her able hands

I’m flipping gently through the pages of Tried and True Cook Book No. 2, published in 1907 by the Eisele Printing Co. in Cleveland, written by The Ladies of The Miles Avenue Christian Church and Their Friends. The recipes are all written in paragraph format, no ingredients list, most only a few sentences. The pages are peppered with advertisements for local businesses and I’m going to scan some of them in to share with you later, but for now let me share with you my favorite headline: Pianos That Are Trustworthy. I love that!

Here’s my favorite section of the book, the last few pages:

For The Invalid’s Tray

“Simple diet is best, for many dishes bring many diseases.” —Pliny

Toast Water: Toast slightly a piece of bread and add it to boiling water; if preferred, sweeten. It may be flavored with a lemon or orange peel. —R. DeL.

I have never heard of such a remedy for any kind of illness. When I was a kid, the sick bed beverage of both child and parental choice was flat Coca-Cola or ginger ale—Canada Dry preferred. The invalid’s dinner? Lipton’s or Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. Now, of course, I make homemade—even for myself when I’m as sick as a dog and feeling like an invalid. A slow simmered, rich stock and plenty of vegetables is the answer to most ailments, and you can’t get that out of a can. But check this out…

An Invalid’s Dinner: Select a good chop from a loin of mutton and trim all the fat from the meat and put in a covered jar (a salt jar does very well for the purpose) with three tablespoonfuls of water; stand it in a moderately hot oven, steam it one-half hour and a few minutes, before serving add a pinch of salt. Serve very hot, with the gravy poured over it. Steak or chops cooked in this manner are very tender and easily digested by the weak and delicate. —Bertha.

In the confections section, there are six different recipes for something called Sunshine Cake. Some of them have no indication of baking time and require dry ingredients to be sifted five times. Others say bake in a slow oven until done, or in a slow oven for forty five minutes. The baker is directed in one “don’t open and shut the oven door unless necessary. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

I suspect these cakes all came out just scrumptious and that they were the pride of these women’s baking repertoire. I’m going to attempt one of them and see if I can surrender to the simplicity of the recipe. I imagine it will force me to pay closer attention as I bake—rather than relying on the detailed instructions I’m used to following, I’ll have to let a little more intuition shine through. I want more play in my life, more fun. And being in northeast Ohio in February—more Sunshine!

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Busyness all weekend (nothing seed or garden related, but I’m out of the self-flagellation business, so we’ll just vett that to next weekend’s to-do list).

Chris surprised me Saturday afternoon by coming home with four new seats for the dining room chairs cut out of 3/8″ plywood. We all got busy taking the nasty covers off.

I was so happy to see that material in the trash. And check out the ugly vinyl underneath. I wonder whose rear ends made it so shiny.

Chris had to use his special pliers to remove the ancient, rusted tacks holding that vinyl in place. Those are working man’s hands, right there.

Lila helped, too. She was in charge of soaping the screws before Chris put them through the seat into the frame. Cheap made in China screws kept snapping off and after the fourth one he decided to put a drop of dish liquid in the hole and on the threads. Problem solved.

I didn’t get any photos of the actual reupholstering process because after an hour of the two of us struggling with one, I got frustrated and decided to go into the kitchen where I don’t have to deal with unfamiliar spatial relationships. I just couldn’t figure out how to fold the fabric without making it all lumpy and backwards and uneven and Chris could see it just fine. Bless him and his eternal patience with me, he just listened as I complained and questioned and pulled out staples and refolded and complained and re-stapled and pulled them out again and threw up my hands and ran upstairs to change because I was sweating so much.

We had dinner plans with Cheril & Greg yesterday and we were in charge of salad and dessert. I made these fantastic dark chocolate cupcakes by Chockylit but without the truffle aspect and I did a ganache glaze and a spritz of vanilla buttercream frosting and shaved dark chocolate curls on top. So basically, I used her cupcake recipe, which was absolutely incredible. So chocolatey and moist. I also added a half teaspoon of pure orange extract and a tablespoon of orange zest to the melted chocolate for the cake. And when I made my ganache, I added three tablespoons of butter to give it that nice shiny glaze.

I read on Chockylit’s site that my overflowing cake cups might have something to do with my oven temp being too low. She recommends preheating the oven to 25º warmer than the baking calls for, then turning it down as soon as you put the cupcakes in. I was very careful to only fill the cups 3/4 full and then tried that with the temperature, and they came out perfect. Psyche!

And look at how pretty they are! I so enjoyed presenting them last night and everyone made happy, yummy dessert sounds as they ate. So good.

So it was a multi-person, multi-tasking kind of day around here yesterday.

