The fennel/orange pairing is a noble one, and I relied on it last night for my little dinner party, especially given the presence of some spice in my side dishes. My fennel and orange salad offered a crisp, refreshing palate cleanser between tangy bites of marmalade/Dijon roasted chicken, potatoes with jalapenos and sauteed asparagus with chile garlic paste and sesame oil. This time, though, my fennel salad had a small surprise, a rose toned dressing derived from the gastrique-like reduction of cranberry juice and red wine vinegar. The thick, syrupy reduction adds a gorgeous depth to a salad that has its own sweet elements in the form of fresh orange morsels. I further emphasized the cranberry notes by simmering some dried cranberries in the gastrique and tossed them into the salad for some fun.

A gastrique is a reduction of wine, sugar and fruit into a thick syrup. I riffed on this theme by substituting juice and vinegar and letting this mixture boil down to its essence. After a brief cooling, I whisked in some Dijon mustard for bite, a little stream of extra-virgin olive oil, minced shallot, a pinch of poppy seeds and salt and pepper. The licorice-scent of fennel was the right foil for the tart lushness of plumped up dried cranberries adrift in the gastrique. Onward to the details:

Orange, Olive and Fennel Salad with Cranberry Vinaigrette
Adapted from www.cookingbooks.com

1 large navel orange, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch thick rounds; 1 large fennel bulb, cored, trimmed and thinly sliced (vertically); 1/2 cup brine-cured black olives; a few thin slices of Spanish onion; feathery fennel fronds can be used as a garnish.

Cranberry Vinaigrette: 1 cup cranberry juice; 1/4 cup red wine vinegar; 1/4 cup dried cranberries; 2 tablespoons finely minced shallots; 1/4 cup extra-virign olive oil; 1 tbsp. Dijon mustard; 1 tsp. poppy seeds; 1 tbsp. honey; salt and pepper to taste.

Pour the cranberry juice into a saucepan and add the wine vinegar, shallots and cranberries. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. Continue to boil until the liquid is reduced to about 1/2 cup, about 10 minutes. Take the gastrique off the heat and let cool. Whisk in olive oil, mustard, poppy seeds, honey and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Put the oranges, fennel and onion on a serving platter and sprinkle with the olives. Drizzle with the vinaigrette and garnish with chopped fennel fronds.

What does this salad go with? Fennel and orange salads are much admired and eaten in Italy, Morocco and the Middle East, a fresh, cool contrast to many foods from these regions. I especially like fennel and grilled fish, especially fish prepared with lemon and garlic. I picture the fennel salad also as a lovely addition to a meze table of assorted finger foods and dips, hummous, pita bread, dolmades, falafel, spinach pies, little lamb chops. It is great with roasted chicken and works wonders at settling down the burn of spicy food.

More cool, crisp salads to cleanse your palate are easily yours:

I promised you more Jewish cookies with cute names and these festive Hamantashen are beauties you will love. If you have fond memories of playing with playdoh as a child, you will enjoy the tactile similiarity this dough has to that product. Except this product smells so much better, of butter and sweet vanilla. Encasing a lively and textured filling of ground poppy seeds, these three-cornered cookies have an intriguing persona, a little bit pastry-like, yet miniaturized and dainty. Jewish people eat Hamantashen during the holiday Purim as a symbolic reference to an evil man named Haman who wore a three-sided hat and who wanted to kill all the Jews in Persia. He did not succeed.

Those of us who are practiced Hamantashen eaters fall are divided into camps: sturdy cookie dough disciples or delicate pastry dough devotees. Also, some of us favour poppy seed fillings and others prefer prunes. In Israel, where demand is high and competition fierce during Purim, bakers are dreaming up new ways to seduce customers, with modern takes on this traditional treat: marzipan, sour apples, pistachio and rosewater fillings are now on offer. As Joan Nathan explains in her recent article on modern Hamantashen in The New York Times, "the globalization of Israeli food. . . . inspires this generation of Israeli bakers to compete for ways to tweak tradition for a more sophisticated clientele."

