We’ve all done it. We’ve all planned our ideal dinner party — what we’d serve, how we’d dress, and most importantly, who we’d invite.
The guest list is the most intriguing part of this mental exercise.
We’d have to limit the guest list to eight people — four men and four women. Fewer than that, and you can’t fit in all your “must-invites”; more than that, and there won’t be one conversation, there will be four or five. All must be alive, as of this week, and no family members are allowed. It’s like a wedding — by the time you invite all the people you should invite, there isn’t room for the people you really want to invite.
So here’s my provisional list.
The Men
Me – I know I said no relatives, but I think I can make an exception for myself.
Robert Krulwich – Science reporter and former host of RadioLab. A charming guy.
Cheech Marin – Comedian and well-respected art collector. Brilliant and allegedly very nice.
Carlos Santana – Genius guitarist. He makes a point of collaborating with radically different artists.
The Women
Naziyah Mahmood – Martial artist model and astrophysicist. I imagine everything she says, down to her morning coffee order, is fascinating.
Lucy Worsley – British historian and famously nice lady.
Esperanza Spalding – Jazz genius, and probably the best bassist alive today.
Salima Ikram – Archaeologist and Egyptologist. Again, staggeringly fascinating.
So far, so good. All but one of these people are brilliant. They are all personable and fascinating.
But is that enough?
A good dinner party guest should have interesting things to say, but the very best ones are also excellent, dynamic listeners. How well do they play with others?
I have the feeling that Robert Krulwich would be fascinated by Naziyah Mahmood, who would charm Esperanza Spalding. She, in turn, would have Cheech Marin hypnotized by her beauty and, well, hipness. I would love to hear the conversation that he would have with Salima Ikram. I would just try very hard not to embarrass myself.
The point being, it’s not about who is brilliant on their own as much as it is what kind of chemistry they have together.
Which brings us to gin punch.
A good punch is supposed to be made of fantastic ingredients — also eight, in this case — that each add something to the whole but don’t dominate it. A fantasy dinner party of a cocktail, if you will.
Gin Punch
Peel of half a lemon – just the outside yellow part, not the bitter white part underneath.
Large teaspoonful of your favorite jam. Raspberry is a popular choice, but I like rose.
2½ ounces dry gin
¼ ounce triple sec
¼ ounce ginger brandy
½ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
¼ ounce grenadine or simple syrup, depending on how pink you want this punch to be.
Dash of celery bitters
Muddle the lemon peel thoroughly in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.
Add the jam and muddle it again.
Add the rest of the ingredients, then use the muddler to stir everything, thereby rinsing the last of the jam off the muddler.
Add ice, and shake until very cold.
Strain over fresh ice in a coupe glass. Sip while listening to Esperanza Spalding; you won’t be sorry.
As with our imaginary dinner party, this punch is greater than its parts. The gin and lemon juice give it authority and keep it from becoming too sweet. The ginger is just barely detectable, as are the celery bitters. The jam doesn’t dominate the conversation but has something nice to say about your shoes.
This might actually be a good drink to serve at your next dinner party.
John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.
Exciting new adventures in graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate
S’mores seem like a good bet.
They only have three ingredients. You have access to sticks. And even though the leaves have turned and the nights are cold, s’mores, with their accompanying campfire, give you a good reason to keep the deck furniture out a few more weeks. What could possibly go wrong?
Aw, jeez, I just jinxed it, didn’t I? Now even roasting marshmallows seems like too much to wrap your head around. OK, let’s break this down to its essential components: graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate and fire. We’ll ease into it.
The Graham Crackers
Graham crackers are a good place to start. They were designed to be non-threatening. They were invented by the followers of Sylvester Graham, a 19th-century preacher and nutritionist, who was convinced that white flour, sugar and meat of any kind led to poor health and impure thoughts. If you think that you wouldn’t have been likely to get along with him, an angry mob of bakers and butchers in 1837 Boston would agree with you. They laid siege to his hotel while he was on a speaking tour, and were only dispersed when Graham and his followers dropped bags of cement on them from the hotel roof.
Commercial graham crackers, the ones we remember from kindergarten, are delicious, inexpensive and easily available, so who would make them from scratch?
