Watermelon Gazpacho

During most every cooking class I’ve ever taken, the teacher has at some point stressed the fact that recipes are not written in stone. They are guidelines for you to follow or change according to your tastes.

Don’t want to use chicken stock in an otherwise vegetable soup? Fine; use a vegetable stock you like instead.

Allergic to peanuts? Substitute something you can eat, such as almonds or cashews.

Just think about the substitution before you start and modify any other changes to suit the overall flavor of the dish.

I thought about this the other day when I went to make a recipe out of a new cookbook that friends had given me. It is titled “Cotton: The Cookbook” (Blue Tree, $14.95), and it features recipes from a restaurant in Manchester, N.H., that the couple had visited on their honeymoon.

They sang the praises of chef Jeffrey Paige’s crab cakes and the wild mushroom-port wine sauce they had sampled one evening. Both are in the cookbook and both will be tried when the weather gets a little cooler.

As for me, I jumped immediately to the recipe for Watermelon Gazpacho, a raw dish that seemed particularly easy to put together on a summer evening. I had most of the ingredients on hand, so I figured I’d dive right in. Anything with watermelon is always welcome on my table.

But I noticed almost immediately a few ingredients that just weren’t to my taste. One was sugar, which, to me, isn’ t needed if you have juicy, sweet watermelon. So, I eliminated it. Another was a substitution. Paige calls for red wine vinegar. I prefer the San Antonio method of using lime juice as an acid whenever possible. (I also left out the red bell pepper simply because I didn’t have any growing in the backyard or stashed in the fridge.)

So, here are are two variations on the same cold soup, an easy dish that’s sure to please, no matter which version you make:

Cotton’s Watermelon Gazpacho

John’s Watermelon Gazpacho

The roasted beet salad at Il Sogno is part of the antipasti offerings.

Family legend has it that my first bite of real food was a beet. I was about 6 months old at the time, and I’ve been in love with beets ever since.

You can imagine my delight then to find fresh beet salads on two menus in town on two consecutive nights. I had to have both. And I’m glad I did.

The first was at Il Sogno at the Pearl Brewery, Andrew Weissman’s attempt to bring Italian food to a new level in San Antonio. He certainly succeeds in my book with his array of antipasti dishes, whether it’s a seafood salad with calamari, clams and shrimp or a tapenade made with olives and garlic. One of my favorites has been the roasted beet salad, in which chunks of the bright red vegetable are tossed with goat cheese and toasted pistachios, creamy and crunchy elements that add rich flavors as well as texture.

The end result had our forks reaching for more and more until the plate was empty all too quickly.

When I was growing up, Mom never roasted beets in the oven. Her preferred method of cooking them was to boil the beets shortly after she picked them from our backyard garden. Once they were tender enough to eat and peeled, you simply topped them with plenty of butter and salt. Nobody ever cared about the almost purple red juice that painted the rest of the food on the plate. Those beets upstaged the beef, the bread, the salad and anything else Mom might have served.

At the new Godai Sushi & Bistro, 4553 N. Loop 1604 W., the roasted beets are presented without butter but with duck fat in the dressing. And I guess I’ll just have to accept that fat substitution. It will be hard for me; maybe I should attempt to drown tradition in three or four helpings.

The salad features both red and gold beets, roasted to achieve perfect color, and arrives tossed with bit of goat cheese. That may sound familiar, but this is point where any similarity between this version and Weissman’s at Il Sogno ends.

Roasted red and gold beets are featured in the salad at Godai Sushi & Bistro.

Owner William “Goro” Pitchford and executive chef Chris Kidd add nuts, but in this case they are salty Marcona almonds and they are accompanied by golden raisins and caramelized onions. A honey-duck fat dressing finishes off the plate in manner that fills your mouth with what can best be described as an umami savoriness. (Umami is known as the fifth taste, and it usually signifies the richness certain dishes have that fills the entire mouth, a depth of flavor caused by glutamate, a naturally occurring substance in many foods. For more on umami, click here. Godai Sushi Bistro has an Umami section on its menu.)

