Manolo for the Big Girl

Before I move on to the topic of the day, I’d like to commend Francesca for her superfantastic series of wedding gown articles this week…and make a shameless plug for my other weekend writing gig in the Manolosphere: Manolo for the Brides. You lovely ladies who are getting married - or just love chatting about weddings - might want to make a visit. The fabulous Never teh Bride writes the blog during the week. I take it on the weekends. We love the weddings.

But I digress.

What I really came here to talk about is the great sale at Avenue. Right now is a terrific time to save on summer basics with their $10 event. It’s actually more like the $10, $15, and $20 event, but I’m okay with that. This isn’t investment clothing, but most of us can use a few cheap and cheerful pieces that get rotated in and out of our wardrobes for a couple seasons, too.

(more…)

When you watch a lot of daytime television, you see waaaaaaayyyyyy too many ads for diet pills, plots…er…plans, herbal suppliments, and, well, you get the idea. The televisions screams at all of us that we’re Fat! We’re Lazy! We’re Undisciplined! We’re going to Diiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee!

Yeah, right.

There’s one, however, that ticks me off more than all the others combined. Slimshots. I’m not going to link to their site because I wouldn’t want to encourage anyone to support this company.

What’s so horrible about this one in the midst of all the other companies telling us we’re ugly and inadequate all day long and through the night? It’s the angle their ads take. They ask us all what we could accomplish if only we ate 30% less food every day.

(more…)

As per usual, you guys blew me away. Last sunday, I posted this picture:

and you provided twelve different captions to go with it.

Of course, there can be only one winner, and this week it’s emmme for this hilarious and superfantastically positive response:

Of course, no one was surprised that Miss Duluth 1905 went on to rule the world.

Congratulations, emmme! And thanks to everyone who played.

You all know how this works: I post a picture, you reply with your best captions, and next saturday I declare a winner. So take a look at this and hit me with your best shot:

Ready…set…snark!

Last week I declared the final entry in Food Friendly May…and today I did a facepalm as I realized that it’s still May for one more day. I are not bright.

On the other hand, I am nothing if not capable of coming up with another recipe. In honor of my inability to keep up with modern life (not to mention my history geekness), I have decided that it would be fun today to post a recipe from back through the mists of time along with a modern version. I found this recipe - and a great many others equally interesting…though some are certainly more appetizing to a modern taste than others - at this fabulous site. If you are fond of historical re-enactment, interested in the history of food, or just a sucker for a good recipe, I highly recommend spending some time there.

Spynoches yfryed (Fried Spinach)

Period: English, 14th Century

Original Receipt:

Spynoches yfryed. Take spynoches; perboile hem in seþyng water. Take hem vp and presse out þe water and hew hem in two. Frye hem in oile & do þerto powder douce, & serue forth.

Gode Cookery Translation:

Take spinach; parboil them in boiling water. Take them up and press out the water and hew them in two. Fry them in oil & do there-to powder douce, & serve forth.

Of course, that tells you what the words mean if you’re not fluent in Middle English, but it doesn’t really tell you what to do as a modern cook, does it? Luckily, there are instructions on dishing it up in today’s kitchen, as well.

Ingredients:

Fresh Spinach Leaves

Olive Oil

Powder Douce (this was a Medieval blend of sweet spices, almost always containing sugar and cinnamon, but never pepper, and with such other spices as nutmeg, clove, cardamon, mace, etc.)

Directions:

Parboil the spinach, keeping in mind that this means to partially cook by boiling. Remove the leaves from the water; drain well and press out the water. Cut the spinach leaves in half; fry in hot olive oil. Remove from oil & drain. Place in serving dish and sprinkle on powder douce to season. Serve it forth!

Alas! the translators have chosen not to put amounts of the ingredients in the modern recipe, so that means we’ll have to experiment, doesn’t it? Oh, and one safety tip: dry the spinach well before putting it in hot oil. Cool water + hot oil = oil bullets zinging around your kitchen and hurting you painfully. This might be a good time to pull out the old Salad Spinner.

And that, my friends, is the end of Food Friendly May here at Manolo for the Big Girl. I hope you’ve all enjoyed it as much as I have.

As Food Friendly May comes to an end, it’s only right and fitting that I do my best to pass on what I know about one of the most universally frustrating challenges faced by cooks the world over: pie crust.

I honestly don’t know if what I have to say will do the trick for you or not because I am one of those revolting people who just plain has The Touch for pies. I made my first pie crust at seven. My mother nearly cried. Pie crust was her culinary Achille’s heel and somehow she’d produced a daughter who seemed incapable of turning out a bad pie crust.

This is why I rarely attempt to explain to anyone how I do it: because it comes to me so easily that I don’t know why what I’m doing works so well. It just does.

Still, I can pass on what I do in hopes that someone will find it helpful. There are a few hints I know that might be useful to somebody. For one thing, start with very cold ingredients. The colder the better, as long as you can still work them. I even put my flour in the fridge before I start work, because it’s always produced a better result. I don’t know why this works, only that it does for me. The other really important one - and I cannot stress this enough - is not to overwork the dough. Once it almost holds together, stop fussing. Once you get it about the right size, stop rolling and get it in the pan. Pie crust is never improved by extra efforts, but can be by a quick hand.

