Lee White

Oh, my, it was a long-overdue restaurant week and perhaps it will never be a forever restaurant week. But those restaurants lucky enough to have an outdoor space may now see our faces, and we theirs. Yes, it is still distancing and wearing masks and will be so until there is a vaccine that works and is available for everyone.

But last week was wonderful. Last Wednesday I met my friends Nancy and Andy at Captain Scott’s and we sat six feet apart on a big metal table and ate our lobster rolls and fries. I bought a bottle of chilled white wine called Imagery, a California Chardonnay they said was delicious. It was almost my birthday and they gave me a beach towel covered with images of lobster and a card saying that, when we can, we will have a lobster dinner at Ford’s in Noank.

The next day I drove with Linda Guica (masks on and all windows open) to Metro Bis. We had lunch with owners Chris Prosperi and Courtney Febbroriello, at a big table and talked for three hours. I had not sat on a table with anyone for 10 weeks. I didn’t realize how much I had missed my friends.

Yesterday, on the couch, I read The Day and The New York Times, read my book (the fifth book of the Quinn Colson novel by Ace Atkins) and watched three hours of the second year of Ozark.

I also saw a recipe created by Meghan Markle, whose husband is Harry, the royal son of Prince Charles. She supposedly calls it her Filthy, Sexy Mush pasta. I drove to the supermarket and bought the only ingredient I did not have–zucchini.

It can be made in a slow cooker, on the slow cooker part of the Instant Pot or on a big pot on the stovetop. I added a few other ingredients from a recipe from Kitchn, online, and made it. It does take four hours, but all you have to do is remember it is there and stir it a few times.

It is beyond delicious and is vegetarian and almost vegan.

Filthy Sexy Mush, aka Zucchini Pasta Sauce

Yield: at least 4 servings

2 tablespoons olive oil
6 small zucchini, bottom and top sliced and cut into cubes
½ small onion, diced
½ cup water
1 vegetable bouillon (I used chicken bouillon)
Zest of one lemon
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper, to taste
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan, divided
1 pound pasta (from angel hair up to rigatoni)
Chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Place oil in a large pot and heat. Add zucchini and allow to caramelize, stirring (about 10 minutes). Add onions and saute until onions are translucent. Add lemon zest, a bouillon cube, pepper flakes and half a cup of water. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for four hours, stirring when you think about it  When it is done, add half the Parmesan and butter.

About half an hour before it is done, heat a big pot of water and add the pasta. Cook according to the box of pasta. Drain and add half the mush and stir. Put into four warmed bowls and top with grated Parmesan and chopped parsley.

About the author: Former Old Lyme resident Lee White has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976 and has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant.  She currently writes a cooking column called A La Carte for LymeLine.com and also for the Shore Publishing and Times newspapers, both of which are owned by The Day. 

Lee White

I grew up in a house where, if something needed fixed, my mother called someone. My brother also grew up in the same house and, generally speaking, he didn’t learn how to fix things, either. I went to college and majored in English. My brother went to MIT undergraduate and then got himself a masters and Ph.D. in metallurgy at RPI. 

I married a man, who also majored in English (with a minor in philosophy), but he could fix anything. He could do plumbing, electrical wiring and built a three-car garage attached to our 17th-century house whose second floor he turned into an apartment for my parents. 

When my husband died, I was lost. I never learned how to fix things because Doug did everything. I remember asking him one night what to do if I lost power and didn’t know what to do with the electrical box in the basement. He said I should call Andy, our neighbor.

The only smart thing I ever did was to sell the house and buy a condo. Unfortunately, it isn’t like living in New York City where you just call the super.

So a few weeks ago I fired up my Weber to grill a steak, It wouldn’t work. I looked at the propane tank and it looked like it was out of gas. I figured out how to drag it out of the grill, but it was so heavy I knew it still had fuel.

So I went onto Groton Forum, asking for help. Within minutes, friends I knew and didn’t know said they could call and stop after work.

