WNK: So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, good-bye

Much has been written about the passing of Gourmet. It's been a few weeks since the announcement that the venerable institution is packing up shop, and, frankly, I'm still in shock. It's more than just a magazine; it represented a way of life for almost seventy years. In fact, one of my favorite issues is the 65-year retrospective published in January 2006, where they picked one of the best recipes from each year of the magazine to date. It's a gold mine. We love the po-boys from 1945, the Chinese egg rolls from 1946, the chocolate souffle cake from 2001...and those are just the recipes I remember off the top of my head.

I'm not the only one who feels this sense of loss, of course. By the time I looked at the article in the NYT announcing the end of the Gourmet era, there were over 600 comments posted online. In the interview I linked to above, Ruth Reichl talks about Gourmet's incredibly loyal subscriber base. My 92 year-old grandmother only let her subscription lapse a few years ago when her arthritis got so bad that she really wasn't able to stand up in the kitchen to cook anymore. My mom has kept and archived every single issue since 1972, and is devastated by the closing. Even with the advent of Epicurious (which is an awesome resource), certain issues are particular favorites that she turns back to again and again, like December 1995 (the Christmas butter cookie dough is memorable and lends itself to variations). My mom is planning an extravagant Thanksgiving memorial to Gourmet, based on the final issue that arrived last week.

When you publish dozens of new recipes each month, they can't all be winners. But Gourmet has, or rather had, an unusually high percentage. To me, what's remarkable about the magazine are not the three-hour recipes for chicken mole, but rather the consistent goodness of all the recipes, including those in the "Quick Kitchen" section. The editors realized that the modern cook wanted to eat well, but realistically also needed to eat quickly.

Last night I needed a quick weeknight recipe (and had a surplus of green beans from the CSA box), so I turned to this stirfry with green beans, onions, and bell peppers. It has become a standby in our house. I'd almost forgotten about my plan to incorporate quick weeknight recipes into my blog, so I thought I'd share it with you.

It barely squeaks in under the thirty-minute mark, but the flavors are complex and satisfying. Compared to the original recipe, I've taken out the cashews, and added onions for sweetness and cilantro for brightness. (In the picture above, you may notice that I added yellow and red bell pepper, though the recipe only calls for red.)

The sauce is primarily coconut milk, flavored with garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and lime. When B and I went to a cooking class a few years ago, our instructor told us that brands of coconut milk that have "OK" in the name are better than those without. Neither of us can remember what was supposedly wrong with the other brands, but we've been scared to deviate from the instructions, so we buy the ChaOKah brand available at our supermarket. This is a full-fat coconut milk; if you use a low fat one, you may have to take the vegetables out with a slotted spoon towards the end of the cooking and boil the sauce down to thicken it.

The stirfry reheats beautifully for lunch, or a dinner later in the week. Eat it while you think wistfully of the fact that you won't be receiving a magazine full of similar recipes each month. It almost makes me cry just to contemplate it, and I've only been subscribing for five years.

Good-bye, Gourmet.

Stirfry with Tofu, Green Beans, and Bell Pepper

Adapted from Gourmet, September 2005

Serves 4, as main course

Time: 30 minutes active and total

1 14-oz package firm tofu

3 T. soy sauce, divided

2-3 T. vegetable oil

1 lb green beans, ends trimmed

1 medium onion, peeled and sliced thinly

1 red bell pepper, cored and sliced into pieces 1/4 in. wide

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1 T. fresh chopped ginger, or 1 t. powdered ginger

1 t. red pepper flakes

1 15-oz can coconut milk

1/2 t. salt, or more to taste

juice of one lime

1/4 c. chopped cilantro

Slice the tofu into pieces 1/2 in. by 1/2 in. by 2 in. Place into a shallow bowl with 2 T. soy sauce. Marinate for 10 minutes and then dry completely with paper towels. Meanwhile, prepare the vegetables, and heat the oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet. When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the marinated, dried tofu pieces and saute, turning frequently, for 5 minutes or until golden. Place the tofu in a separate bowl using a slotted spoon.

