Busy, busy, bluster. Visiting father-in-law and uncle-in-law, an all girls Christmas party hosted by a neighbor and artiste. Spicy carrot ginger soup, mac and cheese, meatballs studded with dried currants and pine nuts and almonds. Have you ever played Dirty Santa? Have you ever seen a live outdoor Nativity acted out by little kids dressed up in bathrobes (they’re the Wise Men…no, wait, they’re the shepherds), narrated in English and Spanish?* The winds. The holidays. Oh, Lordy.

We have cheer. We have cozy. Thank God we also have heat. Oh yes, it’s back, and it feels so good. Hot damn, it’s efficient.

And now that the weather has dipped below 80 degrees and the wind and the chill have come back, things finally feel like Christmas. We got the tree up (a white pine - one string of lights was dangling from its branches for about a week until Kelly took over), the boughs and the branches scattered over the mantel and swooped along the front porch. We bought mistletoe from a scarred-face burly cop selling evergreens on the side of the road. He harvests his crop each year by shooting the stuff out of trees. Yee-haw!

I’ve been making toffee, OK, a lot of toffee, and giving it away, but otherwise I’ve kept Christmas under control this year.

I’m trying to slow down. Kelly and I actually spent part of this evening watching My So-Called Life. The flannel shirts, people, I can’t tell you! I’m not sure that anyone is ever going to consider them fashionable again, or worth re-incarnating. But they’re oddly comforting to see, along with scarlet-headed Angela Chase and fuzzy-headed nerd Brian Krakow. So, you can see I’ve managed to avoid obsessing over the glossy pages of tangerine Bavarian and passion fruit gelees and beef tenderloin with tomato confit. Sure, they look pretty, those tinsel-trimmed centerfolds, but when the going gets rough, or at least busy, sometimes it’s best to turn back to the simplest recipes, the ones printed on faded magazine pages sticky with time and sugar, dried egg white and lemon juice.

This recipe is one of those. I knew I had to make something with the Meyer lemons I picked up this weekend. They were drop dead gorgeous, golden ovals that glow in a way that no ordinary lemon can. I love how citrus season springs on me like a surprise each year. Hurray for this season of indie rock sweet Christmas songs, this season of evergreen-scented houses and…citrus. I was torn between the Meyer lemons and the blood oranges. Really, really torn.

For one thing, the pastry I use for this tart is one of the easiest I know. You push it into the tart pan - there’s no rolling out, no flour spilling down the counters and speckling the back of a dog vigilantly watching the floor for crumbs. For another, it’s g-o-o-d, buttery and crackly. For another, lemon curd - luxurious, tart, golden and sunshiny - is about the most delicious thing in the world. It’s extravagant, completely easy and completely festive, and a very good way to treat some special citrus.

Simplest Lemon Curd Tart
Adapted from Everyday Food, January 2005

In a small saucepan off heat, whisk together eggs, egg yolks, sugar, new online slotskeno online spielepoker rouletteroulette programmcasino online deinternet casino onlinelive roulettenew casino onlinewww casino gamesinternet gewinn spielespielregeln spieleautomatenkasino onlinecasino online und poker portalslot maschinegluck spiele onlinelotto am samstagwww casino spielekasino websitepc slotsonline casino forumcasino club comkasinospiele mit echtem geldslot maschinen online spielenonline kasinopokercasino games downloadenonline baccarat spielenroulette online gamecasino tropez bonuscasino online spielroulette online gratistop online kasinosonline texas holdem pokerparty poker codesregeln zu pokerbester online pokerpoker zum gratis downloadenparty poker sign up bonuspoker spielen ohne anmeldenpoker game softwarebonus bei pokeronline poker um geldpoker regeln blattonline poker javahigh stakes pokerparty poker no deposit bonuspoker com bonusgratis poker gamespoker regeln straightpoker bonus codesonline omaha poker spielen lemon juice, and salt until smooth. Add butter.

Place pan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or spatula until lemon curd is thickened to the consistency of a loose pudding, about eight to 10 minutes. The curd is done when it is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon.

Pour curd through a fine mesh sieve into a cooled crust. Cool to room temperature. Refrigerate tart until the filling is firm, about two to three hours. Unmold from tart pan ring before serving.

