You Wanna Talk or Eat?

So two guys walk into a grocery store on the Greek island of Symi. One guy says to the other guy, "Hey, what are those two greek citizens arguing about?" The other guy laughs and says, "They aren't arguing...they're buying grapes." True story.

It is only a slight overstatement to say that nearly everywhere we went in Greece people were apparently buying grapes, because they were talking loud and getting louder, talking at the same time as everyone else in the vicinity, and gesturing wildly. In restaurants, on the street, in stores, inside their houses...loud, emotional, seemingly important conversations were happening all around us. Other than the sheer number of stray cats in that wonderful country, the emotional investment that people put into everyday conversation was perhaps the biggest culture shock we encountered on our trip to Greece.

On the other hand...I met an older couple from the upper midwest today and the husband declared that he and his wife were "not loud talkers." I hadn't asked him if they were, but he felt the need/desire/importance to inform me about that aspect of their interpersonal communication style. True, I do spend 8 hours a day as someone to whom people may feel it is important to admit this fact, so it was not inappropriate that he told me about their quiet habit, but it wasn't the fact that he told me they weren't loud talkers, it was the sense of pride I felt he implied when he said it. "We are not loud talkers." Okay.

We...my family...on the other hand, cannot make that claim. We most definitely are loud talkers. And please, infer neither a sense of pride in that statement nor a shred of shame...it is simply a well known fact. I come from a family of five - two sisters, me, mother and father. And were I to try to tease out the loudness gene, I believe that mother and younger sister would not be carriers. They talk, plenty, at a loudness level within the normal range. Father, older sister and I make up for that. 1 + 1 + 1 does not in this case equal 3 speakers. Somehow...be it competition, familial acoustics, or a deep seated survival instinct...when one of us enters a room already occupied with one of the other louds the volume more than doubles. But it's not merely loudness for loudness sake...it's excitement, enthusiasm, discovery, momentum, laughter. Nik once made the observation that my father and sister make more noise doing a crossword puzzle than most people do watching a football game...right, like Nik has ever watched a football game.

And I really don't think that the greek shoppers felt stronger emotions about grapes than did my midwestern quiet couple. Nor do I think that the quiet talkers lived lives of blunted emotions, compared to their Mediterranean counterparts. It's about expression, learning, and comfort, and culture. Remember that annoying perfume commercial from the 70's? If you want to get someone's attention...whisper. Try that in Greece (or in my family) and you end up with zip.

...So a speech therapist and a nurse walk into a Russian patient's room. The nurse says, "Hey what is that Russian man's family so mad about?" The speech therapist laughs and says, "They aren't mad, they're just talking about grapes." True story.

Chocolate Bobka

Based on Chocolate Coffee Cake, Pastries From The La Brea Bakery

(Makes 2)

Dough

Milk.................................1/2 cup

Yeast (instant).....................3 tsp

AP Flour............................3 cups

Sugar...............................1/4 cup

Salt.................................1 tsp

Baking Powder....................1/4 tsp

Spice...............................1/4 tsp nutmeg, cinnamon, or allspice

Butter..............................8 oz, cubed

Eggs................................2, lightly beaten

1. Combine the dry ingredients in bowl on stand mixer.

2. Add the butter and beat with paddle until butter is in pea-sized pieces.

3. Add the milk and the eggs. Beat briefly until dough comes together.

4. Knead a few turns on counter, form into large rectangle (3/4 inch thick), wrap in plastic and let chill for several hours.

Filling

Sour Cream.......................1 cup

Chocolate Cake Crumbs.........1 cup

Bittersweet Chocolate..........2 1/2 oz, chopped

Egg.................................1, beaten

Assembly

1. Roll dough to 1/4-inch thick rectangle on floured surface.

2. Spread dough with sour cream, then top with crumbs and chocolate. Press the crumbs and chocolate gently into the sour cream and dough.

