Summer is just around the corner, and to me, nothing says summer like good old-fashioned strawberry ice cream. This recipe comes from The Homemade Pantry (Clarkson Potter, April 2012) by Alana Chernila, and while it does require an ice cream maker, I’d imagine anyone who has ever had a wedding registry would be willing to share theirs — as long as you give them a taste of this delicious ice cream! It will take just a little while to throw together, and after a few hours in the fridge and 20 minutes of churning, you will have your very own homemade strawberry ice cream.

Strawberry Ice Cream
Recipe from The Homemade Pantry by Alana Chernila:
Makes 1 quart

• 3 large egg yolks
• 3/4 cup half-and-half
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 2 pints strawberries, washed, dried, and hulled
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1⁄8 teaspoon of salt
• Optional: 2 teaspoons kirsch liqueur

1. In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolks.

2. Place the half-and-half and ¼ cup of the sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed pot. Heat it over medium heat without letting it boil, and stir occasionally until the sugar is dissolved, 5 to 8 minutes. In the meantime, set a fine-meshed sieve over a large heatproof bowl.

3. When the half-and-half mixture is hot, whisk a little of it into the egg yolks to warm them. Then whisk all of the warm egg yolks into the hot cream. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula as you heat the mixture over medium heat—keep scraping the bottom and stirring until the mixture thickens and you get a good coating on the spoon. Again, do not let it boil. Remove from the heat and pour through the strainer over the bowl. Add the heavy cream to the mixture and stir to combine. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

4. Put the strawberries in a large bowl and mash them a bit with a potato masher. Then add the remaining ¼ cup sugar. Let the strawberries macerate in their own juices, stirring occasionally until the sugar has melted, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the berries to the cream mixture. Then add the vanilla, salt, and kirsch, if using. Chill, covered, in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, but up to 2 days.

5. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Storage:
fridge • unfrozen base, covered container, 2 days
freezer • ice cream, freezer-safe container, up to 5 days (thaw in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes before serving)

Italians love the involtini concept—something filled and rolled. In this recipe from The Tuscan Sun Cookbook (Clarkson Potter, March 2012), Frances Mayes and her husband Edward Mayes experimented with this idea, since they had a nice firm and gigantic eggplant in their kitchen. For this dish, choose the brick-shaped part-skim mozzarella because it has less moisture. For beauty, tie the involtini with chives. Enjoy!

Eggplant Involtini Recipe from The Tuscan Sun Cookbook:
Serves 8

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the parchment
1 large eggplant, cut lengthwise into 8 slices
1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves or
1½ teaspoons dried
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
8 tomatoes or 1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes almost drained of liquid, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
8 slices prosciutto
8 slices part-skim mozzarella
Fresh chives
¼ cup (1 ounce) grated parmigiano-reggiano

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Oil a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Place the eggplant slices on the pan and brush on both sides with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Sprinkle on the oregano, salt, and pepper. Bake for 10 minutes, turning once. They will then be supple. While the eggplant is in the oven, make a simple tomato sauce by whirring the tomatoes briefly in a food processor. In a medium skillet over medium heat, sauté the onion for 2 to 3 minutes in the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil, then add the garlic and sauté for another minute. Stir in the tomatoes and cook the mixture briefly, just to blend flavors, about 2 minutes.

Remove the eggplant from the oven. Lower the oven temperature to 350°F. On each eggplant piece, place a slice of prosciutto and a slice of mozzarella. Roll the pieces from the small end forward, and secure the neat little bundle with a toothpick or by tying a chive around it.

Slather the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch baking dish with some of the tomato sauce, and arrange the involtini seam side down. Over each bundle spread some more tomato sauce and a scattering of the Parmigiano. Warm well in the oven, about 15 minutes. Finito!

Today is National Chocolate Chip Day–and that is surely a cause for celebration. Who better to provide a recipe than the self-described “Guru of Ganache,” pastry chef Marcel Desaulnier?

His recipe for Caramel-Banana-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream was published in The Cakebread Cellars American Harvest Cookbook by Dolores Cakebread and Jack Cakebread (Ten Speed Press, 2011). The book marks the 25th anniversary of The Cakebread Cellars’ annual workshop, which brings wine purveyors, chefs, and farmers to their Napa Valley winery for a celebration of their bountiful harvest.

