Cakes, brooms, and grooms

Come what may, there is rarely a week over here without something sweet or other parrading or, depending on the results, tumbling out of the oven. A snug home-made sweet on the counter is a thing to look forward to any day, sun or rain, everybody knows that. Among all the sweet tooth-pacifiers out there, cookies -- heed these, would you? -- are usually my first choice. An average-sized batch yields a dozen or two of perfect foot soldiers ready to snap to it, one by one, at the click of my fingers. Well taken care of, they can stay in my command for days lending support and cheer whenever needed. I like cookies a lot for that, granting, of course, they taste good too. But however willing, one can't be sustained by cookies alone; one also needs cake. I know I do. There is a Russian proverb that says one can get sick of cake, but never of bread. Total hooey, if you ask me. Cake is a godsend. But unlike cookies that can so easily be stashed away strictly for personal use, cakes are meant to share, it's what you are expected to do as you set your foot in the kitchen to make one, especially if you live with someone else. In which case you are also supposed to inquire what kind of cake that other person would like, perhaps not every time, but at least every so often. I never do and time after time bake cakes I like -- this apple cake, or that marmelade cake, or now, thanks to this book, various other fruit cakes -- reckoning Anthony will like them too. Not surprising then it is that he never does: Your cakes are awful, there is no chocolate or buttercream in them. I hate your cakes. That's interesting, because I actually like to think my cakes are not so bad, but surely, surely tastes differ, and surely, surely I should be more considerate of other people's likes when I expect them to enjoy cake with me.

Today I made chocolate chip hazelnut cake with chocolate cinnamon buttercream (again Nigel Slater), and seeing that half of it is gone in less than half a day and I had only a sliver, I think I made a good cake. Put it in your pipe and smoke it, Anthony! Well, besides my addressing a certain person's stance towards some confections of mine, there is another motive for such luscious and celebratory sweet. Dear Reader, Anthony and I are getting married, on Monday September 17th!  (We may lean towards differents cakes, but we both agree that Mondays are great.) Nobody here is pregnant, stay calm. I know it sounds like such short notice. Such short notice, in fact, that it is tempting to think something is off. But nothing is, except, maybe, the way I deal with change. When things change around me, I am, always have been, the last to wrap my head around them, and so such is my nature to wait till the very last moment to peep a word and regard an occasion. I guess it's because when talked about loud, change, even the best kind, makes me feel vulnerable, as if I'm in the nude in a room full of properly-clad people, and I really, really don't like that feeling.

A touch more than a year ago Anthony gifted me with a pendant in the form of a snail and a butterfly hovering above, both in a circle. This is us, he said and seeing a question on my face, added, You are beautiful and I am slow and we are together. Do you want to marry me? I do. I like, very much so, the idea of getting married to Anthony, my best friend, my 'broom'! A short while ago I was filling in a form for witness details and in the field 'relationship' I wrote down, referring to Anthony's parents, 'the father and mother of the broom'. And now I keep calling him that, Anthony the Broom, secretly hoping that the Dutch civil servants who will issue our marriage certificate will not correct 'broom' to 'groom'. There is a concern on Anthony's side that if I repeat the joke too much, which I do, it will wear off too soon, but really I can't help it. I laugh a lot around him and I don't want that to change.

So: the cake. From the looks of it, one can get an inclination the sweet, composed of a moist sponge cake mainlined with toasted hazelnuts and chocolate nibs and a toothsome chocolate cream on top, is rich and cloying. I thought it would be, but I was mistaken. Despite all that butter (half pound) and sugar (half pound) and eggs (four) and chocolate that went into the cake, the latter stays miraculously light. To take that in can be rather disconcerting: as Anthony admitted, he feared for a moment that under that luscious frosting there sits something dry and prudent. No, no, and no. All is good about this cake. To say the least, perfumed with just a wiff of cinnamon the chocolate buttercream, not a distant cousin to ganache, cocoons each biteful of the moist, nutty sponge on your tongue with such care and affection that would similar interaction take place in a different context one might feel a little embarrassed to watch, if you know what I mean. The cake is to celebrate -- and for celebrations.

Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cake with Chocolate Cinnamon Buttercream
Adapted from Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard by Nigel Slater
Yield: 10 to 12 (or more) servings

To be honest, I had a concern about the amount of the chocolate buttercream the recipe yields (a lot) and thought for an instance to replace, next time around, a recommended 20-cm (8-inch) cake pan with a larger one, to give such rich icing a bigger wingspan, so to say, but I'll tell you what -- I shall not replace a thing. It is not accidental, such quanity. Spread over the cake's top evenly (not like what I did in the picture above), it is this very thickness of the cream that lends a luscious and pleasant mouthfeel to each and every bite. With the cream in its place, I wasn't sure about how and where to better keep the whole composition, though. Refrigation turned the cream as well as the sponge underneath into rock, and after reaching room temperature again, the cream somehow took on a grainy quality. In doubts, I rapidly asked Nigel Slater for his advice and he suggested to keep it 'in a cool place, covered by a bowl or in a cake tin'. No fridge.

One more tidbit: with no golden bake's sugar in sight, I used conventional white sugar in its stead.

Ah, and remember to use ground cinnamon that is not too old.

For the cake

250 g (8 oz) butter
250 g (8 oz) white granulated sugar
75 g (2.5 oz) shelled hazelnuts
120 g (4 oz) good-quality dark chocolate
4 large eggs
125 g (4 oz) self-rising flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 tsp strong espresso

For the spiced chocolate buttercream

250 g (8 oz) dark chocoalte (70% cocoa)
125 g butter (4 oz)
a knifepoint of ground cinnamon

Warm the oven to 180 C (350 F). Line the bottom of a 20-cm (8-inch) deep springform cake pan with parchment paper and set aside. Toast the hazelnuts in a dry pan over medium heat, then rub them in a clean kitchen towl until almost all the skins have come off. Grind the nuts to a coarse powder, not as fine as almond meal but finer than they would be if chopped by hand. Cut up the chocolate fine enough for it to resemble coarse gravel; if chopped too roughly, the chocolate bits will just sink to the bottom of the cake batter. Sift the flour in a separate bowl.

