More Home Cooking

Although I’ve never met her in person and she is no longer alive, I feel a true friendship with Laurie Colwin. Last year I borrowed Home Cooking: A Writer In The Kitchen from the library and loved it so much I had to buy a copy. I also purchased this one, More Home Cooking.

Laurie Colwin is my kind of cook. In More Home Cooking she chats about a variety of food topics in such a way that I continue to have mental, and sometimes oral, conversations with her as I’m reading. Here are some samples:

• In More About Gingerbread Laurie talks about how children seem to love this treat. She shared how she sometimes gave it to her daughter frosted with a chocolate or lemon frosting or sometimes split in two with raspberry jam on top. I told Laurie about how every Fall my mom would make gingerbread and put her homemade applesauce on top. Mmm – nothing better, unless you also add whipped cream.
• In her essay on Condiments I laughed with Laurie as she talked about how her life would be “impoverished” without lime pickles and how capers and fermented black beans make so many things taste better. And I say, “Laurie, you should talk to my family. They make jokes and call me the Condiment Queen. Let me tell you what I have on hand.”
• In Real Food For Tots Laurie reveals herself as a food crank. She talks about how parents should be obsessive about the source of the food their children eat. She prefers organic but she is also aware of what her statement does to harried working mothers. She also feels strongly that mothers should be teaching their sons how to cook so when they are married there is a more equitable partnership in the kitchen. This essay was written nearly twenty years ago. “Oh Laure, I wish you could have live long enough to see the current craze for organic. Would you believe it’s  now sexy for men to be in the kitchen?”

This group of essays was first published in Gourmet Magazine and then gathered into this book (1993). For me the essays are best read one or two at a time. As I said earlier, they are so much like visiting with a good friend. I can’t recommend either of these books enough for people who love good food.

There aren’t a load of recipes in this book but let me share a simple, yummy one with you. It’s called Peach Pizza.

1. The first part calls for a dough mixture, the crust. I skipped that part. I used one Pillsbury pie crust – flat on a baking sheet with the edges turned up about a half an inch.
2. Chop 1/2 cup of almonds fine and add 2 tablespoons of flour and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Sprinkle the mixture over the pie crust.
3. Cut enough peeled peaches into thin slices to cover the dough in one layer in some attractive overlapping pattern and arrange them on the dough.
4. Bake the pizza at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until the crust is golden.

It’s so quick and easy and just right for now when the fresh peaches are coming in at the Farmers Market. I hope you’ll give this one a try.

This was first posted on my blog, Joyfully Retired