You would. As long as you don’t expect perfection.
Lindsey Bangs, the baker of I Whisked It, a homestead bakery in Raymond, says that the secret is rolling the dough to a consistent thickness.
“If you don’t get the dough completely even, the edges will be a little crispy while the center isn’t done yet.”
This isn’t a huge problem for home bakers but would be a logistical headache for a commercial baker, which is why you don’t see house-baked graham crackers in bakeries very often, she says. But making them yourself also allows you to take some liberties in how you flavor them — adding cardamom, or even a little black pepper.
“Adding more cinnamon would really bump the flavor profile up,” Bangs says.
She likes her marshmallows gently toasted and golden brown.
Homemade Graham Crackers
Homemade graham crackers. Photo by John Fladd.
Lindsey isn’t kidding about how fiddly graham crackers can be. They are straightforward enough to make at home, but making them professionally would be like juggling ice cubes. If you follow each step, though, you will be very pleased with the result.
A note on substitutions:
When making comfort foods, it is very tempting to jazz up a recipe. By their nature, comfort foods are basic; they are there to comfort, not to inspire or excite or intrigue the eater. This is why there are so many recipes and articles about mashed potatoes. Everyone wants to mess with them, but when someone is burned out from work or nursing a broken heart or feeling homesick, they do not want blue cheese in their mashed potatoes.
Most of the ingredients in this recipe lend themselves to intriguing substitutions. I would recommend restraint; feel free to change one ingredient. More than that will muddle the flavor of your graham crackers. Even one substitution will probably get you a pointed comment from a graham cracker purist.
1 cup (113 g) Whole wheat flour – You could use stone-ground whole wheat flour for this, but that would be your one substitution.
1 cup (120 g) all-purpose flour – Don’t experiment with this; you don’t want to toughen or soften the texture of your graham crackers by using bread or pastry flour.
¼ cup (50 g) white sugar – or brown sugar, or maple syrup, but that would be your one substitution.
½ teaspoon salt – I like kosher salt, but again, well, you know.
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon – I like smoked cinnamon.
1 teaspoon baking powder – There isn’t really a substitution here, but did you know that you should replace your baking powder every six months? Weird.
1 large egg
¼ cup (50 g) vegetable oil – or hazelnut oil
¼ cup (85 g) honey – or hot honey
2-3 Tablespoons (28-43 g) milk
more milk to make cinnamon sugar cling to the top of your crackers
cinnamon sugar for topping (optional)
In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients – the flours, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients – the sugar, egg, oil, honey, and milk. I don’t know why sugar is considered a wet ingredient, but it is, and it works better when you treat it that way. Chemistry is weird.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, then stir to combine. You might have to knead the dough a little to bring it together.
Wrap the dough, and chill it for at least an hour.
Preheat your oven to 300º (150º C).
Divide the graham cracker dough in half.
Roll each batch of dough to 1/16 inch thick. It is important that the dough is consistently thick. Is there an easy way to do that? And how thick is 1/16 inch, anyway?
Here’s how you’re going to preserve your sanity. Lay down a sheet of parchment paper, and weigh it down with half your dough. Flatten it out a little with the heels of your hands. It turns out that the wire in most clothes hangers is made of 12-gauge steel, 1/16 of an inch thick. Place a clothes hanger on either side of your dough, then cover everything with another layer of parchment paper.
Using the wire as a guide, roll the dough out as thick as the hangers. As you get your dough thinner and thinner, each end of your rolling pin will rest on one of the hangers.
Peel the top layer of parchment paper from each batch, then slide the bottom layer onto a baking sheet, then repeat the whole process with the other half of the dough.
If you are going the cinnamon-sugar route, brush each sheet of dough with milk, and sprinkle it with the cinnamon-sugar.
Bake the sheets of dough for five minutes, rotate them, then bake them for another five minutes.
Remove each sheet from the oven and cut to shape with a bench scraper or a pizza cutter.
Return the dough to the oven, and bake for another 20 minutes or so.
This is the part that seems really fiddly, but it’s important if you want your graham crackers to be crisp and not bendy:
Turn off the heat, and open the oven door all the way. Let it cool for five minutes, then close the door again, and let the crackers cool in the oven for another 20 minutes.
