Nina C.

For an apple pie, you roll out the dough, chill it, then add filling and bake. But if you did that for any kind of custard pie, the wetness of the filling would stop the bottom crust from cooking properly. There are all kinds of tricks to combat this (bread crumbs on the bottom, baking on a hot sheet pan, freezing the crust) but the classic is blind baking. You roll out the dough, chill it, then bake the empty crust for 15 minutes or so until light golden brown. Then you fill it, and bake again. The problem is that without a filling, it tends to shrink, or slump down the sides. There are several topics on eG about this. It's just not my forte. But that's okay. I do other things well!

Time for lunch: I started off with a leftover fennel, orange, and mint salad. But unfortunately, the fennel suffered the effects of refrigeration, and wasn't as crispy as I would have liked. So I ate some, put it aside and made some bastardized carbonara. WARNING: If you refuse to compromise taste for health, or get chills when someone messes around with a classic recipe, look away now. This won't be pretty. It starts off similarly enough. Boil fettuccine (in this case garlic fettuccine), add peas during last minutes of cooking, toss with an egg. Except I don't add cheese. And instead of beautiful artisinal pancetta, I use turkey bacon. Stop stoning me! I know, I know, I would never serve this to company, and it doesn't taste at all like the real thing, but it's a satisfying meal of creamy pasta with a smoky hint of something, and green vegetable vitamins. I think it covers the food pyramid, though not in the proportions that the FDA would like, but oh well.

I HATE blind baking too Nina, I´ve been following your adventures on the pie-athon blog, and I have to say I really admire you for taking on such a project. And you still have energy left to do some more baking? That´s amazing! Thanks for the kind words! I do have lots more energy to bake. It's probably at least in part because I'm trying to eat healthy in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and baking allows me to vicariously enjoy some of my favorite things.

What a great change! It seems like you added so much function along with the style. Don't show this kitchen to any more Brooklynites: many of us would kill in cold blood for that much storage and counter space.

Today I'm making 3 sugar cream pies, 2 pecan pies, and a pumpkin (or two). Although these aren't my absolute favorite pies, when planning Pieathon, I knew that I needed to choose Thanksgiving appropriate pies whose ingredients weren't too expensive. Why on earth I chose pecan, which has to be blind baked, I'll never know. I HATE blind baking with a passion, and blind baking is even harder in the disposable tins I used for Pieathon. But once you advertise something for sale, it's hard to go back on your word. I got a donation of the pecans from my father and his Costco card, and I still have a mountain left. I have a pumpkin recipe that I like a lot. It started off as Ruth Levy Berenbaum's recipe, but I've played with the proportions and spices. It's got great flavor, a creamy texture, and best of all, no blind baking. I'll show you the filling for that in a little while. But my favorite thing to come out of all of this is the sugar cream pie. When I first posted this crazy idea on eGullet, looking for advice, Gfron1 had the brilliant suggestion of this Midwestern custard pie. It's so easy, but better than that, it's a satisfying, comforting and new holiday dessert. (How often do you get to describe a holiday dessert as both comforting and new?) Testing several different versions, all found online, landed me a winning combination. I have no idea how authentic it is, or if a Midwesterner would be pleased with the end result, but it doesn't matter; I'm pleased. I love this recipe so much I've put it in the sacred bible. This is the recipe book my great-grandmother made for my mom right before she married. It's titled "All the Good Things" and has recipes going back to my great-great-great-grandmother. My mother added many recipes to the back, and there are just a dozen blank pages of yellowed notebook paper left. I know I can add new pages, but I still feel as though I should be sparing. An entry in this book is a blue ribbon, a prize bestowed on a recipe saying it's perfection, and worth handing down. Here's my sugar cream pie recipe: (and an example of a recipe my mom added: ) (and one of my great-grandmother's recipes: ) All my crusts are done - the pastry ones are resting, the graham cracker crusts are cooling. Time to make myself some lunch, then I'll get on with the baking.

Before I move on to pie progress, or lunch, or anything else, I couldn't resist posting this little montage of my cat Jackson. Earlier, I'd set out a bowl of olives to snack on while I worked, and forgotten them when I got up to work on my pies. Olives just happen to be Jackson's favorite food that he has no idea how to eat. He is enticed by them, and no matter how many times you scold him, or how much trouble he gets in, he can't help returning to them again and again as long as they are out, and he is awake. This time was no different, except that thanks to the foodblog he got a photo shoot rather than a scolding. You can see that he's managed to get one out of the bowl, and licked it a few times, but since he can't really chew it, he's resorted to loving it. He's purring and rubbing himself against it as if it were a female tabby in heat, and Barry White were playing on the stereo.

