prepping the drink

we love our garden

and spend countless hours

tilling soil

dead heading roses

training vines

adjusting drip lines

repairing bird houses

and

tending to our bees

however

we are in the mountains

which makes our

season

really short

and

slightly tenuous

snow seems to fall at its whim

scorching blossoms

with a cool blast

as a result

what we harvest

is

revered

i prepare and preserve

everything

very little is wasted

speaking of wasted

this year

we are trying something new

liqueurs and elixirs

are 

one of my true loves

 lucky girl that i am

my other true love

humors my every whim

which is how we found ourselves

on a beautiful spring day

perched on ladders

wiring

bottles

to our pear tree

we picked through the tree

like it was a rummage sale

for the perfect 

barely formed pear-on a just the right size branch

once discovered

we removed the leaves 

gently plied the bottle up the branch

and

tied it off

and crossed our fingers

if all goes as planned

a beautiful pear

will grow

in 

each bottle

it will then be preserved

with pear soaked brandy

Beautifully Peared

yes, i know

that is not how you spell

pair

or

pare

but i am taking poetic license

because i can

yesterday

i taught a cooking class

to eight very enthusiastic women

who

scared me a bit

because let's be honest

they were all very fit

and didn't quite look the part

of hearty eaters

which is always scary for a

caterer, chef or cooking instructor

i kept saying to myself

don't take it personally if they just glance at the food

and the plates remain completely full

over and over again

the good news is

they were very interested in the cooking of the food

and

the eating of the food

some even had seconds

yeah!

they all ate dessert

and I know

because I forced it on them

we poached pears in wine

placed them on top of a very small scoop of vanilla ice cream

and then drizzled homemade chocolate sauce on top

come on

i won't apologize

there were 2 superfoods in there

red wine

and

bittersweet chocolate

paired beautifully

and absolutely delicious

i didn't take pictures

which meant i had to duplicate it all today

so i could show you

which means i cheated a bit

and used some wine poached pears I made this fall and canned

but they are poached in white wine

and not as beautiful as the ones last night

you can find that recipe here

for the class we used a combination of

moscato and petit syrah

with enough sugar to make it lightly sweet--not sticky sweet

2 cinnamon sticks, 1 star anise pod, a pinch of cardamom

and two strips of orange peel

it simmered away for about 45 minutes

the pears are delicious in this dessert

or

you can tuck them into some puff pastry and bake

and serve with a bit of cream

or

enjoy just how it is for an afternoon snack

perhaps you would rather

slice thinly and serve as part of a cheese platter

or maybe

add a little zip

to your luncheon plate

Bittersweet Chocolate Sauce
(printable recipe)

1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate--chopped

(please use good chocolate...with a 57% or more cocoa content)

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup + 2 Tbs granulated sugar

2 Tbs water or other liquid (you can use coffee or liqueur or poaching liquid)

3 Tbs corn syrup (if you are opposed to corn syrup or don't have it...omit it..it is not essential..it won't affect the taste)

Place all ingredients together in a double boiler after the water has begun to boil  Don't let the mixture get too hot, it should just be warm enough to melt the chocolate and sugar.  I like to turn the heat off the pot once the water begins to boil, it will have enough residual heat to do the job.  Once chocolate is melted stir so the ingredients all mix nicely together and you are ready to serve.  This will keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge.

Channeling Andy Rooney

I love cookbooks and I read them like they are novels.  Novels I won't pass on to my friends.  I always like to share a great book I have read, and have a pact with friends; i"ll let you borrow the book, but pass it on to someone else when you are done. Typically, I don't want it back. Only twice have I regretted to that rule. I passed on 1st editions of both Wicked and A Confederacy of Dunces.  Had I known when I read them, that they would be possible collector's items, I might have purchased separate "pass on copies" .  But, I console myself by knowing that if  kept they would have eventually been misplaced or lost. It's much better to have loved and lost, than have them yellowing in a box in the back of a closet somewhere.
My cookbooks don't get passed on.  I write in the margins, cross out entire sections and create from those published works of art.  I have never counted the number, but if I have 1, I have 150.  I have a custom bookcase in the office, filled not with literature, but with cookbooks and travel guides.  I am not "a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma."  Five minutes in our house and you know me.  You know everything about me--including what shoes I have worn this last week.

i wear shoes only because society expects it, and public bathrooms are dirty.  If I could, I would go barefoot 24/7.  I hate shoes...or should I say, I hate wearing shoes. I love matching a shoe to an outfit...or having my shoes be the one element of my outfit that reflects my personality--which is saying something as I usually wear all black, all navy or all brown.  I'm a real jackie o, except I'm short, stout, blonde and own a condo instead of a yacht. Anyway, to make a short story long...my shoes come off the minute I hit the threshold. Except for when I am in the kitchen. I have kitchen shoes... because I need to reach the top shelf of the fridge.

