March, 2011

  1. Women’s History Month in the Kitchen

    March 28, 2011 by Tarrant Figlio

    Quick! Name some famous women in the realm of the kitchen! Our mothers and grandmothers don’t count, even if Mom’s Famous Potato Salad is truly famous or Nini’s Blackberry Jam Cake could woo people to do her bidding. Bubbie’s Matzoh Ball soup doesn’t count either. It may have been famous in her home, her family, her community–but truly famous? Unlikely.

    Ask a young person and they might come up with Cat Cora, Paula Deen, and Elizabeth Falkner (I admit a crush on her even though I thought she was a lost soul stuck catering a BlogHer Food after party the first time I met her. Yes, I flirted (look at her hair!) but since I don’t do FoodTV or famous cooking—I was clueless.)

    A slightly older person might come up with Julia Child and Alice Waters. Both of these women broke new ground (and in Alice Waters case continue) in the kitchen and out of the kitchen for women.

    Sorry, Betty Crocker doesn’t count as a game changing woman. Cultural icons just don’t count; even if most women owe more to Betty Crocker than to any chef in history. Marjorie Child Husted, the creator of Betty Crocker does count though. Marjorie Husted, a home economist, came up with the concept to help market convenient cooking to “housewives” who had too much on their plate as it was already. The women who have been the voice of Betty Crocker for decades certainly deserve a nod as well.

    Irma Rombauer, the fabulous author of Joy of Cooking, helps many of us in the kitchen. My first cookbook was Joy of Cooking for Boys and Girls. That and my mother’s “blue edition” of Joy of Cooking definitely go on my “rescue in case of disaster where I can save something other than my family” list.

    Stepping into history a bit more, did you know that the school Le Cordon Bleu owes its foundation to a woman? It does. Marthe Distel. Read about her and that horrid King Louis XV who refused to have women cook for him–because men (obviously to him)–did everything better.

    China had a good share of famous female chefs, long before the United States was a twinkle in a puritan’s eye. Shan Zu during the Tang dynasty. (who wrote a cookbook!) Fan Sheng during the Five Dynasties period who was all about taste AND presentation. She envisioned her dishes as poetic metaphors. She definitely was my kind of woman in the kitchen that way! Dong Xiaowan also rocked the world of Chinese food in the late Ming period and early Qing period with her specialization in vegetarian food and pastries. Some of her dishes still r emain popular in  Yangzhou.

    Elizabeth David brought olive oil and Mediterranean and French influences to English cooking with her pioneering cookbook in 1950. Marguerite Patten, another Englishwoman could be called the pioneer of frugal cooking. (and possibly world’s oldest podcaster at age 91!)  She wrote over 170 cookbooks (and do you have one of her recipe cards? There are about 17 million (literally) of them floating about,) all with a “waste not, want not” theme underlying solid cooking. Why her interest? World War II. Delia Smith, another English kitchen celebrity went on to became Britain’s best selling food author, but is famous for teaching the nation to boil an egg. :-)

    New famous women who rock the kitchen appear every day. Blogging is one way these women get noticed outside the realm of their family and “real life” friends. Ree Drummond, Elise Bauer, Jaden Hair, and Stephanie O’Dea are just a few of the women nationally recognized for their cooking who started out cooking for themselves and their families.

    What famous women in the kitchen knock your socks off? No women should not be “kept in the kitchen” but that doesn’t mean they should be kept out either.

    Category retro food | Tags: | 3 Comments

  2. Orange Alaska

    March 24, 2011 by Tarrant Figlio

    It snowed last night. Again. Yes, I know other places have had it worse this year and to be fair there is just a dusting with ice underneath. I suspect it will be gone before I have to drive anywhere and there isn’t enough for me to shovel. For those things I am grateful.

    However, the cold makes me pretty anti-anything ice cream. Yes, I know I tell everyone that ice cream is better consumed in winter because the fat and sugar warms you up. That doesn’t mean I do it. In fact, I don’t recall having ice cream since moving to the Hellmouth northern Chicago suburbs, except for a single trip to DQ and in a smoothie every so often. Actually, that is some sort of frozen yogurt. I have had some frozen custard shakes at Culver’s but rarely.

    My children haven’t followed with this all things ice cream = increased cold combo. This is a good thing because kids should enjoy their ice cream. (Everyone should, in moderation) Thus brings child choosing this recipe for me to feature. She likes meringue, oranges, and ice cream.

    I haven’t the heart to tell her that while I have always been fascinated by Baked Alaska–I have never actually HAD baked Alaska of any sort. It was on the menu of the rare “fancy restaurant” of my youth and always had a waiting period listed, so even if my parents had consented to dessert–the wait time would have knocked it out of contention.

    All of that said, this is a pretty good recipe for winter, since navel oranges should be relatively inexpensive.

