From Scratch

Sasha and Malia Obama were the new girls in school today, with seven-year-old Sasha attending the Sidwell Friends lower school in Bethesda, MD and 10-year-old Malia at Sidwell’s middle/upper school in the District. The lunch menus differ on the two campuses but what they have in common is nutritious meals that are heavy on natural foods and organics and light on red meat.

Sidwell is often described as an elite school, and it is — it costs nearly $30,000 a year per student. It’s not surprising then that the price tag brings more than a top-notch education. No cupcakes, potato chips and Mountain Dew for those students. No Friday combo of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.

This week’s lower school menu includes garlic organic green beans, roasted veggie melts, all-natural shepherd’s pie and sliced apples and cheese for a snack. Malia’s middle/upper school will be serving a lot of salads, local pumpkin and sage soup, organic baked French fries and cheese tortellini with fresh marinara. Both girls will have chicken on Friday, but not just any chicken: it’s premium Bell and Evans.

With our childhood obesity epidemic and so many school lunch programs built around the more affordable but far less-heathy fare of processed, frozen and gloppy foods, it’s a damn shame more schools can’t emulate Sidwell’s lunches for even one day. When Fitzgerald’s famous The rich are different from you and me was said to have been countered by Hemingway with, Yes, they have more money, he could have added, Their children eat better. They eat smarter. They can have nutritious foods and someone to prepare them in imaginative ways.

I hope this issue gets the attention it deserves in the new administration; it’s a perfect example of the politics of food. Nobody was well-served when, in the first Reagan administration, Budget Director David Stockman advocated classifying ketchup as a vegetable for the school lunch program. Talk about elitist. Fortunately, better minds prevailed, but so little progress has been made in providing more healthful meals for children that it’s simply shameful.

To see the full week of Sidwell Friends menus in pdf format, click here.  It will open in a new tab or window. H/T: TMZ.

Copyright (C) 2009 From Scratch All Rights Reserved

Tags: health, nutrition

The economic downturn has claimed one of Manhattan’s iconic restaurants. The Rainbow Room’s Rainbow Grill is closing January 12. The owners hope it’s temporary, but employees are being let go. The Grill’s bar will stay open and the Rainbow Room will continue its banquets and weekend dinner dancing — jacket and tie still required.

Ironically, the Rainbow Room opened at the height of the Great Depression in October, 1934. By the Fifties, it was one of the city’s glamour nightclubs for the glitterati, such as Frank Sinatra, and for members of what was called Café Society, the rich and beautiful who were out almost every night and whose goings-on were chronicled by the likes of Life Magazine.

But in recent decades, the Rainbow Room and Grill were best known for their spectacular views from the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center. It was a popular tourist destination and a symbol of the city’s sophistication. Last year, the owners applied for Landmark Status to ensure its Art Deco elegance is never converted to office space.

This recipe is from a decade ago, when Waldy Malouf was the chef and demonstrated the recipe on TV in New York. I recorded it and wrote everything down. I made it and liked it enough to hang on to the recipe. The technique of finishing the cooking and resting the bird in the turned-off oven is one that can be used with any chicken. So many of our chickens at the market are huge these days, but this uses a younger, smaller bird and makes a splendid main course, a taste of the Rainbow Grill that lives on.

Rainbow Room Roast Chicken

Adapted from Chef Waldy Malouf

1 chicken, about 3 pounds
2 TB olive oil
salt and pepper
1 shallot, sliced
1 head of garlic, smashed, divided use
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs of rosemary
1 medium onion, sliced thick, about 4 slices
6 small potatoes, scrubbed
3 carrots, peeled and cut
1 celery root, peeled and cut
1 cup chicken stock

Preheat the oven to 400F/205C/Gas 6. Rub the chicken with olive oil and season it inside and out with salt and pepper. Put the shallot and half the smashed garlic, the bay leaves and rosemary sprigs into the cavity of the chicken and truss the bird.

Spread the onion slices in the middle of the roasting pan and set the chicken on top of them. Toss the potatoes, carrots, celery root and remaining garlic in some olive oil to coat and arrange the vegetables around the chicken.

Roast for 30 minutes, add the stock to the pan and roast for another 30 minutes.

