta

It perturbed me, reading the introduction to One Big Table. If I have no hometown appetite, will my food be remembered? Will my children, and their children, have a sense of belonging? Will they not have the comforting, cozy feel of history that comes through family recipes? Or, does that not matter so much, when their mother (or grandmother) cooks well, feeds them varied recipes, from all over the world, not just their hometown?

There’s an itchy little part of me that fears something will be missing, if there is no story or sense of place in the food my family will eat.

So I better get started now. I’ve bought a new recipe box, and I’m going to write down our very best, most comforting, tradition-making recipes, to hand down to future generations once I’m too old to cook them. I might not have a “hometown appetite” ingrained in me, but I know I can make one up.

peas

Carbonara, that inimitable pasta covered in a silky egg sauce and garnished with sweet peas, salty pork jowl, and lots of black pepper, is the first recipe to enter the box, for a few reasons: First, I am (in good part) Italian. Or, Italian-American. I have family in Italy, and our few family recipes are Italian. And although I come from Dutch, German, and Irish lines as well, we’ve identified, mostly, with being Italian. (I grew up in North Jersey, after all.)

Carbonara, also, is already a tradition in my immediate family of two. Jim and I make carbonara whenever we return home after a long trip on the road, or when our spirits are down. We make carbonara in the middle of winter, when we need the comfortable feeling that comes with a blanket of creamy egg sauce. And we make it in summer, adding fresh vegetables and loads of herbs, because the comforts of carbonara are useful anytime of the year. It’s become a testament to our cozy, loving home. We will be making carbonara for many years into the future.

peas

And, most importantly, carbonara is just dang delicious.

I’ve talked about this before, but I’ll go over the rules of carbonara again for you here, in case you’d like to enter it into your own recipe box. For a great carbonara, you need to pace yourself. Don’t rush things. First, get your hands on some real guanciale (pork jowl) because bacon is too smoky and usually cut too thin, and pancetta is too salty. Guanciale is cured with salt and black pepper, adding a particular flavor not found in bacon or pancetta and, if cooked slowly over a medium-low heat, it’s high proportion of fat will become golden and crunchy on the outside, with pork-belly-like meltyness on the inside. If you can’t find guanciale, I’d leave out the pork altogether, and try to find some pork lard to cook the peas in.

IMG_6094

Once the guanciale is completely cooked, remember to take it out of the pan and let it rest on paper towels before adding it to the pasta. You need this resting time for the crunchy parts to set a little, so they won’t turn to mush in the bowl later.

Now, on the matter of pasta. No matter what any fussy Italian says, it really doesn’t matter what type of pasta you use. I’ve made it with linguine, spaghetti, orecchiette and even, in a pinch, bow-tie. This last time around was my first using Bartiliono’s cirioline all’uovo — egg pasta nests — and it was my favorite pasta yet, though it’s somewhat hard to find. Most of the time however, we just use whatever’s in the pantry. Carbonara is best as a spur-of-the-moment meal. One to whip up after a long day, or during a snow-storm, with items grabbed from the pantry. (Just make sure you have a good stock of guanciale in your freezer at all times!) So, use whatever pasta you like, but, if you want to make it a little more special, use a premium, imported brand from Italy.

runaway noodle!

On to peas: I use frozen petite peas. They’re teeny and sweeter than garden peas, and worth the few extra cents. You don’t need more than a handful (one bag will provide you many carbonara’s worth) since peas are only in the dish to provide little hits of sweetness (some authentic recipes don’t call for peas, but I don’t see why). Also, even in the spring when fresh peas are available, I tend to forgo them for frozen, since sweetness is key, and I find most fresh peas are too starchy by the time they go from the farmer to my kitchen. (But if you have a good supply of fresh peas, by all means…)

Finally, there’s only two more things to say about carbonara: First, use a lot of black pepper. It’s the flavor that you need to cut through the fat of the guanciale and the sauce, and to flavor the pasta, and compliment the peas. Make sure it is freshly ground. And a healthy amount.

