Not long ago, I wrote about my devotion to the grilled cheese sandwich. 
 
The set-up went like this: take two slices of fresh white bread, preferably from a bakery, and slather good butter on one side of each slice. Next—don’t hold back here either—layer Velveeta onto the non-buttered sides, then grill to a butterscotch hue. Serve with bread and butter pickles on the side with a tall glass of chocolate milk.  It’s the ultimate comfort food.   
 
I purposefully left out another contender. 
 
Maybe that’s because I knew this particular entrée needed its own post.  Yup, it’s that good.  I also suspect that just as many people—probably more, since there are various versions of this treat around the world—love this dish as much as I do.   And because it’s such hearty fare, it’s especially satisfying right now with the rainy days we’re finally getting here in California.  
 
I’m talking chicken pot pie.
 
It turns out that this old American standby has a long and interesting history, dating back to the Roman Empire.  Back then, meat pies were served at banquets, sometimes with live birds under the crust.  Colonists here loved them stuffed with robins.  Pre-Raman, they were a staple for poor college students and struggling actors.  Indeed, in the last century, gleaming automats like Horn & Hardart sold individually sized pies to thousands of hungry lunch and dinner customers every single day.        
 
My first inkling that this one-dish meal even existed came in sixth grade. 
 
I remember asking my mother one afternoon what we were having for dinner, and the answer was chicken pot pie. They had probably been on sale at the supermarket, and it was likely a few days before payday.  I figured out that last fact years later, when I realized that we never ate the upscale version.  Back then, pies in my parents’ budget went for less than 50 cents each.
 
I couldn’t wrap my 11-year-old brain around the meal.
 
After all, pies meant dessert, filled with cherries or berries or something like pudding. I hadn’t learned the word savory yet, and to top off a meat and veggie combo with a flaky crust seemed completely off kilter.  Wouldn’t the two tastes collide?  How could such a combination possibly work?   
 
Then I took my first forkful, and I was hooked. 
 
You’ve probably guessed that I’ve collected several cookbook variations, and have also probably guessed that I’ve tried most of them.  
 
My favorite is deceptively simple, because except for a little celery, one small onion and a suggestion of parsley, there aren’t any vegetables.  
 
The recipe is in a 1940s booklet extolling Spry, a competitor of Crisco whose make-believe advertising character was Aunt Jenny, a grandmotherly type with bright white hair, thin- rimmed glasses and baking apron.  (Since we don’t hear about this shortening anymore, we know who won that game.)  Its ingredients list starts with a four-pound roaster, which after steaming in a pot of gently boiling water for two hours, creates a super-rich stock for the cream gravy.  Because I’m going to go to this much trouble, homemade crust is a must.  Mine is made with flour, salt, Crisco and milk, but in a pinch, frozen puff pastry works almost as well.
 
But thankfully, given that most of us no longer have the luxury of puttering in our kitchens for hours, we can always buy a grocery store pie.    
 
Somehow, it’s not surprising that the venerable Good Housekeeping magazine took the time to rate eight ready-made, freezer to oven (or microwave) pot pies a few years back.  Thanks to its buttery crust, the magazine’s test kitchen declared Stouffer’s white meat pie tops, and concluded that Trader Joe’s, with its stringy chicken, was the worst.  In between was the cost-efficient Banquet, which is what I grew up on.  (The entire article is here, at www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-products/chicken-pot-pie-reviews/.)
 
But the absolute best store pie wasn’t even in the mix. 
 
That’s probably because it isn’t sold in New York City, where the magazine is based, and even more sadly for me, isn’t available on the West Coast. 
 
But if you’re fortunate enough to live east of Wisconsin, you can delight in a Mrs. Budd’s pot pie.  
 
Originally started in a small take-out chicken store in Manchester, New Hampshire, the pies made their debut there in the 1950s.  It was then that the Budd Poultry store had to come up with a way to use its unsold cooked chicken, and Irving Budd decided to try his mother’s chicken pot pie recipe. Today, still in Manchester, the pies can be found in most grocery chains along the East Coast, as well as Chicago.  (More details about these wonderful pies are here, at www.mrsbudds.com.)
 
Restaurants offer the most expensive way to get a pot pie fix.     
 
I’ve fond memories of Phillips Chicken Pies, an old school, red booth kind of place in my hometown.  Its signature pie was nearly identical to the Spry recipe, but sadly, the place closed decades ago.  DuPar’s, a Los Angeles based coffee shop chain that has been around for more than 75 years, has a very good pie, too, although the portion isn’t nearly big enough to my liking. 
 