Add the garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes to the oil. When they become fragrant after 3o seconds or so, add the green beans, onion, and bell pepper. Stir for 1 minute. Add the coconut milk, salt, and remaining tablespoon of soy sauce. Once mixture comes to a boil, turn heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes or until green beans are cooked through (take one out to taste). Add sauteed tofu, and cook for another minute until tofu is heated through. Turn off heat, and add lime juice and cilantro, along with more salt to taste.

Serve immediately with rice (1 cup of dried rice makes a perfect amount).

The world is your...

B and I have been making great use of our 101 Great Hikes in the Bay Area book recently. There are a lot of beautiful spots around, and, now that the fog-ridden summer has passed, the weather has been sunny. Except (notably) for the freak rainstorm earlier this week that showed us that the drain on the back patio was clogged with accumulated eucalyptus leaves and silt; the overflow temporarily filled the garage and our downstairs neighbor's apartment with muddy water. We were delighted, truly delighted, to have the opportunity to learn that plumbers can snake outside drains the same way they snake indoor ones. Thankfully, the problem is now fixed.

But back to the hikes. In the past few weeks, we've been to the Point Bonita lighthouse (we spotted whale spouts off the coast), Hill 88 in Marin Headlands (a former military radar installation with expansive views of the city), and Tomales Point (extremely windy, but we spotted the tule elk as the guidebook promised). Here we are in Marin Headlands.

Recently, I've decided that I like oysters. Raw oysters, that is. I'd always liked them cooked, and we used to have smoked oysters on stoned-wheat crackers on picnics when I was a child. My main previous experience with raw oysters was nearly a decade ago. The year after college, I lived in England for a year, and JB met me in Nice so that we could explore Provence for a week.

We spent one night in Monaco. We visited our third jardin exotique of the trip (filled with cacti and not worth a visit if you're from Southern California), watched the changing of the guard at the castle, walked down a sidewalk-free stretch of road that may or may not have been where Princess Grace died, and visited the famous casino. (For future reference, do not wear jeans to the famous casino. Women in long red dresses with diamonds will sweep by, looking down their noses at the stupid Americains.)

Before the casino, we went out to dinner. Unlike the women at the casino, our waiter was enchanted with the American girls. So enchanted, in fact, that he presented us with a complimentary appetizer. We each received an absolutely enormous raw oyster on the half-shell. We couldn't turn them away—our nice waiter would be offended—so I choked mine down.

Then I looked over at JB's plate; she doesn't eat shellfish at all. Her oyster seemed even larger than mine. Our waiter shot a glance over to our table to make sure we were enjoying our oysters. We didn't want to upset him!

I choked yet another oyster down.

And that was the end of my raw oyster eating for years. But then, a few months ago, B and I ate brunch with my parents at Foreign Cinema and had some sweet and briny Kumamoto oysters. They were a revelation! Much smaller and more manageable than whatever I'd eaten in Monaco. And so delicious.

When B and I went for our hike to Tomales Bay, then, we knew we had to stop at the Hog Island Oyster Company.

We bought some oysters at the stand, learned the elements of oyster-shucking, and made our way over to the picnic tables overlooking the bay. As you can tell, B was intent. So was I.

B is better than I am at a lot of things, but it turns out that I'm a better oyster-shucker than he is. I felt like I was ready for Top Chef by the end of it.

We can't wait to go back to Hog Island with a crowd of people to use the barbeques on the patio and have a full-on picnic. The sea air, the briny oysters, the warm sun altogether added up to an idyllic afternoon. I'll never think about oysters the way I did before. Enjoy!

Oysters on the Half-Shell

Serves: 2

18 fresh oysters

1 lemon, halved

Place a glove on your left hand, and place the flatter side of the oyster face-up. Put the sharp end of an oyster knife (conveniently attached to the tray at Hog Island) through the hinge, and rock your hand back and forth until it gives (it takes some force). Keeping the knife parallel to the ground, swing the knife around the left side of the oyster to detach the muscle. Remove the top shell. Detach the muscle from the bottom shell without disturbing the oyster and its liquor. Squeeze some lemon juice on top, slurp, and enjoy.

