Too Hot to Handle (Food)

I don't know where you are, but it's hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk in Cleveland, except the last thing I feel like doing is frying eggs...because it just generates more heat. The truth is, I don't feel much like hot food lately. I know the hot weather prompts many people to default to grilling outdoors, but heck, I don't even feel much like doing that, either. I have a feeling that I'm not alone in my summertime ennui, so I've compiled a list of easy, cold meals to sustain you through the dog days of the season:

-Spring Rolls
-Chicken Salad
-Greek Pasta Salad
-BLT and raw broccoli delight salad
-Salad Nicoise
-Hummus, Vegetables, and Pita
-Bruschetta (or Caponata or Muffaletta) en croute
-Poached Salmon with steamed asparagus
-Chilled Hungarian Cherry Soup with wheat chips
-Nut Butter and Peach Smoothie

If you turn off the oven and retire to the veranda with one of the above-mentioned ideas, you just might make it through the heat wave without melting.

Make it with Love: Dobosh Torte

The Dobosh (or Dobos or Dobosz) Torte is sort of a holy grail for me. More elaborate than its French cousin the mille feuile, it is a 7 to 12 layer cake with loads of light chocolate buttercream and a topping rich caramel. My grandmother used to make it for special occasions. If it's on the menu in a Hungarian restaurant, I will usually order two...one to inhale and one to taste. It's impossibly decadent and it looks impossibly difficult to make...which is probably why I've never attempted one.

But two very special friends just got hitched and they are throwing a casual celebration. I offered to bring a dessert to the party, to ease the hostess's mind and the caterer's workload.

But let's be clear on one thing: Pastry is not my strong suit. I admit it. Pastry takes a more careful and scientific type of cook. I'm a "shoot-first-ask-questions-later" type of cook.

But I offered a dessert. And I don't want it to look (or taste!) like a home economics class project.

So, naturally, I decided to make a Dobosh Torte. On the eve of the party. Without a recipe. In the 95 degree heat. What could go wrong?

A lot could go wrong. I am only 3/4 of the way through the assembly and decoration, so there is still time for a royal screw up. But it won't go wrong. It's impossible. Although I already know my layers are too thick for a textbook-correct creation; although I wish I had added more of a hint of espresso flavor to the chocolate buttercream; although we've been experiencing power outages and refrigeration failures all day long, my Dobosh Torte will be perfect.

Why?

I made it with love.

My first cooking job had me cooking under a young, carefree chef named Dorothy. Dorothy had a special way about her, and of teaching others. It would go something like this:

DOROTHY: Karen, go make a tomato vinaigrette for the salad.
KAREN: I've never done a tomato vinaigrette. How do I do it?
DOROTHY: Do it with love.
KAREN: (blank stare)
DOROTHY: No, really. If you do it with love, it will always turn out, no matter what the ratios and proportions of ingredients.

In other words, Dorothy made me figure it out on my own, but I liked her hippy-trippy philosophy. Yes, I know that it's a useless ideology from a practical standpoint, but I still like it.

And that hippy-trippy philosophy has finally pushed me past the intimidation factor to try my hand at what I think is the finest pastry under the sun. I will not be starring on "Cake Boss" anytime soon, but I'll betcha my torte is going to be pretty hard to beat. Because I am truly making this one with love.

Congratulations, best wishes, and a million delicious confections to you!

All You Need to Eat Well

I cooked all vacation long. You might even call it a bus-man's holiday of sorts. The reasons were several, some of them circumstantial, some of them by choice, but I cooked every single meal.

Whether I thought all that vacation cooking was heavenly or horrid is the topic of another post on another day. But I can share with you the emphatic insistence that cooking healthful, well-crafted meals can be done with even the most makeshift cookery equipment just by tapping into your own personal resourcefulness.

What am I talking about? Our cottage kitchen left a lot to be desired. But recognizing that it usually takes more energy to complain than it takes to make-do, I made do. And I'm not too bashful to say it worked out pretty well.

Let me share with you some dinner menus enjoyed during our cottage vacation:

-Grass-Fed Burgers on the grill with all the fixings, roasted sweet corn, and salad
-Chicken Fajitas with grilled peppers and fresh guacamole
-Landlocked Salmon of mustard with carrot batons and salad
-Pasta tossed with grilled shrimp and asparagus with a tarragon creme sauce
-Steamed Brown Trout with walnuts, lentil-rice pilaf, and green beans
-Turkey Patties with lentils, corn, and wilted greens
(Oh...and although we were on vacation, I more or less adhered to our ridiculously low grocery budget...but some of that sounds perfectly high-falutin', though, right??)

Now let me share with you the limitations of our cottage kitchen:

-Although there was running water, the cottage sink took a full 24 hours to drain. Needless to say, dish-washing was impractical in most cases. Most items had to be made without the use of a traditional cooking vessel. Skewers, aluminum foil, and foil pans were jury-rigged to duplicate the function of fine cookware.
-The oven worked, but looked like a fire hazard. The only apparently safe heat source was a Weber kettle grill.
-The only grocery store was many miles away in a rural, Mennonite village. There was no point in looking for exotic ingredients. And tough luck if you forgot anything...the journey over bumpy, un-lit dirt roads was not an easy one you'd want to make twice in the same day.
-The refrigerator didn't really refrigerate. It merely took the edge off the summer heat. Whatever perishables were purchased really needed to be cooked and consumed that same day.

Our cottage kitchen wasn't quite as primitive as camping and cooking over a campfire, but it ran a close second. But I think we ate really well and quite healthfully, all things considered. We could have had a (gag) wienie-roast all week...I'm sure many cottage-visitors do...except I have these irritating little things I call standards which forced me to think creatively about our meals.

Our great grandmothers cooked better, on average, than many of us do today with our "gourmet" tastes. And those old gals did it all in kitchens we would now laugh at or call dysfunctional. More than a handful of amazing restaurants have difficult kitchens that most of us would scream about working in. Oh, and if anyone out there has ever worked in a restaurant, they can attest that almost every piece of equipment is damaged or broken in some way or another at all times. And yet they serve 200 people a night. This socio-political trend to eat local means that if people/cooks really want to live this credo, they will have to get creative and make intelligent substitutions in their recipes. If rhubarb is not in season in Ohio during the third week of January and you were dreaming of Aunt Tilly's "Rhubarb Surprise", then you'd best start your creative gears a-turning...what else besides rhubarb can you use for a reasonable (and delicious) facsimile???


Mi esposo and I ate like veritable royalty from that joke of a kitchen and a grocery store that could have been called "Old Mother Hubbard's Place". You do not need 50,000 BTUs on a 50,000 dollar commercial-grade range. You do not need a Whole Foods within a 5-mile radius of your house. You don't need a grocery budget that rivals the national debt. Heck, you don't even need a working sink, as I found out. All you need to eat well is the will to do so, some creativity, and a little drive.

Let me repeat myself.

All you need to eat well is the will to do so, some creativity, and a little drive