Joie de Vivre in LaLa Land

For the first time in my life — or at least since I found it around the age of 16 — I lost my joie de vivre. So, I went to LA to try to get it back. I like LA; I know many people don't. Maybe I'd have to stay there longer than a week to start to hate it. I definitely couldn't live there without making $3M an episode. And, I'd need an episode to begin with. But, I just can't resist the sun. And, I love Hollywood history. It doesn't go back that far, so it's not hard to learn, and it's filled with interesting facts and places — like the house where Michael Jackson died (as our tour guide gleefully announced: He never made it to the hospital people!). Or the park on the Paramount lot that Lucille Ball had built for publicity shots with her kids, capturing moments of "good" mothering before she sent them away and went right back to work.


I guess the thing I love most about LA is it's so unlike anywhere I've ever lived — even a palm tree in a ditch by a gas station reminds me that I'm on vacation. And this year, in particular, I really needed a vacation. Okay, so my life isn't Haiti or Japan, but it's felt at times disastrous to me. I've been sad. I'm never sad. And that joie de vivre that I can generally count on to pull me out of any situation took a hike, so I went to LA to get some of the fake stuff. They can make anything happen in LA, right? So, for a week I went searching for the façade of happiness and joy. I gazed at the Pacific ocean! I drank two margaritas a night! I stalked Diane Keaton! I was sorted by the real Warner Bros sorting hat! I made it into Gryffindor! I saw Kurt and Mercedes from Glee! I was clearly visible in the Tonight Show audience behind a guy who could eat eight raw hot dogs in 30 seconds! I rode the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier! (Okay, more scary than joyful for me, but at least I was on the ocean); I ate cotton-candy-wrapped foie gras! I used valet every day! And, I ate this pizza:


Pretty much one of the best pizzas I've ever consumed.

Maybe that list wouldn't make everyone happy. But, it made me happy. And the best part is it made S happy. For those of you who are parents, you know that a mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child. And, because there was no work or school to bring either of us down, we could create our own movie of our lives. But, like everything in LaLa Land, it disappeared the minute the director called a wrap — in this case when we boarded the red-eye back to the cold and gray of Boston where spring hadn't quite yet sprung.

But the sun is now out, and today is a good day. It started with leftovers of this pizza I will always crave and tried to recreate for you.

Porchetta and Artichoke Heart Pizza
inspired by the "Centurion" pizza at Hostaria del Piccolo in Santa Monica: the perfect antidote to the terrors of Ferris wheels and life.

1/2 c sharp provolone, shredded
1/2 c mozzarella, shredded
1/4 c pecorino romano, shredded
1 recipe of this dough (or use your own favorite pizza dough or, like me, go to Clear Flour Bread and buy a ball of dough for $3)
8 slices of this porchetta (or slices you purchase in a high quality specialty shop. In Boston you can find okay porchetta at Russos and much better porchetta at the South End Formaggio)
4 baby artichokes trimmed, held in lemon water
1 T olive oil
2 T minced garlic
1/2 t red pepper flakes

Saute artichoke hearts in olive oil until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. While hot, add 1/4 c of water, cover, and steam until you can just pierce them with a fork. This shouldn't take too long, depending on the size. Season with salt and pepper, cool and slice thin. Set aside with porchetta and cheeses.

Preheat oven to highest setting (500 - 550 degrees).

Dredge dough in a bowl of flour to coat and transfer to dry work surface. Holding one edge of dough in the air with both hands and letting bottom touch work surface, carefully move hands around edge of dough (as Gourmet says, like turning a steering wheel), allowing weight of dough to stretch round to roughly 10 inches.

Lay dough flat on lightly floured pizza pan and continue to work edges with fingers, stretching it into a 14-inch round. [I used to have a pizza stone but it broke and I've been happily using a non-stick pizza pan from Target ever since. But, if you have a stone, feel free to preheat it, roll dough out onto a bakers peel and do the burn-defying stunt of getting the dough from the peel to the hot stone.]

Stir together cheeses and sprinkle a quarter over the dough, leaving 1/2 an inch border. Cover cheese with slices of porchetta and artichoke hearts, sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Cook garlic and red pepper flakes, stirring, until just fragrent, 30 - 40 seconds. Spoon over pizza.

Bake until crust is golden brown, 12 - 15 minutes.

It will make you happy. I promise.

