Category Archives: Food

Some days simply require a piece of Mom’s zucchini bread.

The more chocolate chips, the better. 

A summer treat, before the summer ends. 

(Dish on loan from the collection of Suzanne E. Ko.)

Caffeine has never been a friend of mine. I’m a decaffeinated guy – always have been. When regular coffee or tea enters my system, my hands start shaking, my heart starts palpitating, and it’s a big hot mess. Words start pouring out of my mouth in rapid-fire fashion and suddenly no one around me can handle it. I almost had to leave work for the afternoon because a stupid Starbucks barista once made my coffee with caffeine. It’s just not a good feeling, and in four and a half decades I’ve largely avoided the stimulant at all costs. 

That said, I’m not naive to think that I can’t have any caffeine – it’s in far more places than some of us realize (hello chocolate) and even in the most decaffeinated products there is still some present. There have also been times when I’ve been given regular coffee or tea and managed to survive without extreme effects. So when I did some reading up on matcha, and how the caffeine is reportedly released slowly over time instead of in a massive jolt that one gets in coffee, I decided to give it a try. 

Having been a fan of matcha-flavored items for a while, I did some research and it seemed that the ceremonial grade matcha was the best for drinking straight – something I wanted to do rather than dilute or modify it with milk or honey. I’d already had the chasen from some decaf matcha experiences, and I found a recommended brand of regular matcha from Ippodo Tea. 

Following recommendations from various online sources, I sifted a small amount of matcha, then added a coupe of ounces of water that had been boiled and cold slightly. Using quick stirring motions in an ‘M’ or ‘Z’ pattern, I mixed in the matcha powder with the water until there were no discernible lumps (also why the sifting is an important part of the process). 

From there, I added the rest of the water and stirred it well. The color was a deep, earthy green, matching the taste. It wasn’t bitter, and it wasn’t sweet. There was very much an umami thing going on – hints of the sea were more prevalent than anticipated – and the earthiness was palpable. I can see why many don’t take to it right away, but I loved it. Definitely part of the fall repertoire going forward. 

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves–slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

These adorable little veggies – which at first glance look like miniature watermelons – are actually a micro cucumber, sometimes called a Mexican cucumber according to the internet – and they were gifted to us from our neighbor Ken. Despite its shape, I find it hard to get excited about a cucumber, so when Andy told me about them on the ride home from work, I largely let it go in one ear and out the other. 

When I got home and saw them, all of that apathy went out the window. Tiny and cute, and the very visual embodiment of little watermelons, they had me instantly smitten. Holding them in the palm of my hand gives you a slightly better perspective and rendering of their size. 

As for the taste, I was not sure what to expect beyond the usual, slightly-bland water-heavy non-remarkable dullness of a typical cucumber, but I was wrong: these are bright and crisp, with a slightly tart lemon-like zing that absolutely sings in the mouth. They may very well be my new favorite vegetable – I just can’t imagine the numbers needed and the amount of cutting required to make a dish. There’s an end-of-summer challenge in that – and I love a challenge. 

The San Marzano tomato plant I tried for the first time this year resulted in nothing but rotten fruit and the scariest caterpillars I’ve ever encountered, so that poor specimen has been dismantled. The cherry tomatoes, however, have done as well as they typically do – as has a Big Boy that snuck into the patch. All are coming into fruition this month, and it’s a scarlet celebration in our kitchen.

There’s a thrill to wandering about the patio, spying a ripe cherry tomato, and simply popping it into my mouth, where it explodes in a sweet and tart party on the tongue. 

The simple tomato and mayonnaise sandwich is new to my summer lunch repertoire, but it’s better to discover something this delicious and easy later in life than never at all. While I don’t have the same childhood memories that so many others seem to have of this combo, I’m all for making new ones.

Piggybacking off this tomato beginning, we will soon be harvesting some fresh fruit or vegetables (depending upon which side you side on for the argument) from our own backyard. Does food taste better when it comes from your own garden? Absolutely.

Vegans and vegetarians avert your eyes: this is a gratuitous hot dog post. A couple times in the year – usually in the summer – I get a hankering for a hot dog. It brought about this pretty phenomenal experiment of peanut butter and bacon that works better than it sounds to most people. This time around, the secret ingredient was a healthy bit of pickled red onions. They are magical. I’ll describe my simple preparation of them in a future post. For now, I have things to eat. 

The almond-tinged deliciousness known as the financier is traditionally made in the form of a small, rectangular cake form, like a tiny loaf of bite-size bread. For this initial attempt, I used a fancier form, which used twice the amount of batter, yielding only six financiers – and luckily that was just enough. That batch was for Suzie and her family in honor of her birthday, and they are amiable guinea pigs when it comes to trial desserts, and happily they seemed to enjoy them. The financier is easy to assemble. Its sweet almond goodness is made richer through the employment of brown butter (which is merely butter boiled to the point of turning brown, imbuing it with a caramelized-like decadence and depth). 

