The extra perfect morning, and a "whiriligiggle" fest

I love mornings in Berkeley. This may be a little presumptuous considering I've only been in the area 12 days, but really, mornings are simply blissful here. Even in the middle of the summer, they're gray and chilly and crisp and perfect for cuddling up in a pillowy bed. I have yet to wake up frozen from air conditioning cranked up too high, or sweaty from one of those misleadingly "cool" nights on the East Coast, where no matter the temperature, the humidity is just killer. 

No, in Berkeley you can sleep in shorts and pull on socks and a sweatshirt when you finally wake up and make your way to the couch for a loungy breakfast over Saved by the Bell reruns. (Did I mention I'm single, out of work and waiting for fall classes to start?)

But on this particular perfect Berkeley morning, I'm not cuddling with my pillows and I'm not even watching SBTB. This morning I couldn't sleep. I can't even sit still. This morning, my sister, Sandy, is coming to visit. And I am positively bursting with excitement.  

Oh, and did I mention I've been baking? Yes, baking. Because gray, chilly mornings are the perfect respite for the wannabe baker who retires her oven in summer's depressing heat. And the chocolate-pistachio buns I've made seem to be bursting with excitement over Sandy's arrival, too. Or maybe it's just the three packets of rapid rise yeast. 

To call my perfect morning project chocolate-pistachio "buns" doesn't really do them justice. They're actually called "whirligigs" and come from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess via The Wednesday Chef Luisa Weiss. (Luisa replaced the pistachio with almonds, but I've re-replaced the bun filling with Nigella's original pistachio, at Sandy's request.)

I have to say that these buns came to find themselves on my very fluid "bake this" list because of their name. I mean, whirligig! Just thinking it makes me giggle and saying the word outloud... well, it really just pushes me over the edge, giggle-wise. Or should I say, whirligiggle-wise. I crack myself up. 

But, seriously, watching them burst forth in the oven when so many people are still enjoying their beds (or heading to work; it is Thursday after all) and now watching them practically pushing their way off the baking sheet even as they cool, is positively inspiring. It almost makes me want to spin around in circles or go to the gym or do something else equally silly and un-morninglike. 

But mostly it's the knowledge that beyond the impression of explosive power await pockets filled with sugar and butter and pistachios and chocolate that makes me want to burn my fingers tugging a corner whirligig away from the pack, curling up on the couch until the sun cuts through the gray chill and the time comes to pick up my sister.

Oh my god. Extra perfect Berkeley morning. 

***

Chocolate-Pistachio Whirligig Buns

Originally from Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess, adapted by The Wednesday Chef Luisa Weiss

I kept the chocolate-pistachio filling called for in the original recipe, but used Luisa's adapted cooking directions. Makes 20-30 buns.

Dough

5 to 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup superfine sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 packets instant yeast (6 3/4 teaspoons)

7 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 2/3 cup milk

2 large eggs

Vegetable oil

Filling

8 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon superfine sugar

3/4 cup pistachios (I used roasted, unsalted)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 large egg, beaten

To prepare the dough, combine 5 cups of flour, sugar, salt and yeast. In a small saucepan, combine butter and milk and heat to lukewarm. Beat the eggs lightly, then whisk them into the milk mixture. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ones.

Using a mixer with a dough hook, or by hand, knead the dough until smooth and springy, adding more flour if necessary. Form into a ball and place in a clean, oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until double in size, about 30 minutes. 

Punch down dough. Line a 13 x 10-inch baking pan with parchment paper. Roll out dough to a rectangle about 20 to 10 inches. 

For the filling, mix together the butter and sugar to a paste. Spread the paste over the large rectangle of dough. Sprinkle pistachios evenly over the dough, then top with chocolate chips. Starting from the longest side, carefully roll up the dough so it looks like a long sausage. Cut dough into 20 slices, about 3/4 inch thick, and arrange with cut side up in the pan. 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush buns with beaten egg and let them sit in a warm place until puffed up and snugly fitting the pan, about 15-20 minutes. Bake until buns have risen and are golden-brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from baking pan to cool on a rack. Serve warm. 

