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An indication of knowing someone really well is knowing which foods they love, like, and hate. My father loves this recipe, and I was told by Kyria Loula, who knew him as a boy, that it had to go into the book just for him. If you follow his taste buds, the more garlic the better. If you follow mine, start slow, taste as you go, and add more garlic as needed.
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During the developing and testing process for this book, this dish became Hubby's new favorite. Totally unexpected—I was sure he'd steal a line from the kids and say, "Thank you anyway, but this is not my taste." (We taught them to say that instead of "Ooo, yick!") It's just not the usual stuff and spices he goes for, but apparently the combination was soooo his taste. And mine, too. It's one of those winner recipes that will make you dance around your kitchen. You may hug me now.
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For smaller loaves, divide dough and nut paste mixture into four portions instead of two and bake in four mini loaf pans—for 40–45 minutes.
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My mom, Betty Keller, was a creature of habit. She worked very hard at her job managing restaurants while raising five boys and a daughter as a single mother. She loved to have cookies on hand at the end of the day, and she especially loved the Keebler pecan sandie. It was part of my childhood, and it's a flavor combination, vanilla and pecan, that I associate with her. It was an adult cookie to me. There was always a bag of them in the cupboard.
Or almost always. We were six kids, and we were voracious. That was a problem when it came to my mother's cookies. We had our own cookies, Oreos and Nutter Butters, but when we'd dispatched those, there would be that bag of Mom's pecan sandies, daring us. It was really hard. Those cookies were sacrosanct, but sometimes, guiltily, we ate her cookies, one by one, until they were gone.
Mom had very few things she could call her own. She had no real luxuries. We didn't have winter family vacations; we didn't go to a cabin by a lake in the summer. She worked, and she gave us everything we wanted and needed. But we didn't appreciate it then. How could we know? How could I, youngest of the boys, know?
But I do now. Day after day, year after year, Mom set an extraordinary example for me. An example of hard work, attention to detail, and an all-consuming love for our family that I still have today.
Food is a powerful connecter of who we are to who we were, to our past, to our memories, and, for me, to a different and simpler time. Even the smallest thing—a cookie—can help us understand what we feel now while reminding us of what we once felt and who we've become versus who we were then. So much of who I am today is tied to who my mom was, the choices she made, the way she worked, and how she lived her life. What success I have today, I owe to her.
All of which is why the pecan sandie is so important to me.
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The best aphrodisiacs of times gone by were these 11 foods you'd actually want to eat, like artichokes, arugula, and the humble olive
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A recent Facebook study tweaked your news feed to gauge your emotional reactions, and now we're conducting our own test: How do these recipes make you feel?
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Bitter greens, radicchio, celery and more salads you shouldn't fear—but love!
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When I worked in Gray Kunz's kitchens at Lespinasse, there was an honest-to-God Swiss princess living at the St. Regis Hotel. Her name was Princess Doria, and every night, she would phone down to the kitchen and tell us what she wanted to eat for dinner. In the beginning, Gray would cook for her himself: he was Swiss, she was Swiss, it was a whole Swiss thing going on. But after a while, he got tired of taking her calls, and the job devolved to me and the sous chefs. Every night, that phone would ring, and I would say, "Good evening, Princess," and she would tell me what she wanted to eat that night. Princess Doria wasn't into super-fancy creative cooking: her thing was refined-but-homey. Some- times, for example, it would be a roast pintade for two: I would plate the breast for her, and the thighs for her cat. So I developed some dishes that were just for her. I named them after her: Salad Doria, Chicken Doria. And sometimes on cold winter nights, she would call down and say, "Andrew, I would like some Soup Doria tonight, please."
Time passed. I left Lespinasse to travel and cook in France. When I got back to New York, I helped open Le Cirque 2000 in the Palace Hotel. We'd been up and running about two weeks when the kitchen phone rang by my station one night, right in the middle of the busiest part of service. I heard a familiar voice say, in French-accented tones, "Andrew?" Princess Doria on the line. She'd moved on to the Palace right behind me, and she would be pleased, she said, if I would send up some Soup Doria for her.
This soup is just Princess Doria's style. It's really a potage—a French minestrone, a chunky winter vegetable soup. I like to sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top and serve it with some crusty, crunchy French bread.
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This dish is my mother's interpretation of a meal we had at a friend’s birthday party when we were young. We came home raving about it and had to try making it for ourselves!
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As you know, it’s easy to get overwhelmed in the kitchen, and often the smartest thing you can do is delegate responsibilities. Trust me when I tell you it is perfectly safe to farm out this recipe to some antsy houseguests or eager, enterprising children. It’s virtually infallible and can take on just about any flavor you like, no matter how clumsy the chef. Find the vanilla sauce–filled center too timid? Stir in a tiny bit of beet juice to make it a little more Hollywood.
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This recipe is the result of a 12-year obsession. I first fell for these wispy cookies when I bought a startlingly pricey pack of them at an upscale gourmet store in America. When I moved to France, I was surprised how common these crackly cookies are. I was so excited—they were everywhere! Have I mentioned that I’m obsessive? It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that I just had to come up with a recipe for the cookies myself. I checked the ingredients list on as many packages as I could get my hands on, and they certainly seemed simple enough. What followed was years of duds as I searched for ways to combine the mere handful of ingredients into the lightly caramelized croquants of my dreams. Then, suddenly, one day, after a lot of trial and just as much error, I got it right. I wasn’t the only one pleased with the results: I left a sack for the highly opinionated French woman who cleans my apartment, and arrived home later to find a little note that read “EXTRA DELICIEUX. Merci, David!”
