Anginetti

Sometimes, when I'm feeling exceptionally down, closing my eyes and digging deep to pull out the very roots of my heritage, the Italians within me, the bakers and cooks, my grandparents and my Mother's kitchen, is the only thing that can pull me up from there.  Daydreaming of baking seems to fill the void in the moments when I wonder what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and if it's what I'm meant to be doing.  The answer is invariably almost always the same. 

It's not just daydreaming of baking, however.  It's daydreaming of carefully cultivating my heritage, working to nurture and tend it, keeping it alive.  Sometimes, I don't just want to bake chocolate chip cookies.  Don't get me wrong, because I love them.  Chocolate chip cookies are like being seven years old again, baking with my Mom after dinner, after meatloaf and fried potatoes.  That's another type of nostalgia for another day.  Lately I've been daydreaming of baking Italian things, reminiscent of Presti's bakery in Little Italy, something I'd find in the cases there, glistening with glaze or covered in powdered sugar, speckled with non-pareils, or sliced and toasted with the exposed white meats of almonds studding their surfaces.  I want to bake a cappuccino, a small table, Nuns passing on the street, an old man and his dog and a cigar, speaking Italian, and the perfect cookie for dunking. 

Since beginning my new job, I've also begun a new friendship.  One, I have no doubt, which is directly impacting this desire for Mom and Pop Italian comfort, this cleaving for nostalgic bakery.  My co-worker Charlene and I have a lot of things in common.  To say the least, we share an office, we're both from Cleveland suburbs, we're the same age, we've had a countless number of similar life experiences, and we're both at least partially Italian, which means our families both consume what is probably too much red wine, and they also all got that genetic tendency to love food, to love to make food, and to love to share food.

Spending time with Charlene makes me feel like I'm less of a vagabond, an outcast, less of a rarity.  When I lived in Morgan County, it was hard to stumble upon another Italian, let alone another person of similarly recent American ancestry.  It was hard to meet someone who knew what a pizzele is, what a canoli is, and what it means when someone in your family simply responds to something you'd like to talk more about with just, "Okay."  And it's certainly easy to share an office with someone can quite literally laugh through tears, who can make me laugh through anything, and from whom joy seems to emanate.  She might not agree with that statement, but if she were on the outside looking in, she'd know that she's one of the kindest, most embraceable people I've ever known.  Charlene makes me smile even when she's not around, by remembering a story she's told me, or thinking about our similar experiences of home, family and culture.

We've joked about putting an Italian flag in our office, and this weekend I decided to send some of my reminiscing, my kindled nostalgia to the soldier I've been sending letters and boxes to since January.  Because I can't tell you much about that soldier, I'm just going to refer to that soldier from now on as "Chopper."  In hopes that my own soul-warming ways would also warm Chopper's heart, I baked up a batch of simple, traditional Italian cookies called Anginetti, or lemon drops.  I used a recipe from a cookbook I love called Sweet Maria's Italian Cookie Tray by Maria Bruscino Sanchez.  I made a few changes, but the cookies still turned out fluffy and cake-like, soft and zinging with lemon.  Because I wanted them to look like something from old home, I frosted them with a lemon glaze and topped them with pastel sprinkles.  I can see these sweet gems on the shelf of a bakery in my wildest of dreams, being scooped up by the dozen for smiling kids and adults alike.

I can't thank Charlene, or Chopper enough for how much joy they bring to me, simply by being themselves and being in the hustle and bustle of my daily life.  Buona Pasqua, Happy Easter, God bless and always, always, always eat well to feed your body and your soul.  Salute.

Anginetti
(Based off of Sweet Maria's "Lemon Drop Cookies")

3 local, free range eggs
1/2 cup grass fed low-fat milk


2 tsps. lemon extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsps. freshly grated lemon zest
1/2 cup organic sugar
1/2 cup sunflower or safflower oil
2 cups organic artisan all purpose flour
2 cups organic whole wheat pastry flour
8 tsps. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  In an electric mixer on medium speed, beat eggs, milk, lemon extract, vanilla extract, lemon zest, sugar and oil until pale and foamy.

