Menu cataloging at the French Culinary Library

The French Culinary Institute in New York City is a bustling, vibrant place, at least to the eyes of an outsider. I have had the great privilege to be working there this week. There is a whole roomful of books in the china shop there: they have an amazing library. That's why I'm visiting there. I met the librarian, Kim Beeman, several months ago, and she was kind enough to invite me to visit, just to help out with the cataloging of their difficult-to-catalog items, like a marvelous stack of old French cooking titles by authors such as Édouard de Pomiane, Curnonsky, Gaston Derys, Ali-Bab, Henri-Paul Pellaprat, Jeanne Anctil, and many others. How intimately those books were written, how generous the authors were with their knowledge. I loved working on those books, which chronicle a difficult time in European and American history (the 1930s and '40s) with a focus on ones of life's true pleasures, cooking.

Today I started cataloging the FCI menu collection. I was anxious about starting because I wanted to do it correctly, and menus are not books, they are not purely visual materials, and they can be considered to be a sort of continuing resource, or they can stand alone, each one apart from the other. They often have no dates apparent on them. All of these attributes make them a daunting cataloging prospect.

Kim arranged a meeting with Rebecca Federman, the culinary and menu librarian at the New York Public Library, so I held off cataloging the menus until I could ask her some questions. After a quick (and awe-inspiring) tour of the NYPL, we had lunch at BCD Tofu and talked about menu cataloging:

Are there guidelines for cataloging menus? "No." What is considered to be the title of the menu? "Usually the name of the restaurant." What about dates? [A pause, then...] "That's a tough question to answer; dates are problematic most of the time. Narrow them down as best as you can, but sometimes you just don't know." Collection level or individual records? "Individual records are much preferred over any kind of collection level cataloging." What about describing them? "There's no hard and fast rule about how to describe their physical aspects." How much of the contents do you describe? "That is up to you based on what you think the patrons might want to know. Some patrons even want to know the font used, or what graphics or advertising are included, so you really need to make a judgment about what to describe in each case." What about call numbers? "For a large collections, accession numbers may be the best way to give each menu a shelf location."

Did Rebecca tell me to look at a certain section in AACR2? No, but her answers gave me plenty to go on, so much so that I felt like I could confidently create a record, and probably get a decent result. So today I cataloged four menus, and I think the records may be useful. Kim agreed that they may work for her and for her patrons, so I am thrilled to be working on this project. The catalog records will be the portal that can allow interested people to know that the menus exist, what information they contain, and where they can be found. That's the satisfying part of cataloging, knowing that previously hidden items may now be discovered because they have been described.

I will go in to work on cataloging the menus again tomorrow. I will create records for menus from Le Bernardin, The River Café, Thomas Keller's first New York restaurant plus Per Se, and so many others. So I just have to say: Thanks, Kim, for this fantastic opportunity!!

Seven Fires

My husband is a biologist and his work takes him to every corner of the globe. Where he doesn't have friends before a trip, he has several by the time he leaves. With all of his hobnobbing, he doesn't spend much time shopping for souvenirs. But, when he goes to Mongolia or South Africa or Bolivia or wherever, he knows that, if he's going to pick up a gift for me, a food-related item would be likely well-received. When he went to Hokkaido a couple of years ago, he brought back the most enchanted box of confections that I could have ever imagined. The candy/pastry-making shop that he got it from was right there, so everything was so fresh. The flavors were generally muted but compelling, the textures were so delicate, and every item was gorgeously packaged. It exuded the essence of perfection.

He came back from Argentina a few weeks ago and brought me a book, Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way by Peter Kaminsky and Francis Mallmann. I had read a review of it in a cooking magazine a few weeks earlier and was not particularly drawn to it based on that. But then I had the book in my hands and started to look at it one night after things were tidied up well enough and everyone but me was in bed ... and I couldn't stop reading it and looking through it. Sometimes a book can truly transport you, and this is one of those. Now, I am a huge fan of Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford. I have all of their books, and talk about transporting! I will write about them in a post, soon. But their books are ones you dip into when the mood strikes; you don't read them through all at once. Seven Fires drew me through from start to finish in a sitting because it was about one man's passion, his deep love of place (rural Argentina) and the finest version of its culture. Peter Kaminsky's friendship-inspired writing and the evocative photos pull it all together, and it makes for a masterful book.

