I was delighted when Lisa’s and my friend, fellow anthology editor Nicki Richesin, invited me to write up my family’s five favorite picture books for The Children’s Book Review. I quickly realized I needed to narrow the topic even further. Five favorite train books? Five favorite bear books? No, it had to be five favorite food books.
I could have written about ten or more, and at one point I had a teetering pile of books on my desk, but I managed to winnow it down; take a look at my list, and then come back to let me know about your favorite food picture books!
Four parents. Four kids. A long weekend. California sun. A traveling bar. Mojitos. The season’s first salmon. The last oranges from our tree.
Grilled Salmon with Citrus Herb Marinade
This is similar to many other salmon dishes I’ve written about here, but this particular combination of fragrant herbs, mild spring garlic, and fresh, sweet juice is an especially winning one.
Serves 6-8
2lbs salmon filets
1/2-3/4 cup Fresh orange juice,
1/4 cup olive oil
2-4 large springs basil
bunch fresh cilantro
1 stalk spring garlic
Marinate salmon with juice, oil, garlic and herbs in a ziplock bag for several hours, turning occasionally.
Heat grill on high, then lower heat to medium and grill salmon until cooked through, about 10 minutes. Serve immediately or, later, at room temperature.
Serves one; adjust amounts according to taste (and your supplies)
Several handfulls of arugula, torn into bite-sized pieces
1 apricot, sliced thinly
6-8 toasted pecan halves
about half an ounce of sharp cheddar cheese (use a vegetable peeler to get thin shavings)
a drizzle of your favorite vinaigrette
Toss all the ingredients together until nicely dressed. Serve.
future bread pudding
It should come as no surprise, given all the baking I do around here, that my kids can order up whatever they like for a birthday dessert. But it was definitely a surprise, after a solid six years of chocolate birthday cakes, to hear Eli request bread pudding. And not just any bread pudding, but Chef Ric’s Bread Pudding.
So I went to school and asked Ric if he would share the recipe he makes for the school, only to learn that — talented chef that he is — he wings it. And of course, he’s making dessert for three hundred people, so even if he could give me the exact recipe he makes at school, it would have taken a bit of math to scale it down for our family. But luckily he has chef friends who do write down their recipes, and he passed on this recipe for a New Orleans bread pudding. It calls for more butter than any bread pudding recipe I have ever seen. I think it’s going to be great.
Bread Pudding
12 oz bread, cubed
½ pound butter
4 whole eggs
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
Vanilla (to taste)
Ground Cinnamon (to taste)
2 cups sugar
Preheat the oven to 325. While it’s warming, put the cubed bread on a baking sheet and let toast it in the oven till just golden, about five minutes.
Lightly grease a 13X9 baking pan and put the toasted bread into the pan.
Heat milk and cream with butter and vanilla. Whisk eggs till pale in color and add sugar and whisk some more. Temper egg mixture with the cream mixture off heat. Pour the liquid over the bread and allow it time to soak for a few minutes.
Bake until set – approximately 30-40 minutes. Serve, if you like, with caramel sauce and seven birthday candles.
edited to add: I actually ran out of butter and sugar while making this (my pantry is usually better stocked than that!), so can report that this tastes just fine if you only use 1/4 pound of butter and 1 1/2 cups of sugar
Finn loves spring: the flowers, the sun, the warm days, the bright nights. He loves snap peas and peapods, which he eats by the bagful, and he loves eating outside. Mostly he loves salmon. He talks about it all year, until that spring day when it shows up on Pietro’s table at the market, and then, if I give Finn the task of choosing the fish for the week, he will always chose salmon. Filets, steaks, smoked, fins, tail. He doesn’t care. He’d take any of it, he’d take all of it if I let him. If only I could afford it.
But the thing is, we’ve had very little salmon over the past four years. I don’t think we had salmon once last summer, and we had little in 2008 and 2009 when the local fishery was closed. Even when it returned, the season was drastically cut back and there was not much available. So not only has it been hard to find local salmon, it’s been very, very expensive. Worse: it’s been very, very hard on the fisherman.
Still, Finn remembers his pink fish. Maybe it’s the color, a vibrant memory jumping to mind, or maybe it’s the legend that ties their majestic leap to his saint. Regardless, now it’s spring, and the salmon are back, and when I saw the piles of bright filets and steaks, their glistening, silvery skin, and Finn stood next to me eyeing the bounty with a gasp and a smile, I grabbed a cool, heavy package. It was pricey; I didn’t think about the price. Big agriculture is pumping poison into chicken, and in the face of that insanity, I will gladly pay Pietro for this treasure, caught off a boat docked 30 minutes from my house, a boat Finn as seen and touched. We have waited for this. We know exactly what it’s worth: for Pietro, for the sea, on our table. Even Finn understands: it’s worth the wait. It’s worth paying for.
Salmon with Spring Salsa
serves 4
1 lb salmon filet
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
1 stalk spring garlic, finely sliced, including light and some of dark green stalk
2 spring onions, finely sliced including tender green stalk
4 leaves basil, rolled and sliced into ribbons (a chiffonade)
kosher salt
Olive oil
1/2 lemon
Italian bread, sliced for crositini
Combine chopped tomatoes, sliced green garlic and onion, and basil in a medium sized bowl. Dress with salt to taste and olive oil. Cover and let macerate (for as much time as you have).
Place salmon on a large bed of foil and sprinkle with salt. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over the fish.
Pour salsa over the fish, including macerating juices.
Place another sheet of foil over the fish and salsa, then seal salmon and salsa into a foil pack by crimping the edges tightly closed.
Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.
Remove from oven and let rest in pack for five minutes.
While salmon is resting, lightly toast Italian bread.
Open foil pack and serve immediately, using the toasted bread for extra salsa.
