“Have you scrubbed the floor deck?”

I was checking out the traffic stats for this blog the other day and noticed that I've been getting some interesting traffic from Google. People are entering VERY, VERY TASTY from searches that correlate to various--yet consistently strange--permutations of the keywords "very very tasty."

These permutations look like this:

their tasty tasty very very tasty
their tasty tasty very very tasty their very tasty
there tasty tasty very very tasty
very very tasty christmas song

These are not people who know my blog by name; after all, anyone who knows my blog knows that I hold impeccable grammar in very high regard. They wouldn't make such flagrant mistakes with their contractions--not my readers.

Curious, I ran a Google search myself for "very very tasty." Just to see what happens.

And that's why I can now present you with this amazing little gem, from 1980s Great Britain:



This definitely explains the random visitors I get from the UK. (They don't stay long.)

For the record, this blog has nothing to do with bran flakes, or annoying British adverts from 1982. I actually just really like the word "tasty." More accurately, I like describing food as tasty. It's perhaps the most vague, meaningless adjective out there--describing a taste by using the word "taste" itself--so I'm, naturally, pretty fascinated by it. ("Smelly" is in the same arena, I guess, since describing smells using a version of the word "smell" seems equally as redundant. However, the concept of something being "full of smell" makes more sense than something being "full of taste," so I stand by my assertion.)

I like, and use, this word so much that when a friend of mine wanted to find (and laugh at) a personals ad I had alluded to posting on Craigslist, she simply searched the site for "tasty." She found it. (It was the only result.)

I didn't get any dates out of it.

Arugula Almond Drop Cookies

Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of the iconic-awesome food mecca Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, Michigan, blogs on the Atlantic Monthly food channel in a column called "Behind the Counter." "Purveyor's purveyor Ari Weinzweig finds foodstuffs to crave" is how the column's described. While I don't really know what that means, it's not a bad column. Then again, anyone who calls the town of my alma mater home--and does his or her business there--will always have my vote. Michiganders, you can do no wrong. No, really. Not even bankruptcy, government bailout, or high crime can tarnish you in my eyes.

In early December, Weinzweig mused upon the coupling of pepper and dessert. I immediately glommed onto the idea. For some reason I recently started really, really loving putting fresh-ground pepper on or in everything: bagels with peppery cream cheese. Fresh, peppered hummus. Bloody Marys with an extra dose of pepper. It was only a matter of time before I figured out the best way to incorporate it into my baking.

Weinzweig talks about fancy sweet pepper-laced stuff in his post. Quinces, a version of panforte, and other such things. I panic a little bit when poached fruit, foreign languages, or fire is involved in anything edible. Pfeffernüsse, a German cookie variety, gets front-billing in Weinzweig's post. I, like Weinzweig, am not a pfeffernüsse aficionado; I can't really recall the taste, flavor, or texture of such a cookie, which leads me to believe that I may have never had one before. I don't even know how to pronounce the word. When I looked up the recipe in the JoC, I saw that it involved lots of spices and nuts (and I was disappointed that Rombauer didn't also sound out the word for me). So, all these things combined means that pfeffernüsse must be fancy, too.

But the concept of a drop-cookie, which pfeffernüsse shares (at least according to its cookie categorization in the JoC), is not, at its core, fancy. It's just a really round cookie. Aside from their symmetry, I like how drop-cookies are kind of melty and crumbly and bite-sized at the same time, so I've been mulling over the idea of coming up with my own version of the pfeffernüsse. The kathernüsse, perhaps. Except, being Katherine, I'm not totally into the idea of just taking ground pepper and throwing it into a cookie recipe. That would be too easy.

Enter, stage left: arugula, with its cute wavy leaves. Arugula is a peppery green. I keep reading those two words--arugula and peppery--over and over again in recipes; it's like they're conjoined twins, eternally linked at the hip. I cook arugula up in the same way I cook kale or spinach, and I agree--it's got a bite to it (and it's really tasty as a side served with seared scallops!). In fact, I made seared scallops with braised broccolini and arugula last week for Valentine's Day. I had a bunch of fresh arugula left over, and then we got more in our CSA box this week. A not-your-run-of-the-pepper-mill (har!) recipe was basically handed to me without any creative thinking required on my part, and thank glory it was. My brain's only functioning at 50 percent after an epically raucous birthday barbecue party yesterday.

