Misfortune Cookies: Your Fate is Sealed.

Gung Hay Fat Choy, everyone.

Sort of.

Roughly translated from Chinese, Gung Hay Fat Choy means “best wishes and congratulations.” In other words, Happy Chinese New Year.

But that seems just a little too chipper for my tastes.

Sure, we’ve got Hope’s Cheerleader in the White House, which may be an excellent start, and we have finally left the dismal Year of the Rat behind us, but what is it that we really have to look forward to?

Well, besides a bleak, blank uncertainty, we’re heading into the Year of the Ox.

At first glance, this certainly seems promising enough. Oxen are strong, hard working animals. According to Chinese astrology, the Ox is also patient and tenacious. It can be counted on to get whatever job it has been set to done. It is even suggested that those born under the sign of the Ox share these qualities and would make excellent tennis pros, surgeons, and hair stylists. Walt Disney and George Clooney were born under the sign. But, then again, so were Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Tori Spelling.

The Ox is not considered an especially intelligent animal (See: Tori Spelling). Perhaps this lack of smarts is what led him to his fated, castrated state in the first place. With its lack of virility, of full potency, will this Ox plow its way to better times for us? Let’s hope so. I’m sure the market watchers were hoping for something a little different. Like a bull.

Things are rough, no question about that. People are losing their jobs, and those who still have them are tightening their belts. That is, if that haven’t already sold them on Ebay. A general sense of malaise is beginning to infect the mindsets of even the cheeriest Pollyannas.

And it’s irritating me. So I’ve decided to channel that irritation into baking something. Like fortune cookies. Or, more correctly, misfortune cookies. Though I came up with the idea independently, the thought is not an original one– they’ve been done before with varying degrees of success. I have chosen not to examine the others for fear of plagiarizing any dooming, damning fortunes, but I am cheered to know that there are others out there of like mind.

I have always found the idea of the fortune cookie mildly off-putting, since I’ve never bought into the notion that a baked lump of flour and sugar was somehow empowered with the ability to decide my future, though I admit I have always welcomed them at the end of a big, Chinese (American) meal because, well, it’s about all the dessert one is ever going to get at a Chinese restaurant. Dessert must seem like an odd waste of time to a culture whose cuisine strives for balance. Sweetness can be found co-habitating with Mr. Salt, Miss Sour, and Sr. Bitter in a number of dishes.

The misfortune cookie, I think, strikes this balance much more accurately than the ordinary fortune cookie, with its vague, sometimes chirpy prognostications and lucky numbers. Sure, the sugar and salt in the recipe are the same, but a refreshingly sour note of bitterness found tucked inside bring the cookie’s yin some much-needed yang.

Serve them to unsuspecting friends and family members and watch their faces as they learn that they are destined to someday chew off their own foot or will eventually be exposed and humiliated for past wrong-doing. Go ahead, it’s fun.

If the recipients of misfortune begin to turn against you, you might want to laugh and pretend you made the cookies to provide a valuable moral lesson. You could say that these cookies merely illustrate the fact that it is impossible to divine the future, so what’s the point, really? That things aren’t nearly so bad as what’s written inside those cookies. Things could be much, much worse.

And then you might want to suggest a good pedicurist, just in case.

Misfortune Cookies

Makes about 12 deeply distressing cookies.

The batter for these cookies is remarkably easy to make. The baking and shaping of them is another story. So much for the theory that Chinese food is 90% prep and 10% cooking. Of course, the Fortune Cookie is a Californian invention, so you can blame us, if you like.

The making of them is somewhat labor-intensive on the back end. Purchasing them is certainly easier, but then you would be surrendering the chance to play God by deciding the fates and fortunes of your hungry friends and family. More free time or unmitigated power? It’s a toss up.

For those of you not entirely mean-spirited, you may wish to include one Pandora-like message of hope, but that would be mixing mythologies. Fate is in your hands.

