You say tomato

B and I planted tomatoes a few weeks ago. We put them in big pots on our balcony, near a few smaller pots filled with herbs: two kinds of basil, rosemary, cilantro, and Italian parsley. I had low expectations when we planted the garden, as it's our first experiment in vegetable-growing in San Francisco. The summer in San Francisco is very different than the summer in Palo Alto, where we had our last vegetable garden a few years ago. (Oh, the prolific tomatoes! Oh, the even more prolific Romano beans! Oh, the Japanese eggplants!)

But enough about the glory of years past. This year we have two kinds of tomatoes: Sweet 100s, which are really delicious cherry tomatoes, and a varietal named San Francisco Fog. You can tell why I picked the latter at the nursery; the description of the SF Fog tomato states that it is "well-suited to coastal climates." Here's a picture of our petite garden.

The Sweet 100s plant is in the big pot in the foreground, doing quite well. It's grown a lot since we planted it, though clearly it still has some work to do before getting to the top of the ambitiously high cage around it. I fertilized this week, which should help. The San Francisco Fog has, frankly, been a bit of a disappointment. I'm not giving up hope yet, but the main stalk is awfully short. The weather has been sunny lately, as you can see, which is nice for me (and nice for J and other B, who just found out that they'll be moving to SF soon!), but maybe not optimal for a plant which apparently thrives in the fog.

I was sitting on the couch the other day when I noticed that the tomatoes on the balcony were making unusual shadows on the ceiling.

We actually have lots of interesting things on our ceiling. The aforementioned shadows, a few cracks (which thankfully don't appear to be growing), and, in our bedroom, an entire galaxy of glow-in-the-dark stickers. They were there when we moved in (I swear!), and we have no idea how old they are. Have I mentioned that I'm thirty? And that B is thirty-two? My brother had those same stickers on his ceiling when he was ten! Perhaps the funniest aspect to ponder is that our physician-turned-venture-capitalist landlord used to live in our house several years ago. Was he the one who couldn't live without the stars and comets every night before falling asleep?

Whatever planets you may have on your ceiling, the cosmos align in the recipe I offer you today. Our tomato plants haven't started producing yet, but I've had tomato recipes on my mind recently. I have also been thinking about fish, which Mark Bittman has been writing about in the NYT. It was only natural, then, that my mind turn to a super-easy recipe from Gourmet that showcases tomatoes and fish together. (A similar recipe, for those in turf instead of surf mindset, made the cover of Gourmet last summer.)

A lot of people I know are scared to cook fish, some because they think they'll over- or undercook it, and some because they don't want the house to smell like fish. To address the latter problem, I recommend turning on a fan and/or your stovetop hood, and for the former: make this recipe. It is nearly impossible to overcook. Wrap the fish up in aluminum foil with a delicious medley of garlic, tomatoes, capers, lemon, and thyme, and bake for just 10 to 15 minutes in the oven. Because you are essentially poaching the fish with lemon, tomato juice, olive oil, and its own fish juices, the resulting filet stays moist and melts in your mouth.

And the recipe works with almost any fish! The original calls for sea bass (verboten per Bittman), but I've also tried a number of different white-fleshed fish, including halibut (delicious), tilapia (delicious), butterfish (delicious!), and, tonight, cod (delicious, but less enjoyable because there were a lot of unexpected little bones; also apparently verboten per Bittman, but I bought it because it had the green Monterey Bay Aquarium sticker of approval at the market, so go figure).

This is a picture of the raw fish, before it was enclosed with the top piece of aluminum foil. I tried to take a picture of the cooked fish, but the steam being released from the foil packet made everything sort of hazy and foggy.

Maybe later in the summer we'll have enough tomatoes to make this recipe with our own crop, but for now we have to rely on some red grape tomatoes from the store and "Golden Nuggets" from our CSA box. The bright colors and unctuous texture make this dish appropriate for company, but the quick preparation time means that it can also be a weeknight treat. In the past, I have prepared everything up to the baking, and placed the foil-sealed fish in the fridge overnight. This recipe lends itself to variation, and I hope you'll experiment with it as I have. Enjoy!