Like I did with the basil chocolate cupcakes, I combined, using a food processor, the fresh arugula with the confectioners' sugar in this recipe. If you're one of those people who's not into eating green things, then you might not be so into these cookies. (Otherwise, they're pretty good. Nutty with a savory earthiness that keeps them from being overly sweet, and they've got the bite-sized melty/crumbly thing going on.) Girlfriend helped pull the first batch out of the oven. "Are they ready to come out?" I asked. "They're done if they look vaguely brown." Her response: "I don't know, but they are vaguely green."

Arugula Almond Cookies
Makes about 30 one-inch cookies



1/2 c confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 c fresh arugula (or more--the ones I made ended up being very, very subtle in the arugula department)
1 c (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2/3 c toasted almonds, finely ground (you can toast raw, unsalted almonds in a nonstick frying pan on the stove--5-7 mins on medium-high heat--then throw them in a food processor)
2 tbsp sour cream
2 c all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 cookie sheets.

In a food processor, combine confectioners' sugar and fresh arugula until the arugula is finely chopped. The resulting mixture will be green and sticky.

Using a mixer, beat the butter, sugar mixture, salt, and vanilla until well-blended. Stir in almonds; add the sour cream. Stir in flour until well-blended. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and arrange on cookie sheets, about 1 1/4 inches apart.

Bake, one sheet at a time, for 12-15 minutes, until lightly browned. After removing from the oven, let cookies stand for 2 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Once cooled, roll the cookies in confectioners' sugar.

A Very, Very Tasty Birthday

This is a post about birthdays. Keeping true to the spirit of this blog, it mentions food a little bit too; otherwise, though, it's mostly about birthdays.

And it begins with my former boss.

One morning we were chatting, with another colleague of mine, about her son's birthday. He had either just had a birthday, or it was coming up that weekend, or maybe it was coming up soon enough. Somehow, the conversation was timely, even if I can't totally remember why. Doesn't matter.

She has three young kids, all boys, and my colleague asked if he was having a birthday party.

Nope, she responded. My boys only get one birthday party, when they turn six. His was last year.

I believe in a little thing called Mom School. It's where moms learn to say things like "I'll be darned," make beef stronganoff, and wear sandwich bags over their fingers when greasing cake pans with Crisco. I'm convinced that they can also take an elective course called "Birthday Parties: The Real Deal," where they learn that kids should only have one birthday party, and it's when they turn six. Not five, not seven, not 10. One birthday party. Six years old.

My mom is a proud graduate of Mom School. I bet she took every elective offered. And I think my former boss took at least that one course in birthdays as well.

I was really pleased to hear that my boss has the one-birthday-party rule, because she's actually the first person I've met (parent or child, aside from my mom and brothers) who has that story to tell. It was something sort of traumatic to me growing up. My friends always had birthday parties, and I'd always be hauling some sort of wrapped gift with a home-curlicued (Mom School) bow, over to the movie theater, to their houses, to McDonald's, wherever, year after year, while I only got one chance to get presents from the same kids. It didn't seem right. (Turns out, that's one of the reasons mom wasn't so into the multi-year birthday party--burdening parents with toy shopping for someone else's kid at Children's Palace year after year.)

Anyway, so I had my first and only birthday party when I turned six in the late 80s. I remember working on the invitations in our dining room. It's when I learned what "RSVP" stands for. I remember the actual party day--it was soggy. (Michigan has this habit of getting strangely warm right in the middle of February, half-melting the snow.) A group of us met at Caesarland (owned by the Little Caesars pizza chain, where "arcade games and play structures abound"), which--I think--was the location of my older brother's birthday party three years earlier. [Editor's note: Mom says: James's was in our back yard, by the way. And Rob's was at a gymnastics place.] There was certainly pizza. I don't totally remember the rest. In the inevitable way that trashy, delicious food always hits the spot at kids' birthday parties, I bet the pizza was really good. Especially after a few runs down the indoor twisty-slide.