Lehamim Bakery in Tel Aviv sells a variety of unconventionally flavored hamantashen - photo courtesy of The New York Times

All of this to say that the Hamantashen culture is here to stay and is adapting to new tastes and influences for a new generation. Never one to get in the way of good baking, I applaud these creative ventures and will say this: I still love the old standards, prune and poppy seed. And I fall into the cookie dough camp, though I flirted with the pastry dough rendition for many years. Today I offer you what I consider the gold medal of Hamantashen, a traditional poppy seed studded treat with a sturdy cookie dough casing. If you fall in love with these, go forth and experiment with my blessing.

Traditional Hamantashen
adapted from Marcy Goldman's A Passion For Baking

Dough: 1 cup unsalted butter; 1+1/4 cups sugar; 3 large eggs; 1/4 cup orange juice; 1+1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract; 4 cups of all-purpose flour; 1/2 tsp. kosher salt; 2+1/2 tsp. baking powder. Egg wash: one egg, beaten.

My filling: 2 cups poppy seeds, ground in a spice grinder; approx. 1/2 cup granulated sugar or to taste; approx. 1/3 cup water or enough to evenly moisten the poppy seeds; 1 tbsp. runny honey; 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon; pinch of kosher salt. Combine filling ingredients in a pot and cook over medium heat, stirring continually, until thickened to a moist paste, about 3 minutes. You want the filling to be firm enough to hold together when pinched. Cool. Filling will continue to thicken as it cools. Can be prepared ahead and kept, covered, in the refrigerator for a few days.

In a mixing bowl cream the butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time and blend until silky. Stir in the orange juice and vamilla. Mix to blend. Fold in flour, salt and baking powder and mix to form a soft but firm dough. Cover and let dough rest for 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Divide the dough into 3 flattened discs and work with one portion at a time. Roll out each disc onto a lightly floured counter to a thickness of 1/8 of an inch. Use a 3-inch cookie cutter and cut as many rounds as you can. Brush the rounds with egg wash. Fill with a generous teaspoon of filling. Draw 3 sides together into the centre. You should now have a 3-cornered or triangular pastry. Pinch the sides together where they meet, leaving some filling showing in the middle. Repeat with remaining dough and filling. Brush egg wash on the top of each filled pastry. Bake at 350 F for 18 - 25 minutes or until golden brown.

All kinds of possibities await you once you fall for Hamantashen. Take inspiration from the creative creations in Israel, including savoury versions, feta cheese and beets, potato and sesame seeds. But remember that tradition has a strong pull and, as the Lehamim bakery owner Uri Scheft, says "even with all the different fillings we make, the most popular is still poppy seed."

Traditional Jewish food is celebrated here:

How about a cookie that perfumes the air with a waft of warm cinnamon? And that houses floral notes of tangy tangerine, not just the zest, but a whole fruit? Yes?

Here is a cookie from my past, a traditional eastern European Jewish homey staple called Mandelbrot, meaning almond bread. Perhaps the "bread" reference refers to the logs of cookie dough that are baked first, as with biscotti. These logs are then cut into slices and the slices are then baked, also a la method for biscotti. And, like biscotti, mandelbrot are dunkable, crisp and certifiably addictive. My version makes use of a fresh, whole tangerine, seeds removed, pulverized into pulp in a food processor (oranges work too). The marriage of tangerine with cinnamon and almonds is seductive, aromatic and warmly sweet.

Mandelbrot and biscotti part ways somewhat in the construction of the dough. Where the most staunchly authentic Italian biscotti have little other than eggs to bind them, mandelbrot feature a bit of unflavoured canola oil, yielding a crumblier, more tender product than what you find in the dry hardness of biscotti. Mandelbrot could indeed be considered better biscotti, less likely to crack a tooth. And while they are certainly dunkable, you can dig right in and manage them easily in their undunked state.

Mandelbrot
recipe courtesy of The Pleasures of Your Processor by Norene Gilletz

1 whole medium orange or large tangerine (honey tangerines work very well), cut into quarters and seeds removed; 2 large eggs; 3/4 cup granulated sugar; 1/2 cup canola oil; 2 tsp. baking powder; 1 cup chopped almonds; 2+3/4 cup all-purpose flour.