To make the ice cream sandwiches above–the cookie is a luscious Chocolate Almond Cake–see this sampler of the book.

Marcel’s Caramel-Banana–Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

from The Cakebread Cellars American Harvest Cookbook

Serves 10

1 pound ripe bananas

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/8 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 cups half-and-half

1 cup heavy cream

4 large egg yolks

1/2 cup chocolate chips or coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate

Peel the bananas and mash them roughly with a wooden spoon. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap directly against the mashed bananas, and set aside.

In a saucepan, combine 6 tablespoons of the sugar, the lemon juice, and 1/4 cup water. Cook over medium heat, swirling the pan until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and cook until the syrup begins to turn a rich caramel color, about 3 minutes. Once it begins to change color, it darkens quickly, so watch carefully, swirling the pan so the caramel cooks evenly. Remove the pan from the heat and add the half-and-half and cream—carefully, as they will splatter. Stir in another 6 tablespoons sugar and return the pan to medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring with a wooden spoon to dissolve the caramel.

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and the remaining 6 tablespoons sugar until thick and pale. Whisk in about 1 cup of the hot caramel mixture to warm the egg mixture, then pour the combined mixture into the saucepan of caramel and cook, stirring, until it visibly thickens and reaches 178°F on an instant-read thermometer. Pour over the bananas and stir well. Chill quickly in an ice bath. When cold, stir in the chocolate chips.

Churn in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to a freezer container and freeze until the ice cream is firm enough to spread without melting.

Recipes from The Cakebread Cellars American Harvest Cookbook

Ashley Phillips is an assistant editor at Clarkson Potter, a division of Random House. Originally from Mississippi, she’s lived in New York City since 2008 and loves exploring the city’s restaurants, cooking and baking for friends, and running the loop around Central Park.

I love Thai food—meaning, I love to eat Thai food. I have to be honest and say that I usually shy away from making it at home, because so many recipes have long lists of ingredients that make it seem hard to cook. But Giada De Laurentiis has a recipe for Thai Turkey Lettuce Cups in her brand-new book, Weeknights with Giada (Clarkson Potter, March 2012), that captures all those great Thai flavors I crave and is super simple to make. This was like I-forgot-cooking-could-be-so-easy kind of simple, as the dish was ready to go by the time my rice was done. Perfect!

Two things to fess up to off the bat: I made two substitutions! I couldn’t find butter lettuce (that’s what I get for grocery shopping at 10pm), so I used iceberg instead. And despite my rapid-fire in-aisle googling, I managed to pick up a jalapeño instead of a Thai or Serrano chile (I’m going to pick up a Bobby Flay book next to learn my chiles).

I pulled out all of my ingredients, then started my rice on a back burner. Rice is totally optional, by the way; I just happen to love the stuff and opted for a sticky (“sushi”) rice. The dressing comes together in a snap, as you simply whisk together lime juice, lemon juice, fish sauce, and honey. There’s a bit of chopping to do with the veggies, but once that’s done, they all go into the pot at once to cook together for about 5 minutes. You then add the ground turkey and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring to get it all cooked through.

At this point, you pull the pan off the heat, toss in the mint, season with salt and pepper, and voila! You’re ready to start serving. Put the lettuce leaves on plates and scoop some turkey mixture right into them, and add some rice on the side (if you made some—I actually ended up putting the rice in the lettuce cup with the turkey. So yummy!).

Another awesome thing about this recipe is that it makes great leftovers. I took it to work the next day for lunch and made more of a salad out of it. Maneuvering lettuce cups at work seemed a bit dicey, so I tore the lettuce up in a bowl, dropped in some rice, then added the turkey. It seriously hit the spot in the middle of a workday!

Thai Turkey Lettuce Cups Recipe
from Weeknights with Giada by Giada De Laurentiis:
Serves 4

1/3 cup fresh lime juice (from about 5 limes)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from 1 large lemon)
2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
2 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons canola oil
½ red onion, diced
3 shallots, thinly sliced
1 (4-inch) piece of lemongrass, minced (about ¼ cup)
1 Thai or serrano chile, stemmed and thinly sliced
1½ pounds ground turkey, preferably dark meat
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup chopped fresh mint leaves
1 head butter lettuce, leaves separated

In a small bowl, whisk together the lime juice, lemon juice, fish sauce, and honey.

