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The Chocolate Chip Cookies I Can't Eat Anymore, but Will Never Stop Making

I bake to feel like myself, especially when the outside world feels upside down.

In 2009, I was laid off from my first food media job out of culinary school. It had always been my dream to be a food editor, and I was crushed. Just after the cloud of self-pity lifted and the objects from my desk had been absorbed into my apartment with the disguise of belonging, I retreated to the kitchen with a new goal: to make the ideal chocolate chip cookie.

I had just created a food blog—following orders from the parting words of my mentor and former editor-in-chief—and it seemed like something a food blogger would do. Plus, a recipe by Jacques Torres had just appeared in The New York Times, and I thought that tinkering with his somewhat complicated iteration could help me find my own.

I was newly 25 and married to a first-year law student. My job had fallen victim to the recession and changing landscape of print media. I was as down and out as I’d ever been to that point, and somehow questing after the perfect chocolate chip cookie perked my spirits. It gave me purpose—a reason to orient my kitchen and efforts to produce something valuable, something worthy of putting out into the world.

After a few weeks and many batches of cookies, I finally arrived at what I felt was the perfect cookie: a crisp-yet-chewy classic bursting with layers of chocolate flavor, finished off with a sprinkle of sea salt. I loved the recipe so much that I began making it all the time, giving the cookies away to my friends whenever I had the excuse.

Soon the cookies began to take on a life and story of their own. I would trot them out every now and then to honor the often-overlooked small victories of life, such as a kind word from a usually grumpy boss or signing a new lease on an apartment. Over time, they developed a unique power.

Eventually, the cookies came along with me to every important meeting. I took them to a discussion about my first cookbook and credit them for earning my second. I made them to accompany the application for the offer on our house in 2015—the height of the housing boom here in Seattle—relying on their power of persuasion.

I wrote my first children’s book, the confidence to self-publish stemming from the very kind of determination held within building my food blog from scratch. It felt natural, then, to offer my chocolate chip cookies as a reward on Kickstarter. The crowd-funding campaign took place during a week in mid-February 2017, and I’d planned a series of Instagram and Facebook posts to promote the hopeful project.

One was a picture from my very first professional website that featured a version of myself that felt unrecognizable: young, blonde, childless, and without the glasses I’d come to proudly wear once I’d moved to Brooklyn in 2009. In that photo, however, the one common quality that baker and I continued to share was our signature dessert: the chocolate chip cookies.

I had no idea that, at the very moment of writing that post, I had a brain tumor lurking in my frontal lobe, or that the routine MRI I was scheduled to have later that very day would reveal it. An odd coincidence happened in that post, though; looking back later on it made me feel like my body was trying to tell me something. I used the word “legacy” in the caption in reference to my cookie recipe, describing it as the baked good I’d probably be remembered for best. Immediately after posting I realized it sounded a bit morbid because, well, I was completely healthy—or so I thought.

That slight moment of textbook dramatic irony has haunted me for years.

Somehow, I made it past the year the doctors gave me to live. “Now what?” I wondered in an empty kitchen.

Once I was diagnosed with brain cancer, I chose to give up chocolate, gluten, and sugar, which were the fundamental elements of my magical cookies. It was heartbreaking at first, but the prospect of surviving—especially for my two young sons—offered a healthy perspective.

Somehow, I made it past the year the doctors gave me to live. “Now what?” I wondered in an empty kitchen.

I was faced with a totally different life in food that revolved around an “alternative” baking vocabulary—and a stack of medical bills. I felt like a cookbook author without a subject; the food choices that were necessary to my survival stood in opposition to the generalist, jack-of-all-trades food editor I’d become. Once again, my dream career fell away overnight. And once again, I turned to these cookies as a currency of hope.

During the early weeks when I was acclimating to life on the other side of my prognosis, I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. I had gone to sleep after a terrifying review of our finances with my husband, battling a kind of panic that felt as though I’d been diagnosed with cancer all over again. I rose from bed and slipped out to my desk in the darkness, throwing my robe over my shoulders and shuffling into my slippers.

It had hit me, my next big idea: I would take the foods that held deep meaning to me and figure out a way to make them as often as I could. See, soup had taken on a kind of magic in my life the same way my cookies had—it’s what people brought me when I was sick. Neighbors, friends, and even strangers would bring me batches of their favorite soul-nourishing recipes, like bowlfuls of lentils swimming with vegetables, in the months that followed my recovery from brain surgery. I fully believe that it was this display of community that shepherded me back to myself and possibly to the miracle of health I am living today.

I decided to thank the people who brought me soup by bringing them soup. And, of course, my cookies. Just because I couldn’t eat them, didn’t mean I couldn’t make them—or share their magic.

And so, Soup Club was born.

My healthful, vegan soups paired perfectly with my cookies, a balance of comfort and decadence—hallmarks of my diet I’d come to appreciate since my diagnosis.

I currently live a life where I make over a hundred of these cookies a week and leave them with love (and soup!) on friends’ porches.

The myth of these cookies grows each time I share them. They continue to reveal belonging, connection, and hope—just as they have ever since I created them in my Brooklyn kitchen. And even though I may never taste one again, I am certain they will nourish me always.

Grain-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

View Recipe

Ingredients

For the cookies:

3 1/4 cups (445 g) homemade grain-free flour blend (see recipe below), or preferred gluten-free all-purpose flour 1/4 cup (35 g) cornstarch 1 1/4 teaspoons (5 g) baking powder 1 teaspoon (7 g) Kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling 1 teaspoon (6 g) baking soda 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature 1 cup (212 grams) granulated sugar 1 cup packed (200 grams) light brown sugar 2 large eggs, at room temperature 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 1 pound best-quality bittersweet chocolate (50-75% cacao content), chopped (about 3 1/2 cups)

3 1/4 cups (445 g) homemade grain-free flour blend (see recipe below), or preferred gluten-free all-purpose flour 1/4 cup (35 g) cornstarch 1 1/4 teaspoons (5 g) baking powder 1 teaspoon (7 g) Kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling 1 teaspoon (6 g) baking soda 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup (212 grams) granulated sugar 1 cup packed (200 grams) light brown sugar 2 large eggs, at room temperature 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 1 pound best-quality bittersweet chocolate (50-75% cacao content), chopped (about 3 1/2 cups)

