Another Great Gift

A recipe for my favorite cookie. The easiest holiday roast. And a vintage menu.

Would you be shocked to learn that the pinenuts you're most likely using in your pesto come from China or Siberia?

I was. On a recent trip to Italy I couldn't help noticing that the pinoli in the markets were much larger than the ones I buy at home.

Back in my own kitchen, I scrutinized the pine nuts in my freezer. (They're filled with oil, which means that left in the cupboard they quickly go bad.) Sure enough, the label said something about the various countries the pine nuts might have come from, and not one of them was Italy or the United States.

I took out a handful and laid them next to the ones I'd bought in Italy. Half the size! Then I tasted them: half the flavor too.

If you're looking for a thoughtful and inexpensive gift for a cook, you could hardly do better than Gustiamo Pinoli which are organically grown and harvested by hand. I can't think of a better way to stuff a stocking. (And while you’re there…. my pantry is filled with Gustiamo products that I consider essential. Capers packed in salt, anchovies, olive oil, jams… They also import great panettone from Padova every year, but that’s already gone.)

As I mentioned a while ago, I think saffron is one of the greatest gifts you can give a cook. I love that sunny flavor - and it recently occurred to me that it might make a very nice, not too sweet cookie. So I invented one.

Saffron Shortbread
generous pinch of saffron (more is better)
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup whole almonds (to make 3/4 cups ground almonds)
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
demerara sugar to sprinkle on top (if you don’t have it, plain sugar will do)

Preheat the oven to 375.

Combine the saffron with 1 tbsp boiling water and let it cool for at least 10 minutes while it gives itself to the water.

Grind the sugar with the almonds in a food processor.

Cream the butter with the sugar/almond mixture by hand or in a stand mixer. Add the saffron water. Mix in the flour and salt until it has all come together in a smooth dough.

Put the dough on a large sheet of parchment paper; cover with wax paper or another sheet of parchment and roll out into a 9 x 11 rectangle.

Remove the top sheet and sprinkle with demerara sugar.

Slide the entire parchment paper onto a baking sheet. With a dough scraper or knife, mark out rectangles in the dough (the size is up to you).

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden. Remove from oven and cut the slices all the way through before allowing to cool.

When the shortbread is cool, break into individual cookies.

This menu, from 72 Market Street, the celebrity-filled restaurant opened by Tony Bill and Dudley Moore in Venice California is from 1986, but Leonard Schwartz’s menu is filled with modern dishes I’d be very happy to eat right now.

The one thing that gives you a hint to its age is that Caesar salad “with or without garlic”.

In case you’ve been contemplating cooking suckling pig as a Christmas feast, I offer this old article…

With high summer in the Hudson Valley comes high wedding season. Last weekend I was driving, windows down, along a back road (on my way to a smoked brisket feast), when I caught a delectable waft of suckling pig skin.

It made me think of this recipe for stuffed spit-roasted pig, straight from the annals of Colonial Virginia Cookery, Jane Carson's finely researched historical cookbook.

This recipe is originally from Mrs. Glasse’s Cookery, one of the most popular cookery books of its day. It's a reminder of how much recipe styles change over time; although this sounds delicious, most modern cooks would have a very difficult time following these rather vague instructions.

Looking for a recipe you can use? The truth is, nothing's easier than roasting a suckling pig. Here's Kenji Lopez-Alt's encouragingly easy recipe: he calls it “holiday roasting for dummies.”