The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto is one of the most satisfyingly curmudgeonly pieces of writing I’ve stumbled across in some time. Published by Bernard DeVoto in 1948 and reissued with a fabulous introduction by Dan Handler (known to most of us as Lemony Snicket), it contrives to sing the praises of alcohol while completely disparaging most of the people who drink it.

The basis of DeVoto’s argument is that there are only two acceptable cocktails: a slug of whiskey and a martini. The martini must be composed of gin and dry vermouth, must be ice cold, and may contain a sliver of lemon rind but absolutely nothing else. Like Manhattans? Be informed that “whiskey and vermouth cannot meet as friends and the Manhattan is an offense against piety.” Like a Gibson now and then, or an olive in your martini? “…nothing can be done with people who put olives in martinis, presumably because in some desolate childhood hour someone refused them a dill pickle and so they go through life lusting for the taste of brine. Something can be done with people who put pickled onions in: strangulation seems best.” You don’t even want to know what he says about people who drink rum, let alone those who put fruit juice in it. The book is full of shamelessly vindictive commentary that you will feel the need to read out loud to the nearest person, whether they want you to or not.

Necessary reading for anyone who enjoys a quiet drink at the end of the day.

Gin Martini (DeVoto’s approved method)

Approximately 3.7 parts gin to 1 part dry vermouth. Pour the spirits over a great deal of ice in a cold pitcher, stir well to chill thoroughly and strain the drinks into chilled cocktail glasses. A few drops of lemon oil may be squeezed out onto the surface of the cocktail. Serve immediately. Do not attempt to mix a pitcher of martinis in advance and keep it in the fridge – ” you can no more keep a martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there.”

Yes, the Chiffon Chicken Pie won out, after a neck-and-neck race with both the Norway Strudel and the Mock Chicken Legs. I honestly don’t know whether to feel relieved or horrified. So any way, now I need to go buy some Ritz crackers and pimientos (I seem to have an unopened box of gelatin already), and we’ll make this either later this week or next (we’ve been eating a lot of chicken, I might need a slight vacation before undertaking the pie).

Say, if anyone is still morbidly curious about the other regrettable dishes, I’d be happy to supply you with the recipes for you to try them yourself. No problem!

One of my birthday presents this year was a truly enthralling item: The Sunday News Family Cook Book. It was published in 1962 by the New York News, and includes “favorite recipes” from readers as well as recipes from the paper itself. Many of the dishes in it sound just fine, although instructions are occasionally a little vague. Others, however, are mind-numbingly weird, and the food photography is…um…fascinating. Have you seen James Lileks’ book The Gallery of Regrettable Food? This book is right up that guy’s alley.

Some highlights (you can vote for your favorite at the end):

Hamburger Bean Medley. This includes baked beans, kidney beans, lima beans, and chow mein noodles, and makes my eyeballs ache. And just think of what it might do to your digestion.

A very fine selection of molded circular foods, including jelled chicken salad with a cranberry jello topping…

…a corn custard ring with fried tomatoes and a whole bag of lima beans (I believe those are bacon curls on top)…

…and a spinach ring filled with creamed chicken, fish or eggs.

I was struck by the Chiffon Chicken Pie, which is sort of a whipped chicken jello in a cracker crust, lightly garnished with peas and chilled.

Also the Norway sardine egg strudel, which doesn’t sound bad but is one of the ugliest dishes I’ve ever seen. I don’t know why you’re supposed to bend it into a hot-dog shape that way.

A “food from other lands” chapter resides in the back, beginning with “Canadian Chutney” and moving on to some highly dubious Chinese recipes that consist of cream of celery soup and overcooked bean sprouts.

An interesting interpretation of pizza (also in the “foreign food” section).

And some unusual recipes for mac and cheese casseroles. This one has little curls of anchovy carefully laid on top, and the cheese is a mixture of Cheddar and Swiss which sounds a bit odd to me. Other versions include chopped cucumber or whole sardines.

