How I Know I'm Not Young Any More

I lost my cellphone a few months ago. There’s hardly anything more disruptive to your life, but once it’s gone, there’s not much you can do about it but start reconstructing your contacts from scratch. I decided to make the best of the loss, and upgrade to one of those phones that actually has a real keyboard on it, rather than the phone pad I’d been limping along with for so long. I’m sure it’s an age thing, but it made me completely understand the need for abbreviations. (“Let’s see, the O is on the 6, so that’s three touches...beep beep beep beep – oops, not FOUR touches...arggghhh.”) Making matters worse, one of my sons is a voice-mail-avoider, so pretty much the only way to get a message to him is via text.

I’m a Verizon customer, so no iPhone for me, as much as I covet the design. So I chose a new LG model, with a nice, large iPhone-ish screen on the front. You can open it up and type on the little tiny keys, or you can leave it closed and turn it on its side, and  – voilà! – a full keyboard appears on the screen. Magic. The sales girl who helped me suggested that I would want to get a cover for the screen – a clear film that protects the screen from scratches. They were two for some outrageous sum, given that what you’re getting is a couple of wafer-thin pieces of plastic film. But she assured me it was a good idea, well worth the price. And to cement the credibility factor, she offered the following testimony: “It’s okay, though. They last like forever. Like I’ve had mine since November.”

Like, call me crazy, but isn’t November, like, less than a year ago? Ah, well...

So, speaking of November, it is in fact almost here. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I was browsing through my recipe box and came upon this really good stuffing. Several years ago, when my younger son was a senior in college, he was living in an apartment building that was owned by the university, so all the inmates were also students. A group of them decided they would cook a Thanksgiving dinner before scattering to their respective homes, and my son volunteered to make the stuffing. He called to tell me this – one of those breathless calls that sounds like an emergency until you figure out that the emergency is just that the dinner is that night and he has to know NOW what the recipe is.

“I said I’d make that great stuffing you make with the grapes and apples in it,” he said.

My flattered feelings gave way quickly to confusion. “But I don’t have a stuffing recipe with grapes and apples,” I said. I could hear his disappointment across the miles, and I couldn’t stand to squash this budding interest in cooking. So of course I did what any other mother would do – I faked it. “I’m sure I know what you’re talking about, so give me an hour and I’ll have it for you.”

Here's what I came up with, and I must admit, it’s quite tasty. It was a big hit in the dorm, too.

Kitchen Goddess note: It’s been years since I actually put the stuffing into the turkey. I much prefer it cooked separately. But don’t let that stop you, if you like it in the bird. And for the casserole, if you can get enough broth from the turkey to use instead of chicken broth, go for it.

Cornbread-Sausage Stuffing with Apples and Grapes

12 Tbl (1½ sticks) of sweet (unsalted) butter
2½ c chopped yellow onions
1 c chopped celery
3 tart apples, cored and cut into small chunks (like ½-inch cubes)
2 c red or green grapes, cut in half
1 pound sausage
3 c crumbled cornbread (or Pepperidge Farm Cornbread Stuffing)
6 c Pepperidge Farm Herb Stuffing
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried sage
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
½ c Italian parsley, chopped
1 c chicken broth (or more as desired)

To assemble:
1. Melt half the butter in a skillet. Add the chopped onions and celery, and cook over medium heat, partially covered, about 25 mins (they should be tender and lightly colored). Transfer everything in the skillet to a large bowl.

2. Melt remaining butter in the same skillet. Add apple chunks and cook over high heat for 5 mins, then add the grapes and cook another 5 mins, stirring frequently to keep the fruit from sticking. Transfer everything in the skillet to the large bowl.

3. Cook the sausage in the skillet over medium heat until lightly brown, using a fork or spoon to crumble it. Add the browned sausage to the large bowl.