Cut the butter into small pieces and put it along with the sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer, then beat until light and fluffy. In the meantime, break the eggs into a small bowl and beat them lightly. Slowly add them to the butter and sugar, beating continuously -- it's ok if the micture curdles slightly. Stop the mixer. Tip in half the ground nuts and half the flour, beat briefly and at a slow speed, then stop the mixer again, add the rest of the nuts and flour, together with the chopped chocolate and cinnamon, and mix till just incorporated. Taking care not to knock the air from the batter, gently fold in the espresso. Scoop the whole lot into the prepared cake pan. Smooth the top and bake for 35-45 minutes. If during the last ten minutes the cake colors too fast, cover it loosely with foil. Remove the cake from the oven and check doneness with a skewer/toothpick/sharp knife -- there shoule be no uncooked cake batter clinging to it. Leave the cake to cool for a little while in its pan, then turn out onto a cooling rack and peel off the parchment paper from its sides and bottom.

To make the chocolate buttercream, break the chocolate into small pieces and let melt in a small bowl set over a pot of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl shouldn't touch the water). Leave to melt, wirh minium stirring, add the butter, cut into small chunks, and the cinnamon. Stir until the butter has melted, then immediately remove from the fire. Leave to cool until the mixture is thick enough to spread. Evenly cover the top of the cake with the chocolate cream, decorate as you wish, and leave for an hour or so before cutting. Serve in thin slices. Store, covered by a bowl, in a cool place (don't refrigerate). The cake will keep for 3-4 days.

A good feeling

Last time we talked I couldn't stop mouthing off about how fruit is my siren, how all I can do is eating it fresh, except that I would also like to cook with it more, somewhat. To this end, I told you, I had taken some measures, that being I'd got myself one special book -- Nigel Slater's Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard. (Ten Speed Press, 2012). When I heard Jess mention it once, I was on the edge of my seat. When Jess spoke fondly of it twice, wheels got turning. I got the book weeks ago and not a day has passed by since that I wouldn't lose myself in its pages. 

I think Nigel Slater is a magician. For most of us an apple, for example, tastes like, um, an apple, right? We can tell if it's sweet or sour, no problem there, and with some effort we could even decipher scents of grass or honey in the apple bite. But Nigel Slater sees beyond that. He tastes this apple and senses it has the flavors of strawberry, walnut and nail polish(!!); in that apple he picks up the notes of nutmeg, aniseed or pineapple. Isn't it pretty spectacular? He is also a romantic, that Nigel Slater. Just check this out: "Cherries bring with them a certain frivolity, a carefree joy like hearing the far-off laughter of a child at play. Their appearance, in deepest summer, comes when life is often at its most untroubled. A bag of cherries is a bag of happiness" (p.171). Or this: "I catch my breath and stand quite motionless; a moment of quiet excitement. I feel as if there is a butterfly in my chest. There, two feet away, is the first catkin of spring, already heavy with yellow pollen and dangling like a lamb's tail from a bare, brittle twig" (p.315). Beautiful, isn't it? The book is filled with such gracefulness and delicacy to the fullest.

Aside being instructive and educative, cookbooks for me are kitchen windows into somebody else's story and culture. Through recipes and stories of others I get to know what's there. And while filling my head with information and treble inspiration all right, Nigel Slater's sentient and observant writing does something else: it makes me want to never stop paying attention to what's here, right around me. I want to see for myself what shade of yellow is canary yellow, to walk through a monastery orchard, to find a sea rock and remind myself what hue it is exactly, to hear that noise that comes from the corners of my mouth as I bite into a fresh and juicy peach...You see what I mean? I think it's special when a (cook)book inspirits you to look at where you are right now. Ripe does that in tenfold.

To say that each one of three hundred plus seasonal recipes this beautiful tome holds would yield blog-worthy results wouldn't be a far-fetched statement, not at all. But I had to start somewhere, and because I'm not impartial to it I started with tabbouleh. 

                                                                                                       

                                                          ***

I was twenty-one and edging into my final year of college when, figuring out what I should be soon doing with my degree in English linguistics, I took a gap year and enrolled into the Au-pair program. For various reasons, I ended up in the Netherlands (the Hague), and for the year to come I was to take care of a lovely six-year-old girl in a single-parent family (a working mother). That year was supposed to be my coming of age of sorts, meaning not only that I was going to be completely on my own in a place far away from everything and everyone familiar, but also that I was now responsible for somebody else. That surely had to make me more mature, stronger, wiser, something, anything. That surely had to, and on some level it did, except only when I would step into my host family's kitchen, you know, to cook myself a meal. One day not too long after my arrival I thought to braise for my lunch white cabbage in tomato broth, with charred onions, laurel and all that, something I really liked, something that said home to me. I was standing by the kitchen stove stirring the cabbage when the mother walked in, her heels knocking urgent staccato on the black tiled floor, to say, her arm over her nose: It's shocking you can eat something like this; it smells foul. Did she just imply I eat shit? Lost for words on my side, I sheepishly smiled and kept stirring my food, deeply embarrassed and strangely hurt. Forward the tape and you'll see that other time over breakfast when I sat down with my plate of pan-fried potatoes leftover from the night before and her I can't believe you are eating this firing at me again, only now reaching somewhere deeper and making me feel so completely out of place.

