Unless you’re on a media blackout, I suspect you know that today would have been Julia Child’s 100th birthday. She lived a long life–she died nine years ago at 91 years of age–and I have to admit to shedding a few tears for her even though I never knew her personally–because she is one of my greatest influences.

She found her path, and nothing deterred her once she began moving forward. She just kept forging her way, guided by passion and love, and in doing so, changed the way Americans view food, cooking and eating forever.

Without Julia, I doubt there would be locavores.

The Slow Food movement would undoubtedly have started in Italy, but would it have come to America if we hadn’t been schooled by Julia? Maybe not.

And I doubt that there would be as many women in professional kitchens today if we hadn’t all grown up seeing Julia cook her heart out on television before God and everybody.

God bless her–we need more like her. (And truly, I think we have many, many more like her, following in her footsteps each and every day. People learning to grow, cook, eat and preserve good food seem to be popping up everywhere like porcini mushrooms after a rainstorm.)

To celebrate, PBS put together a video–”Julia Remixed.”

Here it is, so we can all celebrate together.

And remember: “Life itself is the proper binge.”

To all the mothers out there in the world, Happy Mother’s Day.

We celebrated here in the best way possible. I got to go plant shopping and then Kat and I planted flowers in the deck planters, my herb planter for the deck, bunches of mint in my yard, and my favorite mother’s day present–from Zak–three baby curry leaf plants.

We potted them in pretty pots and put them in the sun porch to stay until the nights warm up.

I am emboldened by my failure to kill my rosemary plants and my kaffir lime tree over the winter, so I decided to go all out and get the curry leaves. I even ordered lemongrass seeds.

Zak’s parents, Tessa and Karl gave me a gift certificate which I used to buy seed-starting equipment, gardening books, and a compost bin.

It was a very merry, foodielishious, gardener’s Mother’s Day.

Well, if you live at my house and you were blessed with a turkey too big for the number of guests at your Thanksgiving dinner, you strip what extra meat you want from the bird, pop the rest in a pot, make stock and then…make jambalaya. (I grew up in a household where we used turkey leavings to make turkey rice soup on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Must be part of why I make jambalaya–because turkey and rice are imprinted as perfect partners in my brain…..)

Now, I’ve written about jambalaya before, and while the recipe I presented previously is a perfectly good rendition of the dish–this one is spectacular. There are several notable differences between this jambalaya recipe and my previous one, and they are as follows:

1. This recipe uses a freshly made stock from a turkey carcass, a ham bone and some leftover smoked barbecue rib bones from Kiser’s BBQ Shack here in town, instead of a simple chicken stock. This results in a richer, more fully-flavored jambalaya.

2. Instead of finely dicing the aromatics and vegetables, I pureed them, which is something hardly anyone I know of does. But I have found that the jambalaya made this way is more deeply flavored, in large part because the tiny pieces of vegetables cling to each piece of rice and turn each grain into a little flavor bomb that explodes on your tongue. Good stuff, right there.

3. I used way more herbs and spices, including Spanish smoked paprika (pimenton), cayenne pepper, Aleppo pepper and tarragon, in this version, which added another several layer of flavor and aroma to this recipe.

So, first of all, let’s talk about the turkey stock.

I’m not going to go into a full description of how to make stock here, because I already wrote that post a while back–like about four years ago. So, for a long, drawn out and involved treatise on the general method of making stock (in four part harmony with full orchestration), go here.

Now that you’ve read the background information, let’s go back to talking about turkey leftovers and turkey stock.

First, pick off all the meat you want to use, and peel off most of the skin. Leave some of the skin on, though, because that nice roasty color and flavor that is in the skin will get into your stock and make it really, really tasty. Trust me on this. You want all the browned meat flavor you can get in your stock.

Stock made this way, from a carcass of a roasted bird, is technically called “fond brun” in French kitchens–brown stock. It gets its color from the roasted bones it is made out of. And–you can turn any stock you want to make brown even if you are only using uncooked bones–to do that, just roast those bones with some carrots, onions and celery in a hot oven until they brown and smell meaty and good. Then continue onward and make your stock as written. I personally think it is a waste to make beef stock without browning the bones at least a little, but that is another post for another time.

