...and eat it too!

We posted this cake for National Dessert Day on Instagram (October 14), which, silly us, we thought was everyday! It comes from The Maverick Cookbook, by Lynn Cline (Leaf Storm Press) that we styled and photographed last year. And, if you’re wondering, the cake tastes as good as it looks. Enjoy!

Teahouse Chocolate Cake

Inspired by Edith Warner’s chocolate loaf cake recipe that is still being passed around, this recipe blends chocolate with coffee, almonds and cinnamon, topped with a decadent chocolate frosting.

¾ cup all-purpose flour 1¼ teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon salt ¼ cup ground almonds (see Kitchen Clue) 1  teaspoon  ground cinnamon ½ cup (4 ounces) semi-sweet baking chocolate 2 tablespoons freshly brewed coffee 2⁄3 cup Vanilla Sugar ½ cup whole milk 3 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Butter and flour a loaf pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir in the ground almonds and cinnamon.

Add the chocolate and coffee to the top part of a double boiler or small saucepan and cover. Place in a larger pan partially filled with water. Bring water to a boil.   Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for about 10 minutes or until chocolate melts.

In a large bowl, beat the Vanilla Sugar and melted chocolate together using an electric beater on low until combined, about 1 minute. Gradually add the flour mixture and the milk, alternately a bit of each until well combined, and then beat for 1 minute. Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat for 1 minute more, until the batter has the texture of whipped cream.

Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 15 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 275 degrees and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Then increase the temperature to 300 degrees and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan and cool completely.  Cover with Chocolate Butter Frosting.

Chocolate Butter Frosting:

½ cup (4 ounces) semisweet baking chocolate 3 tablespoons freshly brewed coffee 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Add the chocolate, coffee and butter to the top part of a double boiler or a small saucepan and cover. Place in a larger pan partially filled with water. Bring water to a boil, then remove from heat and let sit, covered, for about 10 minutes or until all is melted and well-combined. Stir in cinnamon.

• For a thinner icing that can be poured over the cake, use as is.
• For a thicker, more spreadable icing place the pan with the icing into a larger bowl filled with ice water, making sure not to let any of the water spill into the icing. Beat until the mixture thickens. Spread onto the cake.

Kitchen Clue

Ground almonds are widely available, usually in bulk. To grind almonds yourself, measure the amount of blanched almonds you need and put in a food processor. For every ¼ cup of almonds, add 1 tablespoon sugar to keep the almonds from clumping up. You may use Vanilla Sugar for this if you like. Pulse a few times, until the mixture resembles coarse sand.

Chicken Run!

This week, we head off for a 10-day RV trip with dear friends. Seven of us in a 30-footer. These are friends we have known for 25-plus years (oh dear!), so let’s all hope we come back with our friendship intact and that we haven’t pecked each other to bits. Not surprisingly, we’ve been thinking about meals we can cook on the open road (or at least at an RV campground). This one came to mind—a recipe we developed and shot for F&W online a few summers ago (along with literally 89 other recipes and photos you can see here!) This one is fresh, easy and doable on the fly, which seems important because basically these are the skills we are bringing. Everything else will be learn as we go! Let us know what you are doing and cooking this summer. And follow us on Instagram @andweate for up-to-the-minute hijinks from the road. There are sure to be a few.

Grilled Curried Chicken Legs

Serves 4

1/4 cup plain whole milk yogurt

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice

1 tablespoon Madras curry powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 pounds chicken drumsticks

Lime wedges and cilantro leaves, for serving

In a large bowl, stir together the yogurt, lime juice, curry powder, salt and pepper. Add the chicken and toss until thoroughly coated in the yogurt mixture. Transfer to a resealable plastic bag and seal tightly, pressing out any air, then refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.

Heat a grill over moderate heat. Lightly oil the grill rack and grill the chicken legs until the underside is well browned, about 10 minutes. Flip the chicken and continue to cook, turning occasionally, until browned all over and just cooked through, about 15 minutes more.

Serve the chicken legs with lime wedges and cilantro.

Hail Caesar!