In Manhattan, a dear friend and I would occasionally eat pot pie at Ye Olde Waverly Inn in the Village.  Now, however, it’s called Waverly Inn and boasts celebrity patrons including Calvin Klein, Jennifer Aniston and Hilary Duff.  It also charges $26 for one small pie.  On the opposite spectrum is Kentucky Fried Chicken, which comes out with a new version every few years.  Given that the crust is consistently greasy and there’s not much chicken, meh is the defining word here.  But since hope springs eternal, I’m game every single time.  
 
I think it’s pretty obvious how much I adore chicken pot pie.
 
With so many choices out there, I suspect lots and lots of other folks do, too.  It’s as American as corn on the cob, and as a matter of fact, I think it should replace, or at least sit next to, another great pie that our country is known for.  Yup, put a chicken pot pie next to an apple pie. 
 
Which would you eat first?   You already know my answer.
 
How about you?  What’s your favorite go-to, one dish meal, especially in the wintertime?
 
(PS.  My original post on the grilled cheese sandwich, and other comfort food, is at hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/ode-to-the-grilled-cheese-sandwich.) 

Despite the epic drought here, a lot of us, including yours truly, still have fruit trees in our back yards.     

In fact, while my own property was crazy overgrown with bamboo when I moved in, the previous owners had also, thankfully, made other, and better, tree choices. 

There’s a pair of avocado trees (although, sadly, not Haas); a produces-when-it-feels-like-it guava, and a lovely canopying fig tree that the sparrows and hummingbirds usually pick clean every summer.  Five years ago, I also planted a lime tree which finally began bearing fruit last spring (perfect for guacamole and limeade), although two different lemon trees, planted in two different locations, have decided that life is better in Tree Heaven.

Then there’s my loquat (LOW-quat). 

By far the tallest—at least 20 feet high—sturdiest and shadiest tree in the backyard, it wasn’t in fruit-making mode when I first arrived.    

But since the leaves look nearly identical to the ones on an avocado, I assumed it was just a different variety of the two trees I already had.  So when the little orange fruits appeared, I was stumped.  I took a couple to our local farmer’s market for someone to identify; there, a vendor practically inhaled them before informing me they were loquats.

Like the vendor, I now know that lots of people love these fuzzy little guys. 

Around the same size, color and sweetness of an apricot (but way too light for juggling), loquat aficionados eat them right off the tree.  I’ve also heard that loquat jelly is to die for, and that they make an awesome marinade for pork roast, too.  A quick Google search turned up many other recipes, including cobblers, chutneys and pies.   

Yes, there are amazing, remarkable and yummy dishes that require loquats. 

But because I do not like loquats, do not like them at all, I will now make a terrible confession: every year, I’ve let my loquats fall to the ground, and then rot.

This season, however, needed to be different.

That’s because, when I looked out from my sliding glass office door to the tree, I saw hundreds—no, make it thousands—of luscious, ripe loquats.  Maybe it’s our lack of rain, or maybe it’s Mother Nature just wanting to have its way with me, but I knew that I just couldn’t let this fruit all fall down.  Okay, doing so would create a big mushy mess to clean up, but I was also beginning to feel more than a bit guilty about the incredible waste.

I mentioned this dilemma to a friend of mine, who offered the perfect solution.

“Don’t you know?” she said.  “There’s a group of people who will harvest your tree for free.  They take it to the county food bank and distribute it.”

Such a statement seemed too good to be true, but in fact, it is true.

This sort of harvesting is called gleaning, and as it turns out, has been around since Biblical times.

Now making a comeback in the last few years (if so inclined, here’s an NPR story on the practice, at www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133059889/gleaning-a-harvest-for-the-needy-by-fighting-waste), gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested, or collecting crops from fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. 

Indeed, in the Old Testament, farmers are actually told to not pick their fields clean, but to leave the edges for orphans, widows and travelers, making the practice an early form of helping the poor.  Today, with gleaning being more about preventing would-be waste, there are hundreds of gleaning organizations across the country.     

Luckily for me, there’s Glean SLO (www.gleanslo.org), which believes that no harvest, not even from a one loquat tree, is too small to cart away. Soon, I was on the phone with a volunteer, who directed me to its web site. 

“Okay, now click on ‘Donate Your Crap,’” she said. 

“Uh, excuse me?”

“Donate Your Crop.”

Oh, right.  After filling out the requested information, I received a call back, and five days later, two cheerful gleaners named Jeanine and Shay arrived.  Carting at least half a dozen empty cardboard boxes, two very tall ladders, cutters and picking poles, they clearly knew all about this tree stripping business. 

They were also told that not only was there an extremely bountiful crop in my backyard, but several other meandering branches, all weighed down with hundreds more loquats, extended into the yards of two neighbors. Thanks to these homeowners graciously allowing the gleaners access to their properties as well, it looked like Glean SLO was going to end up with a pretty good loquat haul. 

Jeanine and Shay began to work quickly and efficiently, and l left to meet a friend.

