A Turkey Post Without a Bird

Anik See's evocative collection of travel essays, "A Taste for Adventure: A Culinary Odyssey Around the World" is the present selection for the Cook the Books Club, the bimonthly online book club where participating foodies read, review and cook from the featured book. I am the current hostess for this round centered on See's wonderful book, and was delighted to recommend the book to others.

"A Taste for Adventure" is lyrically written about the author's slow bicycle journeys through a number of exotic destinations in Asia, South America and the Middle East. Often See was alone, but on several of her sojourns she was accompanied by her boyfriend Doug, and in most every destination, she and he were welcomed to feasts, personalized tours, loaded down with local delicacies and pulled into kitchens and bedrooms for respite.



I enjoyed reading and then rereading the many bookmarked passages in See's book as her writing so vividly gave me a chance to tour remote corners of Patagonia, Georgia, Armenia, Malaysia, Iran and Argentina and several other delicious-sounding, breathtaking countries. She has a gift for making this Western-centric reader appreciate the shift when arriving in a foreign land and making sense of things. Here's her arresting, philosophical take on Thailand:

"Southeast Asia has a way of redefining things. The common misconception is that it makes you appreciate the "privilege" of being born into a western country and its potential for affluence. In fact, what Southeast Asia does is reveal the excesses of the West, of how we westerners have lost sight of the importance of simpler things in the quest for money and "meaningful" careers (as opposed to a meaningful existence), the need for a house or two or three, a car or two or three, and material possessions. Southeast Asia has a way of forcing you to define what is absolutely necessary for your survival and uncover the happiness that lies within a possessionless existence" (pp. 50-51 in my softcover copy).

The challenge for my Cook the Books post ended up trying to narrow down the particular geographic locale that I would research further. I was partial to See's description of Georgia, and the "fierce pride", contradictions of romanticism and economic desperation, high spirits, romance and chivalry and chauvinism all entwined. See was wisely accompanied by Doug on this route, which begins as they wheel their bikes out of the customs checkpoint and are embraced, kissed and laden with apples, jam and vodka by a complete stranger. At every Georgian pitstop the pair are forcefully bestowed with eggplants, exuberant greetings, more vodka, joyful, hours-long impromptu feasts, tearful departures, homemade wine, watermelons, and many, many more glasses of homemade wine.

Ultimately, I decided to dip an exploratory cooking spoon into the cuisine of Turkey, described so tantalizingly in See's book as "multidimensional, coy and luring, steamy, seductive, like nothing I have ever tasted and certainly like nothing I had ever expected" (p 96). I found some excellent introductions to Turkish cuisine at this website and then visited quite a while over at Binnur's Turkish Cookbook, where I decided to try my hand at Guvecte Mantarli Pilav, a toothsome mushroom and rice pilaf topped with a snowy cap of cooked grated potato and egg yolks. The two starches might seem a bit much combined together, but this made a great main dish supper for our family, who tucked into it before I was able to snap the requisite food porn photo. Darn!



This was a great recipe, thank you Binnur! I made it with sliced baby portabella mushrooms and it was hearty and homey on a cold January evening. Even my dill-phobic daughters scarfed it up with gusto and I would recommend it to anyone interested in an introductory recipe to help explore Turkish cooking. It was an accessible-sounding casserole, sort of a riff on vegetarian shepherd's pie, but the spice and flavor combinations were just different enough to make it an exotic dish for our table.

Be sure to check back in at Cook the Books after our January 22 deadline to see the roundup of blog posts, book reviews and book-inspired recipes for our "Taste of Adventure". Until then...

Confections of a Closet Master Baker: A Biblio-Culinary Review and a GF Cheescake

Confections of a Closet Master Baker: A Memoir, by Gesine Bullock-Prado (NY: Broadway Books, 2009)

This is an engaging and lively account of the author's transformation from unhappy Hollywood film producer to happy, flour-dusted baker in America's smallest and funkiest state Capitol, Montpelier, Vermont. I was delighted to receive an advance copy of this book through the good folks at A Blithe Palate and Dispensing Happiness, who are cohosting The Edible Word event, wherein participants read a book, cook up some inspirational edibles and then blog about it.