All of the elements work like an orchestra performing under a master conductor. Yet the beets remain the star of the plate, their somewhat sweet flavor commanding your attention.

I couldn’t stop there, though. For my main course, I ordered the Buddha Cassoulet, a medley of roasted fresh vegetables tossed with edamame instead of the usual white beans. There were plenty of beets in this dish, too, making my taste buds extremely happy.

Another beet salad with checking out is the version often offered at Dough Pizzzeria Napoletana, 6989 Blanco Road. No duck fat here, just bacon. Just perfection in its way as the others are in theirs.

So, if you’re a beet fanatic in need of a fix, check out any of these salads. Just leave me a small taste.

This patio at La Gloria is covered and has a nice view to the River Walk. On a nice day it's also easier to have a conversation in a normal voice than in some of our noisier restaurants.

When visitors came last week from Arizona, I took them out to two restaurants: Dough and Rosario’s. Both were appreciated, but at one point during the evening at Rosario’s I asked them if the restaurant seemed loud compared to the restaurants they visited in Phoenix. They said, basically, OMG, yes.

“This is more like what a busy nightclub sounds like,” said my sister-in-law.

“Right,” chimed in her 16-year-old daughter. (This led to a discussion on just how my niece happened to be familiar with the noise levels in nightclubs. That was entertaining.)

I’ve been in San Antonio for so long now that I’ve gotten used to loud restaurants. But when I first moved here 21 years ago I had the same reaction that my visitors did: Why is everyone shouting?

After a few years I was shouting right along with ‘em. Once, at a restaurant in Seattle, where 15 of us from SA were having dinner during a business trip, the host wisely separated us from the restaurant proper. Even though we were out of the way at a table in the back of the bar, the noise level was such that customers leaving the restaurant stopped to look in at us with expressions of disbelief.

So, what to do if you really want to go to a restaurant to have a conversation?

A few tips: Find a place that has some fabric. That is, carpeting instead of cement flooring, upholstered chairs and banquettes. A place with smaller rooms, such as The Lodge Restaurant at Castle Hills, might be a good bet on a slow night, but in my experience when this restaurant is busy that doesn’t seem to make a whit of difference.

Another strategy is to sit outside. At Dough, it’s generally busy and noisy inside. But when six of us were seated at a table out on the sidewalk one comfortable evening earlier this summer, we were gratified that we could speak in our normal voices.

It would be great if popular restaurants could set aside at least one room designed to muffle, rather than amplify, sound. The fact that a noisy restaurant seems more popular, and therefore more successful, could be a reason that restaurateurs don’t do this.

I still don’t know why restaurants in Texas seem to be so much noisier than in other states, but I like to think it is because we just have that much more fun.

DENVER — On the evening of the Fourth of July, while (I presumed) my friends and husband in San Antonio were sweltering at their cookouts, I was wrapped in a blanket, sitting on my sister’s front porch tending to a grill.

Boulder Creek provided cool relief in the mountains.

A rainstorm had blown through earlier in the evening, dropping temperatures to what felt like the mid-50s.

As cool we were on Sunday, we’d baked in the sun on Saturday at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, and sweltered the night before, maneuvering our way along crowded sidewalks, into and out of art galleries, at Denver’s First Friday event.  Still, you know, it was a dry heat.

The mild weather, art shows, antiquing and seeing my sister were the highlights of the weekend visit. These, plus a drive up into the mountains a ways outside of Boulder to stop  and cool our feet in an icy, rushing creek and breathe in the pine-scented air.

A weekend trip to Colorado always includes a few culinary excursions as well.

We never fail to visit The Ethiopian Restaurant on Colfax Avenue. What the restaurant’s name lacks in catchiness, the food more than makes up for with wonderful flavors. These range from the spongy injera, sheets of soft, slightly sour-tasting flatbread served with the largely vegetarian meal and used to scoop up the food,  to a new item on the menu, a wot, or meat stew, of cubed lamb cooked in butter.

