Following the Sun by William Stroud

 

 

When world was young and so were we

While summer’s sun warmed the sea

We lay on towels baked by sand

Tepid roots of love and then

 Grew by power of rushing waves

That crushed the shore and made us crave

The touch of hands, the touch of skin

Oh love was but a whisper then.

The salty breath, each sigh anew

Through passing hours of just we two.

Oh, lord those languid glory days

And good lord how I wish they’d stayed

But love like flow of tides may pass

The wilting time of summer’s grass

Sun a shadow in winter’s frost

A low sad whisper that love is lost.

An Officer and a Spy, a novel by Robert Harris

 

An Officer and a Spy is the novelized story of the infamous Dreyfus Affair, one of the black marks on the modern history of France and the French Army.

 

I often hear friends say:  I only read non-fiction because fiction is just a made up story that has little to no significance other than entertainment. I beg to differ.  I’m a history fan and read a fair amount of it, but I’ve found that often history books trap you in heavy details, dismissing the personal aspects of the story.  Novelized histories, on the other hand, wrap the reader in personalities that explore the inner workings of the historical tableau.  Yes, that is true even in the historical romance genre, with a glance into how people lived and died and loved and lost. Historical romance novelists collect a trove of reference material.  As an example of historical novels that make you “live in the time,” is A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. I often say, unless you have read that book, you will never understand how the French revolution affected French society and the people who lived through it.

 

A Soldier and a Spy is another novel that takes you inside and makes you live through the intrigues and government of the Third French Republic of the 1890s.  Yes, it is very much a history lesson, but one with a human face.

 

Perhaps you are familiar with the injustice done to Captain Alfred Dreyfus.  For those who don’t yet know the story, in the 1890s, Dreyfus was charged and convicted with being a spy.  He was stripped of his rank in the most public of places.  His disgrace complete, he was sent to the far away Devil’s Island,  a tiny and isolated place where he was kept under horrible conditions for years.

 

This is where the novel unfolds. The French Army Lieutenant  Colonel George Picquart. discovers that there be another spy in the army.  In his quest to identify the second spy, he uncovers mountains of evidence and deceit that rises to the pinnacle of both the army and the government.

 

The novel turns and twists as the truth is found and washed away and found again, always doubtful, always less than the full truth.

 

In this novel, author Robert Harris leads the reader through dust clouds of discovery to the startling ending.

 

If you enjoy spy stories, you’ll be thrilled and astonished at the reality of the complications of proof and truth and the consequences of both.

 

An Officer and a Spy is a great read that will keep you up at night and linger in your dreams. Besides the quest for truth, the novel is a valuable, personalized history lesson that echoes in today’s headlines.

 

If it isn’t in your city library, you can easily find very reasonably priced used copies online.

The Triumph of Trivialities

 

The Triumph of Trivialities by William Stroud

Trivial, yes, in truth it’s waste of days and time and so,

We babble on, I wonder why, I blink my eye and although 

Baby powder’s so much cheaper at the grocer on the corner

Yes, of course, but don’t mind me, I am just a natural yawner.

Tell me won’t you, once again, why the Johnsons got divorced.

Yes, I’ve heard, but carry on, and fill in all details, of course.

Is it true that he’s a pig, a dreadful swine in every way?

I head it all from Charlene Chase, I meet for coffee everyday.

The doctor calls it canker sore, and claims it goes away quite soon

Read directions line by line, and still it’s sore and almost noon.

Margaret had terrific moles, such unsightly little beasts

They’re black and sprouting hairs; she should cover them at least.

Yes, it’s how it comes and goes and clutters up my day

Listening to this and that and everything thing they say.

Such rude and selfish folks they are, hogging all the time,

With their ailments, and complaints, they leave no time for mine. 

Gâteau d’Alsace by The Careless Cook

 

A Savory Cake from the Alsace Region in France

A cake version of Quiche, with cheese, onion, and bacon

By The Careless Cook

 

For the few who don’t know, Alsace in on the border of eastern France and western Germany.  

Very historic and has been passed around more than a lady of the night with sailors in town.  In the War of 1870, also called the Franco-Prussian War, France invaded Prussia and Prussia not only returned the favor, they kicked some French fanny.  With the Prussian victory, Alsace and parts of Lorraine suddenly become Prussian.  Biggest thing to remember:  As a result of the Prussia victory, the Germanic states united and became Germany!  Yep, Germany as a country is younger than the United States!