3.  In a large bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder and sea salt.  Add all at once to the wet mixture and beat until a soft, sticky dough is formed.

4.  Drop by greased teaspoon full onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake immediately for 8 minutes, or until the cookies are gently browned on the bottom side.

5.  Transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely.

6.  In a medium size mixing bowl, combine 2 cups confectioner's sugar, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 TBS. water, 1 tsp. freshly grated lemon zest, and a few granules of salt.  Whisk together until smooth.  Adjust liquid or sugar to make a glaze of medium thickness that will stick to the cookie and not run off.  Frost the cool cookies and top with sprinkles.

Makes 50-60 bite size cookies.

Time Away

My goodness, it is March 21st.  I last blogged in January, and it feels like that was ages ago.  If you know me well, then you know my life has been full of changes, transitions, and distractions since that last blog post.  I got a new job, I moved to Athens, and I'm adjusting to not exercising three days a week or being able to bake at two o'clock in the afternoon.  It's going to take some time.

In the meantime I feel like I should at least leave a few breadcrumbs of what I've been doing the past two months while I've been on blogging hiatus.  It's not much, but I hope to write a proper post this weekend.  But for now, enjoy these photos and tidbits...

My carrot cake for a charity bake sale.  My friend Jody paid a whopping $30 for it.

Peanut brittle and vegetarian French onion soup.

Fresh carrots from the Athens Farmer's Market.  See them steamed and honey glazed below.

Homemade potato and onion pirogi.  So, so, so good.



Whole Spelt butter cookies made with grain from Shagbark Seed & Mill Company.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Beer sampling at the Great Lakes Brewing Company with Tiffany and her mom Sherrie and my Mom and Dad.

Delicious Cleveland beer.

My Mom's birthday celebration at a fabulous restaurant in

Downtown Willoughby called Pranzo.  

Perfect Hot Chocolate

Two posts in one day, I know.  But I really felt like I wanted to quickly share this little recipe I just whipped up for a single cup of hot chocolate.

Tiffany has been hard at work on her biology lab homework for the past three hours.  This comes on top of the entire day she spent yesterday in her pajamas, laptop planted on the ottoman and her books spread over every upholstered surface in our living room.  She's a student and man I remember those days.  Except that Tiffany is a much better undergraduate student than I was.  So as a little kingdom, phylum, class, order, uh... yeah, we'll take a break there for a little pick-me-up in a cup.

Hot Chocolate--Straight Up, One Cup.

1 TBS. organic semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup low-fat grass fed milk
1 TBS. grass fed half & half
1 1/2 TBS. organic cane sugar
1 TBS. dutch cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla
6 or 7 grains of coarse sea salt, or literally the tiniest pinch you could manage of regular salt

In a small sauce pot, over medium-low heat, lightly melt the chocolate chips.  It will take probably less than 30 seconds.

Add all of the rest of the ingredients and whisk, turning the heat up to medium-high, until the hot chocolate is completely combined and just barely begins to bubble.  It will take one or two minutes.  Don't let it boil.

Pour into your cup and warm someone up, or yourself.  Or double, triple, etc. the recipe to make enough for a crowd.

Enjoy!  And always remember to eat well and buy local.  Goodnight, folks.

A Few Little Foodie Things...

I don't know what's up lately with rainy days and me blogging.  Perhaps it's easier to rationalize staying in my pajamas until 10am (I know, we're talking rebellion there), when it is cold and I can hear the water rushing down the gutter just outside my second story window.  Perhaps I'm more inspired on dreary days.  Whatever the reason, I thought today with the chilly drizzle and some leisurely time at home would be a good opportunity to post a few little foodie-esque things I've been doing lately.

