Two Radically Simple Recipes from JERUSALEM: A Cookbook

There isn't a recipe in Jerusalem, the new cookbook from London (by way of Jerusalem) writers Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi that doesn't intrigue me. Each speaks volumes about the flavors, tastes and foodways of this ancient city.  Some recipes are demanding and worthy of an afternoon of cooking, others are radically simple in the parlance I speak:  boasting an ineffable balance of ease, number of ingredients and time required.  Here are two of my favorites:

Swiss chard fritters with feta According to Yotam and Sami, "The intense green color of these fritters, originally Turkish, is paralleled by a wonderfully concentrated "green flavor" of chard and herbs.  They are a truly marvelous way to start a meal.  Spinach makes a good substitute for the chard; increase the quantity by 50% and just wilt it in a pan instead of boiling it.

14 ounces Swiss chard leaves, white stalks removed 1 ounce flat-leaf parsley 2/3 ounce cilantro 2/3 ounce dill 1-1/2 teaspoons grated nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon sugar 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour 2 cloves garlic, crushed 2 large free-range eggs 3 ounces feta cheese, in small pieces 4 tablespoons olive oil 1 lemon, cut into 4 wedges salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil, add the chard and simmer for 5 minutes.  Drain the leaves and squeeze until completely dry.  Place in a food processor with the herbs, nutmeg, sugar, flour, garlic, eggs, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and black pepper.  Blitz until smooth and then fold in the feta by hand.  Pour 1 tablespoon of the oil in a medium frying pan. Place over medium-high heat and spoon in a heaping tablespoon of the mixture. Press down to get make each fritter about 2-3/4 inches in diameter and 3/8 inch thick.  You should be able to fit about 3 fritters at a time.  Cook for 3 to 4 minutes in total, turning once, until they have taken on some color.  Transfer to paper towels, then keep each batch warm while you cook the remaining mixture, adding oil as needed.  Serve at once with the lemon wedges.  Serves 4 as a starter

Butternut squash & tahini spread According to Yotam and Sami, "This dip seems to be fantastically popular with anyone who tries it. There is something about the magical combination of tahini and pumpkin or squash that we always tend to come back to.  Serve as a starter with bread or as part of a meze selection.  Date syrup can be found in health food stores and Middle Eastern markets.

1 very large butternut squash (almost 2-1/2 pounds) and cut into large chunks (7 cups) 3 tablespoons olive oil 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 5 tablespoons light tahini paste 2 small cloves garlic, crushed 1/2 cup Greek yogurt 1 teaspoon mixed black and white sesame seeds 1-1/2 teaspoons date syrup 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Spread the squash out in a medium roasting pan.  Pour over the olive oil and sprinkle on the cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix together well and cover pan tightly with foil.  Roast for 70 minutes, stirring once during cooking.  Remove from the oven and let cool.  Transfer the squash to a food processor, along with the tahini, yogurt and garlic.  Roughly pulse until combined into a rough paste, without the spread becoming smooth.  This can be done by hand using a fork or potato masher.  Spread the paste in a wavy pattern on a large flat plate.  Sprinkle with the sesame seeds, drizzle over the syrup and sprinkle with cilantro.  Serves 6 to 8

Come meet Yotam and Sami at Congregation Beth Elohim on Wednesday, October 24th.  I will be the host for the evening -- the interview begins at 7:30 p.m.  You can register here. Autographed books will be for sale.

Getting Kids to Read and Cook

It's back-to-school month with no letup in our country's interminable decline into child illiteracy and obesity. Each of these epidemics is being addressed by educators, two presidents' wives, chefs, scholars and scores of other professionals -- all of them with competing "solutions." Two books may help empower kids in the way they ought to be: Sunday is for the Sun, Monday is for the Moon, written by Sandra Priest Rose and Glen Nelson (2012), tells the story of how the Reading Reform Foundation of New York has, over the past 30 years, touched the lives of more than 20,000 school kids in kindergarten through third grade by helping them learn to read by understanding word meanings. (It is precisely this age that good, or bad, eating habits come into play, but that's another story.) Deploying multisensory, phonetic techniques, the Foundation trains public school teachers right in their classrooms with some extraordinary results to show for it. And Kids Cook 1-2-3 (written by yours truly in 2006, Bloomsbury) helps empower young children by teaching the foundations of cooking using simple techniques, some ABCs, and 1-2-3s (each recipe uses only three ingredients except for salt, pepper and water.) There is much evidence to support the reality that kids will eat healthy food if they become part of the process of preparing it.

