Creme Patisserie- Makes Everything Fabulous

This is worth learning- not difficult, the most rewarding building block of the pastry world, and delicious on its own.. It is simply a pudding, enriched with egg yolks and finished with butter. If quality had a flavor, this would be it- you can taste everything- creamy, rich, subtle. You will be unable to use packaged substitutes after trying this; it is so simple you will not need to.

We will need:

450 ml/ 2 C whole fresh milk

4 egg yolks

50 g/ 4 T corn starch

130 g/ 2/3 C sugar

pinch salt

vanilla, or better still a plumped bean to steep in the milk

50 g/ 4 tablespoons butter

Heat the milk to simmering in a heavy-bottomed pan, with the vanilla bean if you are using one. Beat the yolks, add the sugar slowly and carefully as you beat, and then the cornstarch and salt. Very slowly spoon warm milk into the yolk mixture, whisking as you do, to bring it slowly up totemperature. When you have added half of the milk ad the mixture is quite hot, you can add it all back into  the pan with the warm (not boiling) milk. Continue to whisk over medium heat- making sure the whisk makes contact with the bottom of the pan all over, until it thickens, which will happen all at once at the end. Keep whisking and let it nearly boil another minute. Remove from the heat, and genty whisk in the butter in small pieces, one at a time. Squeeze the seeds from the vanilla bean into the cream if you are using one, or add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Pour through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl (even with the most careful whisking) into a dish and cover with a round of non-stick parchment. Cool, then chill, then use as you like for instance in a creme chibouste to fill a meringue.

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Visions of Sugarplums- Easy Last Minute Extras for a Little Holiday Shimmer.

Once you're cutting things up and candying them and tossing them in a shimmer of sugar, it's hard to stop. It couldn't be easier (or less expensive). Sweet translucent frost-kissed anything is festive. And ridiculously impressive - get used to hearing a little gasp and "you made those?" 

Here are some things we have lying around we decided to candy:

Very little work and a half hour of gentle and fragrant simmering, and they are ready to decorate desserts, trays, or just have a bite of of something sweet and flavorful with a coffee or tea.

(Although perhaps it is as cocktail garnishes that they shine the very brightest.)

What we need:

Anything that might hold its shape in a slow boil in sugar water, such as- ginger matchsticks, thick slices of sweet potato, slices of citrus like lemon, lime, orange, or pommelo. 

sugar

water

For citrus:

That white pith is intruigingly bitter- so much so that even three blanchings will not get all of it out. Cover the slices with cold water, bring to a boil, drain, and repeat another two times.There will still be plenty of flavor and character left.

For ginger:

Peel the roots, slice thin, stack slices, and cut into matchsticks. If  the ginger is very tender, you can slice it into coins instead.

For sweet potatoes-

Just peel and slice thickly. But they need something to pick up their flavor- cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, hole peppercorn, some ginger- any or all  of these things, plus some salt.

1. Make a generous bath of 1 part sugar to 1 part water by volume. Try this- pour the sugar into the middle of a saucepan, and the water around it- so that no sugar crystals are touching the sides of the pan.

2. Let it come to the boil and add your citrus, ginger, or potato (with the aromatics and a good pinch of salt).

3. Boil slowly until tender, and the syrup- now rich with flavor- has cooked down and thickened to a sheen.

4. Strain in a fine mesh strainer, letting the syrup drain back into the pot.

5. Put on a rack to dry out a little.

6. Toss in sugar- or not. The first have sparkle, and the second a beautiful sheen. Citrus slices will not loose all their stickiness, but the sweet potatoes will take on a matte frost over time. They are a lovely surprise- meaty and sweet and kind of like chestnuts.

7. Save the syrups to play with cocktails- the citrus in particular has a sophisticated bitter edge, and the ginger is full of heat.

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Pate - Humble Chicken Liver Enlivened with Butter and Booze. (Plus, a Little Tell-Tale Risotto and some Love for Your Dog!)

Everything's better with liquor and butter. But don't take last week's apple pie as an example, or a batch of boozy fleur de sel caramels. Adding a shot of rum to a silky chocolate buttercream? Proves nothing. Taking a un-promising bowl of liver, on the other hand, and turning it into a rich, savory hors d'oeuvre- that is worth talking about.

