Recently I discovered (and shared on Twitter) that there were 243 cookbooks in my apartment. The number has since risen to 245. I was both proud and horrified by the number. It is a lot of books. It is especially a lot of books for a small, one-bedroom apartment. Poor Bryan. At least a hundred of them are in piles around the house, so my new years resolution is to find a storage solution for all of these books. Wish me luck.

One of the two recent additions to the collection was Piece of Cake: Home Baking Made Simple by David Muniz, David Lesniak and Rachel Allen (published in the UK as Baked in America- which is a much better title). It is a book from the two guys who own Outsider Tart bakery in London. The bakery sells American baked goods (whoopie pies, cupcakes, layer cakes, etc) to Brits, and apparently is popular. I didn’t know much about the bakery, and somehow missed the US release of the book back in the Autumn. I honestly have no idea why I bought this cookbook. Why do we buy most things? Boredom? I read a thing? I was hungry? Anyway, I added another general baking book to the dozens that I own and depleted even more of my expendable income. Bad idea, right? read more+++

Recipes for something called Strange-Flavored Eggplant (or odd-flavored eggplant) pop up a lot in cookbooks from the 80’s. I discovered this while researching the origins of a starter we ate at Nopi in London. The rather unassuming plate was a sort of smashed up eggplant spread flavored with (what tasted like) sesame oil and soy sauce. It was sweet and sour and so delicious that we considered asking for a second of the same plate because we liked it so much. I came home and started to research the dish and kept coming across these recipes for strange-flavored eggplant.

At first I was worried the origins of the name might be racist-y (strange=foreign?). But it seems as though maybe it has more to do with the translation of a Chinese character? I don’t know. The title certainly doesn’t sell the recipe, which is actually quite wonderful. It isn’t what we had at Nopi, but is similar in its vibrancy. It is full of the flavors of Chinese-American cooking and pretty hard to resist. It really does stimulate the palate and get you excited to eat dinner, which is what we are all looking for in a starter.

In other news, I very happily contributed some of my favorite things to the latest issue of Lonny. I care about home design almost as much as I care about food, so it was a fun opportunity to get to engage in some of that with an online magazine I’ve always enjoyed. I am happy with the way my spread turned out (go designers at Lonny!),  I hope you’ll all check it out. read more+++

I thought we’d start off the year the way we’d start off the day, with breakfast. In my case I am also breaking my blogging fast—blogfast? These Liège waffles have been written about before by other bloggers. If you’re anything like me, you skip them because you don’t happen to have any pearl sugar on your shelf—or you read the comments and are annoyed by the discussions of why every recipe is not the authentic recipe. Don’t be like me! Or yourself! These are so good that pearl sugar is worth seeking out, and annoying people are worth ignoring. In fact, a good 2013 resolution is to always seek out unusual ingredients, they’ll teach you something. Also, since the invention of the internet there are not a lot of good excuses for not being able to get your hands on something. It is a wonderful and terrible fact of our time. Pearl sugar is special because it won’t melt under the heat of the waffle iron, leaving little crunches of sugar throughout the waffle. This recipe is not worth making without it. No substitutions! Happy New Year!

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Friends! At long last, I am back. My absence wasn’t planned. I came down with the worst flu ever, which kept me out of commission for a couple of weeks. It was especially discouraging since I was a good citizen and got a flu shot at the start of the season. But luckily I felt better just in time to enjoy some holiday cheer. I’ll be back in earnest next week with some updates on what I’ve been cooking, but I wanted to take a moment and say hello.

Hello!

At the end of the year, I like to look back over the blog and remember all of the good food we shared. I gave myself the challenge of picking the 5 best recipes of the year.

I failed, so here are 7:

Smoky Eggplant Puree with Pine Nuts and Urfa Pepper

I liked this recipe so much it ended up making it into the wrap I designed to benefit Open Books.