The end result, when I tipped them out of their molds, looked less like the mini-bundt cake I wanted and more like the ghosts from a childhood game of Pac-Man. I like ‘Pac-Man Ghost Goodie’ better as a name anyway, so I’ll see if I can add a new twist to make these more Pac-Man-like. 

You make flan your way, I’ll make it mine. 

Summer is only a gleam in the mind right now, but I’m sustaining on that gleam, and planning accordingly. If there’s one thing that this pandemic has taken and wrecked, it’s the idea of planning – which was one of my favorite pastimes – and I’m slowly trying to bring that back in small ways. The making of this recipe will be one such practice endeavor. Suzie made a batch and the recipe turned out to be surprising simple. Anything with vanilla wafers seems to be a good thing. 

The recipe says there is the possibility of using bottled Key lime juice – and honestly I hope that’s the case because the Key limes I’ve seen are tiny. It looks impossibly difficult to extract 3/4 cup juice from them, and I don’t have that kind of patience. Suzie actually used a combination of the more common Persian limes and a lemon, and it tasted wonderful, but I’d like to try the authentic Key limes for my first attempt. And for summer. 

For the bulk of my four-decade-plus life I’ve despised an ambrosia salad. How the gods would have eaten this canned and artificially-sweet mush of blandness is beyond me. In my older age, however, my tastes have changed and evolved. Things I once derided I now enjoy – pineapple, for instance, and coconut – and so when a Watergate salad recipe made a splash online recently, the kitschy green pastels and 70’s-era ingredients appealed to my sense of nostalgia, and I decided to give the ambrosia another go. 

The recipe I based this on was one for Watergate salad, and I added elements of what Andy could recall from his Mom’s ambrosia salad recipe. The result is a hybrid that is now part of our planned Easter lunch festivities, thanks to its fluffy sweetness and pretty pastel color. Modify as desired.

Ambrosia x Watergate salad for Easter Garishness

• 1 package pistachio pudding mix
• 1 can crushed pineapple (liquid too)
• 1 container thawed Cool Whip (mandatory for any kitsch recipe)
• 1 cup marshmallows (the tiny kind, not the big-ass smores kind)
• 1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or other nuts (optional)

Method: Mix all the shit together and stir. 

A variation on this viral TikTok recipe ~ a bed of zucchini, a brick of feta, and some fresh basil, parsley and baby spinach give a green slant to the dinner proceedings, perfectly timed for anyone looking to forego the meat on a Friday in Lent. The baking of the veggies and cheese at 400 degrees is what does most of the work – some saved pasta water makes it as light or as creamy as you like it. Fridays call for simple dinners like this. 

The doubly-devastating whammy of finding out that two of our favorite food haunts in Ogunquit were closing – Amore Breakfast and Bread & Roses – put Andy and I in a funk, as we had already bee missing that Beautiful Place By the Sea for a couple of years. The only solution I could think of to ameliorate some of our sadness was making this attempt at approximating the Chocolate Oatie found at Bread & Roses. (B&R are actually shifting their operation just a little further up the coastline, to Wells.) 

There wasn’t anything exceptional or especially wonderful about the chocolate oatie that they offered – it was a basic chocolate and oatmeal bar – but the circumstances and moments in which Andy procured this particular sweet treat were always magical. It meant we were on vacation, visiting one of our favorite places on earth, and we were together in the old knotty pine room. It meant there were either lilacs blooming outside the window, or the cozy smell of burning leaves to accentuate a blazing fall. It meant that the beach was nearby, whether in sun or rain or hints of snow. It meant time with my husband, time with my family, and time with our Ogunquit friends. That simple little oatie, as humble and unremarkable as it might otherwise be, came imbued with a power and enchantment that signified happiness and joy and ease. 

It’s been too long since we’ve been to Ogunquit – it’s been too long since we’ve been anywhere actually – and Andy and I feel that longing keenly. This is my small way of bringing some of its magic back to us, in the same way that a Rosa rugosa bush in our backyard reminds us of the Marginal Way every time it blooms and lends its spicy perfume to the breeze. 

{For this chocolate oatmeal bar, I used this recipe, and substituted pecans for the walnuts. I’m thinking of modifying it a bit, maybe incorporating some coconut flakes since I have to get rid of half a bag.}

This little cake recipe hails originally from Burma, where its subtly sweet richness arises only slightly from a very runny batter. It doesn’t go sky-high but its lowly stature belies its delicate taste, made from a lovely combination of coconut, cashews and some freshly ground cardamom. Any chance to make use of the mortar and pestle is a happy day in the kitchen for me. While the recipe calls for semolina flour, I used wheat flour for the first one I made, and bread flour for this one – and both turned out edible. The magic is in toasting the flour and coconut first, then letting the coconut milk soak into that for fifteen minutes. Some butter and brown sugar and eggs round out the main cake mix, and that dash of cardamom makes all the difference. Full recipe here – this is a grand yet rustic way to see out the winter