Breakfast this morning is hardly exciting, but necessary after the excesses of last week: No coffee, just water. I never have been a regular coffee drinker. My mother drank so much, she would try to convince waitresses to leave the coffee pot on our table. I've always been much more of a soda drinker, but I learned to order coffee at the end of a great meal. Coffee is thus sensorally linked to lingering moments of great conversation, sipping slowly and prolonging the cold night. It doesn't make me want to get up and go. On tap for today: I had family members who ordered pies for pieathon, but didn't want them for Thanksgiving. So I proposed that rather than freezing the pies, or otherwise compromising their quality, I'd make them this week. (For anyone who doesn't already know, I put together a 24-hour pie bakeathon which raised money for CancerCare. Donations are still coming in, and I'm hoping we'll cross the $5000 mark today!) Six more pies are on tap, which I'm looking forward to. As I love to bake, it was so hard to cook exhausted, hurried, making mistakes, but I had to keep pressing on. The pies came out decently, but the entire 29.5 hour (!) bakeathon was fraught with self flagellation and doubt. This will be much more leisurely baking with recipes I know now like the back of my hand. Then my sweetheart's mother is coming over to pick up the pies and will stay for dinner. We're having horseradish pork roast and balsamic-braised cabbage, appropriate for this rainy drippy day.

Hello, and welcome to part 2 of the most disjointed food blog ever. When we left off, our heroine was battling computer viruses, while trying to post gazillions of pictures about the Vermont Cheese trail, and taking you on a tour of Brooklyn. During the commercial break, she visited some of those neighborhoods, took a heck of a lot more pictures, made 61 pies for Pieathon, and ate Thanksgiving. So now the question is, where will this episode go? Do I continue as though I had never stopped, including all of those pictures? Do I start totally anew? I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. I don't want to leave you all hanging, but I also don't want to spend the week talking in the past tense. So I'll try to do my best to mash it together. And we'll begin at the beginning. With breakfast.

Thanks again to everyone for the support of my project. My 24 hour bakeathon starts tonight. I got a little headstart this morning, and I'm just about to go lie down for a long nap. In my fridge right now: 18 homemade graham cracker crusts 14 lbs of butter 8 quarts of heavy cream In my living room. Enough flour and sugar to make 38 pie crusts, with above butter. 44 cups of pumpkin puree 30 cups of pecans Many other ingredients Check out Pieathon.blogspot.com for updates on my progress!

Rachel - You got em! Right after LucyLou finishes her blog, which looks very interesting!

Hi all - I am so so sorry that this happened to my poor little blog. My computer was indeed fried. This virus apparently gets in your computer, attacks your antivirus software putting in new definitions so that it can't detect the virus, then starts systematically downloading things and eating the guts. I think of myself as pretty computer savvy and careful, but my work requires me to answer questions from the general public. Which means I can't ignore emails that look slightly suspect. I have many pictures that I continued to take during my blogging week, around dealing with the computer and trying to beg/borrow/computer time so I could finish an assignment. I am now back online, and gearing up for pieathon (I'm making a ton of pies! my fridge is full of 17 lbs of butter, 46 quarts of heavy cream, and many other things.) I'll defer to Susan as to when/if to continue this poor crippled blog. She had suggested last week, but my computer was still in the shop. Thanks for understanding everyone. Nina

I'm still dealing with this virus, and to top it off, Mickey just came in to tell me that someone stole the seats off our bikes last night. Hopefully I'll be back and running soon, and can keep this foodblog going. Sorry, all.

i have many many pictures to post but unfortunately a nasty virus has invaded my computer. (i am currently posting thus from my phone.) if anyone knows how to fix the htepo virus, please let me know!

Dinner/neighborhood explorations are coming. Image gullet is being a little tricky, so hopefully I can get this done. It's been.... a day.

Wow, as a chronic maple syrup addict, I'm wondering: was there a huge flavor difference between grades (assuming you did some sampling)? ← I'm not Nina C., but I did grow up in NH and we made our own syrup. Yes, there is a big difference in grades. "Grade A Fancy" or "Grade A Light Amber" is usually what you will find available for sale at most retail outlets and it is usually the highest priced. There are a few other grades of "A" but for my money, the best taste is in the "Grade B". Unfortunately, it is hard to find a retail supplier of Grade B (although if you can find it, it is usually less expensive than the same amount of "Grade A"). Grade B has a much more assertive maple taste and it is much darker in color. If you like maple syrup, by all means see if you can locate some Grade B. It makes the best sugar on snow! I'm looking forward to hearing more about the cheese trail! ← Oops - Sorry I missed this question. Yes, as I understood it, the lighter syrups come out at the beginning of the sugaring process, and have less caramel flavor. I like the grade B best also. The cynic in me wonders if term "fancy" was originally added as a marketing swindle to sell the not-as-good stuff. They were selling all 4 grades for the same price. Apparently there is also a grade C that is used in commercial cooking applications. There's no difference in thickness or clarity of the grades. The only differences are color and flavor. More on the cheese trail is coming. First though I have to go on one of my promised adventures!

