August 2020

A Box of Spaghetti: An Odyssey of Pandemic Shopping

August 23, 2020 / / Discoveries, Mains, Recipes

At five in the afternoon I decided to  make spaghetti carbonara for dinner.  I had all the ingredients for the sauce (local onions, raw heavy cream, double-smoked bacon, Parmesan), but  I needed a box of spaghetti–or any kind of pasta such as a pound of fettuccine, papardelle, etc. I had a box of Market Pantry  linguine that I bought in March at Target in the days when we  quarantined and items of packaged, canned products were so de rigueur to stock our pantries.  No, that would not be good enough to use in this especially rich and luxurious sauce made otherwise with my pantry items in stock.

Since I live on the Hill the closest store was the local  Rosemont.  Masked, hands sterilized, a wallet of credit cards (no cash accepted) I was admitted entry.  I asked where the pasta was and the clerk pointed to the shelves in the back.  “Except,” she said, “we only have non gluten.”

“No other pasta?” I nearly barked.

“It’s the pandemic,” she replied.  I walked out in a huff.

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Real Cornbread: What’s the Difference? And How Do You Make Fantastic Cornbread?

August 9, 2020 / / Baking & Desserts

There’s a great divide between  northern and southern versions of cornbread. The former uses sugar whereas what’s termed “real cornbread” in the south, sugar is verboten. I favor southern style cornbread compared to the more cake-like versions up north. The kind of cornmeal you use adds further distinction.  Before our kitchens became so artisan-minded, an ingredient like Quaker Oats cornmeal in the familiar yellow container was all that was available until the notion of stone ground, coarse or medium fine became a choice as in Bob’s Red Mill brand or the   Anson Mills  heirloom corn meal.

I get my cornmeal in 5-pound bags from the southern granary, Boonville Flour and Feed, a wonderfully old-fashioned mill who also makes the best all-purpose flour.  Southern flour is called soft winter wheat, favored by southern bakers for pastry, cakes, biscuits, cookies and the like.  White Lily has always been the standard, though some purists now prefer flour from small mills. (White Lily is now owned by Smuckers.)

Though I use white cornmeal for baking, my favorite corn is the all-yellow variety (hard to find), found this week at Beth’s Farm Market; it’s called Vision

The softness of southern wheat is unmistakable in what it does to biscuits in particular and cakes and pastry dough.  It’s a bit of an effort to acquire this flour by mail order but well worth the bother.

Last week I received my order of all-purpose flour from Boonville along with self-rising flour, which I use for biscuits,  and their stone-ground white cornmeal. (One has a choice of getting self-rising cornmeal, too.) Ah, there’s another difference between north and south cornmeal practice.  White cornmeal is standard in the south, the yellow shunned by cooks  below the Mason-Dixon line.

The white does bake up yellowish and has, I think, a finer flavor and texture.  Most recipes for cornbread require a cast-iron skillet; I like to preheat the skillet in the oven with some fat melting in it so that when you pour in the batter it sizzles, creating that wonderful outer crispy crust on the finished baked bread.

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