Three-Ingredient Sauce for Steak and Other Delicious Things

Oh, the end of May! I love it so much. It's like the Thursday night of the whole school year, is how I feel. You're not done yet, but you start to enjoy anticipating being done so profoundly that this moment might be even better than the later doneness itself because the whole summer is still to come, dawning in front of us like a golden orb of promise and lazy mornings and NO SCHOOL LUNCHES TO MAKE and camping and popsicles and oooooh, I can't wait.

The obligatory May cigar-vase photo. Didn't I just post one, like, yesterday? When the children were still small and peachy?

We spent Memorial Day with lots of our closest friends, and I am in such a strange state, such a vibrant wabi-sabi mix of excitement and melancholy (What? Me? I know!), that I spent the whole day accusing passing hordes of children of growing up too fast. Luckily, I was not alone in this project. All my friends feel the same way. "Look at him!" we cry. "Look at her!" about each other's long, lanky, hirsute, broad, pimply, gorgeous, mustachioed, breathtaking, bosomy children, even though it's only been, like, two days since we were all together. I cannot take it. I can't. And we've been to three funerals in three months, and that's only the half of it, and every time the wind blows, the dogwood blossoms snowfall to the ground, even though I have waited all year for that tree to bloom. Even though that tree bloomed just a second ago, and a second before that, and it will bloom again in the wink of an eye, the children all another foot taller. What?

What does this have to do with Three-Ingredient Sauce for Steak? Oh, nothing, I guess. Except that steak feels like such a harbinger of summer. Even though I cooked it in a pan, because it was raining and it breaks my heart too much to watch Michael at the grill with an umbrella. 

These are marvelous, wonderful skirt steaks. Oh, they are so, so good. I heat the pan on nearly high heat for TEN MINUTES before salting the bottom heavily with coarse salt and then adding the steaks. TEN MINUTES. This pan. The love of my life.

Did I mention salt?

But the sauce? I can't describe why it's so good. In the Venn diagram, it would almost entirely overlap with the wasabi-kicked soy sauce you'd dip your sushi in. 

I picked the only easy recipe in the book.

The mustard--and you really do have to use that fancy Colman's in a yellow tin--makes it crazy, nose-clearingly hot. Not spicy. Hot in the sinus way. And then the soy is there, mellow and salty and rich. And then the rice vinegar comes in all bright and floral. It makes steak sing. And the song it's singing is, "I am so fucking delicious, you are going to die!"

We are 3. Yes. 3.

The sauce is also excellent on plain brown rice, on edamame, and on fish, which is what it was invented for. Where I first had it, in fact, was at a restaurant called Roy's that my parents took Michael and me to in Hawaii, oh, 6 or 7 thousand years ago. And what I had it on was, at the time, the single most transformative meal of my entire life: Blackened Ahi with Soy Mustard Sauce and Beurre Blanc. I can hardly write about it still. It made me feel like I'd never actually eaten anything before that tasted good, and like I might never again afterwards. I'm sure it sounds very 1993 now, but wow. I talked about that meal every hour, every day, for years, to the point where my thoughtful brother finally got me the Roy's cookbook, to try to assuage my longing. And guess what I've made from the cookbook? This single 3-ingredient sauce. Not the whole plate of food, with the fancy tuna. Not any of the other recipes, with the slivered papaya or the flying fish roe or whatever. Just this one thing. And it was completely worth it.

What about me? Nobody even mentioned salt!

Three-Ingredient Steak Sauce

aka Roy’s Soy-Mustard Sauce

Okay, there are four ingredients, but are you really going to count water?

1/4 cup mustard powder, preferably Colman’s

2 tablespoons hot water

2 tablespoons [unseasoned] rice wine vinegar

1/4 cup soy sauce

Mix the mustard powder and hot water together in a cup [or small bowl] to form a paste. Let sit for a few minutes “to allow the flavor and heat to develop.” [Wah? I do it anyway.] Add the vinegar and soy sauce, mix together, and “pass through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl.” [I skip the sieve, but I do use a whisk.] Cover and “refrigerate for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to develop.” [I tend forget this whole 1-hour part, but oh well.]

