Grilled Spicy Sweet Chicken Wings

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by Lisa

It may be the end of September, but it’s still summer weather here. So when we had friends over for dinner on Saturday, the only thing to do was barbeque. In retrospect, I might have chosen to do something other than stand in front of the grill in 90+ degree heat grilling wings, but it was a great meal and pretty perfect for the weather. These wings have been a hit in our family for years, and they actually work really well for weeknights if you follow the original instructions and broil them instead of grilling. It’s a lot faster and requires less tending. The sauce/glaze takes about 2 minutes to make if you use bottled lime juice, which works just fine. These wings are sweet and a little spicy and completely messy and addictive–just likes they should be. We had 4 adults, 2 8-year-old girls, a 5-year-old boy and a 6-year-old boy. We ate nearly 8 lbs of wings. I had the genius idea to give the kids their own little table, a little apart from ours, under the shade of the orange tree, and their own plate of wings to dig into. We served them their salads restaurant style, and refilled their wings plate 3 times.

The grown-ups sat here.

Alongside our wings were a Green Goddess salad, a mustard-chive country potato salad (recipes for these TK this week!), a cooling cucumber salad, and a mixed up caprese  with grape tomatoes and fresh mozzerella. But maybe the best side of all was the Aspasie champagne my friend Dena brought, which was the perfect drink for the wings.  I would have been happy to eat wings and drink champagne all night long.

The original recipe is here but I’ve also copied it below, substituting drumettes which I find easier to cook and eat, reducing the cayenne (you can adjust to your taste), and added grilling instructions.

Apricot Glazed Chicken Wings

  • 4 1/2 lb chicken drumettes
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 cup apricot preserves
  • 1/2 cup fresh lime juice
  • 1 garlic clove, smashed
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
  1. Toss wings with oil, black pepper, and 2 teaspoons salt in a large bowl. These can stay covered in the refrigerator for a few hours, or until you are nearly read to grill. It’s a good idea to take them out a little ahead of time so they’re not ice cold when you put them on the grill.
  2. Blend preserves, lime juice, garlic, cumin, cayenne, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt in a food processor or blender until smooth. Transfer to a small heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over moderate heat, stirring, then reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, 1 minute. This sauce will keep, covered, at room temperature until you are read to use it.
  3. Heat grill to high, then lower heat to medium and place wings evenly on grill. Grill for about 10 minutes, then turn over and grill for about 10 more minutes, until wings are nearly cooked through.
  4. Brush 1/4 cup sauce on cooked wings and grill 2 to 3 minutes. Turn wings, and brush with 1/4 cup sauce again, and grill 2-3 minutes. Turn wings over and brush with another 1/4 cup sauce. Grill for another 2-3 minutes. Repeat the basting & turning until the wings are deeply browned and fully cooked through. I find wings (like lots of bone-in chicken) can be tricky on the grill. I go for slow and lower heat, to ensure even and thorough cooking without charring the skin.
  5. Brush with remaining sauce before serving.


Lemon Citrus Spaghetti

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By Lisa

This, a few tablespoons of butter, a pack of spaghetti gets you dinner for 4.

I had a tabula rasa moment on Tuesday night.  Dinner needed to be on the table quickly, but I nothing ready to cook. I had planned on making something a little more complicated, but we had been a long time picking up our kitten at the vet, and it was too late for the original plan.  We had just had the omelete so eggs were out of rotation.  We had also just finished a pot of black beans with quesidillas, so tacos were out, too.   I had no cream for Fettucine Alfredo, didn’t want just cheese and butter on pasta, had no bacon defrosted for a quick carbonara, and had seasonal fatigue for the tomato/black bean saffron thing.   I wasn’t even sure I had time to boil pasta water before the kids detonated, so tomato sauce was out of the question, but it did seem pasta was my only option.  Also? I had very little milk left.  Then I had a one of those inspired moments, and decided I could make a quick variation on this Winter Citrus Pasta that was ready in the time it took to boil water.

I had prepped some green chard earlier in the day (which I very often do)–smashing the garlic, tossing it in a pan with olive oil, washing and chopping the chard, sprinkling it with salt, and covering it up with a lid. At dinner time, I just turn on the burner and sautee.  5 minutes to food rather than 10. Less mess to clean up, too.  I put the water on to boil, sauteed the chard, whipped up a couple of tomato surprises, plopped a few carrots into bowls and sat the kids at the counter to work on their rainbow vegetable appetizer and a small slice of fresh italian bread.

Of course, they watched while I cooked the pasta, which was risky, since it was new to them. Lemon in pasta? Have we had this before? Yes, and no. They were slightly crestfallen but didn’t protest too much.  Generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to give the kids brand new things at the last minute on a school night, but I forged ahead bravely.    The result was a big hit, and Finn even remembered that he had eaten something like it before. It’s a rich and creamy dish, with a nice zing of lemon flavor.  A perfect–& fast–fall dish.