Remove the vegetables from the roasting pan, arrange them on a platter, set the chicken on top and put the whole platter into the turned-off oven for another 20 to 30 minutes. Chef Malouf says, “This lets the chicken rest and finishes the cooking process without drying it out. It makes for a very moist and crisp chicken.”

Copyright (C) 2009 From Scratch All Rights Reserved           Print This Post

Tags: chicken, entertaining, news

Our new “season” begins January 20 and I have a feeling Martin Sheen would enjoy this.

H/T: Alice Fishburn at Comment Central.

A new year, a new president in 16 days. I wish I had a tenner for every editorial cartoon showing the New Year’s Eve ball dropping on President-elect Obama to signify the problems he’ll inherit.

Charlie Daniel of the Knoxville News-Sentinal was more imaginative and clever. I love a good pun.

Tags: George W Bush

This simple bowl-and-spoon cranberry bread recipe is a great way to use up leftover holiday cranberries and nuts to enjoy later. It was easy to begin with, but in making it healthier by using oil instead of butter, I eliminated the need for a hand mixer or even any heavy beating with a wooden spoon. That change also makes this pareve for those who keep kosher.

Like all quick breads this freezes well, sliced or whole, and even though the berries and nuts can be frozen on their own, their quality after being frozen is higher when used in baked goods. There’s plenty of winter ahead — the season is only two weeks old — and that means a lot of coffee and tea. A slice of this is perfect with either and I like the thought of it waiting in the freezer.

And for Eastern Orthodox friends, whose liturgical calendar sets Christmas on January 7, this makes a lovely holiday bread. Merry Christmas!

The Easiest Cranberry Bread

Adapted from Ocean Spray

2 cups/250g all-purpose flour
1 cup/200g sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
6 oz/180 mL orange juice*
1 TB grated orange peel
2 TB canola or vegetable oil
1 large egg, well beaten
1 1/2 cups/165g fresh or frozen cranberries, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup/60g chopped walnuts or pecans

*I squeeze juice from one orange, which doesn’t yield quite enough. I make up the difference with water.

Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350F/180C/Gas 4. Spray or grease a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine the first 5 ingredients, flour through baking soda, and stir to distribute. Add the orange juice, grated peel, oil and egg and stir well to blend. Stir in the chopped berries and nuts.

Scrape the batter into the pan and bake approximately 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. [55 minutes is perfect in my oven ~ ella]  Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove from the pan and let cool completely.

For maximum flavor, wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Ella’s Tips:  To freeze and refresh, wrap tightly in foil and then in plastic wrap. Let defrost without unwrapping. If you wish to refresh the thawed bread, remove only the plastic wrap and put in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Copyright (C) 2009 From Scratch All Rights Reserved           Print This Post

Tags: Christmas, easy, quick

Almost exactly one year ago, Barack Obama said seven words that were historic enough to be January’s Quote of the Month, but their larger-picture significance for his future and America’s did not emerge until time passed and events played out. On January 3, after winning the Iowa caucuses, Obama said,

They said this day would never come.

If he hadn’t won in very white Iowa, gaining viability and momentum, it’s entirely possible the race would have been over on February 5th, as Hillary Clinton said it would be. Her certainty in that belief, and in herself as the inevitable nominee, was a reason her campaign really had no plan in place for primaries after that.

Without Iowa, Obama might not have made his even-more-historic victory speech November 4, another day they said would never come.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it and wishes of peace and joy to all. I’ll see you January 2, when we will all be sick of cookies. Maybe.

Tags: Christmas

Can anyone make us feel more inadequate, especially during the holidays? Sometimes I think Martha is the original Superwoman, but of course she’s not perfect *cough* thatstockmessthatlandedherintheslammer *cough*, she just seems to be. Even so, America has poked good-natured fun at her for a long time, so long that you might have seen this more than a decade ago. That’s when it was sent to me, with Windows 98 mentioned. I’ve updated that but otherwise, this is just as it was then — and just as enjoyable. December 20 has always been my favorite, especially now that I live somewhere that I sometimes see animals in pastures. And then I giggle.

