Once again, I’m hawking priceless family treasures over at Seattlest. Last week, it was my great-grandfather’s swashbucklingly boozy egg nog, and this week, it’s my sister’s scones. Each Christmas, my sister Lisa takes a simple recipe for Scottish scones—a formula given to her, appropriately, by a Scottish friend—and spins it into a half-dozen delicious varieties. In our family, these scones are a much-anticipated Christmas-morning tradition—perfect for eating with one hand while tearing at wrapping paper with the other, and with nary a greasy fingerprint to be found. I’ve written previously about a summery rendition of these rugged beauties, but come Christmas, it’s only appropriate to trot them out again—and this time, in a warming, wintery incarnation spiked with crystallized ginger…

Maybe it is a product of our time, a generational thing, or just a matter of pheromones, but I keep falling in love with vegetarians. I spent nine years in their camp, so perhaps I’m predisposed. I may dally with a meat-and-potatoes man, but fate has it that my love is meant for herbivores only. One might argue that my sample size of two is too small for statistical significance, but it’s all I intend to have, and that’s significant enough for me. The first man to win my cooing and swooning was a devout vegan with the bumper stickers to show for it, and together we lasted for three meatless—if occasionally buttery, and blissful—years. The second has, in the…

Over at Seattlest, I’m revealing the age-old secrets of my family’s egg nog recipe, passed down from my maternal great-grandfather J. P. Hartt. This is the stuff of legends, dear reader, and it’s been corrupting the youth of my family for generations. We’ve never been a video-camera kind of gang, but our one family gathering on tape, the Christmas of 1987, is now famous for my (then) eight-year-old cousin Katie’s announcement that her favorite part of the holiday was “drinking egg nog with boooooze in it.” Egg nog gets a bad rap* in some circles today, and it’s no wonder: all too often, it’s nasty, viscous, cloying stuff, no better than cheap melted ice cream. J. P. Hartt’s rendition is…

It may have notoriously waving wheat and pastures full of prime Angus steak, but truth be told, Oklahoma’s food scene is most famous—in certain very exclusive, you understand, very select circles—for my mother’s holiday baking. For nearly twenty years, December was no ordinary month on my mother’s calendar: it was a series of nut-filled, chocolate-covered, butter-rich weeks, of afternoons spent churning out cookies, candies, chocolates, bars, and toffees by the dozen. When it began, I had a pacifier; when it ended, I had half a college diploma; and along the way, I had a sequence of fickle love affairs with nearly every confection my mother made. Some measure maturity in birthdays, milestones, firsts, or lasts, but I plot my personal…

This week’s installment of Seattlest finds me conquering the Christmastime cheese ball and supplanting it with more readily edible—and enjoyable—homemade holiday gifts. Each December, I relish the chance to hole up in my kitchen and churn out dozens of delicious things to give away, and I can’t help but spread the gospel. Though there is certainly no shortage of wonderful holiday treats making their way around the web, I’ll be calling your attention to a few of my own favorites over the next three weeks. First on the list is a plain, simple, and delicious coconut macaroon, adapted from Tom’s Big Dinners, by Seattle culinary celebrity (and recent “Iron Chef” winner) Tom Douglas. I love a good macaroon, as I’ve…

Peanut butter on toast. A soft-boiled egg with salt and pepper. Butternut squash boiled in cider and mashed. A carrot dunked in lemon-tahini dressing. A cold apple, cored and cut into sixths. Spaghetti squash with sea salt. A glass of milk and a pile of graham crackers. Three-quarters of my diet looks and sounds like something you’d find on the tray of a high chair, or at snack time in preschool. I’m totally blowing my cover, I know. There’s much to be said—and written—for complexity, for nuanced flavors and saucy, sophisticated stuff, but dear reader, woman does not live on intricately crafted dishes alone. I love my salt cod tarts and my soufflés, my hand-rolled pastas and panades, but plain,…

I started with the best of intentions. When I set out for Oklahoma a week ago, I planned to return with rapturous photos of a bronze-skinned turkey; my mother’s tried-and-true gravy secrets; the complete, unabridged tale of Brother Timothy’s stuffing and the decades-old Junior League cookbook from which it springs annually in full glory, with pork sausage, chicken livers, toasted almonds, spinach, Parmigiano Reggiano, and brandy; and at least a few presentable photos. All for you, dear reader. But I got a little distracted. There was plenty of rapture, yes, and the turkey and stuffing were certainly up to snuff, but when I dragged my suitcase back into Seattle on Sunday night, all I had to show for myself was…

