Soul Cake Recipe

1 cup butter, two sticks American
3 3/4 cups sifted flour
1 cup fine sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon allspice
2 eggs
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
4 -6 tablespoons milk
powdered sugar, to sprinkle on top
Directions:

1
Preheat oven to 350°F.
2
Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender or a large fork.
3
Blend in the sugar, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and allspice; beat eggs, vinegar, and milk together.
4
Mix with the flour mixture until a stiff dough is formed.
5
Knead thoroughly and roll out 1/4-inch thick.
6
Cut into 3-inch rounds and place on greased baking sheets. Prick several times with a fork and bake for 20-25 minutes.
7
Presentation:.
8
Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar while still warm.

-from Food.com

Soul Cake Song

Chorus:
A soul! a soul! a soul-cake!
Please good Missus, a soul-cake!
An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry,
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for Him who made us all.

God bless the master of this house,
The misteress also,
And all the little children
That round the table grow.
Likewise young men and maidens,
Your cattle and your store;
And all that dwell within your gates,
We wish you ten times more
A soul, etc.

Down into the cellar,
And see what you can find,
If your barrels are not empty,
We hope you will prove kind.
(We hope you will prove kind,
With your apples and strong beer,
And we'll come no more a-souling
Till this time next year.)
A soul, etc.

The lanes are very dirty,
My shoes are very thin,
I've got a little pocket
To put a penny in.
If you haven't got a penny
A ha'penny will do;
If you haven't got a ha'penny,
It's God bless you!
A soul, etc

Halloween

Halloween. The full moon woke us up.

Our prayers go out to all of the folks who lost their lives friends neighbors homes cars and haunts in the big storm. We are grateful to the forecasters who were able to help to warn people by giving advanced notice, the governors for instructing, and the courageous first responders who rescued people, preventing an even worse disaster.

Today is All Hallows' Eve, or Halloween. The modern holiday comes from an age-old tradition honoring the supernatural blending of the world of the living and the world of the dead. Halloween is based on a Celtic holiday called Samhain. The festival marked the start of winter and the last stage of the harvest, the slaughtering of animals. It was believed that the dark of winter allowed the spirits of the dead to transgress the borders of death and haunt the living.

Eventually, Christian holidays developed at around the same time. During the Middle Ages, November 1 became known as All Saints' Day, or All Hallows' Day. The holiday honored all of the Christian saints and martyrs. Medieval religion taught that dead saints regularly interceded in the affairs of the living. On All Saints' Day, churches held masses for the dead and put bones of the saints on display. The night before this celebration of the holy dead became known as All Hallows' Eve. People baked soul cakes, which they would set outside their house for the poor. They also lit bonfires and set out lanterns carved out of turnips to keep the ghosts of the dead away.

-Writer's Almanac

Bananas to Replace Potatoes

Read.

Black Bears Eat

Up to 85% of the black bear's diet consists of vegetation, though they tend to dig less than brown bears, eating far fewer roots, bulbs, corms and tubers than the latter species. Young shoots from trees and shrubs during the spring period are important to black bears emerging from hibernation, as they assist in rebuilding muscle and strengthening the skeleton and are often the only digestible foods available at that time. Berries, fruits, grasses, nuts and buds are often eaten. During this period, they may also raid the nut caches of squirrels. Black bears are fond of honey, and will gnaw through trees if hives are too deeply set into the trunks for them to reach them with their paws. Once the hive is breached, black bears will scrape the honeycombs together with their paws and eat them, regardless of stings from the bees.

The majority of the black bear's animal diet consists of insects such as bees, yellow-jackets, ants and their larvae. Black bears will fish for salmon during the night, as their black fur is easily spotted by salmon in the daytime. However, the white furred black bears of the islands of western Canada have a 30% greater success rate in catching salmon than their black furred counterparts. They will also prey on mule and white-tailed deer fawns in certain areas. In addition they have been recorded preying on elk calves in Idaho and moose calves in Alaska. Black bear predation on adult deer is rare but has been recorded. They may hunt prey as large as adult moose, by ambushing them. Black bears often drag their prey to cover, preferring to feed in seclusion and frequently begin feeding on the udder of lactating females, but generally prefer meat from the viscera. The skin of large prey is stripped back and turned inside out with the skeleton usually left largely intact. Unlike wolves and coyotes, black bears rarely scatter the remains of their kills. Vegetation around the carcass is usually matted down by black bears and their droppings are frequently found nearby. Black bears may attempt to cover remains of larger carcasses, though they do not do so with the same frequency as cougars and grizzly bears. They may climb up to bald eagle nests to eat the eggs or chicks. Black bears have been reported stealing deer and other animals from human hunters.
-Wikipedia

Hurricane Cows

Dairy farmer Fran Kenyon took Hurricane Sandy in stride.