Figs and Cream

B and I were introduced by our friends other B and J, while J and I were in medical school at Stanford and the Bs were working in San Diego. It's sort of a complicated story (made even more complicated by all the initials I'm using, for which I apologize). Our introduction involves the Fourth of July, fireworks, my parents' back patio, two dogs, a long bike ride, bad directions, apricot pie, and figs.

Here's the connect-the-dots version. Other B and J wanted to set the two of us up. J and I flew down to San Diego for the Fourth of July weekend, and had dinner at my parents' house. We ate al fresco on the back patio, and had an extravagant dinner involving, among countless earthly delights, figs baked with gorgonzola. Then we went to the local fireworks, where my B was supposed to meet us. Due to a longer-than-expected bike ride (he was training for an Ironman), my B missed the fireworks, so we all rendezvoused back at my parents' house for dessert (apricot pie). B almost didn't make it because I gave him the worst directions of all time, but he showed up and was almost bowled over by the two dogs and six people he hadn't ever met who all greeted him excitedly at the front door. I learned later that B didn't even like dessert very much (dessert in general, that is; the apricot pie was delicious). He was a good sport about it all, which is of course why he is now sitting on the couch next to me as I write this.

Obviously, J remembers the fateful meeting that she played a large part in coordinating, but perhaps the part she remembers most clearly involves the figs we ate with dinner. She didn't dwell on the love-at-first-sight part in her toast at our rehearsal dinner; no, she instead rhapsodized about the figs, which were a revelation that she still talks about.

Recently, J asked me how to cook with figs, which are in the midst of their brief but memorable fall season right now. As she asked me, I realized that at home I only eat figs prepared one way, and it's not a way that really even counts as cooking. I eat them sliced, sprinkled with a small amount of sugar, and doused with cream. It's a perfect (and perfectly simple) dessert.

Don't get me wrong; I've tried other fig-based recipes in the past. I made a fig-and-frangipane tart once that was delicious. The figs with blue cheese on the Fourth of July were, as you've been told, memorable. SS served beautiful figs with proscuitto on thick slices of Italian country bread at a party last month. I think it's telling, however, that the one time we got figs in our CSA box this summer, we ate them sliced with cream.

It's a short step (in my ice cream-centric imagination, at least) from figs and cream to frozen figs and cream. That's right: fig ice cream!

I've made this ice cream twice, and it's everything I hoped it would be. Seasonal, fresh, and ever-so-figgy. I would buy two pints of figs when you want to make the ice cream, so that you can have extra to slice on top for serving. I love David Lebovitz's description of allowing the cooked figs to become "jammy," but I've modified his recipe significantly to incorporate a traditional ice cream custard. I think a custard adds depth and richness to an ice cream, and works particularly well with the figs.

When my parents were visiting recently, my dad had fig ice cream for dessert three nights in a row. (Part of this may have been related to the ice cream moratorium my mom has instituted at home as part of a diet.) J hasn't tasted this ice cream yet, though I'm sure she'll be clamoring for it once she and other B move back to the Bay Area next year.

And my B? Let's just say that I've worked my dessert magic on him over the years. He's not a complete dessert convert, but he does love ice cream. And figs. And therefore this ice cream. Enjoy!

Figs and Cream Ice Cream

Adapted from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop

Time: 15 minutes active, 4 hours total

Makes approximately 1 quart

20 small figs, approximately 1 pint

1/4 c. water

3/4 c. sugar, divided

zest of one lemon

1 1/2 c. heavy cream

1/2 c. milk

1/2 t. salt

4 large egg yolks

First, prepare figs. Cut off stem ends, and then cut each fig into four pieces. Place fig pieces and water in a medium-sized saucepan and bring to a boil. Cover, lower the heat, and simmer for ten minutes, until figs are very soft. Uncover, add 1/4 cup of sugar and lemon zest (you can zest directly into the saucepan, and cook for another ten minutes or so, until jammy. Allow to cool for at least 5 minutes. Then puree fig mixture in blender.