For the homemade grain-free flour blend:

1 cup tapioca flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup arrowroot flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup coconut flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup almond flour, spooned and leveled

1 cup tapioca flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup arrowroot flour, spooned and leveled

1 cup coconut flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup almond flour, spooned and leveled

Which recipes bring you comfort? Tell us in the comments.

from Food52 https://ift.tt/3giq9Ws

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A Spicy, Hearty Soup You Can Make in 15 Minutes Flat

A Big Little Recipe has the smallest-possible ingredient list and big everything else: flavor, creativity, wow factor. Psst—we don't count water, salt, black pepper, and certain fats (specifically, 1/2 cup or less of olive oil, vegetable oil, and butter), since we're guessing you have those covered. Today, we’re rethinking pasta e ceci.

I have a lot of favorite Genius Recipes, like banana-avocado toast, caramelized-cream eggs, cobbler with hot-sugar crust, but perhaps the simplest—the one I turn to on the tiredest of weeknights—is Victoria Granof’s pasta con ceci.

This dish looks like SpaghettiOs, which I mean in the nicest way, and comes together almost as quickly: You crisp garlic in olive oil, stir in tomato paste, add drained chickpeas, itty-bitty ditalini, and boiling water, and ta-da, you just made dinner. More olive oil and chile flakes come in at the end. Maybe you pour yourself a glass of red wine.

Photo by Julia Gartland. Prop stylist: Amanda Widis. Food stylist: Anna Billingskog.

But the tomato paste is the ingredient to pay attention to. Though this pantry staple is already concentrated, caramelizing it (which happens almost instantly) super-charges its umami flavor. Which got me thinking: What other ingredients are paste-like and chock-full of umami?

Miso. When you swap this ingredient into Granof’s recipe, you end up with a just as easy but entirely different result—halfway between miso soup and pasta e ceci. Like tomato paste, miso becomes more complex once stir-fried.

With respect to type: White miso works best here. Not only is its lighter color easier to caramelize (going from dark brown to darker brown can be tricky to judge), but its mellower, sweeter flavor compliments (and doesn’t overpower) the pasta and chickpeas. I love Miso Master, whose Organic Mellow White Miso is delicious enough to eat by the spoonful, which I may or may not have done once or twice in the testing of this recipe, but who’s to say?

And instead of garlic and crushed red pepper flakes, I turn to one ingredient that gets both jobs done: Lao Gan Ma’s spicy chili crisp. A year-ish ago, I wrote about how this is “good on everything,” and, you know, it’s still true. This spicy, oily condiment has chiles, of course—but also crunchy soy nuts, onion, and garlic. It's perfect slicked across the broth, where it adds even more umami (thank you, MSG!) and a sunset-red hue.

In a moment when everyone is stock-piling pantry staples (you can read more about practical steps to prepare for the COVID-19 outbreak here), this is the comforting, nourishing recipe I make, from ingredients I always have around.

Pasta & Chickpea Soup With Miso & Chile Oil

View Recipe

Ingredients

2 tablespoons canola oil 3 tablespoons white miso 2 1/2 cups just-boiled water 1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained 1/2 cup ditalini 2 teaspoons chili crisp (such as Lao Gan Ma or Fly By Jing), with oil, adjusted to taste

2 tablespoons canola oil 3 tablespoons white miso 2 1/2 cups just-boiled water

1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained 1/2 cup ditalini 2 teaspoons chili crisp (such as Lao Gan Ma or Fly By Jing), with oil, adjusted to taste

What’s a pantry dish that you love? Share in the comments below.

from Food52 https://ift.tt/2Q4U8GJ

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A 5-Ingredient Wonder Sauce From Oaxaca

Every week in Genius Recipes—often with your help!—Food52 Creative Director and lifelong Genius-hunter Kristen Miglore is unearthing recipes that will change the way you cook.

For any of the reasons you might want to eat less meat, this recipe is here for you.

All plants, all the time. Photo by Rocky Luten. Prop Stylist: Veronica Olson. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne.

If you’re a lifelong vegan and don’t have much use for meat in the first place, it will just make your food more delicious. Easy.

But even if you were raised like me, with crispy pork in your DNA, you will find this spread uncannily reminiscent of the rich, savory flavor of carnitas or braised pork belly.

Five ingredients, count 'em. Photo by Rocky Luten. Prop Stylist: Brooke Deonarine. Food Stylist: Drew Aichele.

It’s a new-age form of aciento (or asiento), which is essentially a roasty chicharrón butter, and the traditional Oaxacan way to make the most of the whole pig.

“Think of it as Oaxacan brown butter,” Bricia Lopez writes in her lush, sun-hugged cookbook Oaxaca. “It is amazingly flavorful and really completes a lot of masa-based Oaxacan dishes such as tlayudas, memelas, empanadas, and chochoyotes,” adding not just flavor but a crunchy layer of texture.

Garlic mellowing (and making garlic oil). Photo by Rocky Luten. Prop Stylist: Brooke Deonarine. Food Stylist: Drew Aichele.

At Guelaguetza, the James Beard Award–winning L.A. institution Bricia co-owns with her siblings, they serve it on their vegetarian tlayuda, a wide corn tortilla thick with toppings that some describe as the Oaxacan version of pizza.

And with encouragement from Bricia in the video above, I learned how easy (and thrilling!) it is to make your own memelas, thick and ridgy hand-formed masa boats somewhere between a torta and a gordita. (You can also simply smear it on a warm corn tortilla and call it breakfast.)

Photo by Rocky Luten. Prop Stylist: Brooke Deonarine. Food Stylist: Drew Aichele.

What is this mysterious alchemy that turns vegetable into animal into gold? It’s so simple that it makes me think we could use Bricia’s trick in all kinds of places we want to add rich depths of toasty Maillarding and umami without leaning on meat or fish or butter.

