Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

Just the mention of my favorite cake and I’m ready for a piece. Not a huge fan of icing or frosting, my traditional birthday cake is always a pound cake, plain and simple. Sour cream, cream cheese, chocolate, fruit flavored and even rum pound cakes abound in the culinary world.

As a fan of most all of these very simple, very elegant, and VERY delicious cakes, the plain ol’ pound cake or whipping cream pound cake just might be my favorite... sour cream and cream cheese respectively in the top three. Mama made this one as is her custom for my birthday...or any other time I pester her enough so she’ll cave in a make me one! The basis is the same. A simple cream (sour, whipping, or cream cheese) that combines with flour, butter, and sugar to make the perfect consistency of cake – augmented by a note of pure vanilla.

Even a scraping of vanilla bean adds the slightest of flavor and visual delight to the cake and whipped cream dollop. Though, for my first birthday, I managed to actually sit in a bakery cake piled and piped with sugary icing and eat my way out of the Sesame Street cake; yet, I developed a love for the goodness that is simply pound cake. Flavor, yes, a major factor, but also for versatility is why this cake is so dear to my heart.

NY Style Coffee Cake typically comes with a thick rich crumb topping and one of the most famous brands is Drake’s Coffee Cakes. Newman E. Drake baked his first pound cake in Brooklyn in 1888 and sold them by the slice. Drake’s popularity grew and the Drake’s brand with it, supplying such favorites as Devil Dogs, Yankee Doodles and Ring Dings.

In New York City and New England, Drake's products came to rival national brand Hostess. Largely unknown outside of these areas until the 1990s, the Drake's product line received national exposure on the sitcom Seinfeld, most notably in the episode "The Suicide" in 1992. Later in 1990s television talk show host Rosie O'Donnell professed a fondness for them, sharing the cakes with her audience members on The Rosie O'Donnell Show.

This weekend in the United States we celebrate Labor Day.  A holiday that originated in the 1880's to give the working citizens of America a day of rest. 

I think for Americans it is a more significant celebration of the end of summer. 

It's not Labor Day (or any holiday) unless I have some type of "dip".  It doesn't matter what kind, just as long as it exists in some shape or form in my kitchen.

Yesterday I was having a terrible salt craving so I opted for something with capers to satisfy the urge.  I make this Lemon-Caper Dip in two versions, low-fat and full-of-fat.  Of course my husband prefers the full-of-fat version but it's easy to make either way and is only a matter of switching out one of the ingredients. 

I made the lower-fat version this time using yogurt but for the full-of-fat version just substitute mayonnaise for the yogurt, it's really good that way too.

From the LA Times

The first time I met chef Paul Prudhomme, he was peering over the stove in his narrow test kitchen, a converted shotgun house just outside the French Quarter in New Orleans. Chef was heating oil in a large cast-iron skillet, and when he saw me, he invited me over to watch him fix gumbo.

When the oil was smoking hot, he quickly whisked in flour to form a roux — "Cajun napalm," he called it — the bubbling mass darkening to a deep chocolate brown in minutes. He stirred a trinity of vegetables into the roux to stop the cooking — onions, celery and bell peppers — then added the roux to a pot of boiling stock. Chopped andouille sausage and garlic went in as he patiently watched the stew, tasting occasionally, over a slow, quiet hour while it gently simmered away. When the rich aroma was almost too much to bear, Chef added chopped chicken, and soon the gumbo was ready.

I can't say which I savored more: the depth of flavor from a seemingly simple dish or the unhurried quiet, almost sacred, time spent preparing it.

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