Every Year

[I wrote this post a little over a month ago. But Valentine's Day effectively got me back into a holiday gloom, so I'm going with it, outdated or not. I'll try to write something more current as soon as possible. All of my college roommates are descending on February 25 for a reunion, and you can bet I'll have a lot to say about that. So, until then....]

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"Every year I just try to get from the day before Thanksgiving to the day after New Year's...." – Harry Burns

I've watched When Harry Met Sally dozens of times, and, until recently, I never understood what Billy Crystal's character was talking about. Now I totally get it. Today is January 3, and I couldn't be happier. No more pressure to have fun and spend money. My holidays were festive enough, but I'm so glad they're over. Maybe because they ended badly – in an Olympic-sized pool of regurgitated red wine risotto mixed with my first Dom Pérignon and a Châteauneuf-du-Pape gone south. Maybe the pressure for happiness was just too much.


What are you doing for the holidays? This is a constant refrain in everyone's fall. What if you don't have a fun response? I start panicking around August to make sure I have my answers all lined up. Christmas has gotten a little tricky since my divorce, but Thanksgiving is easy. It's my family's best holiday. We’re descendants of Henry Sampson who came over on the Mayflower, so Thanksgiving is in our blood. Anyone in our family who’s the least bit fun shows up and we cook, eat, drink, slurp oysters, and laugh. A lot. The daylight hours are filled with walks in the woods, sitting by the ocean, shopping trips to Rockland, and getting started on dinner. But cocktail hour is my favorite part of the day. We usually try to hold out until at least 4:00 when it’s definitely 5 p.m. somewhere on the continent – maybe in Nova Scotia – and then it lasts for hours.

This year we accompanied our oysters, cheese, lobster salad, drinks, etc... with a stuffed pumpkin. As I write it's still cold enough (and the need for a decent beach body seems far enough away) for this decadent treat. Basically you take a pumpkin, hollow it out, and stuff it with everything good. Meaning cheese, and garlic, and bacon, and wine. We may have thrown some kale in their as well, but I honestly can't remember. But you could. If a touch of healthiness is important to you.


The pumpkin needed a good hour and a half to bake so we filled it,

popped it into the oven, and headed out for our pre-Thanksgiving dinner stomach-emptying walk. (We don't usually all wear baggy orange clothes, but it was deer season, and fashion isn't nearly as important as making it home to dinner safe and sound!)




Problem was, as you can see, it was overcast but still a glorious day with glorious views. So we walked a long time and we forgot about the pumpkin.

When we returned, several hours later, this is what we found:


I whined for a while, "We ruuuuiiinnneedd the pumpkin! We ruuuiiinnneeedd the pumpkin!" But, as it turns out, it's really hard to ruin pumpkin, cheese, bacon, and wine, especially when cocktails are on hand to accompany the melted, delicious mess.

So, if winter or the holidays have you down, this is what I recommend:

Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good
adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table

1 small sugar pumpkin, about 3 pounds
1/4 lb stale bread, sliced and cut into half-inch chunks
1/4 lb cheese, such as Gruyère, Emmenthal, or a combination, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
2-4 garlic cloves chopped
4 slices bacon, cooked until crisp, chopped
1/4 c chopped chives or scallions
1/3 c heavy cream
1/4 c dry white wine
pinch of nutmeg

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment (or we actually cooked ours in a Pyrex pie plate, which made it easy to serve).

Carefully cut a cap out of the top of the pumpkin like you do on Halloween. Clear away the seeds and strings from the cap and the inside of the pumpkin. Season the inside of the pumpkin with salt and pepper and put on the baking sheet or in the pie pan.

Toss the bread, cheese, garlic, bacon, and herbs together in a bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper and put the mix into the pumpkin. It should be filled nearly to the top. Stir the cream with the nutmeg, wine, and salt and pepper, and pour it over the filling in the pumpkin. You don't want it to overflow, but everything should be moist.

Put the cap in place and bake for about 2 hours – check after 90 minutes – or until everything inside the pumpkin is bubbling and the flesh is tender enough to be pierced easily with a fork or the tip of a knife.

When the pumpkin is ready, carefully serve with crackers and/or spoons for scooping!

