Of Cats and Cookies

Regardless of where I met them, or how we've stayed in touch, or what they do with their lives, just about all of my closest friends have three things in common: a love of food, laughter, and cats.

The food and laughter are obvious, of course. I just don't really understand people who are serious about anything other than what they want for dinner. But the last one came as a surprise. Having grown up with dogs, I've always identified very strongly as a dog person, even as nearly every household I lived in after my parents' house counted at least one cat among its residents.

Seconds later, she rolled off the cabinet.

I just always assumed that living around cats was simply a phase that my friends and I were in, a stage emerging adults go through before they're able to create a dog-friendly living space. But, in the last few years, I've come to realize that these cats have become a permanent part of my friendships. We sit around drinking tea, making cookies, and inquire into the health of Minna, discuss how to transition Dino and Sprocket into the new house, debate which circle of hell Marcel originated from, worry about the weight problems of Olive and Kona, compare Blanket and Tipper's relationships with the neighborhood cats, and endlessly analyze the many psychological issues of Noel (above and right). These cats have turned all my friends into cat ladies. And probably me, too.

So, of course, one of the first things I do when I visit California is head over to a dear friend's house to make cookies, laugh, and hang out with the cats.


We made salty chocolate chip and roasted pecan cookies, adapted from a recipe by David Lebovitz (which you should expect to see even more of here, because, as if I wasn't getting enough recipes from his blog, I just received his book for my birthday!).

I think salt is the newest fad - salt selections are being offered in restaurants, bloggers and cooks are discussing which salts they use for different dishes, and I'm having trouble finding table salt in kitchen cupboards - everyone's switched over to sea salt (including my own household). Being a little late to the party, and a chronic under-salter, I haven't got an opinion on what sort of salts are the best, but they really do make chocolate chip cookies taste better. As do the roasted pecans. And the semisweet chocolate chunks.

And then we sat around the table drinking tea, eating cookies, and talking about cats.

cat.

cookie.

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.

Essence of Raspberry

We went fruit picking again. Remember this pie? All those beautiful berries are from Weaver's Orchard, a bit of a drive from Philadelphia, but well worth the trip. And one of the primary reasons for picking this particular farm was a NYT recipe for raspberry vinegar, discovered by a fellow fruit-picking Philadelphia foodie (say it ten times fast). Turns out it's less of a vinegar and more of a syrup, which only increases its potential uses. Which is good, because this recipe makes a LOT.

(Not that I wanted to share it with any of the free-loading fruit flies that have recently invaded our kitchen)





The pile of raspberries is supposed to macerate in a bit of red wine vinegar for three days. I kept getting distracted (pie! ice cream! internet!) and let it sit for about five. I pretended that this was intentional and improves the intense raspberryness. Maybe it did.

The mixture is then strained through cheesecloth. SUPER MESSY. There was juicy red sweetness on my hands, on the counter, on the floor, and maybe on one of the cats. Luckily some also made it into the bowl.

The reason this is more of a syrup than a vinegar is because the next step involves adding the liquid to a slightly-larger-than-equivalent pile of sugar and simmering it. This stuff is SWEET.



The final step works really well if your housemate has a cool looking empty wine bottle available.

This recipe complimented complemented our raspberries so well. We arrived at the height of the season, meaning the raspberries were extremely sweet and, while flavorful, the individual raspberry taste was not particularly strong. The concentrated syrup, however, is intensely raspberry-y. It's a marvelous accompaniment to pancakes, seltzer, or a little rum. And I'm looking forward to finding more uses for it. It's going to be a lovely reminder of summer once the hot, muggy berry season is past.

Photo credit goes to a lovely lady.

Why I am poor.

Most of what I eat (minus the bread and cheese) comes from the Headhouse Farmer's Market:

Isn't it beautiful?

Ratatouille

I've been cooking a lot lately, but even so I found some tomatoes, zucchinis, and eggplants threatening to get mushy at the bottom of my vegetable drawer. Luckily there's a way to use up all those things in one go, and at the same time pay homage to my favorite movie.

For real. My favorite movie EVER. So much Pixar love!

Now that I've told everyone that my favorite movie involves a little blue animated rat, maybe we should move beyond my classy, intelligent, and highly refined movie tastes and get back to the food.

Ratatouille is always a colorful dish, but when you're using heirloom eggplants and tomatoes and green and yellow squashes, all from the farmer's market (although not entirely fresh, due to the aforementioned time at the bottom of the vegetable drawer) it's particularly beautiful. 

So there's a lot of photographs in this post. 

Everything should be in approximately bite-sized pieces. You can make ratatouille on the grill or in the oven as well, but I usually sauté everything, mostly because I'm lazy.

Always start with onions. Then add the eggplant. When it's looking pretty well cooked, throw in the squash.

It's good to add some fresh herbs somewhere in there - I was feeling REALLY lazy, and just tossed in some garlic. But thyme or basil or marjoram or any number of things always makes a good addition, particularly if your ingredients aren't at their peak. This is a good recipe to use for slightly inferior produce, although luckily I didn't have that problem.

The tomatoes go in last. I just stirred them in and made sure they were incorporated, then turned off the heat. They don't need to get overly mushy or disappear into the mixture - they hold more flavor (and color!) if they're just barely cooked. 

My real stroke of genius was plating the ratatouille onto some goat cheese covered toast (Purple Haze and pain au levain, both from the Metropolitan Bakery). The sharp goat cheese was the perfect compliment to the sweet, tomato-y ratatouille (although, is there anything NOT made better by goat cheese?) and the toast added a lovely crunchy texture. Delicious.

peach-berry pie and vanilla ice cream: a love story