Tiffany and I seem to have hit a peak in the frequency with which we visit Casa Nueva in Athens.  I think this sort of happened by accident, but it's been glorious each and every time.  There are exactly two restaurants in Athens, Ohio (or all of Southeast Ohio really) where I can sit down and order anything off the menu without hesitancy, questions or guilt.  Casa is one of those restaurants.  I've written about it before, but in case you've missed those posts, Casa labels itself as "the locavore's solution."  I know that everything I eat at Casa was either produced locally, and if not, then produced sustainably and ethically, without additives or other mysterious food components that I try so hard not to consume anymore.  It's wonderful.  Oh... and there's booze, too.  Lot's of it.

Our first trip was for Open Doors dance night a couple of Saturdays ago.  After downing a bowl of their seasonal Blueberry-Chipotle salsa, intermittently with sips of a house margarita, I had a fantastic plate of seasonal enchilada.  Corn tortilla, wrapped around locally raised black beans from Shagbark Seed & Mill company (the same company that supplies the tortilla chips made from Morgan County corn), local seasonal greens and squash, Laurel Valley Creamery's Cora cheese, and peanut-soy marinated tofu.  It was heavenly in all possible aspects, especially my dining partner. 

Last Saturday dawned to illuminate our first real winter storm of the season.  In Northeast Ohio where I was born and raised, I would've woken to inches upon inches of snow.  In Southeast Ohio, it takes an extra special kind of cold to make the precipitation turn to dusty flakes.  More likely, those inches and inches of snow fall as half an inch of rain, and when the temperature drops below freezing, that amount of rain turns into a quarter inch thick sheet of ice that entraps absolutely everything.  After forty minutes of unearthing my car like a Titan from the dirt and depths below, it was driving ready.  The trip to Athens that afternoon was precarious, probably dangerous, but contently peaceful.  I was alone on the slush coated roads, saline and gray.  It took me twice as long, but facilitated my quiet thoughts as I slowly navigated the slippery slopes.  The solitary trip reminded me of the days before cars, before salt trucks and black top roads, when a storm like this would've kept the cold-hardened settlers in their homes for days and days. 

You know what nostalgia like that does to me.  When I arrived in Athens I wanted nothing more than the reminiscent comfort of a cast-iron skillet, sizzling simple comfort food, and a hot cup of coffee.  I found that at the Village Bakery, my other locavorian haunt.  They delivered the perfect meal, sticking to my ribs, tenderly warming my heart, the simplest of contentment.  A plate with two bacon grease-browned over easy eggs, quick fried salty, smoky ham slices, and thick country wheat bread toasted, married with a small vessel of yellow Amish butter, nothing more than cream and salt.  It was the perfect lunch for the quiet, old, winter day.



Then this past Tuesday rolled around.  Last week I interviewed for a position at Ohio University in Athens.  It was the opportunity I've been seeking for so long.  I got a call on Tuesday morning with an offer, and with great joy and overwhelming relief I accepted it.  In just over three weeks, I'll be starting my new job in the School of Nursing at Ohio University and I couldn't be more excited or grateful.  Tiffany knew as soon as she heard the news that we'd be trekking to Athens again that evening, to celebrate of course!  Back at Casa Nueva we arrived shortly before the restaurant itself opened, so we got to spend some time in their den-like bar, dark, warmly wood paneled, with bright-eyed windows on either side.  I had a fantastic micro brew called Bach from Rivertown Brewing Company in Cincinnati.  I love Ohio beer.  In fact, I love all things Ohio. 

Finally, in the world of foodie sorts of things, I recently took on a new project.  I can't say much about it, but what I can say is that I'm sending letters and care packages to an American soldier stationed overseas, until they return home.  It's been a wonderfully fulfilling project so far, and essentially the perfect activity for me.  I am, admittedly, pretty damn good at compiling care packages and it's something I really enjoy.  I have a list of items that soldiers often ask for, and one of those items was trail mix.  After perusing the shelves of ready made trail mix at Jo-Ad Specialty Market in McConnelsville, I decided instead to compile my own.  Buying each ingredient in bulk, I came home and tossed them all together in an enormous Tupperware bowl, and when it was all mixed, I have enough for at least three more care packages.  I wanted to send the soldier things that would be good for their body, like raw almonds, raw pumpkin seeds, and dried cranberries.  But I also wanted it to be a treat, maybe a sweet reminder of home in a small way, so I also included unsulphered dried pineapple, yogurt covered mini-pretzels, and two kinds of raisins.  I packed up about two pounds and added it to steadily filling box on my kitchen table.

