I live in Philly, and the closest I come to "Southern" is a grandfather from Kentucky I never knew, and grandparents from and family in southern Germany. But I don't believe that biscuits or sausage gravy are something you need a drawl to learn how to make. Sure, a Meemaw who can show you the right way to make biscuits and the correct ratios for gravy, gives you a head start on the those of us raised on scrapple, but a good cook can cook anything.

First, you need to be able to make a good biscuit. If you have some experience baking, this isn't hard. Just remember it's not bread dough, and doesn't need to have a uniform texture.

For the gravy, I started at about.com (Remember them?) and just winged it when I got into the kitchen.

Preheat your oven for the biscuits. Using a 10" pan, start frying a 12-ounce package of breakfast sausage links. The original recipe said to break them apart, but someone likes his sausage whole, and will need years to before he'll think about trying sausage gravy. It turns out only half the links went into the gravy, and that was more than enough. I started the sausage frozen in a cold pan. While the sausage is frying, start making the biscuits.

By the time the biscuits are in the oven, the sausage should be just finishing. Move the links to a plate, leaving behind as much fat as possible. I had about a tablespoon (I'm really bad at estimating) and added another two tablespoons of butter. Whisk in three to four tablespoons of flour to make a roux; cook until the roux is light to medium brown. The leftover fond will make it hard to tell the color of the roux, but exactness is not required.

Whisk in two cups of milk, and get the nice brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Keep whisking as it thickens. The gravy will be very, very thick; if it cools, it will become pudding. If you'd like a thinner gravy, use less butter and flour, or add more milk.

If the reserved sausage is whole, chop into small pieces. Add the sausage bits back into the gravy. There will be a lot of sausage in the gravy. This is not mediocre diner gravy that's mostly flour and milk. Whisk in a dash of cayene, and white pepper and salt to taste.

(I didn't actually do this, I made the gravy, then the biscuits, and the gravy congealed on the stove. I added an extra half cup of milk (two cups total) and stirred over medium heat until I had gravy again.)

Serve over biscuits. Moan quietly.

I can do better, I wrote Cecily.

Pull everything out and make it look "artistic" doesn't help when you need to get dinner on the table in half an hour. Well organized cabinets save you time hunting for what you need, and save you energy because what you need is close to where you are already working. Two people can work in a well organized kitchen without tripping over each other.

So here it is. This is what I did for my kitchen's last big re-organization. I've tweaked the kitchen since the big re-org, but haven't made any substantial changes, as that would require contractors and licensing and who wants to go that route?

Think about how you use your kitchen, and spend a week or two observing yourself and everyone in the household in the kitchen. What happens there: cooking, baking, eating, homework, talking? Watch where it happens: I do almost all of my food prep to the right of the stove. Watch how often you need to walk across the kitchen; something should move closer: you or what you are running to. If anyone else is in the kitchen while you work, do you get in each other's way?

Ask yourself what you want to do in the kitchen?, but be realistic. If you aren't throwing dinner parties for six people now, it's unlikely you'll throw parties for twenty. Where will you want to do things; in a restaurant kitchen this might be called stations. I bake a lot, and need a place with at least three feet of counter space, with an outlet, and near the stove.

Put the things near where you use them (or will use them after re-organizing), just like keeping the dish soap and extra sponges under the sink. Near the oven and the fridge (for eggs, milk and butter), I have a baking station with the mixer, bowls, cake pans, measuring utensils, rolling pins and all my baking ingredients. The pots are next to the stove, as are the spatulas and a set of prep bowls. The dishes are near the sink, dishwasher, and also the door to the dining room. The knives and cutting boards are next to each other and near my prep area and the fridge (but far from the sink).

Ideally, everything is in arms reach, especially the potholders and fire extinguisher. The most frequently used items should be on the lower shelves, the least used on the upper shelves or across the kitchen or in the pantry. My husband loves biscuits; the biscuit cutter is in the drawer with the rolling pins and cupcake liners. Because all the other cutters only appear at Christmas, they live across the kitchen, in a little angled cabinet with a nut grinder and the wedding cake accessories. (This does lead to an out of sight, out of mind problem, and I now have half a shelf full of very interesting but unopened Asian sauces at the very top of one cabinet.)

Not every small appliance must be on the counter. Things that are particularly heavy — the microwave — or that are used at least weekly should be there. If you have the room, put the infrequently used in a cabinet.

Keep like with like: all the vinegars together, even though you never use that sherry vinegar. Don't be afraid to designate, say, the left side of the lower shelf of the pantry cabinet is the oils, next to that the vinegars, then salts, then rices. Whisks go on the left in the drawer, spatulas on the right. When everything has a very specific place, and you've gotten into the routine of if it being there, you won't have to think where to find it or where to put it away.

