Author: Hillary Busis

Carrot Pudding

/ Hillary Busis / Leave a comment

Carrot Pudding 3

Sweet potatoes don’t make an appearance at my family’s Thanksgiving table — and haven’t for as far back as I can remember. (Although the one year my mom hosted, they were present — and topped with mini marshmallows to boot.)

Instead, the buffet’s “orange food” requirement is filled by my Aunt Maureen’s specialty, which is called either carrot pudding or carrot soufflé depending on who’s speaking. It’s soft and rich and decadent, unabashedly sweet but still substantial enough to fit in on a plate filled with turkey and stuffing. It’s certainly not an everyday food, unless you’re cultivating gout — but for the biggest eating day of the year, it works perfectly.

This… is not that carrot pudding. Continue reading →

Green Beans, German-Style and Chicken and Dumplings

/ Hillary Busis / Leave a comment

Green Beans 1

You know that scene from the second season of Mad Men, when Betty serves a  globally-inspired “trip around the world” dinner to Don and his colleagues — gazpacho, rumaki, Irish leg of lamb, and German noodles, with Bordeaux and Heineken to drink? And it’s funny but also sad, because she’s trying so hard to look cosmopolitan and sophisticated? I never really got how true that rang until I started studying Nonnie’s cookbook.

The binder is studded with recipes made to seem exotic by the ethnic modifiers they carry — Scandinavian Duck, Devonshire Turkey Sandwiches, Spanish Omelet, Mexican Hot Sauce, Norwegian Salad, Hawaiian Chicken. The irony, of course, is that there’s nothing authentic about any of them; they’re basic midcentury Americana, as far removed from the traditional dishes that inspired them as a Chinese fire drill is from China. (The worst offender is probably Nonnie’s “Armenian Vegetable Casserole,” a melange of eggplant, peppers, and zucchini mixed with ketchup and baked for two hours. What? Exactly.) Continue reading →

Chocolate Mousse and Rice Pudding

/ Hillary Busis / 1 Comment

sisters

My older sister loved long hair and eye makeup and ratty, stained, hole-riddled sweatshirts that were two, three, four sizes too large. She loved drawing and straight As and gossip, cigarettes and true crime and a freshly made bed. She loved Gone With the Wind and Lolita and Gossip Girl and the Baby-Sitters Little Sister books, though she swore the latter was an ironic love. (So did I. It wasn’t.) Continue reading →

Apple Cake

/ Hillary Busis / 1 Comment

Apple Cake 2

After two months of experimenting with Nonnie’s busted binder of recipes, I’ve discovered two things to be true.

The first: Nonnie’s savory recipes are hit or miss. For every deliciously browned, crispy-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside oven-roasted potato, there’s a nasty onion parade or questionable amalgamation of boxed mac and cheese, tomatoes, and canned tuna. (Not that we didn’t eat the whole pan of the latter anyway.)

The second: When it comes to pastries, though, Nonnie knew her shit. Continue reading →

Green Goddess Dressing

/ Hillary Busis / Leave a comment

Green Goddess 8

Growing up, I was a picky eater who knew a few things to be true. Latkes could be enjoyed with sour cream or applesauce, but never both at the same time; bagels with lox were to be eaten open-faced, never as a closed sandwich; challah tasted best when torn by hand and stuffed into your mouth in great, greedy gulps; and, perhaps most importantly, real Jews didn’t eat mayonnaise. Continue reading →

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

/ Hillary Busis / Leave a comment

Coffee Cake 4One of the best and weirdest parts about working in media is the sheer number of perfect strangers who line up to give you stuff for free.

Case in point: This spring, for reasons I still don’t totally understand, I was invited to a party celebrating the various different types of flours manufactured by Bob’s Red Mill. (Seriously, the invite was a total mystery; I hadn’t even started my incredibly well-trafficked food blog yet.)

Because I figured (rightly) that such a party would involve not only the standard open bar but also a variety of professionally made baked goods, I jumped at the chance to attend. Continue reading →

Meatloaf and Oven-Browned Potatoes

/ Hillary Busis / Leave a comment

Meatloaf 1

And so we arrive at Treif Corner.

But first, a story. Nonnie grew up in a pretty strictly Orthodox  household, doing the things pretty strictly Orthodox Jews do — keeping kosher, regular synagogue trips, the whole Megillah, so to speak. Then, around age 13, she visited a gentile friend’s house, tried bacon for the first time, and — according my mom’s telling, anyway — decided the whole organized religion thing was bullshit.

Which brings me to this blog’s maiden pig-based adventure. Continue reading →

Polka Daters

/ Hillary Busis / 1 Comment

Polka Daters 1

Expansive as it is, there are a few major recipes missing from Nonnie’s cookbook — things I keep going back and looking for, only to be surprised all over when I realize again that they’re not there.

There’s no simple roast chicken recipe, for instance, even though I know Nonnie must’ve roasted billions of birds in her day. (Maybe it’s not in there because Nonnie thought only a moron would need to follow a recipe in order to roast a chicken — “just turn the oven on and stick it in! You need me to draw you a map?”) There’s no kugel, either, although Nonnie made an ethereal noodle pudding that my mom’s been trying to recreate for 40 years. To this day, she swears it never comes out like Nonnie’s did. Continue reading →