Big Guy found another St. Louis treasure. The Artist in the Kitchen is a cookbook published as a fundraiser for our own St. Louis Art Museum. The book is full of delicious recipes, but also interspersed is luscious photos of our art treasures in the museum.
This book, published in 1977, is like the symphony cookbooks in that you have contributions from another list of “who’s who” from the greater St. Louis area along with members of the staff of the museum itself. I am happy they kept the recipes simple and didn’t get cheeky by naming the recipes associated with artwork. “Rembrandt’s salad or Monet’s chicken” anyone? I am looking forward to trying these recipes as well. It is time to shop shopping for books and get back into the kitchen!
0 Comments
I decided to jazz up the day by making my baked brie. I thank the food Gods who make puff pastry because I have not tackled that baking challenge yet!
I sprayed my baking Staub with Pam and then placed the first layer of the puffed pastry on the bottom. Then I nestled my brie in a lovely nest of champagne raspberry jam along with roasted pecans. I used the extra jam and pecans to cover the top of the brie before placing my second layer of brie to the top and crimped the sides to keep the brie, pecans, and jam in the pastry. You will need to slice the top pastry to allow the heat to escape while melting your ingredients. To celebrate our city, I added the decorative fleur de lis on top to really dress up the presentation. I finished with an egg wash to give it shine before placing it in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Do not forget to keep an eye on the brie during the baking time to make sure your pastry does not get too brown on top. If it does, cover the brie with foil for the remainder of the cooking time. Here is a toast to our great city. I hope you try adding your homage to St. Louis in your cooking adventures too. Big Guy and I have been prowling around the area antique malls looking for interesting cookbooks. To our surprise, we found two produced as fundraisers for symphony orchestras. The first was for Dallas, Texas and the other one was for our own St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
The two books share a publication decade of the 1960’s. In addition, they are a “who’s who” of the supporters of both orchestras who contributed recipes. For St. Louis, think Anheuser, Fleishman, and Musial just to mention examples. In addition, you have contributions from the Racquet and Noonday Club along with a touch of celebrity with Vincent Price. My favorite part of the St. Louis book is the historical vignettes and pencil drawings of St. Louis. The Women’s Association of the St. Louis Symphony Society even included a middle pictorial section highlighting “the exciting new architecture of our City.” Remember the publication date as I mention the Benedectine Priory, McDonnell Planetarium and the Climatron. I look forward to digging into both books for cooking inspiration. I am also relishing the stories of this special time in symphony history. I pulled out my store-bought bread and butter pickles from the refrigerator and was struck by my lack of attention to making my own. It has been several years since my beautiful neighbor, and I made our only batch of “ca-jarred” pickles. I remembered they were a success and we enjoyed them into the fall.
The only thing stopping me is remembering my mom attempting to make dill pickles. She was so proud of her mason jars lined up in a row in our basement. Then it happened. We heard a pop and a crack. We went to the basement to find the source of the noise and discovered her pickles were exploding one by one like it was the Fourth of July. We ran for cover until the last jar exploded. It is extremely funny now, but my mom was not amused especially knowing we had a lot to clean up in the end. I am sure you are not surprised my mom never canned another day in her life! The Big Guy walked through the back door triumphant. He was holding our first butternut squash from the Carondelet Garden. I know I could have held on to it for a little while, but I was too excited not to try and make something with it.
I love cooking like every night is date night, so I perused my pantry and found I had the ingredients for a butternut risotto. Just another typical weeknight in the Carondelet Kitchen whereby I spontaneously decided to cook a special meal. The recipe called for white wine, so the bonus to the evening was I was able to pair the remainder of it nicely with the risotto. I am, temporarily, sated with my fix of butternut squash. Do not fear as I will be trying your suggested recipes as well as my annual pot of butternut squash soup. Grow baby squashes, grow! I am always looking for gadgets to use in my kitchen which makes things easy. I have used salt and pepper grinders for the last ten years as I love the fresher taste of newly grinded spice.
I was twisting away with my grinders last month on a recipe when the Big Guy decided to check out what is new in the market. He found a set from Cuisinart and decided to buy them on the spot since they were self-grinders and even included a light to illuminate the spice coming out of the grinder, so you do not over season your recipe. I do not usually write about products, but this one is a winner. I turn the shaker upside down and the grinder does the rest of the work. I can add spice with one hand and keep stirring my meal with the other hand without delay to the final dish. Love it! Big Guy and I enjoy hot sauce and even made our own last year. It was entertaining to watch us creating the hot sauce with the windows open and the fans on high to keep from succumbing to the fumes leading to chili burn. We thought it was a success and decided to plant another pepper plant in the hopes of recreating our hot sauce.
To our delight, the plant grew quickly and quite tall. The horror part was realizing we are growing a scotch bonnet habanero plant instead of the common habaneros. We blew the heads off our family and friends last year so raising the Scoville scale may do them in. Looking forward to seeing what happened! Holy Heat, that’s hot! I had never tried butternut squash until a few years ago. I am now hooked and even convinced the Big Guy to plant one plant in the Carondelet Garden this summer.
As the long vines started to take over our yard, so did the number of baby squashes. The yield had better be fantastic since Big Guy is already starting to sound like Poe’s raven. NEVERMORE! The harvest is just around the corner, and I am dreaming of cooler days and a bowl of butternut soup. I look forward to sharing what becomes of these squashes as I start to pull out my cookbooks in search of other ideas for delicious meals highlighting these beauties. Big Guy and I are hitting the antique malls in search of interesting old cookbooks. May I just say I was overwhelmed at the variety of items we are finding on our quest?!
The good news is we have not gone into this looking for a particular item, but to find something that sparks our interest. I know this is someone else’s “trash,” but when I find a good piece it will become my beloved treasure. I am happy to say we “adopted” our little chef on a recent trip. He is a Tappan saltshaker, but alas his partner in crime, pepper, was nowhere to be seen. I am sure we will find him at some point on our adventures. If not, I know I can find him on Esty, but that takes the fun out of the hunt! My brother used to date a woman who faithfully brought Suddenly Salad to every family event. She was proud of her food contribution and never apologized for making this easy in-a-box recipe.
I was reminded of this the other day as I continued my family photo scanning project. She was in the picture next to her bowl of pasta salad laughing at something that was said off camera. In that moment, I knew what to do with the remainder of my San Marzano tomatoes from our garden. I was going to do my take on pasta salad. As I boiled my rotini noodles, I did a quick sauté of my onions, garlic, red pepper, tomatoes, and snow peas. Once my noodles were cooked, I threw the vegetables in with the pasta along with an Italian vinaigrette dressing with bacon bits. I served the salad cold and added some shredded parmesan. It was not “suddenly” salad, but it was worth the extra prep time to enjoy a fresh summer dish. |
AuthorJust a super cool old couple who love to cook and eat and drink in their Carondelet Kitchen in South Saint Louis, Missouri! Archives
February 2025
Categories |