A bedtime tale: Once upon a time, there was a girl who published a lovely little food blog and had many delightful conversations with readers about incorporating good food into their busy lives. Then the girl’s job kicked into extreme overdrive, ratcheting from ridiculously busy up to holy-hyper-insanity-what-do-you-mean-it’s-already-June-July-August busy. It was so busy that the girl could barely manage to cook food every night, let alone photograph it and write about it. Then the girl’s grandma died. Then her job got even busier. One day, the girl decided she really missed blogging and decided to come back to it with a recipe for absolutely perfect chocolate chip cookies. The end.

Or something like that. Thank you for bearing with me during my unplanned hiatus. I missed you guys - I hope you missed me, too.  The past few months have been absolutely breathless; as it turns out, there is a monumental amount of work involved in being debtors’ counsel in a large chapter 11 bankruptcy case. Who knew?

To atone for my absence, I present to you my very favorite cookie.  As I have mentioned, I grew up making a scrumptious snuggle of an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie known in my family as a Cowboy Cookie.  For the better part of three decades, I considered Cowboy Cookies to be the Mary Poppins of chocolate chip cookies: practically perfect in every way.

And then, one day, I cheated on my Cowboy Cookies with another recipe involving brown butter.  For the uninitiated, brown butter is the result of heating regular butter in a skillet until the water has boiled off and the milk solids brown.  It is rich, nutty, and capable of becoming an absolute scene-stealer in otherwise predictable dishes.  Jeffrey Steingarten wrote about brown butter in the June issue of Vogue last year. (Wherein he had the bizarre nerve to present an utterly pedestrian oatmeal shortbread recipe as the end-all, be-all oatmeal cookie whilst neglecting to include the baking temperature. Jeffrey, I expected better on both counts.)  My quibbles with the recipe notwithstanding, the story reminded me how beautifully brown butter enhances certain cookies.  Unsatisfied with my underlying recipe, I filed the brown butter idea away in a special section of my memory I reserve for Thoughts About Cookies. A few months later, I was intrigued by the idea of putting grey salt on chocolate chip cookies.  A few months after that, I received The Grand Central Baking Book for Chanukah and the stars were suddenly aligned for cookie nirvana.

The six-year-old in me thought this departure from Cowboy Cookies was utter heresy, but the 30-year-old who occupies the majority of my me-real estate told the kid to simmer down and have a nap. And then promptly set about combining all of these recipes into one perfect cookie.  A soft, chewy, perfect cookie that is both loaded with chocolate and tastes faintly of toffee. Robust with oatmeal and very grown up with a smattering of grey salt, it is a moment of baked perfection in even the most hectic life.

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from The Grand Central Baking Book
with inspiration from Cooks Illustrated and Molly Wizenberg

Brown butter

Butter is approximately one fifth water, which must be cooked away before the remaining cream components will brown. To get 8oz of brown butter, you’ll need to start with at least 10oz (two and a half sticks), but I usually just begin with three full sticks and store the extra in the fridge for later use.

Slice the butter into 1” cubes and heat in a skillet over medium high heat. I prefer to use a stainless skillet rather than non-stick, as the dark surface of non-stick makes it tough to observe the browning process. The butter will begin to bubble and crackle as it cooks. Stir gently on occasion, just to keep things moving. After several minutes, the crackling will cease and the foam will settle down. Pay careful attention from this point onward, both to the color and the aroma.  The color will change from golden to tawny to caramel, and the aroma will become increasingly nutty and rich. When it reaches that rich caramel color, remove from the heat and allow it to cool for at least 15 minutes. Measure out 8oz and reserve any remaining brown butter for another use.

Ingredients
8oz brown butter
1 cup sugar (7 oz)
1 cup, packed brown sugar (7 oz)
2 eggs, room temperature
2 t vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour (10 oz)
1 t baking soda
3/4 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (6 oz)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (6 oz)
2 3/4 cups rolled oats (9 oz)
Grey salt for sprinkling

Rundown

• Cream butter and sugars together
• Add eggs and vanilla
• Combine dry ingredients
• Add to wet
• Add chocolate chips and oats
• Chill
• Shape and sprinkle with salt
• Bake

Method

Use an electric mixer to cream the brown butter and sugars together on medium-high in a large bowl for 3 minutes. The mixture will look like very wet sand, and not at all like the fluffy clouds of heaven you normally get from creaming together butter and sugar.  Add the eggs and the vanilla and beat on medium speed for another 2 minutes until smooth, scraping the bowl a few times as needed.

In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add this dry mixture to the wet ingredients and stir, either by hand or on low speed with the mixer, until just combined. Add the chocolate chips and the oats, stirring again until everything is fully combined in a unified ball.

Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes. If you plan to chill the dough for more than an hour, take it out of the fridge 15 minutes before you plan to bake so the dough will have time to soften a bit.  It’s a little fussy, I know.  In the meantime, preheat the oven to 350 and line a cookie sheet or two with parchment.

When you are ready to bake, scoop the dough into ping pong-sized balls and arrange on the prepared cookie sheet.  Leave at least 2 inches between each cookie. Flatten each ball slightly with the heel of your hand, forming small disks. Sprinkle each disk with a pinch (just a pinch!) of grey salt and bake for 12 minutes. The edges should be slightly golden and the centers should look every so slightly underdone. Cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then on a rack for as long as your self-discipline will allow, ideally at least 10 minutes.

Makes approximately 24 large cookies.

Dearest lovelies, it’s been too long. I’m still cooking, but have been somewhat lost in the annals of work and life for what has turned into an embarassingly long hiatus from blogging. My return is imminent. I’ll have another Salty Spoon Challenge for you soon, as well as a chocolate chip cookie recipe that will knock your chocolate-loving socks off. In the meantime, I leave you with a few pictures of absolute peace, taken midway through an otherwise hellish drive from Yountville to LA in mid-April. When chaos builds around you, wouldn’t it be lovely to imagine yourself under a recently stormy sky, windblown and refreshed, as you look into an endless recess of blues and browns?

For me, it was.

This is an origami star.

I first started folding origami when I was 9 or 10 and quickly became completely addicted.  My nimble fingers flew quickly over mountain and valley folds, inside reverse folds, and more.  Somewhere along the way, I picked up a pattern for this star. I folded dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.

And as these things tend to go, I found myself folding less and less as things like college, boys, jobs, pets, travel, law school, and all the other parts of this grown-up life I lead got in the way.  One day I realized I hadn’t made anything out of paper in a long time.  I bought a pack of origami paper at a craft store and promptly stuck it in a closet for a year.

A few weeks ago, I found the paper again.  Thinking it would give me something to do with my hands while I listen to conference calls, I tucked the little cellophane packet in my purse and brought it to my office. Upon unfurling the first sheet, a sickening realization sunk in: I couldn’t remember how to make anything.

A bit of tinkering brought back some favorites - a crane, a box, a frog. Soon, my desk was littered with little paper creatures and containers.

I didn’t remember the star until about a week later. It was as though my memory of this piece of origami had completely vanished, only to return suddenly and take me by surprise. I couldn’t believe that I had forgotten all about it. It was my favorite design for years. Years. And here I was, staring at a piece of whisper thin paper without the faintest clue how to recreate it.

I struggled and stumbled. Over the course of another week or two I picked it up and set it aside a half dozen times with little success. Bits and bobs of the process would come to me in disjointed flashes, but never in the right order. Finally, I remembered a critical aspect of the way it needed to look before the final eight folds. An hour later, I threw a rough but complete star onto my desk and shouted HA! Somehow, through a winding abyss of folds and creases and guesses, I had done it. Unfolding the finished product, a glimpse of something less meandering method peeked out at me. A few more tries over the ensuing days brought me back, finally, to the original design.

At first, I couldn’t quite explain why this little star mattered to me so much.  It hit me when I opened a box my mom sent me, full of books from my childhood. This star was a part of my life that has been settling, slowly, into closets and storage bins. But that star was a part of me, of who I am. I left Salt Lake City when I was 16, and since then have lived in Montana, Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan, and finally California. Every move marked a new phase, a major change, another step away from the chrysalis of youth and into full-fledged, dusty-winged adulthood.  I gathered so many skills and experiences and friends and qualities along that path that it shouldn’t have surprised me to find I dropped a few things along the way; my arms were full.

But they aren’t so full that I can’t make room for a beautiful little star.  Neither are yours. This month, let’s look back and see what else we dropped along the way.

Challenge 3 - Brainstorming

Before we dig into the third challenge, let’s recap where you should be at this point.  Last month, we worked with four different proteins.  In addition, we cooked an additional meal each week.  Both of these challenges remain cumulative for this month; you should be cooking a minimum of three times per week now, and you should be working with four different proteins.  More advanced? Find a minimum of three things per week that you would normally purchase and make it yourself (stock, tomato sauce, bread, vinaigrette, etc.), and cook your proteins two different ways.

This month, I want you to focus on making food you really want to eat.  It’s great to work with whatever you have on hand to piece together a meal, and in the coming months we’ll get to work stocking pantries and fridges to make that happen more efficiently. This month, however, I want to cultivate a process of thinking about things we really love to eat, finding a recipe, and making it.  This is satisfaction on a plate, literally.

At least once each week, find a quiet place and take a few moments to think about the food you love.  If possible, think specifically about food from another time in your life - your childhood, college, that breathless time when you were living in your first apartment.  Let your mind wander to holidays, special meals, long-forgotten restaurants.  Think about the food, and when a dish crystallizes in your mind, write it down.  Generate a list of a at least three or four things, then decide which one you’re going to make for yourself that week.

