Food memories from World War II

A few years ago I showed this book to Owl's grandma, who was 13 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. After she looked through the book, she said that they didn't have many of the ingredients listed in the recipes. In rural Utah, those items weren't rationed--they weren't available.

Her dad was the game warden, and she said they often had trout for breakfast.

She also remembered eating

• beef heart with stuffing
• cakes with a jam center that were steamed in cups
• sausage gravy
• her dad's baking powder biscuits with cracklings
• sweet soup made by a Swedish neighbor--a soup with large tapioca, prunes, and raisins

My mother was 5 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. She lived on a fruit farm. They saved most of their rationed sugar for canning and preserving fruit, so she remembers longing for anything sweet. I grew up with dessert nightly (often fruit), and I think that tradition came out of her deprivation as a child.

My father was 9 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. I'm not sure if this was during the war or not, but he remembers his family buying shredded wheat cereal for the first time (the big shredded wheat; not "mini" shredded wheat cereal). They couldn't figure out how best to eat it so they tried boiling it. I don't think any of them were impressed.

Bountiful Basket Review

This is the first time we have ordered a basket, and we found it to be quite bountiful. I noticed a few other sites reviewed their experience--here is one more review.

Advantages:

• It was very fast to order and pick up.
• I had to stop by my regular grocery store after, and I did a quick price comparison. We saved at least $6--and my grocery store has amazing produce prices.
• The rye bread (sourdough with a hint of rye and caraway) was good. We have no good rye bread available in this area unless we make it.
• The quality of the produce was good. The bananas were especially good. The zucchini was perfect. The pineapple was underripe, so I can't comment on quality yet.

Disadvantages

• I would have made different choices from the store. I rarely buy tomatoes in the winter. I like to pick my produce.
• I would be interested to know what is in the basket each week before I buy it--or at least know what has been in past baskets to get an idea of the variety.
• This is not a CSA, and my guess is that the choices are quite basic (no kohlrabi here). But then again, there were comice pears in the basket, and my local store never carries that pear.

I will order again, but I like to shop for produce, so I probably will not be a weekly customer.

Easter menu--mostly gluten free

Here is what we ate for Easter. It was mostly gluten free for the Owl's sister. She made an amazing gluten-free lemon cake, but I don't have that recipe yet. We love baked goods so much that Celiac has always been the stuff of nightmares, but it doesn't look so bad now.

We enjoyed the food so much, we did not even think to take pictures, so here is our lovely apricot tree in blossom. Three cheers for spring!

Appetizers:
Deviled eggs
Hot corn dip and chips
Brazilian lemonade (wow!)

Roasted boneless leg of lamb
Quinoa tabbouleh
Roasted zucchini
Spinach strawberry salad with poppy seed dressing
Hot cross buns (for a gluten free option, I want to try this roll recipe--it looks amazing)

Flourless chocolate cake

Notes for next time:

Lamb

• let the roast sit at room temperature an hour before cooking
• watch at the higher temperature to make sure it doesn't burn
• use a lower temperature than 400 (325-375)

Quinoa

• use these instructions for cooking quinoa.
• I toasted the rinsed quinoa in a tablespoon of olive oil with a teaspoon of garlic.
• I used some lemon juice and broth for the water. I really liked how these steps added flavor to the quinoa itself.
• Use more lemon juice and less oil than the recipe calls for--more like 1/3 cup lemon juice to 1/4 cup olive oil. Taste to be sure you like that ratio.
• If you don't have fresh mint, don't let that stop you. If you wait until you have everything, you'll drive yourself crazy.

Flourless cake

• I used America's test kitchen recipe, but this looks close. ATK did not use any sugar, and I liked that.
• I used a combination of guittard 60% chocolate chips and special dark chocolate. It was a good balance of budget-friendliness and tastiness.

Red lentils: the dried bean for beginners

Dried beans can be scary, what with all that sorting and boiling and draining and salting, but red lentils are a great place to begin. They are the convenience food of dried beans--no soaking and they are done within 30 minutes.