Over at Seattlest, the soupe du jour is butternut squash with pear, cider, and vanilla bean, a homespun knock-off of a dish from one of my favorite local spots. I’ve never been one for trying to recreate restaurant meals, but the soup I had at Crow was sufficiently delicious to warrant a go, and anyway, if I may be so bold—trained chefs of the world, please forgive me!—I thought I could make it even better. The original restaurant version was wonderfully light—almost frothy, really—but unabashedly opaque with cream; and its vanilla flavor, though dainty, was almost veering toward dessert. Using this recipe as a template, I aimed for a velvety but only lightly creamy soup, with just a subtle stroke…

I wait all year for Brussels sprouts. Many pine away patiently for October’s first pumpkins or November’s puckery cranberries, but I hang my hopes on a fresh fall Brussels sprout. This stance no doubt puts me in a minority—a happy one, meaning that entire market displays of sprouts are mine, all mine—but really, the state of the sprout in America today is a sad, sad thing. If another Thanksgiving dinner ends with a platter of Brussels sprouts still sitting untouched, we clearly have a national emergency, not a national holiday, on our hands. For many, the merest mention of Brussels sprouts conjures up childhood visions of bitter, mushy, nose-wrinkling wads of cruciferous terror. I’ve seen even the most ardent of…

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are. So spoke Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, legendary French gastronome. On the surface, it sounds like some sort of cheap parlor game, or maybe a fortune teller’s scam at a traveling circus, but the man had a point. What we eat is an everyday testament to our personal, cultural, and, some would say, political, experience. There’s not much to argue with there. But I’ve been thinking lately, as I’m sometimes known to do, and I wonder if Brillat-Savarin’s snappy quip might lend itself to a modest—and seasonal—update. I’d like to propose a new parlor game, and it goes like this: tell me what you want for Christmas, and I…

In this week’s Seattlest episode, I’m devouring a ginger pear upside-down cake from Leslie Mackie’s Macrina Bakery & Café Cookbook, a collection of recipes from one of Seattle’s best bakeries. Lest you hesitate for even a second before following the link, I must tell you that this was one of the most delicious cakes I’ve eaten in recent memory. Big, buttery, and oozing with caramelized pears, it had a remarkably moist, not-too-sweet crumb and a subtle kick of fresh ginger. I took a handsome chunk of it to work yesterday and came home with nary a crumb. Something tells me that, come Thanksgiving, one of these could earn you a year’s worth of gratitude.

I’m not one for favorites. I have no favorite movie, no favorite color, no favorite number, no favorite song. Declaring something a favorite seems to freeze it unfavorably in time, mark it with an expiration date, foist it up onto a pedestal from which it will inevitably tumble when the next favorite comes along. Instead, I like to think of myself as more of an equal-opportunity appreciator. I have my preferences and my pets, certainly, but they are fluid, mutable, and therefore, I like to think, more fitting to the human condition. But, dear reader, I must make a shameful confession: come cold weather, I have a nasty bias toward braising. And though I hate myself a little for saying…

Over at Seattlest, I’m singing the praises of roasted chicken, a favorite cold-weather staple and, as luck would have it, one of the first meat preparations I tackled after bidding ado to my (pseudo) vegetarianism. Since that fateful day when I roasted my first chicken, I’ve tried a number of recipes, but the outright finger-licking, fall-down goodness of the simple Zuni Café method makes it my gold standard. And I can’t resist sharing. P.S. On a side note: it appears, dear well-wishing reader, that my so-called flu is actually mononucleosis. In light of this new development, I wanted to issue a sad preemptive warning: in the interest of getting more shut-eye, I may have to back off on posting for…

A few devoted readers may remember when, about eight months ago, in a post involving Spandex, my mother, erogenous zones, and whole wheat bread, I mentioned a woman named Sherry, an aerobics instructor for whom I once harbored a short-lived but memorable fascination. I was only five or six, too young to stay at home alone while my mother took her aerobics classes, but old enough to keep myself entertained in the back room of the gym—and to do some serious thinking about my life. Sherry was the nicest, prettiest, and most approachable of the instructors. She had a soft, crinkly, playful voice, and her legwarmers always matched her elastic belt. Her shiny, dark brown hair was something straight out…