While I was busy in the kitchen putting together little love cakes, Chris was busy in the living room making our chairs pretty.

He says he wants to redo the second one from the left, but overall we’re both very happy with the way they came out. We used a thicker piece of foam than one might normally use, but I like the lift. Can’t wait to get that dining room wallpaper stripped off and the room painted next.

Speaking of paint, here’s a shot (crooked, sorry) of the corner where the green meets the red-orange. I’m so happy with this room.

Now we just need some more artwork for the walls. But doesn’t Cathy’s little painting look spectacular against the green?

Happy sigh.

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So! Sorry family (New Englanders, all) but that was some game last night. I couldn’t help rooting for NY, they played so hard.

The only treat I made for the game was a batch of Ina Garten’s Coconut Cupcakes.

The cream cheese frosting came out like silk. But I really need to work on my cup-filling technique. Every one of them overflowed and stuck to the edge of the (nonstick!) mini muffin tin. Ina calls for coconut to top the frosting with, but I’m not a huge fan of the chewy coconut unless it’s fresh, so I toasted about a cup of coconut in my cast iron skillet in the oven while it preheated.

This recipe uses buttermilk, and a metric ton of butter which converts to an assload. I mean, I may as well just stuff these babies down the back of my undies, they’re that buttery. I’m going to try making them with coconut milk instead of buttermilk next time. (Oh, yes. There will be a next time. But I will try to wait a few months before I carb load like that again.) I used to make an incredible layer cake using fresh grated coconut and coconut milk and it may have been the lightest, moistest, most delicious cake I ever had. It would translate to cupcakes so well.

And so I stayed up way past my bedtime to watch the Superbowl, ate two cupcakes and now have an early morning belly ache. But there’s no time for complaining—I’ve got to get the kids up and get us all out the door in 40 minutes. Peace out!

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This morning the windows on the south side of the house are encased in a thick layer of bubbly ice. It’s freezing rain on top of an inch or two of snow and is meant to turn to all rain and then back to ice pellets and then to snow again by afternoon. But no real accumulation. How I long for a big snow. A colossal snow. A blizzard like the blizzard of ‘78 where we had to remove the storm door and bring it inside in order to begin to shovel our way out of the house. The snow came 3/4 of the way up the door.

Maybe I’m just wishing for another reason to stay at home (of course I’m wishing for that. Think of all of the things I could accomplish). But winters haven’t been as wintry for the last few years. If it’s going to last this long (and it will, it lasts so bloody long in comparison to the other seasons), it would be nice to have some opportunity for sledding with the kids—that doesn’t melt away the day after it hits the ground. I haven’t seen any of the area ponds stay frozen yet this year, and never see kids ice skating.

It seems like my childhood winters had a blanket of snow on them for two solid months, and every day the whole neighborhood gathered at the top of the big hill by the Taunton River for all-day runs. I spent day after day gliding around on Sturdevent’s Pond when I was a preteen, fantasizing that Robbie Benson or Shawn Cassidy or Leif Garrett sliced back and forth behind me, watching my every move and falling helplessly, hopelessly in love with me. And then I’d attempt a spin and fall straight out of the pages of Tiger Beat Magazine and onto my bony little ass.

Will global warming ramp up in my lifetime to the point where I am able to garden in winter without a heated greenhouse? As much as I love the thought of filling my salad bowl year-round with succulent lettuces, I hope to Maude that I never see a tomato flourish in my February garden.

That’s what pantries are for—we’re supposed to enjoy the less-heady, preserved fruits of our summer labors in the winter.

I think tonight I’ll celebrate this in between time. I’ll stew two overstuffed quart bags of blanched winter greens that are still in the freezer—one each of kale and collards. After I get a pot of brown rice started, I’ll sauté a pound of sliced chicken sausage in the dutch oven with a small chopped onion until the sausage is browned and the onion golden and soft. Then add two cups of cooked Great Northern Beans (also ready and waiting in the freezer—or they were until I set them on the counter a minute ago to thaw) and a quart of chopped tomatoes and garlic (I have one jar left from two years ago, found far back on a shelf). I’ll toss in a little kosher salt and cracked black pepper to taste, then let the whole thing simmer for about half an hour on medium-low heat. Once the rice is done, I’ll scoop that into bowls, then top with a heaping spoonful of the greens, sausage and beans, then shave some Asiago cheese and a small swirl of basil and olive oil (that I also just took out of the freezer). Doesn’t that sound warm, but wintry? Now come on snow. Work with me here.