Ready? Fry up a pile of garlic cloves. Next, blend a skilletful of well-toasted seeds and nuts into a powder. Then, blend them all together, and you're ready to smear a warm memela (or whatever you can get your hands on).

It doesn’t taste like roasted garlic paste or nut butter, despite the strong personalities each ingredient brings. Instead, they meld into an inseparable whole, with a singular flavor of its own: aciento.

Vegan Aciento (and Memelas) from Bricia Lopez

View Recipe

Ingredients

To make the aciento:

20 cloves garlic (generous 2 ounces/60 grams), peeled 1 1/2 cups (310 grams) nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening 1 cup (130 grams) pumpkin seeds 1 cup (140 grams) sunflower seeds 1/4 cup (36 grams) peanuts (preferably raw—see note in step 2), skin removed, if any 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

20 cloves garlic (generous 2 ounces/60 grams), peeled 1 1/2 cups (310 grams) nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening 1 cup (130 grams) pumpkin seeds

1 cup (140 grams) sunflower seeds 1/4 cup (36 grams) peanuts (preferably raw—see note in step 2), skin removed, if any 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

To make the memelas:

2 cups masa harina corn flour (Bricia Lopez recommends Bob’s Red Mill) 1/2 teaspoon sea salt 1 1/2 to 2 cups hot water 1/4 cup (80 g) aciento 10 ounces (280 g) crumbled cashew cheese Watercress or purslane (tossed in a bit of olive oil and citrus vinegar, if you like)

2 cups masa harina corn flour (Bricia Lopez recommends Bob’s Red Mill) 1/2 teaspoon sea salt 1 1/2 to 2 cups hot water

1/4 cup (80 g) aciento 10 ounces (280 g) crumbled cashew cheese Watercress or purslane (tossed in a bit of olive oil and citrus vinegar, if you like)

Got a genius recipe to share—from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Perhaps something perfect for beginners? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at [email protected].

from Food52 https://ift.tt/2U2K8iu

[notable-law-music-tech-news]

The unpredictable legal implications of Trump’s Twitter-blocking defeat

Earlier this week, a federal appeals court ruled that President Donald Trump couldn’t block his critics on Twitter. More specifically, the court determined that Trump’s Twitter account is a “public forum” where citizens have a right to engage with his comments, the same way they’d be able to attend a town hall. This ruling could shape how all government officials use social media — from the US president to local garbage collectors.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sued Trump in 2017, arguing that Trump had violated the First Amendment rights of seven Twitter users — all of whom had been blocked after tweeting criticism at the @realDonaldTrump account. The Knight Institute argued that Trump was preventing these...

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from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2XCUxpG

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Internet giants must stay unbiased to keep their biggest legal shield, senator proposes

On Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is expected to introduce legislation that would heavily modify section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, adding new restrictions to the broad immunity currently enjoyed by platform companies. Under Hawley’s “Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act,” companies could be stripped of that immunity if they exhibit political bias, or moderate in a way that disadvantages a certain political candidate or viewpoint.

“With Section 230, tech companies get a sweetheart deal that no other industry enjoys: complete exemption from traditional publisher liability in exchange for providing a forum free of political censorship,” said Sen. Hawley. “Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, big tech has failed to hold...

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from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2MRsQ7h

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Music Rights Suit by Radio Music License Committee Against GMR Moved to California Courts – No End in Sight?

This week, the lawsuit brought by the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) against new performing rights organization GMR (Global Music Rights) for alleged violations of the antitrust laws was determined by a court in Pennsylvania to have been brought in the wrong place – and transferred to a court in California.  This case has been on hold for well over two years while this procedural question was ironed out.  Now that the case has been transferred to California, the litigation that has been on hold while the jurisdictional issue was resolved can begin – but don’t expect quick results as these complicated cases can take years to resolve.  What is involved in this case?

Back in 2016, when RMLC concluded that it was not likely to reach a negotiated royalty rate for radio’s use of the musical compositions controlled by GMR songwriters and publishers, it brought the Pennsylvania court action.  In that action, it argued that the rates that GMR wanted were an abuse of the market power that GMR was able to exercise by banding these songwriters together and offering a license to radio stations on an all-or-nothing basis (see our articles here and here for more on the initial suit).  As it had done successfully with SESAC (see our article here), and as has been the case for decades with ASCAP and BMI, RMLC had hoped to have the court declare that GMR’s unrestrained royalty demands were contrary to the antitrust laws, and that some limits should be imposed on those rates.  The RMLC suit against GMR was brought in the same Pennsylvania court in which RMLC had sued SESAC, which led to the settlement subjecting SESAC rates to arbitration if the parties could not voluntarily agree on rates (and the arbitration process ultimately resulted in significantly lower rates for commercial radio than SESAC had previously received – see our article here on the results of the arbitration).

GMR countered by suing RMLC in a California court (California being where GMR is headquartered) arguing that RMLC was a buyer’s cartel – using an antitrust argument in defense by arguing that RMLC should not be able to negotiate on behalf of virtually all of the commercial radio industry even though that is what it does with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC (see our article here on the countersuit).  GMR also argued in the Pennsylvania court that the court had no jurisdiction over GMR, as GMR had not taken any actions in that state other than to offer music licenses to radio station owners that happened to have stations there.  While RMLC contended that that the music licenses (and some other actions taken by GMR) were enough to make it subject to the federal court in Pennsylvania, the court disagreed, sending the case to California.