Chewy Chocolate-Almond Cookies

Hm. This looks like a grainy oatmeal-raisin cookie, and, honestly, that couldn't be further from the genre here. These are sticky-chewy-chocolatey, and grain-free, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Not that I don't love a good, grainy oatmeal-raisin cookie.

I made these cookies because my friend Nicole brought them over, and they were so insanely crispy and chewy and teeth-stickingly marvelous that I hunted down the recipe from her Pinterest board. Now, oddly, Nicole’s cookies were pale beige and smooth. Mine came out dark brown and nubbly.

Perhaps it was because she didn’t use coconut sugar? Because we used different types of almond butter? No matter, though, as both versions are simply amazing.

Obligatory stacked-cookie shot. Again with the whole-wheat appearance. Trust me, okay?

One disclosure: even though I got all the big-ticket ingredients at Trader Joe’s, these are not inexpensive cookies to make. 

Nonetheless, they have a great deal of food value—protein, healthy fats, phytochemicals—so I think of them as a good investment and a perfect lunch-box cookie. Plus, did I mention how amazing they are?

 

Chewy Chocolate-Almond Cookies

This recipe is adapted from the Slim Palate. I did not sprinkle these with flakey salt, like she recommends, and I’m not sure why. (Okay, it’s because I tasted the raw dough, and it seemed like it was already perfectly salted—which it was!) If you’ve made these peanut butter cookies before, the dough is a lot like that—oily and weird, but the cookies bake up beautifully. These are low-glycemic and gluten-free. And Paleolithic. Because nobody was as healthy as those early hominids, what with their ripe old average lifespan of 33.

1 cup creamy almond butter

¾ cup coconut sugar (or regular granulated sugar)

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon kosher salt (more if your almond butter is unsalted)

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

½ teaspoon almond extract (This is my addition. I like the little bit of green-almond flavor to balance the roastedness of the nut butter.)

4 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped, or chocolate chips or chunks (I used ¾ cup Trader Joe’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks)

Heat the oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. (I used Silpats.)

Use a wooden spoon to beat the almond butter and coconut sugar together in a medium bowl, then beat in the baking soda and salt. Use a fork to beat together the egg, egg yolk, and extracts together in a small bowl or mug, then add the egg mixture to the almond-butter mixture and mix well. Stir in the chocolate. (The dough will seem weird—pasty and oily—and that’s fine.)

Use a cookie scoop to measure out rounded blobs and space them well apart on the cookies sheets.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, until just set and browning around the edges. (I’d say “don’t overbake them,” but, then, I’ll bet you weren’t planning to overbake them.) Cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

A few books, a game, ribs, an appearance, some begging, etc.

I thought she'd never ask.

Um, did I mention how I'm going to be at this event in Concord, MA tomorrow evening, with the fantabulous Suzy Becker and Nancy Aronie? I did? Oh. Okay. If you want to come, you'll come, I'm guessing. WINE AND CHEESE. Just saying.

via NPR

Meanwhile, I have been on a tremendous and wonderful reading jag. This book. And this book. And this book. And this book. So, so, so good. All of them. Dept. of Speculation was so insanely brilliantly heartbreakingly stunning that I actually read it again right after I finished it. And the Roz Chast. I mean, my God. I think I pre-ordered it in 1987, and it was totally worth the wait. The Curtis Sittenfeld novel is about psychic twin sisters, but along the way there is some of the best and funniest writing about parenting I've read (including the fact that the two-year-old's lovey is a wooden puzzle piece of baloney). And Michael Cunningham's book reminded me a little of his A Home at the End of the World, which is one of my all-time-favorite reads. You won't be disappointed with any of them. (Unless you are, and then I'm sorry!)

There's one other weird book I want to recommend, especially if you have a stop-motion animation fanatic in your life for whom you need to buy a present, and it's The Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox. I'll tell you: the book kind of demystifies why that movie is so good, and it's all in the details. There's even a page that shows all the little swatches for Mr. Fox's ascot fabric. I mean, seriously. We get it out of the library and simply love studying all the sets and props and costumes. It helps the kids understand that stop-motion is an agonizing, snail's-pace labor of love, even for the professionals.

