Italian Egg Nog

Galliano advertising recipe pamphlet, undated (early 70s)

Do you ever find yourself in the position of having purchased a vast quantity of something to use in just one recipe, and then wonder what to do with the rest of it? Having recently purchased a bottle of Galliano for use in my FAVORITE, the Harvey Wallbanger Cake, I perused a 1970s pamphlet from the makers of said elixir and saw “Italian Egg Nog”. It being “the season” and all, I thought: PERFECT!

Also, this is an EASY egg nog to make. There is no separating of eggs, no aging for weeks in the fridge, and no 2-stage pouring/mixing. Plus, it features shaved chocolate on top – how could I go wrong when combing these important food groups: Dairy, Booze, Chocolate!

Hah! The thing is, it was delightfully easy to prepare, but tasted nasty! And I am a fan of egg nog, but I think… different egg nog. This is not sweet at all, nor can you even enjoy the milky goodness or the daring of consuming a raw egg. First of all, the chocolate shavings were awkward and wanted to be inhaled, so I could not savor the drink’s aroma. Second, they were a textural impediment to my sipping the beverage! Finally, once I had chewed up each mouth-full and could actually taste the concoction, it was not so good. Think: licorice in milk, with chewy bits. An acquired taste, perhaps? I wondered what I could do to “doctor it up” to make it drinkable, but was struck dumb. So, I inhaled it. And THEN, suddenly, I thought it was Grand!

Note to self: save that booze for more cake!



Italian Egg Nog

Beat together 1 c. milk and 1 egg. Add 1 oz brandy and 1 oz Galliano. Pour into snifter and chill in fridge. Garnish with chocolate curls or chopped nuts.

Tangerine Walnut Toss for Mid-Century Pot Luck

Better Homes and Gardens “So Good With Fruit”, 1967

The other day, I got out this cook book because I was looking for something fun to take to a pot-luck. Not just any pot-luck, mind you, this was my great friend Karen’s Annual Holiday Mid-Century Pot Luck! This pot-luck, and the divine lady hostess, meant Business – Food entries were supposed to have been created from a mid-century cook book, preferably with color photos. And there were prizes awarded for the entries, based on several criteria, including (but not limited to) tastiness! So I couldn’t just bake some random cookies and call it a day. I wasn’t going to be home all day prior to the party, though, and didn’t want to risk a hot or baked dish. I needed something simple, so I (California-raised once-vegetarian that I am) called in the fruit: Cheerful! Festive! Colorful! Healthy! Oh yeah, and Tasty!

May I point out that, for the first few of these parties, I went to Great Lengths to create something that was not only 100% authentic, complete with serving pieces as shown in the photos, but I also picked the most disgusting recipe I could find, and actually spent the money and time to assemble it. Past entries have included a salad dressed with tequila, another salad served in pineapple rings made of ham and mayonnaise, and the worst, and most memorable: shrimp and onions concealed in lime Jell-O! (Yes, actually! Though I did not even eat One Bite of that one.) And these were all published recipes, that we assume at least One person thought good enough to write, and at least One other though good enough to publish! However, with both time and money being tight this year, I wanted something colorful yet edible, and quick.

Several changes had to be made to the recipe as given (below). First, white onions are just gross raw, so I substituted scallions. Second, I didn’t have time to peel tangerines, so I used canned (and drained) mandarin oranges. (Shhh, don’t tell! I know, I should be celebrating fresh California produce! The City of Berkeley will be disowning me for Sure!) And finally, I didn’t use anywhere near 7 cups of lettuce (really, is that how much is in one head of lettuce? How big were heads of lettuce in 1967?) Instead, I laid a few leaves in the bowl and plopped the other ingredients onto them. Who needs lettuce, anyway, when there are mandarin oranges!?! Otherwise, I did make the “croutons” and used Paul Newman’s Light Italian dressing. On the whole, not bad at all! Worthy of a re-make, possibly to include spinach leaves and crumbled gorgonzola next time.