Okay, back to making the turkey stock. After you peel off as much of the skin as you want to, and remove as much visible fat as you would like, crack the carcass apart so it will fit more nicely into the stockpot. Whole turkey skeletons don’t usually fit into stockpots well, so I usually hack off the legs and thighs, twist off the wings and if I have a cleaver that will go through the backbone and breastbone, hack through the main body. Then, the pieces go into the stockpot without any argument. (Who argues with a woman with a cleaver, anyway?)

Into the pot also goes the usual whole carrots, celery and onions (if, like some people, you put these vegetables in the bottom of your roasting pan to make the drippings taste nice, save those suckers and use them in your stock!) and in my case, a couple of garlic cloves. Herbs go in as well–fresh or dried thyme, rosemary, sage, bay leaves and tarragon, as well as some spices: a dash of cayenne, a teaspoon or so of Spanish smoked paprika, and a tablespoon of Aleppo pepper. In addition to all of this, when I know I am making jambalaya with my stock, in goes a whole chile pepper or two–in this case a couple of green serranos.

Then, I usually add what drippings I have saved from the bottom of the pan–because I don’t usually use all of them for the gravy–as well as any leftover gravy that hasn’t been eaten. If you didn’t simmer all of the goodness out of the turkey neck on Thanksgiving day, toss that in, too. (Do you get the idea that I save everything? There’s a good reason for this–I do.) Then, a ham bone or ham hock, and if you happen to have some smoked pork ribs, those can go in, too. But, if not, the ham bone or hock will do just fine.

Why do I put pork into my turkey stock?

I have found over the years, that I prefer the flavor of a mixed pork and poultry stock better than I like just plain poultry stocks. I got the taste for such stocks from eating lots of really good Chinese soups and sauces made with such mixed stocks. There is something fuller and more delightful about a mixed pork and chicken or turkey stock, than one made with the bird bones alone that I find adds a mysterious, amazing touch to any dish cooked with the stock.

That said, if you don’t eat piggies for whatever reason, then, leave off with the pork bones and don’t worry over it. It will all turn out okay.

Then, the bones, meat, vegetables and other stock stuff is all covered with cold water to which about a cup of sherry and a cup of dry red wine are added. Why both? Why not? Both sherry and wine really make the stock taste good, so if you have them on hand, go for it!

Now-most of the time, you add some salt to the stockpot just before you start simmering it–but let me caution you–if you brined your bird, don’t even go there. Don’t ever add salt to the stock until it is done and you have tasted it. You run the risk of making your stock too salty and that is just a hideous crime and a shame because you waste all your nice stock and all the effort you put into making it.

Then, you bring your pot to a simmer, turn the heat down and simmer it for as long as you can stand it. With a turkey stock made from a roasted carcass with plenty of meat left on it and some good smoked pork bones, you can make a deep, dark stock in about three to five hours of simmering. But, if you want, you can always simmer it longer.

After your stock has cooked as long as you want it, follow the general stock making instructions here to remove the remaining meat from the bones, and strain the stock.

For this jambalaya, you will need six cups (1 1/2 quarts) of stock. I ended up making about five quarts of stock, which is great, because I could freeze what I wasn’t going to use now for later soup-making adventures. I also ended up picking off an extra quart of meat which I also packed up (with some broth to keep it happy and moist) and popped in the freezer, with the intention of some mole poblano enchiladas appearing on my table later this winter. This extra quart of meat came after the quart and a half of shredded chunks and bits of turkey I stripped from the bones for the jambalaya. So, from this harvest from one bird, you can guess that it was way bigger than necessary….but then, really, what is necessary? It isn’t like any of it is going to waste….

After you have picked your meat and strained your stock, you are left with bones and skin. Give the skin to your pets, but not the bones. That said, I have found that chucking the bones into the woods makes the crows, raccoons and possums very happy, but some folks might frown on that, so you’d best just throw them away.

