put it in my mouth

Split pea soup should be made with ham on the bone, which falls off and into the soup as it cooks. But, because I am not a butcher, I usually make mine vegetarian. This is pretty much the easiest ever: saute an onion and a carrot or two with some garlic in a large stock pot, then add the peas and some broth or water, let it hang out for an hour and then—then!—there is soup.

However, perhaps because it’s so simple, I always forget how much liquid to add and then eyeball it. Inevitably, it ends up being too much like dal or too much like water (though it is better to be on the dal end of the spectrum). So, in honor of my homegirl, I have finally taken the time to measure.

For every two cups of split peas, use four cups of broth or water.

For every cup of split peas, 2/3 should be green and 1/3 should be yellow. This makes it look less like gruel and more like spring.

I staunchly believe that oatmeal should not be sweetened. There is something so comforting, so homey, about warm oatmeal, with just a tad of salt and occasionally a small pat of butter, or sometimes with a splash of whole milk. There was a period when I was very dedicated to peanut butter.

But there are ways to make this fancier. My recent favorite:

½ c. of steel-cut oats, cooked
1 poached egg
1 scallion, chopped
soy sauce
sriracha
salt to taste

Dear Mr. _______,

You may not remember, but in November of 2006, you very generously gave me an oversized hardback cookbook, I think because you were convinced that I was dating your son. As I told you then, I was not. And while I thanked you for the cookbook, I didn’t really appreciate (or really, open) the gift until today. This is probably because it came in a velvet drawstring bag, which seemed weird (not in a good way), and because Houghton Mifflin made some rather unappealing choices regarding typeface and endpapers.

My harsh judgment was entirely unmerited. I mean, her hot and sour soup? It is delicious. Next time, I will add pineapple, and then this soup might be even better than the hot and sour soup at Saigon Grill, and you won’t need to contend with hazy allegations about human rights violations and the flexibility of your morals when you eat it.

Yrs,

xo

HOT AND SOUR SOUP

Based on Susanna Foo’s recipe for ten-vegetable vegetarian hot and sour soup, in Susanna Foo Fresh Inspirations. I switched up some of the vegetables and insist on the inclusion of straw mushrooms, because they are just so cute!

1 block firm tofu
3 T. soy sauce
3 T. rice wine vinegar
2 t. kosher salt
2 t. pepper
2 T. cornstarch
8 c. vegetable stock
1 T. sesame oil
1 very large shallot
2 jalapeno peppers
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1 c. bean sprouts
1 c. bamboo shoots
1 ½ c. straw mushrooms
1 very large tomato, chopped
4 scallions, chopped
2 T. cilantro, minced

Cut up and drain the tofu on paper towels. Set aside. Whisk together the soy sauce, vinegar, salt, pepper and cornstarch in a large bowl. Slowly whisk in the stock. Slice the shallot very thin, and chop up the jalapenos. Heat the oil in a large stock pot. Add the shallots and the jalapeno, cook on medium until soft. Add the stock and the carrots. Bring the stock to a boil, then add the zucchini. When the carrots and the zucchini are nearly softened, add the tofu and the remaining vegetables and continue cooking for a few minutes. Add the cilantro and serve.

[coconut cake from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home]

After being harvested from the bog, cranberries are transported to a processing facility where, among other things, they are separated into three quality grades—first grade, second grade, and unacceptable. If you drop a good cranberry on the floor, it will bounce higher than a medium-good cranberry, which itself will bounce higher than a bad cranberry. So to determine quality, the berries are dropped from a separator onto a downward-sloping bounce board with a hurdle at the end. If the cranberry clears the hurdle, it goes on to the good berries section. If not, it drops down to a second bounce board and has another chance. If it fails to jump over a few hurdles, its quality grade drops. This process continues until the berry either is assigned a quality grade or is considered unacceptable and trashed.

So this is why, as I was making cranberry pistachio wedding cakes tonight, I thought to myself, if I drop these on the floor instead of putting them in the oven, will I be able to tell which one is going to be the most delicious?

Recipe here. Most obviously, cranberries replace the cherries.

For lunch: soba noodles in broth with spinach and a poached egg and a little bit of ginger and inordinate amounts of Sriracha.

Tricks to poaching: not letting the water actually reach a boil, adding a splash of white or rice vinegar.

These cookies will fill the void you never even knew you had. This recipe for les scourtins aux olives nyons—olive shortbread cookies—came from Jean-Pierre Autrand of Les Vieux Moulins in Nyons by way of Susan Hermann Loomis. Make them once and I promise you will make them again (and then also again).

9 T. unsalted butter, softened
¾ c. powdered sugar, sifted
1 T. olive oil
1 ¼ c. all-purpose flour
½ c. cured olives, pitted and coarsely chopped

Cream the butter in an electric mixer until it is soft and pale. Mix in the sugar, then the olive oil. Gently mix in flour until the dough is smooth, then add the olives and mix until incorporated. Put a piece of wax paper on the countertop, and roll the dough into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap it in the wax paper and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Take out the hardened dough and cut off rounds that are about ¼ inch thick. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the cookies are golden. Cool on wire racks.