Tangerine Walnut Toss

7 cups torn lettuce (about 1 head)
2 cups tangerine sections
½ mild white onion, sliced and separated in rings
1/3 cup Italian dressing
Walnut croutons

Toss lettuce, tangerine sections, and onion rings with Italian dressing. Top with walnut croutons: Melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat. Add ¼ teaspoon salt and ½ cup California walnut pieces. Stir till walnuts are crisp and butter-browned. Serves 6 to 8

Glazed Lemon Cake with Grant K Gibson

The second of two posts featuring my first-ever Guest Star, San Francisco Designer and Blogger (http://www.grantkgibson.blogspot.com/) Mr. Grant K Gibson!

Part Two: Dessert

All you have to say to me is Glazed Lemon Cake, and suddenly it’s not the cake but my eyes that are glazed, and I find need of a tissue to mop unsightly drool. Since Grant and I have a history of sharing many slices of cake together, it seemed only natural to bake one from a classic cook book that we both grew up with: The Silver Palate Cookbook (1979). And as we got down to the business of the actual baking (between giggle fits), we noticed that both our copies of the book were seriously well-loved: splattered with food stains AND fell naturally open to the page with this cake recipe on it!

Grant says he isn’t fond of baking, because he prefers not to measure and he likes to work “loosely” from recipes, while I, on the other hand, love the science and the precision of baking. So our team consisted of him winging it while I drank a cocktail and yelled at him to measure more carefully. Fortunately for us we weren’t making a soufflé, because I fear all the commotion and hilarity in the kitchen would have precluded the effective rising required for that project. This cake is way easier to bake than any soufflé, and probably about a million times yummier. If you love lemon, or even just SUGAR, this cake will delight you. I ate no less than THREE slices that very evening!



Glazed Lemon Cake

½ pound (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
3 cups unbleached, all purpose flour, sifted
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 tightly packed Tbsp grated lemon zest
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
Lemon Icing (recipe follows)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 10-inch tube pan.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Bean in eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition.
3. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add lemon zest and juice.
4. Pour batter into prepared tube pan. Set on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until cake pulls away from sides of pan and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Cool cake in the pan, set on a rack, for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan and spread on icing at once, while cake is still hot.

Lemon Icing

1 pound confectioners’ sugar
8 Tbsp (1 stick) sweet butter, softened
3 tightly packed Tbsp grated lemon zest
½ cup fresh lemon juice

Cream sugar and butter thoroughly. Mix in lemon zest and juice; spread on warm cake.

Tarte Saint-Germain - with Grant K Gibson

For my first ever Carried-Away Guest Spot, I turned to a dear friend of mine, (and fellow blogger: http://www.grantkgibson.blogspot.com/), designer Grant K Gibson - because he is always in his kitchen cooking up a storm, AND I knew we both grew up with The Silver Palate Cookbook (1979). Oh, and I knew he’d fix me a cocktail and do most of the cooking himself, so how could I loose?

Part One: Dinner.

I actually suggested we skip dinner entirely and simply have cake and cocktails, but after we tasted, and each ate not one but TWO huge slices of this concoction, I was glad Grant insisted we start with the Tarte Saint-Germain. “The lowly leek is the star in this glamorous tart,” advise the authors, and I am with them in spirit, because the treatment really is a win for leeks, but don’t be fooled: there are FOUR Tablespoons of butter working here, too!