    Orange Alaska

    8 navel oranges
    1/4 cup grenadine
    3 egg whites
    1/2 cup sugar
    1 pint vanilla ice cream

    Slice tops from oranges, remove fruit, cut into bite size pieces with membranes removed. Pour grenadine over fruit and chill. Refill orange shells. Beat egg whites until foamy; add sugar and beat until mixture forms peaks. Top oranges with very firm ice cream and quickly cover with meringue to edge of orange shell, completely sealing over ice cream. Place filled shells on a small bread board or in a shallow pan, lined with several layers of heavy wrapping paper. Bake in a hot oven (400) 3 to 5 minutes until meringue is slightly brown. Serve immediately.

    Category Desserts, retro food | Tags: | No Comments

  3. Elizabeth Taylor, My Daughter and Me

    March 23, 2011 by Tarrant Figlio

    Elizabeth Taylor has passed away at 79.  The news struck me hard this morning as I overheard it on The View my mother was watching in the other room. For much of my life, Elizabeth Taylor has been a story for the gossip rags and of course, flashbacks to her golden days of being a star.

    Her series of marriages made me roll my eyes…would she learn? The heckling about her weight issues would seem far removed from a girl/young woman/woman that I was, but it wasn’t. It seemed that she was fair game for the heckling and if she was, then who wouldn’t be? I didn’t want to be splashed across magazines and tv with comments about my weight. (not that I was interested in pursuing a career in Hollywood)

    Then there were those magical violet looking eyes. My eyes are hazel. I thought them quite ordinary as a child and worse. At some point, I realized that no, my eyes weren’t ordinary and indeed were often the most notable thing about my face. My eyes are big or look big. They also can be quite changeable. Never to violet though. I wanted the searing blue eyes I saw in a number of friends. I wanted my sister’s green eyes. Not my ordinary hazel eyes (though admittedly better than my other sister’s boring brown eyes). Then I saw the violet of Elizabeth Taylor. Wow.

    One of my daughters struggles with her eye color. For some reason, she finds her siblings brown eyes more attractive. I look at her gray eyes with wonder and can’t imagine why she dislikes them so. Yes, they are different, but magical. Without her glasses on, you can see that they are as changeable as storm clouds over the sea and vary in color in the most amazing ways. Her father’s eyes are the same way, though not as beguiling as when put into the face that belongs to our daughter.  She doesn’t see it that way. She wants either “plain brown eyes” or the eyes I have which she has described as belonging to a fairy or wood nymph. I smile at the fairy reference because long ago I decided that was the only explanation for my strange eyes. (It couldn’t be that my father had very similar eyes–often described as “cracked marble,” fairy eyes makes more sense of course. ;-) )

    In any case, eye color is one of those  things we often wish to change and notice in others. In my mind, those eyes of Elizabeth Taylor will last as something legendary, something so perplexedly wonderful. Those eyes that really showed a woman of difference, who worked to make a difference, who like the rest of us made bad choices and good choices and choices we won’t ever understand but a woman who touched so many hearts and souls.

    I want that for my beautiful daughter with the gray eyes that belong to the sea–an endless sea of choices, of places to go, of things to see and to change–just like her changing eyes.

     

     

    Category retro food | Tags: | 2 Comments

  4. Shrimp Newburg in Popovers

    March 23, 2011 by Tarrant Figlio

    My mother makes fabulous Seafood Newburg. I remember the first time I ran across it was when my sister had a party of some sort when living in Cape St. Clair. I can picture the crockpot on the table still. I have no idea what the party was for…perhaps my niece’s birthday? A housewarming? No idea.

    I had an allergy to some seafood as a child–most notably crab which would turn me a strange shade of purple–mostly my chin. This wasn’t necessarily a problem growing up in my house–my father wouldn’t touch seafood. It was a problem growing up in Maryland. Hello. Maryland Blue Crabs. (which I still dream of from time to time)

    I would venture a cup of cream of crab soup with sherry at The Oxbow from time to time. I had more than my share of Maryland Steamed Crabs every so often. So what if I wheezed and turned purple? (ah the indestructibility of youth)

    This recipe is certainly NOT my mother’s recipe and it has shrimp which never seemed to trouble my allergies. It also has something I adore…popovers. In my mind the Treaty of Paris restaurant is notable for one thing: popovers. I could have eaten baskets and baskets of them. I still probably could.

    All that said–this recipe won’t help you much if you want to make a good shrimp Newburg. It calls for you to have made the popovers. Of course, you can find a popover recipe. It calls for canned Newburg sauce which is surely an atrocity, if it is even still available. It calls for canned shrimp. So, it is a quick recipe but not one that is going to make you realize the wonder that is Shrimp Newburg. It definitely won’t be my mother’s recipe.

     

    Category Fish, Recipes, retro food | Tags: | No Comments

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