*Yet to happen this year, but the manger is going up at the church down the street. I look forward to it every year, ever since Mary K. and I walked down there with mugs of mulled wine and a little girl who kept pointing at the angels standing on pine bough-covered scaffolding and saying, “That’s Jesus.”

It was 88 or 90 degrees or so today. Saturday, we were wiping our brows as we ate cake at an outdoor wedding in the southeastern Pennsylvania countryside. But I am determined to make fall happen. Tomatoes, I loved you deeply, but your time has come. One of the joys of is eating seasonally is that is it delicious at the all the right times and places - usually. Last week, it felt right to be eating butternut squash, roasted and wrapped in pasta ribbons, sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts and Fontina and shallots. We had the air conditioning on last night as we ate supper, a lusty, creamy red lentil soup shot through with the loud clear voices of fresh ginger and curry. It’s an experiment for a client, and I have to say - humbly, quietly, of course - that it turned out well. There isn’t a drop of cream or milk here, and you’d never know it. This is a soup that is far more than the sum of its humble parts, a soup that would muscle out lobster bisque and she-crab concoctions, I dare say, and wipe their bowls out with a slice of homey bread or even better, sunset-colored sweet potato yeast rolls.

I’ve had a hard time deciding which recipe to give to you folks, and so it is - you get two.

I almost was able to ignore the tell-tale tickling in my throat that forecasts another sign of cooler weather. The Cold came on sneakily, as Kelly and I watched The Office (in our office! on our computer!) between the soup and a few gingersnaps for dessert. Maybe it’s this squirrely weather that’s causing a disturbance in the force. All I know is that I am chugging down Emergency C and Throat Coat. And at lunch today, I could temporarily breath deeply and even smell. A miracle. A panacea. A balm in Gilead. Curry will clear things right up, and ginger too. I can feel this bugger on his way out of here.

Holiday-time Sweet Potato Yeast Rolls

These are the rolls with which my family sops up Thanksgiving gravy. Once baked, they freeze beautifully and fall apart in pretty little triangles.

Yields 18 rolls

3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 ounce package active dry yeast
2 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
½ stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus additional melted butter for brushing the rolls
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup mashed roasted sweet potatoes
1 ½ cups all purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

In a small bowl, stir together 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/4 cup warm water, sprinkle yeast over the mixture and let proof about 5 minutes or until foamy.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, milk, butter, salt, sweet potatoes and the yeast mixture until combined well. Stir in 3 cups of flour, 1 at a time and turn dough out onto floured surface.

Knead dough, incorporating as much of the remaining 1 cup flour as needed to prevent dough from sticking for about 8 to 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Form dough into ball and put in well-buttered large bowl and turn it to coat with butter. Cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1 hour, or until it is double in size.

Turn dough out onto floured surface. Cut off pieces about the size of a walnut and form into balls. Place three balls into each of 18 muffin tins and brush the tops with melted butter. Let rolls rise, covered loosely, in a warm place for 30 to 45 minutes, or until they are almost double in size. Bake rolls in pre-heated 400F oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until they are golden.

Lusty Curried Red Lentil Soup

Yield: Three to four servings

It is important that you get the ginger very finely ground, almost into a paste, because it is incorporated into the soup late and any chunks will not cook down. I like to use a mini food processor that came with my husband’s dowery. I used to laugh at it, and flash a big knife. No more. It saves a lot of chopping time when I’m cooking for clients and using ginger or garlic.

1 ½ to 2 cups dry red lentils
4 ½ cups vegetable stock
2 cups water
½ red onion, minced
1 carrot, peeled and minced
1 stalk of celery, minced

a dollop of plain yogurt (non, low-fat or full fat) per bowl

Thai red curry paste, onion powder, cumin, salt, pepper, and fresh, very finely grated ginger to your liking. (I used about two teaspoons of ginger, and a generous dollop of curry)

Melt ½ tablespoon butter in a medium-sized stockpot over medium heat. Add onion, and when it turns translucent add carrot and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until fragrant and soft, about ten minutes. Add vegetable stock, water and lentils. Cook for about 30 minutes until lentils are very soft. Puree in blender or puree in pot with immersion blender. Return to pot, then season with curry, onion powder, cumin, salt, pepper, and ginger.

