When my mother asked me if I knew of a good recipe for breadsticks, I was appalled by the realization that not only had I never made breadsticks, but could not recall ever reading anything on the subject. After years of obsessively poring over cookbooks, it hardly seemed possible. Surely the subject was covered in Beard on Bread or The Bread Bible, a cookbook so beloved that I even brought it with me to China. Breadsticks must have been covered in one of my many Italian cookbooks, or at the very least in How to Cook Everything. Yet somehow I managed to absorb nothing on the topic, and was forced to do what I always do in these situations: bluff.

“I think Cooks Illustrated has a great recipe,” I told my mother, carefully neglecting to mention that I had never actually seen it. Sure enough, the magazine covered grissini in 2002 — years before I subscribed, so I can’t blame myself for having missed it. The dough is simple enough: basically the same as a pizza dough, with a little less oil.

Shaping the breadsticks proved to be a little tricky. Cooks recommended rolling the dough into a 12 by 18 inch rectangle, and then cutting it into 3/4-inch strips. I don’t have a kitchen ruler, and always felt that homemade food should have a rustic feeling. The results of my desultory efforts were quite homely indeed; the differing lengths and thicknesses made it difficult to achieve consistent cooking.

I often wonder if it is worth the effort to bake bread at home when grocery stores sell delicious, artisanal loaves. These breadsticks were worlds above the bland, cardboard rods you buy at the market. They had a great crunch and a subtle olive-oil flavor, and filled my apartment with a delicious aroma. Best of all, they were a blast to make.

Grissini:
Cooks Illustrated

Dough

7/8 cup warm water (about 110 degrees)
1 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups bread flour, plus more for dusting work surface and hands
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp kosher salt

Topping

1 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp fennel seeds, finely chopped

Making the Dough

Combine water and oil in 2-cup liquid measuring cup. Process flour, yeast, and salt in food processor, pulsing to combine. Continue pulsing while pouring liquid ingredients (holding back a few tablespoons) through feed tube. If dough doesn’t readily form ball, add remaining liquid and continue to pulse until ball forms. Process until dough is smooth and elastic, about 30 seconds longer. Transfer dough to deep oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in size, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Press dough to deflate.

Shaping the Grissini

Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Combine salt, pepper, fennel (if using) in small bowl; set aside.

Divide dough into two equal pieces. Working with one piece (and covering other piece with plastic), roll dough on heavily floured work surface to a 12 by 8-inch rectangle. Cut, stretch, and twist breadsticks following illustrations below, transferring each to prepared baking sheet.

Using pizza cutter or very sharp chef’s knife and ruler, slice dough into 3/4-inch-wide strips.

Working with one strip at a time, fold strip in half lengthwise.

On damp work surface, roll strip into rope slightly longer than baking sheet (dough will contract).

Baking the Grissini

Liberally spray breadsticks with nonstick cooking spray and sprinkle with seasoning mixture. Bake breadsticks until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating baking sheets halfway through baking time. Slide breadsticks, still on parchment paper, onto wire racks; cool completely.

“Potatoes cooked in duck fat,” mused Alex, “are even better than duck cooked in duck fat.” We were just finishing a dinner of roasted potatoes, spinach salad, and canned duck confit, which my brother and sister-in-law brought back from France for me as a birthday gift. The confit was by far the best thing I’ve ever tasted from a can (although the tinned foie gras pâté that was also part of the present may raise the bar once again).

I browned the duck in a skillet right before serving. The crisp skin and salty, tender meat were magnificent. Alex had recently ordered duck confit at Gaslight, a new French bistro in Boston, and this canned product humbled that restaurant’s pathetic attempt, which we enjoyed well enough at the time.

But was it better than the potatoes? I coated some yukon golds with some of the excess fat from the confit, and then roasted them until the outsides were a crisp brown. The insides remained sweet and creamy, and the rich duck flavor elevated the humble potato to the ultimate level of sophistication. This dish was definitely worth the every single one of its infinite calories.

It is a close call between the duck and potatoes. I obviously need much more study to answer this profound question. Lucky for me, amazon.com sells the source material necessary for my research.

