Apple Betty and Me

On a beautiful Saturday in October, when sisters are readily available, it's important to go apple picking.







Not everyone can have sisters, and that's too bad, but everyone can find a few apples somewhere, and everyone should, at least once, try to make an apple betty.

If the gosh darn gee whiz wholesomeness of the name alone doesn't get you (I mean, come on - apple betty! Paging June Cleaver...), maybe the brown sugar shortbread base piled with spiced apples, gingersnap cookie crumbs and a wash of melted butter will.

If you think something like this sounds awesome, that's because it is. Awesome. The shortbread is rich and warm and, thanks to the brown sugar, tastes almost like caramel. The apples roll around in a bit of sugar, ground cinnamon, cloves and ginger, get a shot of citrus juice and vanilla, and are then buried in a mess of spicy gingersnaps and doused with smooth, liquid butter, which, of course, permeates the entire betty with a round richness that's just so good you could cry. You could cry, people.

But, instead of crying, you'll probably ask yourself what the hell apple pie is even doing here anymore, and deftly cut yourself another slice. Of the easiest and most delicious apple dessert you'll make this fall: a betty.

Apple Betty
Adapted from Gourmet Magazine, September 2000


Since I came across this recipe a week ago, I've made it twice. Two times. In one week. Apple betty and I made our debut at a fun family dinner in Philadelphia, and we were applauded so thoroughly I thought I'd bring her out again to celebrate the recent engagement (!) of my dear friends Jenny and Steve. Betty didn't disappoint on her second outing, even though I used graham cracker crumbs instead of ginger snaps.


Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 - 2 cups homemade or store bought gingersnaps

for shortbread base:

• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  

for apple filling:

• 1 1/4 sticks (1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
• 2 lb tart apples (I like Granny Smith, Golden Delicious or McIntosh)
  
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• juice from 1 lemon
• juice from 1/2 orange
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• 1 cup granulated sugar, divided
  
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

To make shortbread: Pulse the flour, brown sugar, and salt in a food processor until combined. Add the butter and pulse until small lumps form (the dough will not seem to fully come together, but will look sandy). Sprinkle the dough into the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking dish and press evenly to form the base of the apple betty. Bake in the middle rack of the oven for about 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

While the shortbread bakes, grind your gingersnaps and prepare your filling. Place gingersnaps in a food processor and pulse until they look like bread crumbs. Peel, core and slice apples into 1/4-inch slices, and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle apples with 1/3 cup of sugar, ground cinnamon, cloves and ginger. Squeeze citrus juices on top of apples and add vanilla extract. Stir apples with clean hands or a spoon to evenly coat with sugar, juice and spices. In a separate, smaller bowl, stir together flour and 2/3 cup sugar.

Melt the 1 1/4 sticks butter on the stove top or in the microwave.

When the shortbread is out of the oven and still warm, sprinkle it with half of the sugar/flour mixture. Layer the apples, then the remaining sugar/flour mixture, and top with an even sprinkling of ground gingersnaps. Drizzle the melted butter on top of it all, and

bake in upper third of oven, pressing down on filling with a metal spatula halfway through baking, until apples are very tender and gingersnap crumbs are deeply golden, 50 minutes to 1 hour total. Cool 20 minutes in pan on a rack. Serve with generous scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Serves 10-12.

Sort of a Beautiful Place

As it turns out, I was in Seattle last weekend. I'd never been before, and it's sort of a beautiful place, if you're into amazing markets and fresh fish and misty ocean views.


I spent the weekend eating and boating and biking, walking through parks and markets, and surrounding myself with fleece-wearing, messenger-bag-toting computer geniuses. I even stumbled upon some sort of medieval sword fighting slash jousting convention in Gas Works Park (definitely a highlight of the trip - and definitely still kicking myself for not getting a photo).

I touched a starfish at the Seattle Aquarium,


and got completely overwhelmed at Pike Place Market.






I ate the best crumpet I've ever tasted at The Crumpet Shop, a little tea nook and bakery on 1st Avenue by Pike Street.


And y'know what? It barely rained a drop. All that talk about Seattle being all wet and brooding? Lies. They don't want you to know, but Seattle is actually gorgeous and flecked with sunshine (at least, it is in September). That said, I might have to go back and double check the whole weather situation. It'd be a sacrifice, but I think it's one I'm willing to make - for my readers, of course. The trip would totally be a weather-researching thing. I mean, it'd have nothing to do with crumpets, that's for sure.


Crumpets with Butter, Ricotta and Jam

Recipe from The Bread Book by Linda Collister & Anthony Blake

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (230g) bread flour
• 1 2/3 cups (230g) all purpose flour
• ¾ teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 envelope active dry yeast (2 ¼ teaspoons), plus ½ teaspoon sugar
• 2 ¼ cups (510ml) lukewarm water
• 2 teaspoons (10g) salt
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 2/3 cup (140ml) lukewarm milk

• unsalted butter
• whole-milk ricotta cheese
• your favorite jam (I like blackberry)
  

Directions:

Sift together the flours and cream of tartar into a large bowl. Mix the yeast and the sugar with ¾ cup lukewarm water and let stand until foamy, 5 to 10 minutes. Stir in the remaining lukewarm water.