Street scene in a town in Alsace

What the heck does that have to do with cooking a savory cake? Alsace and Loraine.   Cuisine! A wonderful mix and match!  And Le Gâteau d’Alsace is a wonderful example. Savory and delicious!

 

Time to git in the kitchen and git cookin’!

 

Gâteau d’Alsace

(My recipe differs slightly from tradition, but so does The Careless Cook!)

 

Ingredients

 

5 tablespoons salted butter, melted

8 oz of either chopped bacon or 2 packages of lardons (bits of either French or Italian fatty ham, available in packets in the deli section of most grocery stores)

1 medium sweet onion, diced

1 cup full fat buttermilk

1 good slosh of olive oil, a tablespoon or two

2 large eggs

2 ½ all purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder (I don’t measure this exactly.  I prefer to give it my best guess)

¾ teaspoons table salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon, more or less, black pepper

8 oz (2 cups) grated or finely diced baby Swiss cheese. Tastes much like Gruyère cheese at half the cost

Heaping teaspoon Italian seasoning (the only one I use is The Spice Lab’s Italian Rustica.  Far superior. Available on Amazon)

Puttin’ It Together

 

Oven at 350ºF 180ºC

Butter and flour a 12 x 8 Teflon baking pan

 

Fry the lardons in a skillet over low heat and cook until crispy and the fat is rendered.  Takes about 15 minutes.  Scoop them out of the pan and place in a small bowl.  Set aside.

 

Add the onion to the fat in the skillet.  Medium heat.  About 10 minutes or until turning golden.

 

In a large bowl, add the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and pepper.  Stir in the cheese, Italian seasoning, and lardons.  Stirring these  into the flour keeps cheese and lardons from sinking to the bottom of the pan when you bake.

 

In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil, eggs and melted butter.

 

Important:  USE A SPATULLA (I dip mine in cold water) to blend the buttermilk mixture and flour mixture.  This doesn’t happen immediately, but have faith and stick with it until all is sticky and blended.

 

Scrape the dough into the oil/floured pan.  Smooth it out and bake for 45-50 minute, or until a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Wait 10 minute or longer to make sure the cake is cooled enough to be easily removed from the pan.

 

Serve warm.

 

Past time to pour the wine, or if you make this for breakfast, pour a nice cup of café au lait.  You might want to renew you high school French or at least practice the accent.  Zeez is un gateau with zee goo-d fla-vor, n’est pas?  Help your French friends to forget the Franco-Prussian War.  Vive la France!

 

 

Crab and Vegetable Soup from the kitchen of The Careless Cook

 

Crab and Vegetable Soup from the kitchen of The Careless Cook

 

Like crab?  Me, too.  BUT, I get tired of recipes doing everything to turn such a wonderfully delicious protein into goop that absconds with the flavor and adds calories like a farmer stacking hay!

 

The Very Careless Cook has a delicious answer.  How about adding a pile of crab to vegetable soup? I asked myself.

 

As I’ve said many times, when you make one of my recipes, you are the cook, the chef, the ruler of your kitchen. This recipe is no exception.  Don’t like one of the vegetables I savor?  Make some changes.  But, please don’t forget the crab.  It makes the meal.

 

Now let get started….right after you pour yourself a nice dose of a chilled white wine, or perhaps you already have some prosecco waiting in the fridge?

 

Surely you know the unavoidable temptation of chilled prosecco. If you haven’t tasted it, I shan’t spoil the elegant surprise.

 

Soon as you see the word, shan’t, you know I’ve spent a good deal of time in Britland. I’ve also noticed the Brits don’t hold the French in the high esteem that we Americans favor, especially in the kitchen.  The blokes hasten to tell us that herb has an H in it, and should not be neglected when pronouncing it.  Same with ‘fillet.’  Yes, they again use all the letters. Instead of fill-a, they say fill-it.

 

Had enough? I sympathize.    Take another sip and let’s go!

 

Crab and Vegetable Soup from the kitchen of The Careless Cook

 

Ingredient suggestions!

