Table of Contents: From Breakfast With Anita Diamant to Dessert With James Patterson - a Generous Helping of Recipes, Writings and Insights From Today's Bestselling Authors (17 page)

2 To make the filling:
Peel and core the apples and cut two of them into small cubes. Put the raisins and liquor in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer 2 minutes.

3
Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter a large (10″–11″) pie dish.

4
In a large bowl, mix the Swiss chard (or spinach), apple cubes, raisins, pine nuts, confectioners' sugar, cheese, eggs, and lemon peel.

5
Divide the pastry into two unequal parts, the smaller about a third the size of the larger part. On a floured surface, roll the large part into a circle (as thin as possible) and lay it in the buttered pie dish; it should hang over the edges a bit. Prick all over with a fork. Spread the jelly on the bottom and add the filling. Slice the remaining two apples and mound evenly over the filling.

6
Roll out the remaining dough and fit carefully over the top of the filling. Trim and crimp the edges. Prick the surface with a fork or make a decorative vent at the center. Bake 30 minutes, or until golden. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, if desired.

Makes 8 cups

Chili recipe adapted from
The Greens Cookbook
by Deborah Madison (Bantam, 1987)

To atone for the indulgences of the other recipes I've offered, here's an extremely healthy recipe that would meet with the approval of Zip, one of Clem Jardine's many colorful boyfriends in
I See You Everywhere
. Zip loves to cook, but there's a catch: everything is aggressively virtuous, from the “hijiki salads, brown rice breakfasts, and daikon root stews” that drive Clem crazy to his “black bean chili with tiny cubes of roasted tofu glazed with cayenne,” which she knows she will miss if she leaves him. My favorite black bean chili comes from Greens, the legendary San Francisco vegetarian restaurant; the toasted herbs give it an exceptional flavor. The added cubes of tofu roasted with a cayenne glaze are courtesy of Zip.

Note:
Wear plastic or rubber gloves while handling chiles to protect your skin from the oil in them. Avoid direct contact with your eyes and wash your hands thoroughly after handling.

1 To prepare the chili:
Sort through the beans and remove any small stones. Rinse the beans well, cover them generously with water, and let them soak overnight.

2
The next day, drain the beans, cover them with fresh water by a couple of inches, and bring them to a boil with the bay leaf. Lower the heat and let the beans simmer while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

3
Heat a small heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the cumin seeds. When they begin to color, add the oregano, shaking the pan frequently so the herbs don't scorch. As soon as the fragrance is strong and robust, remove the pan from the heat and add the paprika and cayenne. Give everything a quick stir; then remove from the pan (the paprika and cayenne only need a few seconds to toast). Using a mortar and pestle or spice mill, grind into a coarse powder.

4
Preheat oven to 375°F. To make the homemade chili powder, put the negro or ancho chili in the oven for 3–5 minutes to dry it out. Cool it briefly; then remove the stem, seeds, and veins. Tear the pod into small pieces and grind it into a powder in a blender or spice mill.

5
Heat the oil in a large skillet, and sauté the onions over medium heat until they soften. Add the ground herbs, chili powder, garlic, and salt, and cook another 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, their juice, and about 1 teaspoon of the chipotle chiles. Simmer everything together for 15 minutes; then add this mixture to the beans, and if necessary, enough water so the beans are covered by at least 1 inch. Continue cooking the beans slowly until they are soft, an hour or longer, or pressure cook them for 30 minutes at 15 pounds of pressure. Keep an eye on the water level and add more, if needed, to keep the beans amply covered.

6
When the beans are cooked, taste them, and add more chipotle chiles if desired. Season to taste with the vinegar, additional salt if needed, and the chopped cilantro.

7 Prepare the garnish:
If using fresh green chiles, and you have a gas range, roast the chiles over an open flame until tender and blackened on all sides. If you have an electric range, place the chiles on a broiling tray covered with foil and broil, turning occasionally, until skin is blackened and blistered on all sides. Place chiles in a small bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let sit for 5 minutes. Remove stems, peel off blackened skin discard the seeds, and dice.

8
Serve the chili ladled over a large spoonful of grated cheese. Top with slices of Cayenne-Glazed Tofu (see recipe), and garnish with the green chiles, crème fraîche (or sour cream), and a sprig of fresh cilantro.

Makes 8 servings

1
Preheat oven to 400°F. Drain the water from the tofu. Slice into ½-inch thick pieces, and then cut into smaller rectangles (approximately 1″ × 1½″). Set aside on a paper towel while you make the glaze.

2
In an oven-safe glass pie plate or baking dish, mix together the honey, oil, water, salt, and cayenne. Place the tofu into the glaze and turn a few times to coat. Lay the tofu flat in one layer. Place in the oven and bake for 12 minutes. Carefully remove the dish from the oven and turn the tofu to coat again.

3
Place the dish back in the oven and bake for 10 more minutes. Remove the dish from the oven and again turn the tofu, positioning it with a different point up to get even browning. Bake for 10 more minutes.

Amy Smotherman Burgess

SELECTED WOEKS

Long Man
(2012)

Bloodroot
(2010)

Inspiration
So much of my inspiration comes from the Appalachian landscape, the farmland and mountains and creek banks of home. I spent most of my childhood playing outdoors, exploring the wooded hills around our house. In
Bloodroot
, Byrdie talks about loving the land as much as she does any of her kin, and that's very much how I feel about East Tennessee.

