A Homemade Life Read online

  When you’re ready to serve, remove the mold from the refrigerator, and discard the liquid, if any, that has collected beneath it. Pull back the cheesecloth, and carefully invert onto a serving platter. Gently pull away and discard the cheesecloth. Serve in generous dollops in shallow bowls, topped with a spoonful of raspberry sauce.

  Yield: 6 to 8 servings

  AN UNCALCULATING SCIENCE

  Every night, when he came home from work, my father went to the kitchen. First, to set the mood, he’d take off his suit jacket and pour himself a Scotch. Then he’d while away a few minutes at the counter, his belly pressed against the drawer pulls, leafing through the day’s mail. Then, fully readied, he’d open the refrigerator and, easing into action, begin the final stage of the day, dinner. That was where he relaxed: in the kitchen, in the space between the refrigerator and the stove. Sometimes he would scour the cookbook shelf, looking for ideas, but mainly he would move by feel and by taste—stewing, sautéing, melding this and that, and much to my consternation, hardly ever keeping note of what he’d done. I can only think of a handful of recipes that he ever wrote down in their entirety, his potato salad being one of them. (I’m pretty sure he knew it was his best shot at immortality.) His experiments were many, and most of them were fruitful, but his was an uncalculating science. His cooking was personal, improvised, and maddeningly ephemeral.

  Burg was never a late sleeper. Most weekend mornings, he would get up early to cruise the garage sales in his khakis and topsiders. He had a good eye for secondhand shopping, and with few exceptions (like the kitchen scale that zeroed at 700 grams and still sits, unused, in my closet) he usually did us proud. Over the years, he brought home old leather suitcases embossed with loopy initials, oil paintings in gilt frames, coffee grinders, and silver candy dishes. He even found a few vintage lapel pins shaped like ladybugs or flowers or delicate little spiders, which always made my mother swoon. Then, at mid-morning, he sat down with me, and we ate breakfast.

  Sometimes he made omelets, and sometimes he scrambled eggs. But most of the time, our breakfasts tended toward the sort of thing that could be doused in maple syrup, such as pancakes or French toast. From an early age, I was schooled in the doctrine of pure maple syrup. As a native Canadian and former East Coaster, my father would have nothing else. His chosen brand came in a round-bellied plastic jug the color of Silly Putty and had a permanent home in the door of our refrigerator, right next to the jar of horseradish. It would loll from side to side whenever we opened the door, dropping crusty bits of dried syrup onto the shelf. I loved unscrewing the cap, the way the crystallized sugar made a raspy crackle under the grooved plastic lid.

  My father’s pancakes were very good, and I’ll tell you more about them in a minute, but as is the case for most things cooked in lots of hot fat, it was his French toast that I couldn’t get enough of. He would put a cast-iron skillet on the stove and, just to its left, on the tiled counter, a Pyrex brownie pan. Then he’d take up his station in front of them, cracking the eggs into the Pyrex pan and whisking them lightly with milk. Working methodically, he would drag slices of stale bread through the square, pale yellow puddle, soaking them like fat sponges, and then he’d slide them, bubbling and hissing, into the pan. I could smell it from my bedroom at the other end of the house, the smell of custard meeting hot fat. At the table, I’d douse them in syrup and swallow in gulps, almost burning my tongue. His French toast was exceptional, and I’ll tell you why: it was cooked in oil, not butter.

  It sounds strange, I know. Most people make a face when I tell them, so don’t feel bad. I’m used to it. But really, it was tremendous. My father had done his share of comparisons, and for a stellar outcome, he swore by oil. Even in the last weeks of his life, lying in a hospital bed and hooked up to a morphine drip, he was counseling me and my sister on the merits of oil over butter. The hot oil, he explained, seals the surface of the bread, forming a thin, crisp, outer crust. Meanwhile, the center melts into a soft, creamy custard, not unlike the texture of a proper bread pudding. The man was clearly onto something, because I’ve never had a better French toast. Never. I don’t throw those words around lightly.

