Baby Treat Pie
I’ve started drinking caffeinated coffee again.
And what does this have to do with pie, you wonder.
I drank two whole mugs of regular before my husband left for work in a hurry yesterday, muttering to himself “Aren’t I glad I’ll be out of here by the time the crash comes.”
Harrumph. In the meantime, I’ve got a HUGE spike in productivity. If you have any things you need me to do, just pass ’em on over.
I’ve been trying to write about Disney trip, and I’ve drafted something, but I’m finding it awfully complex for reasons you might understand soon. Meanwhile, I bought some nectarines yesterday, and I realized that I have some important seasonal information to share.
The sign above the nectarines at Fairway says “Nectarines are the best mutation ever: even more delicious than mules!”
Perhaps that should not be in quotes. I may be paraphrasing. Still, even if the sign said that exact thing, it would be a true sign. Fairway would not get sued, even by the mule community, if they had put up that sign.
This morning I offered Henry part of a nectarine. I referred to it as a treat, which is admittedly a subjective term, and one that we debate with some frequency. It was an especially hot topic of argument during a recent spate of days when I was lacing everything I served him with creamy, foul-smelling, ear-healing amoxicillin.
He liked the nectarine though, and raced around begging for more. I asked him if he knew what this magical substance was called, and he stopped and whooped “BABY TREAT!” as he stomped his feet, because that is how enthusiastic nectarines, the less hirsute and sterile cousins of peaches, can make people feel.
Today I will share with you the recipe for the best pie I have ever tasted.
Yes, the best pie ever created is my mom’s / grandma’s / aunt’s pie.
I may have relied on hyperbole to get your attention in the past, but this is a winner. Plus, you don’t have to cook the fruit. You don’t have to sweeten the cream. You will be blinded by desire once you taste this pie. Not for your spouse, or for someone else’s spouse, but for the whole rest of the pie.
When I recently wrote about Pavlova, my mom pointed out that the fruit / acid / meringue / cream combo is certainly very well-loved in our family, and cited this pie. I hadn’t thought of it, but she’s totally right.
You can also make this with berries, or use almonds (which complement peaches) rather than walnuts. However, it’s not going to get any better than this.
Welcome to the rest of your life, which is going to be awesome, because it will include this pie.
Baby Treat Pie
Prodecure
Peel and slice six nectarines or peaches. Add ¼ of the sugar and refrigerate until the slices are nice and juicy.
Preheat oven to 325. Beat 3 egg whites stiff. Gradually add the remaining one cup of sugar. Roll 16 saltines very fine. (Put them in a big zip lock bag first.)
Pour the egg whites over the saltines. Add baking powder, walnuts, and vanilla. Fold these items into the egg whites.
Pour into a butter pie plate and bake for 30 minutes. The crust will be golden and pillowy looking. It won’t look particularly concave. Do not worry about this.
Cool pie crust.
Layer the fruit slices onto the crust. Let the juice soak into the meringue.
Whip a quantity of cream in a cold bowl. Add vanilla or almond extract. Spread cream on the fruit.
Ingredients
- 6 peaches, peeled and sliced
- 1 1/4 C sugar
- 3 egg whites
- 16 saltines (salted)
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1/4 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. vanilla plus more, or almond extract for the cream
- 1 cup heavy cream
Five of the Most Delicious Things In My Neighborhood
I live in Ditmas Park-ish, Brooklyn.
Some people call it Flatbush. Some people call it Midwood. It’s culturally and economically diverse, it’s full of creatives, it’s beautiful, it’s right on the subway, we could (sort of) afford to buy a lovely apartment here, and it has a pioneering spirit. It is possible to park a car here without too much gnashing of teeth. And during my parenting “project,” I’ve made a lot of friends. Man, do I love it here.
It’s always being written up lately as an up and coming destination to live . . . and to eat.
Here are 5(ish) of the most delicious things in my neighborhood:
Decaf iced latte at Market: Am I a wimp for getting decaf? Perhaps, but it’s necessary at the moment. And just think of how good the regular might be!