Stumped? Here’s a sample brainstorm of mine: the first time I met John’s extended family was at his cousin’s wedding. It was also my first trip to DC. After the reception, we joined the adults for dinner (the rest of our generation went camping with the bride and groom, but we had to pass due to an early flight the next day).  We went to The Capitol Grille, and it was one of the most wonderful dinners of my life. I felt so welcome, so warmly embraced by this family whom I had just met.  Their warmth was magnified by the rich heat of the French onion soup everyone ordered with their meal.  It was the first and best French onion soup I’ve ever had, and I want to make it for myself.  So, first on my list? French onion soup.

Need help finding recipes to match your brainstorm list? Leave me a note here in the comments or drop me an email and I’ll be more than happy to offer some suggestions. Let’s go!

In the year or so since I started The Salty Spoon (oof, has it been a year? a blogoversary celebration is surely in order here, too!), I have had the wonderful fortune to interact with a talented and enthusiastic bunch of like-minded cooks, readers, eaters, and otherwise interesting people. Some have blogs, some don’t. Among the food blogs I’ve discovered in the past year, Megan Fizell’s Feasting On Art is one of my favorites. If you aren’t familiar with this wonderful site, go immerse yourself in the archives for a bit and come back once your socks have been thoroughly knocked off. The concept is so delightful, I continually kick myself for not having thought of it. Megan begins with a still life painting, adds a narrative about the style and the artist, then follows with her own recipes and photographs. The dialogue she creates between the food and the images is simply brilliant.

It just so happens that I, too, have a degree in art history and a soft spot for the still life genre. When Megan announced a recipe contest to celebrate her blog’s upcoming one-year anniversary, I was giddy. We begin with a Renoir, which presents the contest’s required ingredients: strawberries and lemons.

Ripe strawberries are typically used in ways that showcase their exuberant sweetness. I wanted my recipe to feature more of their depth, their essential berry-ness. I turned to my trusty Flavor Bible and pondered the combination of strawberries, wine, and black pepper. Gnarly Head Zinfandel is a bit of a ubiquity in my kitchen right now, and I knew its own berry notes would complement the strawberries while its dryness would temper their sugar. The pepper was a gamble, but I think it works. It brings a bite and sizzle to the dish without being overly precious in its contrast. The bit of maple syrup at the end counters any lingering bitterness from the wine without upping the sweetness too much.

The pound cake is simple as simple can be. Buttery, tender, and gently flavored with lemon, it ably balances the compote’s wild side. For my non-sweet-loving dessert-eaters, this dish will not disappoint. We enjoyed generous helpings beneath the glow of newly installed tiki torches, in our little backyard with friends. The crisp night air surrounded us as we sat by the garden smelling the freshly turned dirt, and our dessert was intriguing enough to make me forget that my arms felt like they were about to fall off (the result of having planted 26 flowers and shrubs in said freshly turned dirt the day before). I’m not going to go so far as to say this dessert has the power to relieve pain, just that you’d be amazed what a few peppercorns can do to keep your mind occupied.

If the idea of about eating whole peppercorns causes you stress, tie them in a bit of cheesecloth and discard at the end. I happen to think it’s rather fun to find one amidst my cake-eating frenzy (because I can’t do anything but gobble this stuff down) but your mileage may vary on this one.

Lemon Pound Cake with Strawberry Zinfandel Compote

For the cake
Ingredients
8 oz butter, softened
8 oz sugar
4 large eggs plus one yolk
Zest of one lemon
1T lemon juice
2 t vanilla
1t salt
8 oz all-purpose flour

Rundown

• Cream the butter and sugar
• Add the eggs
• Add the lemon business
• Add the flour
• Pour into pan
• Bake

Method
Preheat the oven to 350. Butter and flour a 9-inch loaf pan and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together for 2 minutes on high speed until the mixture is very fluffy and pale yellow. Beat the eggs together with a fork in a separate bowl for a few seconds, then slowly add them to the butter mixture with the mixer on medium speed. Add the lemon zest, juice and vanilla and beat again on high speed for another minute until everything is well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and mix again for 30 seconds.

Add the flour and salt to the batter and gently mix on low until everything is just barely combined. Use a rubber or silicon spatula to coax the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top as best you can.

Bake for one hour. When the cake is done, a knife or toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then carefully turn the cake out onto a rack for final cooling.