In Paris as in Brookline

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans. (From A Moveable Feast, Hemingway's recollections of his years as a young man in Paris in the 1920's)

I traveled to the City of Light in August, ready to blog about everything I ate, but I didn't write a word (here is a link to an article I wish I'd written). In Paris, as in Brookline, I was just a mom trying to get through the day — the trip was essentially about parenting, but in better surroundings. I certainly had expected our journey to be food-driven: I downloaded A Moveable Feast onto my iPhone as soon as I booked my seats. I spent hours, days, weeks, researching restaurants. I yellow-highlighted foodie destinations in Zagats and Alexander Lobrano's Hungry for Paris. I ripped pages from the travel section of the NYTimes and the market edition of Saveur. I bookmarked a half dozen Paris food blogs on my laptop. I went into a full-blown panic when I realized that some, possibly many, restaurants would be closed in August and started a flurry of international calls and online reservations. I told my daughter and our traveling companions that, for me, Paris was only about the food. Sure, they could shop and see some art and stuff, but I would spend the week consumed, as it were, with what we'd eat. And so I left for eight days, hungry and excited, ready to walk in the footsteps of Julia Child, Dorie Greenspan, and even David Sedaris. I left dreaming of Hemingway's wine and oysters.

Paris was Paris. It doesn't disappoint. But, I didn't even go to a single restaurant on my list — except for one, L'As du Falafel. And, while we were there, munching on the crispy chickpeas; cool tomato, cucumber, and cabbage; creamy tahini and yogurt; and melt-in-your-mouth fried eggplant, my daughter had some sort of crazed teenage hormone fit. Between bites she regaled us (and most of the restaurant) with a list of the top 10 characteristics she hates about me. It's a testament to L'As du Falafal that the meal still rocked and we went back more than once. I soon realized that just because I was in Paris, it didn't mean I was in heaven or immune to all of the forces that, for better or for worse, run my life back at home.

Other moments of horror: long interludes at Adidas and Sephora on the Champs de Elysées when I kept having to run outside to remember I wasn't in Copley Square, and umpteen stops at souvenir shops to look at yet another metal pink Eiffel Tower and I Heart Paris underpants. As well as various interludes of arguments between the kids or the tensions of being in a foreign city. ("Mom, do we have to have French food again tonight?" Or, "Do you think we could find Grey's Anatomy on this TV?")

But, there were many more moments of joy than agony: coming face-to-face with gargoyles and rooftops at the top of Notre Dame; lounging topless, engulfed in steam and tiles, deep in the heart of a left bank Turkish bath; and overcoming my terror of heights to ride to the very top of the Eiffel Tower (touristy, I know). I was so impressed with myself that once I recovered from the elevator ride I bought a 10 euro glass of champagne selected by Alain Ducasse — the closest I would get to him or any of his restaurants. We had picnics by the Seine, once even with paella we came across at a market on our way to the river.





We were so busy during the day — soaking up the energy of the streets and stones and bridges and paintings — that by the time we were ready for dinner it was 9 or 10 p.m. and I couldn't ask two 14-year-old girls to hop back on the métro to go to L'Atelier de Jöel Rubicon or Cafe Burq. They didn't care that every other post in Paris By Mouth was about the opening of Daniel Rose's Spring. Spring was in the 1st arrondissement and we were in the 4th, and they just wanted to eat, which was unexpectedly fine with me. The only meals the girls really cherished, with the exception of an occasional cheese plate, were a daily Nutella crêpe in the afternoon and gelato just before midnight, when our local gelateria closed.

In the end our greatest joy was our neighborhood. It trumped every second of my wasted restaurant research.


Once we settled into our apartment in the Marais, it was clear that it really wasn't necessary to go anywhere else. So, essentially every day for eight days — with the exception of a dinner party with a friend and one trip to the left bank for fondue — I sat down at one of the many bistros within spitting distance of our apartment, flirted with an endless stream of cute waiters, and ordered steak frites and a bottle of bordeaux. Pretty much without fail.

Okay, once I had moule frites. but that was it.


And I didn't have a single oyster. Or even a glass of white wine. Which, clearly, just means that I have to go back.