Combine the yeast mixture with the flours in the bowl of an electric mixer set with the paddle attachment. Mix until you get a very thick, but smooth batter. (If you don't have an electric mixer, use a wooden spoon and beat vigorously for about two minutes). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm spot until the batter rises and then falls, about 1 hour.

Add the salt and beat the batter for about 1 minute. Then re-cover the bowl and let stand in a warm spot for 15 to 20 minutes to rest.

Dissolve the baking soda in the lukewarm milk. Then gently stir it into the batter. If the batter seems too stiff, add a bit of lukewarm water to loosen it up a bit. (You'll know if the batter is too stiff if, when you fry up a crumpet, no holes form - crumpets are supposed to be very light and full of holes. No holes = too stiff, add water).

Heat an oiled griddle or frying pan (cast iron works best) over moderately low heat for about 3 minutes until very hot. Put a well-greased crumpet ring (who owns crumpet rings? Feel free to use a round cookie cutter) on the griddle. Spoon or pour 1/3 cup of the batter into the ring. The amount of batter will depend on the size of your crumpet ring (or cookie cutter).

As soon as the batter is poured into the ring, it should begin to form holes. If holes do not form, add a little more lukewarm water, a tablespoon at a time, to the batter in the bowl and try again. If the batter is too thin and runs out under the ring, gently work in a little more all-purpose flour and try again. Once the batter is the proper consistency, continue cooking the crumpets in batches, three or four at a time. As soon as the top surface is set and covered with holes, 7 to 8 minutes, the crumpet is ready to flip over.

To flip the crumpet, remove the ring with a towel or tongs, then turn the crumpet carefully with a spatula. The cooked side should be chestnut brown. Cook the second, holey side of the crumpet for 2 to 3 minutes, or until pale golden. The crumpet should be about ¾ inch thick. Remove the crumpet from the griddle. Grease the crumpet rings well after each use.

While the crumpets are still warm, slather each with a pat of butter, a mound of ricotta and a spoonful of jam. Eat immediately, accompanied by a cup of tea and, if you can find one, a fleece-wearing computer genius.

Makes about 18 crumpets.

Writer Waiting

Oh this shiny new computer--
There just isn't nothin' cuter.
It knows everything the world ever knew.
And with this great computer
I don't need to writin' tutor,
'Cause there ain't a single thing that it can't do.
It can sort and it can spell,
It can punctuate as well.
It can find and file and underline and type.
It can edit and select,
It can copy and correct,
So I'll have a whole book written by tonight
(Just as soon as it can think of what to write).

-Shel Silverstein

A Trooper

If I ever have to spend some time at a hospital, as a patient I mean, I'd like for you to bring me a milkshake. Milkshakes are an appropriate gift any time, of course, but I think being a patient at a hospital, especially, calls for a black and white or, at least, a coffee milkshake.

Grandma seems to like them. Grandma's in the hospital, recovering from some pretty major cardiac surgery. Without going into all the aortic details, I’ll just say that it was scary stuff, and dammit all to hell if all those tubes and wires and nurses and drips and drugs wouldn't just make me lose my mind. But, not Grandma.

She has her good days and bad, but Grams is what we like to call a trooper. Like, with a capital T. She ignores all the wires, the needles, the web of plastic tubes. She got agitated in the Intensive Care Unit, not because she was, well, in the ICU, but because she found out that the Yankees had lost their two-game lead in the AL East. Hooked up to multiple beeping screens and monitors, she smiles at the nurses who come in to prick her already purple fingers (under the guise of "checking sugar levels," load of finger-bruising hogwash, if you ask me), jokes with the physical therapists who make her walk the halls until she's breathless, refuses to flinch while throwing back her daily 12-pill cocktail and, through the entire ordeal, somehow emerges with absolutely flawless hair.

As beautifully as she’s handling the whole thing, it’s not been easy. It’s hard to watch someone you love in pain, being uncomfortably poked and prodded and pushed to exhaustion, and handle the fact that you can do, oh, nothing about it.

Except, of course, bring food. Forget the fact that all of the meds leave Grandma with virtually no appetite – I don’t really care. A milkshake, some applesauce, freshly baked biscotti, home made egg salad – these are things I can control and, well, I’m bringing them. Never mind that it’s usually Gram’s many visitors, and not Gram herself, doing most of the snacking. It makes me feel better to be rolling and cutting biscotti, chopping veggies, to be armed with a milkshake as I roam the stark hospital corridors.

I’m not sure when Grandma will be out of the hospital – hopefully pretty soon – but one thing is for certain – pricked and bruised and wired and tubed she may be, but she’ll definitely never be hungry.