So what’s my recipe? It’s simple enough. Here’s hoping it works for you:

(more…)

My friends, this is the final weekend of this particular May, and so tomorrow will mark the end of my Food Friendly May posts. That means it’s definitely time to roll out the desserts! I’ve had cake on my mind a lot of late, so I thought today I’d share one of my favorite cake recipes from one of my favorite cookbooks: The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. This is the recipe that makes me dance gleefully in the fruit and vegetable aisle of my friendly neighborhood grocery store when really, really ripe bananas go on mega-sale. In fact, it’s been known to produce drooling of a Pavlovian nature when I tell friends ‘bananas were on sale today,’ because they know what wonders lie in wait when they come to visit.

Cordon Rose Banana Cake:

(more…)

Growing up in California, I was introduced early to a good deal of Mexican food. One of my favorite discoveries as a small child was agua fresca. I will never forget the first time I was handed a glass on a hot, summer’s day and drank deeply of this incredibly refreshing beverage. It was watermelon, still my favorite flavor of agua fresca, though I’ve enjoyed many other delicious versions. It can be done with nearly any fruit, but melons and strawberries always seem to be the most popular flavors. It can also be done with cucumber and lime, though I must admit I haven’t tried that one out. I probably will sometime this summer, because it sounds both interesting and remarkably refreshing.

Anyway, I found an actual recipe (I’d never really used a formal recipe for this before, but the proportions look right and the steps match pretty much what I’d been doing) at a website called What’s 4 Eats, which is devoted to recipes from around the world. Here’s what you do to make agua fresca (fresh water):

3 Cups fresh fruit, coarsly chopped

6-8 Cups water

1/2 - 3/4 Cup sugar, depending on tartness of fruit and personal taste

1/4 Cup lime juice (optional)

1: Add fruit and 2 - 3 Cups of water to a blender and puree well. Strain through a seive into a large pitcher.

2: Add the rest of the water (to the six-cup point) and 1/2 Cup sugar. Stir well. Add more sugar and more water until you reach the desired consistancy and sweetness. Serve chilled. Makes 2 1/2 Quarts.
Trust me, there is nothing better on an icky hot day than agua fresca. In fact, I may make some strawberry today. Mmm…strawberries.

The last few days have been revoltingly hot around here. No, I’m not going to get into a discussion about how much hotter it is where you are or ‘well at least you’re not freezing your nipples off, Twistie.’ I am hot. This bothers me. It’s nine in the damn morning and I’m already doing everything in my power to cool myself off. This is Not Okay.

My cat is particularly unhappy with the situation because he wants to be cuddled and he’s wearing a fur coat…and determined to give back all the heat he sucked from my body in the winter when I was freezing my damn ass off.

In case you couldn’t tell, hot weather makes Twistie grumpy, and I ain’t talking Snow White’s army of little people, either!

And so it is that I turn with longing to the refreshing, cool drink.

Today’s recipe comes from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. Trust me, even if you’re not vegetarian (and I’m not) Deborah Madison’s books are well worth every penny, being full of delicious, easy to follow, fabulously imaginative recipes for vegetables. Whether or not you serve them with meat, you’ll definitely find some great stand bys to serve you well for years to come.

Anyway. There’s a small section in this book devoted to breakfast drinks, but many of them are also perfect for cooling down on a hot afternoon. Being fond of nectarines, I’m particularly enamoured of the Nectarine-Mango Frappe. Mmm…nectarines.

2 Nectarines or Peaches

1 Large Mango

1 1/2 Cup Buttermilk or Yogurt

A few drops Vanilla

6 Ice Cubes

Fresh Lemon or Lime juice to taste.

Peel and slice the fruit, then puree in a blender or food processor with the yogurt, vanilla, and ice until smooth. Add lemon or lime juice to taste and serve. Serves 2 - 3.

That’s it. It’s easy enough for me to do even with my brain melting like a clock in a Salvadore Dali painting.

And if I might recommend, these glasses would be superfantastic to serve this in!

When my mother was a new mom, my father started a tradition: breakfast in bed. Scrambled eggs, toast, crisp bacon, her inevitable strong fresh-brewed coffee, and a bowl of sliced strawberries dusted with sugar and doused in half and half.

As the years went on and my brothers and I got bigger, the tradition continued. Of course, it grew to involve three young children bouncing around on the bed with her arguing over who got the sunday comics first. The menu, however, remained the same. Scrambled eggs, toast, crisp bacon, strong fresh-brewed coffee, and a bowl of sliced strawberries dusted with sugar and doused in half and half.

Even when the children all grew into responsible adults and began leading lives away from Mom and Dad, the tradition continued. Those of us in town continued to perch on the bed with Mom and eat that same breakfast. I took over brewing the coffee since I turned out to be the one who followed in Mom’s footsteps while my brothers grew up to be tea drinkers like Dad.
Then Mom told me a secret one Mother’s Day - her very last, as it turned out. Every year she looked forward to and dreaded Mother’s Day. She loved the presents, she loved the breakfast menu…but she detested beyond expression trying to eat it in bed! She just never had the heart to tell Dad because he was so proud to have come up with something that romantic on his own.

So who out there has a Mother’s Day tradition that involves food? I’d love to hear about it!