A new face at the dinner table

So last week, at my now beloved Ferry Building Farmer's Market, I happened upon a little something that I'd heard a lot about, but had never actually seen/touched/tasted/etc. I found them at a tiny corner stall, little yellow blooms in plastic containers pushed out of the way, all the attention going to the enormous strawberries to their side. But I noticed them. Oh boy, did I notice them. And for the past week, I've been eating them. 

Zucchini blossoms are so fun and weird. I was thrilled to take them home and felt very in-the-know when I took them out of my shopping bag. Then, I was scared. What was I supposed to do with them? I picked one up, turned it around by the stem. It was a flower. I was about to eat a flower. Oh my. I popped it in my mouth. Yup. In case I had any doubts, it indeed tasted like flower. 

I can't say it was bad, and I also can't say I really tasted it. The inside of my mouth was caught up in a bizarre struggle, that strange battle that ensues when one tastes something out of the ordinary for the first time: Brain says to Mouth, "Swish it around and explore the flavor," only to have Mouth try to force the new organism past the tongue and straight down the gullet. 

Once the blossoms were cooked, however, Mouth was terribly pleased. My go-to cooking method has been to sautee them with a little bit of spray oil, sprinkle them with salt and eat them while they're still hot. They're like floral french fries that way, and the first night I just gobbled them up. I can only hope to see them served as street food one day... 

I've eaten the sauteed blossoms in a scramble of eggs and Parmesan cheese, and tangled with nutty whole wheat pasta and Parmesan cheese (I really like Parmesan cheese). Still, I like them best without much fuss, hot and at once crispy and tender, straight from hand to mouth.

The sweetest summer treat

All summer, I've been craving cherries. One could say it all started with bon appetit's June issue, whose cover featured a slice of what could presumably be this pie. 

But, while bon appetit didn't hurt, cherry cravings have marked my summers since childhood, as if the fruit, like edible good luck rubies, are somehow mythical balls without which the season can't start. 

Or, umm, maybe I just really like cherries. Not just any cherries, mind you. These cherries:

The French call them griottes, for Iranians it's albaloo torsh.  In Farsi, albaloo means cherry and torsh means sour; one of my cousin asked my mom if albaloo, by definition, isn't also torsh, implying that a cherry is a cherry is a cherry. He just got her classic "look," which implied, ahem, that he didn't know what he was talking about. Anyone whose tasted albaloo torsh will understand exactly what my mom meant. 

Sour cherries are smaller than sweet cherries, their skin more taut, and, as the name clearly suggests, the flesh is more sour. But it's more than that. The flavor combines sweet and sour, flicking across the taste buds to create a sensation of freshness that just sings of summer. Granted, I've gone plenty of summers without sour cherries; they're just not that easy to come by back in New Jersey, and when we did they were terribly expensive. Consider them the morel mushrooms of summer's fruit bounty. 

So imagine our excitement when my mom and I came across them on our first ever visit to Berkeley Bowl. They came from Washington state, and were packed into a large container, more than my mom and I imagined we could finish in the day and a half before she left, and definitely more than I could finish on my own before they went bad. We talked it over: whatever we didn't finish could be transformed into preserves, or pie, or ice cream; nothing would be wasted. Instead of sugar plums, my mind was packed with dancing sour cherries, full of potential and promise. 

That afternoon, we sampled them. And everyday since, I "sampled" a little more, and a little more. Today, I "sampled" the last of the pack, with no jam or other sweet in sight. 

But anyone whose ever tasted sour cherries knows that eating them fresh is the sweetest summer treat.

In a weird place

I'm aching to write a vacation roundup right now; have been for days. Except, I'm not on vacation.

At some point, between then and now, I came to the conclusion that moving to California was right for me. There was big excitement and a whole lotta hubbub, but in all honesty, I didn't think it would happen. Sure I had a plane ticket to Oakland and an apartment in Berkeley and a Cali-appropriate gas-efficient car on its way to meet me, but, really, I just didn't think I was going anywhere. 