The specialty organization gadgets are sometimes worth it. Things that I've seen actually used:

• a stepped spice shelf, to see the jars, if you have a lot of spices. (The spices are organized by short jars in front, most used in the second row, others in the third and fourth rows grouped by cuisines. Baking spices are in the baking cabinet. Cardamom in the freezer.)
• in-drawer knife blocks to protect the blades and keep them off the counters, again, if you have a lot of knives
• bars under the cabinets for hanging towels or tools
• jar of tools on the counter
• flatware holder
• the plastic wrap/tinfoil box holder screwed onto the back of a cabinet door
• towel rack on the end cabinet
• wire plate shelf if you have lots of plates
• floor to ceiling free-standing cabinet in an apartment with only two built-in cabinets
• wire rack on the kitchen door when there are few cabinets

Once you have an idea of where you want to move things and what organizing tools you'll use, then, and only then, do you clear and wash out the cabinets. (Bicycle chain degreaser works wonders, by the way, and don't overlook the efficiency of a vacuum over a broom.) While pulling everything out of the cabinets, do some purging:

• any ingredient over two years old
• anything past its expiration date
• anything open with moths or other hitchhikers (check everything)
• anything you don't need so many of, like coffee mugs and deli containers
• any equipment unused in the last year

And if you really, really think you'll eat that box of stale cookies or will use the fondue pot, leave it on the counter to remind yourself. In six months, if it's still unused: purge.

Craigslist or Freecycle is your friend here, unless your kitchen disgorges enough for a yard sale.

Now put everything into its new home. Something won't fit (are the shelves adjustable?), or was overlooked (sippy cups), or someone can't bear to part with it (the mugs), or you just have too damn much stuff? There are solutions:

• my mother stored her pots in the oven; only a solution if the pots are oven safe (Farberware is, but the handle of the splatter guard wasn't.)
• my "broiler" drawer holds roasting pans and odd-sized cake pans
• put the most-used things on the counters or on the walls
• anything pretty can be displayed, and extra points if it doubles as storage; the onions live in a lovely, blue bowl from my aunt and we know when we need onions

And that is how you organize your cabinets, and your kitchen along with it.]]> tag:www.christmas-baking.com,2009:/itsAllAboutTheFood//1.54 2009-12-29T03:55:17Z 2009-12-29T15:30:11Z

I'll say it now, in public, I hate to cook.

Every night when I stare at that empty stove, despair settles in my growling stomach and I decide I'm not really hungry. What can I cook that we didn't already eat this week? Is anything identifiable in the freezer? Anything in the fridge that isn't fuzzy? The cabinet holds so many Asian sauces, pastes, and noodles that something should just spring forth nearly complete therefrom, and yet this miracle does not happen.

I'll read a recipe that sounds delicious, and will get all fired up to make it. I have cookbooks and magazines full of delicious recipes, so many it's easier to measure them in linear feet than count them. But when it comes time to cook, I'm tired, and facing an hour of cooking. The realization finally dawned that the recipes really make me want to eat the dish, but not cook it.

I would much rather be baking. Or eating take out.

I'm not picky. No really, I'm not picky about dinners. Cakes, cookies, breads, breakfast, brunch, dessert, kaffeklatsch — my standards are high. Lunch and dinner? I could (and do) eat the same $3 burrito two or three times a week for lunch (I'm also cheap). Other people may complain of eating Chinese food twice a week, but I figure if over a billion people can eat Chinese food all day every day, I can eat it for lunch and dinner. I'm not picky at all, especially if I'm cooking.

Part of the dread comes from our tight family schedule. As soon as I walk in the door, the clock starts counting down to "get the dinner on the table" time. With two kids asleep by 8:30 (one is four, the other is 16 and up at 4:30 for swim practice), deadline is 6:30, 7:00 if they snack on cashews.

When foodies (and foodiots, the new term for the must document everything in my mouth — ew!) sneer that anyone can whip up a nice vinaigrette, why would anyone buy dressing, it's so awful or that no-one who truly cares about food/their family would serve ... whatever, all I can think is, Get a grip. I am serving a salad, a vegetable, a major portion of which may be home grown or local or organic or at least not going to kill anyone. Some of us had to start by drowning our salads in bleu cheese dressing before we could face a bare lettuce leaf. And I will forgo the five minutes to whip up a nice vinaigrette so that I can spend the time with my kids, playing an extra hand of crazy eights, or reading one more book, or discussing Team Edward vs. Team Jacob.