If we go to only one restaurant in Denver during my visits, this is the one. And, as always, upon leaving I mention to the proprietor and his wife, the chef, that San Antonio really needs a good Ethiopian restaurant. I’d even help them scout out a place. And, as always, they smile at me graciously and thank me for the compliment — but I’m not sure they realize how serious I am.

Truthfully, a visit to the restaurant just once or twice a year makes it that much more of a treat. We usually go with friends and order the vegetarian plate, served in a common dish.  Except for the chile-spiked red lentils, the flavors are mild and buttery, but cooked with plenty of garlic to utter tenderness.

The huge, rimmed platter, set in the middle of the table, is covered with a layer of freshly made injera. Then, the proprietor brings bowls full of lentils (three different preparations), tender potatoes and carrots, cabbage and freshly made chopped greens. From the bowls he spoons the food out onto the platter. The juices soak  into the injera beneath. While we have fresh flatbread for picking up the food (no utensils are used) bites of that flavor-soaked injera under the stews are the best part of the meal for me.

(I’d really like to have a photo to share, but I accidentally left the camera at home. )

This trio provided Fourth of July entertainment at Boulder's Pearl Street Mall.

Our other culinary excursion is shopping in the packed, two-story Peppercorn store at the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. This mountain college city is not a long drive up from Denver and the mall is always a blast from the past. Buskers ranged from a not-bad 1930s-style jazz singer to a young woman would have better spent her time at home practicing her saxophone. An enthusiastic, acoustic trio was the best act going.

College-aged kids sprawled out on the lawns while little kids played in a section of concrete that sent erratic squirts of water shooting up out of spigots set in a grid in the ground. We thought they should have had one for adults, too.

A green corkscrew at Peppercorn, a favorite find.

The two-story Peppercorn, founded more than 30 years ago, holds hours of entertainment for foodies who want to shop for everything from dishes and linens to gourmet condiments, copper cookware and the latest releases in cookbooks.  I picked up a couple of Murano glass tumblers and a small cobalt blue pitcher, a green corkscrew and a package of chocolate-covered espresso beans. (Shop at Peppercorn online.)

On that cold and rainy Fourth of July evening, we’d decided late in the afternoon to get my sister a new grill, so off we went to Target where we didn’t find exactly what we wanted (a Weber grill). But we picked up what was offered and went home to sit on the kitchen floor for more than an hour reading instructions and managing to get the thing together.  This is an activity we did not enjoy and more than a little shameful language accompanied the project.

We did have help in the form of a drink that I’ll share the recipe for here. It’s called La Vie en Rosé and takes only a little advance preparation. Make a pink grapefruit granita by mixing together 3 parts grapefruit juice to 1 part vodka. Put it in the freezer in a shallow dish and stir it around once in awhile as it freezes.

A chilly pour -- Cold pink Champagne poured over mounds of icy grapefruit granita.

Meanwhile, chill a bottle of pink Champagne or other sparkling rosé. When the granita is ready, put a big scoop in the bottom of a wine or martini glass and pour Champagne over it.

It may not have been the ideal drink to pair with steaks, but as fireworks thundered off in the distance and rain dripped off the eves, it was just right for celebrating a blessedly cool, holiday weekend.

The filling of Blueberry-Dewberry Pie.

Testing a recipe can often be a mental exercise that you just didn’t bargain for.

I was reminded of that the other day as I went about trying out a recipe from “Real Simple: Easy, Delicious Meals” (Real Simple Books, $27.95).

I was intrigued by the sounds of a Summer Fruit Pie filled with strawberries, peaches and lemon juice. But I was even more interested in the pie crust recipe, which included a touch of white vinegar mixed with egg in addition to a half-and-half mixture of shortening and butter. My filling would make it a Blueberry-Dewberry Pie, only because I would be using fruit I had on hand.

But would the crust be real simple? The directions said that all you had to do was mix the flour, salt, butter and shortening in the food processor before slowly adding the egg-vinegar mixture. Then divide the dough in half and refrigerate. Simple, yes.

