Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

Modern entertaining is all about having fun with your guests while enjoying the food. It's not about being chained to the stove, never being allowed to mingle for a moment. For cocktail parties, especially around holiday time, I'm always looking for recipes that can be prepared in advance or put together in just minutes on the same day of the get-together. Plus I plan around using some store-bought items, like cheese, prosciutto, or olives.

The unique thing about French cuisine, is that it has both extremely complicated and yet surprisingly simple recipes too. Specifically, I love Provençal cuisine for its simple recipes using vibrant flavors. Besides all the wonderful fish dishes, salads, and homey stews, there are a number of simple things that work wonderfully as appetizers. In this case I'm focusing on olive tapenade, a pungent paste of olives used as a spread on bread.

Tapenade is the perfect party appetizer, because it's so easy to put together (less than 5 minutes) and it's very flavorful. It truly whets the appetite! All you need are some pitted olives and a few other typical Mediterranean ingredients to make this spread. Then just use a food processor to purée everything together (though the French would prefer mortar and pestle) and you're all set. Your guests will appreciate the simple and rustic yet elegant nature of tapenade.

Now that we’re in the peak of apple picking season, I realized that I never posted a basic apple pie recipe. Some people find making pies a daunting task. There are stories, mostly said in hushed tones, about my mother throwing more than a few pie crusts against the wall.

I must admit, rolling out a homemade pie crust can be intimidating at first. There are several variables that can throw a “wrench” in your dough – humidity, temperature of the butter, amounts of water, types of flour, overworking the dough - all can influence the outcome of your crust.

Once you master a pie crust recipe, and you truly learn the “feel” of pastry in its various stages, it will be a breeze to roll out a pie. If it still seems too challenging, there are some acceptable store bought pie dough brands.

Wholly Wholesome, which has won the praise of Cook’s Illustrated, Good Housekeeping, Real Simple Magazine and CBS The Early Show, offers organic easy to use rolled pie dough and pre-made pie shells.

As a kid, I always wondered why we never celebrated Halloween. Only as an adult did I come to realize that it's really just an American holiday. So, I thought to myself, when do Hungarian kids get a chance to dress up and be whomever they wish to be for one day? The answer is Carnival. I never got dressed up for the holiday, but in Hungary my little nephews always did for school. But never mind all those Mardi Gras celebrations, for me, the best part about Carnival are the doughnuts. Crispy, fluffy, and airy doughnuts!

A few years ago I had a quest to find the best beignets in New York City. I tried the dessert at countless restaurants only to discover leaden balls and soggy balls. I thought I'd never find the airy beignets I had been desperately seeking. That was until a lunch at The Modern. Run by Alsatian chef Gabriel Kreuther in the Museum of Modern Art, the restaurant has some of the best food in the city. The beignets I had for dessert were the crispiest and fluffiest doughnuts on earth. Ever since then I've been wanting to make beignets at home. So for Mardi Gras this year I took the opportunity to do just that.

My Dad was crazy about this; it's what I recall him craving the most. He always happily obliged my mother as chief taster when she was in the kitchen trying to get the flavors just right.

I know my Dad was smiling down from heaven the other day as he watched us make his prized Sauerkraut.

However, sauerkraut is not what we called this dish, being Polish, we referred to it as kapusta (kah-POOS-tah), a word meaning cabbage. It just sounds wrong.

Anyway, I grew up on this stuff. Just the aromatics alone take me back to my childhood kitchen. I can still see the pot my mother cooked it in and my Dad standing there, waiting to inform her if it was sour enough or needed more salt.

It's a good memory but one that leaves me a bit emotional.