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Have you ever tasted pickled turnips and felt the sweet explosion of turnipy goodness waking your taste buds up from a deep slumber? The first time I had them was last year at a local Middle Eastern restaurant. An insert stuck into the menu notified customers that the wrap style sandwiches now also contained pickles and turnips but just say the word if you think pickles are nothing more than cucumber or some other smelly vegetable steeped in evil. OK, they didn’t say it quite like that, just that you can decline the pickled bits if you so desire.

But you and I both know people who shudder visibly at the thought of pickles. S, the guitarist in the lunchtime band thinks pickles are a weapon of mass destruction. Lunch with him on Friday is a hoot because he places his order and then pauses and we all wait. Conversation always stops when he’s ordering. He always turns back to his menu for a moment, studying it as if he’s going to maybe order a side of something (fried pickles perchance?)*, and then looks up at the waitress as if something has just occurred to him and says “Oh yeah, and No. Pickles. I don’t want any pickles touching anything on my plate.” It doesn’t matter how many times I hear this routine, it’s always funny. I love S even though he won’t eat at this particular restaurant and I’m so done with fish sandwiches, Iceberg lettuce salads and cheeseburgers at chain restaurants. I think I may have to ditch the gang and hit Aladdin’s tomorrow (warning: flash on their site).

Aaaanyway, that day I hadn’t made up my mind between the grilled tuna on salad and the grilled tuna and salad wrap. The pickles clinched the deal and boy-howdy, they did not disappoint. Tiny gherkin pickles and sticks of bright pink pickled turnip in every bite. Not a ton of them, just enough to give each bite a spicy-sweet tang and a crunchiness that you just can’t get from lettuce. Heavenly. And I’ve been fantasizing about making my own pickled turnips ever since.

I actually wanted to do it when I first read Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

So a few years later—you know how that goes, right? How three years can go by and your to-do list has only grown longer? Yeah, I thought so. I used to believe I was the only overwhelmed person on the planet who couldn’t reach any of her goals, but then along came the internet and I found out that we’re mostly all like that and the people closest to me were just perpetuating the lie of success and efficiency. Ha! Ha-hah! Heh. I’m kidding.

OK, are you still with me? It’s three years later and I’m just barely out the other side of the worst stomach flu of my life (people, the things I didn’t tell you…except for you and my poor mother and sister. And a couple of co-workers. I told all of you and I’m really, really sorry. Truly. But you know it was funny, too.) I tell you, extreme gastric distress made me crave the pickled turnips in the worst way. I had snapped up some locally grown turnips at the farm stand right before Thanksgiving and dumped them in the bottom drawer of the fridge and they didn’t look too bad, just a little yellowed around the edges. I doubled the recipe I found at astray.com, after comparing and constrasting about twenty others. I settled on this one because I liked the addition of celery leaves and the smaller amount of salt.

Pickled Turnips
Yield: 1 pint

* 1 large beet
* 4 small turnips or 3 medium size turnips
* 3-5 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced (I used 2 cloves per jar because my belly wasn’t in the mood for garlic. But I knew it would be later, so I kept some in.)
* Young celery leaves (no measurement on the recipe. I used about 3 tablespoons, very barely chopped.)
* 1/2 cup each white vinegar and water
* 1 tablespoon coarse salt (I used Kosher.)

Boil beet in water until tender and peel, cool, slice and set aside. Drop turnips into boiling beet water for 2 to 3 minutes, take out and peel. Cut into French-fry size sticks.

Sterilize 1 pint wide-mouth jar, layer turnips, beets, a few slices of garlic and celery leaves.

Combine water, vinegar and salt and bring to a boil, making sure salt dissolves. Fill jar with vinegar mixture (I left about a half inch head), seal and store in a warm place for ten days. (I put plastic wrap over the jar before I put the lid on and also set the jars in plastic containers in case they leak. I hear that can happen with fermenting.)

After opening, store in the refrigerator. These get better the longer they sit - which the recipe promises seldom happens, which is why I doubled it.

If you’re interested in reading about the benefits of eating fermented foods, here’s a pretty comprehensive article from Natural Health written by Jill Neimark.

If these come out as good as I expect them to, then I’m going to try some of the lacto-fermentation recipes from Nourishing Traditions. Eight days left, people. Any suggestions for what to try the turnips with first?

* Fried pickles are apparently a local delicacy. I have yet to try them because I’m told that I need to wait and have them at a specific diner in Akron whose name I can’t recall, but I’m promised that they’re worth the drive. I’m skeptical and people, I love me some pickles. But fried? I don’t know. It seems so Ohio State Fair Cuisine. Followed by a fried Snickers Bar. Some things really are just wrong. That right there is definitely one, and possibly two of them in the same meal. Pass the TUMSâ„¢.

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