That does not, by any means, suggest that the case is over for the radio industry.  Instead, the issues that had been raised by RMLC can now be heard in the California court, along with the issues that GMR has raised in defense.  Antitrust cases can take years to try, so there may not soon been a resolution of these issues.  In the interim, we expect that the current interim licenses (see our article here) will be extended while these issues are litigated unless, at some point, a settlement is achieved.  Keep watching the developments in this litigation to see what royalties will finally be due to this organization.

from Broadcast Law Blog http://bit.ly/2KjNCvl

[notable-law-music-tech-news]

Diana Henry's Roasted Tomato, Fennel and Chickpea Salad

About once a week for the past I don't know how many years, I've sectioned a fennel bulb into eighths, washed a handful of cherry tomatoes, put them in a baking dish with a good glug of olive oil (more is better here) and some salt and then stuck it in a 200C/400F oven until the vegetables are tender as can be and the tomatoes have browned and slumped, about 30 minutes, though I confess I've never really timed it. I also let the dish cool in the hot oven, which helps the caramelization at the end and then I basically eat the entire thing, unless my husband is around in which case I share. I love this dish so much that I nearly lick the baking dish. It's easy, it can be made all year long, since even the yuckiest cherry tomatoes come alive with this treatment, and it tastes ambrosial. If I happen to be lucky enough to have some nice sourdough bread around, I pair the vegetables with that for an easy little meal and life feels good.

I love a ritualistic vegetable dish like this that keeps showing up in my life over and over, that never gets old, that I don't even have to think about when I cook it. Like roasted broccoli, stewed peas, sauteed zucchini - the all-stars of my cooking life. These are the things that flesh out our dinner table night after night and that I imagine my children will remember, either fondly or not, when they look back at the food of their childhood. However, as much as I love these dishes and the comfort they bring me in both flavor and preparation, they are not necessarily stuff for company. They are humble, regular dishes, not show-stopping or even really conversation-worthy. When you're having people over or if you need to bring a dish to a potluck, I think you kind of need to up your game a little. Not a ton, but enough to make a bit of an impression.

Of course, my culinary hero Diana Henry has a recipe for precisely this kind of elevated salad that used roasted fennel and tomatoes as the base, but pumps it up with all kinds of crazy flavorings, like harissa and preserved lemon and balsamic vinegar. It comes from her book How to Eat a Peach and is quite a stunner. The addition of chickpeas makes it a slightly more substantial kind of salad and fresh herbs make it beautiful - the kind of thing you can plonk on a buffet table and feel secretly smug about. And also consume rather obsessively. Which is the whole point. One more thing I love about it: the flavorings are so bold and fresh but actually this salad is essentially seasonless, so you can serve it in spring, when people are crazy for asparagus and rhubarb, and you can serve it in winter, when big roasts and stews prevail, and in both cases it just kind of works. Pretty neat.

As luck would have it, I discovered a similar kind of special version of roasted broccoli dish that you need to know about (as in, my father literally said WHAT IS THIS WITCHCRAFT THIS IS THE BEST BROCCOLI I HAVE EVER EATEN when he had it), but I'll have to save it for next time. My camera, beloved and trusty documentation device on this blog since 2007, died a few weeks ago. Like, right in the middle of taking these photos, which is why I don't have a photo of the final dish (here's one from Diana, though). I thought it just needed a little repair work, but the camera shop guy told me it wasn't worth it - the repair would cost far more to do than the camera is worth. I was unexpectedly gutted, I have to admit. I loved that camera. I salvaged the lens and put it on my husband's camera, which is only a few years newer than mine was, but requires a whole new education. So bear with me while I figure that out. 

Diana Henry's Roasted Tomato, Fennel and Chickpea Salad Adapted from How to Eat a Peach Serves 6

For the tomatoes 10 large plum tomatoes (or an equivalent amount of cherry tomatoes, left whole) 3 tbsp olive oil 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar 1½ tbsp harissa 2 tsp sugar Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the fennel 2 large fennel bulbs Juice of ½ lemon 2 garlic cloves, crushed ½ tsp fennel seeds, coarsely crushed in a mortar or left whole Generous pinch of chile flakes 2½ tbsp olive oil 400g can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

For the dressing 2 small preserved lemons 2 tsp juice from the lemon jar 2 tbsp white wine vinegar 1½ tbsp runny honey 5 tbsp olive oil 4 tbsp chopped parsley

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375 F). Halve the tomatoes lengthwise and lay in a single layer in a roasting pan or ovenproof dish. Leave whole if using cherry tomatoes. Mix the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and harissa and pour this over the tomatoes, tossing to coat well, then turn the tomatoes cut sides up. Sprinkle with the sugar and season.

2. Quarter the fennel bulbs, cut off the stalks and remove any coarse outer leaves. Pull off any tender fronds (reserve these) and cut each piece of fennel into 2.5cm thick wedges, keeping them intact at the base Add the lemon juice, garlic, fennel seeds, chile and olive oil, then season and turn everything over with your hands. Spread out the fennel in a second roasting tin and cover tightly with foil.

3. Put both trays in the oven. Roast the fennel for 25-30 minutes, until tender (the undersides should be pale gold), then remove the foil and roast for another 5-10 minutes, or until soft, golden and slightly charred. Roast the tomatoes for 35-40 minutes, or until caramelized in patches and slightly shrunken. Stir the chickpeas into the fennel and taste for seasoning. Leave both to cool to room temperature.

4. Now make the dressing. Discard the flesh from the preserved lemons and dice the rind. Whisk the preserved lemon juice with the wine vinegar, honey and olive oil, season and add the lemon rind and parsley. Taste for seasoning and sweet-sour balance.

5. Arrange the fennel, chickpeas and tomatoes on a platter, adding the juices from the roasting tins; there might be quite a bit from the tomatoes. Scatter any fennel fronds you reserved over the top. Spoon on the dressing. (Leftover dressing can be used on other salads or to zhuzz up mayo for chicken or tuna salad.)

from The Wednesday Chef https://ift.tt/2FP0S5C

[notable-law-music-tech-news]

Seattle Hard-Rock Band Thunderpussy Are Fighting to Trademark Their Name

Seattle hard-rock band Thunderpussy are engaged in a frustrating legal battle to trademark their name. by Dave Segal

Twat's in a name? Thunderpussy at Sasquatch, 2018. Lester Black

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has thwarted all-woman Seattle rock band Thunderpussy's attempt to trademark their name. The PTO has accused the moniker of being "scandalous," going so far as to use an Urban Dictionary definition of it as a derogatory term to reject Thunderpussy's case. In response, the rising major-label hard-rock group has started the #TrademarkThunderpussy campaign to build awareness for the cause. In addition, Thunderpussy plan to release a cover of Jefferson Airplane's 1967 psych-rock hit "Somebody to Love" around the time of the case.