And then there was ketchup. I liked to have it with everything, you see. Or better, I just liked to have it. A true fact: brain freeze from my necking heavily refrigerated ketchup straight from a bottle wasn't a foreign thing to me. So when my host mother said I've never seen anybody eating so much ketchup before, during a family meal, the words catching me in 'crime' as I was reaching for the stuff, to squirt some on rice, I recall, it just got me. And when I was repeatedly told it's plain stupid not to eat after 6pm, it got me even more, because I was twenty-one and stubborn and weight conscious and no-food-after 6pm was my thing then. It's then when I should have said something back, something like a friendly Your comments make me feel uncomfortable, to speak up for myself, for my bottle of ketchup, for my cabbage. Too fast to fold, I said nothing. Instead, I got into a habit of hiding what and when I would eat (yes sir, bad behavior). Which, given my sentiments, for the next eight months meant I would tiptoe down into the kitchen for breakfast (Weetabix, I got besotted by you!) and race against the clock to have dinner before everybody else, lunch being a dash in the neurotic sentence of my every day. In such developments, hunger soon got to thunderously and ceaselessly rumble in my every cell. And the irony is that I couldn't be any hungrier than then, what with all those wonderful, delicious, beautiful foods I hadn't known of before right under my nose at the farmer's markets (my first taste of avocado and leeks (!) and 'organic') and deli stores and ethnic supermarkets and pastry shops.

In the thick of it, I didn't see at all how things were spinning out of control. It pleased my eyes to see how much I thinned down (from eighty-five to forty-five kilos in less than six months), but I didn't pay much mind to how anxious of a weight gain I became (one apple, and I would be off to a gym, burning 'the fat'); how my hair started to suddenly falling out; how hungry indeed and drenched in fatigue I felt all the time. It was a shock when my host mother sat me down to say she is going to take me to a doctor to test me for anorexia, because she is afraid I'm hurting myself and need help, her face creased with concern. I'm not diseased, I cried, I need no doctor, no help, you are mistaken, no, I don't throw up my meals (I really didn't!), please everybody just leave me alone.

I so often wish none of that ever took place. I wish I didn't cause so much hurt and anxiety to my parents. Smashed to smithereens by what they saw -- a yellow-skinned skeleton; no exaggeration, that -- they stood there at the arrival gates frozen first, but coming to tears by the minute, my mother loudly and my father quietly so. What did you do to yourself, Anya? To which I just kept repeating, What's the big deal? I'm fine. The first weeks after I'd returned, my father, a man of a few words, didn't say much else on the subject; he only kept buying me bundles of bananas. I wish I hadn't scared my host mother like that. I wish I hadn't done such damage to myself. I hate to have been afflicted with an eating disorder. It absolutely sucks. They say anorexia never completely goes away, but I really don't know. It's been six years since then, and I want to think I'm through. Hey, I earn my keeps these days making pastries, eating my way through butter-loaded this or sugar-crammed that almost every day; how is that for a proof? Although, it hadn't quite been the battle with weight that sent me into a tailspin in the first place. My biggest problem of all had been the battle with self-confidence. It's my hidebound insecurity that had been standing squarely athwart on my way, taking good care I remain impressionable, and self-conscious, and that I listen really good to what others have to say about me. I'm wondering how much longer I'm going to battle that, though.

Towards the end of my stay, I went on a 24-hour trip to Brussels. The weather that summer day was chili-hot, uncomfortable. I was walking around town, shopping, and la la la, soaking in that beautiful city's air (rich in waffle scent), and the next thing I knew I was feeling weird, clammy. The feeling was that I had to eat something, all my bullshit notwithstanding. I made a pit stop at a nearby health food bar where I ordered smoked salmon tabbouleh. Strewn with raisins and cumin seeds, it was fresh, earthy and nutty. It was comforting and welcome. I loved it, for it was tasty. But what's more, I loved it because for a split, split, split second, the first time in so long, I didn't see food as a cunning agent of weight. It was a good feeling.

      

                                                            ***

Peach and Mint Tabbouleh

Adapted from Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard by Nigel Slater

Yield: 4-6 servings

The charm of this dish is in a relationship between sweet and juicy fruitiness and zippy spiciness. One comes from the peaches, as you could have inferred; the other from the red chili. Theirs is not a tug-of-war game, because despite the obvious contrast there is no opposition: the chili just makes each mouthful sassier or something.

I am a person who can consume raw onion (thinly sliced) as a remedy for cold, which is just to say I am not an onion objector in no way or form. But I feel quite strongly against adding the onion to a dish if I want to keep it for later, what with the onion flavor becoming too pungent and unruly with time, its pleasant bite turning into the jaw clasp. Unless there are plans to finish the whole lot right away, add the onions only before serving, or skip them altogether, which I did.

I'm also a person who would like to be able to eat chillies, even the most fiery ones, by the handful. Alas, the nature didn't cut me fit enough for the job. But I still try and add extra chillies, seeds intact, whenever I can. Here I used two bird's eye chillies, instead of one, and left the seeds in, instead of out.

And a few more things...One, I cut down the amount of bulgur, the only reason being I like this tabbouleh better with the peach upfront, not the grain. Two: you absolutely need to get your hands on ripe peaches. It should give to your gentle touch but not be mushy. Yes, stay away from the mushy business. 

120 g (4 ounces) bulgur (I used medium-coarse type)

4 ripe peaches

1 or 2 hot red chillies, deseeded (or not)

6 bushy sprigs of mint, leaves only

2 large handfuls of cilantro leaves

2 large handfusl of parsley leaves

juice of 1 medium lemon

2 Tbsp olive oil

Salt, pepper

Put the bulgur in a bowl and pour just enough boiling water to cover; put a lid or a plate over the bowl to prevent the bulgur from drying and set aside.

