Food Memories: Red Shoes and the Art of Cookie Face

I was five years old when I received a pair of red shoes the color of candy apples. The undyed leather soles were perfectly stitched and smelled like singed salt on a hot pretzel from a food cart vendor on Fordham Road. Inside each shoe was a rubber arch called a cookie that the salesman at Foot Adductor glued beneath the insole. The cookie was the same color as a pencil eraser, but it wasn't as soft. I didn't know what flat feet were and remember feeling somewhat perplexed because ducks had flat feet and I wasn't a duck. I also wondered why someone would put something called a "cookie" inside your shoe that you couldn't eat.

I must have looked at a lot of sidewalks when I was five because whenever I recall this time in my life, all I can see are those new red shoes. One foot in front of the other, moving slowly at first, then picking up the pace while holding hands with a grown up. I remember the asphalt blurring beneath my feet when Dad and I had to run under the elevated train tracks to cross the street in order to make the light or avoid pigeon dropings on our weekly trips to Weber's Bakery.

There were times the sidewalk seemed to move like a conveyor belt. When you're little you can't look over the crowds and figure out how you're going to get where you're going. That's a grownup's job. I'd look left and right when something caught my eye, but most of the time I marveled at my feet and the magic of walking. From 191st Street to Jerome Avenue, under the IRT past Tru-Form Shoes and the florist. I skipped over sidewalk cracks and random black patches of old gum until the smell of Weber's Bakery stopped me in my tracks.

Once inside the bakery, a distinct mix of anise, cinnamon, lemon, orange and vanilla left me in a condition that is best described as "smellmatized." Loaves of fresh bread with light and dark caramel colored crusts were stacked behind the counter by the cash register. You could smell an occasional burst of caraway when a seeded loaf of rye bread was being sliced, but the aroma never asserted itself into the perfume of the bakery. It hovered over the bread slicer and quickly disappeared.

Each loaf of bread sold at Weber's was had a white piece of paper the size of a postage stamp affixed at the heel. It was marked with the symbol of the New York City bakers union. If you were ravenous when you arrived home and were quick to make a sandwich there was a good chance you'd eat the thin paper stamp without a care in the world (they were impossible to remove completely). One day archeologists will discover these stamps inside the stomachs of some of the biggest bread eaters in New York City.

There were four triple shelved cases of pastry that contained desserts inspired by France, Ireland, Italy and Eastern Europe, including a few cognates that made sense to bakers whose families had been in America long enough to assimilate new traditions. If you were a little kid you were surrounded by delicious at eye level. The experience was torture or resulted in a treat. The outcome depended on your parents.












It was Dad, me, my new red shoes and a scam I ran every time the two of us went to Weber's Bakery. I called it cookie face. It was a fun-loving game of food mischief with eleven distinct steps.

Step One:
Inhale at arrival.

Step Two:
Let Dad take a number so he can get a loaf of rye bread.

Step Three:
Smile at the mean looking lady with the hairnet who is wresting red and white striped bakery string to secure a box of pastry for a customer.

Step Four:
Look at shoes.

Step Five:
Walk up to cookie case.

Step Six:
Take a long deep breath.

Step Seven:
Look at cookies and then look at Dad (who always winks on cue at step seven).

Step Eight:
Look at mean lady with the hairnet and smile a little even though she scares you because her stone-faced demeanor makes it look like she doesn't have any lips.

Step Nine:
Look at cookie case and be sad.

Step Ten:
Look at the mean lady with the hairnet and smile a little longer even if she scares you more than the horror movies you watch on television despite being told not to do so.

Step Eleven:
There's no step eleven unless you goofed somewhere between one and ten. You receive a handful of colorful cookies wrapped in bakery tissue as a reward for being cute.

If the mean lady with the hairnet was extra careful when handing over the cookies it meant a rainbow bar or petit four was tucked inside. You'd smile, show the loot to your Dad, and say thank you to the scary lady who wasn't so scary when she smiled and gave you cookies.

We left the bakery with our respective edibles in tow. I skipped and stepped on cracks as I ate my reward, sharing some with my co-conspirator. When we were done Dad opened up the white wax paper bag with the sliced rye bread and we'd each take an end piece and gobble it up gleefully. Sometimes we didn't stop at the end piece and had a lot of explaining to do when we got home. It was funny for us, but not so funny for anyone who thought they were going to get a whole loaf of rye bread when we got home from Weber's.

Notes:
This story is dedicated to the memory of my father, Paul Krell, who taught me everything I know about how to enjoy life and food. He was born on May 1, 1927 in Brzeziny, Poland and died on May 30, 2009, in Bronx, New York. He was a Holocaust survivor and U.S. Army veteran.

Norm Berg was the head baker at Weber's Bakery in the Bronx when I was growing up. He and Stanley Ginsberg co-wrote Inside the Jewish Bakery just before Norm passed away. The book and errata are highly recommended as this is an historic account of bakery culture in New York. Stanley Ginsberg, a passionate baker, has authored a new book titled The Rye Baker: Classic Breads from Europe and America. It will be released in September 2016.

Norm Berg's son, Nathan Berg, was the baker at Vandaag in NYC. I tasted breads he baked before the combination bakery and cafe closed in 2012. Some of the best bread I have ever tasted was made with Nathan's hands.

If you want to understand the role that bakeries played in Bronx culture (and NYC for that matter) pick up a copy of Inside My Father's Bakery by Marvin Korman. It should be a movie (note to Steven Spielberg and Dustin Hoffman).