"This ain't our first rodeo," said Kenyon of Meadowburg Farm in Richmond.

The farm had power to run its milking parlor Monday afternoon. Tuesday morning, Kenyon and his business partner, Rita Nuuttila, had completed milking 50 of their cows when the electricity went out. "The milk truck was on its way, and we had to finish," Nuuttila said.

"We only had five cows to go, so we hooked up the generator, and that did it," Kenyon said. "We've done this before."

-Providence Journal

Saturday Walk

The elks were cooking six turkeys outside today in upside down garbage cans over charcoal briquettes. I don't smell them cooking I said, but Lily did! Come over to this side they said. They were sitting in lawn chairs drinking plastic cups of draft beer next to their open tailgate blue pickup truck. I remember when you guys did this last year I said. This year the guys cooking were fewer and much friendlier.

The at the elderly high rise the gang of guys were sitting on the squeaky bench with picnic table swing smoking cigars, telling stories and laughing. I stopped with Lily to chat and Lily jumped putting her font paws in their laps instantly receiving a hug. They loved her!! She said hello to both sides of the bench walking gently sideways from left to right while the swing moved slowly. Doesn't the squeak drive you crazy I said? No we get used to it Roland said. Two of the guys had baseball caps that said navy seals. We were both navy seals, the first two in Woonsocket and we met after the war, the guy closest to me said. Which war I asked? Vietnam they answered in unison. One guy looked like the doorman at Emerald City in the wizard of oz at Emerald City. His nose had a perfect circle on the end and his glasses were very thick and tinted. I know them from walking by with my dogs. One guy showed me his recent purchase from the Salvation army. A potato masher with a red Bakelite handle "45 cents". I am so jealous I said. Do you like to cook I asked. Oh Yeah, he said. He is bony thin with tobacco stained teeth. He was smoking a cigar. I know him from his bicycle trips with his little black and white shaggy dog in the back kid carrier trailer. Potato mashers are the best way to make mashed potatoes, I said. Then the other navy seal said he had a gourmet restaurant years ago until his eyes started to go. We're the black sheep Roland said. He has a booming voice and is my favorite resident. Roland was a professional drummer in a swing band for decades, now he's in his 80's. He makes us dinner every week Roland said pointing to the potato masher man. I was ready to invite myself over.

Sunday was my favorite day of the week because dinner was all day and my grandparents would come from Brighton Beach and visit and my step father would tell stories all day at the table. When I got older I retreated to my studio in the basement which was under the dining room. I felt cozy being under the party especially on Thanksgiving.

Hurricane Soup

School is canceled and I will keep cooking and baking. As the storm approached I vacuumed my house and washed clothes while my dog and cat were following me feeling a bit worried. They feel the storm way ahead of us.

Made vat of beet greens and collards and Jamie's home made sausages soup it became a Chinese soup with sesame oil, garlic, water chestnuts, fresh garlic three bulbs thrown in unwrapped, fresh ginger grated, six whole hot chili. Tastes like naked dumplings. I might throw in some dumpling skins and call it a hurricane dumpling soup.

I've set bread to rise. Our neighborhood probably had no sleep - huge swaths of aluminum siding came loose and was flapping sounding like metal crushing all night.

