Joy to the World, but Mostly to Me

Because I love Christmas

and Joy 

and Fun 

and Bite-Sized Foods, 

every year, I throw a holiday party. 

I ask guests to bring unwrapped toys, which get delivered to the San Francisco Fire Department's Annual Toy Drive post-party.

The thought of kids getting these toys simultaneously breaks and warms my heart. It feels like the least, the very least, that I can do in a season when I’m so continually reminded of how incredibly lucky I am, and how grateful I am (and should be) for everything in my life. 

Sigh. I've really got to start volunteering again. It's time. Well past, actually.

Anyway, that’s how the holiday party works. I invite friends over. I feed them and ply them with drinks. And in exchange, they bring toys. Lots and lots of toys.

I think it’s a pretty good deal.

Especially for me. It's possible that nothing makes me happier than feeding a big bunch of my favorite people. I'd be lying if I said this was a purely altruistic endeavor. 

Kate's "2011 Ploy to Meet a Firefighter" Holiday Party Menu

Nuts, Olives, Spiced Chickpeas (The chickpeas were an experiment and a fail. Oh well.)

Spicy Spinach Dip & Crudites & Crackers

Christmas Torta & Crackers (Torta = layered goat cheese, pesto, pureed sun-dried tomato)

  

Bacon Wrapped Dates

Steak & Horseradish Crostini 

Spicy Chicken Tortilla Cups (This empanada filling, in Tostitos Scoops, with melted pepperjack on top)

Peppermint Bark

Peanut Butter & Ganache Cookies (except instead of the "fudge", I did a basic ganache)

Ginger Sugar Cookies

Meyer Lemon Bars (Recipe forthcoming in another post, I promise)

Spiced Cider + Rum

Wine, Beer, Pellegrino

 

Of course, I didn't take pictures of any of the food. I totally forgot. Britta, thankfully, remembered and snapped a few shots of the party. 

It's a sign of a good party when I have to refresh the tray of clean wineglasses. Twice.

Desserts!

This party is always a great excuse to wear my grandmother's Christmas apron. Also, the pockets are super handy. 

Cocktail napkins that say funny things are sort of a family tradition. This started when my mom found some that said "I can't be overdrawn, I still have checks left." (It was the early 1980s.) Oh man, the old people laughed and laughed and laughed about those. I love these cocktail napkins but my favorite ones are actually from last year. They say "Merry Christmas to all my friends...except two." 

I need to drop the toys off at the fire station tomorrow. It will look a little sad to not have them all piled up under the tree. The big joke here is that the toy collection is merely a ploy on my part to meet a firefighter. 

Miracle on California Street?

 

Food is Love

In case you haven’t caught on by now, let me be clear about one thing:

I really love food. 

As a younger child, Rainbow Sherbet and I had a long-standing and (I thought) mutual love for each other, but when I was 8, my cold, cold heart was stolen by another ice cream: Coffee with a Bailey’s Swirl.  I was positively taken by it, whisked off my innocent young feet. It made such an impact on my young palate that I can still show you today where the Baskin Robbins was where said ice cream was procured, although I'm sure the store is no longer still there. Coffee with a Bailey’s Swirl was so sophisticated and worldly and adult, and let’s be honest – a little naughty. It had Bailey’s in it. Like so many love affairs, it wasn’t good for me, but it was good. 

In junior high school, I had a committed two-year relationship with a particular Gourmet recipe for Oatmeal-Walnut-Chocolate Chip muffins, which quickly moved from infatuation to an established breakfast relationship. Those muffins were simultaneously delightful and a bit too much, like a boyfriend who is wonderfully kind and generous but overly doting. I wanted those muffins passionately for a long while and then I suddenly, without notice, got completely sick of them. They were really too much, too rich, too dense, like lead in my stomach. They were also a bit...dry. 

And then there are the foods I think of fondly, not so much because of my wild passion for them, but because they are so comforting and kind, like the boyfriends who were really good to me (in spite of myself). Great guys but guys who were never really going to push back. Like homemade egg salad sandwiches on wheat toast. I’ll never be in love with egg salad sandwiches, but I will always think of them fondly. They have, at times, satisfied me at my hungriest.  