Sidewalk Flowers is a wordless picture book for children by poet JohnArno Lawson and illustrator Sydney Smith. One of the most charming things about Sidewalk Flowers is how it illustrates father and daughter relationships. The image of the book cover accompanies this post. You don't have to be a kid to read this book. It's timeless and highly recommended, as is this promotional video for the book.

Image of needle tatted flower garland made from bakery twine by Jenny Doh. Used with permission.

Lessons from a New York Moment in Ann Arbor

 










I had a New York moment in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It's been over three years since I arrived from New York. Developers have cannibalized half the places I miss in the city, but home is home and certain things make you miss it like hell even if the places you knew don't exist anymore. New Yorkers can't help themselves. What's trapped inside our heads from childhood defines our whole life; forever. 

A New York moment, now? It took me a year to realize that all of the things I thought I couldn't find anywhere else in the country were here; food, friends, quirky creatives, local coffee roasters, community, people who are driven by "why?" instead of "so what?"  So what took so long? 

Lesson One: My problem was that I thought New York City was the center of the universe. It isn't. Especially now.

The possibility of a New York moment in Ann Arbor existed the day I arrived. There are a lot of ex-New Yorkers in Ann Arbor. Some up and left because they were bored. Others had kids and thought New York City was 'no place to raise a family'. Some folks went to The University of Michigan and felt the same urge Diaspora Jews had for "the return". Baby boomers who experienced one too many trips through the revolving door marked "failing economy" got tired of the unrelenting vertigo and took off to explore entrepreneurial terrain. 

Ann Arbor has grit that's driven by synaptic impulses (it's home to The University of Michigan) and it's cheaper to live here than it is in New York. There's no shortage of great restaurants either, though you'll have to go to Ypsilanti if you want really good Chinese food. As far as supermarkets go Kroger is a food mecca and if you're in luck, the first cashier you meet will know more about science fiction than the entire cast of The Big Bang Theory (in my case a cashier recognized that "the Krell" were an advanced race from outer space in the movie Forbidden Planet and was happy to tell me so when he saw the spelling of my middle name). Buh-bye New York. I'll visit often, but when I do please know I'm not staying for good. People in Ann Arbor are characters and as the only "trained nose" in Ann Arbor, so am I.

Lesson Two: Wishing for a New York moment is equivalent to spell casting; one wish and the moment will immediately find you. 

My New York moment in Ann Arbor (or A2 as the locals call it) happened when the unstoppable troika of food, love, and loss followed me into the jam section at Babo: a Market by Sava. Babo is a gourmet food store in Ann Arbor that feels like a less neurotic Dean and DeLuca and is marked by authentic conviviality that is particular to the Midwest.

I dropped by the market on a grey winter day in February and was on a marmalade mission. Babo stocks Medlar marmalade from Spain that's impossible to find if you live stateside. Juergen Ausborn introduced me to this unusual fruit via a jammy confection sold at a Pierre Marcolini chocolate shop he managed in New York City. (The chocolatier is based in Brussels and is no longer operating in New York; the line was dropped a year after Ausborn drowned while snorkeling in Bermuda).

Pierre Marcolini offered some of the most exotic and delightful chocolates I'd ever eaten. The store was around the corner from The Clarins Fragrance Group where I worked as a marketing consultant so it was easy to give into temptation at least twice a week. The chocolatier was known for masterfully applying floral flavors in some of his chocolates. What he did with violet and tonka bean was beatific. 

I walked up to the cash register at Babo's coffee counter with flavor remembrances in tow when suddenly my eyes were drawn to colorful and oversized rainbow bars (aka seven-layer Neapolitan bars). They were childhood magnified. The decades peeled back as I looked at them; I was standing at the cookie counter at Weber's bakery in the Bronx hoping one of neatly arranged rainbow bars in the glass cookie case would find its way into my mouth. If an accompanying parent didn't buy the rainbow bars I'd deploy "cookie face" which was a glassy-eyed combination of wonder and sadness. Cookie face worked wonders on the meanest lady in a hairnet. I never left the Weber's without a few free treats. This amused my father. My mother, on the other hand, found it reprehensible even though I'd always share.

Lesson Three: When you think you've found New York you have really found yourself; no matter where you are.

All of the cookies that Babo makes are showcased inside glass domed cake stands. The presentation is so beautiful that even an oat bar looks like a deliberate work of art. The colorful macarons are a visual respite from what can be seen at the opposite side of the counter by the window; dull snow covered sidewalks, salt parched asphalt roads, and a gray sky that lasts into forever. The cashier tells me that the macrons are delicious, but very delicate. "Once in a while I get to eat one that breaks," she says with a reserved smile. I tell her how excited I am to have finally found medlar jam and she encourages me to speak with one of the store's owners. "His name is Kris and he loves to talk about food," she says. 

The woman at the counter was right about Kris. He and I had an animated conversation about food. Kris and his sister Sava own Babo, Sava's Restaurant, and Aventura in Ann Arbor. The food business is family business and each of their enterprises is well run and beloved. There was something familiar about Lelcaj's elocution and it turned out that he and his family once lived in the Mosholu section the Bronx. My family moved to nearby Pelham Parkway after spending 20 years in the Fordham section of the Bronx. We reminisced about the neighborhood bakeries we knew, trips to Arthur Avenue, and agreed that the Bronx was and still is a very special place, which is largely due to its diverse immigrant population. 

