Wicked...

My introduction was far from pleasant. I was in bed defenseless the first time I tasted whoopie pie, pieces shoved into my unsuspecting mouth. Strange to recall now, yet disturbingly true. I was too thin and in need of fattening up, she was going through a bad time and needed an excuse to buy decadent treats. J_ my irrepressibly loud attendant, the one with the gravelly smoker’s voice and Boston accent, the woman who wore leopard print velour leggings and entered my quiet home and tranquil mornings with the cacophonic slam and crash of bags, purses, and every possible moving thing held me captive with a sweet tooth she kept foisting onto me to share.

Key lime mousse torte, ricotta filled cannoli, pumpkin cheesecake, quick breads made from too much zucchini and an overload of nervous energy, all this and more kept filing past my kitchen counter at a mind numbing insulin raising clip. In spite of being near buried by an avalanche of sugar, I could not help noticing her propensity for whoopie pies: mom and pop corner store ones, puffy commercially produced synthetically filled ones; softball shaped and sized ones, even holiday themed ones. In instinctual defense I turned inside myself like a hermit crab shutting off to any possibility for full-on whoopie appreciation. Until recently-- from gentler hands, upright and in the mood, a re-introduction to this hand held confection had me swooning and righting myself round again.

Whoopie pies simply are the stuff of kids’ dreams. Two fetchingly soft and sloped chocolate cookies good naturedly cradle a satiny white cream filling to produce something ‘tween a cookie and a cake. While these quintessential New England treats somewhat resemble the Hostess Suzy –Q’s of lunchbox fame, its over-the-top size, taste and texture wins discerning fans respectably mature and youthful alike.

Though relatively new to this down home comfort food, it clearly answers a call put forth long ago when I was young, unbridled and hungry. Then it seemed as if I was always scanning the horizon for something immeasurably sweet to make up for the boredom of everyday food consumption and the exhaustive efforts of constant play. As well, I wanted more- and lots of it. I was calculating and angling eternally for the bigger piece of pie, stretching my fingers broad to grab a heftier handful of cookies. I willed myself to enjoy adult bitter chocolate since it would increase the consumable yield of my Halloween stash by some small fraction. Loyal only to quenching my hunger, even taste occasionally needed to take a backseat to quantity.

And then there was cake. Better than saltines and Ritz crackers. Better than Millbrook bread, staple of my youth. Serving to serving, loftier than cookies, fatter than brownies, more filling than pie, I preferred cake. This was my food of deliverance. While the holy host, dry and stale wafer is the living body of Christ wedding one to eternal life, soft moist cake embraces the here and now and celebrates every day life on humbler ground. It is warm inviting hug, the promise and hope of lazy summer days. It is the sigh and fulfillment of things wanted, besides leaving a sweet lingering taste behind.

So whoopie pies are the wild uncompromising love children between wholesome if not moderate cake and irresponsibly sweet, drunk-on-vanilla filling. If eaten correctly, hands and cheeks will be dappled and smudged with chocolate crumb stained cream and euphoric feelings will gradually take over rendering one useless for serious matters. These chocolate gobs should not be eaten alone (unless fatally depressed, then it may be advisable to eat two) but amidst jovial company and with chasers of milk. They should never be miniaturized into degrading versions of their jolly ample self. They are the epitome of sweet generosity, innocence and delicious fun. And here in these parts, that translates into being wicked… wicked good that is.

Whoopie Pies makes 4 pies which feeds 16 average eaters and 8 hungry ones: I went straight to the “best of” source, Mr. Christopher Kimball himself. This recipe comes directly from a Kitchen Detective article. His strategy was to produce two very distinct components. The cake-ish cookie was to be moist, yet substantial enough to withstand firm hand pressure without crumbling apart. He also didn’t use vanilla or too much sugar, so that the cake would stand in contrast to the filling which generously uses both. The filling needed to be fluffy yet have enough body so that bites would not send the insides oozing dangerously out the sides. All in all the pies were pretty wonderful. The filling is the best I have ever had. The whoopie pies were worth eating for this alone. Next time I would add 2 oz. of melted unsweetened chocolate to the batter, to intensify the flavor. Note: I did subsequently make these with the additional chocolate and it was better. I ended up altering the butter/confectionery sugar slightly from the original posting as well.