The nutella reminded me that I forgot to post my "dessert" from last night. This is my chocolate stash box: The Max Brenner stuff was press swag, whose convenient box I use to keep my chocolates in. There are some Dolfin squares, a Chocolove ginger bar, a Spanish chocolate almond turron called ludomar, a scharfenberger little nibby bar, and a scharffenberger Kumasi Sambirano - a limited edition 68% cacao. It's got a nice light citrusy touch to the chocolate which I like. I had some of the ludomar:

First up, breakfast. I like these little containers because when there's a huge jar of nutella in the house, I find myself asleep on the couch, the ending credits of a movie running, chocolate smeared all over my face, and the jar completely empty. No idea how it happens! I blame the gremlins. or perhaps I should blame my cats. I can't believe you all have let me get this far in a foodblog without requesting the standard pets/fridge shots. Here are Alice and Jackson Alice is firmly MY cat, and follows me around the house. She sits as close as possible to me - currently I'm on the couch and she's wrapped around my head on the pillow behind me purring. When it gets to be around 11:30, she wants to get in bed, and so starts mewing "bedtime!" not stopping until I get in bed too. Usually she knows her name and will come when I call her. Jackson's a big love - You probably can't tell here but he's about twice the size of Alice. He's more Mickey's cat, and especially likes to sit and watch baseball games with him. (How does the cat know it's a baseball game? He looks at the tv, silly.) Their food habits are not that interesting - except that Jackson will eat human food while Alice generally won't. And the fridge: It's more full than it looks. Condiments/jarred goods on the left, dairy on the right. Condiments used to live on the bottom shelf, but I recently moved them to eye level so we'll stop buying so many! I have way too many kinds of jam in there, as well as a few kinds of pickles, and some beers. The all important siracha is front and center, easily accesible. The bottom shelf and the one above it are almost empty, waiting for pies. The bottom shelf has some bags of nuts - pistachio and marcona almond I believe, some miso paste, and a chicken. The fridge door: More condiments. You'll see that we have two open jars of ketchup, which is indicitive of the reasons we have so many condiments. Peeking out from the lower door shelf are ready-to-go packs of jello. My sweetie is a pudding/jello freak and he likes having these handy for low-cal snacks. I generally don't touch them as they taste like chemicals to me, but there are those moments of weakness.

Is any foodblog really honest? Do people really do a full mise en place every night, cook four course meals, and eat it by a setting sun? You know they clean out the fridge right before taking pictures, and maybe even hide the marshmallow fluff where no one can see it. Some of those adorable children and pets might even be rented. Think about it. Well, I'm not a highly organized perfectionist kind of cook. To put things plainly, I'm more an "Oh Sh*t" cook. I want to set up a mise, but then the water is boiling or the oil is smoking and I start throwing things in. I plan a meal, change course midway through, and end up with something that tastes good, even if it wasn't exactly what I intended. And did I mention I burn myself? Phew. Now I feel better. I don't have to make up any stories about my camera eating the pictures of perfect ¼" diced vegetables, or try to pretend that what I made was an old family recipe. Tonight's dinner was a lamb stew. I don't know what on earth possessed me to make lamb right before I'm about to post pictures of adorable lambs at farms. But that's what I purchased, and raw meat waits for no sad hearts. I don't think you'll find this rocket science. I browned the meat. I cut up an onion, some ginger, and a few cloves of garlic and let them soften. Then I added a few tablespoons of flour, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, black pepper, garam masala, and probably a few other spices. A few seconds later, I added a couple cups of chicken stock, brought it to a simmer, added the meat back and covered it, lowering the heat. In the meantime, I peeled and cut up two sweet potatoes, and searched the freezer for some frozen peas. They were not to be found, so instead I pulled out some frozen asparagus.. The vegetables got seasoned and steamed until they were tender, then set aside. At the end, it all went in the pot, along with some milk and more salt and pepper. Oh, and at some point along the way I made popovers. These come together very easily. You just stir together an egg, ½ cup of milk, ½ cup flour and a pinch of salt until smooth. Let it sit 30 minutes, then pour into popover tins and bake at 450 for 20 minutes and at 350 until done. Voila. Popover Magic. The end result: I'm falling asleep at the computer, so it's time to say goodnight and do the rest of my work tomorrow.

Time to make dinner. I'll resume the cheese trail recap later!

Funny how it works that way! New England can be a small place. Where in upstate are you located exactly? I used to live in Cherry Valley, NY (nearish Cooperstown).