Fish "en Papillote"

Adapted from Gourmet, January 2007

Serves: 4

Time: 20 min active, 35 min total

2 T. olive oil

3-4 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

1 c. sliced cherry tomatoes

1 T. capers, drained

4 boneless filets of fish, such as halibut, butterfish, or tilapia

salt and pepper, to taste

1 lemon, thinly sliced crosswise with seeds removed

6-8 sprigs of thyme

Preheat the oven to 400. In a medium-sized frying pan, heat the olive oil over moderate-high until hot but not smoking. Add the garlic, and saute for 2 min, stirring frequently, or until light brown and fragrant. Add the cherry tomatoes and capers; have a splatter screen handy, as they will sizzle when they hit the hot oil. Saute for another 2 min, or until tomatoes have wilted slightly, and then turn off heat.

Line a large rimmed cookie sheet with a sheet of aluminum foil. Pat dry each filet of fish, and place on the aluminum foil. Season with salt and pepper. Place slices of lemon over filets, then top with cherry tomato mixture and thyme. Place another sheet of aluminum foil over the prepared fish, and crimp the edges to form a sealed packet. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish, or until a thin knife plunged into the thickest part of the fish shows no translucency, keeping in mind that it's very difficult to overcook the fish with this preparation. It's prettiest served with the thyme and lemon, but no need to eat either.

All 'cot up

Apricots (or 'cots, as they're often called in my family) are one of my favorite fruits. The good ones, that is...the grocery store right now has large, fleshy specimens that have no odor and therefore no taste. (When dealing with strawberries with similarly watered-down characteristics, my med school friend BB diagnoses "big berry syndrome.") In fact, the only thing these behemoths have in common with a true apricot is the color, and even that can be suspect: a ripe, fresh, delicious-tasting specimen often has a spray of bright reddish sunburn on one side that the supermarket ones lack.

The growing season of apricots is notoriously short, basically consisting of the month of June. Luckily, I had this past weekend off. My parents were in town from San Diego, which was appropriate since my mom has been the leader of nearly annual apricot-picking family forays. Before I was born, my parents used to make trips with my grandparents each year to Hollister, east of Gilroy, to pick apricots for eating and preserving. My grandfather is now 98 and suffers from Alzheimer's, but until just two years ago he was canning his own 'cots and making his own jam, as he had every year for decades past.

Hollister is pretty far away though, so when I was little, we used to travel just an hour and a half north from San Diego to Hemet. Unfortunately, the orchard we frequented was razed in the early 90s in anticipation of yet another strip mall, so when I was a teenager, we again made the journey up north to Hollister each June. Eventually, the apricot trees my parents had planted in their backyard finally matured and produced almost enough to sustain my mom's nearly insatiable apricot appetite, and the previously annual pilgrimages to Hollister became less frequent. In the meantime, to satisfy my nearly insatiable apricot appetite, my parents would express-mail me and B a dozen apricots at a time, packaged in egg cartons and bubble-wrapped to protect their fragile flesh.

It's a lean year for the apricot trees in San Diego, though, so it was convenient that my parents were here during prime apricot season. We drove an hour east to Brentwood, and picked our own. We also picked peaches and nectarines. And bought ripe red raspberries and strawberries. Also we have fresh kumquats from the tree of B's mom's friends. And a bunch of cherries from our CSA box and the grocery store. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures of the heavily laden trees we picked from, but here's some of the apricot bounty in our kitchen.

And this is just the apricots, after we already gave some away to A&K! We basically have fruit coming out of our ears.

For the time being, after lots of fruit-processing, I'm finally all caught/'cot up. I've made kumquat marmalade and apricot jam. I've made an apricot fruit roll-up and another strawberry one. I've made peach frozen yogurt, and plan to make apricot ice cream. And, just for fun, I made an apricot galette.

I've only eaten at Chez Panisse twice (we've only had two anniversaries to celebrate, after all), but the galette reminds me very much of desserts there. I badly want Lindsey Shere's Chez Panisse Desserts, and after I experiment from that book, I'll let you know if, as I suspect I will, I find a similar recipe.

Galettes are often described in cookbooks as rustic tarts, and they really are a snap to put together. They even look more authentic when the edges are a little messy, and they don't require the fussiness of blind-baking. Simply roll out the pastry dough, sprinkle the bottom with sugar and semolina flour, place the sliced fruit on top, sprinkle with more sugar, and bake. When it comes out of the oven, don't forget to sprinkle with some extra powdered sugar! (Also, cut a slice for yourself to eat before you take any pictures for your blog.)