I also have a new board game to recommend! My brother sent it to us, and it's FANTASTIC. Plus, it plays like a long game, but only really takes half an hour or so. 7 Wonders. It's kind of like a cross between Stone Age and San Juan and Dominion. How's that for Dorksville comparisons to other games you've never heard of? Sorry. But it's engagingly strategic without being nail-bitingly stressful, which can be a nice change of pace to, say, the merrily unbearable Agricola. (Plus, we had the excitement of receiving a misprinted card! And getting a new one sent to us in the mail!!! Never a dull etc.)

That's it. Except for my crazy, crazy, crazy good ribs recipe, which was in Relish magazine. Forgive the absence of humbleness. They're too good.

More soon. I hope you are well and LILACS enjoying DOGWOOD the VIOLETS spring.

Miso-Sriracha Deviled Eggs (to die for)

I remember years and years ago—actually it was almost ten years ago, kill me—when Ben was jumping on a bed with his friends Ava and Zaim, but he was afraid to jump off the bed like they were doing. And the kids coached and cajoled, encouraged and praised courage, until Ben triumphed. I remember thinking at the time that it was such an amazing metaphor for friendship, even as it was actually just friendship in action, and not a metaphor at all. Love each other up into the air. Right?

I keep trying to pitch a piece about friendship. The gist of the piece I want to write is this: that our job as a friend is to say a million times, in a million different ways, “You’re perfect” or “You’re okay” or even “I know, but I like that about you.” For some reason, there are no editors interested in that piece. Is it too obvious? I feel like it should be, but I’m not so sure.

I’m thinking of this today, because last night we attended the reading event of Birdy’s little writing group, and if ever I have witnessed perfect community in miniature, this was it. The kids read their stories, their crazy, amazing, brilliantly out-there stories, full of candy-bearing reptiles and dead mothers and creepy mothers and cheese and friendship and bad mothers. And when they weren’t reading, they listened and praised, they lovingly introduced each other, and they laughed loudly at the funny parts, and they testified. Oh, I love this story! and This is the scary part. and Yay you! I am not cynical. But if I were, boy would that have been the perfect antidote. Love each other up into the air.

Of course, then I had to wipe my sentimental eyes and get down to the serious, narcissistic business of finding someone to photograph the dish I’d brought to the post-reading potluck. Luckily, my talented and enthusiastic friend Chris obliged, turning his lens from the thronged group of happy young writers to the plate of boiled eggs, like I asked him to. (These are amazing, they're beautiful, he said, like a pornographer, and then tasted one and made me feel like a miracle worker for having made them. Love each other up into the air.)

photo courtesy of Chris Perry

Thank you, Chris.

photo courtesy of Chris Perry

Sriracha again! And miso! And mayonnaise. Please bear with me through my latest round of flavor obsessions. I’m sure it won’t be long. These are, simply, insane: creamy, dreamy, spicy, rich umami bombs. I know you might not have pickled beans sitting around, but if you do, sliver them up for topping, along with your garden’s first chives.

Miso-Sriracha Deviled Eggs

Makes 24 deviled eggs (i.e. not enough)

I adapted this recipe from Martha Stewart, but tinkered with the seasoning. Deviled eggs are so, so good and nearly unruinable that you should feel free to substitute away, omitting ingredients you don’t like (sriracha) or don't have (miso) and swapping in ones you do (wasabi, say, or soy sauce). The thing is? At bottom, you could use just the mayo, vinegar, and a little extra salt, and they would still be good. But these? These are sublime. (Note: The weird amounts represent me trying to account for the way I end up adding a little more of this or that after I first measure out the amounts.)

12 extra-large eggs

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon white miso

1-2 teaspoons sriracha

2 teaspoons white vinegar

½ teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)

Slivered pickled beans and/or chives for garnish

Put the eggs in a large pot and cover them with water. Bring them to a boil over high heat, then turn the heat off, cover the pot, and leave the eggs for 10 minutes. Drain them, then run cold water over them, adding a tray of ice if you like, until they are cold. Peel them, laying them on paper towels as you go. (If they don't peel well? It's likely that they're too fresh. Consider the freshness a silver lining to the dinged-up eggs.)

Slice the eggs in half, wiping the knife as you go if you want the whites to stay white (I would not bother for my plain old family, but bothered for An Event). Pop the yolks out into the bowl of a food processor, add the mayo, miso, sriracha, vinegar, and salt, and process until very smooth and creamy, 1-2 minutes. Taste the filling. It should be just a little bit too salty and flavorful, because you need it to season the plain old whites. Re-season accordingly. You can also just mash up the yolks and seasonings with a fork, which is what I would typically do. Again: Event.)

Scrape the filling into a small Ziploc bag, seal it, and snip off one corner. Squeeze the bag to fill each white half with the yolk mixture. (Alternately, you can spoon the filling in--but I swear the bag is easier.) Top with garnishes and serve, ideally without needing to refrigerate the eggs first—but, obviously, refrigerating them if you need to.

Obsessed: Spicy-Sour Edamame

I can see that this won't make your mouth water, what with it being a bowl of hairy green pods, but it should.

Oh, you guys, I so loved your comments on that last post. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you for treating me like your wayward but beloved cousin who is finally making good, and I love you for wanting to pre-order a book that is two years from existing, and I love you for being so. . . loving is really the word that comes to mind. Thank you.

But you are here for a recipe, I know. And I have one.

Do you live nearby? If you do, and you haven’t been to The Quarters yet, you are missing out. It’s all retro pinball and arcade games (everything 25-cents a pop), and then there’s great beer and excellent bar food: deep-friend Brussels sprouts with spicy mayo, perfect sweet-potato fries, mini hotdogs (veggie dogs, if you prefer) with toppings like kimchi and mac and cheese. 

I love it all, but the thing that surprised me the first time, because there was so much deep-fried deliciousness that was inherently more exciting to me, was the edamame. I could not stop eating it—even when there was a basket of fries literally next to it on the table.

This is meant to be more inspiringly simple-looking than unappealingly ruined-seeming.

 I wrote The Quarters guys beggingly for the recipe, and got this back: “It's a mix of lime juice, sriracha, water, salt n pepper. Glad you enjoy!” So this is my interpretation, below. I confess (heresy, I know) to not loving sriracha typically, even though I love almost every other hot sauce. But I love it here. And don’t be dismayed by the amount of salt: you’re seasoning the pods heavily, so that when you bite the beans out of them, they’re seasoned too, if that makes sense.

Trader Joe's.

I cannot enough recommend that you try this. 

The edamame are sensational, in the sense of crazy good and in the sense of there being a lot of sensation: they’re too sour and too spicy in a way that everyone in my family loves. You’ll have to see if you do too. Thank you for everything, Quarters.

All gone. 

The Quarters’ Spicy-Sour Edamame

For this recipe, you want the Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers kind of edamame that’s still got the pods.

1 (1-pound) bag frozen edamame

1 tablespoon sriracha

Freshly squeezed juice of 1 lime

2 teaspoons kosher salt (or half as much table salt)

Lots of freshly ground black pepper

Steam the edamame until they are tender. I do this in one of those UFO steamers, the kind that’s always weirdly missing one of its hinged segments, over an inch of boiling water, for about 10 minutes, even though the bag says “5.” (Then again, I don’t really like my pasta al dente either, so use your judgment.)

Meanwhile, whisk together the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add the hot edamame and toss well to coat. Eat.

 

Perfect Quinoa Bowls

The superfood of the Andes is, as everybody knows, kosher for Passover because. . . Come on! Those Andean Jews weren't about to be growing any treyf quinoa. Natch.

So. Perfect Quinoa Bowls. Yes, this used to be called "Make Your Own (Quinoa) Sundaes," and yes it's a recipe you've seen before. But it is such a persistent favorite that I'm putting it up on this site, to claim for my very own. The quinoa-cooking method alone is worth a look. I never make it any other way. [Note: I backdate recipes when I add them. So all the older stuff will say "November 2005," but it's not really from then. It's just so it doesn't gum up the current posts. If that makes sense.]