Gesine (rhymes with subpoena) had an interesting upbringing as the daughter of an Alabama dad and German opera-singer mom. During her preschool years, she and big sister Sandy were reared in Germany, looked after by a collection of maternal relatives and nannies while mom was onstage. When Gesine was five years old, they moved to the U.S. and Mom (Mutti) seems to have retired from singing to rule the family with a strict regimen of health-conscious foods. No more Continental sweets unless it was a holiday or birthday. Instead, it was "a dietary lock-down of whole-grain, tofu-laced, sucrose-free hell".



Gesine grew up and moved in with Sandy, a struggling actress, to share an apartment while she went to law school. Sandy, whom the rest of the world knows as Sandra Bullock, achieved star status during this time and after passing the bar and going to a few dispiriting legal job interviews, Gesine signed up to work in her sister's new production company.

While working with the ebullient Sandy and meeting her future artist husband, Ray, helped "dull the pervasive ick of work", Gesine was still unfulfilled by her work, filling her free time with a frenzy of recreational baking. She bakes and bakes and bakes her way through various pastry arts until finally, while helping nurse Mutti through a terminal illness, she realizes that she is happiest in the kitchen. She and Ray chuck the Southern California lifestyle, pack up their fuzzy dogs and relocate to Vermont, where Gesine plans to attend culinary school.

A huge mail order for her specialty French almond-based macaroons that she had continued to pack off to Sandy and friends puts school on hold while she finds a commercial-scale kitchen in which to crank these out. Soon after, she and Ray buy a little building in the outer orbit of Montpelier and a bakery is born. The rest of the book details her daily adventures in catering to various customers, developing new recipes, and enjoying her new lifestyle. As a small business owner myself, I especially enjoyed the war stories about the mix of cranks and angels one gets in the shop each day. Gesine is a very descriptive and witty writer and can quickly place the reader right into each of the scenes she describes, whether it is sharing a cup of coffee and a pastry at tea-time with her Oma in Germany or performing the balletic pre-dawn bakery routines in a dark, chilly winter kitchen. Husband Ray Prado's delightful illustrations further season the book and they are humorous and affectionate portraits of scenes in Gesine's world.

Gesine offers a generous serving of recipes throughout the pages, and one can also find some recipes, further writing and even a video about how to make Golden Eggs on her blog, where you can absorb even more of her sparkling and sarcastic wit while she whisks and pours. Alas, it is at her blog, that I found out that Gesine's bakery is now shuttered while she is on hiatus working on other projects, so one cannot make a pilgrimage to Montpelier to sample some of her wonderful creations. (Montpelier is a fun town to visit, nonetheless, and I offer a little tour of bookshops and restaurants here).

Though I am more partial to the savory end of cooking, I really enjoyed this trawl through a baker's life. My only negative comment is that I found the many descriptions of Gesine's late mother disturbing. She strides about the book, clad in leather pants, stilettos and a Foxy Lady belt buckle at school functions (okay that's embarrassing but forgivable), seems to always have a critical comment for Gesine on her tongue, noting things down in her "endless ledger of unforgivable venialities" (that seems pretty harsh), and then humiliates her daughter in a school cafeteria scene that made my stomach clench (Mutti Dearest crossed the line there). I realize everyone's parenting styles are different, but reading these scenes made me uncomfortable. Gesine would always counter these maternal descriptions with a sentence about how much she missed her mom, but they added jarring notes to an otherwise interesting foodie memoir.

It was easy enough to select a recipe that I wanted to make from the book. I ran down the list to my dear husband, and without hesitation he chose the Espresso Cheesecake. Of course, Gesine's recipe would require some fiddling to make this gluten-free for our household. Thankfully, cheesecakes don't require much flour and the architectonics of gluten molecules to make them stand up. Mercifully too, my local supermarket stocks the gluten-free chocolate sandwich cookies needed for the crust so I didn't have to spend three days on this dessert project.



I got 2 cups of cookie crumbs ground up finely in my food processor and then added the 2 sticks of butter called for in Gesine's recipe. Maybe 2 cups of non-GF Oreo-style cookies absorb much more oil than my cookies did, or perhaps there is a typo in the cookie crust recipe for the Espresso Cheesecake. I think 1/2 stick of butter might have sufficed. I had an oily, liquidy bunch of chocolate crumbs that would just slither through the springform pan, so I ground up the second 8 oz. package of GF chocolate cookies to make another 2 cups of crumbs which I mixed in for the crust. Then I spooned up as much butter as I could off the top of the mixture, spooned it into the bottom of my pan and blotted up as much excess butter as I could with paper towels. In it went to bake (I put a foil lining on my cookie sheet underneath to absorb more oily excess) and then I blotted again as it cooled.