Ingredients for the cookie:
½ C whole milk
½ C Dutch process cocoa
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1 C sugar
1 stick unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1 ¾ C all-purpose flour
¾ tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt

Filling:
1 1/4 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1 3/4 confectioners’ sugar
2 C Marshmallow Fluff
¼ tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. vanilla

Directions: For the cakes, preheat oven to 350. Place parchment on 2 cookie sheets and set aside. Make a slurry with the milk and cocoa in a small pan. Turn heat onto medium, add sugar, unsweetened chocolate and butter mixing until melted. Turn off heat and let the mixture sit for ten minutes. Add both eggs to the cooled chocolate and blend until mixture is shiny. Sift dry ingredients in an electric mixer bowl and add the chocolate. Blend on low until just mixed. Scrape down sides and increase speed to medium for about 90 seconds. Spoon about 4 tablespoons of mixture into a mound on the parchment. Leave 2 inches of space around the cookie. 4 similar size cookies per sheet. Repeat on the next cookie sheet. Bake in oven for approximately 8 -10 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Do not overbake! Cool.

Meanwhile make the filling. Whip butter at medium speed for about 1 minute. Add sugar on low until incorporated. Increase speed to medium high and whip until light and fluffy for about 3 minutes. Add the Fluff, salt, and vanilla and whip an additional minute or so. Refrigerate. To assemble the whoopie pies, flip over 4 discs so that the flat sides are up. Slather the filling equally between the 4 discs and top with the remaining cookies. Cover loosely and refrigerate to help hold shape. After an hour serve or wrap them individually in saran wrap. Enjoy with a big glass of milk.

To Parsnip with Love or Reframing Experience

After striking a dissonant chord with some readers over radishes, I thought back to a post last fall which rallied for roots. If one were particularly observant in its reading, one might have noticed a rather obvious but easy to forgive omission. The parsnip has been categorically ignored, frowned upon, shunned, dismissed, misplaced, forgotten, and disapproved of for the entirety of my life, and for the shallowest of reasons- they give me the creeps. I don’t really remember the circumstances surrounding my first parsnip sighting but I do know with horrific certainty that I diagnosed Pastinaca sativa as albino mutant carrots. They are ugly stubby things with an unforgivable color, the antithesis to life. A swash of images pass over me one more egregious than the last; stiffened bruised corpse fingers, chipped tea-stained teeth, maggots writhing within the cork confines of a kicked open decomposed log. I can practically smell the formaldehyde of a giant segmented and bloated earthworm or a geoduck jarred in captivity, just thinking of parsnips. I know I have a wild imagination and a serious problem too, which is why this particular genus-species has been long banished to the nether regions of my mind until now.

Fast friends with radishes, it is hard to believe there once was a time I snubbed them too. It has dawned on me that parsnips are the final frontier in vegetables, the one that has escaped my kitchen chop block. Only one thin memory of eating ghoulish white rounds in chicken soup exists, my spoon swiftly avoiding contact with the murky discs while I feebly drank some root infused broth instead. The remembrance is fuzzy and unformed, no doubt blunted by some much needed defensive forgetting and a smear of revulsion. I believe the flavor was slightly sweet, herbal and perfumed in a weird kind of way, but nothing so offensive to keep me from exploring the harmless root a little further.

Now approximately twelve years later, the vegetable which has yet to see the light of day and has almost completely composted into oblivion is coming out of the shadows. It is time to interject a little psychology and a smit of realism, after all what other foods are being impulsively annihilated due to my unchecked emotionality? Indeed the parsnip is a defenseless root and not a dead appendage- the parsnip is a defenseless root and not a dead appendage. And it is all too clear that my past association is preventing me from truly experiencing the vegetable for what it is, a brutish yellow white carrot with a wild carrot flavor. Simple as that.

With a little determination and mental processing, I am excited about my new exotic vegetal friend. First I found a recipe for Parsnip Ice cream, which then morphed into an idea for Parsnip Panna Cotta. Lastly with a grand flourish of creativity I decided that I should grate a whole slew and mix them into a gingerbread spiced cake. To my amazement I discovered that others have already danced where I dared to go. But since this is my own personal Goliath, I decided to forgo originality and bake the cake anyways. For as far as I am concerned- anyway I slice it, this experiment has been a success. You can never really lose with cake and now the garden of eating is that much wider.

Nip-n-Sap Bread- This is an Ode to Spring for the Vernal Equinox highlighting parsnips pulled fresh from the frozen ground (which V says makes them sweeter) and maple syrup freshly boiled from the sap. The intention of the bread is to support parsnip’s earthy flavor with the spelt and maple. It is sweet but not overly so, since that would only mask its true flavor. The name is cleverly made up by sweet V- this is for you!