If you like apricots, this is the first red lentil recipe I would introduce you to--a red lentil apricot soup. It comes from a fun cookbook The Soup Peddler's slow and difficult Soups that you will want to read if you love soup, bicycles, and at least the idea of Austin, Texas. David Ansel, writer and Soup Peddler, began selling soup in Austin, and the best part is that he delivered the soup by bike (which is what "slow and difficult" refers to). Family and friends, you are welcome to borrow my copy, but don't keep it too long because I will miss it.

Back to the soup: I am always amazed at how much my children love this soup. It is also a satisfying soup to make.The whole truly is greater than its simple parts. It feels a little bit like magic.

The monkeys are dead. And we're back.

When I saw this article in the New York Times, I knew it was time to get back to this food blog. For some time (since the 1980s) some researchers (all Puritans) have thought that severe calorie restriction would increase longevity. Such researchers (and other rich people) became scientifically anorexic in hopes that they would live longer. Now, it turns out, it just ain't true. The super skinny rhesus monkeys did not live longer than the normal weight monkeys (which caused named scientists much grief at the thought of all those forgone croissants). Certainly it isn't an invitation for gluttony, but if we get to eat, let's enjoy it!

Coffee Cantata

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Kaffeekantate, written for performance in Zimmerman’s Coffee House in Leipzig, contains some of his most sublime music on a thoroughly ridiculous text. (The official name is Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht, which translates “Be quiet, stop chattering.”)

Here Liesgen sings of her undying love for the drink:

Oh! how sweet coffee tastes—
lovelier than a thousand kisses,
smoother than muscatel wine.
Coffee, I must have coffee,
and if someone wants to give me a treat,
ah, just pour me out a coffee!

Coffee Cake (High Altitude)

I grew up calling this breakfast cake, since it’s eaten for Sunday breakfast (or, if church is late enough, brunch). But then Cat didn’t want to make dessert for Sunday evening, since we’d already had cake for breakfast. I’ve taken to calling it a pan-muffin, since it bears the same relationship to a muffin as a cake does to a cupcake. (The name isn’t perfect, but I can’t think of anything better. Ideas?) In any case, it makes for a perfect Sunday breakfast with an omelette and a bowl of fresh fruit.

It really is just a giant muffin. You make your favorite muffin batter and pour it into one pan instead of little cups. And, just as muffins can be anything from sawdust-and-glue bricks to poundcake monsters, so too can a pan-muffin be a “health food” or a millstone of trans fat and refined carbohydrates. Or it can be good.

There are many different ways to make this. You can fill it with fruit—blueberries, mandarin oranges, apple slices; you can mix in applesauce or overripe bananas; you can top it with pecans and butterscotch. (I like to mix an apple chopped into small pieces. If you do this, it may take a little longer to cook.) You can do any of the muffin variations in your cookbook. But the quintessential pan-muffin is a streusel topping over a not-too-sweet cake.

The streusel is tricky. If the clumps are too thick, they’ll sink into the cake (which makes a nice marbled effect, but leaves the top naked). The trick is to make a fine layer; the finely chopped nuts help with that. (If they’re chopped finely, they don’t overwhelm the texture.)

This recipe was developed at 4,000 feet. I know it works here. Let me know if it works where you live.

Pan-muffin

The perfect Sunday breakfast.

Dry stuff:
2 cups flour (I use 1 cup pastry wheat flour and 1 cup all-purpose)
¼ cups sugar
½ t salt
½ t soda

Wet stuff:
¼ cup oil (or, better, melted butter)
2 eggs
1¼ cups buttermilk

Streusel:
2 T melted butter
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup oats or blended nuts

0. Preheat the oven to 375.
1. Mix the dry stuff together.
2. Mix the wet stuff together.
3. Stir the wet stuff into the dry stuff.
4. Pour the batter into a greased 8x8 pan.
5. Mix the streusel together.
6. Sprinkle the streusel on top.
7. Bake for 30 minutes.