A second-grader asked of Ms. Rose's project: "Why do they call the reading program 'reading reform'? It should be called Reading Intelligence," she went on to say, "because that's how it makes me feel." And one kid said of Kids Cook 1-2-3, "I learned how to measure with measuring cups. I also learned that it is good to try foods you don't know about because you might like them." What's essential to both tasks? Reading comprehension = empowerment.

Since its founding in 1979, more than 6,000 teachers have taken the Reading Reform Foundation's step-by-step course that relies on the simultaneous sounding and writing of syllables and words in order to reinforce the sensory pathways critical in learning. Public schools pay only 20 percent of what is needed for training costs and twice-weekly supervision; the rest is handled by the Foundation. Every Reading Reform consultant visits a school 60 times during the school year. This time-honored approach, built upon a methodology created by Dr. Samuel Orton (a neuropsychiatrist) and Anna Gillingham (a psychologist and educator), begins with letter pairings, or phonograms, which form the basis of the English language. And the rather remarkable news is that the program is replicable in every classroom in America. One needs to wonder why it hasn't taken hold everywhere.

And while they are teaching reading to eager youngsters, may I also suggest teaching cooking? Then all the kids can eat their words.

Sunday is for the Sun, Monday is for the Moon: Teaching Reading, One Teacher & 30 Children at a Time is a slim academic book full of charts and graphs and good results; it is a book meant to save American education. It is meant primarily for teachers, principals and interested parents everywhere. I am one of those.

Brava to the Reading Reform Foundation and to another inspiring program called "Every Child a Reader" -- part of The Children's Book Council. To that I'd like to add "Every Child a Cook," and we'll be on our way to literacy and health in no time.

(info@readingreformny.org 212-307-7320) (Every Child a Reader -- robin.adelson@cbcbooks.org/212-966-1990)

The Magic of Three Ingredients

With a touch of irony, I note that simplicity has become trendy. Again. This September's cover story in Food & Wine breathlessly features their best "three-ingredient recipes ever." Real Simple magazine boasted similar stories over the past two years, as did Oprah magazine. I have to smile knowing that my 1996 cookbook Recipes 1-2-3: Fabulous Food Using Only 3 Ingredients launched a quiet revolution that now is being embraced by the food world's upper crust. Not surprisingly in the era of rampant borrowing, there's hardly ever any attribution to the concept's creator, but the nine books in my 1-2-3 series have been nominated for 5 James Beard Awards (with three wins) and one Julia Child/IACP award. Along with a smash hit called The 1-2-3 Collection, (going strong at Apple's iTunes store), these books continue to surface in stores and garner testimonials from devoted 1-2-3 practitioners.

It has been said, "Never trust a simple dish to a simple chef." And it was with that in mind that I devised my daring three-ingredient formula where every ingredient counted except salt, pepper and water.

Like the minimalist movement in art, which reacted to the excesses of abstract expressionism, I wanted to strip away the froufrou that accumulated during the last few decade that came to define "contemporary" or "creative" cooking.

Instead of competing by the number of ingredients they cram into a dish or how high they can pile it on a plate, I longed for the high priests (and priestesses) of culinary wizardry to let the "ingredients speak for themselves" and manipulate them as little as possible.

When Alain Ducasse opened at the Essex House, his press release boasted of cooking "with just a few ingredients and some herbs". Laurent Gras, made headlines at the Waldorf's Peacock Alley by cooking with only two ingredients. Daniel Boulud, said "cooking with three ingredients is the way a chef really wants to and does cook at home." Boston's Lydia Shire once said "some of the world's best dishes have no more than three ingredients."