Ingredients

1 egg white

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon almond extract

a pinch of salt

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup white sugar

Preparation

1. Compose as many hideous fortunes as you deem necessary on strips of paper about 4 inches long and 1/2 inch wide.

2. Preheat oven to 400F. Grease two cookie sheets with butter or, if you have a silpat or other such baking pad, use it instead. Cutting a round stencil three inches in diameter from a plastic lid is most helpful in shaping these cookies. I suggest you follow this advice.

3. Beat together egg white and both extracts until quite foamy. Sift in flour, sugar, and salt; blend into egg white mixture.

4. Place stencil onto cookie sheet and add one teaspoon of batter in the center of it. Using and offset spatula, bring the batter around to the edges, making as smooth a shape as possible. Repeat, leaving at least 4 inches of space between cookies. I suggest you start off by baking two at a time to test your misfortune cookie-making skills.

5. Bake cookies for 5 minutes, or until they have turned a golden color around the edges. The center of the cookies should remain pale. You may prepare the second batch as the first are baking, if you like.

6. Remove cookies from oven and very, very quickly remove them from the baking sheet with a large, offset metal spatula. Turn them upside down onto a wooden cutting board. Place fortunes in the center of each, fold them in half so that the edges meet. Pull the pointed edged towards each other and let them cool. Of course, I have never been able to develop the speed necessary to accomplish this feat even with one cookie, let alone two. If you are as slow as I am in these matters, I would suggest the following:

When cookies are finished baking, pull them from the oven, pry them from their baking sheet as previously mentioned. Now turn them upside down on the same baking sheet and pop them back in the oven. Count to ten, open the oven door, and then proceed to shape the cookies while there are still inside the oven. Aside from the potential for burning one’s hands, this is a most effective method.

Repeat until finished.

Serve fresh with a warm smile and a cold heart.

Showing and Telling: The New Yorker

I have been terribly behind in my New Yorker magazine reading, or so I realized when a friend of mine who is moving house handed me a bagful of them. If it was one less thing for him to have to move, so much the better.

Like other, equally shallow people I know, I begin my examination of each issue by zipping past Talk of the Town so that I might dive straight into the cartoons. If I see any articles that catch my eye along the way, I read them last.

Well, today, soaking in my tub, I came across this:

It made me very, very happy indeed.

That’s all. Attempts at explanation would be pointless.

Enjoy.

2009 Fancy Food Show: Well, Fancy That.

The National Association for the Specialty Food Trade put on their 34th Winter Fancy Food Show this week, allowing for exhibitors from around the world to do precisely that– exhibit themselves. Thousands of vendors and merchants descended upon the Moscone Center in San Francisco from January 18 to January 20th for a fancy food frenzy.

I’m not sure I would agree with the term “fancy”– it’s always been a troubling word . As a noun, the word “fancy” connotes a liking formed by caprice rather than reason. As a transitive verb, it is an action of mistaken belief, of pure imagination. As an adjective, which is how, in this case, it is applied, the word suggests that the food exhibited at the show is “of particular excellence or highest grade.”

It is, naturally, open to interpretation. Much of the food– the hundreds of olive oils, cheeses, and cured meats, for example, are just that– excellent and of the highest grade. But does this term also apply to the likes of, say, Fartless Chili and frozen pizza? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It is simply a matter of prejudice. Yet products were snatched up by buyers from France to Fresno.

Since this was my second food show, I was able to learn from my previous mistakes, which included: feeling obligated to try everything, trying to see everything, and making actual eye contact with vendors while wearing a press badge. Armed with experience, I was able to roam the floors with a vague, pleasant eye that managed to avoid the dull and zero in on what was, to me, at least, of interest.

The following are a few of the more interesting items found at the Fancy Food Show. They are selected according to my own delights and prejudices. Since this was an international event, I gave no preference to the local, which is my normal custom. Some of the products are odd, others unfortunate, while others are just plain good. Enjoy.