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, shallot, lemongrass, and chile. Cook until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the turkey and season with salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until the meat and vegetables are cooked through, about 5 minutes.

Add the dressing to the pan and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the mint. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Spoon the turkey mixture onto the lettuce leaves and serve.

Check out more photos of the Thai Turkey Lettuce Cups:

Emma Shafer is a member of the Crown Publicity team at Random House. She is obsessed with one-pot meals, stovetop popcorn, and finding the perfect summer cocktail before summer is upon us.

Wedding season is gearing up, and last weekend I traveled to upstate New York to attend not one, but two bridal showers! As an added bonus, my parents gave me free rein in their kitchen on Sunday night (and even did the dishes – best parents ever). I wanted to try a recipe that I wouldn’t necessarily be able to do justice at home in my tiny Brooklyn kitchen, and Martha Stewart’s Tequila Grilled Shrimp, from the Southwest section of her new book, Martha’s American Food (Clarkson Potter, April 2012) seemed like a perfect choice.

The ingredient list is short and sweet: fresh shrimp, tequila, salt and pepper, a jalapeño, and fresh orange and lime juice. We didn’t make it to the local fish store before it closed, so we defrosted a bag of flash frozen shrimp from the grocery store. (I also cheated and used orange juice from the carton in my parents’ fridge.)

To make the marinade, simply combine the peeled and de-veined shrimp (in a non-reactive bowl) with the lime juice, orange juice, and tequila. Add salt and pepper to taste. While the shrimp sit for 20-30 minutes, heat your grill and very carefully seed and chop your jalapeño. Make sure you use something as a barrier between your hands and the pepper while you handle it, especially if you wear contacts. Otherwise, you are in for a world of pain when you try to take your contacts out at the end of the day! I used a small piece of saran wrap to cover my fingers that held the jalapeño in place while I chopped. Cumbersome, but worth the extra effort.

Next, I set my dad – or my sous-chef, as he likes to call himself – to work. He lightly oiled our grill grate and then grilled the shrimp for a little more than a minute on each side, working quickly to make sure the shrimp didn’t become overcooked.

This recipe was meant in the cookbook to be a cocktail hour snack, but since we were making it for dinner, we upped the number of shrimp and also grilled some fresh veggies, serving everything with brown rice. When the shrimp and veggies were ready, my dad scooped everything off the grill and brought it right to the table. For the final touch, we sprinkled the chopped jalapeño very liberally over the shrimp.

This recipe was a big hit with my family! The marinade was delicious and easy to make. Both of my parents admitted afterwards that they weren’t sure they would like the addition of the jalapeño, but we agreed that it really makes the dish. I will definitely be trying these again the next time I have access to a grill!

“As I get older by the day, and become more of a grown up, and a leader, and a mom in my own milk bar mama way, I realize just how much I take after my kooky mother. She hugs everyone too tight. She is fearless. She is easily the hardest worker I know. She makes life happen. She gives spirit to every day. Life is what it is because of the way she lives it. Go Greta Go.”
- Christina Tosi, author of Momofuku Milk Bar

*

“Martha Washington Jetties–a luscious, nut-studded fondant dipped in dark chocolate–had to be made on a cold night so that the chocolate would harden. Frankye, my mother, formed the balls and let them chill on the cold back porch while she made the chocolate dip. With a toothpick, she lowered each candy into the warm chocolate, holding it briefly in the air, while it hardened. I loved that moment when the liquid suddenly glazed and the finished ball was lowered to the tray. Even as a child, I wanted only one–maybe two–because they were fabulously rich. My daughter makes them every winter and keeps them in my grandmother’s depression-era pressed glass chalice. Her boy will eat three. This is the best candy any of us has ever tasted.”
- Frances Mayes, author of The Tuscan Sun Cookbook

*

“My mom came from New York to live with us in Minnesota when she was in her mid 80’s. Still a powerhouse in the kitchen, still the best dressed woman on the block, still ready to befriend anyone and still opinionated beyond belief, especially about me. She tempered herself a lot in those first months, trying so hard to be sensitive to who we’d become and how we lived.

