Sweet Childhood Memories

I was recently reminiscing about my favorite childhood meal: a Swanson's chicken pot pie washed down with a bottle of RC Cola with a Hostess cupcake for dessert. (Mind you, I had this dream dinner once and only once and, to this day, I'm suspicious of why my mom served it to me and me alone.)

When Thomas Wolfe wrote, "You can't go home again," I think he was talking about childhood food memories. Frozen pot pies are now inedible and Hostess cupcakes haven't been worth the calories ever since they stopped using lard. RC Cola in a glass bottle is still a treat, if you can find it.

But I've found one favorite that's stood the test of time: the Mallo Cup. Were Mallo Cups a part of your childhood? The milk chocolate with hints of coconut? The whipped creamy, marsh-malloey center? The promise of wealth in the form of play money?

During our recent trip to West Virginia and Ohio, I found these at Cracker Barrel. I ripped into the trademark red, yellow and brown wrapper and temporarily tossed the chocolate candies aside. I was going for the fake money and was relieved to see that it was still there. I scored two 5-cent cards and wondered how much more I'd need to redeem a prize.

"Must save 500 points"

The answer: 490 more points would score me a $1.00 rebate check (enough to purchase one more Mallo Cup package of two). Who in their right mind would purchase a hundred Mallo Cups for a $1.00 rebate? That has got to be the worst return on investment since Bernie Madoff's pyramid came tumbling down. The postage alone to mail the cardboard coins would approach a buck.

Man, was I wrong. According to the Boyer Company website (Grammar, punctuation and capitalization are the work of the Boyer Company):

• Consumers continue to save Play Money for over 73 years. Over 5 % of all play money is redeemed nationwide!

• The Largest Amount of Play Money redeemed by a single consumer was in 2006 a gentleman from Uniontown Ohio mailed in enough coin cards to receive a $353.00 Check! That's 176,659 points saved (That's a lot of candy!)

Today I spoke with Angel from the Boyer Company and learned the following (Grammar, punctuation, capitalization and statistical analysis are mine):

• Mallo fans can also redeem their play money for actual prizes. The minimum number of coin cards needed is 2,500. (Now that's a lot of candy.)

• The 1-cent and 1-dollar coin cards are no longer printed.

Photo courtesy of www.brassdragon.biz

• Boyer prints the coin cards in a continuous roll with the following order repeating endlessly: 5, 10, 5, 25 and 50-cent piece.

• That means that your chances of getting a 5-cent card are twice as great as drawing a 10, 25 or 50. (You have a 20% chance of 10, 25 or 50 and a 40% chance of drawing a 5.)

• Your chances of drawing a 10, 25 or 50 card are equal. This surprised me because getting a 50-cent piece was once like winning the Golden Ticket.
  

Of course, I'm sure the folks at Boyer would say that everyone's a winner who bites into a gooey, delicious Mallo Cup. And I'd have to agree with that 100%. Just the same, I wouldn't mind getting that $1.00 check in the mail. I could buy a bag of Sour Patch Kids.

(What's your favorite childhood candy?)

Hometown Hospitality

I love my home town of Ravenswood, West Virginia, but it's not exactly a destination city. (It's more like a departure city, a place you plan to leave.) And that's too bad because the small town (population 4,000) has a bed and breakfast that I'd be tempted to visit even if I didn't have family in that bend of the river.

Chestnut Acres B&B, located on chestnut-lined Chestnut Lane, is a turn-of-the-last century mansion that's been spit polished to perfection. The Inn also includes a comfortable two-bedroom, two-bath cottage that was built on the chestnut-wooded property more than a century later. All of this is just a stone's throw away from a family of wild deer and the meandering Ohio River.

The Ohio River and view from the living room


Hospitality and trust: hallmarks of a small-town business

When I called to make a reservation for the cottage, I was disappointed to learn that the owners would be out of town. No problem, they assured me. They would leave the door of the cottage unlocked and the refrigerator stocked with bacon and biscuits and sausages and eggs and juices and sodas and, well, you get the idea. The staff checked in on us every day and even delivered fresh-baked cookies one afternoon.

All of this for a rate of $85/night for two people and an additional $20/night for the third adult.

Chestnut Acres has all the virtures to turn it into a favorite West Virginia destination. Chances are, you may never want to depart.

Chestnut Acres Bed & Breakfast
One Chestnut Lane
Ravenswood, WV 26164
304. 273-9824

Arroyo Food Co-Op Market: More Hip than Hippie

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

By now, most of us are familiar with these words of wisdom from Michael Pollan. Sounds simple doesn't it?