Slice the peaches in half, remove the pits, dice the flesh and put in a mixing bowl. Finely chop the chili, coarsely chop the mint, cilantro and parsley, and add to the peaches. Add the lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper. You will need a good grinding of both to balance the whole thing out.

Fluff up the bulgur with a fork and crumble into the peaches. Serve at room temperature. On its own, or with roasted or poached chicken, or fish, even.

Such order of things

A watermelon (bigger than my head), a few punnets of last late-season strawberries, a pound each of peaches (buzzy and juicy) and nectarines (sweet and juicy), a punnet of gooseberries and one of blueberries, these have all made their way into my bag on my latest, a couple short fleeting hours ago, raid to a green grocer. That's a lot of fruit, an impartial observer would exclaim, and the impartial observer would be right. You see, fruit is my favorite thing in the world. If insisted to choose between vegetables and fruit, I'll side with the latter any moment, regardless of the time of year. Vegetables, I value them mightily, for I know they are good for me. It's an affair of the mind, if you like. But fruit, Reader, fruit, also being good and all, is my siren and I don't have a crust enough to resist its sweet song. Especially, especially in summer. Some take trips to warm, sun-drenched, sandy beaches to thoroughly enjoy the season. Me, I eat my weight in all this fruit. It's kind of my thing and I think of it as my tribute to summer.

I see these perky strawberries or burgundy-laden cherries or lusty peaches or anything that has anything to do with the warm weather's sweet bounty and my eyes get groggy and my knees grow weak (and my wallet thins down a notch). What a misfortune that the stomach can only take so much! You should have seen me obliviously gobbling up wedge after wedge of this watermelon that I schlepped home today, my teeth sinking into its sugary red flesh, into the seeds, on and on and on until my insides went tottering on the edge of exploding, twisting and turning, making me pay for my choices.

Or cherries. I'm telling you around them I not only challenge the constraints of my own body, but I also lose all sense of social decency. We had guests for dinner the other night, and some incredibly ripe, nearly black cherries were for dessert. I served them in one large fruit bowl placed at the center of the table, for everybody to pick, you know. I didn't notice, however, how I'd single-handedly noshed the whole bowlful in the blink of an eye. Apologize for such oversight to my guests I did, considerately offering to run out for a pint of Ben & Jerry's Coconutterly Fair instead, but ashamed -- no, I wasn't. I see cherries; I claim them. That's how I am, and that's that. Ditto with strawberries. And with apricots. And with plums. And, and, and...You hand me any summer fruit (ripe or not just), and I'll merrily munch it away. Which is what I seem to have done for as many a year as my memory stretches out to, and which is how fruit had always been treated in my familial environs. You pick it in your garden (or at the market), you rinse it, you eat it. No fruit pies, no fruit cakes, no fruit cooked, no fruit baked. Just eat it. There often was none, but the surplus would usually be morphed into long-simmered fruit jams, if anything. Despite the obvious dearth of fruity baked goods, I was fine with such order of things.

Frankly, I still am, and knowing my propensities, I don't expect to change my fruit-handling ways in any significant manner, yet I do want to do better in terms of summer fruit-oven relationship. I hear this book is full of inspirational gems on the subject, and I can't wait to get it (ordered!). Actually, I've stuck my neck out there already and got promptly and solidly excited for weeks by Sfoglia's spaghetti and strawberries.

It does sound gimmicky, this strawberry and spaghetti business, doesn't it? Only it is not. Turns out strawberries pair well with tomatoes (sweet-sour and sweet-sour), and we all know how good balsamic vinegar is to both. And if you have any reservations as to whether or not it will take you into the dessert territory, let me be the one to tell you the dish is squarely savory. It is also very refreshing, especially when served chilled. To me this is one of those few pasta dishes that make perfect sense cold. This way, the strawberry and the tomato, both broken down by a brief simmer in olive oil and with balsamic vinegar, join hands more noticeably and claim, insistently, their right to be together, which they should. Until the strawberries have gone for good this year.

I'll break down when that happens.

Spaghetti with Strawberries

Adapted from Sfoglia via New York Magazine

Yield: 2-4 servings

From the looks of it the original recipe yields more than enough for four eaters, and seeing that most days it's only the two of us that I cook for, or sometimes just for myself, I halved the amounts except for the strawberries. Whatever you do, don't skimp on the strawberries; they are key to make the dish saucy.

For a successful outcome, you want an aged (eight-year-old) balsamic vinegar that is more sweet than acidic, the one that's almost syrupy. I didn't listen first and used an ordinary variety I had then to hand. Would you be surprised to know that it made the strawberries too sour? Get a good eight-year-old balsamic vinegar from a speciality store, go for broke.

I like to crown each individual serving with a handful of crisp peppery arugula (rucola) leaves, to slightly offset the sweet and sour notes in the ensemble. To this end, you will also want to generously use freshly ground black pepper.

If late-season strawberries are still lurking around on your farmer's market stands (I'm lucky they are still going strong here), use the sweetest of the kind. There will already be enough tartness coming from the tomato. Sfoglia's chefs call for San Marzano tomato puree in their recipe (San Marzano tomatoes being reputed the best for the sauces), but I used a conventional tomato puree and wasn't disappointed. 

And, here it goes.

250 g (1/2 pound) dried spaghetti 

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more for finishing

450 g (1 pound) strawberries, trimmed and halved

1 Tbsp good aged (eight-year-old) balsamic vinegar

125 ml (1/2 cup) San Marzano tomato puree

60 ml (1/4 cup) reserved pasta water

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packaging. 