Roots to River Farm, just across the river from us in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, grows the tastiest green garlic, and we think this juicy salad is one of the finer ways to use it. A whole bulb goes into the dressing, while some of the stem is chopped and added to the croutons as they toast. The dressing needs no egg to thicken it, as the Parmesan makes it creamy enough. You could use packaged romaine hearts for this, but they are sometimes all crunch and no flavor. A good head of fresh romaine requires a little more work but tastes more alive and, well, lettuce-y. We adore the bitter edge of escarole and sometimes use that in place of romaine. When green garlic is out of season, swap in three finely chopped garlic cloves for the dressing and one thinly sliced garlic clove for the croutons. This recipe is from our upcoming cookbook, Onions Etcetera coming out Spring 2017!

Green Garlic Caesar Serves 4 (or 2 hungry people who truly love each other) 3 slices ciabatta or country bread 1 bulb green garlic, with some of the stem 1⁄4 cup plus 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 6 anchovy fillets 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice 1⁄2 cup finely grated Parmesan, plus more for garnish 1 large head romaine lettuce Heat the oven to 375°F. Tear the bread into rough bite-sized pieces and place on a baking sheet. Take the bottom 4 to 5 inches of the green garlic stem and halve lengthwise. Discard the woody core, if needed, and slice the stem thinly. Scatter the sliced garlic stems over the bread, along with 3 tablespoons olive oil. Season well with salt and pepper, and toss with your hands to coat evenly. Bake, shaking the pan once or twice, until the edges of the croutons are golden-brown and crisp, 10 to 12 minutes. Set aside. To make the dressing, chop the reserved green garlic bulb. Sprinkle a generous pinch of salt over the garlic and continue to use the side of your knife to mash the garlic to a paste. Lay the anchovies over the garlic paste, chopping and mashing to incorporate. Transfer the mixture to a small bowl and whisk in the lemon juice and a few grinds of black pepper. Whisk in the remaining 1⁄4 cup olive oil, then stir in the grated Parmesan. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Tear away a few of the green outer leaves of the lettuce and reserve for another use. If the tops of the lettuce are very leafy and floppy, lop them off and reserve for another use—you want most of this salad to be the juicy, crunchy heart. Tear the leaves into generous bite-sized pieces and transfer to a large salad bowl. Add the dressing to the lettuce and mix gently to coat (hands work best for this). Scrape the croutons and browned garlic bits over the salad. To finish, shave a few long strips of Parmesan over the salad and serve.

Morning Coffee

Of the many things we love one is a small pleasure, easy to attend to. A quick but civilized coffee with a friend or friends. Sometimes all it takes is a text—come by for coffee at the studio? And for 10 minutes you get to sit or stand, catch up then proceed with your day feeling, somehow, more complete and settled. Today we had banana bread with our coffee. Here is the recipe Kate developed, using coconut oil since Guy is not eating dairy, but you could make it with butter if you like.

Banana Bread

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a loaf pan.

Cream together: 1/3 cup coconut oil 1/3 cup sugar 1/3 cup brown sugar

Whisk together then add to sugar mixture: 1 cup flour (gluten-free flour, optional) 1/3 cup almond flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp baking powder Pinch of salt

Then mix in: 2 large eggs 2 tsp vanilla 2 to 3 very ripe bananas, mashed Handful of chocolate chips, optional

Pour into the loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake until skewer comes out clean, about 55 minutes.

Let cool. Make coffee. Eat.

Maverick New Mexico

 Working on a book is funny…when you’re in the middle of it, you’re so immersed. It’s all you think about. It wakes you up in the middle of the night. Sometimes the process is smooth, and sometimes you curse it. (And when it’s a cookbook, most of your meals come from it!) Then you ship off your work to the publisher, designer, whomever, and move on to other things. Six months or so later, out of the blue, a beautiful book arrives on your doorstep and you think, “Oh yeah! That’s what all that work was for!” “The Maverick Cookbook: Iconic Recipes & Tales from New Mexico” by Lynn Cline (2015, Leaf Storm Press launches today, and we couldn’t be happier. This was a project near and dear to our hearts…we lived in Santa Fe for many, golden years, and we both miss it lots (though our yearnings never seem to coincide, which is why we haven’t moved back…yet). Plus, we got to work with the talented Lynn, a food writer and journalist we knew from our Santa Fe days, and Andy Dudzik, a former colleague from the Santa Fe Reporter and now the publisher of Leaf Storm Press. Andy spent a few days with us back in December while we shot the book in our studio, channeling the smells and flavors of northern New Mexico to our little river town. It was one sweet week, full of laughter and ideas and very delicious food, and now we hold in our hands one sweet book.  