One hard-learned wisdom is to cook the same ten things over and over for weeknights. (I might be up to 15 or 20 dishes now.) You'll memorize the recipes and hone the skills for that dish (like slicing or chopping); the preparation will go that much faster. You'll know what you need for those dishes, and won't forget to write one ingredient on the grocery list. Some of those ingredients might become staples, so that you can almost always make that dish. Of course, the recipes must be food you like, with luck something even the rest of the family will eat.

Most food magazines have section on quick and easy cooking. I especially like BBC Good Food, and Gourmet's section was attractive (although I never cooked from it). Good Food magazine's whole focus is quick every day cooking, and mostly delivers on this promise. The editors compiled their favorite recipes into Good Food Fast, which I turn to when I tire of those same ten or fifteen recipes. Shortcuts are taken and ethnic recipes are Americanized, but the food is tasty and the preparation times are accurate.

My own inclination is for single dishes that have both protein and vegetables (fajitas, pork with peppers, chili) and need only rice, or dishes that need only a salad (penne a la vodka, penne puttanesca, Spätzle with lentil soup).

Two of my favorite go-to recipes, both serving six people:

Penne Puttanesca

Everything but the garlic comes from the pantry in this recipe, and garlic lasts a long, long time. We make sure to have everything for penne puttanesca on hand, just in case. Everything is really "to taste," and this is my taste. You won't taste the anchovies, but they give the sauce some extra oomph. This freezes well, but be sure to label it, as it looks a lot like chili.

• 1 lb. penne (or as much as you will eat that night)


• 1 can crushed or chopped tomatoes


• 7 cloves of garlic, peeled, crushed or chopped, divided


• 1 Tbs dried basil


• 7 anchovy filets or 1 Tbs. anchovy paste


• 1/2 Tbs hot pepper flakes


• 24 Kalamata or other brined olives, pitted if desired


• 1/4 c. capers (the small ones)

Remember to start boiling salted water for the penne.

Open the can of tomatoes and stir in 3 crushed cloves of garlic and the basil.

In a 10-inch frying pan (non-reactive, not cast iron), heat 2 to 4 Tbs olive oil over medium high heat. Add the anchovies; if whole break up with the back of a spoon or spatula. When the anchovies are heated, add the hot pepper flakes and garlic; cook until fragrant and golden. Add the olives and capers; cook until heated through. Reduce heat and carefully add tomatoes to avoid splattering. Simmer until the penne is done, at least five minutes.

Penne a la Vodka

Again, we usually have most items on hand, even the cream, which makes pretty swirls when stirred into the tomatoes. Also freezes well.

• 1 lb. penne


• 3 cloves garlic


• 1 can crushed tomatoes (not chopped)


• 1 tsp dried basil


• 1 cup heavy cream (or light if you prefer)


• 1/3 cup sliced sun-dried tomatoes.


• 2 Tbs vodka

Remember to start boiling salted water for the penne.

In a 10-inch frying pan (non-reactive, no cast iron), heat 2 to 4 Tbs olive oil and the garlic over medium high heat until the garlic is golden. Carefully add the crushed tomatoes and basil; stir and reduce slightly. If the tomatoes are spattering, reduce the heat. Add the cream and sun-dried tomatoes; stir and reduce slightly. The sauce should be a bit thick. Stir in vodka. Serve.

What I really think is unprintable here because my mother and I maintain a fiction that I don't curse.

Team Jacob, because he encouraged her to go to college.

Bon Appetit

I have perused BA's Thanksgiving issue every year since 1993 (except one year that I didn't think to look for it until — gasp — November, and it had been pulled from shelves by then). It's the most popular cooking magazine in the country, and its current focus is "68 recipes to mix and match: turkeys stuffings potatoes sides breads" (or: meat, starch, starch, token vegetable, starch). The focus is on finding recipes for this year.

Cover: Turkey. And a "new" style for the magazine title I still haven't accustomed myself to.

Pro: Regular columnists Dorie Greenspan and Molly "Orangette" Wizenberg. Both write one recipe and about a page of supporting copy for each issue. Greenspan wrote about Fougasse, and Wizenberg about butternut squash and cheddar bread pudding. Both look yummy.

Con: No other focus on the culture around food. They've had a "learning" feature (now called Prep School) throughout the years that has shifted in status and position within the magazine. Right now it's on page 148, after the main copy (can you say, afterthought?). The travel feature was for downtown LA — I guess the travel budget has been slashed to nothing. The shopping feature now looks like every e-commerce site; at least on the web you can see a larger version of the miniscule photos. Photography on the feature articles is terrible: blown out with sharp, near-black shadows. Typography is ugly — very 70s. Are they trying to be hipster?

Gourmet

How could I pass up the final issue?

