Category: Home Cooking

Zucchini Bread

<i>Those little shreds of green are good for you!</i>
Those little shreds of green are good for you!
In the same way that I only got a grill a couple of weeks ago, I just managed to perfect my zucchini bread recipe with the last two fresh zukes in the tristate area.

And in the same way that I always thought I was normal growing up, and then it turned out I totally wasn’t, I first went looking for a zucchini bread recipe in Joy of Cooking. It’s a standard recipe, you know? I was a little disturbed to see it wasn’t in there. I guess it’s a standard only if you grew up in 1970s New Mexico, and you had a garden that disgorged 800 tons of zucchini every fall. In that alternate hippie universe, zucchini bread is just as normal as zucchini chocolate cake, for instance.

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Apocalyptic Thinking

Last night at one of my freelance jobs, a woman I work with was musing on the current financial mess: “I figure, my family lived through the Depression. It wasn’t pretty–but they survived.”

Survival is key. But I worry that people today don’t have the same survival skills they did back in the 1930s. I mean, indoor plumbing was still pretty novel then. People still got blocks of ice delivered, in lieu of refrigerators.

We’ve gotten dangerously soft.

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Before, During, After

Our friend Katie had a significant birthday, which called for dinner. I haven’t been cooking much recently, at least not in a big way. It was very soothing to go through my cookbooks, make my lists, do all the mental tinkering, get the shopping done and get down to business.

First, though, the decks had to be cleared. Tragically, this meant the Spanish ham bone had to say good-bye. He’d been lingering in the freezer for more than a year, and much as I took satisfaction in having a little gauze-wrapped cloven hoof at eye level every time I went in to see if I had any more frozen bananas for smoothies…well, the time had come.

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Bad-Ass Pirate Cake Provokes Identity Crisis

Oh, that is just the fucking coolest. I need more theme cakes in my life. (Scroll through the photostream to see more pics.)

The funny thing is, I was just at the Brooklyn Kitchen, for a pig-butchering demo (more on that in a bit), and I saw that very same pirate-ship cake mold. “Rad!” I thought. And then, “Agh–dangerously close to Williams-Sonoma.” And I turned away.

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The Home Cook’s Hundred

Inspired by Very Good Taste’s Omnivore’s Hundred, here’s a list of 100 things that an ambitious, globally inspired cook could take on. It’s a bit of a random brainstorm, drawing some things from VGK’s list, and then ranging around various culinary traditions. It doesn’t accommodate vegetarians all that well, and it definitely skews American on the “easy” items (but, hey, toast is universal!). It’s early yet, so I’ll probably think of a million more good ideas over breakfast–and so will you.

But anyway. Here’s the list. If you want to run this on your own blog, please:

1) Copy the list (and the instructions, if you like).
2) Mark all the items you’ve cooked in bold.
3) Strikethrough the items that will never touch your kitchen counter.
4) Post a link back to your blog in the comments, if you like.

The Roving Gastronome Home Cook’s Hundred:

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Rare Moment of Interactive Bragging, I Mean Blogging

I’m at a job in an office, waiting for work to come my way, so I’ll actually do one of those things that office-job people do: a clever meme post!

From the British Very Good Taste blog, here’s a list of 100 things any good omnivore should’ve tried. A few years ago, I thought I’d aspire to taste everything possible. Now that kind of accomplishment makes me feel a little tired–maybe if every flavor of the world were brought to me on a little platter, while I reclined on the couch? (Maybe with a bucket next to me, for when we got to the balut.) I would also consider being whisked via first-class Asian airline to the source of the flavor.

In the meantime, here’s at least what I have eaten, in bold:

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I [choke] agree with Rachael Ray

RR gets interviewed for a NY Times’ blog on the subject of teaching kids to cook, and I actually found myself agreeing with it. (Not that I have kids, but I sure have plenty of advice, especially on how not to raise them.)

I’ve long said that knowing how to cook is the next most important life skill after literacy. RR (also short for “aRRgh, you’re so perky my eyes are bleeding!”) is smart to identify the sense of empowerment kids (or anyone) can feel when they cook a meal for their family. And I really appreciate that she has started an organization to give low-income kids cooking lessons.

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The Upper East Side Cookbook

Driven by financial hardship, a friend of mine has been forced to work for a living. The divine Parsley Cresswell is penning a handy tome called the Upper East Side Cookbook, to share all the knowledge she has gained while foraging for food in Central Park and Dumpster-diving behind the finest gourmet purveyors.

You’re laughing now, but just wait till Mccain gets elected. Then you’ll be wanting your very own copy, just in time for a very merry Depressionary Christmas. (Follow the link for ordering info.)