4. Add remaining ingredients to the large bowl and combine gently. (You may find it easiest to use your hands for this.)

5. Spoon the stuffing into a casserole dish – or two if you don’t have one large enough. Pour about a cup of chicken broth evenly over the stuffing, cover it (with aluminum foil if you don’t have a top to the casserole dish) and bake at 325 degrees for about 30 mins.

A Fun, New Cookbook

I’m back! Back from the wedding abyss. Back from the beautiful fall colors in New Jersey. Back to the Austin days when you can leave all the windows open and luxuriate in the warm breezes of October. Frankly, I don’t know which place I’d rather spend these months in.

Austin is a town of outdoor events. Start with South by Southwest (SXSW), the massive week-long music (and now film and interactive) festival that makes Woodstock look like a meeting of the Tuesday Ladies Lunch Club. Then there’s the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival in April, part of which is an outdoor fair. Only a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Austin City Limits – a glorious weekend of music held in Zilker Park. And this weekend was the Texas Book Festival, which occupied the center of town and many of the rooms in the capitol building. Admission was free, and presentations ran all day long, with opportunities to hear lots of authors and get signed copies of their books.

It was my first visit, so I paced myself, going to only a few of the presentations. The idea was NOT to make myself crazy. And it turned out that a couple of the talks I wanted to attend – like Alton Brown talking about his newest book, Good Eats 2: The Middle Years – were so popular you had to have gotten tickets earlier in the week to assure yourself a spot. But I get happy just being around books and authors and other people who like books, so it didn’t really matter to me if I didn’t do much more than that this year. On the other hand, I did have a front seat to hear the remarkable Ian Frazier talking about his latest work, Travels in Siberia. I know, it doesn’t sound like a book you'd want to spend time with. But his style is so deliciously wry, and I figure any writer who can make the New Jersey Turnpike fun to read about can surely keep my attention on Siberia.

The other high point in my initiation to the Book Festival was a demo and talk by the fresh and lovely Melissa Clark, whose regular food column in the Wednesday New York Times is a favorite of mine. She had a fun, casual manner in the demo, and I stopped by the signing tent after her talk and spent a few more minutes chatting. She is as easy to talk to as her recipes appear to be in the making. So I looked forward to paging through the book, In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite: 150 Recipes and Stories About the Food You Love.

Friends, this is a very different cookbook. I’ve now jumped around through much of it, and almost every recipe looks like one I’d like to try. The backstories add a bit of humor and humanity, and the dishes sound really GOOD, but not in a flamboyant-combinations-of-hard-to-find-ingredients sort of way. Maybe approachable is the best word: every recipe reads like comfort food. Melissa (now that we’re such good friends, I really feel I can call her by her first name) writes with such easy familiarity that I found myself thinking more than once, You know, that seems so natural, why didn’t I think of it? It’s like you’re standing in the kitchen with her, looking around for some way to cook this fish, or chicken or pasta, when lo and behold, the solution fairly jumps out at you, from ingredients you might already have. So while I haven’t yet made any of the recipes, I feel confident of the outcomes.

Here’s one she made for the demonstration:

Bacon and Pecan Pralines, from In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite, by Melissa Clark

1 c packed dark brown sugar
½ c sour cream
¼ c unsalted butter
1 c pecan halves, toasted
⅔ c crumbled bacon (about 5 strips)
1 t vanilla extract

In a heavy saucepan with a candy thermometer hooked to the side, melt together the brown sugar, sour cream, and butter, stirring occasionally. Once the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved, raise the heat and bring the mixture to a boil. Boil the mixture, without stirring, until the thermometer registers 235º, about 5 mins. Take the pan off the heat and let cool for 2 mins.

Stir in the pecans, bacon pieces, and vanilla, taking care not to splash the molten mixture. Continue to stir until the pecan mixture is thick and creamy, 1-2 mins. Using two table spoons, drop 1½-inch pralines onto wax paper or parchment paper. Let them cool and set. Store in an airtight container. Makes about 30.

Kitchen Goddess Note: According to the author, this recipe would also work well with toasted walnuts (be sure they’re well-toasted) or pignoli nuts.