The Promise of Pizza

For way too long I denied my love of good pizza. It all had to do with some screwed up notions about which foods I considered to be healthy or unhealthy. Thank goodness I'm finally unshackled because I really love pizza. I truly believe when we deny the things we love the most that's when we create an unhealthy situation. It sets up a guaranteed, never-ending, self-punishing trigger. My advice? Be honest with yourself about your most fervent pleasures; own and revel in them. Give yourself permission to enjoy them from time to time and earn your own trust around them. That way, they cease to be your adversaries. Even better if you can replace the processed versions with real ones along the way.

I love a good, blistery, slightly chewy, thin crust pizza and lately, I've had this burning desire to learn how to make it from scratch. It's seriously daunting for me - I've never worked with yeast. Not to mention, there are so many pizza dough recipes out there making all kinds of promises, it's hard to know where to begin. So, for my first foray, I went with someone who has never let me down...Martha. The one, the only.

At the library, I picked up The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics and in it, there was a recipe for pizza dough. I followed it to the letter. After the second rise, I punched down the dough, turned it out onto my pastry board and cut in into six, equal-sized discs. I wrapped each one individually in plastic wrap and placed them in my fridge. I left for a few hours, came home and checked on the dough only to find that the Michelin Man had taken up residence in there! The dough had expanded yet again, so I peeled away the plastic, punched it back down, rolled it out, cut and wrapped it once more.

The thing I've neglected to share is that it was also my good friend's birthday that evening and she had come to rely on eating very well in my home, so there was a lot riding on this. I could feel the pressure mounting.

I had planned to grill the pizzas. Our first pizza, a classic Margherita - fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella - died a slow death on the grill because of my own incompetence - I forgot to properly oil the dough and added the toppings before their time. However, there were pieces of the dough that tasted like the charred, chewy and smoky hardwood flavor I was going for which, gave me hope. I decided not to take a chance and blow the next pizza so I popped it in the oven. This one was an homage to a pizza I'd had at my favorite Chicago restaurant, Avec. Thinly shaved beets, arugula, marjoram, Manchego cheese and Nicoise olives. The toppings were stellar but the crust, honestly, had little flavor. But with enough wine, laughter and open air we managed to still enjoy it.

I declare that I am making a commitment right here and now to master pizza-making. There will be ongoing posts until I get it right. Until it meets my very high standards. Until I become fluent in the language and the feel of it. Until I can imagine that Martha's coming for lunch, and know without a doubt, she's going to be absolutely blown away.

Patricia Wells' Apricot Honey Tart

Those who know me would agree that I am a fan of the bold gesture. I would put this tart in that category. Like a good piece of statement jewelry. Like renting a villa in Italy and sending your closest friends first class tickets to join you. (Hasn't happened yet, but believe me, it's going to.)

First and foremost, this tart is a stunner. When you trot it out at the end of a meal or at brunch, people will inevitably ask if you really made it. It happened to me again last night. Not only does this tart look, smell and taste like summer, it's also good for the ol' self esteem. Quadroople bonus.

And believe it or not, it's truly easy - even if you've never made a crust before! You can substitute apricots with figs or plums - or any stone fruit. The only extra you'll need is a 12" round fluted tart pan.

This recipe is from the book, Patricia Wells at Home in Provence.

Ingredients:

The Crust
unsalted butter to grease tart pan
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp. pure almond extract
1/8 tsp. pure vanilla extract
a pinch fine sea salt
1 1/4 cups plus 1 tbsp. unbleached all purpose flour
2 tbsp. finely ground raw almonds (I use my coffee grinder)

The Cream
1/2 cup heavy cream (buy organic!)
1 large egg
1/2 tsp. pure almond extract
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp. raw honey
1 tbsp. superfine flour such as Wondra

about 1 1/2 pounds fresh apricots (hit your local farmers' market!), pitted and halved, do not peel (I slice mine into moons but for a heavier fruit-to-bite ratio, just halve them)


Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Butter bottom and sides of tart pan.
3. In large bowl, combine butter and sugar and, with a wooden spoon, stir to blend. Add the almond and vanilla extracts, salt, flour, and stir to form a soft, cookie-like dough. Do not let it form into a ball. (I find mine to be very crumbly and unable to hold into a ball even if it wanted to - it's still OK) Transfer dough into the center of buttered tart pan and using the tips of your fingers, evenly press the pastry onto the bottom and sides of the pan. The dough will be quite thin.
4. Place the pan in the center of the oven and bake until the dough is slightly puffy and set about 12 to 15 minutes. Sprinkle the almonds on the crust. This will prevent it from becoming soggy.
5. Meanwhile, prepare the cream. In a medium-size bowl, combine cream, egg, both extracts and honey and whisk to blend. Then whisk in superfine flour.
6. Starting just inside the edge of the pre-baked pastry pan, neatly overlap the halved or half-moon slices of apricots, cut side up at a slight angle. Make 2 or 3 concentric circles working towards the center. (I ran out of apricots and added a sprinkling of blueberries to fill in the gaps as you can clearly see.)
7. Pour the cream evenly over the fruit. Place in center of oven and bake until the filling is firm and the pasty is deep golden brown, 50 to 60 minutes. The apricots will shrivel slightly. Allow to cool before slicing.
8. TASTES GREAT CHILLED THE NEXT DAY!