The galette is delicious with apricots or plums (the latter is what the original recipe calls for), and quickly becomes a dinner party-worthy dessert with the addition of the Armagnac sour cream. Next time, I'm going to jazz it up with some almond meal instead of the semolina flour, and maybe add a little bit of almond extract to the pastry crust; almonds pair so beautifully with stone fruit.

If you have a chance to pick your own produce this summer, whether apricots or other fruits and vegetables, make a point of doing it. And then, make this galette. What a delicious way to showcase summer stone fruit! Enjoy.

Apricot Galette

Adapted from Gourmet, August 2006

Serves 8

Time: 45 min active, 3 hours total

For the pastry crust:

1 1/2 c. unbleached flour

1/2 t. salt

1 T. sugar

6 T. unsalted butter (3/4 stick), cut into 1-cm cubes

up to 1/3 c. ice water

For the filling:

2 T. semolina flour

4 T. granulated sugar

10 apricots, pitted and cut into quarters; or 5-6 plums, pitted and cut into eighths

powdered sugar, for sprinkling

For the topping:

1 c. sour cream (low-fat OK)

3 T. sugar

1 T. Armagnac or Cognac

First, make the pastry dough by mixing together the flour, salt, and sugar. Cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender or your fingers until the the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Mix in just enough ice water for the dough to come together. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board. Using the heel of your hand, push the dough away from you to incorporate the butter; repeat two or three times. Gather dough into plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375. Roll the pastry dough on a lightly floured board into a 14-inch circle. Place the pastry dough onto a cookie sheet, with or without parchment paper. Sprinkle the semolina flour and 2 T. of sugar over the bottom of the pastry dough, leaving a 1-inch border of dough. Then arrange the apricots over the flour/sugar mixture. Sprinkle fruit with remaining 2 T. of sugar. Fold the excess dough over the outside ring of fruit, pleating the dough as necessary to make the crust.

Bake, loosely covered with a sheet of foil, for 45 to 50 minutes, until juices are bubbling and fruit is fork-tender. Remove foil and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes to brown the crust. Remove from oven and sprinkle generously with powdered sugar. Cool completely on cookie sheet before transferring to a serving platter. Galette may be served room temperature or warm, and is delicious with or without the Armagnac sour cream.

Ripe, Strawberries Ripe!

I. Made. A. Strawberry. Fruit. Roll-up. Today.

Crazy, right? Who would ever have guessed that a childhood snack that seemed so completely and utterly manufactured can be made at home and actually only has two ingredients? Just strawberries and sugar! (A third ingredient, not to be underestimated, is time.)

But the time is totally, totally worth it. Strawberry was my favorite flavor of fruit roll-up, a snack I was hardly ever allowed to have. The household I grew up in emphasized the homemade and the natural...fruit roll-ups didn't seem to share either of those characteristics, as I did not yet know the true paucity of ingredients in the concoction. My tastebuds yearned for the sweet tartness of the fruit roll-ups I so rarely ate. I loved their stretchy, sticky, chewy character. Occasionally I would have one at a friend's house after school, or I would trade at lunch for one when the teachers weren't looking; the occasions, though memorable, were few and far between.

With that covetous background in mind, imagine my delight when I saw a recipe last year for what Gourmet called strawberry leather, but what any reader who grew up in the 80s knew was really a fruit roll-up! The recipe, unfortunately, got lost in the shuffle of intern year, until I was redirected to it by Ruth Reichl's weekly e-mail highlighting recipes from Gourmet through the years. (I also uncovered this phenomenal recipe for strawberry ice cream, though I used my custard recipe.)

Here's what you do: puree the strawberries and sugar; strain the puree (definitely the most annoying step); boil it down; and dry the spread-out mixture in a low-temperature oven. Just four easy steps, and you're back in elementary school, whether or not you're singing medleys from Oliver! 

