What better way to break in a new website than by launching my inaugural blog here at Clareskitchen.net?

Autumn’s arrival signaled the start of my beloved soup season.   And, since I knew it would come eventually, even when the temperatures were hovering in the upper 80’s not too long ago,  I proactively did all sorts of things in preparation:  I made sure there was lots of great homemade chicken stock in my freezer: ordered a gorgeous new shipment of beans from Ranchogordo.com; and made sure that there was an array of aromatics, like carrots, celery, garlic, and  onions positioned to get things moving along in the right direction when the moment seemed auspicious.

This time I think I've finally done it!  Found the ultimate oatmeal cookie. There's something about this time of year that annually renews my quest.  Believe me, I think I've tried 'em all, and almost invariably return to that tried and true one that lives underneath that charming Quaker gentleman.

This time, however, I tackled Ina Garten's from last year's Make it Ahead and I have to say, my girl Ina really nailed it this time.

Happy Birthday, Joey!

Today is my beloved sister's birthday, and I can think of nothing better to give her than this marvelous recipe.  I know it's going to mean the world to her, because it's a familiar taste from our childhood--delectable, nutty, rough hewn brown bread, unlike anything else in the world.

Almost more amazing than having found this incredible bread, is that this recipe is the easiest thing I've ever made.  I'm still reeling from my first attempt, though this is the third I've made this week.  It seems that I can't stop!

This is a story of adaptation and collaboration.  A couple of weeks ago, my bee-loving- beloved-friend, Jen, gave me a cookie to eat from her friendly neighborhood baker.  It was a great rosemary lemon cookie which really piqued my interest (apparently obviously) so, as I chewed, clearly ruminating, she asked me what I thought. "They should lose the lemon frosting on top, and up the rosemary"  I muttered, and on we went to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden plant sale.

The next Friday, I was back again, but this time, we were headed off to Lavender Fields Farm.  She handed me another cookie, this time of her own creation, and asked if it was better. Indeed it was so good, by the time I got home, I wanted more.

Dear old, long-lost friend, how did I forget you?

You came back to me the other day,  as I surveyed some particularly gorgeous fresh caught shrimp from North Caroline, and wondered what to do with them.

Through the grey mists of time emerged the very first recipe I ever wrote.

Back in the early 80's, sun-dried tomatoes were the big "new" thing, so, as I do to this day, I set about experimenting with them.  One day, as I opened the package, I spied a notice on the back which said that the California Sun-Dried Tomato growers were sponsoring a competition for the best original recipe making use of this new wonder-product.  Best of all, the winner was going to win what, to me in those days, was a huge sum! It seemed to me to be the obvious sure-fire way to keep my jalopy on the road, maybe even cover a couple of months rent, and find the fame and fortune as a cook that were surely coming my way.

Since it's St. Valentine's day eve, perhaps it's time for a true confession: I've recently fallen madly in love. It was on a quintessential autumn day in New York last year (strike up the Mel Torme, please) and we were dining with beloved friends just in from Afghanistan and London.  Needless to say, when you've been stationed in Kabul, what you're really longing for, is some good, authentic NYC deli, and Russ & Daughters, that venerable lower East Side bastion of all things kosher,  didn't disappoint.

Yes, the lox and whitefish were superb, the bagels nonpareil, but I was completely overcome by the Russian Cabbage soup.  Okay, it wasn't much to look at admittedly, But there just was something about it.  I couldn't get enough of it.  I thought that perhaps it was the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten.  It was lovely to see my friends and all, but, my goodness, this soup!  Crazy, I know, but I fell,  and I fell hard.

I just realized that in all this time of blogging, I've neglected to discuss one of life's greatest winter joys–Brussels sprouts.   Ridiculous really, because at this time of year, they're never not in my larder, waiting for some opportunity to leap onto the plate--perhaps not as the main  star, but certainly gaining kudos as best supporting actor. So quick and easy, so versatile. So delicious. As friend, Pooh, would say: "What's not to like about Brussels sprouts? Nothin'"

The key for these  cruciferous veggies, is to be desperately careful to not over cook them, lest that horrid sulfurous smell and taste, that can happen if they're overdone, be unleashed.  No, let your darling little green bulbs just be heated very quickly and very hot for the minimum possible time so that their outside layers get crunchy and brown, and their innards stay bright and vibrantly green.