"Whenever I visit it doesn't matter whose house I'm in. When my head hits the pillow and I hear the overhead trains I know I'm home," says Lelcaj. I began to recall an experience I had when I visited my sister in Forest Hills last year. I was instantly comforted by the sound of overhead trains on the first night I went to sleep after flying in from Detroit. Forest Hills resembles a larger version of Pelham Parkway so it's easy to feel the comfort and nostalgia of being home in Queens. I hadn't recalled this memory until Kris shared his story.

Lesson Four: If you talk about food it can bring back the dead.

                            "Our family has always been in the food business," Lelcaj says. "The store is named after my father, Mark. He was with us when we got started, but died of pancreatic cancer in 2011 before it was finished." 

I thought about my own father who died of pancreatic cancer in 2009. I told Kris I was sorry about his dad and we shared stories about our fathers' experiences before and after cancer. Kris tells me that Babo is an endearing Albanian term that loosely translates to "father". "It's funny," he says. "People who never knew my father say his name all the time. I like that. It's like he's always here." Kris's voice is mixed with humor and low-key irony.

                                                                                                                                                       

                                      




The conversation shifts to neighborhood bakeries including trips to Arthur Avenue. Kris informs me that Babo's offsite baking facility smells like heaven on earth when the all of the ovens are running at once. I imagine the smell of the Stella D'oro cookie factory from my childhood, and the perfume of vanilla, anise, cinnamon, and lemon that made my sister and I roll down the car window so we could get as much of that sweetness into our lungs as was humanly possible (we'd practically hyperventilate). These experiences led to the permanent appearance of Stella D'oro Breakfast Treats on the shelf next to the cereal in our kitchen pantry. The "S"-shaped treats were a food group in our household and each of us was known to enjoy them with a little bit of grape jelly. 

Lesson Five: New York has a cookie that really isn't really a cookie, and a really good one doesn't exist in Ann Arbor...yet.

The texture of Stella D'oro Breakfast Treats is slightly crumbly and reminds me of a New York cookie from my childhood that is really a large handheld cake masquerading as a cookie. Black and white cookies are frosted with equal halves of vanilla and chocolate icing. Memories of eating them inspire an insatiable craving so I ask Kris if he remembers them and he does. The staff at the take-a-number bakeries of our childhood would hand tie boxes of these cake-like cookies and hand them off like presents. Black and White cookies had a tendency to disappear. 

There aren't any cake boxes or spools of striped bakery twine at Babo, but the gourmet food shop is rife with imagination and possibility. I ask Kris if he thinks Babo could make black and white cookies. He thinks about it and smiles. We exchange business cards and I make my way towards the door with four jars of medlar jam in hand. The temperature outside is bitter cold, but it doesn't bother me. Kris had a gleam in his eyes. I saw a black and white cookie in their light...

Notes:
For a great description of the Stella D'oro aromascape read Ian Frazier's article "Out of the Bronx: Private Equity and the Cookie Factory," in the February 6, 2012 edition of The New Yorker. 

For the record, the producer of The Big Bang Theory is Mark Cendrowski; a graduate of The University of Michigan. Word, nerd...

Kate Krader, chef and writer for Food and Wine, insisted on visiting one of the local Pelham Parkway bakeries in my neighborhood when we were just out of college. Her quest? The perfect black and white cookie. She returned to Greenwich Village with a bag of them.

I've been working for two arts organizations at The University of Michigan since February 2013. Each organization promotes interdisciplinarity that is inclusive of the arts. The Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) is a national organization. ArtsEngine is a local one. Both are housed on North Campus at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

The Savor of Memory: Butter Tarts

 
Butter tart; the sound of the two words strung together are pure poetry. Say the name once and the alliterative “r”s wrapped at their ends make the lips purse slightly, revealing a mouth that looks like a child’s begging for a morsel. Say the name twice and the appetite instantly registers the delectable thought of taste buds taking a bath in sweet butter with a flourish of perfectly flaked crust.

I first encountered butter tarts on a trip to Parry Sound in Ontario, Canada. My husband and I were staying at a family cottage on Crane Lake when our hostess, Kathy Fenwick, pulled out a tray of 24 miniature butter tarts she purchased at a local Walmart. Her eyes twinkled with excitement as she broke the seal, “They don’t have these stateside. I can only get them when we’re in Canada because they're a local kind of thing. You really ought to try one.”

The petite butter tarts were arranged in six rows of four and resembled a collection of defective pecan tarts that didn’t get the proper smattering of crushed nuts somewhere along the Walmart conveyor belt line. A caramel-colored filling gave each pastry a generic and less than seemly appearance. Something in my mind could not reconcile the words “Walmart” and “local”, so I did not partake. That changed the next day and was prompted by a Crane Lake remembrance ceremony for Tom Horsman, a family friend who died in 2010.

The water was particularly placid on the day four boats gathered at Mr. Horsman’s favorite Crane Lake fishing spot. Many in attendance had recently lost loved ones (all fishing enthusiasts) and as a family friend eulogized, created an “overlap of souls” in our presence. Tom's daughter Cynthia cast her father's fishing rod with his favorite lure into the lake and drew it back as memories and tears were shared. We were in the boat with Aunt Kathy when she sent a miniature butter tart sailing on the surface of the lake adorned with a few yellow mums

Aunt Kathy’s thoughtful gesture was inspired by the fact that Tom Horsman loved butter tarts and couldn’t wait to eat them when he and his family arrived at their lakeside cottage. The poignancy stuck, as did a curiosity for butter tarts. I tried Walmart’s version when we got back to the cottage. It was good, but the thought of finding the real thing and uncovering its history was even better.