Before serving, add yogurt.

This soup gets even better the next day, but you may want to add some water as you warm it up to thin it out.

I’m about to disappoint you guys.

I can show you the pork butt that Kelly wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over applewood for three, four, five hours in our backyard (sort of - I was excited - it’s blurry). I can show you the potluck spread that dear friends assembled for my birthday, the sliced Cherokee Purple tomatoes, the quiches, the roasted eggplant sprinkled with pine nuts, the rice flecked with olives and tuna, the tiny raspberry and peach pies, the goat cheese drizzled with honey and hazelnuts, basil lemonade, margaritas and brewskies (also all blurry). I am so lucky to have been born in July.

It’s probably tacky to ask your friends to bring their interpretation of summer bounty to your birthday party, but then I don’t care. I’m not always a lady, and we just love potlucks around here. They’re an opportunity to show off, in a giving kind of way.

My contribution was my own birthday cake. Is that cheating? Well, the evidence is gone. I can’t show you a long, metal cookie sheet dripping with condensation, and a crowd of friends licking their fingers. * I just forgot. Maybe it’s better not to document anyway. There are few words to describe these ice cream sandwiches. They’re more like a memory than a reality that you can pin, dissect and describe, a dessert tracing the edge of childhood with a very adult mix of salt and sweet, crunchy and creamy. They taste like the summer you wish you had when you were eight, if it weren’t for your love at that time of unnaturally blue raspberry slushies (guilty as charged). They taste like the summer you are having when you turned 28, a season of cocktails and thunderstorms on the front porch, a new bike and a new favorite place to ride it (thanks, honey) sweaty weekend afternoons working on the house, and nights working through the first through fifth seasons of the Sopranos, courtesy of NetFlix.

Praline Ice Cream Sandwiches adapted from Gourmet, June 2006

Makes 24 sandwiches, more or less. They will be gone before you can count them.

The praline
1 1/4 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar

The sandwich layers
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened at room temperature, plus additional for greasing pan
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

The filling
4 pints high-quality vanilla ice cream, softened

First make the praline: Stir together pecans and salt in a small bowl. Spread a sheet of foil on a work surface. Cook sugar in medium-sized pot over medium heat, undisturbed, until it begins to melt. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until sugar melts into a golden caramel - watch it carefully, so that it doesn’t burn. Add salted pecans, stirring until coated well, then spread on foil and cool completely, about 15 minutes. Peel praline off foil and finely chop with a large heavy chef’s knife.

Then, make the sandwiches: Move the oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 375F. With a bit of butter, draw an X from corner to corner of two cookie sheets (use sheets about 3/4 inch deep, also called jelly roll pans). Line the bottom of each pan with parchment paper, leaving a 1-inch overhang on each side, pressing to help parchment adhere to the X.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Beat together butter and brown sugar in another bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in two batches, mixing until just combined.

Divide batter between baking pans - about 1 1/2 cups each - and spread thinly and carefully. (It won’t look like enough batter, but it will be. You don’t need to get it to reach the edges of the pan, just the majority of the pan, and equal area on both pans so that your cookie sides will be even. An offset spatula really helps here. Really.) Sprinkle each pan with an equal amount of praline. Bake, switching positions of pans halfway through, until the layers are golden brown but still tender, about 10 minutes. Cool in pans 10 minutes, then transfer parchment to racks and cool completely, about 30 minutes. Clean one of the baking pans.

Line clean baking pan with fresh parchment. Invert one sandwich layer onto to the sheet, praline side down. Spread ice cream (it helps to dump all the ice cream in a big bowl and mash it up a bit, just to soften it) using the offset spatula (wash it after you use it on the layers). Invert the second layer on top, praline side up, carefully pressing it down. Wrap the top of the sandwich in plastic wrap and slide into freezer for at least one hour, ideally two. Cut into sandwiches with a sharp, large knife just before serving.

The sandwich, wrapped in plastic warp and foil, can be frozen for up to a week.

*Mary K came to the rescue.

I had two inadvertent spurts of patriotism right before this Fourth of July. On July 3, I wore red, white and blue - white skirt, periwinkle shirt, red straw bag. And the week before, I made a red, white and blue dessert, a gem-colored, old-fashioned and elegant summertime bread pudding, a mannerly gentlelady dressed in her simple, warm-weather linen frock.