When I first arrived at the show on Sunday, a woman in the press room gave me a few suggestions for booths to visit. One of those was Brent’s of Napa Valley, where I got my morning off to a good start with their Firey (sic) Beer Brittle, made with Red Tail Ale, Spanish peanuts, and chile de arbol as the key ingredients.

I was determined not to spend my day candy-sampling as I had done before with unfortunate results. I stuck to my vow of avoiding the hundreds of cracker and olive oil offerings and stick with what was new, interesting. Faltering only occasionally at a cheese counter that gave up samples of Wensleydale. Three times.

I did, however, feel bound to visit the Vosges Chocolate booth to sample the suggested Enchanted Mushroom bar, made with Reishi mushrooms. While the chocolate was excellent, I had forgotten that I had been granted permission to photograph the product the previous day by a kind woman, but neglected to remind the staff of this matter. My fault. But the Harpy that descended upon me at my re-appearance turned the pleasant chocolate-umami taste in my mouth bitter. So no photo. What I never have understood about this convention is that these vendors are here to exhibit their goods. There’s no hiding at an exhibition, no magic Keebler Elf-like factory, so why are some people so guarded? I decided there was too much to see and do without worrying about it too much. I mentally flipped the gorgon the bird, but reminded myself to be extra careful about taking photographs in the future.

On with the show…

A very enjoyable booth– perhaps, one of the highlights of the show for me– was the one belonging to Bacon Salt, home of Baconnaise and, incredibly, Baconnaise Lite. The pleasant irony of all their bacon-related offerings is that there is no bacon involved in the making of any of their products. And that they are, in fact, vegetarian. This is typically not my style of food. Fake anything has no general appeal, but oh, their give-away bacon-flavored lip balm. They gave me two. I think what I was so taken with was the good-guy frat boy feel I got from the creators. And I mean that in the best sense. The Fancy Food Show is, in its own way, a fraternity of food vendors. Nowhere was the party atmosphere thicker than at their booth. They even asked me if I wanted one of them to put on the bacon suit hiding under the front table so that I might have a photo taken with it. The hospitality industry, in my opinion, at its best.

My next notable stop was at the Tur-Duc-Hen booth. I’d never had the much-blogged-and-Twittered-about holiday fad food, nor had I ever had any real desire to. Not being much of a coprophage, I find it difficult to imagine that any food beginning with the letters t-u-r-d could be much good. Sean Timberlake of Hedonia remarked, upon my mentioning the product, something akin to “Great, they’ve managed to take three birds and turn them into one, flavorless dish.” I could not have agreed more.

With all the sugar, processed food, and unnaturally-formed proteins already ingested, I needed a bit of gustatory help. Fortunately, I found myself in front of the Seis Natural booth, with their bee bread, royal jelly, and Aguijon– a libido-increasing, honey-fueled sex potion. Intrigued by the bee bread, but not wanting to increase my sex drive at a gigantic food show, I sampled the Vitamiel, which promised to “power up my globules.” It tasted of honey, of course, but contained a difficult-to-describe acidity which balanced the sweetness. Perhaps it was the mere power of suggestion, but I found that my globules– especially the ones I never knew I had– were indeed powered.

Close by, I was offered a daily dose of Yakult from Japan. I had accepted the sample expecting some drinkable yogurt made from yak’s milk, but what I got was a jolt of about 8 billion pro-biotic bacteria swimming around in a surprisingly delicious, tangy, citrus yogurt drink. I mentally set them to work on the tur-duc-hen.

One more reason to love Japan was the discovery of Hello Kitty pancake (pictured in the top photo), brownie, and cupcake mixes. All in Spanish. Much to my disappointment, the vendors explained that their current licensing extends to Mexico, but not, as yet, to the United States. So for those of us looking to add a little kawaii to our mornings, we’ll just have to wait a little longer.

