I interrupt the regularly scheduled process of cooking my way through the vast and often disturbing collection of Marjorie Standish recipes to pay particular attention to the efforts of Islandport Press.  In addition to offering a terrific indie press for Maine and New England, they are now fighting hunger in the state with a clever, online book auction.

Here is the link to the Facebook auction.

I am proud to be part of this effort, and I hope you will bid early and often.  If not for my book, Show Me Good Land, for the other fantastic authors.  Signed books make excellent holiday gifts.

People make things unnecessarily complicated, when it often is a much simpler process.  I am not sure why this is, but it appears to be a pretty universal trait.  Marjorie Standish understood simplicity.  For instance, chicken.  Here is her recipe.

Note that it is, basically, "put the chicken in the oven."

Here is the chicken. Note that it does not need to be singed.  Singing a chicken is the process of burning off any teeny lingering feathers.  If you caught and killed your chicken yourself, it would need to be singed.  For these purposes, the good people at Perdue have done it for us.

Here is the chicken in the pan, coated with fat (olive oil) and seasonings (Trader Joe's Everyday Seasoning).

In an effort to reduce sodium, I like Trader Joe's Seasonings.

Into the oven for a couple hours until your house smells fantastic, and here is the finished product.

While I appreciate the delicate flavors of brining, marinating, infusing, stuffing, and deep-frying, sometimes it's a good exercise to just bring things back to their simplest form.  Chicken in oven, in this case.  Chicken in the oven-it's that easy.

Marjorie would have respected that, I suspect.

Challenge:  In this hectic ramp-up to the holiday season, when expectations and stress levels are high, what one thing can you let go?  What one thing, when looking back in ten years, just won't be all that important?

It is the season of comfort food, and one of my favorite comfort foods is chicken stew with dumplings.  Marjorie prefers lamb stew with her dumplings, so I'm improvising.  Dumplings are surprisingly easy.

Mix everything up in a bowl, and don't forget the baking powder.  I typically buy the cheapest generic baking powder, but I noticed this brand while I was shopping, and it was one of those memory zingers.  I remembered this jar  in my mother's cupboard when I was a little girl, so I bought it for the nostalgia factor.

Mix everything into a spongy batter.

Then spoon up a little glob of batter, and plop it into a pot of simmering stew.  I made chicken stew, but that's a different recipe, not from Marjorie.  Basically, just make your stew until it boils, lower the heat, and it's ready for the dumpling batter.

The process looks a little icky, to be honest.  The batter should be plopped into the stew in spoon sizes, but the dumplings will expand and nudge together during the cooking process. 

Like this.

Cover the pan, and this is super important:  Don't take the cover off.  (The cover creates the steam that helps plump and cook the dumplings.)  Marjorie is pretty direct:  DO NOT PEEK, and although hers was an era void of text-speak-even back then, you can see the impact of ALL CAPS. 

The finished dumplings look like this.  Mmmm.  Comfort food.

Challenge:  What product, song, or scent triggers a childhood memory?  Tell me why.

This post is a bit of a deviation from my Marjorie Standish project.  It's a deviation and a celebration.  I am a fan of celebrations in general, but I am an even bigger fan when there is an actual milestone to celebrate.  For me, it's a venture into food writing.

I love food.  Sharing a meal tops my list of favorite things to do.  I love the intimacy, the language of the menu, the anticipation, and the meal's delivery. I love restaurants themselves, too.  When plate glass windows get steamy because of the cold rain outside?  Or the first outdoor patio seating in early summer?  I love the hum and rhythm of the waitstaff, the sounds of kitchen tools, and the occasional glimpse of a fiery brick oven.

My husband and I do not live a lavish lifestyle, and in this economy, we are extra careful with our money.  Our household budget is stretched on the tightest of shoe strings.  Our budget is stretched, but every Sunday we have a standing restaurant date.  Old favorites, diners, fancy decor, the quest for pho, the quest for noodles-we consider this time and money an important investment in our relationship.  The rest of the week is a crapshoot of scheduling and demands and projects and late night gigs, but Sunday afternoon?  That's when the rest of the world gets put on hold, and for a couple hours it is just two people and a shared table of something indulgent.  Or something simple.  Or a sandwich.  We love it all.

So, imagine my delight that I now get to share the best of dining options in the best of states (Maine!!) with a dedicated audience!  I am so very excited about the opportunity to contribute food experiences for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.

Starting with a longtime Portland institution, Bintliff's American Cafe.

Enjoy!

Challenge:  What are your passions?  Make a list. Now think of ways to prioritize those passions into your weekly routine.

Today's blog post is celebrating new things!  To include new approaches to old standards.  You can see by the stains that Marjorie's recipe for Apple Crisp is well-loved.  You can now also actually see Marjorie's recipe itself, because I just learned how to enlarge photos.  It's a simple thing, for sure, but I was thrilled to learn it!

Marjorie doesn't specify apple type, but I prefer a tart apple.  Granny Smiths are excellent, but really, anything that's available is a good choice.  Hannaford had these Cortlands on sale.

Bonus for being 100% local in their origin, and many thanks to Randall Orchard for the work that goes into producing such delicious apples!

Now is where I note that I am all for easy.  And, although I own a fabulous apple coring/slicing gizmo, I think apple crisp is good when it's made with apple skins, so I left them.  I just sliced up a pan full of apples.

Then I mixed up the topping.  Marjorie doesn't specify white sugar, so I used brown.  I also incorporated the butter with my handy little Microplane trick.  (Basically, just grate the cold butter instead of digging out the pastry blender.)

Here is where I deviate from Marjorie's dogma.  I used half white flour and half almond meal/flour.  Cousin Linda made an apple crisp this way on a visit home this summer, and I've been a convert ever since.  The difference is subtle, but in a subtly astounding way!  Try it! 

I've started substituting half almond meal for many, many recipes, and the results have all been positive.  (Chicken breasts are especially yummy with a hint of almond.)

I was so excited about the way my kitchen smelled all amazing and like fall with the cinnamon and apples, I forgot to take a snapshot of the cooking process.  But, here is a dim image of the result!  What I love is that this recipe is not over-the-top sweet.  It's a balance of fragrance, and because it's fruit-based, this dessert feels like it's good for you!

Challenge:  Look at your first chapter.  Now change one major detail about your main character.