An English Tea Room in an Unlikely Place

Ojai, California isn't a place where you'd expect to find an English tea room, but then again Ojai is full of things you wouldn't expect to find in most small towns. The Plaza Pantry has been a fixture here for decades and it's where ex-pat Brits go to get their fix of biscuits, shortbread, Heinz beans, PG Tips and of course to enjoy an afternoon cuppa with scones. And it's where I found the elusive British ingredients I needed for the Yorkshire Parkin I made recently.

As I was packing up jars of Devonshire cream and orange marmalade and tins of Lyle's treacle, I lamented to owner Beryl how much I missed Cornish cream teas. With that, she handed me a flyer announcing her monthly "English Afternoon Tea" and I immediately made myself a reservation.

When I arrived for the event, I sat down next to a chirpy table of ladies who were members of the Daughters of the British Empire, an American society of women of British or Commonwealth heritage. There are dozens of chapters in California, but this group's members were from Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Broad English accents mixed with flat American twangs in a happy cacophony of conversation and bonhomie. I shared my table with a lovely couple from Wales who had just moved to Ojai to be closer to their children and grandchildren. We shared stories of traveling in the U.K., and talked about the different ways afternoon teas are served in Britain and in the U.S. We talked about English weather versus California weather. And we discussed the latest scandals shaking each country.

Our table was decked out with typical floral-patterned china, and tea came in a cozy-covered pot. A selection of small tea sandwiches arrived: tomato, cucumber and egg, along with little sausage rolls. Next, fresh scones were served. As teas go, this one was quite authentic, although we were surprised to find our scones buttered, which isn't customary and certainly wasn't necessary since we were adding jam and clotted cream to the warm scones anyway.

 
The final course was a lovely Victoria sponge with the traditional layer of jam in the center and a dusting of powdered sugar. It was delicious, although by then I was so full I couldn't finish but half of it. I'm thinking of making a Victoria sponge when my family comes for Christmas, but I wouldn't serve it for afternoon tea; they wouldn't sit still for it. I'd serve it after dinner, perhaps embellished with fresh berries and a dollop of whipped cream.

I'm sure this is exactly how authentic regional recipes get adulterated when they migrate to new locations. People do that too. They leave one place and go to another and they change and become someone new. I tried to imagine my grandfather who left England for America in 1879, leaving behind his family, his village and foods that were familiar to him. I wondered if he missed afternoon tea with scones and Victoria sponge. It was a tradition that would have been hard to replicate in the ramshackle mining towns of California. I can only hope that some kind English lady opened up a tea room for all those homesick blokes who would have enjoyed a little bit of home in the most unlikely of places.

This One's For You, Guy Fawkes

I spent the month of September in England on a family history research trip, specifically in Cornwall in the southwest where my father’s ancestors lived. But I also have roots in the northern county of Lancashire where my maternal ancestors once lived, and still do. And that’s where Jenny comes in. I discovered Jenny on Ancestry.com and it turns out that we share great, great, great, grandparents and she is my fourth cousin.

Thanks to Jenny’s parents (her mother Gillian is my third cousin once removed) who invited me to their home in Devon, I got a chance to meet Jenny in person after corresponding with her via email for almost two years. The occasion (as if we needed any other reason to meet!) was a family birthday and Jenny was serving a dinner of traditional British dishes: cottage pie and Parkin, a rich and dense gingerbread kind of cake that I think the English would call a “sticky pudding.” Whatever you call it, Parkin is delicious and as an added bonus it has an historic pedigree.

The recipe has been around for ages and although it originated with working class families in Yorkshire during the Industrial Revolution, today it is enjoyed everywhere in England, including Lancashire. “It’s something our ancestors would have eaten,” Jenny assured me. And with that, I immediately felt connected to all our shared family members who went before us through the ages. It is traditionally served on Bonfire Night, which is November 5^th, a night that has been commemorated in England since 1605. That was the night that 17^th century scoundrel, Guy Fawkes, was executed for treason for his part in the Gunpowder Plot, the failed attempt to assassinate King James I.