I went back to the patio and noticed out there was another electric cord. I picked up my handheld mixer and tried the socket. It didn’t work. I looked at the socket and saw two plugs and two little buttons. I think I knew what a reset button was, so I pushed it and the mixer turned on.

I dragged the tank back, turned everything on, and it works (even though the gauge still says it is empty.)

The next day I threw a New York strip onto the grill and had a nice dinner with peas and a big roasted sweet potato. Tonight I will make pork chops with a glaze of bourbon and mustard.

Photo by Vincent Keiman on Unsplash

Bourbon- and Mustard-Glazed Pork Chops
From Country Home Stay for Dinner (Meredith Books, Des Moines, Iowa, 1993)
Yield: serves 4

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (regular mustard will do, but not the yellow stuff)
2 tablespoons bourbon (or frozen orange juice concentrate)
2 tablespoons of molasses
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
4 pork loin chops, but 1 ¼ inches thick

For the glaze, in small mixing bowl stir together all the ingredients except the chops. Set aside.

In a covered grill, arrange coals around drip pan.* To test for hotness, carefully hold hand over pan at the height food will be cooked. The coals are ready when you need to remove your hand after 5 minutes. Place chops on rack over pan but not over coals. Lower hood. Grill 40 to 45 minutes or until no pink remains, turning once. Brush chops with glaze during final 10 minutes of cooking. Crush wit glaze before serving.

*If you are using a propane grill, that has two or three heat knobs, turn the middle one to a lower heat. Also, this recipe came out 30 years ago. I don’t think we need to worry about getting rid of the “pink.”

About the author: Former Old Lyme resident Lee White has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976 and has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant.  She currently writes a cooking column called A La Carte for LymeLine.com and also for the Shore Publishing and Times newspapers, both of which are owned by The Day. 

Lee White

I remember the first time I went to the Fancy Food Show at the Javits Center in New York City. I had taken the train into the city, grabbed a cab and arrived at 10 in the morning. It is the biggest food convention in America and I thought I could see everything in one day. By early afternoon I was bushed and my feet hurt. It was lunch time and I  picked up a sandwich 

On my way back to the vendors, I saw cookbook authors autographing their books, including a stunning black woman laughing and signing her book. I picked up B. Smith’s Entertaining and Cooking for Friends and stood in line. As she signed my book, she asked what I did and where. “I’m a restaurant reviewer in New London, Connecticut.” With a smile as bright as the cavernous light-filled lobby, she suggested I have dinner with her and her husband at their restaurant that evening. Oh, I wish I could, I said, but I have to get a train to get home. “Oh, stay at our place in the city and go home tomorrow,” she suggested. 

I didn’t, but I have always wished I had. She was a lovely hostess and presided over at least three restaurants (New York, Union Station in Washington and the Hamptons). She had a television show for many years. She wrote cookbooks and her first, and my first of hers, is stained with ingredients of recipes I have cooked. Barbara Smith died, at 70, February 23, 2020, in her home in Sag Harbor, NY, with her husband, Dan, by her side. She had suffered with dementia for many years. People called her “the black Martha Stewart.” Martha could only wish.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

From B. Smith’s Entertaining and Cooking for Friends by Barbara Smith (Artisan, New York, 1995)

Topping

¼  cup unsalted butter, melted
½  cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
7 slices canned pineapple (reserve one-half cup juice for cake)
13 candied cherries (I like maraschino cherries)

Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½  teaspoon baking soda
½  teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
¼  teaspoon ground cloves
½  cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
½  cup heavy cream
½  cup reserved pineapple juice
whipped cream, for garnish if you like

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the sides of a 9- by 13-inch round baking pan with nonstick cooking spray or melted butter.

For the topping: beat the melted butter and brown sugar together in a small bowl. Spread this over the bottom of the prepared baking pan. Arrange 6 pineapple slices around the edge of the pan and one slice in the middle. Place a cherry in the middle of each pineapple slice and the rest between the slices around the edge.

