smitten kitchen

My husband and I have different packing personalities. First, I need a clean apartment, you know, before I wreck sections of it at a time. Then I need to go through every single thing we own before any of it gets packed and determine whether it should stay or does it need to go. I cannot stand the thought of moving, well, useless baggage to a new and supposedly clean slate of an apartment. Then each box has to have a separate topic; if desk stuff gets in with book stuff, I get itchy and start pacing the floor. How does Alex pack? Oh, he puts stuff in boxes until everything’s packed. I probably don’t need to tell you who is better at getting the job done.

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It wouldn’t be Hanukah if I didn’t refresh my favorite, dead-simple potato pancake recipe. But it wouldn’t make for a very interesting story if I told the same one every year; in fact, I think they get better with each try because I continue to tweak them ever so much.

This year, after finally making peace with my cast frying pan (coincidentally, over an “apple latke”) I cooked them in there, and will use no other pan for them as long as I live. It is a browning genius, and even small amounts of oil resulted in no sticking whatsoever. I also realized that I found them a bit on the salty side — something I noted last year and entirely forgot in the 12 months since — I hope to remember that next year.

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A few weeks ago, Alex and I were in Whole Foods and just as we were hoping, they had some samples out in the cheese section for weary travelers. (Yes, walking from Chelsea to the Lower East Side counts!) One of them was something that, being me, I initially kind of shrugged over, because who would buy something called Feta Salsa which was clearly not salsa, really a throwaway of a “recipe” and also like $8 for the tiniest of containers.

As it turned out, we would. Basically, Whole Foods took a bunch of ingredients that are usually presented in their own separate dishes if you were putting out snacks — olives, sun dried tomatoes, feta, olive oil — chopped them all together and adding some herbs to create something greater than the sum of their parts.

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Did you know that you can make crackers at home? Crackers that are completely natural, have no funky or suspicious ingredients and also don’t cost more than pennies? And addressing my pet peeve: crackers that are actually firm enough for you to spread cheese and other deliciousness over?

I bet you think I am talking crazy [I almost said "crackers" -- see how I restrained myself there?] but for once, I’m not. This astoundingly simple recipe for crackers accompanied an article in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine about spelt versus farro and how some people mix them up but they’re quite different… and so on. The story is cute, but for me, the real gem was this recipe.

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More than six months ago, I had a dinner party and auditioned a then-new recipe for one of my favorite middle-of-the-freezing-winter dinner party dishes (short ribs) that was so good, I still weep a little when I recall it. I made a tarte tatin that was… well, it needed a little more cooking, and perhaps a Molly intervention And I made this onion tart, and we ate it with the cheese “course” and it was perfect in every way.

So why are you only hearing about it today? Well, as is all too common when I have people over, I forget to take pictures. Any pictures. I have not a single picture of either dish from that night. I am still not over it. I have brought shame to the food blogger community.

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