Grant had already made the shell, so really, all I had to do was help stir a bit, leaving the other hand free to photograph our efforts in Grant’s chic black-and-white kitchen. And once the leek mixture was cooked, it just got dumped into the shell and baked – couldn’t be easier. No wonder quiche became such a “thing” in the 80s, though “Real Men” everywhere (like my father) swore they wouldn’t eat it. Neither of us was concerned about that, so Grant and I gobbled it up. We did, however, save room for dessert…



Tarte Saint-Germain

4 Tbsp sweet butter
6 leeks, trimmed, well washed and thinly sliced
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 cup light cream
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
1 9-inch shell of Pate Brisee, partially baked
½ cup grated Gruyere cheese

1. Melt the butter in a skillet. Add sliced leeks and cook, covered, over low heat for about 30 minutes, or until leeks are tender and lightly colored. Stir frequently or leeks may scorch. Remove from heat and cool slightly.
2. Whisk eggs, yolks, and light and heavy cream together in a bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add a grating of nutmeg, if you like.
3. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
4. Spoon cooled leek mixture into partially baked tart shell. Add cream and egg mixture to fill the tart to within ½ inch of the top. Sprinkle the Gruyere evenly over the tart.
5. Set the tart on the middle level of the preheated oven and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until top is well browned and filling is completely set.
6. Cool for 10 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve warm.

Salmon Timbales

Canned salmon, bread crumbs – it all sounds very mid-century casserole, right? Well NO – even stranger! Hello, Salmon Timbales, courtesy of The Pocket Cookbook, originally from 1942 (this printing, 1966).

Don’t you just love reading recipes and imagining what something is going to taste like? I do, but this one stumped me, so I had to try it. It seemed fairly simple, so I thought to myself: How Bad Could it Be? Well, if a cross between meat-balls and savory muffins sounds good, then you might like them.

Canned salmon is not something I have worked with before, and after this, I think I won’t again any time soon: the skin was left on! It was not de-boned! So before I could create the recipe, I had to pick through piles of canned fish…let’s just say, the compost went out immediately after this went in the oven.

Mixing up the batter, I could tell right away it was not holding together, so I added another egg and a little melted butter. Once it seemed more-or-less dough-like, I scooped it into a muffin tin and baked it as directed. And the result? Odd, though tasty, in a brunch sort of way. I ate one that night for dinner, and it was fine, but tasted better as leftovers the next day, covered in cheese sauce. Perhaps their real place in the world is as an accompaniment to some sort of an egg dish and mimosas. Enough champagne and you can pretty much serve anything for brunch!



Salmon Timbales

2 Tbsp chopped green pepper
¼ cup chopped onion
2 Tbsp fat or salad oil
1 1lb can (2 cups) salmon
2 eggs
2 cups soft bread crumbs
Salt and pepper

Saute green pepper and onion in fat or salad oil; add to salmon. Beat eggs; add with crumbs. Season with salt and pepper. Pack into greased muffin pans; bake in moderate oven (350 degrees F) 30 min.

Strawberry Glace Pie

Mmmmmm, pie! Strawberry season is upon us, friends, and really and truly, pies must be made. There is just no getting around this.

I recently picked up this adorable little Nitty Gritty Productions book called “Cakes & Pies”, the flip-side of which (when you turn it over and upside down) is called “Pies & Cakes” (c. 1978) I love it for several reasons: a) Groovy Mod Cover, b) Nitty Gritty Productions,( hello! I have 4 or 5 of their titles), c) the recipes are simple and easy to follow, after a useful intro “how-to” on the genre in general, and d) these are actually recipes you’d want to make! Normal, modern ingredients! Fresh fruits! Things you can still find at today’s grocery store!

So on a Saturday morning, I decided that my daughter and I would make pie. (I know for some parents, the answer to the question: Mom, what are we doing today? Is “going to the park” or something similarly expected, but I have to admit, I hate the park. So my answer usually has to do with cooking, such as: “we’re going to the Farmer’s Market!” or, as in this case, “We’re making pie!”) I actually offered her the choice between Cake and Pie (after all, they are both covered in this cute little book) and she chose pie. She chose wisely!