Another thing worth talking about is being squeamish- I am squeamish. But I try to get over it- being a picky selective carnivore - just white meat fillets - is not responsible and not nice. Also, life is less tasty than it could be. Waste nothing- including opportunities for pleasure, for us and for our animal companions.

For a bowl of pate large enough for six as a hearty snack, we will need:

350 g/ 12 oz cleaned chicken livers (buy 1/2 K/ 1 pound)

1 large onion

50 g butter

1 bay leaf

6 or 7 whole allspice

pinch ground cloves

freshly ground black pepper

30 ml/ 1 oz whiskey or cognac, plus more to taste

some red wine for de-glazing the pan

If you've never worked with livers before, you might be put off.  First of all, chicken livers sometimes come with the heart attached. And the liver is in two lobes, attached by a fine but tough cord. If you are interested in saving every usable bit, it will take some work. If, on the other hand, you have a dog (!), you just slice off what you are sure is without heart or tendons, and leave the ample rest attached to the heart (and what to do with that will follow- hold on to the hearts and the... etc.).

Melt the butter in a large skillet. Dice the onion and add it along with the bay leaf and whole allspice (count them- we will need to remove them later) to the butter, and saute until translucent and beginning to turn golden. Raise the heat to high and add the livers with a nice pinch of salt and some grindings of pepper. The idea is to sear the livers all over but to leave them a little pinkish on the insides. Watch carefully so the bottom of the pan doesn't blacken. Cut through the largest ones to check after a while- a little pink is fine, but there should be no red. Add the whiskey and a gentle pinch of cloves, stir well and remove to a dish. There will still be a film of flavor clinging to the pan- deglaze with a little wine and add that to the livers.

When they are cool enough to handle, remove the allspice and the bay leaf. Pulse in the food processor until it is the right consistency. We like a little texture but some like it fluffy and smooth. Check for seasoning and liquor. Pack it into a dish and smooth the top. At this point, you could cover it with clarified butter for an elegant presentation, but we usually just use plastic wrap.

Serve it with pickled cucumbers and mustard and crusty bread or crackers.

Now for those scraps- do you have a dog, or maybe a neighborhood pack? 

Tell-tale risotto:

The hearts

oil

short grained rice

broth or water

whatever drippings you have in the refrigerator

Gently brown the hearts and break them up into large pieces with the spatula. For every 10 hearts, add a half cup of rice and a one and a half cups of water or broth and anything else you have- like the rest of the oil you fried some meat in. Let the rice get very soft. I have heard that dogs do not want or need salt on their food, and that onions and garlic are not very good for them. I left all that out and she she went at it like a hungry little wolf.

I think they know when you cook for them- they really feel the love! And what, after all, is more important than that?

  

(Every Thanksgiving, hours alone in the kitchen making the year's most classic and unchanging of meals, a rich snack sustains me. I saute some minced onion and add the paper-wrapped frozen liver from the turkey, salt and pepper, and blend it with a little whiskey.)

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Squash Gnocchi Glow Like Topaz- Two Ingredients, Fifteen Minutes.

To be honest it is four ingredients, if you count the butter and the sage we will use to sauce them. And five if you count the wine - they're not a tuna sandwich. This is restaurant lunch, in no time at all. You'll want the time for lingering at the table. 

We'll need:

500 g/ 2 C pureed roasted squash (simple directions here)

250 g/ 2 C flour (we may not need all of it)

salt to taste, and pinch of nutmeg

Make a sticky dough that holds nicely together by adding the flour gradually, using just as much as you need. Season it to taste, going light with the nutmeg but using enough to underscore the sweetness of the squash.

Flour a gnocchi board if you have one, otherwise flour a work space. Pinch off small pieces of dough and roll into a tapered length the width of a lady's ring finger. Roll over the gnocchi board, or the tines of a fork, to make decorative ridges to hold the sauce.

Put water on to boil, salting it like we do for pasta. Put half of the gnocchi in, wait until they all rise to the surface, then boil another two minutes. Test one to make sure they are cooked through to the center, and take them out with a slotted spoon or a small strainer. Repeat with the other half of the gnocchi. Keep the starchy cloudy salty water they cooked in- we will need it.