Pie crust before rolling.

Except …

You could see that coming, right?  The humidity has been so great lately that the dough came out far, far stickier than I had hoped for. I wasn’t going to throw it away, so I let the crust rest in the refrigerator for several hours, more than the 1 hour that the recipe recommended.

It was still awfully moist when I removed it from the fridge – and so was the air in the house from the AC running on high and the rain pouring down steadily outside.

The dough rolled out flat.

Yet, I rolled it out into a circle that would fill the pie plate. Though the board was heavily floured to keep it from sticking and I used a cake froster to loosen it, the crust fell apart the moment I tried to lift it. (I’ll insert here that I don’t make many pie crusts. The time involved isn’t worth it to me, as I far prefer the fruit filling to the carb-heavy crust, no matter how good it is. Give me a good, buttery cobbler any day.)

The fruit was ready, so I had to make something with it. That’s when I decided to treat the dough as if I were making a tart, something I do quite frequently. I merely took the pieces and pressed them into the bottom and sides of the pan, making sure they were all pressed together into a whole. Then I filled the shell with the fruit. I rolled out the second pie crust, except I made the circle a little smaller. I got half of it to go on top of the pie in one piece. Again, I pieced together the rest of the dough into what looked like a single sheet and crimped the top and bottom together.

The crust before baking.

Wherever there was a truly ugly spot, I made sure to use it for a vent, knowing that the juices inside might bubble up and cover any major imperfections. After all, pie doesn’t have to be beautiful, it just has to taste good.

Good enough to eat.

(Freshly whipped cream is another cosmetic in desserts that covers a multitude of homemade sins while adding richness and incomparable flavor.)

The end result was rustic yet beautiful, and perfect for dinner with friends.

So, would I try the crust again? Sure. It was simple, as it was supposed to be. I liked the tiniest bit of acidity that the vinegar brought to the crust. (You’d never know it was there unless you made it yourself.) But I would cut back on the liquid, especially if the day or the setting is as humid as what we’ve been experiencing lately.

During the past year at SavorSA, we’ve run a food and dining website that doesn’t depend on high-end photography or particularly expensive equipment, at least not for me.

My camera cost less than $200. My PC is a nifty little notebook computer that cost another $200. And I didn’t need to set up a darkroom or a photo studio.

The beginnings of Pork Green Chile Stew, shot in a steel bowl on my ironing board.

My photo studio is, for the most part, my ironing board. Because I live in a 1940s bungalow in the Jefferson area, that ironing board folds into the wall in the kitchen. When it folds down it is in a place to take advantage of the natural light that flows in from three big windows. It is also handily located near the stove and the kitchen sink.

While I’ve taken photos for every publication I’ve worked at over the past 30 years, I have never been what one might call a professional photographer. In my first journalism job, which was working as a police and courts reporter in Flagstaff, Ariz., I was the weekend photographer for four years. Being a cop reporter as well as photographer  meant I kept a police scanner on my desk or in the darkroom, and I carried around a portable one.

The easy weekends were when there was some kind of mayhem or murder or major fire going on for me to shoot. (A terrible thing it was, taking such shallow delight in finding a subject for the Sunday news.)

The worst weekends were when nothing happened and I (quite inexperienced) had to drum up a feature photo for the front of the Sunday newspaper.  Some of my efforts were OK, some laughable. One Sunday the best I could find was a couple reclining under a tree on a warm afternoon. On Monday there was a note on my desk from another reporter commenting on my effort: “Are those people sleeping or are they dead? I couldn’t tell.”

I loved carrying a scanner around and many times was awakened in the middle of the night to hear frenetic activity on the police bands indicating it was time to jump out of bed, grab my camera and get to my car. A couple of times this happened when the temperatures outside were 10 degrees below zero or more.  On one of those frigid nights I didn’t even have to phone the cop shop to find out where the fire was. I could see a large restaurant and nightclub burning down, flames and smoke shooting into the air, just a mile away from my front door.