Summer Fruit Sunday

Every Sunday morning I feel like treating myself. And for no other reason than, Hey, it's Sunday!, which is enough for me. Some people go to church and others, like myself, find their sacred impenetrable spot on a plate or in a bowl.

Traditionally my treat includes coffee, which I don't normally drink (cry for me - I'll explain later) and some form of delicious local pastry or eggs and bacon, or my fave of all time, the Bacon Waffle at Walker Brothers. The Bacon Waffle also deserves it own blog post but I'll save it for another time. "So it shall be written, so it shall be done..."

But I am currently obsessed with summer fruit and consuming as much of it as humanly possible. Our window of time to enjoy it is so damn short. I'm also spending part of today making a fruit tart for a friend's birthday party tonight and I'll be sharing that with you later.

This lovely, impromptu creation is simply cut up local plums from the farmers' market and papaya, which I love; I bought a biggun on sale this week and I'm enjoying finding different ways to use it. I also recently discovered sheep's milk yogurt. This is from Whole Foods by the Old Chatham Sheepherding Company in New York's Hudson Valley. I love the texture of it and the tang! Then I chopped up toasted almonds and drizzled away with raw, local honey from Bron's Bees, sold at the Heritage Prairie farm stand at Green City Market.

And to make sure I'm not sounding overly pious, I want you to know I followed this up with a hearty portion of bacon and eggs.

Kitten Capers?

I apologize for veering a little off course in this short post but the other day I Googled the word 'Caper' and one of the options that came up had this headline:"Kitten Capers." How could I not click on that? Turns out it's just this incredibly cloying collectible plate from the Franklin Mint. Not exactly the kind of capers I was looking for.

I am sorry but that just gives me the giggles.

Pork Burgers A La Nigel Slater

I don't know about you but I crave Asian flavors. It's become a pattern that my craving comes very suddenly and without warning and I get this unreasonable urge to sate it immediately. I usually end up going out to sate it instead of making something at home.

I try to remedy that problem by keeping as many Asian food staples in my pantry as possible. They're generally inexpensive and useful in a myriad of ways. I don't pretend to know how to recreate a lot of the dishes I love, at home but having some of the basic ingredients around like kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, red chile paste, mirin, a good dark soy sauce, ginger, basil, cilantro, fish sauce, coconut milk and hot, fresh or dried peppers means I can occasionally throw something together that will satisfy me in a pinch. I know that sounds like a lot to think about but the ingredients last a little while and all that might literally run you about $12 to $15 at an Asian market.

And thank god for Nigel Slater's book The Kitchen Diaries. He's a well known food writer in London and it's his personal diary of meals recorded for one full year and divided into months so it's very seasonal. He's also an incredibly unfussy and almost lazy cook, which I love, and everything in the book makes me drool.

Example: So one day he happens to have bacon and an avocado at home so he makes the bacon in a fry pan, pulls it out crisp, throws some sherry vinegar in with the drippings to deglaze the pan and then tosses the whole shebang over the avocado and eats it with rye bread.

Are you kidding me? Sign me up!

The way this book is written continually underscores that cooking is about PLEASURE (remember pleasure?); it's a sensualist's dream if you ask me. Reading it makes me ache to cook, now how's that for a glowing endorsement?

He also loves flavors from warm climates such as Southeast Asia and India and it's definitely reflected in many of his recipes. So far, I can vouch that so much of what I've made from his book is easy (beginner easy) and incredibly satisfying.

I made his Pork Burgers with Lime Leaves and Cilantro last night and ate it with a little homemade cucumber salad. Just cucumbers, thinly sliced red onion, cilantro, some rice vinegar, a touch of sugar and salt.

Break out the Riesling!

Adapted from Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries

scallions - 4
hot red chile peppers and their seeds - 4
garlic - 4 medium cloves
the stalks and leaves from a small bunch of cilantro
ginger - a thumb-sized lump
limes leaves - 6
(also added some basil leaves and a touch of fish sauce to mine)
*smoked pancetta or slab bacon - 4 oz
*ground pork - 1.25 lbs
a little veggie or peanut oil for frying

Chop scallions, peppers, garlic and cilantro and finely grate ginger. Roll and shred the lime leaves very fine (and basil if you use it).

Throw it all in the food processor and process until it's finely chopped and well mixed like a paste. Scrape the paste out into a large bowl, and add a couple dashes fish sauce if you please.