This dessert takes all of 20 minutes to put together. Most of that time is spent keeping half an eye on simmering, fragrant pot of berries, the pure, sun-filled smell of heat and light and July. The real trick is to plan it in advance. To transform, this pudding really needs at least eight hours in the fridge. With patience, and a silky, sexy shawl of creme anglaise, the country lady becomes downright dressed for the dance, a chilly, slippery end to a midsummer night’s turn at a driftwood-colored picnic table, or a sticky evening on the front porch, the wind picking up and an angry thunderhead piling up on the horizon.

Perhaps I’m more of a patriot than I’d care to admit. But when our country’s birthday means *a day at the lake, a long, languorous afternoon of margaritas and card games and brownies and rocking chairs, grilled flank steak rubbed with cumin and coriander and cayenne, reading James Beard in the hammock and jumping off the end of a dock in a canary yellow two piece, capped by a nighttime boat ride, to a slideshow of two or three or four simultaneous fireworks shows, well, then I can buy into a national holiday. Happy Fourth, friends!

Summer Bread Pudding with Blueberries and Raspberries, adapted from Gourmet July 2007

Serves 6

1 loaf unsliced good brioche, crusts discarded
4 cups blueberries
5 cups raspberries
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Bring berries, juice and sugar to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat, then simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.

While the berries are simmering, cut bread into 14 1/2-inch slices. Cut out a 3-inch round from one slice and put in bottom of a deep, 2 1/2-quart bowl, about 8 inches in diameter across top and 3 inches across the bottom. Line sides of bowl with 10 slices, or as many that will fit, overlapping them slightly.

Spoon fruit into a sieve set over a bowl and let drain for 15 minutes. Spoon fruit into bread-lined bowl. Pour about half of the juice down the sides of the bowl, onto and into the bread slices. Cover fruit with more slices of bread, covering to fit, then pour the rest of the juice over the bread so that all of the slices are completely saturated. Cover the pudding with wax paper and place a 7-inch plate, upside down, on top of paper. Put a 1- to 1 1/2-pound weight (a large can of whole tomatoes worked for me) on plate. Slide into refrigerator and chill at least 8 hours.

Remove weight, plate, and wax paper. Put a platter on top of the bowl and invert it, carefully unmolding the pudding. Slice and serve with ice cream or creme anglaise.

Vanilla Creme Anglaise, adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook

1/2 vanilla bean
2 cups half and half
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar

Split the vanilla bean open with the tip of a paring knife. Scrape the seeds into a 3-quart saucepan, then add pod. Add half-and-half and bring to a boil. Remove from heat.

Whisk together eggs and sugar in a medium bowl until combined. Add hot half and half mixture in a slow stream, whisking constantly, then return to saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until custard is thickened and registers 175 F on a thermometer; do not let boil.

Pour custard sauce throw a fine-mesh sieve into a metal bowl; discard solids. Set bowl in a larger bowl of ice and cold water and stir sauce until cool. Refrigerate, covered, until cold, at least one hour.

* for which I must thank the lovely Stephanie, and her ambitious hostessing parents, and the lovely ancestral lake house furnished with a glider on the porch and in the kitchen, the piece de resistance, an avocado green oven.

So this was the aftermath:

This folks, is not the first year that I made a birthday cake for one of my dogs, but the second. The first time. we threw our pug a party because he was turning 10, an accomplishment for any canine, but especially if you are a stubborn, funny, slightly-deaf but so sweet old man dog. The word pugnacious comes to mind. If Mr. Loomis was a person, he’d wear smoking jackets and take long trips to Vegas, where he’d get comp rooms and steak dinners and strippers at the Bellagio.

We had a good time last year. So we did it again. Now we have no excuse. But, we have to serve our guests something besides a dog-friendly cake that to humans tastes in fact like a very, very bland carrot cake, a sweet that suspicious requires no sifting, or even very precise measuring.

So, with that in mind, I turned to a trusty source, Cupcake Bakeshop, where I’ve spent many hours reading, drooling, and just generally admiring things.