Grandma’s Roast Chicken with Onions and Potatoes

It’s hard having a Grandma in the hospital, but it’s equally hard having a mother whose mother is in the hospital. Mom’s been driving herself into the ground trying to stay on top of her already stressful job and keep an eagle eye on Gram’s care, so I made this chicken to have in the house, where it’d be waiting as an easy and comforting dinner after long days spent shuttling from the office to the hospital and back again.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 medium onions, sliced into half-rings
• ¾ pound baby yellow or Yukon Gold potatoes, sliced in half
• olive oil
• 1 whole chicken (bone-in & skin-on), cut into 8 pieces
• 1 lemon
• 1 bunch fresh thyme
• salt
• pepper

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Toss the onion slices and potatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper, and arrange on the bottom of a large glass baking dish.

Rub the chicken pieces with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Arrange the chicken, skin-side up, on top of the onion/potato bed.

Slice the lemon in half, and squeeze the juice from ½ the lemon over the chicken, onions and potatoes. Cut a few thin slices of lemon and arrange on top of the dish. Squeeze the juice of the remaining piece of lemon onto the casserole.

Sprinkle a generous amount of thyme leaves, and a few whole thyme stems, on top of the chicken, onions and potatoes.

Bake the chicken at 400ºF for about an hour, until the skin gets dark and crispy and the meat’s juices run clear. Serve with a bit of rice and a crisp arugula salad.

Note: this dish can easily be made ahead of time – just let the chicken cool before storing it in the fridge or freezer, and, when you’re ready to eat, cover the dish with foil and reheat in a 350º oven for about ½ hour.

Serves 4-6.

Just Fine By Me

So... that happened.


Summer? Over. Private chef duties? Done like dishes.

vanilla cream cheese frosting covers carrot cake with walnuts

shrimp salad in zucchini ribbons

chocolate chip meringue cookies

vanilla flower cupcakes

tomato artichoke salad cups

chocolate chip pecan blondies

A few days ago, Labor Day came and went, oblivious to its surroundings, including a fake hurricane on Long Island (Earl who?), an accepted proposal (congrats, Laura and Peter!), a subsequent celebratory family dance party (work it, Aunt Lissie) and, finally, the end of my employment in the Hamptons (yes! Not that I didn't like it. I'm just, you know, glad it's over).

To be honest, as jobs go, this one wasn't all bad; I got to cook everyday, and I got paid to do it. I learned how best to accommodate a family with different preferences and tastes, and how to cook for a crowd on short notice. I got to experiment with menu ideas and recipes, and discovered that I make damn good biscotti. And scones. And coconut cake.



Living and working in someone else's house in a town miles from anyone you know and love, though, can feel pretty isolating. And by "pretty isolating," I mean "real effing lonely." So when Labor Day finally rolled around, I left my post in Bridgehampton and scooted as quickly as possible to Gramma's house in Montauk, to soak up the last days of summer with some good food, a hammock, and, best of all, my family.

seared sea scallops & quinoa

fresh cut watermelon

I think I've made it pretty clear how much I love my family, but, if you'll indulge me, I think it bears repeating. My family is big (and getting bigger - welcome, Jeannie and Peter!), loud, and wonderful. We celebrate with gusto. We joke, we eat, we dance around a beer bottle. We watch the sun set on the beach and then sit on Gramma's deck, under the stars, our heads back, watching shooting stars paint the open sky.

Aaron, Katie, Molly, Peter

Ben & Katie

Laura & Peter. He put a ring on it.

Uncle Brad

Aunt Marie, Dana, Aunt Lissie

Matt & Patty

Ben & Aaron

I guess Peter's funny

Laura, Julie & Jeannie

rum & tonic

some cousins

So, as far as summers go? I'd say this one was just fine by me.

Laura and Peter's Engagement Fluke
(see what I did there? Eh? Ehh? Zing.)


Ingredients:

• 2 lbs jumbo fluke fillet (or any other white fish, such as halibut), skin removed
• 3 medium sweet onions
• 1 large bulb fennel and a handful of chopped fennel fronds
• olive oil
• 1.5 tsp dried tarragon
• 1.5 tsp dried thyme
• salt
• fresh ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup white wine or triple sec

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400ºF.

Peel the onions, and cut each one in half. Then, slice the onion halves thinly, into 1/4- or 1/8-inch slices. Set aside. Cut off the fennel fronds and chop a handful of fronds for later. Slice the bulb in half. Use a knife to cut out the tough fennel core, then slice the fennel like the onion, into thin slices. Mix the fennel slices with the onions, and then put a layer of onion/fennel slices at the bottom of a large glass, aluminum or metal baking dish. Drizzle the layer with olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Place the fluke fillet(s) on top of the fennel/onion bed, and drizzle again with olive oil. Season the fish with some salt, pepper, tarragon and thyme. Cover the fish with the remaining fennel and onion, and repeat the olive oil drizzling & salt/pepper seasoning process. Pour the wine or triple sec around the fish fillet, and sprinkle the fennel fronds on top of it all.

Place the baking dish in the preheated oven, and bake for 20-30 minutes, until the fish is just cooked through and the fennel/onions are crisp at the edges.

Serve with sautéed zucchini, grilled corn, and a diamond ring, if at all possible.

Serves 4.