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.

“…definitely the tuna tartare, and the hazelnut crusted chicken, and… then a nice, big crudite platter…”

My client was reviewing my menu suggestions for her 150-guest cocktail party, adding the last one on her own.

“NO”, I said, a little more aggressively than I had intended. “No”, softer now, but with the same sentiment. “I just can’t do crudite anymore.”

My client paused. The phone was silent. “Ok”, I caved, “we’ll figure something out. Maybe a small crudite is alright.”

Years ago, I worked as a free-lance chef for a big-time catering company in Los Angeles. We would cater colossal parties for the astronomically rich, where every display was over the top. There were epic platters of food – with sausages and cheese flown in from other countries and cupcake towers the size of New York brownstones.

We would cut vegetables for days, whittling jicama and carrot wedges into little pointy daggers, nipping the tops off radishes, and blanching broccoli and sugar snap peas into the brightest green they could be. It was a thing of beauty for sure, but we had to buy and cut three times more veggies than anyone could ever eat.

Catering is all about making platters look full at all times – which means there has to be tons of coverage. We have to make sure that if someone suddenly goes on a Persian cucumber binge, the display still looks abundant. Hey, nothing says success like excess, right? Well, 75% of the cascading peppers, baby tomatoes, and asparagus would wind up in the garbage. It was heartbreaking.

I spent a year living in Europe, and six months of that was in Italy. Having eaten a lot of Italian food, I like to think I understand it, perhaps just a little. In fact, whenever I try to recreate an Italian dish I think back to earlier versions that I've eaten. What was it that I liked about it? What was the essence of the dish?

In all my time in Italy, I don't remember trying mostarda. It's not surprising really because the most well-known versions come from Veneto, Lombardia and Piemonte. Most of my time was spent in Tuscany. But I still think I understand mostarda, just a bit. It's like an Italian chutney I suppose. Don't make the mistake of translating it as "mustard". Mostarda does have a little bit of mustard in it, but it's really a combination of preserved fruit in syrup with a bit of a kick. The kick comes from mustard oil, mustard essence, dry mustard, mustard seeds or some combination thereof. Other ingredients include sugar or honey, wine, vinegar and sometimes citrus juice.

When I am developing a recipe, I often look for several variations then strike off on my own. The recipes I found for mostarda varied greatly--some used dry fruit, others fresh fruit. Some cooked slowly others cooked quickly. Some had lots of mustard, others barely a pinch. My own experiment lead me to this conclusion: Mostarda is very forgiving and can easily be made to your own taste. You can taste as you go and make changes.

Okay, It is true, I admit it!  I make skillet jam, no really, I DO...No fanfare, no canning jars or water bath cauldrons just a non-stick skillet, some ripe, fragrant fruit, sugar and a lemon. That's it! This may not sound like a shortcut, but once you put this on the table some Sunday morning you'll forget that it took you half an hour or so to make. Well maybe 45 minutes until you get less nervous about making jam...

I prepare the fruit by peeling and cutting it into inch-size pieces or in the case of berries mash lightly with a potato masher.  My formula is 3 cups of fruit, 1/2  to 3/4 cup of sugar to taste and all the juice of half a lemon. Start on medium heat, stirring to combine the sugar into the cut fruit with your best wooden spoon. If it seems like there isn't enough liquid add water or wine or fruit juice-be creative, there are NO rules and this is suppose to be fun and it is all YOUR creation, no one else's!  I let the fruit cook down (simmer happily) but if the there are some fruit pieces that are too large for your liking use your wooden spoon to "gently" breakdown the fruit into the size you prefer. Taste it, does it need more lemon juice? Perhaps more sugar, a touch of vanilla extract?