Just as with non-food love, it’s not all commitment and stability and long-term relationships. There are also the brief entanglements and one-night stands, the ones that spark the mind and the heart, for better or worse. They are like time capsules in my mind – this smell, that light, this feeling – all united in a single moment.  Naturally, they’re not all good.  The gorgonzola gnocchi in Rome eaten al fresco in the Piazza Pasquino was a rocky affair I’d rather not repeat. Like a truly bad relationship, that one hurt physically, if not psychically.

But the affairs that were really, really good, those that pulled at my heart and at the same time, opened my mind in a way that taught me something new about food and myself, they are the memories I come back to, that I fantasize about.

There aren’t many of those, the really, really good ones. It takes a mysterious combination of environment, experience, and emotion to create one, and as in romantic love, not something you can predict or plan for. It just happens. You just have to be open to it.

Thirteen years ago, I had duck pappardelle in Florence, at Trattoria Cammillo. I say this without irony: that meal changed my life. It was in that moment that I became a “foodie,” before I even knew what a “foodie” was. It was in that moment that I became an adult (insofar as food was concerned, at least). I remember that pappardelle like it was yesterday, the tender but toothsome chunks of duck breast and thigh, the ribbons of homemade pasta just barely sauced in duck gravy and the slightest bit of tomato. I can, to this day, see the plate in my mind’s eye. This simple dish was quite possibly the very best thing I’ve ever eaten. I am hard pressed to think of another that can compare. It was an epiphany.

A trip to Spain and Portugal a few years ago elicited another food love affair, this one sparked in Barcelona. While not as monumental an experience as the pappardelle, this one has also stuck with me, in the back of my mind. It’s the one that got away.

There’s a little chocolate shop not far from the Picasso Museum (which has a fantastic collection, incidentally) called Xocoa. And at Xocoa, they sell Basil Chocolate Chip Cookies.

It was love at first bite.

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

These marvels of earthly delight were like Toll House cookies, except with a curious depth of flavor and earthiness from the bits of basil in the batter. They absolutely blew my mind.

In the five days we were in Barcelona, I went back to Xocoa multiple times to get more. I was infatuated, a woman obsessed. I brought a box home on the plane but they didn’t even make it all the way over the Atlantic Ocean before I’d eaten every last one. I could not get enough.

And then the affair was over. I got back to the States, to my regular life, my regular food routine, and kind of forgot about them. They were a vestige of another time, another place, perhaps a dream.

I’m not sure what made me think of them again, earlier this month, all these years later. It may have been during an evening out, when my date and I were trading stories of our mutual love for Barcelona. It may have been when I saw the big bunches of fresh, summer basil at Whole Foods. Whatever it was, it happened.  I just knew I had to revisit the Basil Chocolate-Chip cookie.

It’s funny, because I do this in love relationships, too. Boyfriend #3 was also boyfriend #5 and #8. Boyfriend #10 was also #12.

Yes, I also like Greatest Hits albums.

It was time to bring this food memory home. Obviously, flying to Barcelona on a moment’s notice was not in the cards (but oh how I would love it if it was).  My other (real life) option was to try to make them.

I can make cookies. I have access to basil. And I had memorized the ingredients of those magical cookies: flour, sugar, egg, butter, salt, baking soda, basil, chocolate chips.

How hard could this be?

Harder than you might think.

Here is my second attempt, with some notes. The first attempt was actually a couple of years ago in my annual Christmas Cookie blitz. I used milk chocolate chips which was way wrong. So I like to pretend that attempt never happened because it was terrible.

I cannot consider this recipe complete yet because (cue Bono) I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. 

I set about preparing the basil first. It was almost imperceptible in the original cookies so I elected to chiffonade it and then chop it into tiny bits. To do this, you first stack the basil leaves.

Then you roll up the leaves, like a basil cigar. 

And slice thinly, making pretty basil ribbons.

I used a full cup of basil this go-round. Perhaps a bit less next time. I'm not sure. 

