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Ricardo Zarate's Peruvian Cuisine

Lucky students at ACE, the Academy of Culinary Education in Woodland Hills. They got to watch Peruvian chef Ricardo Zarate reveal just what makes his dishes so fabulous.

Cecilia de Castro, who heads ACE, snagged Zarate for a demo, which drew not just students but chefs and media fans who have followed Zarate since he arrived in Los Angeles in 2009. 

Starting with Mo-Chica in the Mercado La Paloma in downtown Los Angeles, Zarate opened a string of restaurants. The latest is Rosaliné in West Hollywood, a modern Peruvian bistro named for his mother.

You can also taste his food at Los Balcones in Studio City, where he consulted on the menu. He is also in Las Vegas and will open in New York. 

Energetic and loaded with enthusiasm, Zarate explained Peruvian ingredients including aji amarillo, panca pepper paste and aji limo. Aji, the word for chile in Peru, comes from the Quechua language, he said. 

And he told how quinoa, cultivated for centuries in Peru, was once scorned as food for poor people. Now it's trendy and valued for its healthful properties. 

The ceviche that he showed the students is nothing like Mexican ceviche. In Peru, ceviche is raw fish with sauce on top, Zarate said. The sauce is punchy, powerful leche de tigre, (tiger's milk), a mix of vegetables, lime juice and raw fish. 

Working quickly, Zarate pureed the sauce in a blender, adding ice to dilute the lime juice because it's spicier here than in Peru, he explained.

He then laid slices of yellowtail on a plate, topping each slice with a dab of garlic paste and a few drops of smoking hot sesame and olive oils. Next he added leche de tigre, then  finished the ceviche with crisp fried quinoa and micro greens. 

"Don't get me wrong, but it's the best," he said.

The other dish Zarate demonstrated was quinotto, which is quinoa influenced by risotto, a signature dish for him since Mo-Chica. The stock for this is made with vegetables and dried shiitake mushrooms.

Other quinotto components are butter, sour cream, white truffle oil, Parmesan, a mother sauce called aji aderezo and, for garnish, crispy quinoa and sautéed mushrooms. 

Peruvian cuisine is a lively mix of contributions from the Incas, Spain, Italy, China and Japan. Zarate's own cooking, and that of most Peruvian restaurants in the United States, is Japanese-influenced, he said. You can learn more from his book, "The Fire of Peru: Recipes and Stories from My Peruvian Kitchen."

This is the recipe for leche de tigre as it appears in the book:

LECHE DE TIGRE
Tiger's Milk
From "The Fire of Peru"

2 tablespoons roughly chopped firm white-fleshed fish, such as corvina, paiche, striped bass, yellowtail or halibut.
1 large or 2 small cloves garlic, quartered
1 (1/2-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1/4 large stalk celery (tender top end), thinly sliced, plus a few leaves, if you have them.
2 tablespoons roughly chopped red onion hearts (the cores) or red onions
3/4 cup fresh lime juice (from about 6 limes)
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
About 5 small ice cubes

In a blender, combine the fish, garlic, ginger, celery, onions and a few tablespoons of the lime juice and puree until the ingredients are well combined.

With the blender running, add the salt, then very slowly pour in the remaining lime juice so the sauce emulsifies.With the blender still running, add the ice cubes a few at a time until the sauce is smooth and frothy. 

Use immediately, or refrigerate up to 1 hour, or 2 hours if you really insist.

Makes about 1 cup. 

A Look at the New Joy of Cooking

If I wanted a recipe for India's gobi Manchurian, Korean kimchi jjigae, Mexican goat birria or Thai massaman curry, where would I look? 

In the same place that I would find banana bread, pancakes, meatloaf and chicken noodle soup--the brand new edition of "Joy of Cooking."

This massive book, loaded with more than 4,000 recipes, has gone heavily into ethnic foods to reflect the way Americans cook today. New immigration has changed the population, introducing dishes not known when the first "Joy" appeared in 1931.

If Irma S. Rombauer, who self-published that initial book, were alive now, this is the sort of book she would write, tailored to the needs and interests of contemporary home cooks. 

The 2019 revision was produced by her great grandson, John Becker, and his wife, Megan Scott (above). On the book cover and title page, their names follow those who built "Joy" into an American classic--Rombauer, her daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker, Marion's son and John's father. 