add the eggs

Second, toss the sauce with the pasta in a bowl, off the heat. If you try and add the sauce to the pasta while it’s in the pan, you will end up with a less-than-silky sauce. So, transfer the pasta and peas to a big bowl, and immediately add in the eggs and toss like crazy. I whisk the (seasoned) eggs (one egg per serving) in a small bowl before adding it to the pasta. I know some people break the eggs directly over the pasta — the process is prettier that way, but it makes it more difficult to stir the eggs into a sauce before they curdle. Though, again, whatever works.

This last thing is the most important part of carbonara-making. Don’t be afraid of the eggs being left raw — they will cook, partly, into a silky sauce — though they aren’t supposed to cook fully. If you are feeding someone who shouldn’t eat partially cooked eggs, don’t make them carbonara. However, if you are a healthy adult, you shouldn’t fear eggs cooked this way, especially if you are buying your eggs from a good, local source.

carbonara

They only thing left to do now, is eat. And enjoy the comforts of carbonara.

Pasta Carbonara

Printable Recipe

serves 4-6, depending on whether it is a first-course, or main

6 ounces guanciale, chopped into thumbnail sized lardons
1 pound pasta, preferably a good, imported brand of you favorite type of pasta (I really liked egg pasta in this carbonara)
1 cup grated parmigiano cheese, or more to taste (you can also use pecorino, which is more traditional for carbonara, though I prefer the taste of parmigiano)
a handful (about 2/3 of a cup) petite peas, preferably frozen unless you have very sweet fresh peas
2 whole eggs
2-3 egg yolks (I usually add the extra yolk)
freshly ground black pepper
kosher salt

Heat a pan over low to medium heat (I have an electric range and set it between medium-low and medium). Add guanciale and cook until they are crisp on all sides. If the pieces begin to cook too fast, and you think they will burn before cooking properly, lower the heat. Low and slow is a foolproof way to cook the guanciale right, so they they are crisp on the outside but easy to chew, and meltingly tender inside. Once cooked, remove the guanciale and let rest on paper towel.

Usually, I will now pour some (not all) of the fat in the pan into a bowl, so I can decide whether I want to use it all or not later. (I don’t use olive oil in my carbonara, because I love the taste of pork fat, but you can use it in place of, or in addition to, the drippings, if you are crazy like.)

Put a pot of well-salted water over high heat and bring to a boil. Cook the pasta according to the package directions.

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs and yolks until well combined. Add half of the cheese and season with a good amount of black pepper and some salt.

Add the peas to the pan you used to cook the guanciale. Cook until they become soft. The pasta should be cooked at this time, so drain and add the pasta to the peas and mix them together with some black pepper and salt.

Get a serving bowl and add in your pasta, peas, the remaining half of the cheese, and crisp guanciale. Drizzle the eggs over the pasta and stir, using a folding, tossing type of motion, to work the eggs into a silky sauce without curdling them. (If the pasta is piping hot, stir in big, quick motions to cool the pasta down as quickly as possible.) Taste and season again with pepper and salt before bringing to the table with some extra cheese for passing around.

December 19th, 2010

a leap toward love

Hi. It’s been forever since I wrote here. A lot has happened but, most importantly, I got married!

us

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

To say that I was stressed out in the run up to our wedding would be an understatement. I had just opened my own business, and was in the middle of a chronic pain flare-up that made getting out of bed seem impossible, nevermind being fitted for a dress.

rehearsal17

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

So it’s no surprise that my wedding started in tears. Hours (and hours) of tears. I woke up the morning of the wedding exhausted. I hadn’t slept a wink, jittery from the previous night’s partying at the rehearsal dinner (a ten-course meal with lots of beer and wine) and our family-only “official” marriage ceremony conducted by our friend’s mother, a judge, at midnight.