December 1 - Blanch carcass from Thanksgiving turkey. Spraypaint gold, turn upside down and use as a sleigh to hold Christmas cards.
December 2 - Have Mormon Tabernacle Choir record outgoing Christmas message for answering machine.
December 3 - Using candle wick and hand-gilded miniature pine cones, fashion cat-o-nine-tails. Flog gardener.
December 4 - Repaint Sistine Chapel ceiling in ecru, with mocha trim.
December 5 - Get new eyeglasses. Grind lenses myself.
December 6 - Fax family Christmas newsletter to Pulitzer committee for consideration.
December 7 - Debug Windows 7.
December 10 - Align carpets to adjust for curvature of the Earth.
December 11 - Lay Faberge egg.
December 12 - Take Dog apart. Disinfect. Reassemble.
December 13 - Collect dentures. They make excellent pastry cutters, particularly for decorative pie crusts.
December 14 - Install plumbing in gingerbread house.
December 15 - Replace air in Suburban tires with Glade “holiday scent” in case tires get shot out at the mall.
December 17 - Child proof the Christmas tree with garland of razor wire.
December 19 - Adjust legs of chairs so each Christmas dinner guest will be the same height when sitting at his or her assigned seat.
December 20 - Dip sheep and cows in egg whites and roll in granulated sugar to add a festive sparkle to the pasture.
December 21 - Drain city reservoir; refill with mulled cider, orange slices and cinnamon sticks.
December 22 - Float votive candles in toilet tank.
December 23 - Seed clouds for white Christmas.
December 24 - Do annual good deed. Go to several stores and be seen engaged in last minute Christmas shopping, thus making many people feel less inadequate than they really are.
December 25 - Bear son. Swaddle. Lay in color coordinated manger scented with homemade potpourri.
December 26 - Organize spice rack by genus and phylum.
December 31 - New Year’s Eve! Give staff their resolutions. Call a friend in each time zone of the world as the clock strikes midnight.

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Tags: Christmas

A cherry smothered in chocolate on a chocolate cookie. Bliss. But when I decided to try this recipe for buried cherry cookies, after years in my files, I gnawed on three questions longer than any sane person would: who originated the recipe, what could I do to avoid using just a few ounces of a can of sweetened condensed milk (with no use for the rest) in the frosting and are they really frosted before they’re baked? Finding the answer to the first question answered the second which answered the third.

After looking at several versions online, I found one that specified brand names, usually a sign of a recipe’s first incarnation. The brand of chocolate and cocoa was Nestle, part of the same conglomerate that makes Carnation sweetened condensed milk. Well, duh. Now that I knew why it was there I could use something else without fear to make a ganache-type frosting to be used after baking them.

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Tags: Christmas

The best thing about blogging is “meeting” people who leave comments. Their personalities come through and we are like-minded or they’d never return. So sometimes they will include links to articles or videos they enjoyed, suspecting (correctly) I might also and so might those who read but are too shy to comment. From time to time, they are willing to share a favorite recipe, like this one.

Barbara mentioned this white fruitcake recipe in comments following my recipe for fast pumpkin butter. She said even people who swear they hate fruitcake — our national joke at Christmas — love this. Having had white fruitcake once, I knew how good it is and how different from the dark bricks that tend to be re-gifted, so I asked if she’d share the recipe. She graciously posted it there but I’d like it to have more exposure so here it is again.

It’s an old recipe, she told me, passed from one church lady to another and eventually into their church cookbook. Her daughter Cack makes it for friends and I have a hunch this is one fruitcake that does not get re-gifted. It looks delicious. I asked how Cack measures her flour, since no two Americans seem to do it the same way, and my notation and flour weight reflect that.

Barbara also assured me the lack of salt is not a mistake, although in all honesty I would add 1/4 teaspoon. It’s not only a flavor enhancer, it makes sweet things sweeter. I don’t bake without it and fruitcake recipes usually include it.

So thanks again to Barbara and Cack. Perhaps fellow blogger shoreacres will leave her grandfather’s fruitcake recipe that she mentioned! And if you have a favorite fruitcake recipe, please feel free to post it in comments, but please don’t violate anyone’s copyright. Maybe we’ll end up with a repository of great fruitcake recipes and prove the naysayers wrong.