The index to my 1943 edition of "Joy" is 60 pages long. I thought that was impressive until I counted the index pages in the 2019 edition. There are 76, because this book covers everything you can think of, all types of food preparation, basic recipes, new ingredients unknown to Rombauer, new equipment and techniques such as sous vide.

The canned soups that she introduced in 1943 are gone, except for timeless oldies such as the green bean casserole made with canned cream of mushroom soup and canned fried onions and the tomato soup cake, also known as "mystery cake." 

The index lists 93 Rombauer classics that have been in "Joy" since 1936. Like the chocolate cake known as the "Rombauer Special" (above), they've been tweaked and revised to bring them up to date. 

You could, for example, substitute homemade creamed mushrooms and crispy fried shallots for the canned soup and canned onions in the green bean casserole. 

When Becker and Scott presented recipes from the book at Melissa's Produce, they included just one of the classics, beef pot roast (above). This, too, has been revised (the salt pork and bacon suggested for larding in my book have been dropped, along with other changes).

Instead, they showed new dishes such as the Syrian red pepper and walnut dip muhammara (above). In the book it is made with fresh red bell peppers. For the lunch, Melissa's chefs substituted jarred fire-roasted red peppers, an ingredient that Rombauer might have used if it had been available.  

Alongside the dip were olive oil flatbread crackers (above), laced with pepitas.

Rachel's kale and lentil salad (above) contained radicchio and hazelnuts. For the lunch it was made with boxed steamed lentils, another product not known to Rombauer. Following the book, you would cook the lentils from scratch, the way she did.    

Roasted cauliflower soup (above) was simple and comforting.

The ease of making the mushroom ragout shown above would have appealed to Rombauer. "She wanted to be a friend in the kitchen to her reader," Megan Scott said. "Her biggest goal--was to get out of the kitchen as soon as possible."

A new style dessert was yogurt and honey panna cotta (above), topped with fruit sauce. 

Scott then showed how to make an olive oil cake (above), an "incredibly quick, easy recipe," she said. This too would have pleased Rombauer. "She loved baking cakes," Becker said. 

Here, he kibbitzes as Scott pours the cake batter into a baking pan.

Producing the revision took years of "incredibly hard work," he said. The goal was to "make everything better." 

The result is a new "Joy" that still speaks with the voice of the family. It doesn't cover every base (I didn't find any Filipino recipes), but it's so exhaustive that it you had only one cookbook in your kitchen, this should be it.  

Home Cooking at Hightower Cellars

You've moved to a new area, and you have to entertain visitors. The problem is, where you live is so isolated there aren't any restaurants to help out.

So what do you do? You cook for guests yourself. 

This is the way it was in 2002, when winemakers Tim and Kelly Hightower, at the top, moved their wine-making operation from Woodinville, Washington, to Red Mountain, a small AVA in southeastern Washington known for powerful red wines.

The Hightowers chose that area because they wanted to use only Red Mountain grapes. It was a wonderful treat to taste what they are producing along with lunch in the tasting room.  

Here, Tim Hightower is opening the wines for lunch. 

First up was the 2018 Murray Syrah Rosé.

It's a lovely dry Rosé, paired with a beautiful vineyard view. 

Then guests helped themselves to crispy chickpeas and lamb with greens and garlicky yogurt sauce.

The recipe is from a book the Hightowers rely on, "Dining In" by Alison Roman.  

Here's a snippet of the recipe. Search online for more detailed versions of this dish.

First, guests sampled cheeses.

Along with bread based on a starter made from the natural yeast on wine grapes by Leslie Mackie of Macrina Bakery in Seattle. 

With the main course came the Murray Cabernet Sauvignon 2017, 78% Cabernet blended with Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot.

Next, the 2015 Hightower Merlot, which blends 91% Merlot with 9% Cabernet Sauvignon.

This is the richest Hightower red, the 2015 Reserve, which is 86% Cabernet Sauvignon and 14% Malbec, aged in 90% new oak. 

Then came dessert, chocolates from Fran's in Seattle, which is famous for its salted caramels.

After dessert, visitors toured the wine-making facilities. The Hightowers now have 12 acres under vines, half of that devoted to Cabernet Sauvignon, followed by Merlot, Cabernet Franc and others.

Their red wines are unfined, unfiltered and aged in oak for 18 to 20 months. In 2018, they made 4,000 cases.  

And to think that Hightower Cellars, its winery, vineyards and the Hightower home were once only an alfalfa field. This shows what vision can achieve.

