smitten kitchen

First I talked about madeleines, and although they’re lovely (though mine were less so), they don’t exactly have a high originality quotient. Then I totally side-stepped my week of non-cooking by throwing some “new feature” at you, and now, well now I’m going to tell you that you can make a salad out of cucumbers, tomatoes and onions. And I know you’ve got to be thinking: you don’t say!

Although on another week–perhaps one without heaps of barbeques for all that red, white and boom spread about–I might skip over the simple Israeli Salad, I know that if you’re still looking for that easier-than-pie dish to bring to a pot-luck barbeque tomorrow, we really need to talk. Israeli Salad isn’t just as dish, as much as it is a palette to build your salad dreams upon.

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As we often do at the end of a summery day, Alex and I had a barbecue last night. No, we haven’t moved out of our “penthouse,” nor have we figured out how to reappropriate our one square-foot fire escape landing as a deck, nor did we didn’t schlep out to Brooklyn where open spaces are less of an anomaly. Nope, we had it right inside our own apartment. Alex made a massive batch of “his” barbeque sauce, I made the baked beans, we slivered some cabbage and tossed it with coleslaw dressing, seared some chicken sausages from Whole Foods (that completely freaked me out because they had black beans, whole ones, inside–ew) and popped open a couple cold ones.

When you’re as barbecue-obsessed as we are, you can’t be limited by your lack of grill and patio. These everywhere-but-nyc standards are just minor setbacks, wee hurdles to overcome. The only thing you really need for an awesome barbecue is good company and failure-free recipes.

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Some days, I’m pretty sure this site is turning into something of a Dorie Greenspan Fan Club. Let us review, shall we? Dorie brought one of my favorite surprise Paris treats into my very own kitchen, directed us to the most amazing chocolate cookie, ever, her deep, dark ganache tart was the kind of easy dinner party dessert that nobody complains about and just last week, her lemon sables were the ideal palette upon which I could paint my margarita cookie aspirations. Everything you might think you like about my baking, you really like about hers. Today, her latest book ushers in another recipe that I am certain will be a repeat hit (once, of course, I get over my addiction to the shiny and the new).

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On my old iVillage.com site, someone once asked me what the trick was to making those lattice-topped pie crusts fusspots like me hold in such high regard. I admitted that many years ago, before the Food Network was the behemoth it is today, the adorable Sarah Moulton once showed her audience a method of criss-crossing those pieces so simple, I haven’t struggled with torn pieces since. Even Alex quickly learned the Moulton Method, and remains unintimidated by pie season, which is great because you know, one of us has to roll out the doughs next week!

People who have been reading this site since ever before the iVillage year might remember my sad-but-true affection for Microsoft Paint when I need to explain something but lack the language, an all-too-common state for me. Well, I’ve done it again, and I’m going to present it without comment except to say that I hope you find this helpful in either pie-making or resting assured, once and for all, that I’ve gone off the deep end.

[Best viewed at full-size.]

But wait! There’s more!

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