The fate of Thunderpussy's battle to trademark their name rests on the decision of a new case, Iancu v. Brunetti, which the U.S. Supreme Court addresses on April 15, in which FUCT founder Erik Brunetti will defend his clothing brand.

As Thunderpussy argue on their website, it seems unjust that products such as Pussy Juice and Pussy Patch candy can get trademarked, but they can't.

In a joint statement, Thunderpussy's members wrote, “The real evil we are fighting here is not the definition cited by the USPTO. It’s the idea that pussies are weak. Every single living mammal on this planet came out of a vagina. That is true power. The act of creation in its purest form; the mystery of life. Just as the Slants were able to reclaim an ethnic slur as a badge of honor that favors the Asian minority, Thunderpussy is hoping to change the way one half of the world’s population is viewed. The half that made the other half. Women.”

In a 2014 feature defending the use of female-genital-oriented band names, "Know Your Vagina (Bands)," former Stranger writer Megan Seling wrote: "[T]hese great bands aren't trying to shock you with misogynistic songs about going on a 'Bitch Hunt' (fuck you very much, Vulvathrone), but rather remind the world that words like vagina, vulva, and clitoris aren't disgusting, censorable terms or fuel for some guy's bullshit gore-porn act."

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8 Comforting Rice Bowl Recipes for Weeknight Dinners

[Photographs: Vicky Wasik, J. Kenji López-Alt.]

When I first moved to New York City, I pretty much lived on rice bowls. It's not just that they were easy to prepare, though that definitely didn't hurt. These simple bowls of porridge, protein over rice, and perfectly balanced curry were just the thing when I was feeling homesick or couldn't find the energy to produce a feast in seven courses. Now that I'm more settled into my life here, I still lean heavily on these dishes. They're so delicious, and they allow me to pull off fantastically flavorful and comforting meals, even when I'm feeling too lazy to leave my apartment. With these eight rice bowls in rotation, you're never too far from a home-cooked meal—even on your laziest day.

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

Japanese curry (or kare, as it's called in Japan) is one of the country's most popular comfort foods, and for good reason. While most versions of this classic dish start from a package, we build the dish from scratch. You'll get all the traditional flavors, plus juicy pieces of chicken, tender bits of carrot, sweet peas, and silky chunks of potato.

Homemade Japanese Curry Rice (Kare Raisu) Recipe »

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[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

This chicken and egg rice bowl is one of my favorite dishes. Pieces of chicken are simmered in a soy sauce and sake mixture, and then scrambled eggs are poured directly into the simmering liquid. When the chicken is tender and the eggs are cooked and fluffy, the combination is slid onto a bowl of rice. It really doesn't get much easier than this.

Oyakodon (Japanese Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl) Recipe »

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[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

If you like oyakodon, chances are you'll love gyudon. Translucent onions are simmered with thin slices of beef in a mixture of soy sauce, dashi, and sake. The beef is finished with freshly grated ginger, and the rice bowl is topped with a poached egg.

Gyudon (Japanese Simmered Beef and Rice Bowls) Recipe »

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[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

This Bengali rice porridge is about as comforting as any food can be. Aromatic jasmine rice and hearty, earthy lentils are simmered in chicken stock with fresh turmeric, ginger, and red chili. When the fragrant grains have become tender, potatoes and chicken thighs are added to the pot. The porridge—already bursting with flavor and color—gets finished off with a bright cilantro chutney and bits of crisp fried shallots.

Bengali Rice Porridge With Lentils and Chicken Recipe »

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[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

I hate the idea of cooking hacks. Often, those get-it-done-faster tips cut corners and ignore important steps. But keeping some homemade teriyaki sauce on hand at all times really is a cooking hack. It allows you to whip up all sorts of flavorful meals in no time. Take, for instance, this teriyaki-glazed salmon. In the time it'll take you to steam a pot of rice, you'll be able to sear the salmon, cut up some avocado and cucumber, slice a couple scallions, and grab that magical teriyaki from the fridge.

Easy Teriyaki-Glazed Salmon, Cucumber, and Avocado Rice Bowls Recipe »

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[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

This extremely simple rice bowl consists of short-grain rice topped with pearls of brilliant orange salmon roe. The already-cured roe gets quickly marinated in soy sauce and other seasonings to bump up its intensity even more before it's loaded onto the rice and finished with a garnish of wasabi, nori strips, and a shiso leaf.

Ikura Don (Japanese Rice Bowl With Salmon Roe) Recipe »

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[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

To those not familiar, simmering crisp-shelled fried chicken in flavorful broth might seem like a confusing cooking method. You'll just have to reserve judgement until you try it for yourself. To make this katsudon, leftover chicken katsu or pork tonkatsu is simmered with eggs in a soy-dashi broth and served over rice. While the crust doesn't remain particularly crisp, the breading soaks up tons of flavor from the cooking liquid.

Katsudon (Japanese Chicken or Pork Cutlet and Egg Rice Bowl) Recipe »

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[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

Tamago gohan (literally "egg rice") is the simplest of Japanese comfort food. Start with a bowl of hot rice, and break an egg into it. As the egg slowly cooks into the rice, the bowl is seasoned with a bit of soy sauce, a pinch of salt, and a light shake of Aji-no-moto, a Japanese brand of pure powdered MSG.

Tamago Kake Gohan (Japanese-Style Rice With Egg) Recipe »

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[notable-law-music-tech-news]

Warner Music signed an algorithm to a record deal — what happens next?

Last week, a press release went out to tech and music reporters claiming that little-known startup Endel had become the “first-ever algorithm to sign [a] major label deal” with Warner Music.

The news was covered widely, with commentators tossing around phrases like “the end is nigh” while hand-wringing over the idea of coders coming for musicians’ label contracts. But the press release wasn’t exactly right, and questions about the future of music are even bigger than anyone thought.

Endel is an app that generates reactive, personalized “soundscapes” to promote things like focus or relaxation. It takes in data like your location, time, and the weather to create these soundscapes, and the result is not quite “musical” in the traditional...