Cinnamon/sugar mixture: 1/3 cup granulated sugar and 1 tbsp. ground cinnamon.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Chop almonds coarsely and set aside. Quarter orange but do not peel. Remove seeds and process in a food processor until finely minced, about 25 seconds. Add eggs, sugar and oil and process for 10 seconds. Add baking powder, almonds and flour and pulse JUST until flour is blended into dough. Do not overprocess. Dough will be sticky. Remove dough from bowl with a rubber spatula onto a lightly floured counter and shape into 3 equal logs. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake logs at 350 F for 25 minutes. Dough will be cake-like and not fully baked. Let logs cool and slice into 1/2" slices with a sharp knife. Dip each slice into cinnamon/sugar mixture on both sides and place cut-side down on the cookie sheet. Return cookies to the oven at 250 F for 1 hour, until dry and crisp. Makes about 4 dozen mandelbrot. Freezes well.

There is something so quaintly charming about Jewish baking and some of the adorable names for cookies: mandelbrot, rugelach, hamentashen, kichel. Each one has an equally adorable personality which I promise to feature here soon! In the meantime, explore the sweet traditions of the Jewish kitchen with help from these titles:

Slow travel is all about getting to know a place and connecting with the people. What better way to see a country than to walk the highways and biways?

The library has some great books that you can check out on walking vacations for locations both near and far.

One of our newest is by Countryfile, Great British Walks. This book features 100 unique walks through the British countryside and has clear, easy-to-follow routes and ordnance survey mapping. It includes notes on what you will see and some lovely colour photographs. It has everything from gentle strolls through the countryside to challenging hikes into the wilderness.

"With its strong binding, attractive photographs, and variety of walks, this guide will make a wonderful companion for enthusiastic country walkers. (Library Journal Review)

You can walk through Provence or Paris:

Or perhaps you would like to walk Down Under.

Or you can stay close to home:

Whether you are a meanderer or a serious hiker, there is something here for you. Happy trails!!

Spending your hard-earned dollars on expensive crackers? Fueling a fixation on fancy Raincoast Crisps you can't resist buying at gourmet shops? Well, we've cracked the code and you can now make these special savoury nibbles yourself at home. Thanks to the enormous proliferation of food crazed bloggers, there are no secrets anymore. Your mother was right: it's good to share! I will now share my knowledge with you. Thanks to Julie Van Rosendaal's blog for this inspired copycat creation.

Just before we jump into the technical details, let me assure you that these crackers are FANTASTIC! My husband declared them the best crackers he has ever eaten. I was mildly concerned about how easily they would slice into pretty, thin, little things and, after a good chill in the freezer for a couple of hours, they sliced evenly and effortlessly. I followed the recipe exactly and would not change a thing. Except for when I want to change a thing. Then, I may sub in dried figs, dates, poppy seeds, sunflower seeds. Next time: half whole wheat flour and half white flour. Maybe a scoop of corn meal. Nothing too crazy as we don't want to mess up a great cracker, do we? Let the greatness begin:

Photo courtesy of www.dinnerwithjulie.com

Rosemary Raisin Pecan Crisps
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup roasted pumpkin seeds (optional)
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup flax seed, ground
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary

Preheat oven to 350° F.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the buttermilk, brown sugar and honey and stir a few strokes. Add the raisins, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, flax seed and rosemary and stir just until blended.

Pour the batter into two 8”x4” loaf pans that have been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for about 35 minutes, until golden and springy to the touch. Remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack.

The cooler the bread, the easier it is to slice really thin. You can leave it until the next day or pop it in the freezer. Slice the loaves as thin as you can and place the slices in a single layer on an ungreased cookie sheet. (I like to slice and bake one loaf and pop the other in the freezer for another day.) Reduce the oven heat to 300° F and bake them for about 15 minutes, then flip them over and bake for another 10 minutes, until crisp and deep golden. Try not to eat them all at once.

Makes about 8 dozen crackers.

What do YOU put on your Raincoast Crisps? There is always the old standard, brie and red pepper jelly. Aged cheddar and orange marmalade. Goat cheese and tapenade. Goose liver pate and a slice of gerkin is pretty darn good too. A dab of chicken salad topped with a sprig of dill makes a lovely little canape. Or a little slice of shaved roastbeef with a small dot of hot horseradish. Spread some natural peanut butter on a cracker with a slice of banana. I quite like cream cheese and smoked salmon on these too, with a sliver of red onion and a caper or two. Raincoast Crisps say PARTY to me, and with your own homemade batch, you can dazzle your guests with generosity that will not break the bank.

Crack the code to other savoury baked goodies with help from these books: