Sweet, sweet, (and slightly alcoholic) slavery.

Tonight is the first night of Passover, the holiday where Jews forgo leavened foods for a week in memory of our ancestors' flight from slavery and the Pharaoh. Despite the prohibition of bread, it's actually quite a foodie holiday, with several different symbolic foods (and drink - it's a Jewish holiday after all) required at the table for the Seder.

One of these is charoset (pronounced with a guttural "h" sound, not a hard "ch") which symbolizes the brick mortar of slavery, from the Jews' time in Egypt making pyramids. Ironically, although it represents the hard labor the Hews were required to perform, the purpose of the charoset in the Passover meal is to sweeten the bitter taste of slavery, which is usually played by a dose of fresh horseradish. And during the week of matzo-eating, charoset is just about the only thing that makes that dry, brittle cracker taste any good at all. (Don't talk to me about matzo brie or matzo pizza or any of that nonsense. Sure, covering up all taste and texture of the matzo whatsoever makes it taste okay. But is it still the bread of affliction when it's been turned into french toast?)

The ancient, tedious, high-maintenance, carefully guarded family recipe for charoset (now with food processor) is as follows: Grind up a bunch of nuts (any kind, although we tend toward walnuts or hazelnuts or, as shown, a mixture). Then add a lot of chopped apples (same principle applies - whatever floats your boat) and grind some more. Then add wine.

If it seems too dry, more apple. If it seems too wet, more nuts. The key principle, again, is that it ought to resemble brick mortar.

Chag Sameach! (Sounds like "hog sammy ack")

Why do melons always have big weddings?

We've been buying quite a lot of melon for our small, three-person household because they're so perfectly in season, so wonderfully refreshing, and they just smell so damn good that it's worth the extra weight on the mile walk home from the farmers' market. And, to make room for the new melons, we have to eat up the old ones, resulting in this cantaloupe sorbet from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. Some advice:

1. If your melon happens to be less-than-perfectly ripe and flavorful, add another lime. Or, if you like lime, add another lime. For instance, when Lebovitz wrote "1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime, plus more to taste." I read it as "one lime, plus another one." It might make the sorbet's texture a little coarser, but it will completely overwhelm the cantaloupe's inadequacies.

2. If you need to test the white wine in the back of the fridge to make sure it hasn't turned into vinegar, don't use the mini plastic teddybear cup you found in the back of the drawer because a) the four-year-old watching Toy Story with your dad will want some and b) it's probably covered in 20-year-old lead paint from China.

3. When your mum mentions that her second-hand mixer might run a little different because your uncle tinkered with the motor a bit before giving it to her, that means that he made it go twice as fast and it doesn't have a low setting and it may not be ideal for churning sorbet and you should just put it away on top of the fridge and replace it with the one you got from your grandma, which doesn't know about warp speed yet.

4. Don't leave your lens cap out on the counter.

5. Don't worry too much about the four-year-old angling for that plastic cup of white wine; she's much more interested in raspberries.

Cantaloupe Sorbet [with a lot of lime]

Adapted from David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop"

Chop up the meat of 

One 2-pound ripe cantaloupe

Purée in a blender with

1/2 cup sugar

pinch of salt

the juice of one or two small limes, or if you have a really good melon, maybe just a teaspoon.

Add

2 tablespoons white wine or Champagne

Chill thoroughly, then freeze in an ice cream maker that your uncle hasn't tampered with.  

(Because they can't elope.)

What I Did During My Summer Vacation

Life and cooking have had their ups and downs lately, a little more of each than usual. But the good moments outweigh the bad, so that's alright then.

Oh, and I moved back to California. For good. And just in time for tomatoes.

(I still love Philly though! But I hella love Oakland.)

Peach Sorbet

Remember all those peaches we peeled for all those alcoholic drinks? We saved some. Because in the summer heat, a four ingredient recipe for peach sorbet is not something you should pass up. This recipe, courtesy (as always) of David Lebovitz, is possibly the easiest, most simplistic, and most flexible use of an ice cream maker yet. And quite likely the most delicious. Although that credit should probably go to the peaches.

Chop up the peeled peaches.

 Cook them in a bit of water until soft.

 Add some sugar.

Blend.

Add some lemon juice and chill.

Freeze in the ice cream maker.

The sorbet that comes out of the ice cream maker, unlike the other frozen things I've made, was ready to eat immediately - it has a very stiff texture. We put it in the freezer anyway, and had it later that night.

Here's where my recipe deviates a little from the original. Or not so much of a deviation as another use for this lovely sorbet. Once it was done churning, we scooped out a little extra sorbet into two glasses and poured some chilled, peachified white wine over it, making a very refreshing, thick, peachy drink.

It's like a light, wine-based smoothie!

I think this sorbet might be the most flavorful thing to come out of all my summer ice cream maker experiments so far. And clearly peaches have completely hijacked my summer. Which, well, who could complain?

Winos and Fruits

For this post, I'll need the help of my lovely assistant. We're going to show you how to clean out a fridge full of fruit using only two glasses, two pitchers, two extra-large bottles of cheap white wine, a mini four-pack of cheap white wine, some brandy, rum, and maybe some of that raspberry syrup you made the other day.

First peel (optional) and slice all the peaches in your fridge. Save some for the peach sorbet you're going to make in the next blog post, and divide the rest between two pitchers.





One of these pitchers will turn into chilled white wine and peaches. Remember that? We've been drinking it ever since peach season started.

 All the rest of the fruit in your fridge should go into the other pitcher. Probably doesn't matter what kind of fruit it is - we had a few blueberries and blackberries leftover from the most recent fruit picking expedition.

Add sugar, stir around.

Then add a lot of brandy to the mix of fruit.

Then decide you need some more fruit to balance it out, and go to the store to get some plums.

Might as well throw some raspberry syrup in there too, as long as it's lying around.


Then add some white wine.

Add some more white wine.

Stir around.

And let everything chill in the fridge overnight. You can drink it with your pancakes tomorrow morning.

At this point, you've been running around, slicing peaches, buying brandy and plums, and stirring things all day, so you need a drink. Take out that bottle of raspberry syrup you made the other day. See it in the fridge? Mix it with some rum, and pour it over ice.

 You deserve it.

The best reason to go peach picking.

 Ever since coming across this recipe for peaches and white wine, me and my equally hot, sticky, Philadelphia-dwelling friends have been making it for every occasion- housewarming parties, pool parties, painting parties, and sit-around-the-house-and-drink-white-wine-and-peaches parties. 

 It's not as much a recipe as it is a really fantastic idea. 

We've shared it with each other, with people at the wine stores, with fellow peach-pickers, and with facebook-at-large. 

So you've probably heard. 

It's delicious.