  For a long time, I wasn’t sure I could replicate it. But I figured it was worth a shot. Going the rest of my life without it wasn’t a palatable option. So I consulted a few recipes, bought myself a bottle of neutral-tasting oil, and set to work.

  The key, and I learned this the hard way, is that you can’t pussyfoot around when it comes to the amount of oil. This is no time to worry about calories. It’s time to upend the bottle and pour. A glug will not do. I don’t understand those French toast recipes that call for only a tablespoon or two of fat. How on earth can you get a nice, crispy crust if you don’t have lots of hot, bubbling oil? You cannot. Let’s not argue about this.

  The second point to note is that you need somewhat squishy bread, and it needs to be slightly stale. When it comes to bread for my dinner table, I like rustic, chewy types with thick, craggy crusts, but for French toast, you want something a little softer and more mundane. That way, it easily soaks up the custard, giving you a lovely, moist center.

  I can say this all now, but it wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that much. I had to eat my way through some pretty crappy French toast to get back to my father’s. But I’m happy to report that I finally got it. Or as close as I can get, anyway, given that he never had a recipe to start with.

  It was an April morning, I think, when I finally got it right. My father was born in April, so it felt auspicious. It was unseasonably cool that morning, but the sun was out—a rarity in Seattle so early in the season—and I remember thinking that its yellowy light made the new leaves look like tiny stained-glass windows. It reminded me of a poem that my father once wrote on the back of an index card. I found it in his bathroom drawer about a year after he died, when we were going through his old clothes and cufflinks. I think it was intended for my mother, although she let me keep it. I don’t think Burg would mind my sharing it, but if he does, I trust he’ll find some way to let me know. Or then again, since I’ve said awfully nice things about his cooking, maybe he’ll let me enjoy my French toast in peace.

  SUNRISE (A TOO-LONG HAIKU)

  The sun bursts

  Out of the eastern night

  And flames the sky

  With joy—

  Your smile.

  BURG’S FRENCH TOAST

  i had to make a lot of phone calls to get this French toast right. My mother, my sister, and my uncle Arnie all had a hand in helping me to develop this recipe. What follows is a result of our pooled memories and my own trial and error.

  My mother swears that Burg always made his French toast with day-old “French bread,” or its Oklahoma City grocery store equivalent, an oblong loaf of squishy bread with a thin, crisp crust. You’re welcome to use any bread you like, so long as it has a soft, light crumb and isn’t too dense. Some baguettes work well. I’ve also used challah, and I think it’s nice, although my sister doesn’t like it. Whatever you use, make sure that it’s a day or two old.

  As for the oil, when I say to “coat the bottom of the skillet,” I mean to completely coat it. Don’t just pour in a little bit and let it run around until it covers the pan. You want a good amount of oil here. You won’t be sorry. As my sister says, oil is a “converting force” in French toast cookery. Once you’ve tried it, you won’t go back.

  3 large eggs

  1 cup whole milk

  1 tablespoon sugar

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg

  Canola or other flavorless oil, for frying

  6 to 8 slices day-old bread (see headnote), cut on the diagonal, about ¾ inch thick

  Pure maple syrup, for serving

  Break the eggs into a wide, shallow bowl or, as my dad did, an 8-inch square Pyrex dish. Whisk the eggs to break up the yolks. Add the milk, sugar, vanilla, salt, and nutmeg and whisk to blend.


  Place a heavy large skillet—preferably cast iron—over medium-high heat, and pour in enough oil to completely coat the bottom of the skillet. Let the oil heat until you can feel warmth radiating from it when you hold your hand close over the pan. To test the heat, dip the tip of a finger into the egg mixture—not the oil!—and flick a drop into the oil. If it sizzles, it’s ready.

  Meanwhile, when the oil is almost hot enough, put 2 to 3 slices of bread into the egg mixture, allowing them to rest for 30 seconds to 1 minute per side. They should feel heavy and thoroughly saturated, but they shouldn’t be falling apart. Carefully, using tongs, place the slices in the skillet. They should sizzle upon contact, and the oil should bubble busily around the edges. Watch carefully: with hot oil like this, the slices can burn more quickly than you would think. Cook until the underside of each slice is golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Carefully flip and cook until the second side is golden, another 1 to 2 minutes. Remove to a plate lined with a paper towel, and allow to sit for a minute or two before serving.

