In anticipation of our April 11th Edible World event, Sunday Supper and Family Lore, the First Person Blog will feature the stories and family recipes of Philly food personalities in the Family Recipe Series. Click here to see our other foodie recipes.


Felicia D’Ambrosio is a part of the Meal Ticket team, the elite food blog at City Paper. For First Person Arts, she shares a longstanding family recipe (and her mother’s lust for danger!). What I love best about this post is that Felicia and her mom got together and made a batch of boilo, this highly alcoholic, citrus and spice drink, specially for the piece. It doesn’t sound like it was such a trial though. As her mother describes it, “Just a lovely mother-daughter afternoon making hooch!”


Boilo, The Coal Miner’s Cure-All


More than just its throat-soothing, influenza-defeating properties, what my mother likes best about Boilo is the danger. “I found an article that said making Boilo was the number-one cause of house fires in the anthracite-coal regions of Pennsylvania in the thirties,” she practically bubbles. A simple mixture of oranges, lemons, ginger ale, honey, cinnamon and caraway hit with eye-watering amounts of moonshine (we used Everclear grain alcohol, lacking a still of our own), Boilo is akin to a hot toddy on steroids.

Boilo, known as the anthracite coal miner’s cure for anything that ails you, was not a part of my mom’s Drexel Hill childhood – she learned about it from her mother’s sister Joan, who recalled her own mother Felicia Ciokajlo, née Swatski, making it with her own homemade ginger ale in Mt. Carmel in the early 1930s. “I’ve seen several different recipes,” my mother related as she juiced orange and lemons for our Boilo project. “Some call for anise, mace or allspice, but I knew my family was poor – they didn’t have a car — and they couldn’t have afforded spices like that. Moonshine, however, they definitely had.”


Intuitive cook that she was, my great-grandmother made her Boilo without a recipe. It was up to my great-aunt Joan to write to her second cousin Joseph Ciokajlo for more information. Joseph passed along a recipe he’d gleaned from a New Philadelphia grandmother that does use lemons – an exotic item in Depression-era Mt. Carmel – but none of the fancy spices my mother finds so unlikely. Despite the name, no boiling happens, as that would evaporate away the microbe-killing booze. As for the danger element, I heartily recommend keeping this project far from open flames, as Everclear or any high-proof alcohol is extremely flammable. Pouring the booze carefully into the pot, my mother looks positively giddy. “Just a lovely mother-daughter afternoon making hooch!” she exclaims, then adds her second-favorite quote from her stash of Boilo lore. “At this point in the recipe, the Boilo may explode.”


Nazdrowie to that.
- Felicia D’Ambrosio (Felicia.DAmbrosio@citypaper.net)


Boilo Recipe
(from “a New Philadelphia grandmother”, as written by Joseph Ciokajlo in a 2003 letter to Joan Wright, née Ciokajlo, adapted by Felicia D’Ambrosio and Catherine Giacobbe)


5 oranges
4 lemons
1 Liter bottle good-quality ginger ale
1 heaping tsp. caraway seeds
6 sticks cinnamon
1.5 quarts honey (local preferred)
1 gallon Everclear or 100-proof whiskey (Four Queens suggested in original recipe)


Equipment: 2 big pots, one with tight-fitting lid; cheesecloth, juicer/reamer, colander, funnel, clean dishwashing gloves


Halve and juice all of the oranges and lemons into the stockpot that has a lid. Throw the rhines (sic) into the pot, along with all of the juice, pulp and seeds. Solids will be strained out later in the process.


Place the stockpot over medium heat and add the liter of ginger ale, caraway seeds and cinnamon sticks. Pour in all of the honey.


Allow the mixture to come to a simmer – when it foams, give it a good stir. Cover pot with lid and turn the heat down to medium-low; allow mixture to cook at a bare simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.


Place a colander in the second large pot. Pour the hot juice-honey mixture through the colander to strain out the big pieces.


Wearing the dishwashing gloves and working carefully (the rinds are very hot), squeeze all of the pulp and liquid out of the rinds through the colander. Discard eviscerated rinds and rinse the colander.


Move the colander over the original pot and line it with cheesecloth. Pour the mixture through the cheesecloth to catch any remaining solid bits or seeds. You may need to scrape the cheesecloth with a wooden spoon to press the liquid through. Gather the cheesecloth around the remaining solids and squeeze hard. Discard solids in cheesecloth, and return the strained mixture to low heat.


Here is the dangerous bit: Working carefully so as not to splash (Everclear is extremely flammable and cannot come into contact with open flames), pour the gallon of grain alcohol into the pot. Despite the name, DO NOT BOIL.


Warm the mixture through gently for just a few minutes and then remove from heat. Using a ladle and funnel, decant the Boilo back into the gallon Everclear jug.


Stopper the jug and store in the pantry, or use it to fill smaller glass bottles or jars for gift giving.


Serve Boilo warm by placing the jar in a gently simmering pan of water with the lid off; the water should come three-quarters of the way up the jar. Remove from the pan with tongs and serve straight up in shot glasses.

In anticipation of our April 11th Edible World event, Sunday Supper and Family Lore, the First Person Blog will feature the stories and family recipes of Philly food personalities. This was going to an every-other-day happening, but we’ve had so many great foodies writing in with recipes, that you can find recipes every day till our event from the likes of chefs, writers and people who just love eating, making and talking about food and family. Click here to see our other foodie recipes.


It seemed more than appropriate, in doing this Family Recipe Series, to include the Erace Brothers, the sibling team heading up popular Green Aisle Grocery. Adam – also the restaurant critic for Philly Weekly and the man behind blogalicious – and Andrew bring locally sourced and specialty food products to East Passyunk strip. You can find Baker E’s whoopie pies and jams there, as well Ekta prepared dishes, house cured bacon from Cafe Estelle and lots of produce and milky goodness from local farms.


The boys have deep roots in South Philly, spreading out to Grandmom Jo’s house at 10th and Mifflin. They spark a possible family feud by picking her string beans and potatoes in a red sauce over the white version from their dad’s side. We at First Person Arts are not responsible for any Erace family discord as a result of this blog post. Enjoy Grandmom Jo’s recipe below.


Both sides of our family have a version of string beans and potatoes, an Italian peasant stew of sorts designed to stretch a little bit of food across a lot of mouths. The Eraces do it without tomatoes (white), while the Lerros, on our mom’s side, prepare it with (red). We’d be in trouble for picking sides, but we like the red better, and can remember standing at Grandmom Jo’s kitchen sink, 10th and Mifflin, picking the stems off bushels of fresh string beans. It seemed to take forever, or maybe it was just that the big bowl of comfort was coming.


Recreating the recipe today requires updating with crushed tomatoes instead of tomato sauce, tons of chopped fresh herbs, lemon zest and a finish with really good extra-virgin olive oil. But this is Grandmom Jo’s formula, right down to the quotable interjections in the middle of your cooking groove. — Adam and Andrew Erace, Green Aisle Grocery


Grandmom Jo’s String Beans & Potatoes
Feeds 4

 
Ingredients:
1 lb fresh string beans, stemmed
4 large potatoes, cut into large chunks
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 large can tomato sauce
½ tsp. dried basil
1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

 
Method
1. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Blanche the string beans in the water, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain the beans into a colander and shock with cold water to set their color. 
2. Heat the olive oil in a deep pot. Add onions and sauté until they soften and brown—“but don’t let them get too brown”—approximately 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and add the basil—“I use fresh in the summer”—and chopped potatoes. Toss to coat the potatoes in oil and add the can of tomato sauce, plus a can of water. Bring to a simmer and cook for half an hour. “At least.” 
3. When the potatoes are fork-tender, add the beans and simmer for a few minutes. Adjust seasoning. Add chili flakes if desired. “Eat it with bread. Or without bread. Whatever you want.”

In anticipation of our April 11th Edible World event, Sunday Supper and Family Lore, the First Person Blog will feature the stories and family recipes of Philly food personalities. This was going to an every-other-day happening, but we’ve had so many great foodies writing in with recipes, that you can find recipes every day till our event from the likes of chefs, writers and people who just love eating, making and talking about food and family. Click here to see our other foodie recipes.


Marisa McClellan is another Philly food blogger and canning goddess, known for her super successful blog Food in Jars and canning classes at Foster’s Homewares. The story she shares with First Person Arts is an updated version of an earlier post on Food in Jars. Her family story centers around her dad’s pancake recipe, one built on culinary drive, experimentation and instinct. Oh and the desire for a delicious way to start the day.


Want to be like our Philly Foodies? Share a family recipe at our Edible World event. The deadline is TODAY! Send your recipe, story and a photo to Karina! Reserve your seat at the event here.



As far as I’m concerned, my father is the king of pancakes (and waffles too). During his early twenties, he spent a spell working as a short order cook at the International House of Pancakes. After eating one doughy pancake too many, he determined that he could do better than the sorry mix that IHOP used. So, for a period spanning multiple years, he wholly devoted himself to the creation of a better pancake mix.


By the time my sister and I entered the scene (1979 and 1982), Mo was a self-declared pancake master. There was always a batch of dry mix in the fridge, ready to be combined with eggs, milk and glug of vegetable oil. It was perfect for those Saturday mornings, when nothing but a stack of pancakes would do.


During my lifetime, I’ve put in many hours studying the art of the pancake at my dad’s elbow. He taught me how to tell when a pancake was ready to flip (bubbles around the edges that stay open after popping) and to cook over a medium-low heat, so that cake gets cooked all the way through (to prevent the horror of a pancake where the outside is burnt, but the inside drips with raw batter).