That afternoon, Jeanine sent me this text:  she and Shay had harvested—wait for it--95 pounds of loquats.   

As it happened, the day of my one-tree harvest was also the day that our local food bank was distributing food at a nearby school, so those orange babies were grabbed just an hour or two after they were picked.  For those who may not know, about one in five children in our country live in households that struggle to put food on the table every day. So, being able to provide fresh fruit on a giveaway day gave me a very, very good feeling. 

Loquats might be a darn good fruit after all.    

What do you do with food that would otherwise go to waste?  What about other items that you just can’t use anymore?  I look forward to hearing from you!    

I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t have a favorite comfort food. 

For my husband, who grew up in a red-shuttered farmhouse in Ohio, it’s his mother’s meat loaf, made with uncooked oatmeal instead of bread crumbs.  (Given that her simple recipe is identical to the one that even now might be found on those still-round boxes of Quaker Oats, this entrée was no doubt a favorite for millions of other Baby Boomer kids, too.)  As for my teenage daughter, she has been a French fry girl for as long as I can remember, eaten with no adornment except salt. Whether ordered at a fast food place or upmarket restaurant, for her, a potato is a potato. 

Then there’s me.  I’m pretty easy, too.

All you have to do is make me a good grilled cheese sandwich and within moments after handing it over, you will see a very happy girl clown.

By good, I mean it shouldn’t be fancy.

Don’t bother with imported cheese (say, Gruyere) or even fancier meat (say, prosciutto) or some overly-priced European style bread. And definitely, please don’t look up whatever Martha Stewart’s version of this all-American classic might be.     

Nope, slather lots of butter on the outside of two slices of fluffy white bread; set it gently in a heated skillet over a medium flame, and make sure there’s plenty of Velveeta between those slices.  (Yes, it must be Velveeta, not a generic knock off, and please, do not use those absurdly thin, waxy slices encased in plastic.)  Don’t leave the room, because you’ll need to flip the skillet side over the moment it turns butterscotch brown.   Do the same for the other side, then serve immediately.  You’ll make my experience even more memorable by adding bread and butter pickles on the side.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the fancy-schmancy version.

In the 2014 film Chef, a food porn movie if ever there was one, the grilled cheese sandwich is piled so high with so much expensive-looking cheese that a good portion of it oozes over the bread’s sides.   And speaking of the bread, it’s actually massaged by hand before the cheese is put on, on a super-hot grill with extra butter, to presumably make it extra yummy. 

Even in my modest kitchen, I once hosted a dinner party—cast iron skillet hot, apron tied and spatula  in hand—making thick sandwiches to order that boasted three kinds of cheeses; two varieties of bread baked that very morning, and an array of sliced meats. Fruits and from-scratch tomato soup were also in the mix.  The food was divine, my guests raved, but then again, this wasn’t meant to be a meal to remind one of childhood and comfort, which my Velveeta sandwich always does.

You see, I was a sickly kid and, especially during the winter, caught a lot of colds.  Feeling terrible and being made to stay home wasn’t fun, but I did look forward to this: my mom’s grilled cheese sandwich lunch made with her homemade white bread.

My stay-at-home mother, also from Ohio, called them toasted cheese sandwiches, and would serve mine with—you guessed it—crisp bread and butter pickles.  Topping it off was an icy glass of chocolate milk, made with the sinfully whole stuff that was actually delivered to our doorstep.   

I’m not the only one who thinks that putting buttery toasted bread and gooey melted cheese together ranks number one in the comfort food circus. 

In fact, across the United States, there are food trucks aplenty that serve only grilled cheese.  Probably best known is The Grilled Cheese Truck in Los Angeles, which has more than 54,000 Likes on Facebook.  Head north to Portland (the place for food truck aficionados) and you’ll find The Grilled Cheese Grill, whose motto is “Come by for a taste of Your Childhood.”   And let’s not forget C’est Cheese in Cincinnati, which is not only a super cute play on words, but features the Oscar Mayer Robertson sandwich, made with fried bologna and American cheese. 

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention The Grilled Cheese Incident, my own little town’s truck.  Easily spotted around our streets thanks to its neon orange exterior, the Incident’s specialty is the Quintessential California, made with Havarti and jack cheeses, tomato and smoked applewood bacon.  (Read about other cheese trucks here, at http://culturecheesemag.com/blog/10-best-grilled-cheese-trucks.)  

Want to hear more?   

Well, just last month (not coincidentally, April is National Grilled Cheese Month), news came out that you might be happier between the sheets if you’re a regular consumer of this sandwich.

It’s true. 