Yummy Falafal (even on a bad day)
adapted from The Flexitarian Table by Peter Berley

1/2 c chopped cilantro (or parsley if you're one of those annoying people who insists that cilantro tastes like soap, even though it's really parsley that tastes like soap. You know who you are.)
3/4 c dried chickpeas soaked and drained
1 1/2 t lemon juice
3 T chopped red onion
1 garlic clove chopped
1 t cumin
3/4 t salt
1/2 t ground coriander
1/2 t baking soda
1/8 t cayenne pepper
4 grinds black pepper
4 - 6 c canola oil for frying

In a food processor pulse the cilantro/parsley until finely chopped. Add chickpeas until finely ground (cracker crumb consistency). Add the lemon juice, onion, garlic, cumin, salt, coriander, baking soda, cayenne, and black pepper and pulse to combine. The mixture should hold its shape when squeezed. If it doesn't, process for a few seconds more. Transfer to a large bowl and toss well.

Fill a medium heavy sauce pan or Dutch oven with at least 3 inches of oil, attach a deep-frying thermometer to the side of the pot, and heat the oil to 360 degrees (don't let it drop below 350 after the falafal is added). Line a platter w paper towels.

Moisten your hands and divide the falafel mixture into 12 equal portions (about 2 scant T each). Form each into an oval about 2 inches long and 1/2 and inch thick, moistening your hands as needed while you work.

Fry the falafal a few at a time, turning halfway through until well-browned, about 4 minutes per batch. Transfer to the paper-towel-lined platter to drain. Return the oil to 360 degrees between each batch. Serve warm on pita bread with: tomato, cucumber, yogurt, tahini, red onion, pickles, etc....

Blue Skies, Green Sauce

Well, dear readers, while Janetta stalwartly kept you entertained this summer, plying you with recipes for delectable food and thoughts about life, I found myself struggling mightily to wrestle the school year to the ground. It. Would. Not. Die.

Not that I don't love my job; I do. But the moment of feeling free and clear, ready to recharge, just took longer to arrive than I would have liked. But arrive it did: I can now report, most happily, that—just as I am readying myself for the upcoming school year—I am grabbing some moments to revel in these last, beautiful days of summer. I am done with exams, grading, meetings, reports, and much of the other business involved in finishing up yet another school year, and poised to start all over again. But for a few days now—at long last—I feel free to turn my thoughts from blue books to blue skies.

I look forward to sharing what I cooked and ate and thought about this summer. I have a backlog of recipes and food-related thoughts and adventures to write about—among them, a recent spate of meals chez moi consisting of various mezze perfect for warm summer and early autumn days. But for now I will (finally!) deliver the recipe for the enchiladas mentioned by Janetta a few posts ago. I made them for our school’s Diversity Potluck last spring, and, dare I say, they came out pretty tasty—in the words of my Nana, muy sabrosas.

A note about the recipes I am giving you…. My mother is Mexican, and she makes a mean enchilada. I could give you her recipe. But as I prepared to make my batch for the potluck lunch, I realized that her recipe is not written down, and I would have to calculate quantities for the recipe when I wrote it up… so for a baseline set of measurements I consulted my favorite Mexican cookbooks, a few each by Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless. And then I trolled through a number of other, more general cookbooks. In the end, perhaps oddly, I decided to use the distinctly not-Mexican Mark Bittman’s recipes for both green sauce and enchiladas; his recipes are a bit more streamlined than the others, but much the same… and they yield a dish of authentic, well-rounded deliciousness.

Enchiladas verdes, green enchiladas, are the best kind of “peasant” food—simple ingredients that blend satisfyingly into a whole greater than its parts. I encourage you to seek out the best ingredients you can when you assemble these. You don’t need to make your own corn tortillas (I didn’t), but buy good ones that aren’t over-processed, but rather look golden and grainy. I actually like the ones you can buy at Trader Joe’s, and the organic ones at Whole Foods. And, if you are looking for one-stop shopping, Whole Foods will also yield up the other important bits: queso fresco and queso cotija, a salty artisanal Mexican cheese, as well as the requisite tomatillos, peppers, cilantro, and so on.

I love salsa verde. So much that is so, well, green goes into it. Just looking at the pile of ingredients makes me happy. And cooking with tomatillos (sometimes called tomates verdes, or green tomatoes) always proves interesting. Their papery hulls are fun to peel off (especially for the likes of Sam), the oddly sticky quality of their skin fascinates me, and they pack a nutritional wallop: low in calories, they contain a large amount of potassium and good bits of vitamin C, folic acid, and vitamin A. And their tangy, lemony flavor complements chiles (moderating their bite) and more. (Interestingly, they contain a substance much like pectin, which thickens sauces or salsas as they cool.)

