I Like You (Hospitality Under the Influence), by Amy Sedaris - Cookbook Review with Recipe for Greek Koulourakia Cookies

Koulourakis (Greek cookies with cardamom)

For those of you who aren't familiar with her work (most famously Strangers With Candy), Amy Sedaris is crazy. Bug f'ing nuts. Mad as a hatter.

"I can't write good, but I can cook even better" - Amy Sedaris

While most of us who came of age in the late 60's and early 70's raced away from the aesthetics and values of that time, Ms. Sedaris wholeheartedly embraces them. Her genius is that while she adores the avocado-colored wallpaper and ham salads, she really thrives on the dark side of that era - overwhelming social pressure to be a perfect housewife, with the bottles of white Zinfandel under the kitchen sink and mother's little helper in the medicine cabinet.

Munchies:
- Toasted frozen waffles with ice cream between them
- Mozzarella sticks dipped in Cool Whip
- Crushed pretzels with cream cheese on toast

Your first impression of I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence might be that it is a joke cookbook. Nearly every page is festooned with hilarious photos of food and entertaining, as if Life Magazine from 1968 ran a special issue with the entire art department either drunk or made up of 7 year olds, or both.

But there is more here than meets the eye. Virtually every one of the hundreds of recipes in the book are legitimate, edible, and often delicious. This is especially the case for Greek recipes, which is the Sedaris family heritage. Who wouldn't like Arty Sarayiote's Koulouraki (Greek Cookie Twists), or spaghetti with thick Greek yogurt, pine nuts and Kefalotiri cheese, not to mention cocktails like the Salty Dog (vodka and grapefruit juice with a salted rim).

"I recently stabbed myself in the nose with a 3-in-1 tool and I didn't have an ice bag. I was forced to quickly create one by filling a dish towel with ice, cutting up a pair of pantyhose, and tying together the loose ends to secure the ice on my face, bandit style. The one plus of my makeshift ice bag was that because it was fastened to my face, I could walk around with it and finish my scraping."

After introductory remarks on the art of hospitality, the book is divided into short chapters based on different entertainment scenarios (Entertaining The Elderly, Ladies' Night, Lumberjack Brunch and so on). Amidst the hilarious headnotes you will find very practical advice, like this handy chart of guest combinations to avoid:

• astrologer and astronomer
• director and out-of-work actor
• fraternity brother and anyone else

And let's not forget the bonus chapter, where she demonstrates in great photographic detail how to put on pantyhose.

So should you buy this book, for yourself or as a gift? I'd say so if you can answer yes to any of the following questions:

1. You already think Amy Sedaris or her brother David are hilarious.
2. You grew up in the 1960s or 70s, or have an unnatural fascination with them.
3. You love kitschy American food.
4. You have "gone straight" and are pretending to be an upstanding member of suburbia, but actually long for the days of getting stoned in the shag-carpet and wood-paneled basement.

Here is the recipe for the Greek koulourakia cookies, which are quite delicious. They are similar to the biscocos that my family makes, but a bit fluffier and with a hit of cardamom. Reminiscent of a sable cookie. Very nice with a cup of coffee. I've added a few italicized notes to the recipe.

Arty Sarayiote's Koulourakia (Greek Cookie Twists)
From I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, by Amy Sedaris

• 1 lb. sweet butter
• 1 to 1.5 cups sugar
• 2 eggs, separated
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom [ed: well worth grinding your own in a mortar and pestle; can use 1/2 teaspoon if you like cardamom a lot]
• 6 to 7 cups flour [ed: I'd go for the 7 and use half pastry flour to keep them tender]
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 pint heavy cream
• sesame seeds

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, vanilla, cardamom.
3. Sift flour and baking soda together. Add to the butter and sugar mixture, along with the cream and mix well.
4. Shape by taking a tablespoon or two of dough and rolling into 7" ropes. Fold the rope in half and twist together. [ed note: if the dough is too sticky, put it in the refrigerator four 30 minutes or so before shaping]
5. Place the koulourakia on a foil-lined cookie sheet, brush with egg whites, top with sesame seeds, and bake 25 minutes or until light brown. [ed: light brown for a cakier cookie, dark brown for crunchier; I'd use a silpat, not foil]
   

Cooking By Hand, by Paul Bertolli - Cookbook Review

Have you ever been at a party and started talking about, say, your new-found appreciation of painting, only to find out that the conversation partner who has been politely humoring you is the curator of the Met? That's a little bit how I felt reading Paul Bertolli's Cooking by Hand, which I learned about from my friend, chef Paul Redman.

While I'm peeling a few desultory cherry tomatoes, he's developing relationships with farmers so that he can hold a week-long heirloom festival with 200 varieties, and then selecting the best to create a 12-course tasting menu. While I'm investing in one little bottle of aged balsamic, he's got a set of six casks in his attic, made by his friend the barrel maker, in which he's producing vinegar for his newborn son to enjoy when he's grown.

