I was told that since I am now a resident of New England, I am required to be a fan of the Sox, the Pats, and the Celtics.

(Celts?)

Given that the Patriots are playing in the Super Bowl this weekend, I developed a menu which proves my allegiance, providing an appropriate color scheme and using signature New England ingredients like cranberries, maple syrup, clams, and blueberries.

Go Pats!

Snacky

Ranch Style Oyster Crackers

Patriotic Chips and North Shore Dip

Red, White and Blue Nachos

Meaty

Spicy Cranberry Meatballs

Bacon Jalapeno Bites

Mini Ballpark Dogs

Desserty

Blueberry, Blackberry, and Strawberry Skewers with MapleNilla Sauce

Nantucket Cranberry Pie

Ranch Style Oyster Crackers


3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 (1 ounce) package dry Ranch-style dressing mix
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/4 teaspoon lemon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 (12 ounce) package oyster crackers

Preheat oven to 275. In a mixing bowl, whisk together vegetable oil, ranch-style dressing mix, dill weed, lemon pepper and garlic powder. Pour over the crackers in a medium bowl. Stir until the coated. Arrange on a large baking sheet. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.


North Shore Dip

1 8oz container prepared French onion dip
1 can chopped clams

Mince clams extra fine and combine with French onion dip. Serve with Terra Stripes & Blues chips.



















Red, White, and Blue Nachos


Blue corn tortilla chips
Montgomery Jack cheese
Sharp white Cheddar cheese
Chunky salsa

Arrange tortilla chips in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Shred cheeses on chips to cover evenly but not completely. Place in hot oven until cheese is melted. Use a spoon to dribble salsa over the top; try to get some salsa on each chip.


Spicy Cran Meatballs

1 14oz can Jellied Cranberry Sauce
1 12oz bottle Heinz® Chili Sauce
1 2 lb bag frozen cocktail-size meatballs

Thoroughly mix cranberry and chili sauce in a large saucepan or crockpot. Add meatballs and heat until meatballs are heated through. Serve with toothpicks.

MapleNilla Sauce

1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mascarpone
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla

Whisk all ingredients together until well blended. Serve with fruit skewers as dipping sauce.

Spry! Best Wedding Gift Ever!

Spry Pure Vegetable Shortening did an amazing job with marketing during the mid 1930s through the mid 1950s. They created a character named Aunt Jenny who appeared in print advertisements and hosted a radio show/soap opera.

(In this case, I guess it would be called a shortening opera.)

DiDi found for me a trippy old recipe booklet called Aunt Jenny's Favorite Recipes which of course all demand Spry.

Check out the front cover:

That handsome fella with his arm around Jenny is the ever dashing DH Calvin. For some reason, he's not referred to as "Uncle", which makes me question the nature of their relationship.

The back cover is equally fun.

The book is filled with techniques and tips for the aspiring homemaker. The back cover tips you off that Jenny likes to help newlyweds.

Who wouldn't want a paper advertocookbooklet and an economy sized can of shortening as a wedding present!

Ain't Spry grand?

Hot Gazpacho à la Alice B. Toklas

I've been reading The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book which I bought a few months ago at an estate sale. I thought the title sounded familiar, but had no idea what I was actually buying.

The book is a fascinating memoir about Alice's life as friend, lover, and aide-de-camp to Gertrude Stein. Each chapter centers around a set of their adventures, transporting medical supplies during war time, wrangling persnickety vehicles named Aunt Pauline and Godiva, and traveling here and there around the Continent and elsewhere. All the stories conclude with a description of a meal they ate on these travels, along with a recipe or two.

There are many interesting things about the book. Alice always refers to her companion as "Gertrude Stein", never as merely Gertrude. Use of punctuation is spotty. Questions are often ended with periods rather than question marks. Recipes are introduced in the middle of sentences. Names like Picasso are dropped in the midst of stories about friends and acquaintances.

I'm not sure how many of the recipes I'll include in this blog. It tends not to be my style of cooking. Most of it is very French, both literally and by my own use of the term, meaning: multi-stepped and fussy. But I did want to include this passage on gazpacho. It concludes a chapter on variations of this cold soup, and was added as a sort of epilogue. She writes:

Senora Marta Brunet, a distinguished Chilean writer, is of Spanish or rather Catalan descent and she describes gazpacho as a meal of the Spanish muleteers. And meal it seems, in this version, rather than soup. These muleteers, she says, carry with them on their journeyings a flat earthenware dish--and garlic, olive, oil, tomatoes and cucumbers, also dry bread which they crumble. Between two stones by the wayside they grind the garlic with a little salt and then add the oil. This mixture is rubbed all round the inside of the earthenware vessel. Then they slice the tomatoes and cucumbers and put alternating layers of each in the dish, interspersing the layers with layers of breadcrumbs and topping off the four tiers with more breadcrubms and more oil. This done and prepared, they take a wet cloth, wrap it round the dish and leave it in a sunny place. The evaporation cooks the contents and when the cloth is dry the meal is ready. Too simple, my dear Watson.

Now I don't claim to be a scientist of any kind. Brain or otherwise. But my understanding of the evaporation process is that it cools, rather than heats. A quick googling confirmed that, and led me to an interesting link about a self-cooling Spanish clay water vessel called a Botijo.

So that leaves me wondering if the word "cooks" in the passage was a typo inflicted during the publishing process, or if Alice simply got the story wrong.

Interesting, no?

This little book is a priceless window into a particular era, social milieu, and personality. Definitely worth the read.

Food Poems for National Poetry Day

A few years ago, Saveur Magazine published a story called A Feast for Bards: 13 Favorite Food Poems, which opened by saying: "Scratch a poet, find a gourmand. Every aspect of gastronomy, from planting to harvest to cooking to eating, has inspired poets for centuries; poets are sensualists, and these are among life's most sensual experiences."

My lovely wife concurs, and she's been dying to get me to publish some of my poems, a number of which center around food.

Here's one for openers:

If you'd like to read a few more poems in this style, written under my nom de plume Chantelle Franc, you can check them out by clicking here.

Subliminal Bananas for a Better Finale

"Nothing is smarter, nothing more pleasing, than a fruit finale to a meal."

Clearly he agrees.

She, however, cannot bring herself to meet his gaze:

This disquiets me, and makes me wonder if an even more pleasing finale might be needed.

Might the downturned bananas be a subliminal message for hubby?