To make the cake: Stir together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger and cloves in a large bowl. In another larger bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (I use my big KitchenAid for this for about 4 minutes). Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Using a spatula, alternatively fold in the flour mixture and the heavy cream and pineapple into the butter and sugar mixture until well blended. Spread the batter over the pineapple slices and bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Then run a sharp knife around the edge to loosen the cake, invert a serving plate over the cake pan and turn the cake and plate over together. Remove the cake pan. Serve warm with whipped cream.

(If you have a little time, visit Coffee’s on Route 1 in Old Lyme and pick up a pint of Reed’s ginger ice cream. It is amazing with this cake.)

About the author: Former Old Lyme resident Lee White has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976 and has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant.  She currently writes a cooking column called A La Carte for LymeLine.com and also for the Shore Publishing and Times newspapers, both of which are owned by The Day. 

Okay, as I write this, I am home for the sixth week. 

Each day seems a little easier. I like my condo. I love my cat (although I miss my Elderlee, who died in December). I eat when I want to, which seems to be more likely twice a day. I wake up and feed the cat around 7:30, watch MSNBC for an hour (why is it that I seem to like Mika and Joe more than I used to?)

Then I go upstairs, shower, get dressed, make the bed and think about whether my meal will be breakfast-y and lunch-y. Often it is eggs and sweet peppers, onions and garlic and rye bread. Sometimes it is cereal with bananas. I think about dinner around 3 p.m. and decide whether it will be something that I should prepare or leftovers in the fridge. Sometimes it is two kosher hot dogs.

I have not been very interested in dessert, but three nights ago I read the new Bon Appetit in bed and saw a recipe for trail mix cookies. It looked really delicious and I had every single ingredient in my pantry. The cookies required little sugar and almost no flour. But I read the recipe again: you make the batter, then refrigerate it for a few hours or overnight before you make the cookies.

So it isn’t a case of make the cookies and eat them hot in 20 minutes, but they are amazing. So check out your pantry; I bet you have most of the ingredients in yours, too.

Trail Mix Cookies

From Bon Appetit, May 2020

Yield: makes 12 every large cookies

1½ cups assorted nuts and seeds
½ cup old-fashioned oats
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted,
1 large egg
¼ cup dark brown sugar (although light will do fine)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup assorted dried fruit (cut into ½ inch pieces if large)
¾ cup chopped bittersweet chocolate chips, discs or chopped bars
½ cup all-purpose flour
Flaky sea salt

Place racks in upper and lower thirds of the oven; preheat to 350 degrees. Toast nuts and seeds on a rimmed baking sheet, tossing once until golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl; let cool.

Meanwhile, mix egg, butter, brown and granulated sugars, vanilla, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Let sit until nuts and seeds are cool (this will make for a chewier cookie).

Add dried fruits and chocolate to nut mixture; toss to combine. Give egg mixture a good stir, then stir in the flour. Mix in nut mixture, smashing it against the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, until combined and mix-ins evenly coated in dough. (It will look like too many mix-ins but dough will come together as it chills.) Cover and chill at least two hours and up to three days.

Reheat oven to 350 degrees. Using a 1/3 cup measure or a #16 cookie scoop, portion out dough, packing firmly, to make 12 cookies. Divide between two parchment-lined baking sheets as you go (I use my Silpat sheets.) Using a cup or your hand, press cookies into 2½” diameter disks about ¾” thick and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake cookies, rotating sheets top to bottom and from front to back, until golden brown and no longer wet looking, 11 to 13 minutes. Let cool on baking sheets.

Cookies can be made one week ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

Lee White

About the author: Former Old Lyme resident Lee White has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976 and has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant.  She currently writes a cooking column called A La Carte for LymeLine.com and also for the Shore Publishing and Times newspapers, both of which are owned by The Day.