Simplicity

We went out for Italian pizza lunches at the two best places near here with Mary Ellen, and had a variety of 12-inch pizzas ranging from Margherita to prosciutto with arugula. Quite a worthwhile project, although fattening. I don't always succeed in getting my photos in order here, but a prosciutto, arugula, and truffle oil pizza is pictured.

And here's the cobbler recipe from your childhood.

Fruit Cobbler

Place in a baking dish or 10-inch pyrex pie plate:

4 to 6 cups prepared fruit (berries, or cut-up peaches, or a mixture)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour

Make biscuit topping:

1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar

Mix with fork.

1/3 cup milk or water
1/6 (2 and 2/3 tablespoons) cup oil

Mix liquids and stir into flour mixture, stirring only until lightly blended. Drop by teaspoon blobs onto fruit. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar if desired. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Serve warm, maybe with ice cream.

U Pick Pears

While out running errands I saw this sign in someone's front yard along a busy road. Beneath the sign was a plastic grocery bag full of other plastic grocery bags.

I picked four pears off the pear-loaded tree, though they are quite hard and probably not close to ripe yet. I just wanted to support the idea, you know?

Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler

I saw rhubarb at the grocery store last week (nobody I know seems to grow it) and got to thinking about the rhubarb sauce you used to make when Russell and I were kids. I remember eating it plain, slightly warmed, with a spoon. That was just rhubarb and sugar, right? It was magical.

Then, in one of the many strange food coincidences of the late spring, my pal Kerry sent me a link to this rhubarb pie post.

I also saw that strawberries were on sale, and not knowing whether Lawson was ready to handle plain rhubarb sauce, I then got to thinking about strawberry-rhubarb pies.

But you know what? Pies are too fancy, with their fussy rolling pins and optional lattices and pie weights. So I decided to make a cobbler.

My favorite chapter in the 2000 Joy of Cooking is "American Fruit Desserts." It covers cobblers, grunts, slumps, crisps, pandowdies, and apple brown betty. The linguist in me is ecstatic over this.

I used the Joy strawberry-rhubarb cobbler recipe. It has just a tiny bit of cornmeal mixed into a basic biscuit dough. I used white whole wheat flour instead of white flour. And I made rough blobby chunks of dough the way you used to instead of rolling out the biscuit dough or something else all fancy.

It was delicious. Lawson, who found his one previous run-in with rhubarb pie kind of weird, loved it. So now I have to find out if I can grow rhubarb down here in South Carolina.

Fruitcake

I made a fruitcake for Christmas this year. And I spent a lot of time trying to convince Lawson that it wasn't going to be gross. He was dubious...I guess he ate a lot of dry fruitcake packed with green candied cherries when he was a kid. I, on the other hand, ate a lot of tasty homemade and Collin Street fruitcake, so I have mostly good associations, its cultural status notwithstanding.

Making it was fun. I soaked tons of dried fruit in brandy, and made a delicious dark cake with the fruit, some nuts, and more brandy. I then wrapped it and put it away for a week to age. A few days before Christmas I tried a little, and it was tasty but a tad dry, so I soaked it with more brandy -- still less than the maximum amount the recipe allowed, mind you. But it got a little too boozy and fruity.

So I'm sad to report my fruitcake is a tiny bit gross. Maybe it needs to mellow more. It's a little too moist now, and it falls apart, and the booze isn't altogether pleasant. It tastes like fermented fruit in dough. So I guess I'll put it away again and try it next month.

Figs

Before moving to South Carolina I'd never had a fresh fig. And even then it took me a while to work up to eating one. They're soft, much softer than any other fruit, almost unappetizingly so. And they don't keep, so you can't pick one and think about it for a day or two while it sits on your counter. You have to eat the fig right away...either that, or make fig preserves.

I finally ate a fig, and then a few more, and three years ago I bought Lawson a fig tree which is just this year beginning to produce figs in earnest (not in jest). The birds eat slightly over half the figs -- there are deep beak holes and bird poop -- but that leaves us about one a day. They are huge Mission-style figs. I cut them in half, and we each get plenty.
Lawson's parents have a tree that bears the smaller, more traditional greenish-brown figs. Earlier this year we picked many pounds' worth and made fig preserves. They're okay. I'm not convinced figs have the right flavor for preserves: raw, they're delicately perfumey, but boiled they're mostly just sweet. I'll try again, though. Lawson thinks maybe my version had too much lemon, and he may be right.

For the first time ever I've been seeing fresh figs in the supermarket this year. I haven't tried them...have you (Mom) or you (readers)? (There's some proof that English could use a second-person singular-plural distinction.)

