50 Women Game Changers in Food: #21, Ree Drummond

Do I really need to say anything about The Pioneer Woman? After all, her blog has more than 23 million page views per month and 4.4 million visitors! But if you'd like some extra skinny on Ree, check out this lovely article about her in The New Yorker.

Briefly, Ree grew up in Oklahoma and after college in California, planned on moving to Chicago to study law. Her plans got interupted when she met and married a cattleman and found herself right back in Oklahoma, this time on a cattle ranch in Pawhuska.
A familiar refrain, Ree started her blog for fun, not expecting it to lead to anything. She's a writer, photographer and home-school teacher to her four children; telling us all about her experiences on the ranch has led to a cookbook: The Pioneer Woman  Cooks and to top it all off, Ree is about to star in her own Food Network show.



I confess, I am not among the 23 million who regularly visit her blog. But someone gave me her cookbook a while back so I had already perused it. I completely agreed with a comment about it in a New York Times article: "Vegetarians and gourmands won’t find much to cook here, but as a portrait of a real American family kitchen, it works." 
And I think that's exactly what Ree wanted to do with her highly popular blog AND her cookbook: she wanted it to be the story of a real American family kitchen.

I chose a basic fruit crisp recipe from her cookbook to highlight our blogger game changer Ree. It's a nice recipe using lovely fresh peaches but what drew me in was the maple cream topping. I had some left over and used it over some baked apples (yum!), but what I'm going to pour it over next are Hannah's Whole Grain Pumpkin Pancakes! 

Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce
From The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond

Ingredients:

5 to 6  whole fresh peaches 

1 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick butter (1/2 Cup)

1/2 whole lemon

7 tablespoons real maple syrup, divided

1-1/2 cup whipping cream

3 tablespoons light corn syrup

Method:

In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, light brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt using a 

fork or pastry cutter. Cut butter into small pieces and gradually add to flour mixture until evenly mixed. 

Peel peaches into a bowl. Add the zest from half a lemon. Squeeze juice from lemon half and stir in with peaches and zest. Add 2 tablespoons real maple syrup to peaches, stir well. 

Pour peach mixture into a small pan (8” or 9” square) and cover evenly with crumb topping. 

Cover with foil and bake at 350ºF for 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 20 to 30 minutes or until crisp and brown on top.

Maple Cream Sauce: 

Pour whipping cream into a saucepan. Add 5 tablespoons real maple syrup, 3 tablespoons corn syrup and stir over moderate heat until thickened and reduced by about one-third, approximately 15 minutes. Refrigerate mixture until it is cold and thick, or set the saucepan into a small bowl of ice (the ice will melt and turn into ice water). Stirring your mixture, it will cool and thicken in about 15 minutes. Drizzle sauce over peach crisp.

Serve warm.


Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen Van Bruinisse - Bake Away with Me 
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Martha - Lines from Linderhof
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda
Nancy - Picadillo
Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits
Veronica - My Catholic Kitchen

50 Women Game Changers in Food: #20, Molly Wizenberg

The next two Game Changers will be easy posts....we know their stories well and most of us have been following them for years. This week, it's Molly Wizenberg from Orangette.

Molly traveled and studied through France, gathering  degrees in biology and French and cultural anthropology along the way. While she was attending graduate school in Seattle, her father was diagnosed with cancer. She went home to be with him and was there when he died.

Everyone said: make no major life decisions for 18 months. So Molly didn't but after that she moved to France, intending to work on a doctorate for a career in cultural anthropology. Within weeks of arriving in Paris, she realized that her life kept coming back to food. A writer friend suggested she start a food blog. After returning to Seattle,  she wrote the first Orangette entry in July 2004.

Orangette caught on quickly because Molly didn't just write recipes, but wrote about the meaningful things that happened around food. Slowly, her life inched more and more onto its pages. She even met her husband (Brandon Pettit) through her blog and together, they opened Delancey in Ballard. And all this time, we were there reading and experiencing all the difficulties and successes that life brings and then the complications of opening a new business.
So Molly's blog is about her life,  the experience, the stories, and imaginings that surround food. She says:  "Food is never just food.  It's also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be."