Jenny very kindly sent me home with a copy of her recipe and I made up my mind to bake a Parkin on Bonfire Night, even though by then I would be back home in California where bonfires are forbidden. Little did I know the extent of the battle that was about to begin. First of all, Jenny’s recipe is stated in metric and Imperial units, and call me naïve, but I was confident I could simply do the arithmetic to convert grams and and milliliters into cups. I went online looking for conversion charts and adapted recipes, but the more I learned the more I understood that volume and weight are not the same thing. I then turned to my brilliant British pal Katrina who worked on converting the recipe, but finally advised me to use a kitchen scale calibrated to make accurate conversions. That’s when I gave in and bought a digital scale that shows tare weight in grams.

Next, I tackled the ingredients that called for items not available in the U.S., like golden syrup and treacle. I was ready to make do with light and dark corn syrup when I ventured into a local shop run by a lovely British lady who pointed out her small collection of imported British products, and there they were: authentic golden syrup (much darker and richer than that thin, watery Karo syrup I thought would do), and jars of double cream that I knew would be the perfect topping for my finished Parkin. For treacle, I substituted dark molasses, which worked well enough.

So after almost a month of trying to decipher this recipe and gathering the right equipment and authentic ingredients, I was ready to start baking. That’s when an email from Jenny arrived, encouraging me to remember my British relatives on Bonfire Night. And along with it, the taunting photo of a perfectly beautiful Parkin that had just been baked by her 9-year-old son Rory! My determination surged to new heights. If a small boy can make a Parkin, then by golly so can I! And so today, November 5^th, I baked a Yorkshire Parkin. Tonight when I tuck into it, there will be no bonfire and no party. Just a warm connection to my heritage and my English family with every gooey bite.

 Baked Parkin (in U.S. measurements)

1 ¼  Cups self-rising flour

Pinch of salt

3 Tablespoons ground ginger

2 Teaspoons nutmeg

1 Teaspoon mixed spice (I used pumpkin pie spice)

1 Cup oat flakes (I used Coach’s Oats)

¾ Cup golden syrup (Lyle’s is best, if you can find it)

¼ Cup black treacle (I used molasses)

1 Stick + 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

¾ Cup dark brown sugar

2 Medium eggs, beaten

1 Tablespoon milk

Pre-heat the oven to 275 F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan and line with parchment paper.

Sieve the flour, salt, ginger, nutmeg and pumpkin pie spice together into a large bowl. Mix in the oats.

Place the golden syrup, molasses, butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan and melt over low heat, but do not boil. Stir into the flour mixture.

Mix the beaten egg and milk to a soft, pourable consistency. Mix into the flour/syrup mixture, and pour all into the buttered baking pan. Bake for 1-1 ½ hours until firm in the center. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the baking pan for 5-10 minutes before turning out.

British cooks insist that Parkin in best eaten after it’s been wrapped and stored for a minimum of one day, and preferably more, before slicing into squares. Parkin can be served with ice cream, a seasonal fruit compote, or a generous glob of whipped cream.

Preserved Lemons, If You Can Believe That.

I can't imagine how I got fixated on preserved lemons....oh, wait, yes I can. I can blame it on Bryn. She and Doug were showing off some of their flea market finds for the kitchen, including an impressive collection of vintage decorative serving plates that they use daily for fresh fruits and vegetables, cheese and crackers, and just about anything that could benefit from a burst of color and style. As it turns out, Doug has developed quite an eye for unusual mid-century items and as a result their dinner table has become quite the visual feast, the perfect setting to showcase Bryn's prowess in the kitchen.

While surveying their kitchen shelves, my eye landed on a colorful Moroccan tagine, a cooking vessel I've never owned or used. But its graceful lines and indisputable practicality have always intrigued me.

This is a typical North African tagine with a domed lid. I like Bryn and Doug's better

because their tagine has a lid that is shaped like the Eiffel Tower.

The tagine was another of their second-hand store scores, but Bryn confessed she'd never tried using it. In a burst of enthusiasm, I suggested she and I find a recipe we could throw into the tagine for a fun dinner that night. After scouring the Internet, Bryn announced that we'd need preserved lemons in order to keep any recipe authentic, and that preserving lemons took 3-4 weeks, time we didn't have. In the back of my mind, I vowed that when I got back to California, I'd take advantage of my back yard lemon tree to try a batch of preserved lemons.

Preserved lemons, or citrons confits, are a staple of Moroccan cooking and Arab dishes to enhance anything cooked in a tagine: lamb, salmon, chicken, and all kinds of cooked vegetables. The experts highly recommend using Meyer lemons for their milder flavor and fragrant skins, which is lucky for me because my Meyer lemon tree produces more fruit than I could ever use.

I adapted this recipe to accommodate two 1-quart jars that I wanted to fill. Lemons vary is size but you can figure on needing at least 4 Meyer lemons plus the juice from 3 additional lemons for each quart-sized jar. I also opted to add some spices to the mixture.

Preserved Lemons

Wash and scald two clear 1-quart Mason jars. Also sterilize the lids and bands. Set aside to dry.

14 Meyer lemons, 8 will go into the jars, plus 6 more for squeezing. Use only unsprayed lemons!
Salt. Sea salt or Kosher salt is best.
2 Cinnamon sticks, 1 for each jar.
6-8 Whole cloves, 3-4 for each jar.
12 Coriander seeds, 6 for each jar.
8 Black peppercorns, 4 for each jar.
2 Bay leaves, 1 for each jar.

Scrub the lemons lightly with a vegetable brush and set aside to dry. Trim off the pointed ends, and cut lengthwise down through each of 8 lemons, stopping about a half-inch from the bottom. Turn the lemons and make a similar cut so that each lemon is almost cut into quarters but not into 4 pieces. Opening the lemon like a flower, pack each lemon with about 1 tablespoon of salt so the exposed flesh is thoroughly coated with salt.

Put 1-2 tablespoons of salt in the bottom of each quart jar. Start adding the cut and salted lemons into the jars, jamming each lemon down hard to extract the juices. With each added lemon, press down hard to release as much juice as you can. Add the spices to each jar. If you need more juice, squeeze the additional unsalted lemons to bring the juice level up to about 1/2-inch from the top of the jar. Do not use commercial lemon juice; it isn't the same as fresh lemon juice.

Seal each jar and set aside for about a month. Every day, turn the jars to re-distribute the juice and spices. After 4 weeks, the lemons should be soft and ready to use. These can be stored in the refrigerator for at least 6 months. Before using, remove the lemon from the jar with a sterile utensil (not your hands) and rinse to remove the excess salt. Scrape off the pulp and slice the peels into thin strips or dice.

Makes 2 quarts, which should be enough for numerous recipes. I'm told that diced preserved lemons are wonderful stirred into cooked green beans or carrots, spread over roasted squash, or mashed and mixed into softened butter and fresh herbs to flavor grilled fish. Personally, I'm dreaming about salmon or lamb braised with preserved lemon strips.

This batch will be ready for use when Bryn and Doug get here for the holidays. I think a chicken braised in a tagine with preserved lemons would be the perfect family dinner. I hope she's up for it because I'm all set to be her sous chef. Now that I've gotten the key ingredient down pat, all that needs followup reporting is the dinner itself. Stay tuned.

Cold Cucumber-Yogurt Soup

When I was in Boston last week, my favorite Bostonians and I made our way to a sidewalk cafe for a late afternoon cocktail. Feeling a bit peckish after a day on the water, we ordered an assortment of dishes to accompany our drinks and in the end, as it always happens, we had noshed enough to call it dinner. Each of us ordered something different so we could taste everything on the table: Creole fries with a garlic aioli, Thai shrimp tacos, focaccia with a white bean dip and a fresh peach cake for dessert.

I was intrigued by a cold soup on the menu that combined garden cucumbers and yogurt garnished with heirloom tomatoes and chives. It did not disappoint. Back in California, I vowed to recreate it without a recipe, and the result was pretty much on the money. There are many variations on this recipe; adding garlic, mint or dill would change it a bit, so experiment with abandon.