In a large skillet and over medium heat, warm the olive oil and half of the strawberries. Cook until the strawberries start to reduce their juices. Add the balsamic and reduce by half, 2-4 minutes. 

Add the rest of the strawberries, the tomato puree and the reserved pasta water, and reduce by half, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens, 5-7 minutes. Season to taste. Toss with the spaghetti and finish with olive oil and fresh ground black pepper (see head notes). Serve at room temperature or chilled. Garnish each serving with fresh arugula (rucola) leaves.

Say no more

Dear Reader, I've got a question for you, and although I'm confident I know the answer, I insist on asking anyway: How often do you cook with radishes? Particularly, how often do you cook radishes? And more particularly still, how frequently do your radishes hop in your stockpot ready to be boiled, pureed and turned into a soup?

Before any more word is further spoken, let me just say that regardless of what life experiences you hold I am sure a cooked radish hasn't been one of them (So assumptious of me; what do I know about what life puts you through?). Thus, without any theatrics, allow me to change your life for the better now, or, better yet, to change the way you eat radishes. Please don't get me wrong. I myself used to gulp those juicy crunchies exquisitely in their raw, mere-hours-from-the-soil, if I'm lucky, form until not so long ago. I'd mostly devour them straight from my hand, after a careful dip in salt, but occasionally a few, slivered, would see the surface of my buttered pumpernickel, and every now and then I'd slit some in quarters for a salad. I didn't care for a cooked radish. I was like you. I was ignorant. But I learnt to know better, and I feel compelled to immediately pass that knowledge to you. Stay with me; you ought to listen.

So: radish soup. Reader, excuse me if my demeanor today is too brassy for your taste, but it's really in your best interest now to do as I tell you. Go buy a couple bunches of red radishes, along with a few potatoes and chives. This is all the plunder you need. Boil some vegetable stock in a small soup pot, bubbles perking and pecking, potatoes already submerged. Throw in those darn radishes, and give the heat a quarter of an hour to knock the crunch out of them. As these bulbs cook, their earthy spiciness, wafting above the stove top, might dazzle you with how its damp aroma . I imagine a forest grotto would smell like this, or the Earth. There is something primeval, something mysterious about that smell. When the heat's job is done, blitz that lot smooth, add a squeeze of lime juice for a tint of pink and season to taste. If there is such a thing as radish essence, this soup is that, except that it is no longer too tongue-tickling as the raw radish is. Take a spoonful. Go on. You'll feel this gentle peppery pink radish-ness, made velvety by the pureed spuds, at the forefront of every sip. Oh it's lovely. Oh it is.

Say no more you are falling in love with this soup. I know that already, no words necessary.

Radish Soup
Adapted from Soup, a Way of Life by Barbara Kafka
Yields: 4 servings

Turns out I like this radish soup better when it's silky smooth, so contrary to Kafka's instruction to reserve a few radishes, cut in thin matchsticks, to be added later as the soup cooks, I puree all of the bulbs instead. Also: I slightly scaled down the amount of potatoes used, otherwise this soup ends up being too thick.

The original version of this recipe uses vinegar to treat radishes (acid turns them pronouncedly pink), but I found that vinegar makes the soup quite sour, which I didn't like. I use a bit of lime juice instead. It not only turns radish pink, but also wakens up the whole soup. As does a tiny bit of cayenne, which I also use here.

Scallions (called forth in the original) can take the place of chives, although I prefer the latter. Its mild onion taste doesn't meddle so much with the radish flavor. Scallions or chives, add them just before serving; both get too pungent as they sit in the soup.

This darling soup is equally delicious, I discovered, both hot and cold, simply as it is. For a dramatic effect, add a few tiny drops of lime juice before adding chives/scallions and stir; the bright pink swirls that appear are such lookers.

360 g (3/4 cup) red radishes, trimmed and quartered
250 g (8 ounces) potatoes, peeled and cut into 2.5-cm (1-inch) cubes
625 ml (2 1/2 cups) chicken or vegetable stock, or water
1 tsp lime juice
1/8 tsp cayenne, or to taste
Salt and black pepper, to taste
Chives, for garnish

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the stock and potatoes to a boil Lower the heat and simmer for 3 minutes. Add the radishes, cover and return to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.

2. In a blender, working in batches no more than 500 ml (2 cups), blitz until smooth. Return into the saucepan. Stir in 125 ml (1/2 cup) warm water and the lime juice; add the cayenne. Season with salt and pepper. Before serving, garnish with a sprinkle of finely chopped chives.

Where I've just come from

I got back from Russia two weeks ago on the nose, which is to say I should have stopped by to say hello sooner than this. But I couldn't. I'd sit down ready to write and I'd fall short, for I didn't see how to mince my rib-poking post-trip melancholia that left me in a shambles and rendered me tearful, speechless and inadequate for a good two weeks and then some more into paragraphs, sentences, words...

That time with my parents, so long planned, so long awaited, couldn't have raced past any faster. I'm glad I chose early May as the time for my visit. It felt like summer, hot and scorching. I don't remember it being so years ago; back then when late spring was still a jacket season. Despite my parents' precautions that I take light, short-sleeved clothes, no need for a coat, do you hear me? It is hot here, I did what I usually do -- the opposite. For one, I really didn't believe the heat would be that lasting (It is hot my foot!); and two, my residing in Amsterdam for as along as almost four years now taught me that local springs/summers are not very often in sync with my expectations of them, which is why I don't own that many sheer summer outfits. But man oh man, was it heavily hot indeed. At times it felt I, dressed in jeans and woolen (!) pull-over, could easily melt into asphalt leaving behind not as much as a pool of sweat (not even shoes) or better yet, evaporate into thick, hot, fumy afternoon air with a dull whoosh. But when the sun would hide behind the horizon and the air would get saturated with the night's ink and the sweet floral smell of that lone acacia tree out there below the windows (oh southern nights!), it couldn't get any more comfortable. Still warm, but not stuffy, there wasn't a night when I'd reach for a sheet, let alone a blanket. In the weather like that, local short and bumpy cucumbers and crunchy deep-pink radishes popped up at the markets in spades, and I ate tons of them, plain out of hand, or thinly slivered, salted and bedded on a slice of dark coriander seeds-encrusted rye bread.