And here is the reason I am all too glad to make pie: I CHEAT! I have a recipe for crust, made from scratch, that requires NO 2-knives, no ice water, no “shortening” (bleeeeech.) and does NOT even have to be rolled out! Thanks again to Mom, who, in the 70s, sold gourmet cookware in a pioneering shop in Berkeley, where she frequently demonstrated the new miracle kitchen appliance, the Cuisinart. Oui, from France. (Ooh La La!) So while my adorable cook-book offers a probably wonderful recipe for a basic crust, I vetoed it in favor of what I call “Mom’s” pie crust, but which I know to actually have originated from the guide book for her Cuisinart. Just flour, butter, a pinch of salt and a blob of sour cream, and in no time, you have a fabulous and perfect crust! (In fact, this book mentions the technique of making crust in a food processor, but not with the sour cream, which eliminates the need for cold liquid and other elaborate steps.) Of course, if you don’t have a food processor, I guess you are stuck with the knives. And I’m sorry. Still, this is PIE we’re talking about, so I have no doubt it will be worth it.


Strawberry Glace Pie

• 1 pie crust (see below)
• 6 cups (about 1 ½ quarts) strawberries
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 Tbsp cornstarch
• ½ cup water
• 1 pkg (3 oz) cream cheese, optional
• 1 to 2 Tbsp milk

Line 9-inch pie plate with crust. Finish edges as desired. Prick with fork and chill if time allows. Bake as directed. Cool on wire rack until needed. Wash and hull strawberries. Mash enough berries to measure 1 cup. Blend sugar and cornstarch together in saucepan. Stir in water and crushed berries. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil, stirring, 1 minute. Cool. Beat cream cheese with milk. Spread on bottom of baked pie shell. Fill shell with whole berries. Pour cooked mixture over top. Refrigerate several hours. Garnish with whipped cream.



Mom’s Pie Crust:

In Cuisinart:
• 1 cup flour
• 1 stick butter, in 4 pieces
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 Tbsp sour cream (add this last)

Process till it forms a ball (under a minute!), press into pie dish and flute edges. Prick bottom with fork; bake at 375 for 20 min. Cool.

Avocado and Cheese Sandwich for Mom

In honor of Mother’s Day, I decided to re-create one of my mom’s favorite all-time dishes, the avocado-and-cheese sandwich. Morning, noon and night she has made these, and I must admit to preferring them to her other favorite, the (dreaded) peanut-butter-and-mayonnaise sandwich. Both contain mayonnaise, something I detested till fairly recently - perhaps as a result of my mom’s 70s experiments with making her own. Yellow and runny, it was never a favorite of mine, and I was all too happy to comply with eating store-bought mayo when she gave up the home-made version. (I seem to recall a similar episode with the Yogurt Maker, though that was even shorter-lived, perhaps because I used the cups for some art project or other after finding them in the basement…)

So, the avocado and cheese. Made with whole wheat bread (I tried it with my personal favorite, sour dough, but it just didn’t taste right) and only the sharpest of cheddar cheese, it is a perfect vegetarian lunch - or dinner, if paired with a salad a glass of wine. As a life-long vegetarian, my mom must have slapped together and eaten something like 60,000 of these!

The secret ingredient for her, until the formulation was changed in the late 90s, was Vege Sal, the age-old celery salt/spice mix that I am told does not contain salt, and is supposed to have been around since the 20s. I tried, OK I really tried, to like it, and to use it in my cooking, but, sorry, I just can’t. So when I saw that my mom no longer used it (because she swears it tastes different, and she would know, having consumed it on nearly all her food all her life!), I secretly rejoiced. Now, her recipe calls for fancy, large-crystal sea salt, usually whatever variety someone has given her as a gift. She has even been known to shake on a pinch of Herbes de Provence, for that singular 90s touch. But because I am a retro-purist, I stuck as close as I could to the original, and toasted to her, for Mother’s Day. Cheers, mom!



Avocado and Cheese Sandwich

Lightly toast 2 slices of whole wheat bread
Spread mayonnaise in a thin layer on both
Slice an avocado and lay the slices on both slices of bread
Salt and pepper the avocadoes (* can use Vege Sal if desired)
Cover all with sliced or grated cheddar cheese
Broil or toast in toaster oven for 5 minutes, till cheese melts