Aside from cupcakes, madeleines are about the cutest darn things ever. Mini Bundt cakes are right up there too. This past weekend, my friend Tracy brought to our barbecue not one, not two, but three lip-smacking varieties of corn bread – all charmingly shaped as diminutive madeleines and Bundts.

The beautiful fresh lavender that she plucked from her yard that morning was a lovely treat as well!

Try one (or all!) of these delicious corn bread recipes for your next barbecue. Baked in a non-traditional way like these will certainly bring ooos and aaaas from your guests.

Click below for the basic corn bread recipe. Optional ingredients for variations are given in the “Cornbread Madeleines” section:

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We asked our daughter to bring us back just ONE food item from New York City on a recent visit: Irish soda bread from Zabar’s deli on the upper west side of Manhattan. The soda bread isn’t even on their bread menu, but they keep some under the counter for those in the know. If the nice elderly Jewish ladies with the sharp elbows and pile driver handbags allow you to approach the counter at all. In this case they did, and she brought us a treasured loaf. Heaven. Lightly toasted with a schmear of whatever your cholesterol count is allowing you to have on your bread these days: even better.

But is it traditional? According to the Society for Preservation of Irish Soda Bread
- the answer is a definitive no. Not only does the Zabar’s version have raisins, but it also appears to our taste buds to be made with at least some rye flour and has a definite rye/caraway Jewish NYC vibe. Not that we’re complaining.

In our family the favored versions have always had raisins, so we will likely continue our heathen ways and add such contraband to our loaves. As for the Irish whisky, orange zest, jalapenos and other “mix ins” the Society finds so disturbing, we’ll ingest those separately, beginning with the whisky.

Click here for an Irish Soda Bread recipe.

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As Barnaby and I walked to the bus this morning we noticed all the mushy pumpkins that remain on doorsteps in our neighborhood. The once beautifully carved jack o’ lanterns are quickly becoming  pumpkin puree, especially with the aid of the recent rain. I have to admit, all that soft pumpkin flesh makes me want to bake something! Gross, I know, to be inspired by the soggy, rotting pulp of Halloween pumpkins, but sometimes I just cannot help what inspires me culinarily. And, honestly, I caught a whiff of one that actually still smelled quite pleasant. By no means should this be taken as encouragement to scrape the pumpkin off your neighbor’s stoop to make pumpkin bread. Just go and buy some canned puree.

Pumpkin Bread

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 cup crushed walnuts or pecans, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour three 7×3 inch loaf pans.

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and nuts if you are using them. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.

Bake for approximately 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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Photo: ampersandyslexia

There’s a wonderful article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal about Clear Creek Distillery in Portland, Oregon. I first discovered Clear Creek, and their fruit brandies, fifiteen years ago when I was the general manager of Marsee Baking, one of the first European-style bakeries in the Pacific Northwest. At the time, our bread baker, Nilos Nevertheless (she legally changed her name), was very much into combining traditional techniques with experimentation. One of those tests yielded a “Clear Creek Pear Struan.” As I recall, the bread was made with wild yeast collected in the Clear Creek fermentation room and some of the fermented eau-de-vie pear mash replacing water in the recipe. I can’t say it was a huge commercial success, in part because it wasn’t sweet as customers expected, but rather slightly sour and with an essence of pear…not unlike the sweetness dilemma described in the above WSJ article.

I’ve been enjoying Clear Creek products ever since and have also been tracking the recent growth of “micro-distilleries” here in the Pacific NW. A few other producers of note include:

• Rogue Spirits
  
• McMenamin’s Edgefield Distillery
• Victoria Gin

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I really want to like healthy bread. Especially the types that I refer to as “bird seed” bread: spelt, sprouted wheat, uber-whole grain packed with nuts and seeds and everything short of wood pulp. All the 60’s-organic-hippy-healthiness you’d ever want, just like my mom used to make. They all sound and look so good, each slice looking like it’ll supply you with about a week’s worth of fiber, but too often they are just dry and crumbly. “Care for a bit of cardboard?”

But I recently discovered one of the best “bird seed” breads I’ve ever had. Dave’s Killer Bread. My favorite is a mini-loaf called Peace Bomb. It’s made of whole sprouted wheat and packed with a “good seed” mix consisting of flaxseeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, unhulled sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and some other yummy stuff to hold it together. Now you know why I call it bird seed bread. It’s dense, moist and deliciously chewy. No sign of cardboard in this bread!

An interesting bit about Dave is that he’s an ex-con. When I first heard that I thought that was where the “killer” part came in, but no, killer in this case means really good. While in the clink for other unsavory practices he has taken no lives. Here’s a quote from the package of his Peace Bread:

“I was a four time loser before I realized I was in the wrong game. Fifteen years in prison is a pretty tough way to find oneself. It’s been said that adversity introduces a man to himself; a whole lot of suffering has transformed an ex-con into an honest man who is doing his best to make the world a better place…one loaf of bread at a time.”

Now that’s what I call redemption.

Check out this brief mini-documentary about Dave and his Portland, Oregon-area bakery on YouTube.

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I have a deep love for cheese. Actually, it borders on an addiction, but (so far) I am able to live my life normally.

Does flying to Argentina for cheese count as normal?

A couple of years ago Barnaby I went to Argentina to visit friends. Really, it was to visit friends, the cheese (and wine, meat, leather!) was just a bonus. After our visit in the glorious Buenos Aires, we rented a car and headed into the pampas. Destination: Tandil, home of the famous Epoca de Quesos (Epoch of Cheese).

The Epoca de Quesos is housed in one of Tandil’s oldest buildings just off of the main square. This charming building was constructed in 1860 and operated as a staging post for travelers, when it took the better part of a month to get to Tandil from Buenos Aires. In the 1920’s it was converted into a general store and then in 1990 became an eatery to showcase the region’s incredibly rich tradition of artisinal cheese and cold-cut production.

The selection of cheeses offered was nothing short of fantastical…herbed, studded with chili peppers, dusted with smoked paprika; fresh-made to aged and ranging from the milk of cows, to goats and sheep. The old wooden shelves were laden with many cheeses I’d never seen or heard of before and the smell! Well, the smell was a bit like old, nasty milk at a vintage dairy. But to a cheese lover, it was perfume.

In addition to their bodacious assortment of traditional cheeses, they offer about 40 different cold cuts – salami, prosciutto, chorizo, mortadella – as well as other delicious snacks; beer and wine; and goodies.

Like the travelers of old, we settled into the back garden after a long dusty drive. They offered a variety of house tasting menus for 30-40 pesos each (about $10 USD). We chose a mix of meats and cheeses, which came on a rustic wooden board with a country bread. Adding to our delight was a wonderful bottle of red wine and an old-fashioned siphon of cold seltzer.

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