We’ve been back from Italy for about two weeks, and I’ve finally made it through the first half of my pictures and thoughts about the trip to share with you here. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking, but I have a few notes about where we stayed and ate and adventured, in case you’re interested (or lucky enough to be going to Rome or Florence in the near future).

We spent the first two nights of our trip in Rome, then after a quick (and slightly nauseating) train ride, we spent two nights in Florence. In both cities, what we did the most was walk. We’d wake up, open up the map, circle the places we wanted to see, then set out for the day until it was time for our 4PM siesta. After siesta, we’d go back out in search of dinner. A pretty good daily routine; I’d happily live every day that way.

Rome was a bit of a jet-lagged whirlwind, but I liked the city much more than I remembered. The last time I was there, I was 14, and Rome seemed far too loud, overwhelming, and dirty. This time, for the most part we stayed away from some of the main sights, and even after two days I was starting to get the sense of the thriving city underneath the throngs of tourists. We stayed at the perfect inn/apartment, La Finestra Sul Colosseo, which checked off everything on my list – it was spotlessly clean, spacious, quiet, comfortable, and modern. We slept like rocks. A highlight of our trip was spending Sunday morning on a food tour with Irene from Vino Roma. It was a bit of a splurge for us, but great to wander more pointedly and have Irene there to teach us about local food culture, both past and present. She took us to a truly local farmer’s market, where I was thrilled that no one spoke English, meaning we had to stock up on fresh fava beans, bread, truffled sausage, cheese, and the tiniest, sweetest strawberries of all time using our terrible Italian and a lot of pointing. We ate porchetta sandwiches and drank local beer, then meandered through the Jewish Quarter where we tried a truly remarkable “burnt” sweet bread from a tiny store with no name and an incredibly long line. We wrapped up with a cheese and wine tasting for a memorably tasty morning. Two other highlights from Rome: one, dinner at Cuoco & Camicia, where everything was delicious, but the carbonara-stuffed tortelli and the fillet of beef with foie gras and pumpkin cream were astounding. Two, our Sunday evening stroll/marathon – we walked from our hotel near the Colosseum, to Piazza Venezia, to St. Peter’s, and finally to the hill above the Piazza del Popolo where we soaked in the view and picnicked on our market finds. It was a solid 5 mile walk, and it felt good to see so much of the city before moving on to Florence.

I was less enamored with Florence, perhaps as predicted by Steve and Michelle. Given the small size of the city, and the large number of visitors, every corner we visited felt overrun with tourists. With this came an abundance of overpriced food, tacky “authentic” stores, and a lack of real charm. So, I didn’t love it, but we still had some great moments. Walking up the hill behind the Giardini di Bardini and finding ourselves in the midst of an olive grove felt kind of magical, as did being in the city for the Bianca Notte festival, during which all of the major museums were open for free all night, and bands and performers roamed the streets into the wee hours – it was a huge party, and the only time it felt like a living city. While walking through the Palazzo Vecchio that night, we happened to walk through an upper corridor as a horn concert began below us, and we watched/listened to the entire performance while standing in the center of that majestic building - that was a once in a lifetime experience, and it was incredible. We also ate at one good restaurant, Il Santo Bevitore, where dinner was delicious, if slightly dampened by the incredibly loud and rude Texans sitting next to us. (No offense meant to Texans in general, just these two in particular). And we found venison prosciutto and wild boar speck in the Central Market! So, so tasty. We might try and make some ourselves, just a warning.

So maybe I lied about the pictures doing most of the talking – I guess I had more to say than I thought! It’s fun reliving our adventures. It may be another week or so before I get my act together on the second half of our trip, but the last four days, which we spent in the Maremman countryside, were easily my favorite, so hopefully it’s worth the wait! In the meantime, I cooked up some Cacio e Pepe with English Peas for you. Cacio e Pepe is a classic and delicious spaghetti dish coated with a rich cheese sauce and a healthy sprinkling of black pepper – it tastes like what I always want mac’n'cheese to taste like. I had a version in Florence served on a black bean puree, which I re-imagined here using a spring pea puree instead. Buon appetito!

Cacio e Pepe with English Peas

Serves 3-4.

