Article on our Biscotti at Noon workshop

Thank you again Jonnie Bassaro of the News-Times for this terrific article! Hope you're all making biscotti this holiday season!

best,

Gina and Irene

Biscotti-making workshop, Sunday, Dec. 13

There are still some seats left for the biscotti-making workshop at the Jewish Community Center in Sherman, Conn., on Sunday, Dec. 13 at 1 p.m. To reserve your spot, call Susan Stein at the JCC at 860-355-8050 or e-mail her at jccinsherman@yahoo.com

Hope to see you there!

Irene and Gina

Cooking classes for 2010

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The Season of Soup –– Sunday, January 17, 11:30 a.m.

(Snow date: Sunday, January 24)

Learn how to make three great soups (and great stock)!

• Roasted Tomato

• Lentil with broccoli rabe

• Escarole with turkey meatballs

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Great Starters –– Sunday, February 21, 11:30 a.m.

(Snow date: Sunday, February 28)

Try these yummy appetizers on family and friends!

• Hummus

• Smoked salmon spread

• Artichoke dip

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Fruit and Nut Biscotti –– Sunday, March 14, 11:30 a.m.

(Snow date: Sunday, March 21)

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All workshops are $45. To reserve your spot, e-mail coifedtocook@sbcglobal.net.

It's the season of soup!

Learn how to make three great soups (and great stock)!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

11:30 a.m. or 2:30 p.m.

$45

(Snow date: Sunday, January 24)

To reserve your spot, e-mail coifedtocook@sbcglobal.net.

Please indicate which time you would prefer.

Irene and Gina

Toffee Apple Biscotti

1 small naval orange

3 eggs, large

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 tablespoons butter, melted

3 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder (check date for expiration)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 cups dried apple, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cups Heath English toffee bits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter a large cookie sheet. Cut the orange into half and each half into quarters (including the rind.) Process the orange chunks in a food processor until it breaks down (the rind will be in larger pieces than the pulp.) You will have about 3/4 cup of processed orange. Set aside.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer beat eggs and sugar until light and creamy. Add the processed orange and vanilla and beat until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add butter and stir.

In a smaller bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. With a wooden spoon add and stir the dry ingredients into the egg mixture (the dough will be stiff.) Stir in the apples and toffee bits.

On the buttered cookie sheet, place 3 evenly sized long mounds of dough. With wet hands (to prevent sticking) shape and form the dough into 3 slightly flattened logs about 12 inches in length and 3 to 4 inches wide.

Bake the logs in the middle of the oven until golden, about 30-35 minutes (depending on your oven.) Place the cookie sheet on a rack and allow to cool for 10 to 15 minutes.

Transfer the logs to a cutting board and with a serrated knife cut each log at an angle crosswise into 12 to 14 slices.

Arrange slices (laying down) on the cookie sheet (you will not have room for all the sliced logs at one time.) Bake for 7-8 minutes, turn the slices over and bake another 7-8 minutes. Transfer the biscotti to a rack and cool. Repeat until all sliced biscotti have been baked again.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 10 days or place cooled biscotti in freezer bags and freeze for 3 months. Biscotti do not require thawing therefore may be eaten frozen.

Makes 36-42 biscotti

Welcome to our blog!

Changing hairstyles may seem to have nothing to do with evolving cuisine trends, but don't kid yourself. What you put on the table last night (or at your last dinner party) and how you're wearing your hair these days are intimately related. Why? Because what we set out on our table and how we style our hair reflects how we’re feeling about ourselves and the ways in which we’re experiencing the world.Think of the flattop crew-cut. Big in the uptight, well-controlled 50s, it dropped off the style map for decades once the freewheeling 60s took hold. Now, with the millennium past and our national security (and tanking economy) at stake, it's back.

A coincidence? We think not.

Consider comfort foods like macaroni and cheese, a Wonder Years favorite (and not even kissin' cousin to the packaged, trans-fat-riddled elbows the food industry dreamed up in the 80s). Real mac and cheese was nice for kids after a day of scooting under their desks at school ducking imagined Soviet missiles. It's back on the menu at some of the trendiest restaurants these days.

For some, of course, there's no such thing as trends –– food or style. These stalwart individuals have changed neither bangs nor butter substitute in years. But we're pretty sure that's not you.

Pull up a chair and we'll tell all we know about how the times have been a 'changin' for a good long time now, and inevitably how we look and what we cook have been changing right along with them.

It's all about style (food, hair and otherwise) and how they mirror the culture of our times.

Who are we to say? Not two "experts," surely. Just two experienced cooks who also happen to be professional hairdressers. Like many of you, we've raised children, fed a thousand dinner guests, had our hearts broken by empty nests and empty promises (a few of which we made ourselves), and worked a few careers to pay the piper as well as the grocery bills.

Years on, we are content with life and delighted to be able to practice some of our favorite things in the world: cooking, eating or simply talking about food.

Making a fabulous dish, we both agree, is like fashioning a perfect hairdo for the woman who will wear it. Both are among the great "mediums" in which to work one's art.

Welcome to our (somewhat interactive) style cookbook. We hope you enjoy it and we look forward to reading your postings!

Gina and Irene

Copyright 2009 by Gina Weckle and Irene Sherlock

Biscotti at Noon

Gina and I did our first Biscotti at Noon workshop on Sunday, Nov. 8. It was a smashing success (if we do say so ourselves)! Thanks to our wonderful participants –– Ann, Sharon, Mary, Lisa, Jackie, Jen, Maddie and Jonnie –– for their enthusiasm and interest and all the great talk about food. Let us know how your biscotti turned out!

We are most grateful to Jonnie Bassaro of the News-Times who wrote the article that got everyone to call or e-mail about this and future workshops. We'll be posting new workshop information on this blog within the month.

Hope to see you soon.

Irene and Gina