3. Roll the rectangle towards you, with the long side of the rectangle facing you, keeping it tight and even, lengthening it slightly as you roll. Seal edge. The log should be about 24 inches long when done.

4. Cut the log in half (2 12-inch pieces). Working with one piece at a time, slice the log in half horizontally. Place the end of the pieces together at the top, diagonally, and twist them together gently, leaving the cut sides at the top. Place on lined baking sheet. Repeat with second piece of dough. Cover with plastic and let rise 2 1/2 hours in warm place. It will not double in size, but will be slightly puffy.

5. Brush with beaten egg and generously top with streusel.

6. Bake at 350 for 1 hour, until streusel is nicely browned.

Ahhhh, Gazpacho

I don't have a problem with turning on the stove or the oven in the summer, though I know that some people do. "Too hot...heats up the house, blah blah blah." That's why we have air conditioning, right? And of course, every year you hear somebody drag out the old "fry an egg on the sidewalk" line. A friend from grad school did actually try to do that very thing, in what was probably a heat induced delirium. She had a smooth flagstone walk in front of her house (old railroad housing that had only swamp cooling in the summer and no heating in the winter) so one blistering July afternoon she cracked an egg directly on the rocks - it did cook on the bottom and around the edges, but I wouldn't say that it was actually fried. If I remember correctly, the yolk was very runny (e.g. very runny).

And then there are those off-the-grid folks who set up their solar ovens every Sunday afternoon to sun-roast a chicken or braise a brisket in their front yards. And, sure, every now and then we used to dust off the Coleman stove and make bacon and eggs and boiled coffee in the backyard on a Saturday morning - but that was more about pretending we were camping (and smelling bacon frying outside - the best!) than any honest attempt to keep the house cool.


I love the heat, but there are a few days each summer when even I find it oppressive. The days when the air feels dead it's so hot...when we take a water bottle with us just to walk to the end of the driveway to get the mail...when it's even too hot to get in the pool. And it's those days when I make gazpacho. Ahhh, gazpacho. In our house it's never just "gazpacho", it's always Ahhh, Gazpacho. Well, for me anyway...for Nik, not so much. In the wonderful Almodovar movie, one of the women on the verge of a nervous breakdown makes a batch of gazpacho, to which she adds a bottle or two of sleeping pills with the intention of killing herself. Events transpire, suicides are delayed, gazpacho is eaten, characters are sedated...but most memorable (to me) is the oft-repeated comment whenever a character finds the gazpacho in the 'fridge..."Ahhh, gazpacho." Indeed.


Fresh, crunchy, savory, spicy, cool...and so easy to put together. It is the perfect no-cook meal when it is too hot to do anything more than turn the page in that book you've been reading all summer. With a glass of white wine or a cold beer...ahhh!




Of course, this is a baking blog, and gazpacho isn't even cooked, so here's the baking part of this post. Croutons.

As if gazpacho isn't crunchy enough, we always top it with a handful of croutons. If you've got a leftover half a loaf of bread in the house (I've been using slightly stale pan de mie), just cube it up, toss it with generous amounts of dried thyme and oregano, ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, some smoked paprika if you have it, a bit of garlic powder, salt and olive oil (to slightly moisten), spread them out on a baking sheet and put them in a 225 degree oven for an hour or so until they are crunchy.











Ahhh, Gazpacho

Bell Pepper........................a handful, finely chopped
Celery..............................a handful, finely chopped
Cucumber, peeled................a handful, finely chopped
Onion (red or sweet).............a small handful, finely chopped
Parsley.............................1 Tablespoon, chopped
Garlic...............................1-2 cloves, grated
Red Wine Vinegar.................2 1/2 Tablespoons
Olive Oil............................2 1/2 Tablespoons
Spicy V-8 Juice....................12 oz.
Worchestershire Sauce...........2 Tablespoons
Habenero Hot Sauce..............2-3 shakes
Crushed Tomatoes................28 oz can
Salt..................................1 Tablespoon

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl.
Let chill for at least 2 hours.
Top with croutons.
Enjoy!