My younger brother, best friend Gina, and neighbor Allison at my first and only birthday party at Caesarland

Another birthday oddity of ours--inevitably a Mom School takeaway as well--was the homemade, from-scratch birthday cake. This only happened when we turned 11. Before then? After? Duncan Hines, out of a box, no questions. This time, I remember more: Hovering over the mixing bowl, watching the eggs turn the sugar slushy, and sifting flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in our creaky, dented, ancient tin sifter that probably came from some great-great-relative somewhere (and still lives in mom's cupboard in Michigan). Mom wouldn't let us run around the house once the cake was in the oven. Something about the vibrations from our feet on the hardwood floor causing the cake to drop. (I've been unable to verify that this is actually a legitimate fact.) We were responsible for it all--the baking, the presentation--so it had a very esteemed, welcome-to-young-adulthood feel to it.

There are other birthday memories I have, and, very telling, they mostly involve food. Like the time I asked for steak for my birthday dinner and mom actually did it (and cooked it perfectly!). And the time we made subs. And the time mom and I failed at making cupcakes in ice cream cones for my classroom birthday treat. I think it's also really special that these memories come with a very distinct image of my mother, putting her hard-earned Mom School degree to work (which, by the way, she still does today--thanks for the cheesy Hallmark birthday card).

Happy birthday.

Love, Blue Cheese, and Food Memory

In July of 2008, one of my favorite cookery websites, Cookthink, posted a very brief article on their blog (in their aptly named "Cookshrink" column) discussing food tastes and the health and success of relationships. They pondered such awesome questions as:

"[W]hat happens when you date/lust after/live with somebody whose tastes are opposed to yours? Do you compromise or cook separate meals? Do you keep your mouth shut or use it to pick a fight? Try to change their palate or accept it for what it is?"

I think about this article constantly. Really. Like, it takes up an inordinate amount of my monthly brainspace. If you were to map out everything I thought about in a 28-day period, this article would probably comprise about one-thirtieth of the total volume of my thoughts during that length of time. I probably think about it as much as, if not a teensy bit more than, my grandma.

Like any good shrink, this article stirred up some deep-rooted values that I didn't realize I had. Yes, I've been in a relationship with someone whose tastes didn't jive with mine. I love seafood, while she stayed far, far away. I discovered an affinity for blue cheese, she held her nose. I ordered chocolate for dessert, she poked at it for a second then left it for me. (Mushrooms--don't get me started with the mushrooms.) It was challenging at times, and when it would really get under my skin, I'd try to laugh at myself for taking food so seriously--more seriously than love, I guess.

So you can imagine what a relief it was to learn, thanks to this article, that I wasn't alone. While she and I didn't break up over our differences in palates, it certainly made sushi dates difficult.

But it's not just the impact of opposing tastes that intrigues me. My trainer often puts me through several reps of the same exercise so that I commit the motion to "muscle memory" (the next day: ouch). I want to propose the idea of "food memory," hopefully with less ouch.

Because, looking back on it, my most serious relationships have each taught me something unique about food, helping me become the food-aware person I am today. (Again, I want to laugh at myself for this, but I also think it's kind of telling that when I look back on these relationships I can very easily identify what each taught me about food. Ask about the most romantic thing we did together and I may otherwise draw a blank.)

For example, while a lot of our tastes didn't match, the girlfriend I mention above did introduce me to tasty wine and fine dining, for which I am eternally grateful (especially for that one time we went to Millennium here in San Francisco...good glory, deliciousness!). Without her intervention, I could still be obliviously drinking two-buck Chuck right now.

And D, whom I dated in college. She taught me how to use onions and garlic in my cooking. Growing up, mom rarely, if ever, used the aromatics at home--too smelly. D taught me that "smelly," in this case, wasn't a bad thing. She also introduced me to the avocado, and, when we traveled around Europe, broke and dirty, she showed me how delicious cheese, tomato, and avocado together can be when paired with a loaf of crusty bread. If you know me, then you know that I can't live without onion, garlic, and avocado. So, again: eternally grateful.