The next day my husband, Kathy and Sally Lake (the aforementioned eulogist and serious butter tart enthusiast) powered up the boat, arrived at the dock and made a beeline for the car. We drove into town and parked a few steps away from the Country Gourmet Deli, Bakery and Café on James Street. There was a giant wooden moose at the front door and from a distance it didn't seem like there was anything particularly compelling about their offerings. When you stepped inside and arrived at the dessert case everything changed.

Gone was the commercial precision of bakery chains where each category of pastry looks so perfect the notion of human hands being involved simply never crosses the mind. Each offering at the Gourmet Deli, Bakery and Café had a designated shape that was noticeably handmade. The tarts and cookies were marked by a familiar sandy hue that typifies all-purpose flour used by home bakers. The names of each pastry were handwritten in black script on white rectangles of paper; some were legible, some were a little hard to read because the black ink bled through the paper. This was no Walmart.

Gourmet Deli, Bakery and Café offers a variety butter tarts including regular, raisin, pecan and chocolate pecan. Each tart is hand-crimped and resembles a flower. The center has a slightly hardened glaze that conceals the mark of butter tart excellence; a buttery sweet syrup filling that rushes out to meet an eagerly held spoon (or mouth when there is a native Canadian on the other end; some children and adults have mastered the art of eating a butter tart this way despite the fact that the ambrosial goodness in the center has a tendency to run down one's chin). Canadian writer and etymologist Bill Casselman refers to Canadian butter tarts as the "northern nectar of the oven" which is the best description I've come across.

Butter tarts are unique to Canadian foodways, but one cannot discount the influence of immigrants to the country; particularly the Scottish and their Ecclefechan butter tart. According to Sheldon Posen, curator for Canadian Folklife, Ethnology, Cultural Studies at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, "No one else has a butter tart. There are several relatives (or some would say, ancestors) usually cited, such as treacle tart (England), pecan pie (Southern U.S.), black bottom pie (Mennonite), sugar pie (French Canada). But all of these use sweet syrupy bases (molasses, corn syrup, maple syrup) or rely for their identity on additions (pecans). Granted, most have butter in them, but that is not their defining feature. The classic Canadian butter tart uses creamed butter and sugar as its base."

The annual Brampton Fall Fair has run a butter tart competition for decades and competition is fierce. So are the politics regarding what a "true" butter tart is. (The one I ate from Gourmet Deli, Bakery and Café included a touch of maple syrup in the center that may be scoffed at by purists.) The Sweet Oven Inc. in Barrie, Ontario offers 20 varieties of butter tarts, and they reside in the area where the original recipe for butter tarts was published in The Women’s Auxiliary of the Royal Victoria Hospital Cookbook in 1900.)  

Toronto Star food writer Marion Kane, writer Max Burns and artist Charles Pachter were interviewed in 1991 by CBC radio and shared their opinions regarding the pedigree and history of butter tarts. All agreed that the mark of a great butter tart is a slightly runny center. I side with all of them. My only regret is that it will be at least a year until I'm in cottage country again. I'll have to dream about butter tarts for now. Thanks Tom Horsman.

Notes:

Tom Kydd (my father-in-law) and Tom Horsman were best buddies on Crane Lake and knew each other since childhood. Both passed away within months of each other in 2010. My father, Paul Krell, died a year before Tom Kydd did and was an avid fisherman himself. Tom Kydd and my father both served in the U.S. army during the Korean conflict. Dad was in the first division and was stationed in Schweinfurt, Germany. Coincidentally, my father-in-law was in the tenth division which replaced the first division after they had left. Whether she knew it or not, Sally Lake's comment regarding the overlapping of souls was a part of the earthly spectrum of life for both.

The Country Gourmet Bakery Cafe is located at 65 James Street, Parry Sound ON P2A 1T6. Phone: (705) 746-5907.

The New York Times published a recipe for Butter Tarts a few years after this article was published. It's worth making. 

The photograph of Cynthia's hands with father Tom Horsman's favorite fishing lure taken by Ted Steeble. All rights reserved.

The photograph of  "The Two Toms" taken by A.J. Kydd. All rights reserved.

Additional photographs taken by Michelle Krell Kydd. All rights reserved.

Crumiri: Cornmeal, Vanilla & Memory

My father introduced me to fire when I was seven years old. He watched over me as I stood on a step stool and cracked two eggs in a pan. The familiar popping and crackling sounds that define the melody of fried eggs began, followed by a soft cacophony of squealing that resembled the chatter of hungry baby chicks. I asked my father if he could hear the chicks under the pan lid. He smiled, making several attempts to conceal his laughter. When the eggs were done I turned down the flame, opened the lid and slid two sunny-side-up eggs onto my plate.

