Not Derby Pie

buy unique gifts at Zazzle

Hi lovely readers!

At long last, I’ve kicked my own butt into gear and created Not Derby Pie Note Cards, featuring pictures taken by yours truly. Here are the details:

• The cards were created in collaboration with Zazzle, an online create-your-own-stuff company.
• Each card has a full-size picture on the front, and a smaller, related picture on the back.
• Each card comes with its own envelope.
• Cards are 4″x6″.

There are also some bargains that you should know about:

• Zazzle offers free boxed sets with orders of 10 cards.
• Buy 10, and save 12%; buy 20, and save 32%!
• Discounted prices apply to your total order; they don’t all have to be the same card.

I’ve created ten cards; feel free to buy a boxed set of one of each, or to mix, match, and double up as you please. Thanks to all those who requested these cards enough that I finally made ’em happen, and enjoy!

D and I were in New York over New Years, and our hostess, Meryl, made a lovely pajama brunch. (Let’s face it; what else do you really want to do on New Years day besides lounge around in your pjs eating great food with friends? Yea — it was pretty fabulous.) Meryl picked out the recipes in advance, and she and I did most of the cooking that morning. Now, if it’s not clear from reading this blog, I’m a darn lazy cook. I mess up recipes all the time, burn things almost chronically, and rarely even read through a recipe before reaching into the flour jar. Meryl=exactly the opposite; she couldn’t have read through the recipe more, or have been more exacting in her measurements. It was slightly hysterical. But dare I say our different approaches yielded some pretty excellent food? All morning long, people swooned over the frittata, which really couldn’t have been easier to make. The recipe originally came from Real Simple magazine, and basically had you mix a whole boatload of eggs with spinach, tomatoes, onions and feta cheese, pour it into an oiled pyrex pan, and bake for 40 minutes until firm. Real simple, indeed — and real delicious.
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Lots of thank yous in this post! First, thanks to Sarina for pointing out that today is National Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk Day. I know, it’s apropos of absolutely nothing, but it had to be said. Second, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! Now that I’ve got a quarter century worth of silliness behind me, my little bro loves to call me an old fart, and I guess I am. 25, baby!

Now, onto the more relevant thanks:
Thank heavens for Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan. If you’re scratching your head and wondering, “who?” then you’d better catch yourself up to speed. Pierre Herme: world-famous pastry chef and dessert god. Dorie Greenspan: baker, cookbook author, and chronicler of both Pierre’s unforgettable creations and her own. Exhibit A: Dorie Greenspan’s fantastic book, Paris Sweets, in which she includes Pierre Herme’s best-ever chocolate cookies (there called Korova Cookies). Exhibit B: Dorie’s latest book, Baking: From My Home to Yours, in which the same recipe appears under a new name: “world peace cookies.” The new nomenclature implies that enemies would find it tough to argue with a plate of these cookies in front of them; however, fight me for one of these cookies, and I guarantee, YOU WILL LOSE.
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This week, I was in North Carolina for work. I stayed in the coastal plains of NC, in an all-American town. By all-American, I mean the only things to eat were carbs and packaged food, and the most popular restaurants were Wendy’s, Popeye’s, Arby’s, and other restaurants whose names are people. Get the drift? Needless to say, I was thrilled to touch down on the runway in the nation’s capital, my mouth watering at the thought of cooking up some freakin’ vegetables for dinner.

I was going to blog about cookies tonight, but the sheer thought of butter and sugar makes me shudder with memories of my daily intake earlier this week. (Though, to NC’s credit, it’s not every day that a waffle costs $2.65, a side of grits sets you back 35 cents (!), and breakfast for two with tip comes to 8 bucks.) In short, I can’t think about sweet stuff right now, so I’ll tell you instead about the stuffed eggplants I made this past Sunday.
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I’m going away for a few days this week, and wanted to leave D with an ample supply of goodies for while I’m gone, so yesterday was a non-stop baking marathon chez moi. I’ll admit that I find myself constantly reverting to tried-and-true recipe favorites, like those cranberry cornmeal cookies and whole wheat sables. But these days, when making an old recipe means no blog post, I’m shockingly motivated to seek out new, potentially-delicious recipes. Save the occasional failure and the very infrequent disaster, my adventurousness has been paying off.

As it happens, the only new recipe I made this weekend involved eggplant and feta cheese, so no, it’s not a cookie recipe. But that’s another story for another day. The cookies I made yesterday are all old favorites that have somehow slipped to the bottom of my mental stack, and ginger spice cookies top this list of wonderful but forgotten cookies. No sooner had I sliced up the crystalized ginger than my ginger spice memories came flooding back. After taking a warm, moist, molasses-y bite, I doubted that I’d ever forget these cookies again.
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Here’s a lesson in spousal communication. If you suspect that your significant other doesn’t like a particular food, do yourself a huge favor: just ask. If you don’t, you mind wind up like me. In the almost three years that D and I have been together, I never once have made brussels sprouts. I just assumed that D would hate those mini green balls of healthful deliciousness. People, how wrong I was.

A couple weeks back, D and I went to an absolutely fantastic dinner at Bryce and Matt’s. Bryce is a vegetarian, and a great cook, so dinner was an all-out vegetable and fake meat fest. Having grown up in a vegetarian house, I was in a form of heaven much reminiscent of my childhood. I was, however, slightly concerned about D, who favors meat. But to my surprise, D asked me to get Bryce’s fake meat pie recipe. I asked if I should make it with real meat, and D said, “Just make it exactly the way Bryce makes it. Don’t do any of your little alterations or substitutions or anything.” Ok then.

But that’s neither here nor there…the point is, after that dinner, D asked for brussels sprouts. Yep! That’s right. I mean, twist my arm why don’t you. I guess I’ll make ’em.
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I worked from home on Monday morning in exchange for taking Friday off. Ahh, the wonders of working at home: no commute=less time wasted= more time spent baking delicious things in the kitchen= one more post to entertain you! I’d say the equation works out in everyone’s favor, don’t you think?

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