Ken Hom's Oxtail Stew

I had the privilege of being hired to illustrate this amazing cookbook. I never found oxtails when I was shopping for visual reference material but yesterday I saw them in my local Price Rite and was tempted to finally make this.

from Ken Hom’s Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood; p. 212-213

Recipe Source: (Ken Hom's Easy Family Reci...
Prep time: 10 Min. Cook time: 240 Min. Serves: 4

Ingredients

3 lbs oxtails

2 Tbsp Peanut Oil

1 cup coarsely chopped onions

6 garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped

1 Tbsp salt

3 star anise

2 Tbsp hoisin sauce

2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce

1 Tbsp dark soy sauce

2 Tbsp Shaoxing rice wine (or dry sherry)

2 Tbsp curry paste or powder

3 Tbsp crushed Chinese rock sugar or granulated sugar

2 tsp chili bean paste or sauce

1 tsp ground black pepper

6 cups chicken stock (or reduced-salt canned broth)

1 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into eighths

1 lb carrots, peeled and roll-cut

GARNISH:

1 head iceberg lettuce, leaves separated

Instructions

1) Plunge oxtails into salted boiling water and simmer them for 15 minutes. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain well in a colander.

2) Heat a wok or large frying pan over high heat until it is hot. Swirl in the oil, and when it is very hot and slightly smoking, toss in the onions and garlic and stir-fry for 1 minute. Then dump in toe oxtails and continue to stir-fry for 2 minutes. Toss in the salt, star anise, hoisin, soy sauces, rice wine, curry, sugar, chili bean paste, and pepper and continue to stir-fry for 2 minutes.

3) Transfer the contents of the wok to a large casserole and add the stock. Bring the mixture to a simmer and continue simmering gently for 20 minutes, uncovered, skimming frequently. Then cover tightly and continue to simmer for 3 hours. Check for doneness (the meat should literally come off of the bones) and skim off any excess fat from the surface.

4) Dump in the vegetables, cover, and continue to simmer gently for another 35 minutes, or until both the vegetables and oxtails are very tender.

5) Blanch iceberg lettuce leaves in a large pot of boiling salted water for 1 minute, just until they are barely wilted. Lay the lettuce on a large platter, ladle the oxtail stew over the leaves, and serve at once.

Emily Dickinson's Recipe for Gingerbread:

1 quart flour, 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup cream, 1 tablespoon ginger, 1 teaspoon soda, 1 teaspoon salt, make up with molasses.

Instructions for today’s cooks:
Cream the butter and mix with lightly whipped cream. Sift dry ingredients together and combine with the other ingredients. (A little more than a cup of molasses is about right.) The dough is stiff and needs to be pressed into whatever pan you choose. A round or small square pan is suitable. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Dickinson family kept a basket on windowsill of the poet’s bedroom, where Emily Dickinson lowered gingerbread to her niece, nephews, and their friends.

-Emily Dickinson Museum Amherst MA

Overheard

We stopped at the Warehouse Liquors to pick out a special six pack of beer for Bill's birthday and I overheard a guy at the checkout counter "You can't have campfires anymore with West Nile, Equine insephilitus and Lyme disease" I was sorry I didn't get a look at him or what he was buying. I was ensconced in the skyscrapers of beer.

Buttermilk Scone Improvisation

Here's the recipe below then I spontaneously added pumpkin puree, poppy seeds, raisins, more buttermilk and a touch more sugar. I used lemon zest like the recipe suggests. They are a jaundice yellow color but they're delicious.

BUTTERMILK SCONES Marion Cunningham

For the Scones

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

6 ounces unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 cup buttermilk

For the Topping

1 tablespoon grated orange or lemon zest

2 ounces unsalted butter, melted, for brushing

1/4 cup sugar

4 tablespoons jam or jelly (optional)

4 tablespoons diced plump dried fruits, such as currants, raisins, apricots, or figs (optional)

Makes 12 triangular or 24 rolled scones

Position racks to divide oven into thirds and preheat to 425°F. Stir flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together with a fork. Add butter pieces and work it into the dry ingredients until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Pour in 1 cup buttermilk and the zest, and mix until ingredients are just moistened. If dough looks dry, add another tablespoon buttermilk. Gather dough into a ball, turn it onto a lightly floured work surface, and knead briefly. Cut dough in half.

To Make Triangular-Shaped Scones, roll one piece of dough into a 1/2-inch-thick circle that is 7 inches across. Brush the dough with half of the melted butter, sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of sugar, and cut the circle into 6 triangles. Place the scones on an ungreased baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.

