test cook
Kit Wohl is a cookbook author and photographer. These recipes are available for anyone who would like to take them out for a test cook run. "Cooking is an art and a form of creative expression," she says. "Food is distinctive in form, color, texture, and flavor. The selection, preparation, and presentation of a meal are as creative as any art project. Best of all, it nurtures both the body and the spirit."Tuesday, June 20, 2006
SUMMER CREAM
Strawberries and blueberries grow in abundance just across Lake Pontchartrain. Dewberries hide under prickly bushes. Sweet peaches blush. Sugar cane fields lie downriver from the city. Nearby in Plaquemines Parish groves of pecan trees overhang the road from either side, creating a cool green corridor mottled with sunshine that seems to lead to another time and does lead to acres of citrus and other fruit farms.
Minutes from downtown are quiet places of contrasts. Generations of farmers have cultivated the products that grace city tables. A visit to a farmer’s stand, the French Market or a stop at a roadside truck is a delightful excursion and an opportunity to choose the season’s finest produce.
Summer Cream is a high-tolerance recipe, meaning that just about any fruit you enjoy can be used.
Yields 6
2 8-ounce cartons sour cream
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons cognac, rum, champagne, vodka or bourbon (optional)
4 cups assorted berries and fresh fruit, cleaned and sliced into bite-sized pieces
Mint for garnish
Stir sour cream, brown sugar and liqueur together until thoroughly blended. Reserve ¼ cup of the cream for garnish. Divide the remainder of the cream equally between champagne or wine glasses, about 1/3 cup each. Place the assorted fruit into each of the glasses on top of the cream base. Finish each with a teaspoon of the reserved cream and adorn with a mint spring. Cover and chill until serving.
Minutes from downtown are quiet places of contrasts. Generations of farmers have cultivated the products that grace city tables. A visit to a farmer’s stand, the French Market or a stop at a roadside truck is a delightful excursion and an opportunity to choose the season’s finest produce.
Summer Cream is a high-tolerance recipe, meaning that just about any fruit you enjoy can be used.
Yields 6
2 8-ounce cartons sour cream
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons cognac, rum, champagne, vodka or bourbon (optional)
4 cups assorted berries and fresh fruit, cleaned and sliced into bite-sized pieces
Mint for garnish
Stir sour cream, brown sugar and liqueur together until thoroughly blended. Reserve ¼ cup of the cream for garnish. Divide the remainder of the cream equally between champagne or wine glasses, about 1/3 cup each. Place the assorted fruit into each of the glasses on top of the cream base. Finish each with a teaspoon of the reserved cream and adorn with a mint spring. Cover and chill until serving.
As young, single women living in the Vieux Carré, we swapped recipes that were easy, and inexpensive. Summer Cream was a specialty and could be quickly tossed together with seasonal fruit from the nearby French Market.
We each had a patio for al fresco entertaining with apartments as miniscule as our budgets. Mine was three stalls in the historic Spanish stables on Rue Governor Nicholls. The property had been converted into apartments decades before, hidden behind wrought iron gates that open to a lush courtyard, punctuated by an original Enrique Alferez statue.
During the early 1800s ladies and gentlemen sent horses and carriages there to await a return home. Gaming rooms on the second level above the stalls entertained the drivers. Both the first and second floors now are residences. The tenants, past and present, notable and notorious, continue to be particularly entertaining in the finest traditions.
Finally, many years later, Enrique, then in his 90s, created a bronze for our patio.
We each had a patio for al fresco entertaining with apartments as miniscule as our budgets. Mine was three stalls in the historic Spanish stables on Rue Governor Nicholls. The property had been converted into apartments decades before, hidden behind wrought iron gates that open to a lush courtyard, punctuated by an original Enrique Alferez statue.
During the early 1800s ladies and gentlemen sent horses and carriages there to await a return home. Gaming rooms on the second level above the stalls entertained the drivers. Both the first and second floors now are residences. The tenants, past and present, notable and notorious, continue to be particularly entertaining in the finest traditions.
Finally, many years later, Enrique, then in his 90s, created a bronze for our patio.
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