Sue grows eleven varieties of apples on her seaside farm in British Columbia and says that the best apples for this recipe are hard and crisp, so the slices stay discrete during cooking. For her this means Transparent apples in the summer, and Gravensteins or Kings in the autumn. The best grocery store apple to use is the Granny Smith. Softer apples will still taste good, but will melt down and not make as pretty a finished dish.
Carluccia loved the earthy, creamy taste of her land’s walnuts; for this cookie I combined their flavor with one of her favorite spices, the black peppercorn, which we foraged for together along Calabria’s wild coastline. The mixture of the peppercorns and walnuts with the butter and honey creates a light, nutty, and ever-so-slightly spicy tea cookie.
The airy flesh of the ubiquitous russet potato makes it the perfect choice for gnocchi. To create light, pillowy gnocchi, make sure that your dough is neither too wet nor overworked. Armida uses the fine markings of the back of her cheese grater to mark the gnocchi; I recommend using the fine side of a box grater to do this, or forming the gnocchi and running them along a wire whisk to mark them. The gnocchi are wonderful with Armida’s easy, rich ragu. They are also delicious with a simpler dressing of melted butter and grated cheese.
I have been thinking a lot about remembering, and how things are distilled down into lasting memories. The Ida Cookies got me thinking about this, as does the closing of the year, which inevitably involves assessing the passing year’s events: What were the joys and losses experienced? How have we cared for one another? What […]
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