Taralli--Sicily's Irresistible Cookies

It's impossible to stop eating these adorable Sicilian cookies, called taralli. That's why it's important to learn to make them yourself, and you can get the recipe here. 

The source is Fabrizia Lanza (above) of the famed Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School at Case Vecchie in Sicily.

If you want to immerse yourself in genuine farm-to-table Italian food on a magnificent estate, this is the place. You'll use ingredients raised there and also taste the wines of the Tasca d'Almerita winery, founded on the property by Lanza's maternal grandfather, Giuseppe Tasca.

The taralli recipe is in her cookbook, "Coming Home to Sicily," subtitled "Seasonal Harvest and Cooking from Case Vecchie." More than a pleasing treat, these lemony knotted cookies represent the homestyle, artisanal, generations-old ways of cooking in Sicily that Lanza imparts in her school.

"These are very traditional biscuits that a household might make every month," she said, as she showed the procedure during an appearance at Melissa's Produce.

The dough requires an ingredient that many home bakers may not have heard of, food grade ammonium carbonate, which is also known as baker's ammonia and hartshorn salt. This powder attracts water particles, dries dough and makes crunchiness, Lanza explained. 

Ammonium carbonate may not be familiar in the United States, but it's widely used elsewhere. My Danish aunt used it in cookies. And I bought it in India after attending a baking class in Chennai.

However, you don't have to go that far to get it, because it's available through Amazon. And you can use baking soda instead, Lanza said, although it doesn't produce the same effect. Still, the cookies at Melissa's (above) were irresistible. 

The recipe also requires lard. "This was the fat used in cooking in the old days," Lanza said. Here, she's forming the dough into ropes that she will cut and twist into the cookies.

"Coming Home to Sicily," written with Kate Winslow, is full of delightful recipes such as this. Lanza "came home" to Sicily after years in northern Italy as an art historian and museum curator. The reason was to help her mother, Anna Tasca Lanza (above) with the cooking school that she had founded in 1989. Lanza now operates the school herself.

An idealist who wants local farmers, cheese-makers and others to feel the importance of their work, she emphasizes that Case Vecchie (above) is not just about recipes. It's about "examining something that is real and we want to keep alive," she said. Toward that goal, she founded the Food Heritage Foundation this year.

And she is producing food-related documentaries. The first was "Amuri" (love). The next will be "Amaro" (bitter). "The documentaries are a manifesto of the complexity I see behind food," she said.

Aristocratic and accomplished, Lanza is modest about her achievements. Her mother "was just a home cook like I am, by the way," she said. But this is the kind of food she promotes, natural, homestyle and made with an appreciation of what went into producing the ingredients.

TARALLI
From "Coming Home to Sicily" by Fabrizia Lanza

4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup lard
2 tablespoons powdered ammonium bicarbonate, also called hartshorn
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
Pinch of fine sea salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup whole milk, lukewarm
2 cups powdered sugar
Juice of 1 to 2 lemons

Mix the flour and granulated sugar together on a work surface. With your hands, work in the lard, ammonium bicarbonate, lemon zest and salt. Make a well in the center and start working in the eggs and then the milk, bit by bit, with your hands, just until the mixture comes together into a very soft dough (you may not need to use all the milk). Knead the dough vigorously; it is done when the dough pulls off your fingers easily but is still sticky.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

On a lightly floured surface, roll a piece of dough into a 1/2-inch-thick rope; cut crosswise into 5-inch lengths. Shape each length of dough into a looped knot and place on the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the powdered sugar and enough lemon juice to achieve a glaze consistency.

Dip the top of each cookie in the icing and transfer to a rack to cool.

Makes about 4 dozen.

Decadent Desserts to Make Yourself

Now that it's spring, you simply must make Eton Mess--especially the version of this old English dessert that's in "Decadent Fruit Desserts" by Jackie Bruchez.

Bruchez (above), known for her blog The Seaside Baker, adds her own touch by combining rhubarb with the traditional strawberries.

Her mess isn't a mess but a beautiful layered concoction of berries and rhubarb, whipped cream and meringue (in the photo at the top). It was a favorite when Bruchez presented a buffet of desserts from the book at Melissa's Produce.

Others were a fresh raspberry-lime cake

A flower-bedecked Meyer Lemon chiffon cake

No-bake mini cheesecakes, topped here with blackberries.

Blackberry custard bars.

And oatmeal cookies with blueberries and white chocolate chips.