When Felix bounded out of the house to head back to Williamsburg earlier this week, it was not with a bang but a whimper.  To further torture T.S. Eliot, the whimper was entirely mine when I opened the refrigerator to figure out dinner, and realized my beloved, recently departed son had left it a veritable waste land. Once my eyes grew accustomed to the bizarre appearance of open space in my hitherto jumbled, bursting fridge, I realized that surely there was something in there that I could scrounge together into something I'd actually like to eat.  The thing was, it was late, I was tired, it was cold, and I felt that Jeff and I could really use something  that seemed more like comfort food than gourmet repast.

At least some eggs were there, and some feta cheese was twinkling away for starters, oh and a jar of harissa...then an image burst into my brain.  I'd been looking at Yotam Ottolenghi's great book Jerusalem the other day, for an unrelated issue.   The gorgeous cover sprung into my mind and I raced for the book.

It promises to be a blustery cold weekend coming up and it occurs to me that, before we all delve willy nilly into holiday cooking, this might be the perfect time to make a brisket. Now, I'd never really thought about brisket before I married Jeff in 1988. It hadn't ever appeared in my coterie of Episcopalian go-to recipes, and I don't think I'd ever even had it before my first Passover Seder where I was charmed and amazed by this disarmingly flavorful wonder.  How had this meltingly delicious, hearty braised masterpiece eluded me?

Needless to say, though I'm not usually a very observant wife to my lovely Jewish husband, I have happily produced this brisket each springtime to rave reviews.

I remember precisely the view when I opened my eyes that first morning.

My growing realization as the white plaster wall came into focus, that I'd finally found my way to my dream of the Greek island of Evia. Stories of this magic place had enlivened my imagination since adolescence. I was expecting the exotic beauty, the beloved friends, the splendid joys of the island unfolding before me.

What I wasn't expecting, however, was the overwhelming, sweet aroma wafting from the kitchen where a sublime treat was gently bubbling away in preparation for our first Greek breakfast.

I'm extremely fond of breakfast but summertime presents its own challenges.  As an inveterate oatmeal eater during those grey times of the year, once the berries come in, I'm longing to give in and feast, but somehow, slathering them over a piping hot bowl of porridge just doesn't cut it. I was wrestling with that dilemma recently when I recalled my much ballyhooed summer of 1975.  I was young, I was impetuous and I was driving my parent's completely bonkers in every way imaginable.

I was also, to their despair, living in a squat in London's Belgravia.  Think "Upstairs,Downstairs"  generally and Eaton Square more specifically.  With a gang of boarding school pals, I was inhabiting the glamorous, though vacant home of Bernie Cornfelt, ne'er-do-well financier and sometime boyfriend of Victoria Principal.  Ole' Bernie  had conveniently gone on the lam, leaving us to live it up in his digs.  That is, until we were supplanted later that fall, by a band of Hell's Angels who were altogether bigger and badder than we were, even in our wildest dreams.  Alas, that, is, as they say, another story.

Wow.  Somehow when I read Sam Sifton's article and recipe in last Sunday's New York Times magazine, I just knew.  And last night, when I cooked it and subsequently tore into it, I was sure.  I've stumbled upon a new keeper, bound to make frequent appearances at my table, and maybe at yours too.

Extremely easy, and only a bit time-consuming (about an hour all together, mostly sitting around getting hungry as the yummy aroma wafts about the kitchen), it's  bound to be a family pleaser--and in fact, is destined to be Felix's welcome home meal when he returns from school in the not-so-distant future.

How's about a little tweak for Valentine's Day?  Polpettone, which sounds very glamorous indeed, is Italian for meatloaf and I have to say, in the light of the crazy blizzard around here, you may want to consider losing your plans to sally forth to some overcrowded, overpriced  restaurant and instead, wire up this baby for tonight.

Whisper down the lane.  At least that's what we used to call it in England.  You know, that childhood game where you whisper a phrase to your friend who whispers it to the next person in line, and, at the end of the queue, the last person shouts out what they heard and it bears no resemblance to the initial phrase?