Those pancake lessons were also my first instruction in the art of cooking by feel, as Mo eschewed exact measures when it came to batter mixing. Pulling out his favorite batter bowl, he’d beat an egg for each eater (and an extra for a leftover cake or two), add a nice pour of milk and a quick dollop of canola oil or melted butter. Once he had a loose emulsion, he’d scoop in a couple of serving spoonfuls of dry mix at a time, stirring until the batter was right. He’d look for something that wasn’t runny, but wasn’t stiff either. It’s something that you figure out over time, he’d say.


Since I’ve had my own kitchen in which to play, I’ve altered the sacred dry mix recipe a bit. Luckily, this is just the sort of creative thinking my father encourages, so all toes are intact. My favorite addition is the bit of toasted millet, as it adds a wonderful nutty crunch. This mix is a wonderful thing to keep stashed in a jar at the back of the fridge, because it means that a friend and family pleasing meal is always just a couple of minutes away. I occasionally make these for dinner and add a few chopped pecans and some sliced banana to each cake just after I spoon the batter on the griddle. By adding that bit of protein and some fruit, I convince myself that they’re a healthy and balanced meal (which I then drown in grade b maple syrup).


The mix recipe is below. I make it entirely with whole wheat flour (a combo of regular and pastry), but if you like a lighter pancake, sub in some unbleached all-purpose. These are also divine if you splash a bit of vanilla extract into the batter just before griddling. The dry mix also makes a lovely housewarming or hostess gift, particularly for the pancake lovers in your crowd.


Marisa’s version of Mo’s Famous Pancakes


2 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 cups honey toasted wheat germ (regular toasted wheat germ can be substituted if you can’t find the honey stuff)
1 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup cane sugar
2 tablespoons salt
3 tablespoons baking powder


Mix it all together and store in an airtight jar or container in the fridge (all those whole grains can go rancid quickly, but cold storage will extend their life).


To use, whisk together three eggs, 1 cup of milk and 2 tablespoons oil or melted butter. Fold in two cups of mix*. If it seems to thick, add a bit more milk. Heat a griddle to medium heat and oil it lightly (a precisely folded paper towel is Mo’s favorite tool for this job). The pancakes are ready to flip when the bubbles around the edges of the cakes pop and stay open. Cook just another minute or two on the other side. Serve with maple syrup (real only, please), jam and yogurt or honey.


*It’s at this point that I add about 1/3 a cup of toasted millet. Toasting it is easy, just spread it on a small baking sheet and bake for about 8 minutes at 350 degrees. Let it cool a little and then fold it into the batter. It adds a wonderful, nutty crunch.

In anticipation of our April 11th Edible World event, Sunday Supper and Family Lore, the First Person Blog will feature the stories and family recipes of Philly food personalities. This was going to an every-other-day happening, but we’ve had so many great foodies writing in with recipes, that you can find recipes every day till our event from the likes of chefs, writers and people who just love eating, making and talking about food and family. Click here to see our other foodie recipes.


Everyone at First Person Arts is getting into the family recipe act, including our founder and Artistic Director Vicki Solot! She recalls a time when Hershey’s syrup came in a .25 can and processed cheese was a gamechanger for the industrious homemaking set. Below she shares her mother’s amazing Cherry Cheesecake with Zwieback Crumb Crust.


Want to be like our Philly Foodies? Share a family recipe at our Edible World event! Send your recipe, story and a photo to Karina by April 2nd! Reserve your seat at the event here.


My mother was considered by everyone in her circle to be a fabulous homemaker. Not only did she keep a spotless house, set a beautiful table and sew like a pro (making every article of clothing I wore until I went off to college), she was also a pretty decent cook – excellent, even, by the standards of the times. By that, I mean that she lived by the 50’s-era homemaking credo that less (effort) is more (free time for mom), so why make something from scratch when you can just as easily get it from a package or a can?


Hence, her signature spaghetti recipe featured a can of mushrooms, a can of Campbell’s tomato soup and a package of velveeta cheese. The brown in her famous brown rice recipe was produced by mixing in a can of consommé. And her bundt recipe (which she referred to as her condolence cake) – was made from a package of Duncan Hines Yellow Cake mix, ¾ of a cup of vegetable oil and – get this — a 25-cent can of Hershey’s chocolate syrup.


But her special occasion cheesecake was a recipe to die for. Its crust was made from crushed zwieback, its central ingredient was a pound of Philadelphia brand cream cheese and its topping, a can of cherry pie filling. Easy but elegant – a dessert that would make Donna Reed proud.