Too bad our quest to eat the right thing has become so complex and confusing. Is it green? Sustainable? Organic? Local? In season? Grass fed or corn fed? Free range or caged? Farmed or wild? (Sunset.com offers great tips on purchasing fresh, frozen and canned fish.) And how much of this really matters? It's enough to make any well meaning cook throw in the toque.

The good news is that I have no shortage of options for picking up produce. And the bad news is that I have so many choices: my own back yard, swapped produce from neighbors' back yards, two Pasadena farmers' markets, two buyers clubs (NELA and Our Little Market), CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Super King, traditional super markets and a half dozen Armenian produce markets.

Factor price, convenience and flavor into my decision-making matrix, and I'm so overwhelmed that I'm ready to comfort myself with a bag of potato chips fried in saturated oil and a can of dip made with processed cheese.

That's why I'm supporting the development of the Arroyo Food Co-Op Market, a "homegrown community market" that will serve Altadena, Pasadena and the surrounding communities. The market will be committed to providing a simple alternative for fresh, healthy, local and sustainable food choices at competitive prices. What I really like about the proposed co-op market is the opportunity to strengthen an already vibrant community.

If you'd like to learn more, come out to one (or both) of these two upcoming events or visit the Arroyo Food Co-op Market's website. Now how simple is that?

Monthly Social

What: Find out about the history-making Arroyo Food Co-Op Market at one of Altadena's most historic estates. Light refreshments (including homemade Sangria) will be served.
When: Wednesday, October 7, 7:30 pm
Where: Zane Grey Estate, 396 E. Mariposa, Altadena
For more details, visit the website.

RSVP: Please email your name and number attending to reservations091007@altadenawantsacoop.com

Community Membership Launch Meeting
What: Unveiling of the business plan for the Arroyo Food Co-op, a brief presentation by representatives from Santa Monica's successful Co-Opportunity Market and the opportunity to become a charter member of the Arroyo Food Co-op. Continental breakfast will be served.
When: Saturday, October 10, 9:00 am
Where: Altadena Community Center, 730 E. Altadena Dr., Altadena

For more details, visit the website.
RSVP: Please email your name and number attending to reservations091010@altadenawantsacoop.com

If you have any questions, you can also email me at susancarrier at sbcglobal.net.

Getting Figgy With It

Enough with the tomatoes already.

The backyard figs have suddenly burst from green to deep purple and are behaving like typical toddlers. They want my attention and they want it NOW. And if I ignore them? They act out by throwing themselves on the ground.

Up until this year, I simply cut the figs in half, squeezed on a little lime juice and ate them greedily over the sink. If I was a little more ambitious, I'd make a simple salad of arugula greens, figs and shards of machego cheese (bitter, sweet and pungent).

This year, I followed the lead of the Food Librarian and made a fig tart. And guess what? It couldn't be simpler. Roll out the puff pastry. Crimp the edges. Scatter brown sugar over the crust. Arrange sliced figs. Top with melted butter and a little more brown sugar. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes, or until the crust is brown.

A cheap tart: $2.00 for a sheet of puff pastry (from an Arenian market) topped with free figs

How to get "picky eater" to eat a fig? Make a fig tart. "This tastes like it came from a bakery."

As I write this, a small pot of drunken fig jam is cooking on the stove. (I'm not canning, so I divided the recipe by 8.) I have been craving fig jam ever since I spread goat cheese and the nectar on top of a cracker, thanks to poet Linda Dove. At the moment, my experiment at small-scale jam making does not look very jam-like, but we shall see.

In the meantime, there's always the tart. (The fig tart, that is. Not the toddler tart)

Fig Jam Upadate: It worked! Now that I've fig-ured that out, I just need to pick up a log of chevre.

Tower of Tomato Power

Anyone flying over Altadena could spot more than a hundred seven foot cylindrical towers, including five in our back yard. Aliens might wonder about the concentration of tall towers in our foothills community.

Altadenans may have a reputation for being independent and quirky, but the tall cages aren't an attempt at inter-planetary communication or an art installation, ala Christo.

They're the result of a group effort by our local produce-sharing group, COFE. Earlier in the spring, we constructed more than 100 cages from seven foot fencing, and now they're providing support for thousands of tomatoes.

After cutting the fencing, we didn't need any special equipment to connect the ends together into the shape of a tall cage. You can see in the photo below how a horizontal piece of wire was wrapped around a vertical length of wire. Some ingenious gentleman even figured out how to use a six-inch piece of pipe to bend the wire into place.

I purchased eight-foot stakes from OSH, wove them through the fencing and then pounded one-foot of the stake into the ground. Those cages aren't going anywhere.

