'A Homemade Life - Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table' Recipes by Molly Wizenberg Simon & Schuster -- 2009 Buy it on Amazon
Molly Wizenberg, the woman behind award-winning blog Orangette, has become a literary heroine of the food blogosphere, with a writing voice suffused with a clear-eyed intelligence about -- and tender affection for -- food. Her fans adore her simple and complicated recipes alike, since they come with a side of her lush but earthbound prose: "Lately, I've been thinking a lot about cake. This is not an unusual condition for me, but it happens particularly often when I'm feeling frazzled or tired or harried, right around the same time that I start listening to the easy listening station on the car radio and feeling genuinely soothed by it."
Since Molly (whose old-timey photos we alsoadmire) just announced a break from blogging to help her husband start his new restaurant, those seeking a fix could do worse than her new book, 'A Homemade Life.' A memoir shot through with recipes, it tells how she fell in love via her blog (with a New Yorker, and she lives in Seattle, but we won't go there), chronicles the food-loving life of her late father, and has all the hallmarks of a bang-up cooking memoir.
See what we tested, whether you should buy it, and Molly's incredible French toast recipe after the jump.
Is it possible that the most satisfying meals are those that are not meals at all?
Thick-sliced charcuterie and slabs of cheese pressed into rough-hewn bread gnawed porchside; three spoonfuls of warm leftover risotto punchy with mushrooms; the last drumstick of the chicken drowned in a slick of pan-swirled gravy. It's messy, it's everywhere and man is it good.
Orangette takes us there -- to a long-ago Sunday supper and a cook over the moon about the arrival of new potatoes at the market. Garlic aioli was whipped up in a flurry. Friends were called. Wine was chilled. Potatoes were dished up just warm, sparkling with sea salt and ready for dunking: an astonishing triumvirate of starch, fat and salt. Molly Wizenberg applied her sauce gribiche (a glorified homemade mayo) with a liberal hand to cold chicken, asparagus and anything else within reach. In an era when the thought of a dinner party can provoke a gourmand-sized headache, it's hard not to love the notion of one sauce for all, and the most un-meal-like of meals.
It's Monday morning, and we're right there with you. While propping your eyes open waiting for the coffee to kick in, do sneak a look at Orangette. It's the literary equivalent of falling asleep curled around a novel or sipping hot milk to stave off insomnia. Strangely comforting and nostalgia-inducing at once, it leaves one poised between appetites, unsure whether to roast a rack of lamb for dinner or ride a two-seater bicycle through the French Quarter taking snapshots while drinking gin lemonade.
That's how disorienting Orangette's (aka Molly Wizenberg) prose is. If you find her beautiful polaroids, winding tales and dreamy recipes (like this adapteddish of asparagus with pecorino and pooled walnut crema) insufficient, you might pop out and buy her new book. Now back to work.
A few days ago, I ran a post in which I explored some of the nastiest-sounding, yet oddly enticing foods that I could find on the internet. At the end of the piece, I challenged my readers to come up with the most repulsive foods that they had ever had or seen on a menu. As expected, Slashfood readers came through, offering a wide selection of delectable, detestable taste treats. Over the next few days or weeks (depending on how many responses I get), I will offer up a few posts exploring some of the strange suggestions that YOU sent in.
In my original piece, I briefly mentioned my narrow experience with Guinness floats; this, in turn, inspired a fair bit of commentary on the various ice cream/beer combinations that are available out there. One reader suggested combining orange juice and Guinness in a 1:3 ratio. Similarly, another reader offered up the idea of a Rogue Chocolate Stout float or a Hazelnut Brown float.
Overhead shots of food have really been getting me lately, especially ones that are composed to look like a meal is currently taking place (I always love the ones that Molly posts on Orangette). I especially like the color of the preserves here, which are made from sweet onion and purple peppers.
Thanks to Dayna for adding this picture to the Slashfood Flickr pool!
I first heard of Edna Lewis's The Taste of Country Cooking while reading Orangette a couple of weeks ago. Molly's description of this cooking classic made me think that it sounded like a book I needed to own. Only a few moments later, I had completed my amazon transaction and the book was on its way to me.
It arrived a few days later, and I've been reading it straight through, like a novel, ever since I got my hands on it. Nearing the end, I'm slowing down the pace of my reading because I know the time is coming when there won't be anymore new-to-me words in this text and that looming reality makes me sad.
I bought my copy used, and so it opens to the pages that the previous owner visited most frequently. They must have liked the fried chicken section, because when left to its own devices, that's where this book goes. However, I don't think that anyone actually cooked from this book, mostly because it is devoid of those telling splatters that accidentally occur when you bring a book into the kitchen.
Foodies who love the written word, hear my words. This book is a must have. Do yourself a favor and get yourself a copy, settle down with a beverage and read until you are compelled to leap up and head for the stove.
Molly Wizenberg, the Seattleite behind the lyrical food blog, Orangette, is now appearing in Bon Appétit. Wizenberg's first monthly "Cooking Life" column is in the March issue, on stands now. In it, she tackles fear of baking with yeast, providing readers with a yummy-looking recipe for cinnamon rolls with cream cheese glaze.
If you haven't read Orangette, you should start - it's like reading a novel. A novel that's mostly about food. While her posts can sometimes get a little too folksy with the "oh goshes" and "darns," others, like the one about cooking with her father, will make you cry with their brilliant, raw emotion.
Molly's also got one of the great foodie love stories of the modern era. Her now-husband, Brandon, was introduced to her blog by a friend, tried her recipe for lemon cake and was so inspired he emailed her offering to take her out to dinner. Problem was, he lived in New York, she in Seattle. Three weeks later he flew out and they fell in love over gelato and strolls through Pike Place Market. When they got engaged a year later Molly got nearly 200 well-wishing posts on Orangette. Sweet, no?
There's a group of freelancers and independent folks here in Philly who get together twice a month to work. Everyone brings their laptops and spends the day quietly focused on their own projects while in the company of one another. I volunteered to host this time around and threw in the added incentive of fresh muffins. I still have a dozen of the whole wheat zucchini ones I threw together earlier in the week (they've been hanging out in my freezer for the last couple of days) but since I had some bananas on their last legs, I decided to make another batch of muffins tonight.
I went off in search of a banana bread recipe that I could alter to work as muffins, vaguely remembering that Molly at Orangette had posted one that didn't use eggs and featured dark rum and coconut. I found it, and threw it together with only minor changes. I substituted whole wheat pastry flour for the regular unbleached (I do that with just about every baked good I make these days, and nothing seems worse for the alteration) and skipped the sprinkling of sugar on top (because I totally forgot). I also didn't measure the coconut because my measuring cup was wet and I didn't feel like pulling another one out, so I think I put more in that might have been called for, but they turned out gorgeously nonetheless.
A cannele is a small pastry with a custardy center and crisp crust that develops by caramelizing sugar and butter
during a long baking time. They are relatively difficult to find at bakeries in the US, though they remain very popular
in France, where they originated. Traditionally, they are made in small, specially-shaped copper
molds that most people would not want to purchase for the sole purpose of attempting to make these treats. Silicone
pans are inexpensive, but are tricky to maneuver in the oven and do not allow the exterior of the pastry to get dark
enough. Molly, at Orangette, circumvented the need for a special mold to make these by using a mini
bundt pan, which are far more versatile than the more traditional options. For a recipe that uses the traditional
molds, try this one, but you may need to experiment with
baking times if you try Molly's trick.
'A Homemade Life - Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table'
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