In an attempt to join the 21st century, Wonderland Kitchen has finally joined Facebook. Please pardon my learning curve.
If you have any tips, suggestions, or timeless traditions to pass my way, I will be in your debt. Seriously, I feel like the kid whose parents moved her to a new high school in the middle of junior year. Lend me your friendship?
For as much as I love appreciating the work of people with serious farming experience and thriving businesses, I also grasp that I am not one of them. Realistically, I probably never will be (though I reserve the right to backyard garden and daydream). Regardless, no number of dollars spent at five-star department stores will magically hide that knowledge gap.
However, I take no shame in appreciating the efforts of others. On an average weekend, that’s just a trip to the farmers’ market, but last Sunday the neighbors and I piled in the car to check out the vendors and animals at the annual Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.
Thankfully, it was a beautiful, light jacket kind of day (when it’s 85°F, it’s really hard for me to get enthusiastic about yarn and knitting projects), and we spent five hours exploring the amazing wares for sale and appreciating the many varieties of sheep and goats (and cooing over the babies).
I was particularly taken by the beautiful wood in the looms, spindles, and even the furniture for sale (so much so that I failed to snap a picture). It was definitely a day of DIY inspiration. I’m going to try and learn some basic spinning skills this year and perhaps make some purchases next time.
I’ve been having a great time reverse engineering a lot of processed foods of late, and even some grocery store staples. Most of the time, it’s dramatically cheaper to make your own, and it makes me feel better about what we’re eating when I can pronounce everything that’s gone into it. You might not agree that this is strictly necessary, but when the “simple” yogurt in the dairy aisle has six ingredients, to my mind something has gone very, very wrong. Yet at the same time, even if I can make tahini at home, do I really need to?
When it comes to exploring DIY foods and even some health and beauty products, I’m still learning so much that I feel it’s worth the time and effort for me to keep on experimenting. I’ve also made a habit of picking up cookbooks from past decades to see what tips and tricks and terrible applications of mayonnaise I might discover. Today I added two new books to my collection, and stumbled upon some advice that highlights just how much has changed for the “housewife.” For as much as I have valued looking back at “how we used to do it,” this was a stark reminder that romanticizing the past too much would be a mistake.
First up: Hints from Heloise–From the Air Force to Air Force Wives (1973)
This one struck a chord right away, since I am an Army wife myself. On examination, it’s not quite “The Good Housewife’s Guide” that I was at first expecting. Instead, the 14-page pamphlet is filled with simple, sensible tips, but the introduction is a flashback to a time when only men served:
In the eyes of the Air Force, the Air Force wife is something very special. Special because she, more than anyone else, shapes and determines her husband’s attitudes and ambitions. And over the years, the Air Force has learned that with the right kind of environment at home, any man becomes a better worker and more valuable in his job….And who knows, with the help of Heloise’s hints, perhaps you’ll have even more spare time to devote to that man of yours.
Sexism is one thing, but the harsh manual labor aspects of homemaking were penned into the front of a copy of The Rumford Complete Cook Book (1930) by Lily Haxworth Wallace that I discovered. A previous owner had outlined how to make soap and cleaning solutions, neither of which I’m particularly anxious to replicate or use.
Soap
5 1/2 lbs. melted fat. Melt and while cooling put 1 quart warm water in a granite pail. Add 1 can concentrated lye and 1/2 cup of Borax. When cool add 1 cup ammonia and then slowly add the cool melted fat and stir for a few minutes. Pour into a shallow granite pan and set in the sun to bleach. Next day, cut into pieces as you like. Make soap on a day when you can do it outside or else the fumes get in your nose and throat.
To Wash Walls
1 cup ammonia
1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup bicarbonate soda
Add water to make one gallon.
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Brian and I named Wonderland Kitchen a couple of years before the site actually launched, dreaming up the idea on a long car ride to Vermont. After listening to me consider the possibility of maybe trying to make some time to write just a little about food, and for longer than was reasonable, my husband pulled the trigger for me and made a gift of the URL. Still, I dragged the idea in and out of my mental cupboard like a stock pot for quite a while longer, considering how it looked on the stove but never lighting the gas. Then one weekend in September of 2011, we drove to Vermont again. I didn’t take it as a sign so much as the chance to turn down the volume on the day-to-day grind just long enough to really evaluate my priorities. Taking time and attention away from building the career I already had as a music journalist seemed silly, yet I couldn’t shake the desire to diversify. By the end of that trip, the first iteration of Wonderland Kitchen had been built, and it’s been a motivator in the kitchen and a creative space I’ve been able to grow in ever since.