For some reason, I always found it endlessly amusing at slumber parties,  which is perhaps why this recipe is both amusing to me and perfectly appropriate for today.

"Cold, Cold, Cold, Cold, Cold, Cold" - Lowell George, LIttle Feat

I guess I'm showing my advanced age by quoting lyrics from the 70's, but really, I can't get it out of my mind.  And speaking of my youth, I don't ever remember it being this cold.  I mean it must have been, surely, because however else were we seemingly constantly ice skating round and round the lake at the University of Richmond?  I guess it must have been this cold, I just didn't feel it so much, bursting with the endless joie de vivre and hot internal furnace of youth.

That being said, let me let you in on a little secret.  I know how to get it back.  No, not ALL of the hot blooded enthusiasms perhaps, but at least the means for a happy, warm glow that will get you scooting through this polar vortex or storm Leon or whatever next week's version is going to be dubbed.

You know that hideous feeling where you've let something go so long, you're too mortified to know how to address it?  Well, that's me, somehow finding the gumption to write this.

I've just had lunch with a beloved friend, in which we discussed this very quandary.  Well, actually, not this very quandary, but yet another thing that I've let get hideously awry.  Anyway, I'll attack the other thing in a minute after I've gotten this post taken care of, but I thought her solution was ingenious and I don't know why I didn't think of it before: just tell the truth.

"The times, they are a-changin",  Bob Dylan's epic album of that name came out in January 1964 which (if my  notoriously bad math is correct) means that  just shy of 50 years ago, things were moving along at the same pace as the world seems to be at this very moment.   My crazy old world is changing by leaps and bounds everywhere I look, and I bet yours may be doing the same thing.

Earlier this year, for example, the names of cuts of beef and pork, 350 of them in fact, were officially changed for the first time in 40 years, leaving me, for one, completely intrigued and confused.

Well, it's no news to me that I'm the luckiest woman in the world, and I never, ever forget to be grateful.

Chief amongst my lengthy list of things for which to be grateful, has to be the joyous, loving relationships I have, and have had, with so many friends from all over the world and from all sorts of disparate times of my life.

As it says at the top of this page, "Saving the world, one bite at a time".  Desperate times call for desperate measures, and sometimes I can't think of a thing in the world I can do to make anything better,  save for making a batch of cookies.

When I came home from Michigan a couple of weeks ago, my luggage was bursting with cherries.  As I desperately tried to get my suitcase shut, I must admit to thinking that this must have been how the guy in Midnight Express must have felt.  Fortunately, cherries aren't considered to be contraband, so, loaded up with friend Sarah's incredible gift of pounds and pounds of the best the Upper Peninsula has to offer, I made my way home.  Both dried and covered in dark, rich chocolate, I've been gently nibbling away at my incredible cache and enjoying every bite.

Last week I had the great good fortune to take a lovely trip to the Upper Penninsula of Michigan to visit dear old friends. There on the shore of Lake Michigan, I witnessed several "Michigan sparklers"--days so bright and sunny that the entire lake seemed to be a sea of diamonds.  Also, there, I had the joy of donning my first sweater in many months; the wonder of primo star-gazing and pondering the meaning of the universe while reclining in a golf cart on the 9th hole late at night with beloved pal Sarah and a rambunctious English bulldog, and the sweet surprise of endless local cherries--both drenched in dark chocolate and without.

Fast and furious.  That's the only way to describe the transformation of my lovely storybook morning into something which very nearly could have resembling the film  "Psycho"  had not my better self intervened.

The start of my very busy video shoot day dawned lovely and cool, with even a little mist rolling off the river.  Kitchen shears in hand, I wandered down to the kitchen garden to harvest herbs to incorporate into the tomato sauce  which I was  planning to create as soon as my trusty photographer appeared.

If you should stumble into some decent tomatoes, not too watery from all of the rain that's bombarded our beloved Hanover of late, do yourself a favor and make this!

At least a couple of times during the late summer, I'm known to "accidentally" forget to make dinner, or "inadvertently" become so embroiled in closet cleaning that, surprise, it doesn't seem to make any sense get it together.  Then, oh so smoothly and nonchalantly, I just say to Jeff, "Hey, why don't we just run over to Joe's Inn?"

