Hap­py Birth­day, my girl

I spent all day today in one of my favorite ways: shop­ping for, cook­ing, pho­tograph­ing and writ­ing about food.  Today’s efforts: peach crum­ble and roast­ed toma­toes, for my lat­est con­tri­bu­tion to Vin­tage Mag­a­zine, out of New York next month.

Peach Crum­ble

(makes 4 large or 6 small servings)

2/3 cup plain flour

1/4 cup gran­u­lated white sugar
1/3 cup cold butter
6 ripe peaches

gen­er­ous sprin­kle fresh-ground nutmeg

even more gen­er­ous sprin­kle fresh-ground cinnamon

This is a love­ly, light crum­ble, made even bet­ter if you can find a cin­na­mon grinder.  I’ve also turned my back on ready-ground nut­meg. The aro­ma of fresh-ground just runs cir­cles around the pow­dered stuff.

Peel the peach­es, leav­ing the peels as long as you can, just for fun.  Cut the peach­es into wedge

Place the flour and sug­ar in your food proces­sor and turn it on. Then, a lit­tle chunk at a time, drop the but­ter into the lit­tle hole at the top and clamp your hand over the hole: flour will tend to show­er out the top when the but­ter dis­turbs it, the first cou­ple of chunks. Use up all the but­ter and whizz until the mix­ture is nice and sandy.  If you do not have a food proces­sor, the same result can be achieved by sim­ply rub­bing the cold but­ter with the flour and sug­ar until well-mixed and sandy.

Cov­er the bot­tom of an oven­proof dish, around 8x6 inch­es, with the peach pieces.  Scat­ter the crum­ble top­ping over the fruit and grate a sprin­kle of nut­meg, and of cin­na­mon, over the whole thing.

Bake at 350F for about 25 min­utes, till the top is gold­en. Serve with whipped cream.

Then there were the roast­ed toma­toes, too sim­ple almost, to require a recipe, but here goes anyway.

Roast­ed Toma­toes with Fresh Herbs

(serve 4–6 as an appe­tiz­er with sal­ad, cheese or cured meats)

1 lb cher­ry toma­toes, prefer­ably on the vine

½ cup extra vir­gin olive oil

3 stems rose­mary, only leaves, minced

3 leaves sage, minced

3 stems thyme, only leaves, minced

sea salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

Lay the toma­toes in a sin­gle lay­er in an oven­proof dish.  Sprin­kle with the oil, herbs and sea­son­ings.  Roast in a medi­um oven, around 350F, for 45 minutes.

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All this activ­i­ty was love­ly, and I can’t wait for the piece to appear.

But it was all a ruse to dis­tract me from the fact that my gor­geous teenag­er has turned 14.  My daugh­ter’s birth­day was yes­ter­day, and what a gor­geous, sen­si­ble, fun­ny, intel­lec­tu­al, con­ver­sa­tion­al­ly addic­tive per­son she has grown into.

We spent yes­ter­day evening watch­ing her open her presents: a book of pho­tos of the cats she fos­tered over the sum­mer, a gor­geous sweater from my sis­ter, a cat­ly lock­et (plus reck­less spend­ing mon­ey of course) from my par­ents, fun­ny Doc­tor Who things from us, wit­ness the nut­ty cake dec­o­ra­tion, of course.

The Best Choco­late But­ter­cream Icing EVER

(makes more than enough for one cake, plus licking)

Melt the choco­late in a dou­ble boil­er.  Mean­while, beat the but­ter with the salt and vanil­la extract with an elec­tric mix­er — bear with me, it’s very bor­ing from here on out, just KEEP BEAT­ING — till airy and light, seri­ous­ly 4 min­utes or so.   Then add the icing sug­ar a bit at a time — it’s very dusty — and keep beat­ing anoth­er 5 min­utes as you incor­po­rate it.  Then add the egg and beat anoth­er bloody 5 min­utes, and THEN add the choco­late, slight­ly cooled.  And then, trust me, it’s real­ly worth it.

Glossy, smooth, choco­late­ly.  And I don’t even LIKE that kind of thing.

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We cel­e­brat­ed with mem­o­ries of the extrav­a­gant shop­ping trips with John’s mom in Flo­rence where she kept repeat­ing, “This is REAL­LY the last present, I promise!”…

We looked through the pho­to albums, as we always do, at preg­nant me, at tiny baby Avery, and tod­dler Avery with her Grand­pa Jack who I am absolute­ly sure is, some­where, vast­ly proud of who she has become.  He must look at her with her sen­si­ble, dar­ling girl­friends, her beau­ti­ful table con­ver­sa­tion man­ners, her Russ­ian vocab­u­lary and her flap­per bob, and most impor­tant, her gen­tle love for her grand­moth­er, and think some­how, “Yes, I knew she would become just exact­ly THAT per­son.”  I know he will con­tin­ue to watch, because she’s worth watch­ing.  We won’t forget.

Hap­py Birth­day, Avery.