To celebrate Molly, I chose a recipe she posted back in 2005, Jimmy’s Triple Chocolate Scones. These are a chocolate-lovers delight and when she says triple chocolate, she means it. Don't expect them to be terribly sweet because they are scones, after all. But we did love the restrained chocolate flavor for breakfast. Besides, you can add more ganache topping if you want.

Jimmy's Triple Chocolate Scones
From Orangette, June 5th, 2005 post

Ingredients:

For the scones:
1 ¾ c unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ c plus 1 Tbs unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa
2 ¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
6 Tbs cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1/3 cup granulated sugar
½ cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

For the ganache:
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (be sure to choose a good-quality chocolate that you’d enjoy eating on its own)
3/4 cup heavy cream

Method:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Drop in the butter, and using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the butter chunks into the flour until they are reduced to pearl-sized nuggets. Stir in the granulated sugar. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cream, eggs, and vanilla. Pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients, add the chocolate chips, and stir to form a dough. The dough will be firm but moist, and a bit sticky to the touch. Knead the dough lightly in the bowl about ten times—or, as Jimmy has found, if the dough is too sticky, don’t worry about kneading. It is better to undermix than to overmix.

Form the dough into a 7- to 7 ½-inch round disk on a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough into 6 wedges, and using a spatula, transfer the wedges to a baking sheet. Bake the scones for 17-18 minutes, or until set. Remove them to a rack to cool, and set the rack over a rimmed baking sheet.

To make the ganache, place the chopped chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat the heavy cream in a small saucepan until it is very hot and steamy (not boiling, but close), remove it from the heat, and pour it over the chocolate. Whisk until the mixture is smooth and the chocolate is thoroughly melted. Use a spoon to drizzle the ganache over the cooled scones, and serve.

Yield: 6 large scones

Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen Van Bruinisse - Bake Away with Me 
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Martha - Lines from Linderhof
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda
Nancy - Picadillo

50 Women Game Changers in Food: #18, Clotilde Dusoulier

This is the first Game Changer post on a blogger. It ought to be interesting for the next month because for some reason, Gourmet listed four of them in a row.
I'm of two minds about including them on the list; have they had the experience and been involved in the culinary world long enough to be included on this impressive list of 50 world-wide game changers? And if so, do you think four spaces on a list of 50 is just about right? Can you imagine the debate that went on about this?
Of course real talent should be recognized and rewarded no matter the age. Everyone has to start someplace and these girls began blogging for fun, just as we have, and their blogs have resulted in successful (probably surprising themselves as much as anyone else) careers.

The food blogs have amassed an enormous internet audience and their influence is spreading through the entire culinary landscape, whether the old guard likes it or not. And let's face it: a lot of them do look down their noses at bloggers; they better get with the program as food blogging is here to stay and will continue to grow. (Remember what Julia Child said about Julie? “Julia said, ‘I don’t think she’s a serious cook.’ ”) So I think the best of the bloggers deserve recognition, but I did give a thought to other innovative women chefs who were ignored. I'd be willing to bet if I asked my daughter if she knew who Clotilde Dusoulier was she would say no. She's a foodie, a super cook, but not a food blogger. It's an interesting conundrum, isn't it? (And no, she'd never heard of her.)

So our first food blogger Game Changer is Clotilde Dusoulier. She certainly qualifies as being young (early 30's) but as well, you can't deny she has become an influence in the culinary blogging world. Her Chocolate & Zucchini blog is widely read and Clotilde has made a big name for herself. I doubt when she began blogging, she would ever have imagined how her life would change. 

Clotilde was born and raised in Paris, where she studied to become a software engineer. Following graduation she worked in the Silicon Valley for a couple years and this is when her interest in food and cooking began. When she returned to Paris in 2003, she started her blog, Chocolate & Zucchini. Its success led to a second career in food writing. She eventually gave up her engineering job to try a writing career full time. Four years after she began blogging, she published a book based on her blog. Then another in 2008. She also worked to update the classic of French cookery, first published in 1932 called I Know How to Cook, Je Sais Cuisiner.  And now, her most recent, a book she has edited called The Art of French Baking which is to be released in November. 
Her hopes for the future? A family seems to be foremost, more books and she'd like to mentor young talent.