In all that time, I never really considered “where it was all going” because I was simply enjoying the ride too much to care. Yet as we mark this first year with a site upgrade thanks to Brian and the love and supportive appetites of many friends, the road keeps unspooling before us. One addition to these pages that I’m excited to debut today is that I’ll be contributing a bi-weekly column to the killer online food destination Serious Eats. For each piece, I’ll pull out my clipboard and do my DIY best to hack everything from breakfast cereals to Ho-Hos, though minus dyes, artificial flavors, and ingredients I cannot pronounce. To kick things off, I offer you a cereal bar that’s a far less sweet but much more elegant option than you’ll get in a box (recipe below, but spiffy presentation over on Serious Eats). Have a product you’d like me to take a crack at in a future column? Please let me know.
Who wants an unbirthday gift from Wonderland?
***Contest has closed; congrats to the winners!***
More than anything, I’m grateful to every reader for taking the time to meet up with me in this space over the past year. My awesome mother-in-law (Hi, Barbara!!) has sewn a couple lovely cloth market bags for me that I’d like to give away to celebrate. As there are only two, if you’d like one, please leave a comment below and let me know what projects you’re working on…or what ones you just might start any day now. If I only get two responses, well, everybody wins! Otherwise, I’ll use one of those neat random number generators. Please be sure to include an address in the email field that I can use to contact you and get your shipping address.
And now, here’s the first DIY vs Buy:
DIY Blueberry Cereal Bars
Note: If you would prefer not to make your own filling out of dried fruit, a thick fruit spread such as fig is a workable substitute. In my testing, commercial jams and preserves proved too runny when baked and would not be recommended.
makes 12 bars
1 hour active
2 1/2 hours total
For the Dough
5 ounces (1 cup) all-purpose flour
5 ounces (1 cup) whole wheat flour
1 ounces (1/4 cup) rolled oats
1/2 ounce (1/4 cup) wheat bran
2 1/2 ounces (1/3 cup packed) brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons/1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed.
2/3 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the Filling
1 cup dried blueberries
1/2 cup water
For Assembly
1 egg white plus 1 teaspoon cold water, for wash
4 tablespoons wheat bran, for sprinkling
Measure flours, oats, wheat bran, brown sugar, baking power, salt, and cinnamon into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until ingredients are mixed and oats broken down. Add butter and pulse until pieces resembles coarse meal.
Stir vanilla into the milk and, with processor motor running, add liquids to the dry ingredients in a thin stream. Continue processing until dough comes together. Divide into two equal portions and flatten into 1/2-inch discs. Wrap each portion in plastic and refrigerate until firm enough to roll out, about two hours.
Meanwhile, make the filling. Place dried fruit and water into a small, heavy-bottomed sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer gently, covered, for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Transfer fruit and water to a food processor and process until broken down into a rough purée. Transfer filling to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate until needed.
When ready to assemble the bars, heat oven to 350°F with rack in the middle position.
Flour rolling surface and place one portion of the dough in the center. Flour top of dough and roll into an 8×12-inch rectangle, turning regularly to prevent sticking. Cut dough in half the long way to create two 4×12-inch sheets. To aide with filling and shaping the bars, place each strip of dough on a similarly sized piece of baking parchment before proceeding. Brush any excess flour from dough surface with a dry pastry brush.
Down the 12-inch center line of each piece of dough, spread an even 1-inch strip of filling (about 2 1/2 tablespoons). Using the edge of the parchment as an aide, fold one long side of the dough over the filling, covering it slightly more than half way. Brush a light coating of the egg wash over the remaining edge and, again using the parchment to help keep things even, fold the second dough edge so that it overlaps the first by 1/4 inch. Press gently to seal and flip the bars over so that they are seam-side down. Cut each log into three 4-inch portions.
Brush any excess flour from dough surface with a dry pastry brush. Coat each bar with a thin layer of the egg wash and sprinkle tops with wheat bran. Leave bars on parchment strips and transfer to baking sheet.
Repeat steps five through seven with remaining dough and filling. Bake bars for 16-18 minutes, until just golden. Transfer to a wire rack until cool. Store at room temperature in an air-tight container.
There is a comforting romance to tracing your culinary roots back to grandma’s stained cookbooks or memories of mom letting you wear her apron and stir. These bits of nostalgia are stereotypically accented with the recollection of shared kitchen laughter and lessons learned at the elbows of others—food preparation that bonded the family and ended in feasts of Norman Rockwell perfection.
In my case, however, this love affair with formulas and mixtures and experiments began in the garage. My father had set up an old Formica-topped table, behind the cars and next to the lawn mower, where I could spend hours by myself just messing around in my own imaginary kitchen. I made milk by shaking together baby powder and water in a cast-off baby bottle, “reduced” dish detergent by pouring it into a plastic bowl and leaving it out in the sun until it congealed. Once, after I saw a special on PBS, I even took a handful of clay from some craft supplies we had and formed my own wine vat, mashing up grapes from our vines and sealing this mixture inside, burying the whole thing in the ground just as I had seen on TV. The next spring when I unburied the clay container and brought a glass of the reeking fermented liquid to my mother, the color drained from her face at the idea that I might have been drinking it. I was only eight, but still—perhaps they should not let me spend quite so much time alone in the garage.