Among the more personally irritating offerings at the food show was the Iron Chef wine collection. The wines are produced in Italy, a country with a reputation for creating some of the most sought-after wines in the world. And some of of the worst plonk. Though Iron Chef wine, at least the Sangiovese I tasted, would not fit neatly into either category, I would place it closer to the latter than the former. To me, it is marketing at it’s worst. And don’t get me started on the packaging.

After two afternoons of wandering, talking, and tasting, of witnessing the abandonment of one plus-sized, bearded, Lark-bound food celebrity for another, younger, more mobile one with a penchant for orange, my feet ached and my globules were fading. Fast. I had seen enough good, bad, and, for the most part, boring food products to last me the rest of the year. I would have given anything for a smart, new cocktail on offer, but I couldn’t find one, though I know they must have been around somewhere. I was just too brain dead to put the effort into navigating a map.

As I began to make my way out of the North Hall of Moscone Center, I spied a little stand– nothing of special interest at first glance. Natural Directions Organic. The banner suspended above the booth promised, “All Natural, All Organic, All The Time.” They sold sparking, organic juice. What caught my attention was the woman standing beneath the sign. She was, to put it bluntly, anything but natural. If she was the representative of natural direction, I felt the company had taken some unfortunate turn of the highway several miles back and had gotten hopelessly lost. From a distance, I could just make out the swollen shape of her collagened lips saying a little something to a prospective customer. As she smiled, her forehead remained motionless– as stiff as the naval captain’s cap she wore at a cocky angle over her bleached-blonde hair. She was, at the very least, fancy.

I moved closer to her, wanting to make certain she was, in fact, a real woman. As tired as I was, I felt the need to find out if she was a drag queen, which would have been a stroke of ironic marketing brilliance, in my opinion. I chatted her up a bit, asking about the products she was selling because I wanted to hear her speak. As I did, I looked into her eyes. Or, rather, just above them, to the false eyelashes that had been put on at an angle almost as jaunty as her hat. She suggested I try the pomegranate soda.”That’s the best one, if you ask me,” she confided. “It tastes even better with a little vodka in it.”

“Well, what doesn’t?” was the best I could reply.

And then it hit me– this woman, who a mere five seconds prior I had viewed as oddly unreal, was, in fact, the most honest person I had encountered at the show. Not that the others were especially dishonest. It was simply that all I had heard from people for two exhausting days were talking points about the greatness of their products, which was understandable, given the venue. But here was this wonderful woman– suddenly lovely in my eyes– who decided to tell it like it was. It was just the refreshment I needed.

Pity there was no vodka.

As a little, value-added extra, please watch this video on the true meaning of “fancy.”

The Negroni: Bitter? Sweet.

There has always been a special place in my heart for the Negroni. Not always. I stayed away from them in elementary school, naturally. I don’t think I even tried my first until well into my twenties. And I’m not quite certain I liked it then.

But I liked the idea of the Negroni. It was and is a sophisticated, world-weary drink– one with Italian origins and bitter complexity, yet remarkably, charmingly straight forward. It is not a drink that should be knocked back like whiskey, nor can it be co-opted or diluted with other ingredients and still be called by its proper name. It is the sum of its equal, co-dependent parts: gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari. It must be savored and considered.

If a person could model one’s self after a cocktail, I knew that the Negroni was exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I kept trying. So far, so good, and with minimal damage to my liver.

The Negroni doesn’t have the wide appeal of the Martini or even the Manhattan, which is, in my case, precisely the point. It isn’t necessarily an exclusive drink, but it does attract discriminating drinkers. They know who they are.

Or, at least, quickly find out who they are not.

For example, several years ago, some co-workers and I took a new server out one afternoon for a drink at a place around the corner from our restaurant. It was a warm day, so we decided to sit outside at some little tables on the sidewalk, have a smoke, and get to know our new little friend over a drink or two.

My friend Greg was managing that day, so he came around to have a chat and took our drink order while he was at it. We, the old-timers, called for Negronis. When Greg asked the new girl if she would like one as well, she spoke these precious words:

“Oh, sure. I’ll have a niggeroni, too.”