Now for those of you thinking this recipe for fregola and zucchini sounds familiar, it is. I've posted it before and it's worth repeating. A lot. I serve it frequently and it's always a big hit. Creamy, nutty and cheesy and altogether fabulous. And when I first saw it posted on Chocolate & Zucchini years ago, fregola was new to me, so in addition to a great recipe, I was introduced to an unusual pasta that I continue to use often. 

A month or so ago, I had company coming and I paired this dish with quail from D'Artagnan. What a perfect dinner.

Fregola Sarda with  Zucchini and Pine Nuts
From Chocolate and Zucchini, October 5th, 2004 post

Ingredients:

3 small and slender zucchini

2 cups cooked fregola sarda 

2 handfuls of pinenuts, dry toasted

2 ounces parmesan cheese (or more)

olive oil

salt

herbes de provence 

Method:

Wash and slice three zucchini very thin. Sauté in a bit of olive oil, with herbes de provence to taste and just enough salt to bring out the zucchini flavor. Add the fregola and pinenuts. Grate liberal amounts of parmesan on top and mix in. Serve warm. Serves 2 with leftovers for lunch.

How I cooked the quail:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees 
Season the quails with salt and pepper. In a large oven-proof saucepan, heat the canola oil on high heat and grill the quails in canola oil on all sides until brown. Finish cooking them in the oven for approximately 8 minutes.

Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen Van Bruinisse - Bake Away with Me 
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Martha - Lines from Linderhof
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda
Nancy - Picadillo

50 Women Game Changers in Food: #17, Dorothy Hamilton

If you're interested in a career in the food industry, then you might consider buying a book called Love What You Do. After all, our game changer of the week, Dorothy Cann Hamilton, wrote the book and parlayed her wanderlust and love of food into a successful career. 

When Ms. Hamilton was in high school, she dreamed about going to Europe. Being a determined woman, she got a student loan and went to college in England. While there, she befriended some French girls and during their visits to France, she got hooked on French food.Then came the Peace Corps in Thailand from 1972 to 1974 where she was introduced to Asian cuisine. When she finally returned to the US, without job skills or opportunities, her father gave her a job at his trade school. Dorothy worked her way up and eventually became an expert in student financial aid. She was invited to see the top trade schools in Europe and France, where she saw the top professional cooking school, run by the French government.

Inspired by these premier vocational schools, Ms. Hamilton convinced her father they should create a culinary trade school in NYC. They actually paid the French government for the curriculum, brought over the teachers and the French maintained the quality control. So The French Culinary Institute was born in 1984. Quite a success story!

Hamilton was the creator and host of Chef’s Story, a 26-part television series, which debuted on PBS in April 2007, and the author of the companion book, Chef’s Story. Her book on culinary careers, Love What You Do: Building a Career in the Culinary Industry was published in the fall of 2009.

Most recently, she was inducted into the Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America by the James Beard Foundation and was nominated for the Entrepreneur Award of Excellence by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She has been knighted by the Association Internationale de Maîtres Conseil dans la Gastronomie Française, inducted into the James Beard Foundation Hall of Fame and awarded the Silver Spoon by Food Arts magazine in recognition of her leadership in the American restaurant community.

Because Dorothy Hamilton is not a chef, finding a recipe today was difficult. However, I ran across an interesting article in Food and Wine where she discussed a problem we all have: watching our weight while still enjoying food. She turned to the staff at FCI to help her.
André Soltner, the dean of classic studies at the FCI (and the former chef and owner of Lutèce) offered the following recipe. 

While preparing the artichokes is a bit time consuming (To see how I prepare my artichokes, click HERE; I don't clean them the way the recipe suggests.) keep in mind you can refrigerate the leftovers. I halved the recipe and ate it for two dinners and a lunch. With certainty this is not the most colorful or enticing dish to photograph, but I'll definitely make it again. The flavor of the broth was sensational.  
(One serving is 193 cal, 8 gm fat, 1.1 gm saturated fat, 23 gm carb, 5 gm fiber)

Artichoke, Cauliflower and Mushroom Barigoule 
Recipe courtesy André Soltner, the dean of classic studies at the FCI

