Not too long ago, I asked you to call me “Melon Head.” Would you mind changing that to “Apple Dumpling”?
Of all the foodie terms of endearment — Pumpkin, Sweetie Pie, Babycakes, Cookie, Honeybun — I think “Apple Dumpling” suits me best right about now.
Fall (my favorite season) doesn’t officially begin until Sunday, but that familiar chill is already in the air. Hooray for apple season, deep blue skies, warm cider with cinnamon sticks, stunning rustic foliage, and friendly pumpkins on porches! I am basically *ahem* a little apple-shaped, can be sweet or tart, and would like nothing better than to wrap myself in a buttery, flaky blanket of dough. Did you know this past Tuesday the 17th was National Apple Dumpling Day? 🙂
“Peace goes into the making of a poem, as flour goes into the making of bread.” ~ Pablo Neruda
Franck Dangereux’s Oil Bread via The Food Fox (click for recipe)
The other day, after rereading Lesléa Newman’s, “According to Bread,” one of my favorite poems in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School(Pomelo Books, 2013), chewy, mouthwatering bread names playfully called to me, each a poem unto itself.
Play with us, they said. Roll, pat, toss us! Slice, butter, dip, fill, break us. We know we smell good. 🙂
Bread is a beautiful thing — venerable, inclusive, eternal, irresistible. Staff of life and a sacrament, it pays our way and is a gift from every culture and ethnicity in the world.
Rosemary Focaccia via My Year Cooking with Chris Kimball (click for recipe)
Just naming these breads makes me happy. I daresay I feel a tad cosmopolitan because I’ve actually tasted all of them and more. What do you reach for when the bread basket is passed around?
“Making pie, I love the hunger and delight of the hands. You don’t have to touch cake, but you have to touch pie.” ~ Kate Lebo
Kate Lebo, the Pie Poet (photo by Christopher Nelson)
Sometimes you just gotta have pie.
That’s why I was positively giddy when I chanced upon Kate Lebo’s prose poem, “Lemon Meringue,” in the Summer 2013 issue of Gastronomica.
Kate’s been on my foodie radar for a couple of years now; I first saw her drool-inducing double crust fruit pies at Cakespy.com, and earlier this year, Susan Rich shared Kate’s “Chocolate Cream Pie” at The Alchemist’s Kitchen.
Seeing “Lemon Meringue” made me want to find out more about this Seattle-based poet who loves shaping dough as much as crimping a good line of verse.
Please help yourself to some homemade Blueberry Slump.
Happy Independence Day!
Funny, I hadn’t planned on slump — but this sometimes happens when your husband’s no slouch.
The other day, I jotted down a grocery list for Len. Nothing out of the ordinary:
bananas
blueberries
2 vine-ripened tomatoes
cucumber
2 mangoes
I usually don’t specify an amount for the blueberries cause it’s always the same — a pint basket for my morning cereal.
Sure, my penmanship is nothing to brag about.
Still.
I got oodles and oodles of blueberries. A big bag, nay, an avalanche of blueberries. He couldn’t understand why I’d want “6” blueberries. So he bought 6 quarts.
Maybe he thought I was planning to bake 6 giant pies for 6 starving yeti?!
Me: !!!?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*&*#@(#!!!!
He showed me the list. I’d written “blueberries,” plain as day. So what if the “b” was slightly separated from the rest of the word? I’m one of those people who writes in “print-script.” I never connect all my letters in strict cursive form. He knows this. Yet he still thought my “b” was a “6.”
6 lueberries
Me:6 lueberries? 6 lueberries?!
Oy. (Might I add that the stem on my “b” was straight up, not curved to the right?)
He was looking more yeti-like with each passing second.
Only one thing to do: make blueberry pancakes and blueberry muffins and blueberry bread and blueberry slump.
No, I’m not complaining. After all, he did fill the order. When it comes to grocery shopping, Len’s no slouch. Good thing it wasn’t watermelons. 😀
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NEW ENGLAND BLUEBERRY SLUMP (makes b 6 servings)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Blueberry Mixture
3 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Crust
1 cup sifted flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter, melted
Half and half, cream, or vanilla ice cream, as desired
1. Combine blueberry mixture ingredients in 1-1/2 quart casserole. Cover and bake in hot oven (400 degrees F) for 15 minutes. Uncover and stir well.
2. While berries are heating, prepare crust. Sift together flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening with pastry blender until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add milk and stir only enough to moisten dry ingredients. Drop by small spoonfuls onto blueberry mixture, covering fruit completely. Drizzle butter over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.
3. Return to hot oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until topping is cooked and browned. Serve warm with half and half, cream, or vanilla ice cream.