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[notable-law-music-tech-news]

Europe’s controversial overhaul of online copyright receives final approval

The European Parliament has given final approval to the Copyright Directive, a controversial package of legislation designed to update copyright law in Europe for the internet age.

Members of parliament voted 348 in favor of the law and 274 against. A last-minute proposal to remove the law’s most controversial clause — known as Article 13 or the ‘upload filter’ — was narrowly rejected by just five votes. The directive will now be passed on to EU member states, who will have 24 months to translate it into national law.

The Copyright Directive has been in the works for more than two years, and has been the subject of fierce lobbying from tech giants, copyright holders, and digital rights activists.

a “dark day for internet freedom”

J...

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[notable-law-music-tech-news]

GMR Interim Music License for Radio to be Extended – Yet Again

This week, the Radio Music License Committee issued a press release that states that Global Music Rights (“GMR”), the new performing rights organization that collects royalties for the public performance of songs written by a number of popular songwriters (including Bruce Springsteen, members of the Eagles, Pharrell Williams and others) has agreed to extend their interim license for the performance of their music by commercial radio stations until September 30, 2019. The notice says that GMR will be contacting stations that signed their previous extension (through March 30). If you don’t hear from GMR, the RMLC suggests that you reach out to them about this extension.

As we have written before (see our articles here and here), GMR and the RMLC are in litigation over whether or not the rates set by GMR should be subject to some sort of antitrust review, as are the rates set by ASCAP, BMI and even SESAC (see our article here on the SESAC rates). In the interim, there is no license to play the GMR music outside the Interim license offered to all commercial stations, or individually negotiated licenses with the company. Commercial stations that play GMR music should either have a license or should discuss carefully with counsel their potential options and liabilities if they continue to play GMR music. Do not ignore the potential liability as, under copyright law, there are substantial “statutory damages” of up to $150,000 per song for infringement. Noncommercial stations are not covered by this license being offered by GMR to RMLC members, as public performance royalties for noncommercial broadcasting are set by the Copyright Royalty Board (see our article here for more details on the royalties for noncommercial stations). Those stations should also discuss their obligations for royalties under the CRB decision with their counsel.

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[notable-law-music-tech-news]

ASCAP and BMI Consent Decrees Under Review – How Performing Rights Organizations, Antitrust Policy and Statutory Licenses Could Create a Controversy

In the last few weeks, the press has been buzzing with speculation that the Department of Justice is moving toward suggesting changes in the antitrust consent decrees that govern the operations of ASCAP and BMI.  Those consent decrees, which have been in place since the 1940s, among other things require that these Performing Rights Organizations treat all songwriters alike in distributions based on how often their songs are played, and that they treat all services alike with users that provide the same kind of service all paying the same rate structure.  Rates are also reviewed by a court with oversight over the decrees when the PROs and music services cannot come to a voluntary agreement to arrive at reasonable rates.  The decrees have also been read to mean that songwriters, once part of the ASCAP or BMI collective, cannot withdraw with respect to certain services and negotiate with those services themselves while still remaining part of the collective with respect to other music users (see, e.g., our articles here and here about the desires of certain publishing companies to withdraw from these PROs to negotiate directly with certain digital services while still remaining in these PROs for licensing broadcasting and retail music users).

With this talk of reform of the consent decrees, Congress, particularly the Senate Judiciary Committee under the leadership of Senator Lindsey Graham, has reportedly stepped in, telling DOJ not to move to change the consent decrees without giving Congress the chance to intervene and devise a replacement system.  In fact, under the recently passed Music Modernization Act, notice to Congress is required before the DOJ acts.  Already, both the PROs and user’s groups are staking out sides.  What are they asking for?

BMI and ASCAP have released an open letter that suggests that the market is the best place for determining how songwriters are paid.  The letter suggests that the consent decrees be extended, but only for a finite period of time.   Not specifically addressed is whether ASCAP and BMI believe that songwriters or their publishing companies should be given the right to withdraw their catalog from the PROs on a service-by-service basis to allow the publishers to negotiate directly, outside of the rate-court process, with specific types of music users.  However, these PROs make clear their opposition to Congress enacting any sort of statutory license – suggesting that this would benefit no one.  What is the argument for a statutory license?  How is a statutory license different from what is offered now by these organizations?

While licenses from ASCAP and BMI offer a music service a right to play a very large number of musical compositions, they do not offer the right to play all songs.  SESAC and GMR, private for-profit entities, also license musical compositions.   As we wrote when the battle over fractional licensing was being fought only a few years ago when the DOJ last reviewed these consent decrees (as a great many musical compositions are written by several composers and these composers can belong to different PROs), for a music service to have the full rights to play a song, they may need to get rights from multiple PROs.  There is nothing to stop the number of PROs from growing over time and, if songwriters and publishers are able to withdraw their catalog from specific services to negotiate directly with those services, you may end up with far more than just the current 4 PROs with which a music service needs to negotiate to get rights to all of the songs that it plays.

A statutory license, in contrast, is a license to play all songs legally released in the country by paying a rate set by some government entity.  This is the kind of license offered by SoundExchange to noninteractive music services.  A record label or recording artist cannot refuse to license their music to a service operating pursuant to the statutory license.  See, for instance, our articles here and here about why Pandora and other Internet radio stations could play songs by performers like the Beatles, Adele and Taylor Swift, even when those artists were withholding their songs from interactive services like Spotify that allow listeners to play songs on demand, because on-demand services do not get the benefit of a statutory license.

Congress enacts statutory licenses when it appears that there will be many copyright holders whose rights need to be obtained for a copyright user to operate their service, but where the number of copyright holders is great, or the identity of the rights holders is so obscure or difficult to obtain, that direct licensing would not be practical.  In dealing with musical works (the musical compositions that the PROs administer), where songwriting credits are split often among multiple songwriters who can be part of different collectives, and where catalogs of copyrights are bought and sold all the time, obtaining all necessary rights to use a song can be difficult.  This is especially true as there is no definitive database as to who owns what songs (though one is promised under the Music Modernization Act), so determining who to pay in some cases can be all but impossible.