The Intimacy of Writing Longhand
I wrote the first draft of
Bloodroot
longhand, spending hours shut away in my bedroom with a notebook and pen, emptying the story from my head onto paper. I've always written like this, going back all the way to first grade. Somehow I feel more of an intimacy with the story and the characters by putting pen to paper rather than sitting in front of a computer screen confronted with a blinking cursor.

Readers Frequently Ask
I'm often asked if I did research before writing Bloodroot, and the truth is that I didn't. The story began with an image of a woman with black hair and vivid blue eyes living in the mountain woods with her twins, hiding from some kind of danger. I was interested first in exploring the characters, unsure whether or not a story would evolve. Finally I just picked up my pen and wrote, appropriating the voices of the people I've known and loved my whole life for my characters.

Influences on My Writing
I consider both Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy major influences. I discovered Morrison's
Beloved
when I was in my early twenties. I was in awe of her lyrical prose, and the novel's magic realism spoke to me as a native of Appalachia, where there's a rich culture of mysticism and folklore.
All the Pretty Horses
by McCarthy is another inspiring book for me. I was enamored with the way he wrote dialogue that rang so true to a fellow native Appalachian from Knoxville.

Makes 6 large biscuits

In Southern Appalachia, where I grew up and still live, there's a rich tradition of coming together around the kitchen table. Homecomings and church picnics and Sunday dinners are a big part of our culture, with good food serving as a catalyst for fellowship and family togetherness. In
Bloodroot
, Myra tells how she appeased her cruel husband by feeding him well: “I served him steaming plates heaped with meatloaf, okra, pork chops, soup beans, pickled beets, country fried steak and cathead biscuits. I stuffed him with banana pudding and coffee cake and cobbler, all the things Granny had taught me to make.” Later, Myra's children first sense her troubled state of mind when they wake up without the smell of breakfast, and Johnny tries to make biscuits to comfort his twin sister Laura. For me, of all the home-cooked meals I grew up loving, cathead biscuits and white gravy are the most symbolic of warmth and safety and home. Each Saturday morning of my childhood I woke to the smell of my mother's biscuits and gravy waiting for me on the table, just as my mother walked into that same kitchen to eat her own mother's cooking when she was a girl. The love and skill of home cooking has been handed down through generations of the women in my family, making these recipes almost like genetic traits, as much my ancestral inheritance as the color of my eyes. I like to think that I'm sharing a piece of my history by passing them on, and a little taste of what home is to me.

Note:
Light, fluffy biscuits require a low-protein, low-gluten flour, such as White Lily all-purpose flour, long a staple of southern baking. White Lily flour can be difficult to find outside the South. Use 2 cups of White Lily all-purpose flour if you can. If not, the best substitute is a combination of a lower-gluten “northern” all-purpose flour, such as Pillsbury, and cake flour.

These biscuits are best served hot, straight from the oven. My mom makes the gravy while the biscuits are baking.

1
Preheat oven to 450°F.

2
Mix both flours, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together in a medium-sized mixing bowl.

3
Add the butter or shortening in small amounts, then mix it into the dry mixture thoroughly with a pastry cutter, two butter knives slicing in a scissor fashion, or your fingertips. The finished mixture should have the consistency of course-ground cornmeal, with a few larger lumps of butter remaining.

4
Add the buttermilk all at once. Stir quickly with a fork until mixture forms into a soft ball, about 30 seconds. If dough feels firm and dry bits are not gathering into a ball, sprinkle with an additional tablespoon of buttermilk. Do not overmix. Using your hands (you might want to coat them lightly with flour), gently knead the dough in the bowl about 3 times.

5
Divide dough in half. To make cathead biscuits (so called because they are large, about the size of a cat's head), simply pinch dough into thirds and shape pieces into thick patties. Place the shaped dough on an ungreased cookie sheet or in a large cast iron skillet (it's fine if the biscuits are slightly crowded). Bake for 15 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits are a light golden brown.

6
Serve immediately with butter, jam, honey, or white gravy (see recipe). If serving with white gravy, open the biscuit and smother with gravy.

Makes 1 cup

This recipe comes from a falling-apart Watkins recipe book from the 1940s, passed down from my great-grandfather, who sold Watkins products back then. It was difficult to reach stores at that time in rural Appalachia, so families relied on traveling salesmen from the Watkins Company, offering everything from vitamins to pie filling, for the supplies they needed.

Note:
We eat sausage or bacon with our meal of gravy and biscuits, usually with fried eggs and a slice of fresh tomato from the garden on the side.

Any kind of milk is fine, but use whole milk if you like your gravy rich, or cream if you like it extra rich.

About ½ pound sausage or bacon, for frying (or as much as you wish) (see note)

2 generous tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup milk or cream (see note)

Salt to taste

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1
In a skillet, fry sausage or bacon. Place 2 tablespoons of drippings (or more if you plan to double or triple the recipe) in a medium saucepan. If there aren't enough drippings, add oil or solid vegetable shortening.

2
Whisk flour into the hot drippings over low heat. Raise heat to medium and stir constantly until the mixture bubbles and turns light brown.

3
Slowly whisk in milk or cream. Continue to cook and stir mixture constantly to keep it from getting lumpy, until it thickens and becomes smooth, 2–3 minutes. Season to taste with salt, and sprinkle generously with pepper. If mixture gets too thick, add a little milk or cream to reach desired consistency.