Transfer the graham crackers to a cooling rack. At this point they are exquisitely crispy. They should stay crispy, though not crunchy, for a couple of days, depending on how humid the air is. If you have any of those “Do Not Eat” dehydration packets saved, put those with the crackers in an air-tight container, and maybe store them in your refrigerator, which is the driest place in your kitchen.
So, the natural question: Is making your own graham crackers worth the trouble?
First of all, the number of steps involved is misleading. Tying your shoes or organizing your sock drawer would probably involve 72 separate steps if you broke it down. None of these graham cracker steps is very complicated. I know that there are days when you feel like opening an oven door is at the outer limit of your ability, but you can totally do this.
Secondly, these are delicious. Most of us have never had a thoroughly crisp graham cracker, warm from the oven. It is warm, but crunchy, gently sweet, but with tiny bursts of salt, and — depending on how well you were able to restrain yourself — with a little something extra.
This recipe is based on one from King Arthur Flour, my first stop when looking for any baking recipe. Their recipes are pretty much bullet-proof, but here’s something that even they won’t tell you: Flip a warm-from-the-oven graham cracker upside-down, and smear the bottom with butter. It is the most decadent legal experience you are ever likely to have.
The Marshmallows
When it comes to marshmallows, Sherrie Paltrineri knows what she’s talking about. She runs Sweet & Sassy, a small candy company specializing in pre-made s’mores. It’s fair to say that she’s not a s’more purist.
“Right now we’re making s’mores with up to 12 flavor profiles per week,” she says. “As we get into the fall season, we have pumpkin spice, of course, but we play around with Dark Chocolate with Raspberries, Orange Cranberry, and even Mochaccino.” According to Paltrineri, the surprise sleeper hit of this past summer was made with root beer flavored marshmallows.
She likes her marshmallows completely torched. “I love them burned; I want them to go up in flames,” she says.
Cooking with Marshmallows
There are a lot of people who will assure you that making your own marshmallows from scratch is relatively easy and very rewarding. I am not saying that those people are wrong, but my most recent attempt at home marshmallowing went badly. The term “fiasco” is too kind to describe it accurately.
I am not saying not to try it. There are many very nice instructors who can walk you step-by-step through the process — Martha Stewart springs to mind — but they could speak to this much more authoritatively than I can.
But is there a marshmallow-forward recipe that we can tackle that will help guide you toward s’morehood?
As it turns out, there is:
Toasted Marshmallow Ice Cream
1 10-ounce bag of mini marshmallows
4 egg yolks
pinch of kosher salt
½ cup (99 g) white sugar
3 cups (735 ml) half and half
2 teaspoons vanilla
Toast the marshmallows under the broiler in your oven, or with a blowtorch, either one of the tiny kitchen ones or a regular no-pretense plumber’s blowtorch from a home center. (I like the one with a pistol grip; it has a great sound. Hissssssss, click, WHUMP!) The torch will allow you to get a little more variety in how dark you toast the marshmallows, but in any case, if you prefer them toasted a gentle golden brown, cook them a little darker than you might otherwise do. The ice cream base will dilute the flavor slightly, and a darker marshmallow will bring more marshmallow flavor.
Toasted Marshmallow Ice Cream. Photo by John Fladd.
Combine egg yolks, salt, sugar and cream in a small saucepan.
Heat, whisking, until the mixture reaches 175ºF/80ºC.
Strain the hot mixture over 2/3 of the toasted marshmallows. Add the vanilla, and whisk the mixture until it is as smooth as it’s going to get. Do not let this step worry you; clumps of semi-melted marshmallows in this ice cream is not a bad thing.
Chill the mixture for at least three hours or overnight, then churn according to your ice cream maker’s manufacturer’s instructions.
When spooning the soft-serve-textured ice cream into containers, layer with the remaining toasted marshmallows, before hardening it off in the freezer.
Even die-hard marshmallow fans will admit that they can be a little (unrelentingly) sweet. This ice cream carries the toasted marshmallow flavor gently, in a just-sweet-enough base. The flavor is delicate enough that you will probably not want to eat this with any topping that might overpower it.
This is a definite winner.
