Cooking. Books. Friends. Kittens. To-do lists. Finding street parking in Hollywood on a Saturday night -- or, even better, not going anywhere near Hollywood on a Saturday night. These are a few of my favorite things, so it made sense to talk to a few of my food-loving friends about combining the first three into a cookbook club, inspired by an article I read in Gourmet. Luckily, they were just as excited about the idea as I was, and it wasn't long before we had chosen the first book, A Homemade Life
The idea was simple: we would each cook from the book for about a month, then we'd meet for a potluck and discussion, with everyone bringing one dish they had made from the book. Our first meeting took place at my apartment on the sort of golden Sunday afternoon in spring that makes you happy to be in LA. Especially with a roomful of food-loving girls and their homemade fare.
A Homemade Life is more memoir than cookbook, but there are actually a lot of recipes, each with an accompanying essay. I find it kind of impossible to not be charmed by Molly, who is as self-aware as she is sweet and who tempers the preciousness of her tales with a generous helping of humor. How can you not like someone who describes a pickle as "a little green sidecar, the dinghy that floats alongside the ship"? There is a grace to her writing, an easy liveliness that I think also characterizes my favorite recipes from her book.
Take the Red Cabbage Salad with Lemon and Black Pepper. It is beguilingly simple -- just thinly sliced red cabbage tossed with lemon juice, olive oil, black pepper and Parmesan -- so simple that it seems unlikely to taste like anything but a lot of sliced red cabbage. But then you eat it and realize you never before appreciated the crunchy goodness that is red cabbage, each ingredient in the salad the perfect complement to its subtle sweetness. And it has a kind of elegance on the plate, making even the most humble grilled cheese sandwich somehow more sophisticated.
"This is the best book for lunches," Lydia said when we sat down to talk and eat, and I think that pretty much sums it up. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Lydia chose the red cabbage salad as her contribution.) You won't throw a show-stopping dinner party with these recipes, but then again, how often do you have big dinner parties anyway? More often than not, it's a weeknight and you don't have the time or energy to make a new dish with a million ingredients, but you did go to the farmers' market so your fridge is full of humble vegetables waiting to be transformed into something simple and wholly satisfying. On these nights, A Homemade Life will be your friend.
The biggest surprise of the book were the Bouchons au Thon, a rather bizarre-sounding mix of canned tuna, tomato paste, Gruyere and eggs, baked into little cakes in a muffin tin. No one thought they could possibly be good, including Jessica -- and she was the one who made them. But we all loved the little coral-colored cakes and midway through the afternoon, Jessica held up her phone to show us a text her roommate had just sent: "Good tuna muffin!"
I made the Pickled Grapes with Cinnamon and Black Pepper, intense little orbs of sour, spiced sweetness. A few people baked, and when we all compared notes, we realized the baking times and temperatures in the book seemed off. (Everyone ended up having to bake for 10 to 20 minutes beyond the recommended baking time and a couple people found the recommended temperatures too high.) That and the need to double the salt of pretty much every savory recipe were our only complaints. We finished the meeting and the meal with a couple bottles of Sauvignon Blanc, some Black Pepper Ice Cream made by Jessica, its lushness tempered by the floral jolt of pepper, and a plan to meet in a month to talk about The Gift of Southern Cooking
I can't wait.
I have a "Homemade Life" dinner party in two weeks. I was going to try the Hoosier Pie but am rethinking it because of your post. Maybe I can get Clayton to eat canned tuna in a test batch--or at least Gilbert will. Anything else stand out as a "must eat"?