Lemon Citrus Spaghetti

  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1 lemon (zest only)
  • 3 T butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2-3/4 cup grated cheese
  • 1 lb spaghetti
  1. Bring a large pot of water to boil.
  2. While waiting for the water to boil, pour the milk and butter into a saucepan large enough to contain the cooked spaghetti. Zest the lemon into the milk/butter.  Turn on the heat and melt the butter, simmer until the mixture blends and slightly thickens, 3 minutes or so. Turn off heat.
  3. In the mixing cup you used for the milk, beat the egg and set aside.
  4. When the water boils, cook the pasta until al dente, about 9 minutes.
  5. Drain pasta and add it to the milk/butter/zest in the pan. On low heat, quickly stir in the beaten egg, then the cheese. Serve immediately.

Hayes Valley Farm

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by Caroline

A lifetime ago, pre-husband and pre-kids, I lived in the not-yet-gentrified Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. My top floor apartment looked out over a vacant lot which had once been shadowed by the 101 freeway off-ramp, but after the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the road, the ramp was torn down and the lot — in all its weedy, broken-asphalt ugliness — was exposed to new light. The weeds started growing denser and scrubby trees started to sprout; the lot was surrounded by chain link fence, but that didn’t stop people from camping in it. I used to sit in my window looking out over the space, wondering if the city would ever pay attention to the lot and make better use of the area.

The rest of the neighborhood started improving; hip shops and cafes moved in, and although I moved away, I’d drive past frequently on my drive to graduate school in Berkeley. Eventually a sign went up on the chain link fence, announcing a condo development, but nothing happened. Then last winter, a new sign went up, and then lots of new signs:

We had to go see it.

We love to visit farms. We tend our own little garden in the backyard and for inspiration we have visited farms on the prairie and on the coast and even one tucked behind a suburban development.

I discovered that when the condo development plans fell victim to the recession, the city opened the site up for “temporary green space use” and the community has taken it from there. On our visit, one group of folks sorted through packets of donated lettuce seed to plant out in flats:

We planted some of it in flats ourselves:

And we admired the healthy salad bar that’s growing from seeds planted earlier in the season:


We saw another group sorting and stacking cardboard, some of the over 80,000 pounds the farmers have used already to create the farm’s “soil” out of layered cardboard, wood chips, and horse manure:

The ingredients for soil (like the seeds) are donated; the community farmers collect the cardboard, wood chips and manure free and with the city’s thanks, from the local waste stream.

These folks are serious about their farming. They are developing dwarf fruit trees that thrive in pots, so that apartment dwellers can harvest their own apples and pears:

They are refining potato columns, which grow in simple, portable chicken wire towers and yield lovely potatoes that my kids couldn’t resist harvesting:

“It’s really not scary to grow food,” commented our tour guide; indeed, for all their innovations here, they are also doing some things in ancient ways, studying the terraced farms of the Incas because San Francisco’s climate mirrors that of the Andes mountains.

The farmers are making it fun, too, hosting volunteer work parties followed by free yoga sessions, movie nights and picnics, plus classes on topics ranging from medicinal plants to soil health to permaculture to emergency preparedness. “The main thing we’re growing is a community,” our guide commented, and it’s growing beautifully. It’s like turning swords into plowshares: the Hayes Valley volunteers are farming the freeway:

Nicoise for Kids

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by Lisa

When I was in high school, my boyfriend and I went to Manhattan to see some show or other, but before that, we went to a classic French bistro for lunch. I suppose I ordered onion soup, and he ordered something else, and when we done ordering the server, who was an older, very severe, motherly kind of French woman looked sternly at us an asked with more than a little “And what will you have first?”

“Nothing,” we replied, not really understanding the concept of appetizer (beyond that plate of cheese and stone-wheat crackers we sometimes saw at parties), suburban kids that we were. She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows and seemed absolutely to judge us.  But a few minutes later she returned with two perfectly composed plates of salad.  “You will eat this first,” she said. “It is Salad Nicoise.”  And we did, and we thanked her, and it was delicious, and we understood. Since then, I’ve always loved a good Nicoise (in the style of Nice), which is a classic composed salad: rather than tossing the lot of vegetables together, each is tossed separately and arranged artfully on the plate. Or if you’re a real purist, the vegetables (and sometimes tuna) are arragned artfully and just drizzled with the vinaigrette.  A good composed salad is a meal in itself. The classic ingredients for a Nicoise will vary, but are selected from tomato, green beans, boiled egg, tuna, red pepper, maybe lettuce.   Debate rages about whether or not the vegetables should be cooked.  A purist will say all should be crudite.