It was spring break and several friends from college came home with me for a visit. My mom went all out, as she always did for company, preparing a baked steak (smeared on top with a can of tomato paste and Worchester sauce), the aforementioned brown rice, and a salad topped with her usual — Wishbone dressing. The coup de grace was the cheesecake, which she had left on the screen porch to chill until it was time to serve. After the dinner dishes were cleared, mom marched in and presented the cheesecake, setting it at her place for all to admire, while she brought in the coffee, dessert plates, and serving knife.


It was Freddy, my friend Wendy’s boyfriend, who first noticed. Then Freddy nudged Wendy, and Wendy nudged me, who screamed “Mom!” who rushed in from the kitchen to see an army of ants ringing the cake plate.


In a moment of utter grace, she silently swooped up the plate and disappeared with it into the kitchen. Moments later, she returned to the table — a sly smile on her face and a new plate of cheesecake in her hands.


“Sweetie!” my dad exclaimed, “how fortunate that you made two of them.”


“Of course,” she replied, “it’s so easy, why wouldn’t I?”


- Vicki Solot


Lorraine Lassar’s Cherry Cheese Cake


Zwieback Crust
1 package zwieback crumbs
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 to 1 stick butter
1 tsp. cinnamon


Combine ingredients and press into a 12 inch pan.


Filling
1 lb. cream cheese
1 cup cottage cheese
3 tbsp. or more flour
Dash of salt
1 tsp. vanilla
lemon rind and juice
4 egg yolks
1 cup evaporated milk
4 egg whites, beaten, folded in


Mix together above ingredients. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 325 degrees for one hour. Cool in oven (NOT on porch!). Top with cherry pie filling.

In anticipation of our April 11th Edible World event, Sunday Supper and Family Lore, the First Person Blog will feature the stories and family recipes of Philly food personalities. This was going to an every-other-day happening, but we’ve had so many great foodies writing in with recipes, that you can find recipes every day till our event from the likes of chefs, writers and people who just love eating, making and talking about food and family. Click here to see our other foodie recipes.


I met Jessica Rossi, aka Burger Baroness of Fries with that Shake, at my first Philly Foodblogger Potluck. Philadelphia has a very strong food blogging scene and Jessica is one of our most visible members. You might have already seen her around town, running Burger Club Philly or talking on a food blogging panel. Her grandmother’s cooking was a huge influence on her own love of food and she shares an approximation of her grandmother’s meatballs below.


Want to be like our Philly Foodies? Share a family recipe at our Edible World event! Send your recipe, story and a photo to Karina by April 2nd! Reserve your seat at the event here.


So this is a recipe for meatballs and sauce that I believe is similar to how my adorable Italian grandmother makes them. It isn’t an exact science because my dad just told me what the ingredients were and I don’t have any exact measurements for anything. I especially love making this dish on Sundays because that’s when my family usually ate this with pasta. It always takes me back to my grandma’s kitchen. I grew up in an Italian-American home and it is where my love of food came from. Sundays consisted of going to my grandparent’s house and eating a lot of pasta and meatballs. There would sometimes be braciole or pork thrown in but there were always meatballs.


There was also a joke about the pecorino romano cheese we had on the table. I love cheese and it was well known at the family dinner table that I liked to use a lot of it. At the time my grandparents were having my Uncle Vinnie, who lived in the LA area, ship them big rounds of cheese because we lived in very rural Redding, California where no grocery stores supplied the cheese that we so desperately needed. When my grandfather would see me reaching for the cheese he would warn me, “five dollars a pound.” Now this was many years ago and of course the cheese in question is much more expensive but at the time it was a luxury for my grandparents who were retired and on a fixed income. The “five dollars a pound” became a family joke and one that we even use today. My family also liked to claim that I had a hollow leg because I was able to eat so much pasta and they didn’t know where I put all of it.


Meatballs Like My Grandmother Made


Sauce
3 (28oz) cans of San Marzano whole tomatoes
1 (6oz) can of tomato paste
1 large onion, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp of any combo of herbs: basil, parsley, oregano (I used dried this time around because I couldn’t find any fresh that looked good)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper


I suggest you actually get the sauce started before you make the meatballs and have it on the stove simmering for about two hours before you add in the meatballs.


In a large 6-8 quart pot, add enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Turn the heat on to medium. When the oil is hot add onions and let them cook for about 5 minutes and then add garlic and tomato paste. Mix the paste in with the onions and garlic and let that cook for a couple of minutes. Add tomatoes, crushed by hand, with their juices to the pot. Bring it to a boil and then cover it and let it simmer on low for 2 hours.