• 1 1/2 c. fresh English peas
• salt to taste
• 1/2 pound spaghetti or bucatini
• 2 TBS butter
• 1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper, plus more for garnish
• reserved pasta water
• 3/4 c. freshly grated Parmesan, plus more for garnish
• 3/4 c. freshly grated Pecorino Romano
• 2 TBS sour cream

1. Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Fill a large bowl with ice water, and set aside. When the water is boiling, add the peas to the water and boil for 1-2 minutes, until bright green and floating at the top. Use a skimmer to remove the peas and immediately plunge into the ice water to stop the peas from cooking. Set aside.
2. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package directions. When the pasta is done, remove to a bowl with tongs and set the pasta water aside.
3. In a large frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the black pepper and stir until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Add 3/4 c. of the reserved pasta water to the pan and bring to a boil, then add the cooked pasta and all of the cheese. Stir to melt the cheese until the pasta is evenly coated with a creamy sauce, adding more pasta water if necessary.
4. Take 1 c. of the cooked peas and place in a blender with the sour cream and 1/4 c. of the pasta water. Blend until smooth, then season to taste with salt. Mix the remaining 1/2 c. of peas into the pasta.
5. Place a circle of the pea puree on each plate. Top with a pile of spaghetti. Finish with freshly ground pepper and freshly grated cheese.

When I agreed to review Cooking with Flowers, I was a little bit worried that the book wouldn’t quite be my speed. While I appreciated the unique concept, I was having a tough time picturing how I might incorporate flowers into my diet – where was I going to find food-safe flowers? Would it be expensive to source them? Would the recipes all be fussy and girly?

Turns out that I needn’t have worried, as the recipes and techniques in Cooking with Flowers are surprisingly inviting. Organized by flower type, there were only a handful of recipes where I struggled to imagine an easily accessible source. Marigolds are popular and easy to grow, dandelions grow like crazy in pretty much every backyard I’ve ever seen, our house in Maine has an abundance of daylilies each summer, and squash blossoms are a byproduct of something I already grow. Other commonly found flowers used in the book include geraniums, herb flowers, lilacs, nasturtiums, pansies, roses, sunflowers, tulips, and violets. The only flowers included in these recipes that would be challenging for me to get access to are elderflowers, hibiscus, dianthus, and orchids, and even those aren’t too much of a stretch. Learning that so many of these common flowers are edible was exciting in and of itself – think of all the expanded possibilities they could bring to the kitchen!

With my worries assuaged, I dove into the book. It’s a decidedly feminine book, with pastel colors and curlicue font, and in general, the recipes tend toward the sweet. Let’s just say that I probably wouldn’t give a copy to my dad (but I did give one to my mom for Mother’s Day!). While recipes for cakes, cookies, and jellies were somewhat expected, some of the recipes really surprised me – Daylily Curry, Rosemary-Flower Margaritas, Hibiscus Chili Caramel, and Thai Orchid and Beef Salad stick out as creative and exciting uses of ingredients often thought of as sweet. I wish there had been even more of these out-of-the-box savory recipes, but the simpler sweets – Hibiscus Cream Pie, Elderflower Lemon Cakelets, Pistachio Rose Shortbread, etc. – are still lovely.

I should point out two other things about the book. One, that some of the recipes are fairly time consuming. The time that it will take to find, clean, and process the blossoms of your flowers will vary with flower size, but it will almost always take longer than something like chopping an onion (especially since you frequently need a pretty large volume of flower blossoms). Two, a lot of the recipes rely on base flower recipes for their floral flavor – flower syrups, sugars, jams, and creams, the recipes for which are given in the back of the book, frequently need to be prepared before the main recipe. This is good and bad. Good, in that it allows you to preserve blossoms longer-term and think up other creative uses for them. Bad, in that it sometimes adds “hidden” time to the overall recipe time.

The fact that you can cook with lilacs was totally irresistible to me. Lilacs are one of my  favorite flowers, and their heady scent carries many fond memories of warm spring days. Since lilacs pass quickly, never staying open more than a week, being able to preserve their scent in sugars and sauces felt like a wonderful trick, and I sort of went all out with the lilac recipes to take advantage of this. A few hours of cleaning lilac blossoms later, I have lilac pavlovas, lilac-blackberry syrup, lilac sugar, candied lilacs, and dried lilacs, all ready to be used now or later in sweetly scented treats. The recipe I’m sharing here marries almost all of these components – lilac sugar is used to make distinctly floral pavlovas (with a really great, chewy interior texture), which are then topped with whipped cream, fresh blackberries, candied lilacs, and the lilac-blackberry syrup. In the book, they serve the pavlovas with the syrup and a homemade lime sorbet, which also sounds delicious, but I chose to go the classic berries and cream route. All together the dessert was elegant, light, and uniquely flavored – a perfect and effervescent ending to a spring dinner.

