You're a Crumby Bun

I love a coffee cake for breakfast. Or a piece of pie. And if there are any homemade cookies in the house, I can't think of anything better to have with my morning cup of coffee. (If these cookies happen to be oatmeal, all the better. I rationalize it away as eating a breakfast grain first thing in the morning.)

Growing up my mom would occasionally make a coffee cake from the back of the box of Bisquick. I would wake up to the warm smell of cinnamon wafting through the air. Rolling out of bed, I sleepily made my way down the hall. On a cooling rack my breakfast would sit, its craggy streusel topping with lumps of shredded coconut peeking out. This is what probably gave me my very first sweet tooth in the morning.

As I was looking through Carole Walter's book, Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins and More, I thought to myself, "Fantastic, an entire book of foods that are bad for you, yet taste so good." And then I spotted the crumb bun, which was reminiscent of those streusel coffee cakes of yore. So what exactly is a crumb bun, you may be asking? They are a yeasted roll, slightly sweet, with a topping of sumptuous, crunchy streusel. They are good.

And they are time-consuming. The dough must be made the night before, and then needs to come to room temperature (about 1 1/2 hours). They need to be kneaded, formed, allowed to rise again, and then finally, baked. So these buns may not be the most ideal morning treat; they are clearly not a quick bread.

But if you are anything like me, and slightly neurotic, you will make the dough the night before and as it sits, hibernating in the refrigerator, you will go to sleep. Let me rephrase that, you will try to go to sleep. I tossed and turned all night waiting, and wanting to make those crumbs buns. Finally I just got up. At 7 o'clock AM. On a Sunday. The dough had rested nicely. I had not.

But the buns were great. Warm from the oven, yeasty, with a rich crumb, streusel abounded (although I did not use the entire recipe's worth), and if you're neurotic like me, they make the perfect breakfast treat. If you would like the recipe, it is on the Daily Specials page.

When is a Grape a Raisin?

There are times when going out to eat can inspire great cooking at home. I went out for tapas with some friends recently. We had plates of serrano ham, thick fried potatoes with a garlicky aioli, roasted baby brussels sprouts swimming in earthy olive oil, and chewy baguettes filled with spicy tuna, and hard-cooked egg. What can I say, we feasted.

We also had a plate of roasted grapes. A fruity side dish that was definitely not my favorite dish of the evening, and I will tell you why. They were beautiful and plump, wrinkled slightly like a sigh, sitting tightly in clusters-- these grapes were begging me to try them. So I did, plucking one from the bunch. And you know what? They were cold! I'm not talking slightly cool, these grapes had been sitting in the fridge for hours. Now I beg the question, if one goes through all of the trouble to roast a bunch of grapes to wrinkled perfection, wouldn't you serve them at least slightly warm?

I am a bit finicky. I will admit to preferring my fruit unchilled. A cold apple hurts my teeth, and a melon when set to languish in the fridge, loses its summertime perfume. Having a piece of fruit that is cold is like putting a juicy snack on mute. I was irked, not enough to abandon my glass of Rioja, nor enough to decline ordering the churros (with a velvety chocolate dipping sauce) but irked none the less.

But from dissatisfaction comes resolve. I did not forget those grapes, I wanted to try them again-- this time unchilled. So I purchased a bunch, doused them in olive oil, gave them a sprinkling of salt and pepper, and then roasted them in a hot oven (450 degrees) for 15-20 minutes. They were delightfully dessicated, like a raisin but better. Withered and juicy they popped in your mouth. I continued my savory experiment by using my new grape/raisins in a winter salad.

Fried capers, curls of Parmesan cheese, torn and toasted bits of bread were nestled cozily in a bed of sprightly arugula and topped with roasted grapes. It was the perfect mix of salty and sweet. And the grapes were just as I wanted them to be-- wrinkled and warm.