Meanwhile, add the cream, milk, salt, and remaining 1/2 cup of sugar to another medium-sized saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar, and turn off heat once mixture has boiled and cream is scalded. Whisk cream mixture into egg yolks in a medium-sized bowl. Add cream and yolk mixture back to saucepan, and bring to 170 to 175 degrees on a candy thermometer, stirring constantly. Mix cooled fig mixture into yolk mixture.

Chill ice cream custard for at least 1 hour in refrigerator. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Place ice cream in freezer to harden for at least 2 hours before serving, preferably overnight.

Crackberry

Blackberries are a fruit I enjoy. But sun-warmed blackberries, picked by the roadside in Sonoma County on a day with blue sky and a few picturesque clouds? Wow. Those blackberries are indescribably delicious.

B and I have been on a couple of blackberry-picking expeditions recently, with excellent results. Over Labor Day weekend, we took my visiting parents to our favorite stretch on the Bohemian Highway near Freestone because we figured eight hands would be better than four. Here's my mom, nearly lost in the thicket of blackberries, picking to her heart's content.

(We also stopped at a fantastic bakery in Freestone that A introduced us to. Get the cheesy, sourdough, hearty fougasse bread. It's a wonderful treat, especially when fresh and warm out of the oven, before or after a bike ride on the rolling hills in this area—though truthfully, some of the hills are more like steep mountains. B can handle them much better than I can.)

The ripe, uber-black blackberries were easy to come by. Here's just one of many sprays of berries.

When we saw a similar, heavily-laden branch last year when we were cycling with A&K, K picked off one of the "raspberries" and was shocked at how tart it tasted.

It turns out that eight hands are better than four, and we ended up with a ton of blackberries. The first order of business when we got home in the evening was making jam. My mom and I went a little nuts with the home-preserving business while she was visiting; we made pickles, nectarine preserves, applesauce, and three kinds of blackberry-based jam (straight-up, fig-blackberry, and blackberry-fig). When we were making jam, the house smelled fruity and jammy and inviting, but I would advise care in the timing of the pickle-making process: even with the windows open, it smelled potently of vinegar in here for at least a day and a half following the completion of canning.

But the jam! The glorious blackberry jam! The jam was the reason that we (really, I) dragged my parents up to Freestone and put them to work picking. Without getting too poetic, it tastes like summer. A stolen spoonful is delicious, but what it works best with is scones.

Especially scones like these that have a hint of orange zest spicing up each bite, scones that beg to be served with a tangy concoction of cream cheese and sour cream and then topped with a generous helping of blackberry jam. This dairy concoction which ties together the scone and the jam, in the original recipe from Sunset magazine in the 70s, is called "fake Devonshire cream." Even though I lived in England for a year after college, eating more than my fair share of scones including some in Devonshire itself, I'm not sure what Devonshire cream is supposed to taste like. Perhaps they mean the ubiquitous-in-Devonshire clotted cream? If that's the case, the fake cream is not at all like clotted cream, which is much more similar to butter. Regardless, both go beautifully with scones. The difference is that you can make the fake variety in seconds—but good luck finding clotted cream on this side of the pond!

The scones are perfect for breakfast, but B and I also ate a lot of them as afternoon snacks. (Apparently, I really like afternoon snacks.) The jam would be lovely in these cookies, or on toast, or in a PB&J. Enjoy the jam or the scones or both!

Scones with Devonshire Cream

Adapted from Sunset, June 1975

Makes: 12 scones

Time: 10 minutes active, 25 minutes total

For the scones:

2 c. flour

1 T. baking powder

1/4 t. baking soda

2 T. sugar

zest of one orange

1/4 c. (half-stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-in pieces

1 slightly beaten egg

2/3 c. buttermilk

For Devon cream:

6 oz. light cream cheese

6 T. sour cream

2 t. sugar

First, make the scones. Preheat oven to 400. Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and zest. Cut butter into flour mixture, until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in egg and buttermilk and mix quickly. Turn mixture onto lightly-floured board. Split into two parts, and pat each into a round about six inches in diameter. Cut each round into six wedges. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until lightly browned.

While the scones are baking, mix together the cream cheese, sour cream, and sugar. Serve the scones warm with Devon cream and jam.

