A Tale of 400 Cookies

There are some people I'd walk across fire for. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. My friend Sara is among that select group. If I was ever locked up in a Tijuana jail at 4am with no passport or pants (hypothetically-speaking, of course), Sara would get me out. So naturally, when she asked me to bake cookies for her wedding favors, I said yes. Then I asked, how many?

That bowl of batter is much larger than it appears.

All in all, I baked 400 crunchy, buttery cookies with a  sprinkle of silver sugar.  I used the Crunchy Sugar Cookie recipe from Fine Cooking, which I highly recommend (there's a chewy version, too, if you prefer that texture). Paired with a glass of milk, a sugar cookie is such a classic comfort. 

Sara and her amazing husband, Tony, got married exactly one year ago. Thinking back on this baking experience, I laugh a little at what I mess I was in the kitchen. My rudimentary calculations to increase the recipe. How I just crossed my fingers that all the ingredients would fit in my mixer. But they did! Cookies were baked, bagged and tied with a white satin bow. And Sara and Tony had the most memorable, romantic, and moving wedding I've ever had the honor of attending.

Happy anniversary to my dear friends! Cheers to many more years of happiness with each other.

Happy Valentine's Day!

You guys, this is love! Peter brought home a Valentine's lunch for me from the Saint Paul Cheese Shop: Australian feta (swoon), crackers, a chorizo sandwich with manchego and quince paste, and two ridiculously awesome brownies. He may as well have brought home a golden retriever puppy carrying a dozen roses in it's mouth. The effect was the same. Food is the way to my heart and Peter knows this all too well. Even though I know Valentine's Day is a completely fabricated commercial holiday, I don't care if it means treat like this.

Happy Valentine's to you! May your day be extra sweet.

Russ & Daughters

Guess what. New York and me? We're almost through. I can't believe it, but I will be heading home a week from today. I feel a mixture of despair–What will I do without street food on every corner? How can I bear to leave my sister and my friends?–and relief–What joy to have laundry in my basement! How peaceful and cozy it will be in my Saint Paul house. When this rush of emotions comes over me (which is almost an hourly occurrence now), I realize that I can't say goodbye. 

This city won me over sometime last summer. At some mysterious point, New York's charms overcame it's faults in my mind (doughnuts may or may not have had something to do with it). Now I realize I will never have enough time to do everything on my list, because the list just keeps growing. I just have to come back.

In the meantime, I am trying to pack in as many New York experiences as time allows. A few weeks ago I saw The Artist at The Paris Theater (An enchanting film. You should see it.), followed by a drink at a sky-high bar overlooking Central Park. I saw an incredible documentary at Lincoln Center that changed the way I think about dance. I finally paid a visit to the Sullivan Street Bakery (worthy of it's own post). And I went to Russ & Daughters.

 

Consider this place a must. Step up to the eye-level marble counter, half a dozen bagelmen looking imperiously back at you, and you will feel its history. Lower East Siders have been ordering bagels and lox from Russ & Daughters for nearly one hundred years. For good reason. The deli case is full of luscious, thick slabs of rosy smoked salmon. Half the fun is choosing the variety for your bagel. Peter and I sampled three, before deciding on the Norwegian. Paired with the double-whipped horseradish cream cheese, flecked with dill, our bagel sandwich was complete. I could have stayed for another hour, perusing the salads, old-fashioned hard candies and the dry good delicacies, but we were hungry.  

There's no place to sit inside Russ & Daughters. This is by no means a deterrent, but it does create an interesting problem when it's 30 degrees outside. The solution, we found, was to pick up a cheese knish a few doors down from Yonah Schimmel's and take both to a nearby park bench. The knish–my first!–was a formidably sized hunk of potato wrapped in pastry, with the heft of a softball. I had doubts until I took my first bite. What's not to love about a plump cloud of whipped potato, laced with chives and salt, and topped with sharp cheddar cheese? Sold. 

The brisk winter air was softened by the sun's bright rays. We sat, taking alternating bites of the toasty knish and the cold, creamy bagel. The combination was ideal, and not just because of the temperature. Looking around at the centuries-old tenement buildings around me, it felt right to be eating this humble, timeless street food right where it originated. It was freezing cold on that bench, but add this to the list of New York moments I will carry with me. 

My Food Resolutions in 2012

Normally I'm not a fan of New Year's Eve. For every satisfying, fun-filled celebration, there are four under-whelming, borderline depressing ones. Maybe it's because the evening lacks a real purpose. Is it a night for drinking, for dancing, or for really good food? To go out or not to go out? And is there anything to the superstition that the person you kiss at midnight is who you'll spend the rest of the year with? (I hope so.)

I always suspected the key to my New Year's Eve happiness lied in food. And this year I found out I was right. I spent the evening with my husband and some good friends, feasting on an incredible five-course meal cooked by the men. The women looked very pretty, making sure champagne and wine glasses were kept full. We ate leisurely right up until the ball dropped in Times Square at midnight. After taking a break to watch the revelry on TV (taking place just a few blocks away from our peaceful dinner), we had dessert. I made individual sticky toffee puddings and learned that it's a fine idea to put that buttery lava of a sauce on anything (even in your coffee).

Now that I think of it, last year's New Year's Eve was a success, too. And all because of the oysters and smoked trout spread that we ate on a balcony overlooking the Gulf of Mexico (celebrating the holiday in Florida certainly helped, too). Big surprise, right? Good food = happiness in my book. In consideration of that fact, I'm going to commit to eating well in 2012. So without further adieu:

My Food Resolutions in 2012

• Learn more about how to pair wine with food. What To Drink with What You Eat has pointed me in a good direction. Drink This: Wine Made Simple is also very promising.

• Add more FAST + EASY (but delicious) dinners to my repertoire.
• Obey my cravings.
• Master le Macaron Parisienne. 

• Make everyday dinners more special. Candles, cloth napkins, and low lighting.
  
• Commit to memory the proper way to set a table (forks on the left!).
• Learn to love grapefruit.

What are your food wishes for 2012? Forget the New Year/New You diet, I want to know what you plan to cook, eat and enjoy in the coming year.

An Apple a Day

There is a 24-hour produce market just down the street from my apartment. Next door to the market there is a special Apple Room. At least, that's what I call it. Shipped from the orchards upstate, the wooden crates are filled to the brim with Jonagold, Cortland, Empire, and Red Delicious apples. Northern Spy, Cameo and Rome. Walking into that room is like taking a sip of a cold, crisp glass of cider. The sweet smell of many apples is an instant antidote to the dingy city grime just outside its doors. Sometimes, when I'm walking by, I'll just go inside that room for a minute and breathe deeply. It's enough.

Some of my favorite things to do with an apple:

* Slice them up and dip them in peanut butter (or better yet, nutella...)

* Make a quick and dirty apple crisp with lots of cinnamon and an oat-strewn topping

* Hollow out the core of an apple, fill it with brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and nutmeg, top it with raisins and pecans, then bake covered, with a little water in the dish, until the apple is tender and fragrant.

 

I suppose, despite all this talk of apples, the season is on the wane. So what's up next? Pomegranates?