The cookies proceed as usual from here. Cream butter and sugar. 

I added the eggs and vanilla and after a quick mixing, added the basil. Should I add the basil at this stage or with the chocolate chips? Maybe next time I'll try adding it at the end. 

 

The flour mixture gets added, then the chips get thrown in. And here's our dough. 

I ate more of this dough than I would like to admit. It was addictive.

And here is the finished product. I give it a C+. The cookies spread entirely too much and were not puffed and crispy but flat and kind of chewy. The basil flavor was good but overall these were disappointing, much in the same way a bad kiss can be. Full of so much promise and potential. Until it happens. And then it's kind of a bummer. 

People loved these but they weren't what I had in mind. But I'm nothing if not an optimist. To borrow from Cinderella, "someday, my prince will come." 

And by "prince", I mean "perfect basil chocolate chip cookie recipe."

Just so we're clear. 

How a Fat Cat Led Me To Dinner

My first crush was in the third grade. He was cute, but I mostly liked him because he was really funny. David Letterman kind of funny. I could even overlook the fact that he was more prone to bursting into tears than the other boys because he was so darn funny.
And because we grew up in the 80s, he loved Garfield.
And because he loved Garfield, I loved Garfield.

I believe my first Garfield compendium was purchased that same third grade year at a book fair at school. I'm sure Mom was psyched to pay for that one. (Sidebar: Hey Parents! Remember in sixth grade when all I would read was Baby-Sitters Club books and you were deeply worried that I was stunting my intellectual growth? I told you I would turn out ok! Mostly.)

I read the Garfield book so often that I started to memorize the comic strips. One in particular stood out to me and thanks to the magic of the internets, here it is:

I think this particular strip hit home in part because I earned the name "Miss Fastidious" as a child, and while my particular brand of finicky eating had more to do with quality of ingredients, I could relate to the poor fat cat. But I was also taken with the magical meal Jon Arbuckle had prepared: Coquille Saint-Jacques garnished with Belgian endive and laced with French truffles.

Major dork that I was (am), I looked up "Coquille Saint-Jacques" in the Joy of Cooking. Let's please keep in mind that I'm eight years old here. And sure enough, the next time I went to the grocery store with Dad (who was always willing to let me go grocery shopping to get basically whatever I wanted to eat when staying with him - thanks Dad!), I identified the tiny, pale yellow, spear-shaped heads of endive right there in the produce section. And then I'm not sure I really thought about them much again.

Let's fast forward 20...ish (ahem) years to last week. A lovely little package of Belgian endive showed up in the farm box. It sat there for a few days. I didn't want to make a salad with it (BORING) and I didn't know what else to do.

An extensive search on Epicurious (where else?) led to a recipe for grilled endive with an orange vinaigrette. It didn't have many reviews, and worse, it only had a "3-fork" rating. Not at all promising. However, these cons were quickly mitigated by the most important measure of recipe potential: I could make it, as written, without fighting my way through the horror of the Franklin Street Whole Foods at 7pm on a Monday. Sold!

Grilled Endive with Orange Vinaigrette (adapted from this Gourmet recipe)

Makes 3 servings

Ingredients:

1 navel orange
2 teaspoons white-wine vinegar

1 small garlic clove, pressed1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons olive oil
3 Belgian endives

Directions:

Prepare grill. (I did these in my cast iron grill pan on the stove. It worked perfectly.)

With a vegetable peeler remove two 1 1/4- by 1/2-inch strips zest from orange and cut lengthwise into very thin strips. Squeeze enough juice from orange to measure 1 tablespoon. In a bowl whisk together zest, orange juice, vinegar, garlic, 1 tablespoon oil, and salt and pepper to taste until combined well.

Halve endives lengthwise, keeping halves from separating into leaves, and brush all over with remaining 2 teaspoons oil. Season with salt and pepper. 

Grill, cut sides down, 6 minutes. Turn endives and grill until just tender, 6 minutes more. 

Serve endives drizzled with vinaigrette.

This looks a little like fish, doesn't it? Funny. 