So when my mom and I were greeted with open arms by my cousin-cum-roommate and started making Ikea runs, it all felt a little bit like make believe. As a result, a silly grad student and her equally silly mom transformed an empty room with a gray-blue rug and short, white drape into a candy land of marshmallowy bedding and gumdrop dressers, capped off with an absurdly miniature palm tree that I hope beyond hope will sprout brown-sugary dates. 

Then, my mom left. Just poof! - she was gone, without me. Not quite poof. There were bouts of tears for hours before her flight. But, in the end, she was gone. And I was left wondering who was going to split a French macaron with me. Excuse me: split an entire collection of Miette macarons with me. 

My mom and I have always gotten along; there was the occasional mother-teenage daughter quarrel, but I've long considered her my best friend. Over the last three years since I graduated college, it's like we somehow became connected at the hip. (If this is getting nauseatingly too Gilmore Girls-y, it's time to stop reading.) 

We had dates that friends knew they couldn't mess with and, to my father's chagrin, we could talk for hours and hours and hours on end. We've come to share probably everything worth sharing and plenty that probably wasn't, and that sharing was usually conducted over something edible. 

In the past week alone we shared thoughts on my future plans (aspirations to become Andrew Zimmern's sidekick aside, we concluded that the horizon is fairly plan-free) over sandwiches of orange and wild fennel salami from Boccalone and Cowgirl Creamery's Inverness cheese, making time to tussle for rights to the favored ends of an Acme sourdough baguette. (Okay, so a return to the Ferry Building is on the list of short-term plans.)

We talked about music (Cesaria Evora trumps Persian rap - no joke) over a box of Tartine's revered rochers, tower-shaped meringues dotted with either almonds or cocoa nibs, and a nubby coconut macaroon, for dessert of course. 

We shared theories on the purpose of a mysterious, albeit beautifully landscaped, mansion in the middle of the Mission - my guess is vampire's lair, but mom proposed less intriguing possibilities like consulate or law office or some such. 

We shared teetering views from San Francisco's hilltops, 

And a beachside picnic after a flip floppy walk through Tennessee Valley.

We shared a pint of strawberries like palm-sized rubies as we walked the Embarcadero, 

Only to take a trip (mom's first!) on the ubiquitous cable car. 

We looked for fish in the waters of Lake Merritt, and schemed to pick magnolia blooms off the trees on the lakeshore,

But not before eating our fill of sandwiches at G.B. Ratto's in Old Oakland. 

We sniffed basil and taste tested melons that made my mom imagine her native Iran and drank way too much coffee. And it felt really good. 

And as bad as it felt when she left, deep down I know it's for the best. Because one week is not nearly long enough to eat an entire city. She'll be back. 

... three ... two ...

I'm staring down the barrel of the last day and a half of my pre-Berkeley life, and this might be goodbye, well, for a while. Or not. Being out of work for the past week has left me dazed and confused, and a little poorer (summer sales be damned) and chubbier (inspirational midday Food Network broadcasts... buttermilk fried onion rings a la Guy Fieri, anyone?). 

I don't really have any sweet nothings to share before my departure. Instead, I have a savory little something. 

Have you ever had your mind set on making something that you were sure you'd seen the recipe for on a specific page of a specific issue of a specific magazine? Well, I was quite sure yesterday, and spent the better part of 20 minutes searching for the recipe for these Parmesan-Pepper Biscotti yesterday. Finally I gave up and gave into the lure of epicurious.com's archive, and found it promptly, nowhere near when/where I was so sure I'd seen it. Dazed and confused, indeed!

The dough came together really easily, considering I only had about half the ingredients in half the required amount, and the other half in a "healthy" version. But even whole wheat flour and lactose-free, fat-free milk couldn't hold these babies back. 

They made the whole house smell like grilled cheese sandwiches, and brought me back to the days of yore when, just hours after her two teenage daughters and a husband determined to "lose 10 lbs" refused dinner, my mom would be coerced to share her makeshift Croque Monsieurs (white bread/cheddar cheese/deli ham popped into the toaster oven) with aforementioned dieters. 

