Happy Thanksgiving!

image from Hubpages.

The baking marathon is complete.  There will be 27 people at dinner today.  Hope your holiday is full of fun and family and you remember all that you have to be thankful for! 

Back from the Land of 10,000 Lakes

My grandma's family home.  Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

We arrived back in California on Saturday afternoon, and went right into Memorial Day, with a block party in my sister's neighborhood, then laundry and re-stocking the fridge today, and I'm still not totally back on California time!  We'll see how that works when I go back to work tomorrow ...

Kitzville School, where my grandma attended.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

While I was gone we had a heat wave here in California, and we must have brought some California weather to Minnesota because, apart from a chilly rainy day the first day we were there, it was sunny and really warm the entire time.  Beautiful weather for my grandmother's funeral, which was nice.  Got to take a drive around town with my great uncle seeing a bunch of historic places, which I do remember doing the last time or two we were there when my grandma was alive, but it was different this time.  Before, we were always tagging along on her visit, we were only there to accompany her and make sure she was o.k., and although we were seeing family, we only ever saw them on these types of occasions; she was the one who had a relationship with them, and we were kind of the proverbial "third wheel" in the equation.

Busy days.

Christina and I making the tea. 

Oh my gosh, it's been something like a month since I last posted!  A lot has been going on.

First, we had our 6th annual Cat Rescue Tea in San Jose, and it was another success!  We served about 120 people over 2 days, and raised close to $5,000 for 13th Street Cats!

I made 8 batches of Meyer lemon curd, and coordinated a bunch of other things, including jam donations, tea donations (from Satori Tea Bar and Thompson Tea Company), and put together 2 afternoon tea baskets for the silent auction, as well as collected a bunch of other tea things for the raffle for both days.  I also helped make tea sandwiches, served the lemon curd, jam, and butter, and with my friend Christina, made all the tea that was served at the event.

Vintage Sicilian family recipe: Fried squash blossoms.

Zucchini flower image from Wikipedia.
My family is largely of Sicilian heritage, and some of our most treasured heirlooms are family recipes. This afternoon, I was able, finally, to taste one of the dishes that my great-grandmother used to make: fried squash blossoms! My mom and aunt have told me that they used to eat them for breakfast or lunch, either alone, or in sandwiches when they were at their grandmothers' house.

I never see squash blossoms in the supermarkets, and until last Friday, had never seen them at a farmers' market, either. The only way I knew to get squash blossoms is to plant pumpkins or zucchini in your garden, because you have to thin out the blossoms anyway or you'll stress the plant out. Imagine my excitement when I saw squash blossoms for sale at the San Pedro Square farmer's market last week! I bought a bag of them and brought them home to try and re-create my great-grandmother's recipe:

"pick and wash fresh squash blossoms of any kind. Dip in egg batter and pan fry in olive oil."

Of course, I didn't know exactly what she meant by "egg batter" -- was it egg with milk and flour, or some other mixture? I ended up bringing them to my mom's house and it turns out that she had seen her mother make them; the "egg batter" is only beaten egg. My mom showed me how to fry the blossoms and we cooked and ate my bag of squash blossoms for an early lunch. Easy! Here's what you do:

Try to use squash blossoms the same day that you pick them (mine were 3 days old and I think that's about the limit). Gently tear off the stem and cap of the squash blossom, along with the stamen and pistil, leaving only the petals, which will be attached to each other in a "cone" shape. If you do it right, you can keep the stem and cap in one piece with the stamen and pistil. Discard everything but the petals (the stamen and pistil are full of pollen which stains everything!), rinse the petals thoroughly and pat them dry on paper towels.

Heat some oil in a large frying pan, on medium to medium-high heat, and get out some eggs, flour, and salt. I think some dried or minced fresh herbs would be a good addition, too, but we didn't use them today. Break some eggs into a bowl and beat them with a fork. Put some flour on a plate and mix in a pinch of salt; if you're adding herbs, add them to the plate of flour. When your oil is hot, make sure each blossom is dry, then dip each blossom in the beaten egg, and dredge in the flour until lightly coated. Put the blossom directly into the hot oil in the pan, and do the same with a couple more blossoms (they shouldn't touch while cooking or they'll stick together). Turn the blossoms after 1 or 2 minutes, or when golden on the underside, and let them cook and brown on the other side. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels (to catch the extra oil) and egg, flour, and fry a few more blossoms. Continue until all the blossoms have been cooked.

The amounts of egg and flour depend on the number of blossoms you have to fry. I had about 12, and we used 4 to 5 eggs and 1 to 1 1/2 cups of flour. My mom ate hers with some tomato and garlic hummus and I ate mine with some whole-milk ricotta cheese. The flavor of the blossoms is very mild, but reminiscent of zucchini and slightly bitter, which was delicious with the fried egg and flour coating. I could see how this would be good in a sandwich with a slice of ripe heirloom tomato! I'll have to make this again when my tomato plants start producing ...