Every Rose Has Its Thorn

BBQ grills at the ready…its summer time y’all!!!!  And, my goodness is it ever.  The smell of fresh mown grass, charring meat and wafts of hot pavement let us know we can wear less clothing, eat with our hands and spend a little more time lazing about the pool or garden or beach.  I love it!  

May has come and gone leading the way into a toasty June.  All the activities that come along with the season have begun heating up as well.  There are the usual one’s such as country drives and day trips to the nearest body of water with a shoreline.  For us it’s the Atlantic Ocean, but I would be as happy with a river running through the woods, spilling down over rocks and making small shallow pools where crawdads like to hang out.  We haven’t gone to the beach just yet, but with Memorial Day’s arrival came Randall Sharp’s annual BBQ.  Though she doesn’t eat meat herself, she is strangely the master of cooking it…a long-standing passion.  Whether it’s steaks, lobster, ribs or shrimp, nothing escapes her watchful eye or dares not to enter my mouth. 

The BBQ is a good time for all in attendance.  It reminds me of the holiday potlucks my family had (and still have) while I was growing up.  Everyone brings a dish or two with the host/hostess providing a main.  In this case, Randy cooks the meat and everyone else brings a side dish or dessert.  She also makes ice cream, a thing not to be missed at any of her dinner parties.  I was in a southern state of mind when thinking of a dessert to bring to the gathering.  Truly, I’m in a gentile, southern state of mind most of the time thanks to my repeated viewings of the Golden Girls and the training Blanche has given me on the subject.  I must have been Scarlet O’Hara in my former life.

This was a particularly more southern related theme because of our impending trip to Charleston, South Carolina.  One of the productions from Axis Theatre, East 10th St. has had quite a bit of international success and was invited to participate in the Spoleto Festival the weekend of June 9th-11th.  Brian is the producer of this show, so it made sense we should travel down south for the weekend to make sure the production goes well but also to tour some historic homes, sip mint juleps on the veranda and see what sort of activities and food Charleston has to offer.

I’ve often read about the food scene in Charleston, and though I’m yet to experience it, there is generally an impression of being some of the finest soul food in the country.  I was waiting for a train one evening in Grand Central Station so I stopped by the newsstand to look through some food related magazines.  The May 2011 Saveur coincidentally had an article on Charleston so I felt it was a sign from the food gods and purchased it immediately.  There was certainly plenty of down-home cooking going on with long stewed meats, collard greens, cornbread, and much of the usual fair one might expect. 

There were a list of café’s and restaurants to try (hopefully I’ll make it to at least one), but many of them were small operations practically cooking out of people’s homes with only a few tables to accommodate the patrons.  I guess that’s the best way to keep it simple and family style, only preparing enough to keep things manageable, preparing long standing family recipes in batches “like mom used to make”.  There were a few larger operations, this particular article focused on a couple diner-like establishments, but in all cases there wasn’t anything fancy being prepared.  The food I was reading about was for the everyday, or in some cases Sunday one-pot suppers, the kind of meals that feed the soul without destroying the wallet.

As always, there were quite a few things I wanted to make but the thing that stuck out most was a recipe for Strawberry Cake.  Similar to a red-velvet cake in many ways, red food coloring included, I thought it would be a perfect, simple and elegant cake for Randy’s BBQ.  The recipe is straightforward with not a lot of fuss, the key ingredient being seedless strawberry jam added to the cake batter along with oil instead of butter producing a very moist and lovely faux strawberry red crumb.  The frosting is a combination of butter, cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar.  The recipe calls for strawberry extract, which I didn’t see at the grocery store (and have never seen for that matter) but I used vanilla bean paste (or extract) in its place without any problems (along with a few drops of red food coloring to tint the icing pink).  The strawberry flavor in this cake is mild, but I decided a few fresh slices of strawberries would add some extra flavor and decorative flair.  It is a simple cake, but a decadent one, and one that went in a hurry to the hungry BBQ crowd.

I felt it important to make at least one strawberry dessert for the end of May.  My conscience wouldn’t allow me to skip this delectable fruit bursting out of the stalls of the farmer’s markets right now.  I’m yet to have my first strawberry shortcake of the season but am hoping to remedy this soon, maybe in Charleston.  There is nothing like delicate, golden shortcake soaked in sweetened strawberry juice, topped with the ripened berries and freshly whipped cream.  If you are having a similar craving I have a recipe for Strawberry Shortcake from a posting in May of 2010 which is very easy to make.

Along with the arrival of summer come outdoor events.  Not only are BBQs in vogue, but also picnics and children’s activities in every town and county across America.  Westchester is no different.  There is a continual array of emails arriving in my inbox from the town we live in, Ossining, with its “web-blasts” of information.  Being such an old county we live in, there are many historical sites, particularly old manors and properties of famous/wealthy families who settled these parts hundreds of years ago.  One of the properties no more than ten minutes from out house is called Van Cortlandt Manor.  Click the link for history and information.