Then came the long, extremely uncomfortable silence made all the worse by the fact that she said this to a black man. If looks were hunting knives, she would have been flayed alive by everyone within earshot. What made it all the more surprising was that she hadn’t the slightest idea what she had just said. Greg generously attributed her utterance to poor Italian pronunciation, which is more than the rest of us allowed her.

And, after all that discomfort, she told us she didn’t like her Negroni and sent it back to be replaced by a Cosmopolitan. When she got up to use the restroom, one of our party re-christened her “Chili’s” because he felt she might be much more at home working at a place that sold Awesome Blossoms than with us. The name stuck around for about as long as she did. That drink we bought her as a welcome ended up being her departing gift, too, since that’s precisely what she did shortly after.

Apart from its cachet of clique, what I love most about the Negroni is that it is deliciously louche. It hints at danger and moral decay more precisely than any other drink, save Absinthe. Just ask Tennessee Williams. Of course, he choked to death on a plastic bottle cap, so it might be easier to simply watch Lotte Lenya*, Warren Beatty, and Vivien Leigh drink them in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and enjoy the ensuing destruction. They weren’t exactly good for Mrs. Stone, nor were they especially good for Mr. Beatty’s awful Italian accent, but they certainly helped to lubricate the plot. (*After searching for a video clip from the film, I stumbled upon an article by Toby Cecchini in the New York Times referring to Lotte Lenya as, well, louche. It must be true. For a wonderful description of the drink and its components, read his article Shaken And Stirred; Dressing Italian.)

There is a time and a place for the Negroni: swank apartments at midnight, dimly lit trysting places at any time of day, on the sly in a toney sanitarium– appropriate situations, all of them. They should never under any circumstances be drunk over a quick lunch with your parents or ordered from bartenders who inhabit the jungles of South America. I speak from experience. I don’t care if there is a casino on the premises. You might win at the crap tables, but you will almost assuredly lose the battle with the bartender.

The Classic Negroni

The cocktail owes its name and its existence to one Count Camillo Negroni of Florence, Italy. According to Eric Felten’s enjoyable read, How’s Your Drink?, Negroni’s preferred drink at the Caffé Casoni was the Americano, an admixture of Campari, Cinzano, and club soda. One day, he asked the bartender, Fosco Scarselli, to fortify his drink with gin. The cocktail was an unqualified success and its intake spread first around the city, then the world.

Ingredients:

Makes one Negroni

1 ounce of good gin. Please do not stint.

1 ounce Cinzano Rosso vermouth

1 ounce Campari.

Ice cubes, preferably made from Italian spring water. Or tap if you must.

Orange peel or slice for garnish

Preparation:

Into a cocktail shaker, add all ingredients except the orange. Shake or stir, according to your own preference. Strain into chilled cocktail class. Garnish with orange.

Sit back, and enjoy the ensuing existential train wreck.

As an added bonus, while I’m on the topic of train wrecks, enjoy a clip from a famous television personality I would never expect to see drinking a Negroni. In my opinion, she doesn’t get it quite right, just pouring everything over the rocks without proper mixing as she does. Then again, she does only have 30 minutes to make an entire meal.

Enjoy.

Adios, Mr. Montalban

Ricardo Montalan, rest in peace.

It never mattered what he was hawking, whether it be Maxwell House coffee, sandwich makers on late night television, or soft, Corinthian leather. I just loved hearing the man speak.

Baby, it just got a little colder utside…

Monkey Bread: Pinch a Loaf Today

I’d never heard of Monkey Bread until a few weeks ago. The name immediately caught my attention. The image of monkeys picking at a loaf of bread as they would nits off each other’s backs came to mind. Charming, I thought. I wanted to know more about it.

Not that there’s much to know.

The etymology is vague. The term “Monkey Bread” has several possible origins: some people believe that the bread resembles the shape of a monkey puzzle tree, but I feel that these people are out of their heads, perhaps having fallen from the top of one the trees themselves. Other people believe that the name derives from the act of pulling the pastry apart with the fingers, much like monkeys might do, if they were presented with such a treat. I have ruled out the theory that this was a bread frequently baked and fan-mailed to the likes of Mickey Dolenz or Davy Jones by swooning teen-aged girls in the 1960’s because the spelling is all wrong. The timing, however, is only a decade away from being correct.

Also known as Hungarian Coffee Cake, Bubble Loaf, and, my favorite, Pinch Me Cake, the term Monkey Bread didn’t start popping up until the 1950’s in various women’s magazines. The dessert itself– basic yeast rolls coated in cinnamon and buttery caramel– is close kin to both the Sticky Buns of the Pennsylvania Dutch and the more savory Parker House Rolls of, say, Parker Posey.

Whatever the origin, it’s a wonderful treat that lends itself to lazy weekend mornings. Pinch off a loaf for loved ones to wake up to. Or, if you have no loved ones, bake one for yourself and then neglect to shower, change clothes, or leave your house all day, revelling in your own, sweet, cinnamon smell.

It’s a very easy treat to make. If you’re paying attention, that is. I had gotten up early to make a simple yeast dough, because I prefer making my own dough to buying pre-packed goods, as most food snobs who rebel against their ready-made childhoods do. I flipped on the oven, set the timer, and then sat down at my computer and started over-sharing on my Facebook page. I knew something was wrong when I smelled something burning after only 18 minutes of baking time.

Readers: I would suggest not cranking your oven up to “Broil” if you want to have any sort of successful baking venture. Not for monkey bread, anyway.

A quick clean up and several salty phrases later, I decided that ready-made biscuits didn’t seem like such a bad idea, after all. This is Pinch Me Loaf and I certainly was in a pinch. So I trundled off to the store and bought a couple of packages of Pillsbury Buttermilk Grands.

I am now grateful for my initial stupidity. It caused me to re-examine the dessert and the recipe. Rather than blindly follow a recipe– cooking temperature not withstanding, I now thought to make the Monkey Bread differently. The way I wanted it to taste. Perhaps, I thought, to compensate for cheating with store-bought dough. I added a pinch of clove to the cinnamon sugar, some orange zest, and a fine sprinkling of Amaretto, which made me rather happy. I hope it does the same for you.

Monkey Bread version 2.0

Home made yeast dough makes for a wonderful, from-scratch dessert but, since this is really a treat for lazy weekend mornings, I am going to place the emphasis on the word lazy and go for the store-bought variety. Scream and howl all you want, but this monkey hears no evil. Besides, slamming those biscuit packages on the side of your kitchen counter is oddly satisfying.

Serves 8 to 10 people, number of monkeys uncertain.

Ingredients:

2 cans of refrigerated biscuits, like Pillsbury Grands

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground clove

1/2 cup whole pecans

1 tablespoon of orange zest

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3/4 cup butter, melted

About 2 to 3 tablespoons Amaretto. I don’t know, really, since I’ve never been good at measuring alcohol.

Preparation:

1. Heat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease a bundt pan or other sort of tube pan with butter.

2. Combine sugar, cinnamon, and clove in a bowl (or a big Ziploc baggie if you’re feeling wasteful). Stir to combine.

3. Check oven temperature.

4. Cut the sixteen biscuits into quarters and roll them into 64 little balls. Count them, if you like. Roll balls in the cinnamon sugar. Arrange in pan, adding bits of pecan and orange zest as you layer.

5. Check oven temperature.

6. Combine brown sugar and melted butter. Pour over biscuits.

7. Bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven, letting the Monkey Bread rest in the pan for about 10 minutes to let the caramel cool a bit. Invert onto serving plate. Serve warm and do not cut. To serve, pull off bits and pieces comme des singes. Perhaps one might smear a bit onto whomever one is sharing it with for added effect.

Nobody Does it Like Sandra Lee.

There is very little that needs to be said about this, apart from “what the hell was she thinking?” “Acorns”? They’re corn nuts, for God’s sake. And who on earth would choose to make a “harvest cake” out of angel food?

Oh yes, Sandra Lee.

Thank you, Mr.Fingerhut for alerting me to this piece of Holiday cheer.

For those of you who have not seen this video, enjoy. For those of you who have, watch it again.

Escarole: Good Times Ahead.

Or perhaps that should read: “a head”.

One of my resolutions for the new year is to eat more vegetables, especially greens. Hardy leaves like chard, kale, and mustard greens are all well and good, but I’ve been going steady with escarole as of late.

I think I’m in love.

If you’re wondering why on earth I have a photo of a smiling, gap-toothed 1970’s sitcom star thrown up here, you are entirely too young for me to be talking to you.

It’s Esther Rolle, of course– the actress who gained fame as Florida Evans, the no-nonsense maid/foil to Bea Arthur’s Maude and was soon rewarded with her own show, Good Times. The sad fact of the matter is that I have never been able to think of escarole without seeing her face, thanks to my own selective hearing and memory-aiding word associations.

It’s not so surprising, really, given the fact that she starred as a mother struggling to make a good life for her three children: a goofy elder son with a strong creative bent, a daughter who spouts forth episode-related data, and a youngest child named Michael who was, well, just adorable. It was my family, except black and urban.

Perhaps one of my other resolutions should be to stop wandering off on tangents.

Back to Escarole.

Escarole, for those of you unaware, belongs to the Asteraceae family and is, therefore, closely related to asters and daisies, which naturally reminds me of another popular sitcom, which I promise not to go into today. It is less bitter than its cousins radicchio and chicory (née frisée), depending upon which part of the head you eat– the outer leaves develop the bitter edge of its endive forebearers as they turn green, while the inner, paler leaves are mild and tender.

Escarole is high in fiber, folic acid, vitamin A and Vitamin K, making its consumption ideal for pregnant women with poor night vision, recessive hemophilia genes, and gastro-intestinal issues.

It’s a wonderfully versatile green, equally serviceable eaten cold and torn to pieces in a salad, or served warm, nearly any way you like.

One good, hearty, and surprisingly easy way to serve up escarole in the cold months is braised. Here’s just one example. One I made for lunch the other day in, oh, about 15 minutes:

Braised Escarole with Soppressata

This is a recipe heavily borrowed from Andrew Carmellini over at Food & Wine, but streamlined. It is, like I said, a relatively quick dish to make. Its southern Italian roots are made obvious by the use of ingredients such as bread crumbs and soppressata. It will feed one person as a full, one-dish meal, or service four people as a side dish, depending upon one’s current level of popularity.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil, extra-virgin

2 1/4-inch-thick slices of soppressata (any salami will do, really)

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 heads of escarole, dark outer leaves removed (about one pound), coarsely chopped

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 cup bread crumbs

2 tablespoons (or more, depending upon how cheesy you like things) grated Parmesan

Preparation:

In a large, heavy-bottomed stock pot, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add soppressata, and cook over high heat for about two minutes. Add pepper flakes and garlic and cook, stirring contantly, until garlic is golden and all perfumy and stuff. Add escarole (which you have washed, hopefully) , one handful at a time, turning with a wooden spoon or tongs to coat with the olive oil and garlicky meat secretions. Season with salt and pepper, if desired (the salami and Parmesan are, of course, salty, so do what you will). Cover, turning the leaves occasionally, and cook over a lowish-to-medium flame, about 10 minutes.

As the escarole is cooking, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet. Add the breadcrumbs and stir over a moderate heat until golden and the breadcrumbs smell, well, toasty.

Place the braised escarole in the serving dish of your choosing, top with breadcrumbs and sprinkle with parmesan, which I know isn’t southern Italian, but I am willing to overlook it, if you are.

Serve, eat, and let the good times roll. Or Rolle, depending.