The Chocolate
Let’s face it: It’s the chocolate that makes or breaks a s’more. The graham cracker provides texture, and the marshmallow provides sweet stickiness, but it is the chocolate that sets the tone for the whole enterprise.
Should you go with a classic milk chocolate, or something darker? Should you let it melt completely, or let your marshmallow cool a little so you still have some resistance to your teeth? Should you use a classic American candy bar or something a little shmancy?
According to Jeffrey Bart, the owner of the Granite State Candy Shoppe in Concord and Manchester, most people don’t put enough thought into this.
“Many times, someone will just break up a chocolate bar and hope for the best,” he says. His suggestion is to either use two types of chocolate or to finely chop some, but not all, of the chocolate, and use both in a s’more. The little pieces, having more surface area, will melt easily. “That hits the perfect ratio of totally melted and fused with the graham cracker,” he says, “and something to still bite into.”
He prefers his marshmallow gently toasted.
“I’m of the Low and Slow camp,” Bart says.
Rob Delaney and Maggie Pritty of Worldwide Chocolate in Brentwood agree that texture is important but stress the importance of picking the right flavor profile.
“Personally I’d go with a dark milk chocolate,” Delaney says, “which is not a thing that a lot of people are even aware exists.” He says that some dark milk chocolate can have as high a cocoa percentage as 55 to 70 percent, as opposed to the usual 35 percent or so for a typical grocery store chocolate bar. “That would have that milky, caramelly character, without being so sweet.”
Pritty stresses the importance of reading the label on a bar of chocolate. “Make sure to look at the ingredients,” she says. “You want to see that it’s made with cocoa butter and sugar, not hydrogenated palm oil or anything like that.”
She likes her marshmallows dark brown but not quite burnt.
So is there something chocolate-forward and s’moresy that will build your confidence back up?
Yes. Yes, there is.
Dark Chocolate Cheesecake with Graham Cracker Crust and Toasted Marshmallow
Crust
403 g graham cracker crumbs – this is almost exactly equal to one box of graham crackers
4 Tablespoons (56 g) butter, melted – this is half a stick
Cheesecake Filling
24 ounces (678 g) cream cheese, room temperature – this is three 8-ounce packages
1 cup (207 g) sugar
6 Tablespoons (43 g) dark cocoa powder
1 cup (230 g) sour cream, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 ounces (227 g) dark chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
4 eggs, room temperature
Marshmallow Topping
1 7.5-ounce jar of marshmallow cream
Preheat oven to 325°F (163°C). Line a 9-inch (23 cm) springform pan with parchment paper in the bottom and grease the sides.
Dark Chocolate Cheesecake with Graham Cracker Crust and Toasted Marshmallow. Photo by John Fladd.
Combine the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter in a small bowl. Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of the springform pan. It will seem like too much crust, until it doesn’t.
Bake the crust for 10 minutes, then set aside to cool
Put your chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl, and heat, 15 seconds at a time, to melt it. Stop when it still has a few lumps. If you stir it at that point, everything will melt without getting too hot.
Cover the outside of the pan with aluminum foil. This is to more-or-less waterproof it, when it goes into a water bath. (Yes, there will be a water bath. Don’t panic. As the Winter Warlock® once put it, put one foot in front of the other.)
Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F (148°C).
In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar and cocoa until completely combined. If you use an electric mixer, use your lowest speed for this. Because Reasons.
Add the sour cream and vanilla, then mix to incorporate them.
Add the melted chocolate in three parts, stirring to combine each time.
Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition.
When everything is completely combined, pour the cheesecake batter into your foiled-up springform pan.
This is where the water bath comes in. In old recipes, it will be called a bain marie. Put your foiled-up pan inside a larger pan, maybe a turkey-roasting pan. (If, like me, you don’t have a pan that big, use your largest non-melty mixing bowl.) Gently fill the larger pan or bowl with hot water that reaches about halfway up the side of your springform pan.
Bake for about 70 minutes. Don’t panic and open the door too much. The whole reason for the water bath is to provide gentle steady heat to your cheesecake. It will have your back for one or two viewings, but try to exercise some restraint. Set a timer, and go clean out your refrigerator. You will not believe what there is in there.