My first food writing assignment was cop related. One of the sergeants at the Coconino County Jail was a woman renowned for her Mexican food. I went to her house one Saturday and sat around watching her make a fabulous pork green chile and ground beef tacos. Then, I sat down with a group of deputies who’d showed up and we devoured every last bite.

This officer’s other claim to fame was her upper-body strength. Prisoners who acted up at the jail experienced first-hand her deadly “tortilla hold,” strengthened by years of kneading tortilla dough. At least, that was her story.

Partway through my cop reporter career, I pitched a sideline as restaurant reviewer to the managing editor. He loved the idea; the publisher sort of liked it. The arts editor, who handled the Weekender section, hated it. Nevertheless I began writing the column and this, too, was very fun.

Several issues into my new project, the arts editor, who sat directly across from me, looked up from proofing his pages and growled, “Walker, if you want to write a restaurant column you have to learn to spell ’spaghetti.’  There’s a g-damn ‘h’ in it!”  I liked this man, an opera buff who I knew, in his heart, secretly yearned to work the cop beat.

Seated to my right was another reporter (he was in his late 50s, so I thought he was elderly) who would get annoyed at me from time to time. I was never sure why, but I’d know about it because he’d reach into his desk, take out a giant, nasty, smelly black cigar and light it up. Then, he’d sit and blow the smoke over the top of his typewriter directly at the back of my head. Back then, nobody (but I) cared whether anyone smoked in the office.

This truly was the most fun I’ve had at any job in my life. But working on a website the past year and taking my own food photos has certainly had its moments.

The ironing board is surprisingly versatile. If I lay a long cookie sheet across it sideways and cover it with a white cloth, it makes a good backdrop. It forces me to shoot up close, so that things like nicks on the kitchen table or the cats’ water dish on the floor don’t show up. The board also swivels back and forth easily.

The only drawback might be from my husband’s point of view. He does his own ironing (bless him) and one morning unfortunately found out the hard way that I’d spilled a couple of drops of salad dressing on the ironing board. He ironed those drops directly into one of his good white shirts just before he had to get dressed and race off.  This caused a reaction.  I am now more careful.

Setting up the shots is also entertaining. After many years of accumulating dishes and pottery and table linens, I always have fun rummaging around in the cupboards or dining cabinets to find just the right prop. I pick up art paper at Michael’s and Herweck’s for backdrops. A couple of times I’ve taken cases off of throw pillows in the living room to use for their bright color.

Some of the ingredients for a sangrita include lime and/or orange juice, hot sauce, fresh tomato juice or even pomegranate juice. Sangrita is a chaser for sipping with tequila.

I don’t kid myself that these are “important” photos, and I’ve been more proud of some than others. Recently, in order to illustrate a short article on sangrita, I had no idea what to do except shoot a few of the ingredients I had on hand and fake the others; I won’t say which or how. (The shot, at left, took about 10 minutes, start to finish.)

A scoop of dulce de leche ice cream on top of a chocolate brownie in an old Fiestaware bowl.

Another one I liked was last year’s photo of a scoop of dulce de leche ice cream melting on top of a chocolate brownie (at right). The orange dish is original Fiestaware, which I have had for many decades.

I  discovered that shooting down into a bright, clean stainless steel bowl gives off many interesting reflections.

Wine, on a linen pillow, with a glass for a mate and a crocheted bed cover.

I learned (maybe for the hundredth time) that if I try to get too “witty” doing a photo illustration, it generally fails and ends up laughable. (See here my attempt to illustrate a “sleeping” wine.)

But, I like to laugh and I hope SavorSA readers do, too.

Last fall, chef Mike Bomberg of Spice of Life Catering told me that he had been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books with his daughter and was enjoying them as much as she was.

That was a good enough recommendation for me. I enjoy a great deal of children’s literature — more so today than I did when I was younger. So I sought out the first book, “Little House in the Big Woods.”