And here's the glamour shot:

Look at those gorgeous grill marks and zest strips!

But endive alone does not a dinner make. I also had the end of a baguette that needed eating, so while "les endives" were on the grill I made a little "French tuna salad" (drained tuna, olive oil, lemon zest, a bit of orange zest, chopped kalamatas, capers, salt & pepper) to top the baguette and accompany the main event (and, honestly, for a little protein).

As a finishing touch, I sliced the remaining un-squeezed orange and ground a little sea salt and pepper over it. This little trick will elevate your orange slices from greasy-spoon-breakfast-garnish to a little sweet-savory treat.  I really would have preferred a nice French unoaked chardonnay with this, or maybe a rosé if it was a little warmer out, but red wine was what was open, so red wine was what got poured. Also, turns out tuna salad is not very photogenic.   I bet you're wondering: how was it? Well, the tuna salad was a bit dry. I should have added more oil...but didn't really want to eat more oil. So good flavor, but was a mess to eat, especially open-faced. It fell all over the plate.   Orange slices, as described above, were savory and delicious.  And the grilled endive was magnificent. Really. Magnificent. I never in a million years expected that a grilled lettuce-like item would be so very good. But I am really hoping the next farm box delivery includes more of these little suckers because I am going to experiment with other vinaigrettes to pour over them. They are meltingly tender and just kind of amazing. I'm actually a little in awe of endive now. But there you have it.  Sometimes life surprises you.

Two and a Half

In a nod to the utter horror that is Charlie Sheen, this post is not about Two and a Half Men (a show that, in my opinon, used to be funny before the "half man" hit puberty, but I digress). No. This is about Two and a Half Indian dishes.

I'll explain.

I have been on an Indian food bonanza lately not least because my allergist, charming man that he is, put me on a yeast-free diet in an attempt to figure out if I have allergies to anything in the Kingdom Fungi (which includes yeasts, fungi, and molds). This eliminates a surprising list of foods - not just your typical yeasted favorites like bread and crackers, but also vinegars, wine, beer, liquor, cheese, and mushrooms (duh, fungi). And a lot of other things. A LOT of other things. It's something of a challenge to find interesting things to eat with such restrictions. Indian cuisine is proving a godsend in this regard.

The past few nights I have made three recipes which I have liked-slash-loved. One of the recipes I changed so much from the original, I'm not sure it's fair to call it Indian cuisine any longer, but it's still pretty darn tasty.

The lineup:
Liked: Blackeyed Peas with Butternut Squash (At Home with Madhur Jaffrey)
LOVED: Cauliflower with Potatoes aka Aloo Gobi (Epicurious)
Hacked but Still Loved (how can you not love your own kid?): Yogurt Sauce with Walnuts and Cilantro (Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking)

I am beginning to realize that a lot of the recipes in Indian cooking start the same way:

1. Heat oil in a pan until shimmering
2. Add whole spices, saute for a minute
3. Add aromatics (usually an onion, garlic, ginger and sometimes a hot pepper) and saute until browned
4. Add ground spices, saute for a minute

Knowing this, new recipes are starting to make more sense the first time I read them, as the process is always so similar. It's comforting, actually. I am beginning to feel like I can make anything in these books. Except maybe naan. Not quite there yet.

For the Blackeyed Peas recipe, I cannot emphasize enough how thrilled I was to take down one of the butternut squashes I got from the farm box a few months ago. It was a little on the small side, so I supplemented it with some butternut squash I had chopped and frozen from the '09 deluge of butternut. Truth be told, the frozen stuff had suffered some freezer burn and didn't taste as awesome as the fresh stuff. I think if it had, this recipe would have been outstanding.

There was one other thing I did which I think held this back from being amazing (instead of just tasty, as it was). The recipe requires soaking the blackeyed peas overnight, which I didn't do. I cheated.

Cheater, cheater, legume eater.

I know I paid the price for these substitutions in flavor, and that's a price I'm willing to pay given an acceptable end result. It's really asking a lot of me to plan dinner 24-hours in advance. I like to cook according to mood.