In the past, even with a statutory royalty for mechanical rights under Section 115 of the Copyright Act (the rights needed to use a musical composition in making physical copies or digital downloads of a recording of that song, or to provide on-demand streams of a recorded song), large digital services had difficulty determining who to pay for the statutory right, leading to lawsuits against major players like Spotify by songwriters who claimed that they did not receive their royalties.  Recognizing the difficulty of finding the proper party to pay, under the recently enacted Music Modernization Act, Congress has provided for a collective to receive and distribute all of these royalties.  Thus, for the reproduction right for musical compositions, there will be one collective to distribute all of the royalties collected pursuant to the statutory license.

Having recognized for the purposes of the MMA that these copyrights for musical compositions are so difficult to obtain without a statutory license and a one-stop collective, it is difficult to imagine that Congress would allow performance rights to move in the opposite direction – away from a collective licensing regime to one where the parties have to rely on imperfect information to determine who to pay.  This is particularly important as the performance rights administered by the PROs are used by many small services including small broadcasters and even bars, restaurants and retail outlets that play music for their customers.  These users simply don’t have the resources to determine who to pay if performance rights further fracture – and they have difficulty enough figuring out why they should pay 4 different organizations now for what is perceived as the same right – the right to play music.  If huge music services like Spotify can’t figure out who to pay for the musical compositions that they use, how can a Mom and Pop radio station or a small coffee shop with open mike nights once a week figure out who to pay?  For more on these concerns, see our article here.

Thus, moving toward an unregulated system simply does not seem possible in the current world of music rights. The consent decrees were first adopted because it was feared that one organization, representing thousands of songwriters, could exact higher than market prices by threatening to withdraw all music from a service that did not buy a license.  Those same concerns have been identified by antitrust settlements with SESAC (see our articles here and here), and are currently being sought with GMR (see my article here on the disputes between GMR and the RMLC, with links to other articles on the subject).  Compounding those concerns are the marketplace inefficiencies that would result from a world with no collectives – smaller music users could simply not afford the costs to clear the rights to play music.  Collectives are necessary for the marketplace to function efficiently, but they need to be regulated to keep prices in line.

At least that has been the theory up until now – and we will see if that changes following the DOJ’s completion of its review of these decrees.  Keep watching as this important issue for broadcasters and digital media companies unfolds in coming months.

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[notable-law-music-tech-news]

The fight over launching Spotify in India is about to get messy

The fight over Spotify launching in India might change Indian copyright law and shape how streaming services and labels interact worldwide.

Earlier today, Bloomberg reported that Warner Music Group had asked an Indian court to block Spotify from being able to play music from its catalog on the streaming service. Spotify is set to launch in India, even though it hasn’t secured a license to Warner’s catalog. But, according to Indian law, it might be able to use music from Warner’s publishing division, Warner/Chappell Music, anyway. At the crux of this lawsuit: a 2016 reinterpretation of a 2012 amendment to a 1957 law that Spotify is using in 2019 as leverage against Warner in a global licensing fight.

Spotify and Warner had been in...

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cauliflower and tomato masala with peas

If you’d like to brown your cauliflower florets for a more nuanced flavor, you can do so in an additional tablespoon or two of oil in the beginning, with your frying pan on high heat. Scoop it out and set it aside before beginning the recipe as written. Once you add the cauliflower to the tomato sauce later in the recipe, you might need 5 minutes less cooking time to get it to a good consistency (I aim for tender but not mushy here).

1 large head cauliflower (3 pounds)

2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger

1 tablespoon finely grated garlic (about 2 cloves)

1 jalapeño or another green chile, finely chopped (use more or less to taste)

1 big handful fresh cilantro, stems finely chopped, leaves roughly torn

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1/4 to 1 teaspoon mild red chili powder (I used kashmiri), adjusted to taste

1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon garam masala

2 to 3 cups tomato puree from a 28-ounce can

1 to 2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 cup water

1 1/2 cup green peas, frozen is fine

1/2 teaspoon amchur (dried mango) powder or juice of half a lemon

Rice or flatbreads, to serve

First, prepare your cauliflower, just to get it out of the way. Trim the leaves. Remove the large core and dice it into small (1/4 to 1/2-inch) pieces. Cut or break the florets into medium-sized chunks.

Then, in a large, deep sauté pan, heat oil over medium heat. Once hot, add cumin seeds, ginger, garlic, and jalapeño and cook together for 3 minutes, until tender but the garlic and ginger are not browned. Add diced cauliflower core and finely chopped cilantro stems (save leaves for the end) and cook for another 1 minute together. Add turmeric, chili powder, coriander, and garam masala and cook for 2 minutes. Add 2 to 3 cups tomato puree — use the smaller amount if your cauliflower clocks in in the 2 to 2.5-pound range, or if you’re not sure you want dish as saucy as mine is, plus salt (1 1/2 teaspoons was just right for my 3 cups puree), and water and bring to a simmer, cook for 5 minutes. Add cauliflower and stir to coat with sauce. Cover with a lid and cook for about 20 minutes, until cauliflower is tender but not mushy, stirring occasionally. Add peas (still frozen are fine) and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, until heated through. Add amchur powder or lemon juice and stir to warm through. Taste dish for seasoning and adjust to taste. Finish with cilantro leaves. Serve with rice or flatbread.

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[notable-law-music-tech-news]

Potatoes Cooked in Brown Butter: So French and So Clean

[Photographs: Vicky Wasik]

Almost every Christmas, my fiancée and future in-laws travel to France for a week to visit family friends, eat some good food, and exchange New York's "I'm walkin' here" charm for Parisian eye rolls and ennui. This past December I got to tag along for the first time. My last visit to the City of Lights was in the summer of 1998, right after Les Bleus won their first World Cup. Over the past two decades, I've tried to stay in peak croissant and foie gras–eating condition, but it's not easy when you're not in the thick of it. I was excited to get back to the big leagues.

