Having the Cake and Eating It

Vowing never to post any "personal" photos anymore after this, but my neighbor Terri made and brought me this birthday cake, chocolate pound cake with buttercream frosting, carefully piped bit by bit maybe 1000 times, for the most realistic bunbun I ever ate. We enjoyed slices of its butt with tea while Terri, an artist, explained that she once was a professional cake-maker, creating huge and ornate holiday and wedding cakes to order. Terri took this photo, too.

Notice that the bunbun sits on its plate among green buttercream grass featuring tiny forget-me-not flowers. Nobody ever made me a cake like this in my entire life. We had lunch at the Roemer Topf in Mascoutah, Illinois, that day, one of the best German restaurants I've ever dined at, serving schnitzel, spaetzle topped with swiss-type cheese, mushroom sauce, smoked pork chops, pea soup, bock beer (for me), Bavarian Gemutlichkeit and everything. Eastern Missouri now appears to be void of such places; not even Hermann has a thoroughly German restaurant anymore. Must go to Illinois, and I totally recommend the Roemer Topf.

Can't help loving German food. Terri grew up with a genuine Oma and Opa. I grew up among European refugees including German women who married Slavs after the war and came to the U.S. Those ladies served that Kartoffeln und Sauerbraten und wurst und strudeln and you name it and we first-generation Americans ate it up like a hundred yards of chitlins. (A "Roemer Topf" is a covered clay cooking dish. There's one sitting on the bar at the Roemer Topf.)

Piety

Autumn brings church-sponsored come-one-come-all suppers of chicken, ham, roast pork, pork sausage (at Catawissa Union Protestant Church, $3 a pound to take home), and beef, advertised in the Events section of the local paper. I never like to take photos of food at these plentiful church suppers because it gives me away as an intellectual, but absolutely had to photograph this dessert table to show you, no matter what anyone thought. (The secret of life is: Nobody's thinking about you. Nobody's looking at you. They're all too busy worrying about themselves.)

Yet how to choose? Pumpkin, seasonal, one of the pleasures of late fall? Lemon, 'cause I get it so rarely? Berry pie, because the summer drought meant no berries in the meadow this season? Cherry, because it's always great? Peach, because you never know what you might be missing? Apple, because that's American? Exotic entry, Amish Pineapple pie? Coconut, or chocolate silk, or pecan pie? Custard? How about a slice of each? How about Union Pacific lays some railroad track out to my house and delivers me pie every day by the boxcar full? The only thing they didn't have was Concord grape pie, a New England regional specialty I liked to make from the purple grapes I and my friends liberated from abandoned grape arbors in upstate New York. I make a good one when I want to do the work.

On my deathbed I just know the pies of my life will pass before me.

If this photo does not make you want to go to church suppers than nothing will.

Tomatoes in February

Six days in the downtown of a big city, and I began longing not only for Missouri but for what I realized was my very high-grade diet instead of oil-drenched, over-salted, very tasty, expensive and calorific restaurant food (I rarely dine out) that was turning my blood to peanut butter. Baltimore's famous crab cakes are crabmeat welded with mayonnaise and fried. I've enjoyed them in the past but choked even thinking of them. The breakfast buffet had eggs fried every way but none boiled. The buffet was $20 so I felt it was okay to ask for one. Still wanting normal food, without exercising (having no energy!), I unlocked the hotel's exercise room and swiped an apple from its fruit basket, getting away with this for two days before someone removed the basket.

The plane landed back in St. Louis at 9 p.m. and I, waistband now too tight, prayed to get to the grocery store before closing for fresh produce: tangerines, apples, bananas, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, escarole, yogurt, almond milk and tofu--grateful I live where I could buy all these in one place for the price of one restaurant meal in Baltimore and more grateful I can pay. After spending that much money on six days of restaurants I will never again skinflint myself and be alarmed by $35 a week on groceries for home consumption. Heirloom tomatoes were $3.99 a lb but I had been dreaming of a perfect tomato sandwich, technically available only in July and August unless I store-bought heirloom tomatoes. Besides, they were pretty. Home at last, I didn't allow myself to sleep until I'd set up a whole-wheat bread, carrot salad, and a pot of escarole soup. The next morning the bread was ready and was made into said tomato sandwich with onion. OMG, I was so happy to be home.

Can of Beans Herb Harvest Salad

My sage bush out in the yard never dies and deer don't eat it; and in a freakishly sunny spot next to the house, a rosemary bush year-round provides aromatic needles for my cooking. I had my own basil leaves, frozen, from last year, and parsley. And I had a can of beans and not much else, because I'd just come home from four days away. So I was overjoyed to find a recipe that used what I had on hand. It's really tasty if you're harvesting herbs:

I gladly share my sage with everyone.

Warm Cannellini Bean Herb Salad (serves 2)


1 can white cannellini beans (also called "white kidney beans")
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped, or put through a press
3 Tablespoons chopped Italian parsley
handful of basil leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary leaves
4 large fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup oil-cured black olives

Drain and rinse the beans; dry them on a clean dish towel. In a large saute pan combine the olive oil, garlic, and herbs. Warm over very low heat for about 4 minutes or until the garlic and herbs release their aroma. Add the beans, salt and pepper to taste, and toss very gently. Over low heat, cook about 5 minutes until the beans are heated through and have absorbed some of the flavors of the olive oil. Off the heat, add lemon juice and toss very gently.

Place on serving platter and surround with the black olives. Serve immediately. (I like to serve it on lettuce.)

Food Porn, Summer Edition

I didn't really need a basket of umber-colored heirloom cherry tomatoes because at home I had big red and yellow ones from the honor produce stand, but there they were looking just like the 'maters on the cover of this month's issue of Food and Wine, which features a positively wanton summer salad of peaches, heirloom tomatoes, and feta, and before I knew it I'd also bought four pounds of peaches and a half pound of Bulgarian feta, but I digress; the absolute first thing to make and eat when back from the farmer's market is a fresh-tomato sandwich.

The proper tomato sandwich is made with white bread. Some insist on Pepperidge Farm's; my bread machine makes mine. Slather mayonnaise on both bread slices; pave those with ripe tomato slices piled half an inch high, then salt and pepper them. Lay some fresh basil leaves down if you have them. Close the sandwich and mash it down a bit so the juices flow. And what happens next is just private.