I made half the batch, and it is plenty. I imagine it will taste great with soups, salads, wrapped in salami... but I've only managed as much as dunking them into a jar of cold tomato-basil pasta sauce while standing in pajamas in front of the open fridge door. I told you I've been dazed and confused. But this way I'm also (for the first time in a week, huzzah!) full. 

 

***

Parmesan-Pepper Biscotti

Adapted from Gourmet, December 2006

(I wasn't even reading Gourmet in 2006!! ... but I digress.)

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

2 cups whole wheat flour (all-purpose is perfectly fine here)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

3/4 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

3 large eggs

1/2 cup fat-free, lactose-free milk (if you've got whole milk, go nuts)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Whisk together flour, baking powder, 3/4-cup cheese, and pepper in a large bowl. Blend in butter with a pastry blender or your fingers (I'm a finger gal) until mixture resembles course meal. Whisk the eggs with milk and, reserving a couple of tablespoons of the liquid for later use, add to flour mixture, combining until a soft dough forms. 

Divide the dough into two halves, and, either on a floured work surface or a large ungreased baking sheet, form each half into a slightly flattened 12-inch log (about 2 inches wide and 3/4 inch high). Transfer logs to baking sheet if not there already, arranging them about 3 inches apart. 

Brush remaining egg/milk mixture over logs, sprinkle tops of logs evenly with remaining cheese and grind additional black pepper on top. Bake until the logs are golden and firm, about 25 minutes. Cool logs to warm on a rack, about 10 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees. 

Carefully transfer 1 warm log to a cutting board and cut diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Arrange slices, cut side down, in 1 layer on a baking sheet. Repeat with second log. Bake on one side until golden and crisp, about 20 minutes. Then flip biscotti and continue to bake, about 20 minutes, until second side is golden and crisp, too. Cool about 15 minutes. 

Biscotti can be stored up to two weeks in airtight container. 

... Four ...

Oh my god, I can't believe it either - not only is posting two days in a row unheard of around these parts, this is the second non-sweet, non-baked good post ... ever? Oh, the shame. 

So, Persian food is known for two things: it tastes amazing, but it's also way ugly. (Yea, I'm kind of not even trying with the segues anymore, but look on the bright side, my laziness gets us to the main attraction all the sooner.)

Where was I? Yes, the ugly. Sure, Persian kebabs, and plates of steaming rice and grilled vegetables makes it all look wonderfully appetizing, but the best stuff - the stews, the pickles, the beaten down vegetables - look absolutely disgusting. And this recipe, while not exactly Persian in any capacity beyond coming from Iran with cousin Azar on a recent visit, is no exception.  

Just look:

Uh huh, that's the "after" picture of the fish filets above. Horrible, no? But cleaning the bruised, beaten, decrepit-looking pan aside, there is nothing horrible about this. 

What did I do to the fish? Well, it all started with an onion and an unreasonable amount of fresh cilantro. Then some sassy tamarind paste wanted to get in on the action, and the most heavenly smell of sour and fresh (do "sour" and "fresh" have smells?) took over, blinding me to the mess that I was piling on top of perfectly lovely salmon filets. 

Thirty minutes later, I had a panful of salmon infused with tamarind and cilantro. The meat had soaked up every last bit of flavor, leaving the pan parched and covered in crisped tamarind paste. I guess the salmon didn't mind the ugly either. 

***

Salmon with cilantro and tamarind

This recipe comes courtesy of my cousin Azar, who visited the U.S. from Iran this past spring. She stayed mostly with her brother in Virginia, but my family was lucky enough to get her - and her home-cooking! - for a long weekend. Her version involved making this in a deep pot and dumping enough basmati rice to feed an army on top of the vegetable layer. The rice competes with the fish to absorb all the flavors (there is no loser in this battle), and curls around the salmon to create a crust we call "tahdig" at the bottom of the pot. I don't have any reason for not adding the rice other than pure fear of burning the tahdig. Though I suppose some nonsense about "bikini season" would be less embarrassing. 