And the Beet Goes On

Sometimes you just get a certain food stuck in your head, or maybe it is more apt to say, stuck in your stomach. Like a nagging craving, the flavor is gnawing at you like a dog gnaws on a prized bone. I have always been one to give into these cravings. I figure, if your body is crying out for precious food-- give it what it wants! This is of course assuming that what your body is crying out for is not an entire pint of Fudge Ripple ice cream or a large, oozy pizza, extra anchovies.

I have been thinking a lot about beets lately, in all of their many incarnations. Roasted, steamed, boiled, sauteed, or shredded. Beets have become my Fudge Ripple ice cream. I know, I know, you're probably saying, "Beets? Beets? Come on, you have got to be kidding me. Now this girl is going to wax poetic about the beauty of beets?" And to this I have only one comment to make-- wax on.

I was at the farmers' market recently, with a few moments to kill before I had to be at work. The day was blustery, the trees barren, the ground damp from the chilling rain of the night before. The market was dead. Many of the vendors had taken the morning off, due to the inclement weather. There was a table of the requisite apples/apple stuff (cider, dried apple rings, apple cake), a pathetic table of onions, a few winter squash, and the largest head of cabbage, with the droopiest leaves I had seen in quite some time. There was honey, lots of honey, and there was a lone table of fresh pasta. Amidst piles of durum wheat penne, and semolina angel hair, there were a few containers of beet fettucine.

Now I'm not usually big on colored pasta. They can be so... 80's. I can still taste the tri-color pasta corkscrew salad, with sundried tomatoes, sliced black olives, drenched in Wishbone dressing. Come on, I know that you remember them too. But this fresh fettucine was lovely to look at, a dusty magenta, smooth, and soft. And besides, it was beet, how bad could it be?

I bought some, and brought it home for dinner that night. When boiled it shirked the fine coating of dusty flour, and turned deeply garnet. I grated a few beets (and have the finger-stained evidence to prove it), and sauteed slowly until tender with a few sprigs of fragrant rosemary. I browned a few tablespoon of butter in a separate pan, and added a small handful of poppyseeds, then added the butter to the beets. A quick toss with the pasta, and a very pink dinner was ready.

Eating this pasta, was rather like eating in the dark. Pink on pink, I couldn't really see what I was eating, but I surely could taste and feel it. The sweetness of the fresh beets, the crunchy nuttiness of the poppy seeds, and the piney scent of the rosemary--my all pink supper did just the trick to satisfy a relentless craving.

Frying in the New Year

Did everyone have a pleasant, gluttonous holiday? Good. I don't know about you, but each year come January, I am so ready to get back to my real life. I am ready to kiss those candy canes goodbye. Ready to extinguish those chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Ready to blow off those powdered sugar cookies. Is anyone with me?

As excited as I become to ring in the holiday season, I think that if I see another Bûche de Noël I just might have to toss it into the fireplace. (She says with a bah-humbug!) I am ready to go back to the daily, winter grind: obsessively checking the weather forecast for signs of snow, piling on layer after layer of woolen winter clothes, and slowly exhaling warm air hoping to catch a glimpse of my breath. And the food-- there is always the food.

This year, I just might have a new favorite-- the polenta fry. Or maybe I should call it, the polenta bake, since there really is no frying to speak of...but fry is somehow a catchier word. I have never much been one for New Year's resolutions. But for many, after an indulgent holiday season eating a fried anything is too much to bear. So...enter these lovelies.

They couldn't be more delicious. Simply make a recipe of polenta, then pour the molten carbohydrate into a pan, either 8-inch square, or slightly larger, to cool. When polenta is cool, what you will have is one giant mass, ready to cut. Slice this into manageable fry-size portions, place on a Silpat, or parchment-lined baking sheet, brush with olive oil, then bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes.

If you are anything like me, and have difficulty leaving well enough alone, pile the fries high, and dust with Parmesan cheese and fried sage leaves. So I guess I made a baked fry, then slathered my "healthy" alternative with a fried herb. Well, we can't be good all the time, can we?