Don’t you just hate it when you have to “eat your words”?
Story of my Life.
I first tried Nutella,the European’s version of peanut butter, thirty-five years ago when I was in Paris.
I last tried Nutella, a chocolate and hazelnut spread, when I first went to Paris thirty-five years ago.
Yuck! That’s the reason I wasn’t looking forward to inflicting this week’s recipe, a Nutella tartine, on any of my family, neighbors or designated-guinea pigs.
Nutella, A Cupboard Staple for Every Household. kerrycooks.wordpress.com
Instead, I quietly slipped it into my Super Bowl Sunday repertoire of afternoon goodies and snacks. Somewhere between the Giant’s 2-point safety, Manning’s nine-completed passes and Brady’s first-half comeback, I served this goûter ( an afternoon snack ) to an unsuspecting crowd.
This recipe was developed by renown French pastry chef Pierre Herme. The bread is brioche. The chocolate is Nutella. The sweet surprise is orange marmalade. The nuts are hazel.
Brioche – The perfect Bread for this Tartine.
Buttered Brioche Slices, Ready to Toast
Put aside the nachos. Hold the chicken wings. Save the veggie and cheese platters for another day. The football fans at my house loved this treat! As did I. (That’s where the “eating my words” comes in.)
At half-time the critiquing and suggestions poured forth. By using a lighter hand to spread the Nutella, this could be breakfast. Even, lunch. Taken up a notch, an afternoon pick-me-up, with espresso. Dessert, cut and served like a brownie or tart. This is a delicious toasted-taste. Like, really delicious.
Superbowl Sunday – “Got Milk?”
What I did not know at the time was that February 5th was also World Nutella Day. Here we Americans just thought it was Super Bowl Sunday.
http://www.nutelladay.com/
While some fellow Doristas, Nutrella naysayers, were also not looking forward to this week’s recipe choice, check out our site to discover other surprising results.
P.S. Word on-the-street is that Madonna uses Nutella as her go-to energy food. Whether you are a Madonna-fan or not, keep in mind the lady is 53-years old. Did you SEE her during the half-time show? Reason enough to mainline Nutella.
It’s a truthful statement when I mention that almost everything in my house has been in someone else’s first. The majority of my friends do not relish “The Prowl”, whether it be at flea markets, thrift shops or legitimate antique/collectible stores, but I’ve never let that deter me from scoring a great find or having a hoot ‘n holler time doing it.
An Antique Store Valentine’s Day Discovery
In Snap #23 I wrote that I often go to these places to purchase cheesy, cheap, glittery, heart-shaped jewelry – earrings, necklaces or bracelets – for Valentine’s Day gifties.
As proof that I don’t suggest a Snap I haven’t already tried, here are my Valentine “finds” to date. Still seven days to go.
1. My 8-year-old granddaughter is a frog-iac. This little girl lives, breathes, loves, photographs, studies and dissects frogs. Her pet frog, Blazer, who resides in a mini-condo in the family living room (Yes, it gets dicey when Grandma visits.), eats living crickets. These creatures, who remain alive to the last bite, also reside in a box in the living room. Sometimes the crickets get loose. Although my daughter insists this grandchild is a blood-relative, she carries none of my DNA. But, in a local antique shop, I discovered the Amphibian versions of Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma and Miles Davis. Cost: $9.00 She’ll love it.
The Amphibian Versions of Perlman, Davis, and Ma.
2. For my 10-year-old granddaughter, I snagged something terrific – a Swiss Army knife. Blade. Sharp. School Expulsion. Has Grandma gone crazy? Strange as this may sound, she’ll be thrilled. Emma lives in California’s Inyo Valley with the Sierra Nevada Mountains as her backyard playground. She already has a generic, all-purpose knife, which her parents have taught her to use, but she covets the ‘real deal’. Although that wish will be granted for her mid-Summer birthday, this Valentine version will suffice for now. Cost: $1.00 (I loved the “Climb the Matterhorn” tagline as will she.)
“Climb the Matterhorn” – the tagline for this version of a Swiss Army Knife.