Ingredients:
3/4 C brown sugar
½ C butter at room temp.
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
½ C maple syrup
½ C buttermilk
2 C spelt flour
¾ tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cloves
¼ tsp salt
2 C grated fresh parsnips
½ C chopped toasted walnuts and/or a few handfuls of plump raisins

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9” cake round. Beat butter and sugar on medium speed until creamy, add eggs and mix until incorporated. In a small bowl mix maple syrup and buttermilk together, stir baking soda into the wet mixture. Sift flour, spices, and salt together into a bowl. Pour half of the flour into the butter mixture and beat a few seconds. Pour about half of the wet ingredients in and mix some more. Repeat with the remaining dry and then wet ingredients. Lightly fold parsnips and walnuts into the batter and then pour into the prepared pan. Bake in the oven for about 55 minutes. Done when toothpick in the center comes out clean. Can be gussied up with cream cheese frosting or a brown butter orange frosting, but I think it quite nice with a thin coat of butter and maybe a small bowl of coffee ice cream on the side.

SMORGASTORTA the Swedish Granddaddy of Dagwoods

I am a prudent glutton. I dream. I plan. I imagine elaborate exotic food scenarios that entail tastes, textures and colors from the far regions of the globe. Without realizing it, I can go years feasting on my imagination, planning for the moment when my vision becomes manifest. These food schemes might possess staggering heights of strategically balanced forms like a 250 count profiterole croquembouche encased in a violet-scented sugar spun cage. Or the chef d’oeuvre might be a flock of deep fried quails in a vermicelli nest stuffed with miniature sausages plumped with Armagnac soaked prunes strewn with edible silver leaf. Feathered head dresses are not optional with all of the pomp and circumstance of my Scheherazade-inspired feasts. However the longest standing food fantasy in my repertoire is delivered directly from the humble pages of the nightly paper. Meet Dagwood Bumstead: Patron Saint of the Midnight Snack, Hero of Sandwiches, and Eater of Everything-but-the-Kitchen-sink. I worship you. As a kid, I hungered to be under Dagwood’s tutelage, stacking odd leftovers into a behemoth towering inferno. Pork shoulder (bread), pickles (bread), tongue (bread), cheese and of course, the requisite sardine with tail in tact. The creation, a rough-hewn assemblage of common ingredients is built to satisfy. And thirty some years later, I admit to still never sinking my teeth into as much as a double decker; Patience, Prudence, or just plain Fear of an upset stomach?

More recently I stumbled upon an oddly appealing Swedish party dish called Smorgastorta or sandwich cake. I started day dreaming and planning once again, this version of the bread enclosed convenience food upgraded from the Dagwood. The torta has all the necessary ingredients for inclusion in my mental recipe book: the exhaustive list of ingredients, layers of creamy texture awash in sauce- sour cream, crème fraiche, butter, and cream cheese, the briny flavors of the sea swaddled next to the porcine and celebratory gusto in the form of tomato radish roses, salami cornucopias piped with mayonnaise rosettes and olive accents. As one would imagine, sandwich cakes are concocted to impress, feed and subdue a decent sized crowd of 25 or so. Unsure if I would be able to find a crew with appetites capable of taking on the Granddaddy of Them All, the vision had to be banked…until now. Now I am three months into a food blog with a self proclaimed moniker than challenges me to “beautifully fill out”… literally and metaphorically. Besides I have two special guests with whom I can grandly celebrate time with, my Mother and my Father. This big party of three will chase down and conquer the toothsome torta. We will mark and honor the dreams and passions that thread through a life and then, when the time is right- take flight. Tonight we Smorgastorta!

Prepare the cake one day before it will be eaten to ensure the flavors and textures will come together, but dream about it for at least a few years to imagine the most winning combination of ingredients to claim top notch satisfaction. Remember, this is quite simply a big sandwich with a lot of fanfare that comes from height, girth, vegetables posing as flowers and the meeting of exotic fillings. While the derivative of this particular cake is Swedish, there is no reason why one should not stake any other country and its' foods as inspiration. However, since I do have a great affinity for the full flavored food of this country I stuck with their tradition. For my small party I chose a heart form which appeared to be able to adequately feed 6 moderate appetites. I decided upon pumpernickle for taste not to mention the fetching visual contrast with the creamy fillings. The interior layers went like this:

(Bread base) Liverwurst, horseradish and Jarlsburg cheese

(Bread) Mayonnaise, sliced hard boiled eggs, chopped pickles

(Bread) Sour cream, watercress and ham

(Bread) Shrimp salad made with chopped shrimp, mayonnaise, dill and chopped seedless cucumber

(Bread cap) Frost with sour cream and feather sides with dill. Garnish

As it turned out Smorgastorta which I initially thought was my own idiosyncratic curiosity appealed to many others. It seemed to be a kind of beacon that alerted others that a "good time was about to be had". I think that saying and hearing that word bounce around a few times primes the pump for pleasant feelings.