 

Syrup & Buckwheat Gingerbread

Chilly rain drops blanketed the valley yesterday.  From the early morning fog to evening's fall and into the night it rained hard and soft, gray clouds hovering seemingly motionless above the rooftops.  From my office window I can see the hills and river valley off to the west, and can watch the weather roll in and disappear above the window pane, passing over the building and on to Marietta, and beyond.  Out that window yesterday, the weather did not move.  It rained drearily all day, and for me, with chilly winter drizzle comes the desire for nostalgic bakery.

Lately I've had an overwhelming need to get back to basics.  I tell Tiffany over and over again how much I want to reconnect with the past, with wood stoves, with doing things by hand (why I haven't bought a bread maker), with simplicity in ingredients, and perhaps in doing so I will quietly work my way into the life I imagine will bring me the greatest satisfaction:  simple and free.  With that in mind, yesterday's weather seemed like the perfect rationale to make something warming and antique in my seasoned cast iron skillet.

Last fall I created my own gingerbread recipe, replacing refined sugar with natural sweeteners, white flour with whole-wheat, and making it whole-heartedly mine. In cold, rainy January, the smell of baking gingerbread is like radiant perfume, awaking the senses from their mid-winter slumber. I decided to revamp the recipe once again, and after tasting the resulting flavor and crumb, have decided that for now, it is Queen Honeybea perfection.

Now, it's not sweet by sugar-coated standards. When you eat the way I do, you learn that sweetness doesn't have to be overly present to be satisfying. Peanut butter will do it for me these days, and dried cranberries: that's all the "sweet," I need sometimes. If you want a sweeter gingerbread, up the maple syrup and honey. If you're so inclined, you could even add a 1/4 or 1/2 cup of organic sugar. We like it just the way it is, and it is married well with hot coffee or cold milk. Remember, everyone benefits when you buy local and eat well.

Queen Honeybea's
Syrup & Buckwheat Gingerbread

2 cups organic whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup organic buckwheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. natural sea salt
2 tsps. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pure, local maple syrup
1/3 cup local raw honey
1/2 cup dark molasses
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 large, overripe banana, mashed
1 cup grass-grazed, organic milk
1 local, free-range egg
2 tbs. candied ginger, chopped
1/4 cup organic thompson's raisins
2 tbs. organic butter

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place a 9 inch round cast iron skillet on the middle shelf of the oven to heat thoroughly.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the whole-wheat flour, buckwheat flour, soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Set aside.

3. In a medium size bowl, whisk together the oil, maple syrup, honey, molasses, vanilla, banana, milk and egg. Pour this mixture into the dry mixture and fold together until just combined.

4. Fold in the candied ginger and raisins until evenly distributed.

5. Using an oven mitt, remove the hot skillet from the oven. Drop the 2 tbs. organic butter in the skillet. Once melted, swirl the butter around the skillet to evenly coat the bottom and sides.

6. Pour the gingerbread batter into the hot skillet. Return to the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, until the top is a deep, dark brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan. Serve by cutting into wedges.

Banana Cream Pie

Welcome 2012.  I am rededicating myself to this blog, starting today.  In the spirit of pursuing happiness, I will try to pay more attention to the simplest of things in (and occasionally out of) my kitchen that bring me the best kind of contented joy.  Perhaps it has been regression in a way, but lately I have been wanting nothing more than bare satisfaction, a return to sweet romance preserved in Mason jars, to a love song baked into the grain of a pungent sourdough, to feeling exhaustion because I worked my hands, my back, my heavy legs, and not because of longing for living from behind a desk.