Five minutes before you are ready to sit down to lunch, make the sauce -

80 g/ 3 oz butter

sage leaves, fresh or dried

Pour off the top half of the cooking water, leaving the thickest, cloudiest part- this will bind with the butter to make a silky, unctuous sauce. Melt the butter in a large skillet large enough to hold all the gnocchi and let it turn a rich golden brown. Add the gnocchi, brown them a little here and there, and ladle in a little cooking water to make sure they are all nicely coated and to give them some gloss.

These need almost nothing- just a light shower of Parmesan if you like, and a glass of wine.

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Squash, The Glamorous Doyenne of Fall.

Squash - neither dainty nor fragile, nor costly nor small - is still a precious thing. Like little Boteros, they add a voluptuous raw sculptural element to the terrace for weeks until we use them. Noble and patient, they wouldn't dream of spoiling. Once cut, they lend their rich creamy texture and their sweetness to savory dishes and desserts with a flexibility unmatched. They have a huge personality- pastas and soups glow deep saffron yellow, tarts and cakes luscious gold - but they mingle graciously with everyone. They can afford to let the sage sparkle, the nutmeg charm; it is the rich fullness of the squash that effortlessly drives the character of the dish. Everything else is icing on her proverbial cake. Not diva, Queen.

A good squash is not just firm but rather rock-hard, and if it is not too hot out, it will stay that way for as long as you'd like. They are much nicer to look at than baskets of potatoes. I have settled for the moment on this stone blue variety. The subtle outside hides bright orange flesh, darker than most, and cooks up denser than any others. It is much harder than a Halloween carving pumpkin. In fact, the most difficult part of cooking anything with it is getting it open in the first place. Your sharpest and heaviest cleaver will sink into it and then just stay there until you pry it out. We need only to somehow separate it into rough halves though. Scoop out the seeds, and set them aside for roasting if you like (not with this particular variety - the seeds are large and tough). Then just place the halves cut side up on a baking sheet and roast them in a medium oven (170 C/ 350 F) until they yield easily to a knife. This takes abut 45 minutes, but check them often - a squash baked too long loses its lively taste. Once cool. we just scoop the flesh out with a spoon, scraping down to the skin. Use a potato masher or a stick blender or a hand mixer to even out the texture if you like, and portion it out into usable quantities, some to use at once, and some in plastic bags for the freezer. 500 g/ 2 C is a good amount for many recipes.

The dark caramelized surface is delicious. Take it off and eat it right away.
The flesh underneath will be uniformly silky.

This will usually leave you with a portion of uneven measure. With ours, I will make gnocchi for two, with this elegant two-ingredient recipe. 

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Fresh Corn, Risotto Style- As Decadent as Vegetables Get.

Fresh corn on the cob has returned to the market for a fall encore. Its crisp sweetness is just as nice in October as it was in June. But with the busy season in full swing, we are less likely to be grilling for lunch. The pic-nic barbeque mood has given way to the sit-down lunch. Never skimping on glamour, we sometimes do skimp on time. This is such a dish.

We will need:

6 ears of fresh corn

50 g/ 4 T butter

200 ml/ scant 1 C heavy cream

salt and pepper 

grated fresh parmesan, for serving

Shuck the corn and slice the kernels off into a large basin (it is a little messy). With a serrated knife, like a bread knife, scrape the cob to get all the tender bits of corn and rich corn milk. This second step makes the dish. Put the corn and its pulp and milk into a pan and add a half glass of water and a little salt. Cover and simmer for about ten minutes to let the corn start to get tender. Add more water if necessary. When it seems nearly as soft as you'd like it, add the butter, and then half of the cream, plus salt and pepper to your taste, stirring all the while, until the cream turns golden with the corn. Taste again. Like a risotto, it will continue to absorb moisture on the plate and we will want plenty of sauce. Depending on how rich you want it, add water or the rest of the cream, or a little of both, aiming for a little saucier than you ultimately want it to be.