Baby Spinach Salad with Dates and Almonds

This remains the most satisfying thing I made all year—simple and delicious. read more+++

This is what I made for Thanksgiving dinner. It was one of the best recipes I discovered this year, and it seemed perfect for the holiday. I think it would be equally perfect for a Christmas, Hanukkah, or New Years celebrations. Consider it my gift to you, dear reader. The gift of a perfectly roasted paprika and garlic rubbed chicken that cooks on a bed of potato wedges that benefit from chicken fat and high temperatures. When it is done, you have chicken and potatoes and only need a hearty green salad to accompany them. You also have an astonishingly simple and delicious meal. Honestly, this is about as good as it gets. I’ve made this recipe twice already and am giving it another go this weekend. Consider me obsessed.

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I’ve been randomly exclaiming Christmas is almost over!, since Halloween. Even though I’m not Christian, I love the “holiday season” (by “holiday season” I mean: snow, Christmas decorations, presents, egg nog, good cheer, and all other secular/cultural parts of the holiday). The older I get, the faster the season goes by and the less satisfying it all is. It comes and goes so quickly, hence my anxious exclamation. I’m trying to fight the forward motion of the holidays by baking as much as possible, and watching holiday classics like She-Ra & He-Man: A Christmas Special (seriously weird, and currently streaming on Netflix).

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[This annual gift guide has become one of my favorite parts of Lottie + Doof. I really enjoy putting this together, and this year I had fun shooting all of these good things “on location” in our apartment. As always, these are all items that I own/use and can vouch for.]

Rhubarb Hops Syrup

Wisconsin’s Quince & Apple produce all sorts of beautiful products. This year I especially love this rhubarb and hops syrup that can be added to sparkling wine, or water to make a memorable refresher.

Gold Flatware

These feel right to me, right now. Lots of this. Modern. Gold.

Wilder Quarterly

There are a slew of new home/food publications out, and many more on the horizon. Some are great, and some seem to be sacrificing substance for style. Wilder manages to prioritize both style and substance and does them both well. They describe themselves as a publication for people “enthralled by the natural world”. It is a wonderful mix of growers, makers, plants, animals, ideas and recipes. There is an article on will-o-the-wisps and one on Julie Newmar’s garden in the current issue—nuf said. read more+++

Remember food blogs? The early days? When things weren’t so highly produced and full of weathered wood, mismatched antique flatware, and book deals? It was way back then that someone sent me a link to a site called Smitten Kitchen. Like many of you, I was immediately charmed by the writing and wit of Deb Perelman. She managed to express the same obsessiveness about cooking that I felt, but always kept it good humored. Without Deb (and Luisa, Heidi and Molly!), there would be no Lottie + Doof. She showed us all how it was done.

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Last winter we drove up to Madison, Wisconsin, with our friends Katie and Justin. Winter had us all feeling a little shack-nasty* and we thought a trip out of town might do us good. On the way home from Madison we stopped in New Glarus, a town famous for its brewery and weird alpine architecture. The brewery is fantastic, and totally worth a stop (though admittedly is more fun in the summer when you can sit outside drinking beer). And New Glarus is a charming enough place to spend a few hours. The bakery in town is pretty great and I always pick up a few pastries for the drive home. We had dinner at one of the several touristy Swiss-themed restaurants in town. It was as expected, huge portions and lots of fat, but also pretty satisfying. Among the things we ate was a giant potato rösti. As delicious as it was, about three bites in I felt defeated by the amount of fat (butter and cheese) in the dish. But I’ve been thinking about the potential. read more+++

Thanks to this blog, and all of you amazing people, I get to do some really fun stuff. A few weeks ago, the folks at Falafill (delicious, fresh and modern Middle-Eastern restaurants in Chicago) asked me to participate in their Chefs for Charity program. Each month Falafill has local chefs (“chefs”, in my case) design a seasonal wrap which is then sold at all three Falafill locations. Getting to design a wrap is pretty fun, but the really amazing part: one dollar ($1!) of each wrap sold goes to the charity of the chef’s (my) choice. Whoa!

I designed what I think is a really tasty wrap (so far, a couple of friends, Bryan, and a teenager who works at the Oak Park branch, all agree). In addition to Falafill’s classic falafel (which is so delicious), the wrap includes urfa pepper and eggplant spread, arugula, feta, pickled pears(!!!) and toasted walnuts. It is available now. Go get it!

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