But I didn’t pick it up until the New York Times ran a piece on how the series, nine books in all, was being championed by foodies. And for good reason. Most every chapter, it seems, deals with food on some level. Wilder describes the hunting for meat, the curing, the growing, the milking, the butter churning, the cooking, the cutting of ice blocks for the ice house.

There are descriptions of frying doughnuts, serving popcorn with apple cider, tapping maple trees for syrup, and hulling corn. We learn about the delight Ma Ingalls takes in receiving a bit of exceptionally rare white sugar and the smell of a clove-apple beside Grandma’s mending basket.

I am taking the series slowly, savoring each book like some rare chocolate truffle or a fine scotch, so that they last and linger. This is a bit of a departure for me; I’m known to devour authors, from Dickens to Trollope, as quickly as a pound of bacon.

I am now in the middle of the third book, “Farmer Boy,” which describes the youth of the boy who would one day be Laura’s husband. Early in the tale, I came upon the following passage:

Almanzo, the title character, is talking with his older brother, Royal:

“ ‘What would you like best to eat?’

“They talked about spareribs, and turkey with dressing, and baked beans, and crackling cornbread, and other good things. But Almanzo said that what he liked most in the world was fried apples’n’onions.

“When at last they went in to dinner, there on the table was a big dish of them! Mother knew was he liked best, and she had cooked it for him.”

Fried apples’n’onions.

Fried Apples'n'Onions

I don’t know about you, but that activated my salivary glands. I had to find out just what this mercurial combination would be.

I first turned to “The Housekeeper’s Apple Book,” by L. Gertrude MacKay. This slender cookbook dates back to 1917 and features a handy collection of old-fashioned favorites, including various versions of dried apple cake, apple dumplings and apple tapioca.

Sure enough, there was a recipe for something called Apples Fried with Onions:

“Peel onions and slice. Fry in fat until a rich brown; drain on soft brown paper. Fry unpared quarters of apple in fat left from the onions. Arrange apples in a border on a platter; fill center with the fried onions and serve hot.”

Sounds great, but I somehow didn’t think it was quite the recipe that Almanzo fell for. Why? Because the people who populate Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books have an overwhelming sweet tooth. I don’t know if it’s because they are books for children or if they really did have hankering for all things sweet.

So, I found a variation on RecipeZaar.com that even references “Farmer Boy,” and yes, it called for brown sugar. I used less than the recipe recommended — the onions and apples both have a natural sweetness — and I added a touch of kosher salt to bring out the flavors.

One bite and I could understand Almanzo’s love of the dish. Try it with your favorite cut of pork, chops, roast, tenderloin or cutlet. And take a bite out of one of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, if you haven’t read them. The description in “Farmer Boy” of cutting blocks of ice in weather that’s 40 degrees below zero will take the edge off the summer heat.

The rich, tropical flavor of mango; peaches at the peak of ripeness right now — with this kind of deliciousness at hand, it’s a great time to put together a luscious summer pie.

This Mango Cinnamon Peach Pie came together nicely when I had four frozen peaches and one large mango on hand. I wanted pie and didn’t want to drive to the store to buy more peaches. Cinnamon, sugar and butter are the standbys in a fruit pie, but lemon juice and a small amount of almond extract really picked up the flavors. On top, a scoop of Haagen-Dazs Five Vanilla Bean ice cream was perfect.

Mango Cinnamon Peach Pie, with a little lemon and almond flavoring, makes a perfect summer dessert.

Obviously, in this recipe, you can use all peaches, too. Or, top with mango ice cream.

While I am able to put together a pie crust, I’m rarely happy with the results. So, this pie was made with Pillsbury rolled and ready-made crusts.  (I am not wild about this crust either, but it sure saves time and angst.)

Another pastry caught my eye while I was paging through “The Greyston Bakery Cookbook” (Rodale, $26).  The author, Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan lives in New York, and was formerly the director of the Community Garden Project for the Greyston Foundation.  The Greyston Bakery in New York was founded by Zen Buddhists in 1952 and thrives to this day.