This one is just peaches doused in Sauternes, but the picture gives me hysterics. The recipe specifies “triangular wafers” for just this effect.

Also worth noting:

• Cottage cheese and bacon sandwiches
• A casserole of dried beef, cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup, and chow mein noodles
• Unhelpful measurements such as one can (No. 303) tomatoes
• A number of recipes calling for Ac’cent or Zest seasoning (anyone heard of these?)
• Stuffed beef heart
• Mock chicken legs, made by shaping ground veal and pork into chicken leg shapes, breading them in cornflakes and frying them, then simmering them in water (I cannot imagine what this would be like).
• Ham Pineapple Yams, which seem to consist of a ham patty topped with a pineapple ring, then topped with a sweet potato patty and baked.
• Floating Chicken, which seems to be a Toad in the Hole with fried chicken instead of sausages.
• Spaghetti-bologna casserole, which includes two cans of corn
• Bohemian Stew: beans, hominy, stuffed olives and frankfurters
• Frogs’ Legs Supreme, which uses cream of celery soup (and reminds you to remove the rubber bands from the frog legs)
• Clam and Eggplant Casserole, which just sounds plain disgusting
• Tuna Terrific!
• Curried Tuna Chowder
• Jellied Sauerkraut Consomme
• Lime Ham Salad, with sweet pickles and lime jello
• Lamb Chops Indian Style: cream style corn and curry powder

And a listing of The Uncommon Vegetables, which includes Chinese cabbage, horseradish, butternut squash, finocchi, celeriac, Jerusalem artichoke, and zucchini. This makes me very happy that we’re not living in the sixties any more.

So if you’ve made it through all of that, I have a question for you. If I were to make one recipe out of this book, what should it be? Vote and let me know (feel free to write in your favorite if I haven’t picked it for the multiple choice), and I promise I will make the winning recipe and blog about it. I may even eat it, but let’s not get carried away. The polls will be open for one week!

Being sick last month really helped me get through some of my To Be Read backlog. I finally got around to Fuchsia Dunlop’s memoir of learning to cook Sichuan food (Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper) which was impressive but sort of made me not want to ever go to China. Her description of how to cook a sea cucumber until it tastes of nothing at all was utterly fantastic; I had to read it out loud to every family member within reach. I’m not sure this would be a good book for a vegetarian to read, however – at least not if they’re the squeamish variety.

Then I stumbled across this innocuous little book at work called The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister. I started to read it one day at lunch and it proved to be so charming that it took a massive amount of willpower to go back to work and not just read the entire thing on the kitchen sofa in the sun. It was sweet and cleanly written and had some of the most loving descriptions of food I’ve ever come across. It was unrealistic in places and more than a bit fluffy, but it made me very happy. And sad when it was finished. Sigh.

Most recently, I discovered the library had acquired Molly Wizenberg’s new book, A Homemade Life. I read her blog, Orangette, most weeks, so I was happy to take it home and try it out. It was a very quick read, since the chapters are interspersed with blog-like recipe introductions. It was odd reading a memoir by someone near my own age, especially since her life so far has been fairly normal – but the stories about her father and the history of her relationship with her husband (whose pizza shop in Ballard we are eagerly awaiting) are very sweet and honestly told. Parts of the book are set in Seattle or Bellingham, which gives it a nice familiarity.

What food-related books have you read recently?

This little book is a powerhouse of Indian cooking. It’s small, it doesn’t lie flat, it has no pictures (except a few line drawings), and it’s far from comprehensive, but this one book revolutionized Indian food for us. Not right away, though.

It was a gift from a friend many years ago, after I had already given J a copy of Yamuna Devi’s Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking, and we felt (rather smugly) that we had everything we needed for cooking Indian food. But if you’ve ever used the Devi book, you may have noticed that her ingredient lists are enormous, her instructions are tiresomely exact, and she puts a somewhat intimidating weight on the history and context of the food. We had the book, but I mostly used it to make flatbread and hot yogurt drinks to go with our Patak’s Curry Paste concoctions. Spice Kitchen sat on our shelf, unappreciated.

