At the Last Minute:
Two quick recipes for holiday treats, two book suggestions for last-minute gifts
Just in time for those still stumped by the holiday, I send you these suggestions along with best wishes for 2024, may it be, inshallah, peaceful, productive, and positive for us all! And please, do not expect to hear from me again until the new year.
Two books I’ve been studying diligently will make splendid gifts for the right person on your list:
Taras Grescoe, The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past, Greystone Books: Canadian food journalist Grescoe takes us on a splendid trip around the world, from Mexico City to Ossabaw Island, Georgia, to Cappadocia in southeastern Turkey to St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, a village not far from Montreal where the Canadian gold-standard organic wheat flour, La Milanaise, is produced.
On the way, Grescoe meets and talks—often volubly—with producers, cooks, farmers, archeologists, food historians, scientists, conservationists, sustainable food advocates, and the like, all with a view to figuring out where our food comes from and where it is going. Grescoe is an engaging companion on this wide-ranging journey, one who is quick to see both humor and tragedy, often at one and the same time. This is a book for anyone on your list who just cannot understand why you think food is so fascinating. Give them a copy of The Lost Supper and you’ll have a convert.
Bee Wilson, The Secret of Cooking: Recipes for an Easier Life in the Kitchen, Norton: I was going to suggest this for beginning cooks in the family (the son just starting out on his own, the DIL who admits she can’t boil an egg), but quite honestly, even the most accomplished cook will find much to learn and much to love from British food writer Bee Wilson, herself very skilled in the kitchen .
It’s like having a kind, reassuring, and eminently capable big sister standing by your side in the kitchen, one who never interferes but only gently points to a better way of getting to your goal. And your goal? In Wilson’s view, it’s transformational, turning the slog of cooking into the joy of cooking, truly. A chatty, cheerful style, a warm and comfortable approach, even occasional references to what might once have been an eating problem, are all ways of bolstering the one who stands facing the stove. And this book, I fervently hope, signals a welcome pivot in food writing, from the insanely instagrammable to real food made by real cooks for real people of all ages to sit down and share. Wilson’s are not just cooking lessons, they’re life lessons too.
And then, two recipes for last minute additions to the festive table:
Viennese Crescents, aka Wienerkipferl
This is an old favorite from Craig Claiborne’s original New York Times Cookbook, published on January 1st, 1961, and still regularly consulted by your faithful correspondent. The photo shows you the besmirched page from a copy I have carried with me around the globe. From New York to Hong Kong and back by way of Madrid, Beirut, and Rome, I have made these crescent-shaped cookies every year at Christmas since I discovered them in the mid-1960s. That’s a lot of Viennese crescents! A few years ago, I heard them called Wienerkipferl by friends who’d spent years in Vienna, and I’ve called them that ever since. Other Austrians call them Vanillekipferl for the vanilla flavor that’s so distinctive. Claiborne noted a “food authority” (which was most likely a way of referring to himself) who said it was one of the greatest cookie recipes ever devised. Most folks who bite into one will readily agree. Make the recipe up in advance and keep it, well covered, in the fridge until you’re ready to start baking.
Over the years of preparing these, I’ve adapted the recipe, but not by a lot. The most significant change is adding as much as a tablespoon of pure vanilla extract to the dough, instead of, as Claiborne suggested, making vanilla sugar by tirelessly pounding a vanilla bean in a mortar and adding it to the sugar that drenches the finished cookies. Also, lightly toasting the walnuts before chopping them gives a richer flavor to the dough. I shape the individual cookies with a tablespoon rather than a teaspoon. And in my oven, they bake better at 375ºF/190ºC, rather than the 350ºF suggested by Claiborne.
I should note that I’ve made them occasionally with pecans instead of walnuts and they are different, yes, but equally delicious.
This should make 40 to 50 cookies.
1 cup walnut meats
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
¾ cup sugar
Pure vanilla extract, to your taste, 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon
2 ½ cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 cup sifted confectioner’s sugar
Heat your oven to 350ºF/175ºC. Spread the walnuts out in a single layer on a sheet pan. When the oven has reached temperature, transfer the sheet pan and roast the walnuts for about 10 minutes, or until they turn lightly golden. Remove them from the oven and let cool till you can handle them, then chop the walnuts to small bits and add them all to the bowl of your food processor.