I haven't baked in a while. With all my canning, I still have a few pears left. The weather is downright fall-like, and I want to play with flour.  My bedside reading last night was Dorie Greenspan's Baking.  Dorie is an amazing baker whom has written countless recipes and is the author of  Baking with Julia.  She's also quite thin, which naturally makes me suspicious...but that is for another day.
I'm sure she is a wonderful person.


I have earmarked a dozen or so recipes that I wish to try, but have never actually done so.
I am the worst recipe follower. I can't make a recipe as it is written. It's like a mental block.  With baking it is more sketchy than with cooking, as there is actually chemistry involved, but, I'm not cooking for The King.  So what if I make a mistake...it's hardly ever awful.


Today I wanted to incorporate some of those pears into a coffee cake.  I love cardamom and Dorie's recipe for cardamom coffee cake looked just the trick. Except I changed it up a bit.  The idea is definitely hers...the execution, mine.

This cake is not sweet...it is a real coffee cake.  If you take a whole bite, meaning top to bottom, it will be sweet enough, moist enough and spiced enough.  If you remove the crumb and then eat the cake...well, you get what you get.
Please refer to the recipe for the method.

Here are the ingredients and amounts I used
Cardamom Coffee Cake
CAKE
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp  baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cardamom
pinch nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
grated zest of 1/2 grapefruit
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup freshly made espresso--cooled
1 stick butter--melted and cooled
1 tsp vanilla
CRUMB
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 stick unsalted butter
generous pinch of salt
1 /2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup or more toasted slivered almonds
grated peel of 1/2 grapefruit
PEARS
Peel, core and generously slice 4 cups of pears.  In a skillet, melt 1/2 stick unsalted butter.  Add about 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp cardamom and a pinch or two of salt.  Throw the pears in and cook until all caramelly and the pears soften.  Adjust flavors to your liking. They should be sweet, but not overly so.
Pour 1/2 the cake batter in the pan.  Place a layer of pears, then proceed with the remaining batter.  Place another layer of pears on top.  Finally, evenly top with crumb.

Bake, cool, eat.

I made enough pears so that I could put a few on the plate with the cake.  They are also delicious on ice cream, on top of waffles or pancakes, or just eaten by themselves.


post script:  This entry was originally entitled "a good read..." but according to my husband, when I read it to him, I sounded just like mr. rooney.  So I read it again, in andy's voice, and it did sound like something he would say. Mike was right, and I had a good giggle.

AuPear--or my journey as the kitchen chaperone for 300+ pieces of fruit

"a partridge in a pear tree"

...it makes me sing...it makes me sing the 12 days of christmas
...it makes me sing it in september




i never quite understood what a partridge in a pear tree meant..but now i get it.   It means a great meal. Roast partridge with sauteed pears, a nice pinot and some kind of gooey dessert...figgy pudding perhaps?  Who knew, on the first day of christmas my true love gave to me...

...dinner.

I have been singing the 12 days of christmas for 3 days now--partridge, turtle doves, french hens...boy this guy was hungry.  Good for him, pears are a good accompaniament for all of them.
I have been singing about pears because I have a ton of them, and have been cooking them 6 ways from Sunday since Tuesday.

Our not so little cabin in the, sort of- but not really woods, has a pear tree. A very prolific pear tree.  And hopefully, this time next year, it will have 2 producing pear trees, a cherry tree, 2 apple trees, peach, plum and nectarine.  If they survive this winter.

I don't like to waste.  Someone must have admonished, waste not-want not, during my formative yearsm because I am insane about it.  Leftover rice..make a stir-fry, make a rice pudding, make arancini.  Too much basil--fill your freezer with pesto. Over run with mashed potatoes? shepherds pie, gnocchi, samosas. I'm not joking--some find it annoying, but I value a new leftover ideas as some kind of culinary lottery.  

When  I saw how many pears our tree had, all i could think about was the great things I would make.  All those romantic notions of gathering around a farm table, music playing quietly in the background, me with my hair tied in a vintage scarf, our dogs playfully batting a pear back and forth as if it were a ball,  memories and smells of my childhood wafting through the air.