To Make Rolled Scones, roll one piece of dough into a 12 inch long and 1/2 inch thick strip. Spread with half of the melted butter and dust with half of the sugar. Either spread the roll with jam or sprinkle it with dried fruits; leave a narrow border on a long edge bare. Roll the strip up from a long side like a jelly roll; pinch seam closed and turn seam side down. Cut the roll in half and cut each piece into six 1-inch-wide roll-ups. Place cut side down on an ungreased baking sheet, leaving a little space between each. Repeat with the remaining dough.
Bake scones 10 minutes or until both tops and bottoms are golden. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Marrow Monster

One of my vivid memories of childhood was my daily walk home for lunch from elementary school. My mother would often join me at the kitchen table and eat a bowl of soup with a bone. She'd bite the ends of bone with her teeth and suck out the marrow. I'd watch her with horror, like a giant eating her kill. She sat opposite me tearing apart the bones with her huge lip-sticked mouth and gigantic white teeth while I slowly took bites from my cream cheese and jelly sandwich.

William Deresiewicz

But what has happened is not that food has led to art, but that it has replaced it. Foodism has taken on the sociological characteristics of what used to be known — in the days of the rising postwar middle class, when Mortimer Adler was peddling the Great Books and Leonard Bernstein was on television — as culture. It is costly. It requires knowledge and connoisseurship, which are themselves costly to develop. It is a badge of membership in the higher classes, an ideal example of what Thorstein Veblen, the great social critic of the Gilded Age, called conspicuous consumption. It is a vehicle of status aspiration and competition, an ever-present occasion for snobbery, one-upmanship and social aggression.

- William Deresiewicz, NYT

Space Shot Pumpkin Pie

I whipped up a press-in whole wheat oil pie crust and hung my laundry on the clothesline while it was baking. When I came back inside,I smelled something burning. I had set the timer for five minutes but I forgot to wear my kitchen timer. I forgot completely that I was making pie a crust. Luckily it is still salvageable. I whipped up the pumpkin part and it is baking in the crust.

I often have the urge to run out when I am baking so I can re-enter my home experiencing the good smells.

I am glad I didn't run away because the pie was done earlier than planned. Now all of the timers are going off!

E.B. White

Remember that writing is translation, and the opus to be translated is yourself.
-E.B.White, The Story of Charlotte's Web, Michael Sims

Swinging on the Trapeze

I have warped the bottoms of both of my pressure cookers turning them into rocking bowls by forgetting to add water. I was distracted by a visitor while cooking in my kitchen. So I have reverted to my mini cast iron pot and I wear my timer stop watch around my neck with two other timers placed on the stove hood and at the light switch on the top of the stairs at my office. I am a space shot. I avoid driving a car too because everything is visual and audio and too distracting. I always forget to look both ways when crossing the street too, but my dog often stops. I do wear bright yellow or red so I don't get hit.

I haven't cooked unhulled barley in a while but put I know I have a large half used bag at the bottom of my chest freezer. People have asked us many times if we are Mormons since we have so much grain stored in our cellar. No, I tell them. We were in a mail order food coop for many years and it was during our last recession.

Thanks for reminding me about barley! I rinse then put water in - I measure by placing my fingers flat and stopping when it's just past my knuckles and I add kosher salt and sometimes Adobo and a bloop of olive oil. That's my answer to cooking nearly everything! Maybe sauteed onions would jazz it up too. Perhaps I'll cook some and report back. maybe toasting it first in the oven would be cool. I have made my own Wheatena that way using wheat berries and it is so good.

I just ate a whole boule (half grapefruit sized) out of the oven with green pimento olives - they sell big jars of olives at price rite. We have what we call 'prime real estate' fridge space. There has to be enough space for rising bread, soup stock, milk, juice potato stock and all the crazy things I save in jam jars throughout the week.

Bill has accidentally added lemonade to a jar of broccoli water thinking it was leftover black tea. It wasn't bad he said. I just was expecting something different. I still laugh out loud thinking of it. I should keep masking tape handy and label things.

That reminds me of a childhood story . . .
My mother had the inside of the family refrigerator memorized. She would open the door, study the contents and shout "Who MOVED the tomato?"
We'd all be shaking in our boots. I did, I'd confess. She just needed to know, but she was furious.

