Category Archives: food

False Pride and the comeuppance of the Croquembouche

I guess I will start off by saying hello again. I haven’t written much lately and I think that my last post took a lot out of me. I’d say 2020 has been quite the year, but that’s more than a bit of an understatement, isn’t it? I’m back, and trying to figure out how I really want this blog to work for me. I started writing because friends and family who read my FB have told me I should write more. I don’t know that I have the gift or patience for an actual book, but I do enjoy telling stories, so a blog seemed to be the right way to go about it. At first, there were big plans, and I wanted to do themes loaded with info and photos. As I’ve gone along, that seems to be too much work and actually keeps me from writing because who can come up with that many big ideas? It seems more natural to go with my FB style and just do smaller posts about whatever is rattling around my brain. Sometimes I’m funny, oftentimes serious, occasionally a little sad. I write about my interests, my family, and talk way too much about food. That said, I guess I will get to my story.

One of the things you need to know about me is that, like a lot of folks, I can sometimes get a little full of myself, or as they say around here- “too big for my britches”. I like to cook. In fact, food is what I think about at least half of the time I am conscious. Most of the time, I’m decent at it. Occasionally I pull off something impressive. My family praises my efforts and since I know a lot of people who do “maintenance cooking’ rather than inventive cooking and who seemed surprised at some of my recipes, I sometimes get a little bit of an inflated ego over my own skills. I forget myself and get a little snobby. I know, I’m sorry. I was taught better, I swear.

Fortunately for my own salvation, two things serve to keep me humble and put me in my place when I start believing in the hype in my head and thinking I should have my own cooking show. (Honestly, the last part is a joke, because I’m messy and I cuss waaaay too much for TV). First, I have a friend, we will call her “A”, who takes joy in keeping me in my place. I assume God put her in my life just for that reason, She is the friend who will take pictures when you fall down and save them forever, but is usually too kind to post them in social media. She also is the kind of friend who will remind you, like 8 years later, of that one time you made cupcakes and a stray bit of egg didn’t get mixed into the batter good and ended up as a rather unappetizing lump of scrambled yuck in a bite. True story, one cupcake out of hundreds… But she’s right, and she makes me laugh and keeps me from getting the big head. (Also, I get to feel a tiny bit superior, because she cusses more than I do, and is prone to saying things in public that make me feel like I’m a proper southern lady. Spoiler, I’m not.)

The second thing that saves my soul is that periodically, right about when I start really feeling my own self and start to show out, I fail. Spectacularly. Sadly, this usually happens in one of those moments when I was trying to perform and put on for people, and it happens most on special occasions. I’ve dropped cakes, left out ingredients, had things collapse, etc… The point is, I really should know better by now. I don’t. It happens again and again. So, here is what happened this week.

We are doing virtual school currently. We all know why, and frankly I don’t want to mention it anymore. My youngest child’s science teacher sent an assignment for them to stack things to make a holiday tree shape. Normally, this being the week before school lets out for Christmas, the teachers are mostly just trying to manage the animals, and let them do this in class with toothpicks and gumdrops. It’s actually a good scientific engineering project, and then they can eat the candy. Win, win. This year, they were supposed to use things around the house and do the challenge at home. So, normal people get gumdrops or marshmallows or whatever, and let their kids do the thing, right? Are you getting a sense of premonition here? Do you think I did the normal thing? No, no I did not.

I thought and thought about how we could do something spectacular. One, to have fun, and lets be real here, two-because I’m a show out. After some thought, I decided it was a good idea to bake something. Aww, cookies or brownies, you say? Nooooo, pastry. French pastry. The notoriously difficult and temperamental croquembouche, to be exact. Now, I’m actually not bad at pastry. I’ve pulled off eclairs and tarts with no issue. I have done pastry cream before, and various kinds of caramel. Sooo, no problem, right? Oh, wrong. Problem. Many problems. A veritable host of ‘em. Murphy’s law ruled over that day like a Roman emperor.