Cold Cumber-Yogurt Soup

2 English cucumbers, each about 12 inches long
2 Cups plain yogurt
1 Tablespoon honey, softened
1-2 Teaspoons salt, or to taste
2-3 Heirloom cherry tomatoes
Chives or scallions, chopped fine
Basil-flavored olive oil

Peel and seed the cukes, and chop into one-inch chunks. You should end up with about 2-1/2 cups of chopped cukes. Place in the food processor and combine with the yogurt, the honey and the salt. Process by pulsing to preserve some of the crunchy texture of the cucumbers; don't over-process into a puree. You should end up with about 3 cups of soup. Chill until ready to serve.

Just before serving, slice the tomatoes in half if they are quite small, otherwise quarter larger tomatoes into wedges. season them lightly with salt and freshly ground pepper. Chop the chives very finely for garnish and set aside.

Ladle into soup bowls and place the tomatoes in a decorative pattern on top of the soup. Garnish with the chives. Using a small spoon, drizzle the basil oil over all.

If you are a home gardener with more cucumbers than you know what to do with, this is one recipe that will come to your rescue. Try serving the cold soup in martini glasses garnished with a very small wedge of tomato for an elegant appetizer, or in soup bowls for a refreshing first course.

Serves 4.

Home-Brewed, Cold Pressed Iced Coffee

When I first arrived in Maine where I lived for a few years, one of the cultural oddities that caught my immediate attention was the affection Mainers have for coffee. Not that the rest of the country isn't just as fanatic about scoring a caffeine boost during the day, but this was different. Mainers are nuts about Dunkin' Donuts coffee. I swear there's a Dunkin' Donuts on every corner. The line at the drive-through window every morning was huge, and everyone showed up at their workplace toting a large cup of hot Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

In the summer the pattern shifted ever so slightly. The line at the drive-through window was just as long, but -- starting in May -- the beverage of choice was iced coffee. I mean huge containers of brain-freeze cold coffee enriched with lots of cream and sugar. For a girl used to one small steaming cup of joe in the morning, this hardly seemed civilized. Don't get me wrong. I adore iced coffee in the summer, but it's strictly reserved for an afternoon pick-me-up or as dessert after lunch, never first thing in the morning.

So now I'm living in California and the nearest Dunkin' Donuts to me is in Iowa. I could toss my hat in the ring and apply to be a new franchisee in Arizona which is a little closer, or I could look for a pound of DD coffee in the nearest Safeway. Mainers will call it heresy, but I prefer to start from scratch with a better quality coffee.

Recently, I perfected a way to have my sweet summer coffee and eliminate the caffeine that can ruin a perfectly good night's sleep.  Cold pressed coffee is much lower in acid than hot-brewed coffee, so it tastes smoother. I purchased a cold press coffee maker, experimented with a few trial runs and I think I've got this just right.

The first step is to buy a pound of good quality, coarse-ground decaf coffee (it has to be coarse), fill the coffee maker with cold water and stir the grounds into the water. It will look very sludgy. Don't despair; the best is yet to come.

Cover the mixture and refrigerate over night. The next day, using the plunger, gently press the grounds to the bottom of the container, then strain the brew through a paper coffee filter into a pitcher. Tuck the coffee filter into a wire strainer. You'll be surprised how much fine residue is removed from the blend by this extra step.

The clarified coffee is ready to use. Cover the pitcher with plastic wrap and keep the unused portion refrigerated for up to 5 days. Pour the coffee over ice cubes in a tall glass. I sweeten the coffee with simple syrup that I make ahead of time and keep in the refrigerator (it lasts for weeks), plus some half-n-half. Pure nectar on a hot summer afternoon.

My Bodum coffee press holds 6 cups of water and I use 1 1/3 cups of coffee which makes a medium-strong blend. If you are using a different sized container, this is a 4.5 to 1 ratio of water to coffee.

That's the Rub

I'm always on the prowl for ways to use the ground sumac spice I wrote about not long ago. It's not a staple in most American kitchens; it's used rampantly in Middle Eastern cooking and so it wasn't surprising that when I discovered a recipe for lamb kebobs, ground sumac was a key ingredient.

This is a very versatile rub and works nicely on beef or chicken kebobs, although there's nothing better than ground lamb balls and vegetables on a skewer grilled on the barbecue.