I had the whole bookcase memorized in my childhood therapists office. Each week I'd be so bored I'd use the 60 minutes to tell him which book he moved and where it was the week before. For me it was like a game of concentration. My favorite card game. He'd write down what I was saying in three colors of ink (red, green, and blue) depending on the content.

Thank you again for pulling a letter out of me, I always need the metaphorical "eye contact" to write better. I need someone to catch my ankles as I swing out on the trapeze.

Elizabeth Kwak-Heffernan

Plastic meshy bags that hold onions, garlic, and the like can be scrunched into dish scrubbers.

-Elizabeth Kwak-Heffernan

Read.

Just in Case

My step-father used to love to get up early to make animal-shaped pancakes for us on Saturday mornings.

We loved it but my mother nixed this plan.

The kitchen was her domain.

Even when my father was grilling swordfish outdoors over charcoal briquettes on the flagstone patio

my mother would run inside and bake a turkey,

just in case.

Baking while Walking

I set up my sourdough to rise at as small boules and then baked them for 20 minutes while I walked Lily with my kitchen timer. The neighborhood kids were outside at the bus stop in front of the house, happy to greet Lily. I walked Oak Hill Avenue the 1/2 block dead-end lit up by the sun.

I almost forgot about the bread. I was in Bouley field when I looked at the timer, I realized I had 2 minutes to get home. The breads are fine they came out dark and crusty and sour and moist inside.

Tables, Tenements and Tchotchkes

There's something traumatic about having a dining table separate from the kitchen. I love the old fashioned farm kitchens with tables in the center. This is a big deal because I love to cook and feed and have the ability to jump up and grab the salt or pepper and offer hot helpings from the stove not to mention shew the cat off the kitchen counter.

A few years ago we turned the back office into a kitchen by sitting at our old enamel table in there. This room was frequently too cold and too hot depending on the season and overlooked a loud parking lot. I hung half curtains but then the little bathroom sink off the office broke and the ceiling sprung a leak and fell down so now it is closed until further notice.

Our friend who finds props for films gave us an old round oak table and we were overjoyed. We put it beside the couch and it has become our kitchen table. It's as close to our galley kitchen as we can be. We're seated against the big front windows. We have great light and a layer of shrubs protecting us from the street. We call our dining room table dinner theater because there's always lively dramas with multiple characters on the three layers of porches opposite us.

One day walking home with Lily, our neighbor was gracefully placing a candelabra on the sidewalk. She was moving in a slow motion dance. She is tall and gentle. I asked her if she was throwing it out. Yes, would you like it? It was from my mother in Canada, she said. I said Yes, thank you and we have become friends and the lovely Danish candelabra from Canada lives, lit nightly with white Sabbath candles on our round oak table.

Barack Baklava

Turkish pastry chef bakes Barack Obama into a baklava.
Read.

"Under the command of one chef with five assistants, it takes 10 days to make,” Gullu said. “In each piece of baklava there are 55 layers of pastry. It’s all handmade and is very hard. Obama’s big ears made it very difficult, but we managed."

Mashed Potatoes

I sliced and gouged the eyes out of all ten pounds of potatoes and then cubed them and steamed them in my army crock pot while I looped the 'hood with Lily. When my neighbor Thalia wanted to chat I said I've got potatoes boiling, I have to go home, and she understood. When I came back and they were perfectly done. I smashed some in a bowl with a fork and some Smart Margarine (opposed to stupid margarine) and fried a fresh egg that Jamie my mail lady gave me from her backyard free range chickens. The egg was so delicious and had a deep orange yolk. I am still wishing I could have my own Jersey cows a few chickens, sheep and goats and live walking distance from the city library and post office.

Corn Tortillas + Pepper Jack + Tomato Sauce

I just took my soft corn tortillas the ones we get from Price Rite and put slices of Pepper Jack cheese between them making round sandwiches. I microwaved them and then rolled them up and sliced them into pinwheel circles. Then I spooned my amazing tomato eggplant chic pea tomato sauce on top and warmed them. They were like Mexican raviolis. Delicious!

Peanut Butter and Pickle

I've made peanut butter and basil and peanut butter and red onion but now I will try peanut butter and pickle sandwich.
Read.