I don't know about you, but we sang lots of medleys in school. I think kids in general sing a lot, but most kids learn the real lyrics to songs. JMc's and my experience was different: the lyrics of "Edelweiss" are perpetually confused in our heads with the elementary school's tenth anniversary song. As I grew older, it was extremely disillusioning to find out that the songs we sang with such pride hadn't actually been written for the 120 or so current students of the school, and instead the tunes had been stolen from musicals of the 50s and 60s with modern-day, school-specific lyrics. Why didn't we figure it out? Why didn't our teachers tell us? Why didn't our parents tell us? It was some sort of Santa Claus-song medley-Easter Bunny conspiracy, I suppose.

Now that strawberries have hit the shelves of the grocery store in force, I am delighted to have this recipe to add to my arsenal of strawberry greatest hits. The recipe is delicious and all-natural. Eat the resulting fruit roll-up while you ponder what to write in your book report and whether you should have your birthday party at the zoo or the miniature golf course and what the true words of "Edelweiss" are and other such concerns of a third-grader's life. Enjoy the memories!

Strawberry Fruit Roll-up

Adapted from Gourmet, May 1998

Serves: 6-8 as a snack

Time: 30 min active, 6 hours total

1 1/2 lb strawberries, hulled and halved

3/4 c. sugar

Puree strawberries and sugar in a blender; you will have about three cups of puree. Press puree through a fine-meshed sieve in batches. In a medium-sized heavy pot, simmer puree over low heat until volume is reduced to approximately one cup, stirring frequently. This will take between 45 minutes and an hour.

Meanwhile, place a 12 x 17-inch Silpat on a baking sheet and preheat the oven to 200. When the puree has reduced, spread evenly over the Silpat with a spatula. Bake for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, until darkened in color and still tacky when tested with your finger.

Cool completely (at least 1 to 2 hours), then place parchment paper over the dried puree and roll up. Cut the resulting cylinder into 6 or 8 pieces with a sharp knife. (B points out that this last step technically makes it closer to Fruit-by-the-Foot than a fruit roll-up.)

Flankly, I like steak

Vegetarians, read no more...at least not today's post.

In general, I try to subscribe to Michael Pollan's seven-word manifesto ("Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."), but mostly means mostly, not exclusively. And A&K were coming over for dinner last week! K, and to a lesser extent B, do NOT subscribe to Pollanesque philosophy, at least at dinnertime. It's all about protein, preferably of the flesh variety, at the end of the day, despite A's and my entreaties and references to this study in Archives from March, which showed an increase in the rates of cancer, heart disease, and overall death in people who ate more meat. (This article relies on an absolutely tremendous amount of research and details, with over 500,000 participants. For perspective, my current research project, admittedly about a totally different and rarer topic, involves several hundred patients!)

In terms of menu planning, I try to limit red meat to once or twice a week, and the dinner with A&K seemed like a good opportunity to eat it. Also, it was a weeknight, so I wanted to make a quick meal. Marinated flank steak quickly edged its way to the top of the menu planning choices. Flank steak is a lean cut of beef, corresponding to the rectus abdominis in the human musculature. Because it's lean, flank steak is cheap, which can be important in these tight economic times; flavorful, which is important at all times; and a little tough, which can be mitigated with marinating to tenderize the meat, as well as slicing the cooked meat diagonally against the grain.

Flank steak with buttered white rice and some green vegetable was one of my favorite meals as a child. As is often the case in this blog and my life (I guess because the blog is a microcosm of my life in many ways), some of my favorite recipes as an adult are inherited from my mother and my childhood. Which brings me to answer a question that a number of people have asked me over the years, and again more recently now that I've started the blog. How did I learn how to cook?

I was indoctrinated into the kitchen as a child. I have several shelves of cookbooks now, and I started collecting them when I was young. Here is a picture of the breakfront we have next to the dining table, with several shelves worth of cookbooks (though not yet a hundred and one). Some of my favorites are pictured prominently, and you can see our Tastebook on the bottom right that S and my brother E gave to us for Christmas.

As I child, I made simple recipes from my Anne of Green Gables Cookbook that I've already mentioned, and I had another literary cookbook based on Alice in Wonderland (with delicious tarts from the Knave of Hearts!). And speaking of a different Alice, I also had Fanny at Chez Panisse. From an early age, I kept myself busy helping in the kitchen. Sometimes I helped measure or stir, but I think my major job was tasting and smiling appreciatively.

In contrast, this is how B amused himself as a child.