Bruchez's way with sweets is so noteworthy that "Decadent Fruit Desserts" (Page Street Publishing Co.) is the first all-dessert book to be presented at Melissa's, which regularly showcases top cookbooks and their authors.

This is her first book. It's handsomely illustrated, with a photo for each recipe--Bruchez did these herself. And it's user friendly, with baker's tips added to each recipe, all of them clearly explained for the home cook. 

The desserts are rich stuff. "I use a lot of butter," she said at her book-signing at Melissa's. And "cream is like a magic ingredient." Rather than insisting on butter all the time, she'll use shortening if necessary. For example, she adds shortening to the butter in her blueberry-white chocolate oatmeal cookies to keep them from spreading out as they bake.  

Creaming butter and sugar is her therapy, Bruchez said. So keep this therapeutical benefit in mind when indulging in her luscious desserts. Once you see them in the book, you'll want to make them all. 

STRAWBERRY-RHUBARB ETON MESS
From "Decadent Fruit Desserts" by Jackie Bruchez

1 cup rhubarb, diced
1 1/2 cups sliced strawberries, divided
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream, cold
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 small meringue cookies, broken into small pieces
4 strawberries, sliced, for garnish, optional
4 sprigs of mint for garnish, optional

In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the rhubarb, 1 cup of the strawberries, sugar and lemon juice. Simmer the mixture for about 5 minutes, or until the rhubarb is soft and the strawberries have melted into a syrupy mixture. Remove it from the heat, stir in the remaining 1/2 cup of the strawberries and cool it completely, then refrigerate it until cold, about 1 to 2 hours.

When you're ready to serve, beat the whipping cream and vanilla until stiff peaks form. Dollop a spoonful of the whipped cream into four decorative serving glasses or jars. Sprinkle a few meringue pieces over each glass, then top them with a layer of strawberry-rhubarb compote. Repeat the layers until the glasses are full. Garnish them with fresh strawberry slices and mint leaves, if desired.

Makes 4 servings. 

Irish Soda Bread: A Treat for Any Day

St. Patrick's Day comes only once a year, but you can enjoy Irish soda bread any day, if you make your own.

This version is sweet, brightly flavored with caraway seeds and packed with currants. It's from a book I wrote called "Good Bread." 

The steps are simple. Mix everything, then turn the dough out onto a board and knead it until well combined. 

Next, set the loaf in a large pie pan or on a baking sheet, then cut a cross in the top with a sharp knife.

There's no rising time, because this is a quick bread, leavened with soda and baking powder, not yeast. So you can put it in the oven right away. 

Here's how the loaf looks after it has baked for an hour or so. 

After it cools in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes, you turn it out onto the rack for further cooling.

Then comes the great moment when you can cut into it. 

Here is how I like to eat the bread, with eggs for breakfast. In my opinion, it's best sliced thin and toasted. But you can cut thick slices, if you prefer.  

I've varied the recipe from time to time, such as replacing a small amount of all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour and adding raisins when I didn't have enough currants.

I've made my own buttermilk too when I didn't have time to go to the store. It's easy, all you do is add lemon juice to whole milk, about a tablespoon per cup of milk.

I hope you enjoy the bread as much as I do.

IRISH SODA BREAD
From "Good Bread" by Barbara Hansen

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons caraway seeds
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 cups currants

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Combine the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and cream thoroughly. Beat in the egg until well blended. Mix in the caraway seeds.

Save out 1/4 cup of the flour for kneading the bread. Combine the remaining flour, salt, baking powder and soda and add to the egg mixture alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. 

Lastly, add the currants and work them in with your hands. The dough will be very sticky at this point. Turn it out onto the reserved flour on a work surface--I use a large board.  Knead about 1 minute, or until thoroughly blended, adding a small amount of additional flour if too sticky. The dough should not be dry, however.

Form the dough into a round loaf and place it in a well-greased 10-inch pie pan or on a greased baking sheet. With a sharp knife, cut a slash across the top of the bread in one direction, then a slash at right angles, forming a cross.

Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Place it in the pie pan on a rack to cool for 10 minutes, or let it stand on the baking sheet. Then turn it out onto the rack to cool completely.

Makes 1 loaf.   

How to Feed the Family in Minutes

Here's a new recipe for mac and cheese that you'll love, and not just because it's flavor-packed.

The big advantage is that it's so easy to make, all in one skillet without any need to pre-cook the macaroni.