The book focuses on meat, of course. I am not the most ravenous meat eater in the world, as I have said before, but I can appreciate its allure. And I certainly love to be outdoors, near a well-tended fire, awaiting any well-prepared thing that might be roasting or bubbling over that fire, after a long day of tromping and digging and all the other wonderful outdoor things there are to do. I can just feel it: the sun starts to go down, the warmth that was in the air begins to suck away, and the cool chill draws you closer to the fire. Throw in a frightfully accomplished chef, and it makes for divinity.

While Mallmann clearly directed them, the information on the verso of the title page indicates that the recipes in the book were developed by Donna Gelb and Lucía Soria. Bravo to them, too. They have written down and tested Mallman's recipes beautifully. Aside from what you would expect, such as A perfect steak, how about Burnt ricotta salata, tomatoes and olives, Butternut squash soup with garlic and white wine, Empanadas Mendocinas, Striped bass with olive oil, herb, lemon, and garlic salsa, Stacked ratatouille, or Crunchy roasted potato and arugula salad?

I won't copy the recipe for Una vaca entera. Instead here is one for

Patagonian Potato Galette

I haven't kept count, but I will bet that I have made a million of these. I always serve them under a rib-eye steak and let the warm juices seep into the crispy potatoes. They're good with lamb--in fact, with almost any simple grilled or roasted main course.

In order for the potato slices to stick together they need to retain their starch, so do not rinse them after you slice them--they should go right into the cast iron. They can be made several hours in advance and kept at room temperature.

Serves 4

4 Idaho (baking) potatoes, scrubbed and patted dry
1 cup melted Clarified Butter [recipe follows]
Coarse salt

Using a mandoline, slice the unpeeled potatoes 1/16 inch thick (do not rinse); keep the slices of each potato in a stack to prevent them from discoloring.

Heat a chapa or 12-inch cast-iron skillet over a low flame (if you have two skillets, make two galettes at a time). Add 2 tablespoons clarified butter to each skillet. Working quickly, lay down a circle of potato slices around the perimeter of the skillet, with their edges overlapping by about 1/2 inch, angling them slightly up onto the side of the pan, because they will shrink down as they cook. (Do not angle the potato is using a chapa). Continue toward the center of the pan, forming overlapping circles in the same manner until you have filled the pan; use the smaller potato slices toward the center, and cover the gap in the center with a slice. Spoon 2 more tablespoons of clarified butter around the edges of the galette and over the potatoes, making sure to cover the center. Raise the heat to medium-high, place a heavy pan on top of the potatoes to weigh them down and help them stick together, and cook, without moving the potatoes, for 12 minutes; if one side of the galette seems to be browning faster, rotate the pan and/or adjust the heat if necessary.

After 12 minutes, remove the weight and, using two wide spatulas, flip the galette to cook on the other side. If any potato slices fall out of place, tuck them back in. Replace the weight and cook for 7 or 8 more minutes, or until browned on the second side and cooked thoroughly. Drain on a paper towel and sprinkle with coarse salt to taste. Repeat with the remaining potatoes. Transfer to a heated serving plate and top with a [cooked] rib-eye steak.

If the galettes are prepared in advance, transfer to baking sheets and warm in a 350 degree F oven for a minute or two before serving.


Clarified Butter

The flavor that butter adds to a dish is unique and marvelous. Clarifying butter removes the solids that tend to burn an ruin the taste.

Makes about 3/4 cup

1/2 pound unsalted butter

Slowly melt the butter in a small heavy saucepan over medium-low heat; do not stir. Remove from the heat, and carefully spoon off all the foam from the top. Pour the clear liquid butter through a fine-mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth, leaving behind the solids in the pan. Once cool, the clarified butter can be refrigerated for weeks.

Silver Nutmeg

When I first moved to Lincoln, I didn't know anyone here so I occupied my time with a lot of bike riding, and I signed up to have a table at the farmers' market selling baked goods. I love to bake and thought it would be a good way to see how hard it would be to bake a lot, on a schedule. I also wanted to find out if I would make or lose money doing it. A one-person bakery in super-miniature.

As I recall, I was required to have a name for my stall. I struggled to think of a good one. I had a copy of the Twentieth-Century Children's Book Treasury in which there is this nursery rhyme:
I had a little nut tree, nothing it would bear
But a silver nutmeg, and a golden pear
The King of Spain's daughter came to visit me
And all because of my little nut tree
Silver nutmeg. I loved that. I worked hard at preparing an elaborate sign for it.

I also worked hard baking all Friday evening, after working a full day, and through the night, without sleeping, to get ready for the Saturday market each week. Needless to say, I did not make money if you factor in the cost of labor, but even in ingredients I barely broke even. People go to the market to buy produce and plants. They may stop and buy a brownie to eat while they walk around, but they do not stock up on palmiers, small chocolate cakes and such, to get them through the week. For recipes, I used one of my favorite books for cookies, Chocolate Lover's Cookies & Brownies, with recipes developed by Beatrice Ojakangas, who is one of my favorite cookbook authors. I also used Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies and Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts, two outstanding contributions to cookbookery.

Though it was not profitable, I don't regret the experience. And I had one successful week (my final one, in fact), during the July Jamm festival. That week I decided to do a Muffin Madness sale, and I baked several kinds of muffins. I made chocolate-chocolate chip, bran, low-fat blueberry, cinnamon crumb, and a few others. I piled them in a big heap on the table. This was a huge hit. Wouldn't you know, I sold almost every muffin I made. My favorite one was based on "Yellowman's Banana Lime Bread" from the Caribbean chapter of Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant (by Ned Asta). The muffins had a dense crumb, a strong sweet-tart flavor, and a heavy moistness from the sugar syrup they were infused with. One young woman came by and bought one. A few minutes later she came back and bought every other one I had, sat down on the curb next to me and ate all six more!! That's one kind of small success, anyway. And they are kind of addictive, it's true. Here is the recipe:

Yellowman's Banana Lime Bread

In St. Lucia and Anguilla, I made friends with some local people after repeated visita to the same beaches. I won't forget their great nicknames: Merit, Rah's Bucket, Campbell Soup, Sugar Ray, the Ram, So-Lar, Freakout, Domino, Split, and Gorgeous. This tasty bread is named after Yellowman.

Yields 1 loaf

Batter
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 bananas)
3 tablespoons milk (or plain yogurt)
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup unsweetened grated coconut, toasted (see note)
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Glaze
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon rum
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1/4 cup unsweetened grated coconut, toasted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and butter a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan.

To make the batter, in a large mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter. Stir in the eggs, bananas, milk or yogurt, and lime juice. Add the salt, ginger, and grated coconut and mix well. Sift the flour and the baking powder together in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix them until smooth. Pour the batter into the buttered loaf pan and bake for an hour, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the bread for about 10 minutes before removing it from the pan.

Meanwhile, for the glaze, combine the brown sugar, butter, rum, and lime juice in a small saucepan on low heat, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes, until it becomes a thin syrup. Pour this glaze over the loaf, spreading it with a spatula or spoon to coat the top and sides. Sprinkle toasted grated coconut evenly over the glazed loaf (blogger's note: I always omit the coconut topping, and I sometimes omit the coconut in the bread, too, but it's better with the coconut in it).

Note: Spread the grated coconut on an unoiled baking tray and toast in a 300 degree oven or toaster oven for less than a minute. Be careful not to let it burn--it's delicate.

Louisiana

I lived in Louisiana for a while. Not long after Hurricane Andrew rolled through southern Louisiana, knocking houses all over the marsh like toys in a messy room, I was offered my first professional position as librarian at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Cocodrie. Cocodrie is about as way down south as you can get in Louisiana--and is essentially in the Gulf of Mexico because all of the houses are on stilts in that area.

After I moved there, I knew I was no longer in Western New York when I would take the alternate route home in my car and have to swing all the way back around instead because huge alligators were lying all over the road and I couldn't get by. Once I took my dog for a walk on the levee and, just too few feet away from me, I saw the hugest alligator known to man or woman and, as I backed s-l-o-w-l-y away, I knew I had to move. The very, very long snake that darted out from behind me on that same walk (I had walked by it???) chilled me to the bone, and I started to look for another job right then and there. And here I am in Nebraska. We occasionally get tornadoes rolling through and we have garter snakes, but there are not the daily hazards here that lurked around every corner down there (velvet ants, very large spiders, hurricanes, regular flooding, drunken nudity on Bourbon Street).

(Picture copyright 2005, otzberg; on Flickr. Used by permission (requested attribution))

Around the time I was getting ready to move from my teeny, giant spider-occupied house in Chauvin, Louisiana, I was slowly riding my bike down the street after dark sometime. I was weaving the tire back and forth, as you do when you ride a bike slowly, and at one point I heard a decided crunch underneath me. I looked down and I had bike-road-killed a crawfish. I actually ran over one and killed it. On the road. I took it as an omen that my decision to leave was correct.

One thing I really loved about living in Louisiana were the crawfish boils. Lots of spicy crawfish, potatoes, corn on the cob, and sausage (which didn't eat back then). I could eat a couple of pounds of crawfish or more at a sitting, easily. I cooked all sorts of wonderful seafood while I lived there, like a memorably fantastic ceviche-based triggerfish stew that I made from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant, a book that I was using a lot when I lived there. I also made lots of fried fish using Bobby Flay's Bold American Food (there's a really great Southwestern U.S.-inspired potato salad recipe in there, by the way, full of bits of chopped tomato, jalapeño, scallion, red onion, garlic and cilantro, that has become a staple for me, and a great Corn & wild rice pancake recipe. A good book all around, really.).

I found it amusing reading John Thorne's Serious Pig where he said that he found the seafood boils in Louisiana underwhelming. His tastes and mine often gibe, but not in this case. I can understand if it wouldn't be to someone's taste--it provides a one-note spiciness and no refinement of culinary skill to pull off. But I really love it. Thorne talks about Cajun and Creole foods in that book quite a bit. He goes all wistful in those passages, so there is probably some unmentioned back story there, but the foods there did not provoke that sense in me at all. They were foreign to me at first, but so straightforward and "of the place" that I quickly assimilated food-wise--when the food was good anyway. Just like here, it was not always easy to find a good place to eat, unless you love poboys, which you could often find a representative version of, and that I didn't care for at all. I'm just not much of a deep-fried-something + mayonnaise-on-white-bread kind of gal.

Also in Serious Pig, Thorne roundly, and rightly I take it, criticizes the Sesquicentennial edition of the Picayune's Creole Cook Book. I have that book, and have used it some but, since reading that it was poorly compiled and edited, I'm glad not to feel that I ought to. It's full of basic, if distinctive, fare, that I will gladly partake of when visiting the wild country of Louisiana, but will not often try to replicate now that I have left the place.

However, though it's touristy to say so, I will admit that I really miss the evaporated milk-lightened, chicory-laced café au lait and powdered sugar-covered beignets in the French Quarter. I made beignets as dessert after Christmas Eve dinner last year, from a box mix put out by the restaurant in question, Café du Monde, and they were so like the kind you get there, I was impressed by how easy they were to make.

Well, after all of my experiences in Louisiana, I can recommend that if you get your hands on some fresh triggerfish, this stew will showcase it well. From Nancy Lazarus in the "Africa South of the Sahara" chapter of Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant:

Casamance Stew

The sea and rivers of West Africa are abundantly blessed with fish, an important food source. This stew is inspired by Yassa, a popular specialty of Casamance, the southernmost coastal region of Senegal. Yassa is a spicy marinated dish prepared with poultry or fish. I've added sweet potatoes, because I think it's even more delicious with that soft sweetness providing a counterpoint to the lemony tang of the onions and fish.

