Au Currant(s)

Wondering how to eat the berry of the season? The berry all the celebrities are raving about*? Over the weekend, I used a quart of red currants for three different dishes.



First, currants served as a garnish for Mark Bittman's fluffy pancakes from How to Cook Everything. Though they are too tart for some to enjoy raw, I think the sweetness of the syrup cut their tartness just enough that even currant newbies could enjoy them this way. Dan added lemon zest to the pancake batter, which complimented them nicely.



I also made a rhubarb and red currant tart using a recipe from The Paris Kitchen. I used this alarmingly simple (just watch the screamingly hot bowl) French tart dough recipe method recounted by David Lebovitz. I doubled the sugar in the tart recipe when I realized that it was described as "savory." I wanted something sweet and tangy, not savory. That was a good move. It was still very tart, which I like. I also found that it needed only 40-45 minutes to bake, which worked out well because any longer would have burned the tart crust.

You know how there are a zillion recipes online for strawberry-rhubarb pie? I love rhubarb, but I've always railed against pairing it with the traditional strawberry. I just don't think that baking it with strawberry adds much in terms of flavor or texture. Currant, on the other hand, gives the sour fruit more dimension (says I) and it only becomes a bit softer with baking, so there's still something in the pie or tart on which to chew. Rhubarb is also good with sour cherries, and I've always wanted to try baking rhubarb with cranberry, but don't forget that it's swell on its own.

I have now officially typed the word "tart" too many times. Where's my thesaurus?



Finally, after sharing a few raw handfuls with my 15-month-old, who apparently is as big a fan of currants as I, the remaining berries went into Ina Garten's fruit salad with limoncello recipe. I also used this week's CSA strawberries and blueberries, as well as a few bananas. Without the time (or multiple lemons) to make my own lemon curd (though I've done it in the past and recommend it), I mixed the yogurt topping with a spoonful of lingonberry preserves. This is an excellent summer dessert, side, or breakfast (I tested it three times, of course).

Currants! They're so now! They're so trending! They're so sassy! They're so you.

*Celebrity raves and currant trends may be fictional. I've loved currants since finding them growing on a bush near my childhood home in Dubuque, Iowa. A previous resident must have planted them, and I loved the novelty of being able to eat something right off a plant in my backyard, as well as their sharp, fruity, almost bitter flavor. I think I may also have enjoyed that they look a bit like they'd be poisonous.

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Subway Snack

These animal crackers were a closing-night gift from Averyn, a fellow cast member in Field 309, the play I just wrapped. I ate them while waiting for a train.

Question: How long have these been branded "Barnum's?" I've never thought about that before.

Answer: Since 1902! [source: Wikipedia]

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Snacky Easter! (A Photo Essay)

If there's a bottom, I haven't hit it.

Yes, I will snack on generic sliced pickles. Actually, this has been a tradition of mine since childhood, when my friends in the neighborhood and I used to sneak into the church basement (my dad was the pastor there) to snitch hamburger slices out of the (not-very-well-stocked) refrigerator in the fellowship hall.

The first one out of the jar still tastes like rebellion.

Look, but don't eat.

It's not that I didn't appreciate the leftover Valentine's Day candy that showed up at work last week. It's just that I no longer dabble in Necco Sweethearts.

I like the SweeTart candy hearts so much, I just can't do it. These may be more classic, but the Sweethearts' flavor doesn't measure up to the SweeTarts'.

I'd forgotten about this guy.

I suddenly recalled a childhood staple I hadn't eaten in years -- the grilled peanut butter and honey sandwich. Oh, how I loved them.

So I made one after work on Friday, as a nod to "after school snacks" of yore.

It's just as good as I remembered, even with more "grown up" whole wheat bread and raw honey. I want another and another and another...

Snacks I found on End Tables at my Parents' House:

These wafer-y stick/tube things.



Homemade Almond Bark Pretzels.

I aspire to someday (at least during the holidays) dotting my end tables with snacks in decorative containers, like my mother and grandmother before me.

Happy New Year! Now, get back to work!

I rescued two Pixy Sticks from the piñata that was whacked to smithereens during DJ and AF's New Year's Eve party. Glitter covered the dance floor in drifts, hiding the rest of the loot that had been driven out of the festive vessel, but I managed to come away with a plastic and silvery necklace, a couple of KitKats, and these.

I found the paper cylinders of tart red powder (again) in my purse while at the office a couple of days ago and ingested one (just its contents, not the paper) as a well-needed back-to-work-already?! sugar rush pick-me-up (that's a lot of hyphens, no?).

It was sweet and so are you.



(photos mostly by Dave Johnny)

Flavor Blasted Goldfish Xtra Cheddar Cheese

Still not cheesy enough.