The bottom line: Cooking with Flowers introduced me to a completely new concept in a very accessible way. Many of the flowers used are easy to find in my backyard or around my neighborhood, and knowing their edibility is a revelation in itself. Generally the recipes tend toward the sweet, but the savory preparations are where the author’s creativity really shines through. Recommended for adventurous cooks and avid gardeners.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of Cooking with Flowers free of charge from Quirk Books. As usual, I was not otherwise compensated for this review and all opinions are my own.

Lilac and Blackberry Pavlovas

Adapted from Cooking with Flowers. Serves 4-6.

Note: How to select and clean lilacs (adapted from Cooking with Flowers) – first, only use flowers that have been grown organically. Do not use flowers that have been sprayed or that are growing by the side of the road, as they may have absorbed toxins. Cut lilac bunches from a bush to be used. Wash each bunch, being careful that any bugs are rinsed off. Further separate the flowers into smaller clusters on a thin stem. Gently pull each flower from it’s sepal (the green part at the base of the flower). The lilac blossom should separate from the light yellow-green interior (see pictures above). One cup of lilacs will contain 40 to 60 individual blossoms. A single lilac bunch will likely yield between 1/2 and 1 cup of blossoms.

For the lilac-blackberry syrup:

• 2 c. water
• 3 c. lilac blossoms (see headnote)
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 8-10 fresh blackberries

1. Bring water to a boil. Place blossoms in a bowl and pour boiling water over them. Let stand for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.
2. Add the flowers, flower water, sugar, and blackberries to a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 6-8 minutes, stirring and squishing blackberries with the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from heat and strain into a glass container. Discard the solids.

For the lilac pavlovas:

• 1/2 c. lilac blossoms (see headnote)
• 1 c. sugar
• 2 TBS cornstarch
• 4 egg whites
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 210°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Place the lilac blossoms and the sugar in a food processor and blend until pulverized. Mix 2 TBS of the lilac sugar with the cornstarch in a small bowl. Set the rest aside.
3. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites on high until foamy. Sprinkle with the cream of tartar, then beat continually on high, gradually adding 1 cup of the remaining lilac sugar as you go. (You may have leftover lilac sugar – store it in a glass jar with a lid). Beat until the egg whites are stiff, shiny, and hold firm peaks.
4. Fold cornstarch mixture and lemon juice into the whipped egg whites. Use a large spoon to dollop the egg whites into 3-inch rounds on the lined baking sheet, then use the back of the spoon to scoop out a small indentation in each pavlova. Bake for 1 hour, or until they feel dry to the touch. Turn off the oven and leave the pavlovas in there for another hour with the door closed.

To serve:

• 12 small lilac pavlovas
• 2 c. of freshly whipped sweetened whipped cream
• 6-8 blackberries per person
• 1 c. lilac-blackberry syrup
• candied lilacs (optional)

1. Place 2 pavlovas on each plate. Top each with a dollop of whipped cream and a few blackberries. Drizzle with lilac-blackberry syrup and top with candied lilacs.

So, Trevor. Happy Birthday, babe. It’s kind of crazy to think that I’ve already been around to celebrate your birthday with you five times. You should know that you’ve only gotten more awesome over those past five years. I still have as much fun with you as I did back when we used to flirt overtly at every possible opportunity – you know, frosting fights, chasing each other on the lawn, playing footsie in class, embarrassing stuff like that. And I still like the flirting, but now, you’re also my best friend. My favorite person to be with. I’m so excited about you, and about all our plans, and about all the things we haven’t planned that will take us by surprise. I’m going to stop, given that this is the internet equivalent of making out in a public park, but I love you. I tell you all the time but I really, really mean it. You are the best.

I’ve mentioned in previous years how much Trevor likes peanut butter desserts. Although he made me a fantastic cake this year, I went with something simpler, richer, and longer lasting – peanut butter fudge. This recipe, which is from Joy of Cooking via Brown-Eyed Baker, is super simple – it only takes ten minutes of stirring/measuring time, then you pop it in the fridge and it’s ready in an hour. That being said, it has two-and-a-half sticks of butter in it, so be careful. I’d give away as much of it as possible, after test-tasting all the crumbs and edge pieces, of course.