I'm still enjoying the fruits of our collective labor. Today I made panzanella, a traditional Tuscan bread and tomato salad, for a lunch for one. It was a good way to use up the rock-hard chunk of baguette and the bounty of heirloom tomatoes.

You really don't need a recipe for this, but the basics are:
- Cubes of stale country bread
- Fresh chopped tomatoes
- Chopped basil
- Dressing of olive oil, red wine (or balsamic) vinegar, salt and pepper

Other delicious add ins:
- Chopped pepper
- Diced cucumber
- Sliced kalamata or nicoise olives

Toss and let the salad sit for at least 15 minutes to soften the bread and mesh the flavors.

A chunk of stale bread + garden tomatoes, pepper and basil = satisfying lunch

And for more ideas on what to do with those bushels of tomatoes, check out this article in the Food Section of the LA Times, Got Tomatoes? We've Got Recipes.

The Lazy Days of Summer: Simple and Simpler

It's almost the end of summer time, and I honestly can't say that the living's been easy, but the cooking has been.

Take Tuesday night's dinner: lime and garlic chicken breasts, roasted potatoes and cucumber and tomato salad. My picky eaters gobble up potatoes, roasted with olive oil and sea salt, faster than French fries. The homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers were dressed with what Bonny from Hip Cooks calls the "Holy Trinity" - a splash of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of sea salt. Simple and easy.

Easier yet? Pick up a roasted chicken from Soumarelo in Pasadena. The chicken, along with a package of pita bread and a pint of rice pilaf, costs a whopping $7.99. Toss your own salad and dinner is served.

Summer time drinks tend to be on the sweet side: lemonade (made from backyard Meyer lemons), Sangria (backyard lemons and oranges) and sweet tea. What's the common denominator in these three beverages? Simple syrup.

I once paid $6.00 for a bottle of simple syrup, which is more embarrassing than the time I paid $20 for a pair of J. Crew flip flops that I could have purchased from my local Rite Aid for 99 cents. In case you didn't know, simple syrup is equal parts sugar and water, brought to a boil and simmered slowly until the sugar dissolves.

I usually make a cup of simple syrup at the same time that I make the beverage, but I recently got smart. I made up a quart of simple syrup and now store it in my refrigerator so that beverage making is simpler than ever. (Japanese coffee shops frequently offer a small bottle of simple syrup at the table for iced tea. Brilliant!)

While I was at it, I decided to start storing water in the same kind of bottle. Mozza Pizzeria uses a similar bottle for their free tap water, as does the Bodega Wine Bar at Paseo Pasadena. For some reason, the water tastes better when I pour it out of the glass flask.

I think I just posted a recipe for water. How simple is that?

Bottled water , straight from the tap into an elegant glass container
(picked up on sale at Cost Plus for 99 cents)

CRUNCH: In Pursuit of the Perfect Potato Chip

A chip off the old block

It's not that I need an excuse to indulge in my favorite junk snack food, potato chips.

But when I heard Dirk Burhans, author of the scholarly CRUNCH! A History of the Great American Potato Chip, interviewed on NPR, I had license to crunch my way through six states. Burhans confirmed what I had always suspected: I wasn't just pigging out when I sought out regional chips. I was engaging in culinary anthropology.

"This is my scholarly pursuit," I said to myself as I grabbed a bag of Tom's in Tennessee. "Just doin' my homework," I muttered under my breath when I snagged a bag of Mister Bees (my home town's regional chip) in West Virginia.

"Say 'Mister Bee,' please." On second thought, don't bother.

But in spite of Burhans' recommendation of chips fried in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (I forget his rationale), I was disappointed. They left a waxy aftertaste in my mouth.

I discovered the perfect potato chip while driving through eastern Ohio, considered the Mecca of the local chip. These didn't come in a bag. The straight-from-the-fryer potato chips, made to order, were as local and delicious as you can get.

Bagless chips from the Flying Dog Cafe in Nelsonville

In Southern California, Nick and Stef's in downtown LA once served a homemade potato chip during their happy hour, but they cut them off a couple years ago. Smitty's in Pasadena still serves a hot-0ff-the-fryer chip, free at the bar or $5 from the menu. The free chips make up for the double-digit Manhattan I like to order at the bar.

Inspired by the chips I crunched in Ohio, I decided to try my hand at chip making. I borrowed Altadena Hiker's mandolin and went to work slicing the spuds. I heated the vegetable oil to 375 degrees, fried the potatoes to a golden brown and sprinkled with sea salt.

Here's what I discovered. The perfect potato chip is imperfect. Some cooked dark brown, others light. Some paper thin, others thicker.

And as it turns out, I have a knack for imperfection.