Blackberry Jam

From the Sure-Jell pectin box

Time: 30 minutes active and total

Makes: 9 cups

4 pints blackberries, rinsed

1 box pectin

1 t. butter (optional)

7 cups sugar

Crush the berries with a potato masher. Place berries and pectin in a large (6 or 8 quart) heavy pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Add butter to reduce foaming, if using. When mixture is at a full rolling boil, add sugar. Return to a full rolling boil, and boil for another minute. Ladle hot mixture into prepared jars. Process for 10 minutes.

You say tomatillo

You wouldn't know it from the dearth of recent posts, but I have been cooking a fair amount recently. Last night I made these delicious scallops that we discovered a few weeks ago, and I will try to blog about blackberries sometime soon. (B and I had a very successful berry-picking expedition last weekend.) I also made more almond macaroons (which incidentally are better than the hazelnut variation I tried using the same proportions; the hazelnut cookies ended up slightly bitter).

This month I also (I know this is crazy!) started another blog. I guess I'm sort of obsessed with food, whether from a restaurant or my home kitchen. I'd love to know what you think of the new site.

For now, though, back to the cooking side of things. One of the ways that I am able to cook a lot even when I'm on call twice a week in the ICU is by having key ingredients ready ahead of time. Today, I'm going to tell you about the tomatillo salsa that we had with skirt steak soft tacos for dinner last week. Minimal prep work, beautifully colored, and great with chips as leftovers.

I don't remember when I tasted my first tomatillo, but I do remember picking my first one. I was about seven or eight, wandering around in the backyard, when I found these odd little fruits growing in a corner of the garden I didn't visit much. They had papery husks that were extremely fun to peel off, and the fruit that was revealed looked just like an unripe green tomato.

Tomatillos are a little astringent when eaten raw; I like them best when roasted. (Apparently, I'm really into roasting vegetables lately. Also very into the grill-pan, which has led to some excessive smoke inhalation recently.) The roasted tomatillo salsa that results from the recipe below is a powerful staple to have ready in the fridge, ready to be served with eggs to spice up breakfast, with tortilla strips in the original chilaquiles recipe, or with skirt steak for the tacos I made for dinner last week.

Or, just served with chips as a snack, like I did today. This salsa is just too good to stop eating, and with my afternoon snack I seem to have filled up even my separate chips-and-salsa stomach. (This stomach is in addition to my separate dessert/ice cream one, as well as the French fry one.) The good news is that this recipe makes several cups of salsa, and there's no fat in it all. Also, it keeps in the fridge for a week or two. I bet it would freeze well, but there's never been enough left over to try that. Enjoy!

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Adapted from Gourmet, November 1999

Time: 10 min active, 30 min total

Makes: 3-4 cups salsa

1 1/2 lbs. tomatillos (approximately 15), husks removed and rinsed

1 large onion, peeled and quartered

3 garlic cloves, peeled

2-3 serrano chiles, or more to taste, stems removed

1/4 c. chopped cilantro

1 t. salt, or more to taste

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Place tomatillos, onion, garlic, and chiles in a single layer in an ovenproof pan (I used my Pyrex 9 x 13-inch glass dish). Roast vegetables for 15-20 minutes, until charred, turning once. Allow vegetables to cool for at least five minutes. Then puree vegetables and their juice in blender or Cuisinart with cilantro and salt. Salsa keeps well in the fridge for one to two weeks.

Corny, but good

My mom and I invented a soup recently. My mom was being creative on behalf of my grandfather; he loves corn, but doesn't like eating it off the cob anymore. He used to plant rows of it in his backyard and hand-pollinate it each spring. For me, the need for the soup was based on, yet again, the surplus of vegetables from the CSA box. Like my grandfather, B doesn't like corn off the cob; he doesn't adore the taste of corn to start off with, and then he dislikes picking it out of his teeth.

But in many ways, corn distills the essence of summer. This was proven to me when we went to my cousin's wedding in Maine last summer (another cousin--keep in mind that I only have five first cousins total, none from New England--got married in Maine last month, but we unfortunately weren't able to attend). Acadia, near Bar Harbor, is a beautiful national park.