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I remember these cookies with annoyance and affection. Growing up, every year for my birthday my mother would send me to school with her anise seed cookies. Other kids got to bring cupcakes. I was the kid with the anise seed cookies. It’s not that I didn’t like these cookies—I loved them then and I still do. But back then I just wanted cupcakes like everyone else! Today I’m pretty psyched whenever I get a chance to munch on these lovelies. I even made a version of this recipe during an Iron Chef battle and they helped us win!
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Culture
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I'm glad I'm no longer addicted to pastries, but to be honest, I still feel an occasional twinge of nostalgia for scones—tender and crusty, with just a touch of fruity sweetness. My husband's to blame for this grain-free recipe; after trying one of his scones, I had to banish the rest from the house, fearing I'd eat the entire batch in one sitting. (Of course, since then, I haven't been able to stop thinking about them. Argh.)
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At a dinner at an Italian vinoteca, on the dessert menu was something I'd never seen before: ricotta-stuffed eggplant with candied orange and chocolate sauce. My curiosity piqued, I placed an order with the waiter, only to have him come back with "You won't like it. Order something else." Not one to be easily swayed from ordering an intriguing dessert, I ordered it in spite of his admonition, and you know what? I liked it—quite a bit, in fact.
With that experience in mind, when I saw a fresh fennel cake on a dessert menu at a fancy three-star Michelin restaurant, I didn't hesitate to order it. I had high hopes and was ready for anything. But so was the waiter, who informed me as he set it down that if I didn't like it, he'd replace it with something else. He saw my expression after I took my first bite, and he briskly returned to the table to make good on his offer.
Still, I do believe in giving a chance to things that are out of the ordinary, otherwise, how would we discover new flavors and tastes? I haven't gotten around to trying to come up with my own version of an eggplant dessert (and I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to come up with a fresh fennel one, either), but I've made these tomato jam-filled cookies many times and not once have I had to rush over to offer guests anything in their place.
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Culture
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Many people come to Paris with dreams of falling in love, and I know more than one person who’s returned home starry-eyed after a steamy love affair—with profiteroles. Who can resist eggy, buttery pastry filled with vanilla ice cream, heaped on plates, served with a gleaming silver pitcher of warm chocolate sauce? It’s a table-side ritual that takes place nightly in romatic restaurants and cozy cafés across the city as dashing waiters douse profiteroles with warm sauce and the molten chocolate gushes over the golden puffs, filling every little nook and crevice possible. The profiteroles are served forth with a sly grin (and perhaps a bit of a wink), leaving you free to indulge. Profiteroles are seductively simple to make at home, and you can’t go wrong with any ice cream and sauce combination that sounds good to you. My personal favorite is profiteroles filled with Chartreuse Ice Cream (page 57), drizzled with Classic Hot Fudge (page 164), and scattered with lots and lots of crispy French Almonds (page 189). J’adore!
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Culture
An illustrated guide to the dominant menu-writing trends in American restaurants today, from the Novella to the Memento
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We may not have had the most sophisticated palates when we were kids, but we sure knew how to eat. We're nostalgic for these classic dishes.
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Instructed by my mother to feed the cats, I would push the door open, inch by inch, watching the sliver of light from the kitchen stab into the darkness, waiting for it to widen gradually into a triangle across the floor, bright enough to reassure me that nothing was going to attack my hand as it darted through the gap to flip on the light switch inside the garage. For a month every year, our garage changed from a dark and hazardous clutter of bikes, chainsaws, and gardening equipment to a truly terrifying place. Even in daylight I avoided the place, but when obliged to enter—such as when forced to feed the cats (whom I’d gladly have let starve), or if I really needed a bike or a skateboard—I kept a keen eye on the cinder block and plank shelves at the back, where malevolent orange enamel pots burped with sinister unpredictability. Days went by. Cobwebs formed (the better to ensnare the cats). Whenever I might show the slightest hint of getting on familiar terms with this horror—of letting down my guard—the pots would burp again, the lids would clatter, the cats would scatter, trailing cobwebs into the attic, and I would fly to my mother’s legs and cling to them so tightly that she’d shriek in alarm. My reward for surviving? A measured respect for the mysteries of fermentation and a tangy mound of steaming sauerkraut bedded with boiled Polish and German sausages. It was worth it.
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When I was growing up, my mom and sister were obsessed with lobster. My father and I just never got it. But on both their birthdays, my father would take us all to the chosen lobster spot of the moment. While Jessica and my mom happily cracked their way through dinner, hardly glancing up from their plates, Dad and I would glumly saw through our landlubber specials. I admit I felt a little envious watching Jessica and Mom picking apart their matching dinners, knowing that I would never have that lobster bond with my mother. Normally, my mother prefers her lobster plain and simple—steamed and served with lemon and drawn butter. But one Mother’s Day, I took liberty, hoping to entice her with this rendition of a classic chopped salad. It worked; while we’re still on opposite sides of the table at the lobster shack, we both get excited about this salad.
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The swineherd, like the shepherd, conducts his life significantly all’ aria aperta—out-of-doors. It is there that he naps and forages, tends to his fires, capriciously bathing himself and one part or another of his clothing in an often swift and single maneuver. He might also cook up some wonderfully scented stew of wild mushrooms or one of dried beans and just-gathered grasses and herbs, as supplement to his staples of cheese, honey, bread, and wine. More than once, though, we took note of purposeful midday couriers visiting a swineherd in the pasture, carrying a basket full of components for him to cook a fine feast of a lunch midst his charges and under the sun. We learned, too, that, once in a while, the swineherd cooks for his family, his friends. Here follows a version of a dish as it is prepared by a young Sard herdsman when he slaughters a pig for market. Staging a torchlit supper in his meadow, he braises a haunch of the animal for his neighbors. Its formula was told to us by his wife, she having cooked it for us on the farm where we stayed near Sassari.