A Tasty Tribute to Sheila Lukins

I was filled with great sadness upon reading that Sheila Lukins had passed away this week. She was 66, and had been diagnosed with brain cancer just 3 months ago.




Lukins' most famous cookbook, the best-selling and hugely influential Silver Palate Cookbook, sits prominently on my bookshelf, an original edition "borrowed" from my mom. Its pages are dog-eared and worn; hand-written notes from the early 80's fill the margins.



Tonight, a few friends will gather at my house for dinner and to watch Top Chef. I've been contemplating what to make... and now, having read Lukins' obituary, it seems only too obvious.



The always delicious and timelessly classic chicken marbella.


Fortunately, Lukins' recipes are forgiving and adaptable, as I'll have to make some changes. I won't have time to marinate it overnight, which is a marbella essential. And, since it's nearly noon and I haven't gone grocery shopping, I certainly won't have time to follow my mom's notes from 1983: "better warmed over next day. Very good at room temperature." (And speaking of mom's notes, I wonder if prunes will still be 32 cents... as she has fastidiously penciled-in.) no doubt, when my oven is set to 400 degrees for an hour in this smoke-filled Los Angeles heat, I'll certainly wonder why I didn't fire up the grill instead.

But, as we sit down to watch America's future culinary leaders compete for the title of Top Chef, I really can't think of any better way to honor such an influential cook who transformed America's palate during the last three decades. A scrumptious bite of moist chicken, salty olives, and sweet, melt-in-your mouth prunes is the tastiest tribute I can image.

A Summer Angelenos Can Be Proud Of

No sooner did I walk out of my doctor's office, boasting my healthy ways, and proudly admitting "I don't eat junk food" did I find myself staring at my guiltiest pleasure in the world.

Unfortunately that was at Costco. And now my family has the daunting task of eating 24 ounces of these:

Our 4th of July picnic can't come soon enough.

This is the quintessential chip of my childhood. These crispy, light, perfectly salted chips taste of beach picnics, BBQ's, and poolside lunches. Each bite is filled with memories of salty summer air, from dockside picnics with Food Buoy sandwiches in Woods Hole, to birthday parties at Amelia's house in Cambridge, and fresh mozzarella and Kathleen's Bake Shop chocolate chip cookies at Kate's in Bridgehampton. These are the chips of good friends and great memories. The chips even filled our guests' welcome bags at our wedding last summer. And that was no small feat. We got married in Utah. (Indeed, as the boxes of chips arrived on my mom's doorstep, shipped dutifully from my mother-in-law straight from Hyannis, I began to ponder my life as a bootlegging importer of all things delicious.)

I've lived in LA now for 4 years. And each year I wonder, desperately, "how on earth will I make it through another summer without my beloved Cape Cod Potato Chips"? If they can import water from Fiji to every continent around the globe, and turn San Francisco sourdough into an American staple, why, on earth, aren't Cape Cod Potato Chips sold in SoCal!?

Thus, every summer I return to the East Coast for weddings and reunions, each time happily gorging on Cape Cod Potato Chips from the moment I land at Logan. (Eventually, I eat so many chips it seems like a good thing they aren't sold in LA.)

But that's all about to change. Armed with 24 ounces of my favorite summer snack, this summer I'll be making new memories, one crispy chip at a time, right here in sunny Santa Monica.

What I Did on Summer Vacation

It's almost August... you've been to the beach, the park, the fair, and to see Grandma. Twice. Your kids took horseback riding lessons and learned to write HTML at computer camp. You've picked them up and dropped them off from more places than you can remember and more times than you can count. And yes, they are driving you crazy. And yes, there are still 42 MORE DAYS UNTIL SCHOOL STARTS!

Who's idea was this staycation anyhow?

But wait... there's a way to keep your kids busy AND have fun AND learn a thing or two along the way. (Oh, and in the process they may even help you make dinner -- and a margarita.)