Then one day we opened it. I don’t remember what the first recipe we tried might have been: the Peshawari Kebabs, or the Delectable Pork? Or Prawns in a Creamy Aromatic Sauce, or possibly just the Aromatic Lentils? It doesn’t matter. Every recipe we’ve made out of that book has been a perfect representation about a particular flavor, spice or cooking method from Indian cuisine. We’ve adjusted a few things here and there – I don’t much like using thin-cut pork chops for the tamarind pork, as instructed. The grilled leg of lamb is wonderful, but I think it was even better done as kebabs. I love green peas instead of shrimp in the tomato-cream sauce for a fantastic side dish. And Ms. Jaffrey has a very funny idea of the difference between jalapeños and serranos (jalapeños are not hotter, at least not around here).

We have since added quite a number of Indian cookbooks to our increasingly large collection, including books by Meena Pathak, Julie Sahni, Vikram Vij, and other Madhur Jaffrey works. We use them, too. But every couple of weeks out comes the little red book!

Tangy Green Beans with Ajwain and Ginger

This recipe is a favorite of ours, made either with green beans or fresh asparagus. Ajwain seed can be found at Indian groceries – it’s rather like thyme in flavor. Amchoor is green mango powder, and it’s awesome – it makes a yummy tart gravy when it’s added with water.

• 1 pound of green beans, trimmed
• 4 Tbsp oil
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/4 tsp ajwain seeds
• 1/2 onion, sliced (optional, in my opinion)
• A 3/4 inch piece of fresh ginger, finely diced
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp amchoor powder

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and drop in the beans. Boil just until cooked, then drain.

Heat the oil in a large skillet or wok. Add the cumin and ajwain seed and stir briefly, then add the onion (if using). Lower the heat and let the onion brown slightly, then add the ginger and stir. Add the green beans and toss everything together. Sprinkle in the ground cumin, coriander, cayenne and salt. Give it a toss, then add the amchoor and 2 Tbsp water. Stir everything together and serve with rice.

J and I have been religious subscribers to Cook’s Illustrated for years. We keep every issue, and occasionally drag the whole pile out and paw through it looking for that really great shrimp recipe we remember seeing – was it last month? Hmm, no, actually, it was two years ago…so we get to see all the old issues again and maybe find something new to try. And don’t get me wrong, Cook’s isn’t always perfect – they know nothing about Mexican food, and frequently their product reviews have not a single thing that’s available on the west coast. But many of their recipes have become gospel in our household, and sometimes you just want to be able to find it quickly.

Here’s where Baking Illustrated comes in. Every single baked item I’ve ever tried and loved out of the magazine is in here, along with further suggestions and explanations. The sweet potato pie has become an annual event for our family’s Christmas, and the pecan pie has taken first place in J’s affections over his own mother’s version. The tomato tart was lovely. The muffins are perfect. The spanakopita was excellent (well, how can you mess that up unless you forget the butter?) I have not made a single bad recipe out of this book.

This produces a problem for me. I have a lot of cookbooks. I mean, a lot. And I like to have favorite recipes from each one – I make the buttermilk biscuits from Kitchen Sense, the rhubarb pie from The Joy of Cooking, all cakes from The Cake Bible, pizza dough from Home Baking, Hum Bao dough from the recipe written on a piece of cardstock stuck into my copy of China Moon, and so on. But now I’m afraid, what if the version in Baking Illustrated is better than any of these? It might take all the fun out of having all those different baking books, which would be a shame.

 No matter how good it is, it can’t make me change my recipe for quiche.

 Update: Last week I tried the Devil’s Food Cake with Coffee Buttercream – fantastic cake, one of the better chocolate cakes I’ve made. The buttercream was tasty, but curdled after being brought back to room temperature (next time, use immediately!) I also tried their recipe for popovers, which was easy and fairly successful but not actually quite as superlative as the other recipes.