1/4 Cup chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 Tablespoons fresh oregano leaves
1 Tablespoon sesame seeds
1 Tablespoon ground sumac
1/2 Teaspoon kosher salt or fleur de sel

1/2-3/4 pounds ground lamb
1/2 pound baby zucchini, patty pan, or yellow squash
1 Red pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Make the rub by combining all the dry ingredients and mix together. Blend half of the rub with the ground lamb and shape into 9-10 balls. Cut vegetables roughly the same size as the meatballs, brush with olive oil, and sprinkle remaining rub on the vegetables. Thread the meatballs and the vegetables onto skewers. Grill over medium heat about 8 minutes, turning carefully to brown all sides. Serve with rice or triangles of pita bread that have been warmed on the grill.

Patio Dining: Grilled Chicken and Spinach Salad

My friend Judy talked me into it. She had been planning an excursion to Costco to load up on victuals for the holidays. We both live alone, so bulk buying really doesn’t make sense for either of us, but we each had our families coming for an extended visit and the larders were bare. I don’t have a Costco membership and it had been easily 15 years since I’d set foot into a big box with food, so I went as her “guest.” After carefully strategizing the exact day and hour that seemed the optimal time for tackling the crowds, off we went on the 20-mile trek to Consumer Mecca to discover what we couldn’t live without.

I was fascinated with how the products were displayed, the variety of goods and the surprising high-end selection of many of the items. There were a number of organic and healthy choices. I examined lots of ethnic foods, prepared platters that only need to have the wrapping removed before serving, and tons of fresh fruits and vegetables. No doubt about it, times had changed from the Costco I knew years ago.

One of the items I picked up was a jar of smoked paprika. But like so many of Costco’s products, it was an outrageously large quantity. At 8½ ounces, it was easily three times as large as any container of spice I usually buy. I looked at that jar and figured I would never live long enough to use it up before its natural shelf life expired. So we agreed to split it after we got it home.

That buying spree took place six months ago, and I am still in possession of way too much smoked paprika.  I’ve sprinkled it on grilled chicken and substituted it for plain paprika in several recipes, but I don’t think I’ve made a dent in the quantity that’s still left. So I was delighted to find a recipe in the new issue of Sunset magazine that called for more than a dusting of the stuff.

I wanted to share the recipe with Judy, my co-conspirator on the Costco excursion, but she was out of town, so I asked my neighbor Jo Ann to join me for a grilled salad on the patio. Because so much of the preparation can be done ahead of time, and assuming you can grill and chat at the same time, this recipe gives the cook plenty of time to visit with guests. That was important to me because I don’t see Jo Ann often enough and she’s great company.

 Grilled Chicken and Spinach Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing

½ Cup extra-virgin olive oil

¼ Cup sherry vinegar

1 Shallot, minced

4 Teaspoons smoked paprika

1 Teaspoon kosher salt

1 Teaspoon dried oregano leaves

½ Teaspoon fresh pepper

2 Chicken breast halves, boneless and skinless

1 Ear of corn, husks and silks removed and left on the cob

2 Portabella mushrooms, stems removed

5 Ounces of lightly packed baby spinach (or a generous handful of spinach leaves per person)

2 Scallions cut into 2-inch slivers

Whisk the oil, vinegar, shallot, paprika, oregano, and salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Set aside ½ cup of the dressing and put in the refrigerator to chill. Add chicken to the remaining dressing, turn to coat and chill, covered, for at least 1½ hours or overnight. Let chicken and reserved dressing come to room temperature before serving, about 30 minutes.

Heat the grill to medium-high. Remove the chicken from the marinade and transfer to a plate. Add corn and mushrooms to the marinade and brush to coat. Grill the corn, mushrooms and chicken until the vegetables are just browned and the chicken is no longer pink in the center (about 12-18 minutes for the chicken, 3-4 minutes longer for the corn.) Transfer to a cutting board as they are done.

Cut the warm corn kernels off the cobs into a large bowl. Cut the chicken and mushrooms into strips, and then add to the bowl along with the spinach, scallions and reserved dressing. Toss to coat. Adjust seasoning if necessary.