Is this the most delicious coffee I have ever tasted? It may be. They make the espresso out of pods in a shiny red machine that also, costs about as much as a sports car but it’s nothing like the Keurig product, which I find watery. It’s a game changer. It’s insanely good.
Is it because they only use whole milk? Maybe. But last spring or summer, I had a latte there that was so good that the next night when I went to sleep, I dreamt of getting another one. And when I woke up and I walked over there and did, and that is when I met my friend Alana, who was managing it at the time. She is the same age as me and from the next town over in Connecticut. We were born to be rivals! But she immediately confided in me, and I in her, and it was like it was meant to be. But don’t go there because of Alana; she is my friend, mine. Also, she doesn’t work there anymore. She just had a beautiful baby. (Congratulations, Alana!) But you can go there because they have prosciutto bread. And chocolate bread. And fancy cheese.
Sha Baklap at Cafe Tibet: Cafe Tibet, in case you haven’t been, is like a tiny, sea-worn barnacle stuck on a building, swaying cantilevered over the Cortelyou Road Q stop. It’s amazing that one of my favorite restaurants in New York looks like this. It also smells like it’s on fire much of the time. There are horse masks hanging on the wall that are either cool, or scary, depending on your perspective.
People rave about the “momos,” or dumpling, at Cafe Tibet. All well and good, but I’m pretty sure those ravers haven’t stopped to try the sha-baklap.
There is spurty ginger broth that comes out of the most delicious fried pastry shell surrounding a divine . . . if I call it a beef patty it will undermine it. They serve them with a slaw that has a sesame dressing, and a huge bottle of crazy hot sauce. I love them, I love them, I love them, oh my. And Matthew calls the sha baklaps “the magic hamburgers.” (Matthew is my husband, not my child. Thank goodness my child won’t eat them, because he has terrible sharing etiquette, ie, none, and Matthew screams less if you want a portion of something good for yourself.)
Chicken Torta sandwich at Salud: Thin chicken cutlets on great panini with a smear of black beans, white melty cheese, avocado, tomato, and vinegary pickled jalapenos. The folks at Salud are like family . . . someone else’s family. They make much better Mexican sandwiches, zucchini flower quesadillas, and spiced hot chocolate than my own would — no offense to my gringo peeps!)
Octopus conserva at the Castello Plan: A tin of octopus keyed open and garnished with tomato paste, mustard with chives, preserved lemon, and shards of green onion (I no longer see it on the menu; I am devastated; perhaps this is just a terrible mistake. You can read the long form of my love letter to it, and to the rest of the octopus community both alive and dead, here.)
Mustard greens and Chana Katsa from Cafe Tibet: Here we go again with Cafe Tibet. Stewed bitter greens are perfectly complemented by spicy, dark chickpeas. Eat with white rice. You’ve got to try this place. If you have a kid and can’t get out too much, they try really hard to be accommodating, and just stuff the kid full of rice and strawberry banana lassis while you indulge. It’s also the place where Henry realized that he is a soup enthusiast. (They have delicious daal that they serve with their thali plate, which has a lot of curry, and okra, and beets . . . they also have fantastic cardamom tea. I need to move on now, but you get the picture.)
Borscht from Mimi’s Hummus: I am not the person to judge a hummus restaurant, I admit. That said, I adore the cauliflower, the lemonade, the cookies, and they do a splendid borscht with tiny meat-filled dumplings.
Takeout / Delivery section bonus:
Mixed Bolani (turnovers) from Bahar, the Afghan restaurant on Coney Island Avenue. Some bolani pumpkin. Some are scallion. Some are mashed potato. All are divine with a jalapeno / cilantro sauce. They are an appetizer. For an entree, get the Morgh Kebab, served with browned long rice. It’s browned by cooking with onion. It’s fantastic. (I am realizing that I need to write a post just on my favorite rices.)
Saag Panir from Taste of Tandoor turned Bombay Masala: They put a splendid amount of cardamom in, and it’s a little spicy, holy moly, this is a game changer. Don’t forget to order yourself some Peshawari naan. We also love the lamb rogan josh.