 

1 pound can of pasteurized crab claw meat

12 oz Brussels sprouts, cut in halves

14 oz shredded green cabbage

1 can chickpeas (I prefer to use those in a jar)

8 oz broccoli flowerets

2 stalks celery, split and sliced thinly

1 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and then sliced ¼ inch wide crosswise

1 onion, peeled and chunked

1 package sliced various colored bell peppers

2 generous handfuls of small, unpeeled  potatoes, cut in half

3 or more slices of preserved lemons, diced (you can go to stores or Amazon or make them yourself – see Special Note)  Believe me, once you’ve used some, you won’t be without them

2 quart boxes of vegetable stock 

4 cups boiling water

4-6 large cubes of vegetable stock

2-3 tablespoons Italian seasoning

salt and pepper to taste.

a good spay of olive oil

Puttin’ It Together

 

Spray a deep soup pot with olive oil.  Add the celery and onion and stir from time to time until the onions are translucent. Add the peppers, zucchini and allow to cook a little longer.  

 

Mix in the Brussels sprouts, cabbage, chickpeas, and Italian seasoning. 

 

Pour in the stock, salt and pepper.  

 

Add the potatoes.

 

Let the soup come to a boil.

 

Add the water and the vegetable stock cubes to cover the vegetables.

Cook until all vegetables are soft. Add the preserved lemon and stir well.

Lastly, add the crab meat, stir and serve.

 

Voila! 

 

Short work, high flavor!  We made a pot and ate it for supper three days running.  No complains! Just calls for more!

 

Special Note:

Preserved lemons.  Why?  Preserved lemons have a smoother flavor than raw lemons and add a bright taste.  I use them in stews and salads and anything else that suits my fancy.

Recipe:  five lemons washed and ends cut off (save the ends). Slice the lemons thinly and put them in a clean jar adding some salt with each layer.  Now use those ends and squeeze the juice into the jar.  Take any blunt kitchen tool and lightly mash the jarred lemons just enough to release the juice.  When you’re finished, make sure the jarred lemons are fully covered in juice.  If not, add more lemon juice.

 

Put a top on the jar and put the jar in the refrig for a month!

Peach & Walnut Scones From The Careless Cook

 

 

If you’ve come to know The Careless Cook, you surely recognize he has few rules, but there is One Big One:  A recipe is just a suggestion, or if you prefer, a starting point.  From my point of view, cooking or baking is not a “be sure to follow the rules” situation, but coming to know your own tastes and the tastes of the folks you’re cooking for.  Don’t like their tastes? Cook for someone else!

 

You can bend the rules with great success, and good examples are vegetarians and vegans.  I am neither, but I have stroked recipes this way and that to make everyone feel welcome and still maintain great flavors coming out of the pot and the oven.

 

But, even when I bend over backwards, I run into situations that make me throw down my apron and walk away.  One fellow I know eats little to no vegetables that aren't over cooked until they are soft and tasteless. No salad either.  Sorry fella, go fricassee some squirrels. 

 

Another lady I was about to invite for lunch, without even a smile, laid down her rules:  If you cook for me, everything MUST be gluten free and fat free!  Well, if you think you’re talking to a short order cook, honey, you can kiss my roast beef and suck my French baguette.

 

But, let’s dispense with bitterness, join The Careless Cook and make his version of tasty scones.

 

As you probably know, scones are simple baked goods, with few ingredients and absolutely delicious.  But, of course the Careless Cook is never satisfied with the norm.  So, you may well ask, what are the ingredients and how did The Careless Cook diverge?  The usual ingredients are: flour, salt, butter, baking powder, sugar, and heavy cream.

 

Now let’s get into The Careless Cook's recipe!

 

Peach & Walnut Scones

Oven set to 450ºF or 230ºC

 

Ingredients

 

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup cornmeal (Don’t have or don’t like cornmeal, just skip it and add another ½ cup all purpose flour.)

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup of sugar

2 generous teaspoons baking powder

5 teaspoons butter at room temperature

¾ cup oat milk (or heavy cream, if you prefer) Note: I use full fat Oatly brand and it must be shaken very well before pouring.

1 15oz can of sliced peaches, drained and chopped

1 cup of walnuts, rough chopped

 

Note:  I made this into 20 square scones (a little thiner) because I was feeding the multitudes.  Traditionally, scone dough is formed into a circle about an inch thick, then cut into wedges.

 

Putting It Together

 

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Add the softened butter and use your hands to work the butter in.

 

Add the walnuts and peaches and mix well.  Add the oat milk or heavy cream and mix well again. 