Process the walnuts in brief spurts (pulses) to reduce them almost to a paste, then add the butter in chunks and process briefly. Add the sugar and vanilla extract and pulse again to mix well. Finally, add all the flour and the salt and process until it all comes together in a clump.
Turn the clump(s) of dough out into a bowl and knead with your hands very briefly, just to make sure everything is well integrated, especially the butter, which should not be at all visible in the dough. Smooth the dough into a ball, cover with plastic or foil, and set aside in the refrigerator to chill for several hours or overnight; if it’s more convenient, the dough will be just fine kept for several days, as long as it’s well-covered.
When you’re ready to bake, set the oven on 375º/190ºC.
Take a scant tablespoon of cookie dough in your hand and squeeze and knead it into a tube, then shape the tube in a crescent and set on an ungreased cookie sheet. When all the dough is shaped and the oven has reached temperature, transfer the sheets to the oven and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, turning the sheets back to front about midway in the process. The cookies should bake until they are a pale gold in color. Remove them from the oven and let them cool for a few minutes, then transfer the cookies to a rack on the counter. (You might want to put a sheet of parchment paper under the rack to help with clean-up.)
Let the cookies cool down a little but when they’re still warm, sift the confectioner’s sugar all over the tops. Sift more confectioner’s sugar into a shallow bowl and gently roll each cookie in the sugar to coat it. When fully cooled, transfer the cookies to a serving platter or a cookie tin.
Peg Shea’s Cheesey Biscuits
On summer days, these were always served with late-afternoon cocktails on Peg Shea’s deck overlooking Camden harbor, but they are just as good in wintertime sitting by the living room fire. As with the walnut crescents above, Peg made the dough ahead of time and kept it, rolled and sealed in foil, in the refrigerator. When unexpected company called, she simply took a roll out of the fridge, turned the oven on, sliced off the cheesey biscuits, and baked them on the spot.
Note that though they are called biscuits, these are in fact more like savory, cheesey, crisp cookies for grownups to have with a very dry martini, the way Peg served them. I used piment d’Espelette for the touch of chili—Aleppo pepper would also be very good. Or for a slightly smoky flavor, use Spanish pimentón de la Vera.
This makes 40 to 50 biscuits.
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups grated (large holes of box grater) sharp Cheddar cheese
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt, if needed
1/4 teaspoon cayenne or other red chili pepper, more if needed.
Using your hands or the back of a spoon, cream the butter and cheese together until they are well blended.
Add the flour and mix well, using your fingertips. The mixture should look like coarse cornmeal. Add salt if desired (but taste the mixture first - some Cheddars are quite salty). Add the chili powder and mix together very well.
On a very lightly floured board or a marble countertop, form the mixture into two long, thin rolls, one to one and a half inches in diameter. Wrap each roll in plastic wrap or foil and place in a refrigerator until they are firm, one to two hours. They may be kept longer, if desired, and may even be frozen, but be sure they are very carefully wrapped so they don't dry out.
When ready to cook, heat the oven to 350ºF/175ºC. Cut each roll into slices approximately a quarter-inch thick. Arrange the slices, their edges not touching, on ungreased baking sheets and bake for five to 10 minutes, until brown around the edges and dry in the middle. Serve immediately, or let cool and store in a cookie tin until ready to serve.
Wow, that improves the day! great article and recipes! Thank you,Nancy!
Dear Nancy, Wishing you the Merriest of holidays. Thank you for the book suggestions and the recipes. The Crescent cookies remind me of Mexican Wedding Cookies and/or Russian Tea Cakes. I can't wait to try the cheese biscuits. Thank you as always for all of your wonderful insights.
Your mother's lemon pudding cake and the Hazelnut cookies have been made in my kitchen many times since you put them in your newsletter.
Now you get a chance to breathe. Be well dear friend.