   

sour cherries

true, the season just passed. But the memory of the morning we went to a friends farm to pick a bucket of sour cherries has stayed with us. It's quiet, simple pleasure. We wanted to post a few pics here as a way to remind ourselves as we travel in July and coming up again in August, that we are fortunate to have beautiful moments and abundance where we live.     

New Mexico in Lambertville

A few weeks ago we were virtually transported to New Mexico. Not much makes us happier than the thought of New Mexico (except for actually being there). But this was pretty good. We spent four very full days shooting pictures for a new cookbook that our friend Andy will be publishing through his new publishing company, Leaf Storm Press. The cookbook is by Lynn Cline and the working title is The Maverick Cookbook. It takes you on a journey through dishes and meals of famous characters that called New Mexico home. Georgia O'Keeffe, Gustave Baumann, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Dennis Hopper, Fred Harvey, Billy the Kid and others. It's going to be a beautiful book, and after a week of making and eating the recipes, a delicious one!

Also, check out our Instagram feed, it's (andweate). We are trying to keep it interesting, so you need to look at the feed in grid format to see it. Let us know what you think.

Thanks!

G+K

How the How to Went

Well, that was fun! Turns out when you like what you're doing, talking about it is easy. And what we loved the most about doing this workshop was seeing how others see. Below are a few photos by the students and some atmosphere shots of the class. And here are a few ideas that came out of the class we wanted to share, in no particular order. 1. Look for the best light and then play with it. What this means is, if the light is very bright and direct, try taking a picture in that light, then soften the light by filtering it. You can use a white sheet for this.

2. Bounce light back onto your subject. Light is usually coming from one direction which then creates a shadow on the other side of your subject. Try using a white card (we use foam core) to bounce light to fill in the shadow.

3. Play with composition and pattern.

4. Try different surfaces under your subject. We see a lot of photography of unappetizing-looking food out there on the inter-webs that works because the surface the photographer is using is so fantastic and compelling.

5. Get to know how your picture taking device works. Many people are using their phones to take pictures. This is fine and what you see below were mostly taken with iPhones.  And if you learn the best way to use the device and the limitations of the device you are  going to make better pictures.

6. Shoot during the day, please.

Next photography class will be on editing using your phone, iPhoto or whatever program you are using. If you are interested let us know, we have not set a date yet.

ingredients of a good year

We love making things. This year, as we looked back on all the different work we did and also assessed the year with much gratitude, these pictures of ingredients made sense. They're building blocks to a good meal, a good year, and to a new year. Elio even got involved by helping us stamp some of the envelopes to mail these to clients and friends. Maybe he stamped this piece of paper more, but that's OK—it shows that process and chaos are beautiful, too. If you would like a set these cards (5 cards in a pack, blank on the inside), let us know. $15/pack, includes shipping.

There are limited packs available before the holidays, but we can get more printed as needed after. Pop us an email if you want some: hello@andweate.com.

A Kate and Guy How To: This Sunday

A few weeks ago Ian and Shelley, of The Farm Cooking School, asked us to teach a little class on food styling and photography. "OK, let's do it!" we said. And suddenly it is happening this Sunday, Dec. 7!

Are we ready? We are now. It's going to be super fun and here's why...  we will look at light and composition, take pictures and talk about pictures. Yum. I could almost survive on this alone, but we'll eat food too. (Ian and Shelley's food is extra delicious.)

Who doesn't love doing that? And you will leave knowing that when it comes to food and photography, less is generally more. The photo on the right is pretty much all we need to make a good picture (plus a camera)!

Join us.

Just What We Needed

This year, we hosted Thanksgiving for Guy’s family in our studio. The days leading up to it were a happy buzz of making lists, shopping, cleaning, brining, cooking, baking, planning. The actual day blurred by. The gigantic, spatchcocked bird still managed to roast unevenly, too many side dishes sequestered us in the kitchen, Uncle Anthony sliced his finger open while carving the damn turkey. And then, suddenly, it was 9 o’clock, the studio had cleared out, and I was alone, listening to Patsy Cline and staring at a sink full of suds.