Old habits die hard. As a grown-up, B still likes to ride his bike, usually in a more conventional fashion (he's on two cycling teams), and, as you can tell, I still like to cook. I spent a lot of time with my mom in the kitchen growing up, but it's impossible to learn cooking by osmosis. I experimented with baking in junior high and high school, but it wasn't until my senior year that I learned how to cook a real dinner-worthy meal. I was forced to! Not knowing where I was going to go to college, but rightly suspecting that I would end up three thousand miles away from home, my mom was worried that I would starve to death if I didn't know how to cook. Unfortunately, I ended up living in dorm rooms for four years, never having a proper kitchen, but she and I didn't know that would be the case at the time.

And so, every Monday night my senior year, regardless of how much homework I had or how late cross-country practice went, I was responsible for going to the store, purchasing ingredients for dinner, and making a real meal for the family. Sometimes I tried new recipes, but mostly I learned how to make the old favorites that had dominated my childhood. I made lots of kinds of pasta, and I grilled fish, and baked enchiladas, and, of course, marinated flank steak.

Marinating is a weeknight cook's friend, though it does take forethought. And when the marinade includes slightly Asian flavors (soy sauce and ginger), it becomes a weeknight cook's very best friend. Just mix all the ingredients together in a plastic Ziploc and place in the fridge for at least two and up to twenty-four hours, turning the bag and its contents occasionally if you get the chance. Because we live in a cold city and because it's hard to get to our outdoor barbeque the way our apartment is laid out, we usually make this flank steak indoors on our Le Creuset grill pan, and you can also broil it in the oven, but it's best on a real grill.

After a long day at work (or a long bike ride, in B's case), it's nice to have an old standby that only takes fifteen minutes to cook. It's also nice when it's meat, so that K will think it counts as a real meal. Enjoy!

Flank Steak

Edited to add: My dad informed me in July 2009 that he and my mom modified the "Sirloin Teriyaki" skewers from Craig Claiborne's NYT cookbook (1961) to make the now heirloom-status family recipe that follows.

Serves 4, generously

Time: 20 min active, at least 2 1/2 hours total (including marinating time)

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 t. dried ginger
1 T. sugar

1 c. soy sauce
1/4 c. dry sherry, such as amontillado (Doesn't this make you think of Edgar Allen Poe?)

1 flank steak, usually 1 1/2 lbs

Mix onion, garlic, ginger, sugar, soy sauce, and sherry in a gallon-size Ziploc bag. Unroll meat and immerse in bag. Marinate for two to twenty-four hours in the fridge. Drain and grill on low for 10 minutes; flip and grill approximately five more minutes for medium rare to medium. Slice on the bias.

It takes a little thyme

You wouldn't know that it's almost summer here in San Francisco. I know it seems like I have been obsessed with the weather recently, but the ups and downs in the thermometer are more than a native Southern Californian who spent five years on the Peninsula can handle sometimes. Don't get me wrong: I'm delighted that it was warm when JB and J and R were visiting from the East Coast last weekend, but did it really have to be over a hundred degrees in Napa when we ate lunch at Bouchon? And then did the high today in San Francisco, a mere six days later, really have to be fifty-four?

At least the produce in the grocery store and our CSA box is reflecting the warm weather and not the cold. Apricots and cherries are starting to share space with the ever-present citrus and apples in the fruit displays. The tomatoes, while lacking the intensity of flavor and juiciness of the midsummer specimens, have been quite serviceable. I've made these delicious pomodori al forno several times recently, and a simple caprese salad is on the menu for tomorrow night's dinner.

And tonight, before I trudge into the hospital for yet another night shift (I never know when to eat! And I feel like a zombie during the day! And I get confused about the date, which is problematic when I'm asking my patients orientation questions! And in the middle of the night I'm overly enticed by sale items on the J. Crew website!), we're having a tomato tart. I love a tart in general, and savory tarts are particularly under-appreciated. They make a beautiful appetizer, or I like to serve a slice with a garden salad for a light lunch or dinner. B likes to call this tart a "pizza pie," since many of the ingredients are the same, and he thinks that the origin of pizza might be in this very tart.

