Spiced pears? Almond-vanilla cookies? Yes, please.

I'm nesting - prepping the home for family. This happens every winter when the days are shorter than the eves. I gaze at my home and think "This doesn't work" and then I move everything around. Saturday I changed everything in my kitchen cabinets. Confusing my family who now cannot find the cereal but are grateful I left the coffee in the same place.

The upside of changing everything in your kitchen around is suddenly you have a new kitchen and you want to make everything - all at once: cookies are baked, soup is stirred, vegetables are cut, meats are braising and if I was an octopus I'd simultaneously have an arm in all those pots. But I did pretty well with two arms

Pere alle Spezie (Spiced Pears)

These hail from Piedmont - a large northern province in Italy that actually does see winter. The baking of the pears in a spiced-sugared wine showcases the creamy, sweet  "meat" of the fruit. Perfect after a heavy meal. More perfect in the deep, dark days of December - the perfect month to rejoice in cloves, cinnamon and ginger. They bring comfort and joy to the table. 

Ingredients (from Williams-Sonoma Savoring Italy)

1-1/2 cups 12 fl ounces) fruity red wine (such as Barbera)

1/4 cup (6 ounces) sugar

6 whole cloves

8 firm, ripe pears (Anjou, Bartlett) Bonus: You don't need to peel them 

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). In a baking dish large enough for the pears but small enough to have them fit all snugly and upright, place your pears. In a small mixing bowl, stir the wine, sugar and cloves. Pour over pears. Bake the pears 45-60 minutes, occasionally basting the pears with the liquid. The pears are done when tender - just pierce one with a fork and see how easily it glides. Cool to room temperature before serving.

In the words of my daughter, "Boom! Done!" How easy was that?

Vanilla-Almond Cookies

(I've made these cookies for so many years, I have lost the source of the recipe. I suspect it may be Tastes of Italia.)

Think of these as once-baked biscotti. These are easy, melt-in-your-mouth sliced cookies that celebrate vanilla and and almonds. Just a tad crunchy on the outside, and tender-melty inside. They hail from my grandmother's region of Basilicata and are reminiscent of Italian wedding cookies. 

Vanilla-Almond Cookie Ingredients (makes about 28)

1/2 pound butter (room temperature and cut into small pieces)

1 cup sugar

5 ounces sliced almonds

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2-1/2 cups flour

Cream the butter and slowly add the sugar - beating well. Add the almonds and vanilla and mix. Add the eggs - one at a time - beating well after each addition. Similarly - add the flour 1/4 cup at a time and and mix each thoroughly before adding the next 1/4 cup.

Gather dough into a ball and form a thick log. (My log was about 10 x 2 inches.) Cover and refrigerate for two hours or overnight or a week. It's a content, unfussy dough. (Dough will keep up to ten days. If you don't want to bake the entire log - just slice as many as you want and bake - you can have fresh cookies all week.)

To bake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 1-2 cookie sheets. Slice refrigerated dough into 1/4 inch slices (you can slice thinner - just adjust baking time). Place 1 inch apart on cookie sheet. Bake about 15 minutes - just until the edges start to brown - you want tender, white cookies.

Through these cookies I have grown as a person. I have learned to practice acceptance. Because of these cookies - I can reach into my innermost soul and state - that in the ways of the world in December - I will not be taking off my extra Italy weight anytime soon! A raw carrot does not have the same song as an Italian cookie.

Yesterday, my daughter actually accused me of adding Pippin (her cat) to the end of my blog posts as a cheap gimmick to solicit comments!

I won't even dignify that accusation with an answer.

Read More >>

Juliet's Kisses (Baci di Giulietta) Cookies

There's nothing quite like a holiday show to give you the Christmas Spirit. Having just attended the delightful  All Wrapped Up (where my friend, Lynn Paulson was the amazing music director - brag, brag - I'm not prejudiced - If you had a super-talented friend wouldn't you like to announce it - in print?). I was finally ready for Santa Baby and The Holly and the Ivy. What I wasn't ready for was Winter Wonderland and Let it Snow. (and I live in Minnesota - why?)