Fried artichoke appetizer from San Remo: battered artichokes with lemon, cherry tomatoes and . . . raisins? My Siciliana friend says it makes sense to her. It’s almost never on the menu, which is sad: I love it so.
Square pie from DiFara’s: For our wedding, my stellar sister-in-law had family and friends make and send meaningful squares, which she then assembled into a quilt. What a gift! Amid the vintage dress fabric from my favorite when i was 4, amid squares commemorating pets we loved, amid grandpa’s plaid pajamas, repurposed for the occasion, was a scanned photo of Dominick DeMarco.
He is one of the most self-actualized humans I have ever seen work. He makes mind blowing pizza.
Try the square. (And don’t try to get it delivered: you have to go and stand in line.)
If you’re a neighbor and would like to comment on your own local faves here, I welcome you to do so.
Dear Counselor Chomp: Do I Need to Refrigerate Eggs?
Dear Counselor Chomp,
Do eggs need to be refrigerated? Even if they don’t need to be, should they be?
How about if your cohabitant wrongly insists refrigeration is necessary?
—I’m Right, Right?
Dear Right,
In my experience, nothing makes one crave one’s eggs a particular way faster than an opinionated cohabitant throwing up all sorts of roadblocks.
I used to want a butter bell: a device that keeps butter at room temperature, upside-down, with a little water seal to keep it safe. It was exciting for so many reasons. Butter on the table all the time. The allure of science with the water seal. Butter than you can spread without tearing the bread. Butter that tastes better, because it’s not cold.
Anyhow, my husband said it seemed like “makework” to have to stuff the butter into this upside-down thing, and wouldn’t the butter just fall out, or would it get wet in there? How often would we need to wash it, he wanted to know? I prevailed, though, and until the cat broke it while we were on vacation, we lived a very happy life of eating lots of room temperature butter together. And recently we got a new, even more expensive butter bell from Etsy, and it’s even cuter. I wish for such a happy outcome for you.
However, unless you are getting your eggs fresh, ie, from a farm, and they have never been washed or refrigerated, I’m going to have to side with the cohabitant here.
In fact, if you are Canadian — which I’d like to acknowledge as a distinct possibility because of Church Avenue Chomp’s international readership — your government strongly suggests refrigerating all eggs. They also want you to bleach everything — everything— with a mild bleach solution, so you may not want take everything that the Canadians have to say to heart. I haven’t gone to the trouble to see what my own government suggests, but I have a feeling that the U.S. is even more likely to insist upon chilly eggs.
I wish my answer were different, but I think that you’re better safe than sorry, especially if you have young egg eaters in the house.
If you want to keep at least something racy and fun on the counter, try butter. Or get a salt cellar with a little kosher salt. If you keep limes on the table, they will become little brown pellets. Turning limes into brown pellets is my hobby. Put those, and the eggs, into the fridge.
To get your question answered by Counselor Chomp, email it to churchchomp at gmail dot com.
Plip Plop Plip Plop It’s the Waters of March
What a treat: a video of the recording of one of the most charming, lovely duets there ever was: Waters of March written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, and performed here by Elis Regina and Tom Jobim. (Jobim seemed to have been known as Antonio Carlos when writing, and Tom when performing: same guy.)
This is the Portuguese version, which is my favorite to listen to, though it’s really fantastic to hear or read the lyrics in English, too. The song is a poem more than a song, but then again, it’s a better song than most.
A favorite moment is the whistling that goes along with the piano and plucked strings over the bass. I also love the flourish and subsequent dancing after the two minute mark.
It also makes me cozy because Jobim’s sweater is the sort of v-neck cashmere that Matthew prefers, and being a radio guy, he loves headphones like that, too.
The first time took a long time to load, for me, but once it’s on there, you can just watch it forever. You could also click back to where it appears on YouTube and read the notes on the composition, which explain how it’s more of a series of images that form a collage rather than a narrative.
I found this linked to on the Brooding Hen, a blog I like. So when you’re ready to take a break from this video, you, too, can visit the Brooding Hen to find tiny perfect projects to do with and for your perfect children, like making weency books out of paint samples, or oobleck.