Cover: Turkey. Over the life of the magazine, the logo changed only in size and color. Final editor Ruth Reichl enlarged it, and for this issue made it an unattractive safety orange. Teaser headlines worthy of Woman's Day.

Pro: Thanksgiving in rural Pennsylvania, with lots of Germanic-descended dishes. The regular feature Gourmet Everyday Quick Kitchen is the best designed and very attractive, and doesn't look like an afterthought or filler. I'll make either the fig crostata or cranberry-apple crumble from the God Living section to go with the pumpkin pie. The blurb about tablespoons measuring different amounts has inspired me to calibrate all my own measuring spoons. The back page featured dips, one of which may grace the Thanksgiving hors d'œuvres.

Con: "Rural Pennsylvania" really meant "Pennsylvania Amish and Mennonite"; most of rural Pennsylvania isn't Amish. The two recipe-focused features had no background or history of the cuisine. Unreadable, two-column layouts. Pushing all the photos to the front of the article, disconnecting them from the text. Photos are dark. (Is it that hipster look again?) In the photos for Southern Thanksgiving feature, the turkey seems to move from room to inappropriate room, for example, it sits on the coffee table in front of a sofa. Really. The desserts article seems misplaced in the Good Living section; I'd expect it to be a feature article.

Saveur

Cover: Turkey. I didn't buy it.

Cook's Illustrated

In some ways, Cook's has it easier than the other magazines. First, Cook's is one man's focus on developing the best recipes, buying the best ingredients, and using the best equipment. Essays on food are limited to "how I developed this recipe" and Chris Kimball's own folksy reminiscing on New England life. Secondly, this is a Thanksgiving and Christmas issue, thus a somewhat broader scope. Not every November/December issue has a turkey recipe; some years it's ham, or a beef roast. The overall number of recipes is much smaller. Articles often focus on a single dish (green beans, cranberry sauce, winter salads, spiced nuts) with a master recipe and variations, and run only a page or two.

Cover: Pomegranates! Back cover is always a "poster" of related foods or dishes; this year it was holiday breads, holidays ranging from Rosh Hoshana through Mardi Gras. Bread was stretched to include plum pudding, mooncakes and buche de noël.

Pro: One of the baby peas recipes will find its way into this year's dinner, and many weeknight dinners too. Should I become fearless enough to cook scallops myself, I'll turn to this issue. Cook's product reviews are one of the best features of the magazine, and they compare cinnamons, and had the good sense to award Penzey's top honors.

Con: A turkey recipe, beef tenderloin, (chicken) bouillabaisse, scallops and cassoulet: two holiday centerpiece recipes with three more main dish recipes? The cinnamon review compared only one of the four cinnamons that Penzey's offers, and my least favorite at that. This issue, Cook's recycled past product reviews into "The Best Small Appliances." All of which I think you could skip, unless you bake, and then you should have either the stand or handheld mixer (but not both). If you bake with ground nuts, yes, the food processor is damn useful. I do love my blender, but not necessary. Waffle maker? Rice cooker? Crock pot (sorry, slow cooker)?

A freebie

What most readers seem to want (or what most editors think readers want) is recipes, recipes, recipes. But, if anyone cares what I want to read, here are some free story ideas for any food editors reading this:

• Pick any region of America and any time period, and describe Thanksgiving or the typical family gathering/celebration then: New Orleans, Seattle, Texas; during WW II, the settlement of the west, the Great Depression. Bon Appetit did entire Thanksgiving and Christmas issues structured around a theme in the 90s: Thanksgiving in the colonies and Christmas around the world. New England would have to be represented, but any time other than that first Thanksgiving. But what about pre-Columbian native American harvest feasts?
• Immigrants in America. My own off-the-boat grandparents had a very American Thanksgiving; now my cousins' children demand Spätzle from my aunt because that's special, only-at-grandma's food. Is the meal completely American, or are some foods from their home countries served too?
• Celebrate Thanksgiving abroad, like embassy staff. How easy is it to make the traditional dishes? Can you even find a turkey?

But now, aside from bizarre weather patterns giving us 70-degree days, the kitchen is so cool I wrack my brain for something to bake to make use of that radiated heat.

Philadelphia's many farmers' markets provide, if not a glut, then a bountiful supply of crisp apples of many varieties. Jewish apple cake has been my favorite cake since my childhood. It's an easy cake to make, and only gets tricky when layering the apple slices and batter in the pan, and it's none the worse for simply mixing the apples into the batter before pouring into the pan. There's traditional, two-crust apple pie; for a change, there's this single-crust Apfelkuchen with almond glaze or a caramel-apple phyllo tart. When there are simply too many apples, Anne Mendelson has the perfect recipe for applesauce (which freezes well).

Pumpkin is always appropriate to the season, especially this super-moist, nearly creamy pumpkin bread; I like to substitute some brown sugar for the white and add a bit of allspice. If Fall means gingersnaps to you, try some molasses spice spritz or gingerbread.

Sometimes what makes a Fall cookie is more the shape: a good cut-out cookie like Ausstecherle (sour-cream cut-outs) or Mürbteigplätzen (rich sugar cookies) or even shortbread. Most cookie-cutter sets will have something for Fall. The really old sets had a turkey, which was easily mistaken for a Christmas rooster. When your grandmother uses every cookie cutter in the set, you don't question a rooster in the Christmas cookie tin any more than you question the Presidents' Day axe or the Pentecost fish. My inherited cookie press was limited to mostly Christmas motifs and the card suits — they must have played a lot of cards in the 50s — but the newer models from Wilton have patterns for most major holidays, including a cute pumpkin.

Anything brown can be decorated with red, orange or yellow jimmies or colored sugar and proudly declared to be a Fall cookie. New-this-year chocolate-orange lebkuchen, chocolate-oatmeal truffles, and my favorite cake, chocolate roll, all fit this bill. The lebkuchen are an my personal version of a century-old German tradition. The chocolate-oatmeal truffles are quick and easy, and don't even require an oven.

When an oven full of cookies just isn't enough to warm you up quickly, a hot drink is called for. Sure, there's always hot cocoa, which, when homemade, has the benefit of you controlling how much sugar and cocoa you put in, and whether you want a splash of cream or opt for skim milk. You can even make a vegan version using soy or rice milk, but be sure to heat it only to steaming.

Minty white hot chocolate was all the rage in the chain coffeeshops and cafes a few years ago. It's easy enough to make at home, and you can use the $4 you would have spent on a good bar of chocolate, and miss all those chemical tastes. (I know some people do like artificial flavors. More power to them.)

To really get into the mood for the season, choose hot apple cider or Glüwein, a German spiced wine. I serve hot apple cider as a "special something" at Thanksgiving when everyone is arriving, or even just for my son and myself when we get a break from a too-busy week. Germans serve Glüwein at outdoor fall and winter festivals. There are many, many outdoor festivals, from the Fall flea market to the Christkindlmarkt to New Year's Eve. All are that much more gemütlich with a warming glass of hot, spiced wine.

Of course, there are some people who think that Fall is the time to start readying for Christmas. These are not necessarily the people who put up their lights the day after Halloween, or set up the tree (complete with presents) Black Friday. They are planning what to bake, and what ingredients they'll need. They quietly candy peel to be ready to bake fruitcake the next weekend, or mix and freeze Pfefferkuchen dough.

But I wouldn't know anyone like that.

Tools are good only if they serve a purpose — your purpose. For example, I own a Spätzle press. For me, it's very useful. That's my favorite food, and I make them at least every other week from Fall through Spring. This same press gathered dust in my mother's kitchen. Useless in her kitchen, invaluable in mine.

There are tools that no-one uses or will ever use, like a chestnut knife (because we don't have chestnuts in America since the blight wiped them all out) or my Granma's nut grinder, which do serve a purpose; it's just that the purpose is just long gone, due to improved technology or arboreal plagues.

There are, however, tools that no-one will ever, ever use, because they just don't work. Some of these tools are in my kitchen.

Im-meausrably bad

Not only do I have one, I have two of the worst measuring cups. It is impossible to measure accurately with either. The older of the two, on the left, belonged to my Granma and is solid aluminum. To measure, you must look down into it. You can't sweep off excess. I keep it in memory of her and because it looks good.

The second is a gift and is incredibly inaccurate. It has a flipper that slides up and down "with the touch of a button!" The button has markings to indicate cups. The sides have ticks for ounces on one side, tablespoons on the other.When I took the photo, I'd set it to 1/3 cup by the top indicator, which showed 2 fluid ounces on one size (that's 1/4 cup), and 3 1/2 tablespoons (less than 1/4 cup) on the other. The flipper has a rubber or silicon edge, and would be great for measuring honey or molasses, if only it were accurate.

Scraping the bottom

I bought this spatula hoping to replace my old Viennese spatula, which are great for folding, spreading, lifting and scraping. It's the same shape, but with a silicone rubber over a metal body, and that hole. Now, I have other German spatulas that have a hole in the head, and I think it's there for beating stiffer batters (like Spätzle), but this one doesn't seem to beat well. When scraping, the batter falls through the hole and back into the bowl. When spreading, the icing or batter pushes out of the hole. It's heavy. It's awkward. It's sitting in my drawer. It was expensive.