Keep trying, Pepperidge Farm.

Poetry Tuesday: Guest Poet, Chester Cheetah

[Jennette says: As it turns out, these are no better than the generic versions of "no hull, no seed" popcorn or melt-in-your-mouth cheese puffs that have been around since my childhood.]

Two Times the (Bottlecaps) Lady

Both Tia and Angela sent me Bottlecaps in snack samplers this year. I think that means I am eating them by popular demand.

I'm generally more of a SweetTart or Smarties girl. Bottlecaps trend sweeter than sour and I prefer the latter most of the time. Still, these bring back fond memories of childhood Halloweens and buying candy at the corner drugstore (which was a Revco, in case you were wondering). Plus, purple tastes like soda pop and orange tastes like Tang!

Saying Cheese

Tokens! Free refills of syrupy pop! 2 pieces of dense, sweetly sauced pizza! Vegetable tray that was always just a bit out of reach! Children and adults, friends and strangers, having a lovely time together! A grown birthday boy dancing with a costumed mouse! Cake! A vibrating, sticky-floored arctic journey via video game! Winning enough tickets to buy three Laffy Taffies and a plastic comb!

None of these are complaints. I had a blast at Kevin's birthday. I didn't even know there was a Chuck E. Cheese in NYC. Let's go back!

Happy Cola makes me happy

Haribo Happy Colas are the bee's knees. They have a peculiar sweetly spicy flavor that suggests cola without actually tasting like cola. The density of gummy-ness is just about perfect, too - never sticky, never wimpy. And I love the ombré effect of the coloring. They're my gummi of choice.

Poetry Tuesday: Sweet Revenge

I, whom you lick,
I am burning on your tongue I am your lost youth
I am a trip I am a trick I am the true truth
I powdered out along the hillsides of your tongue's scoop.

I am your: fun dip,
Your brain's in: deep slip,
You cannot: come nor quit
And there's: no use.
I am a flash, I am a sneeze, I am a screw loose.
I'm sugared trash, I ride the breeze, I take abuse.

I, whom you dip,
I am cooling in your cheek I am your white knight
I am an eagle soaring peering through your skylight
I crunch like aspirin in your teeth I put up no fight.

I am your: lik-m-stik,
I taste: so opposite,
You think you have: a grip
And then: you flip.
You are alone, you are undone, you've come to care.
You're lying prone, you taste the fun, you dip you dare.

Eat No Evil.

While in Pennsylvania, we had the pleasure of an afternoon at Zerns.



Zerns is an auction-house-meets-farmers'-market-meets-food-court-meets-junk-shop-meets-craft-fair-meets-strip-mall-meets-99-cent-store-meets-army-navy-surplus-store-meets-profitable-lost-and-found-meets-arcade.

There is a lot of stuff there of varying quality. But I don't want to say anything bad about my Zerns experience. Those monkeys have the right idea. I just want to mention what I ate there.



Mustard eggs (50 cents each) taste sweet, like mustardy potato salad melted into hard boiled eggs. I would definitely eat more of these. Find them at the Weidner's Deli stand.




(photo by Dan)

Mmmmmmustard egg!



Pepper Turkey Jerky had a honey-sweetness and was neither too hard to chew nor too soft to be considered true jerky. This was also sold by the Weidner's Deli people.



Funnel Cake is a family favorite, and we all shared a plateful. There was so much powdered sugar on this that I had to knock some of it off into the trash. If you've never aspirated powdered sugar, you probably haven't had funnel cake.



At Dietz & Watson, I chose a big, spicy dill pickle. Though each bite was only moderately spicy, the sensation built throughout my eating the pickle into a surprisingly strong, heated finish. I do enjoy a good dill pickle. Nothing evil in my mouth today! Thank you, Zerns.




p.s. We had dinner at Funky Lil' Kitchen in Pottstown. The name? Not my favorite. The food? Quite good! I especially liked the buttery, nutty orzo that came with my crab cakes and the dessert of pot de creme.

You Must Do: pie crust snip snacks

If you make pies, you must save your pie crust scraps to put on a baking sheet and sprinkle with a little cinnamon and sugar. These you must bake in the oven along with your pie until they are crispy and browned. Then you must serve a plate of pie crust crispies to the people waiting for that pie to be done.

For extra presentation points, cut your scraps with a ravioli cutter, as pictured above.

Thanks, Martha (and thanks, Mom, for being the first person to model this idea to me).

Sweet Holy Moses!

I've made Rice Krispy treats a few times, but not in years. I wanted something special for tonight, so I combined two recipes and stacked them on top of each other.

Classic R. K. treats + Rocky Road rice no-bakes = Double Decker Rocky Road Rice Crisplosion Stacks. Rice! Toasted almonds! Nutella! Chocolate! Marshmallow! It's all in there, baby.