Potatoes Roasted in Duck Fat:

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Cut your potatoes into 1/2 inch wedges, and coat with salt, pepper and duck fat which has been heated until liquid. Place in oven on a roasting pan covered with foil, skin side up. Cook for about 25 minutes, until the bottom is well browned. Remove foil and flip potatoes. Cook for 10 minutes and then flip potatoes again. Cook until the skins are wrinkly about another 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

On our first Valentine’s Day together, Alex showed up at my college apartment with a beautiful bouquet of red roses.  I was thrilled that he ignored our ridiculous agreement to ignore the sinister holiday that commercializes love.  Obviously he was so overcome with passion that he was willing to risk my displeasure, much like the early Christian martyrs for which the day is named.  He presented the flowers to me and shyly made his bold declaration.  “These were on your doorstep.  I guess they were delivered to the wrong address.”

Our Valentine’s celebrations have improved dramatically since that unfortunate day. The story Alex would have preferred to have me start with is last year’s, when we had a candlelit dinner of champagne and caviar and he proposed. One of the many benefits of this development is that we can now celebrate Valentine’s Day with total abandon — it is no longer a Hallmark holiday but the anniversary of our engagement.

This year, we started out our Anniversary meal with pink champagne and American paddlefish caviar. I often worry that I only like caviar because it is said to be a delicacy. I imagine myself in 19th century Albany, where caviar was so plentiful it was served in bars like peanuts. Would I have been able to taste through the snobbery of the time? While eating a meager but delicious ounce of the salty black pearls on Valentine’s Day (and a little of Alex’s allotted ounce which he most generously shared, proving that chivalry is not dead), I couldn’t help but believe that my life would have been one perpetual feast.

For the main course, we dined on seared duck breast, galette of potatoes, and steamed asparagus. The galette was a triumph, and the duck was quite tasty, although not quite perfect. By this point we were so full that we decided to skip the blood orange sorbet and molten chocolate cake I had planned. Who wants to spend all of Valentine’s Day eating, anyway?

Boston was freezing yesterday. It wasn’t just a normal winter’s chill, but a wear-your-coat indoors, bitter frostbite. It was so cold out that Alex and I were unable to turn on our grill, which was quite inconvenient, as I was making lamb burgers for dinner. In the future, I will probably stick to indoor recipes when the temperature descends below 10 degrees.

I have been hesitant to cook burgers indoors ever since a Fourth of July incident a few years ago, which involved the Cambridge Fire Department and the evacuation of our entire apartment building. Unfortunately, the grill’s malfunction left me with little choice. I ended up cooking the burgers on my stove and finishing them in the oven, a method that surprisingly did not smoke up my apartment.

The results were a great success. Jalapenos, shallots, herbs and spices created a truly flavorful dish — more of a large kofte patty than a traditional burger. With it I served a beet salsa that was delicious on its own, but didn’t blend well with the lamb. The next time I make these burgers, I will nix the beets and prepare a delicious tzatziki for a sublime meal.

Stir shallot, jalapeno, garlic, cilantro, mint, paprika and cumin in a large bowl. Gently mix in lamb and form into four thick patties. Grill on medium-high heat to desired doneness, about 4 minutes per side for medium rare.

新年快乐! Happy Chinese New Year! I expect great things for the year of the rat. As the first in the cycle of twelve animal signs, 2008 is a time for renewal and change. It is an extremely auspicious year to get married, so it seems that Alex and I are guaranteed to live happily ever after. And, I cannot help but hope that some of this positive transformation will lead to a favorable outcome in the upcoming election, although on this front, it might be more realistic to expect the status quo from the year of rats.

Jiaozi, or dumplings, are the traditional dish of Chinese New Year’s. Families spend the day at home together — the China Central Television’s New Year’s Gala playing loudly in the background — and make hundreds of dumplings to be eaten at midnight. Grandparents criticize the younger generation’s stuffing techniques and reminisce about the old days, when they couldn’t afford meat in their dumplings. It is a time for family bonding and tradition, the Christmas of the Chinese calendar.