3. Who doesn’t love diamonds? That’s exactly what I spotted yesterday for my daughter: a well-designed, gold-plated, heart pin, studded with 18 (I counted them) diamonds. Okay, so, probably, “gold” is not the right word. The “diamonds” may be rhinestones. And, to be truthful, my daughter doesn’t wear nor even like jewelry. That’s precisely why she will wear and keep this priceless piece. $12.00
All That Glitters May Not Be Gold.
4. And, for my son-in-law. A fossilized sand dollar, millions of years old, for his desk. It’s a guy thing. $7.00
Millions of Years Ago, This Was A Sand Dollar (or, so I’m told).
Here’s the SNAP: Valentine’s Day does not have to be another pricey holiday. For this holiday it really IS the thought that counts. Go to Michael’s or any crafts/party store and spend $15.00 on glitz-and-glitter, Made-in-China Valentine decor. Shape your pizza or meatloaf or mac ‘n cheese or sandwiches into hearts, buy some Valentine’s cookies and toss Chocolates Kisses all over the table. You’ve made a party. Invite your family – that’s what I am doing – or friends or colleagues to join you. That’s showing your Love in the best possible way.
My On-the-Road Rolling Pin – Note that, appropriately, the Vodka is French
“Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variétés de fromage?” General Charles DeGaulle
Every week, in my French Friday with Dorie Post, I join more than 100 cooks to bake a specific recipe from Around My French Table, Dorie Greenspan’s latest cookbook. It’s reasonable, even appropriate, to expect Dorie to favor and choose ingredients français.
Not this week.
France is all about producing fine cheeses, but, for this week’s quiche, Dorie has risked the wrath of DeGaulle and crossed borders to choose Gorgonzola dolce, the soft, mild blue cheese from Italy. Her reasoning? Gorgonzola has a milder, sweeter, less salty flavor with a softer, creamier consistency than its French cousin, Roquefort.
Albeit equipment-challenged and despite my improvisation, this quiche turned out well.
What man wouldn’t like this? Get real………..
Dorie also turns left from traditional, Quiche Lorraine, and suggests a tart loaded with apples, onion, toasted hazelnuts (or, walnuts) and Gorgonzola. Scrumptious. And, the comment from my supper guest/guinea pig, who shared this with me? “This is delicious. It tastes ‘so French’ !!!
My only challenge with this simply-put-together Quiche is that I am living in a rental house this Winter. This kitchen is not my kitchen. Since Michael Ruhlman just posted the article I wish he’d written earlier but didn’t, I’ve had to improvise. http://ruhlman.com/2012/01/cooking-on-the-road-tools-i-traveled-with/
1.My rolling pin. A Vodka bottle. Yes, the Vodka was French. (For the Record: I don’t drink Vodka but found this bottle in the freezer!)
2.The tart pan. An over-sized Pyrex pie plate.
3.I pre-baked the tart shell and used a metal cake pan to keep the dough flat.
4.I added an extra egg and more heavy cream to fill the larger vessel (plate).
The buttered foil and metal cake pan kept the chilled tart dough flat while pre-baking.
Oven-ready, hoping for “puffy”. I may not drink Vodka but wine, yeah.
The result was just fine, not perfect, but good e’nuf. I have awarded myself a “Best in Show” Blue Ribbon for improvisation.
Although I urge you to buy Dorie’s excellent book, Around my FrenchTable, if you covet this recipe, just e-mail me personally and I’ll send it your way. To see the quiche versions of the extraordinary and more-talented Doristas, visit: http://www.frenchfridayswithdorie.com/
Yummy enough to eat
(NOTE: Tuesdays with Dorie, Baking with Julia premieres next week, February 7th, with two recipes per month. To date there are over 300 blogs represented! Ten bakers are named Jennifer. Four of our bakers are men. California is the most represented state with 53 bakers. Although I will be baking with Dorie, next week’s recipe is bread, something I cannot make without my heavy-duty mixer. Please see what others have baked at http://tuesdayswithdorie.wordpress.com/. I will post my first Tuesday’s recipe on February 21st, Chocolate Truffle Tartlets, which I am baking in anticipation of my daughter’s birthday week-end celebration.)
If you need to be reminded just how good our lives really are, and, even if you don’t, read “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” by Pulitzer Prize writer and New Yorker author Katherine Boo.