Peanut Butter Fudge

Recipe from Joy of Cooking via Brown-Eyed Baker. Yields 64 1-inch-square pieces.

• 2 1/2 sticks butter (10 oz.)
• 1 1/4 c. smooth peanut butter
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 1/2 c. powdered sugar, sifted

1. Line an 8×8 inch baking pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. Place butter and peanut butter in a medium saucepan and melt over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Bring to a gentle simmer, then remove from heat.
3. Stir the vanilla extract and powdered sugar into the hot peanut butter mixture until smooth and lump-free. It will be quite thick. Pour into the prepared baking pan and smooth the top to make it even. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the fudge, then refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
4. Cut the chilled fudge into pieces and serve. Store at cool room temperature or in the fridge in an airtight container.

I’m home! We had a great trip – lots of eating, walking, photographing, exploring small villages and oohing and ahhing at all the famous monuments. We even managed to spend a little bit of time, you know, relaxing. Ten days was just long enough, and so far I’m enjoying being home just enough to offset post-trip depression. I will definitely have food stories to share, but I have lots of thoughts and notes and photos to sort through first. In the meantime, I wanted to share this somewhat overdue book review of Try This At Home, the new(ish) cookbook from Top Chef winner Richard Blais that I’ve been meaning to write about since it came out in February.

Try This At Home is a challenging and exciting cookbook. In contrast to many of the books I tend to gravitate towards, its focus is not on seasonal vegetable-based cooking (e.g. Vegetable Literacy, The Chef’s Collaborative), nor is it a photography-driven travel-cum-recipe regional book (e.g. Venezia in Cucina, Every Grain of Rice, The Latin Road Home). Instead, its appeal lies in the new-to-me, modernist techniques and creative twists that it brings to familiar recipes like hamburgers and ice cream. Both during Top Chef and at his restaurants, Blais is known for using molecular gastronomy to elevate classic dishes into something unexpected and exciting. This may sound like a skill that would be difficult to translate into a book designed for home cooks, but Try This At Home makes it surprisingly accessible.

There are certainly recipes that will challenge the home cook, like Spaghetti Carbonara made with Chicken-Flavored Agar-Agar Noodles, but there are many more that require no special tools or ingredients, only an open mind about how flavors work together. Some of his ideas are so creative yet so simple that my reaction is not intimidation, but something more along the lines of “What?! That’s awesome, I’m doing that immediately.” A good example? Freezing blue cheese sauce into ice cream and serving it with a hot steak. So simple, yet if you did that at a dinner party, your guests would be amazed. It’s a book that expands your imagination and you will definitely learn a thing or two from it.

When things do get a bit more complicated, Blais calls it like it is by designating these recipes as “2.0″ takes on the simpler version. For example, the Sweet Tea Ice Cream recipe is creative but easy to do at home with a standard ice cream maker; it gets taken to the 2.0 level with the addition of dry ice in the freezing process. If this next level of cooking appeals to you, there are some tools and special ingredients that you may find yourself searching out after reading this book. Some items I’m considering purchasing are an iSi Siphon for creating foams and mousses, a pressure cooker (especially since so many of the recipes call for the delicious sounding Pressure-Cooker Braised Bacon), and maybe someday, a sous vide machine. Before I make any major purchases, though, I’m going to keep testing out the equipment-free recipes – the Vidalia Onion Rings with Beer Mustard, the Lemon Curd and Black Pepper Roasted Chicken, and the Sticky Pudding with Scotch Sauce are all on my shortlist.

I did try out one of these simpler but creative recipes to share with you here – these Cinnamon Brioche French Toast Skewers. It’s a basic french toast recipe except for three clever changes: one, adding dried hibiscus and lavender to the butter in the frying pan or griddle, two, adding the Moroccan spice blend ras el hanout to the batter, and three, skewering the french toast on cinnamon sticks, making a super-fun treat for kids (or maybe even grown-ups at a weekend brunch party). They didn’t have any hibiscus or lavender at my Wholefoods, so I ended up sprinkling a few sachets of Tazo’s Passion tea into the pan (it’s largely hibiscus-based) and I LOVED the effect it had. The dried flowers coated the french toast and gave it a sophisticated and floral tang that was unexpected but so delicious. I would absolutely make it this way again.

The bottom line: Try This At Home is a fun and creative introduction to some of the techniques of molecular gastronomy, made accessible through the use of simple and easy to find kitchen tools and well-loved flavor combinations. Some of Blais’ recipes are challenging, but many of them are simply new ideas that could be executed by any motivated home cook. I’d recommend it to experienced cooks with an urge to explore new methods and new flavors.