Meatballs
1 1/2 lbs ground veal
1 1/2 lbs ground pork (you can use any variation of veal, beef and pork)
2 or 2 1/2cups of bread crumbs
1 or 1 1/2 cups of pecorino, grated
6 eggs, beaten
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large bunch of Italian parsley, chopped finely
Olive oil – enough to cover the bottom of your skillet


In a large bowl combine meat, bread crumbs, cheese, eggs, garlic and parsley and mix by hand. You can also season it with some salt and pepper though I find the cheese to add enough saltiness to the meatballs. Form into balls, about the size of a golf ball.


In a large, heavy-bottomed skillet, heat the oil until almost smoking. Add the meatballs, working in batches if necessary to avoid overcrowding the pan, and cook until deep golden brown on all sides, about 10 minutes per batch. Once the meatballs are browned on the outside and cooked on the inside, add them to the sauce. I usually let them cook in the sauce on low for another hour or so.


- Jessica Rossi

In anticipation of our April 11th Edible World event, Sunday Supper and Family Lore, the First Person Blog will feature the stories and family recipes of Philly food personalities. This was going to an every-other-day happening, but we’ve had so many great foodies writing in with recipes, that you can find recipes every day till our event from the likes of chefs, writers and people who just love eating, making and talking about food and family.

Rick Nichols is a great friend to First Person Arts. As a food writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, he covers restaurants and food trends throughout the Philly area. He’s also hosted some of our most popular Edible World programs, leading likeminded culinary adventurers through East Passyunk’s (primarily) Italian landscape and Port Richmond’s Polish food treasures. Today, he recalls the traditions from his family’s Pennsylvania Dutch kitchen and reveals how he adopted the Eastern European ways of his wife’s family.


Want to be like our Philly Foodies? Share a family recipe at our Edible World event! Send your recipe, story and a photo to Karina by April 2nd! Reserve your seat at the event here.


My own family’s roots – those of the Esbenshades on my mother’s side, particularly – stretch more than 200 years into the Lancaster County loam. You’ll still see an Esbenshade Road in the farmlands outside Strasburg. And a turkey farm of the same name. And here and there a plant nursery. All of which is only to explain that, even though my mother had left that Mennonite culture behind, her home-cooking often and happily dipped into the Pennsylvania Dutch well.


We grew up on red-beet pickled eggs and flaky chicken pot pies (not the noodle dish; the crust dish), and on occasion shoo-fly pie with sour buttermilk, cornmeal mush and scrapple.


To my lasting regret, I never wrote down the recipes; I didn’t know they required recipes. So I work on approximations of my mother’s vinegary German potato salad, and the brothy sweetness – conferred by the cabbage, I think – of her beef-vegetable soup.


My wife is a different story. She is second-generation Slovak (well, half Slovak, and half Hungarian-Roumanian). Her parents’ ties to the old sod are far fresher, their cookery’s ethnic flavor undiluted. Two other things. First, I met them as an adult, my own inner-cook unleashed. Second, my wife, sensibly, had asked her mother, Helen Szokan, to write down her recipes on index cards.


So while her father rhapsodized about clam bakes and his manly skill with speck –- made in old Cleveland by patiently rotating a fatty piece of paprika –rubbed bacon over a fire and dripping the fat on rye bread layered with tomato, scallion, green pepper and radish — it is Helen Szokan’s dishes that I’ve learned to recreate; caraway soup and dumplings and stuffed cabbage (always “for 10”), potato pierogie (I’ve tackled that rarely even though I actually took lessons once in Fairmount), and chicken paprikash.


That soulful paprikash is the one we revert to, time and again, our comfort food of first resort, as I once wrote, “to blunt raw winter nights and feed sudden gusts of hungry friends.”


It requires only five main ingredients. And little else to make it a full meal. Just a simple cucumber salad and a knotty loaf of challah (for sopping up the gravy) that stands in for the braided egg bread that Nancy’s grandmother used to bake.


And here’s the thing: Because we had that recipe, we no longer need the recipe.


The training wheels have come off.
We know it by heart.
It is my family’s dish now.
Too.


Paprikash a la Szokan
4 servings


1 fryer (3 pounds or more), cut in serving pieces
4 tablespoons, unsalted butter
1 large onion, chopped
2 tablespoons sweet paprika
1/2 pint sour cream
Pinch of flour, as needed
Salt and pepper to taste


Melt the butter and cook onions on medium heat in deep pot until clear.
Add paprika and stir.
Salt and pepper the chicken on both sides and add pieces skin side down, brown for about two minutes and turn over, coating with the sauce.
Keep the chicken sizzling, adding up to a half-cup of water at first. Cover and cook over low flame, turning the pieces every 15 minutes for an hour or more until the meat is almost falling off the bone. (After the first 45 minutes, take off the lid.)
Remove the chicken to a bowl, peel off most of the skin; keep warm. Turn off the heat.
Add sour cream to the juices, thicken with flour. Whisk.
Turn on the heat again, add the chicken and reheat for five minutes or so.