Ingredients:
1 lemon, halved, plus 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 
8 large artichokes 
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 
1 large white onion, thinly sliced 
3 small carrots, thinly sliced 
5 small garlic cloves, halved 
2 bay leaves 
2 thyme sprigs 
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds 
1 1/2 cups dry white wine 
1 1/2 cups water 
3/4 pound cauliflower, cut into 1-inch florets (4 cups) 
3/4 pound white mushrooms, quartered if large 
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Method:
Fill a large bowl with water and squeeze the lemon halves into it. Using a sharp knife, halve the artichokes crosswise. Discard the tops. Working with 1 artichoke at a time, pull off the outer green leaves until you reach the tender yellow leaves. Scrape out the hairy choke with a melon baller or spoon. Trim and peel the base and stem, then quarter the heart and add the artichoke quarters to the bowl of water. Repeat with the remaining artichokes. 
In a large deep skillet, heat the olive oil. Add the onion and carrots and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until softened but not browned, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic, bay leaves, thyme and coriander seeds and cook for 1 minute. Add the wine, water and the 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the carrots are barely tender, about 3 minutes. 
Drain the artichokes and add them to the skillet along with the cauliflower and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover and cook over low heat until tender, about 20 minutes. Uncover and let cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes. Transfer the vegetables and broth to shallow bowls and serve. 

Make Ahead. The barigoule can be refrigerated overnight. Warm before serving.


Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast 
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Kathleen -Bake Away with Me
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda
Nancy - Picadillo

50 Women Game Changers in Food: #16, Maida Heatter

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you'll already be aware I'm a Maida Heatter fan from way back. I have every cookbook she's ever published......my mother gave me most of them, hot of the presses. So this post is a particular pleasure for me.

Briefly, here's the skinny on Maida:
Does the name Heatter ring a bell? That’s because she's the daughter of radio commentator Gabriel Heatter who became famous during World War II broadcasts with his: “There is good news tonight.” catch phrase. 

Maida never started out to be a chef – she didn’t even attend a culinary school - but she credits her great baking talent to her mother, trial and error and her love of good cookbooks. Maida actually has a degree in fashion illustration and was designing and making jewelry as a hobby- which soon turned into a business. She married pilot Ralph Daniels in the late 40’s and in the 60’s when her father became ill, she and her husband came up with the idea of opening a coffee shop in a chic Miami Beach neighborhood. 

The coffee shop was named Inside and Maida made all the pastries served there. It was quickly a hit and soon grew into a full scale restaurant. Ms. Heatter also taught baking classes; I remember my mother always regretted she had not driven the 45 minutes to Burdine's in Miami to take them. One day Craig Claiborne (who was then food editor of the New York Times) tasted Maida’s desserts and talked her into writing a cookbook. Her first was titled Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts and was published in 1974- the same year she and her husband sold the restaurant. She has since been the recipient of the following James Beard awards:

1998 Cookbook Hall of Fame "Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts"
1988 Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America
1981 Single Subject Book "MAIDA HEATTERS BOOK OF GREAT CHOCOLATE DESSERTS"
1978 Speciaty Book "MAIDA HEATTERS BOOK OF GREAT COOKIES"

Now in her 80’s, she is still baking away in her Miami Beach kitchen, as energetic as ever. Oh...and did I mention she is a famous chocoholic? She's also been inducted into the Chocolatier Magazine Hall of Fame. :) She has one cookbook with nothing  but chocolate recipes!

Aside from the fabulous recipes, what you'll love best about Ms. Heatter's books are her instructions. They leave nothing to the imagination and the veriest novice can create a spectacular dessert. At the end of this post, I've listed links to some of Ms. Heatter's recipes I've posted.

My daughter was still home when I mentioned I was doing the 50 Women Game Changers and that Maida was on the list. What should I make? There was no question in her mind...Chocolate Cracks. I had forgotten how much my kids loved this cookie. They are crisp on the outside and brownie-like on the inside. I am not a chocoholic so don't make the recipe very often now they're gone. But Tracy wanted to take some back to New York with her and they travel well, so that's what I baked. After all, what better way to introduce you to Ms. Heatter than something made with chocolate?

Chocolate Cracks
From Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts

Ingredients:
3 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
6 ounces (3/4 cup) butter
2 tablespoons water
12 ounces (2 cups) semisweet chocolate morsels or 12 ounces (squares) semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 eggs

Method:
Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a large, heavy saucepan over moderate heat, cook the sugar, butter and water, stirring over heat until they are partially melted. Remove from heat and stir until chocolate is completely melted. Transfer to large bowl of electric mixer and let stand for about 5 minutes to cool slightly.

On high speed, beat in the eggs one at a time. Reduce speed to low and gradually add the sifted dry ingredients, scraping bowl with a rubber spatula and beating only  until dry ingredients are absorbed. Let dough stand for about 10 minutes or longer until it can be handled easily.

Adjust oven rack high in the oven. Preheat oven to 350. Cut aluminum foil to fit the cookie sheets. ( I use parchment paper)

Using a heaping teaspoonful of dough for each cookie, roll between your hands into shiny and moist looking balls. Place two inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet.

Bake 12 to 13 minutes, reversing position of the pan during baking if necessary to insure even baking. Tops will feel dry but not firm. Do not overbake. Cookies will crisp as they cool. With a wide metal spatula, transfer to racks to cool.

Maida Heatter recipes I've posted:

Palm Beach Orange Ice Cream
Indian River Sweet Orange Bread
Frozen Grand Marnier Mousse
Cranberry Ice Cream
Moosehead Gingerbread
Pumpkin Ice Cream
Southern Nut Cake
Blueberry Ice Cream
Date Espresso Loaf


Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast 
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Kathleen -Bake Away with Me
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda
Nancy - Picadillo

50 Women Game Changers in Food: #15, Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso

My copy of Silver Palate has seen better days, but that's always the way to find a favorite recipe....look for the dirty pages! There are quite a few of those in this wildly popular cookbook by Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso with Michael McLaughlin. Between them, Lukins, Rosso and McLaughlin introduced many Americans to French, Southern and Eastern European cooking techniques and ingredients. 

In the 1970s, after Lukins had spent some time at the Cordon Bleu in London and had worked with chefs in France, she returned the New York and started a catering business. In 1977, she co-founded (with Rosso) a gourmet and catering shop in NYC called The Silver Palate. McLaughlin managed the Silver Palate and when owners Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins decided to write their first book, he created many of the recipes. Lukins sold her interest in The Silver Palate in 1988 when it was sold to new owners and the store finally was closed in 1993.

After 11 years working together, Rosso and Lukins split up in the 1990s in a widely-reported feud, although they were reunited in 2007 to publish a new 25th-anniversary edition of The Silver Palate Cookbook. Lukins passed away in 2009. Rosso and her husband Bill own an inn in Saugatuck, Michigan. She gives cooking lessons there.

McLaughlin stayed in the background (this poor photo was hard to come by) for the most part and left the Silver Palate in 1984 when he opened the Manhattan Chili Company in New York’s Greenwich Village, a restaurant that showcased Southwestern cuisine. Michael died in Santa Fe in 2002.

To honor these "game changers" I chose to make a seafood salad I've been making for years. What I like about this recipe is you can dress it with different salad dressings. A basil purée or a sherry mayonnaise are the two I use the most; I like them both, or you could use any recipe for a basil pesto you may have.  I chose to use the sherry mayonnaise this time. I also like to add tomatoes as it seems to call out for some additional color.

Pasta and Seafood Salad
From The Silver Palate Cookbook

Ingredients:

1 pound raw shrimp, shelled and deveined

1 pound bay scallops, rinsed

3 squid, dressed

1/2 pound corkscrew or shell pasta (I used cavatelli here, but I do prefer corkscrew or something unusual.)

1 cup peas, defrosted

1/2 cup diced red pepper

1/2 cup minced purple onion

1/2 cup olive oil

4 Tablespoons lemon juice

salt and pepper

1 cup black olives, preferably Kalamata or Alfonso

Method:
Boil scallops and shrimp in boiling salted water for 1 minutes. Boil the squid and tentacles for 3 or 3  minutes. Then cut squid body in 1 inch rings. Be sure to use the squid tentacles! Cook pasta, drain. Mix all ingredients in a salad bowl and toss with sherry mayonnaise or the basil purée. Top with black olives. Serves 4-6.