I started off by forgetting something, and my daughters may kill me for this. Our cycles have coordinated. It was hormone city up in here. Now, I, even on my best days, am what you would politely call “high strung”. I run on pure emotion and react in a split second. (Lets say its often an overreaction, at that) My youngest is just like me while the oldest is a bit more mellow but still sensitive. The three of us were a veritable powder keg. Now, I don’t know about you, but my cycle also makes me clumsy and forgetful. My mother said the same thing. My hands don’t work exactly right and I haven’t the slightest idea why. So, we have hormones and lack of coordination. Let’s add the fact that my kitchen is tiny and there were three people trying to work together. See where we are headed?

Ok, in my vast collection of cookbooks, I couldn’t find a recipe for croquembouche. I searched a few of my phone and read through them. I knew the timing. We gathered ingredients and got ready. Then I decided to use a different recipe than the original one I’d chosen. Why? Because it came from an “upscale” magazine and not some random person’s blog. I deserved everything that was going to happen. We started the pastry and then halfway through I remembered you’re supposed too do the cream first so it can chill. Ok, move those pots, get more bowls, get more pots, rearrange, and start the cream. That went off pretty well, albeit with perhaps a bit of sniping back and forth amongst the hormone queens. It went into the fridge to wait. Back to the pastry.

The pastry cooked up fine. We let it cool five minutes as instructed and then placed it in the bag to pipe. Just before I snipped the end of the bag, while wondering how this overly warm runny mess was going to set up right, Sophia says, “Hey, what about all these eggs in the mixer? Were they supposed to go in there?” Yep. Eight shiny little carefully separated egg yolks waiting to be blended into the cooled batter. Oops.. We dumped the dough out, mixed the eggs in. (Very carefully “A”, very carefully). I scooped it back into the bag and got ready to pipe. Oldest daughter had, during this, struggled to line baking sheets with parchment paper, which sensing her emotional vulnerability, decided to get all sideways in its little case and refuse to rip straight. She may have cussed, but she’s 18 so I pretended not to hear it.

I start trying to pipe the little mounds to make the profiteroles. Apparently, more chilling time was needed because this wasn’t going well. Our ancient incontinent Pomeranian is capable of tidier piles than what I was making. I just kept going, pirate mouth and all, determined that whatever happened would happen. I’m yelling, the older daughter is trying to commiserate, and the youngest is bumping around trying to help, but mostly saying and touching things at the wrong time. Totally not her fault, however. She’s nowhere near as experienced in the kitchen and sometimes tries to guess what you need next and gets in the way. I was past the point of clear communication. We got them piped and the daughters argued and managed to egg wash them. While they were doing that, I sat on the sofa and guzzled tea and questioned my sanity. The good news is that despite inauspicious beginnings, the little pastries turned out and puffed up nicely in the oven.

Once the little puffs were cooled to room temp, it was time to fill them with the pastry cream. Everybody wanted to be the one to fill them, so there was a bit of “discussion”, but we got it under control before it got physical. This was the point where we realized that the underside was a tiny bit harder than was possible to cleanly insert the frosting tip in, so there I was poking holes in the bottom with the end of a clean paintbrush. Hey, whatever works. Finally, they were all filled and ready to go. I was feeling a little more confident this point. Heck, we’d gotten the hardest parts done, right? No one had died and there hadn’t even been any realistic threats of bodily harm. That’s when ish when downhill. It when downhill faster than a greased sled on ice. It. Was. Epic.

Ok, I’d read that amateurs sometimes used a little cone to assemble the filled puffs into a tree shape. At this point, normal folks would have used their brains and a little humility. Me? Nooo. I was a dumpster fire out of control. Boldly i set out a little cardboard cake circle and started the batch of caramel that is used to stick them gather like mortar. Oh, dear. It was simple mixture of water and sugar, cooked to a certain stage where the profiteroles could be dipped and laid like a tasty brick tower. Easy peasy, right? Nope. I put the mixture in the pot, put the lid on and waited as instructed for it to turn “ a lovey light shade of amber”. I stood there like a hawk. Nothing but slow bubbles and certainly no color change. With a few minutes to go, I slipped around the corner to sip my tea for a second. Like a flipping unholy magic trick, 30 seconds of hydration cost me the whole kit and caboodle. I skipped back into the kitchen to find a burnt umber mess in the pan. I smelled and tasted it with the optimistic and tearful hope that color be darned, it was salvageable. Indeed, it was not, it was a smoky nasty hard candy briquette.