Chappy Pesach, dear ones.

In other news: how about Goldfinch winning the Pulitzer? Right? But you already read and loved that and you and your dad already complained to each other at length about the ending, and you need another book. So read Home Away. It's like A Year in Provence, but refracted through anguished domestic comedy and very mild alcoholism. In other words, my life (except in France). Plus, every time you read about the husband character "Bill," you can imagine the guy who lived next door to you freshman year, the one who was crazy nice and kind of dorky and later turned out to have been a secret hunky catch all along. In other words, Bill is a real person, and he lived next door to me freshman year.

Also (Lean in for this. I am going to whisper, because of my superstitious nature.): I am publishing another book! With Little, Brown! And it's because of you, it just frankly is. When I was making a long and labored case to my new, lovely, wonderful editor there, I sent so many cut-and-pastes of things you'd written--things like "Write another book!" and "What's with not ever writing another book?"--that she finally said, kindly and gently, that she thought she had enough material of that type. (I omitted all the comments that were like, "Enough already with the mildly alcoholic comedic angst. I just need a chicken recipe.") So, as always, thank you, thank you, thank you. The book should be called: The Kids: They're great. They're annoying. I'm afraid they're going to die. Instead it's going to be called, in a similar vein, Field Guide to Catastrophic Happiness. It will come out in spring of 2016. Knock wood. Thank you, my darlings. xo

Miso-Lime Coleslaw

Coleslaw is such an April recipe—a bridge from the slushy shores of winter cold-storage leftovers to the sunny banks of spring picnics and barbecuing. It feels wrong to keep at it with the spongy turnips and the thick-cored parsnips, what with the tinkling thaw and the peepers starting up so gamely. But, then, there aren’t actually asparagus yet, at least not here, and there aren’t peas or radishes, either, or mint or, really, anything. Just a couple inch-long chives, but Birdy already ate them all. We do still have cabbage, though. And coleslaw just feels kind of optimistic.

You don’t need a recipe, I know, but this is a good one anyway, and I offer it with a special nod to the folks with one or more vegetarians in the house. Because miso has become my go-to vegetarian funkenator. Times when I might typically turn to anchovies, fish sauce, or bacon, I reach for miso instead, and count on its profound savoriness to change it up a little, to turn a recipe from bland to lip-smackingly edgy. 

My boyfriend.

Not that I’m a coleslaw snob, because I’m not: I like it sweet and mayonnaisey or sharp and vinegary and my favorite, back in the day, used to be the finely-chopped highly-celery-seeded version you could get at KFC. (Yum.) This one is bright and citrusy, but with a little of that miso baritone humming along the bottom. It’s a creamy, delicious foil for burgers or pork, or for veggie burgers or tofu of all kinds. Until asparagus: coleslaw!

p.s. I am compiling all those awesome book recommendations into a list. More soon.

Miso-Lime Coleslaw

I wish I’d taken a picture of the cilantro I used. It was just the rubber-banded-together stems after I’d already used all the lovely leaves in something else. But the stems were just perfect here. This coleslaw would benefit from something crunchy, such as toasted pumpkin seeds.

6 cups shredded cabbage (I still love, and use constantly, this cheapo mandolin)

1 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)

½ cup slivered cilantro leaves and/or stems

1/3 cup Hellmann’s or Real Foods mayonnaise

1-2 tablespoons white miso (I love, and use exclusively, Miso Master Mellow White Miso)

The juice and grated zest of 1 lime

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

A dash of something spicy (I used Serrano-spiked vinegar, but hot sauce is a good idea too)

Additional salt and lime juice or vinegar

In a large bowl, sprinkle the salt over the cabbage and squeeze it around with your hands until it feels juicy. Leave it while you whisk together first the mayo and the miso, and then whisk in the lime juice and zest, the sugar, the vinegar, and whatever spicy thing you might like to add.