Sherry Mayonaise
Ingredients:

1 whole egg

2 egg yolks

1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard

1/4 chup sherry vinegar

salt and pepper

2 cups corn oil

Method:
Combine egg, egg yolks, mustard, vinegar in processor. Season with salt and pepper and process 1 minute. With motor running, dribble oil in a steady stream. When done and thick, refrigerate.

Basil Purée
Ingredients:
7 cups washed and dried fresh basil leaves
3-4 tablespoons olive oil

Method:

Purée in a food processor, cover and refrigerate

Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Kathleen -Bake Away with Me
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Amy - Beloved Green
Jeanette - Healthy Living
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda
Martha - Lines from Linderhof

50 Women Game Changers in Food: #14, Elizabeth David

One of the first cookbooks I received as a newly-married (it was a gift from my mother) was French Country Cooking, so Elizabeth David is an old friend. She is credited with changing the way the British middle classes ate by introducing a generation of British cooks to Mediterranean food such as pasta, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, salami, aubergines, red and green peppers and courgettes. Her descriptions of dishes caught the imagination of a post-war generation. 

Ms. David's earlier cookbooks are remembered not only for the recipes, but for vividly described landscapes and the harbors and marketplaces of the Mediterranean. Articles in Vogue, House and Garden, The Sunday Times and The Spectator helped to spread her influence throughout a country whose culinary efforts resulted mainly in fish and chips and spotted Dick. 

Many chefs, including Simon Hopkinson, Jamie Oliver and Alice Waters, say David was a great inspiration to them. 
"Her esthetic is about simplicity and a kind of fragrance," Ms. Waters said. "She had a great sense of the seasons and always about life around the table -- the setting, the conversation. It was always more than just the food because her recipes were not very specific, to say the least. I remember being frustrated, but it made you think."

Ms. David led rather a racy life for the times (she was born in 1913 and died in 1992) which was never much talked about, but exposed in an unofficial biography by Lisa Chaney. After a patrician, cosmopolitan upbringing, Ms. David studied art in Paris, became an actress, and ran off with a married man with whom she sailed in a small boat to Italy, eventually making their way to Greece where they were nearly trapped by the German invasion of Greece in 1940. They escaped to Egypt where they parted. She then worked for the British government, running a library in Cairo. She married there, but the marriage didn't last long. It appears she led a spicy private life, but she certainly learned valuable lessons from cooks in France, Italy, Greece and north Africa.

 After the war, David returned to England, and, dismayed by the gloom and bad food, wrote a series of articles about Mediterranean food that caught the public imagination. Books on French and Italian cuisine followed, and within ten years David was a major influence on British cooking.  Her cookbooks were, in addition to the recipes, wonderful pieces of travel writing. In 1960, Mrs David published her masterpiece, French Provincial Cooking, a book that may be read as literature, as a work of reference, and as a splendid and representative collection of recipes.
 

Because I had some fresh raspberries in the fridge and not too much time, I chose a quick and simple dessert recipe from Summer Cooking, an interesting collection of seasonal dishes relying on fresh ingredients and fresh herbs. 
The recipe was entitled Raspberry Shortbread....the shortbread part intrigued me. I always think of shortbread as a kind of thick cookie (which I couldn't imagine with fresh raspberries) and as expected, this certainly didn't result in a cookie. Perhaps the British definition of shortbread is not the same as mine? At any rate, this shortbread turned out to be more of a fruit crumble. And while it certainly was tasty, I confess I've made crumbles I liked better.
I have posted her recipe and instructions verbatim.

Raspberry Shortbread
From Summer Cooking by Elizabeth David

Ingredients:
6 ounces flour
3 1/2 ounces moist brown sugar
2 ounces butter
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pound raspberries
a little white sugar

Method:
Put the raspberries in a fairly large shallow pie dish, strew them with white sugar. Cut the butter into very small pieces and crumble it with the flour until very well blended. Add the sugar, ginger and baking powder.
Spread this mixture lightly over the raspberries and smooth it out evenly, but do not press down.
Bake in the center of a medium oven for 25  minutes. Can be served hot or cold and is excellent.




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