Shortbread is simply the most delicious biscuit ever conceived by mankind (though I suspect
womankind had more to do with it!).
It would be blasphemy to call shortbread a "cookie". It is, truly, a BISCUIT!
As with all simple things, it is NOT easy to make, so I suggest you try this out on yourself or the family before you present it at afternoon tea to strangers.
Here is my Mother's recipe (I can not refer to that sainted lady and not capitalize - sorry, America!)
My twin brother’s name is Paul Newman and when we were growing up in
Beverly Hills in the 1960s, because Paul had his own phone line, and
because he was listed in the phone directory, we often got calls from
fans thinking it was the home of the movie star. When you’re a
teenager and you’re desperate for something to feel superior about,
this fit the bill quite nicely.
“How could they possibly think he’d be listed?” we’d scoff.
I never had a crush on Paul Newman, the movie star. He was no David McCallum, that’s for sure. But I could certainly appreciate what a good actor he was. After seeing him in Slapshot, The Verdict, Absence of Malice, Sometimes A Great Notion and The Hudsucker Proxy (the funniest I’d ever seen him) I was an admirer.
I think it must be old age. Once upon a time, when a new restaurant
opened, my wife, Peggy, and I were the first in line. We would fight
for a reservation, make sure to try the newest new thing, and then tell
everyone we knew about our latest dining adventure. We just don’t do
that all that much anymore. Maybe we have gotten old.
What we like to do now is eat with friends – the chefs, owners, waiters and bartenders who we have gotten to know because we eat so often at their restaurants.
We have made many friends at restaurants over the last few years. One of our friends is Eric Greenspan, the chef and owner of The Foundry on Melrose and The Roof on Wilshire. Peggy and I met Eric when we were taking a walk on Melrose one Sunday. We saw The Foundry, which was closed at that hour, but as we were looking through the window we heard a “May I help you” boomed from up the street. It was Eric coming to start prepping for the night.
We introduced ourselves and told him we were fans of his cooking from when he was at Patina. We used to go there when it was on Melrose, and we were lucky enough to twice sit at the chef’s table, where we got to watch Eric run his kitchen. Far and away the best theater experience we have ever had.
Cooking and travel shows make me angry. That's right, I said angry. For
a very irrational reason. They make me hungry, which leads me to
snacking which is making me fat. I usually have pretty good
self-control, mainly because I don't stock snacks in my home to begin
with; however, after watching Anthony Bourdain traveling the globe
eating across country after country, Mario Batali delivering another
delicious Italian dish and the Top Chef contestants turning vending
machine food into gourmet treats, I want to enjoy what they're
eating/making right at that moment and I can't.
Thus I get angry and find myself rummaging through my kitchen looking for anything to ease my phantom hunger pains. I'm not really hungry, they've just made me think that I am and when all I can conjure up is stale nuts or microwave popcorn, I get miffed. Sure, I could have more selections on hand, but that would not be helpful to my waistline. Nor would they be as delicious as what I'm seeing on the screen. Getting enough exercise when you work in front of a computer all day is hard enough without these talented kitchen wizards making it worse.
Millions of people all over the world will open a restaurant menu
today. They will look at menus for the food and the price and make their
selection, then the menu will lay on the table, ignored, an annoyance
taking up elbow space.
Not so for Jim Heinmann, whose new book Menu Design in America: 1850-1985 (Taschen) asks that you set aside the hunger pangs and examine the menu, admire its design. Heimann’s book made its appearance at one of the best-catered signings in recent history. Delicacies and drinks provided by Taschen’s Beverly Hills store’s glamorous neighbors: Mr. Chow, Spago, The Cheese Story Beverly Hills, Vosges Haut Chocolate, The Spare Room and Remy U.S.A.
The dress code was country club casual. I was struck by a number of women with seventy-year old hands and faces as smooth as river stones in pretty summer dresses, light layers of lavender and other gentle shades of purple daringly accented with a coral pink or chartreuse accessory. Their hair was sparse with age but coiffed into cotton candy halos. It was all very Palm Beach or Palm Springs on Easter Sunday, or Beverly Hills before black became de rigueur. None of them smoked, not upstairs at the open-air bar or out on the clean, expansive sidewalk, but their hushed, hoarse voices betrayed a secret habit, some sweet vice recently abandoned.