The rest of the recipe went smoothly and my family enjoyed this not-too-sweet, pleasantly caffeinated cheesecake just fine (I also subbed in white rice flour for the wheat flour called for in the filling). It is particularly nice with a cup of coffee on the side and garnished with some chocolate-covered coffee beans for extra Javanation.

I am looking forward to the roundup of book reviews and blog posts about this book on the Edible Word, which will be posted later this week. Thank you to the sweet hosts for the book and thank you to Gesine for a great read. I hope the author will continue to explore baking and will write some other books for us to enjoy about her creative adventures.

Cooking up Some Tex-Mex Delights with Gloria Chadwick

The prize package for my February Chili Cook-Off winning recipe (actually Dan's recipe, for Spicy Lentil Chili) over at Gloria Chadwick's Food and Flavors of San Antonio blog was a copy of her newest cookbook of the same title.

I have been delightedly cooking my way through this book and savoring the little snippets that precede many of the recipes highlighting San Antonio's Tex-Mex cuisine. We've all enjoyed the Red Rice recipe, which I've made several times now, and Dan proclaimed the Chilaquiles Calabacitas the best casserole I ever made. Chilaquiles is a layered dish of corn tortillas, veggies and cheese, and Gloria's recipe (enlivened with a little snipped fresh cilantro from our garden) was awesomely good. You'll have to buy the cookbook to get those two terrific recipes, or perhaps win a copy as I did by checking out Gloria's blog, but she is very generous in offering up several other recipes from her book at the blog as well.



I keep forgetting to photograph the Red Rice (it's a very pretty red-orange color) and the Chilaquiles were devoured before I remembered my blog photographer duties, but here's a shot of the lovely and refreshing Watermelon Aqua cocktail (it's actually non-alcoholic) that made use of some leftover watermelon.

Gloria's cookbook is a winner because the cook doesn't have to go hunt down some crazy ingredients or master elaborate techniques to make any of her recipes. That suits my cooking style and since the results have all been warmly received (aka chowed down), this cookbook will be placed in the coveted kitchen bookshelf where all my "go to" cookbooks reside.

The prolific Ms. Chadwick is already hard at work on another cookbook project, this time to benefit her local food pantry, so be sure to go visit her blog to see if you can contribute an original Tex-Mex style recipe and of course, to soak up some of her fantastic recipes.

Book Review: Elisabeth Hasselbeck's "The G-Free Diet"

The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide, by Elisabeth Hasselbeck (NY: Center Street, 2009).

The publisher sent me a copy of this brand-new book by television personality Elisabeth Hasselback, a celiac herself, and here's my thoughts.

A new book about the gluten-free diet is always welcome and having a celebrity author brings extra public awareness to the issues of celiac disease and gluten-intolerance. I applaud Mrs. Hasselback for bringing her own experiences to print (embarrassing digestive disturbances and all) and letting more people know about the symptoms and long-term health effects of celiac disease.

The most useful chapters are the ones in which she describes strategies for food shopping and preparation and ways in which she and her family, a combination of gluten-eaters and "G-free" dieters, avoid contaminating kitchen work surfaces and cooking implements. Hasselbeck also dishes out lots of good advice about how to approach family, friends and restaurant workers when eating away from home. There are many recommendations for specific restaurant chains which offer gluten-free dining options and information regarding certain food brands and products, although this kind of data is so easily changed that the book became dated the minute it rolled off the printing press.



The concerns I have with the way the book is packaged. I assume that is the author's picture on the front dust jacket pushing away a tempting assortment of crusty breads and rolls. Why make these breads so delicious-looking? Why don't they look moldy or misshapen or bad for you, like a squishy, spongy, loaf of supermarket bread? I say, forget the food stylist for that cover photo and just show the sparkling health of Mrs. Hasselbeck next to some unappealing piles of glutenous products.

The dust jacket blurbs are also kind of goofy. The quotes on the rear jacket promote the gluten-free diet as a "lifestyle" option that can help you lose weight, and as the "next big movement in health and wellness". 95% of Americans with undiagnosed celiac disease, suffering from any of the myriad, commonplace and sometimes subtle symptoms, might pick up a copy of this book, scan it quickly and get the wrong idea to self-diagnose and stop eating gluten before being medically tested. The actual text of the book and Dr. Peter Green's foreword do caution against this, but the dust jacket just sends the wrong messages out.

