Tag: Food52

26.When Food Is Love

“People who love food have something that will be precious to them all their lives” – Judith Jones

We are a family that collectively loves food.  From a young age, I could get both kids happily into their respective classrooms just by reminding them what they’d be having for lunch and/or dinner; the thought of the food to come somehow allowed them to trot happily away from me when the moment before they had been clinging to my leg.

Now that they’re older, I’m getting questions like “what are we having for dinner” . . . at six in the morning (part of the reason I love menu planning.  meals for the week are visible to all).  Now that they’re older, they’re also more curious about the food that they eat.  Where it comes from, how it gets cooked, and how to improve on the taste of things – which has resulted in multiple trips to our herb pots this summer.

And when you have a family that loves food so much, there’s no better way to show your love for each other than with food; food becomes the outward show of just how deep your love runs.

This week brought the Husband’s birthday . . . and excuse to shower him with all the food he loves best.  That meant pancakes, eggs, and bacon for breakfast.  And gorgeous ribeye steaks for dinner.  Oh . . . and there was also the cake . . . a Bobette and Belle stunner complete with edible gold.

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And then tonight, a continuation of the celebrations, with dinner at Terroni.

Way back when, when the Husband and I first started dating, Terroni was right across from the condo where I lived, and where we later lived together.  We went there regularly on dates, often ducking out onto our balcony to see if the line up was too long (back then, there were no reservations) before heading across the street.

After a completely impromptu afternoon with the kids – a request for ice cream lead me to taking them to Dutch Dreams for the most ridiculous cones – a text from the Husband while we were there asking if we were going to come downtown lead me to taking them downtown . . . and to the CN Tower – which lead to us leaving downtown at 5:00 with nothing ready back at home for dinner.

So we did the obvious – we stopped at Terroni on the way home and had a spectacular dinner.  I honestly don’t think there’s anything better than explaining why you love certain tastes so much – for me, the mere smell of their Margherita pizza takes me right back to the early days of dating the Husband.  And I’m hoping, that as we share our food, and our memories with our kids, they in turn will have wonderful memories of our times together, and the food we ate together as a family.

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As I was writing this post, I was reminded of the Judith Jones quote that I lead off with – I took this quote from a Food52 podcast that I listened to a few weeks ago – if you get a chance, and you even remotely are interested in food, listen to the two podcasts with Judith Jones.  You won’t be disappointed.

And on that note, I’m off to have a sliver more of that delicious cake leftover from last night!

 

 

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10. Fresh-Out-Of-The-Oven Cherry Pie

 

I got a bit carried away at the grocery store a few days ago – this tends to happen to me at this time of the year – and as I took stock of the fridge this morning, I realized I had purchased several peaches that were about to become over-ripe, one massive watermelon, and a big bag of the most delicious cherries you have ever tasted.  Something had to give.

I had a peach with yogurt and granola for breakfast (unbelievably good).  I decided to save the watermelon for the kids for their after-lunch dessert and afternoon snack.  And got down to the business of making a cherry pie for our dessert tonight.

So . . . first things first.  I needed to make the pie dough.  I didn’t have the vodka on hand to make the pie dough I normally make (and that I wrote about here) from America’s Test Kitchen.  When they say it’s a foolproof dough, they really mean it.  But really, that was just an excuse.  What I really wanted to try was this recipe for dough.

Here’s the thing.  I’ve only relatively recently discovered Food52 and have been obsessed with it since I found it.  Years ago, when I was just dating the Husband, I read Cooking for Mr. Latte my Amanda Hesser.  I LOVED it, and LOVED the recipes she included in the book.  And when I found out that she was a co-founder of Food52 . . . well . . .that cemented it for me.  I was hooked.  Ok . . .that and this part of their company’s manifesto:

  • If you cook, your family will eat dinner together.

  • If you cook, you will naturally have a more sustainable household.

  • If you cook, you’ll set a lifelong example for your children.

  • If you cook, you’ll understand what goes into food and will eat more healthily.

  • If you cook, you’ll make your home an important place in your life.

  • If you cook, you’ll make others happy.

  • If you cook, people will remember you.

But I digress.  I finally had my chance to try out my first Food52 recipe . . .

I followed the recipe to a T, using water not cream.  I won’t lie, the dough was hard to roll out (it was super cold after all), and there wasn’t much of the dough.  In an ideal world, I would have done 1.5x the recipe.

For the filling, I used another Food52 recipe, but halved it so that it would fit into a 9″ pie plate.

And since there was only a little bit of leftover dough, I made a few cutouts to decorate the top of the pie, and threw the whole thing into the oven at 375 for about 45 minutes.

It came out looking good, smelling great, and I can’t wait to sample it after dinner tonight!

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