food

chatting with susan fillion about pizza in pienza

~ jama ~ 13 Comments

Buon Giorno!

You’re just in time to enjoy a soul-warming slice of Susan Fillion’s homemade pizza. There’s nothing like a perfect chewy-crisp crust topped with a little crushed tomato, melty mozzarella, black olives and fresh basil, just begging you to take a bite. Delizioso!

Also delicious is Susan’s charming new bilingual picture book, Pizza in Pienza (David R. Godine, 2013), which is about two of her favorite things — pizza, of course, and Pienza, a small town in Tuscany where Pope Pius II was born (he rebuilt Pienza to be an “ideal Renaissance town”).

Susan’s story features a young Italian girl, a resident of Pienza, who is crazy about pizza — so much so, that she decides to find out everything she can about it. She asks her grandmother to teach her how to make it, she scopes out Giovanni, the local pizzaiolo, and she also reads all about the history of pizza at the library. Did you know pizza (as we know it today) most likely originated in Naples, Italy?

An artist and museum educator at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Susan has filled this book with beautiful rustic, folkloric paintings rendered in warm Tuscan browns, crimsons, golds, olives, and blues. I love how her humorous touches (Mona Lisa holding a slice of pizza) gives us a fresh taste of antiquity, blending past and present on a timeless canvas of Italian village life.

Hungry readers will appreciate the added layer of flavor afforded by the Italian translations on every page — two savory bites for the price of one! End matter includes an Author’s Note, Pronunciation Guide, and Susan’s recipe for Pizza Margherita. And did I mention the cool pizza sauce endpapers? Squisito!

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rainbow pasta from allergies, away!

~ jama ~ 25 Comments

Recently, Mr. Cornelius and I finally made one of the recipes from the Park Sisters’ new cookbook, Allergies, Away!: Creative Eats and Mouthwatering Treats for Kids Allergic to Nuts, Dairy, and Eggs (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013).

We wanted to whet your appetite for their upcoming visit next month and share a few details about their mouthwatering, kid-friendly collection of 70+ recipes — dishes your entire family can enjoy making and eating, whether they have food allergies or not.

Credit: Teddy Wolff/WP Express</em

If you remember when Frances and Ginger stopped by to tell us about their beautifully written, heartfelt memoir (Chocolate Chocolate: The True Story of Two Sisters, Tons of Treats, and the Little Shop That Could, 2011), you know that they own Washington, D.C.’s, premier chocolate boutique. Imagine how disheartening it must have been when they discovered that Ginger’s one-year-old son, Justin, had severe food allergies, making it too risky for him to even visit their shop!

When Ginger was pregnant, everyone assumed her child would be the proverbial “kid in a candy store.” Though Justin had to stay far away from chocolate covered peanuts, he did grow up eating a nice variety of tasty, nutritious meals and snacks, thanks to the conscientious, resourceful efforts of his mother and aunt.

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friday feast: kate lebo’s pie-losophy

~ jama ~ 48 Comments

“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.

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no slouch, just slump, and a summer blog break

~ jama ~ 33 Comments
slump
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.)

Ribbet collage

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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!!

And enjoy your summer. See you in August! 🙂

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Copyright © 2013 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.

a colorful chat with cathryn falwell about rainbow stew

~ jama ~ 15 Comments

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Mmmmm, somebody’s making something yummy! It’s a special stew made with a rainbow of freshly picked garden vegetables — red tomatoes, purple eggplant, green peas and beans, rosy radishes, brown potatoes and yellow peppers. Care for a bowl?

rainbow stew coverIt’s such a treat to welcome award winning author/illustrator Cathryn Falwell to Alphabet Soup today. She’s just published an uncommonly delicious new picture book called Rainbow Stew (Lee & Low, 2013), which contains all the ingredients I love most about good stories: food, family, and fun. 🙂

A very cool grandfather (who makes yummy pancakes for breakfast) makes the most of a rainy summer day by suggesting everyone go outside to “find some colors for my famous Rainbow Stew!”  So he and his three grandchildren don their rain gear and go searching for ripe veggies under the drippy leaves. With treasures like radishes, carrots, cucumbers and cabbage, and time enough to “jump around like grasshoppers and buzz about like bees,” everyone has a muddy grand time.

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