Hasselbeck's book is a nice addition to the gluten-free library and would be good to peruse if you are newly diagnosed as a celiac or want to pass on a copy to a friend or family member who wants to cook for you. For an introduction to gluten-free living, I personally favor the more comprehensive information in Danna Korn's "Living Gluten-Free for Dummies" (2006) and the glorious and delicious writing of Shauna James Ahern's "Gluten-Free Girl" (2007). However, Hasselbeck's "The G-Free Diet" has the opportunity to introduce many more people to the issue of celiac disease and gluten-intolerance because they are familiar with her from "The View" and "Survivor". She has lots of good information to share and is working hard to promote the book and the issue of celiac disease, so it is a welcome book. Just throw away the dust jacket.

Novel Food: Snowballs for Robertson Davies

It is time for the sixth mouthwatering installment of that fun foodie event for brainy cooks, Novel Food. This quarterly blog event is co-hosted by Simona of Briciole and Lisa of A Champaign Taste and offers participants a chance to share some favorite books and the culinary creations inspired by them. In the past I have joined in Novel Food fun with a delicious Yemenite Eggplant Salad inspired by Diana Abu-Jaber's novel "Crescent" (and now am looking forward to reading Abu-Jaber's food-laced memoir "The Language of Baklava" for the second Cook the Books event).

One of my all-time favorite authors is the late Robertson Davies. I have enjoyed reading my way through his body of works, which include ghost stories, plays, literary criticism, essays about books, humor, and of course, his novels. The greatest of these is his Deptford trilogy, begun in "Fifth Business" with a young boys' snowball fight. Dunstan Ramsey uses a minister and his pregnant wife as cover from his friend/enemy Percy, and the unfortunate mother-to-be is struck in the head by a snowball with a stone center, causing brain damage to her and a difficult birth for her infant son. Throughout the remainder of this book, and the successive novels in the Deptford Trilogy, "The Manticore" and "World of Wonders", this single act follows Dunstan and the other characters, including the premature baby, for the duration of their lives.

Davies' literary works are packed with plot lines and musings on art, magic, music, psychology and philosophy, and yet they remain easy to read and get lost in. They resonate with wit and passion and I have enjoyed everything I have dipped into, even his editorial pieces from the Peterborough Examiner writing under his curmudgeonly alter-ego, Samuel Marchbanks.

To honor Davies and his wonderful writings, I fashioned some snowballs of my own, although they are of a decidedly less dangerous and more delicious nature. The oldfashioned treat, popcorn balls, are incredibly easy to make with the following recipe which I found here.



You have to work quickly and carefully to shape the popcorn balls before the mixture cools and hardens, but they are otherwise easy little snack treats to whip up and will be enjoyed by my daughters' indoor soccer team (if they last around), rechristened as Soccer Balls.

Be sure to check back with Briciole in a few days to see the roundup of a culinary-literary World of Wonders with Novel Food.

Upcoming Gluten-Free Event

Happy National Celiac Awareness Day! Today's a great day to remember to educate someone new about celiac disease and the need for more testing of the huge numbers of undiagnosed people who may suffering some of the myriad symptoms of the disease. Check out the Celiac Disease Foundation for more information about celiac, the gluten-free diet, and the latest in medical research. This link will also clue you in to 80+ gluten-free lifestyle, recipe and parenting blogs that focus on La Vida Gluten-Free from regular folks around the world.

I also wanted to let Capital District residents know that our own Rensselaer County gluten-free author, Elizabeth Barbone, will be signing copies of her book, "Easy Gluten-Free Baking" at It's Only Natural, a health food store in Albany's Stuyvesant Plaza, on Saturday, September 27th, from 11 am to 1 pm. I bought a copy of this book when I first met Elizabeth at a celiac support group meeting in Glens Falls and it is the most bespattered gluten-free cookbook I own. Lots of everyday baked goods recipes with very clear instructions and the best Lemon Bar recipe ever! Jeanne and MaryAnna from Saratoga Gluten Free Goods will also be on hand at this book signing to serve refreshments, so don't miss out.

Cooking up a Foodie Fiction Reading List

I'm starting to compile a list of foodie fiction, novels which feature food, chefs, restaurants and other gourmet attractions. In other words, books that send you straight to the kitchen. The Crispy Cook has read many of the books described below and they are a nice, low-calorie diversion from life's weightier problems.