Now that we’ve gone over all of that, we can start making the jambalaya!

This recipe makes enough to feed six to twelve people. I say six to twelve, because it depends on the people. If you have folks who don’t eat a lot, like elderly grandmothers and little toddlers, then you can definitely stretch the jambalaya out to feed more of them. If you only have big burly lumberjack sorts, you might have to stop at six. If you have normal folks who just really like jambalaya, this recipe will probably serve eight.

This said, please note that in order to feed more people with a pot of jambalaya, you can always add more meat. More of the same, or more of different sorts of meat–for example, this recipe has the leftover dark and white meat from a turkey, plus about a half pound of really good local ham and a pound of local andouille sausage. (Okay, the truth is this–you can make this jambalaya with just turkey meat. But, see, I think that is sad. That turkey might just be lonely in that pot all by himself. So, please, toss in at least a bit of ham and sausage to you, know, just keep that bird company.)

But, if you have other stuff around, like, oh, a venison roast, preferably with a bone in it, toss that in the stockpot, then shred the meat off of it. Or, add some seafood (though you have to understand that I will be eternally jealous of you, as I have developed an allergy to shellfish), or some chicken, or some duck–you get the picture.

You can also add more rice and stock to the recipe. That’s usually cheaper than adding meat, but leftovers are only ennobled by being chucked into the jambalaya pot and leftovers are cheap, being as they are left over from a meal already paid for and eaten. But still, if you want to add more rice and stock–the ratio you must remember is 2:1–two parts stock to one part long grain (I use jasmine, because that is what lives in my pantry) rice. Don’t get that backwards, please. It will make a scorched, stinky mess and you might get mad at me. So, I reiterate: the ratio is 2:1 stock to rice.

Okay, now we are ready to make jambalaya!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

After Thanksgiving Turkey Jambalaya
Ingredients:

1 really large red bell pepper, seeded, with the stalk removed, and cut into chunks
1 really large yellow onion, peeled and cut into chunks
3 big stalks of celery, strings removed and cut into chunks
2-5 serrano chiles, stalks removed, and seeded if you like
1 head of garlic, peeled (that is head, not clove. One clove is that one piece of garlic you take out of the head of garlic–I want you to use the whole darned head here.)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper flakes
1/2 tablespoon Spanish smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
3 tablespoons fresh rosemary, minced (or 1 teaspoon dried, powdered)
3 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, or 2 teaspoons dried
3 fresh sage leaves, minced (or 1/2 teaspoon dried, rubbed sage)
1 tablespoon fresh tarragon leaves, minced–or 2 teaspoons dried
1 pound andouille or other smoked sausage, cut in half longways, then into diagonal slices
1/2 pound ham, diced
3 cups jasmine or other long grained rice
6 cups strained (and salted to taste) turkey stock
2 pounds (about a quart and a half) shredded dark and light meat turkey, preferably that has been simmered in the stockpot (it makes it more moist to use it after you have made the stock)
salt to taste
minced fresh parsley and scallion tops for garnish

Method:

In a food processor, puree the pepper, onion, celery, chiles and garlic. You will end up with a frothy, very liquidy, fragrant red mixture. Good. That’s what you want it to look like.

Heat your olive oil over high flame in the bottom of a heavy-bottomed stock-pot–I use a ten quart pot for making jambalaya–and when it shimmers, add the puree. It will sputter, spray and make all sorts of noises, but dive in bravely and stir, stir, stir, the whole time it cooks. Turn down the heat to medium and cook, stirring. You will notice that there is a lot of steam and bubbling–that is what you want. The water is simmering right out of your vegetable mixture. When the mixture has reduced by about half, you will notice it has gotten thicker, but is still sort of juicy. At this point in the cooking is when you add the herbs and spices.

Continue cooking until it mostly stops sputtering and whispering at you, and stir carefully. The mixture will be much thicker and you will note that it has started taking on a bit of a darker, more golden-brownish tinge. That’s because most of the water is gone and everything is starting to brown a bit.