Peach Crème Brûlée Tart might sound like a lot to tackle, but the recipe appears easy to do.  It has one crust, a 9-inch pie or tart crust, that is partially baked and cooled. (I would probably use one of the pre-made crusts, unless I was feeling more ambitious.)

Then, you peel and cut up fresh peaches and blend them. A custard batter, whipped egg whites and careful cooking come next, then the tart is cooled in the refrigerator.  Before serving caramelize sugar on top of the tart, then cool to room temperature for serving — and wait for the compliments to come.

Photos by Bonnie Walker

The zucchini filling also has sun-dried tomatoes, scallions and basil.

I mentioned in a previous blog that I was dreaming of creating a zucchini cobbler but long hours at work had kept me out of the kitchen. Well, my hankering for my idea of what the dish should be kept growing so much that I just had to make it no matter how tired I was. So, I bought the ingredients and was all to set to mix it up on a recent Friday.

Just as I got home from the grocery, though, I got a phone call from a friend who wanted to go out to dinner. That ended my cooking plans. The following night, other friends wanted to go out dancing, and the cobbler got kicked further back on the burner. Sunday, I had no energy at work all day (for the time being, it’s a seven-day-a-week job), but my supervisor at work decided we would celebrate Memorial Day with a in-office barbecue. What was I going to bring, she asked.

I knew the answer, even if my body was rejecting the idea of doing anything but sleep. So, there I was, at 10:30 at night, only a few hours before the alarm went off at 4 the next morning, deciding what would go into this dish. I knew I wanted zucchini, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil and scallions. But what else? How would I top it? How would I season it?

I checked the Internet for ideas and almost gave up in disgust. The zucchini cobblers I found were sweet. Incredibly sweet. Zucchini, after all, is a fruit in that it has seeds at its center, but that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go in. I wanted a dish that could be the centerpiece of a vegetarian meal or a side dish. I didn’t want a cup or more of sugar dumped into it.

The cobbler before baking.

So, I started layering the filling with a kind of Italian sensibility in mind. I melted some butter, as opposed to olive oil, because I love buttery cobblers. Then I added garlic, the zucchini, the scallions and strips of sun-dried tomatoes, and softened them slightly. I added even more butter, just because I like it, and a sprinkling of grated Manchego cheese that I found in the fridge.

The topping was a quick cornbread dough that didn’t need to sit a half-hour before you could roll it out. Just flour, cornmeal, salt and butter. I sprinkled some more cheese on top, and put it in the oven.

The second I started baking it, I started thinking about how I would alter it the next time I made it. I’m like that with recipes, and many of my foodie friends are, too. What’s the good of slavishly following a recipe every time, when you can tinker with it, just to see if you can make it better. Right?

Without tasting it, the dish seemed to call for a little kick. So, I was thinking of maybe adding cayenne pepper to the batter or perhaps I could add some slivers of jalapeño or serrano to the filling. With the hot peppers, why not a touch of salsa, instead of sun-dried tomatoes? The herb could be cilantro instead of basil then, and the whole profile could change to something that’s more calabacita than zucchini.

The cobbler after baking.

But my initial approach worked. My co-workers and I ate it up the next day, though one did say it would be better with a little heat added to it. That’s the nature of our culture here in San Antonio. So, if you make the following recipe, make it your own. Modify it to fit your tastes with your favorite herbs. It could have a Thai twist with both basil and hot peppers. Or a South American touch with a type of chimichurri sauce, using parsley, garlic and maybe some olive oil and a touch of butter. (I must have the butter.) Just enjoy the fun of creating something of your own in the kitchen.

Zucchini Cobbler

Filling:
8 tablespoons butter (see note)
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
4 zucchini, thinly sliced
1 bunch green onions, whites and half of the green tops chopped
10 sun-dried tomatoes, cut into thin strips
Salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
4 or 5 fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces
Parmesan or other dry cheese, grated, to taste

Crust:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cold and cut into small pieces
1/4 cup ice-cold water
Parmesan cheese or other dry cheese, for garnish

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat and stir in the garlic. Do not let it brown. Add zucchini and coat with butter. Let it warm through. Add green onions, sun-dried tomatoes, salt and pepper. Place in a casserole dish. Stir in basil. Top with Parmesan cheese, to taste.