Today, I put the yogurt back in the freezer rather than the fridge. (It has been that kind of day.) And now, I can definitively say that freezing yogurt is not the way you make frozen yogurt.

The other night, I wanted yet another cup of coffee but didn’t think I could handle the additional caffeine. And because putting decaf grounds in a regular espresso kettle seemed tantamount to drinking regular coffee, I decided that coffee brewing needed to happen the old-fashioned way: hand-held filtering. Observe:

Then, the filter started sinking with a quickness into the cup. So! Filter becomes tricked-out tea bag. Observe:

And then, here I am, feeling like a total genius, because, hey, I just made coffee the same way they must have in the fifteenth century and adapted in the face of a challenge and even pulled it together to take some photos on my phone and man this coffee looked delicious! Then I proceeded to break the filter and all of the grounds collapsed into the cup. This was devastating.

I was equally as devastated when I went to dump things into my sink, only to observe:

I hadn’t done dishes in days, and my dishes consisted solely of coffee cups and their associated spoons. This seemed pathetic. It was. I hadn’t cooked in weeks, and this was because I was subsisting on pizza, the occasional sandwich, whiskey sodas, and, well, coffee.

So, the only way to fix the problem, obviously, was to cook. A lot. All at once.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND APPLE SOUP

1 large butternut squash
2 apples (I used Cameo)
4 carrots
1 potato
1 onion
1 ½ T. ground ginger
6 c. vegetable or chicken stock
also: salt, pepper, olive oil

*requires a blender

Peel and chop all the vegetables (with the exception of the onion—no peeling there!). Heat a stock pot over medium heat and heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil to the bottom. Add the onions, cook until translucent. Add the rest of the vegetables and the ginger to the pot, and stir so they’re coated in the remaining oil. Add stock and bring to a boil. Simmer until vegetables are soft, about 20 or 30 minutes. Blend soup with an immersion blender. Salt and pepper to taste.

CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP WITH SO MANY VEGETABLES

1 whole chicken
4 carrots
4 celery stalks
2 onions
1 large bunch of spinach
8 cloves garlic
½ lb. whole wheat pasta
Bay leaf
Few springs of thyme
4 c. chicken stock
also: salt, pepper, olive oil

Note: This makes a lot of soup.

Note again: My approach to stock here is pretty bastardized, but (I think) pretty dank. The whole production of real stock—cheesecloth, bones, blah blah blah—seems like too much and takes far too long, so I’ve used a few cups of regular stock, and then pureed some of the vegetables to make it thicker and tastier. Onward!

Wash the chicken and remove the gizzards if they haven’t been removed by the butcher already. Place in a very large stock pot. Add the stock, and then add water until the bird is covered. Add one carrot (unpeeled), one celery stalk, half an onion, the garlic cloves, the bay leaf and the thyme. Cover and bring to a boil. Simmer until chicken is completely cooked, about 30 to 45 minutes. Remove the chicken, and place it on a cutting board or in a colander to cool. Take out the vegetables and a few of the garlic cloves, and puree in a blender with some of the stock. Return the mixture to the pot.

Remove the meat from the chicken. Discard bones and skin, chop up meat and put it back in the pot. Peel the remaining carrots. Chop the rest of the vegetables and add them to the pot. Bring the stock back to a boil and cook until the vegetables are soft (another 15 minutes). Add the pasta and cook per directions, adding the spinach about halfway through. Salt and pepper to taste.

ASPARAGUS BROCCOLI SOUP

My friend Andrew lives across the street from me, and he’d recently told me about a very good soup he had at an Italian restaurant a few blocks away from us. Asparagus and broccoli soup, he said, with no notable seasonings. This was my attempt at a soup involving broccoli and asparagus. It’s not great. I don’t know if this means I’m a poor cook or if it means that any cook who’s relegated to the Upper West Side restaurant circuit doesn’t have a knack for pairing vegetables. I will leave that to you to decide.

1 bunch asparagus
1 large head broccoli
1 large onion
2 stalks celery
2 cloves garlic
1 lemon
4 c. stock
also: salt, pepper, olive oil

*requires a blender

Chop up all the vegetables. Heat a stock pot over a medium heat, and add olive oil, the onion and the garlic. Sauté until the onions are translucent. Add the rest of the vegetables and the stock. Bring to a boil, and simmer until the vegetables are soft. Juice the lemon into the pot (after removing the seeds). Blend the soup with an immersion blender. Salt and pepper to taste.

When it comes to chocolate chip cookies, I’m pretty much of the opinion that the recipe printed on the back of the Nestle’s chocolate chip bag cannot be improved upon. That said, every once in a while, you have to do something different (if for no other reason, perhaps, than to remind yourself of the perfection of the original). When you feel so compelled, I would recommend substituting 1 ½ t. almond extract for the 1 t. vanilla that is called for. I don’t think the variation’s better, but it does make your regular chocolate chip cookie taste just a little bit like marzipan and that can be pretty neat.