A Blank Slate

Egg whites. Say no more...egg whites are, second only to the little critters commonly known as yeast, probably my favorite baking ingredient. Yes, yes, yes, of course I love chocolate...but I don't think of chocolate as an ingredient...it's more of an essential part of life. Chocolate is, depending on the day, a craving, a medicine, a vice, an indulgence, an overindulgence, a need. Egg whites, I daresay, are rarely any of those things, yet they are truly wondrous..

I'm not talking about that flat, rubbery flap that surrounds the yolk on a fried egg. Yes, certainly that is an egg white...but that is a sad example of this multifaceted ingredient. Start with the act of separating the yolk from the white. We probably all were taught to slosh the egg between the two halves of the jagged, sharp, broken egg shell, letting the white drop into a bowl while the yolk is transferred back and forth. That's one way to do it, but let me offer an alternative that is more effective, safer and so much more fun...First, watch the beautiful movie The Hours and take note when Meryl Streep is separating eggs as she prepares for the party...instead of using egg shells to separate the yolks/whites, she uses her hands. Her hands! The whites fall into the bowl below as she gently moves the egg from hand to hand, and she is left cradling the yolk in her palm. That is how to separate an egg. Why? (other than the fact that Meryl Streep does it that way?) 1) You are much less likely to burst the yolk on a sharp corner of shell; B) in the unlikely event that you are dealing with a salmonella-coated egg shell, you are not going to repeatedly dip your egg white in contaminated shell as you pour it back and forth between halves, and 3) it is completely sensual and hands-on to handle a raw egg like that. Love it. Love it.

For those who are fat-phobic, egg whites are a gift. Other than a few assorted minerals, an egg white is about simply about 10% protein and about 90% water. Who can argue with that?!

But that is not why I put egg whites near the top of my list. Egg whites are a blank slate, a canvas, a medium, a slimy bowl of culinary possibility. Think about it...souffles (savory and sweet), pavlovas, meringue, 7-minute frosting, divinity, marshmallows, buttercream, genoise...to name but a few of the foods that have egg albumin as their central pivotal ingredient. Angel Food Cake, for heaven's sake! Egg whites are the key, but without screaming "taste me, taste me, I'm an egg white!!!" And it is that transparency and versatility that makes it a star for me. Kinda like Meryl Streep.

So it is only fitting that one of my all-time favorite cookies is made with, of course, egg whites. The french macaroon is a simple little cookie that not only is the first thing that I made at culinary school that excited me about the life beyond bread, but it is also taking the baking world by storm. These little sandwich cookies have been around for a century or more, but a food blog isn't a food blog until it has featured some version of them, and there are bakeries in some of the foodier cosmopolitan areas that make only french macaroons. A combination of egg white, sugar, ground nuts, and a flavoring...that's it. Yes, seriously, that's IT. Try them, fall in love with them, try different versions, and celebrate the magic that is the egg white.

Oh, and I assure you that this post was not sponsored by the Egg White Council of North America.

Espresso Macaroons
(from the beautiful blog: Tartelette)
Egg whites...............................90 grams
White Sugar.............................30 grams
Powdered Sugar.......................200 grams
Almond Meal...........................110 grams
Espresso Powder...........................1 tsp
1. Whip egg whites till they foam. Gradually add the white sugar and continue to whip until it forms a glossy but soft meringue. Stop beating before the meringue looks dry.
2. Mix together the powdered sugar, almond meal, and espresso powder. Quickly fold the dry ingredients into the meringue. Stop just when all the dry is incorporated into the meringue. (The mixture should flatten when piped out - if it doesn't, give it a few more folds.)
3. Pipe the mixture into a Silpat into 1 1/2 inch circles. Let sit for 30-45 minutes, to dry slightly on the top.
4. Bake at 325 for 12-14 minutes.
5. Let cool before removing from the Silpat.
6. Sandwich two of the cookies together with a small amount of buttercream.