For the compote
Ingredients
1 lb strawberries, washed and cut into 1/2″ pieces
1 cup zinfandel
1/4 cup sugar
1t vanilla
1/2T whole tellicherry black peppercorns
Freshly ground black pepper
1T maple syrup

Rundown

• Strawberries, wine and sugar in the pan
• Bring to a boil
• Simmer 10 minutes
• Add the pepper and vanilla
• Simmer again
• Add the maple syrup off heat
• Cover and stand 5 minutes

Method

Mix the strawberries, zinfandel and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Allow the mixture to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 10 minutes, add the vanilla and the peppercorns. Add a few turns of epper from a pepper grinder and stir to combine. Continue to simmer uncovered for an additional 20-30 minutes until the berries are very soft and everything has thickened. Turn off the heat. Stir in the maple syrup, cover, and let stand for another 5 minutes.

To serve

Spoon a hearty swath of compote over two or three slices of cake. Add a dollop of fresh whipped cream on the side for a bit of extra sweetness.

Suzanne Goin made me eat salad dressing straight out of the bowl, with a spoon.  Sort of.

As I have mentioned before, I’m sitting on a handsome crop of Meyer lemons these days and continue to look for interesting ways to use them.  I eagerly turned to Goin’s beautiful cookbook, Sunday Suppers at Lucques, for inspiration.  The salad that follows caught my eye immediately.  Beautiful and seasonal, it earned extra points with me for using up two lemons at a time. I didn’t expect to fall so madly in love with the Meyer lemon cream that dresses the Belgian endive spears.

But how could I not?  Like many of Goin’s recipes, it strikes a lovely balance between simple and innovative.  It begins with a basic lemon vinaigrette, enhanced with the oniony, garlicky hum of a diced shallot, and then evolves into tangy, silken bliss with a few tablespoons of cream.  In a pinch, I found it also works to substitute a mixture of 2 tablespoons sour cream and 2 tablespoons water for the cream if, like me, you usually try to keep heavy cream off your property lest you end up eating it for second breakfast.

Though I don’t typically include restaurant reviews here in The Salty Spoon, I must mention that I recently enjoyed one of the Sunday Supper menus at Lucques and was blown away.  If you find yourself hungry in LA on a Sunday evening, go.  I was most impressed with the entire operation - lovely ambiance, attentive staff, and exceptional food.  I’m aching to go back again, both for the regular menu and for another Sunday Supper.  There is something incredibly appealing to me about a set menu from a chef I admire.  It’s much more intimate than a full menu, a closer conversation between you and the chef where you listen for insights about the chef’s likes and dislikes with respect to the available ingredients.  Goin is steadfastly committed to using seasonal offerings in the best way, and her Sunday menus showcase that approach with aplomb.

But if it is Tuesday and you are hungry for something elegant, you can join me in turning to this beautiful cookbook and finding something marvelous to do with a lemon or two.  I’ve made a few adjustments.  The original recipe calls for fava beans, which I have been sadly unable to find over the past few weeks.  I have reduced the yield of the salad from four servings to two, but the proportions for the dressing are intact.  Here’s why: in order to reach the proper consistency with your vinaigrette, it helps to really give it a hearty run with the whisk.  It’s a bit difficult to get the everything moving in the bowl the way you want with a half-quantity of lemon juice and olive oil.  However, you will have no trouble coming up with alternative uses for the leftover dressing.  It’s stupendous on fish, pasta, etc., if you have the discipline to put it away in the refrigerator.  If you are like me and find yourself gulping it down with a spoon instead of doing the dishes, well, I won’t tell.

Belgian Endive Salad with Meyer Lemon Cream

Adapted from Sunday Suppers at Lucques
Serves 2, increase quantities as needed for additional servings

Ingredients

• 1 lobe of a medium shallot, finely diced
• Juice of 1 large Meyer lemon, about 1/4 cup
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• Sea salt
• 1/4 cup heavy cream (see note)
• 2 heads of Belgian endive
• 1/4 cup kalamata olives, cured in olive oil
• 1 Meyer lemon
• 3 T chopped parsley
• Freshly ground black pepper

Rundown
Mix the shallots, lemon juice and salt; rest 5 minutes
Whisk the olive oil into the lemon juice
Fold in the cream
Toss the endive with the dressing
Arrange everything on a platter

Method

Combine the Meyer lemon juice, shallot and salt in a medium bowl. Stir, and set aside for at least 5 minutes.

Slowly drizzle the olive oil into the lemon juice while whisking vigorously.  When properly combined, you will have a nearly opaque yellow liquid that is much thicker than it was when you started.  Gently stir (don’t whisk) the cream into this mixture until it is evenly combined and very silky.  Season with a few generous twists of black pepper. Reserve half the dressing in a separate container.

Trim the ends off the Belgian endive and separate into individual shoots, discarding the core.  Toss the shoots in the lemon cream until they are well-coated. Arrange the shoots on a large plate.

Slice the Meyer lemon into thin disks, removing the seeds as you go. Quarter the olives, removing the pit if necessary. Add the lemon slices, olives, and parsley to the plate and finish with black pepper. Eat with your hands, using the shoots to scoop up bites of olive and lemon as you go.

After 30 years of utter nonchalance on the matter, I am suddenly interested in gardening. It started with a little lemon tree. A dwarf Meyer lemon tree that arrived one misty morning in February groaning under the weight of two dozen ripe lemons.

The lemon tree was part of a patio redesign project we just finished. After two and a half years in the house, it seemed like a fine time to actually do something more substantial with the front patio than the occasional sidelong glance while muttering “we oughta get a table or something…”  The front patio project spilled into the side yard and then to the back patio; after next weekend, we’ll have it all planted and ready for a good growing season. There are tomatoes. There are fuschias. There is a potted hedge of blossom-studded rosemary. The camelias and azaleas and Japanese maples are on their merry way. I can’t wait.

Back to that tree.  After the sixth day of making John crazy with an endless chorus of “my lemon has a first name, it’s M-E-Y-E-R, my lemon has a second name, it’s M-E-Y-E-R!” (thank you, Derek, for gracing me with this horrible earworm), I sobered up and faced the inevitable question peeking in my patio door: what the hell do we do with all these lemons?

It wasn’t so difficult.  Their thin, supple skin is most conducive to zesting, while their (relatively) mild acidity makes the flesh and juice a handsome complement to sauces, dressings, relishes, and, in a pinch, water.  I’m still working out the proportions for a lemon sage vinaigrette we’ve been enjoying mightily on all things green and leafy.  In the meantime, I’m tremendously excited to share this cookie with you.

If you haven’t ever tried rosemary in your baked goods, you are missing out. I find it brings a big, round flavor to sweet things while tempering the pointedness of the sugar. This is the cookie for people who, inexplicably, roam in search of desserts on the low end of the sweetness spectrum.  The proportions of lemon zest and rosemary are a starting point. Make a batch and see how they strike you, and increase as you see fit to suit your taste.  The rosemary’s strength will surprise you, so don’t haul off and mix in half a cup.  Start small and work up from there.

We’ve been enjoying these cookies without any on them, but they would be lovely with a light buttercream or sandwiched together around a bit of lemon curd.

If you can’t find Meyer lemons in your area, regular lemons will work fine. Look for the ripest ones you can get your hands on: thin skins, bright yellow, and fat little bodies.  Shortly before our tree arrived, I found a bounty of Meyers at Costco.  While picking my carton, an elderly woman next to me pondered the label, unconvinced that they were worth a try.  I piped up, noting that the flesh was sweeter than a traditional lemon and that the peel was also wonderful.  “They’re wonderful with tequila?” she exclaimed, having misheard my comment about the peel. I started to correct her, but decided against it when I saw how her eyes sparkled at the idea. “Yep,” I said, “great with tequila.”  That sold it; into her cart they went.

Lemon Rosemary Cookies

Yields approximately 2 dozen, depending on how large you cut them

Ingredients
12 T butter, softened (6 oz)
3/4 cup sugar (5 oz)
1 T finely chopped fresh rosemary
Zest of 1 Meyer lemon
1 egg
2 1/4 cups AP flour (10 oz)
1/2 t vanilla extract
1/4 t kosher salt
2 t baking powder

Rundown

• Butter + sugar
• Add the lemon and rosemary
• Add the egg and vanilla
• Mix the dry ingredients together
• Add dry to wet
• Chill
• Shape
• Bake

Method
Cream the butter and sugar together on high speed for 3 minutes.  The mixture will be a very pale yellow.  Scrape the sides of the bowl and add the lemon zest and rosemary. Mix on low for a few seconds to combine.

Add the egg and vanilla. Beat again on medium-high speed until the texture is smooth and glossy, about 2 more minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl.

In a separate bowl, stir the flour, salt and baking powder together with a fork until evenly combined. Add the dry ingredients to the batter and mix on medium low speed until a cohesive ball of dough forms.

Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for one hour. If you are in a hurry, you can put the dough in the freezer for 15 minutes or so. Given the high butter content of the dough, we need it to be quite chilly for shaping and cutting.

Preheat the oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment or a Silpat. Working with no more than half the dough at a time, roll it to 1/4 inch thickness and cut rounds with cookie or biscuit cutters. Alternatively, roll the dough into a log and cut small disks, shaping the edges with your fingers after cutting to create a uniform cookie. Leave at least an inch of space between each cookie as you place them on the sheet. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the edges are ever so slightly golden.  Cool 5 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack.

Last month, Michael Ruhlman challenged food bloggers to join him in thinking about why we cook. His post has received over 200 comments and has inspired many blog posts in response. Here is mine.

Why I Cook

I cook because I love to eat. At the heart of all my reasons, my cooking is primarily an extension of my deep love of food. Eating involves my senses - the sight of the food, its aroma, its heft in my hand and texture in my mouth, the sounds it made as it was prepared - all of this before it even reaches the deep ocean of the experience of taste. Cooking literally feeds my joyful affection for food.

I cook because I like to work with my hands. I relish relating to the world kinesthetically; when I cook, I manipulate ingredients with my hands until they become something else, something wonderful. Everything I create a work is cerebral, words on a page.  Cooking lets me make something I can touch and feel and experience more fully.

I cook because I need a creative outlet. I can’t remember a time when I haven’t created things. Drawing, painting, dancing, sewing, knitting, acting, writing, building, quilting, beading, sculpting…it has always been something. As I have noted here many times, I often work long hours. This leaves me with little time for hobbies, especially during the week. Since we have to eat, I have always felt like cooking dinner each night kills two birds with one stone. I get to spend time doing something I love, and it happens to fill our bellies at the end. Win-win.

I cook because there are endless lessons to learn and skills to master. In some ways, the world of cooking presents an impossibly steep mountain that reaches into the heavens. But I set out for a climb anyway, knowing I won’t ever reach the summit. I teach myself new techniques and concepts along the way, and every success pays dividends.

I cook as a way to relate to people. Food is a way to show love, affection, friendship, kindness. I feel like I can express my support for those close to me so much more eloquently through a well-timed chocolate babka than I can with words. When I cook for others, the food speaks for me. It tells them that they are worth my time, worth the effort.

I cook because it fascinates me. Cooking is the perfect storm of science, art, and magic. There is so much to know about the physical and chemical properties of my ingredients; the more I learn, the more enthralled I become. This was what first attracted me to baking (well, that and the wonder of frosting). Combine a whole lot of nothing - flour, water, yeast, salt - and end up with a crusty loaf of bread, one very special something. Add the hearty beauty of roasted garlic and fresh herbs, and that simple bread becomes something unforgettable, craveable. Cube it, toss with tomatoes and cheese, douse with oil and vinegar and a beautiful panzanella jumps out. There are endless combinations and variations on limitless themes, each more delicious than the last. When I step into my kitchen and begin to cook, I feel as though I’m trying to throw my arms around a glorious expanse of wonder and discovery. With each new dish, my enthusiasm grows. I use cooking to feed both my belly and my soul.

What about you? Why do you cook?

Challenge 2 - Protein

I think there is a certain degree of mental muscle memory that underscores any successful effort to consistently cook for yourself when time is limited. I often find myself gravitating toward a smaller and smaller collection of time-worn, easy favorites when my work schedule becomes increasingly hectic (see, e.g., now). It’s easy to rely on the meals I’ve made dozens of times before; minimal thinking and minimal planning always seem particularly enticing when time is scarce. Saturday, I say to myself, Saturday is for digging in to a new cookbook for something new and different.

It’s a common trap.

This month, we’ll be fighting back against the narrowing rabbit hole of dinner tedium by forcing a little diversity into our protein repertoire. The challenge is to work with at least four different proteins during the month of March. Push yourself to try something you haven’t worked with before. Break free from the tyranny of the boneless, skinless chicken breast and step out there a bit. Shellfish. Offal. Tofu. Game hens. Legumes.

For an extra challenge, prepare each of your four proteins twice and select a different preparation the second time. Braise your beef one night, roast it the next. Poach your fish in white wine and broth, then cook it en papillote with fennel and orange slices. If you’re working with a new technique, start simple. Contrast, compare, learn, and let us know what you discover.

Can we talk for a moment about the irresistible scent that apples and cinnamon drape across a kitchen as they cook together? It’s unbeatable. The sweet, tart brightness of a good apple and the nose-tingling cha-cha-cha of potent cinnamon cradle each other carefully, gently.  I can understand why Glade and its ilk are constantly trying to make scents that go by the name apples and cinnamon, though we all know they are, in fact, kidding themselves.

I used to make myself the most ridiculously pared-down versions of an apple crisp as afternoon snacks in law school.  No measuring, just a heap of apple slices, oatmeal, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter in a little dish in the microwave.  It’s especially silly for me to call them apple crisps, because there was nothing crisp about them.  Just sweet, soggy oats and squishy apples.  Apple soggies.  But the smell, oh, the smell. Once, when my apartment was being shown to a prospective tenant for the following year, I managed to time one of these little bowls to come out of the microwave just as the landlord was knocking on the door.  The prospective tenant ended up not taking the apartment, but I think she seriously contemplated asking if she could come back for a snack the next day.

My little apple soggies weren’t perfect, but they fit a special kind of dessert bill.  They were quick, delicious, and brought a minimal assault against any ideas I might have had about eating healthfully.  Since then, I have graduated to the glorious realm of the diminutive apple brown betty.  I love their simplicity.  Nothing too fancy or trussed up, just lightly seasoned apples in a crisp, buttery crust.  You can take them from pantry to oven in less than 15 minutes (depending on your apple peeling skills).  Best of all, they will fill your kitchen and any adjoining rooms with that tremendous apple cinnamon scent.  Use your best cinnamon, a few good apples, and you’ll be in business.

