Comfort Foods and Indulgences

When I pulled out the pocket folder filled with recipes I’ve gathered from cooking classes I’ve attended over the years, I was surprised to see that some of the recipes dated back to 1984. That was the year I started taking classes from Andrea Halgrimson in her cozy little kitchen in Fargo. I had two young sons at the time. Gathering with a small group of food-loving people in Andrea’s kitchen was always a special night out for me.

I flipped through my stash of recipes to find Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake. On a May evening in 1984, Halgrimson mixed up a biscuit-like chocolate dough that she rolled out and pressed into large round cake pans. The two chocolate shortcake layers were packed with a filling of whipped cream and fresh strawberries.

That was the night I got over my fear of unflavored gelatin. Halgrimson showed how easy it is to dissolve a little gelatin in water in a glass measuring cup. She placed the measuring cup in a small amount of water in a saucepan over low heat. As the water in the saucepan warmed up, the granulated gelatin dissolved in the water in the cup. Easy.

Cobbler, slump, or grunt; have you heard of these desserts? Most people can recognize a cobbler, a fruit dessert baked in a casserole with a dough topping but with no bottom crust. A slump or grunt is almost the same thing except that they are simmered on the stove, resulting in a steamed dumpling-like top. Supposedly one dessert is named after how the dumplings look (they slump) and the other after the sound the bubbling fruit makes (it grunts). All three are considered New England specialties dating back to Colonial times, when they would have been made in a cast-iron pan over a fire. Luckily we now have the luxury of using a stove or oven.

Many fruits make wonderful cobblers, slumps, or grunts. Apples are very well known in cobblers, but I like mine with stone fruit, especially peaches or plums. Nectarines and cherries, or a combination of all of the above would work extremely well too. Recently I picked up a few pints of very nice red plums at Sherwood Farm in Easton, CT. Lately they have become one of my favorite farm markets selling a little bit of every fruit and vegetable. When I saw those bright red plums, I immediately knew that I was going to make one of these simple and homey desserts.

Cheese, how much do I love thee? Forget it, I'm not going to count the ways. I know you, my sweetest of readers, have not the time nor the patience for me to even begin to tell you how cheese runs through my veins.  But believe me, it does.

My pal Matt from 1000 Markets told me about a vendor on his site. The company, Mt. Townsend Creamery, had a unique story and a delicious product. I must've dozed off when he began telling me the company history because all I could do was daydream about little wedges of cheeses from the Pacific Northwest. A few days later I was able to understand his excitement and sat down to a small little cheese tasting at home. And then my little cheesetasting turned into a full-on pig out moment until most of my cheese was gone.

Mt. Townsend Creamery began three years ago when partners Matt Day, Will O'Donnell and Ryan Trail decided to create artisan cheeses using fresh local milk from Washington dairies. Located in Port Townsend, Washington, the creamery is housed in a fifty year old building that has been home to boat builders, glass repair companies, a radical fringe book publisher (why not?) and most recently the local Department of Licensing. The three cheese fellas, along with the help of friends and local contractors, created a modern facility that produces traditional European-style handmade cheeses that are pretty damn special and delicious.

I love living in California. We pay too much to live here, teeter on the brink of earthquakes and state budget emergencies, and wholeheartedly embrace political correctness as a lifestyle. Not that you could tell what we embrace, on account on those botoxed foreheads and stuff. And this is just Southern California; don’t even get me started on my Northern California Relatives.

In fact, while in Santa Monica last week I encounted no fewer than three-hundred-and-forty-seven placards letting me know that I could park only on the street between the hours of 8 to 1, that I couldn’t park there because my car used gasoline, no, wait, that the spot was actually reserved for visually-impaired drivers, or that the parking meter I did actually find didn’t take money but some kind of space-aged FOB made out of recycled water bottles and–my favorite– to be quiet or not to honk or block the intersection or use peanut oil out of respect for those with allergies.