Gastroanthropology

Sour Cherries

A few weeks ago Nate and I were in Door County, Wisconsin celebrating the marriage of two of our friends. Plagued with jetlag on the morning of the wedding and up hours before anyone else we took the opportunity to explore Door County. I had never been to Wisconsin and was pleasantly surprised. We were right on the lake, the weather was perfect, and the people were so friendly. Really friendly. Like we had a friend running late for the wedding who had to change in a gas station, and the lady running the station offered to iron his shirt friendly. Early that morning we drove past cherry orchard after cherry orchard. Sour cherries, often Montmorency, grow in these parts.

Since we were up early we got the first sour cherry pie out of the oven at a local pie shop, and had it for breakfast!

I couldn't really bring baskets of sour cherries back to London, so I brought back the dried version instead. Can't really make a delicious pie with dried fruit (unless its mincemeat pie), so I used the dried sour cherries to make one of my favorite cookie recipes - Oatmeal cookies with sour cherries and chocolate covered toffee bits. 

OATMEAL COOKIES + SOUR CHERRIES & TOFFEE

• 1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 c butter, room temp
• 3/4 c sugar
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• 1 egg, room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 c rolled oats
• 1 c dried sour cherries, roughly chopped
• 1 c crushed chocolate covered toffee bars like Skor or Daim (about five 28g bars)

METHOD

Put flour, baking soda, and cinnamon in a bowl and set aside. Beat butter with both sugars till light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract. Fold in dry ingredients. Fold in oats, chopped cherries and toffee bits. Chill dough for two hours. Use a small ice cream scoop to divide dough into balls. Bake for 8-10 minutes in a 350F oven. Do not overbake - these are good a little bit underdone. Makes about 36 small cookies.

Today in London it seems as fall has already arrived with cool temps, wind and rain. A busy summer with finishing my dissertation and travel has also come to end. To ease the changing of seasons I'm baking cookies and reading fiction. 

There are certain books that from the first few sentences you know you'll love. You rush to get through them because you can't wait to see how it turns out. Then there are those books that can be a struggle, and each sentence read is forgotten and the words fail to create a picture in your head. Every once in a while you come across a book that is so great you're almost part of the story, dreading the end. You find yourself rereading sentences as you go along, partially to extend the time you get to spend with the book and partially to make sure you haven't missed a single thing the author has written. I'm in the middle of one of those kinds right now...a book about a family breeding dogs on a remote farm in Wisconsin. Might not sound like much but I'm totally engrossed with the story. 

Blueberry Pie

I spent some time in high school in Upstate New York. For those who don't know Upstate might as well be thousands of miles away from New York City. It's a whole 'nother world. Let's just say my new friends were under the impression that being from California meant I must be from Beverly Hills, 90210, the original. Anyway, after I got over the shock of lake-effect snow, wind-chill, sub-zero temps, and LL Bean everything, Upstate thawed into a lush, green summertime. And summertime meant bonfires and beer in middle-of-nowhere fields, blueberry picking, lake swimming, and heat lightening. It also meant a County Fair, complete with rides, cotton candy, hay bales, games, dunk-tanks, and even an appearance by Shania Twain.

While it would be a blast to see the tiny Shania belt out Man! I Feel Like A Woman! again, what I really miss about the County Fair is the food. Corn dogs, funnel cakes, super-sweet lemon ices, BBQ, kettle corn (my absolute fave and something I can't seem to recreate at home), anything and everything deep-fried, and blueberry pie. 

With homesickness and nostalgia for everything American in full force this week I thought what could be more Americana than blueberry pie? It's simple, tasty and the deep purpley-blue stains your lips and fingers (if, like me, you often end up eating food with your hands). Use your favorite pie crust recipe (need enough for a finished 9-inch covered pie, or two 12-inch rounds) and see below for the filling.

BLUEBERRY PIE adapted from the Big Sur Bakery Cookbook

• 6 cups fresh blueberries
• 1/2 c to 3/4 c sugar (depending on the sweetness of your berries)
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (original recipe calls for 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg)
• grated zest of 1 lemon
• 3 Tbs whole or all-purpose flour
• 1/4 c crème fraîche
• 1 Tbs unsalted butter, cut up

METHOD

Combine berries, sugar, nutmeg and lemon in a bowl. Cover and let sit out at room temperature for 30 minutes. Toss the berries with the flour and crème fraîche. Roll out your pie dough into two 12-inch rounds and press one into a pie pan. Spoon the berry mixture into the pan and dot with butter. Cover with the other pie dough round. Press, crimp, and trim the sides. Brush the top with a beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar. Make slits in the top crust to let steam escape. Bake for 15 minutes at 450F / 230C and then reduce to 375F / 190C and bake for another 45 minutes. Let pie cool for at least one hour before slicing. Make sure to wait - the blueberries will be screaming hot and as the pie cools the filling will thicken up. So worth the wait.

Serve with a little whipped crème fraîche or cream. Add a little bit of lemon zest and sugar when whipping if you'd like.  

Colorado Country + Cowboy Cookies

After a long nine hour flight to Denver from London we were blessed with gorgeous Colorado sun as we raced home to Boulder.

Our nephew in his new Chelsea soccer jersey, working up an appetite for burgers on the grill. With a backyard like this we wondered, um, why did we move away from the States?!

The purpose of the visit back to Colorado was to celebrate the marriage of Nate's college friend. The wedding was at the top of a chairlift in Crested Butte, so we had to get on the road early to make the late afternoon wedding. The five hour drive through Colorado country was amazing. We've done numerous roadtrips all over the UK and continental Europe and every square inch seems to be marked and manicured. Colorado and its huge expanses of unsettled space made it easy to imagine covered wagons and frontier life. We had to go through the Cottonwood Pass over the continental divide to get to Crested Butte. The continental divide is a hydraulic divide where to the west the river systems empty into the Pacific and to the east the river systems empty in to Atlantic.

With barely a half hour to spare we made it to Crested Butte Mountain. There, along with a wild coyote, we witnessed this!

After they kissed and made it official we went back down the mountain where Shana + Brian had a wedding reception dinner with BBQ chicken, pulled pork, and mashed potatoes. Best wedding spread ever.

The next morning we headed back to Nate's parents home in Boulder, taking a different route. After Mexican breakfast burritos and a quick walk through the Crested Butte Farmer's Market to collect Rocky Mountain honey and local sweet cherries we drove through a gorgeous aspen forest.

Recent summer thundershowers meant everything was green and in bloom.

After multiple stops for small hikes and waterfall viewings we made it back to Boulder. The next day Nate took me up a series of dirt roads to a special hike. We would be missing my favorite holiday, the 4th of July, as we were returning to Europe, so Nate took me here:

The hike included the crossing of this waterfall...

these gorgeous Columbines...

and, no Colorado hike is complete without the grunting of bears and their shaking of trees as they scratch their backs. Yikes! I was freaked. Sorry, no pictures of bears - If I stuck around to capture them on film I'm certain I wouldn't be posting right now. Especially when packing these Colorado Cowboy Cookies. Bears love cookies.

  

COLORADO COWBOY COOKIES

• 1 c whole wheat flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder 
• 3/4 tsp baking soda 
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 
• 1/4 tsp salt 
• 1/2 c butter  
• 1/2 c brown sugar 
• 1 egg 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 1/2 c rolled oats 
• 1/2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 c butterscotch chips 
• 3/4 c chopped walnuts (or pecans) 

METHOD

Combine drys. Beat butter and brown sugar till light and fluffy. Add egg and extract. Combine. Fold in drys. Fold in oats, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and walnuts. Refrigerate dough for at least 3 hours and no more than 24 hours. If your not a fan of butterscotch chips (gasp!), leave them out and double the amount of chocolate chips. I didn't realize my husband was not a fan of 'scotch chips until I found little piles of cookie covered 'scotch chips all around the kitchen.

Serve with milk or coffee. Cowboy coffee if possible. 

Cowboy coffee uses no special devices (filters, etc.) and with all the ranch land in Colorado, cowboys still very much exist! 

Brown Butter Bars

View at dusk from my parents rooftop deck at their home in Carmel.

The little coastal town of Carmel has a love-hate relationship with the many tourists that frequent it. Sandwiched between Pebble Beach Golf Course and Big Sur, its certainly no secret. For the locals who live in Carmel there's a few places we'd love to rave about, but have to stop ourselves from being too excited for then more tourists might come. But then there are those places that you just have to share because you physically are unable to keep it secret. 

In California, we have Highway 1 - its a road that hugs the entire coast of California, and quite possibly one of the most amazing coastal drives in the world. It starts south of Los Angeles in Orange County where the locals call it PCH. That's Pacific Coast Highway for short. It weaves along the coast north, through Big Sur and Carmel. Here there is a mandatory stop that must be made - I'll tell you where in a second. Continuing on, Highway 1 goes through San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Nate always said we would only ever leave San Francisco when driving over the Golden Gate Bridge didn't amaze him anymore. Tempted by the romance of Europe we left San Francisco, but not at all because the bridge crossing lost any luster. This is how I know we will be going back. Highway 1 continues north past Marin, Tomales Bay, and Sonoma County - places amazing all on their own. 

Back to the mandatory stop on Highway 1. Big Sur Bakery. Address: Big Sur Bakery, Highway One, California. They have the best jelly donuts, burgers, pizzas, cookies, wood-fired bread, pancakes... Everything is the world's best but these are extra special. Brown. Butter. Bars.

The original Brown Butter Bars are made with homemade fresh peach jam. Here is where I have to make a huge modification - in London, there is no way I'm going to get my produce greedy hands on fresh peaches, so I'm using the next best thing. The next best thing is jam made by my fellow classmate, Sky Cracknell, who is the co-founder (with her husband) of England Preserves. A post on Sky's jam is coming soon where I'll be giving away a few jars. This is hands down the best jam EVER. More on England Preserves in a few days because right now it's all about Brown Butter Bars. Read through the recipe before making - its simple, but there are a few steps which require chilling time.

BROWN BUTTER BARS,** adapted from Big Sur Bakery 

For the crust:

• 8 oz unsalted butter 
• 1/2 c powdered sugar, sifted 
• 1 1/2 c all-purpose flour 

For the filling:

• 3 large eggs 
• 1 c sugar 
• 3/4 c + 2 Tbs all-purpose flour 
• 1/2 vanilla pod, halved and seeds scraped  
• 5 oz unsalted butter 
• 1 c your favorite jam 

METHOD

For the crust: Melt the butter in a pan at medium-high heat till the butter starts to brown. When it turns a deep golden color and smells nutty strain through a fine sieve into a heat-proof container. Freeze till its solid - about one half-hour. Put the powdered sugar and flour in a large bowl. Cut bits of the cold brown butter into the sugar + flour. Using a pastry cutter or your hands mix together till you get a crumbly, sandy mixture. Press into a 9x13 inch baking dish. Chill for one half-hour. Preheat oven to 375F / 190C. Bake at that temperature for 18-20 minutes, or until golden in color. Set aside to cool.

For the filling: Whisk together eggs, sugar, and flour in a large bowl. Place the vanilla bean and seeds with the butter in a pan and heat till the butter starts to brown. When the butter turns a deep golden color and smells nutty, strain through a fine sieve. Careful! The butter will be really hot. Pour butter into the egg mixture, whisking as you do so.  Remove the vanilla bean.

Assemble the bars: Spread half the filling over the baked crust. Spoon large dollops of the jam over the filling, reserving a quarter. Then spread the rest of the filling over the jam. Use the remaining jam and small dollop over the top. The 1 cup of jam in the ingredients list is approximate, you may need more, depending on the consistency of the jam and how liberal you are with the dollops. Bake until the filling is golden brown in color, about 25 to 30 minutes, at 375F/ 190C. 

Let cool. Cut into squares and share if you can bear it. Perfect wrapped up in paper for a spring picnic. 

**The original recipe, found here, includes the zest of two oranges for the filling. It also includes the recipe and directions for the homemade peach jam. I omitted the orange zest because of the jam flavors I chose. I used two England Preserves flavors: Strawberry Days and Ruby's Redcurrant+Rhubarb+Vanilla. Take a look at Sky's Strawberry Days Jam. 

Come back next week for more on Sky's jams and a chance to win some!

If you happen to be lucky enough to drive past Big Sur Bakery, make sure to stop. It's hard to say what time of day is best. Early means you might get a jelly donut before they sell out. But lunchtime means wood-fired Greek pizza, or dinner might mean real clam chowder with an oak grilled Ribeye. Looks like you may have to hang out all day. I won't reveal the best Italian restaurant outside of Italy that happens to be in Carmel in this post, but if you are visiting the town, email me and I will share with you my secret.