First, start with a basic pastry dough. I used to use (horrors!) a few tablespoons of vegetable shortening to complement the butter in my crust, which is based on Julia Child's pate brisee. But one day I ran out of Crisco, and loath to run to the store to buy more (I mean, who wants to be seen with Crisco as the only item in their cart?), I made it without. The crust was perhaps a little more brittle when cooked, and the dough wasn't quite as smooth to work with, but simple butter was enough fat to make a sturdy, all-purpose crust. I use this pastry dough for lots of applications: quiche crust (unadulterated), pie crust (add a tablespoon of sugar), and, with a teaspoon of thyme or your favorite dried herb, tomato tart.

This tomato tart is based on a recipe from Gourmet, but I've adapted it considerably. And you can adapt it further too, simply depending on your mood. Sometimes I dot the top with pitted olives and/or goat cheese; sometimes I use Gruyere instead of Monterey Jack; sometimes I add a smashed clove of garlic to the onions while they cook. Regardless of the variations tried, the flavor of the tomatoes concentrates and sweetens in the oven, and marries beautifully with the caramelized onions.

Make sure to serve the tart warm (reheat in the microwave or oven if necessary); it's really best that way. The basic recipe follows. Enjoy...with the New York Times or without!

Beginning-of-Summer Tomato Tart

Adapted from Gourmet, May 1995

Serves 6-8 as an appetizer

Time: 30 min active, 90 minutes total

For the pastry dough:

1 c. flour

1 t. salt

1 t. dried thyme, herbes de provence, or another savory herb

5 T. cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

3 to 5 T. ice water

For the filling:

1 T. olive oil

2 small onions

1/2 lb. Monterey Jack cheese, grated

3 medium tomatoes, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds

1/2 t. dried thyme

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 425. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, salt, and thyme. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry blender, two knives, or your fingers until the texture is that of coarse breadcrumbs. Mix in just enough ice water for the dough to form a mass, and turn onto a lightly floured board. Use the heel of your hand to push the dough away from you on the board to blend the butter and flour together; repeat 2-3 times. Roll the dough out to a 12 to 13-inch circle and place dough in a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Fold excess dough over the edge to make the crust, and prick the bottom with a fork several times. Chill the dough for 10 minutes in the freezer, or overnight in the refrigerator. Then place a sheet of parchment covered with dried beans or pie weights inside the tart and bake for 12 to 15 minutes until edges just begin to brown. Remove parchment and pie weights, and bake for an additional two to three minutes.

While the crust bakes, heat olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Slice the onions and saute for 10 to 15 minutes until golden, stirring frequently.

After the crust is pre-baked, place the onions evenly over the bottom. Then cover with cheese, and arrange tomatoes in overlapping concentric circles. Sprinkle with thyme, salt, and pepper. Lower oven temperature to 375, and bake until cheese is bubbling, tomatoes are a deep red, and crust is golden, approximately 50 to 60 minutes.

P.S. Thanks to my mom for the inspiration to make tomato tart!

P.P.S. Guest blog from JB should be posted soon.

Red Hot Chile Peppers (2)

Recently I've been thinking about red peppers and jam. Though I wrote about them independently, I had also been thinking about how it would be nice to make a batch of red pepper jam. So, this past Sunday, when I had an unexpected reprieve from inpatient medicine (long story involving low-acuity admissions on our call night and good discharge planning by the interns, ultimately leading to a very short day for me at the hospital), I came home with visions of red peppers dancing in my head. First, I made lunch and read the Sunday New York Times. (Even though reports indicate that all the newspapers are dying, and even though I read the NYT online daily, I adore the smell of newsprint as I open up the pages made out of real paper each weekend. Plus, it's easier to see the photos in the Weddings section compared to the online interface.) Then, I got to work on the jam.

I started by cleaning the jam jars. Actually, let me back up: I started by accumulating a number of jam jars over the years, some purchased from the grocery store and some inherited from my mom via jam-that-has-been-consumed. All the jars have Ball lids. My mom swears that the Kerr lids, though the two companies are now owned by the same conglomerate, are inferior. The Ball lids can be used time after time after time (and mine have been!). Edited to add: After reading this blog post, my mom (an expert canner) wants me to add that she doesn't reuse lids, usually because they are bent from being pried off. The jars and lids can be cleaned in the dishwasher, or with plenty of warm soapy water.