For several days now, an overstock of aging yellow bananas has been collecting on my red kitchen table.  Loaves of banana bread are my traditional use of such excess, but this time I decided to make something I haven't made in ages, something simple, reminiscent of home (any one's home), and something that requires crafting:  Banana Cream Pie.  Is it healthy because it's low in calories and fat?  No.  It's healthy because it's made with the barest bones of natural, some local, ingredients.  It's healthy because when you eat it, it should soothe your worries for just a moment. 

The crust is half whole-wheat, half organic white, made flaky with homemade Snowville Creamery butter, coarse natural sea salt, and Tennessee whiskey.  Inside it's layered with buttery yellow vanilla pudding, creamy and whipped together with Snowville Creamery dairy, organic cane sugar, cornstarch, deeply orange local free-range egg yolks, pure vanilla extract, local raw honey and a pad of butter for richness.  Sandwiched between the layers of custard are slices of bananas, constructed just the way my Mom taught me.  It's topped off with homemade Snowville whipped cream, sweetened with local raw honey and a few grains of sea salt.  This is the purest, most simple banana cream pie, an heirloom, soul food for certain.

I hope for a joyous, productive new year for everyone.  I'll be toting this pie with me to a party tonight to help ring in 2012 and my newly impassioned focus on pure and simple, old and honored, sweet and succulent.  Salute. 

Of love and cowgirls

Southeastern Ohio may not be big sky country.  It may not be the Black Hills, the rolling plains of Oklahoma's panhandle, or even close to being hundreds of thousands of lush green mountains, littered with geysers and the playground of thundering herds of bison or wild horses.  What it is, or rather, what I have learned it to be after moving out of the Athens bubble and into the Appalachian foothills, is the home of some of the most dedicated farmers I know. 

These are men and women who have had their hands on the rough hair of a warm, heavy breathing, soon-to-be mother as they anxiously await the arrival of a spring calf in the bitter strain of frozen beginnings, with March roaring in the distance.  Most of them have told stories of heaving calves, year in and year out, over their shoulders, and like dedicated comrades, carrying the helpless newborns out of the icy muck and mud, to the warmth and safety of a bed laden with hay, and many nights spent sleeping in the arms of and under the watchful eye of a farmer.  I know for a fact that most of the cattle owners, the beef and dairy farmers I now call my friends and loved ones, have more personal, intimate, familial relationships with their animals, their herds, than any John Wayne or legend of lore of the old West.  These are real cowpeople--cowboys and cowgirls.  

Last Wednesday night I had the great pleasure of being welcomed to the table of the Downs family.  While this may not seem like anything different or out of the ordinary, as I spend many minutes, hours, days and nights with the Downs family, you will learn that if you pay particular attention to the ordinary, you find the extraordinary.  As I sat around a wooden, oval table under the glow of the yellow hew of lamps on a hanging fixture, I found myself noticing the treasures, the valuable moments that lie in the everyday comings and goings of an abundantly loving, hard-working, tightly knit family. 

There were four generations around this table, something which I will likely never experience in my own family.  There is no hierarchy in this family, as I was reminded that the teasing and harassment is equal opportunity.  However, Elma Downs knows her family like a map she's honed in her mind, like directions to a destination she's followed so many times, she can see the handwriting as she makes the next turn.  I think we often overlook the people in our lives who create our every day, our ordinary, the continuity we come to take for granted.  Elma is one of those people.  Planning meals, cleaning house, packing lunches, knowing when to buy new rugs, when to buy new socks for her husband, when to pick the green beans, how to pack the tomatoes, where to store the potatoes, how to crochet the blankets her children and grandchildren will throw over their laps mindlessly for years to come, Elma is the keeper of the pace of life in the Downs family.  My maternal grandmother was the same for her family.  I'd have given anything to have known Erma Turrin, and I see the stories of her reflected in so many ways in Elma Downs.  Being able to know Elma has been one of the most healing experiences of my life.

Elma's granddaughters Tiffany and Heather are modern day Annie Oakleys.  They keep alive a work ethic, and an attitude of hospitable confidence that is unmatched by their suburban and urban counterparts.  Humble but proud, outspoken but quiet, Heather embodies the long line of hard working mothers from which she descended.  As she carefully balanced outbursts of laughter with her cousin Tiffany while carefully blowing on small spoonfuls of spaghetti to feed the hungry toddler that happily bounced in her high chair between them, Heather emanated the living, breathing energy that warmed the room where her family gathers to share meals every night.  Her daughter Haylee is the fourth generation.  At seventeen months old she knows how to say "cow," and has a spitfire personality inherited undoubtedly from the bright, often fiercely loyal, but playfully loving and deeply devoted family into which she is being raised. 

And if you don't already know how I feel about Tiffany Downs, then perhaps you don't know me very well.  Not too long ago she expressed to me that she has been missing her "country," side.  She spends most nights with me in town, most days at college, and the in between time she spends in the car driving between those two places and her job.  She doesn't often go home, slip on her boots, and head out to the woods, or through the fields and trails of her family's 300 acre farm, followed only by three faithful dogs and the silence of her own thoughts.  And she definitely doesn't often get to set out hay bales, or tend cows, or just tool around in the garage with her Dad and his collection of Chevrolet's.  I love her country side, and she may not know it, but she'll never lose it.  She may feel like it's somewhere else, like it has faded to a flickering dim, but it will never go away.  I hear that genuine hospitality every time she speaks to someone she's never met.  It's embedded within her and perhaps, much like my fly or my city swagger, it just needs to be channeled.  She's been sporting a new pair of Wranglers lately, and plaid shirts and a sliver studded belt.  Perhaps now her outside matches the inside, which she'll never lose. 

I love spending nights around the dinner table with the Downs family, and I love spending my days and nights and hours and minutes, my short conversations and my laughs, my struggles and my accomplishments with Tiffany.  They may have taught me a lot about country, but more than anything they've reinforced my belief in the goodness of humanity, our universal understanding of love and the strength of our families, no matter who sits at our dining tables.  When I think of cowgirls, and cowboys, I'll always think of them first.

In my feeble attempt to help Tiffany feel as country as she knows she is, I made Gingerbread Cowgirls.  In my feeble attempt at making cookies healthy, I spiffed them up Queen Honeybea style.  They're full of whole grains, rich local honey, and homey winter spices.  They made my entire house smell like Christmas, and they've lasted for days.  I frosted them with a simple mixture of confectioners sugar, lemon extract and enough Snowville Half & Half to reach the consistency I wanted for piping.  I hope you enjoy this recipe, and always remember to buy local and eat well.

Queen Honeybea's
Whole Grain Gingerbread Cowgirls
(makes 3 dozen or so medium sized cookies)

1/2 cup of organic butter, softened
1/2 cup of raw sugar
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
1/4 cup local honey
1 tsp. vanilla
1 local, free-range egg
2 1/4 cups organic whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup of organic buckwheat flour
2 TBS. oat bran
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1.  Either lightly grease, or cover a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

2.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl with a hand held mixer, beat together the butter and raw sugar until soft and incorporated.  Beat in the molasses, honey, and vanilla until combined.  Beat in the egg.

3.  In a separate bowl, combine the whole-wheat flour, buckwheat flour, oat bran, baking powder, sea salt, ginger, cinnamon and cloves.  Gradually add this to the wet mixture, beating on low until all of the dry mixture is worked in and a cohesive dough is formed.  Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

4.  Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.  On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled dough out to 1/4 inch thickness.  Cut into shapes with cookie cutters of your choice and place on greased or parchment lined baking sheets.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, until edges just begin to brown.  Cool for a minute on the pan, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.  Repeat this procedure until you've used all of the dough.

5.  Once the cookies are completely cooled, you can eat them as they are, or frost them with a mixture like what I described above, or other cookie frosting that you enjoy.