Did I mention that 2008 is also supposed to be a year of turmoil? It all has to do with a conflict between water and earth — the specifics are a bit too convoluted for me to explain. What I do know is that the heavens are clearly to blame for my debacle of a New Year’s jiaozi making party. The problems started when I decided to make the dumpling wrappers myself, but didn’t put nearly enough flour into the dough. So, at 8:00, when I was ready to roll them out, the dough was still sticky and springy. I quickly added in more flour, and after much fretting, ended up with a workable dough.

The next crisis was the realization that I really didn’t know how to roll out jiaozi wrappers. I always assumed that this was the sort of instinctual skill that I had appropriated after spending so much time in China. One polite guest suggested that the problem might have been that I was using a rolling pin with handles, instead of the traditional Chinese bench pin. After much experimentation, I finally settled on rolling the dough into a thin sheet, and then cutting out circles with my cookie cutter, a technique that would keep my imagined Chinese grandparents complaining for an entire year.

The dough did come together in the end. Unfortunately, so did the jiaozi, which fused together into one massive dumpling after sitting on a plate for too long. By the time we salvaged what we could, it was much closer to the traditional midnight dinner time than we had originally planned. We were so hungry that we didn’t care about the condition of the jiaozi, which really weren’t that bad. More importantly, the wine was plentiful and the company sublime. My jiaozi making skills definitely need a lot of work, but all in all it was a great way to bring in the new year.

Instead, I will write about the cornbread I prepared a few days ago, which was surprisingly successful, considering it was made by a pathetic Dell user. My original plan was to serve the cornbread as an accompaniment to my Super Bowl Chili, but Whole Foods was out of cornmeal that Sunday, forcing me to settle for a nasty jalapeño-cheddar cornbread from the bakery section, which no one at the party dared touch. I knew I could do better, and was especially curious about a Cook’s Illustrated recipe that claimed to make a Southern cornbread for the northern palate.

Adjust the oven rack to the lower middle position and heat to 450 degrees. Set 8-inch cast-iron skillet with bacon drippings in heating oven.

Measure 1/3 cup cornmeal into small bowl. Mix remaining cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in large bowl. Set aside.

Pour boiling water all at once into the 1/3 cup cornmeal. Stir to make a stiff mush. Whisk in buttermilk gradually, breaking up lumps until smooth, then whisk in egg. When oven is preheated and skillet is smoking hot, stir dry ingredients into mush mixture until just moistened. Carefully remove skillet from oven. Pour hot bacon fat from the skillet into the batter and stir to incorporate, the quickly pour the batter into heated skillet. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and instantly turn cornbread onto a wire rack. Let rest for five minutes and then serve immediately.

 I once dined on only popcorn for an entire week.  It was my junior year of college, during the most brutal type of Ohio winter storm, where the days stubbornly maintain a somber shade of gray despite the excessive outpouring of white snow.  As if this weren’t reason enough to completely withdraw into my tiny apartment, I was also recovering from an unexpected breakup with a boyfriend I never really liked in the first place.  With scarcely enough fortitude to brave the elements and attend class, trekking across campus to the grocery store was entirely out of the question.  I would have forgone food altogether, in the manner of many dejected lovers, if it weren’t for the mammoth jar of popcorn that I had just purchased.

I bought the jar to make popcorn for movies and lazy nights on the couch with a book, but quickly realized that I had underestimated the food’s potential.  The first few meals of my great popcorn diet were modest, unadorned affairs.  The light, crunchy snack food proved a satisfying fare, especially when accompanied with a romantic British period film.  Sometimes, I would daintily eat the popcorn one piece at a time, letting it dissolve fully in my mouth before biting into the core.  More often, I greedily shoved in handfuls. 

Equal to the pleasure of eating was the joy of preparation.  As I gently shook the pot over my ancient stovetop, a great symphony would occur, commencing with the slow sizzling of the kernels when they first hit the hot oil.  Next, came a few tentative pops of the first eager pieces, leading up to a cacophony of explosions.  When the crescendo subsided, I would remove the pot’s cover and delight in the bounty that emerged like white butterflies coming out of their cocoons.