The air ablaze with colorful language, I tossed that pan in the sink to soak, and started another batch. This one didn’t even get halfway through before seizing and turning into impenetrable sugar rocks. I threw in more water to no avail. It wouldn’t remelt and became something I could have repaired foundation with. I was in tears, the girls were stunned, things were being thrown, and my son was smartly hiding in his room, because he wanted no part of any of this drama. Sigh. A third pan, and a third batch. This too, started to seize. I was boo-hooing, adding water and crushing sugar crystals until finally some semblance of sugar caramel sauce became apparent. Look, it wasn’t a lovely shade of amber, and it had some heinous lumps in it, but I was at the end of my rope here. We grabbed the puffs and got ready to dip and stack. Thank the good Lord I had had the foresight to put on a double layer of latex gloves before the dipping process. Liquid sugar is basically caustic lava. Trying to hold the delicate puffs to keep from squeezing out the cream, dipping them in the molten sugar, and trying to make them stack in reducing circles was akin to building a pyramid from flaming balls of jiggly sweet death. We all tried, we cheated and placed reinforcements in the middle. We teamed up with racing and dripping more syrup. Naughty words, yelling, tears, fervent prayers, and the complete destruction of our Christmas cheer (and almost our souls), and we ended up with no fingerprints, a couple blisters, and the pastry tower equivalent of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Tired, broken spirited, and sick of the smell of burnt sugar, we threw edible glitter and sprinkles on it, along with a couple Instagram filters, sent a pic to the teacher and called it done.

Theoretically, a lesson has been learned here, and I will not attempt stupidly intricate stuff when simple ideas will do. Perhaps I will buy prefab gingerbread kits and slice and bake cookies. Yeah, I wouldn’t bet on it. I think there’s years of jackassery left in us yet. Stay tuned.

There. It’s lovey, isn’t it? Julia Child is crying in Heaven. We’re such a mess. At least it tasted decent,though for that effort, I’d rather have eclairs next time.

The land of Tea and Honey (and toast, there has to be toast)

The Tomatoes of Good Intention

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It’s August, and the garden season is in full swing. Out in the country, it seems most yards have a dedicated plot or even an entire field full of carefully cultivated fruits and veggies. This is the time of year when kitchen counters and even dining room tables hold the bounteous overflow waiting to be eaten immediately, preserved in freezer bags, or canned in rows of glorious glass jars lined on a pantry shelf. I am no different. Every year, for years now, I, too, have sown my front yard with seeds and seedlings alike, carefully planning in the hopes of a bumper crop to eat and share with friends and family.

I wasn’t always this way, however. My mother loved gardens, and as long as I can remember, she was to be found either at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and her stash of seed catalogs, or out in the yard, digging, weeding, watering, or gathering. There were many spring nights when she would be out tilling up that rocky, red clay streaked Tennessee dirt In the last light of the sunset. She always tried to get me interested in her love of plants, and I suppose when I was little, I may have been cheerful enough and even mildly helpful at times. My teen years, however, were a turbulent time for everyone, and every attempt she made at coaxing me outside to assist in the garden or on the farm was met with great resistance, and even outright hostility. I was a lazy and volatile teen, and when my poor parents tried to institute a family hour on Sunday afternoons of working together, I made them so miserable they finally gave up.

It pains me, both as a grown daughter full of regrets, and as a mother raising three of her own, to admit my behavior. I fought tooth and nail to be relieved of that simple hour of weeding the garden, chopping encroaching thistles, or picking up the ever renewing crop of rocks that spawned in every field or garden bed after even the lightest rain. Everyone knows that weeding or rock removal in TN feels as futile as emptying the sea with a thimble, but still necessary if you want to claim any corner of land as your own and pretend control of your surroundings. Thistle chopping still elicits the same angry response in me as it did years before, so I avoid it whenever possible.

Back to more modern times, sorry. We southerners have to tell about eleven stories just to get to the point of one, but I do like to think that’s part of our charm. I have a garden now, and though I am able to get help from husband and children, largely the work falls to me to maintain the rows and beds I plant. Sadly, I still retain old habits of indolence and irritation, and anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am an ambitious planner, but greatly lack in follow through. I have big dreams, but I am still working on the responsibility for making them come true on my own part. So, this is the story of the tomatoes of intention.