At least that’s what Skout, a social/networking dating site, concluded after it asked members if loving grilled cheese might also say something about their sex lives.  Amazingly, close to 5,000 people responded, with the results being that 73 percent of grilled cheese devotees have sex at least once a month, compared with 63 percent who don’t love grilled cheese.   In addition, 32 percent of grilled cheese fans have sex at least six times a month, compared to 27 percent of non-grilled cheese lovers.  The poll also says that 81 percent of those who eat grilled cheese sandwiches donated time, money or food to those in need.  (Find out more at http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-survey-grilled-cheese-sex-20150408-story.html)  

To me, these conclusions are just common sense, and here’s why:

First, I adore the taste, texture and perhaps most of all, the comfort food memories of a perfect grilled cheese sandwich. 

Second, because of all of the above elements, I become instantly happy and content while eating (okay, more like inhaling) this perfect treat.  

Third, in this heightened state of bliss, of course I’m going to feel like doing some serious canoodling with my honey, and of course I’m going to want to share the love by wanting to reach out, and help, with causes near and dear to me.

It really is that simple, and that powerful.  

Exactly like the grilled cheese sandwich.  

What’s your favorite comfort food, and what’s the story behind your choice?  I look forward to hearing from you!   

 

 I’m smack dab in the middle of a beautiful love affair.

This wonderful relationship, as the best love affairs so often are, always feels new and exciting… this, despite the fact that my sweetie and I have been happily ensconced for a good two decades.

Oh, and you should also know that my husband isn’t in the picture. 

Even so, he not only approves of what I’m doing, but encourages me on, often and heartily, to please spend more time with my love.

You’ve probably figured out by now that this particular coupling has nothing to do with rolling around in the sheets.

My affair is with vintage cookbooks.

I wouldn’t call myself too obsessive about them.  I mean, I keep my two dozen or so in one specific area of the kitchen, in bookshelves designed just for them. I don’t dust the area as much as I should, but I am always organizing them.  And when that happens, I can’t help but ever-so-slowly leaf through at least one of the books, at least once a week.

The collection began, modestly and not surprisingly, with what was once my mother’s go-to cookbook—the perky, red and white covered Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book.  

This is a first edition, published by General Mills in 1950, with dulled silver duct tape now holding the binding together.  Intended for young, post-World War II brides who could barely boil water, the beginning pages of Picture Cook Book feature clear photographs under the title of Useful Kitchen Utensils, and a glossary called Meanings of Terms Often Found in Recipe Directions.  There’s also A Dictionary of Special and Foreign Terms (included here is caviar, entrée and macaroons). 

I absolutely love the Spanish rice recipe, which begins with a hot skillet and four tablespoons of melted butter.  What’s not to like?  There’s also a terrific basic sugar cookie to try, and lots of pies not seen much anymore, including New England Squash and Early American Pear.   

Along the way, I’ve bought Ruth Wakefield’s Toll HouseTried and True Recipes.  Yup, Wakefield is the accidental inventor of the chocolate chip cookie, which she named The Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie.  (More about the cookie is here, at http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/03/the-accidental-invention-of-the-chocolate-chip-cookie/).  Then, a few years back, my husband gifted me withThe Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook, where I read that there really was once a real Pepperidge Farm, part of a 125-acre parcel in Fairfield, Connecticut, purchased by the author and her husband in 1926.

About a year later, in a neighbor’s box of free stuff at her front curb, I discovered, complete with dust cover,The Fireside Cook Book by James Beard.  Published in 1949 by the venerable Simon and Schuster, its subtitle, in luxe cursive handwriting, is “A Complete Guide to Fine Cooking for Beginner and Expert Containing 1,217 Recipes and Over 400 Color Pictures.”   

Of course, my cookbooks are great fun to look at.  But they have imparted two important lessons as well.    

One, cooking is not nearly as difficult and labor intensive as so many of us were taught to believe. 

Indeed, simply follow the recipe.  (And in these vintage gems, most really are pretty  easy.)  You don’t even have to know how to measure, because a measuring cup and spoons do all of that for you.  And after making the dish once, you can always add or subtract seasonings or herbs, thereby making it the signature dish that will become unique to you. 

Two, despite the fact that so many of these recipes routinely call for butter, bacon grease, red meat and white sugar, one didn’t really see morbidly obese people when these books were being used by millions of homemakers.  Why? 

My common sense theory is this:  not one of these dishes calls for ingredients that sound like they were created in a chemistry lab.

In addition, meat was purchased in butcher shops run by real meat cutters, and about half of all Americans picked their veggies from their own backyard gardens. 

All of these elements, in their own way, make the recipes a kind of clean food.  Consequently, what is then put on the table is not only easier to digest, it’s also way easier to not have second helpings because this sort of honest food fills one up the first time around.

All in all, collecting vintage cookbooks, and USING them, has been one of the most satisfying—and certainly the longest lasting—love affairs of my life. 

What about you? 

If you have a favorite cookbook, I’d love to know about it, and why.  And don’t forget to include a recipe… or two or three.   I’m already putting on my apron!