All this butterflying, browning and simmering started with this: The Rigatoni with Sunday Gravy at Table Tales.

So to celebrate Nake-id IT's birthday, we commenced. Inspired by the following blog posts here and here, we decided to start with braciole (pronounced bra-jool). Braciole is a rolled slice of beef that's been pounded and layered with salt and pepper, romano cheese, parsley, garlic and breadcrumbs--anything, really that suits your fancy. We used flank steak that Mitch marinated overnight in wine and then butterflyed slicing it horizontally.

Then he pounded it under plastic wrap--to curtail any errant flecks of meat from going airborne.

Dusted and slathered with goodies.

Roll the steak from one butterfly wing to the other and secure with kitchen twine or skewers. Brown all sides in olive oil.

Then simmer for hours in homemade red sauce preferably made with San Marzano or San Marzano-style tomatoes. Our meat fell appart completely; if you want it to retain a pretty rolled aspect, cook it a bit less.

Then manga! We loved it!

Upside Down Apple Gingerbread

This year the apple tree didn't deliver. A mixed blessing; we don't have apples, but we don't have squirrels pelting the cats, either. And that vague smell of vinegar and decay if we aren't vigilant about collecting the fallen.

I typically make my mother-in-law's apple cake for Rosh Hoshanah or thereabouts, so on one of my few excursions out recently, bought a bag of organic Jonathans from this vendor at the Farmer's Market--a very generous bag of damaged bakers for $5 that taste like cider and perfume. I couldn't immediately locate the apple cake recipe (it has since surfaced), but was of a mind to combine the tart taste of apples with a dark gingerbread. And found this.

I doubled the recipe to get two cakes and used about 4 tbs less butter than called for. We loved it. Great with tea, but promises to be even better with whipped cream!

To kick off the new year right, we started our morning with fresh challah and honey. (Rosh Hoshana actually starts tonight at sundown.) I made the dough yesterday (from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day), then Mitch rose early to roll it out and bake it.

It's not Sheindy's challah--the melt-in-your-mouth gold standard--but for a first effort it wasn't bad.

Wishing you and yours a happy, healthy and creative new year. L'shana tovah!

Last night after processing the above mountain of tomatoes with a proportional ratio of raw garlic, I went to yoga.

I shook hands with the yoga teacher, whom I had never met, and spotted the woman next to me through various poses as she did me. It wasn't until about mid-way through the practice as I began to glow from exertion that I realized my hands smelled pungently and distinctively of raw garlic. Like I had been ingesting the stuff whole for weeks.

As the teacher twisted me into a broken facsimile of full pigeon, I kept thinking, he's going to forever think of me as Stinking Rose.

They are a perverse lot, tomatoes. One minute you're shouting at them to ripen up, the next you're begging people to take them before they decompose into pools of red gore.

This week faced with a basket of soggy beauties, I decided to make spaghetti sauce. But being mid-week and and lacking the fortitude to blanche, peel and seed tomotoes, here's what I did:

Recipe--Peels-and-all Spaghetti Sauce

1 dozen fresh tomatoes, cored and halved

5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 onion, chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

Red pepper flakes, a healthy pinch

1/2 cup chopped, fresh basil

3-4 Tbs of tomato paste

Salt to taste

Directions: Sautee garlic and onion in olive oil until translucent. Add red pepper flakes. Turn heat down to low and add tomatoes. Stew for about an hour, leaving the pot uncovered to allow sauce to reduce. Stir in basil and tomato paste. Grind to bloody pulp with an immersion blender.

Bon appetit!

About making coq au vin, Mom warned me: It's not so bad, except peeling those damn little onions.

Our generation of cooks-with-airs wields knives emboldened by the power of the Internet. (On the odd chance that you might not be able to live another minute without knowing how to peel pearl onions, here you go.) Braised pearl onions are a sweet-savory revelation and worth the fuss. Use frozen and you'll find yourself transported to the Furr's Cafeteria of your memory.

I followed Julia's recipe to the letter. And for the first two-and-a-half hours of preparation had a grand time, sauteeing, buttering, braising, blanching, beurre manié-ing. Well into the third hour, I thought, "It's a flippin' chicken! Enough with the layering of flavors, already."

Yes, it was delicious. Rich and velvety, humble--just chicken, wine and vegetables--but elegant enough to serve to company, which we did. With wild rice, a hazel-nut-and-arugala salad (thanks, Patricia) and organic peach cobbler. And, yes, more wine.

Like many well-educated housewives, my mother purchased Mastering the Art of French Cooking in the mid-1960s and tucked right in. One night I sat at the kitchen table, the red fleurs-de-lis calico of Julia Child's masterpiece open for quick reference, Mom braising pearl onions and, simmering bacon and finally browning chicken, after which, she poured this pungent amber liquid over the bird, told me to stand back--I was all of about six--and whoosh--flames! Clearly this was not an every-day meal.