  Repeat with the remaining bread. If, at any point, the bread starts to burn before it has a chance to brown nicely, turn the heat back a little. You want to keep it nice and hot, but not smoking.

  Serve hot with maple syrup.

  Yield: 6 to 8 slices, serves 2 to 3

  BETTER WITH CHOCOLATE

  I’m not sure if many parents today belong to the cult of milk, but when I was growing up, my mother was a carton-carrying member. (Sorry.) She made me drink a glass every night with dinner. I’m not talking about a little juice tumbler, either. Picture a highball glass—tall and seemingly bottomless, the kind best reserved for a gin and tonic with lots of ice cubes and lime—and you’ve got the right idea.

  As it also happened, I hated the taste of milk. Given this information, I’m pretty sure that the right course of action would have been to cease and desist, but my mother paid no heed.

  “Milk is good for you,” she assured me. And every single night, that glass showed up next to my plate, filled almost to the brim. I don’t know where parents get these sorts of ideas. Probably from the same school of thought that teaches them to tell their little girls that boys are mean to them because, deep down, they have a crush. If I had a nickel for every time an adult told me that, I would build a new school of thought and teach more accurate things, like that little kids are mean to other little kids because being a little kid is very hard and confusing. I am still trying to work through the fact that a boy named his dog after me in the third grade.

  Milk, however, was a little easier to cope with. It didn’t take me long to learn that milk tastes marginally better and less milklike when it’s icy cold, so I tried to drink it the moment we sat down, before it could warm up even a little bit. I also got good at gulping as quickly as possible, in big, open-throated glugs, so as to minimize the duration of my torture. I was also very skilled at begging for the bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup. I’d squeeze a slow, fat ribbon of syrup from the upended bottle and stir until the milk looked like melted chocolate ice cream. Then, and only then, was it pleasantly potable.

  Those nightly glasses of milk didn’t create much in the way of happy memories, but they did do one thing. They taught me that anything, anything, can be made better with chocolate. It’s a lesson that has served me well. And I suppose that, in an indirect way, I owe my mother, and the cult of milk, for that.

  Take banana bread, for starters. It’s a lovely thing on its own, plain or with walnuts, but with a palmful of chocolate chips, as my friend Kate taught me, it’s much more than that. It’s no longer an after-school snack; it’s a full-on dessert, preferably served with loosely whipped cream.

  Even savory foods taste better with chocolate. My friend Shauna swears by cauliflower roasted with a sprinkling of cocoa powder and smoked paprika, and my husband has taken to sprinkling bittersweet chocolate into our arugula salads. (It’s a lot better, I swear, than it sounds. I’ll tell you more about it later.) And in some parts of Mexico, they even sauce their meats with chocolate. They combine it with chiles, nuts, and spices and turn it into mole, a smooth, rich sauce for poultry, beef, and pork.

  You know, I’d be willing to go out on a limb and say that chocolate even makes chocolate taste better. Take, for example, a basic chocolate cake. I’ve tried several recipes over the years and have finally settled on one in particular, a dark, fudgy one with yogurt for moisture, coffee for depth of flavor, and two types of chocolate. It’s what I use when I want a traditional chocolate cake for birthdays, or for making into cupcakes, and it’s delicious with any number of frostings or glazes. But it’s pointless to deny the truth, which always leads back to chocolate. These cupcakes don’t want ganache, or whipped cream, or buttercream. All they need is a simple, strictly chocolate finish: a smooth, firm cap of bittersweet spooned over the top, the sort of thing that melts the instant it meets your tongue.

  They also need a cold glass of milk, but that’s a whole other matter.

  CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES WITH BITTERSWEET GLAZE

  this recipe is my standby chocolate cake formula. It makes a spectacularly moist, rich cake. I got the idea for the glaze from a local grocery store, where they used to sell chocolate cupcakes with a thin cap of chocolate instead of frosting. It was such a nice departure from the typical specimens you see these days, mounded high—almost obscenely, I think—with swirls of buttercream. Of course, much to my dismay, the market replaced “my” cupcake a couple of years ago with the usual, lots-o-frosting kind. I guess that’s what people expect, but it was sad. Their cupcakes were never as good as homemade, though, so it was hard to complain for long.

  If you’re not the cupcake type, you can use this recipe to make a single cake instead. Follow the directions as written, but instead of a muffin tin, use an 8-or 9-inch cake pan, greased and lined with a round of parchment. (Be sure to grease the parchment, too, or else it could stick to the cake.) It will take 50 minutes to an hour to bake. The recipe also doubles easily to make a layer cake.

  FOR THE CUPCAKES

  1 ounce semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

  ½ cup hot brewed coffee

  1 cup sugar

  ¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour

  ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

  ½ teaspoon baking soda

  ¼ teaspoon baking powder

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  1 large egg

  ¼ cup canola oil

  ½ cup well-stirred plain whole-milk yogurt (not low fat or nonfat)

  ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

  FOR THE GLAZE

  8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

  Preheat the oven to 300°F. Line the wells of a standard-sized muffin tin with paper liners.

  Put the semisweet chocolate in a medium bowl with the hot coffee. Let stand, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth and opaque.

  Meanwhile, in another medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

  In the bowl of a stand mixer or, alternatively, a mixing bowl, if you plan to use handheld beaters, beat the egg on medium speed until it is pale yellow, about 1 minute. Add the oil, yogurt, and vanilla, beating well. Gradually pour in the melted chocolate mixture, and beat to thoroughly combine. Add the dry ingredients all at once, and beat on low speed until the batter is just combined. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the sides of the bowl and briefly stir to make sure that all the dry ingredients are absorbed.

  Spoon the batter into the wells of the muffin tin, making sure that it is evenly distributed. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the cupcakes comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a wire rack, and cool for 20 minutes before—carefully: they’re tender!—removing the cupcakes. Allow them to cool completely before glazing.

  To make the glaze, melt the bittersweet chocolate in a metal or glass bowl set over a pan of gently simmer
ing water. Stir frequently to prevent scorching. When the chocolate is completely smooth, it’s ready. Working with one cupcake at a time, spoon a heaping teaspoonful of melted chocolate on top. Tilt and rotate the cupcake to coax the chocolate out to the edge. Alternatively, use a knife or icing spatula to spread the chocolate. The top of the cupcake should be entirely covered with a thin layer of chocolate. Spoon on more chocolate as needed.

  Set the cupcakes aside at room temperature until ready to serve, at least an hour. The chocolate glaze will firm up a bit and become matte. You can, of course, serve them with the chocolate still warm and soft, but I prefer the taste and appearance of the cooled chocolate.

  NOTE: Stored in an airtight container at room temperature, these cupcakes are even better the second day.

  Yield: 12 cupcakes

  THE DARK HORSE

  Where food was concerned, my father was an equal-opportunity guy. There was little that he wouldn’t try and even less that he didn’t like. He loved chicken livers and scrapple, fat and gristle and escargots, and sardines straight from the can, all manner of things questionable and daunting. He even loved prunes. No one loves prunes. In the English language, there are just a handful of words that come with their own built-in laugh track, and prune is one of them. He didn’t care. I am most definitely his daughter, because I don’t either.

  In recent years, marketers have tried to spiff up the public image of the prune, calling it a “dried plum” and fitting it with cheery new packaging. I like plums, especially the green type that comes out in late summer, as fragile as water balloons, but in all honesty, I like prunes better. I think of them as plums that have been improved by hardship, made finer by old age and wizening. They’re the dark horse of dried fruits. Their concentrated flavor has more depth than a dried apricot, but without the shrill tang of raisins or the sticky sweetness of dates. And unlike their precursor, the fresh plum, they’re available year-round, always at the ready. They may not be pretty, but they make up for it in other ways.