Planning works sometimes

Dear Friends and family,

Yesterday went as planned: the prednisone @ 2 a.m. made me wakeful for most of the day, till 8 p.m. Dawn did come over and just left a few minutes ago. We had a great time. I read Dawn's prospectus for her PhD dissertation on Early Modern literature, and I was impressed and delighted. Her ideas are wonderful and her writing superb. Dawn helped us out by moving all the Shakespeare plays from the bedroom to the sitting room. Since we are painting the bedroom (thank you Sergei and Dave!), we need to empty some shelves. I am also trying to eliminate the books (though they are dear friends) that I no longer need or use. Then she corrected her students' papers, and we just hung out together. Did you read about the huge crash of a tank truck yesterday on the LIE? Dawn sort of arrived on the edge of that, unable to use the usual route to get here. A terrible accident. Among many disasters in the news, including Haiti of course.


Before Dawn arrived, Merwin and I went to North Shore Farms to buy leeks, salmon and other goodies for the meals of the day. For lunch I roasted small chunks of zucchini, eggplant (both skin on), a little olive oil and garlic with a little rosemary from the freezer. At the end, after the vegetables were soft, I added a half-jar of good spaghetti sauce I needed to finish and some cut up chunks of manouri cheese. Salad on the side.

For supper Merwin and I made Michèle's salmon packets. I have no idea if I used as much of the leek as possible. It is an easy dish and delicious. All three of us were pleased. North Shore Farms had wild salmon trout whatever that is: young salmon, the fishmonger said. I used butter to sauté the leeks; don't much like margarine. (The recipe is in yesterday's blog.)

I took the prednisone at 2 a.m. again, and woke up ready to go.

All week I have been eager to try the blini featured in last Sunday's NYT Magazine. I put my own spin on them, and we all liked them very much. I made them 3 ways, quite brown on the outside yet soft inside; pale brown on the outside and soft inside, and a thicker oven-baked version, brown only on one side and yet again soft inside. Here is what I did:

Adapted from the NYT:

Optional:
1. Gently warm good maple syrup on a warming burner (for those who like this sweet)
2. and/or drain a cup of ricotta cheese in cheese cloth over a cup, for those who like a more piquant flavor. Refrigerate. Using both is allowed.

Sift together the dry ingredients into a medium sized bowl: since I no longer have a sifter I used a large mesh strainer. The measures should be level.

1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1 T sugar
1/2 C cake flour:
since I don't use cake flour, I consulted Google for a substitute. In my adaptation, I put 1 T of potato starch in the bottom of a 1/2 C measuring cup and then filled it the rest of the 1/2 C with regular flour.

Mix dry ingredients thoroughly in the bowl. Mix in 16 oz. good thick sour cream. Add 4 large eggs one at a time and mix well. I also added the grated rind of 2 lemons. The mixture is quite thin, so I avoided adding lemon juice (which I often add for my regular pancakes). Refrigerate batter for a 1/2 hour or so (or a day or more if necessary).

Grease (I used butter) and heat a griddle. Drop spoonfuls of batter on the hot pan; turn almost immediately, when blini have the desired degree of brown color. Don't over bake or the inside will not be soft, as it should be.

I also tried the oven method: preheat oven to 500. Grease a 6" iron frying pan with a little butter and place in oven. When the butter begins to smoke, pour in a pancake amount of batter. Bake for 5 minutes. Bottom will be brown, edges crisp, and top pale gold. Turn out onto warm plate.

A lovely day was had by all.

All the best to you, dear friends and family,
Bernice