The recipe is from "One Pan, Whole Family" (Chronicle Books) by Carla Snyder. This is a successor to an earlier book, "One Pan, Two Plates," which also aims at fast and practical cooking. 

This time, Snyder (above) tells how to cook in a single pan a meal that will serve an entire family--and in 45 minutes or less.

Her Cheesy Mac (photo at the top and recipe below) takes 45 minutes, from the chopping and sautéing to the finished dish.  

This Thai steak salad takes only 30 minutes. Just 20 of these are hands-on work. 

Deviled roast chicken with bacon and Brussels sprouts hash is done in 45 minutes.

Cheesy angel hair pasta requires only 30 minutes of your time. Again, the pasta cooks in the pan with the rest of the ingredients. Snyder suggests using fresh pasta for ultimate speed, but the recipe can be adapted to dried by adding a little more liquid and increasing the cooking time slightly.

This big dish of curry roasted carrots and lentils with orange-yogurt sauce is a complete vegetarian meal, done in 30 minutes.

And for a salad, try this combination of roasted beets with oranges, goat cheese and walnuts, a 45-minute effort.

Each recipe is tabbed at the top with the amount of cooking time, hands-on work and number of servings. Each comes with suggested add-ons for adult taste buds and for extra-hungry kids.

Each also includes a beverage recommendation, from wines and beers to non-alcoholic drinks for youngsters. For the Cheesy Mac, she suggests an off-dry Riesling or a cocktail of carrot juice, pineapple juice and sparkling water.

Snyder presented these dishes at Melissa's Produce, where she signed books and did a cooking demo. Above, she's making the Thai steak salad.

For more about her work, her other books and recipes, go to her website, ravenous kitchen.com

CHEESY MAC WITH SPINACH AND HAM
From "One Pan, Whole Family" by Carla Snyder

1 onion
1 1/4 cups milk
1 cup half-and-half
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons unsalted butter plus 1 tablespoon melted
5 ounces baby spinach
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
8 ounces Cheddar or Jarlsburg cheese, shredded
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
10 ounces elbow macaroni (about 2 cups)
4 ounces chopped ham
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

On a large cutting board, mince the onion. Combine the milk, half-and-half and mustard in a measuring cup and set aside.

Heat a 12-inch ovenproof skillet over medium high heat and add 4 tablespoons butter. When the butter melts, add the onion and saute until it softens, about 2 minutes, then add the spinach, 1/2 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of pepper. Saute until the spinach wilts, about 1 minute.

Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring, then stir in the milk mixture, stirring constantly.  Be sure to scrape up any flour stuck on the bottom of the pan. Continue to stir until the sauce thickens, about 2 minutes, and then stir in the cheese.

Continue to stir until the cheese melts and then stir in the broth, macaroni and ham. Make sure the pasta is submerged in the liquid, pressing it down. Cover the pan with an ovenproof lid and bake until the pasta is tender, about 20 minutes. 

While the pasta bakes, stir together the panko and remaining 1 tablespoon melted butter with a fork. Remove the lid and sprinkle the panko topping over the pasta. Switch the oven setting to broil. Return the pan to the second highest rack, and broil until the topping is browned, 1 to 2 minutes. 

Serve the mac and cheese directly from the pan at the table so that it stays good and hot. 

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

A Cheesy Book with Yummy Recipes

"A Little Book of Cheese" may be little, even tiny, but it's big in good food, like a recipe for shells stuffed with mozzarella, ricotta and Parmesan, plus broccoli and pine nuts, which you'll find below.

The author is Chef Debbi Dubbs (above), who really knows her cheeses and food. Dubbs has worked extensively in catering, teaching, product presentations, restaurant management and other aspects of the food world. She also leads culinary tours and has been a corporate chef for Melissa's Produce, where she presented her brand new cheese book. 

The stuffed shells (above) got a lot of raves at Melissa's.

So did Dubbs' chicken parmigiana (above).

And her apple pecan salad with goat cheese

And an Italian chopped salad with baby mozzarella balls. 

This mixed bean minestrone is sprinkled at serving time with Parmigiano Reggiano.

Three cheeses--Gruyere, fontina and Parmesan--are stuffed into fondue palmiers.

The desserts in the book include chocolate-strawberry yogurt parfaits. Dubbs counts yogurt as cheese and tells how to make it as well as how to make your own mozzarella, cottage cheese, cream cheese, ricotta and others.