After your timer goes off, check on your cheesecake. It shouldn’t be ready yet, but it will have a nice skin on top of it and be a little wiggly in the middle. Turn the oven off, but leave the cheesecake inside with the door closed, to finish cooking gently. Leave it for another hour.
When the oven is much cooler and your cheesecake has an internal temperature of 150º-175º F (65º-80º C), remove it from the oven, and let it cool on your countertop, then refrigerate for three to five hours or overnight.
When your cheesecake is completely cooled and firm, take it out of the refrigerator and de-pan it. You will rightfully feel proud.
But you’re not done yet.
Coat the top of the cheesecake with marshmallow cream. Use your own judgment as to how much you want to use.
Toast the marshmallow layer. Yes, you could do this under your broiler, but I prefer to use a blowtorch, either one of the mini ones designed for kitchen use or a plumber’s torch from the hardware store.
Serve immediately. If you aren’t serving a dozen people — though if you aren’t, why aren’t you? — wait until service before topping each slice with Fluff individually, then torch it in front of your guests, which is probably more dramatic anyway.
Much like a s’more, this is a very rich, deeply chocolatey treat. Even if you are a “more is more”-type person, you might want to start with a small slice of this. Its intense chocolateness is balanced by the sour tang of the cream cheese and sour cream, but it is still very, very rich. If you wanted to freeze this (and why wouldn’t you?) small slices might be even better.
The Fire
The only element left to discuss is the fire.
Yes, you could toast your marshmallow over the last coals in a charcoal grill, or even a gas one. In an emergency, you could toast it over one of the front burners in your kitchen, especially if you have a gas stove.
But half the experience of making s’mores is navigating actual flames — flirting with disaster, if you are a gently-toasted-golden-brown person, or plunging your marshmallow into the heart of the flame if you belong to the go-for-broke, fully-torched school of marshmallow toasting.
The key to a good marshmallow fire, according to 15-year-old Eagle Scout candidate Hailey Hansen, is starting small: “When I make a fire, I like to make a log-cabin fire, with sticks stacked like walls to a house, but you have to start from the bottom first, with tinder, then kindling, and larger and larger sticks, before you get to that stage.”
She says that coals are better for any campfire cooking, as they provide a steady, dependable heat, which lets a marshmallow roaster confidently choose how done they want to roast their marshmallow, but it’s not a binary situation:
“Your fire doesn’t have to be all coals. You can have half with flames, but let the other half burn down to safer” — by this, she clearly means “old person” — “coals,” she says.
Hailey likes her marshmallows golden brown and crispy but thoroughly melted inside.
At this point you must be feeling pretty confident s’mores-wise. If you can handle that cheesecake, you can host a s’mores party with one hand tied behind your back. But maybe you would like one more easy recipe to keep you bucked up until then. Is there an easy recipe that you can make to keep everyone on a short leash until it’s actually S’mores Time?
As a matter of fact, yes, there is.
S’mores Candy
Some marshmallows — the big ones, the mini ones, whatever you have around
Some graham crackers — you know you’re going to have to buy a new box, anyway, so you might as well use up what you have handy at the moment
Some peanut butter — all natural, or the kind that children actually like, it’s up to you.
Some chocolate — any chocolate: white, milk, dark, whatever you have stashed away in that cupboard that the kids can’t reach.
Crush the graham crackers into crumbs. A food processor is good for this.
S’mores Candy. Photo by John Fladd.
Mix the crumbs with peanut butter — however much it takes to make a nice, stiff dough. You will almost certainly start doing this with a spoon, but almost as certainly end up mushing it altogether with your hands. You decide when it is the right consistency; this is one final exercise to get in touch with your s’mores instincts.
Melt the chocolate in your microwave. (See cheesecake recipe, above)
If you are using large marshmallows, cut them into quarters or eighths. If you are using mini-marshmallows, just let them be themselves.
Coat the marshmallows with the peanut butter dough you just made. You will probably need to play with it in your hands a little, before it reaches the consistency you want, and more-or-less covers the marshmallow. This doesn’t have to be perfect (because of the next step).
Drop the marshmallow/graham cracker/peanut butter ball into the melted chocolate, and then roll it around with a fork, until it is completely coated.