In Maine, we ate lobster daily. Most frequently we ate lobster rolls, but we also went to a lobster pound which made B very happy. Here he is holding the bowl of now-empty shells.

At the wedding, we met one of the bride's friends, who had grown up in Maine as the daughter of a lobster boat fisherwoman. We heard crazy stories about the competition for sites to place lobster traps. Basically, it's easy to get a permit from the state to fish for lobster, but hard to find a place to put your traps unless it's been passed down to you for generations! Other fisherman will cut your buoys if they think you're interloping, leaving your trap permanently stuck at the bottom of the ocean.

Times were tough for the bride's friend and her family growing up, and they didn't always have enough money to buy groceries. Every summer, though, they ate like kings. Her mom, obviously, brought home fresh lobster. Their next door neighbor had fields of corn, and he gave them plenty of free ears. She and her siblings would gather wild blueberries for dessert, et voila! A quintessential summer meal was born. Night after night, though, is apparently too much; difficult for me to imagine, but the bride's friend told us that she got sick of having lobster and corn and blueberries without variation.

Maybe they would have been happier if they'd shaken things up with blueberry scones or a corn chowder once in a while. The corn soups that my mom and I came up with are a little bit different, but both end up with a hearty, satisfying meal. Hers has bacon as a base, whereas the smokiness in mine comes from roasting the vegetables ahead of time. The base of my soup uses onions and potatoes, spiced with cumin and seasoned with plenty of salt. The soup is a thick light brown, but the chopped pasilla and red bell pepper together make each spoonful as brightly colored as confetti. The cilantro sprinkled on top adds a fresh, Southwestern note.

Roasting the vegetables is a little bit time-consuming, but can easily be done ahead of time. With them, the soup ends up delicious, corny but good (sort of like B's neverending puns). I've never cooked lobster at home before, but I bet it would be a lovely, sweet complement to the soup, should you find yourself summering in Maine with nothing but corn and shellfish available to eat. Enjoy!

Roasted Corn Chowder

Time: 30 minutes active, 90 minutes total

Serves: 4, as main course (makes about 8 cups)

4 ears of corn, shucked and ends trimmed

2 red bell peppers, cored and halved

2 jalapenos or serranos, or more to taste, stem removed

2 pasilla chiles, cored and halved

4 whole garlic cloves, peeled

2 T. olive oil

2 large onions, peeled and chopped

3 medium sized red or yellow potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 t. salt, or more to taste

1 t. cumin

6 c. chicken broth

1/4 c. cilantro, chopped

sour cream (optional)

Preheat the broiler. Place the corn, bell peppers, jalapenos, pasilla chiles, and garlic cloves in one layer in a Pyrex dish or broiler pan. The peppers should have their shiny side up. Broil for 20 to 25 minutes, flipping once. Peppers should have black blisters on the shiny side. Place roasted bell peppers, jalapenos, and pasilla chiles in a bowl, and cover with plastic wrap for ten minutes or so, until they cool. Then peel off and discard the blackened skin. Chop the peeled chiles. Remove the kernels from the corn with a large knife. Set roasted vegetables aside.

In a large soup pot, heat olive oil over medium-high. Saute onions for 5 minutes, until beginning to soften, and then add potatoes. Cook for an additional 10 minutes, until beginning to brown. Add cumin, salt, and roasted garlic; stir rapidly for 1 minute. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil. Lower heat, and simmer for another 10 minutes or so, until potatoes are softened. Blend soup, preferably with a hand-blender. Add roasted vegetables to soup pot, and simmer until heated through. Taste for salt. Serve garnished with cilantro and sour cream, if using.

Inspiration

Help! My life is being controlled by my CSA box.

It didn't seem that way until I was talking to one of the interns on the ICU team last Wednesday. I was on call in the hospital, and knew that it would be hard to remember to pick up the box as I drove home on Thursday because of typical post-call delirium. I said as much to the intern, and she flatly said, "I hate CSA boxes."