The fish caught in West Africa's warm, shallow waters tend to be firmer and more substantial than our usual cod or flounder, so look for a firm, even chewy, fish that won't be lost in this tasty stew.

Serves 6

Marinade
1/2 cup fresh lemon or lime juice
1/2 cup white vinegar (blogger's note: 4-6 tablespoons is enough)
2 tablespoons tamari sauce
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 large garlic cloves, minced
2 or more seeded chiles, minced

1 1/2 pounds firm flesh steaks or fillets, such as monkfish
4 cups sliced onions

2 cups 1-inch cubed sweet potatoes
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 red bell pepper, chopped (optional) (blogger's note: I omitted this)
salt to taste

Combine the marinade ingredients. Rinse the fish well. If you're using a large fillet, cut it into serving-sized pieces. in a large glass bowl, layer about half of the onion slices. Pour some marinade over them. Then add the fish and the rest of the onions and marinade. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, but preferably overnight or all day.

When you're ready to cook, lift the fillets out of the marinade and set them aside. Cover the cubed sweet potatoes with cool, salted water, bring them to a boil, and then simmer for a few minutes until they are barely just tender. Drain any excess liquid. Meanwhile, in a heavy, nonreactive skillet, gently sauté the onions in the peanut oil for about 20 minutes, until lightly browned. Add the red bell pepper, if used, for the last 5 minutes of sautéing. Combine the sautéed onions and bell pepper with drained sweet potatoes and marinade and simmer for about 20 minutes.

While the vegetables simmer, briefly grill, broil, or sauté the fish until lightly browned on both sides. Add the fish to the simmering vegetables and continue to simmer for 15 minutes (blogger's note: 5 minutes is plenty) more or until the fish is just cooked through. Salt to taste.

Serve Casamance Stew in wide, shallow bowls on plenty of rice or steamed millet (blogger's note: I had it without rice or millet). If you like, garnish with chopped fresh parsley, cilantro, or scallions (blogger's note: I added none of these). Extra tamari at the table might be appreciated (blogger's note: not needed at all). Gombo and maize pudding or banana chutney would make this meal a feast.

In Bruges

I am getting ready to give a paper in Brugge, Belgium, in a couple of weeks. It will be on the economics of open access publishing. I am preparing in earnest for it now and I'm sure that I will be ready well enough. I have signed up for a bike tour from Brugge to another town close by for right after the conference. Then I planned a couple of free days after that. I was considering going to some other country from there after that, since I have never been to Luxembourg, The Netherlands or Germany. Or I may just stay in Brussels for that time, which I'm sure would be great--all the chocolate, and fresh seafood there. That would suit me just fine.

Just today, it occurred to me that I have never much studied Belgian food. So I was looking on Amazon for a Belgian cookbook and ran across this one:


I had not heard of it and was considering getting it, sight unseen, but I resisted. I thought that I could first do some research online about the foodways of Belgium.

A couple of days ago, I brought a pile of books downstairs, getting ready to add them to my Book of the Day list that I send out via Twitter. I wanted to get the citations entered so that I could put the books back. I glanced over at the one on the top of the pile, and this is what I had unwittingly pulled:

La Cuisine Chantraine: The Complete Collection of Original Recipes Created at the Restaurant Chantraine in Brussels by Charles Chantraine (Barrows, 1966).

What a goofball I am.

So, what's in this small volume? French food, essentially, dishes such as Hot liver pâté canapés, Cold braised celery with anchovies, Cherry consommé, Pear salad with celeriac, Grilled chicken with green herb sauce, Wild game with chestnuts, and Strawberries with port and currant jelly sauce. As Belgium shares a border with France, this is not surprising. I'm sure, though, that traditional Belgian foods reflect its bordering Germany just as much. Belgium is known for its beer as well as its chocolate, so I can only imagine that I will find delicious sausages there, and hearty potato dishes, as well as delicately sauced shellfish and refined pastries. It should be a wonderful conglomeration of the best of Western European foods. I am so excited to find out first-hand!

Here's a very simple dessert recipe from La Cuisine Chantraine.