It’s a clearly written, clean-looking blog, with beautiful, precise photography and tidy directions. They are lessons for a lifetime of fussing with flour and sugar, these are. I’m ashamed to admit that I’d been baking for quite some time before I learned, for example, that eggs and butter should be really both be at room temperature (unless, of course, you’re making pastry). It was a revelation.

Cupcakes themselves are trendy, but even the fanciest, Beverly Hills-born bakeries - or should we call them cupcakeries - sticks to the old vanilla, chocolate and red velvet standbys, maybe with some coconut and carrot thrown in just to mix things up. Here is a woman who, recipe after recipe, plays with green tea matcha and homemade marshmallows, toffee and Madeira and lavender ice cream and lemongrass-coconut buttercream, a woman who dreams up a late summer cupcake combination of peaches and blueberries and thyme. In January, she made Himalayan Goji Berry Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and Himalayan Pink Salt. In December, it was time for cute-as-buttons pomegranate grapefruit cakes, filled with cheese cream and wearing a jaunty scarlet pomegranate jelly beret. I’m speechless.

Since then, I’ve systematically down-sized, so to speak, many a birthday and a celebration. Cakes are fine, but there’s something infectious about a version in miniature. They’re more effort, and then they aren’t, in part because you don’t have to slice them and dirty up a bunch of plates, and in part because they are rewarding in a nostalgic way that cake just quite can’t copy.

Loomis’ party fell on Cinco de Mayo - orchestrated quite on purpose by his owners, I would add - so I spent a lot of time in the kitchen pureeing tomatillos and smashing up garlic for salsas. Then there was ceviche, tostadas with smoked chicken and avocado crema, empanadas stuffed with potatoes, red peppers and chorizo, lots and lots of margaritas. At one point during the party, I was in the backyard, and I realized the blender was going off about every ten minutes.

Mr. Loomis’ cake was frosted with strained, plain yogurt and peanut butter. You wouldn’t have wanted to eat that. But, my friends, you missed out on the chocolate-chile cupcakes that I so carefully concocted from Cupcake Bakeshop’s files. I even tracked down some of the special white paper cups she likes to use instead of traditional cupcake papers. I like them, too. They are modern and professional looking. The chocolate cupcake recipe is hers, too. The hefty doses of cayenne, cinnamon and chipotle chile powder are what I added (here I go again with the chipotle chile powder - I can’t get enough of the stuff). The frosting is a mish-mash of two of her recipes, a fluffier, spicer love child of buttercream and ganache.

Only the best for Mr. Loomis. He knows his pastry and his cakes. It’s rumored that he was a French exchange student in college. We have had a hard time getting him to stop smoking Gauloises. Toujours le pug!

Chocolate-chile cupcakes, adapted from Cupcake Bakeshop. Use the recipe for Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

To the chocolate-butter mixture, I added 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract.
To the dry ingredients, I added 1/2 tablespoon chipotle powder, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper and a dash of cinnamon, probably about 1/8 teaspoon.

My yield was about 18 cupcakes.

Frosting
enough for 35-plus cupcakes

2 sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup whole milk
22 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I splurged and used Callebaut)
about 1 package powder sugar
1 package cream cheese
chipotle powder, cayenne and cinnamon to taste - don’t be shy, you should really taste the chile.

Next time I make these, I’m going to tinker with the frosting recipe. I tinkered with it as I was making it, and didn’t write anything down, of course, and I think it would be easy to cut back on the cream and leave out the milk altogether. I’ll post updates.

Warm the cream on the stovetop until bubbling but not boiling, then pour over chopped chocolate in a metal bowl. Let sit so that chocolate can melt, then stir so most of the chocolate is melted. Cream butter and cream cheese in mixer, then add chocolate mixture and vanilla, then milk. Add powder sugar, a little at a time, until the frosting starts to thicken up. It won’t get thick enough to pipe until it spends about two hours in the fridge, or more; before then, you’re looking for something the consistency of thick gravy. Add spices. Mix for on medium for a good 10 to 15 minutes, then refrigerate until thick. Taste the frosting throughout the time that you are adding sugar - you don’t want it to get too sweet.

Store these cupcakes in the refrigerator. They’ll keep a few days.