At the point where your spoon leaves a definite trail that shows the bottom of the pot, (see photo above) and when that trail does not instantly disappear–add the sausage and ham. After it browns lightly for a minute or two, add the rice, all at once. Then, you stir it completely to coat each grain of rice with the oil and vegetable mixture. You keep cooking, and stirring until the rice has a shiny, somewhat translucent tinge to it and you can smell a nutty fragrance coming from it.

That’s when the stock gets poured in all at once. Stir to make sure that the rice is all covered and mixed into the stock, bring the heat up onto high again, and bring it to a boil. Then, clap a lid on the pot, and turn the heat down to low and leave the pot alone. No, really, I mean it.

Now you start timing it–sort of. Here’s where the recipe gets a little variable, because I don’t know how fresh your rice is, nor how low your stove goes. The rice will cook in between 10 for very fresh rice with an electric stove that doesn’t cool down very fast to 20-25 minutes for a gas stove and average rice. Most of the time for me, the jambalaya cooks in about 20 minutes or so. So, what you do, is simmer the pot for ten minutes. Check the rice at that time–most of the time, what you will see is half-cooked rice just covered with about an inch or so of rapidly disappearing stock. If that is the case, spread your turkey over the top and clap the lid over the top and let it cook, under supervision (in other words, check on it now and again) for another ten minutes. At that point your stock should be absorbed, your turkey should be steamed and lovely and all should be tasty. If the rice is still a little underdone, sprinkle in about 1/4-1/2 cup more stock or water over the rice, stir it well and close the lid and let it cook another five minutes. After that, it will be done.

If, when you check the rice after the first ten minutes, it is tender and done, then stir in your turkey and continue cooking for about five more minutes, stirring constantly to keep it from burning to the bottom of the pot, so as to heat up the turkey nicely.

At this point, taste for salt and correct the seasoning. Sprinkle with the parsley and scallion tops and serve with a smile.

I’m back again. I couldn’t stay away. Writing and cooking, cooking and writing, sewing, writing and loving are just too much a part of my life for me to stay away from blogging forever.

I am here, back in my cyberspace kitchen, ready to share again.

And I am grateful.

I am grateful for all of the emails, comments and other communications from my readers I have received over the past year or so, wishing me well, giving encouragement, support, advice, understanding and love. I cannot begin to tell you all how much your words have meant to me. They have been a balm to soothe a wounded heart, and have made me smile on the darkest of days.

Over the past year, whenever I felt truly down on myself or even humanity in general (like whenever I read the news!) I could go to my last post and read the comments and feel instantly better. Or, I would open my inbox and there would be another email from a reader telling me I was missed and loved and it was hoped that I am my family are well.

I don’t think that I can ever thank all of you enough. I guess, in return, I will just have to write another year or so’s worth of recipes for everyone!

I am also grateful for the love and support of my family. I am so grateful for my two beautiful daughters who grow more wonderful every day. Kat is in preschool and is learning to read and even has started learning elementary addition and subtraction; Morganna has a high B average in college and works the saute station at one of the two fine dining restaurants here in town.

I am grateful for my husband Zak, who has gone back to college to finish an elementary education degree he started years ago, and was interrupted by a lengthy family crisis. I am grateful for his patience over the past year and his enduring faith and love. He has grown a lot, too–he plays music out now, not just in his studio–and he has been raising money for a local food charity with his music.

I am grateful for my brother, Dan, who not only has been an unwavering personal friend and support, but he also redesigned this blog and managed to update my software, all while he was going through the process of starting his own business and moving into a new home with his fiancee.

I am grateful to my Aunt Judy, whose words of wisdom and kindness have kept me sane and helped me along my path toward healing.

Besides all of this–I am grateful for the world itself. Grateful for being able to write again, to be able to cook, read, think and dream again. I am grateful for the sun and the rain, for the grass underfoot and the trees overhead. I am grateful for the birds in my garden, and the flying squirrels in my windowsill. (Yes, we have flying squirrels in our house….they sure are cute wee buggers.)

I am grateful for everything. Whereas this time last year, I was a bundle of anxiety and pain, now, I am peaceful, calm and happy. Truly happy.