On Monday morning, we were back in the studio. All the bits and bobs and wings and things of the turkey went into a giant stockpot and boiled away until they became liquid bronze. Guy made coffee-flecked chocolate chip cookies for our tenant, as a thank you for the Thanksgiving day EMT call. Lunch was a little soup made with the leftover sweet potatoes, red curry and some coconut milk. It was all very relaxed cooking, no agenda—just what we needed.

Late-May Mash Up

BE GRATEFUL. That is what we wrote on a piece of paper and taped to our wall last week. It will stay there, as a reminder.

We are happy to have a lot going on (a new studio soon, a new book in the works, a cool smoked fish shoot coming up in June, fun work with Applegate, a tree fort going up in the backyard... all of which we'll post about here in the coming weeks), but staying focused has been hard. So when we sat down at the computer to pull together this blog post, these three images made sense to us in that way that salty and sweet make sense to us in cookies.

1. Elio's birthday is on Sunday. Holy 8! (This pic is from last April, wait till you see him now.)

2. Guy has been crazy trying to start a starter and finally he has trapped yeast in flour and water (it is nice and sour smelling) and, hopefully, will soon be making the dense sprouted bread we so love from our time in Germany and Austria.

3. We love this portrait of Fabrizia, and it reminds us that the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School (where we lived and helped produce the book Coming Home To Sicily) is having its 25th anniversary in June. It is going to be a fantastic celebration (which sadly we will miss) but again serves to remind us of the experience that got us started on our path and yet another reason to be grateful.

So, with that we leave you with these...

Kick-ass ice-cream

Where: The Bent Spoon, Princeton, NJ Who: Gabrielle Carbone and Matt Errico

Why: Its their 10 year Anniversary this week! Go get some ice-cream.

I am not sure if we have mentioned that we used to live in Santa Fe, NM, and Sicily, and New York, and, yes!, in Brooklyn too. But we have landed here in NJ. Many people would, (and do), ask why? It is too long of story to get into but what is important is that we are happy, we are near family and we can get really good, really fresh ingredients that we love to cook with.

Plus we can find other people (like the Bent Spoon people) who also like to make incredibly good things with the best ingredients. Lucky us! And there is none of that Brooklyn hipper-than-thou attitude (we have our own sort of attitude to deal with in Jersey, thank you very much!)

On another note, this portrait of Gabrielle is one of my favorites that I made in the last few months. Sort of Patti Smith meets artisanal ice-cream.

a farm, ian, and...

a project evolves. Last fall we started working on a project with Ian.

Now, four meals in, lots of photos and many happy full tummies later we are getting somewhere and we are really excited! Below are just a few of our favorite images from the last dinner that Ian did at Wyebrook Farm in West Chester, PA. Wow, this place is special and we are happy we made it! Join Ian's mailing list or let us know if you want to be at the next meal. We would love to see you there because, you know, we love eating with friends.

(See this post for some pics of the first dinner with Ian and learn more about Ian here).

Another cookbook...

worth having. Publishes today! The New Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook, by Ellen Brown. Published by Sterling Epicure.

Photographed by Guy and styled by Kate.

We photographed this book a while ago but still remember many of these delicious recipes. (I think we just made the Irish soda bread in March!)

Here's a sneak peek to get you started.

Check it out online  here...

The Return

  Just before my trip to Santa Fe this week I received this book in the mail, The Return by Adrain Chesser and Timothy White Eagle. Kate and I know Adrain from our Santa Fe days and were super happy and proud to support him in this truly special book project.  It is not only beautiful and insightful, but it made me do what I have come to crave to do more and more in this instant/digital world; it made me slow down and really look and read. The tactile nature of this type of book is, for me, one of the reasons I want to make pictures and words and put them together in print. And here Adrain and Timothy have done it perfectly.  And then, of course, the subject matter (portraits of people who have made an intentional return to living off the land) makes it all the more grounded. I just love it!