There are a host of activities held here throughout the spring, summer and fall, culminating in the “Great Blaze” during October when there are thousands of intricately carved pumpkins put on display each evening for a nighttime walkthrough tour.  Memorial Day weekend they were hosting an event called Animals and Acrobats.  The concept was of a circus that comes to the countryside in the 1800’s.  There was a “Punch and Judy” set-up with a man talking to an expanding array of puppets moving through scene changes inside a small tent, and various persons in costumes of the period were to be found playing music or walking on gigantic stilts all over the property.  At the center of it all a large white tent filled with hay-bails for seating featured various acts.  The children in attendance seemed to be having a lot of fun, but I thought it was more of an excuse for adults to get outside for a while and let their children be wild and roam free. 

There were many families like us, with small children and strollers happy to be in the fresh air, eating hot dogs and ice cream and my favorite:  fresh made kettle corn.  A tent was set up with a giant black kettle, a man stirring the pot of oil and popping kernels in the warm, verdant afternoon.  The sweet, sugary taste mingled with salt is always a favorite flavor combination of mine and having the popcorn come right out of the kettle and go directly into my mouth was perfect…no stale bagged popcorn here.  With the breeze in the air, our tummies full and such lively if not occasionally odd entertainment, we couldn’t have been happier.

Last weekend-marked Siena’s first trip to the zoo and the official first BBQ of the season in our own backyard.  We’ve been to the Bronx Zoo only once before and even that was a long time ago, not since Brian and I lived In Brooklyn.  As the crow flies, or by car, it’s surprisingly only a half an hour from our house.  The zoo spans quite a large space in the Bronx and takes hours to see only a small portion, at least while pushing a stroller.  What I happily discovered on our walk up to the entrance were fences covered to capacity with honey-suckle vines. Rarely do I get to smell honey-suckle in the city and it certainly takes me back to warm, summer country roads lined in wood, barbed wire and the heavily scented vines.  Honey-suckle and cow manure are the smells of my childhood.

Honey-suckle aside, I have mixed emotions about a zoo, animals in captivity etc…but at the same time it’s an opportunity to see animals I’ve yet traveled far enough to meet on their home turf.  The Bronx Zoo seems like it would be a great place to call a home away from home.  We thought it would be fun to get out of the house and see if Siena would find any interest in seeing the animals.  Thus far she is enthralled more by trees than anything else and nothing makes her happier than “walking” along in a park under the large canopies.  When she wasn’t napping, the animals didn’t seem to faze her much, but we enjoyed the park just the same, getting to share the warm afternoon with the thousands upon thousands of other parents strolling their children through the grounds.  I’ve never seen so many strollers in one place…and I have spent much time on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  There were mini-parking lots for said strollers in areas of the zoo where you couldn’t “stroll them”; otherwise it was a neck and neck race/walk to see whose stroller could get to the next exhibit the fastest.  Ahh parenthood.

We invited Izabella, Jonathan and Mia over for an early evening cookout before our daughters had to go to bed.  I find we do things at a much earlier hour these days, making dinner reservations for 4:30pm along with the local senior citizens.  I guess that’s a change that comes with having small children about.  I was excited to have people over not only to confirm that we could still have “normal” activities in our life such as a barbecue at our house, but also to share the first blooming of the rose bushes.

I have accumulated nearly a dozen rose bushes over the past couple of years and it’s such a treat when the first part of June rolls around bringing forth the sunshine and colorful blooms.  My penchant for pink roses is certainly unmatched, but I do have a couple of white and a yellow and red rose bushes to keep things interesting.  I particularly like sprawling shrub roses that are great for cutting and placing in small bud vases on a windowsill.  The fragrances of heirloom varieties are my favorite, soft and sweet with strains that have been delighting people for more than fifty years.  A proper rose garden in bloom is a thing to behold, but I’ll take my small, secret backyard garden any day of the week.

To honor the roses I decided to make a rose flavored cookie…bad idea.  I’ll just go ahead and say it; I finally made something that even I didn’t want to eat (and I’ll eat just about anything).  Not that everything I make is perfect and deserving to be in Michelin starred restaurants, but generally I like the simple (and not so simple) desserts I make from week to week.  


The idea for the rose cookies came from a couple of places, one being a Middle-Eastern market I went to at Christmas time last year in search of candied citron for Panettone.  I went to Kalustyan's in search of fruit and nuts, but was mesmerized by all the spices and ingredients I had never seen before.  On one of the many burgeoning shelves of oddities I came across rose water.  I’d heard of rose water before, but had never tasted it.  Even at that time I began to think of warmer weather again and blooming rose bushes, determined to find a recipe using the magical substance.

Flash forward to a few months ago when Martha Stewart Living came out with the Cookie App for the Ipad.  This application is a thing of beauty, well laid out from a design and user perspective and full of wonderful cookies for every occasion.  While scrolling through the list I came across Rose Water Cream Sandwichs; clouds parted and sunlight burst through reminding me of the “holiday-time” rose water purchase and I knew I had to make these delicate, small cookies.