I am truly blessed.

I want to end this post with something that a high school friend I just found on Facebook said the other day. Carlos, who sang in our school choir with me all through middle and high school said this–and it spoke directly to my heart:

Remember this, as you are blessed in various areas of your life and your the life of your ministry, you are called to be a blessing to others.

So, here I am, hoping to be a blessing to others through my words and my recipes, as I have been blessed with so much over the past year.

It’s time to share the love.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Last week, while I was taking a bath and Kat was assisting by throwing rubber duckies into the tub on top of me, I decided to attempt to distract her by telling her that we were going to start making cookies this week for the holidays.

And she said my favorite word in the English language. (No, not “chocolate.”)

She stopped, poised in mid-throw, ducky hovering over her head like a bloated blue hummingbird and said, “Why?”

I nearly wept with joy. It was the first time she had asked one of us “why?” about anything! And it was about cookies!

I grinned and said, “Well, making cookies is a tradition at Christmastime. I’ve been baking cookies every Christmas for thirty years, and I hope to be doing it for another thirty.”

“But why, Mommy?”

Why, indeed.

I perked right up, and happily watched as the wee blue ducky, long forgotten, was dropped on the bathmat where it would lurk, waiting to trip me up as I got out of the tub. Putting on my best “Mommy has a minor in history voice” I answered, “All over the world, at this time of year, when the nights get longer and longer and longer and darker and darker, people celebrate the return of the light, as the days slowly start to lengthen and the nights become shorter again. All over the world, people have holidays that celebrate the light, and on those holidays we give gifts, we feast and we make sweets like cookies, to rejoice in teh return of the sun, and the light of hope and love in our hearts.”

It sounded good, and Kat nodded sagely.

I finished and she piped up with, “But what do cookies have to do with light?”

Ah, she thought she got me with that one, but no! I had a ready answer, and it is even historically accurate.

“Well,” I said as I started draining the tub, for the ablutions were completed, the last five minutes of them blissfully duck-free, “long ago before there were refrigerators and grocery stores, people had to grow all of their food and store it for the winter. And sometimes, if the winter was really cold, or the harvest had been bad or if the snows lasted longer than usual, people would start running out of food near the end of winter. So, in the beginning of winter, when there was still plenty of food stored up, people would make and eat fattening foods like cookies and roast meats and cheeses so they could fatten themselves up to live through the winter. That way, if they ran short of food, they had a bit of fat on them to keep them strong until springtime. And the feasting just happened to coincide with the return of the sunlight, so the holiday tradition of making cookies was born.”

So there we are. That’s why we make cookies at Christmas.

Now, as to why I make cookies at Christmas, that is another story. I make them every year, because since I was fourteen years old, that was my holiday job. I did the baking. I made bread, cakes and especially cookies. I wasn’t really allowed to cook anything else in my mother’s kitchen, but since she didn’t much care for baking, and I did it so well, she turned the duty over to me, and I just kept on with it, happily becoming along the way somewhat of a cookie expert.

The first recipes I used were the family ones, handed down from great-grandmothers, a couple of them even coming all the way from Germany. And, of course, I used the Toll House Cookie recipe on the back of the pouch of Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate chips. I insisted on using real butter in all of my baking–my Mom liked to use margarine, but I was having none of that. All of the recipes called for butter, and butter is what I used–who was I to argue with my long-dead great grandmothers? You don’t mess with the ancestors, man–they can come back to haunt you. I also insisted on real chocolate chips, and real vanilla extract too. Mom grumbled, but bought the ingredients I specified, and when she tasted the results, she stopped grumbling.

Over the years, I started experimenting, and worked out new recipes, some of which were based on the old family favorites, like my Aphrodite Cakes, which is based on my great-grandmother’s German sugar cookies. Others were based on ideas I had, like what would a cookie with Sichuan peppercorns in it taste like? Would lavender be good in shortbread? What about chilies in a brownie? Why can’t I put toffee chips and cinnamon bits and espresso powder and just use brown sugar in chocolate chip cookies? If Irish Cream is good with cream cheese in brownies, what happens if you add raspberry preserves and Chambord?