..queue record being scratched by needle here...

yeah, well you see...
I grew up in the city, my mom grew up in the Bronx.  We're Italian.  We're not canners. We don't eat from the can, we don't put in the can.  Literally, my only "canning" food memory was the one summer we went to Oregon.  My mom and I came across a farm stand selling flats of blackberries and blueberries.  Somehow, and I still quite don't know how, my mom convinced my dad, that we should take some home. So here we were, 5 of us lugging boxes of berries onto the planeand securely placing them in the overhead bins. Can you imagine? That kind of nonsense would never fly these days.
We then spent the next 5 days making jam-the first jam I ever made and it was delicious. But we didn't can it.  We put it in jars, with a one-inch wax seal. We made enough to last a lifetime.
And I don't recall making it again.
Until I met my husband.
In his house, his cabinets were lined with canned goods. Goods he canned himself. salmon, pot roast, bear.  When he learned that I cook, he described his great aunt's freezer jam and asked if I could figure out how to make it.

..and that is when i learned the value in filling the pantry with the summer's bounty. 

...canning speaks to me

waste not-want not

I spent this last Monday picking pears from our tree.  Interestingly, pears don't ripen well on the tree.  They are pretty hard when first picked,  but within a couple of days the sugars explode and the once hard nugget is soft and very juicy.  I am still waiting for some of them to come around. Those will get a light syrup and be canned peeled and cored but not cooked.

What I have been cooking however has made me quite pleased.
I made my very first pear chutney on Tuesday...and I served it with roast pork that evening.
Overnight, in the crock pot, I made pear sauce (like applesauce)...and then cooked 10 hours more to make pear butter--luscious, unctious, pear butter.
I poached pears in wine with spices making a delicious dessert for company.

I am prepared for my Christmas giving and my pantry is full.  Three days in the kitchen, minding my pears, has proven to be very productive.

Pear Chutney

 Take 5 lbs of peeled, cored and chopped unripe pears, 3 sticks of cinnamon, 1 tsp cardamom pods (crushed), peel of two lemons, juice of 1 lemon, 1 Tbs of mustard seed and place in a pot. Add enough water to just cover and simmer on the stove top until pears begin to just soften.  Meanwhile,in a bowl combine 2 cups apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp mustard seeds, 6 oz candied ginger, 1/2 tsp cayenne (or more to taste), 1 tsp (or more) ground cinnamon, 1 cup dried cranberries, 1 cup dried cherries, 1 cup golden raisins, and 2 cups chopped onions. Drain the pears--but reserve the water.  In the pot place 2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar and the reserved liquid.  Boil together until it begins to reduce and thickens slightly..it should reduce by 1/3.  Add back the pears and all the remaining ingredients.  Simmer on the stovetop until thick and sticky. This will take several hours and should be kept on low.  You can also place in an oven but take care to check it to make sure it does not burn. Before canning, check for spice balance and sugar/vinegar balance...to your liking. If you add more vinegar, be sure to cook it down.  Use proper canning procedures to ensure a safe and sanitary product.

Pear Butter

So simple...Fill your crock pot with whole pears.  Add about 1/2 inch of water. Cover and set the pot on low overnight.  The next day, remove the pears and run them through a food mill or potato ricer.  Throw any liquid from the crock pot away and put the puree back into the crock pot.  You now have pear sauce. Add as much sugar as you want, and spices to your liking. I add a bit of salt, ground cinnamon and ground ginger..and a bit of dark brown sugar.  You can can this or carry on and make pear butter.  If making the butter, do not over sweeten or over season. You are reducing, so your flavors will get more powerful.  You can add orange zest, ground cloves, cardamom, just about anything you like.  Turn the crock pot on again, and let it go another 8-10 hours.  Do not place the lid firmly back on the pot, you want evaporation, so leave it askew, or off completely if you are the confident sort.  Taste and adjust sweetness and seasoning periodically.  When it gets thick, like a pudding, or a curd, it is ready.  I like to take a hand blender and make it smooth, but it's not necessary.  Place in sterilized jar and use proper canning procedure

full disclosure--i was using the crock pot to make another batch of pear sauce, so I cooked this butter down on the stovetop

before the water bath

Poached Pears

Peel, halve and core the pears.  Place in a stockpot and cover with wine of your choice. I like to use savignon blanc and muscat combination...but you can use any wine you want.  If you are using a really dry wine, use a bit of sugar to "tame" it.  The pears look beautiful when cooked in a red wine.  Add spices.  I like to use cinnamon sticks, anise, lemon peel (pith removed), orange peel (pith removed), black peppercorns and a few whole cloves. You can add bay leaf, cardamom, ginger, white peppercorns.  Be creative.  Simmer on the stovetop until the pears are soft. You can store in the refrigerator in the poaching liquid, or you can remove the pears and cook the liquid down to a syrup and drizzle over the pears, or over the pears that are sitting over ice cream. You can also add some more sugar and then spin into a sorbet or freeze into a granita.  Use the liquid as it is and add fruit and make a cocktail out of it...add grand marnier and call it a sangria.  So many options...use it all. 

 and remember

waste not...