Some glorious spring Saturdays are just made for being inside with blocks of European butter, drifts of flour, and the biggest mixer I have ever seen. The dough hook alone was the size of an antelope horn.

I’ll post with pictures soon. I’m still swooning over one of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever had (it was very belated). Thanks to my sweet pea.

From Johnson and Wales - Charlotte continuing ed cooking class listing

Sat, April 28, 2007, 09:00am to 02:00pm
The Organic Baker class size:20 remaining seats: 4
“Organic” is a federally regulated term that refers to how agricultural products are grown and processed, denoting an ecological system of farming that relies on healthy, fertile soil to produce plants resistant to disease and pests. In this class environmental responsibility will be featured as we create an assortment of delicious breads, rolls, and pastries. You’ll bake with organic preferments that include vegetables, grains, seeds and organic cheeses; you’ll also savor the flavor of superb farmhouse pastries that combine organic apples and other fruit with organic flour. Join us as we journey back in time to when all agriculture was organic and taste the difference in baked goods created with ingredients that have not been exposed to toxic chemicals or genetically modified organisms. You’ll learn what many others already know, that organic ingredients yield better tasting products!

Suddenly, without any real notice, spring happened over the weekend.

The daffodils, shyly hiding their bonneted heads all through February, are in full glory. The spiky clumps of florescent-yellow forsythia grow larger each day. Soon, it will be time to get out the trusty $50 lawn mover I bought three years ago. We are already doing industrious things. Kelly finished painting the living room - twilight-colored walls, and two shades of pale, pale gray for the trim and the fireplace. I baked banana bread and made broccoli soup. One of our dogs spent the weekend sunning herself in the backyard sunshine. Kelly said she thought she was on spring break.

In climes way, way to the north of here, an early sign of winter’s end is the sugaring season, the late winter weeks when the temperatures are above freezing during the day and below freezing at night, creating the prime pressure for sap to flow out of a tapped maple tree. I remember going to a sugaring of some sort when I was a very little girl living in upstate New York. Honestly, at the time, I think what impressed me more was the ice-cutting construction, a chilly Lego-block building built with giant ice cubes, sawdust and mean-looking metal tongs.

But I can’t feign the same hardiness of New Englanders. In North Carolina, at least in my parts, it’s been above freezing here at night, well, probably most of February. I can, however, enjoy the maple syrup and be happy that winter is surely and steadily warming up to spring.

I’ve had maple syrup on the brain for much of the winter, since Kelly’s mom handed us a big jug of the caramel-colored liquid gold for Christmas. As soon as we got home, I quickly stashed the little plastic jug in the back of the fridge, adjusting the milk and the Brita water filter pitcher just so, all the better to hide it. Real maple syrup is a luxury in North Carolina - our trees, mainly pine, some magnolia, are more likely give us cones, and in the magnolia’s case, brown, waxy leaves the size of pontoons. All through January and February and now March, I’ve eked out the jug’s contents onto squat bowls of oatmeal and dripped it gingerly onto waffles.

When I was in Florida, of all places, Lauren sent my maple syrup daydreams over the edge. She recently wrote about the terroir of maple syrup for her employer, the Burlington Free Press…fancy pants stuff, indeed, but it makes perfect sense. If wine and cheese are stamped with the unique taste of where they come from, why shouldn’t the sap that comes out of maple trees?

And that’s when I started thinking about dessert.

These simple custards are comforting and sophisticated, nursey food with a sly, long lick of maple. Maple appears twice in the recipe, so the flavor is reinforced, but it is so gentle that it doesn’t mind and even benefits from a little of the vanilla’s bullying. More maple sugar is even better sprinkled on top, a crunch and a dusting of winter’s end.

Maple Custard Cups, adapted from Gourmet, March 2006

2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup dark amber or Grade B maple syrup
3 tablespoons granulated maple sugar (I found mine in the maple syrup/ sugar/baking section of my local Whole Foods; it’s also a heady condiment for that morning oatmeal)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350F.

Whisk together all ingredients in a large bowl until sugar is dissolved, then pour through a fine-mesh sieve into bowl or a measuring cup with a spout. Divide custard evenly among six ramekin cups, then transfer cups to baking pan. Boil enough water to cover the custards midway to three-quarters up the side of the ramekins. Pour boiling water into the pan, then cover loosely with foil (this is a hot water bath; it’s how you bake any custard). Bake until custards are just set and a knife inserted in center of one comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes.