Allison, Karen, "How I Gave My Heart to the Restaurant Business: A Novel", (NY: HarperCollins, 1997). A novel of the New York City restaurant business by a former three-star restaurateur.

Binchy, Maeve, "Scarlet Feather", (NY: Dutton, 2001). Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather are cooking school chums and upon graduation, decide to combine forces in a Dublin, Ireland catering company.



Bond, Michael - Monsieur Pamplemousse series. Prolific author Michael Bond, creator of Paddington the Bear and the Olga da Polga guinea pig childrens' tales, has at least 15 mystery novels featuring undercover French restaurant critic and gourmand, Monsieur Pamplemousse (French for grapefruit). Magnifique!

Carl, JoAnna - Chocolate Mystery series. This cozy series features Texas ex-trophy wife Lee McKinney, who moves back to her Michigan hometown to work in her aunt's gourmet chocolate business.

Carter, Sammi - Chocolate Mystery series. See JoAnna Carl above. Another cozy series with another divorcee in a chocolate shop.

Davidson, Diane Mott - Goldy Bear Culinary Mystery series. Davidson is the reigning queen of the culinary mystery series, with a Colorado caterer, Goldy Bear, who solves many a whodunnit in between whipping up fabulous feasts. Recipes included.

Esquivel, Laura, "Like Water for Chocolate" (NY: Anchor Books, 1992). The author's first novel, a magic realist AND foodie classic. The Mother of all Foodie Novels. Esquivel interweaves the bittersweet story of a young Mexican woman, Tita de la Garza, whose home cooking is infused with her emotions after her mother forbids her to marry the love of her life. A recipe for a Mexican dish or folkloric home remedy heads each chapter.



Flagg, Fannie, "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe", (NY: McGraw-Hill, 1988). A folksy foodie classic set in a down-home Southern cafe during the 1930s. You can almost taste the pimento-cheese sandwiches.


Fluke, Joanne, Hannah Swensen mystery series. A light culinary mystery series featuring a Minnesota bakery owner. Recipes included.


Gordon, Nadia, "The Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley Mystery series". Chef Sunny is the heroine of these novels which feature her organic restaurant and the other bistros and wineries in this California region.

Hart, Ellen - Sophie Greenway & Jane Lawless series. This art has two separate culinary mystery series: one featuring Minneapolis food critic Sophie Greenway and the other featuring Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless.

Hendricks, Judith Ryan, "Bread Alone" (NY: William Morrow, 1993). Wynter Morrison gets ditched by her upwardly mobile husband and drifts over to Seattle, where she works in a bakery and heals her sore heart with breadmaking.

Hildenbrand, Elin, "The Blue Bistro" (NY: St. Martin's, 2006). Described as a sophisticated romance novel in which upscale Nantucket restaurant hostess pines for the affections of her boss, who dines nightly with a female chef.

Jaques, Brian - The Redwall series. This juvenile fantasy series is chock full of feasting scenes among the Good animals (hares, voles, otters, badgers) of Redwall Abbey. They work hard at the harvest and in fighting off the Bad animals (foxes, rats, wild cats) but then enjoy bountiful harvests of nut-studded cheeses, ales, casseroles of grains and vegetables and toothsome, honey-drenched desserts.

James, Kay-Marie, "Cooking for Harry: A Low-Carbohydrate Novel" (NY: Shaye Areheart Books, 2004). This light confection was written by a best-selling author under the pen name of Kay-Marie James to raise money for her financially-strapped best friend, so there's a mystery underpinning this tale about a chubby hubby whose gourmet hobby must be curtailed on the advice of his doctor. Plenty of mouthwatering cooking scenes.

Laurent, Antoine, "Cuisine Novella" (NY: Viking, 1987). The author's first book, a novel in which a French master chef proposes to instruct fashion designer Annabelle Fleury in the secrets of haute cuisine.

Lyons, Nan and Ivan, "Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of America" (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993). A sequel to the Lyons' wildly successful gastronomic murder mystery, "Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe", which was made into a 1978 film with the wonderfully comic actor Robert Morley as the overweight gourmand determined to sample the specialties of various world-class European chefs, but finds that they are fatally "prepared" in the same way as their dishes before he can dine. In this American sequel, murder breaks out at a Culinary Olympics.


