The secret of good cooking is to cook with love. So my mother taught me when I was a little girl. We should love the creative act of cooking. We should love and respect the ingredients we use. And we should love those for whom we cook.
Most of the time all this love comes naturally to me. If I didn’t find the act of cooking fulfilling, I wouldn’t be a food writer. I take pleasure in watching different foods ebb and flow in farmstands and grocery stores as the seasons shift.
Every once in a while, however, I lose the love in my kitchen. At the beginning of this darn pandemic, I definitely lost it for a while.
Part of the problem was that I generally cook for others. I love giving dinner parties. I inherited this affection for entertaining from my parents. When they wanted to get to know new people or reinforce existing friendships, they invited people to dinner. As I matured, I followed in their footsteps.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 put an end to my entertaining, at least for the foreseeable future. I cook for others not only in person but also in my journalism since I’m a food writer and cookbook author.
When the pandemic hit hard, I lost much of my print and TV work.
And I wasn’t able to hand out samples from my books at events. I became isolated from feeding others literally and figuratively. I began to viewing cooking as a task, something I had to do in order to feed myself, instead of a pleasure.
The problem wasn’t with cooking, of course. It was with me.
It took me several weeks, but I worked my way through the problem. First, I allowed myself, in the words of my friend Betsy, of Heath, to “act like a teenager.” I followed my impulses.
If I didn’t feel like cooking one day, I didn’t. Canned soup may not be gourmet food, but it does fuel the body. Eggs are quick and don’t really seem like cooking. Salads are simple to assemble. If I wanted to sleep in one morning and yell at the world, I did. (Actually, I’m not much of a yeller, but I did tell the world that I didn’t approve of its behavior.)
Once I got the “teenage” impulses out of my system, I started to tackle the problem of getting back to work, and love, in the kitchen. I wasn’t doing a lot of day-to-day journalism, but that dearth of work gave me time to make progress on my next cookbook. I broke the cookbook down into discrete tasks so that it wouldn’t seem overwhelming.
As it often does, the practice of writing soothed me.
As I tested recipes for that book, I had to do something with the food the testing generated. I realized that I could still cook for others by delivering carefully prepared food to my neighbors’ doorsteps.
Love was back in my kitchen.
In this holiday season, I’m still trying to share food with neighbors and friends. Every year I make a few edible Christmas gifts. This year, I’m making more than ever.
Nothing says “I love you” better than a homemade treat. Here are a couple of recipes I’m using this season.
Making and delivering them will help you with your gift list — and help you keep love in your heart and your kitchen.
I know — the word “blobs” doesn’t exactly shout “bake me.” These could be called cheese bites or (if you shape them the right way) cheese straws. When I make them, they look rather blob-like. They taste lovely, however, and they make a lovely gift for someone on your list who doesn’t eat sweets.
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon Creole seasoning
1 pinch dry mustard
2 teaspoons paprika
½ cup (1 stick) cold sweet butter
1-½ cups grated sharp cheddarcheese
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
A small amount of cold water if necessary
In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, seasoning, mustard and paprika. Set aside.
In a food processor, pulse together the butter and cheese. Pulse in the Worcestershire sauce; then add the dry ingredients and pulse until the mixture feels as though it will form a ball when you touch it with your fingers. (You may have to stop and push down the dough on the sides with a spatula.) If you can’t quite make your ball hold together (I usually can’t), you may add a little very cold water.
If you don’t have a food processor, cut the butter and cheese into the dry ingredients and then add the Worcestershire sauce and water if needed. But you’ll work much harder.
Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap, put it in a baggie, and refrigerate it for at least an hour. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it is about ¼-inch thick. (If you roll it thinner, the blobs will lose some of their richness.)
Cut the dough into shapes with a small cookie cutter — or cut it into small slices, and braid them or crimp them to make interesting shapes.
Bake the cheese blobs on cookie sheets covered with parchment or a silicone mat until they are just firm, around 10 to 12 minutes. (You may need up to 15 minutes to bake very large ones). Makes two to four dozen blobs, depending on size.
This recipe, which is slightly adapted from Fannie Farmer, makes a very sweet, very rich fudge. (After all, the first two ingredients are sugar and cream.) The texture is remarkably creamy, in large part because of the corn syrup, which helps keep the sugar from crystallizing.
¾ cup cream
2 cups sugar
1 pinch salt
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
¼ cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky)
1 teaspoon vanilla
In a flat-bottomed 3- or 4-quart saucepan combine the cream, sugar, salt and corn syrup. Cook them over medium-high heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Wipe down any sugar crystals on the side of the pan, and let the mixture cook without stirring until it reaches the soft-ball stage (234 degrees.)
Remove the pan from the heat and let it the mixture cool until it is almost lukewarm. While it is cooling line an 8- by 8-inch pan with aluminum foil and then butter the foil surface. Stir in the peanut butter and vanilla, and spoon the fudge into the prepared pan.
Let the fudge sit in a cool place until it almost hardens; then cut it into small squares. Makes at least 16 squares.
Tinky Weisblat is the award-winning author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook,” “Pulling Taffy,” and “Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.