With those two subs, this recipe proceeds pretty much as all the others do. Again, it's published in a book rather than online, so I'm just going to give you the highlights.

Sizzle some cumin and fennel seeds in hot oil in a big pot. Add chopped onion, minced garlic, ginger, and jalapeno. I acutally used a serrano because for some reason the jalapenos at Whole Foods were gargantuan. Add a little tomato puree, handmade per Madhur Jaffrey's instructions that basically involve cutting a tomato in half and grating it on a cheese grater. Incidentally, this works great and whenever I need just a little tomato puree (1/2 cup or less) I am not opening a can ever again because all the rest of it just goes to waste. At the same time as the squash, add cayenne, salt, and butternut squash, diced. Simmer for 10ish minutes and add the canned, drained black eyed peas. Simmer another 10 minutes or so. And you produce this:

It's pretty good. The squash brings a little unexpected but not unwelcome sweetness to the dish. And the fennel seeds give it some meatiness, almost like there's sausage in here. It's really intriguing. I wish I hadn't removed the seeds and the ribs from my serrano as I would have liked a little more heat, but it was still good enough to eat for dinner and then lunch the next day.

So that was a good start for the week.

Tonight I branched out further, thanks to an unexpected farm box delivery yesterday that I thought I'd cancelled. My refrigerator is now busting at the seams with vegetables. I'm not kidding. I kind of wish I had a bunch of pet rabbits. Ok, not really, pet rabbits are totally gross. But that's how jammed full of produce my fridge is. In addition to full crisper drawers, the entire middle shelf is stacked 6 inches deep with veggies, apples, and citrus. Ah, winter.

One of the organic gifts bestown upon me this week was a head of cauliflower, which I actually love. It's so homey and hearty. Typically I like to roast mine with capers, a Martha Stewart recipe from the first cookbook I ever bought (but conveniently repeated in a 2006 magazine and therefore linked here). Sadly, capers are cured in vinegar and therefore outlawed on this yeast-free fiasco.

I was browsing Madhur's two books last night (well, the two that I own - she has written quite a few more)and ran across a recipe for Cauliflower with Potatoes. Madhur likes to use its full name so she has subtitled this recipe phool gobi aur aloo ki bhaji but when I was looking at other recipes for this online, I got clued in on its nickname: aloo gobi. Yes, I think I'll type that going forward.

In the end, it wasn't Madhur's recipe that I followed, although her ingredients are identical to the ingredients in the recipe I used. I was browsing Smitten Kitchen and found this Epicurious version of aloo gobi some time back, and it seemed far easier than Madhur's recipe which requires you both boil the potatoes and soak the cauliflower for 30 minutes. (Check out Smitten Kitchen when you have some time and are in a position to drop drool on whatever surface is in front of you. I'm not exaggerating when I say I kind of want to be this lady. I am making those goldfish crackers from today's post as soon as I can eat cheese again.)

Indian Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes
Gourmet, February 2004

Yield: Makes 4 side-dish servings
Active Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 (1 3/4-lb) head cauliflower, cut into 3/4-inch-wide florets
1 1/4 lb Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 teaspoons minced fresh jalapeño, including seeds
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 cup water

 Accompaniment: lemon wedges

Directions:
Put oven rack in upper third of oven and place a shallow baking pan on rack. Preheat oven to 475°F.

(Off to the races, and already I'm not following the directions. Absolutely forgot to preheat the baking pan. It didn't matter. I roasted the cauliflower and potatoes for an extra 5 minutes and it was fine.)

Toss cauliflower and potatoes together in a bowl with 3 tablespoons oil, cumin seeds, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Spread in hot baking pan and roast, stirring occasionally, until cauliflower is tender and browned in spots and potatoes are just tender, about 20 minutes.

While vegetables are roasting, cook onion, garlic, jalapeño, and ginger in remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until very soft and beginning to turn golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Add ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Stir in water, scraping up any brown bits from bottom of skillet, then stir in roasted vegetables. Cook, covered, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes.

  

Yeah, that's it. Pretty easy. This reminds me of the fourth grade.

Bear with me here.