Then, I started coarsely chopping the red bell peppers and serranos so they would be easier to puree. I made a double recipe, and I needed three rounds of blending in my two-quart Cuisinart (the peppers blend a little more easily if you add some of the vinegar to the Cuisinart bowl). Then I combined the pepper puree with the remaining ingredients (sugar and salt) and simmered on the stove for forty-five minutes, stirring infrequently. Jam made without pectin is a very no muss, no fuss process. You can stop here if you plan to consume the jam within the next week or so. However, if you've just made a double recipe, you probably want to save some for later.

The last step (and by far the most intimidating for the novice canner) is processing the jam so that it will keep. And I mean KEEP: for months or even years. I'm envisioning placing a few emergency jars in your earthquake-preparedness larder for a post-disaster gourmet treat. (Hmmm, B and I really should prepare our earthquake kit sometime. We have a cool flashlight that you can power by shaking intermittently, and a hand-crank radio, and water, but no food.) But getting back to the processing: this is not a scary procedure. I will walk you through it.

Once the jam has been made, the next step in ensuring its longevity is to ladle the hot jam into the cleaned jars, wiping any spillage around the edge with a clean cloth; then center the (Ball) lid on top, and tighten the screw-top. Afterwards, I place the jars in my biggest soup pot, which I have filled with enough boiling water to cover the jars, and leave them there, rattling away, for ten minutes. With tongs (preferably the special canning kind), remove the jars from the boiling water and place them on a heatproof surface and wait for the ping as the lid tightens (pressure-volume physics in action!). After a few minutes, check each lid by pressing in the center; if it doesn't spring back, you're ready for an earthquake. If it does, you can try re-processing the jam in the boiling water for ten minutes, but if that doesn't work, like I said above, you should eat the jam within a week or so.

But this whole jam-making process that I've described assumes that you want to make red pepper jam. To the un-indoctrinated, red pepper jam sounds unappetizing, a misnomer; jam is for strawberries and apricots and plums, for breakfast and scones and toast. To the indoctrinated, however, it is the perfect whip-up-at-the-last-minute appetizer. The sweetness of the bell peppers comes through with each bite, but the hot peppers provide a little kick that lingers. The jam is, in my opinion, best served with cream cheese and crackers, though I know R has tried it on toast and B loves it so much that he has tried it on everything from goat cheese (too tangy for this purpose, I think) to ravioli (too weird!). I have heard that M is working on making red pepper jellies for A&K's wedding favors, and they sound like a solid (or semi-solid) version of this jam.

Seeing some of the jam I made over the weekend in the picture below makes my heart swell with a sense of accomplishment. Jam is durable. Ready for an earthquake, a hasty hostess present, an afternoon snack. Enjoy!

Red Pepper Jam

Recipe from my maternal grandmother

Makes about 3 cups (20-24 oz.)

Time: 30 min active, 90 min total

4 red bell peppers, cored and seeded

4 jalapeno or serrano chiles, halved and seeded

2/3 c. white or cider vinegar

1 c. sugar

1 t. salt

Coarsely chop bell peppers. Puree bell peppers, chiles, and vinegar in a Cuisinart or blender. Place mixture in a 3 or 4-quart saucepan along with sugar and salt, and simmer for 45 minutes or until thickened to desirable consistency, stirring occasionally. Process jam for ten minutes.

A little bit of white powder

I'm not going to talk today about the kind of white powder that you ski on. And not the type that some of my patients smoke. (In a similar vein, several years ago when we went to Jackson, WY with J and other B, the TSA woman at SFO did suspect that I was transporting illicits when she searched my luggage and found several Ziplocs filled with white powder. Quite obviously these packages were not illegal. We were going to stay in a condo with a kitchen, and she had simply unearthed my carefully pre-measured and well-labeled scone mixes! Let's just say the look she gave me as I attempted to explain this happenstance suggested that the legality of my bags full of white powder was not immediately obvious to the outside observer.)

No, today I'm going to write about powdered sugar, a delicious white powder. Oh, powdered sugar, how I love thee! You taste deliciously sweet and provide an aesthetically-appealing topping for cakes and cookies.

