Kitchenography

Shrimp Wrapped with Bacon

I'm not a football fan. I come from a bookish, non-athletic family and football was not part of my upbringing. My idea of watching a game is sitting by my husband's side while he watches and occasionally looking up from the computer or my book, usually to ask some question about what's happening that clearly indicates just how little I know about the game. I'm the sort of person who watches the Super Bowl for the commercials and is more interested in who the half-time entertainment is than which teams are playing.  

My best Superbowl ever was the one some years ago when Comedy Central ran an Absolutely Fabulous marathon. Mike watched the game in one room and I watched Absolutely Fabulous in another. When a commercial came on, Mike would yell, "Commercial!" and I'd flip to the Superbowl station. As soon as the game came back on, I'd flip back to Absolutely Fabulous.

But despite my lack of interest in football, I get caught up in the Superbowl excitement. It's an event, and every year it seems to be more of a food occasion. Tonight Mike will be cooking, but if he weren't, this is one of the things I'd make. They're delicious, fast and easy to make, and it's a well known fact that everything is better with bacon.

Shrimp Wrapped with Bacon

Shrimp (I think 21-25 per pound is a good size for this)
Bacon
Horseradish
Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco
Toothpicks

The amounts for this will depend on the quantity you wish to make. For every 2 shrimp you will need 1 strip of bacon, 1 teaspoon of horseradish, three drops of Worcestershire sauce, and a drop or two of Tabasco. Multiply according to the number you wish to make.

1. Cut bacon strips in half and cook slowly over low heat. Your aim here is to partially cook the bacon.

2. Mix the horseradish with the Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. Taste. You want it to be lively. If you what you're tasting doesn't seem lively enough, add a little more Tabasco.

3. On a broiler pan with a rack, lay out the strips of bacon, and place a shrimp on each one. Place a scant 1/2 teaspoon of the horseradish mixture on each piece of shrimp. Cover with the bacon and secure the bacon with a toothpick.

4. Run under the broiler. How long will depend on how hot your broiler is, and how close the pan is to the heating element. Mine is less than three inches under the broiler and needed about 90 seconds on each side. If yours is farther, you'll need longer. Cook until the bacon is crisp and the shrimp is cooked.

Notes: You want to be careful not to overcook the shrimp. If you use larger or smaller pieces of shrimp, you'll need to adjust the time. Also, if you use a smaller size of shrimp, you may find that cutting the bacon in thirds works better.

Crostini of Creamy Mushrooms with Lemon and Mint

 

Are we all though talking about the inauguration? I hope not. I'm still basking in my post-inauguration glow.

I watched the ceremony on a movie screen in an auditorium at the university where I work. I had considered taking the day off but in the end I was glad I didn't because it was such a great feeling to be watching with other people who were as excited as I was.

There were enormous cheers when Barack Obama arrived to be sworn in --and a collective "Aaaawwwww" as his daughters arrived. Right after 12:00 pm CNN ran a banner on the bottom of the screen saying that even though he had not yet taken the oath of office Barack Obama had officially become president at 12:00 p.m.; the room erupted in clapping and cheering. And then more clapping and cheering after the oath of office and the inaugural address.

I think the line that received the greatest applause was, "We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost." At a school of public health that had particular resonance.

I'm suffused with hopeful feelings about the future and left with a feeling that the country has been handed to the next generation and we're moving ahead.

And what does all this have to do with crostini? Nothing.Nothing at all. Except maybe that even in moments of great excitement and hopefulness, we still must eat. Although as distracted as I've been by the events of the last week there's been very little cooking going on but I did manage to make these.

Mint as an ingredient in savory foods is something I've only discovered in the last few years. While mint as a flavor in sweet ingredients is not particularly appealing to me, mint in savory foods has become a great favorite. Combined with the lemon it's particularly bright and snappy.

Crostini of Creamy Mushrooms with Lemon and Mint

Adapted from It's About Time; makes 12 crostini

1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons water
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
1 teaspoon mint, minced
1/2 teaspoon flat leaf parsley, minced
1 heaping tablespoon flour
6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 teaspoon butter
2 cups thinly sliced button mushrooms
Salt & pepper
12 slices day old Italian bread about 3/4 inch thick
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees

2. Lightly beat egg yolk and water together. Add the lemon juice, mint, parsley, and flour, and whisk until smooth.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil and butter over high heat. Add the mushrooms and saute for 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper and continue to cook until the mushrooms release their liquid, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and let them cool slightly.