Cack’s White Fruitcake

Thanks to Barbara and Cack

1 pound shelled pecans
1 pound golden raisins
1-1/2 pounds candied pineapple: 8 oz.red, 8 oz.green, 8 oz. yellow
1 pound candied cherries: 8 oz, red and 8 oz. green
1 pound butter
6 eggs, separated
3 cups/12-3/4 ounces all-purpose flour, spooned into the cup and leveled
2 cups/14 ounces granulated sugar
2 ounces lemon extract

You will also need cheesecloth and apple juice for the finished and cooled fruitcake.

Set a rack in the lower third of the oven and  preheat to 250F/120C/very slow oven. Grease or spray a tube or loaf pan and line bottom with waxed paper.

Cut cherries in half and pineapple in little pieces.

Cream together butter, egg yolks, and sugar. Add flour and mix well. Add lemon extract and mix thoroughly. Add fruit and pecans; mix.

Beat egg whites into soft peaks. Fold into batter.

Spoon the batter into prepared pan. Bake 1-1/2 hours at 250F, then increase heat to 325F/165C/Gas 3 and bake 30 more minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool in pan. Turn out and remove the waxed paper.

Wrap the fruitcake in cheesecloth that has been saturated with apple juice, then in plastic wrap and finally, aluminum foil. Store in cool place.

Ages well and will keep for a full year.

Copyright (C) 2008 From Scratch All Rights Reserved           Print This Post

Tags: Christmas

                             To all who celebrate it, Happy Hanukkah. Please pass the applesauce.

Related on From Scratch: How to: make potato latkes

Tags: Hanukkah

Mark Felt, better known as Deep Throat, died Thursday, 34 years after the resignation of the president he helped to bring down by acting as an annonymous source for The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during Watergate.

John Sherffius was straight and to the point.

Related post on From Scratch: “Deep Throat” Mark Felt Dies

Tags: Bob Woodward, Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein

I tend not to buy things I’ll use just once every year or two so even though I’ve wanted to make a dreidel cake, the special pan stopped me. Then I heard about a clever way to cut a standard 9″x13″ layer. It’s not difficult, although I assembled a slide show of the steps I took; you’ll do better than I did and I’d do better if I had time to make another, because there were two problems that stymied me.

One was what to put it on. When finished, it’s 17″ long and my only plate that large is a turkey platter which, of course, is not flat. I ended up covering heavy cardboard with aluminum foil, using a cutting board beneath to move it. The other was how to add a Hebrew dreidel letter. I am 100% illiterate in Hebrew, so writing it was not an option, not if I wanted it to be recognizable. Eventually I found patterns in a usable size in pdf format at Wilton. I made a parchment stencil which did not give me a clean letter with sprinkles so I sprinkled more on the rest of the cake and used cookie paint to highlight the letter.

Yes, I should have cut the stencil from poster board or stencil plastic, but traveling to a crafts store in a snowstorm was not an option. So I did what we all do at times and improvised. My first inclination, still the best now that I’ve made this cake, was to cut the letter from fondant and cover the cake with fondant too. Not everyone is comfortable with fondant, though, so I opted for frosting.

This is how to construct the cake and the slideshow should make up for any shortcomings in clarity. Bake a 9″x13″ layer, using whichever recipe you choose. Let cool completely. Transfer to a cutting board and measure up 4″ from one of the short ends. Place the ruler or a long knife across the cake as a placeholder for the 4″ mark.

Stick a toothpick in the center of that short end and then cut horizontally from the toothpick up to the placeholder. Repeat on the other side so you have two triangles of cake and a pointy end. Move the cake to your serving platter. Form a “handle” for the dreidel by putting the cut ends of the triangles together and placing it on top.

Slide strips of wax paper beneath all the edges of the cake and apply a crumb coat, a very thin layer of frosting, making sure to cover all of the cut edges. Chill for 30 minutes or until the crumb coat is set. You might be tempted to skip the crumb coat but your finished cake will look better if you apply one.

Decorate as desired, remove the wax paper and enjoy. Happy Hanukkah!

The slideshow follows after the jump. Hover beneath the photos to bring up the controls.

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Tags: Hanukkah

Those fun little grinches at Men’s Health who are always telling us to Eat This, Not That are at it again. Did you know the average person consumes an extra 600 calories per day between Thanksgiving and New Year’s? Each day, not each holiday. The grinches say that adds up to six pounds of belly fat. So to save us from ourselves, they’ve rounded up 16 foods and beverages we should avoid if we’d like a fighting chance of not having to buy elastic-waist pants on January 2.