Bridge

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

The night before, it seemed, was all I could handle. All I needed, too. We’d had a great night with our families and even gotten legally married, the paperwork filled out. And now my back was killing me and my feet ached from wearing heels for the first time in months. I felt bloated, though I had lost enough weight to fit into my high school skinny jeans. Home alone in my apartment, I wanted to stay that way. No matter how much anyone pleaded, I would stay in my pajamas and not leave until this day was over.

Our Hug

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

But of course, after a sobbing conversation with my mother (and a bottle of emergency champagne dropped off by my father), I found myself in the bridal suite having my make-up applied and hair curled by two very enthusiastic sisters, their years on the cheerleading squad finally paying off.

The dress that wasn't
(Photo by Ken Robbins)

I never imagined I’d be this kind of bride. As soon as my sister applied the mascara, tears began to flow again. I completely freaked. When it came time for me to get into my dress, a sweetheart-cut gleaming white strapless number with gorgeous little crystals along the flowing train, my back and hip started screaming. It took about twenty minutes for my mother and sisters to lace up the corset, and then about five seconds for me to hyperventilate and demand that it come off… now. I’ll never forget how amazing my older sister, Janel, was as she cut the corset with scissors and yelled for someone to get Jim.

The Salant men

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

Jim ran into the bridal suite, put a stern end to the back and forth going on about whether we could make the dress wearable, decidedly saying that I would not, that this day wasn’t worth the weeks of pain it would probably turn into if I hurt myself in it, and a lovely hurricane started, with everyone whipping around the suite, figuring things out. I was made to relax in a chair and chug a few flutes of champagne, while my mother-in-law raced back to her house to pull every fancy dress out of her closet, and Jim zipped home to do the same from mine. My father ran to set up a chair for me to sit in during the ceremony, in case I couldn’t stand, and my little sister, Kathy, pulled out her bells-and-whistles make-up case.

Delaware

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

It turned out I had the perfect dress, a lacy number with sparkles and beads which was perfectly my style. Janel pulled it out of a bag and exclaimed that it was perfect! before recognizing that it was inside-out, and my mother-in-law brought her jewelry box along with her dresses, and we found some pearls that matched the dress — and me — to a tee. I looked around to see so many people pulling for me, trying to make my day wonderful, and everything started to feel better. The champagne may have helped a bit, too.

Ceremony 4Flowers

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

The only hurdle left was to walk down the very, very long “aisle” from the bridal suite, across the parking lot, and the lawn, to the ceremony spot by the trees. I made it, thanks to my father, whose seersucker suit looked even better next to my new dress. We decided to nix the long vows that we’d written, since my knees were buckling under the pain, and had a short and sweet ceremony consisting of a poem written and read by our friend Jim, and a favorite poem by Mark Strand read by Jim’s brother, Joe. Then Joe read us the shortened version of our vows, and we answered “We do” to each one in unison.

Rings

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

“Do you vow to be “we” rather than “I,” without hesitation, forever?”

“Do you vow to disregard all fantasies of other lives for the rest of your lives whether or not you are lucky in this life?”

“Do you vow to love not only who you are today, but who you will be tomorrow, and the next day, and every day after that for eternity, knowing full well that you cannot know, but doing it anyway, vowing, taking a leap, yes, a leap of faith, the biggest you are likely to take in your lives….a leap toward love?”

The Kiss

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

A moment before we kissed, a second after Joe announced us husband and wife, Jim cupped my face in his hands and stared into my eyes. All of the nerves, the unsettled feelings, the anxiety, melted away. We were married. I’ll never forget that look; I’m amazed we got it on camera. One look showed me that Jim was as into this marriage as I was, and he was willing to take all the bad — the pain, the struggle — with the good. That look was pure love. And it ended with a kiss… a damned good one.