4. Arrange the bread slices on a baking sheet, drizzle with the remaining oil, and toast in the oven until golden brown on both sides.

5. Pour the egg mixture over the slightly cooled mushrooms. Cook over very low heat, stirring constantly until the mixture becomes creamy and thickened, about two minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.

6. Remove the bread from the oven and spoon the mushroom mixture onto it. Garnish with a grating of Parmigiano-Regianno and serve.

 

Quinoa Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

 Is one of your new year's resolutions about eating better? Yeah, me too. In fact, I have a whole list of food resolutions: eating more vegetables every day, particularly leafy greens; eating whole grains; taking my lunch to work every day; and generally being more disciplined about how I eat.

In fact let me sum up my resolutions for you: Everything I've been doing, I am going to stop doing. Everything I haven't been doing, I'm going to start doing.

I'm joking! Kind of.

This salad covers much of my list. It's full of healthy vegetables like watercress, it's made with a whole grain -- OK, it's actually a seed but for my purposes we'll call it a whole grain --, and it makes a good lunch. In fact, I've had it for lunch the last two days and plan on having it for lunch again today.

It's been some time -- like years -- since the one and only time I tried quinoa previously. It wasn't a good experience and I can't remember specifics other than the fact it tasted so bad it killed any desire I had to eat it again. But based on information I've read since, I realize that I didn't adequately rinse the quinoa. It wasn't the quinoa, it was me. Quinoa is coated with a bitter substance called saponin which must be rinsed off before cooking the quinoa.

But at the time of my first quinoa foray quinoa knowledge wasn't as widely distributed as it is now.  In fact, at the time I was under the impression that the pronunciation was quin-OH-a or something of the sort. Who would have guessed that a word spelled q-u-i-n-o-a would be pronounced KEEN-wah? Not me. But I've sinced learned. The miracles of the internet.

Another development of the intervening years: prewashed quinoa is now available. In fact, based on my reading, it seems as if much quinoa is sold already washed. The exception seems to be quinoa sold in the bulk bins. If you have any doubts though, rinse your quinoa repeatedly to make sure you've gotten rid of the coating.

Quinoa has a mild, slightly nutty taste and makes a good backdrop to stronger flavors such as the sharpness of the watercress here. This salad held up well for the second day. Just make sure it comes to room temperature before you eat it. You might also want to refresh it with a little additional vinaigrette. This is also the sort of thing that can be varied endlessly. I'm thinking that the next time I make it I will use mango in place of the radishes and use a lime vinaigrette.

Quinoa Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Adapted from the excellent Raising the Salad Bar which is my new favorite full-of-healthy-recipes book.

1 cup quinoa, rinsed
Kosher salt
1 bunch watercress, roughly chopped
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks
5 radishes, halved from top to bottom then sliced as thinly as possible
1 red pepper, diced
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup olive oil

1. Add quinoa, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1 1/2 cups water  to a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover pan and cook for 13 to 15 minutes, until water is absorbed. Turn off the heat and let the quinoa sit until it has cooled completely.

2. In a small bowl, stir 1/4 tsp kosher salt into 1/4 cup lemon juice. Slowly whisk in 1/3 cup olive oil.

3. Put the watercress, cucumber, carrot, radishes, and pepper in a large bowl. Salt them lightly. Add quinoa to bowl, then toss lightly with vinaigrette. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve.

Best Recipes of 2008

Apparently there's something about the closing of the year that kindles a need to make lists noting events in that year. Every time I've watched a news broadcast in the last few days I've seen one of those montages of famous people who died in 2008 or a retrospective of key political moments from the year (and, yes, I am still moved to tears everytime I get to the part where Barack Obama's win is made official). I can't pick up a newspaper or magazine without finding lists of best books, best movies, worst movies, best television shows, best inventions, best fashion moments, worst fashion moments, right down to top celebrity weddings of 2008. No subject goes un-listed. 