Some of the 16 include the Worst holiday coffee: Starbucks’ Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha (venti). Venti is 20 in Italian, ounces in this case, and it’s a smaller number than the fat grams in one of these drinks: 22g and 15g are saturated. That’s three-fourths of our daily allotment for saturated fat. Instead, ask the Starbucks barrista for Cafe au Lait with Peppermint Syrup, a mere 5g of fat, 3.5 saturated.

Worst cocktail: This one’s a surprise. It’s gin and tonic. 210 calories and 21g of sugar, thanks to the tonic water. They say have a glass of Champagne instead for 100 calories and 5g of sugar. (There is a sugar-free tonic water, which I often mix with fruit juice for a faux cocktail, but I guess the typical gin and tonic fan doesn’t go that route.)

Worst candy: Fudge. One of the most calorie-dense foods on the planet. They say 3 pieces have 360 calories and you don’t want to know how much sugar and fat — it’s astronomical — and if 3 is one serving they must be thinking of cubes, not the brownie-size slabs of fudge we see. They say 5 Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Kisses are the way to go and they don’t have to ask me twice. Not if dark chocolate’s involved.

Worst entree: Nobody can afford it anymore, but it’s prime rib, with 750 calories per serving and 45g of fat. Nobody can afford the healthier beef alternative either — tenderloin, aka filet mignon — with 165 calories and 7 fat grams.

Worst side dish: Candied yams. Lucky for me I don’t like them. If you do, the price is 320 calories, 12g fat and a whopping 26g sugar. A baked sweet potato is the better choice with 180 calories, 12g sugar and absolutely no fat.

Worst gift from your neighbor: Fruitcake. Tricky territory, with a neighbor involved and all. So if somebody hands you a fruitcake, be diplomatic and do not say, “Oh, joy! 400 calories and 35g of sugar per slice!” Just thank them and eat ginger snaps instead.

Follow the link above for the rest, including leftovers lunch, side dishes and appetizers.

Copyright (C) 2008 From Scratch All Rights Reserved

Tags: Christmas, consumerism, Hanukkah, health, nutrition, Thanksgiving

The most famous anonymous source in American history, one who helped to bring down a president, died yesterday at his home in Santa Rosa, California. W. Mark Felt, the former No. 2 at the FBI, was 95. His daughter Joan says he “just slipped away.”

Felt was known for 33 years only as Deep Throat, the man who provided tips and confirmation to Bob Woodward during his and Carl Bernstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporting on the Watergate scandal and its attendant crimes. They had promised not to reveal his identity until his death and it was a favorite guessing game among Washingtonians and journalists.

Then in 2005, Vanity Fair published an article in which Felt outed himself. It caught Woodward and Bernstein off-guard, even though Bernstein is a VF contributing editor, and soon after Woodward’s account of his relationship with Felt was published as The Secret Man. He’d written the draft manuscript for the eventual day of Felt’s death — Bernstein noted in the book that Woodward is “prone to complete his homework before it is due or even assigned” — and from it we learned Woodward did not consider Hal Holbrook’s memorable Deep Throat scenes in the film version of All The President’s Men to be the heart of the movie and that he had told director Alan Pakula he’d have to figure out those underground garage scenes because Woodward put all he knew into the book by the same name. Woodward has said many times that Holbrook’s famous line, “Follow the money,” does not appear in the book.

While Woodward knew Felt even before he became a reporter, Bernstein hadn’t met him until last month. The two had a speaking engagement in the Bay Area and flew out a day early to see Felt at his home.  Felt knew they were coming and despite his dementia, he had moments of “extreme clarity,” according to Bernstein. He told the New York Times, “We were there to pay our respects and gratitude and we conveyed that. It was heartfelt and was received that way.” Woodward said it was “like a family reunion” and that the meeting was like coming full circle.

Felt and his daughter believed he was an American hero; Woodward and Bernstein agreed, noting he was not their only source or primary source but was one who showed great courage in putting the Constitution and the nation ahead of politics.

For more, The Washington Post has a special archival section of its coverage called The Watergate Story.

Copyright (C) 2008 From Scratch All Rights Reserved

Tags: Bob Woodward, news, political news, Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein