Best Food Writing 2010 Part 14

Child set out to not only master the art of French cooking for herself, but to translate that precise tradition for an audience of "servantless American cooks" who had only the grim supermarkets of the 1950s from which to shop.

Two generations later, Powell set out to save herself from despair, not by inventing "30-Minute Meals" but by daring herself to cook each and every recipe in Child's exacting and daunting book.

These are not tasks taken on by women who are seeking to make their lives easier. These are tasks taken on by women seeking to test themselves, to see whether they can create something beautiful and delicious while hewing to a set of exacting standards.

Sometimes, the only way to save yourself is to take on a project, and for some of us, the projects by which we seek to do that involve cooking. I know, because it was four years ago that I set out to survive the first horrifyingly lonely Christmas after my brother died by cooking an enormous, elaborate croquembouche.

It was my first Christmas at home after Patrick was killed in a car wreck, and since I had no one to cook for any more, I decided I needed an elaborate cooking project to take with me to the several parties to which I'd been invited.

I needed something difficult. I needed something delicious. I needed something very, very festive. And a croquembouche-a tower of cream-filled puff pastries sh.e.l.lacked in hot caramel, traditionally served in France as a wedding cake-fit all those bills.

I think I must have seen a rerun of that hilarious Martha Stewart episode in which she and Child make dueling croquembouches. Stewart's is all tidy and neatly stacked, while Child's is sort of a festive pile.

"Ooh," says Child in her warbly voice, as she flings hot caramel strands in the direction of her dessert, "I like yours."

A croquembouche seemed right for Patrick. For several years running, he had made the Paris-Brest pastry out of a Jacques Pepin cookbook. The first time he'd piped out the pate a choux pate a choux for it, he thought it didn't look right, and so he threw it out. When he followed the recipe a second time, only to get the exact same result, he put it in the oven despite his doubts. for it, he thought it didn't look right, and so he threw it out. When he followed the recipe a second time, only to get the exact same result, he put it in the oven despite his doubts.

"I should have believed Jacques," he told me when I came home from Christmas shopping. "Look! It's gorgeous!"

And Patrick had loved Julia Child. As a very small child, her show was his favorite thing to watch on TV. He was so devoted to the original "The French Chef " that we used to tease him that he could make a perfect buche de Noel buche de Noel by the time he was five. by the time he was five.

It was Patrick who discovered that Pepin and Child would be in San Francisco, signing copies of their latest cookbook, and who insisted we go into town and get copies. There we were, the youngest people in the line by at least 15 years, and there Child was, poohpoohing our hero wors.h.i.+p, signing away while Pepin ushered cl.u.s.ters of star-struck ladies behind her for snapshots.

It was a lovely afternoon. Patrick's copy of that book was one of the things I made sure to keep when I had to clean out his things.

And so, the croquembouche. It took three days. On the first day, I made the cream puffs-dozens and dozens of cream puffs. Ninety-six, I believe. Then I made two flavors of pastry cream-Grand Marnier and chocolate. On the second day, I filled all the cream puffs. Finally, on the third day I made the caramel and started to a.s.semble the thing.

The caramel was kind of scary; it's very hot and you need to keep a big bowl of ice water nearby in case of burns. And the directions said to dip the cream puffs in the caramel, which was also sort of daunting. But little by little, the thing started to set up.

I'd bought some of those pretty little silver b.a.l.l.s to decorate it with, but the caramel set up so quickly that they mostly just skittered all over my kitchen. And I had a near-disaster toward the top. The first couple of caramel batches went pretty well, but as they started to thicken up, I thought I could lighten it by adding some of the sugar syrup that had melted but hadn't yet caramelized.

This was not a good idea. It looked like s.h.i.+ny brown caramel, but when it cooled on the cream puffs, it looked like the opaque, matte, dried sugar solution it was.

I was horrified. It was four o'clock, and the Christmas Eve open house was starting at six, and I hadn't made any plans for a backup dessert.

This is when I remembered Julia Child on Martha Stewart's show. What Would Julia Do? I cleaned out my saucepan and started a fresh batch of caramel. I was patient. I waited for that wonderful toasty smell, and then I carefully swirled the caramel until it was a clear medium-brown.

Then, still following the spirit of Julia Child, I dripped the new caramel all over the top of the croquembouche. As the caramel started to set up, I tried pulling strings of caramel out, so it'd get that nice spun-sugar kind of look.

It was still a little lumpy, and there weren't as many stringy glistening strands as I would have liked, but overall, it was beautiful. It was a beautiful croquembouche.

It was also nearly three feet tall and weighed close to 30 pounds. I had to get it out into the car, then drive across town, and then maneuver it past the sweets-loving, 125-pound golden retriever at the door.

All of which I managed. I'd finished my project. I hadn't cried all day. I had arrived at a party like a person who can survive disaster with aplomb. I'd called on my inner Julia Child, and she hadn't let me down.

That's what Mastering the Art of French Cooking Mastering the Art of French Cooking is really all about. It's about poaching your salt pork for precisely the right amount of time it takes for American salt pork to resemble French lardons. is really all about. It's about poaching your salt pork for precisely the right amount of time it takes for American salt pork to resemble French lardons.

And that's what Julie Powell's project was about. It was about being determined enough to figure out how to split a marrow bone, or kill a lobster, or learn to make a perfect pate brisee pate brisee.

It's not about easy. Triumph never is.

I can only hope that all those new copies of Mastering Mastering will not go home and languish on cookbook shelves. But even if they do, there's another generation coming up, one who might, as my generation did, pull their mothers' copies off the shelf, start paging through, and discover the deep joy that comes from following Child's exacting directions in order to produce something delicious, and elegant, and-as the French would say-correct. will not go home and languish on cookbook shelves. But even if they do, there's another generation coming up, one who might, as my generation did, pull their mothers' copies off the shelf, start paging through, and discover the deep joy that comes from following Child's exacting directions in order to produce something delicious, and elegant, and-as the French would say-correct.

PEOPLE OF THE CAKE.

By Diane Roberts From The Oxford American The Oxford American

English professor, NPR commentator, BBC filmmaker, and Oxford American Oxford American contributor, Diane Roberts sketches her family history in contributor, Diane Roberts sketches her family history in Dream State: Eight Generations of Swamp Lawyers, Conquistadors, Confederate Daughters, Banana Republicans, and other Florida Wildlife. Dream State: Eight Generations of Swamp Lawyers, Conquistadors, Confederate Daughters, Banana Republicans, and other Florida Wildlife. Cake, she insists, is one of their secret weapons. Cake, she insists, is one of their secret weapons.

I come from a family of cake fundamentalists. come from a family of cake fundamentalists.

We are people of the Cake. A baby is born and welcomed with cake; there's cake for anniversaries, cake for graduating high school or college; cake for pa.s.sing the bar or the CPA exam, cake for winning Second Runner-Up in the Miss Peanut pageant; cake for getting out of prison, cake for visiting kinfolk, cake for Christmas and Easter and the Fourth of July; cake when you marry, when you're sick, when you die.

Proust journeys back to the past via a madeleine (a small, scallop-shaped cake, not a cookie); in The Unvanquished The Unvanquished, Faulkner uses cake-or the remembrance of cakes-to conjure the lost days of peace and plenty before secession. Granny Millard asks Marengo and Bayard what they'd like her to read to them. They want the cook book: "Read about cake." Coconut cake, to be exact. Craig Claiborne, the brilliant food writer and Delta gourmand, was also a coconut cake man: One of my earliest recollections was watching my mother or one of the servants tediously grating coconut in large quant.i.ties, sometimes for ice cream, sometimes for a curried dish, but more often than not for coconut cake, which was one of Kathleen Craig Claiborne's great specialties. One of my earliest recollections was watching my mother or one of the servants tediously grating coconut in large quant.i.ties, sometimes for ice cream, sometimes for a curried dish, but more often than not for coconut cake, which was one of Kathleen Craig Claiborne's great specialties.

Indeed, one of my earliest recollections is watching my own grandmother whack a coconut with a machete. She'd hammer a sixteen-penny nail into the coconut's "eyes" and drain out the juice. Then she'd rive it in two and carve out the meat with an oyster knife. After only four or five hours of gouging, hacking, beating, boiling, and whipping, she would present the cake on a cut-gla.s.s stand that had been a wedding present to her own grandmother. It was as white and s.h.i.+ning as a debutante's gown, covered in hand-shredded coconut, fuzzy as a French poodle.

I come from a family of cake fundamentalists. No mixes, no faux cream, no margarine, no imitation vanilla, no all-purpose flour. You should use Swans Down or some other cake flour: It's made of soft winter wheat with a low protein content, which makes the cake finer and airier. If the recipe says fresh coconut, don't you dare use that stuff in the bag. Suffering for your cake builds character. (We are Presbyterian, after all.) The first time I made Grandmama's fresh coconut cake, I grated the skin off my knuckles. People said it was delicious: You really didn't taste the blood at all.

After my fingers healed up, I moved on to making Old School cakes that didn't require hatchets, machetes, or other weaponry. Lady Baltimore cake is a luxurious pile of nuts, figs, cherries, and egg whites, soft as tulle and sweet as divinity. With that name, you'd think it was some old Maryland recipe dating from the days of the Calverts, but according to John and Ann Bleidt Egerton, it was invented by one Alicia Rhett Mayberry, a Charleston belle, sometime near the turn of the twentieth century. Owen Wister, author of The Virginian The Virginian, named his 1906 novel after it: "I would like a slice, if you please, of Lady Baltimore," I said with extreme formality. I returned to the table and she brought me the cake, and I had my first felicitous meeting with Lady Baltimore. Oh, my goodness! Did you ever taste it? It's all soft, and it's in layers, and it has nuts-but I can't write any more about it; my mouth waters too much. "I would like a slice, if you please, of Lady Baltimore," I said with extreme formality. I returned to the table and she brought me the cake, and I had my first felicitous meeting with Lady Baltimore. Oh, my goodness! Did you ever taste it? It's all soft, and it's in layers, and it has nuts-but I can't write any more about it; my mouth waters too much.

In 1898, Emma Rylander Lane of Barbour County, Alabama, published the recipe for what she called her "prize cake," a four-layer white sponge filled with an opulent mixture of egg yolks, raisins, and booze. This is the cake, remember, that got Scout tipsy in To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird. If you do it right, putting at least three-fourths of a cup of hooch (Emma Lane called for "one wine-gla.s.s of good whiskey or brandy") in the filling and drizzling another cup over the layers, letting it soak in, the Lane cake is a c.o.c.ktail in baked form. I don't hold with lazy-a.s.s modern versions that use boxed mix (I'm talking to you, Southern Living Southern Living) or omit the bourbon. I realize there are people who insist that Jesus didn't turn water into wine at Cana, claiming it was actually Welch's grape juice. Please. Like Jesus would be so tacky.

Even foot-was.h.i.+ng Baptists in dry counties know better than to make a Lane cake without alcohol. Celestine Sibley, the longtime columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Const.i.tution Atlanta Journal-Const.i.tution, tells how her mother, not a drinker but a committed baker, drove down to Panama City, Florida, after church one day-hat, gloves, and all. She walked into a bar as "dark as the inside of a cow." A young woman "half naked and downright impudent" slinked over, saying, "Madam, this is a c.o.c.ktail lounge." Evelyn Sibley drew herself up and replied, "My dear, I didn't think it was the Methodist parsonage! I'll have a half-pint of Early Times, please."

We cakeists value tradition. I've had the same kind of birthday cake (Angel Food), perched on the same cut-gla.s.s cake stand my grandmother used for her coconut cake, every single year of my life. At my first birthday, my mother made a magnificent pink cake decorated with spun-sugar daisies. The photographic evidence shows I smashed my fist into it. I'm told that I licked the thick, seven-minute icing off my arm and laughed. Now, I make sure there are no cameras around on my birthday.

For Christmas, it has to be fruitcake: a serious fruitcake, with muscovado sugar, candied pineapples, candied lemon and orange peel, citron, red and green cherries, raisins, cinnamon and nutmeg, cloves and ginger, dates and chopped pecans, baked slow and low. It's a treasure box of complex flavors, each one richer and more intoxicating, more seductive, than the last. Especially if you've kept the cake wrapped in rum-soaked cheesecloth for at least a month.

Fruitcake goes back to the Romans, maybe to Mesopotamia for all I know. The cookery book that Martha Was.h.i.+ngton worked on from the time of her wedding in 1749 to Daniel Custis until 1799, when her granddaughter Nelly Custis married Lawrence Lewis, contains four recipes for what she called "great cakes"-as opposed to small. Here's the one she made for Epiphany, or Twelfth Night, parties, original spelling preserved: Take 40 eggs and divide the whites from the yolks & beat them to a froth then work 4 pounds of b.u.t.ter to a cream & put the whites of eggs to it a Spoon full at a time till it is well work'd then put 4 pounds of sugar finely powdered to it in the same manner then put in the Youlks of eggs & 5 pounds of flower & 5 pounds of fruit. Add to it half an ounce of mace & nutmeg half a pint of wine & some frensh brandy. Two hours will bake it. Take 40 eggs and divide the whites from the yolks & beat them to a froth then work 4 pounds of b.u.t.ter to a cream & put the whites of eggs to it a Spoon full at a time till it is well work'd then put 4 pounds of sugar finely powdered to it in the same manner then put in the Youlks of eggs & 5 pounds of flower & 5 pounds of fruit. Add to it half an ounce of mace & nutmeg half a pint of wine & some frensh brandy. Two hours will bake it.

I'll tackle that monster after the recession cuts us loose and I can afford five pounds of candied fruit (which wasn't cheap even in Mistress Martha's day). In the meantime, there's pound cake. Don't scoff. It may seem like a plain Jane amongst cakes: no fillings, no icing, no cup of cognac, no grating or chopping. But once you bite into a piece of good pound cake, it's like when the librarian unpins her chignon and whips off her gla.s.ses: Oh my G.o.d! She's a total babe!

Pound cake is deceptively simple. Mary Randolph's 1824 cookbook The Virginia Housewife The Virginia Housewife calls for a pound of b.u.t.ter, a pound of flour, a pound of powdered sugar, and twelve eggs. My mother's version is a little more complex, but not difficult. It's a beautiful cake, nut-brown on the outside, yellow as a daffodil inside. It's the cake she makes for people who do nice things, people with family in the hospital, and funerals. In spring, when we can get fresh, local strawberries, she makes it for shortcake. If there are leftover pieces, she makes trifle, soaking it in sherry, slathering it with blueberries or peaches, layering it with custard. She bakes it like Wynton Marsalis plays the horn-gracefully, improvisationally. She has a recipe, but never looks at it. Here is Betty Gilbert Roberts's Sour Cream Pound Cake. calls for a pound of b.u.t.ter, a pound of flour, a pound of powdered sugar, and twelve eggs. My mother's version is a little more complex, but not difficult. It's a beautiful cake, nut-brown on the outside, yellow as a daffodil inside. It's the cake she makes for people who do nice things, people with family in the hospital, and funerals. In spring, when we can get fresh, local strawberries, she makes it for shortcake. If there are leftover pieces, she makes trifle, soaking it in sherry, slathering it with blueberries or peaches, layering it with custard. She bakes it like Wynton Marsalis plays the horn-gracefully, improvisationally. She has a recipe, but never looks at it. Here is Betty Gilbert Roberts's Sour Cream Pound Cake.

Betty Gilbert Roberts's Sour Cream Pound Cake Betty Gilbert Roberts's Sour Cream Pound Cake 1 cup (2 sticks) b.u.t.ter, softened 1 cup (2 sticks) b.u.t.ter, softened 3 cups white sugar 8 eggs, separated 1 cup sour cream 3 cups cake flour teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoons good vanilla extract Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease a tube pan and sugar the edges. Cream the b.u.t.ter and two cups of sugar until fluffy. While that's beating, use a hand-mixer to whip the egg whites. Add the third cup of sugar and continue whipping until they form stiff peaks. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease a tube pan and sugar the edges. Cream the b.u.t.ter and two cups of sugar until fluffy. While that's beating, use a hand-mixer to whip the egg whites. Add the third cup of sugar and continue whipping until they form stiff peaks. Add egg yolks, one at a time, to the b.u.t.ter and sugar. Beat well. Sift the flour, salt, and soda together. Add, alternating wet and dry ingredients, the flour mix and the sour cream. Mix well. Add the vanilla, then fold in the egg whites. Try not to eat the batter (it's really good). Bake sixty to ninety minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Cool ten to fifteen minutes and turn out on a plate. Add egg yolks, one at a time, to the b.u.t.ter and sugar. Beat well. Sift the flour, salt, and soda together. Add, alternating wet and dry ingredients, the flour mix and the sour cream. Mix well. Add the vanilla, then fold in the egg whites. Try not to eat the batter (it's really good). Bake sixty to ninety minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Cool ten to fifteen minutes and turn out on a plate.

This cake is best savored with a gla.s.s of Kentucky whiskey or old Madeira or champagne, sitting in front of a bright fire, lying on the new gra.s.s in spring, or curled up on the sofa reading French ballads.

YANCEY'S RED HOTS RED HOTS By Wright Thompson From The Oxford American The Oxford American

Though Wright Thompson's usual subject is sports-he's a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine ESPN The Magazine and and espn.com-as a Mississippian born and bred, musing about the finer points of southern food is a natural sideline.

When people try to rea.s.semble the broken pieces of 1950s Shelby, Mississippi, in their minds, they usually start with Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Families filled the streets, as impossible as that sounds now. Folks came to town to buy provisions for the week, to get comics and floats for the kids, and maybe to bring home a sack of burgers for supper. They caught a movie, a showing of High Noon High Noon or or All About Eve All About Eve, and most of all, they heard the song of the hot-tamale man. His name was Yancey, and he pushed a cart. Even the kids playing in their backyards a few blocks away could hear his voice.

"Red hots!" he'd yell, parked over by the train depot, which still rattled with pa.s.sengers and freight who thought the small town was worth the coming and going. "Get your red hots!"

The tamales simmered in the big, steaming silver pots he kept on the back of his cart. He only sold them on Sat.u.r.day, and they were the best d.a.m.n red hots in Bolivar County, maybe even Coahoma, too. Yancey lived not far from the depot, in a shotgun over at the Valley Gin Yard, where he worked for my family. He pushed a broom around the gin, and he took care of my uncle's horses, and he did odd jobs for my grandparents.

For extra money, he'd spend hours behind his house, tending to the big iron cauldron, boiling pork and beef, then grinding it all together with garlic, layering in salt, chili, and cayenne, smooth and easy, the way a man just knows how to throw a baseball, twenty-two pounds of meal giving him 567 red hots to hawk at the depot on Sat.u.r.day.

Yancey was old, even then, and in the 1950s, he found himself sick. He didn't have any family, people remember, just people he'd worked for and people he'd fed. This is the story pa.s.sed down in my family: One day, near the end, he called my grandmother over to his house. He wanted to give her something, he said. He didn't have money, or a watch to pa.s.s along, or even a photograph they could keep.

He wanted her to have his hot-tamale recipe.

He dictated the ingredients and the instructions, and she wrote them down, in her neat, rolling cursive. Not long after,Yancey died. No one yelled "red hots!" downtown anymore, then, eventually, no one went downtown at all. The gin shut down. My grandfather died. My grandmother got Alzheimer's and forgot everything, from her own children to the man with the cart. Then she died. Her friends died, too, and their children moved away. There aren't many people left in Shelby, and even fewer who remember Yancey. Even his last name is hazy. Is it Searcey? Or Searcy? "Everyone is gone," says eighty-five-year-old Jutta Ferretti, who was friends with my grandparents. "Everyone is gone."

It seems as if Yancey never really existed at all, but I know that he did. I'm holding a four-by-six recipe card. I turn it over, feel the thick card stock, run my fingers along my grandmother's blue script. Forgotten handwriting always gut-punches me; I can close my eyes and see a long-vanished hand moving over the page.

It's all there. Four pounds of pork and four pounds of beef. Four b.u.t.tons of garlic, and the salt and chili and cayenne. One pound of meal-or maybe meat, the formal "l" could be a "t"-makes twenty-four tamales, she writes, and twenty-two pounds makes 567. I try to imagine the moment when this recipe first jumped from Yancey's mind to paper. What did he think would happen? Did he just want someone to know he'd been here?

I wonder what they must have tasted like, and I think about all the other little places in the Mississippi Delta that are gone, the tastes of my childhood, spots like Arnold's Fried Chicken in my home-town of Clarksdale, and the Rebel Roost in Drew, and Campbell's and Delta Kream in Tunica. Campbell's is a Chinese buffet now. I can still taste the fried chicken every time I drive through the intersection of Desoto and MLK. Who was Arnold? Where did he go? Maybe old restaurants aren't worth much thought, but they mean something to the people who look at the plywood windows and see a life turned to dust. Their loss does matter to the people who remember. Our food anchors us to a place.

My mother has never made Yancey's recipe, and neither have I. It's a lot of trouble, and we're all so busy, you know. But, determined to try at least once, on a chilly Sat.u.r.day morning not long ago, I go down to the local butcher and have him boil and grind the meat-cheating already-and head home to soak the corn husks. I consult my mother. I consult one of my best friends, John Currence, a James Beard Award-winning chef, and Cesar Valdivia, a friend who owns a Mexican restaurant. It takes a village. My wife and I start making the paste and carefully spread it on the husks. We boil them, and the first two come apart, but the third holds its form.

"It's a tamale," my wife says, as shocked as I.

We keep trying, and the fourth is better than the third, and the fifth is better than the fourth. By the end, the things on the plate look like hot tamales and taste something like 'em, too. But they are not Yancey's tamales. The soul is missing, the little steps, his little tricks, the things that make food alive and not a list of bloodless steps that can be pa.s.sed along via e-mail.

The secrets to the tamales are in between the lines on the recipe card. They're in the love, and in the expertise that comes only with practice. The recipe he pa.s.sed down is vague, so vague it took a chef to fill in the blanks for me just to make it work, and I realize that the tamales lived in Yancey's heart more than in his head. There is a truth in them that cannot be taught in words, something only learned from years of standing over a black iron pot behind the Valley Gin and staring down into the darkness.

Once it's gone, the past cannot be preserved, even in faithful blue script, and once the man who yelled "red hots!" died, and the depot where he yelled it stopped seeing trains and eventually became a library, once the fryers went silent in Clarksdale and the griddle got cold in Drew, once the song of Sat.u.r.day afternoon found itself living inside a recipe card on my kitchen island, well, it was gone, gone, gone.

COMPUTERS OR COOKBOOKS IN THE KITCHEN?.

By David Leite and Renee Schettler From leitesculinaria.com

Recipes are the lifeblood of this award-winning website, the internet's closest thing to a glossy foodie mag. The site's publisher/editor-in-chief David Leite and deputy editor Renee Schettler spend their days poring over recipes-but, apparently, in diametrically opposed formats.

He says: Come into our kitchen and you'll find cookbooks gracing it. About three dozen of them tucked away on two shelves along one side of the cooking island, their bindings perfectly even (thanks to a ruler I frequently nudge up against them). But they're cooking eunuchs, nothing more than decoration, as if we were selling the house and wanted to subtly convey to potential buyers the domestic pleasures awaiting them in those pages. The motherlode of books are found far away from the UXBZ (unexploded bomb zone) of the kitchen: In CT, that would be in my writing studio, and in NYC, the dining room. Plainly put: No sauces, tomato stains, or grease smudges will deface my books.

So it's curious that my laptop, which cost me three times my monthly mortgage, is what I bring into the kitchen when I cook.

For me, comprehensiveness trumps logic. I know I should keep the computer miles away from the stove and my preternatural clumsiness. (I won't even eat near my computer during the day.) But I just can't stay away from everything the Internet has to offer while cooking. It's like having my own personal Schlesinger Library's Culinary Collection in my kitchen.

Whether you like it or not, just about any recipe you want to make from just about any cookbook is online, somewhere. (Me, I like it.) And I like having Portable Leite Brain-what I call my laptop-handy because I rarely cook from just one recipe. I pull from three or four at once, and the last thing I want is piles of books on the counter. Plus I oftentimes cook from this site but am curious how other sites and blogs whip up, say, gougeres or bavette, so I browse. And soon enough, I'm lost in that great, wonderful, frustrating worm hole of cybers.p.a.ce. Along the way I pick up a few tips from Michael Ruhlman here, a video from Mark Bittman there, and sometimes even a new idea for tomorrow's dinner.

Then comes the ritual of the printing of the recipes and the taping to the cabinets (something The One hates, because I once pulled off paint when ripping them down after a particularly frustrating dinner). After the kitchen is kitted out, the computer isn't out of reach-I never know when I might need more info, want to catch up on the latest episode of "Desperate Housewives" while onions saute, or reply to Momma Leite, who likes to e-mail during the early evening.

What can I say-I have cooking ADD.

Of course, Portable Leite Brain's being in the line of fire (sometimes literally) has prompted me to jury-rig it for safety. First, I never have it next to the stove, anymore. We won't go there, but suffice it to say that I have a new laptop. I also cover the keyboard and screen with plastic wrap-kind of a giant computer condom, protecting it from all kinds of nasties.

Now, the one place I never hesitate to bring my beloved books is the bedroom. There I luxuriate in their words and pictures and sometimes even fall asleep with a pile at my feet. I don't know what that says about me or my relations.h.i.+p, but we're not going there, either.-David Leite She says: If you could see the state of my cookbooks, you'd understand why I don't take my laptop into the kitchen. If you could see the state of my cookbooks, you'd understand why I don't take my laptop into the kitchen.

It's not that I'm intentionally careless or that my cookbook collection is mistreated terribly. It's that I'm simply not the type of cook who can maintain the books in just-off-the-shelf condition. As my husband says, I really get into my cooking. I'm p.r.o.ne to what he describes as Seussian stacks of teetering pots and pans everywhere, and that's not all. Chopping boards balance over the kitchen sink. All four burners blast aflame. The narrow ledge outside our window doubles as a makes.h.i.+ft cooling rack. Guests have been known to duck and dive, but for me, there's a rhythm, albeit an occasionally discordant one. In the midst of this juggling act, there just isn't a lot of time to be prissy about things like splashes and drips and splotches. If there's a lull in the cooking, fine. Otherwise, it's just too distracting.

Even when I try, really try, to be careful, I just can't seem to pull it off. Just ask David. The last time-and I do mean the last time-he loaned me a cookbook, I set it safely outside the kitchen. One stray, damp thumbprint was all it took to give my habits away. 18 18 I wouldn't dare take my electronics into that fray. Nor would I want to, practicality aside.You know how they say to use your bedroom only for sleep and, um, other bed-centric pursuits? I feel the same about my kitchen. I don't want to read emails that other people feel are urgent while my eggs perfectly sunnyside up-soft, please-slip tragically into mediocrity. And I don't want to interrupt everything to tweet 137 self-deprecating characters about the incident. Laptop as resource? Without a doubt. But not when I'm in the throes of cooking. I already did my homework, sussing out an ingredient subst.i.tution or summoning a technique online before I decide to stand facing the stove. If something comes up, I'll deal with it on my own. When I'm in the kitchen, it's time to cook. Anything else just messes up my mojo.

So the closest my delicate, Meyer-lemon-averse Mac gets to the mess-and I to its distracting charms-is the wee wooden school-house chair in the foyer, just outside our galley kitchen. With my laptop's volume cranked, I can ponder deep thoughts from "All Things Considered" or croon off-key to Ella while otherwise considering things cooking-related.

As far as I'm concerned, perhaps the best use of technology in the kitchen is to photocopy a recipe in order to keep a book out of harm's way. Yet I'm a sucker for the sentient pleasures related to cooking from a book, which explains why my cookbooks are a mess in the first place. I need the soothing white s.p.a.ce around the edge of the page in order to dance a duet with the ingredients in my imagination. I spend those idle moments waiting for a stock to burble lost in the lyrical headnotes of Judy Rodgers. And I learn every time my husband leans over my shoulder to eye an open cookbook to make pithy comments about the writing style, urge me to take more liberties with the ingredients, or muse over recipes that may be more to his liking.

They're not just cookbooks. They're sc.r.a.pbooks of sorts. Telltale translucent stains from melted b.u.t.ter both grease and grace my mom's binder of go-to recipes. I continue her legacy with a blemish here (a smear of cilantro that escaped my maiden molcajete run with a Peppercorn-Coriander Root Flavor Paste) and a batter-splattered page there (the incomparable Laurie Colwin channeling Katherine Hepburn's brownies in a decades-old issue of Gourmet Gourmet). Though the perfectionist in me sometimes cringes, I don't mind the splotches that shout out those memories, moments that probably wouldn't exist had the recipes blinkered onscreen. I don't mind them at all.-Renee Schettler

DOES A RECIPE NEED TO BE COMPLICATED TO BE GOOD?.

By Monica Bhide From www.monicabhide.com

In her cookbooks, such as Modern Spice Modern Spice, Monica Bhide updates traditional Indian cooking for a modern kitchen-translations that usually involve simplifying multi-step, multi-ingredient recipes. After pushback from some readers, she reflects on her strategy for doing so.

I was so proud of my cookbook, was so proud of my cookbook, Modern Spice Modern Spice. That is, until the moment a reader approached me at a fundraiser. "Your recipes are too simplistic," she blurted out. It threw me for a loop-too simplistic? I developed Modern Spice Modern Spice keeping contemporary peoples' busy schedules in mind. My focus was to create and share recipes that did not sacrifice on taste but delivered on the "ease of preparation" promise. keeping contemporary peoples' busy schedules in mind. My focus was to create and share recipes that did not sacrifice on taste but delivered on the "ease of preparation" promise.

The reader who approached me said that she had prepared my pan-seared trout with mint-cilantro chutney, but feared it wasn't really cooking because it was so simple. At first, I felt I had failed her. I wondered if I should apologize. Had I been unworthy of my readers' trust? Had I let them down?

I probed her a little, and her response surprised me even more. She loved the dish, and so did everyone who ate it. But it did not fulfill her cooking aspirations. "Indian cooking is supposed to be hard," she said. "And this book made it seem easy. That isn't real Indian cooking, right?"

Wait-isn't being able to cook something that's pleasing the point of a good cookbook? Does a recipe need to be complicated to be good?

I think what isn't necessarily obvious to many who read and cook from cookbooks is that creating simple recipes is often more difficult than creating complex ones. Conjuring a recipe that relies on only a few ingredients yet sends your taste buds into an o.r.g.a.s.mic frenzy takes a great deal of understanding of ingredients: how they work individually, how to make them work together in perfect harmony, and how to cook them just right. It takes years of experience to learn, and to be able to teach, "simplicity." And that is my goal as a cooking teacher and a cookbook author-to teach students to be able to cook on their own.

It takes a lot of experience to prepare "simple" just right. In simple recipes with just a few ingredients, there's no place to hide. It takes guts-and culinary prowess-to cook that way. Please be aware that when I refer to simplicity in recipes, I don't mean dumbing down recipes. Yes, there are plenty of people who promise that our lives will be easier if we follow their "simple" plan to combine the contents of five tin cans for a meal. To me, that's a false economy of time and money, not to mention flavor.

My parents taught me how to cook-how to smell a melon, peel an onion, sear a fish, sizzle c.u.min. But most importantly, it was with them that I learned why freshness in ingredients matters so much and how a perfectly ripe tomato needs nothing more than a sharp knife to bring out its best. I grew up without a can opener in the house. My parents bought all their ingredients fresh. The only time I remember there being canned anything on the table was when my father fell in love with British baked beans and brought home several cans each time he traveled to London.

Instead, I grew up with spices and herbs-our recipes would be considered incomplete without them-and yet I never remember my mother using ten different spices in a dish. A few in the right combination always did the trick. I once received an e-mail from a reader who was really angry that one of my recipes for tea included only one spice. "Are you afraid of spices?" he demanded. On the contrary: If you know how much flavor a single good-quality spice-say, cardamom-can add, why would you add flavors that muck it up?

So what exactly const.i.tutes a simple recipe? To me, it is a recipe that requires just a few ingredients, is smart in the way it uses those ingredients, doesn't require my entire paycheck, and teaches me something. New York Times New York Times food reporter Kim Severson wrote a piece a year or so ago on "deal-breakers" in recipes, in which she decried a particular recipe for requiring fresh pig's blood and another for demanding fleur de sel from buckets of seawater. Not happening in my kitchen. food reporter Kim Severson wrote a piece a year or so ago on "deal-breakers" in recipes, in which she decried a particular recipe for requiring fresh pig's blood and another for demanding fleur de sel from buckets of seawater. Not happening in my kitchen.

Ask someone what their favorite dish is to make at home and rarely will they announce foie grais with bacon air, mint puree, and pine nut confit. Most times you will hear squash soup, light-as-air b.u.t.termilk pancakes, mom's recipe for lasagna. Yes, there is great joy in going to a restaurant and enjoying a complicated meal cooked by a legend like Daniel Boulud. But cooking at that level at home each and every day is neither possible nor desirable for most of us. I have kids, and as the Boston Globe Boston Globe so kindly put it, my recipes are "clearly the work of a mother cooking on weeknights." Even so, I bet Chef Boulud would agree with me that good recipes come from learning how to use ingredients wisely. so kindly put it, my recipes are "clearly the work of a mother cooking on weeknights." Even so, I bet Chef Boulud would agree with me that good recipes come from learning how to use ingredients wisely.

A chef who masters this art of simplicity is Jose Andres. I recently prepared a recipe of his for slender stalks of asparagus bound together with thinly sliced Spanish ham and pan-fried. That was it: Asparagus. Ham. Pan-fry. Why is this notable? Those of you who know Andres will know. Those of you who aren't familiar with him, let me tell you. Jose Andres is an understudy of Ferran Adria, and he is a chef who regularly thrills at culinary innovation, who can desconstruct a gla.s.s of wine on a plate and who can wrap a drop of olive oil in sugar. But he is also a husband and a father who clearly understands the role of a home cook as well as his role as a cookbook author and teacher. He demonstrates this with an ability to show readers what they can make at home WITHOUT a nitrogen tank handy.