My father was a better eater than a cook. When he chose to prepare a meal he had a hodgepodge style of assembling savory dishes that involved caramelizing onions before adding potatoes, meat and any appropriate leftovers he could find. Dad never indulged in pastry making but there was one unusual exception; cornmeal dough designed for catching carp. My father had a precise method for cooking the bait so it would form a firm, but malleable ball when it was finished. The recipe was simple; one cup of water, one cup of cornmeal, one tablespoon of sugar and a tablespoon of pure vanilla extract. Vanilla, according to my father, was the magic ingredient that lured carp. On one occasion my mother, who regularly used vanilla to bake cookies and cakes, chastised my father for using the “good vanilla” in his bait formula. While searching for an alternative a European butcher he knew recommended powdered vanillin, an assertive artificial vanilla used by bakers to add creamy vanilla flavor to pastry. Vanillin powder was a hit with carp which left my mother with a new dilemma; she had more fish to clean.

On May 30, 2009 I lost my 82-year-old father to pancreatic cancer. I am filled with comfort each time his spirit visits me through memory. How and when these moments occur is not predictable, but they are most intense when I am around food or nature; two of his great loves that were generously passed down to me. The story you are reading is the result of a blotter of vanillin I smelled while in perfumery class at Givaudan in September. One whiff and I instantly remembered the smell of my father’s carp bait cooking, the way he shaped the dough in his hands and how his hazel eyes gleamed when he said it was good enough to eat. I wanted to find a way to immortalize that memory with something I could eat. The resulting search led to crumiri, a Piedmontese cookie made with cornmeal. Crumiri can be flavored with a variety of extracts and spices; just like a master dough. Piping the cookies is the traditional manner in which crumiri are shaped, but I chose to roll the cookies individually by hand in order to enter into communion with the memory of my father shaping his cornmeal dough.

Glass Petal Smoke’s recipe for crumiri has a digital lineage that begins with Father Giuseppe Orsini's Italian Baking Secrets, migrates onto the pages of Ivonne's Cream Puffs in Venice and finally lands on Clotilde Dusoulier’s Chocolate & Zucchini website. I have modified Ms. Dusoulier’s recipe to suit my tastes and memories. Since the cookie is Italian in origin and cornmeal is yellow, it seemed appropriate to add Italian bergamot (Citrus bergamia) for a bright twist.* Food grade essential oil of bergamot for this recipe was obtained from a flavorist. One and one half teaspoons of lemon extract will deliver superior results if you don’t have access to food grade bergamot.

Crumiri
Yield: 4 dozen

Ingredients:
· ½ cup (plus 5 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
· ½ cup (plus 3 tablespoons) organic cane sugar
· 2 large eggs, at room temperature
· 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
· 10 drops of food grade Italian bergamot oil (or 1½ teaspoons of lemon extract)
· zest of one organic lemon
· 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
· 2/3 cup stone-ground yellow cornmeal
· ½ teaspoon non-iodized sea salt
· ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Instructions:
· Divide oven racks into thirds and preheat the oven to 350°F.
· Line two baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper and set aside.
· Soften butter in the microwave for 50 seconds. It should be partially melted (not warm) when it is done.
· Cream together butter, bergamot oil (or lemon extract), lemon zest and sugar. In a separate bowl beat the two eggs and vanilla. Add the butter mixture to the egg mixture and incorporate.
· In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, nutmeg and cornmeal. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and incorporate.
· Shape one teaspoonful of dough at a time by placing it between your hands and rolling it between the centers of your palms, pressing down very slightly. Place onto baking sheet in rows of four.
· Bake for 15 minutes, turning and reversing trays from top to bottom at 7.5 minutes and continuing to bake for another 7.5 minutes or until slightly golden around the edges.
· Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
· Store in an airtight container.

Notes:

*Italian Bergamot essential oils found in health food stores or online aren’t necessarily food grade. Find a reputable stockist that states that the essential oil of bergamot they sell is cold-expressed from the peel and food grade. Enfleurage in NYC is a good source. Dose conservatively as food grade essential oils are highly concentrated.

Cornmeal dough recipes are commonly shared among carp anglers, but claims regarding ingredients that give the bait its power vary with folkloric regularity. One angler cites several ingredients common to perfumery including; bergamot, cumin, fennel, lavender, lovage, sweet birch, orris root, peppermint, rue, tonka bean, wintergreen and valerian. Carp have a highly developed sense of taste and smell which contributes to their survival as bottom feeders.

This post is dedicated to the memory of my father, Paul Krell, born Perec Krell in Brzeziny Poland on May 1, 1927. Brzeziny was named for the town's numerous birch trees and was home to a blossoming textile industry that gave birth to many generational tailors. My father was one of those tailors.

In Search of a Cookie (Part Two): Cuccidati Revealed

A week after John and I discover pastry bliss at Bruno's, I find myself thinking about his cemetery visit and the direction it is taking both of us. Determined, bleary-eyed and under-caffeinated, I enter Antoinette’s Patisserie in search of a drink dubbed the Euro; a magnificent beverage based upon cappuccino served in Italy. The Euro is smaller than its American cousin and the milk is steamed to scalding, breaking down the sugars and eliminating the need for sweetener.

Chef Antoinette Beham and I have become good friends over the years as we share a mutual love of baking. When I enter the patisserie, she calls me into the back of the kitchen and I accept her invitation with anticipation. I greet Antoinette, a petite woman with soft brown eyes and a large cake knife in her hands, and am requested to taste cuttings of two different cakes she’s designed for a wedding. The cakes are physically identical in terms of size and shape and I’m not given any clues about flavor. Antoinette is using my skills a professional “nose” to evaluate taste and flavor in each cake. Since I’m a sucker for dessert and she has a knife, I willingly oblige.