La Dessert de Marcelle
Bananas and Cream

To serve four:

4 bananas
3/4 cup heavy cream
Juice of 2 lemons
6 tablespoons granulated sugar

Mash thoroughly or sieve the bananas. Mix them with the cream, and blend in the lemon juice, strained, and sugar to taste. Chill thoroughly.

Serve very cold in small goblets or parfait glasses, with lady fingers.

Appetizers

In True Tuscan (HarperCollins, 2005), Cesare Casella writes:
Over the years I've read various "theories" on
antipasti, mostly having to do with foods designed to
stimulate the appetite or somehow prepare the diner
for the meal that follows. My own theory is that it's
all about social order, that appetizers are a way of
showing how refined a diner or his host is ... I'm no
blueblood, but I am a true believer in multiple
courses. The trick, of course, is to serve food well,
without overwhelming yourself with too much work or
your guests with too much food.
I can't tell you what a revelation this was for me to read. Now, I will have a party with only small plated dishes, or I will have a regular dinner party, but I do not often make appetizers for my dinner parties. We once had a visiting researcher from Mexico, and I made an appetizer when we had him over for dinner, but that was one of only a few times I combined the two. As it is, my husband and I are both university faculty and I have all of a sudden realized that, for certain crowds, it would be the thing to do. And what fun to do something a little more extravagant than usual.

By themselves, I am a huge fan of appetizers and hors d'oeuvres. The idea of of them, eating them, and preparing them, are all appealing to me. When I used to have more time available to entertain and to cook for general pleasure, I would make a dozen different kinds at a time. My stepson and I once prepared seven hours straight for a faculty reception my husband and I were giving for a wonderful Parisian friend, Jean-Pierre, who was staying with us for a couple of weeks. One book I used a lot for that event was the fabulous Martha Stewart's Hors D'Oeuvres Handbook (Clarkson Potter, 1999). For that party, we made Chèvre grapes, Smoked turkey on blueberry scones, Baked honey shrimp with baguette rounds, Shaved roast beef on baguette rounds with horseradish cream, Bratwurst slices with French mustard, Date-nut bread topped with cream cheese and peach chutney, Bleu and cream cheese spread on dried pear slices, Grape tomatoes stuffed with anchovies, capers and Parmesan, Spicy-sweet blanched almonds, and Brownies with walnuts. I also used the Joy of Cooking for those. We made the bread from a dough I had prepared the day before. The date-nut bread, blueberry scones and brownies we made that day. We peeled 10 pounds of shrimp, we scooped out dozens of grape tomatoes and globe grapes and stuffed them one by one. The pear slices with bleu and cream cheese spread each had a single herb sprig on top. Everything was so lovely, and the party was relaxed and fun. It was quite a while ago now that we did this, but I will try to find a picture of the spread and post it sometime.

I have done a few parties similar to that (and I once did a dessert party that was elaborate, but lost on my college-age friends at the time) and I dream about putting together another one.

Until then, I will just start to think up a menu. And I'll give you a fun recipe from The Pooh Party Book (Dutton, 1971) that would be elegant for a party.

Violet Honey Sauce for Ice Cream or Cake

1-2 large bunches of violets
1 pint jar with lid
boiling water
2 lemons, juiced
1 teaspoon water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 tablespoons cornstarch (optional)

- If you live where violets grow, then you can make this delicious Honey Sauce for cake and ice cream.
- Wash the violets and remove the stems.
- Pack the violet blossoms into the jar. Fill it full.
- Cover the violet blossoms with boiling water and let stand for 24 hours.
- Strain the violet water and add the lemon juice.
- In a teaspoon of water over a low flame, mix the sugar and honey together until syrupy.
- Add the violet water and lemon juice.
- This is a delicious sauce which you can thicken with the cornstarch, over low heat, if you like.
But, as it happened, it was Rabbit
who saw Piglet first. Piglet had
got up early that morning to pick
himself a bunch of violets.
From The House at Pooh Corner

Boston

Many years ago, I was accepted into Boston University and managed to go there for three semesters before heading back home to finish up at SUNY College at Buffalo. My father drove me to the airport to move to Boston. On the way, he ran out of gas. I made the flight but it was a harrowing way to begin my college career.