If the cabbage has given up any liquid drain it, then fold in the dressing along with the cilantro. Taste and adjust the seasonings, adding more acid or salt or miso or spice if it needs a punch. Serve right away or chill it. If you chill it first, then stir and taste it again before you serve it.

still here, just thinking

should we compile all those amazing book recommendations into a list? how do we do a pdf here? do we like my use of the word "we"? more soon. . . in the meantime, we could always make spelted donut cake.

Books and other diversions (The "spring" edition of linkapalooza)

Do you live near Boston? I am thrilled, embarrassed, and fretful to report that my friend Suzy Becker, author of the brilliant One Good Egg and the brilliant and bestselling All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat (now in its godzillian printing), and her friend Nancy Aronie, and I are going to be in “conversation” together in May. Less important than the actual going is the buying of the tickets and the communicating to the Concord Museum folks that you’re my people, buying tickets because of me, and Suzy and Nancy aren’t the only people selling tickets.

On Writing, Life, and the Origin of Chicken Fingers

Thursday, May 15, 2014, 7PM - 9PM

Authors Nancy Aronie, Suzy Becker, and Catherine Newman invite you to join them for an evening of casual conversation. These nationally acclaimed authors will read from their own works (and each others’), share their thoughts on all manner of things, and answer questions – “theirs, yours, and some real doozies from this year’s MCAS.”  Wine and cheese at 7:00 p.m., program begins at 7:15; book signing to follow. $10 Concord Museum Members, $15 Non-members. Ticket price includes wine and cheese. Tickets may be purchased online or by calling (978) 369-9763, ext. 216. 

Phew. Other things.

I have a piece in the current issue of Brain, Child, and it’s about a hibernaculum [shudder]. (That's just a link to the "teaser," i.e. a photo of me in pasties.)

Do you remember how I mentioned Colorku at the holidays?

Well. I am reporting back that it is completely excellent. All four of us love it, and the level of challenge-feeling ranges from a kind of brain-churning competence to something like a tangled, numbing conviction that that there is something wrong with your mental processing apparatus. We work on it alone, or in pairs or clumps, and it is deeply engaging and fun and companionable. I cannot recommend it enough. Plus, the pieces are painted wood, and there is something very beautiful about them. The pastel ones remind me of Dutch mints 

to the point that I have to actively stop myself from putting one in my mouth.

 

Also from the holidays: my parents gave me (okay, I may have specifically asked for it) the Roz Chast collection Theories of Everything, and I cannot say how much pleasure we’ve gotten out it. Okay, maybe I can try to say. No. I can’t. Only this: every single day after school, Ben and I lie on the couch and read it together, and every single cartoon makes us laugh. Her memoir is coming out soon, and I preordered it, which is a strong indicator of my feelings, given my propensity to loiter around hoping that someone will send me a review copy of everything. (You can read what looks like an excerpt here.)

Another book recommendation, this one from Birdy: Wonder by R.J. Palacio. She devoured it in a nearly unprecedented way. When I asked her to describe it for you, she said, “Like a review or like a blurb?” Hello, child of a writer. Here’s what she gave me: "August Pullman tries to make it through 5th grade with friends, foes, and surprises. It's an amazing book that you just don't feel like putting down." This is so literally true that Birdy had to stay home from school one day last week to finish it. Hello, child of a reader. Not that her description doesn’t totally capture the plot, but, well, it kind of doesn’t totally, so here’s this from Amazon: “August Pullman was born with a facial deformity that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face.” Do you have any book recs for Birdy? She has also recently read and loved two of my own tween favorites: Bridge to Terabithia and The Brothers Lionheart. (Not that there were tweens back in the dark ages, when we were wringing out our menstrual rags in a bucket.)

 

I myself read and loved Valerie’s Martin’s latest, The Ghost of the Mary Celeste, which is a historical novel about nineteenth-century ghost ship, communication with the dead, and Arthur Conan Doyle. The ship itself is, weirdly, kind of the missing center of the book, not by accident, and it makes for an engagingly disjointed read, if that makes sense. If you’ve never read anything by her before, Trespass is my favorite and is a nearly perfect novel, IMHO. (I wanted to write IHOP.)