Polaroids from my 1st grade science fair project. The experimental side of cooking is what attracted me.
I didn’t think much about those days once school and friends and violin lessons took over my focus and “playtime” was a thing of my past. In college I cooked to survive, and as a single working woman in New York, I cooked only on the rare occasion that I was actually in my apartment long enough to eat. Once I married, moved, and established a real home, cooking became a more seriously integrated part of living and my inner mad scientist reawoke. My fridge is now crammed with jars of housemade pickles and chutneys and various condiments. I lug home gallons of whole milk that I turn into yogurt and cheeses, fruit and honey that I ferment into mead. My freezer is packed with flours and yeasts of various sorts; I keep a jar filled with the latest sourdough starter, a life that I labored to bring into this world and yet now keep forgetting to feed.
I love to research but I’m not such a fan of measuring, so my favorite dishes tend to be more memory than recipe-based. In the process, I destroy and I discover. I’m still eight-years old really, just better outfitted this time.
Shake and Pour Pantry Peanut Dressing
When it comes to summer dinner salads, there is a point between a heavy dairy laced dressing and a simple vinaigrette that I often find myself seeking in order to accent a full meal of raw vegetables. More often than not, I’ll end up turning to this spunky peanut butter-based recipe. Though honestly, I feel like the instructions which follow should read along the lines of: “Open refrigerator. Remove several complimentary condiments. Shake together and pour.” Because really that’s what I do. I promise I actually measured the recipe below, but I’m never so careful in real life. I almost always forget at least one ingredient, and sometimes I add others, such as honey or toasted sesame oil. If there’s not enough of something, I just use something else.
As if that wasn’t a slippery enough slope, I also adjust it several times throughout its shelf-life to suit different purposes. Need it thicker for cooked veggies or as a dumpling dipping sauce? Spoon in more peanut butter and shake. Need it thinner again to cover another round of salads or to kick up some quinoa? Taste and add more liquid and adjust heat–usually a bit of soy sauce and a squeeze of mustard will do it.
2-3 T peanut butter (processed or natural, chunky or smooth)
4 T tamari (I use reduced sodium)
2 T balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. mustard
1/2 tsp tuong ot toi (vietnamese chili garlic paste)
Measure all ingredients into a jar with a tight fitting lid. Shake until well combined. Taste and adjust balance to suit your tastes. Refrigerate until needed.
I’ve recently been dipping my toes here and there into seafood eating. Having been a lacto-ovo vegetarian since I turned 15, however, I’m confronting a few issues as I break this streak. First, psychologically, I can get hung up on the idea of meat eating when a plate of otherwise well-prepared food is set down in front of me, all made worse by the fact that my stomach sometimes balks in parallel sympathy. Secondly, however, like that one girl freshman year who had never done her own laundry, I have zero meat cooking knowledge and experience. When B asks me how long to roast a chicken or how to make a meatball, I panic, my eyes reflecting that “deer in headlights” look that’s apparently attractive but makes me question my self-worth as a homemaker.
It also makes me a highly motivated student, however, so when last weekend’s activities in Vermont took a turn to include some fresh caught trout, I poked my nose and my camera lens in to see if I might learn a thing or two. The key seemed to be to keep the fish alive for as long as possible before cooking (I never caught a “fishy” whiff) and to use a very sharp knife when the time came. Kaylon, the woman whose skilled hands you will see at work in these photos, decided to remove the heads of the fish, slicing as close to the gills as possible to keep as much meat on the body. Then, with a quick slit down the belly, the entrails were removed generally in a single go. I know I would not have been so smooth, but at least I feel like if I find myself stranded on an island and I actually manage to catch a fish, I’ll have some clue as to how to prepare it. After that, it was just a very hot, very clean grill, a little lemon, oil, salt and pepper, and dinner was ready. Paired with a few cobs of grilled corn drizzled with lime juice, this was a meal not soon to be forgotten.
Grilled Fresh Caught Trout
Catch enough trout to feed your party. Clean the fish, rinse well, and pat dry. Brush with olive oil inside and out, and fill cavity with lemon slices, salt and pepper (plus whatever herbs suit your tastes, if desired).
On a hot grill, cook each fish for about 5 minutes per side–taking care when turning–until fish is cooked through and flaky. Serve immediately with melted butter and additional lemon wedges.
Lan | morestomach says:so SO SO PRETTY.
the addition of gelatin is a great tip, something i need to...
movita beaucoup says:Holy gorgeousness! Strawberries haven't hit our markets yet - it's been too da...
I made this logo and had it printed on a sweatshirt that often serves as my apron in Wonderland Kitchen. The text was inspired by a hostile blog comment; I just couldn't resist flipping the sentiment on its head and getting the last laugh! If you'd like one of your very own, check out the options in the online store.