B, my girlfriend now, has introduced me to oysters. Live, raw oysters--I was always slightly apprehensive about them--are now among my favorite things to eat. They really signify West Coast living for me: the proximity of the cold, hard North Pacific Ocean, it's fresh salty air...and it's oysters. B and I have also started getting a local produce-and-eggs CSA box every other week, so we're doing fun things with veggies and ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the different shades and sizes of egg yolks that come from pasture-raised hens. It's really quite wonderful.

Food memory. The lessons you learn about tastes and flavors from the people you love. More yum, less ouch.

Chocolate Basil Cupcakes With Toasted Almond Buttercream Frosting

This is my second guest post at Meals; for Moderns, my friend Becky's awesome vegetarian food blog. As I mentioned before, I'm doing a series of three recipes that highlight fresh herbs in tasty baked goods.

***

Over the past year or so--since I've started exploring the potential of the kitchen, especially in the realm of delicious and interesting baked goods--I've learned (from experience, mind you) that the following items do not substitute for a food processor:

• A Kitchenaid mixer--neither the whisk nor the knead attachment
  
• A fork
• Two forks
  
• A hammer

I've I wanted to try a basil-chocolate cake recipe for a while now (something about how basil borders on an almost licorice-like flavor made it seem like a good complement to a velvety chocolate cake). I knew I'd need a food processor (not a hammer) to do it--I kept reading over and over that the way to go is to finely chop basil with granulated sugar using a food processor. I wasn't so sure I was ready to commit to an actual food processor, though. It seems like something that adults get when they're comfortable and settled in a place, and I'm not ready to admit that I'm an adult who's never leaving San Francisco (even though it's true).

But, because I kind of promised Becky that I would blog about using fresh herbs in baked goods, and because I told her about the basil chocolate cupcake idea and she got excited, I felt like I had no choice. I had pretty much backed myself into a corner, and probably on purpose so I would actually do it. And I did: I broke down and bought a cute, 3-cup, royal blue food processor this weekend. I immediately fell in love.

To really take the food processor thing to the next level, I came up with a frosting recipe that would use it, too. (I might as well call these "food processor cupcakes.") But if you're not a nut fan, a simple vanilla buttercream would pair nicely with the cake as well (and wouldn't require additional food processor time).

Chocolate Basil Cupcakes With Toasted Almond Buttercream Frosting

(Note: I accidentally bought jumbo baking cups at Safeway, so I ended up making 17 gigantic cupcakes instead of two-dozen or so normal-sized cupcakes. That also explains why they turned out kind of ugly and misshapen. In a non-jumbo world, this recipe would probably make 24-36 cupcakes.)



The Cupcake Part

This recipe is adapted from epicurious.com. It rivals my all-time favorite chocolate stout layer cake recipe from the same place--in fact, I might go so far as to say it's better.

2 c unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 c unsweetened baking cocoa
1/3 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c boiling water
2 c sugar
1 c fresh basil leaves
3 large eggs
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 c whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tins with (NOT JUMBO! Please!!) baking cups.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium-sized bowl. In a smaller bowl, add cocoa and chocolate chips. Pour the 1 c boiling water over the cocoa/chocolate chip mixture and whisk until smooth.

In a food processor, chop 1 c of sugar and the fresh basil until the sugar turns an even bright green color.

In a mixer, beat the 1 c basil/sugar mixture, the remaining 1 c sugar, and eggs until light and fluffy. Add butter to the mixture and beat until blended. Beat in the cocoa mixture. Add whipping cream and vanilla; beat to blend. Mix in dry ingredients on low until just blended.

Fill muffin tins until about 2/3 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes (I think--the jumbo cupcakes took 30 minutes...), or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcakes comes out clean.

The Frosting Part

This is a simple, straightforward adaptation of the quick buttercream frosting recipe on the Food Network website.

2 c raw almonds
3 c confectioners' sugar
1 c butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp whipping cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spread almonds out on a baking sheet and toast for 5-10 minutes, or until the almonds brown. Let almonds cool for 2 minutes, then grind in food processor with 1 c of confectioners' sugar until fine.

Using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, mix, on low speed, almond/sugar mixture, the remaining 2 c of confectioners' sugar, and butter until well-blended. Increase speed to to medium and beat for 3 minutes.

Add vanilla and whipping cream and continue to beat for another 1 minute more. Add more cream as necessary to achieve a spreadable consistency.