Other things to do with tomatillos? You can add them raw to cold soups or stir-fry them in a little bit of oil or broth with some onions, garlic, salt, and pepper. And a simple yet delicious way to eat them is as part of a salsa crude, or raw salsa, to eat with chips or on the side of any number of meals: mix together chopped tomatillos, tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, and cilantro, then season to taste with lime juice and salt.

Bueno. Without further ado, the recipes. Buen provecho!

Salsa Verde

(Cooked Tomatillo Salsa)

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian

Bittman suggests that for milder sauce, you substitute poblanos for the hot chile. For “in-your-face heat,” leave the seeds in the jalapeños or add even more, to taste.

I heartily endorse Bittman’s suggestion to add salsa verde to scrambled eggs; very tasty.

20 to 24 tomatillos, husked and rinsed

6 T neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn

4 large onions, diced

10-14 cloves garlic, minced

4 medium poblano or other mild fresh green chiles, roasted and cleaned (See note below. And do know that even though the roasting and cleaning do add some time and labor, they are well worth it—you’ll relish the added layer of taste you get from the roasting.)

2 or 3 serrano or other hot fresh green chiles, roasted and cleaned if desired; otherwise, just chopped

2 t dried oregano, preferably Mexican

2 c vegetable stock or water

1-2 c chopped cilantro

½ c freshly squeezed lime juice

salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Put the tomatillos on a baking sheet and roast until the skins are lightly browned and blistered, about 20 min. Remove the tomatillos; when they’re cool enough to handle, chop them finely, along with the chiles, saving their juices.

2. While the tomatillos are roasting, put the olive oil in a large deep skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until very soft and lightly browned, about 10 min. Add the tomatillos, chiles, oregano, stock, and a large pinch of salt and pepper; stir and bring to a low simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is slightly thickened, 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Stir in the cilantro and lime juice and taste and adjust the seasoning. Purée salsa in the pan using an immersion blender, or cool and purée in a blender or food processor.

The quantities listed here constitute a double recipe of the salsa, yielding about 4 cups—plenty for the enchiladas, with a little left over for your scrambled eggs in the morning.

Enchiladas Verdes

(Cheese Enchiladas with Green Sauce)

Makes about 8 servings.

Neutral oil, such as grapeseed or corn, for frying

24 small corn tortillas, plus more if any break

5 c shredded Montery Jack or cotija cheese, or a combination

½ c crumbled queso fresco for garnish

½ c chopped red onion or scallion for garnish (I like to use both, just for the color of it)

½ c chopped fresh cilantro for garnish

Lime wedges for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spoon a thin layer of the salsa verde into the bottom of a 9- x 12-inch baking dish. Put about ½ inch of the oil in a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat. When hot but not smoking, cook the tortillas, one at a tine, until softened and pliable, about 10-15 seconds. Add more oil to the pan as needed. Drain on paper towels.

2. Sprinkle about 2 T of the Monterey Jack (or cotija) in the center of each tortilla, roll tightly, and put the enchiladas in the prepared dish, seam side down. The rolls should be packed in snugly against one another. Cover the top with some more salsa and bake for 25 minutes or until the enchiladas are warmed through and the cheese has melted. When the enchiladas come out of the oven, sprinkle them with the queso fresco, onion and/or scallions, and cilantro. Serve with lime wedges on the side and pass extra salsa on the side. For a fuller plate, you could serve the enchiladas with a side of black or pinto beans, and a small chopped salad of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and radishes, with an olive oil/lime dressing.

Note on roasting peppers: Bittman describes two methods. I generally broil the peppers. But you can also skewer them on a long fork and roast them over a gas burner—very attentively, as they can easily burn.

To roast or broil: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F or the broiler and put the rack about 4 inches from the heat source. Put the peppers in a foil-lined roasting pan. Roast or broil, turning the peppers as each side browns, until they have darkened and collapsed, 15 or 20 min in the broiler, up to an hour in the oven.

To grill: Heat a charcoal or gas grill until hot and put the rack about 4 in from the heat source. When the fire is hot, put the peppers directly over the heat. Grill, turning as each side blackens, until they collapse, about 15 min.

When the peppers are done, wrap them in foil (if you roasted them in the oven, you can use the same foil that lined the pan) and cool until you can handle them, then remove the skin, seeds, and stems—doing so is a little easier under running water. Don’t worry if the peppers fall apart.

I wish everyone a safe Labor Day weekend, and a lovely last taste of summer!