I thought to myself, what's to hate? Delicious seasonal produce, delivered to a convenient spot weekly (well, for us, every other week since we alternate pick-up with A&K), allowing a connection for jaded city dwellers with enthusiastic local farmers. I mean, I do dislike that the large box has gotten figs for the past two weeks, while we medium-sizers haven't gotten any figs at all this summer, but I love pretty much every other aspect of the box.

The intern continued to make her case while I ruminated. Her friend with a CSA box was never able to go out to eat, because she had to make dinner at home in order to use up produce from the box. Her friend had to rearrange her schedule to be able to pick up the box. Her friend had to design awkward meals around that week's shipment of vegetables. This Slate article the intern pointed me to sums up these difficulties.

Of course, these points are valid. But I cook more than this intern does, and I look at the contents of the box each week partly as a challenge and partly as inspiration. That is, I did look at the produce that way. I did, I swear I did, until we began to get bag...after bag...after bag...of carrots. And, like I said, we only pick up the box every other week!

The bags of carrots accumulated in the crisper, and I finally started to feel guilty about not using them. I tried pickling some; they looked really, really beautiful in the Mason jar, but they didn't taste like what I imagined (basically, I wanted to replicate the ones that come on the side of the panini at Tartine), and they were sort of a pain to make. I also used the odd one here and there for chicken stock or a vegetable curry, but I still had a lot of carrots to deal with. I came across a few recipes for cooked carrots, which are pretty much my least favorite cooked vegetable in the entire world. JL suggested making carrot juice (he calls it "decadent"), but we don't have A&K's juicer. The carrots were becoming a problem; they were more challenge and less inspiration.

Then I pulled out my secret weapon: carrot cupcakes. (See the ray of sun on the left? Even the ubiquitous San Francisco fog parted in honor of the inspiration.)

Mmm, cupcakes. I promised that I would write about them soon. They are really one of the greatest desserts known to man! My mom made B's and my wedding cake, but if she hadn't, we would have considered one of those cupcake tiers. Cupcakes are the perfect size for a snack, plus they have a great cake-to-frosting ratio. And this recipe has the added benefit that it uses four (count them, four!) carrots. I still have a few left, but the bags have (finally) been depleted.

No offense to the CSA box, and the carrots from it, but the cream cheese frosting is my favorite part. Silky smooth and tinged light brown from the molasses, it provides a great foil to the moist, dense carrot cake beneath. The cupcakes themselves are sort of healthy, with all those carrots within, and their only fat is canola oil. The frosting, on the other hand, has half a stick of butter in it. I like the frosting the way it's written in the recipe below, but if you want to experiment, I think it would turn out well with less butter too.

Maybe you have a CSA box or farmers' market to provide farm-fresh carrots, or maybe you have a few old ones lying around in your crisper, or maybe you're planning to head to the store expressly to buy carrots for this recipe. However you get your hands on some carrots, make sure to try these cupcakes. Enjoy!

Carrot Cupcakes with Molasses Cream Cheese Frosting

Adapted from Gourmet, May 1995

Makes: 17 to 18 cupcakes

Time: 25 min active, 2 hours total

For cupcakes:

3/4 c. canola oil

3 eggs

1 1/4 c. brown sugar, packed

1/2 t. vanilla

1 3/4 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. ginger

1/2 t. nutmeg

1 1/2 t. cinnamon

2 generous c. carrots, peeled and coarsely shredded (about 4)

1/2 c. walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped

For frosting:

8 oz. light cream cheese, at room temperature

1/2 stick (1/4 c.) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 T. powdered sugar

1 T. molasses

1/2 carrot, finely shredded (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tin with paper or aluminum cupcake cups. In a medium bowl, whisk together oil, eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla. Then whisk in dry ingredients, including flour, baking soda, and spices. Then mix in carrots and nuts. Fill each cup two-thirds full with batter. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until lightly browned and cake tester plunged into the center comes out clean. Place cupcakes on a rack to cool. Line muffin tin with new cupcake cups, fill with remaining batter, and bake as first batch.

Cool cupcakes completely on rack, at least half an hour. Beat cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and molasses together in a small bowl until completely mixed. Frost cupcakes generously. Place 1/2 teaspoon shredded carrot on top of each cupcake, if desired. Cupcakes stay well, covered, for several days.