When I was in fourth grade, we got a new student in our class. This was BIG NEWS, as most of us had been in class together since kindergarten or even nursery school. Not only were we getting a new student, but she was French. As in, moving directly to our little boring suburb from FRANCE. And she didn't speak much English. Needless to say, we were all more than a little bit fascinated. A couple of months after Raphaele showed up, I remember us asking her what her favorite food was. I think we expected her to say crepes with Nutella or mousse au chocolat (actually, that's what I would have said then) or possibly the brie and baguettes that we'd snacked on in our after-school French class. No.

I will never forget this conversation because her answer was potatoes.

Potatoes? You mean french fries?
No. Potatoes.

I obviously thought she was off her rocker. What 9 year old's favorite food is potatoes? What person of any age's favorite food is potatoes?? I was not just concerned for my new friend Raphaele, I was also profoundly concerned about France as a nation, a place where potatoes could be a favorite food. Next thing you know, I'd be discovering that those pricey Louis Vuitton bags are notleather. Oh, wait...

Well. Logo bags aside, Raphaele was evidently wise beyond her years. I spent many, many years being bored by potatoes. Mashed potatoes: boring. Baked potatoes: boring except for the toppings. But mostly boring. Fries: boring except for the dipping sauce.

But first those delicious scalloped potatoes last weekend and now this Aloo gobi and I'm hooked. Potatoes, I bow to you. And, coincidentally as I type this, the fine people on America's Test Kitchen are making aligot, which is what happens when the French get a hold of potatoes and are sans mandoline but have some fromage. How could I have ever doubted them? Naive young Kate! Again, as soon as I can eat cheese again...

Anyway. Here was tonight's dinner:

It looks a little sad on its own, don't you think? I mean, this doesn't really look like dinner.

So I added a fried egg (upper left), largely because I was too lazy to poach one. That's better.

You are probably wondering what that other thing is in the picture. That's the hacked half-Indian recipe, Yogurt Sauce with Cilantro and Walnuts, served over some Bhutanese red rice. I highly recommend picking up some of this rice if you can find it in your market. Whole Foods carries it here in the Bay Area. You cook it just like brown rice but it tastes about a thousand times better and more interesting. It's nutty and flavorful and aromatic. It's almost flavorful enough to eat plain, it's that good. In fact, the other day, I did eat it plain, wiht just a little grind of sea salt. Really, this stuff is great.

The Aloo gobi was a bit spicy so I decided to make a yogurt sauce accompaniment to eat over my leftover rice as a cooling counterpoint to my spicy veggies. I flipped through Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking (because it is not just a cookbook, it's also a picture book) and found a recipe that had at least a few of the ingredients I had on hand. That said, this had other ingredients I totally omitted, such as jalapeno and scallion. I subbed the cayenne and garlic for those. Close enough. Here's my version, which I think is delicious nontheless.

Kate's Yogurt Sauce with Cilantro and Walnuts

Makes about 3/4 cup

Ingredients

1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt

1/4 cup cilantro, minced

1 ounce walnuts, lightly toasted and chopped

1/2 small garlic clove, minced

pinch of cayenne

salt and pepper

Directions

Mix everything. Add a little water to get a saucy consistency. I like to eat it over rice, but you could also dip pita or naan in it. The end.

Sponges and Beaches

It has been 50+ days without wheat (except for one small lapse at a wedding dessert buffet which only confirmed that wheat = bad for me.) It is starting to feel like forever. It's been remarkably easy - much easier than I would have initially thought - to cut out this entire category of foods.

The real problem with this allergy is that the 30 years of baking experience I have under my belt is basically now worthless. I have been turned upside down. I am beginning to understand why people my age who haven't grown up cooking alongside their parents, grandparents, etc are now completely daunted by cooking. Every recipe in my newly acquired Gluten Free Baking Classics book requires at least 3 kinds of flour, plus xanthan gum. And that's just for the basics. Don't even get me started on what's required if yeast is involved.