Kiss

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

After the ceremony, we took the sage advice of our friends Lynne and Mark, and stole off by ourselves for a little while, to high-five and celebrate our marriage with a couple shots of whiskey. I never believed those who told me that I’d feel like a million bucks as soon as the “I do’s” were over, but it was true. I felt better than I had in months. It was amazing.

Damstra FamilyBest FriendsKissSisters

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

We took photos, and Jim quickly got too drunk to be still for most of them, and then we hung out by the Delaware canal during cocktail hour. Our friend Mattias bartended, serving his original cocktails called “Something Old”, “Something New”, “Something Borrowed”, and “Something Blue”, and the caterers from Jamie Hollander Gourmet Market passed around canapes like yellow-fin tuna tar-tare in savory cones (a wink to our ice cream business). Everyone mingled until the sun began to set, and we entered the mill for our “Fancy BBQ” dinner of barbecued pork shoulder and shrimp and grits.

Damstra-Salants

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

The rest of the evening played out like a party. There was no cutting of the cake (we had seasonal cupcakes) or signature dances that everyone was told they had to watch. It was perfect that way, completely relaxed and so much fun. The basement of the Prallsville Mill, where we did our dancing, houses lots of the old grain machinery, and you can hang over a railing to see the river gushing below. Everyone raved about the place.

Cocktail HourScottieLive MusicMorgan

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

The wedding ended, as all weddings should, with a dance off. Every good party of the Damstras or Zuffis (my sister’s husband’s family) ends with the wild and zany dancing of the fathers, but I couldn’t believe my eyes when Jim’s mild-mannered friend of the family, Neil, busted out some moves that made everyone’s jaws drop. That man — a dentist, no less – can dance.

Salants

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

My father and I danced to Sam Cooke’s Nothing Can Change This Love and then Jim and I snuck out the double doors to dance under the stars to what is probably the most unused wedding song in history: Dennis Quaid’s (yes, the actor) Closer to You.

ReceptionRobinDancing!Dancing!

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

Then I sat on the hood of someone’s car as we waited for a big yellow bus to pick up our guests and drive them to a nearby hotel. Jim gathered all the left-over liquor into a milk crate to bring on our honeymoon, and friends lit sparklers and danced around in the grass. The night was perfectly clear and unseasonably warm, and we walked down the street to the nearest bar with a few of our close friends, to sit out on the porch and drink bourbon and, weirdly, get into a drawn-out conversation about homo-eroticism in the NBA. Near two in the morning, Jim and I clasped hands and walked on the yellow lines down Stockton’s main street, to our home, to collapse into bed.

I know it’s cheesy and cliche, but it was the best day of my life.

After party

(Photo by Ken Robbins)

Lovely Little One

(For Robin Damstra and Jim Salant on the Occasion of their Wedding — 9/11/2010)

Let this marriage be codfish and caviar.
Let this marriage be clumsy and forgiving.

Let this marriage be a mystery and a prize.
Let this marriage be a roomful of women laughing.

Let this marriage be the silvery moon and the singing stars.
Let this marriage be a model and a source of comfort.

Let this marriage be strong in the face of loneliness.
Let this marriage be a haven for Champ, and the friends of Champ.

Let this marriage be a secret and an open hand.
Let this marriage be deep-rooted and persistent.

Let this marriage be a flower beside the road,
grown so common and so familiar

that we forget its name, come to know it
only as lovely little one, good friend.

–Jim Haba

Thanks for waiting around while I took some time off of this blog before finally relaying the wedding details to you. After all the stress of the past months had washed away, I realized, on my honeymoon, that I needed to take it easier. Something had to give and, sadly, something was this blog. I feel, now, that I’m ready to come back but it’s hard to make promises when you don’t know if some days you will be in too much pain to get out of bed, and when you realistically can’t cook much anymore — I haven’t cooked a whole meal in months — so I hope you’ll all continue to be patient with me. And cross your fingers that we’ll figure out how to fix me soon. -Robin

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