Guest Post: Good But Not Perfect Home Baked Bread
Aha! Enter the era of a new feature: the Church Avenue Chomp guest post.
There are a few writers or people with extreme passions I admire who will be writing guest blog entries. Today we see the work of an old friend, Heather, who spent the long and challenging upstate NY winter baking every kind of bread there is. Focaccia, she’d do. Irish soda bread. She’s gotten really good, and if you haven’t starting baking your own bread yet, she’s going to remove all barriers for you in this post.
You’ll also learn about a few of her other skills.
Good But Not Perfect Home Baked Bread
The most important secret of home baked bread: how to begin.
Back when I was in my early 20s, I thought it would be a fantastic thing to be able to make bread. Someone recommended the Tassajara Bread Book, a classic tome that explains how some Buddhists in California in the 1960s made bread—and who better to know how to fit bread baking into a busy lifestyle than people at a meditation center? So I put in an order at Book People, and waited for the book to come in.
And when it arrived, I read their “simple” method, and it didn’t seem all that simple. But I was dedicated, so I persevered. All I needed was a breadboard.
So I waited for a breadboard.
You may be wondering why I want to bake bread, and why I assume you might want to do the same. I guess I always wanted to be the kind of laid back Earth-mother-type who grows vegetables in her giant garden, then cans them for winter, and has 5 pets, and sleeps with her 6 kids in her bed, and wears the baby in a sling while she is milking the cow. And, that woman, of course, makes her own bread. Well, it turns out that I am not that person on any count. One could argue that I am learning to make bread in spite of what I really am like.
There’s also the fact that knowing how to do something like baking bread is empowering. This sort of skill just might come in handy after the collapse of civilization. I may not be an Earth-mother, but I am practical. I like to think I’m the kind of person the neighbors will be able to come to for amputations after the Apocalypse. I mean, in a pinch, I think I could do a better amputation than the average person, because I used to be a massage therapist and have cut up a lot of chickens: I know where the joints are. Of course, if anyone else wants to take a stab at the amputations, they are welcome to: I’m not saying I’m the best at amputations or anything, but I’d probably be better than average.
I seem to be getting slightly off topic. The most immediate reason for my determination to bake bread is that we have implemented Austerity Measures at our house, and a nice loaf of bread can be $4 when someone else bakes it.
My bread baking fantasy began in my early twenties. In my mind’s eye it was me in a perfectly clean apartment, with nothing on my To-Do list, with nothing hanging over my head, with my bills paid, dishes washed, neglected friends called. And I was serenely focused on making perfect, nutritious bread.
In retrospect, I see the insanity of this, but at the time, it just never felt like the right time to just jump in and make bread. In fact, Meredith and I were roommates during this era, and I actually went so far as to think to myself, “Once Meredith and I get our own apartments, THEN I will be able to make bread.” As though Meredith, who had a snapping social life, had nothing better to do than hang around the apartment interfering with my dream of baking bread.
Many years have passed, and some things have changed. I still crave to have my ducks in a row before starting something that is supposed to be fun, and I still dream of no To-Do list. But those goals, that were somehow out of reach for a single girl with no kids, are actually laughable now that I’m a parent. Being a parent twice over has taught me a number of things that, coincidentally, apply directly (ok, maybe indirectly) to bread baking.
Let me share these things with you.
- Begin Before You Are Ready. This means: don’t wait until you lose 12 pounds before you go to the gym. Don’t wait until you have 3 free hours before you call your friend to tell her you’re sorry her mom died. Don’t wait until you are free of all cares before you start the fun thing you really want to do. And don’t wait until the kitchen is clean before you try baking bread.
- Don’t Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good. This one means that if the choice is between spending 70 hours you don’t have making a gorgeous photo album with labels and everything in exactly the right order, or spending 4 hours getting the pictures from the box in the closet into albums on a bookshelf, you should definitely go with the latter, because the former is just not ever going to happen. At least, not to me. Maybe to you, but not to me.
- Set Expectations So Low That You Are Almost Guaranteed a Pleasant Surprise. I don’t think this one needs any explanation, but I find this one to be a sanity-saver now that I’m a parent.