Not to be left out, this is my third annual list of best recipe collections from newspapers and magazines. I'm always drawn to these lists because of my enduring belief that every recipe is a kind of crap shoot, you might end up with something you love, or you might end up with disappointment. It seems to me that recipes that have been vetted by food editors or the readers of food pages have a higher chance of success.

As I compiled this list I couldn't help but wonder how much longer many of these newspaper food sections will continue. If you pay any attention to the news at all you're aware that newspapers are struggling mightily to remain profitable. As newspapers have cut back, one of the major casualties have been newspaper food departments. Enjoy them while we can.

The Baltimore Sun's favorite recipes of 2008 which are headlined as being "affordable and delicious."

The Washington Post's top 10 most-viewed recipes.

Picks from the San Antonio Express-News.

Most clicked recipes from the Dallas Morning News' website

The Atlantic Journal Constitution's 2008 Golden Whisk Award winners.

The Oregonian's list of 2008's Best Recipes

2008 staff favorites from Cooking Light

Food and Wine didn't publish an end of year list of their favorite recipes, but they published several lists for the magazine's 30th anniversary this past September. There's a list of editor's favorites from the past 30 years,  30 best fast recipes, the most frequently saved recipes from Food and Wine's online archives, and recipes that were voted on by readers as their favorites. 

At this time of year, a lot of food bloggers have also taken to posting favorite recipes or posts for the year. I'm jumping on that bandwagon too, although in a small way. Instead of a top ten list, or even a top five list I'm going with just one big favorite: The Red Cat Restaurant's Quick Sauté of Zucchini with Toasted Almonds and Pecorino. It has all the earmarks of a perfect recipe: It uses a combination of ingredients that I wouldn't have come up with on my own, the three simple ingredients create a sum that is greater than its parts, it's fast, it's easy, and it's something I look forward to eating again and again. Last summer I found myself eating this for breakfast sometimes. I'm looking forward to the return of summer when I'll be able to make it again.

And here's to 2009 and success in the kitchen! Happy New Year!

Baked Clams

 

There are things that I do, or don't do, that I can't begin to explain. For instance, all my life I have avoided any recipe that required me to shuck a clam. I don't remember ever trying to shuck a clam so I'm not sure where or why I acquired the certainty that opening clams was something best left to professionals but I have been firmly of this mind set. I've always admired those guys behind the counter at a raw bar who make opening a clam look so easy however I've also believed they had a skill honed by long hours of clam shucking that the rest of the population was not likely to achieve.

But then at our last cookbook club meeting Joanne and Coralie were opening clams as casually and competently as a long-time raw bar employee. Hhhmmm, I thought to myself, why have I never learned to do this? Then Coralie made these completely delicious baked clams from a James Beard recipe which made me tell myself I was going to learn how to open clams.

So this past weekend I held my own personal clam shucking boot camp. I bought 50 little necks, studied some instructions on the web, and then began attempting to open clams myself. Initially, it did not go smoothly. I broke clam shells; I cut through the clams. Early on I broke the edge off a small utility knife I was trying to use and had to make an emergency purchase of a clam knife. Eventually, I was able to open clams.  

And with the fruits of my labors I made James Beard's baked clams. I am a huge fan of clams casino and clams oregano, but I think these are even better. Because they don't have bread crumbs they're lighter and taste more of clams than baked clams usually do. And other than getting the clams open, they're fast and simple to make.

When you're opening the clams try and keep as much of the clam liquor as possible because this adds flavor. It's traditional to bake or broil clams nestled in a bed of rock salt (or use kosher salt) to keep them steady and prevent the clams from tipping over and losing the clam liquor. I didn't bother and found the clams stayed steady enough without it.

I'm not yet at a point where I'm ready to hand out any insights on how-to open clams, but this video is excellent, and both this video and this video were helpful.

And finally, yes, I realize these are called baked clams and I'm broiling them. They can be either baked or broiled (the original recipe from the James Beard Cookbook can be seen here  -- scroll down using the scroll bar on the left hand side) and I opted to broil them. But somehow, broiled clams doesn't sound as appealing as baked clams.