Help!  I'm drowning, and I have a feeling you may be too.  In zucchini that is.

How is it that something so longed for, can quickly turn into too much of a good thing?  I happen to love zucchini--its subtlety, its versatility, its special place in the late summer garden and kitchen.  What I realize I'm not so keen on, is zucchini unabated for weeks and weeks.

In fact, I was almost relieved the other day when, upon inquiring into the dietary restrictions and disinclinations of our Parisian guests, I was told they all ate everything, with the exception of 10-year old Jacob, who, it turned out, was game to try anything but zucchini, or courgette, as it came out in his lilting French.

True Confessions.  When in comes to provisioning, I like to think of myself as a model of organization.  The truth, however, is that frequently real life intervenes--a sudden irresistible invitation for dinner or a late afternoon swim, for example--and the best laid plans for what I'm going to cook, and when, goes cattywampus.  Really, I wouldn't have it any other way for, in cooking, as in real life, the ability to be flexible, it seems to me, is a highly underrated virtue.

"Whatever this salad thing you've got going on, I like it!" proclaimed happy Felix earlier this week.   As he tucked into his second salad dinner of the week, I had to admit I'd scored well with only a modicum of planning and very little effort.

I knew it was likely to be a fraught week between shooting my corn fritters video, entertaining house guests from Paris and being on deadline with my story for the Times-Dispatch.   Plus, the weeds in my garden have gotten out of control, and I just knew I'd want to be sneaking out there to wage war on them when I wasn't wrangling corn in the kitchen and on my computer.

Yoo Hoo!  Here I am! I know, it's been entirely too long, but if you have been worried about me, fear not, I'm perfectly happy and right as rain.

I realized just how long I've been missing in action last night while I was photographing a great corn pudding with orange bell pepper and summer squash that I'd just created to accompany the summer's first crab cakes.  Jeff, who was champing at the bit to actually lay into it, asked, "Actually, how long HAS it been since you last blogged?" When I embarrassingly admitted the truth, he gasped, I tell you! He literally gasped which, I must say, rather stole my thunder and quickly put pay to any self-satisfied pride I had over the corn pud.

When I started this blog, I said I intended the share tales of the boundless generosity of my friends, but nothing prepared me for the extraordinary gift I received this past week from my old college pal, Bill Norton.

It turns out, that while I wasn't paying attention, Bill became an astounding and renowned pit master, charming his many friends in Charlottesville and beyond with the sumptuous bounty from his smoker.  I've looked on, positively drooling, to photos on Facebook of his backyard exploits until I could take it no longer.  When he showed pictures of the tasso ham he'd produced, I could no longer stifle my longings and just let out a resounding, "I want some!"

Ah, the best laid plans...

 I woke today, fully intending to blog.  I had given lots of thoughts to what I might be blogging about.  It was most likely going to be about the sumptuous gift of delectable home grown sausage that Kenan gave me a couple of weeks ago.  It was just conceivable it was going to be about a killer batch of red beans and rice I made this week, and not beyond the realm of possibility that it would be about a nifty little brunch dish I created over the weekend, featuring crumpets and poached eggs.

I was stunned to realize the other day that I've never posted this dear old friend pasta.  Now that we're all supposed to be joyously embracing the Mediterranean diet, this almost conforms, bursting with fresh tomatoes, peppery arugula and bright, fresh lemons and garlic.  It iis really only inappropriate because of the heavy cream, oh, and the cheese.  Never mind, it's SO good and easy for any old weeknight, that at least I always take comfort that there's no artery clogging meat in it.

You know what they say: When life hands you a cold, rainy day in February, make Meyer lemon cheesecake.

I don't know about you, but I've been happily tripping over Meyer lemons for weeks now at the grocery, so when I spied this recipe the other day on Food 52, I was ready.  Creamy and delicious, not too sweet, but not too tart either, my initial reaction to reading it was that it just might be the perfect way to banish the reality of it still being February and happily, I was right. It came together in a jiff, and the only trauma was waiting for it to cool because the Meyer lemonyness suffusing my kitchen proved to be almost irresistible.