Card-carryingly useless

Yeah, recipe cards. Unusable, and not because I keep all my recipes on the computer. I don't. Most are in books by my stairs or in magazines under my window seat. My own recipes are in a notebook on my counter. But when I want to share a recipe with someone, then I put it on the web and e-mail the URL. If I have to write out a recipe (and I love writing longhand), it's written onto a full piece of paper. The ingredients alone take up most of the first side of the recipe card, and then you're flipping back and forth between the ingredients and the directions.

Pick your poison

I have to admit, that one can use the chopsticks. But. No one ever does. People who don't use chopsticks want a fork, or will try with real chopsticks, before switching to a fork. No one uses the giant plastic tweezers. They are billed as "learning" chopsticks, but using real chopsticks is nothing like wielding giant tweezers.

The bowl is actually great; it's a rice bowl from a Japanese restaurant near an old job. I love it. I'd keep using it, but it freaks my pre-schooler out. He tries to set it straight.

Get a grip

Silicone may not melt at high temperatures, but that doesn't mean it doesn't transfer heat. When I use my cast iron and anondized aluminum frying pans, I like to keep a handle pot holder on the handle so that I can work without hunting for a potholder. It needs to sit on the handle for up to half an hour, without catching on fire (I set something on fire about once a year), and without absorbing so much heat I burn my hand.

Well, it doesn't catch on fire.

It's also too big for the handles, and prone to slipping off all but my largest pan. But it's a lovely blue and I like to hang it from the stove hood.

Crushingly ill-designed

This is the world's worst blender, mostly due to the square jar. Whatever is being blended can't get going before running into a glass wall and losing all its momentum. The end result is that without a lot of liquid, most of the top ingredients stop moving, and an air bubble forms at the bottom. There's lots of banging to push everything down into the blades, lots of stopping and starting, lots of noise from the blender and me.

The worst part is that it's not really broken. The design is broken, but the engine works fine, and, after an insane amount of time and banging and scraping and restarting, the soup or the chutney is blended. I keep it because I can't bear to throw out things that work.

Thankfully, friends gave me their fabulous Kitchen Aid blender they'd gotten as part of having their kitchen remodeled for a TV show (no, really), and I can crush ice, puree soup and make milkshakes in under 20 minutes. But I still have this thing, because I also can't give it away without pointing out that it is, in fact, the worst designed blender, ever. Without the caveat, I feel I'm cheating the potential recipient.

I gotta list it on Craigs List.

It was the early 90s when I first got interested in cooking and baking, and could afford to buy magazines. At least where I was living, the choices were Gourmet and BA. BA seemed friendlier. Normal people cooked from BA. As far as Gourmet was concerned in those years, good food was to be found in California and New York City. (I think this shows Gourmet's NYC bias; NYC was so much the food capital of the country that it could only be rivaled by an entire state.) As a native Philadelphian, this irked me. Fifth largest city in the country, top-20 largest metro areas in the world, birthplace of the country, first capital, home of Ben Franklin and you know what we're known for? Cream cheese that's actually named for Philadelphia, New York (state)2.

At 22, I don't know that I could even have read M.F.K. Fisher with any appreciation. I certainly didn't appreciate her heirs. It was detached from my grandparents' immigrant background, my own relative poverty, my non-New York-ness. Although BA was even then very recipe-centric, it had more writing about food and food culture.

Under Reichl, it was supposed to have changed for the better, focussing more on regional American cooking. (Not everyone agrees.) That almost makes me wish I'd picked up an issue, but the covers were still un-enticing: the close-up of some dish of food; the "best of ..." and "top ..." teasers. I'm not young but even I thought Gourmet was old.

(What I really want is Saveur, which was full of food essays, oddball photography, American regional cooking, unknown-in-America international cooking. The founder proudly stated that they'd never featured a turkey on the cover for the November issue. The first November after he sold the magazine, the new owners proudly featured a turkey. It was appropriate. The zing was gone.)

I often judge a magazine by the last page; I read most magazines back to front. Editors usually reserve the last page for a one-page feature. Saveur's was an archival photograph of people enjoying/experiencing food; BA's is a brief interview with a celebrity about food; Cook's Illustrated puts its index and equipment source information there; Good Food runs the Cookie of the Month (or is that Martha Stewart Living? MS Living might have done that while MS was in jail.) I have no clue what Gourmet does, and I do have a few issues. It was just not memorable, and yet I have issues, articles and recipes from other magazines burned into my brain.

So I pulled out all five of my back issues of Gourmet — June '09, December '05, December '99 (all under Ruth Reichl), December '94 and November '93. The covers are immediately different, with more teasers . Unfortunately, the teasers read like Women's Day, even this summer's issue: "Special All-Grill Issue" "20 Burgers You Must Eat Right Now".