Just like for risotto, make everyone sit down before you serve.This is delicious very hot! Serve in mounds on plates or shallow bowls, top with a tangle of parmesan, and more fresh ground black pepper. It is sweet and creamy and rich and can take the drama of a lot of heat if you like, which we do.

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Rich Chocolate Zucchini Cake- Health Springs Eternal (But Secretly....)

Our cake- black, rich, and so moist it is nearly juicy- promises nothing but pleasure. Delicate, nearly weightless, it is nonetheless filled with every good thing. Tea-time revives; seven pieces with a glass of milk (it happens often with hungry teenagers) make for a substitute meal (so many eggs!). The cake is all indulgence, all health: olive oil, eggs, wheat germ, oat bran, whole wheat flour, and of course a lot of zucchini. This is our other "summer cake,"-  perfect with summer's zucchini, just as nice with the golden squash of fall-

Of course there is some sugar, but as the cake took shape- having cocoa added, taking out some flour, adding the wheat germ and wheat bran, making all the flour whole wheat- we cut it down too. Whole wheat flour and wheat germ are naturally quite sweet; the cake needs less sugar than it does when you make it with white flour. Winter squash are even sweeter than the zucchini. 

The only not so indulgent thing about the cake is its modest height- the thinner the layer, the lighter it rises. The fat finger-width of batter in your largest pan rises to a perfectly nice height; it's just not very dramatic.

We will need:

400 g/ 2 C sugar
85 g/ 1 C cocoa powder
240 g/ 2  C flour- whole wheat pastry flour works very nicely
2 teaspoons each of salt, baking soda, and baking powder, put through a fine mesh strainer into the flour
80 g/ 1/2 C wheat germ
50 g/ 1/2 C oat bran
6 eggs
360 ml/ 1 1/2 C olive oil
400 g/ 4 C zucchini, grated on the large holes of the box grater and loosely packed
lemon zest

Orange and chocolate is a delicious and classic combination. Using lemon zest instead is unexpected- more floral than citrus, giving some balance to the richness of the cocoa. Finely grate the zest of half a lemon (or an orange) and blend it with the sugar in a large bowl to release the fragrance. Add the eggs and the oil, then the cocoa and blend. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and blend again:

Then add the grated zucchini, which adds quite a lot of moisture. If using winder squash, divide into workable pieces and slice the thick outer peel off in segments:

Grate as you grate the zucchini. This is a much harder job.

Line a large pan with non-stick baking paper- we used the sheet pan that fits directly into a standard European oven. Bake at 180 C/ 375 F for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. 

Let cool before slicing- for such hearty ingredients, it has a fragile texture. This makes an enormous cake, but as it is perfect anytime, and as everyone likes it so much, you surely will not find it too large.

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Double Greek Coffee Meringues- for International Coffee Day.

Actually, every day is coffee day in Greece. Ours is happily a nation of delicious and inventive coffee drinks. As in so many other nations, the word is nearly synonymous with socializing.

But two iconic coffee drinks differentiate Greek coffee drinking from that of European neighbors. The first is, of course, Greek coffee- finely ground to a powder that is blended together with the water and what in every household is understood by the word "coffee." This is what is known more commonly throughout the world as (sorry) Turkish coffee. 

Greek coffee has a lot going for it:

skill- preparing it well and giving it the characteristic dense and subtly grainy head of kaimaki ("cream") takes a practiced hand. There is precision to the heat and the timing.

rustic, minimal equipment- a simple portable mini camping gas burner is part of every household;

craftsmanship- you can buy a selection varying sizes of beautiful specially designed brewing pots with a long handles, hand made by metal smiths.

ritual and lore:  In all other types of coffee extraction methods, the grains just go to waste. In Greek coffee, they foretell the future: looking for signs and symbols in the patterns left by residual thick grains in the overturned coffee cup is a traditional skill so back in vogue that many coffee shops advertise the service. (Also, a little coffee accidentally splashed on the saucer? - Good luck- money is coming to you.)