Frank Cottrell Boyce. He was not exactly driven to writing by homeliness, if you know what I mean.

Finally, on a friend’s recommendation we have now listened to more or less everything on tape by Frank Cottrell Boyce, and we have loved every single book: Cosmic, Millions, Framed, and the short but wonderful The Unforgotten Coat. He is English and funny and deeply kind, and the books are all different, but they’re all about the kinds of awesome, quirky kids who obsessively memorize details of saints’ lives, say, or note in a huge journal every car that passes. Some of our own recent car trips, even long ones, have passed in a blur of pleasure. 

Please, share anything relevant (or irrelevant!). We are, as you know, always looking to read, listen to, and play new things. xo

Whole-Grain Cornbread

As you may know, we eat a lot of beans. A. Lot. Of. Beans. as the young people say these days. Sometimes it’s rice and beans! And sometimes it’s just beans! Perfectly cooked pintos, say. (Don’t make me get all pressure cooker on you again.) It’s always exciting. I put out chopped raw onions, a little cruet of olive oil, some feta, fresh herbs, hot sauce, flaky sea salt—and everyone gets to top their own beans. Could there be a more delightful dinner? (Don’t answer that.)

But if company is coming, I occasionally lose my nerve around the serving of Just Beans in a Bowl! I do. And in those cases, corn bread is the card up my bean-loving sleeve. Corn bread is a crowd pleaser—pleasing crowds of children and grown-ups alike. Plus, it’s basically a thirty-minute round-trip excursion: into the oven by the time the oven preheats, then baked in another 15. 

A warm slab of sweet, grainy cornbread with a melting pat of butter? I mean, come on. Even if dinner is a kind of soup that you don’t like, the corn bread will work its good-natured magic on your meal mood, and you will find yourself saying, “I didn’t think the turnips and the parsnips would taste that good together? But it’s not even terrible.” While cheerful corn crumbs spray from your pleasant expression.

 

This corn bread is yet another example of how, for me, roughing up a white-flour recipe into a whole-grain recipe is win-win. It’s not at all an oh, well, it’s like chewing a cardboard-flavored wedge of particleboard but at least it’s healthy situation. Instead, it’s a nutty, deeply-flavored, tender-crumbed wonder, with a just-shy-of-custardy middle (you could bake this trait out of it, if you like) and a whiff of browned butter. Cheap, easy, wholesome, delicious.

Whole-Grain Cornbread

Serves 8-12

This is a loose adaptation of Joy of Cooking’s Northern Corn Bread recipe. The spelt is me, of course, and, also of course, I am using the maximum recommended allowances of butter and sugar. They call for ½ milk and ½ buttermilk, but I love the flavor you get from using all buttermilk—also the tender, almost custardy crumb of the baked cornbread. Leftovers, toasted and buttered, are sublime.

1 ¼ cups cornmeal (IF you can get freshly ground cornmeal, you will be ruined for life)

¾ cups whole spelt flour THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE (Okay, you could actually use white flour, but why would you?)

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1/3 cup sugar (feel free to use less)

1 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)

1 1/3 cups buttermilk

2 eggs

3 tablespoons butter, melted and slightly cooled

More butter

Heat the oven to 425 and put a 9- or 10-inch cast iron skillet in to heat. (Alternately, grease a 9- by 9-inch baking pan or dish, or the equivalent.)

Whisk together the dry ingredients.

Whisk together the buttermilk and eggs.

Fling a knob of butter (1 tablespoon, let’s say) into the pan that’s heating. If you’re using a greased pan, don’t do anything.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, start folding, then dump in the butter and fold together until the dries just disappear.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, which should be coated with browning, sizzling butter, and bake until it’s browned and seems springy, or at least not squidgy when you press the top (or stick a toothpick into it). Start checking it at 15 minutes, which is when I usually take mine out, even though the recipe says 20-25. Maybe this is because of preheating the pan, which is not in the recipe. A cold pan will doubtless take a bit longer.