Today's superstar chefs, when asked about what kind of food they're cooking, give the same trendy answer. "Simple," they say. But as I study menus from hot restaurants around the country, their offerings appear radically complex in both ingredient usage and cooking techniques.

As my three-ingredient philosophy has demonstrated over the years, there's lots of intellectual glue (like using one ingredients several different ways) needed to make simple recipes work. In addition, cooking simply teaches valuable lessons about the way we experience taste. It would be fascinating to get into the "mind" of today's top chefs as they claim to create their own streamlined dishes.

I like many of the recipes put forth by the test kitchen in September's Food & Wine issue. The rules of the game, however, have been altered: Olive oil has been added to the list of "free ingredients." That's a bit like lowering the handicap of a well-seasoned golfer, but the recipes still sound delicious.

I offer you two crowd-pleasing three-ingredient recipes of my own: Lemon-Buttermilk Ice Cream is the perfect dessert for the remaining lazy-hazy days of summer, and Mahogany Short Ribs proved to be one of the Washington Post's favorite recipes. You may want to check out the reservoir of three-ingredient recipes in my books (many still in print: Recipes 1-2-3; Recipes 1-2-3 Menu Cookbook, Entertaining 1-2-3, Healthy 1-2-3, Low Carb 1-2-3; Cooking 1-2-3, Kids Cook 1-2-3, Desserts 1-2-3, Christmas 1-2-3) and you'll understand the magic.

Mahogany Short Ribs (adapted from Recipes 1-2-3) This irreverent merger of foodstuffs results in a tantalizing dish that will amaze and amuse your guests. Prune juice tenderizes marbled ribs of beef, while teriyaki sauce ads a touch of sweetness and salinity. Nice with a bright, young zinfandel. Make sure the ribs are cut in between the bones to make 4 large thick ribs. These are known as "long cut" to differentiate them from "flanken" which is cut across the bone.

3 pounds short ribs, cut into 4 pieces 1 cup teriyaki sauce 1 cup prune juice

Place the ribs in a large bowl. Pour teriyaki and prune juice over ribs. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Remove the ribs from the marinade. Bring the marinade to a boil in a large pot with 1 cup water and 1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns. Lower the heat, add the meat, and cover the pot. Simmer for 2 hours, or until the meat is very tender. Remove the meat to a platter. Reduce the sauce for 5 minutes over high heat until syrupy. Immediately pour sauce over the ribs. This is also delicious the next day. Remove any congealed fat from the top of the sauce and slowly reheat ribs in the liquid. Serves 4

Lemon Buttermilk Ice Cream (adapted from Recipes 1-2-3) How luxurious only 2 grams of fat can taste. This is fabulous served over fresh strawberries tossed with sugar and spiked with grappa.

2 cups sugar 5 large lemons 1 quart buttermilk

Put the sugar in a large bowl. Grate the zest of 2 or 3 lemons to get 1 tablespoon zest. Cut lemons in half and squeeze 2/3 cup juice. Add zest and juice to the sugar and stir until sugar dissolves. Add the buttermilk and a large pinch of salt and stir until completely smooth. Chill well and freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Serves 6 to 8

Two Veggie Summer Reads: Dirt Candy and Welcome to Claire's

Dirt Candy Cookbook: Flavor-Forward Food from the Upstart New York City Vegetarian Restaurant, by Amanda Cohen & Ryan Dunlavey (Clarkson Potter Publishers, 2012) I've always wanted to go to New York City's provocatively named restaurant "Dirt Candy" (I mean who wouldn't?) but have yet to do so. Instead, I am experiencing the darling, Michelin-recommended vegetarian dining destination in a more vicarious way... with chef-owner Amanda Cohen's new book. It is a deliriously ebullient graphic novel-style trade paperback and it landed on my kitchen table just this week. Generally, I take cookbooks immediately to bed, but this one I decided to read in front of my refrigerator, just in case I got the urge to try a recipe on-the-spot. Sometimes I get urges like that.