 

Note:  If the dough is too soft add a bit more flour; if too heavy, add a little more liquid.  But either way, be careful not to end up with liquid dough or a brick.

 

Heavily dust your counter or board and plop the dough on it.  Knead gently into a soft dough and form into a square if you’re feeding a whole flock, or into a round for the traditional way.  No matter which you choose, put the scones on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for about 12 minutes if you make fairly thin scones (dough 1/2 inch thick) and up to 15 minutes for thicker (dough 1 inch thick). 

 

Note: Most ovens register a slightly different temperature.  My advice is to check the scones after ten minutes and go from there. 

 

When they’re out of the oven, it’s time for champagne if you work the day shift, or coffee if you’ve just come off the night shift.

 

To make this vegetarian or vegan, substitute faux butter for the regular kind and don’t use heavy cream. But, if your invited guest refuses to eat on the basis of gluten and fat free, offer rice crackers and lukewarm water.

 

Cinnamon Cake by The Careless Cook

 

Notice the very light glaze using my recipe

 

There have been requests from a group of ladies for this recipe…. and especially from their husbands.  I do my best to please both sexes, all ages and especially the excitably hungry.

 

You immediately noticed I used the word ‘sexes’ instead of genders.  See, The Careless Cook doesn’t jump up and attach himself to every new fad, such as using a linguistic term, which has nothing to do with male or female, to identify human males and females.  In French, dogs and cats are masculine gender.  Neckties are feminine gender. So dogs and cats are only males? Men wearing neckties have women hanging around their necks? See, gender has nothing to do with people.  In German there is also a neuter gender. Apply that to humans?  An important part of me doesn't like to think about it. 

 

But, there is a good side to my diversion, cake is cake, and this cake is delicious! No matter who’s eating, even if they’re sexy or gendery!

 

Easy Cinnamon Cake by The Careless Cook

 

As my few and happy readers know, The Careless Cook does not exactly cling to the rules of the recipe.  In the case of this cake, feel free to use a store bought box of cake mix and a can of icing…but, this recipe is so easy, there’s no need to worry, either way.

 

Ingredients

 

For the cake

 

3 cups flour

1 cup granulated white sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I make my own by soaking chips of vanilla beans and soaking them in bourbon for several months)

1 ½ cups oat milk, or cow’s milk (I prefer the creamy taste of oat milk, but you must shake it very well before using.)

1 stick salted butter melted

 

For the Cinnamon Filling

 

1 ½ sticks butter, melted

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1 (or more) tablespoon(s) ground cinnamon

 

For the glaze/icing

 

2 cups powdered sugar  (Add more sugar if it’s too thin, more milk if it’s too thick.)

5 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Puttin’ It Together 

 

First the cake!  

 

Heat the oven to 350ºF or 180ºC and coat a 9x13 inch baking dish with sprayed olive oil.

 

Get your electric mixer ready.  I use a hand held mixer.

 

In a large bowl, put the flour, eggs, white sugar, baking powder, vanilla extract and milk.  Mix well. Not yet with the butter….

 

Keep beating and add the melted butter.  Mix until just until combined, too much mixing toughens the batter.

 

Pour the batter into the 9x13 baking dish and smooth it out.

 

Now the Cinnamon Batter

 

Add all the cinnamon batter ingredients to a small to medium sized bowl and mix well.

 

Add the cinnamon batter by dropping spoonful by spoonful on the top of the cake batter.  Use a butter knife or other flat knife to swirl the cinnamon batter through the cake batter.  Voila!

 

Bake for 35-45 minutes.  Test from time to time by inserting a knife to see if the cake is baked.  The knife should come out clean.

 

Took just 35-40 minutes in my oven.

 

For the Glaze/Icing

 

If using my recipe, mix all the ingredients. 

 

Then you have a choice!

 

You can pour the glaze directly over the cake that’s just come out of the oven, or you can wait. The difference is, pouring it straight on the warm/hot cake, the glaze will sink right in.  If you wait until the cake cools, more of the glaze will stay on the surface.

 

If you use the store bought icing, I suggest you wait until the cake cools so the thick white icing will stay on the surface.

 

BUT, as The Careless Cook always says, you’re the chef! Do what the heck you want!  Either way, it’s going to be delicious and people whom you’ve never met will fight for a piece of this cake!  Genders and sexes will be all over it!

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