Since it was still winter at the time, I determined to wait once more until the roses were blooming in the garden and I could have an outdoor get-together to share my ingredient findings with my friends.  Too bad I found out so late in the game that I don’t like rose water!  I had never bothered to open the small bottle until I had purchased the rest of the cookie ingredients and was in my baking zone.  Normally, I am fond of floral smells (obviously because of my garden or favorite colognes), but when I think of floral flavors lavender immediately springs to mind, and I love lavender.  It came as quite a surprise when I touched my finger to the rose water for a small taste and came away with the sensation of eating my mother’s bubble bath.  I like the scent of mom’s bubble bath as I recall from growing up, but I wouldn’t want to eat it.  It was either that or I had fallen into a giant vat of perfume.  Is this what children who have their mouths cleaned out with soap feel like???  Not to mention the lasting alcohol flavor lingering in the back of my throat.  I only licked the tip of my finger, but it seemed for a minute I had taken a shot of whiskey.   Rose water’s alcohol content is apparently 40%.  I know vanilla and other extracts have a small amount of alcohol in them, but this was crazy!

In my effort to retain childhood wonders and the belief that all things will turn out good in the end, I went ahead adding the 3 tablespoons of rosewater the recipe calls for into the batter.  THREE TABLESPOONS!!!  One tablespoon, maybe, would have dispersed into the dough giving a subtle rose flavor in the background, but THREE…no dice.  I love vanilla extract, and generally the most called for in recipes is a tablespoon.  I should have listened to my tiny inner voice and only added one tablespoon of the bubble bath extract, then, the cookies might have been salvageable.

My next thought was that baking would take care of them, cook out the alcohol, reduce the strong rose flavor quite a bit, but alas, again I was fooled.  The flavor was somewhat tamed by the baking, but not enough for me to convince myself that I in fact loved these cookies and would make them year after year every time the roses came into bloom.  Sadly, I don’t know if I can use rose water again and not feel like I’m eating dish soap.  The upside to all of this is the learning process.  These cookies were in fact quite good with respect to the balance in the rest of the flavors, the light and crisp texture, the petite size and the way the dough holds it’s shape after cutting.  The creamy filling, although also calling for the dreaded rose water (which I smartly omitted) was quite good.  All the things you want in a bite-sized sandwich cookie are here for the taking, but I would caution you to use a nice lemon, vanilla or almond extract in place of the rose and to use no more than a tablespoon, a tablespoon and a half at the most.  If you’re feeling bold or like playing around with this one, here is the recipe: 

Rose Water Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4-teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1/3-cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted, plus more for dusting

3 tablespoons rose water

Candied rose petals or candied violets, for garnish (optional)

Rose Water Cream Filling

Ingredients:

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

1 1/2 teaspoons rose water

1 1/2 teaspoons milk, plus more if needed

Whisk to combine flour, cornstarch, and salt in a bowl.  In a separate bowl, beat butter and confectioners’ sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.  Add rose water, and mix until combined, scraping down side of bowl.  Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture; mix until just combined.  Divide dough in half, and shape into disks.  Wrap each in plastic, and chill 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  On parchment, roll 1 disk of dough to 1/8-inch thickness; chill 15 minutes.  Cut 1 1/2-inch rounds from dough (I used a fluted biscuit cutter to get the scalloped shape), and place 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets.  Repeat with remaining disk.  Using the wide end of a pastry tip cut a 1/2-inch hole off-center in half the rounds.  Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until barely golden, about 14 minutes.  Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely.  (Unfilled cookies can be stored in an airtight container up to 3 days.)

Dust cutout cookies lightly with confectioners’ sugar.  Spread a heaping 1/2 teaspoon filling (see recipe below) on whole cookies and top with cutout cookies.  Place a candied rose petal or violet in each hole.  Once sandwiched, cookies can be stored in a single layer in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 day.

Make the rose water cream filling.  Stir together cream cheese and sugar with a wooden spoon until smooth.  Add rose water and milk, and stir until smooth (I also added a couple drops of red food coloring).  Filling can be refrigerated in an airtight container up to 3 days; bring to room temperature and stir until smooth before using.

It was such an unfortunate experience for me because I had been so looking forward to baking these cookies and the impending joy I would gleefully decree.  Alas, the only person at the barbecue who liked them was Izabella.  I even convinced her to take some home with her so it wasn’t an entirely lost cause.  Apparently her grandmother used to make a jam from rosehips when she was growing up in Poland and the cookies brought back fond memories for her.  So in the end my memory making/inducing mission was accomplished, but it is a vastly different experience from the one I hoped to have.

Fabulous pastries don’t have to be “fabulous” to all people at all times, but if they are inspiring to a good number of people some of the time then I would count the baking as a success.  Hopefully I’ll find a taste sensation over the weekend in Charleston that I can’t live without, one that helps commemorate a fun experience in someplace new.  It will mark the first time Siena got on a place and the first time that we learned how to check car seats and strollers at the airport.  I have a feeling those will be things I can do without remembering, but the food, ahhh the food is what I’m looking forward to, things fried and smothered in some sort of gravy, coated with powdered sugar or any combination of those two things.  If I could live my life in a vat of gravy I would.  It’s just who I am.