I briefly wondered why I'd bought it, then remembered that Maricel Presilla had written an article for the issue. It is thin. The content is good; the layout is modern; the photographs super-saturated with a shallow depth of field. Modern, attractive but those teasers! Couldn't they get whoever designed Saveur's covers? And the neon colors; were they sharing a graphic designer with Wired? The cover doesn't do any justice to the content within.

Some have argued it's impossible to sell Gourmet's quality when everyone can get schleck for free. Food bloggers, they're looking at you3.

To answer Tyler Florence's question: I don't think they were out of touch, but damn, those covers didn't show it. But I don't think the competition is much better; or rather, if Conde Nast had owned any other of BA's competitors, that they wouldn't have shut them too. Saveur was and Cook's Illustrated is excellent, but both are works of passion by very talented but modestly insane owner/editors who are content not to dominate the market. Good Food is (or was) geared to people with jobs who want a tasty, home-cooked meal that isn't the same ten things, but lets them eat before the kids fall asleep at the table. It too, has a passionate and modestly insane founder. BA is what it is, but even it has added more essays (Orangette) and a regional focus; the October issue was, in fact, all regional American cooking, which might reflect the budget more than a commitment to American cooking.

But once the consultants came in? Little to no chance without a strong profit margin.

1According to the LA Times, BA had more subscribers and was cheaper to produce.

2On vacations out of the country, I spend a lot of time saying "like the cheese" to strangers.

3This is not a blog. Call it what you want. I call it a collection of essays.

How did I get so lucky? Anne is my husband's aunt, and our house is much closer than New York to Ursinus.

Thus, today I have been frantically cleaning my kitchen with a thoroughness usually reserved for Thanksgiving preparation. Clearly, the daily/weekly cleaning wouldn't be enough, not even the monthly, it's-a-rainy-weekend-might-as-well-clean cleaning. The walls and baseboards are scrubbed; the windows windexed; the stone counters oiled. I've evicted two spiders. A bottle of Pedros Oranj Peelz bike degreaser awaits the stove hood.

(No, really, it's much better than 409 or any "kitchen" product. Strips all the moisture out of your hands, of course, but wipe it on, let it sit a moment, scrub it off with a sponge, toothbrush or scrub brush and rinse. It uses orange peel oil, so the whole kitchen smells like a citrus grove when you're done. Or a bike shop.)

Soon, the kitchen should be ready for its close up.

When Anne was discussing the photographs for the article, the reporter from the alumni magazine suggested posing with a "colorful" pot. Which has become a problem in and of itself.

Color isn't really a problem. When we bought our house, I painted all the rooms in the house a nice, neutral white. Then we lived with rooms like white boxes for six years, and I went a little crazy from all that white. As I've repainted, our rooms are combinations of burgundy, sage, moonlight, sterling, cobalt and wheat. The kitchen was renovated into "baby turtle" with lots of wood, stone and stainless steel. Not colorless, but not colorful either.

So I have pulled out every colorful kitchen item in the house. My pots are stainless steel (Farberware), the dishes are white (Corelle) or black, my tablecloths white. This leaves: one red cutting board, some silicone spatulas, a bowl that Anne gave us, some very 90s colored glass bottles, and three pitchers.

Clearly, I need to sell the car and run to Fantes and buy a small set of copper cookware or perhaps Le Creuset. I know, I know, I skipped the whole no-knead bread baked in the cheap Target Le Creuset. It's not that I don't follow the trend, it's that I'm mostly unaware until they've come around two or three times. Also: I'd rather spend the money on new bakeware.

Back to getting ready for the close-up.

Here's one of our shots:

"German," I said, leaving "isn't it obvious" unsaid but understood.

"Not Italian?!" She was astounded.

"They don't have Spätzle," I said.

I was just as astounded that my mother, whose parents were off-the-boat (and a real boat at that) German, would like Italian as her favorite cuisine. Perhaps because she grew up eating German food every day, like I grew up eating American food, and well, no, because cheesesteaks are the reason I'm not a vegetarian. (I love cheesesteaks so much that I eat so fast as to give myself the hiccups.) (And yes, really, it was the thought of giving up cheesesteaks that turned me from vegetarianism.)

My mother's preference for Italian food is just inexplicable. Where are the fasnacht? The spätzle? The leberkäse? (Mom's reaction, "You like Leberkäse? Since when?")

I'm reading Mark Vetri's cookbook, il viaggio di vetri. Having bought five vintage German cookbooks and cooking magazines today, it's impossible not to compare Vetri's operatic work with the workaday cookbooks. Food culture is not something once a month in a fancy restaurant; it's what people eat every day.