Baked Clams

Adapted from the James Beard Cookbook, serves 4

24 littlenecks or cherrystones, on the half shell
Finely chopped parsley
Finely chopped shallots
Finely chopped garlic
3 or 4 slices of  bacon, cut into pieces just large enough to fit over the clams
Rock or kosher salt (optional)

1. Preheat the broiler

2. Cook the bacon until it is just slightly rendered and golden around the edges.

3. Place the clams on a shallow baking dish, or in a pie pan. If you're using it, spread rock or kosher salt in the bottom of the pan and nestle clams in it.

4. Place a pinch of parsley, shallots, and garlic on each clam. Top with a piece of bacon.

5. Run under broiler until bacon is sizzling. Serve.

Edamame

One of my vices is Baltimore's Daedelus Books which sells discounted new and remaindered books. It's amazing how many books that I've lusted over in the last few years can be found here for a fraction of their original price -- often no more than the cost of an issue of a cooking magazine. And just in case that weren't enough for me, it's also right next door to a Vietnamese restaurant. Cheap books and Vietnamese food, my idea of a perfect setup.

On my last visit there I picked up a copy of Spices of Life: Simple and Delicious Recipes for Good Health by Nina Simonds because this is the time of year when my thoughts turn to healthier living (a constant theme of mine -- although I notice it's never in an I'm-doing-it way but rather in an I-should-be-doing-it way). It was also the Sunday after Thanksgiving and after three days of eating heavy meals, plus pie for breakfast, the idea of a meal of greens and grains (my standard stereotype of the healthy meal) was looking suddenly appealing.

I can't say the book has inspired me but there was a recipe for boiled edamame with salt  which reminded me that this is something that seems to have fallen off my radar. I used to make it all the time but for reasons I'm unable to put my finger on, I haven't made it for ages. How did this happen?

Edamame is one of those rare instances of a snack food that is as appealing as potato chips but actually turns out to have nutritional value -- a fairly rare occurrence in my experience.

It's possible to buy fresh edamame in the summer -- I sometimes see it at the farmers' market -- but frozen edamame in the pod is always available. The only trick to cooking these as far as I've found is to make sure you're using an adequate amount of salt. Edamame without the salt doesn't hold much appeal. I salt the water I'm cooking them in and then sprinkle coarsely ground sea salt over them. It may seem like an excessive amount of salt but the majority of it is not coming into direct contact with the beans, only the pods. I should note that Nina Simonds' recipe uses a teaspoon of salt in the water, and only a teaspoon of salt after they've been drained. I don't think that's enough but if you're hesitant about the amount of salt, you might start there.

For 1 pound of edamame, frozen and in the pod, bring water to boil in a medium saucepan. Add salt, then the edamame and cook for four to five minutes. Drain the edamame, then dump them on a kitchen towel and blot them dry. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of coarsely ground sea salt and serve. And in the event you've never had edamame before, eat them with your fingers, popping the beans out of the pod and directly into your mouth. (It's good to have a second bowl to toss the empty pods in.)

Couldn't  be easier and they really are good. Just the sort of thing I need to keep in mind for the eating season we're right in the midst of.

Skye Gyngell's Cauliflower Gorgonzola Soup with Pickled Pear Relish

One of my regular blog reads is  ~JCB~ , a blog authored by Janet whom I have had the good fortune to meet (hi, Janet!), which features short elegant posts about art, vintage photography, English country houses, books, or whatever appeals to Janet at the moment. 

In early October she mentioned a cookbook of "fabulous recipes" she'd purchased in London, A Year in My Kitchen by Skye Gyngell, the chef at Petersham Nurseries. I'd never heard of Skye Gyngell or her book before but looked her up on Amazon and saw that her book was being released in the U.S. in paperback in January.

I didn't think another thing of it until earlier this month when I saw my friend Meg's post about her plans to visit Petersham Nurseries while she was in London. My chance to get the book in November! In hardback! I asked Meg if she'd pick up a copy of the book for me which she kindly agreed to do.

The book itself is beautiful; it's printed on heavy, matte-finished paper, with gorgeous photographs and has ribbons to mark pages. The recipes are arranged by season and feature the fresh produce that's grown at Petersham Nurseries.

Last night Meg came over for dinner and I made the Cauliflower and Gorgonzola Soup. It was the same soup that Janet had made. It seems to be a soup that just leaps off the page because after reading Eggbeater's post about Petersham Nurseries, I see it's the same recipe that Heidi of 101 Cookbooks featured last year.

The soup was delicious although the next time I make this soup I'll cut back on the amount of gorgonzola which seemed to me to overpower the cauliflower. In fact, because the original recipe is given in metric measurements and  I've managed not to learn the first thing about the metric system, making this soup was fraught with runs to the computer to look up various conversions and I initially thought that I'd miscalculated the amount of gorgonzola and added too much. I hadn't but next time I'll add about half of the 8 ounces the recipe calls for. (It wasn't until after I made this that I realized that Janet had already posted the conversions when she posted the recipe which would have made my life a lot simpler.)

This would be a lovely Thanksgivng soup. It's elegant, and the topping of pickled pears and dried cranberries which adds a lively counterpoint to the richness of the soup, seems perfect for the Thanksgiving table.

Cauliflower Gorgonzola Soup

serves 6

1 tablespoon butter
2 small onions, diced
1 medium head of cauliflower broken into florets
4 sprigs of lemon thyme (or regular thyme)
2 bay leaves
1 quart chicken stock
8 ounces of gorgonzola (I'll use about half of that next time)
1/2 cup creme fraiche
parsley

1. Cook the onions in the butter over medium heat until the onions are softened and translucent.

2. Add the cauliflower, thyme, and bay leaf and continue to cook for a few minutes while the ingredients "find their feet." I'll be damned if I know what this means. I suppose it's just an instruction to allow the flavors to mingle.

3. Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for about 20 minutes until the cauliflower is soft.

4. Remove the bay leaves and the thyme. Crumble the gorgonzola and add it to the soup. Stir in the creme fraiche.

5. Blend the soup until smooth, either with a stick blender, or by pouring the soup into the container of a regular blender. If you use a regular blender, allow the soup to first cool a little, then be sure to hold down the top of the blender using a folded dish towel while you blend. 

6. Taste for seasoning. Reheat if necessary. Garnish with parsley and pickled pears, if using. Serve.

Pickled Pears (optional garnish)

1 tablespoon currants
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
2 comice pears, unpeeled and finely diced
1 golden delicious apple, unpeeled and finely diced
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar or cider vinegar (I think the sharper cider vinegar works better here)
2 tablespoons castor (superfine) sugar  (I used regular sugar)
1 cinnamon stick
4 sprigs of thyme
Salt and pepper, if desired

1. Soak the currants and dried cranberries in a small amount of warm water to plump them up and soften them.

2. Saute the fruit in the butter until it is soft which will be about five minutes.

3. Add the vinegar, sugar, dried cranberries, currants, cinnamon, and thyme to the fruit and continue to cook for another 10 minutes.

4. Taste for seasoning and add the optional salt and pepper if desired. (I would definitely add a fine grating of pepper. You're looking for a little sharpness.)

Recipe Notebook

 

This is my system for keeping track of the things I want to cook. I use a composition book with a green-speckled cover, probably purchased from the Rite Aid Drugstore around the corner. When I find a recipe I want to try I note the name of the recipe, the book and the page. When I've made the recipe, I check it off. 

The compostion book is divided into time periods and occasions (summer, fall, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) so if I see a really great recipe for tomatoes in November I simply enter it under "summer" and next summer when I refer back to my notebook, there it will be. Of course, I now have multiples of the same category because I've run out of room on the original  pages.

I've been using this for about a year and it works fairly well. Prior to that as I went through a new cookbook I would write down any recipes I wanted to try on an index card which I sometimes put in the book and sometimes collected elsewhere. I never did a get a definitive system down with the index cards, and it turned out to be a short-lived system because it was fairly useless.

Before the index cards I went through a period of copying any recipes I wanted to try but that resulted in a lot of paper to paw through whenever I wanted to see what was in the queue and the system was never efficient or satisfying.  And before that I didn't really have a system other than keeping in mind what I wanted to try or piling the cookbook with whatever recipe I wanted to try in the kitchen. Neither was particularly effective.

For some reason I'm usually able to lay my hand on whatever book I want immediately but the notebook itself is harder to keep track of. It floats around the house between my bedroom where I often read cookbooks in bed at night and the kitchen where most of my cookbooks are stored but sometimes it gets set down in places in between and I find myself hunting for it.

James Beard's Garlic Soup

A few months ago I received an email which began "My name is Renee and I am  Baltimore foodie. About a year ago I started a cook book club with some friends of mine. We are currently looking for a few new people to join our group."

My first inclination was to decline the invitation. I am in a whole different age bracket from Renee and beyond cooking I might have nothing in common with the group. I pictured awkward social interaction.

But I'd read about cooking clubs and always thought they sounded fun, and had thought vaguely about starting one but the logistics of finding a group stopped me. What would I do, advertise on Craig's List?But this was an already functioning group.

And we'd be cooking from cookbooks!

I'm a cookbook aficionado. I'm fascinated and intrigued by them and read them on many levels -- to learn, for inspiration, as a window into another time or place. I'm always hungry for the next one and  tend to acquire them so fast that I don't take the time to immerse myself in one before the next one is in my hands. I have plently of cookbooks from which I'd never cooked a single thing. One of the reasons I began blogging was to encourage myself to use the cookbooks I had more frequently.

I put aside my hesitation and emailed back to say I'd love to join.

I'm glad I decided to do it. The get-togethers are fun, boisterous, we make fabulous food, and when you have five people cooking from a book, you really get a feel for the book.

Last night, the third meeting I've been to, Renee, Joanne, Elizabeth, Coralie, and I cooked from James Beard's books. We had a wonderful meal of clams casino, garlic soup, beef stroganoff, stuffed peppers, and chocolate souffle.

Whoever hosts the dinner chooses the book and assigns a course to each person. We then choose what we'll make. When I checked the soups in the James Beard book that I had, garlic soup was my immediate choice, inspired by the fact that I love garlic, and that James Beard said of this soup, "It is simple but superb."  He was right.

I made this using lard. I would have preferred goose fat but I was unable to locate it in Baltimore. I later learned that Joanne has a freezer full of it. You have to love a woman with a goose fat stash. If you don't have access to goose or other fats, olive oil would also work for poaching the garlic.

Garlic Soup

Adapted from Beard on Food, serves 6 to 8

3 tablespoons chicken, goose, or pork fat
30 peeled garlic cloves (or more or fewer)
6 to 8 cups chicken stock
Salt and pepper
Nutmeg
4 or 5 egg yolks
3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
slices of bread, toasted until crisp

1. Melt the fat over low heat, then add the garlic. Cook, without browning, until the garlic has become very soft. This will take half an hour or more.

2.  Add the chicken stock, salt and pepper, and a little freshly grated nutmeg. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

3. Blend the soup either with a stick blender or by allowing the soup to cool slightly and pouring it into a blender. Blend so the soup is completely smooth.

4. Beat the egg yolks in a small bowl then stir in the olive oil. Begin tempering the eggs by adding hot but not boiling soup to the eggs a small amount of the time while beating the eggs. When you've added a half cup of broth or so to the eggs, pour the egg mixture into the broth beating while you do. Heat the mixture being careful not to let the soup come to a boil. You want to make sure you don't curdle the eggs.

5. Place a bread slice in the bottom of each bowl and pour the soup over top. Serve.

Cheese Straws

This recipe is from Clementine Paddleford's classic How America Eats which was published in 1960. Clementine Paddleford (and may I just say how much I love that name) was a food columnist for the New York Herald Tribune  who traveled the country, and occasionally the world, collecting recipes for her column. In the 1950s she was the equivalent of a modern day Food Network star --there was no one who wrote about food in that era who was more famous. 

Cheese straws are an old-fashioned sort hors d'oeuvre, the kind of thing people of previous generations snacked on while sipping cocktails, and recipes for them are a staple of cookbooks from the early and mid-twentieth century. Unlike many popular foods of the past (congealed salads, I'm looking at you), these are still every bit as appealing as they were in the 1940s. Hot, crisp, rich, and slightly spicy they'd be perfect with a glass of champagne while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner.

Cheese Straws

1 pound sharp cheddar cheese, grated fine
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter
3 cups sifted flour
1/2 to 1 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Beat butter and cheese until incorporated. Add flour, cayenne, and salt and mix thoroughly. Roll out dough on floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness.Cut into strips about 1/2 inch wide and four inches long.

3. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 8 to 10 minutes until lightly brown and crisp