- Rick Nichols

In anticipation of our April 11th Edible World event, Sunday Supper and Family Lore, the First Person Blog will feature the stories and family recipes of Philly food personalities. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, look out for recipes from the likes of chefs, writers and people who just love eating, making and talking about food and family. So far, we’ve tasted Helen Horstmann’s angel food cake, beach bean soup from Ed Tettemer and John Taus’ take on his grandmother’s pierogies.


I love Elizabeth Halen, also known as E. Writer of Foodaphilia and the woman behind those delicious Baker E’s whoopie pies, Elizabeth is one of Philly’s most beloved bloggers and bakers. First Person Festival attendees may have sampled those whoopie pies at our concession stand this past year. You can find her wares now at A Full Plate Cafe, Home Slice Pizzeria and Green Aisle Grocery (Stay tuned for a family recipe from the boys at Green Aisle!). She shares a favorite family recipe for Beef Stroganoff.


Want to be like our Philly Foodies? Share a family recipe at our Edible World event! Send your recipe, story and a photo to Karina by April 2nd! Reserve your seat at the event here.


Beef Stroganoff was one of my favorite family dinners growing up. I only get the occasion to visit my parent’s home once a year, but my mother makes sure at least one night we sit down to a dinner of this creamy comfort food. The version we ate all through my childhood was made with hamburger, but the most recent version was prepared using leftover filet of beef from Christmas dinner. Thinly sliced top round or sirloin would also make a tasty dish.


Beef Stroganoff


1 ½ lbs beef (your choice)
1 medium white or yellow onion, chopped
1 lb button mushrooms
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 can beef broth or homemade stock, if available
Salt
Black Pepper
1 cup sour cream
Cooked Egg Noodles


1. In a large skillet, brown the beef. Remove the meat from the pan.
2. Add the onions and mushrooms to the beef drippings left in the pan. Cook until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms browned. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Lower the heat to medium-low and sprinkle the flour over the onions and mushrooms.
4. Add the beef broth and use a wooden spoon to scrape the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Let the broth reduce by half.
5. Add the beef back into the pan, along with the sour cream and heat through. About three minutes. Add salt and pepper again, if necessary.


Serve over hot egg noodles.


- Elizabeth Halen (E)

In anticipation of our April 11th Edible World event, Sunday Supper and Family Lore, the First Person Blog will feature the stories and family recipes of Philly food personalities. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, look out for recipes from the likes of chefs, writers and people who just love eating, making and talking about food and family.


John Taus is the celebrated chef at the helm of Rittenhouse Square favorite Snackbar. I wrote on some of Taus’ dishes for uwishunu last year and sampled his pierogies, based on his grandmother’s recipe. He shares his updated take with us and a tale of early culinary ingenuity (or maybe just childhood mischief!).


Want to be like our Philly Foodies? Share a family recipe at our Edible World event! Send your recipe, story and a photo to Karina by April 2nd! Reserve your seat at the event here.

One of my first memories of eating pierogies would be when I was about 5 years old. My grandmother would often babysit my 3 siblings and cousins. I feel like we ate pierogies and kielbasa almost daily, hence my love for both pierogies and sausages.


My grandmother had these cheap mustard and ketchup bottles with a long tip. As children, we all would insert the tip into our pierogies and fill them up with ketchup. This would often create a mess but my grandmother never scolded us. I always remember an enormous smile on her face as she watched her grandchildren make a complete mess.


Pierogie Dough
2 pints sour cream
12 cups flour
4 tbsp melted butter
8 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil


Put all ingredients into a mixer with the dough hook attachment. Mix until incorporated. When the dough comes together, wrap in plastic wrap and allow to rest for 1 hour.


Filling
5 lbs yukon gold potatoes
1/2 cup caramelized onions
6 tbsp chives
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste


Boil the potatoes in salted water. When thoroughly cooked through, strain and puree with food mill or ricer. Add the remaining ingredients while the potatoes are hot to help incorporate other ingredients. Make sure the filling is completely cool before attempting to form the pierogie. Both the dough and filling can be made a few days in advance. Dough can also be stored in a freezer.


Forming Pierogies
This is where my method differs from my grandmother’s method extremely. She uses a rolling pin and rolls her dough by hand while I use a pasta machine to speed up the process. Begin rolling your dough through the pasta machine to medium thickness. I usually take it to the number 6 but you can adjust your thickness as you like. After you have your dough rolled out, begin putting medium sized balls of filling in the middle of your dough sheet. Trace around your filling with an egg wash. Fold your dough over the ball of filling and line up with the other side of the dough. Using a ring mold, cut out your pierogie into a half moon shape. If you don’t have ring molds you can use a rocks glass. This will work best on a wooden surface. The pierogies need to be blanched in salted water then fried in vegetable oil. Enjoy!