The first cake is positively decadent—three layers of syrup-infused sponge dressed in white chocolate mousse. I enjoy the textures and mouthfeel, but there isn’t enough contrast in the flavors. The next cake looks similar, but the taste is out of this world. It’s a refreshing lemon mousse cake that has the same structure as the first cake, but the contrast of refreshing lemon filling and delicate mousse against the fluffy moist texture is heavenly. It’s so delicious I have a second slice to make sure I’m not dreaming. If the bride-to-be doesn’t choose this cake her marriage is doomed.

“I’m not  particularly fond of the white mousse cake and I’ve tried to tell the customer that white chocolate mousse is better with something strong, like dark chocolate cake,” says Antoinette. I agree, adding that white chocolate is not true chocolate, a subject for future culinary debate. I begin to tell her about John’s cookie quest and her eyes light up. She calls for her sister, Tina, who also works in the patisserie. “You’re friend is Sicilian, isn’t he?” Antoinette asks, her intonation indicating that she already knows the answer, being half Italian herself. “Yes, he is,” I reply. “We went to Rocco’s and Bruno’s in the city and couldn’t find the cookie.” Antoinette looks at Tina and smiles. It is evident that they have had this cookie or at the very least, are familiar with its spirit.

Antoinette, a former pastry chef at Le Cirque, stops to think and says “I know that cookie. It’s probably one of those cookies that someone’s grandmother made in Sicily, maybe a holiday cookie with Italian mincemeat, like a pierogi that has been sliced. It’s not mustazzouli, but I’m not sure what it’s called. Those kinds of cookies don’t get into bakeries like canoli. It’s funny. I have been thinking about them for the past week and want to make them myself.” The next day I return for coffee and strike up another conversation with Antoinette. She reflects on her days as a student at The Culinary Institute of America and a research assignment she had to do on the subject of walnuts. “You know, you discover all kinds of interesting and odd facts when you go to the library to do food research.” Later that evening, I raid Google with the resolve of a bloodhound. “Okay, think. Search smarter,” I tell myself. Then I type the magic words, “Sicilian baking.” Jackpot.

Anna Maria Volpe is an Italian chef with Roman and Sicilian roots. Her website has a variety of recipes and in the dessert section there is a Sicilian fig cookie called cuccidati (also known as buccellati). She has taken Chef Nick Malgieri’s recipe for cuccidati and adapted it to suit her taste, (I have done the same with ma’amoul, adding homemade Tahitian vanilla extract and China cassia cinnamon to the date paste mixture). I call John J. Miceli at 9:30 p.m. “I think I found your cookie, but I’m not sure.” I do my best to pronounce the names in Italian, reading the filling ingredients one by one. “So, what do you think?” I ask him. “It sure sounds like it, especially the spicy part,” he says, his smile evident over the phone line. We decide to see if De Robertis Caffe in the East Village sells cuccidati.

It’s a strange autumn day in October. The the sky peals with sunshine one moment and bawls rain the next. John and I are walking east on 14th Street, towards the café. As we pass Veniero’s, John tells me that the De Robertis Caffe's history spans four generations and that many of the Italian bakeries in the area are now run by families of Arabic descent. Opened in 1904, De Robertis occupies the same New York City block that it did at its inception. John’s mother grew up in the area and it is one of the reasons we have decided to explore its desserts. It turns out that De Robertis doesn’t sell cuccidati, but Joseph, one of the managers, tells us that the cookie is sold in December for the holidays. We’re so close to solving the cookie mystery, but have to wait two months longer. 

The following week I meet with Antoinette and she suggests I look for a more authentic recipe than the one Volpe re-orchestrated. I find a cuccidati recipe by Marianne Esposito that appears to be genuine, but lacks the flavor register of an “ah-hah” moment. I’ve seen Esposito’s programs on public television and she shares Sicilian recipes that are faithful to tradition. I come to the conclusion that John’s cuccidati is slightly Americanized and that Volpe’s recipe, which resonates strongly with John’s memory of a childood cookie, is the best clue we have. The pursuit of the cookie is put on hold as I prepare to fly to Chicago the next day. Unbeknownst to me the spirit of Beppina, John’s aunt, is getting restless. 

While in Chicago I have the luxury of spending two hours alone on Michigan Avenue, following a day of tedious business meetings. I find myself craving coffee after a bit of window shopping, but refuse to find solace in a plethora of Starbuck’s that populate the neighborhood. I was about to give up and go back to the Westin Hotel when I passed by the John Hancock building and discovered a food court on the lower level.

I venture inside L’Appetito, an Italian café and deli, and stand on the coffee queue. When I get to the cashier, I notice a pastry case and am immediately struck by a tray of cookies that look like the cuccidati on Anna Marie Volpe’s website (the sprinkles were a dead giveaway). I ask for a half dozen and head for my hotel room. Once inside, I sit at a desk and carefully remove two cookies which are wrapped in a piece of transparent waxed paper inside the bag. The gustative recognition is instant; every taste that John had described is inside these cookies; the small bits of chocolate, orange peel, traces of clove, fig paste, and faint hints of espresso.

I call John and tell him what I’ve found. It isn’t even December, but there are cuccidati in Chicago. The other four cookies never make it back to New York. I eat them on the plane ride home, 20,000 feet above the ground, and wink at aunt Beppina in the clouds.