Then we got the stove, my dream stove, the one I’d lusted after for years – a hulking, black 37-inch, six-burner Wolf range with an oven the size of Rhode Island. A true beauty. She cooked on that range; all five foot-two of her whipped that hulk down to size. She had skillets of chicken with olives and glazed carrots sizzling, the broiler blazing greens down to crisps and the oven baking her infamous apple cake that we’d always called Four Miles of Bad Road. But I sensed disapproval, even annoyance.

Finally in one of those poorly timed mother-daughter moments I went for the truth. She couldn’t hold back. “How could you spend that kind of money on a stove with no window in the door, no light in the oven and no clock!” My first instinct was the old one — hit the “to–the-battle-stations” button. Then she started laughing, and I did, too, and something shifted. In the years that followed we still drove each other nuts, but the stove made us cohorts of sorts. Maybe because she came to love it’s 17,500 btu’s as much as I did, but I think it was more than that.”
- Lynne Rossetto Kasper, author of The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Weekends

*

“My mom, though diminutive in size was a world class eater. When I was a kid, at the drop of a hat she’d drive 8 miles to the nearest Dairy Queen where I would watch her pack away a Lollapalooza Sundae. You know the one – 8 scoops of ice cream, hot fudge, caramel and butterscotch, marshmallow crème, whipped cream, cherries and the pinnacle for her, canned pineapple. It was impressive.

She was a really good cook too and we sat down to supper every night as a family. She hit menopause when I was about 10 and suffered brutal hot flashes late in the day. During dinner I could watch them come on, her face and neck would begin to bead with sweat. She’d pat at it with a tissue optimistically, but wind up leaning back in the chair and fanning herself with her napkin. They would keep building and building and as the heat grew, she would desperately unbutton her blouse, all the while carrying on dinner conversation.

Then, in the moment we all knew was coming, defeated , with sweat beading down her face, she would simply remove her shirt entirely and finish the meal in her bra.”
- Sally Swift, author of The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Weekends

*

“My mother has always had two secret weapons in the kitchen: olive oil and tamari. I bet if she had to, she could make a paper bag taste good with olive oil and tamari. There’s a perfect harmony there, an intuition when it comes to quantity and technique (first tamari, then olive oil) that creates a salty buttery-ness in everything she makes.
Baked salmon, steamed kale, fried tofu–these have been her staples since I was born. People have asked me to share the secrets of how her steamed kale converts kale haters over and over. Cheap, non-fancy olive oil and tamari. This is the dressing on my mother’s food empire, and it never fails. When I met my husband in college, I served him kale, rice, and fried tofu, all under the glaze of that magical sauce.
It was the only thing I knew how to cook, and I had watched my mother in the kitchen, a few drops here, a dash there, a gentle sensual rub of sauce into vegetable. He asked in wonder what this “kale” was?
(Having been raised on Taco Bell, kale was a foreign and exotic vegetable). “It’s my mother’s recipe,” I told him, and with that, I won his heart.”
- Alana Chernila, author of The Homemade Pantry

My mother loved to cook. we ate a lot of asian home cooking growing up and she could usually figure out how to substitute things which at that time were sometimes difficult to find in the supermarkets. One of the ways she could make sure to get produce she wanted it was to grow it in her vegetable garden.

All summer long I remember being outside with her while she was puttering around the garden. She always said she loved the feel of soil in her hands and then at the end of the day bringing things in the back door, their aromas mixing with the kitchen cooking smells of stir fry and garlic or ginger!

My mother also loved to gather wild food from around the garden. She couldn’t resist mulberry picking, dandelion greens and other things that I didn’t really remember the names of. She was very proud of her rose petal and blueberry sorbet. I never really thought about it too much until I went away to school and work and it was only when I came back to New Jersey and was cleaning out some of her things when they sold their house that I realized she had the same wild edible plant books that I have today, only the hardcover early editions, back in the day! So Ive really come back full circle to things my mother showed me, only she didn’t call it “foraging”.
- Tama Matsuoka-Wong, author of Foraged Flavor

In Cindy’s Supper Club (Ten Speed Press, May 2012), author Cindy Pawlcyn suggests buying your region’s best oysters for this recipe inspired by her holidays in Ireland. For the mignonette–a sauce of vinegar, shallots, and peppercorn typically served with raw oysters–Cindy recommends using a malt or cinder vinegar that’s aromatic and tastes like apples.