Carefully transfer cups to a rack and cool to warm, about 30 minutes. If you are not going to eat them immediately, cover with plastic and refridgerate. They are best eaten the day you make them, sprinkled with more maple sugar.

Yield: six custards

It was supposed to be a simple Sunday supper, nothing much. “Come on over around 7, no 6:30,” I told my sister Lisa nonchalantly.

But you see, I have been trying to win my next-oldest-to-me-but-still-younger sister’s heart since she entered high school, and got too cool for me. And she was bringing a new yet serious-sounding Boyfriend, who worked at her hand doctor’s office (in our family, most accidents are kitchen-related, and Lisa had damaged a finger a year or so back when she was concocting an apres-bar snack, some sort of deconstructed toad-in-the-hole).

Lisa recently moved to go to school in nearby Greensboro, so she came over on Sunday, and poor girl, I don’t believe we finished eating until 9:30. We - well, Kelly, Lisa and the Boyfriend - nibbled on olives and crostini capped with garlic, rosemary and mashed cannelli beans, or cremini and shitake mushrooms sauteed with sage. I was frantically sauteing, chopping, deglazing, etc., etc. all the while trying not to get too giggly on the emptying 1.5 liter bottle of nothing-fancy Shiraz and unveil all our family gossip in one go to the newcomer.

I talked too much. I asked too many questions. I got distracted, and I was way behind.

Finally - 8? - we worked our way through a platter of chicken and parsnips braised in hard cider, then a red cabbage and fennel salad, the vegetables sliced almost translucently thin, then delicately dressed with hazelnut oil, sea salt, pepper and thick peels of Parmigiano Reggiano.

Woah. Then, dessert. It was really, truly 9 p.m.

Sometimes simple is best - particularly after a meal that goes on for hours and centers around chicken, no matter how redemeaningly free-range and organic, sauteed in thick market-cut bacon (did I leave that part out earlier?).

Enter, amaretti.

These cookies don’t look like much, no?

Listen: When you are tempted to go all out for a rib-sticking dinner, do it, but for the grand finale, whip these babies out. Light, crispy and chewy, they are intensely almond on top of almond because two of their four ingredients are almond-related. More importantly, they are drop-dead easy and won’t leave you walking away from the table feeling heavy and exhausted. Amaretti are irresistible on their own, but even better with a dish of vanilla bean affogato. This is how you treat family.

Almond Macaroons, or Amaretti, adapted from Patricia Wells’ Trattoria

Patricia Wells is known more for her Francophile’s take on bistros and Paris. However, it’s her cookbook of small, family restaurant dishes from Italy that gets a lot of use in our kitchen, chock full of comforting and deceptively simple recipes, all more than equal the sum of their short ingredient lists.

Bake them on parchment paper, and really watch them in the oven. They will only need 10, maybe 12 minutes.

3/4 cup of blanched almonds, ground in a food processor to a fine powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup egg whites, about two, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract

Yield: about 36 cookies

Preheat the oven to 350. Line three baking sheets with parchment paper.

Stir together the almonds and sugar in a large bowl.

In another bowl, whisk the egg whites and almond extract until the egg whites form soft peaks. Add the egg whites to the almond and sugar mixture until just combined (mix gently with a spatula). The batter will be airy, soft and sticky.

Using a teaspoon, drop about 1/2 a teaspoon of batter on the baking sheets, spacing each cookie slightly apart to make about 12 cookies per sheet. The cookies that make it into the oven right away will likely be puffier and chewier than flatter, crunchier ones made from batter that sits out longer - both are equally good.

Bake in the center oven rack and bake until slightly browned around the edges. Slide the parchment paper with the cookie on it onto a cookie rack to cool, then transfer from the paper after about five minutes.

The cookies can be stored in an airtight box in a cool, dry place for about 10 days.