The dorms were full that semester so, before ending up in a cool brownstone on Buswell Street, the school put a bunch of us up in the Sheraton downtown for a few months. This was an incredible step up from my living situation at home. Kind of fairy tale-like.

I arrived in Boston with pennies in my pocket and no prospect of an income at all. My first meal in town was a submarine sandwich from a place across from the campus on Comm Ave. and they put pickles right on the sandwich! I loved that. But the sub took a good portion of my money, so I needed a plan.

BU had (maybe still has?) a mostly-vegetarian dining room, called the Banner Room, so I went to apply for a job there. That way, I figured, I could eat at least during my work shifts. I was hired and I worked as much as my schedule would allow.

I worked very hard and I learned many things about food service there. I also learned some about the great cuisine of New England. Having grown up in the Northeast U.S., the foods of New England were not foreign to me, but to be right in the heart of New England, and surrounded by all manner of wonderful sea foods, baked beans, sweet corn bread, chowders, pies, etc., was heavenly. If pressed, I would have a hard time deciding which U.S. regional cuisine I prefer more: New England or Lowcountry Southern. Well, I can't pick; I love them equally well.

There are so many fabulous cookbooks that cover the foods of New England and, of course, the Thornes write about it, too, and I am huge fans of theirs. One of my very favorite books is Rain, Hail and Baked Beans: A New England Seasonal Cook Book by Duncan MacDonald and Robb Sagendorph (Ives Washburn, 1958; reissued by Dover in 1993 with the title Old Time New England Cookbook). I adore the organization of the book by parts of seasons, such as early fall, fall, early winter, and so on. For this time of year, the chapter is called "End of Summer, August 2-September 9," and it includes simple but good recipes for Concord grape jelly, Rose petal jam, Deep-dish pear pie, Peach sauce, Cold fruit soup, Sauerkraut, and Fried pies.

The introductions to each chapter are fun to read. The text for the "End of Summer" chapter begins:
The rainy spell you may be complaining about
in August lasts longer than most people believe it
should. And when this happens, you are sure to be
reminded that it rained on July 15 last, the day of
St. Swithin. The superstition is that if it rains
on this day, it will rain for forty days and then
some. When St. Swithin died, he asked that he not
be buried inside the cathedral where he had
preached. Rather, he preferred being somewhere
outside, perhaps a long walk, so he could be nearer
to the people of his parish. But his instructions
were not followed out. He was buried within.
Several centuries later, when it was decided that
his wishes should have been complied with, his
remains were removed to a grave outside by a walk
beneath the cathedral eaves. On the day of his
reburial, legend says, it rained furiously and kept
on for weeks and weeks. Thus his connection with
heavy rains almost any time from July 15 and on
into August.
The authors go on to acknowledge the surplus of produce at the end of summer, they mention the cyclical decline in diversity of bird life in the region around this time of year, and talk some about the origin of the term Dog Days, and lots of other fun things. Great reading, good, solid recipes. A delightful book.

Another book about New England regional cuisine is The Transcendental Boiled Dinner by John J. Pullen (Lippincott, 1972). This is one that I picked up from my friend in Kansas, about whom I wrote about in my very first blog post. I knew nothing about the book before I began reading it last year, but was so smitten by it that I read it straight through in a sitting. Pullen was an excellent writer, and very charming and funny, and his book-length instructions, and admonitions, about how to prepare the very best "boiled" beef dinner (which, by the way, must never actually be boiled--only ever simmered) are so engaging that I will surely read the book a few times more.

There are, of course, many other books on the foods of New England, but these two are charming, if older, examples.

Here is a brief and absolutely delicious-sounding recipe from Rain, Hail and Baked Beans from the "Early Fall, September 10-October 20" chapter:

Squash Pie

1 1/2 cups squash pulp
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup cream
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1 9-inch unbaked pie shell

Combine ingredients. Mix well. Pour into pie shell. Bake in hot oven (425 degrees) for 45 minutes, or longer.