I was an absurdly picky eater at the time, hot dogs and vegetable soup, mostly, hamburgers rarely and only with ketchup. I loathed cheese, salads and anything with mayonnaise (a fetish that continues; would that I still hated cheese!).  When Mom set cooled mushrooms and a chicken wing in front of me, its skin tinged red from the burgundy, I balked. She implored me to "just to taste." For whatever reason, I did, fearing the noxious taste of canned spinach, or the slimy, nasally tang of mayo. But I was wrong. Here was something rich and savory, chicken that no longer tasted of muscle and paste, but transmogrified by wine into a hearty, delicious stew.

After that first bite, of course, I begged for more, requesting it on birthdays and special occasions. Dutifully, Mom made it Julia's way a few more times then wised up. "My shortcuts," she called them. She browned the chicken and vegetables and then threw everything into our black enameled roaster; braising it in the oven, allowing the gorgeous alchemy of wine and heat to scent the house.  There were no more flames, no more parboiled bacon, but it still tasted like a revelation.

***

I'm attaching this recipe for coq au vin here. Julia Child and her partner Simone Beck wrote their recipes as narratives, insinuating ingredients like characters in a story, the cooking process working as plot. This recipe is written more conventionally.

***

Tomorrow I plan to make the dish Julia's way for guests in honor of her birthday, Aug. 15. Julia Child changed the way millions of women cooked and what Americans ate. And in honor of my Mom, who started a picky eater on a more adventurous path. 

A recipe's provenance is sometimes as interesting as the recipe itself. No doubt your recipe box contains stories galore. I have the chili recipe my mother clipped from a magazine in the  1970s, my German grandmother's chicken fricassee instructions, a coffee cake Mammaw made for church functions, Roxanne's Chomboth, recipes from one of the Garlic Queen's mysteries and countless others.

The brownies, however, came from a funeral.

We were at a memorial party, munching on the food and chatting about the deceased when we happened upon this tray of brownies. They were phenomenal--moist, but dense and cakey, larded with nuts. Given the setting we were a bit unseemly in our enthusiasm for the above. A gentleman with whom we had been talking, indicated proudly that he was the author of the brownie recipe in question. "I have copies of the recipe out in my car."

We stood there nonplussed while he trotted out to his car. Herewith JR's Brownies, as amended by yours truly:

1 1/2 cups unsifted flour (bread flour,  if possible)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

2 cups chocolate chips

2 cups walnuts, chopped

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In small saucepan, combine butter, sugar and water; bring just to a boil. Remove from heat. Add chocolate chips and vanilla; stir until morsels melt and mixture is smooth. Transfer to a large bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg. Gradually blend in flour mixture with spoon. Stir in nuts. Spread into a greased 13" x 9" x 2" baking pan.

Bake for 45 minutes. (Test at 35-40 minutes to ensure you don't over cook.)

Eat with relish.

Profile of an eggplant, incinerated

Yesterday buried deep in online mah jong work, I neglected the eggplant I had placed on the grill. These are the eggplants I grew from tiny seedlings. Tucked into the earth with my bare hands. Tender, perfectly formed, succulent aubergines. Burned to a crisp.

Though somewhat disturbed by my callous disregard for our purple babies, I nonetheless sauteed up some of the ubiquitous summer squash to fill in. The result: A tastey, not-too-time-consuming casserole.

1 large eggplant, peeled and sliced

1 onion chopped

2 cloves garlic

1 Tbs olive oil

1 lb ground beef

1 14-ounce can tomatoes

1/4 cup red wine

1 Tbs cinnamon

1 Tbs oregano

1/2 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 cup raisins

1 cup bread crumbs

grated parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

Instructions:

Grill eggplant until tender (not blistered). Sautee and season onion and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add ground beef and cook until just browned. Add tomatoes, wine and spices and simmer until sauce is thick. Add raisins. Line greased casserole dish with eggplant. Top with spicey meat mixture, bread crumbs and cheese. Bake covered at 400 degrees until heated through. Uncover to brown cheese.

Serve with pita bread and salad.

*Note: If you're light on eggplant, you can fill in with sauteed or grilled summer squash or fresh spinach.

Would it be more appetizing to call it, braised tofu?

Though it requires some time in the oven, this dish takes minimal preparation, allowing plenty of time to play online mah jong knit, write or improve one's mind while it cooks. The tofu comes out kinda rubbery--think salty eraser--the ideal consistency for toting along on a hike or brown bagging to work. Serve it with a savory brown rice and wilted greens for a tastey weeknight vegetarian meal.

(This recipe comes from our buddy Brett via somebody else with whom we have no acquaintance, so we're giving the credit to Brett.)

2 lbs extra firm tofu

2 tsp garlic powder

1/4-1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Bragg Liquid Aminos

Instructions: Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Slice tofu in 1/4-inch cutlets and place in large baking dish. Dust lightly with garllic powder and even more lightly with the cayenne pepper. Squirt cutlets with Bragg Liquid Aminos (not too much or they'll end up really salty). Bake for 30 minutes.

Lower oven heat to 400. Remove baking dish, flip cutlets and repeat the above instructions with the garlic-cayenne-Bragg's mixture. Return baking dish to oven and bake for another 40 minutes or until golden brown and nice and rubbery.

I swear, this tastes really good.