I Want a Hippopotamus for Breakfast

If people tend to call me quirky, or wacky, I think I can blame my mom. I have clear memories of the Thanksgiving when she insisted on making blue mashed potatoes. And she's famous at the Seven Days offices for her brownie pops, made to look like whatever cute animal captures her fancy — or the season.

If everyone has a rabbit-shaped dessert, with pastel pink candy corn for ears, at their desks, it means Mom made a treat for Easter... or Monday. She was also the seamstress responsible for my Cookie Monster skirt at last spring's Sweet Start Smackdown.

Last week, she presented me with what may be her greatest creation yet: Hippo bread.

Grazing: Mashed Potato Pancakes with Pickled Red Onion, Smoked Salmon & Dill

Turkey hash, turkey chili, turkey sandwiches. When it comes to Thanksgiving leftovers, the bird dominates.

While I definitely have plenty of turkey left, more challenging to repurpose is the surfeit of uneaten mashed potatoes. Reheated mashed potatoes are no fun; potato pancakes, however, are. Rolling mashed potatoes into sticky balls with your hands, then smashing them into discs and frying them to a crispy nut- brown, is a tactile way to spend a post-Thanksgiving brunch.

Potato pancakes — or latkes, if you prefer — are also harbingers of Hanukkah, when they're eaten as part of the celebration. Topping them with smoked salmon (or trout), sour cream, pickled red onions and dill sprigs makes for a fresh, briny, filling lunch. And with a glass of 'leftover' Prosecco, they pave the way for yet another food-induced nap.

Note: If you're an experienced latke maker, know that mashed-potato pancakes take longer to cook. They'll also shrink more during frying and become misshapen. If you used copious amounts of butter and cream in your mashed potatoes (as I did), you won't need any extra moisture. If it seems like they want to fall apart, though, add a beaten egg as a binder. And since this is a very feel-your-way-through-it kind of snack, ingredient amounts are loose and approximate.

Mashed Potato Pancakes with Pickled Red Onions, Smoked Salmon & Dill

ingredients
1 red onion
Rice vinegar
Dash of salt
Sugar
A bowl of leftover mashed potatoes
More salt & pepper
Cooking oil
Sour cream
Smoked salmon or trout
A few sprigs of dill

First, quick-pickle some red onion: Peel, halve and then slice a red onion into very thin slivers; pile the onion into a bowl, cover with red wine (or cider or rice vinegar) and throw a dash of salt and half a handful of sugar in and stir until sugar dissolves. Let sit for an hour.

Put a sauté pan on medium heat and pour in enough oil to cover the bottom (I used canola). While the oil heats, shape mashed potatoes into golf-ball-size orbs, then flatten between your palms and drop into the hot oil. While they cook, sprinkle the tops liberally with salt and pepper.

Cook for 4-5 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Keep cooked pancakes in a warm oven while you finish the rest.

When finished, smear each cake with sour cream, then layer on a few curls of pickled onion, a flap of salmon and a sprig of dill. Finish with coarse sea salt and pepper, if desired, and serve.

 

Grazing: Couscous with Spicy Kohlrabi, Chocolate, Cumin Cheese and Vegemite, Splendid Table-Style

Last week, The Splendid Table's Lynne Rossetto Kasper visited Brattleboro to take part in Vermont Public Radio's annual Listener Picnic. In between admitting that okra is her no-go and signing dozens of books, Kasper playfully indulged the audience for a few rounds of "Stump the Cook," during which listeners try to stymie her with five usually odd and disparate ingredients in their refrigerator or pantry.

For sheer strangeness, those from Charlotte's Jacob Edgar were unmatched: A bag of cacao nibs from his father-in-law; a block of cumin cheese, a favorite during the year Edgar and his family lived in Amsterdam; a mysterious, unlabeled spice mix picked up during a recent trip to Turkey; kohlrabi from their CSA share at Charlotte's Stoneyloam Farm; and a jar of Vegemite brought back from Australia several years ago. ("It doesn't appear to go bad," wrote Deirdre Holmes, Edgar's wife, in an email).

As is her way, Kasper plunged in with imagination and verve. She advised Edgar to rub the kohlrabi with the spice paste and then roast it to get “a lovely crustiness." Then, she instructed, make a broth for the cous cous with the Vegemite ("but just a teaspoon, thank you very much"). Into this, Kasper suggested, he could load cacao nibs, raisins, cubed cumin cheese, some cinnamon and paprika, fresh coriander, olive oil, salt and “a ton of black pepper.”

Bite Into Our New Blog!

The Seven Days food writers live to eat, not the other way around. That means that at any given moment, we're probably tasting something we want to recommend — or warn you about. And it's our job to know about new restaurants, dishes, chefs. Through Bite Club, you can get that info as soon as we track it down. In other words, you can get it while it's hot. 

Alice and I are excited to collect all of our food content here on the brand-new Bite Club blog. Our staff blog, Blurt, came to be a rather serious place for pithy posts about food news we've stumbled across, a photo of something amazing we've eaten, a lament for some axed menu item, or a trailer for a new food film. 

On the Bite Club blog, we can roam free. Check in each weekday not only for Alice Eats and Grazing but for Vermont restaurant, foodie entrepreneur and ag news, recipes, and links to the sometimes-strange, sometimes-vital food and drink content we find both locally and on the interwebs. Come and get it!

Grazing at King Arthur Flour's Airy New Digs

If you're the kind of person who loses all sense of time and self control whenever you visit King Arthur Flour, you might want to carefully plan your next visit. As in, set both a monetary and caloric budget and tell a friend where you're going, lest you get lost.

A few weeks ago, the baking giant unveiled the fruits of its yearlong, $10-million expansion. Though the building sprawls along the same hillside it's occupied for years, it feels like an entirely different place. And the complex looks like a wood-and-steel mothership. Which it is, of course, for thousands of bakers all over the world.

Grazing: Mr. Hendricks, Meet the Cosmo

Any serious cocktail lover might order one in a low voice — such is the stigma that can accompany the Cosmopolitan. Somehow this simple blend of Absolut Citron, fresh or Roses lime juice, cranberry and a splash of Cointreau became, in the late 1990s, the cocktail equivalent of a Carly Rae Jepsen song.

But the bartenders that bastardized the Cosmo into sticky, sweet ubiquity are long ago and far away from from the bar at L'Amante in Burlington, where classics rule in both food and drink. With a chef who's a bona fide wine expert and a staff that know their Grillo from their Garganega, this is certainly a place to indulge a love of vino. The cocktail list, by contrast, is short and simple.

Ask bartender Ian DeLorme about wine and he will joyously pour you something new to try. Yet he also keeps classic drinks up his sleeve, including a tart, fresh-juice Cosmopolitan he first blended at his mother's request for a not-too-sweet version. 

This summer, DeLorme has been making a Cosmo using floral Hendricks gin, shaking up a generous pour of the stuff with fresh lime and lemon juices, splashes of Cointreau and cranberry juice, and floating St. Germain on top. The resulting drink has tiny bits of ice and hints of roses, a pool of citrusy herbaceousness that you want to dive into and emerge, buzzed, on the opposite rim.

Ian's Gin Cosmo

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, then add the first five ingredients:
4 ounces Hendricks gin 
Juice from half a fresh-squeezed lemon 
Juice from half a fresh-squeezed lime
1 ounce Cointreau
Splash of cranberry juice
A very light splash of St. Germain

"Shake hard," DeLorme advises, then strain into a martini glass. Float some St. Germain on top, garnish with a wedge of lime, and serve.