1 onion, chopped

3 bunches fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

4 salmon filets

3 teaspoons tamarind paste*, combined with enough water to turn the paste into a liquid (about 1/2 cup of water)

4 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Sautee the onion with olive oil in a medium-large skillet until translucent and slightly browned. Add chopped cilantro and stir to combine. Sautee until coriander reduces and begins to crisp. Add tamarind-water mixture, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix to combine. 

Remove vegetables from pan. Arrange fish, skin side down, in pan. Spoon vegetables and juices over fish, to cover completely. Cover pan and cook fish over medium-low heat until cooked through, about 35 minutes. 

Serve over rice or green leafy vegetables, like spinach. 

*Tamarind paste is available in Indian specialty stores and online. 

Five...

Be very, very quiet... I'm supposed to be packing. I have 102 hours to give some semblance of order to the piles of clothes and books that have claimed my room as their own for the past 14 years. But before I get started, I wanted to share a recipe that just screams of East Coast summers. 

It's a simple salad of cold crisp lettuce, explosive little red tomatoes, and warm, caramel-y peaches that give way with a luscious pop under your teeth and pull your mouth into a smile. It's the kind of salad that makes me think of lazy summer afternoons of my childhood, when, with my eyes red from a hyper-chlorinated town pool and hair still dripping with shampoo that I was too hungry to properly rinse out, I would sit down to dinner on the deck with my family. 

There would be hamburgers and hot dogs and condiments that would take up half the table; frozen French fries crisped and hot from the oven; grainy breads of all shapes and sizes, and simple white buns that we'd throw to the birds - and grotesquely throw at the fireflies that would float around just beyond our reach. 

And there was always salad, and cold fruit sitting in a pool of melted ice cubes that were supposed to keep the peaches and plums and nectarines cool as the hot day gave in to a humid night. 

Granted, tonight my mom and I ate dinner alone. Instead of recovering from a day of sun and swim, we tried to forget three-hour-a-day commutes and seemingly endless strings of telemarketers - they don't only call at dinner time, I've learned. There weren't the classic flavors hot off the grill. Instead of chasing fireflies, we watched TV. It wasn't even humid. 

But at least we had this salad, and it felt like summer. 

***

Salad with warm peaches and basil-lime dressing

The heart of this salad is the dressing. It started off as my default - olive oil and lime juice - but something seemed to be missing this time. So I grabbed a handful of basil and threw it into the food processor with the olive oil-lime juice mixture. The basil added just the right amount of freshness. The salad works as a light meal on its own, but my mom and I paired it with a big bowl of whole wheat pasta and tomato-basil sauce. "Light" means different things to different people.

Salad:

1 head Boston lettuce

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

2 peaches, quartered

8 slices Parmesan cheese

Spray oil

Salt

Dressing:

Juice if 3 limes and an equal part olive oil

1/4 cup basil leaves, packed

Dash of chili powder

Salt and pepper, to taste

Wash, dry and arrange lettuce "cups" on a large plate. Wash tomatoes and cut them in half; add to lettuce cups. 

Combine equal parts of lime juice (I used 3 limes) and olive oil. It's easiest to do this in a jar; the oil will rise to the top. Add dash of chili powder, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Shake well. 

Put basil in food processor, chop, and with processor on, slowly add the oil-lime mixture until the whole thing emulsifies. Put back in jar. 

Heat a pan on the stove. Cut peaches into quarters and remove pits. Spray cut sides with oil and sprinkle with salt. When pan is hot, add peaches cut side down and reduce heat to low. Don't shift them around. Let peach slices heat through until side on pan browns and begins to release juices, about three minutes. When the cut side turns a golden brown, flip and repeat on other cut side. 

Shake basil-lime dressing in jar, and spoon over lettuce and tomatoes. Arrange Parmesan slices, and add warm peaches. Could serve 4, but better if split between 2.

Last days are sad

I woke up this morning to find the sun shining, the humidity gone, and myself feeling incredibly lost. 