Oysters with Irish Soda Bread and Guinness Stout

from Cindy’s Supper Club by Cindy Pawlcyn

Serves 6

Soda Bread

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose or pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups buttermilk
1 egg
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon honey

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan.
To make the soda bread, in a large bowl, stir together the flours, baking soda, and salt, mixing well. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg, oil, and honey until well blended. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture and stir until a dough forms.
Pour the dough into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top as well as you can. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and dry. Alternatively, protecting your nondominant hand with a hot pad, invert the loaf onto the pad and tap the bottom with your other hand. If the loaf sounds hollow, it is ready. Let the loaf cool completely on a rack.

Mignonette

1 cup malt or cider vinegar (or Champagne vinegar or red wine vinegar if you cannot find the others)
3/4 cup minced shallot
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 to 11/2 tablespoons coarsely cracked black peppercorns
Crushed ice, for serving
36 fresh oysters, scrubbed
Lemon wedges, for serving
Tabasco sauce, for serving
1/2 cup butter, for serving with the soda bread
Guinness stout, for serving

To make the mignonette, in a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, shallot, salt, and pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate until serving.

To prepare the oysters, line a large platter with a layer of crushed ice. Using an oyster knife, shuck each oyster carefully: protect the hand that is holding the oyster with a thick towel and position the oyster with the flatter side up, the rounded end pointing toward your thumb and fingers, and the pointed end—the hinged end—pointing toward you. Insert the knife at the oyster’s hinge and twist sharply to snap the hinge. Slip the knife along the inside of the top shell and lift off and discard the shell. Then slide the knife under the oyster to sever the adductor muscle, freeing the oyster from the shell. Leave the oyster in the bottom (deeper) shell and try not to spill any of the oyster liquid. Check for shell fragments and remove any that you find. Nest the oyster in the bed of ice and shuck the remaining oysters the same way.

Serve the oysters with the lemon wedges and Tabasco on the side. Demitasse spoons are handy for spooning on the Tabasco. Seafood forks are optional, as the oysters have been freed from the shells. Slice the soda bread and place in a bread basket or let your guests slice their own pieces, as you see fit. Serve with plenty of Irish butter and Guinness Stout!

Recipes From Cindy’s Supper Club by Cindy Pawlcyn

*

“This weekend I will be making my mother’s brisket. I ate it my whole life and thought it was untouchable. When I moved to NYC, and got my first dutch oven, it was time to start making the brisket myself. I made it once, my husband loved it so much, and now he makes it too. It’s simple, brisket, potatoes, onions, carrots, and a little onion soup mix. Our whole tiny apartment smells like brisket and it’s a wonderful memory of my mother back home in Pittsburgh.”
- Julie Cepler, Crown Publishing Group Marketing

*

“My mother grew up in Nashville Tennessee and brought her peculiar southern tastes to our dinner table. On one such occasion there was a red jiggly ring on a platter and my sister and I assumed it was a delicious jello dessert and we took massive bites of it…it was not jello, it was tomato aspic. Needless to say it has taken me years to come around and enjoy aspic for what it is and enjoy it.”
- Allison Devlin, Crown Illustrated Marketing

*

“As a child, I used to wait all year for fall, namely because of the apples. I loved crisp, crunchy, sweet apples, and could polish off a few each day. However, what I really yearned for was my mom’s apple crisp. My mom was more of a cook than a baker, but when apple season came around, she would start chopping away at those Macoun or Cortland apples, and we would have my all-time favorite treat about an hour later. Oh, the waiting time! An hour seemed like eternity. I would peek inside the oven and see the juices of the apples bubbling through the sweet oaty topping. Those last ten minutes of cooling time were the worst. But when I finally got my big bowl of hot apple crisp (always served with vanilla ice cream), it was always everything I’d waited for and more.”
- Allison Malec, Crown Illustrated Marketing