So now I’m going to try to convince you to begin baking bread before you are ready, with the good-but-not-perfect bread recipe I am about to provide. The chances of success are very, very high, because we are defining success in this case as “producing something that is distinctly like a loaf of bread, and not like a cracker.” How’s that for low expectations?
This recipe requires no kneading and no breadboard. There will be no checking that the temperature of the water is just right so it won’t kill the yeast or put it to sleep. You’ll need no pen and pencil to backwards-induce the timing of the steps.
There is only measuring, stirring, and pouring, and not even much of that. The process is so easy, and, aside from the yeast (see the note at the end of this post), requires only things that you likely already have in your kitchen.
In the unlikely event that it does end up a cracker, you will be out about 20 minutes of your time and less than a dollar of your money. You can’t lose!
I combined this recipe by Mark Bittman et al, with my friend Jennifer’s variation for whole grain sandwich bread, and then simplified it in every way I could think of, and it still came out bread! Every time. And it was delicious. It may not be the most nutritious bread, and it may not be your favorite kind of bread, and sometimes it was, eh, slightly damp, but as stated above, the goal is just for it to be bread. Of course, the further goal is for you to like it enough to bake it a few times, and then start tweaking it, maybe making a whole grain version, with some potato starch in it for tenderness. Maybe add some flax meal. Or buttermilk powder. Or try the artisanal version at the link above that will amaze your guests when you tell them you made it yourself. Or try different timing of the steps, to find something that fits your schedule and makes bread you like. And before you know it, you and yeast will be pals, and you will be known for making bread, and everyone will want you to bring bread to their parties, and it will be awesome! But start here, now, with low expectations, and see how it goes.
Tonight, after dinner (or tomorrow morning before work), mix up some flour, salt, yeast, and water. Then, tomorrow, when you wake up in the morning (or tomorrow evening, after you get home from work), it should have turned from a sticky lump into something that looks like a very thick, bubbling liquid. Give it a mix, then 20 minutes later or whenever you get around to it, set the oven to 400. At the same time, butter or oil a loaf pan, and pour in the dough. Once the oven is preheated, stick the pan in. Go back in 45 minutes and see. It will be bread!
It will probably come out of the pan more easily if you let it cool just a little. Then, eat it up quick! Since it has no fat, it will get stale in a few days. It’s great for sandwiches, with soup, or just with a bunch of butter. YUM!!!!
Here it is again, with a few more details:
Procedure
Put the flour, yeast, and salt in a mixing bowl and stir them to mix. Pour in 1 3/4 cups water. Stir to make a sticky lump. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and leave it on the counter.
8–12 hours later: Instead of the sticky lump it was, it should look like a bubbly liquid (but actually be pretty thick). Once it does, give it a good stir to pop the bubbles. Don’t worry too much about the timing. If something comes up schedule-wise, just stir it and let it sit for longer. Or shorter. It will probably still be worth eating.
20 minutes to an hour or more later: Butter or oil a normal-size loaf pan and pour and scrape in the dough. Let it sit while you preheat the oven to 400.
Bake for 45 minutes.
Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon instant yeast or ½ tsp active dry yeast*
1 heaping teaspoon salt
1 ¾ cups water
Butter or oil for greasing the pan
*Yeast is something you may not have in your kitchen, or, if you do, you may not know how old it is or if it’s fresh enough to use. So you may need to buy some. You can buy it in bulk in some stores, or in a jar, or in a packet. You can decide what seems most economical to you, based on how likely you think it is that you will bake more than one loaf.
There are different kinds of yeast, and different brands may call the same kind by different names. For this recipe, you want either “instant” (also called “rapid-rise” or “bread machine”) or “active dry.” Either will work, and none of it needs to be “proofed,” but you may want to vary the amount you use, depending on which kind you have and how long you are going to let it sit. ¼ teaspoon instant yeast for 8 hours of sitting should work, but if you have Active Dry, try ½ teaspoon instead. If you’re going to let it sit for 12 hours or more, you could probably use ¼ teaspoon of either kind.
For further yeast disambiguation: http://allrecipes.com//HowTo/yeast-the-basics/Detail.aspx
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