It’s not been a good food week around our house, these gloomy mid-February days. Each time I reach into the fridge I seem to find yet another shriveled lemon, or a browned lime lurking under some faded leeks. Nothing is really, truly in season here. Spring still seems like a long time away, and I’m bored with all my sweaters. My long-awaited Zuni Cafe cookbook experiment - a roasted chicken that requires salting a full 24 hours ahead of time, or more - fell flat, the breast meat juicy but oddly sweet and the dark meat ’round the bones dry as jerky. Maybe we’ll try it again, but I have to say, after the glory of last week, dinner time is tough.

This is what happens when you don’t have leftovers. And you never have leftovers when you make a cheese soufflé .

I suppose that should be considered part of its success, but the real reason is that soufflés are ephemeral, finicky creatures. They won’t stand for a little warm up in the microwave, no sir, let alone being shoved into Tupperware or wrapped with plastic wrap, only to mold in the back of the refrigerator behind the 2 percent milk and your jam collection. A soufflé demands attention. It is a show and a spectacle, and once the airy cloud of cheese, egg and butter is done, it won’t wait for you or anyone else to get to the dinner table. I think soufflés are also some of the most romantic, heartfelt food. When you make someone a soufflé, you are chucking practicality and common sense and reason out of the window.

I know it’s the season for Valentine’s Day, gas station foiled-wrapped chocolate roses and those terrible, chalky-tasting little hearts, and yes, part of me still thinks it is a capitalist trick. But a soufflé for two, I guarantee it, should make any heart beat faster. And you won’t have anything as mundane as leftovers to deal with.

Cheese Soufflé, adapted from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1
Yield: about four servings

I thought I had made the cardinal soufflé faux pas when I accidentally, over-eagerly opened the oven about midway through baking time. Yet it didn’t fall, perhaps by just dumb luck, and it tasted as fluffy as I had hoped when it was done. But I’ll tie the oven shut next time so I don’t make the same mistake because I suspect I might have lost some height. We ate this soufflé on a chilly Sunday night accompanied by a soft, pale green salad of butter lettuce doused in a shallot vinaigrette, and lots of red wine.

Use a classic, tall soufflé mold if you have it. You can tie a two-inch high strip of buttered parchment paper around the rim to boost the height, and remove it before serving it. And it is best not to attempt a soufflé in the middle of August - go for days with lower humidity. Told you they are picky.

3 tablespoons, plus 1 teaspoon soft unsalted butter
3/4 to 1 cup coarsely grated good Parmigiano-Reggiano or an aged Gruyere, plus another 1 tablespoon of cheese, finely grated (buy the best you can find and afford)
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup boiling whole milk
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/8 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
pinch cayenne pepper
pinch nutmeg
pinch cream of tartar
4 egg yolks
5 egg whites

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Measure out all the ingredients. Butter inside of soufflé mold with 1 teaspoon butter and sprinkle with finely grated cheese, coating well.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Stir in the flour with a wooden spatula or spoon and cook over moderate heat until butter and flour foam together for two minutes without browning. Remove from heat. When the mixture has stopped bubbling, pour in all the boiling milk at once. Beat vigorously with a whisk until blended. Beat in the seasonings. Return over moderately high heat and bring to a boil, stirring with the whisk for one minute. The sauce will be very thick.

Remove from heat. Start to separate the eggs. Drop the egg whites into a bowl and the yolk into the center of the hot sauce. Whisk the sauce after adding each yolk. Adjust seasoning. Add the extra egg white to the egg white bowl and whip until stiff with an electric mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add cream of tartar and a pinch of salt as the egg whites mix. Stir about one quarter of the egg whites into the sauce. Stir in all but one tablespoon of the cheese. Delicately fold in the rest of the egg whites. Be careful not to overfold - it’s better to have a few unblended patches than deflate the egg whites, Julia says. Using a spatula, nudge the soufflé mixture into the prepared mold, then smooth with the flat of a knife and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

Set the soufflé on the middle rack of the oven and immediately turn the heat down to 375 degrees (Julia is very firm about this: “A soufflé will always perform as it should if it is placed on a rack in the middle level of a preheated 400-degree oven and the temperature is immediately reduced to 375 degrees.”). Do not open the door for 20 minutes. In 25 to 30 minutes, the soufflé will be puffy and golden, and hopefully will have grown two inches above the rim of the mold. Bake another 4 to 5 minutes to firm it up, and then serve tout de suite!