The woman at Vermont Butter and Cheese encouraged us to go to Three Shepherds. This little family farm used to be a sheep farm whose flock was imported from Belgium especially for their prodigious milk production. Unfortunately, the USDA decided the sheep were a risk for Mad Cow disease and seized and slaughtered them. So today, the Fallaices make cheese from other local farms' milk and run a small store. A young couple farms the land, growing vegetables that are for sale in the store, along with other local products. The Three Shepherds cheese was my favorite from the trip: A soft and creamy raw sheep's milk cheese that I can't wait to spread on crackers, and enjoy with a good glass of red wine. It's a cheese you can relax into, in spite of the subtleties. (I thought I had a picture of the cheese in the store, but I can't find it now.) When they first started making cheese, 16-year-old daughter Jackie was trained by a master Belgian cheesemaker. They built this "cave" made from bales of straw covered in plaster. The man in the picture is the farmer, adding on a vegetable root cellar. Next door, you can peer into their cheesemaking facility, where two feta cheeses are aging in the window, next to the rustic peasant's cheese in the baskets. The press is used when they make a gouda-style cheese. Three Shepherds offers cheesemaking weekend classes that sound very tempting. We'll have to wait for the 2008 schedule.

Next was Bragg Farm – a maple sugarhouse. We were invited to join a tour, which turned out to be primarily a video. If you've ever seen Best in Show, and remember Harlan Pepper saying "Peanut. Hazelnut. Cashew nut. Pistachio nut. Red pistachio nut. Natural, all natural white pistachio nut," then you have an idea of the cadence and energy of the narrator of this video. Still it was interesting to learn about the maple sugaring process even if it was 25 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. For about six weeks a year, when the temperature is exactly right, farmers drive taps into maple trees, collect the sap in buckets, and then boil the sap for about 15 hours to get maple syrup. That’s a simple way of stating a long and arduous process. The maple sugar buckets, lined up against the wall: Some of the taps they use: The sap boiler: You can sample the four grades of syrup: More important than any of that, the Maple Creamee – maple-syrup flavored soft serve: And a few maple-flavored treats that I couldn't resist. I probably should have, as they were fine, but not outstanding. I haven't tried the maple pepper yet, but it sounded intriguing, especially on fish.

Following the Cheese Trail We had a limited amount of time to take a short vacation. My sweetheart had an appointment on Thursday afternoon in Springfield, Mass, and we needed to be back in Brooklyn by Saturday evening for the NYC reception of friends who got married 2 weeks ago. So Wednesday morning we picked up a rental car, and spent Wednesday and Thursday morning driving around MA, going to Bash Bish Falls and Mass MoCA, and spending the night in Northampton. Meals were catch-as-catch can – simple sandwiches, dinner at a bar/restaurant where we could watch the baseball game. Northampton has some decent restaurants, but as folks of not-unlimited means, we feel that many of them are too expensive. For the same money we could get a phenomenal meal in NYC. Friday morning, we drove up to Vermont. When we first conceived of this trip, we were both so busy we really didn't have any time to plan – just a vague idea of seeing the last of fall leaves and getting some time together. I kept asking him, "What are we doing in Vermont, again?" to which he would reply, "Um, the Blue Benn Diner, and leaves, and umm, there's a Grandma Moses exhibition." Finally a few days before we left, I thought of Vermont cheese, wondering if it were possible for us to visit a farm. Little did I know that a simple google search would bring me to the Nirvana that is The Vermont Cheese Trail: http://vtcheese.com/cheesetrail.htm Unfortunately, we had already booked our hotel for Friday night in Bennington. (I think my sweetie really wanted to make sure that we had breakfast at the Blue Benn Diner!) So we did more driving than one would need to do, and weren't able to go too far north. That will have to wait for another trip. Another thing to note is to bring both the map and a cell phone. You'll want to call ahead to make sure that farms actually want to have visitors that afternoon. With so little time to plan, we didn't get to see any cheese making in process, but it would be easy to do so. Skeptics will note that you can probably get all of the cheese we bought in NYC. But SHHHHHH. It ruins the romance of the thing. Our first stop was Vermont Butter and Cheese, a cheese maker with no farm, and the largest of the places we'd visit. They were supposed to be making cheese, but there had been a mechanical failure of some kind and so were instead washing down the plant. Fortunately, there was someone to help us, tell us about their cheese-making process, give us the all-important samples and sell us some cheese. We bought Bijou and Coupole cheeses, interesting because though they are made from the same recipe, the coupole has an extra day of maturation/coagulation, and a layer of ash on the top. Each has its own distinct flavor.

I actually used to work in Boerum Hill. Until this past summer, I also worked for a theater company writing grants and marketing materials. Our offices were in the old Sarah J. Hale High School which is now The Brooklyn High School for the Arts. Around there, you either had falafel for lunch or brought your own. But Boerum Hill is so pretty. I find it hard to know this entire borough - there are too many parts! This blog gives me the opportunity to venture to some places that I don't get to that frequently.

When I met my sweetheart, he was living down there and I was in Williamsburg. It seemed hours away! At least it's not too far from DiFara's pizza.