- John Taus

In anticipation of our April 11th Edible World event, Sunday Supper and Family Lore, the First Person Blog will feature the stories and family recipes of Philly food personalities. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, look out for recipes from the likes of chefs, writers and people who just love eating, making and talking about food and family.


Today we are featuring Ed Tettemer and his recipe for Beach Bean Soup. Ed is a writer and independent consultant but cooks for the Strathmere Volunteer Fire Company and caters private dinner parties, for which he was recently featured in the Inky. I dig his whimsical, folksy way of talking about food. Come back on Friday when we feature Snackbar chef John Taus’ update of his grandmother’s pierogies.


Want to be like our Philly Foodies? Share a family recipe at our Edible World event! Send your recipe, story and a photo to Karina by April 2nd! Reserve your seat at the event here.

I love to cook for friends, family, heck – anyone with taste buds and a happy hunger.


I learned the joy of cooking by motherly osmosis. Ours was a resourceful household, always with a large garden fertilized by some potent horse manure from Jigs Kentop’s farm up the street. Jigs had some big draft horses that sure knew how to poop. I can still smell the aroma of our freshly fertilized garden – what my mother called “Vitamin M.”


And out of that garden came a plenty. Big-boy, early-girl, beefsteak big Italian plum and bite-size cherry tomatoes. Pole beans and Swiss chard, red beets and Brussels sprouts and broccoli and okra, from plants with enormous tropical fronds. And in the spring, rhubarb.


My dad would put a sign at the end of the driveway: “Rhubarb 75¢ a bag.” Same price every year I remember. Why 75¢? Who knows, but the same folks would pull in that driveway and get themselves six bits worth of rhubarb every single year.


My dad believed if we were gonna have trees, they might as well be fruit trees. Apple dumplings and peach dumplings with fresh cream made dinner more like dessert. We’d go fishing a couple nights a week and fill the freezer with Neshaminy Creek sunnies and catfish. Every Friday a fish fry. And mom knew exactly how long after a good rain it took for the mushrooms to pop up. She’d hand us cotton sacks and lead us out to harvest while the meadow grass was still wet. A coffee can of bacon drippings stood ready by the stove, and nothing beats those wild mushrooms sauteed in bacon drippings, with garlic and onion and a mother’s love.


If she cooked a ham or a chicken or anything with a bone, I knew it wouldn’t be more than a day or two till we had soup. Noodle soup or bean soup or split pea on a cold day. No two soups were ever the same, as the stock depended on whatever tasty scraps were saved up during the week.


I had to start cooking when I left home in full ‘70s dropout mode. It was campfire cooking and then tiny-apartment cooking and lots of weird casseroles. I kept the drippings by the stove and a jar for table scraps in the fridge, so I could make my “garbage soup” every Sunday. It was my ritual of self-reliance for a few years until I learned to make soup with fresher ingredients: butternut squash with baked apples pureed with coconut milk, homemade chicken stock and Thai curry. Ask my wife; now that’s soup.


Sometimes I think my daughter visits just for the egg sandwich I can’t wait to make her in the same iron skillet my mother used to cook those mushrooms.


35 years along and I’d rather cook for a crowd than do anything else. I cook for our volunteer fire company and I’m proud to report attendance at drill night has doubled since I started in with the sweet potato gratin with bay leaf cream, steamed clam chowder and spicy Vietnamese noodle soups. Ben Franklin insisted his fire companies bond over good food. Men who eat together know who they can trust when the fire hits the fan.


Some paint, others work with clay. I create by scrounging the fridge and pantry and poking around Chinatown. Hmm, chicken backs, 69¢ a pound. Plantains, pitch black and just ripe for a hot pan with glistening peanut oil. And look at all this fennel and bok choy. Oddball food is my palette. The stockpot is my medium. I love knowing that someone may do something great in life with the caloric inspiration my art has provided.

Yeah, I do love to cook. So do me a favor, won’t you? Next time you’ve got 10 or 15 people coming over, ask me to put something on the table for ‘em. I’ll have a blast watching it disappear.


Beach Bean Soup
This is really, really good.


• A few strips of good bacon, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
• 1 good sweet onion, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
• A bunch of garlic chopped up
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 1/2 cups dried beans, such as baby limas, navy or pinto, (or any combo)
soaked overnight in water 2” higher than the beans
• 6 to 8 cups homemade chicken stock
• A good shake of red pepper flakes
• 2 bay leaves (fresh if you can find ‘em)
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar or molasses
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• A good meaty hambone from your leftover Sunday dinner
• 2 to 3 tablespoons chopped pungent fresh herbs: rosemary, thyme, savory or sage, in any combination


1. In a large Dutch oven, cook the bacon, covered, over low heat, stirring
occasionally until the fat has rendered out and the pancetta is fairly crisp, about 15 minutes; with a slotted spoon, remove the pancetta to a bowl. Add the onion, carrots and garlic to the pan, cover and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are soft but not browned, about 15 minutes.