*

“Family meals were a big deal in our house growing up, and my mother cooked wonderful dinners for us almost every night of the week. A huge feat! She had a particular routine with her weeknight cooking, honed over the years into an efficient rhythm—but every now and again, she’d get swept up in the idea of perfecting a favorite dish, usually a dessert. I remember one time when she decided to tackle crème brûlée. Now, my mother loves custards more than anything, and crème brûlée and crème caramel are her favorites. Mom spent a few weeks making several batches of crème brûlée, with me by her side—tweaking the amount of vanilla in the custard, creating the most functional bain-marie, figuring out how the broiler worked to caramelize the sugar into the perfect crunchy top. This whole exercise was totally indulgent, and I think the family took a several month hiatus from any custard afterward—but it sure was a blast. I’m thankful that her love of food and cooking—and her curiosity—have rubbed off on me.”
- Ashley Phillips, Crown Illustrated Editorial

*

Growing up in Florida, my Mother used to get a lot of teasing from my friends as she wasn’t the stereotypical “Italian Mama” (think skinny, frenetic, all-day coffee drinker). But I knew when I came home from school on the days that she was making sauce, I was in for a treat! She would start early in the morning and by the time I got home, she’d have the first taste ready for me on a piece of Italian bread. Now, when I make it myself, it’s still my preferred method of eating it! Who needs pasta?
– Donna Passannante, Crown Illustrated Marketing

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“When I was a little girl, my grandmother would visit every spring to take my mother, my little sister, and me strawberry picking in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. After a long (and usually hot) day of picking berries and filling at least half a dozen flats, she and my mom would stand at the kitchen sink and wash and slice all of the strawberries in the late afternoon. They had such a rhythm: rinse, hull, slice—and into the pots the strawberries would go for preserves. What I remember most is the bright red stickiness that got everywhere—on my fingers, clothes, and face (from stealing strawberries and dipping them into sugar) and all over the floors and countertops. I don’t know how they tolerated it! But in the end, their strawberry preserves—smothered on toasted bread over a slab of melted butter—were well worth the wait and the cleanup.”
-Angelin Borsics, Crown Illustrated Editorial

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“I come from a big Italian family, so as you can imagine, cooking and eating are very important to us. Many of my fondest memories from my childhood are from the kitchen. Every year for Easter, my grandmother would fry dozens and dozens of doughnuts for everyone on both sides of our family. My grandmother, mother, and I would shape and fry the dough and cover it in powdered sugar. It was a messy undertaking and left my grandmother’s house smelling of fried food for a week, but we always had a wonderful time together.”
- Carly Gorga, Crown Illustrated Marketing

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“While my dad actually does the majority of the cooking in my family, my mom has several go-to specialties that I love. My childhood favorite (which I still request when I go home for a visit!) is her Chicken & Broccoli Casserole. I have such fond memories of coming home from school and being utterly thrilled to see the chicken breasts boiling in a large pot on the stove – I knew this meant that my favorite meal was for dinner. Since then, my mom has taught me how to make the casserole myself. It’s always delicious when it comes out of my oven, but there’s just something special about Mom’s version that I’ll never be able to reproduce – and I’m ok with that!”
- Anna Mintz, Crown Illustrated Publicity

*

“From casual get-togethers to holiday dinners and traditional American and Persian dinners, food has always played a huge role in my family. Some of my fondest memories involve watching my parents cook and then sitting down to eat with everyone. But my favorite food memory involves my mother, a turkey, and a butcher knife on one hilarious Thanksgiving morning.

From casual get-togethers to holiday dinners and traditional American and Persian dinners, food has always played a huge role in my family. Some of my fondest memories involve watching my parents cook and then sitting down to eat with everyone. But my favorite food memory involves my mother, a turkey, and a butcher knife on one hilarious Thanksgiving morning.