Sometimes, when I make French toast, first I put powdered sugar, then maple syrup, then some lightly-sugared berries on top; B thinks I could easily cut out the powdered sugar from the sugary mess that I've created, but somehow I just can't do it. The powdered sugar may have a poorly-defined role amidst all the other forms of sweetness, but I still think it's necessary. And besides, my teeth can take it! I didn't get my first cavity until I was 25, and I think it was related more to the fact that I hadn't been to the dentist in two years (one of the dirty secrets of medical training is that the health and dental coverage for tomorrow's physicians is generally abysmal).

Powdered sugar's characteristic of creating attractive toppings is crucial for the success of the hazelnut thumbprint cookies I made yesterday. They're similar in feel to Mexican wedding cookies (I haven't found a good recipe for those bits of powdery goodness yet). The thumbprint cookies are from an easy recipe that I adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking, the final product of which is fancy enough to be served at a tea party, but quick enough to be whipped up for a tea party that you were given late notice for. In fact, I found the recipe one day while flipping the pages looking for a recipe that didn't require chilling for several hours, and this was one of the only ones that fit the bill (I'm often in a rush). Hers in particular look very chichi.

The powdered sugar makes them look completely put-together, like the perfect handbag that manages to finish an entire outfit. The hazelnuts provide crunch and character. And the jam that fills the thumbprint? That's sort of like the maple syrup on top of the French toast, a little bit of bonus sweetness to complement the powdered sugar.

Mine look terribly home-made in comparison (there was a powdered sugar shaker malfunction), but I wasn't taking them to any tea parties; they were just a treat for my somewhat indiscriminate residency colleagues at work. Here they are cooling, before I bundled them up into a Tupperware for the walk to the hospital. They don't look too bad, if you don't compare them directly to the food styling of Dorie's above. Besides, I guarantee that they taste delicious.

Dorie Greenspan's original recipe calls for equal parts hazelnuts and flour, but I prefer the cookies with a little bit more hazelnut. She says you can try other nuts, but the dough I made a few weeks ago using ground almonds with her proportions was so dry that I had to add a few tablespoons of water so that it would stick together enough to be rolled into balls. It's a time-saver to prepare the hazelnuts ahead of time: toast them in the oven for 10 minutes or so at 450 degrees, shaking the pan occasionally, until fragrant and starting to darken; then, while they are still warm, put them inside a dish towel and rub vigorously to try to remove some of the skins (though you needn't be perfect about the skin removal step). The prepared hazelnuts will keep, in a sealed container at room temperature or in the freezer, for months.

As for jam, really any flavor will do. I have used several different jams in these, but what you see above is one of my favorites: apricot-plum. My mother is a big jam-maker who rarely uses the same combination of component fruits twice (each of the 129 place settings at our wedding had, as a party favor, an 8-oz jar filled with some homemade jammy concoction), so I usually have plenty of jam on hand. Who knows what new flavors the coming summer harvest and subsequent fruit-processing will bring! All I know is that I have a new way to enjoy jam and powdered sugar together with these cookies. Maybe offering a thumbprint cookie to that surly TSA officer would have made my trip through security with my bags of white powder a little less painful. Or maybe not. Regardless, enjoy!

Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking

Makes 25-30 cookies

Time 20 min active, 1 hour total

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/4 c. sugar

1/2 t. vanilla extract

1/4 t. almond extract (optional)

1 c. hazelnuts, toasted and with skins partially removed, then finely ground

3/4 c. all-purpose flour

powdered sugar, for dusting

1/2 c. jam, such as apricot-plum

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Beat the butter and sugar together with a hand mixer in a medium bowl, until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Blend in the extracts. Add the hazelnuts and flour and mix until just incorporated. The dough should be dry but able to hold its shape; add a tablespoon or more of flour if it is too wet.

Roll a generous teaspoonful of dough between your palms to form a ball. Place balls at least two inches apart on the baking sheets. Repeat with remaining dough. Then, steadying each ball between your thumb and first two fingers, use the end of a wooden spoon to poke a hole in the center of each cookie.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until very lightly browned, rotating the cookie sheets halfway through. Transfer to a cooling rack and sprinkle powdered sugar (generously, if desired).

Heat jam on the stove or in the microwave until easy to spoon. Fill the indentations with jam. Allow to cool. Cookies will keep for several days with the same texture if tightly sealed.

P.S. Happy birthday, JB!