Without getting too philosophical,  I can't help to feel some deeper connection now to my current trip to Santa Fe, which always feels like a return to a way of being and seeing, a resetting of myself,  that is sometimes challenging but always energizing.

Dear Adrain and Timothy, Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

birthdays

We seem to know a lot of people who have birthdays in early April. Sometimes we get to make them cake. Birthday boy: Gordon

Years around the sun: 28

Cake: Flourless chocolate with a spritz of Meyer lemon zest—why not?—from Canal House Cooks Every Day

Shoot today

And this happened today... a shoot for Applegate Kitchens. Tasty sandwiches.

Friday Night Fish Fry

When I was a kid, Friday evenings during Lent meant fried fish sandwiches. My dad and brother and I would drive up Braddock Avenue, into Swissvale, to the M&M Lounge. It was tucked behind a sad little shopping center with a Ben Franklin and a Shop & Save. The sky overhead was always heavy with dingy clouds, at least in my memory. But March in Pittsburgh is never known for its blue skies. Even as a kid, I could tell the M&M was not a place you wanted to stay and eat. The walls were scuffed, the few tables were laminate, and I think the place was carpeted, years of frying captured in the yarns of that rug. You ordered at a tall counter—four fried fish sandwiches with French fries—and waited around with the other dads and their kids picking up their Lenten meals. I’m sure you could have gotten something other than a fried fish sandwich, they must have had a larger menu, but in my mind, this place existed only for these Friday nights, for this one meal.

Ten minutes later, a couple of bulging paper bags were handed over the counter and we escaped to the fresh air of our car. In the five minutes it took to get home, grease spots bloomed over the bags and their contents kept our laps warm. At home, we’d dump out the French fries and unwrap the foil around the sandwiches—soft hamburger buns dwarfed by two or three curling pieces of breaded haddock. The table was set with ketchup (Heinz, of course) and malt vinegar and our glasses of milk. It was a feast.

In our town of Lambertville, there are two places to get your Friday night Lenten fix—the First Presbyterian Church and the Columbia Fire House. We haven’t tried the church’s supper yet, but last Friday we went with friends to the fire house. It is like walking into the pages of a National Geographic article on small-town America, circa 1976, or an early Saveur spread. Wood-paneled walls, fluorescent lights, long tables covered with red plastic tablecloths and set with upside-down coffee mugs on their saucers and baskets of rolls and butter.

When we sat down, a volunteer brought out bowls of stewed tomatoes and macaroni and cheese. The boys ate all the bread and butter in about 5 minutes. We were dismayed to find out they had already run out of cole slaw. In the back kitchen, the firemen were frying away, sending out plate after plate of fried and baked fish, fried shrimp and French fries. People chit-chatted with their neighbors, passing tartar sauce and cocktail sauce up and down the tables. Our group of eight got a table to ourselves, and as happy as we were to be with our friends, I think we all know that part of the fun of these things is getting to talk with strangers. Still, we gladly sipped the beers that we had brought, laughed at our boys, and ate enough fried food to last us for a year. Dessert was your choice of chocolate, vanilla or butterscotch pudding, which was scooped out of industrial-sized cans and festooned with Redi-Whip. It was a feast.

During the evening, we learned that this will be the last year of fish fries. The fire house is closing, consolidating with the larger house on Main Street, and the building will soon be going up for sale. Walking out into the chilly March evening, we speculated about it becoming a great neighborhood restaurant, or a gym, or how it could be converted into a house. We stopped at another friends’ house and talked on their porch for a few minutes, as the streetlights came on. Sometimes, our sweet little town feels a little too little, a little too provincial, for me. And sometimes it feels just right.

People Eating: Elio

I like pictures of beautiful food. I like beautiful pictures of food. But what is meant to happen to that food? Hopefully it will be eaten, enjoyed, appreciated; happily. This is something I want to start seeing more of. It should be an interesting challenge because who wants a picture of himself eating? I started with Elio the other day after making these little potato croquettes (Banatages) from the gorgeous and under-appreciated book, Medina Kitchen by Fiona Dunlop. This book focuses on the cooking of North Africa and I hope to cook from it a lot and report back here. So this is my first try with the book and my first try with pics of someone eating (along with beautiful pictures of beautiful food). Fortunately Elio liked these, because that was dinner!