Sometimes details escape me, such as when I’m engaged in heated battle with a virus. For example, I have—until today—completely forgotten to announce, dear hungry reader, that you can now also find me and my writing over at Seattlest, a sibling of New York City’s illustrious group blog Gothamist, San Francisco’s SFist, Paris’s Parisist, and the rest of the -ist gang. I’ll be contributing weekly food pieces focused mainly on seasonal recipes and cooking, broadcasting from my kitchen, as usual. In my first article, I extolled the virtues of caramelized cauliflower, one of my favorite fall standbys and the recipe to turn to when you want to watch a sworn cauliflower hater literally eat his words. This week I turn…

In the English language, there are only a handful of phrases that come with their own built-in laugh track, and sadly, “stewed prunes” is one of them. Witness the following exchange, tearfully recorded by yours truly during a phone conversation earlier this week: Molly: I’m thinking of making stewed prunes.* Brandon: [Giggle]. Molly: Why are you laughing? Have you ever eaten a stewed prune? Brandon: [Giggle]. No, but it just sounds funny. I mean, steewwwed pruuune! [Giggle giggle]. It is a dark, dark day, dear reader, when you learn that the man you love—and whose genetic material you would like to help perpetuate, even—is a prune skeptic. In his defense, Brandon claims that he dislikes all dried fruits, the unfortunate…

The last time I was this sick was 12 years ago, during the Christmas holidays of my freshman year of high school. Though my memories of the time are understandably—and blessedly—hazy, I do remember the key points: I spent a week lying on the couch in my family’s den; I sucked down a box or two of Comtrex; I lost eight pounds; and I got to wear my favorite green pseudo-punk bomber-jacket-inspired parka indoors. Those were the days, as they say. There’s nothing like the first real flu of adulthood to make me look fondly upon the illnesses of my adolescence. Today, dear reader, I have two words for you: night sweats. And I’m not referring to the kind that…

Every kitchen has its strong, silent staples. I’ve certainly got my stockpile of oils and vinegars, condiments, rice, pasta, beans, butter, eggs, milk, flours, salts, and sugars, some dusty, some fusty, and all standing as ready proof of my fine Depression-era homemaker instincts. But if tomorrow brings a shortage in my stock of champagne vinegar or vermicelli, my kitchen won’t suffer. I can feel plenty satisfied without, say, Dijon mustard or basmati rice. The same cannot be said, however, for another subset of pantry regulars—the standbys that aren’t really staples, but rather steadies, those with whom I set a daily date. Without my cheese and chocolate, I’d be facing a Great Depression indeed. As of this writing, my refrigerator contains…

I am, dear reader, a bread snob. I’m a harsh critic of crust and crumb, a stickler for sourdough, and very, very picky about my pain au levain. In my experience, few things trigger heartache like a cardboard baguette or a spongy, thin-skinned boule—and honey, I have known heartache. But lately I’ve found myself feeling an unabashed affection for a type of bread that would ordinarily fall under the general category of “bad,” and that would be soggy bread. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if the title of this blog isn’t something of a misnomer. “Orangette” is apt enough, I suppose, and certainly, plenty of chocolate-dipped orange rinds have passed these lips, but given the recent output of my…

It was a Friday night, and you know what that means: good Catholics won’t eat meat; Shabbat-savvy Jews won’t sow, plow, reap, grind, sift, knead, bake, spin, weave, tie, or untie; and good, savvy Seattlites won’t hesitate to crack open a beer, break a few eggs, and call it a day. Dear reader, this may be the closest I’ll ever come to getting religion, and I owe it all to my petite, ingenious friend Jenny, her husband Thomas, and their little boy Eero. In their small but influential family unit, Friday means eggs-and-beer night, and that means I’m coming over. With my Catholic-schooled mother and a father whose ancestry adds up to 100% Polish Jew, I suppose I could try…

A couple of well-meaning readers have recently inquired into the foundations of my relationship with food, or, more succinctly, the origins of this thing I call Orangette. As the following amply demonstrates, such seemingly harmless questions can be downright dangerous when combined with an afternoon of digging in the archives, both online and off. What follows comes to you straight from a tattered, sun-bleached sketchbook that holds my teenage writing—or, at least, the snippets of it that aren’t stashed in my parents’ freezer, which I once fervently believed was the only way to secure it for the ages. Dear reader, I humbly present to you the story of how it all began, the story of how one verbose teenager in…