Remove the candy from the melted chocolate with your fork, then gently place it on a plate covered with a piece of waxed or parchment paper.
Repeat this until you run out of an ingredient. Don’t worry if you have some left over; any extra will mysteriously disappear.
Refrigerate the candies for at least 20 minutes. They are very good with tea.
Putting It All Together
At this point you might expect step-by-step instructions on how to make s’mores, but that would be silly. You have known how to make a s’more since you were 5 years old. It was probably the first food you learned to cook. It is less complicated to put together than toast.
Step 1: Toast a marshmallow
Step 2: Put a piece of chocolate on half a graham cracker, then sandwich the marshmallow between the two cracker halves.
(I do have a preference for Mexican chocolate — the gritty stone-ground kind — but when I mentioned this to our three chocolate experts, they stared at me in shock, then started to speak to me in very small words, so use whatever kind suits you personally.)
However, I do have one final recipe:
S’mores Martini
Graham Cracker Vodka
1 sleeve (135 g) graham crackers
3 cups 80-proof inexpensive vodka
S’mores Martini. Photo by John Fladd.
Combine graham crackers and vodka in a blender. Blend at whatever speed pleases you for about one minute. Feel free to chuckle evilly as the graham crackers meet their fate.
Pour into a wide-mouthed, air-tight jar.
Store in a warm, dark place for a week, shaking twice daily.
This is really important: On Day 7, DO NOT SHAKE THE JAR.
Gently pour the clear liquid through a fine-meshed strainer, let it settle, then pour it through a coffee filter, into a labeled bottle.
Chocolate Vodka
This is very similar to the previous recipe.
¼ cup/1 ounce/30 g cocoa nibs. Cocoa nibs are the raw ingredient for chocolate-making. You can find them in an upmarket grocery store or online. I like ones from Guittard. They come with this warning: “May contain shell, kernel, plant material or other material from the growing process. Inspect or re-clean before using. This is not a Ready-to-eat food.” In other words, just exactly what we’re looking for in this application.
2 cups middle-shelf vodka
Combine the cocoa nibs and vodka in a large wide-mouthed jar, seal, shake vigorously, then place in the basement or under the sink, with the graham cracker vodka.
Shake twice per day for four days.
Strain, filter, and bottle, as above.
S’mores Martini
1 ounces crème de cacao
2 ounces chocolate vodka
2 ounces graham cracker vodka
a toasted marshmallow, for garnish
In a mixing glass, rinse several ice cubes with crème de cacao, then pour it off.
Pour equal amounts of chocolate and graham cracker vodka over the liqueur-rinsed ice.
Stir gently but thoroughly.
Pour off, into a chilled martini glass.
Garnish with toasted marshmallow, much like you would a conventional martini, with an olive.
The surprising thing about this martini is how well the flavor of graham crackers comes through. Make no mistake; this is a strong, fully adult cocktail. It is not nearly as sweet as you might be tempted to think. This is a s’more to drink in small sips.
With Halloween around the corner and a host of sports moms and PTA dads waiting to humble-brag about the amazing handcrafted costumes and treats they’ve whipped up in their copious spare time, here is a bonus food-craft-y idea. It has the candy hat-trick of (1) looking very impressive, (2) being actually extremely easy to make, and (3) really showing up those snooty car-pool parents.
Equipment wax paper small paintbrush (You don’t actually need-need this, but it might make it easier to work on small details) tweezers (ditto)
Fill a small microwave-safe bowl halfway with chocolate chips. Heat for 20 seconds, then stir with a spoon or a craft stick. Heat again for 10 seconds at a time, until the stirred chocolate is melted.
Dip the mini-pretzel sticks in chocolate, and lay them out on wax paper.
Use the melted chocolate to glue the Whoppers together to make a body, then glue the legs together and then to the body with more chocolate. If it still looks too much like pretzels glued to Whoppers, drizzle some more chocolate onto your choco-spider. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you could sprinkle some chocolate sprinkles onto the body to look like hair.
The good news about this project is that the rougher your spider looks, the creepier it looks. If you completely mess up and it looks really bad, pretend one of your children made it and brag like heck about it, which makes you look like a better parent than that dad who always wins the Pinewood Derby. This’ll show him. And Sharon from ballet class will eat. her. heart. out.