2. Drain the soaked beans and add to the pan, along with 6 or 8 cups of good stock, the pepper flakes, bay leaves, sugar and the cooked bacon. Add your ham bone now. Bring to a simmer, partially cover, and cook until the soup begins to thicken and the beans are soft, about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Add more chicken stock as necessary to achieve the consistency you prefer. After 1 hour of cooking, stir in the salt. And skim off the fatty scum whenever you see it.


3. Add the herbs during the last half-hour of cooking. Cooked vegetables can be added now to let the flavors marry. (I like to sauté peppers and such, even a jalapeño. Cook ‘em till they’re really good and soft, even caramelized. Toss ‘em in the pot and give it a stir.)


4. Serve with a good crusty bread and good chewy red wine. Yum yum eat ‘em up.


5. Oh, make sure you make this soup at the beach, on a windy and chilly day.
Preferably with Charlie Parker playing real loud on the hi-fi. Otherwise, it’s just really good bean soup, not beach bean soup.


- Ed Tettemer

In anticipation of our April 11th Edible World event, Sunday Supper and Family Lore, the First Person Blog will feature the stories and family recipes of Philly food personalities. From now till the event, look out for recipes from the likes of chefs, writers and people who just love eating, making and talking about food and family.


Today we are featuring Helen Horstmann of Philly Foodie. On Wednesday, look for Philly food character Ed Tettemer and his recipe for Beach Bean Soup.


Want to be like our Philly Foodies? Share a family recipe at our Edible World event! Send your recipe, story and a photo to Karina by April 2nd! Reserve your seat at the event here.

My mother is a well-known cheater. She is the person with her thumb on the egg in the egg and spoon race, the one stealing from the bank when you play Monopoly, the one who “accidentally” whacks you with a wiimote. She freely changes the rules of a game to suit her needs, and laughs as she does it. So, it should hardly be a shock that she doesn’t exactly play fair when it comes to food.


Specifically, she believes it is her right to consume only what she finds tastiest. The person eating all the berries off the fruit platter? The one leaving behind the rind on the brie? The consumer of chicken skin, muffin tops, and the ice cream on an a la mode? All my mother.


One of the delights of my childhood was a weekly angel food cake. If you have not had the regular pleasure of consuming fresh angel food cakes, the best part is the crust on top. The fluffy center clings to the softly crunchy caramelized exterior. It’s cool and sweet and light on the tongue, and you can eat it every week and never get sick of it. Or, at least, I assume you can… because my mother always did.


It’s a wonderful dish when the second best is consumed with as much relish as the choice bits. But my own crusts taste all the sweeter for knowing that it’s my right to pull them off and gobble them up, without any cares for fairness or making things even.


Once you get going, you don’t want to pause during this recipe, so prep everything ahead of time. Preheat the oven to 350. The cake needs to cool upside-down, so make sure you have a bottle the tube pan will fit on, or you can balance the pan on 4 glasses. Wipe down your egg-beating bowl and beaters with white vinegar to remove any trace amounts of grease; the whites won’t whip if there’s fat around. You also don’t want to overbeat or make your egg whites too stiff; you should be able to pour the final mixture, not need to scoop it.


Angel Food Cake (from the Joy of Cooking)


* 1 1/2 cups egg whites (approximately 12 large eggs)
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 1 cup cake flour (no, not all-purpose flour)
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 tsp vanilla extract (if you have nice stuff, use it now)
* 1 tsp cream of tartar
* 1 tbsp water
* 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice


Measure out 3/4 cup of sugar into a bowl. In a second bowl, put the flour, another 3/4 cup sugar, and sift it 3 times. Then get cracking, and separate those eggs! Whites go into a large mixing bowl; reserve the yolks for something else.


Put the cream of tartar, vanilla extract, water and lemon juice into the mixing bowl with your egg whites. Mix for one minute on low to incorporate the ingredients, then bring the mixer up to medium. Mix for 2-4 minutes, until the egg whites are foamy and about 5 times more voluminous than when you started. Start adding your 3/4 cup of sugar, in tablespoons, over 2-3 minutes. When you’ve finished, the mixture should be glossy and starting to hold peaks.


The rest you have to do by hand. Sift approximately 1/8 of the flour mixture over the whites, and fold until just incorporated. Repeat 7 times, until all the flour mixture is incorporated. Pour into a 10 inch tube pan, and smooth the top.


Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.


Or feel free to make it from a mix; we always did. (But, you know, that was back in the day when the angel food cake mix came in 2 pouches — ooh, complicated!)


Cool upside-down for at least an hour and a half. Steal crusts as desired.


- Helen Horstmann