There is an elegance in this elemental drink- coffee, water, heat- to which is added only craftsmanship. There are no filters, no percolators, no steam extractors. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum of tradition and craftsmanship is the other main coffee of Greece: instant coffee- Frappe if cold, "Nes" (short for the most popular instant coffee brand) if hot. This is served everywhere- elegant cafes have "Nes" on the coffee menu, right next to the cappuccino and the cafe au lait, and they bring it, whipped into a froth, in fine china cups with a tray of biscuits on the side. Every kiosk sells the makings of frappe- a bag containing a plastic cup with a shaker top, an individual serving envelope of nescafe, and 2 sugars. You can get a high-end Frappe too- it is even on the menu of the legendary and splendid Hotel Grande Bretagne (really- I just checked). Instant coffee granules whipped into a froth with cold water and some sugar and canned (never fresh!) milk added is surprisingly tasty.

These super-easy Baroquely gorgeous meringues pay tribute to Greece's two most popular coffees. There is no getting around the high sugar content of a meringue- it is what stabilizes them and gives them their lasting structure. The rich aromatic bitterness of coffee in these goes a long way to cutting the sweetness. You will never have had a meringue with a more balanced flavor or elegant appearance, free of the sugary bam and the blinding whiteness (nothing against weddings and baptisms....).

These will take you about 15 minutes, cost you about 75 cents, and for that will cause all kinds of fuss piled high on a pretty tray. 

We will need:

4 egg whites
200 g/ 1 C white sugar
a dash of salt
2 tsp. of instant coffee dissolved in 1 tsp. of vanilla extract (homemade here) or whiskey or rum (or water if it must be)
2 tsp. of Greek coffee

1. Beat the whites with a dash of salt until frothy and begin adding the sugar, spoonful by spoonful so that it has a chance to dissolve, beating all the while. A dense, glossy meringue will form in about 5 - 8 minutes.

When they whip up to a stiff peak they will hold their shape beautifully.
 Keep checking so as to not over beat- they could toughen.

2. Add the diluted instant coffee and blend:

3. If you have a pastry bag and a tip, pipe them into decorative swirls onto a baking sheet lined with non-stick baking paper. Otherwise shape them as you like with a spoon- they will hold their form beautifully(!). Keep in mind that they will swell a little in the oven. Dust them with the powdered Greek coffee:

4. Bake them in a very slow oven, 100 C/ 215 F - 120 C/ 250 F- check them- if they oven is too warm they will take on color, which we don't want. They dry as much as bake, and will take at least an hour to do so. We need them dry only on the outside, such that they can be easily and cleanly lifted from the paper. A little melting softness on the inside is nice. 

Success is assured on a dry day, but making them in the heavy rain could try your patience. They would be excellent sandwiched together with whipped cream (not very sweet).

(Ironically, we serve them with tea):

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Arroz con Pollo (Nostalgia Chicken)- A Dinner Party with a Handful of Rice.

Think of this as an easy chicken paella, a way to stretch four thighs into festive dinner for eight, or in my case a nostalgic trip to a six floor walk-up on the lower east side (St. Mark's Place and Avenue A), 1973. It's just chicken and rice, like the name says, but with the lively zing and piquant verve of Puerto Rico, the same verve that seasoned everything else in the old neighborhood, just like the salsa and soul drifting up from the street below. 

This of course must be a very old recipe, but for me the dish was born in this most wonderful of my childhood's many buildings, the apartment building of my godmother Lynn. Tenements in the old neighborhoods were so beautiful and opulent- rich in detail, if poor in space (Lynn's boyfriend David's bathtub was in the kitchen!- not so uncommon for buildings of the time- he put a sheet of plywood over it to use as a counter when no one was taking a bath). The stairwell and landings were tiled with tiny white hexagons, just like the stairwell leading up to the former sweatshop on Lispenard St. that I lived in during HS (Stuyvesant- the old one on 15th st.), with banisters of ornate cast iron. The doorways to the very small apartments- five to a landing- were thick with moldings, their details softened from layers of oil paint as they were freshened over the years, this last coat a gleaming oxblood red. Laundry was dried on lines strung between the buildings on either side of a soot-walled courtyard, and if the line snapped you had to go over to the building on 9th street and retrieve your clothes. Even apart from the laundry, it was an intimately connected neighborhood, teeming with decades and generations of loud and very tasty life. The walls talked, and sang, and yelled, and the walls cooked- stuffed cabbage rolls, pierogis (these also from the coffee shop Odessa's on avenue A), black beans and tostones (salty hunks of green plantain fried, smashed between 2 paper bags and then fried again until crisp, unbelievably delicious), rich bustelo cafe con leche, and arroz con pollo. The neighborhood was mainly Ukrainian and Hispanic, and that's how we ate, plus slice pizza and technicolor Italian ices.

New York summers are hot and humid- we had ices almost every day to cool off. (Also there was not so much water pressure on the 6th floor on hot days- that was because someone would turn on the fire hydrants so children could run through them.)

This recipe is a lot of food and a lot of flavor from few and inexpensive things. It is also a lot of color- feels like party food. It is made with very Greek things, just put together in a not very Greek way: capers and olives are bright and lively in the rice, strips of roasted red pepper warm and rich.

We will need:

3-6 chicken thighs- the more the better- or breasts if you prefer them - plus salt, pepper, garlic powder, and flour for seasoning and frying the chicken

oil for frying the chicken

2 1/2 C/ 500 g long grain rice

1 large onion 

smoked or regular paprika, spicy or sweet, as you like

sazon goya or saffron, to make the rice yellow- not necessary but very pretty

a little oregano

a small handful of capers

a large handful of green pimiento-stuffed cocktail olives

3 roasted red peppers- ours we torched, like for the salsa and the gazpacho we made recently, but ones from the jar are just fine.

1. Rinse your chicken pieces and pat them dry with a paper towel, and season them- not timidly- with salt, pepper, and if you have it some garlic powder (fresh garlic, even as paste, will burn in frying). Coat them with flour, give them a shake, and fry in medium hot oil, turning every now and then, so that they become crisp and take on an even golden color. They will be spending some time in the oven, so there is no need to worry about the meat at the bone being completely done.

2. Frying makes things so delicious, chicken hardly the least of these. We can make the most of the oil rich flavor- Between frying batches of chicken, strain the oil through a fine mesh strainer into a metal bowl and return the strained oil into the pan- this prevents burning and smoking and also gives us a strainer full of a savory crumble of crisp seasoned golden chicken fat and flour to add to our dish.

3. When you have finished the chicken, strain the oil a final time, add just a little back to the pan, toss in the chopped onion, frying until it starts to take on a bit of color, and add the rice, sazon goya or saffron, a teaspoon of paprika, a teaspoon of salt (no more- we will add something salty later), and the golden crumbly stuff strained from the oil, stirring to coat the rice with the oil and seasonings.

4. Add the capers and olives to the pan.

5. Lightly oil a baking dish, spread the rice in, and add in twice as much water as rice by volume. Starch takes a good amount of salt to not taste flat. If it needs salt and it probably will, splash in some brine from the cocktail olives and even from the capers. This lifts the dish tremendously.

6. Arrange the chicken pieces on top, pretty side up, and the strips of red pepper decoratively among them.

7. Put in a medium oven, 170 C/350 F, for 30-45 minutes, checking from time to time and maybe adding a little more water, until the rice has swelled and is tender. 

Serve hot from the oven or warm, with bottled hot sauce and, if you have it, a handful of fresh cilantro.

I have made it for sit down dinner parties- festive and colorful and piquant and delicious and the capers making it seem fancy. But it is also one of the few things that is not less delicious from being eaten off of a paper plate, and no matter how many people show up it just seems to keep feeding them. 

A house filled with salsa and joy where people could show up and be fed belonged to Marta- my godmother's next door neighbor at 121 St. Mark's Place and dearest friend of four decades. A recipe like this one can be found in this much used and loved and tattered cookbook, given to me by Marta and her daughter Martita on my wedding day.

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Sleek and Modern, Totally Conformist Whole-Grain Bars with Chocolate.

We don't have a nutrition-obsessed home. Living in Greece with its luminous produce and jumping fish, generous milking goats and sheep, and honey bees, and olive trees- it takes care of itself, and we are grateful for it. I have people in my life who spend most of their lives outside of the kitchen though, and just slip in during study breaks or between making films. They are not always here for a full-course meal. They want a treat, and I want them well-fed.