Incidentally, I feel that while on this topic a PSA is due: Don't spill xanthan gum on the counter. Or anywhere. That is easier said than done, as xanthan gum is highly powdery and just transferring it into a storage container almost ensures you will unleash a plume of white powder that evokes suspicious envelopes and ticking packages. Xanthan gum, required in small amounts in wheat-free items to provide structure that you normally get from gluten, becomes instantly, viciously viscous when put in contact with water, making it about as hard to clean up as egg white dropped on the floor. (And if you've never done that, trust me. Or try it.)

Completely overwhelmed, I bought a gluten-free flour blend at Whole Foods made by King Arthur that had approximately the same ingredients as GFBC says you should have in each recipe. This was my first mistake.
GFBC explicitly says that there is exactly ONE brand of flour that is acceptable because all other gluten-free flour blends lend themselves to gritty end products. However, this blend is unavailable in Northern California except for one little hippie co-op somewhere in Napa. Guess where I'm not driving to get some flour, for God's sake. Napa.

The bad news is that GFBC seems to be telling the truth, because the King Arthur didn't quite work as expected. Looks like I will be sucking it up and buying the super-refined brown rice flour online as instructed.

I decided to put this flour to the test with a GFBC recipe for Chocolate-Ricotta Muffins. I love chocolate and ricotta, so figured this was probably a good place to start.

In the end, the chocolate chips in this recipe are the primary redeemer. That, and heat. When these muffins are hot - ideally right out of the oven, but an oven reheating will also suffice, they are pretty tasty. When they are cold, well, let's just say I'd rather eat other things.

At least they look semi-normal. They were, admittedly, a bit spongy. Not in a sponge cake way. More like a Cell-O brand sponge way.

The second item, made simultaneously, was a fresh mozzarella and heirloom tomato tart modeled after this recipe on Epicurious. I had fantastic heirlooms and two giant bunches of basil from the farm box and all needed to be used up. Seemed like a perfect solution.

GFBC had a recipe for a tart crust. Only problem: the recipe was written for a sweet, not a savory, tart crust. I made a few substitutions (omitted the sugar, added parmesan and black pepper) and I thought I was in good shape. I par-baked the crust, and it came out looking normal, if a little crumbly.

Per the normal recipe instructions, I layered in the cheese, the homemade pesto, and the tomatoes. The tart looked beautiful.


The tomatoes from my farm box were just absolutely perfect.

It is at this point in the story that I am reminded of a moment from my childhoold. When I was three years old, in our Evanston townhouse, I used to paint watercolors with my stepdad. Not, mind you, with that strip of Crayola watercolors that you probably used at school. You know the ones - the "yellow" was never yellow, but usually some shade of hideous army green because of all the dumb kids who didn't clean their brushes well between colors, ruining the yellow for everyone. No, those were not real watercolors. We had actual art-store watercolor paper and the little tubes of pigment that you have to mix on a palette. Yes, I was three. I remember one particular painting I was really adding quite a lot of brushstrokes to and my dear stepdad observed that the difference between artists and non-artists is that "artists know when to stop." Truly, those are words I have remembered my entire life. They come back to me periodically at unusual times, like an old friend.

Unfortunately, they did not come back to me during the creation of this tart.
This is precisely the moment when the wheels came off.

I decided I wanted something pizza-y and threw the whole thing back in the oven to melt the cheese. The last-minute roasting at 425 had the unintended consequence of causing both the tomatoes and the cheese to give off all their liquid. Right into my lovely tart crust.

I brought the tart over to our usual Sunday football-watching venue (friends' house) and by the time I got there (one block away), it had given off at least a quarter-cup of liquid. Possibly a third. I actually had to drain it in the sink.

Surprisingly, it sliced nicely, but the crust was complete mush. The tomatoes and cheese and pesto were delicious and the crust tasted a little bit like what I imagine licking a Bermudan beach might be like. Only with better flavor. I will say this: the crust tasted good. But the gritty-pasty texture was really so terrible that you couldn't get past it.

I made an appointment with the allergist for Friday. Wondering if maybe I can get allergy shots for this wheat thing...

P.S. A special shout out to taste-testers Mer, Kevin, and Alex for sampling the above goods and not gagging. Audibly.