John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.
Featured photo: Chocolate spider. Photo courtesy of John Fladd.
Some people are remembered by History and become household names, sometimes for silly reasons. Other, more worthy men and women are washed away in the River of Time and are undeservedly forgotten.
Nobody has been cheated out of a legacy more cruelly than Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813), one of the advisors to doomed king Louis XVI of France.Very few historians would make the case that Louis was a wise and competent king, but by the 1780s even he could see that things were going badly. France was overpopulated and underfed. The People, seeing the example set by the American colonists, were talking about overthrowing their ruler. (The irony that the American Revolution had been largely financed by Louis himself was not lost on him.)
The upshot was that the French people were as angry as they were hungry, which is to say, very.
There was actually a partial solution available, however: potatoes. The Spanish had brought potatoes back to Europe from South America a century or more previously, but most European peasants could not be enticed to eat them. Even though they would have provided a welcome boost of calories and carbohydrates, most peasants were convinced that they were deadly poisonous. (To be fair, the actual fruit of the potato is; only the tuber is edible.)
Louis asked his smartest advisor, Parmentier, to try to convince the French peasants to plant potatoes.
Parmentier had his own formal gardens dug up and planted with potatoes, then announced to the locals that nobody was to touch his potatoes under pain of terrible, unspecified punishment. Potatoes were too good for the likes of them; only aristocrats could properly appreciate them. Then, to ensure the security of his potatoes, he placed armed guards around his potato patch for 12 or more hours per day.
Within weeks all the potatoes had been stolen and planted across the French countryside.
The irony of this is that if the French peasantry had not been well-fed on potatoes, they might not have had strength enough to revolt a couple of years later.
Parmentier never got famous, but he did get to keep his head, so he was probably not too bitter about the slight.
In his honor, I have renamed a classic cocktail — The Forbidden Fruit — the Parmentier.
Parmentier 1½ ounces apple brandy – I like Laird’s Applejack 1 ounce Pimm’s No. 1 ½ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice ¼ ounce simple syrup 2 dashes each of two different bitters – this recipe traditionally calls for Angostura and Peychaud’s, which is what I’ve used here 3-4 ounces ginger beer to top Combine all ingredients except the ginger beer with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake until bitterly cold. Strain into a tall glass, over fresh ice, and top with ginger beer. Stir, and drink wistfully, while listening to Maurice Chevalier sing “C’est Magnifique.”
This is a complex and slightly melancholy drink. Pimm’s is a slightly baroque-tasting base to build any drink on with its own collection of herbs and alcohol. Apple brandy brings its own sophistication with it. Throw in two competing flavors of bitters, and you have dropped yourself into a labyrinth of flavors before you even get to the ginger beer, which has a talent for throwing drinkers for a loop.
Which is not to say that this isn’t delicious, because it is. It’s just that normally, with more straightforward cocktails, you can spend the first half-minute or so making a flavor inventory. With Forbidden Fruit — as with History — you might be better off just surrendering yourself to the experience.
John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.
In the 1920s there seems to have been a vibrant analog online community of housewives in the Boston Globe’s cooking section. At first glance, it seems as if it was a simple exchange of recipes, but there was clearly a lot more than that going on under the surface. In this column, Winding Trails starts by thanking her virtual friend for a recipe, then offers one of her own. It seems straightforward enough. The last line is somewhat arresting, though; she doesn’t so much close out her small letter politely as plead for some form of human contact.
This was the 1920s. It had not been so many years since politicians and ministers had blasted an evil new invention, the bicycle. Without a (male) chaperone, they ranted, who knew what sorts of deviant mischief women could get up to, traveling all over the countryside? It’s easy to imagine Mrs. Trails almost trapped in an apartment in Southie or a triple-decker in Nashua, surrounded by crying children and dirty dishes, desperate for some form of adult companionship.
Some more research reveals that Skin Hincks (and wow, do I want to know the story behind her name) was a frequent, almost obsessive correspondent to the Globe’s cooking pages. It’s very easy to see her modern counterpart having a very active social media presence. There might be a very credible master’s or Ph.D. thesis comparing the two communities.