Mason, Sarah J., "Corpse in the Kitchen" (NY: Berkley, 1993). English Det. Sgt. Trewley is aided by his scientist and judo expert partner, Sgt. Stone, as they investigate the murder of a baker, suffocated by a wad of her own bread dough.


McCouch, Hannah - "Girl Cook: A Novel" (NY: Villard, 2004). A chick lit novel centering on the trials of Layla Mitchner, looking for love and respect in the heat of Manhattan's trendiest restaurant kitchens.

McKevett, G.A. - Savannah Reid series. Light police procedurals featuring Southern California Police Detective Savannah Reid, a chubby, 40-something policewoman with a fondness for desserts.

Mehran, Marsha - "Pomegranate Soup" (NY: Random House, 2005). This debut novel and its sequel "Rosewater and Soda Bread", combine Persian cooking with Irish culture, as the three Iranian Aminpour sisters open the Babylon Cafe in a rural village.

Myers, Tamar - Magdalena Yoder series. These culinary mysteries feature Yoder as the owner/cook of an Amish inn located in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country. Loaded with down-home cooking and recipes.


Mones, Nicole, "The Last Chinese Chef", (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007). Recently widowed Food Writer Maggie McElroy finds solace in classical Chinese cuisine when she travels to Beijing to write an article about a chef hoping to make a spot in the National Cooking Team for the 2008 Olympics.

Pence, Joanne - Angela Amalfi series. A breezy, romantic, culinary mystery series with San Francisco food writer and caterer Angela Amalfi at the helm.

Pezzeli, Peter, "Francesca's Kitchen" (NY: Kensington, 2006). Francesca is an Italian-American Queen of the Kitchen, who faces widowhood and an empty nest with sadness until she finds a new family to cook and care for as a part-time nanny.

Prior, Lily, "La Cucina" (NY: HarperCollins, 2000) . The Sicilian version of proto-foodie novel "Like Water for Chocolate", in which our middle-aged librarian protagonist, Rosa Fiore, leaves her raucous rural peasant family, comprised of six older brothers, a pair of younger Siamese twins, and her frequently absent parents when her lover is murdered by the Mafia. She becomes an academic librarian in Palermo and saves her passions for her cooking, until a mysterious English visitor, L'Inglese, enters her life.


Rich, Virginia - The Eugenia Potter series. The late Virginia Rich wrote several food-laden mysteries, starting with "The Cooking School Murders", which star the savvy Eugenia Potter, a Nantucket retiree. Nancy Pickard has continued the delightful and well-written series.



Stout, Rex - The Nero Wolfe mystery series. Grand master mystery writer Stout wrote over 30 novels and 30+ short stories featuring his corpulent, housebound (by choice) detective Nero Wolfe, whose sidekick Archie Godwin does all the legwork in solving multiple murders. Wolfe's passions are for growing orchids in his opulent New York City brownstone and for the three gourmet meals his personal chef Fritz prepares for him (with Wolfe's critical suggestions).


Temple, Lou Jane - Heaven Lee series. Lee is the chef at her Kansas City restaurant, Cafe Heaven, and sleuths for clues when she's not cooking there or judging barbeque contests in this cozy culinary mystery series.


Winston, Lolly, "Good Grief", (NY: Warner Books, 2004). Sophie is a young widow with panic attacks and depression who moves to Oregon to make a fresh start as a culinary student and bakes her way through her grief.



I hope you enjoy this literary appetizer and that you can carve out some time to snuggle in with a good book sometime soon. I'd love to hear about other foodie fiction to add to this list and snag for my own reading pile.

Rebecca Reilly: Gluten-Free Baker

I just bought a copy of Rebecca Reilly's "Gluten-Free Baking" (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2002) and am delighted with it. Baking has never been my strength, even in the days before gluten became our nemesis, so I having several gluten-free cookbooks for my baking library is essential. Reilly is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, former restaurant owner and caterer and is gluten-intolerant herself, so she is obviously an expert Gluten-Free Baker.

My daughter and I went a little wild at the grocery store in buying up seasonal fruit and couldn't eat up all the blueberries, nectarines and plums we had overbought so I thought I'd make up a dessert and freeze some extras. The cookbook had a lovely photo of a Plum Coffee Cake (recipe on page 62) and after reminding myself to follow the recipe exactly, it came out beautifully. Best of all, Reilly's recipe made two cakes, so we devoured one and I smuggled out the other to frozen for later consumption.