To make the crust: Blend flour, cornmeal and salt. Add butter and work together with fingers or a pastry cutter until it’s like meal. Add the water and quickly form into a dough. Roll out on a floured surface into the shape needed to cover the cobbler. It should be no more than 1/4-inch thick. Sprinkle cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes or until the crust is done.

Note: I am a butter fanatic and think it is key to the filling of any cobbler. If you want less, you can cut it in half, but the filling won’t be quite as rich. You can also make this dish in smaller ramekins for single servings; but they will cook faster, so adjust your oven time.

Makes 4-6 main course servings or 12-14 side dish servings.

Source: John Griffin

My husband wanted a steak for dinner Sunday night after listening to me raving about Steven Raichlen’s Caveman T-Bones. So, I went to the closest super-store grocery and the grumbling began.

Steaks there were, but trimmings were another story.

There were no poblano chiles. Not a one.

I could find no yellow onions and the white ones were so expensive my eyes popped out. I picked up some Green Giant bagged green onions to throw on the grill instead.

(While one might say I was shopping a little late on a holiday weekend to get the best picks in produce, the onion situation we can blame on the heavy spring rains in Texas and Mexico that devastated onion crops. California crops should be helping the market soon.)

There were no bags of hardwood lump charcoal, just briquettes, along with bags of the charcoal that you light with just a match. I don’t want to toss steaks directly onto briquettes, which are full of filler. And, you don’t need to pay more for match-light charcoal if you have a good charcoal chimney in which to get your coals started.

An aside here: Those metal canisters with handles on them are the most efficient way to light coals I know of, aside from an M2 flamethrower.

Long before you could buy these charcoal lighting canisters, my mother was making her own version. She would save the big Campbell’s tomato juice cans, take the ends off one and stand it up on the grill. Then, she’d drop in crushed newspaper and top it with coals. She’d stick a long match down in the can to light the newspaper and soon the tomato can was shooting out sparks and we’d end up with a batch of glowing coals.  She called it a “funicular.” I don’t know where she read how to do this, but that was fully 40 years ago.

I finished the shopping and headed for the cashier. I joined the shortest line, but didn’t do my usual reconnaissance. While the line was short, the only person in that line had an enormous cartful of stuff that she proceeded to divide into groups on the conveyor belt: food, toys, household goods. Then, she pulled out a half dozen or so cards of one sort or another to be presented and logged in by the cashier, one by one. All of this before she finally pulled out the charge card.

At one point I turned to the people who had now collected in line behind me to make a quiet apology. This being something along the lines of:  “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have stood behind me in line because I will always be standing in the slowest moving line in any store.” I once said this to a woman in line behind me at an H-E-B and she stared at me wide-eyed for a moment before saying, “Oh … I thought it was me!”

But I didn’t say a word. The family behind me wasn’t restless or peevish or gnashing their teeth, as I was. They were having a very good time. The two young girls, I’d say about 7 and 8 years old, were talking to their dad, and he was listening carefully to each word they said and responding in a kind, conversational and interested manner. He did the same thing when his wife joined in.  They laughed a lot. This pretty much changed my mood.

There was one more thing.

As I drove out of the parking lot I decided to take from one bag the 3.6-ounce, single serving of Haagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche ice cream I’d picked up. I figured I could eat it on the way home by squeezing it directly into my mouth, sort of like we used to do with those push-up ice cream sticks when we were kids.  Then, I noticed that a wonderful person involved in packaging these baby ice cream cartons had seen to it that a little plastic spoon was included. In case you haven’t noticed, these are affixed to the inside of the lid.

Though I’d relinquished my good mood to the usual grocery store annoyances, it was nice to know that it didn’t take much to salvage it in the end.