Basically, all you need is the following vinaigrette recipe and whatever fresh (or leftover) produce you have on hand.  You can add fresh tuna, canned tuna, the rest of that grilled pork tenderloin you have lying around, that sausage you didn’t eat (see above), steak…or not.

With apologies to the French and the purists, Salad “Nicoise” works beautifully for a family for the following reasons:

  • On a busy night, you can whip up the dressing and toss it with whatever fresh vegetables you have around.
  • You can use up leftover green beans, corn, and all manner of meats swiftly and
  • The pretty plate makes it look like it’s not “leftover night” even though you know better
  • It’s healthy
  • It can be vegetarian or not
  • You can use whatever you have on hand–whatever is seasonal, local, fresh around you
  • You can cook or not cook, depending on your family’s taste
  • Your picky eaters won’t complain about different food touching each other.

The original recipe is here, on Epicurious.

Just the dressing :

  • 1/4 cup red-wine vinegar
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons minced shallot
  • 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
  • 1 large garlic clove, minced and mashed to a paste with 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Rounded 1/2 teaspoon anchovy paste
  • 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil

Make dressing:
Whisk together vinegar, shallot, mustard, garlic paste, and anchovy paste in a small bowl until combined well, then add oil in a slow stream, whisking until emulsified. Whisk in thyme, basil, and salt and pepper to taste.


Cream of Tomato Soup

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by Lisa

For musical accompaniment, first click here. (You can browse their site later,too!)

This is my husband’s favorite soup, and before yesterday, I had never made it. It’s not just any tomato soup, but The Tomato Soup, served under a puff pastry at Bistro Jeanty. It’s divine. It’s what tomatoes must dream of becoming.  It has an impossible-to-achieve-at-home texture.  It’s loaded with cream and butter.

How it ended up, sans puff pastry and some of the fats, is due entirely to the weather. I had been saving a great bowlful of early girls for gazpacho, which we have been eating by the bowlful here, but then the weather cooled. It’s still beautiful and sunny here, but there’s that hint of fall in the air, so we just didn’t feel like cold soup.  In other words, tomatoes are still pouring into the markets, but it’s getting late in the season for all those bruschettas and salsas and capreses and Tomato Surprises…so, the soup came to me as inspiration sometimes does, and now I have new standard fall/winter dish.

We ate the soup as a first course around our kitchen counter island while I fried the homemade salmon cakes, but it would go really well with Caroline’s roasted grain salad, which she happened to make on the same day I made this.  How’s that for coordinating our families and giving you a great 2 course vegetarian meal?

The original recipe is here.  My adapted version follows, written in steps, in the spirit of Pete Wells  brilliant anti-mise en place jeremiad–because this is how I cook, too.  I substituted milk for half of the cream, left out the extra butter at the end. I also left out the white pepper because I didn’t have it.  I also have a lousy food mill, so it was not quite as smooth and silky and generally perfect as it might be, but it’s still a pretty amazing recipe.
Cream of Tomato Soup
Serves 6

  • ½ cup butter unsalted
  • ½ lb. Yellow onions
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • 1 Bay leaf
  • ½ Tbl. Whole black peppercorns
  • 1 tsp. dried thyme leaves
  • 1/4 cup tomato paste
  • 2 ½ ib. fresh, ripe tomatoes
  • 1 cup water (no more-use only if tomatoes are not ripe and juicy)
  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 2 cups milk (your choice of fat content)
  • salt to taste
  • ½ tsp. Ground white pepper

Special tools:  food mill, or blender/immersion blender +strainer

  1. Lay all your ingredients on your workspace, or within reachable distance.
  2. Melt the ½ cup butter in a large stockpot over medium-low heat.
  3. While the butter is melting, slice the onions and crush the garlic with the blade of your chef’s knife. Peel garlic but you can keep the cloves in the crushed state.
  4. Add sliced onions, crushed garlic, thyme, bay leaf and peppercorns; cover and cook for about 5 minutes. Do not let the onions color.
  5. Add tomato paste and lightly “toast” the tomato paste to cook out the raw flavor the add tomatoes (3-4 minutes).
  6. Add water if needed.
  7. Simmer over low heat for 30-40 minutes, until the tomatoes and onions are very soft and broken down.
  8. Puree by passing through a food mill.  If you don’ t have a food mill, you may use a blender in batches or a handheld immersion blender until finished, the strain.
  9. Return the soup o the pot.
  10. Add the cream, salt, white pepper.
  11. Add extra butter, to taste. ( I didn’t.)
  12. Bring soup to a simmer the remove from heat.
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