But for now, let’s look at Mrs. Trail’s Carrot Pie:
Carrot Pie The purée of two large carrots – about 1½ cups, or 300 grams ½ teaspoon ground ginger ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon kosher salt ½ cup (99 grams) sugar 2 whole eggs ½ cups (1 can) evaporated milk zest of 1 large orange 1 pie crust
Preheat the oven to 450º F. Whisk all ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. Pour into the pie crust. Much as with a pumpkin pie, the crust does not need to be blind-baked. Bake at 450º for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 325º and bake for a further 50 to 55 minutes, or until the blade of a knife comes out more or less clean.
Original recipe.
At first glance, this seems like a bright orange pumpkin pie, and the taste is not completely dissimilar, but the sweetness of the carrot and the brightness of the orange zest lift the flavor to something different. The spices are more subdued than in a pumpkin pie, and the custard is not so much sweeter as fruitier. Carrots and ginger are a classic pairing, and the orange zest adds a zing that makes this more of a “Yes, please, another slice would be delightful” experience.
This is a good pie to eat with a cup of tea, while hand-writing a letter to an old friend.
John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.
Yes, you’d heard rumors about mint: “Be careful, or it will take over your garden.” “No, really, it’s surprisingly aggressive.” “Mint is the Tribble of the plant world.”
So you were careful. Once you put in a couple of raised beds — that’s where you planted the mint.
But the surprise was the basil. You like basil well enough, and who doesn’t like a nice pesto? The plants you picked up at the grocery store were pretty small, so seven or eight plants seemed like a reasonable number.
Ultimately, it turns out that the reason the mint stayed under control is that it was scared of the basil. It started off slowly, and everything seemed fine but then it started growing faster and faster and there’s only so much pesto a human family can eat and oh my god it’s taken over all the raised beds and now you’re scared of the basil and what in the name of Little Green Apples are are you going to do!?
Southside Cocktail. Photo by John Fladd.
First of all, take a deep breath, and maybe eat a popsicle.
Secondly, identify the problem: You have a lot of mint and too much basil and you don’t know what to do with it.
Thirdly, you need a drink.
So, in an act of service journalism, let’s compare and contrast two classic minty cocktails, and the same recipes with basil in place of the mint.
(It will be alright. The herb police are not going to come crashing through your window if you just throw some of this away.)
Southside Cocktail
6 mint leaves (1.5 grams) or 2 large basil leaves (2 grams) 2 ounces dry gin ½ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice ½ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice 1 ounce simple syrup more herbs for garnish Thoroughly muddle the mint or basil in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. No, more than that. That’s about right. Now add the rest of the ingredients and some ice, and shake until it is blisteringly cold. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and sip to Herb Alpert’s A Taste of Honey.
A classic Southside is only very slightly sweet, and I like it a little sweeter, so I’ve doubled the amount of simple syrup. (If that sounds like a lot, we’re only talking about an extra half ounce.) This is a grownup drink that lets the herb in question shine through. Winner: by a nose, the basil version. It’s refreshing and delicious, with just a hint of Italy.
Mojito
12 sprigs (3 grams) fresh mint or 4 large leaves (4 grams) fresh basil 1 lime, cut into 6 wedges ½ ounces simple syrup lots (a technical term) of crushed ice 2 ounces white rum 3-4 ounces plain seltzer In the bottom of a tall glass, muddle the herb of your choice, and four of the lime wedges. Be careful; the lime won’t like this and will spend its dying breath trying to squirt you in the eye. Add the simple syrup and crushed ice. Stir. Add the rum, and top off with seltzer. Stir again. Garnish with the two remaining lime wedges. Sip while watching the waves from your cliffside cabaña (pending availability).
If you’ve never had a mojito, it’s a good thing you’re remedying that now. It is delicious and deceptively light. Lime and rum go well with all the ingredients and let the herbiness of your mint or basil shine through. This drink’s reputation for being dangerously drinkable is well-deserved.
Winner: the traditional mint; classics are classics for a reason. The basil version is fine, and if you weren’t drinking the two side by side, you would be perfectly happy with it, but the mint shines through in a way that makes the whole drink sparkle.
John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.