It was a blast waking up to seeing my parents every day, sharing with them copious amounts of brewed-right-in-a-mug coffee, grounds and all (a Soviet rudiment), hearing my father's rattled opinions about Russian politics, staying up late with my mother watching silly TV series and movies. It was a blast, too, seeing my grandparents. They looked more stooped, more...aged. One of my grandmothers, who had been in the hospital throughout my stay, shrank like a wizened fruit. I wasn't prepared to see her so battered. My grandfather had had surgery before my arrival, and he didn't shine with much health either.  As I was saying good-byes to all my three grandparents, I caught myself thinking that it could be the last time that I see at least one of them. It gave me the creeps.

When Mom and Dad hugged me good-bye at the airport, amidst the cold-voiced departures announcements, they cried. As did I, but not only because of the farewell blues and my already missing them, the feeling that grew stronger with my every step away. I sobbed because of the chest-hurting remorse for wishing sometimes to get out sooner, to be finally back in Amsterdam again, wishing those two weeks go faster as much as I wished them to stay still. I kept sobbing once I'd flown back, too, for I couldn't help but longing so badly to return where I've just come from. Longing to be where I'm not, always.

I haven't cooked that much yet after my return, but there's been one dish that already found home on my plate a few times by now. I find it quite lovely and comforting, and hope you will, too.

White Beans with Dried Mushrooms

Adapted from Saveur, May 2012

Yield: 6-8 servings

No major deviations from the original recipe, except maybe that I use canned beans in place of their dried brethren, which is for no reason other than my impatience with this overnight soaking business.

This bean stew, it is no big deal. It tastes like a sum of all its few flavorful components -- dried porcini mushrooms, tomatoes, cannellini beans -- coaxed by heat into bright, luscious oneness. Nothing effete, nothing fussy.

15 g (1/2 oz.) dried porcini mushrooms

2-3 Tbsp olive oil

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

3 Tbsp tomato paste

3 * 400 g (15 oz.) cans white beans (e.g., cannellini, butter beans, or lima beans), rinsed

1 * 400 g (15 oz.) can whole peeled tomatoes in juice, slightly crushed

500 ml (2 cups) vegetable stock or water

2 bay leaves

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Fresh herbs for garnish (optional)

1. In a bowl, soak the mushrooms in 1 L (4 cups) boiling water, about 20 minutes. With a slotted spoon, remove the mushrooms to a cutting board; chop finely. Slowly pour the soaking liquid into a large measuring vessel until you have 750 ml (3 cups), taking extra care to leave any sediment in the bottom of the bowl; chuck away the sediment. Set the soaking liquid along with the mushrooms aside.

2. Over medium flame, heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 4 minutes. Dump in the tomato paste, and keep cooking for another 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms, soaking liquid, beans, tomatoes, vegetable stock, and bay leaves; bring to a gentle boil. Scale the heat down to medium-low, and cook, partially covered and stirring occasionally, for 30-50 minutes, or until the beans are very tender and the cooking liquids get thicker. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Sprinkle with some fresh herbs (the choice is yours; I went with fresh basil) before serving, but that is optional.

I'm sold already

What have we got here? Let's see...First on the list: brownies (oh priorities!).

A mistake, as we all know it, is something that one hasn't done correctly. Nearly all mistakes don't serve a kitchen’s interests, mistakes like, you know, burnt meat, unrisen cakes, curdled creams, and other improbable things. Luckily, though, there remains that scarce percentage of things done to food incorrectly that elevate the final result to greatness, or, modesty forbidding, close to it. Case in point: the resident brownies at Gebroeders Niemeijer, they would not have seen the light of the day and thronged the local hungry if an error hadn't crept in -- and stayed.

A couple years ago I was put in charge of improving a brownie recipe that would warrant a sweet that, upon the first bite, would have to do nothing lesser than turn haters (of brownies) into lovers (of brownies), or, at the very least, be something to write home about. Now, we live in the world full of brownies. There are the ones that squarely sit in the well-behaved, composed cake department, and others that find themselves on the opposite end of the trail, in the fudge field, and yet some others that tie the two worlds together and are at once like a moist cake and a luscious chocolate pudding or a mousse. I fancied our brownie to be that bridge, and so I set about figuring out what measures to take to this end. The only catch was that the recipe I'd been given to tweak -- it was trying to make brownies more cake-y than anything -- already called for the whole pound of premium dark chocolate (a must in any case), engulfed in a good amount of butter and eggs, which made me feel that simply upping the numbers wouldn't really meet the goal.

You know what did? A memory lapse. Re-trying the recipe over a few days led me to think I'd remembered the correct quantities alright, and so I gave myself a permission to make it by heart one fine morning. I melted this much butter and blended it with that much chocolate; whisked this many eggs with that much sugar; and sieved that much flour. All mentioned parties were combined and assigned to the oven, having later produced thin melt-in-your-mouth brownies, rich and creamy, holding their luxurious selves together just so, just barely enough. Many a taster was impressed -- and so was I. But my amusement was also stemming from the fact that I didn't have a clue what I'd done differently this time. Only hours further down the road, my brains going in reverse trying to re-live the past day, it finally dawned on me...the flour. I unknowingly decreased its amount from three digits to two, thus having used four times less flour than usual! Reader, I've never before relayed all this to anybody at work, except for my ex-colleague, a French guy, Arnaud, whom this cheeky brownie converted into a ferocious brownie eater, which, as he said, he didn't expect of himself, I normally don't like browniez. So I let him in on the mystery. Other than that, until now nobody knew of the little mistake/trick.

