Tourists & Tasters

...and a Great New England Cook

A special HELLO to the dozens of new subscribers last month! Thanks for reading—I’m grateful for each and every one of you.

---

From Karyl’s Cook & Tell Newsletter (November, 1989)

I suppose I have to tell all about my big weekend down in Boston, at the shindig Yankee magazine put on at Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

I was one of the eight “Great New England Cooks,” whose recipes were being featured at Yankee’s third Annual Great New England Food Festival. We eight had been profiled over recent years in the magazine’s series on ordinary folks who have a knack for creative cooking. (It should be remembered that however majestic the designation “great” may sound, the word is also used to describe hamburgers and disappointment.)

Each of us had been asked to develop three original recipes employing the product of one of the festival’s sponsors. Then we were to demonstrate one of our recipes before a Saturday crowd of tourists and tasters at Boston’s most famous shopping plaza. My sponsor was Near East Foods. I’d be making my curried eggs with their lentil pilaf.

You’d think, if you had seen me getting ready to go, that I must have thought my life was going to change forever, and that I didn’t want to come home to any unfinished business. I folded laundry and put it away, watered plants and trimmed off all the dead things. I ran the Hoky sweeper over the dining room rug. Got the cat’s litter box out of the garage, put it in the hall, and filled his dishes with a weekend supply of grub and water. Tidied up the magazines. And the knife: had to pack my chef’s knife. Can’t chop with anybody else’s.

On the way out of town I made a dash into the market for a box of lentil pilaf, because I suddenly remembered I’d be demonstrating how to cook it, and I thought it appropriate that I give the impression of total mastery, rather than be caught reading the directions off the box at the moment of truth.

So we get to Boston, and with Bob driving and me navigating (because I am an ace with maps and Boston is my town from way back), we eventually pull up to the brass framed doors of the fashionable old Parker House, having racked up more miles than I dare to charge Yankee, because an awful lot of those one-way paved cowpaths that make Boston so charming used to be two-way, but that was in my youth, after all, and things do change.

I mustn’t forget that this is supposed to be the story about a girl from a small island off the coast of Maine facing a vast audience in the big city. I should be describing the fancy reception the night before the festival, where the refreshments consisted mainly of our eight specially developed dishes, transformed into gorgeous presentations by professional caterers for the media people and assorted invited foodies to sample. I think I’ll skip over the part where my cup rolls over in its saucer and produces an enormous puddle of coffee at the feet of some distinguished guest. But I want to introduce my colleagues, a most congenial group: Deedy was perky. Don was shy. Steve was cool, Nancy was super-charged. Ken was tall. Elaine was casual, Marilyn was elegant. And the audience—there is no such thing as a hostile audience at a food show—was wonderful.

Yankee treated us like celebrities. They put us up in Boston’s swankiest and oldest hotel. They fed us our own creations one night and feted us with a recognition dinner the next. They gave us each a plaque and the biggest piece of swordfish I ever saw on a plate.

I guess we were pretty good, but I don’t know about great. As far as I was concerned, what was great was finding Fontina cheese at one of the food stalls in the Marketplace where we were performing. I had put some red pepper soup on hold back home, for want of Fontina, which was not to be found within 50 miles of Southport.

When we got home, I was relieved to find my life hadn’t changed a bit. The cat gave me a bow, but he always does that. Before long I had tackled the only bit of unfinished business I had left at home, defrosting the pepper soup and investing it with the cheese I imported from Boston.

That soup was really great.

---

Amie’s Headnotes

I’m a huge fan of red pepper soup—my pantry’s always got at least one carton of Trader Joe’s Organic Tomato & Roasted Red Pepper Soup—but have yet to make it from scratch. Until now. This soup is buttery and sweet and rich and nutty and the cheese is a welcome switch from my usual tomato base. I skipped the suggested popcorn topping, though, and had a baguette for dipping at the ready.

Sweet Red Pepper & Cheese Soup

Adapted from “Famous Vermont Restaurants and Recipes,” by Sue Schildge

• 2 ½ lb. sweet red peppers

• 1 medium onion

• ¼ lb. butter (1 stick)

• 1 ½ tsp. each dried basil and oregano

• 3 T. flour

• 2 c. chicken or vegetable broth

• 8 oz. Fontina cheese, cubed

• 1 ½ cups half-and-half (or a 15-oz. can coconut milk)

Cut up peppers and onions in small pieces (no need to do a stylish chop here; all will be pureed). Melt butter in medium saucepan and add peppers and onions with herbs until thoroughly cooked, about 25 mins on medium-low, stirring occasionally and watching that nothing browns or burns. Add flour and combine. Slowly stir in stock. Bring to boil.

Add cheese, stirring until melted. Let cool for 5 min. Puree thoroughly in blender or food processor in small batches (you don’t want any un-pureed little scraps of pepper skin). Return to pan and add cream to desired consistency.

A thick slice of red pepper is a good garnish, or why not a shower of lovely white cheddar popcorn?

---

Amie’s Endnotes

Last month, I found a copy of an October 1989 Yankee magazine stashed under the dusty eaves of our old farmhouse attic. As I flipped through the pages of the annual Great New England Food Festival story, out popped a photograph of my mom and her recipes for Curried Eggs & Lentil Pilaf and Chicken Couscous Salad. I don’t need confirmation that she was a great cook. I’ve got a lifetime of recipes and happy tastebuds to prove it.