That is the cool thing about cookies. They are easy to play with. You can add ingredients, subtract them, change them, modify them by chilling or melting them, and you can almost always, if you have a bit of knowledge about baking, come up with something that will taste amazing. Cakes–they are much trickier, and I would not play as fast and loose with cake recipes as I do with cookies. Pies–well, I play with fillings all the time, but I stick pretty close to the general ideas when it comes to the crust. I will add ingredients and change proportions a little, but not like I do with cookies. Pie crust is too fragile to mess with very much, and cake–it is just finicky.

But cookies are forgiving. They are easy and they are fast and they are fun. So, I love playing around in the kitchen every year and coming up with new and tasty additions to the holiday sweets repertoire.

This year, I wanted to do something new with a chocolate chip cookie.

But I didn’t want to overload it like I did with the Coyote Chip Cookies. Granted, they are lovely, and I like them a great deal, but Zak is not fond of them, and I wanted to make a chocolate chip cookie that both he and I could enjoy together.

What flavors go with chocolate?

Coffee. Been there, done that.

Nuts? Eh–I have to be careful with that, Zak can be weird about nuts. He likes some of them and not others.

Something was niggling at the back of my brain, trying to get my attention and suddenly, I remembered–Zak had just said the other day at the grocery store when we were buying candy canes that he doesn’t know a thing about those because he doesn’t really like peppermint candy, but chocolate covered cherries–those he used to be able to eat by the box.

And what is his favorite (non-Jeni’s) ice cream? Cherry Garcia.

Ah ha! Cherry chocolate chip cookies!

Why had I not thought of it before? What exactly is wrong with me? Dried sour cherries added to the usual Toll House style cookie, with milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet, since Zak prefers the former, and some almonds to help boost the flavor of the cherries and add a bit of crisp texture to the chewy fruit and cookies–perfect!

Yeah, I was right. The tart cherries are chewy and tangy, and you can taste the cherry flavor very well in the golden cookie, and it pairs beautifully with the rich, sweet milk chocolate. Almonds pair perfectly with both chocolate and cherries, and they added some crunch and the whole thing is just soul-satisfying.

He ate three for breakfast this morning. Brittney, who came to take care of Kat while we were in Columbus for my therapy appointment and for Generic Winter Holiday shopping, had one and declared it “Amazing.”

There are a few caveats: one, use Mariani brand dried cherries if you can find them. They are plump, chewy and delightfully tart. You don’t want to use sweet cherries in this–you want to use sour red cherries. Mariani are the best I have come across for baking–they do not dry out and do not require plumping before baking. So, seek them out. Two–toast your almonds before you put them in the cookie dough–it brings out the flavor in them. And three–you can use half semi-sweet chocolate chips and half milk, but I think milk chocolate is better, because it is a better foil for the tart sour cherries than the lightly bitter semi-sweet would be.

It is my new favorite, and here it is–one of my gifts to you this holiday season. Go bake a batch and celebrate the return of the light with a little bit of dietary fat and sugar!

Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour (or 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour and 1 cup white whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cold butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
2 large eggs
12 ounce package milk chocolate chips
6 ounce packaged Mariani dried sour cherries
1 cup sliced almonds, toasted

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Stir flour, salt and baking soda together in a bowl and set aside.

With a mixure, cream together the cold butter and sugars, until well blended and fluffy. add the extracts and eggs, and beat well until mixture is smooth. Add flour mixture in thirds, and mix until well blended. add chocolate chips, cherries and almonds, and stir until combined.

Drop by rounded tablespoonsful onto not greased baking sheets (I line mine with silicone liners) and bake for 9-11 minutes, or until golden brown, but still seeming to be lightly underdone in the center. Remove from oven and allow to cool two minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a rack. Allow to cool until the cookie is still warm to the touch, but is firm and not hot. Place into a container with a tight-fitting lid and seal them up and allow them to cool the rest of the way. (This guarantees a chewy texture to the cookie.)

Makes about three and a half dozen cookies.