About This Project

My Aunt Carol (Giampa) was a life long cook and the holder of my family's culinary traditions. When she passed, her recipe collection came to me. Having learned many of my cooking skills from her and forging traditions of my own, I am honored and challenged to explore the many recipes of her mother and aunts that never made it into my repertoire. Many of these recipes are desserts. This project is an attempt to both memorialize Aunt Carol (or Jumpy as she was known to most others) and explore/test/review these old family recipes. Join me?

Monday, April 11, 2011

Neighbors Good and Creepy

Side tracked! I never reported on the Good Neighbor Loaf! (As growing season starts to emerge we're likely to have fewer posts in general, but I aim to keep moving through the pile, acres of weeds or not! HA.)

This was another quick bread I guess: mix it all up, bake, slice. Loaf. Says so right in the name. I chose it while Glynnis was here, since she's a good neighbor. We were intrigued by the Brazil nuts. I promised to bring some by when I made it.

Nothing extraordinary about the recipe or method, I felt pretty confident. Found the Brazil nuts in the Wegman's bulk section, which was nice. Lots of orange, very zesty! But... meh! The nuts and the orange were weird together. It wasn't anything special... I imagine it was a good loaf to have tucked away in waxed paper if your neighbor came by and you'd like to have something to offer. It kept well, which was good since it hung around for a while, even after sharing it.

I took the biggest hunk to Glynnis. It was on the way to church though, fairly early for a Sunday morning, and I didn't want to disturb. I was going to leave it by the door but couldn't find an adequate surface for it. (For the very best baked goods karma, always have a small table outside your door.) Then the cat said hey, let me in! and pointed at the door, forcing me to notice that I could. So I nudged the door open a little bit more, took 2 steps inside the house and left LOAF on her table. I don't have her number, so I couldn't even just text her to say yo, that was the Good Neighbor loaf, not some creepy neighbor loaf. We didn't hear from her either so I assume all is well. Then again, I also left loaf at Darcey's and didn't get any special calls to say how good it was, so maybe it was the loaf.

No one will ever know if the Harvey Wallbanger cake keeps well. It's a party animal. The yellow bundtiness is so suave. You're excited, aren't you, thinking about this cake right now. The Good Neighbor is just a nice slice of loaf to share unobtrusively with a friend. It's not flashy but something you can always appreciate having around.

3 comments:

  1. Zesty!

    (Or, ya know, "Seattle!" as my phone wanted my to type...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have never really liked Brazil nuts. Maybe the loaf would be better with another kind of nut, like walnuts?

    ReplyDelete
  3. You know, I like Brazil nuts? but having them around shelled like I did, not so much. (And I'm a nut fiend!) I think maybe the work of getting them out of the shell makes them tastier. Macadamia probably would have been a good sub too.

    ReplyDelete