I just finished Cooking for Mr. Latte, an engrossing, recipe-filled take on the food memoir genre that inspired me to put down the book and pick up a spatula. Admittedly, it also filled me with envy - what I wouldn't do to have Amanda Hesser's job. The lucky girl was a food writer for the New York Times, where she initially wrote "Mr. Latte" as a series of columns. They were cobbled together into this episodic book, which remains a series of closely related vignettes. They all focus on food, of course, and each concludes with a handful of promising recipes. Hesser has an MFK Fisher-influenced take on food and life, which is to say that life, love, food and friendship are all closely intertwined for her. She writes about food's power to bring people together, to create lasting memories, to challenge us and to define us. She's part of the contingent who truly believe you are what you eat (or cook or bake.)Inspired by the stories behind her recipes and, admittedly, my envy of her life, I thought I'd try my hand at a few of Hesser's recipes. Unsurprisingly, because I am me, the two recipes I've tried are both baked desserts.
I settled on the first, Amanda's mother's Peach Tart, because I found myself in front of a giant pile of apricots at Whole Foods with the book in my purse. This is a really interesting, sort of bizare tart recipe. First of all, it's made in a square cake pan instead of a tart pan. Second, you mix the dough for the crust right in the pan. Third, there's olive oil in the dough – I thought this gave the tart and interesting Mediterranean sort of flavor, but my mother didn't like it (and she loves olive oil.)
I have to admit I kind of screwed up and mixed what Hesser calls "the pebbly mixture" (sugar, flour, salt and butter) into the apricots, rather than sprinkling it on top. Oops. (See picture, then don't do that.) I kind of liked the effect though, I thought it gave the impression that there was a custard between the apricot slices.
In any case, here's the recipe, the way I made it.
Judith Hesser's Peach Tart, with Apricots
1 1/2 cups plus 2 Tb Flour
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup olive oil (you could use vegetable oil if you agree with my mother)
2 Tb milk (I used skim)
1/2 tsp. Vanilla (the recipe says almond extract, but my mom hates almond extract, so we don't have any in the house)
2 Tb cold unsalted butter
8 or 9 Apricots, thinly sliced
1. Preheat oven to 425ยบ. In an 8-inch square pan, stir together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. sugar.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, milk and vanilla or almond extract.
3. Pour the liquids into the pan and mix gently with a fork, just enough to dampen. Then use your hands to pat out the dough so that it covers the bottom of the pan and goes about 3/4 of an inch up the sides. Amanda says "This will be easy if you pat firmly and confidently, but not if you curl your fingertips into the dough." (I did as she said, and it was easy.)
4. In a bowl, combine 3/4 cup sugar, 2 Tb. flour, 1/4 tsp. salt and the butter. (I might've skimped on the flour a bit because the apricots weren't juicy at all.) Use your fingers to pinch the butter into the dry ingredients until crumbly, with a mixture of fine granules and tiny pebbles.
5. If you're Amanda: "arrange the peaches in rows over the pastry; they should fit snugly. Sprinkle the pebbly mixture over the top." But if you're me, toss the apricots with the pebbly mixture then dump the whole thing into the pan.
6. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, "until shiny, thick bubbles begin enveloping the fruit and the crust is nut brown." Or until it looks like this:
I thought it was delicious, my mom thought it was a bit too tart and had the aforementioned olive oil issue. Obviously, in order to really decide what we thought of Ms. Hesser, we had to make another recipe. Also, I needed something to give Miranda, who is kindly allowing me to crash on her couch in New York again tonight. We decided on the Chocolate Chunk-Pecan-Coconut Cookies on page 303.
Perhaps because they were devised as a cleaning-out-the-pantry project, these cookies call for a ridiculous amount of chocolate. Twenty-four ounces, to be exact. That's a lot of chocolate. Luckily, my mom keeps industrial amounts of baking supplies around the house. Also luckily, Julia was there to help me chop it all. Although she left before it was time to fold the chocolate, pecans and coconut into the dough, which was exhausting. As Amanda says, these cookies are really chocolate and pecans held together by some shreds of dough.
My mom argued that it's okay to mix chocolate chunks in with the Kitchen Aid, but I didn't want them to be chocolate cookies. And the workout was worth it: the shards of chocolate made a nice pattern on the finished cookies that reminds me of straciatella gelato. They're really quite attractive, for cookies with everything but the kitchen sink in them. They're also, and this is key, delicious. The coconut makes them incredibly chewy, even the next day. They're not too sweet, but still have that great brown sugar taste. And, unsurprisingly, the ridiculous amount of chocolate was just enough. Congratulations Ms. Hesser, you've won.(P.S. I don't have time right now to write out the cookie recipe, but would be happy to if anyone wants to make them. Or you could buy the book - it's awesome!)