Easy Almond Tart

Here's our breakfast fruit from this morning: kiwi, white peach, navel orange. I love this time of year when we're overwhelmed with fruit choices.

Here also is a tart recipe to contribute to your ongoing research. It is rather sweet, but I usually serve just a small sliver with some fresh fruit on the side.

Easy Almond Tart

Pastry
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, softened

1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 ½ teaspoons water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In food processor, pulse flour, sugar, salt, and butter until mixture resembles coarse meal.

With processor running, add vanilla and water and mix until dough just comes together. Press into 9” tart pan. Bake until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Remove and reduce oven to 350 degrees.

Filling

¾ cup sugar
¾ cup whipping cream
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon orange-flavored liqueur
½ teaspoon almond extract

1 cup sliced almonds

Whisk together sugar, cream, salt, liqueur, and almond extract until slightly thickened.

Stir in almonds and mix thoroughly. Pour into prepared crust. Bake until top forms a crust similar to pecan pie, 45 to 55 minutes. Cool completely before serving.

Variations: I love to make an Almond Joy variation on this, stirring in shredded coconut and chocolate chips along with the almonds (a total of one cup).

Cantaloupe for Breakfast

It's hard to write about cooking during July because the foods I love most right now require no preparation.

I'm not from the school that puts sugar on grapefruit, cream on blueberries, cheese on apples, etc. It isn't out of purity or health nuttery; it's more like fresh fruit gives me a clean-mouthed feeling that's spoiled by dairy or sucrose.

Lawson grew this cantaloupe, because I am the luckiest eater ever.

Microwave Jam

Here's an easy way to make a small batch of jam--one or two jars.

Berries, peaches, apricots, etc.

Sugar

Butter

In a large Pyrex cup or bowl, chop or mash fruit to make about 3 cups. Add sugar to equal one-half of the fruit (that is, for 3 cups of prepared fruit, use 1 1/2 cups sugar.) Add 1/2 teaspoon of butter. Mix well.

Cover loosely and microwave on High for 5 minutes. Stir again. Microwave uncovered in two-minute increments until it begins to jell when dribbled from a spoon.

Can't tell when it's jelled? It will be sticky but not thick. If you're not sure, put a tablespoonful on a plate to cool in the fridge. You can always cook it more later. Cooking time varies widely with the fruit: I cooked this batch of strawberry a total of 9 minutes, 5+2+2.

Place in clean jar. Refrigerate or freeze after it's cooled.

The Pala Fruit Market

On our way from San Diego to the Anza-Borrego Desert we stopped at a roadside fruit stand in the tiny Pala Indian reservation. For $3.10 I bought:

a small red onion
1 honeydew melon
3 large Big Jim Chiles
2 Haas avocados
2 kiwis
1 pound tomatillos
3 Gala apples
1 green bell pepper


Driving through the Imperial Valley I was excited to see so many crops. Is everyone thrilled to see an acre of Swiss chard? We saw vast fields of chard, artichokes (by far the most beautiful!), lettuce, spinach, oranges, grapefruit, lemons, tangelos, and acres and acres of dates. We visited the Oasis Date Farm and sampled black, Noor, Deglet, and Medjool dates.

I always read with great interest the park regulations wherever we visit. The Salton Sea State Recreation Area is the first I have seen where nudity is specifically prohibited. Parks in other states generally concern themselves with fishing regulations, hours of quiet, trash disposal, and fussing about alcohol consumption.

Seeds

This week I've eaten all my meals at work, and aside from the general camaraderie of proposal writing, it hasn't been fun. Usually around noon and again around 7 someone will offer to make a run to somewhere like Cracker Barrel or Schlotzsky's, and I will stop working long enough to pull up an online meanu and give them my order (chicken and dumplings with greens and green beans; an Asian wrap; etc.) When the food arrives, we all gather briefly in the conference room and eat quickly, then return to work. I drive home around 9:30 or so, drink a few beers and talk to Lawson, and then go to bed.

I got home at 7 tonight, and I wasn't hungry for dinner, so I sat down and ate the most labor-intensive food there is: a pomegranate. It was slow and messy and there is red juice on my jeans and keyboard, and I feel a thousand times more relaxed and grounded now. Cooking and eating are like meditation when done right.

I imagine you're pretty busy with Christmas preparations. On Christmas Eve I'll be baking gingerbread and a lemon meringue pie for the meal with Lawson's family's. On Christmas I'd like to have huevos rancheros like you always make. It's supposed to rain all day, so that should make it seem a little cheerier and more festive.