Unfortunately, I can't post the said recipe here. I'm contractually bound to keep my lips zipped, you see. But!  All that hullabaloo is not at all for no reason. Which is that I recently came across a very, very similar recipe in Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies. This woman and her New Bittersweet Brownies (such is the name), they are after my own heart. It transpires to be a norm now, in comparison to the decades of the past, to use more chocolate and less flour, as Medrich reveals. Holy egg, I incidentally tapped into some modern cosmic brownie spirit! I didn't expect that of myself.

In other developments, tomorrow I'm flying to Russia for two weeks to visit my family. I haven't seen them -- weekly Skype sessions don't count -- for two and a half years. First the dishwasher and then the apprentice wages, all served to delay my trip for, well, a long while. But not just that. Having completed my Master's, I stumbled in some sort of after-graduation depression. My studies were giving me cover from all these worrying questions parents are sometimes so prone to throw at you, such as What's now?, When are you going to look for a real job?, What, do you want to write? What does that mean?, and so forth. So naturally once I was done with my thesis I felt very unprotected. And so I got to eat my discomfort. Which made me put on weight. Which made me want to avoid letting my parents see me. A vicious circle good and proper. But I'm doing better now. I'm looking forward to finally seeing my parents in person again. I'm ready to face their questions; they mean no harm. I'm also looking forward to sitting down at my grandmother's kitchen table and enjoying her stew of river fish with onions, potatoes and tomatoes, chatting the time away.

I may not have all the answers yet, but I might make it up for that with these brownies, not too greasy, not too sweet, cake-y around the edges, with a glossy thin-paper crust and a heart of a soufflé. I'm sold already.

New Bittersweet Brownies
Source: Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies, by Alice Medrich
Yield: 16 smaller or 12 larger brownies

225 g (8 ounces) premium bittersweet chocolate (70 % cacao), coarsely chopped

90 g (3 ounces) butter, cut into several pieces

3 eggs

200 g (7 ounces) sugar

Scant 1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

50 g (1.75 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

1       1. Place a rack in the lower third of the oven and pre-heat the oven to 175 C (350 F). Line a 20-cm (8-inch) square baking pan across the bottom and all the way up two opposite sides with parchment paper.

2       2. Put the chocolate and butter in a medium heatproof bowl position directly in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir frequently until the mixture is melted; it should be smooth and quite warm. Set aside. In a separate medium bowl, with an electric mixer on high speed, beat the eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla until the eggs and thick and light colored, about 2 minutes. Whisk the warm chocolate into the egg mixture. With a spatula, carefully fold in the flour.

3      3. Scrape the batter into the lined pan and spread evenly. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out free of raw mixture stuck to it. If you want these brownies really gooey, bake them for 20 minutes instead. Leave to cool in the pan on a rack for at least an hour. Lift the edges of the parchment liner and remove to a cutting board. Use a long sharp knife to cut into 16 squares. Keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days. 

But wait just a minute

Oh boy -- have I missed out on posting a single word in March! How did this happen? Who is to blame? There was no conspiracy plotted by the Russian government to interrupt my blogging -- I didn't have to transmit any information to Vladimir in exchange for the freedom to write about cakes and other deliciousness; nobody twisted my arms; I wasn't abducted by aliens. Nothing, really nothing prevented me from showing up duly with a new story, except only-God-knows-what. But wait just a minute...I'm not being quite truthful here.
Stay with me; I need to circle around to first tell you that I turned into a troubled sleeper lately, quite a novelty for me, for I considered myself something of a slumber natural. Tellingly, I’m not good at all to deal with insomnia calmly. When it rolls in, I swiftly get into a state and ventilate about a pending sleep deprivation, a subsequent slow performance at work, a possible bout of gut-wrenching depression that, in my book, always goes hand-in-hand with a substandard diet of candy (M&M’s), and so on, and so forth. All that makes me even more wound up to peacefully depart to bed, except, I discovered, if I watch TV. So staring into yet another wakeful night I felt free to subject my groggy eyes to the viewing of The Colbert Report programmed by the TV geniuses on repeat the whole night through, seeing me off into the next day’s wee hours. The gentle observer would dub the phenomenon as dumbness, but let me just tell I consider that time well spent, if only for one reason alone: through the Colbert Report I learnt about Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, a book that I would give my every free waking hour for days that followed. And not just once, for after reaching the end I would turn to the first pages and start again. I’ve downed it three times, in a row.

I love reading. All those stories, fictional or non-, unfolding behind the freshly crisp or time-battered pages; the way the pages rustle, if new, and whisper, if old, under the gentle nudge of my fingers; the graceful prose stretching from word to word; the characters, real or imaginative, leaving a trace, however subtle or palpable, of themselves in my mind well after a book has been devoured.

There are dozens of cherished tomes on my book shelves, but there are very few that have gripped me, literally and beyond, the way Katherine Boo’s did. Hers, in large brush strokes, is a true account of the life in a Mumbai slum, the life, as it transpires, that is full of hope, of search for opportunity in the poignantly unequal urban India, as much as it is the life full of demise, physical, moral and emotional. For three years Boo followed the slum dwellers about their daily routines, documenting, patiently, non-judgementally, the tender and heart-breaking truths behind the walls of the Mumbai international airport, the walls that separate a slum from the luxurious hotels and the lives of the rich.