Cut the pancetta or bacon then process in the processor to a coarse mush. Add that to the spice paste in the bowl along with the ground pork and mix with your hands adding a little salt and pepper along the way. Chill for a half hour in the fridge to meld flavors.

Roll the seasoned, chilled pork into about twelve balls and flatten into patties. Heat a heavy, shallow pan, add some oil and cook for several minutes a side over relatively high heat until they brown nicely and cook through the middle. Squeeze some lime juice on top and eat with cucumber salad and jasmine rice optional.

*If you can find local pork, I highly recommend it. It benefits you, the pigs and the environment. In Chicago, Twin Oaks Farms sells their sustainably raised pork at Green City Market on Saturdays.

The Food Network Casting Call

It would have been so much easier for me to stay in bed with the New York Times and a steaming bowl of latte this past Sunday morning, but I forced myself to go. I needed a challenge. It was for a spot on the 2010 season of The Next Food Network Star. I filled out the eleven page application with questions such as, If you were a vegetable, what would you be? A roasted poblano pepper. Why? Because I'm earthy, spicy and add depth to everything.

I pulled together a couple photos and got my resume professionally printed for the occasion. I also slipped them copies of my Huff Post columns so they could get a feel for my philosophy and culinary style.

This was the protocol: I waited almost two hours in a room of about 100 people. They called numbers in the order you signed in and you got 3 to 4 minutes of time with an interviewer while they taped you on camera. Everyone was asked the same questions (short answers provided): What do you do? right now - craft service & write. Are you self-taught or professionally schooled? self-taught. Why are you here? to get my message to a wider audience. What's one of your signature dishes? warm new potato salad with capers, parsley, garlic & mint. What's your unique culinary point of view? eat real food!

Truth is, I don't have a working TV anymore since the digital turnover; I haven't had cable in about 8 years and I've never seen the show. I went primarily to stretch myself. I'm carrying a torch here - I care very much about making a difference in the way people eat and live and it was great practice to be in front of a camera talking about that. And I'm proud to report I did a stellar job. I walked away feeling a great rush of energy, incredibly self-confident and well-spoken. It was well worth it.

If I'm perceiving the crowd correctly I'd say they were mostly an interesting mix of restaurant kitchen veterans and home cooks. There was a pair of young women who's names were called the same time as mine and we spent about five minutes together in the anteroom before going into interview. They were two friends who'd driven in together from Milwaukee. They had this schticky banter going non-stop in loud, caustic clips. Their very presence made me agitated. All I could think was, "Man, if I had to live in a house with these two broads, I'd blow my brains out." And that's precisely what makes for good tension on a reality show. Perhaps it was meant to be that I didn't get a call back.

Now on to my next challenge.

My Secret Weapon

I am so excited to share this with you. This is a young coconut. Discovering young coconuts and their oil has been one of the sweetest additions to my life in the last year.

I was taking a class in New York when I stumbled upon the takeaway stand of Pure Food & Wine, New York City's premiere raw food restaurant. I desperately needed a pick me up and a man behind the counter was opening a young coconut and asked me if I'd tried one. He served me a taste of the coconut water and "spoon meat" inside. It was one of the most refreshing things I'd ever eaten.

I became obsessed. I went home and did my research and began buying them by the case at Whole Foods. Turns out, they're one of the most life-giving foods on the planet. Check this out; history buffs will especially find this interesting. It's taken directly from the Living-Foods website:

"Coconut water is a natural isotonic beverage, with the same level of electrolytic balance as we have in our blood. It's the fluid of life, so to speak. In fact, during the Pacific War of 1941-45, both sides in the conflict regularly used coconut water - siphoned directly from the nut - to give emergency plasma transfusions to wounded soldiers."

Can you believe the water mimics blood plasma? Who knew?

Opening these, if done incorrectly can be quite dangerous. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but all you need is a cutting board and a chef's knife. The easiest method I've found for opening these suckers, is clearly demonstrated in this YouTube video.

So how do you use them, you ask? Well, the raw community does all kinds of things with them that I've honestly yet to try. Google young coconut recipes and you'll get more than you bargained for. If you're a first-timer, you can simply drink the water and pry the meat out with the back of a spoon to see if you like it. The spoon meat is chock full of pure, raw and incredibly healthy saturated fat. The texture can vary by coconut. Sometimes it's firm and medium-hard and other times it's almost gelatinous. Throwing the water and meat in a blender with a banana or any fruit for that matter is delicious. Throw in some protein and green powder and you have an incredibly healthy meal. I start most days with a coconut smoothie.

But wait, there's more! The cold-pressed, organic, virgin oil from these coconuts is also sold in jars at Whole Foods. My favorite is the Nutiva brand. Some people cook with it, but I use it as my face and body moisturizer and here's the big news: it makes the greatest massage oil and lube (yes, I said lube), you will ever encounter. Trust me on this one. However, you can't use latex products with it as it will compromise the latex.

So run, don't walk, and get yourself some. You can thank me later.