Charles

Ritz Cracker Cookies with Peanut Butter Chips

March 3, 2011 by Charles 14 Comments

I’m a sucker for a good recipe contest. Cooking, for me, is already a fun and creative hobby. So the thought of prize money is just icing on top.

One day in the supermarket, I passed a giant display of Ritz Crackers, complete with football goal posts, inflated balloons, and a nearly life-size cutout of Guy Fieri. Drawing closer, I saw that Kraft was running a recipe contest for its Ritz Crackers. With a grand prize of $20,000, I decided to grab a box or two, and see what I could do.

My first thought was toward a cookie. …

Homemade King Cake

February 22, 2011 by Charles 14 Comments

Of all the foods characteristic of New Orleans – from pralines to muffalettas – my all-time favorite remains the King Cake (la galette des Rois).

I can remember gathering around the large loaf in grade school, eagerly holding out my plate, and wondering if my piece would be the lucky piece. If the teacher was feeling generous that day, she might indulge our personal choices, and allow us to select that prized piece ourselves. There were those that favored the edge pieces. Others favored a particular color of icing – be it green, yellow, or purple – certain that good luck lay beneath it. And others still allowed simple chance to play its part.

I don’t remember what my particular stratagem may have been, but given the importance of the situation, I certainly had one. You see, hidden in the dough was a small plastic baby. And whoever pulled the baby from his or piece was king or queen for the day.

In grade school, this was no mere sinecure. …

Apple Sauce

February 14, 2011 by Charles Leave a Comment

When I think of apple sauce, I can’t help but thinking back to those plastic cups, sold in packs of six, filled with what looks to be nothing more than puréed apples. Apple mush. Bland, flavorless, apple mush.

This recipe is not a …

Arepas with Guasacaca

February 13, 2011 by Charles 9 Comments

Arepas may be the best dish I’d never heard of.

Arepas (ah-RAY-pahs) are half-inch thick corn cakes that are an absolute staple of Colombian and Venezuelan cuisine, their origins dating back to the original Indian inhabitants of the region.

Arepas are made from masarepa flour, sometimes called arepa harina. Unlike cornmeal, which is made from uncooked, ground corn, masarepa flour is made from precooked (preconcida) ground corn. As a result, you cannot use simple cornmeal to make arepas; you must use masarepa flour. I used Goya-brand yellow masarepa flour that I found at a Hispanic grocery store. Since then, though, I found that even the local Kroger carries PAN-brand white masarepa flour in its international section.

The beauty of arepas lies in their simplicity and adaptability. Arepas are …

Lemon Ricotta Waffles

February 8, 2011 by Charles 6 Comments

I must have read Shoeless Joe sometime in grade school, no older than eight or nine. At the time, I loved baseball and everything about it. But even more than watching it or playing it, I enjoyed reading about the game. Between all my baseball books, W.P. Kinsella’s debut novel held a special place on my young bookshelf.

Of all the great writers, from James Thurber to Ring Lardner, to have tried their hand at a baseball story, none captured the magic and drama of the game like Shoeless Joe. And as wonderful as the book was, the movie adaptation …