I'm not going to share the recipe for this excellent edible without the author's permission, but I can recommend her cookbook highly. The recipes are very detailed, but don't have overwhelming, difficult bakery tricks to master, so I found this plum project easy enough. There are also many unusual recipes, like Fresh Nectarine Almond Cake, Crostata di Riso, six kinds of biscotti and Raisin Cream Scones, mixed in with more common recipes, to make the cookbook a worthwhile purchase.

I can, however, pass along the link to four of Reilly's recipes which are posted online at this site. She is going to be a presenter at a Gluten-Free Cooking Expo - what fun! -- in Oakbrook, Illinois on Sept. 12-13,2008. Click on the above link to get her gluten-free recipes for: Moroccan Quinoa, Cream of Vidalia Soup, Brownie Cheesecake and Caldo Verde.

The Spring Garden

In celebration of Earth Day and because I had the day off from the bookshop (we're closed Mondays and Tuesdays), I spent yesterday in the glorious sunshine, barefoot and bent over, planting my spring vegetable garden. I had chipped away over the last week on the unpleasant, back breaking part, edging my 25 x 45 foot plot with the square spade. My nonlinear efforts added a couple of square feet to this garden patch, but that just gives me more room to plant.

Yesterday was a perfect seed planting morning. A light breeze kept the gnats at bay and the soil resembled chocolate cake crumbs, which I read somewhere is the perfect loamy texture to inaugurate the garden season. I managed to get in my spinach, climbing peas, lettuce, radishes and Italian dandelions.

Dandelions! Yes, dandelions, because Dan and I like a lot of braised veggies with garlic and oil and this is some fancy Italian chicory that is a new resident in the garden bed that we are giving a chance. I already had some returning chives, Oriental poppies (for beauty and the bees; from a mixed wildflower seed packet from four years ago that keeps on showing up), cilantro, lemon balm, thyme and oregano. No spears up in the asparagus bed yet, but they'll follow the sun soon and then we'll get to gorging ourselves on them, roasted with garlic and herbs.

If you fall in love with your garden each year too, then here's a book I have recommended and placed in customers hands over and over again. I buy it every time I see it when I'm out book hunting, and it never fails to find a good home. I have one copy for sale at Old Saratoga Books at present, but you could also probably find a copy at your local library too if you want to "test drive" it first.

This book gem is:

Cooking from the Garden, by Rosalind Creasy (San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club 1988). A gorgeous, photograph-packed book for home gardeners and cooks to drool over. Creasy thoroughly details theme gardens: Heirloom, Native American, Baked Beans, Cajun, Asian, French, Mexican, German, etc. and offers planting advice, recipes, interviews with gardeners, and a wealth of new ways to enjoy vegetables, herbs and edible flowers. The emphasis is on vegetables and herbs that taste and look good, and you'll find plenty of new varieties to try.

One year I had a rainbow garden inspired by Creasy's book with yellow and orange tomatoes, purple beans, radishes in various pastels hues, and of course, the easiest vegetable anyone can grow, Rainbow Chard. Purple and yellow beans are also easiest to pick, as they don't blend in so well with the foliage.

Here's to a bountiful garden season to all, even if you only have a few pots of basil on the porch or windowsill!

Gluten Suppositories!

Here I am innocently cataloguing books at the old bookstore, when this eyepopper jumps out at me. Tucked at the rear of a seemingly upstanding book, "Dick Cheveley", by the staid historical novelist, W.H. D. Kingston, are several advertisements, a common enough practice with nineteenth century publishers looking for extra simoleons. There is an ad for Sohmer pianos, and one for Sapolio soap, but then my gluten-sensitive peepers lighted on an advertisement for the Health Food Company of New York City and their marvelous GLUTEN SUPPOSITORIES!

E.L. Ripley of Burlington, Vermont, no shy hemorrhoidal victim he, notes "As Sancho Panza said of sleep, so say I of your Gluten Suppositories: God bless the man who invented them!". And the Rev. John H. Paton of Michigan, a chronic, constipated dypeptic, heaps accolades on the mighty tablets, stating "I believe their food-remedies to be worthy of the high praise which they are receiving on all sides". These gluten suppositories are billed to relieve intestinal torpor and kindred evils, but pity the poor celiac or wheat-sensitive soul who popped them in seeking relief.

Giving thanks for modern medicine.....