Now I don't mean this in a bad way at all! I'm envious as all get out. I'm hoping the time will come when I have time and energy to dive this deep. In the meantime, his books make enjoyable reading and can serve as the source for an occasional project on a rainy Sunday. In an age when the vast majority of cookbooks tout five-minute meals, Bertolli's motto is "Good Cooking is Trouble". As my wife can readily attest, when it comes to the kitchen, sometimes I'm looking to start a little trouble.

Bertolli was chef de cuisine at Chez Panisse during the years when that restaurant was defining California cuisine and seasonal cooking, and proceeded to open the very highly regarded Oliveto in Oakland. Perhaps more than Alice Waters herself, his writing explicates the philosophy of that revolution.

Cooking By Hand isn't divided into the usual appetizers, entrees, desserts, nor in the modern way, by season. Each section is devoted to a particular ingredient (pasta, balsamic, tomatoes), or a philosophical approach (planning a menu backwards from dessert, revisiting classic dishes).

The fresh pasta chapter was particularly enlightening. Typical books tell you to put some all-purpose flour in a bowl, make a well, add egg or yolks, stir it in, knead, roll, cut, boil and eat. Which is totally great advice if you have enough practice with each of those steps to know how each variable will affect the results. Bertolli walks you through every aspect, helping you understand when you would use semolina or farro flour, eggs or just water, and make the dough wet or dry, thick or thin... and what sauces and condiments each would naturally pair with. Amazing stuff.

In my next post, I'll show you pumpkin ravioli I made using his instructions. And in the meantime, here's the book on Amazon if you'd like a copy.

[ps. to my vegetarian pals: this book has a couple chapters and lots of recipes that are just utterly meaty. Don't let that stop you from getting it though. It really is one of the most remarkable cookbooks I've ever read.]

The Flavor Bible, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg - Book Review

Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, authors of The Flavor Bible

Thanks to Keren (the Frantic Foodie), I recently had the opportunity to join a little blogger's coffee klatsch with Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, authors of the indispensable tomes Culinary Artistry, What to Drink with What You Eat, and most recently, The Flavor Bible. They were in Seattle to promote their new book and catch up on the ever-changing food landscape in our fair city.

If you look on any professional chef's bookshelf, chances are that Page and Dornenburg's books are going to be there, battered and bruised, coffee stained and taped together at the spine. Why this place of pride? Because these books contain the most useful culinary lists ever assembled: lists of traditional and modern flavor pairings and techniques to use with every imaginable foodstuff.

Imagine you just went to the farmer's market and couldn't resist a big bunch of heirloom Thumbelina carrots. You slice a few in your salad, sure; but the next day, maybe you'd like to cook with them. You could go look in the index of all of your cookbooks for carrot recipes, or search the web for ideas. Or you could open The Flavor Bible to page 95, and jog your memory and imagination by reading that carrots have a special affinity for butter, ginger, lemon & orange juice, maple syrup, parsley and brown sugar. Their secondary suggestions include chervil, chile peppers, cinnamon, cream, and ... you get the idea.

Along with the flavor pairings, you get suggested techniques (boil, braise, grill, roast, ...), botanical relatives (fennel, celery, ...), multi-way groupings (carrot + pistachios + tarragon!), dish titles from great chefs (Roasted Carrots, Minted Pea Puree and Moscato Vinegar from Cory Schreiber of Wildwood in Portland, OR) and sometimes thought provoking quotes from other chefs.

These aren't just Karen and Andrew's personal opinions, though Andrew was a professional chef before he became an author. They dine out constantly and dissect every good thing they eat. They've collected thousands of menus. And most importantly, they have built personal and professional relationships with many of the finest chefs in the world. They filter and gather the information from all of these sources, looking for combinations that many cooks are using to confirm compatibility.

If you are the kind of cook that feels reasonably confident in your skills and just needs a bit of inspiration, those lists will light a fire under you. I'd be right in the kitchen, pan-roasting those carrots, glazing them with a bit of orange juice and brown sugar and finishing with minced flat leaf parsley and Maldon salt. Do you really need a recipe for that?

You can use the same lists at a higher level to plan accompaniments and even whole menus. For example, if I made that carrot dish, then maybe I'd look up the oranges and remind myself that they pair well with rosemary, mint and chocolate. So I might serve the carrots with rosemary-infused lentils, or a yogurt sauce with mint, or maybe just plan a chocolate dessert for the end of the meal.

Do you see how you can keep playing this game, and build out a whole coherent dinner? And that doesn't even scratch the surface, taking into account all of their fine suggestions about planning around seasonality, temperature, and balancing the "weight" and "volume" of each ingredient. This kind of thinking, more than any one technique, has the potential to make an ordinary meal special, and a special meal extraordinary.

On a personal level, it was fantastic to have a chance to meet Karen & Andrew. It is inspirational to see a married couple that can work so closely and happily together. Their tale of perserverance, sending proposals for their first book to dozens of publishers and actually financing their own press tour for the tiny initial printing is a great reminder that magic happens when you fully commit to your dreams.

You can follow their blog at BecomingAChef.com, and here are all of their books on Amazon. I can't recommend them enough.