Baby Brown Bettys

Makes 6 small bettys

Adapted from Gourmet, April 2009

Ingredients
6 T butter, melted
1 t granulated sugar
6 slices wheat sandwich bread
2 Gala or Fuji apples
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
½ t cinnamon
½ cup panko

Rundown

• Butter the muffin tin
• Flatten and butter the bread
• Press into the tin
• Toss diced apples with spices and panko
• Heap into cups
• Bake – covered, then uncovered

Method

Preheat the oven to 350. Brush 6 wells of a muffin tin with melted butter and sprinkle with the granulated sugar.

Using a rolling pin, flatten the slices of bread.  You may find it easier if you remove some or all of the crusts first.  Brush both sides of each slice with melted butter.  Carefully press each slice into a buttered muffin well.  If the bread tears, don’t fret; just keep pressing until you have 6 bread-lined muffin wells.

Peel and chop the apples into ½” pieces.  Stir together with the brown sugar and cinnamon until all of the pieces are nicely coated.  Stir in the panko and remaining melted butter until well combined.  Spoon the apple mixture into the prepared bread cups, pressing with the back of a spoon until the filling is densely packed.  You may have leftover filling – if so, just set aside until your bettys are doing their thing in the oven and you have time to eat it straight from the bowl while you lay back on the couch and watch reruns of Pawn Stars.  Or something.

Cover the muffin tin with foil and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes.  Let the bettys stand for a few minutes before carefully lifting out of the pan with a fork.  They are stunningly good when eaten while hot, tremendous lukewarm, and handsomely scrumptious when stone cold.  Nestle them next to a scoop of ice cream? Sure.  Top with a dollop of whipped cream? You bet.  In sum, I can’t imagine a way you could serve them that wouldn’t be delightful.

So I am very, very excited to invite you today to join me for the coming year in the Salty Spoon Challenge.  Each month, I will pose a new kitchen challenge that is designed to help you adopt the basic habit of cooking for yourself.  We will start small and build from there.  The challenges will be cumulative; part of each month’s new challenge will be to maintain the goals of the preceding challenges, unless otherwise indicated.  We’ll do this for a year.  You can join any time.  You can quit any time.  All you have to do is try.  The challenges are open to anyone and everyone, regardless of experience.  The point here is not to follow a specific learn-to-cook curriculum, but rather to increase your skills and comfort in the kitchen by challenging yourself with one new parameter a month.  As we work through the challenges, we’ll think critically about how and what we feed ourselves.  At the end of a year, we’ll have made incremental but meaningful changes to our approach to our food.

The challenges will begin on (or around) the first day of each month.  There will be a post on the Salty Spoon home page announcing the challenge, and the Salty Spoon Challenge page (links at the top right) will list links to past challenges.  We can discuss ideas, tips, progress, and frustrations in the challenge post for the current month - comments will always stay open.

There are hundreds (thousands?) of food blogs in this vast internet of ours. I am proud to be a part of such a vibrant, expansive community.  In a bout of January reflection, I gave extensive and serious consideration to what exactly I want to bring to this landscape.  I thought about why I started The Salty Spoon in the first place: to help inspire other busy people to get in their kitchens and start cooking.  I thought about how I felt about cooking when I was living in my first apartment after college.  The thought of preparing the majority of my meals for myself was overwhelming.  I liked to bake, but that was about it.  My arrival at my present state of cooking most of my food at home came gradually, over a period of several years.

Looking back, I wish I had taken a more purposeful approach from the beginning.  And that’s what I’ve decided to offer you through the Salty Spoon Challenge - a purposeful approach to adopting the habit of cooking for yourself.  Stick with it, and in a year you will find yourself in your kitchen more often, preparing better food, and enjoying it.  We’ll get there, I promise.

Let’s start with a few guidelines.  First, stay positive.  Cooking is about learning, thinking, experimenting, and indulging.  I do not accept the statement “I can’t cook.”  If you can read and follow directions with a basic helping of common sense, you can cook.  This isn’t about turning out Michelin-worthy covers for 200 dinner guests; it’s about feeding yourself good food at home.

Second, be open to new ideas.  We’re going to share our experiences with each other here, and we have a lot to learn from each other - myself included.  One of the things I love most about cooking is its essential, communal aspect.  Let’s help each other grow as cooks.

Finally, have fun with it.  Push yourself, but don’t get bogged down in the details.  There is no shame in simple food as long as it’s good food.  Make what you love to eat.  If you aren’t an experienced home cook, or you’ve found yourself in a cooking rut that has left you bored and uninspired, get ready to surprise and delight yourself.  There is an indescribable satisfaction in the ability to think of something you really want to eat, turn to your kitchen, and make it.  Explore, stretch, enjoy.

Are you ready?  Let’s cook something.

Challenge 1 - The Beginning

For this month’s challenge, think about what you ate for dinner during the past few weeks.  Where did it come from?  How much did you spend?  Was it good?  Could it have been better?  Your first assignment is to increase the number of meals you prepare at home each week by one.  See? I told you we were starting small.  There are, presumably, 21 meals in a week.  As noted above, the challenges will be cumulative; at the end of the year of the Salty Spoon Challenge, you will be cooking at least half of your meals each week at home.  Begin by thinking about what you’ve been doing recently and add one more home-prepared meal to the mix.

What counts as cooking?  It’s up to you, but be honest with yourself.  Throwing one of those frozen bags of vegetables, meat, and seasoning blobs in a skillet doesn’t cut it.  Get yourself to the grocery store and buy some real ingredients.  Ideally, I want you to cut it yourself, season it yourself, and cook it yourself.  A simple, balanced lunch or dinner consists of a protein, a starch, and a vegetable.  Beginners, start there.  Stumped for ideas? Let us know in the comments and let’s see what shakes out.

Dig in.

On January 2, 2010, I made a colossal mistake. My reason paralyzed by the overwhelming desire to install a cookbook shelf in my kitchen, I ventured out to the Pottery Barn in Pasadena. Inside, I found myself surrounded by a scene that bore marked resemblance to my idea of hell. Noisy, crowded, lots of wicker, people wandering about willy nilly as though the world ended at their elbows. It was a mad house. The only thing missing was a continuous loop of Sandra Lee screeching DELICIOUS! while making things out of cheez whiz.

I made it out alive, shelf in hand, steadfastly recommitted to my disdain for shopping. I like buying stuff, just not the process of actually going and doing it. As a consequence I tend to stick with things that I already know work. Cosmetics are the sole exception to this rule, as I am a complete sucker for new and different products (if it promises to airbrush my skin, I’m a goner). My makeup collection has, in fact, been accused of having its own luggage. I can neither confirm nor deny the truth of that statement, though I can wholeheartedly endorse the concept of a well-made train case.

Eyeshadow aside, I am a product loyalist. My favorite work pants? I have three, identical pairs. The same goes for sweaters, t-shirts, hoodies, blouses, etc. If it fits, I’ll buy several. Likewise with food staples. My tenacity for buying bulk multiples of my trusty favorites is dampened only by the storage failings of our house (note to future home buyers: there is no such thing as too much storage, there is no such thing as too much storage, there is no such…eh, you’ll figure it out someday).

One of my very favorite protein staples is turkey Italian sausage. I try to keep at least one package each of sweet and hot varieties in our fridge or freezer at all times. Lean and full of flavor, I get a lot of bang for my caloric buck out of a link or two. They bring a tempered saltiness to dishes without overpowering them like pork sausage sometimes does. Mostly, though, I adore the satisfying richness of their lean fat content; just enough to sate the mind and belly, but nothing more.

Because I keep turkey Italian sausage more readily on hand than I do pancetta or bacon, I swap them when it makes sense. When I read the following recipe, which calls for pancetta, I had a hunch that my turkey sausages would fill in handsomely. And they did. Thankfully, I have more in the freezer.

What are your favorite food staples?

Rotini with Butternut Squash and Italian Sausage

Adapted from Thirty Minute Pasta by Giuliano Hazan (as posted here)
Serves 6

Ingredients
2 T olive oil
1 medium shallot, diced (or one lobe of a large shallot)
2 links sweet Italian sausage (hot or sweet)
1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced into ½” cubes
1 cup low sodium chicken broth
Salt and pepper
1 lb rotini (or other small, shaped pasta)
¼ cup grated pecorino or parmesan cheese

Rundown

• Cook the shallots
• Add the sausage
• Add the squash and chicken broth
• over
• Cook the pasta
• Smash the squash, cheese and sausage into sauce
• Toss with the pasta

Method

Fill a large pot with 4 quarts of water and bring to a boil. While the water heats, place the oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the diced shallot and cook until soft and fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Squeeze the sausages out of their casings and into the skillet. Break them into small pieces with a spatula as they cook, stirring frequently to brown all sides. Stir in the squash and add the chicken broth. Season lightly with salt and pepper, cover, and simmer for 8-10 minutes. The squash will mash easily with a fork when it’s done.

Once the water boils, stir in a tablespoon of salt before adding the pasta. Cook until al dente and drain, saving ½ cup of the pasta water.

When the squash has fully cooked, remove from the heat and uncover. Use a fork to thoroughly mash the squash against the pan until a thick sauce forms. If it’s too thick, stir in the reserved pasta water a few tablespoons at a time until you reach a suitable consistency. Stir in the grated cheese and toss with the drained pasta to combine.