Boredom soon led to the discovery of the food’s tremendous versatility.  Popcorn and milk made a perfectly delicious breakfast, provided that you could eat your fill before the kernels turned into mush.  Fennel seeds, chili powder, and grated Parmesan cheese were all welcome adornments.  I found myself preparing multi-course meals: popcorn with sundried tomatoes and basil; exploded maize with saffron aioli; chocolate-caramel snowballs.  Curried popcorn with crunchy fried onions was a great success, while the popcorn-vodka martini was an epic failure both shaken and stirred, all of which I learned one drunken night.

Who knows how long my popcorn diet would have continued had a friend not unexpectedly dropped by to check in on me.  “It smells like a movie theater in here,” she exclaimed, taking note of the nearly empty Orville Redenbacher jar.  “Have you been eating?”  I excitedly explained my new recipes, boldly claiming that I had elevated popcorn to unimaginable heights.  She remained unconvinced, even after I offered to prepare her a full popcorn tasting menu.

And so it was that I allowed my friend to take me out for a dull but sensible meal, followed by a trip to the grocery store.  I reluctantly went back to a balanced diet, relegating popcorn to its usual spot, and yes, as the occasional dinner.  It was a fine way to bid adieu to a bad boyfriend.

I lay on my yoga mat at the end of yesterday’s grueling class, wondering what to make for dinner.  I was supposed to be spending the time meditating in corpse pose; the instructor had firmly warned us to let any invading thoughts drift away like clouds in a gentle breeze.  The snores from the person next to me, however, suggested that I wasn’t the only person not dedicating this time to spiritual development.  In a way, my dinner deliberations weren’t completely mundane.  I like to think of them as a sort of Zen Kōan: what does a tired, uninspired girl cook? 

The answer to this question didn’t come in corpse pose.  I entered the grocery store with no plan in mind, living enough in the present to please the strictest yogi.  Then, like a tree falling in an empty forest, the answer appeared before me.  There, in the middle of Shaw’s, was a beautiful selection of Chinese broccoli (jie lan).  This vegetable was one of the staples of my diet in China, but I have never before seen it for sale in America before except in Chinese markets.  Jie lan’s flavor is similar to broccoli, with a slightly spicier aftertaste.  I stir-fried it with oyster sauce, and its crisp sweetness was a great change from my usual vegetables.         

With the jie lan, I served a spicy tofu with ground pork.  Unlike Americans, who generally relegate bean curd to bland, hippy cuisine, the Chinese often use tofu as a vessel for meat.  I fried my bean curd until golden brown and then added some ground pork, plenty of ginger and garlic, red pepper paste, and fragrant Sichuan peppercorns.  The results were delicious enough to make Alex declare, “I think I like tofu,” in an astonished voice. 

Spicy Tofu with Ground Pork 

½ lb ground pork

1 3-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced

6 scallions, minced (the white and first few inches of the green)

3 tablespoons soy sauce

2 teaspoon sesame oil

1 tbs Chinese cooking wine

5 cloves of garlic, minced

¼ cup wood ear mushrooms, soaked in boiling water for 10 minutes and drained

1 package of firm tofu, cut into 2-inch squares

1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in a little water

2 tbs Chinese red pepper paste

1 tsp sugar

1 ½ tsp ground Sichuan Peppercorn

Combine the pork with 1 tbs of the ginger, 1 tbs of scallions, 2 tbs soy sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, and Chinese cooking wine. Let sit for 30 minutes.

 Heat 1 tbs of oil in wok and fry the tofu until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Do not overcrowd the wok – you may need to do several batches. Remove the tofu and set aside. 

Heat 1 tbs oil in wok until just smoking.  Cook the garlic and remaining scallions and ginger until fragrant, about 45 seconds. Add the red pepper paste, soy sauce and sugar and cook for another minute.  Add the cornstarch to the pork mixture and cook until the pork loses its pink color, about 2 minutes. Add the tofu and until warmed, about one minute. Add 1 tsp of peanut oil and Sichuan peppercorn.