The flavors are great. The layers are moist. I just wish everything would stick together a little better. Next time, I will add marshmallow to the Rocky Road layer to serve as a glue.

The Pixifood Phenomenon

They're supposed to be foods that we loved as kids but no longer enjoy eating as adults. Maybe I'm still a kid at heart, but here are a few of

Other People's Pixifoods I Still Like
Cotton Candy
Fig Newtons
Marshmallow Fluff
Fun Dip/Lik em Stik
Pop-Tarts
Pixy Sticks
Lucky Charms
Cadbury Creme Eggs
Nerds
Frozen Burritos (Annies Southwestern with masa, esp.)
Nutty Bars
Oatmeal Cream Pies
Jolly Ranchers
Cream Soda
Wonder Bread
Fla-Vor-Ice
Captain Crunch
Fruit Roll-Ups
Sour candy
Gummy/gummi Candy
Fishsticks
Doritos
Cheese in a spray can
Cocoa mix with tiny dry marshmallows already in it
Pasta Roni

Note: I think the key to all of the above is enjoying them in moderation and treasuring your memories.

My Pixifoods Would Include
Big League Chew
Vienna Sausages
Candy Cigarettes
Wax Soda Bottles
SpaghettiO's
Laffy Taffy
Dots
Chef Boyardee Ravioli
Pork Rinds
Candy Corn
Liver and Onions
Boston Baked Beans (the candy)
Red licorice
Froot Loops
Bubblegum ice cream

I'm On the Fence About
Hostess Fruit Pies
TV dinners - sometimes I find I am craving one with fried chicken and mashed potatoes and corn and a brownie
American cheese slices
Cinnamon Toast Crunch - or at least the generic kind I had recently, which got soggy too fast.
Fast food chicken - KFC kinda grosses me out and even Popeye's tastes like soap to me now. I still try to like it every once and a while.
Candy Canes (I mostly just like chocolate and cherry flavors)
Zero Bars - I think I need to try these again to determine whether I find them gross now.
Instant mashed potatoes - I haven't had any in years, but I liked that whole "hot lunch" scene at school.


I am happy to go into more detail about any item on these lists. Mentally, I've made another list called "Other People's Pixfoods I Never, Ever Liked." And I will defend my positions! Not to the death or anything, but still.

["Pixifood" topic originated on: Joe Posnanski]

Street Smartie

I will now admit that one of the reasons I liked Smarties (the sweet and tangy USA version, not the chocolate kind known abroad) as a kid was because I thought that they kind of looked like pills and I could pretend I was taking some sort of illicit medicine when I snuck them out of my desk at Hoover Elementary (go hornets!).

Other things in my desk around that same time: a small vial that had once held lemon-scented perfume and could still be used for sniffing (I had not heard of aromatherapy back then, but I love the smell of citrus to this day) and a paperback copy of Black Like Me (I can still smell that lemon perfume whenever I think about this book).


p.s. Valley of the Dolls is too classic to miss.

Mulberry memories

I lived in Dubuque, IA from the age of 5 until I was 15. Our yard was a great place to snack. We had two apple trees (one red delicious; one yellow delicious) that put out fruit every other year. Sometimes Dad had to burn the tentworm nests, which was exciting and scary. And sometimes we got paid to pick up apples under the trees (parents, think carefully when you set your per apple price. There are more rotten apples under that tree than you think).

We also had sour grapes growing along the edge of the garden (which we did not plant) and wild chives, which we used to trick my next door neighbor Lisa into eating grass (by telling her that's what we were eating and, boy, was it good!).

We had a big vegetable garden and tomato plants on top of the hill for much of my childhood, too. And there were currants that were great made into jelly but sour and good right off the bush. There was also a large mulberry tree in the side yard.

I ate a lot of mulberries in and under that tree. I learned to avoid the green and overripe berries in favor of the perfectly plump, purply, finger-staining fruit. I don't remember them having an amazing flavor, but they were on our tree in abundance and it is fun to eat something you've just picked off a tree. Especially if you've climbed that tree, pretending you've run away from home, strung up a rope with clothespins on it to pretend you're living there kind of like the boy in My Side of the Mountain, and are enjoying the idea that you will now forage for food for a living.

I had never seen a white mulberry until I bought the ones I tried today. They claim to be "The Turkish Delight" (not to be confused with the Turkish Delight eaten in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I assume) and are much sweeter than the dark mulberries I remember. A tad too sweet for me, actually. "The berries are an excellent source of Vitamin C and iron," claims the package, so that's good, but they taste a little like raisins, which fruit I don't exactly love. I won't hate eating more of these (in granola, maybe), but I don't think I will be buying them to snack on regularly.