4. After you’ve had your fill, hug your resident yeti and practice your penmanship.
(Adapted from The Old Fashioned Cookbook by Jan McBride Carlton, Weathervane Books, 1975.)
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Time to sign off for my annual summer blog break. I plan to read, write, dawdle, eat, rest, tidy up, think, walk, organize, explore, landscape, play the piano, and (gasp!) migrate all my data from my ancient PC desktop to a new iMac (any tips?).
Have a bang-up 4th of July — partying, parading, and picnicking!!
“One of my biggest thrills for me still is sitting down with a guitar or a piano and just out of nowhere trying to make a song happen.” ~ Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (my other secret husband) is 71 years old today!
He’s still one of the most well preserved classic rockers out there. Can’t get enough of his boyish good looks and irresistible charm. Plus, he makes good mashed potatoes. 🙂
Despite having been a member of the greatest rock band ever, and now described by the Guinness Book of World Records as “the most successful composer and recording artist of all time,” (wow) he seems remarkably down to earth. Paul just keeps on doing what he loves and we love him all the more for it.
Macca is the wealthiest musician in the UK (and probably the world); as of this year, his net worth is estimated in excess of £680 million. Not bad for a lad from Liverpool with a modest working class background. In this interesting BBC Radio 4 interview with Sheila Dillon, he talks about being raised on traditional meat and potatoes meals. His mother served Yorkshire Pudding as a dessert (with Golden Syrup), and the Sunday roast was the highlight of the week.
He enjoyed the usual chops and liver but drew the line at tongue, a cheap alternative to meat in those days of rationing. Can’t blame him in the least. As he says, “It’s a tongue!” Ewwww.
While touring with the Beatles, food was basically fuel. He remembers huge steaks drooping over the edge of the plate and thinking how Americans always like to do things “big.”
Though he was introduced to vegetarianism in the 60’s while studying meditation in India, it wasn’t until he met Linda that he adopted it as a lifestyle, initially because of his compassion for animals. Over the years, his commitment to a meat-free diet intensified as he learned more about its health benefits and the detrimental effects of livestock production on the environment. These days he passionately campaigns for animal rights, using his fame to help spread the word about how greenhouse gas emissions impact climate change.
The McCartney kitchen at 20 Forthlin Road, Liverpool, is now maintained by the National Trust.
I like looking at the humble kitchen at 20 Forthlin Road, imagining 15-year-old Paul eating beans on toast or sausages for tea and writing songs with the Quarrymen, never dreaming where his life’s journey would take him.
Other things I love about Paul:
Sometimes, just for fun, he uses the pseudonym “Apollo C. Vermouth”
He wrote “Yesterday,” the most covered song in history (3000+ recorded versions)
He had a rare and genuine-for-real, 29-year enduring marriage to Linda, the love of his life
He’s a firm believer in family life and never spoiled his children, wanting them above all to be people with good hearts
He’s also a painter and a poet
He can’t read music and is largely self-taught, a natural-born instinctual artist
He’s considered one of the most generous musicians in the world, having contributed millions of pounds to various charities
He wrote beautifully lyrical love songs inspired by his real-life muses: “And I Love Her,” “You Won’t See Me,” “I’m Looking Through You, “Here, There and Everywhere,” “For No One” (Jane Asher), “Two of Us,” “I Will,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “My Love” (Linda McCartney)
Lookin’ good in Melbourne, Australia, 1975:
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To celebrate his birthday, I made the Easy Chocolate Fudge Cake recipe included in The Meat Free Monday Cookbook (Kyle Books, 2012), which Paul launched with his daughters Stella and Mary. It was nice to get a quick chocolate fix made with ingredients I already had on hand. It turned out to be more like a cakey brownie with a moist fudgy layer on the bottom. Yum!
EASY CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE (adapted from The Meat Free Monday Cookbook)
1 cup all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 4 tablespoons cocoa powder 1/2 cup sugar 7 tablespoons melted butter 2 organic eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1-2 tablespoons organic milk 1/2 cup chopped pecans 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar 1/3 cup hot water
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease a 1-quart baking dish.
Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the baking powder, 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, and 1/2 cup sugar. Make a well in the center, pour in the melted butter, eggs, vanilla extract, and organic milk, and beat until well combined.
Stir in the chopped pecans, and pour into the prepared pan. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, and hot water. Stir well and pour over the cake batter.
Place in the oven and bake for 40 minutes. During baking, the cake will rise to the top and underneath there will be a delicious chocolate sauce. Serve hot with cream.
Serves 4.
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Here’s Paul to sing us out with “Birthday,” performed live in Quebec. The song was written mostly by Paul in the Apple Studios 6 days before Linda’s 26th birthday.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 