Surely it's an unfair comparison. Vetri is not only a restauranteur, he's one of the best in the country. His namesake restaurant, Vetri, is up for a Beard award this year, and Osteria was a semi-finalist. Restaurant cooking dösn't translate well to the home. Restaurant cookbooks give me the same feeling as high fashion — lovely, but it will never make it into my day-to-day.

On the other hand, three of my get-it-on-the-table dinners are classic Italian pasta dishes: penne a la vodka, penne puttanesca, and spaghetti carbonara. My German go-to dinners are Käsespätzle, lentil soup and Spätzle, sausages with good bread, cold cuts (this is the traditional German supper; Germans have a big meal at lunch), and pancake soup (less weird if you eat French toast for dinner too).

Perhaps it's the American interest in savories when considering cuisine versus my own interest in baked sweets, and Germans have a lot of interest in baking. The recent Culinaria Germany said it was the land of 300 breads; I simply say the Germans never forgot that a chewy, whole-grain bread is a damn sight tastier than something that can be compressed into a ball. Germans start and end the day with bread-based meals (although our current German exchange student eats cereal for breakfast here and at home). Often they throw in an extra meal to get a slice of cake; it happens at 3 p.m. and is called "coffee," but the cake is the star. Glorious cakes, with fruit or cheese or cream or chocolate or nuts and every combination thereof, with sides of freshly whipped cream, tortes and kuchen and biskuit and rolladen. Light, fruity cakes in summer, rich and heavy cakes when it's cold. Whatever fruit is in season makes an appearance at coffee.

Christmas is a baker's heaven. Not just the country, but each region has its own special cookies, which may be unknown elsewhere in Germany. Home bakers might specialize not only in Christmas cookies, but in a particular Christmas cookie, like women who make three or four kinds of delicious Lebkuchen. The baked specialties also include breads with nuts or dried fruit, like Stollen and Hutzelbrot.

As far as Italian cuisine in America is concerned, baking starts with cannoli, runs through biscotti and ends with tiramisu, with a quick detour into focaccia. This is as accurate a picture of Italy as Black Forest cherry cake is representative of Germany (never seen it there). One of Nick Malgieri's many fantastic books is Italian Desserts, with dozens of recipes. Gina DePalma, the pastry chef at Babbo, is up for a James Beard award for her book, Dolce Italiano. But. I've delighted in the nuances of German bakeries and Konditereis for 30 years; how could I not prefer that over a half-hearted tiramisu or gloppy cannoli found at "Italian" chain restaurants? (America needs a German chain restaurant: Schnitzel Schnak, anyone?)

Germany has the most misunderstood food culture (and I've always loved an underdog). German specialties will often be passed off as Alsation (a region that has been switched between German and French rule for centuries) or Swiss; Spätzle usually gets this treatment. As much as Americans love their starches and fatty meats, they seem put off by the stereotypical German wurst. In reality, German food is great bread and cakes, salads of seasonal vegetables (often home grown), flavorful cheese and butter, wild game, and fresh fruit or excellent preserves.

German food is at once familiar to me and exotic. It doesn't hurt that our German friends and family are excellent cooks, with their own gardens, living near excellent butchers and bakers. It is the comfort food from my childhood or a dish I've never seen before.

Another recipe from the site might find its way into a published foodie book. We'll see. The author has asked permission (of course I said yes -- I always say yes if asked), but it will be at least this November before publication, if not next November.

After I find a few good recipes in a cookbook, I keep returning to those recipes, no matter how intriguing the other hundreds of recipes are. I could probably stop buying cookbooks if I used all the books I have now.

Hot cocoa really is better with Valrhona. And cream. But everything is better with cream.

If you host a party at a restaurant, order (better: pre-order) a red and white to be served by the bottle during dinner. In the long run, it's cheaper. Also have an open bottle of bubbly and glasses to hand with the appetizers.

Wonder why you can never fit four chicken breasts in your 12-inch fry pan? That's because it's a 10-inch pan. That took 15 years to figure out. Loving my new Farberware pan.

Microwaving an underdone cake will not help. Better to cut the center out and make a ring cake.

If the recipe doesn't say what to do with that one-and-a-half cups of water, don't add the water until you're sure the recipe needs it. Otherwise, you will turn your dough into batter.

Spoon scale, which could be used to weigh spices and leavening. I saw this briefly on some "consumer product test" segment of some daytime show.

Hand-held espresso maker. Now, in my ideal office environment, there would be someone to make me an espresso or cappuccino as the need arises. This little gadget would be ideal, except for 1) the price and 2) the custom "pods," which surely cost double any comparable coffee, and are useless in any other system.