“Behind the Beautiful Forevers” by Katherine Boo Photo by Patricia Wall, The New York Times
Katherine Boo Photo by atrandom.com
I cannot describe this blockbuster better than writer Jeff Giles, in a review for EW.com:
“Let’s skip the formalities,” he writes. “What’s it going to take for you to read a book about a Mumbai slum that sits on the edge of a lake of sewage? Keep in mind that it’s nonfiction, so nobody goes on a game show, nobody becomes a millionaire, nobody dances to ”Jai Ho.”
Would reading an unqualified rave be enough? If so, here you go: ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’ is a riveting, fearlessly reported portrait of a poverty so obliterating that it amounts to a slow-motion genocide. Right now the book is sitting on my shelf making all the other books feel stupid.
Maybe you need the added inducement of knowing that Beautiful Forevers will be one of the year’s big books — a conversation starter, an award winner. It will be. Maybe you want to be promised that the book isn’t a screed, that it isn’t a guilt trip, and that no children you care about will die in pitiless circumstances. It isn’t, it isn’t…and I wish I could lie about that kid thing.”
Boo, who also was awarded a MacArthur Genius Award in 2003, lived for three-and-a-half years in Annawadi. Her book has already initiated intense conversation in India and will premiere next week to spectacular reviews in this country. One can only imagine the discussions this book might generate in your local book clubs.
Reading this book will not be a “snap” but having absorbed, savored and internalized this worthwhile work is one of the more important ones I have written – SNAP 23.
(In the Spirit of Full Disclosure: Katherine Boo’s brother, Tom, a doctor at the Rural Health Clinic in Bishop, California, and his wife are good friends of my daughter, Melissa, and her family. Prior to medical school, Tom was in the Peace Corp in Africa. He and his wife, Heleen, who is a nurse, left Bishop for several years to work with the World Health Organization, living in Nairobi, working on health issues in Sudan. Prior to their WHO assignment, he worked for the Toiyabe Indian Health Project in Bishop.)
If you’re a vegetable gardener, and, I am, it’s probably not a great idea to live in the Rocky Mountains at an altitude of 8,000 feet and count on harvesting a wide variety of herbaceous plants. But, I’ve happily called the Rockies my home for more than 25 years, so you learn to sprout what the soil and climate will bear.
Hey, we’re talking potatoes!
Every year we would plant. Each Fall, before the snow started to fly, we would dig. Then, it was Potato Party time for all our friends.
I cannot do justice to explaining the thrill of sinking a pitchfork into the dirt to discover those little critters just waiting to be plucked. Check out Seamus Heaney’s poem, “At a Potato Digging” for that. I will admit it’s a cultivation-treasure hunt. We were the scavengers and, you bet, my fingers did sometimes ‘go dead in the cold‘, as Heaney eloquently explained.
Yukon Gold Potatoes and Lemons – Ready for the Pot
A Beautiful Scene, Simmering in the Pot
I thought I had served potatoes ‘every which way but up’. So, I was pleased to discover Dorie’s featured recipe for the week, a broth-braised version. While the preparation may be similar to mine, the result is more sophisticated and sublime. That translates to “Hold the butter!”.
In Dorie’s own words, “Think of these as energized boiled potatoes. They get the same high marks as boiled potatoes for playing well with others and extra points for having more flavor, since they’re cooked in chicken broth infused with garlic, herbs, lemon zest, and olive oil.”
I served these potatoes for Supper this week to my friends, Matt and his eleven-year-old daughter, Casey. They’d introduced me to Geocaching and we’d just returned from an afternoon of treasure hunting of another kind. (I’ll save Geocaching for a future Post.)
These potatoes deserved better than burgers but, hey, we were hungry.
Since we had hiked miles, exploring and in pursuit of caches, we were hungry. Starved. Famished. While I served turkey burgers with whole wheat buns and coleslaw to accompany the broth-braised potatoes, I might suggest planning a milder meal to compliment these spuds. However, this worked for us. In addition, the following morning, the hash-browned leftovers with the frittata were yummy.
The caveat to this meal is an apology, Readers, for the burger condiment bottles on the table. They were removed and then were mysteriously returned prior to picture-taking. Do not blame the eleven-year-old.
The 11-year-old Pre-Teen has already figured out that Men will always be Boys.
“Oh, Dad, I KNEW you were soooo going to get into trouble.”