Notes:

Anna Marie Volpe’s recipe for cuccidati (complete with demonstration photos) can be found here. Her recipe is a dead ringer for the cuccidati at L’Appetito. I’ve made these a few times and prefer to omit the sprinkles.

Antoinette's Patisserie is located in Hastings on Hudson, a quaint village in Westchester. A 40 minute ride on the Metro North (Hudson line) will take you from Grand Central Terminal into the village of Hastings. The ride is extraordinarily scenic with impressive views of the Palisades on the western side of the river. The patisserie is a ten-minute walk from the station.

Update: John J. Miceli was a dear friend and colleague at New York Magazine. John died in his home on Horatio Street in New York City on November 29, 2023 surrounded by family. His obituary is a wonderful tribute to a gentle, loving and caring human being who embraced life with gusto and a marvelous sense of humor. This article was written nearly 14 years before the day of his passing.

Part one of this story can be found here. 

Photo of cuccidati from Baking Delights.

In Search of a Cookie (Part One): Ma'amoul

John J. Miceli is thinking about his childhood. He removes a cigarette from a burgundy box of Dunhill’s® and holds it between his lips. His callused thumb runs against the starter, the metallic snap narrating a spark as it turns into a flame. The end of the cigarette glows and momentarily fades to black, flecked with gray and white ashes that quietly drop off. He takes a long and thoughtful drag, followed by an exhalation of smoke perfumed with nostalgia. He is intriguingly pensive, running his hand along the side of his face as if searching for the reason his five o’clock shadow has arrived at three.

John is an American of Sicilian descent, graced with a full head of salt and pepper hair and a marvelous sense of culinary adventure. He is thinking about the rich aromatic meat dishes his mother cooked when he was a boy, during the years his father owned a butcher shop a few blocks away from the United Nations—where we are presently strolling. As a child of Italian immigrants, he was initiated into the world of tripe, brain, kidney, liver and heart, organ meats that today’s “chicken-finger” eating children would sooner retch than relish. He takes another drag from his cigarette after sharing a memory and when he exhales, the smoke dissipates in a gust of October wind, taking the recollection with it.

I’ve known John for over fifteen years. A mutual love of food and fierce passion for coffee and dark chocolate continuously kindle our friendship. On a Friday afternoon, after dining at the Ethiopian Meserkem in the West Village, we decide to head towards Bleecker Street, where a string of Italian bakeries line the street. John has been haunted by the memory of an Italian pastry whose name he cannot recall. He describes it as a cookie filled with a spiced, brown fruit paste made of dates or figs. The mixture contained bits of chocolate, candied orange peel, and perhaps some powdered espresso.

John’s craving began at historic Calvary Cemetery in Queens, while he was visiting his aunt’s grave. After paying respect to his parents, he went to the site where his aunt Alphonsina was buried. He stood across “Beppina’s” grave (a nickname given to her by John’s uncle, Achille) and remembered how he and his family would always bring pastry to her house whenever they dropped by. There was one particular cookie that came to mind, something related to the holidays which became symbolic of these visits. That is when his craving began; “I could taste this cookie as if it was in my mouth,” he says, “and have been thinking about it ever since.”

John’s craving is intense, so a quest for the special cookie begins. We walk down Bleecker Street and enter Rocco’s Pastry Shop and Espresso Café. The cases are filled with an assortment of butter cookies and Italian standbys like biscotti, cannoli, bocconotti, and pignoli nut cookies. There seem to be more tourists than natives in the pastry shop, which is overflowing with Italian kitsch. John scans the dessert cases like a speed reader and clears his throat before announcing, “They’re not here. Let’s try another place down the street.”

We head to Bruno Bakery and discover more variety and color in their pastry displays. John describes the cookie of his childhood to the counter girl, but she is not familiar with what he shares. Our eyes are transfixed by several pastries in the form of single-serving cakes with flavors like caramel pear, dulce de leche cheesecake, and chocolate hazelnut mousse. Other beguiling and mouthwatering treats are meticulously arranged behind the pastry cases, stirring our cravings until there is nothing to do except give in. The air is laden with vanilla, butter and hospitality, so indulging in espresso and dessert seems inevitable and apropos.

Wanting food because you need nourishment is very different from craving something—craving is sparked by the mingling of desire and memory. John’s description of the fruit-filled cookie of his childhood reminds me of ma'amoul. Ma’amoul is a Middle Eastern butter cookie filled with a paste of dates and walnuts. Dates are redolent of brown sugar and caramel notes. When combined with lightly toasted walnuts they meld with the nut’s earthy, astringent and creamy qualities. The addition of orange blossom water lends an indecipherable beauty to ma’amoul, one that is initially exotic to the unaccustomed palate, but like any new pleasure, becomes agreeably familiar and potentially addictive.

I offer to make more ma’amoul for John and he smiles, reminding me that it was the Arabs who brought pine nuts, apricots, figs and dates to Italy, exerting influence on Sicilian baking. He’s also quick to add that Catherine de Medici took the Arabic influence to France, when she married King Henry II. “It was the Italians who taught the French to cook,” he teases. The date pastry I offer John begins to feel like a poor substitute for his true craving. I stare at the bottom of my espresso cup haunted and determined; I am going to find this cookie.

[Stay tuned for Part II of this cookie mystery, which will appear in next week's edition of Glass Petal Smoke.]