There's a lot of information in such a little book, including how to buy and store cheese, types of cheese and how to create your own cheese board--above is the one she made at Melissa's--followed by 25 recipes. 

To learn more about Chef Dubbs, go to her website, www.debskitchen.com. "A Little Book of Cheese" can be ordered through Amazon.

CHEESY STUFFED SHELLS
From "A Little Book of Cheese" by Chef Debbi Dubbs

1 (12-ounce) box pasta shells
8 ounces mozzarella cheese, grated
2 cups ricotta cheese (15 ounces)
1/4 pound Parmesan cheese, grated, plus extra for the top
Salt, pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup broccoli, cooked and chopped
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
1 (24-ounce) jar marinara sauce

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook the shells in boiling salted water until al dente. Drain them and run under cold water to keep them from sticking to each other.

Add mozzarella, ricotta and Parmesan cheese to a large bowl and mix together. Add a little salt and pepper, then add the eggs and mix until well blended. Fold in the broccoli and pine nuts carefully.

Spread half the marinara sauce over the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking pan. Gently stuff the shells with the cheese mixture and place in the pan, nestllng the shells together. Top with the remaining sauce and sprinkle with a little more Parmesan cheese.

Cover with foil and bake about 45 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Remove the foil for the last 10 minutes of cooking to brown slightly. 

Makes about 6 servings. 

Strawberry Shrub--It's Easy to Make

"Fruit" may be a small book, but it's a gem, with uncommon recipes you'll really love. 

One of these is Strawberry Shrub, an old-time drink that was a way to preserve fruit in the days before refrigeration. It's made with a vinegar-based syrup that you add to water, lemonade, cocktails or other drinks. 

The flavor is sweet, tangy and absolutely delicious. I tasted it at Melissa's Produce, where author Nancy McDermott (above) appeared to talk about the book and demonstrate some of the recipes, including the shrub.  

"It's one of the easiest recipes in the book," she said.  All you do is marinate strawberries in vinegar, then drain off the vinegar and cook it with sugar, making a syrup that will keep for months in the refrigerator. 

"Fruit" is a "Savor the South" cookbook from the University of North Carolina Press in Chapel Hill, where McDermott lives. Each book in this series focuses on a single southern food or on traditions such as Sunday dinner and southern holidays.

This one is McDermott's 14th book. Topics for her others range from Thai food, Chinese cooking and stir-fries to southern cakes, pies, soups and stews.

The 12 fruits in the book include mayhaws, wild persimmons, damson plums, pawpaws and muscadine and scuppernong grapes, which might be hard to find outside the region.

More widespread are blackberries, cantaloupe, quince, strawberries, figs, watermelon and peaches.  

This salad of arugula with persimmons and shaved Parmesan didn't make it into the book but was added to round out lunch at Melissa's. If you would like the recipe, click here to get it. It's on McDermott's website, Nancie's Table. 

McDermott's stint in Thailand with the Peace Corps inspired this pineapple and watermelon salad, as at home in the sultry South as in steamy Southeast Asia.

McDermott suggested hot pepper jelly as a replacement for the mayhaw jelly with which she sweetens this stir-fry of shrimp and zucchini. 

If you want an easy dessert, the answer is blackberry roly poly, descended from a centuries-old British dessert. You scatter a few blackberries over sweet biscuit dough, roll this up and bake it, then serve with blackberry sauce and vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

At Melissa's, the whipped cream was sweetened with another quintessential southern product, sorghum, which came to the South with West African slaves, McDermott said. 

Here is the recipe for the shrub, which McDermott serves over ice and dilutes with water.

For traditional flavor, It's essential to use apple cider vinegar, she said, because that is what her grandmother would have had access to.  

STRAWBERRY SHRUB
From "Fruit" by Nancie McDermott

3 cups apple cider vinegar
3 cups trimmed and quartered fresh or frozen strawberries
3 cups sugar

Prepare a large sterilized glass jar with tight-fitting lid.

In a medium saucepan, heat the vinegar until it is just about to break into a bubbling boil and remove it from the heat. Place the strawberries in the prepared jar and pour the vinegar over them, making sure they are covered by an inch of vinegar. 

Let cool to room temperature and then cover tightly. Set aside in a cool, dark place for 24-48 hours (be sure the jar is not exposed to heat or light).