Amanda Cohen, who is one smart gluten-free cookie, has written, with super-cool artist Ryan Dunlavey, what appears to be the first graphic novel cookbook. With its comic-strip line drawings and bubble thoughts, it is not necessarily a form meant to compete with Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It might, however, get a new generation of young acolytes cooking. But do not misconstrue: The recipes are totally savvy and mouthwatering. Cohen's advice, including the realities and vicissitudes of opening your own place, is professional and instructive, and sometimes very funny.

I love what Ms. Cohen, the first vegetarian cook to be invited to compete on Iron Chef America, has to say about her approach to flavor-forward food. "Anyone can cook a hamburger," she declares," but leave the vegetables to the professionals!" Brilliant. Her compelling recipe line-up includes Fennel Salad with Candied Grapefruit Pops & Grilled Cheese Croutons; Smoked Sweet Potato Nicoise Salad with Fried Olives & Chickpea Dressing; Asparagus Paella with Grilled Vegetables & Yellow Tomato Saffron Broth; Stone-Ground Grits with Pickled Shiitakes and Tempura-Poached Egg, and Red Pepper Velvet Cake with Peanut Brittle and Peanut Ice Cream. She even makes dehydrating look easy. The recipe for her $10,000 prize-winning Portobello Mousse alone makes the book worthwhile.

With the sustainable food movement going strong, and farmers and compost becoming new symbols of virility and virtue, the associations of "dirt" with all good things is an interesting one. Check out "Chocolate Dirt: Is It Art or Is It Dinner?" and just the other day at a friend's glamorous birthday party, catered by Great Performances, we were served freshly dug radishes in a pot of pumpernickel crumb "dirt."

I understand it takes up to three months to snag a reservation at Dirt Candy: The Restaurant, located on Manhattan's Lower East Side (9th Street.) Now with Dirt Candy: The Cookbook, maybe you don't need to try. But I mean, who wouldn't want to go? (Dirt Candy, 430 East 9th Street Manhattan, NY 10009, www.dirtcandynyc.com)

Welcome to Claire's: 35 Years of Recipes & Reflections from the Landmark Vegetarian Restaurant, by Claire Criscuolo, (Lyons Press, 2012)

Claire Criscuolo is the much-beloved "Maven of New Haven." Iconic and eponymous, Claire's Corner Copia has been feeding foodies just outside the gates of Yale as well as servicing an entire community of vegetarians for decades. Her fourth cookbook, Welcome to Claire's: 35 Years of Recipes and Reflections from the Landmark Vegetarian Restaurant is flying off shelves as fast as her Lithuanian Coffee Cake is flying off the brightly polished counter at her bustling café. Claire, a certified culinary professional and registered nurse fulfills a promise and a dream. Her recipes are healthy and healthful, vegan and kosher! She provides a home-away-from-home for almost anyone who lives to eat. I was one of those lucky ones this summer -- as we visited our daughter who was in a teen program at the university and ran to Claire's as often as we could for her classic Tomato-Barley Soup, fabulous oatmeal-blueberry-pecan-buttermilk pancakes, and great coffee. The book, chock-a-bloc with 350 recipes, each marked with helpful symbols -- GF (gluten-free) and V (vegan) has a vast array of offerings. Artichoke, Basket Cheese, and Parmesan Risotto caught my eye as did her Quesadilla with Caramelized Onions, Quince Preserves and Cheddar with Horseradish. Anyone looking for themes and inspirations for preparing tofu and tempeh, will also be smitten.

All roads lead to Claire: Her commitment to local and organic sourcing grows exponentially (including growing her own vegetables are herbs in her backyard) as does her outreach to the community. And it all began 35 years ago when she used her engagement ring as collateral for the loan to open her restaurant with her husband Frank. (Sadly, Frank passed away this year.)