Ma’amoul
Recipe by Michelle Krell Kydd
Yield: 56 cookies

Ingredients:
· 3 cups of unbleached, all-purpose flour
· 1 teaspoon baking powder
· ½ teaspoon salt
· ¾ cup sugar
· 1½ sticks of butter (¾ cup)
· 2 large eggs
· 1 teaspoon Tahitian vanilla for the cookie dough
· 1½ teaspoons Chinese cassia cinnamon for the cookie dough
· 2 teaspoons rosewater for the cookie dough
· 1 package of date paste (you’ll need 10 ounces of the 13 ounces in the pack)
· 1 teaspoon Chinese cassia cinnamon (for the date paste)
· 1 teaspoon Tahitian vanilla (for the date paste)
· ¾ cup of chopped walnuts (lightly toasted in a pan and cooled, to bring out the flavor)
· ¼ cup warm water

Equipment:
· 2 cookie trays lined with parchment paper
· sheet of aluminum foil about the size of a cookie tray
· flour sifter
· mixing bowl and spatula
· measuring cups for dry ingredients
· measuring cup for wet ingredients
· two forks
· small bowl for beating eggs and vanilla
· small microwave bowl for butter
· 1¾ inch (in diameter) cookie cutter or jelly glass
· measuring spoons
· rolling pin
· cookie spatula
· plastic wrap for dough

Instructions:
· Toast chopped walnuts over a low flame and remove as soon as they begin to toast lightly (you’ll know by the soft, woody aroma). Allow to cool completely.
. Sift the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and 1½ teaspoons of cinnamon.
· Place butter in a small microwave bowl and microwave for 40 seconds (or until butter grows soft, making sure the butter is soft, not warm). Mix by hand with a fork so the melted and soft sections are blended together.
· In a small bowl, gently beat eggs, rosewater and vanilla. Add this to the butter and mix thoroughly.
· Add wet ingredients to dry and use your hands to form the dough.
· Separate the dough into two balls. Place each on the middle of an 18 inch sheet of plastic wrap. Fold the bottom third of the plastic wrap over the dough and pat down until it forms a 6 inch disc. Bring in the sides of the plastic wrap and fold the remaining top piece over the disc. Refrigerate for 4 hours.
· Fifteen minutes before the dough is ready to be rolled out, prepare the date paste. Put date paste into a small bowl and add warm water. Mix with a fork until the date paste has a malleable consistency that lends itself to filling a teaspoon with ease. If you find any date stems, remove them. Add one teaspoon each of cinnamon and vanilla and mix with a fork. Add crushed walnuts and incorporate.
· Divide the oven rack into thirds and set the temperature at 375 degrees. Allow the oven to heat to full temperature while you are rolling out the cookies, making sure the preparation area is a moderate distance from the oven.
· On a lightly floured surface, roll out a quarter of one of the chilled dough balls, until it is ⅛ inch thick. Cut with a cookie cutter and set on cookie sheet, keeping each cookie about one inch apart. Re-roll scraps, continuing to roll and cut. Use the extra sheet of aluminum foil to set cookie cuttings aside as you may run out of room on your cookie sheets in the preparation stage. (Each dough ball should yield 28 cookie sandwiches.)
· Place one teaspoon of date mixture over half of the cookies and use the remaining cut cookies to cover them. Pick up the sandwiched cookie, pinching and sealing the edges by hand, so the cookie looks like ravioli. Set the cookie back on the tray. Crimp the edges with the tines of a small fork. Prick the tops twice with the fork (the cookies will look like little pies) so that the centers can release heat in the oven while they are baking.
· Continue cutting and filling the cookies until each dough ball is used. When you are done you should have 24 filled cookies on each sheet, and 8 more filled cookies you’ll have to bake when the four dozen are finished.
· Refrigerate all of the ma'amoul for 8-10 minutes. This will allow the butter in the dough to firm up and will ensure that the cookies bake evenly, (the ones you made first will be affected by the room temperature in which they have been resting).
· Place each tray of cookies on a single rack in the oven and bake for 6 minutes. Open the oven and move the top tray to the bottom and the bottom tray to the top, reversing the front and back ends for even baking. Bake for an additional 6 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned.
· Remove cookies from their trays and place on cooling rack for an hour or until completely cooled. Store in an airtight container.

Notes:
There are many variations of the Middle Eastern ma’amoul. Some use orange blossom water or rosewater in the dough. Others use semolina instead of all-purpose flour. For those who delight in sweetness and presentation, a dusting of confectioner’s sugar is preferred. Some recipes omit eggs and baking powder. This recipe is a winner because the texture of the cookie is enhanced by eggs and leavening.

Ma’amoul taste better the day after they are baked as the moisture in the filling softens the cookie dough. That’s a respectable characteristic for those of us who believe that age improves our unique essence as human beings. One of the things I like best about ma’amoul is that it has a shared history among Arabs and Jews. Perhaps the act of baking these is actually a gesture of peace in itself.

Update: John J. Miceli was a dear friend and colleague at New York Magazine. John died in his home on Horatio Street in New York City on November 29, 2023 surrounded by family. His obituary is a wonderful tribute to a gentle, loving and caring human being who embraced life with gusto and a marvelous sense of humor. This article was written just shy of 16 years before the day of his passing.

Sources:

For floral waters, date paste and Tahitian vanilla, shop online at Kalustyan’s. Cortes® brand floral waters are highly recommended.

For China cassia cinnamon shop online at Penzeys Spices.