Why all the "Sleek and Modern" hype for this simple, humble recipe? Aesthetically, the 70's were unfortunate culinary era. In any counter-cultural artistic/intellectual community, food was shaped first by politics, then by health- two praiseworthy benchmarks. But it stopped there- delight had no part of the agenda. Food was not cuisine; it was fuel for the revolution. Children, rebellious and righteous by nature, can embrace the political- the grape boycot, for instance, was something I completely got. The nutritional is a neutral factor- they usually are not very interested in it one way or the other. Delight though is happily not negotiable for children- they must have joy. Words like "carob" and "granola" bring this era* of the soybean casserole back. (These are not a myth- I actually ate them. In fact, once, at an early '70's potluck in Buffalo- a very politicized community- there were eleven soybean casseroles. Nothing else. Everyone has a good laugh about it.) 

This is why I cannot bring myself to call these granola bars, although I am sure that is what they are. They are also wholesome, delicious and, hopefully after four decades, free of cultural baggage. It really is a good recipe- ideal for young academics, revolutionaries on the go, informal tea time, and picnics to see the fall leaves.

We will need:

150 g/ 2/3 C butter or oil 

300 g/ 3 C oats

35 g/ 1/2 C wheat germ

50 g/ 1/2 C oat bran

150 g 1 C almonds, roughly chopped

50 g/ generous 1/2 C dried coconut

a large handful of cocoa puffed rice cereal, if you have it around

2/3 C / honey

50 g/ 1/4 C brown sugar

1/2 tsp. salt (flat tasting without it)

50 g/ 2/3 C (sifted) cocoa powder

some vanilla

The nuts, coconut, wheat germ, oat bran, cocoa puffed rice and cocoa powder are all optional- leave out whatever you don't want or don't have. Really you just need the oats for the recipe to work. If you do leave lots out, add some oats to make up for the missing bulk- otherwise the bars may seem too sweet. If you leave out the cocoa, add cinnamon, nutmeg, and maybe some dried fruit- whatever suits your taste.

Heat the oven to 150 C/ 300 F, and line a baking pan with non-stick paper. Ours was 25 x 28 cm- 11" x 12"

1. Warm the butter or oil in your largest skillet and add the oats, coconut, and nuts. Over medium heat and stirring carefully, let them toast for 5-6 minutes. They will turn golden but should not brown. Turn them out into a large bowl, toss with the sifted cocoa powder, and add the wheat germ and oat bran.

The hard, smooth surface of the almond slips around under the blade of a straight knife-
 a serrated bread knife grabs them, making for much easier chopping.

2. Meanwhile, boil the honey, brown sugar, and salt together for 5 minutes. It bubbles up a lot. This is really, really hot- not something children ought to help with. Add some vanilla.

3. Pour the syrup over the dry ingredients in the bowl, stirring with a wooden spoon to make sure the syrup is evenly distributed throughout. After it cools a moment you can mix with your hands, making sure no dry ingredients are left unmoistened in the bottom of the bowl

4. Pat lightly into the pan and bake for 15-20 minutes- they get harder the longer you bake them.

5. As soon as they come out of the oven, score them into bars, then let them cool before taking them out of the pan. They are difficult to cut neatly once cool.

Whatever you call them, these are delicious. And they come from quite an era. It was an exciting time to grow up, full of compassionate, impassioned ideology. I am grateful for it, and hope to have retained the best of it. I am also, without irony, grateful for the relative aesthetic deprivation of the era- certainly it shaped my devotion to the pleasures of the kitchen. This recipe, if you like, is a little of both.

*I have to say here that my mother, Charlene, really did make some delicious things- Enchiladas with chicken, Tamale pie, Beef Stew with mushrooms and tiny green peas, Dutch babies, and most memorably of all Hamburgers on french bread with Roquefort dressing and crisp bacon whenever my father was away at a College Art Association conference (how I looked forward  to them!). These were bright warm lights glowing in the grey culinary landscape defined by the era. Also, my Godmother Lynn's Arroz con Camarones and her fabulous Black Beans were anachronistically delicious, and remain among my very favorite dishes.

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