New York Times

The Perfect Pound Cake Stands Corrected

December 7, 2016 / / Baking & Desserts

When the New York Times food pages ran an article (4/08/15) on the family recipes from poet Tracy K. Smith, it included one for pound cake and another for Alabama Lemon Cheese Cake. I was drawn to the pound cake recipe immediately because it sounded so good and I love pound cake.  The recipe was written with the Times‘ relatively new practice of giving both metric and traditional cup measures. I  made the cake  using the gram measurements.

The cake turned out to be one of the best versions of pound cake.  It was extremely buttery, dense and rich, improving in flavor the more it stayed in a covered cake dome on the counter. I published my version here last year, giving the ingredients in weight  as well as the cup measures.

My original pound cake adaptation using gram measurements

I made the cake many times since. Then I finally noticed a disparity in the Times’ calculation of equivalent measures of cups and grams.  Both the flour and sugar gram/cup equivalents were way wrong.

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Firm Family Favorite: Country-Style Ribs

February 17, 2016 / / Uncategorized

The success rate of recipes from newspaper food sections, magazines and the internet don’t have a high success rate of enjoyment or deliciousness. Still, I clip many from the New York Times, which are generally reliable and occasionally keepers. Though I’m rarely seduced by recipes in our Portland Press Herald food page, which is more of a food section containing wire copy recipes than those that are home grown.  But I do look forward to the Saturday food section of the Wall Street Journal in the section called “Off-Duty,”which features articles on food, lifestyle, travel, cars and fashion.  It’s the food features especially that tantalize–and one recipe in particular that I have made was so good it’s become a firm family favorite.  (The overall section, however, is more like a fantasy sheet advising where to buy six-figure cars to items of clothing and accessories that cost thousands.)

The adapted recipe  is a robust preparation for country style pork ribs that are marinated in a spice rub overnight and slow-roasted in the oven for several hours.  It hails from chef Damon Menapace of the Philadelphia restaurant Kensington Quarters.  The restaurant is part of a butcher shop that practices whole animal butchery from local farms.  The adjacent restaurant is highly regarded by Philadelphians.  Click here for the link to the food feature.

Slow roasted spice rubbed ribs served with a puree of celery root and potato and sauteed spinach

Slow roasted spice rubbed ribs served with a puree of celery root and potato and sauteed spinach

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The week that was: dining out in New York, Boston and Portland

January 15, 2016 / / Uncategorized

Regular posts on food and dining will resume next week, but I nonetheless enjoyed a busy, satisfying week of food and drink traveling from New York, Boston and last stop, Portland.

But is the dining establishment having a few hiccups in this part of the world or is our food nation as glorious as ever? Perhaps there’s no appeal or reverence for haughty antics of some chefs and restaurateurs.  In particular I refer to a pivotal review in the New York Times (see review ) that didn’t give high marks to one of the great restaurants in the country, New York’s Per Se, where dinner for two can summarily cost $1,000.

New York's fabled dining rooms: clockwise: 11 Madison Park; Le Cirque; 21 Club and La Grenouille

New York’s fabled dining rooms: clockwise: 11 Madison Park; Le Cirque; 21 Club and La Grenouille

And in a recent Boston Globe article, however, on the region’s explosive dining scene, the writer worried about Metropolitan Boston’s ability to absorb the glut of restaurants that cater to a dining patronage in the millions.  Well, where does that put Portland, a tenth of the size of Boston, with the flush of its dining- out frenzy?

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A mysterious–but wonderful– recipe, Lotta’s Blueberry Pie

July 15, 2015 / / Baking & Desserts, Recipes

Maine’s coveted crop of wild blueberries are trickling into the markets now.  On my way home from North Haven to Portland I stopped at my favorite farm store, Beth’s Farm Market on Western Road in Warren. She’s generally the first with many crops, her indefatigable green thumb giving a magical boost to most everything she grows.  There, in the front of the store, were boxes of Beth’s wild blueberries.  The accompanying sign said that they were early berries and needed to be picked over carefully to remove any green or unripe berries.

blueberries in strainer

With my early crop of berries in hand and my recent stay on North Haven I turned to my file folder of pie recipes to make a recipe called North Haven Blueberry Pie.  It was contained in an articled in the New York Times by Camden based cookbook author and food writer, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, and published in August of 2008.

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