Tonight, I will make her organic Arugula Salad with Lemon, Honey and Goat Cheese, and in the Fall I look forward to making her aptly named Fall Renewal Soup -- made with split peas, garlic, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, basil and flax oil). You can taste the love. (Claire's Corner Copia, 1000 Chapel Street, New Haven CT 06510, www.clairescornercopia.com)

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia ChildBy Bob Spitz Alfred A. Knopf (August 2012)

I knew Julia up close: I cooked for her; shared dozen of meals in a variety of cities; drank vintage wine and listened to music together, and celebrated with friends at book parties, engagement parties and restaurant openings (sometimes our own). I worked in the industry dominated by Julia's spirit and accomplishments for most of my career as a professional chef. So it was with avid interest that I devoured her life's story whole. Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child -- told with affection and reverence by author Bob Spitz - lifts an American icon from the cauldron of celebrity into a dish of comfort food. The book chronicles an appealing personal journey defined by obstacles, perseverance, and an endearing quest to satisfy her many appetites.

Spitz, who distinguished himself as the über-biographer of The Beatles, is a rightful heir to Julia's life story. Not only were they colleagues who traveled, ate, and gossiped a bit, but Mr. Spitz's keen insights and artistry, help tell her story through a historical prism that spans a century. The book, to be released this week (to coincide with what would have been Julia's 100th birthday on August 15th), illuminates the shifts in culture, cuisine, customs, and class, and examines the struggles of a woman, born in California in 1912, searching for identity. The book is hard to put down, despite its heft (557 pages), but few lives are worthy of such delicious scrutiny.

Julia's life, while charmed and privileged, came with its own profound struggles for self-identification and meaning. I was struck by the meandering of Julia's journey - until her thirties, when she enlisted in the war effort as an office worker for the OSS. The underbelly of her early story includes a lackluster attitude towards school (with grades to match at Smith), a spiritual yearning that never seems to materialize, a jagged relationship with her ultra-rich, ultra-conservative father, and the subsequent idealization of men. Despite all of it, what becomes crystal clear is Julia's extraordinary self-confidence and almost super-human work ethic that continued until her late eighties when she was still master of stage and TV screen. Mr. Spitz, however, does not shine Julia up for public consumption; he keeps her flaws and foibles intact. Julia's husband, Paul Child, emerges as an equally compelling personality, one who was hugely responsible for who, and what, Julia became. "Paul filled a hole in Julia's development," Mr. Spitz observes. Her story is also a powerful look at the allure of food that today is perhaps too available to all of us. For Julia it was that first meal in Rouen, France - a fish, cooked in butter and parsley, with insouciant simplicity, at La Couronne in 1948 -- that hypnotized her.

For a Pasadena society girl to ultimately find a calling when nearing 40 is an interesting enough read, but to become a media icon at age 50 is quite another story. All 6 feet, 3 inches of Julia emerged on television in homes all over America, and from that time forward -- more than three decades worth -- we were treated to indelible images of omelettes, a chorus line-up of raw chickens, bubbling copper sautoirs of boeuf bourguignon, laughter, and learning.

Even more than her recipes, however, was her out-sized personality that served generations of women well beyond the kitchen. (It is interesting to note that Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" was published around the same time as Mastering the Art of French Cooking.) In Dearie, Julia's multi-generational imprint on what then was our gastronomically myopic culture is expertly textured by Mr. Spitz, who makes Julia's personal and professional trajectory of targeted historical importance. Whether or not you grew up watching Julia on TV, or ever mastered the art of French cooking, you will no doubt get a vicarious culinary education by the book's end. Julia's dining experiences, cooking adventures, and culinary travails are enough to make you swoon.

Julia encouraged Bob to write her story. Unhappy with an earlier biography, Appetite for Life, written in 1997 by Noël Riley Fitch, Julia felt that she appeared lifeless and "already dead." Gauging by the multitudinous events slated for the 100th birthday celebration of Julia this week, this month, and in the coming months - including an all-day seminar at Radcliffe, the re-opening of Julia's Kitchen at the Smithsonian, and hundreds of restaurants dishing up Julia's favorite recipes -- Julia has never been more alive in the hearts and minds of those who grew up with her and ate and drank her dreams. Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child is then, a much-appreciated, well-timed gift to us all.