Yesterday was my last day of work. I cleaned out my desk, ate delicious "goodbye" lemon meringue pie, listened to a poem about myself, finished my last article and even got the kick ass-est going away party ever! 

And still, today I'm kind of sad. So kind of sad that I woke up early because I didn't see the point in sleeping in. And once up, I tried to login to my office e-mail account, only to find it had already been canceled. I'm crazy, right? Sadness and work on what is essentially a day off?? I'm seriously deranged.

I'll have to wait it out. It's nothing a little California sunshine won't be able to fix, and I'll have that in just a week. In the meantime, I have sugar. 

Last days are sad. But giant Smarties are happy. 

Coming to terms with the Fourth

My reconciliation with the Fourth of July has been a long time coming. 

Childish as it may sound, most of my childhood memories of the nation's birthday involve the Fourth stealing my thunder. The "cool girl" in third grade couldn't come to my somewhat belated birthday party because her actual birthday was on July 4. Fireworks always upstaged even the sparkliest, un-blow-out-able candles. My mom told me the fireworks were for my birthday, but I knew she was lying. They were for America, and I didn't like it. I mean, let's face it, America has had her fair share of birthdays and was pretty old compared to me. She had her shot - time to step aside so I, a mere 7- (err 24-) year-old could get my proper birthday glory.

But this year was different. For one, on July 1 I turned 25, which is kind of a grown-up age no? And, more importantly, this was my first Fourth as an American citizen. That's right, after 20 years of living happily as an all-American child, this spring I became a bonafide American adult with the passport to prove it. 

I figured it was about time to settle my score with America and come to terms with sharing the Fourth. So, I baked her a cake. And she gave it back to me, candle and all, to share with my family as fireworks cracked softly in the distant night. 

***

Blueberry and Blackberry Galette with Cornmeal Crust

Adapted from Cooking Light, July 2008

I really messed this up. I'm not sure where I went wrong, but somehow a recipe that should have yielded 10 servings was enough for just me, my mom, my dad and Sandy. We're a family of mouths and bellies, but seriously...

Pastry:

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup cornmeal

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces

1/3 cup fat free buttermilk

Filling:

4 cups blueberries

2 cups blackberries

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Juice of 1 lime

Topping:

2 tablespoons fat-free milk

1 large egg white

1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar (or turbinado sugar, if you happen to have it on hand)

To prepare pastry, lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine flour and next three ingredients (through salt) in a food processor; pulse two times. Add butter to flour mixture; pulse 4 to 5 times or until mixture resembles course meal. With processor on, slowly add buttermilk through food chute; process just until dough forms a ball. Gently press dough into a 4-inch circle on plastic wrap and cover. Chill 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Unwrap and place dough on a sheet of parchment paper. Roll dough into a 15-inch circle. Place dough and parchment on a baking sheet.

To prepare filling, combine berries and next 3 ingredients (through juice) in a medium bowl; toss gently to coat. Arrange berry mixture in center of dough, leaving a 2-inch border. Fold edges of dough toward center, pressing gently to seal. Dough will only partially cover berry mixture. 

Combine fat-free milk and egg white in a small bowl, stirring well with a fork or whisk. Brush dough with the milk-egg mixture; sprinkle sugar evenly over dough. 

(My dough wouldn't stay sealed over the berries, so my mom and I wrapped it in the paper using toothpicks to secure it. Let it bake like this for 10 minutes until the dough sets and can hold its own shape, then remove toothpicks, undo the paper wrap, and continue to bake.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until pastry is golden brown. Let stand for 30 minutes then cut into wedges. 

Will serve 10 (or 4). 

For my birthday...

... all I wanted was a cupcake. I didn't know when, or from where, or what kind, and, as expected, my cupcake found me unexpectedly. In Philadelphia. Two days early.



It was delicious, filled with lemon curd, and adorable, capped off with the first of many flowers that would come my birthday's way.



And best of all, it was perfect for sharing. Just like birthdays.

***

Sour Cream Lemon Cupcake

Brown Betty Dessert Boutique

1030 No. 2nd Street

Philadelphia, Penn.