Disclaimer: A review copy of Try This At Home was provided to me free of charge by Clarkson Potter, but I was not otherwise compensated and all thoughts are my own.

Cinnamon Brioche “French Toast” Skewers

Reprinted with permission from Try This At Home. Serves 4.

I made this French toast for a very sophisticated audience when I did a cooking segment on the PBS Sprout kids’ program The Sunny Side Up Show, where I appeared with the resident star, a squawking chicken puppet named Chica. The recipe is standard egg-dipped French toast, but I cut slices of day-old brioche into long rectangles and use cinnamon sticks to skewer them, so the overall effect is of French-toast-on-a-stick.

• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped out, and seeds pod reserved
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon ras el hanout (Moroccan spice blend; optional)
• Four 2-inch-thick slices brioche
• 12 cinnamon sticks
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus (optional) more for serving
• 2 dried hibiscus flowers, crushed (optional) [Katie's note: I used two sachets of Tazo Passion tea in place of the hibiscus and lavender flowers to wonderful effect]
• 1⁄2 teaspoon dried lavender flowers (optional)
• Pure maple syrup, warmed, for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 300°F. Place a cooling rack over a baking sheet and set aside.
2.  In a shallow dish, whisk the eggs, milk, vanilla seeds, salt, and ras el hanout together.
3. Cut the crusts from the brioche slices and cut each slice crosswise into 3 strips. Insert a cinnamon stick into one end of each strip. Dip each piece of bread in the egg mixture, letting it soak for at least 5 seconds on each side, and transfer to the cooling rack to drain.
4. Heat a pancake griddle or electric skillet over medium-low heat. Add the butter, the vanilla pod, and hibiscus and lavender flowers, if using, and cook until the butter is melted and bubbling. Add half of the soaked bread pieces and cook, turning once, until golden, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Transfer them to the rack-lined baking sheet and keep warm in the oven while you cook the remaining bread.
5. To serve, stack 3 skewers on each of four plates. Spread a little more butter on them, if desired, drizzle warm syrup over them, and serve.

Cranberry Coffeecake from Fork vs. Spoon

Well, Hello there!

Mallory here, from Fork Vs Spoon… , I need to thank Katie for inviting me into her world and letting me meet her readers.  Thank You!!  When she asked, I was thrilled and happily agreed to prepare a post for her blog while she is away – however, the thought crossed my mind to ask if she had room in her suitcase for little ol’ me….but I would probably cost too much in luggage weight fees, plus I would take up ample room that should be allotted for shoes.

I have been a fan of Katie’s blog for some time.  I am always looking forward to her next post.  The stories, the recipes, the photos…and of course her cookbook reviews.  She is responsible for many of the cookbooks that are scattered throughout my kitchen and the abundant amount flooding my Amazon Wish List….Thank goodness there is no such thing as too many cookbooks! (they are kinda like shoes!)

So, Katie Thank You for the invite and here we go…

Guest blogs are so much fun, but instantly after I happily accept the invite I start over-thinking brainstorming dishes – sweet or savory?  Quick and easy or should I flex my culinary muscles – ha!  Cocktail?  Oh, my brain starts turning.  Before long, I forget about my to-make list of recipes and ideas and my mind goes blank.  I wander to my stack of dog-eared and overly bookmarked magazines and cookbooks.  Most marked with stains and worn from constant use.  I flip through and search my files of saved recipes…and most times I find myself just standing in front of the  fridge/freezer, taking stock of  what I have on hand and 9 times out of 10, find the ingredients for something quite suitable for a blog post, and dinner or dessert. I also hear my grandfather in my head,  hollering from the living room,  to close the refrigerator door…just wasting energy!  He always thought we should know what we wanted before we arrived at its door, but little did he know it was my method of brainstorming.  I think the cold air gets my brain a workin’.

And honestly, this is how I go about cooking and baking for my own blog and my everyday.  What am I craving?  What do I have on hand?  How much time do I have?  Who else will enjoying this?  Who is my audience?  Answering these simple questions will always lead me in the right direction and they have a way of organizing my thoughts…which have a tendency to be a bit scattered.

And this is how a cranberry coffeecake found its way into my oven last Sunday.  And eventually into my stomach, along with an ample amount of coffee.

Come on over for the recipe!