My mother passed away last Fall; in fact, it will be a year in September. This spring, my dad allowed me to come over and pull up all of the raised beds she built in her meticulously planned out Potager style garden, and install them in my own haphazard plot. My family and I fought red ants, rocks, and the fun of trying to level ground on the top of a hill to put the beds together in a way that was pleasing to the eye and allowed for the maneuvering of tiller and wheelbarrow. Untold field buckets of dirt and bags of purchased topsoil later, and we were in business. We drew plans, ordered seeds, and bought tiny plants to be arranged in rows and blocks.

Here are some of the beds during planting and mulching time. This is before the rains came….

I love to cook and eat, and my talented and saintly friend “B” taught me to can my produce to preserve what I grew for meals in later months. Everyone knows you cannot beat homegrown for superior flavor and texture, and what is the star of almost any Southerner’s garden? The one plant that can be found in everyone’s yard, whether in containers or rows. The plant that is most watched for disease and pests, and the fruit of which can cause bouts of anxiety as we watch for ripening with the greatest amount of patience we can muster? Nothing more than the humble tomato. Once thought to be poisonous, it has been embraced in the South as the most anticipated fruit of summer.

As sure as Daffodils are a sign of Spring, tiny green tomatoes are the clearest indication that Summer is on its way.

I do not have to write an ode to the superiority of a garden fresh tomato, as far better writers than I have covered that subject to near exhaustion. Everyone in the Tennessee Valley and beyond is capable of coming to near blows on the subject of the best way to eat them on a simple sandwich. Most agree it should consist merely of bread, mayonnaise, and a thick slice sprinkled with salt, but it gets downright ugly after that. The type of bread, the brand of mayo, the addition of pepper or a leaf of basil is as tender a subject as any that come up in Sunday morning sermons.

Now, I suppose average folks plant a few seedlings very carefully, perhaps in a small square bed, or lovely container on their patio. Not here. Up in these hills, and down in the valleys too, it’s perfectly normal to plant from 30 to 70 little green branches in rows and along fences. I’m no different. I think I was hovering around 40 at the first planting, and I will admit to a later addition of around 10 more. In light of my mother’s pretty geometrical raised beds, I decided it would be pretty to put them in tomato cages and sow flowers around the base for an aesthetically pleasing plot. Off I went to the local lumber and garden center, where I lay down serious cash for sturdy Made in America tomato cages. I also put small iron posts at the ends of some beds and strung hay twine for support in a fit of ill advised folksy recycling.

Remember when I said I was more of a planner than an executor of said plans? This is where that becomes most apparent. I watered my little plants and gave them a nice dose of “miracle” food. Then the spring rains came. Those darned tomato seedlings turned into giant sprawling hedges that would have been suitable for protecting the princess in Sleeping Beauty. Those plants laughed at my tiny post and twine supports, and toppled those carefully sunk tomato cages in an enormous mass of verdant tentacles that kudzu would be jealous of. I lost any chance I had of putting back the fences that, in previous, smarter years, I had employed to keep control of the jungle. The best I could do was upright the cages and hold them there as my son sank solid 6 foot T-posts inside as a brace. Even then, some leaned like a certain Italian tower.

I knew better, really I did. There was no way those tiny posts and twine were holding back the hefty vines. I haven’t a clue why I even entertained the idea.

The trouble I went through to sink those cages over a foot deep in this rocky dirt? And all for naught. Thick, pricey American steel (or aluminum, iron, I have no idea what they’re made of) cages cannot hold these wild vines!

I was in tears. The weeds were interwoven and hidden under the canopy. I despaired of ever finding the first tiny tomato in the primeval forest that my tidy plans had become. An off hand planting of butternut squash got ahold of some ‘roids and overgrew its own trellis, eating a line of cucumbers, and grabbing onto the tomato cages closest to it. There are a few weeds here that I am convinced have the ability to grow the height of a man, quite overnight, and others where a three inch sapling has a root system that could ruin a foundation. If only I had weeded every couple of days like I knew I was supposed to. (See, it’s that follow through problem). I had intended this beautiful and possible Instagram worthy little area and what my own efforts had given me was something monstrous that was frightening the neighbors. There was even a stray cat that showed up for a few weeks that we never saw again. I’m pretty sure the weeds got it….

Do you see the one plant has overtaken its own area and is reaching for its neighbor? Can you even tell there are separate plants? Or that there was rainbow chard between the cages?

My son and I surveyed the problem, and started to make a plan. (see? I’m a good planner). We started pulling weeds by the wheelbarrow full and laying down old newspaper and straw to block new growth. I tried staking some of the tomatoes and rewinding errant vines of every sort back on their appropriate supports. The tomatoes saw my paltry efforts and gleefully began to ripen. Every gardener knows that first great joy in eating the beautiful red fruits, the object of year round longing. You enjoy a sandwich or two and slice them into salads. You may even share a couple with someone you really like that cannot grow their own, but not too many, because they are delicious and precious. The next week you start getting enough to make that first batch of salsa and perhaps can a few jars of sauce. Then it happens…

The sweet little cherry tomatoes are the first to be ready and a family favorite for sure.

ALL of the tomatoes ripen at once. All 471 plants that you have because you were so giddy in the spring you forgot how many places you’d ordered them from. This is the point where the house doesn’t cool off because you’re running that canner in the kitchen a few hours every other day. Jars of chopped, whole (not me, but some people have the patience to stand there and watch jars boil for like 4 hours, but I don’t), crushed, sauce, salsa, and soup. You eat pasta, sandwiches, tomato omelets, and salads until your blood registers 45% lycopene. You start counting your jars and make phone calls or social media posts asking if the Piggly Wiggly has any more lids. You buy freezer bags and start rough chopping the tomatoes without even skinning them or reseeding them, because who has that kind of time anymore?????

Ah yes, even the mop bucket gets repurposed.

The hornworms and caterpillars are taking their share and some of them are cooking on the vine in the July/August heat and the chickens are getting reealllll sick of tomato scraps. This loss no longer bothers you. The Roma with a nasty worm tunnel in it, stinking on the vine, gets thrown over the fence into the woods with nary a tear. All surfaces are covered in tomatoes, along with whatever else you planted. People have them on tables in their yard with a “FREE” sign on them. The okra has grown into giant prickly bats, because you know the grocery store has decent okra all year long, but tomatoes, they’re a whole different story. All the planning I’d made of beautiful, well cared for plants and no tomato wasted? Hahahahahaha, um, yeah, as I said, I’m a great planner….

An inelegant shot, but still one of the prettiest sights you’ll ever see. Any gardener knows the satisfaction of rows of canned tomato soup, just waiting for Winter and a grilled cheese sandwich.

It’s August now, I still have tomatoes on the counters to deal with (maybe tomorrow) and plenty still on the vine outside. I may even have about 10 young, 2-foot tall seedlings planted on a fence row, (I learned a little something at least) waiting for the intense temperatures to ease, so that they too can grown big and heavy with their own crop of tasty tomatoes. I have a whole plan for how I am going to preserve them and the recipes I want to make and share. It’s a great plan. I have such good intentions. In the meantime, here’s a few ideas you can make with your own embarrassment of tomatoes.

There’s nothing easier or better than a quick little Sunday night buffet where the star is a large plate of sliced tomatoes in a simple golden balsamic vinaigrette.

Our favorite summer dinner is a very simple pasta. Take a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes, sautéed them with chopped garlic in olive oil, and throw in some thinly sliced basil and salt and pepper. Toss with fresh mozzarella pearls and cooked noodles of choice. Quick and delicious.

This one took a tiny bit more work, but not much at all. Take a sheet of puff pastry and roll it out a little thinner. Poke a few holes around it with a fork. I spread an herbed cream cheese from the grocery thinly on top (you may need to warm it up a little at first for easier spreading), and lay a variety of 1/4 inches slices of tomatoes and even some little halved cherry tomatoes. Drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and thinly sliced fresh basil leaves, and bake in 375 degree oven for 25-30 minutes. My family didn’t let a crumb go to waste.

Thanks for reading, folks, and come back next Sunday and see whatever nonsense I’ve gotten up to. Feel free to share recipes and photos with me here of your own tomato deliciousness! In the mean time, stay safe, stay happy, and God bless.