The Unofficial Guide to

Getting Your Kids Cooking During the Dog Days of Summer

Teach your kids to...
juice limes

salt glass rims (see where I'm going here...)

zest lemons
tear basil

cut mint
wash veggies

wash lettuce

tear lettuce

spin lettuce

peel veggies

remove herb leaves from stems

slice cucumbers with a plastic knife

chop zucchini with a plastic knife

make pizza

dry-rub a steak for the grill

remove the seeds from red peppers

make hamburger patties, and wash their hands after

whisk a marinade

break eggs

pound chicken breasts
measure ingredients

taste-test the spice cabinet

make popsicles

make a salad dressing

blend smoothies

grate cheese

and....

Take a field trip to...

a u-pick farm for blueberry season

the Farmers' Market

a local dairy farm

the grocery store for an A-Z scavenger hunt (hey, it is air-conditioned!)
the grocery store for a global foods scavenger hunt

an ethnic neighborhood's market

a different Farmers' Market

On back-to-school-night, how pleased will you be to read your son's essay hanging on the classroom wall: "This summer vacation was the best ever! I helped make dinner for my family."

and for when you don't feel like chocolate...

...try fruit popsicles, or Mexican paletas.

Or as Mark Bittman writes, "Mexican summer on a stick".

Try his tasty combinations for these refreshing icy pops, like berry and lime, banana, and pineapple.

Summer's Candy Bar

I'm hardly against kids eating sweets. Nor do I think chocolate should be relegated to their annual birthday bash. But candy bars, filled with trans fats and other unrecognizable ingredients, are an unsatisfying source of nutrition-less calories.


In a Kitchen Kid Cooking Class this week, I watched 5 kids descend on their just-made creations of chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate-dipped bananas like seagulls flocking to a bag of chips left unattended at the beach.


Now this recipe is hardly complicated, and I'm most definitely not the first to make it. But the act of melting 6 ounces of pure, dark chocolate (no additives, no big words) gave these budding chefs such genuine and unequivocal joy, made me really question the appeal of a Twix. Not to mention the process in and of itself brought almost as much pleasure as the tasty treat (albeit rich in vitamin C and yes, those antioxidants hiding in dark chocolate).


Sure, it would be great if every kid reached for fresh fruit sans the chocolate. And many do. But adding just a touch of something as forbidden as pure chocolate, and watching the kids lick it from their fingers and their lips, surely makes a case for chocolate covered strawberries, and frozen banana pops, being Summer's Best Candy Bar.


Recipe:
Melt 6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl until melted, stirring every 30 seconds. Indulge by dipping 1 pint of strawberries and Popsicle clad bananas. If you crave a more sophisticated taste, stir chocolate into 6 ounces of near-simmering heavy cream. Even a 3 year old can do it: watch Mark Bittman's Mini Minimalist make this simple ganache.

Three Scoops, Please

A running joke in our house involves the headless overweight shopper on a busy Manhattan street corner. You know him? Perhaps you'll recognize him better as the headless overweight beach goer carrying a cooler of coke and cheese puffs. Before the housing crisis took over the nightly news, the waistlines of these headless men and women played a key role on American television screens nearly every night.


Now, the headless and overweight are kids, seriously at risk of developing lifelong health problems and type II diabetes. Time Magazine's special health issue in June was dedicated almost entirely to the juvenile obesity epidemic, reporting the staggering statistic that the percentage of 6-11 year olds classified as obese has tripled in the last 25 years. This summer, the growing BMI of American kids has piqued the media's interest. In the New York Times, Tara Parker-Pope writes about how summertime and summer camp leads to long days of (wiffle ball? flashlight tag?) cheese fries and ice cream sundaes. A CNN blog posted tips for parents to help their kids order-up a healthy plate and active lifestyle this summer.


Providing kids with nutrition education and accessibility to fresh fruits and vegetables are the single most important steps in changing the course of this national health crisis. Unfortunately school districts continue to face budget cuts in areas such as physical and health education. Worse, it was announced this week that the cost of school lunches will rise 12% this fall. With such a price increase it seems even the best intentioned districts will struggle to put local fruits and fresh veggies on the menu. What does this mean? Moms and dads, friends and family, coaches and teachers, community leaders and clergy... YOU need to make a difference in the lives of America's overweight kids.