Strain the vinegar into a medium saucepan and discard the solids. Add the sugar to the vinegar and bring to a rolling boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. As soon as the sugar is dissolved, remove the pan from heat and let the shrub cool to room temperature.

Pour the shrub into a clean, sterilized jar and cover tightly. Store in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.

Makes about 3 cups.

Everyday Dishes from Dorie Greenspan

Thanks, Dorie, for another fantastic cookie recipe. 

Dorie is Dorie Greenspan, celebrated food writer, baking authority, New York Times dessert columnist, five-time James Beard Award winner and much more.

Greenspan's  cookbook "Dorie's Cookies," published in 2016, is a gem. But the chocolate chip cookies that I'm talking about (they're in the photo at the top) didn't come from there.

The recipe is in the dessert chapter of her latest book, "Everyday Dorie," which is about what she cooks at home. This could be in Paris, where she spends time every year, or her two hometowns, New York and rural Connecticut.

And it's going to have wide appeal, because it's about easy, comfortable cooking, based on what she can find in the supermarket or fridge, and with plenty of tolerance for substitutions.

"The cooking here is basic and really practical," Greenspan said during an appearance at Melissa's Produce. "I have only one rule: You must have dessert."

And that's how cookies  got into the book. "I always have another idea about what would make a good cookie," she said. In the case of the chocolate chip cookies, it's oats. "They're not there to be seen or to be tasted. They're there for texture," she said.

But there's more to rave about in this book, such as stuffed cabbage rolls, the best I've ever tasted. The photo above doesn't do them justice. They're hidden under the veggies on top.

Another winner is her maple-syrup-and-mustard brussels sprouts (above), drizzled generously with crisp bacon, which was served on the side at Melissa's.

"The technique is so simple," Greenspan said. The sprouts are steamed with garlic and shallot, then seared and finally glazed with a mixture of maple syrup and Dijon mustard.


Greenspan says she'll probably make the sprouts for Thanksgiving. Sweet and smoky roasted carrots (above) may also be on the table. The smokiness comes from smoked paprika and the sweetness from a spiced syrup that coats the carrots as they roast and is also stirred into Greek yogurt to make a sauce.

For Thanksgiving, "it's nice to have something that 'pops' in each dish, because there are so many dishes on the table," she said.

Greenspan also likes adding a "surprise" to a dish, as in these stuffed eggs, an idea from a wine bar in Paris. They actually contain two surprises, crab meat and finely diced Granny Smith apple and were a big hit at the tasting of Greenspan's recipes at Melissa's.  

Similarly, she puts chickpeas and raisins in cauliflower tabbouleh (above) and suggests other additions in the book. 

Greenspan also likes audience participation, meaning a dish that guests dress up to taste at the table. This is the way she presents tortilla soup (above). "It's impossible not to have a good time when you are passing things at the table," she said.

There was still more to taste at Melissa's, like marinated, pan-seared steak and what Greenspan calls "ricotta spoonable," a seasoned ricotta mixture that can be an appetizer on crisp bread (above), a topping for vegetables or an addition to pasta.

"Everyday Dorie" is Greenspan's 13th book, and there will be more. "I'll see you in four years," she said at the end of her appearance, meaning book 14, which will focus on savory baking, should be ready by then.

CHEWY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Slightly abridged from "Everyday Dorie" by Dorie Greenspan

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats (not instant)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
1/2 to 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon fleur de sel or 3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 sticks (14 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and still warm
3/4 pound semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped into irregular bits

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat it to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

Whisk together the flour, oats and baking soda.

Working in a large bowl with a flexible spatula, stir together both sugars the salt and cinnamon, if using. Drop in the eggs one at a time and beat with the spatula to blend, then stir in the vanilla.

Pour in the melted butter in 2 or 3 additions and stir until you have a smooth, shiny mixture. Add the flour and oats all at once and stir gently until almost incorporated.

Add the chocolate bits and stir until the dry ingredients are fully blended into the dough. 

Portion out the dough using a cookie scoop with a capacity of 1 1/2 tablespoons or use rounded tablespoons of dough and place about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the sheets from front to back and top to bottom, until the cookies are golden and somewhat firm around the edges but still soft in the center. 

Remove the baking sheets from the oven. Let the cookies rest on the baking sheets for about 3 minutes before carefully transferring them to racks to cool to just warm or room temperature. If there wasn't room for all the cookies on the two baking sheets, bake the remainder, always using a cool baking sheet.

Makes about 35 cookies.