The night before goes smoothly—my mom picked up the fresh turkey (professionally wrapped in a garbage bag) after work, and we spent the rest of the evening cubing bread for stuffing, crushing cranberries for the cranberry salad, prepping veggies, and baking pies. The next morning my sister and I heard my mom get up early and go downstairs to prepare the turkey. As tradition, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade provided a steady background hum. All of a sudden my sister and I heard my mom let out an expletive-laden scream (I should mention that my mom is a former English, Speech, and Drama teacher who is extremely effusive and outgoing…and when it comes to our kitchen, has a rather colorful language. Needless to say, we weren’t too concerned when we heard her yell, we had grown accustomed to it). What then propelled us out of our beds and down the stairs was hearing my mom on the phone, unleashing her verbal terrors at my brother. She snarled, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!!….Alexander John. You had better get your a** over here. I just looked at the g**d***ed turkey, and it’s a f***ing turkey!!!…No, it’s STARING AT ME. It has f***ing legs, and it’s head is still on and it has eyes. You wanted this turkey so you have to come over here and deal with it!! I’m not a butcher!” In true Alex-style, he calmly assured my mom that she could handle it and tried to walk her through the process. “Mom,” he said, as if talking to a five-year-old. “Just grab a knife and cut it off. We’ll see you this afternoon.” He promptly hung up. After a few more minutes of cursing, my mom eventually rolled up her pajama sleeves and proceeded to hack off the turkey’s head and legs, muttering a rhythmic string of expletives with every chop and slash.

That incident has gone down in family history. It’s one we retell and share with friends, and one my mom will laugh at now while still snarling “f***ing turkey.” It’s the one I tell when I am trying to describe my mom to someone: she does anything for her kids—even if it includes staring a turkey in the eyes and letting loose a few choice words in order to make sure we all have the best Thanksgiving possible.”
- Taraneh Djangi, Crown Ad/Promo Department

Paige – Photographer Extraordinaire (with her Assistant Extraodinaire, Morgan)

The photoshoot was awesome. Cold and chilly up there in Petaluma, CA, as evidenced by all our scarves and parkas, but awesome none the less. All the photos for True Brews were shot in three days, which at first seemed like an exceedingly generous amount of time to dedicate to my wee little book. But once I saw how much styling, prepping, staging, switching, and general futzing go into each shot, I understood how three days is actually barely enough time to squeeze it all in.

Prop Table

Esther – Props Stylist to the Stars (and obviously a joker after my own heart)

Karen – Food Styling Magician

Paige, Lisa (my editor at Ten Speed), Betsy in the background (Art Director from Ten Speed), and Esther checking out the shot.

Where the food styling happens

Setting up for a shot

Serious discussions about the cover image

Paige getting her photo mojo on.

I can’t even totally explain how incredible it was to see this all come together. I’ve been working away at these recipes all by my lonesome for the past year, and suddenly, here were all these people who took my humble homebrews and made them look like rock stars. When we got the styling for the cover image just right and Betsy, the art director from Ten Speed, cropped it to cover-size on the computer, I actually got a little teary-eyed. You would have too. The cover is going to be beautiful.

A shout-out to all the folks who made this happen:

• Paige Green, Photographer - Your photos are stunning. Thank you for somehow telepathically receiving my vision for the book and transforming it into something even better.
• Karen Shinto, Food Stylist – Thank you for taking on the challenge of these crazy, wacky homebrews and making them shine. I’m also glad that no lambs, or yourself, were injured in the Great Watermelon Soda Geyser of 2012.
• Esther Feinman, Prop Stylist – You’re a hoot! Thank you for making me laugh all day long and for so tirelessly swapping glasses for bottles for bowls — magically finding the perfect one every time. I bow down before your tableware collection.
• Lisa Westmoreland, Ten Speed Editor – Our work together has really only begun and I am already grateful for your keen eye and ability to spot (and subsequently thwart) potential problems from a mile away.
• Betsy Stromberg, Ten Speed Art Director – I know True Brews will be in good hands with you and the rest of the design crew at Ten Speed. I can’t wait to see what you do with the book.

You were such a fantastic team of creative minds that I’m sad we don’t get to do this all the time. But apparently some of us have manuscripts that are due in a month and can’t just go frolicking about wearing pretty aprons and cracking jokes about homebrewing all day. Le sigh.

Christensen is a food writer, beer reviewer, and home brewer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the recipe editor for Apartment Therapy: The Kitchn, where her writing and original recipes also appear daily. In 2010, she was selected as The Writer of the Year across all the Apartment Therapy network sites. She is formerly the beer reviewer for the Columbus Dispatch in Columbus, Ohio, and wrote a twice-monthly syndicated column for Tribune Media Services offering weeknight meal solutions for harried and hassled home cooks from 2008 to 2012.