Irrespective of some parts that were too overwhelming to read, so much so that I had to put the book down for a while, it is not a grim story of the grisly reality. Showing the abject poverty, the festering hunger, the ambient corruption, all personalized, let’s just say it’s bound to quietly put many a thing into perspective for the reader, at least it did for me.

I think of Abdul, a scaredy-cat sixteen-years-old, squatting in front of his family hut, sorting out garbage that young, fearless ribby scavengers like Sunil had brought in from their charges along the Sahar Airport Road. He assigns plastic to one pile, aluminium scraps to another, getting ready to schlep it all to recyclers, providing therefore an income for his family of eleven. I think of Meena, a fifteen-year-old, living in, or rather, beaten into domestic submission, contemplating suicide. I think of young but late boys Kalu and Sanjay, and what had possibly gone through their minds before they died. I want to forget none of them; I won’t. I also think how often I forget what I’ve been blessed with – health, home, food, job – and how this book, how these youths, remind me not to.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers -- a must-read. Which is what I’ve been up the last three or so weeks. But wait just a minute...that’s not the single thing I repeatedly did back then. I also got to make -- huk! -- whole lemon tart.

The recipe comes from Melissa Clark’s In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite, a book of her essays and recipes originally written for her veritable NYT column. Although not entirely unimaginable as such, this whole lemon tart business surprised me quite a bit. You see, the lemon tart we make at Gebr. Niemeijer is the kind made with fresh lemon cream presiding over a toasty sweet pastry shell. Whisk that concoction of sugar, eggs and lemon juice over boiling water non-stop, come what may, for as long as it takes to get to the right temperature without complaining and/or sobbing, and you are not a rooky any more. That you can forego the shoulder strain to make a nice lemon tart did never occur to me before.

All you need to do, except fixing an almond tart shell, which itself is a cinch, is blend a couple peeled and deseeded lemons with sugar, mix that all up with eggs and melted butter, and blissfully send the band in a pre-baked tart shell to be cooked in the oven. No pain, no gain? I don’t think so. What you’ll get is a very fine lemon tart, fresh and tongue tickling, its flavour no lesser zealous than that of the tart with the airy, and punchy, and pompous stovetop lemon cream. The lemon flavour in this version is more subdued, and relaxed, velvety, even -- and with the pastry, rather than on it, if you know what I mean. I like it.

And…looking so sunny and bright, it would make a fitting Easter sweet, this whole lemon tart.

Happy Spring, Reader!

Whole Lemon Tart

Adapted from In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite, by Melissa Clark
Yield: 8-10 servings

There are two things in the original recipe that I did differently. First: I reversed the way the pastry dough is made. Instead of cutting the butter in the flour-egg mixture, I creamed the butter first, adding the rest of the ingredients – confectioners' (powdered) sugar, almonds, egg – one after another, flour being mixed in last, which is, actually, how I learnt to make sweet dough at work. Another reason being I don’t own a food processor to pulse the butter into the flour as Clark does.

Second: since the butter was so immoderately (to my taste) seeping out of the lemon filling, I dialled down the amount of butter in more than a half, and the recipe still worked like a charm.

Last: I like my lemon tart more sour than sweet, which is why I also decreased the amount of sugar here, but just a mite.

For the almond tart shell:

110 g (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cubed
40 g (1/3 cup) confectioners’ sugar
85 g (1/2 cup lightly packed) ground blanched almonds
Freshly grated zest of 1/2 lemon (I used zest of a whole lemon)
Pinch salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
190 g (1 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour

For the lemon filling:

2 large lemons
220 g (1 cup plus 1 1/2 Tbsp) granulated sugar
17 g (2 Tbsp) cornstarch
Pinch salt
45 g (3 Tbsp) butter, melted
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional)

1. In a medium bowl and using a hand-held electric mixer, beat the butter at medium speed until it starts to soften, about 1 minute. Add the confectioners’ sugar and beat until light and fluffy, 1-2 minutes. Mix in the ground almonds, salt and lemon zest; scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg and beat until incorporated. Add the flour, and using your hands combine it with the rest of the mixture. Don’t knead or squeeze; the motion of your hands should resemble that of the claw in a teddy picker – grip, and release, grip, and release. This way you mix in the flour without working it too much. Stop when the dough – it will be crumbly – just comes together. Press into a disc, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 1 hour or overnight.

2. When ready to bake the tart, roll the dough out between two sheets of parchment paper into a circle 35-cm (14-inch) in diameter. Line a buttered 24-cm (9-inch) tart pan with the dough and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3. Pre-heat the oven to 160 C (325 F). Line the tart shell with the parchment paper and fill with baking weights/beans/or copper coins. Bake until the tart shell is pale golden, 20-25 minutes. The tart shell can be baked up to 8 hours before filling.

4. To make the filling, grate the lemon zest and place it in the bowl of a blender (or that of a food processor). With a sharp knife, cut the tops and the bottoms off the lemons. Stand each lemon up and remove the white pith by following the curve of the fruit with the knife. (First time I did a clumsy job and left a few bits of the white pith here and there; as a result, the lemon filling tasted slightly bitter.) Cut the fruit into thin rounds and remove the seeds. Put the fruit in the blender and add the sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Blend until thoroughly combined. Scrape the mixture into a medium mixing bowl.

5. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, egg, egg yolks, and vanilla. Pour the egg-butter mixture into the lemon mixture and whisk to incorporate. Pour the lemon filling into the tart shell and bake until the top is bubbly and lightly browned, 30-45 minutes. Cool completely in the pan. Cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days. Before serving, dust with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.