And after intermission - it snowed. Yes, only 3 inches. And yes, heavy, wet, greasy snow - the sort of snow that is stunning to look at - it coats all in a white-furred embrace and shimmers in the dusk. The sort of snow that gives a woman who has "driver's anxiety" even when not driving, even in the summer - pause.

A friend - Mark Paulson - Lynn's talented husband and  /colleague/artist/all-around kind and fascinating person was driving. I do plan well around my anxieties! We had parked in a lot and when figuring out the payment for the day, the parking lot yelled at us to "stop loitering." Twice. Now, I grew up in New York City and a parking lot has never spoken to me - much less admonished me - twice. So, the day began with amusement - "the parking lot voice." And got better - with a show that charmed.

And then I got into my friend's  Miata for the slippery drive home. If you know anything about Miatas - you know they are four inches off the ground.  Three inches of snow expected. Four inches. Hmmm. Worrisome for someone with car/snow-phobia.

Yes, we got home. Yes, Mark told me amusing stories (hitching a ride in Glacier park and getting in a truck with some armed-drunk-people and their 90 year-old mother who smoked all his cigarettes and came on to him when he was - all of nineteen). And more. Telling a playwright stories during an anxiety-ridden drive is ingenuous. My friend knows how to calm.

Once home, I thought about this.

But decided butter, sugar and chocolate was better and did this.

Juliet's Kisses (Baci di Giulietta) Cookies
These cookies hail from - where else - Verona. And come Christmas, the bakeries in Verona are filled with them. But you don't have to celebrate Christmas to know that these tender, soft-crisp sandwich cookies laced with chocolate in the middle are meant to please - all. The recipe is from the Williams-Sonoma book Savoring Italy written by Michele Scicolone.

Ingredients


1 cup (8 ounces, 250 g) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup (2 ounces, 60 g) confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar, icing sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon rum (can be omitted - use 1 tablespoon vanilla or almond extract if you prefer)
2 cups (10 ounces, 315 g) all-purpose flour
2 ounces (60 grams) semi-sweet chocolate

Baci Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

In a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat 1 cup of butter, confectioner's sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Then, beat in the rum (or extract).  Stir in the flour 1/4 cup at a time and beat till well-blended. Cover and chill until firm. -about one hour.

Tear off 1 teaspoon of the dough at a time and form into a small ball. Place the balls about 1 inch (2.5 cm) apart on baking sheet.  Bake until firm - about 12 minutes (mine took 14 minutes - you want them to crisp - so a bit firm but not browned. And they will crisp as they cool. Taste to see - tasting is the fun part.) Transfer to wire racks to cool.

Place the chocolate and remaining 2 tablespoons of butter in the top of a double boiler. (You can try the microwave - if you are really good about not burning). When water in the bottom is simmering (and not touching the top), stir the chocolate and butter together until they combine. Remove top from boiler and set aside to cool a bit (until it is spreadable - 5-10 minutes). 

Spread a small amount of chocolate on bottom of cookie (I put a small puddle in the center and that worked). 

Place a cookie top on top - pressing it a bit to ooze the chocolate - until it is a sandwich and place it on the wire rack to set. Let cool on the wire rack (10-15 minutes). 

Can store in an airtight container for a week (or in the fridge as I am doing!).

Juliet would be pleased. So would Romeo. And so was family. They encouraged me to continue baking to cure car-anxiety!

And so our oven is on, the heat is on, the Christmas lights are on and still there is a chill in the living room.

Oh! Pip-a-doo knows where all the vents are.

I am thrilled and humbled to announce that Under a Midsummer Moon has been selected as one of two plays to receive a grant by Playwrights in Our Schools to be developed in the winter of 2012. And where will it be developed? Park City, Utah. I skiied there. Before snow-phoia sent in.  It snows a lot. Every day in fact. You have to smile.  

Read More >>