A couple of well-meaning readers have recently inquired into the foundations of my relationship with food, or, more succinctly, the origins of this thing I call Orangette. As the following amply demonstrates, such seemingly harmless questions can be downright dangerous when combined with an afternoon of digging in the archives, both online and off. What follows comes to you straight from a tattered, sun-bleached sketchbook that holds my teenage writing—or, at least, the snippets of it that aren’t stashed in my parents’ freezer, which I once fervently believed was the only way to secure it for the ages. Dear reader, I humbly present to you the story of how it all began, the story of how one verbose teenager in…

Last week I was tagged—not once, but twice—for the 23rd-post-5th-sentence meme, a nifty little game that would have me dig into my archives, find my 23rd post, pull out its fifth sentence, and analyze its meaning. Now, clearly, the universe wants to see me complete this task, and so, we’re off. A bit of perusal reveals that my 23rd post is a report on the 2004 Knight family lamb roast, opening with a heated battle against a recalcitrant Parisian flan. Case in point, the fifth sentence: “I swore like a sailor, slapped the dough shards into a pile and bullied them into a ball, and then I rolled them flat before they had a second to protest.” On the surface,…

I’ve never before thought of myself as any sort of doomsday prophet, but lately it seems that I’ve been in an awful rush to admit defeat to autumn. Yes, Seattle is officially That Rainy City once again, and yes, that was me at the bus stop, wrestling the wind for my umbrella, swatting furiously at the hair that had escaped my ponytail and plastered itself into the corner of my mouth, and generally performing at my unglamorous best. Given the circumstances, moaning about fall is perfectly appropriate, but dear reader, I think I may have spoken too soon. Call me a hypocrite; say what you will; but there are still heirloom tomatoes in the market, and that means there’s time…

Returning from vacation is never a wholly pleasant proposition, no matter how much I love my city of residence, my cozy apartment—deep-pile carpet notwithstanding—or my trusty little kitchen, always ready and waiting. Whoever said that home is where the heart is clearly did very little traveling, and must have fallen in love with the boy next door. But if ever there were a compelling reason for renewing my vows to Seattle just when my eye was at its wandering worst, it would have to be a certain five-headed family known for its lamb roasts, immoderate whipped cream consumption, and general gastronomic generosity. New York may have nearly everything a girl could want, but it doesn’t have the Knights. And really,…

I owe you an apology, dear reader. For the past week, I’ve cruelly paraded before you a small smorgasbord of foods that, unless you happen to find yourself within the New York metropolitan area, you may never eat. If you’re anything like me, this could be cause for irritation, agitation, or even boredom; if I can’t run out and taste it—or better yet, create it at home—I often find my desire to read about it severely curbed. Yes, learning about new or exotic edibles can be inspiring, both in terms of hunger and curiosity, but when all is said and done, reading about faraway, unobtainable foods can feel a bit like having a crush on a movie star: if I…

At some point in my impressionable youth, I was told that one should never eat while standing up. This well-meaning killjoy of a tip was probably given to me during one of my mother’s various dieting phases, the idea being that one can’t be fully mindful of what crosses one’s lips unless one is seated, preferably with a knife, fork, and a napkin. There’s a good degree of truth to this, certainly, and I’ll almost always take a civilized sit-down over a standing scarf-down, but honestly, some things just taste better when taken on two feet. Take, for example, the drippy peach eaten over the kitchen sink, or the tip of the baguette torn off outside the boulangerie: really, sometimes…

There is something you should know about Brandon: when it comes to food, his main themes are obsession and exaggeration. He takes hot sauce straight from the spoon, and he has more oils and vinegars than you and I have fingers and toes. If he’s lying awake at two a.m., he’s likely weighing the merits of salad onions versus storage onions, and if he calls at lunchtime with a quavering voice and “terrible news,” what he really means is that his once-coveted pizza oven only goes to 575°, not 900°. And it’s not by chance that I mention pizza. The stuff is chief among the occupants of his thoughts—not surprising, perhaps, given that it’s the birthright of all New Yorkers,…

When I left Seattle this morning, the city was still tucked snugly under a heavy blanket of clouds. It’s been this way for a week or two now, with autumn beginning its slow, sad tease, sending in an advance guard of low gray clouds every morning and sneaking the daylight away earlier and earlier every evening. Six-thirty this morning found me at the chilly bus stop with my wet hair and full suitcase, New York-bound and knowing too well that when I return, the Pacific Northwest summer may have already had its last gasp. The season will subtly shift its mandate from plum clafoutis to purple cabbage, from outdoor lamb roasts to oven-roasted chicken, and from test-kitchen beer floats to…