I spent the weeks leading up to the trip putting together a dining itinerary that my fiancée described as "aggressive." I prefer to think my plan to fit in as many meals as possible was enthusiastic. Between boulangerie runs, neo-bistro prix-fixe lunches, wine-bar cheese snacks, and a couple tasting-menu dinners, we ate a lot. Someone has to make sure restaurants and charcuterie shops stay in business during the Whole30 time of year, right?

One of the best things I ate didn't come out of a professional kitchen or cheese case, though. It was a simple side dish prepared and served by the family friends who hosted us—impossibly small new potatoes cooked in brown butter, sprinkled with sea salt, and served with a dollop of crème fraîche. Before I go any further, I'd like to say that I am always skeptical of travel pieces that romanticize some home-cooked meal the writer was served by a kind, old nonna who took them in and taught them how to make tortellini. I promise this isn't that kind of deal; these potatoes are just ridiculously tasty.

I couldn't stop eating them. Despite being bathed in brown butter, they weren't greasy and didn't induce an instant food coma like Robuchon-style pomme purée—another French potato and butter concoction. I wouldn't go as far as to agree with the Parisians at the table who kept saying that this was a très léger (very light) meal—especially not after a whole wheel of Vacherin was brought out for pre-dessert—but I guess everything is relative. As with my favorite kind of roasted potatoes, these "light" ones were overcooked in just the right way and had that same creamy softness when you bit through their crinkly, butter-coated skins, complemented by the crunch of fleur de sel.

I began quizzing our host for her recipe while we were still at the dinner table. She was happy to give me the main plot points of the process, but she didn't whisk me away to the kitchen to give me that travel-writing anecdotal moment. She explained the potatoes were cooked from raw, entirely in demi-sel (lightly salted) butter, uncovered, and on the stovetop. While the dish is simple, she warned me—in that impossibly French, I-just-woke-up-this-way manner—that many of her friends had tried to recreate these potatoes and failed. Paris is definitely the birthplace of the humblebrag.

A Few Good Ingredients

Quality of ingredients is the biggest challenge in recreating simple dishes like this one back here in the States. Sourcing high-quality produce, meats, and staple ingredients has become a lot easier over the past few years here, but it's just a different ballgame compared to shopping in France. When I began working on this recipe, I wanted to see how much the quality of ingredients mattered, and tested potatoes cooked with different types of butter and salt.

Most butter here in the States has a fat content of 80%. In France, on the other hand, butter must have a minimum fat content of 82%. Some American dairy companies make butter with a higher fat content and label it "European style." European-style butter is almost always more expensive. As Stella would tell you, these two can't just be swapped out for one another in baking, and after testing with both styles for these potatoes, I would say the same applies here.

I found European-style butter produced potatoes with richer, more complex flavor than versions cooked with commercial American butter. That said, the potatoes cooked in standard butter were still delicious, and for that reason, I chose not to call specifically for European-style butter in the recipe. Whichever type of butter you use, I recommend going with unsalted.

I tested with a few different kinds of salted and semisalted butter, and it's much harder to control the salinity levels in the dish when using butter that is already seasoned. You are better off seasoning with salt yourself. I like using a slightly coarse sea salt like fleur de sel, which is fine enough to meld in with the butter while the potatoes are cooking, but it also has enough texture to provide crunch as a finishing salt. If you don't have any of that around, kosher salt will work.

As for the potatoes, use the smallest new potatoes you can find. You are looking for uniform, bite-size spuds. If they are all over the board in terms of size, it's trickier to cook them all at the same rate.

I like infusing the butter with standard aromatics like thyme sprigs and a couple of garlic cloves, but that's totally optional. Other than that, all you will need are chives for garnishing and a little crème fraîche for dipping. Essentially, these are classic American baked potatoes that did a semester abroad in Paris. Fortunately, they won't drone on about their favorite arrondissement, and you get to eat them.

Trust the Process

The cooking process itself is incredibly simple. I start by melting a stick of butter (very light, remember?) over medium heat in a saucepan. Rather than letting the butter brown first, I immediately add the potatoes. They need to cook, and the butter will have plenty of time to brown.

As the butter begins to sputter and foam, I swirl and stir the potatoes, making sure they are arranged in a single layer in the pan for even cooking. Once the butter turns golden brown, I turn the heat down so that the milk solids in the butter don't scorch, and I add the aromatics to the pan. This is butter-basted steak for vegetarians.

The butter just needs to be gently bubbling. From there, it's just about going low and slow, gently cooking the potatoes and turning them occasionally, so that they cook and brown evenly on all sides. While the potatoes cook, you're free to work on the rest of your meal. This would be a great dish to pair with a steak or a seared piece of fish, as you can use the brown butter as a sauce for your protein as well as the potatoes. Just balance everything out with a bright salad.

Once the potatoes are completely tender (they should offer no resistance when you test them with a paring knife), take them off the heat but keep them in the saucepan. I found that if I pulled the potatoes right out of the butter when they were tender, they hardened up at the center. Allowing them to cool in the brown butter kept them soft all the way through.

Once they have cooled slightly, I use a slotted spoon to transfer them over to a serving bowl. This way, you can divvy up the brown butter as you wish. Use it as a sauce for your main course (feel free to brighten it up with fresh lemon juice), or just pour it all over the potatoes before sprinkling them with sea salt and chives. This is léger fare, after all.

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[notable-law-music-tech-news]

One Flawless Olive Oil Cake, a Million Variations

Every week in Genius Recipes—often with your help!—Food52 Creative Director and lifelong Genius-hunter Kristen Miglore is unearthing recipes that will change the way you cook.

Photo by Rocky Luten

Before I try to convince you to try the crazy-sounding ingredient in this cake, I need you to know that it’s sitting on top of a flawless, crisp-chewy, endlessly malleable olive oil cake you will want to pocket even without dabbling in the weird. And the batter takes all of 10 minutes to stir together (really). So hold on to that.

But for now, I would like you to suspend disbelief about this seemingly un-cake-like ingredient. Ready for it? Oil-cured black olives (the kind that are preserved in salt and plumped in olive oil, not in a vinegary brine). That’s what’s speckled all over the top of this sparkly, sugar-crusted cake—not blueberries. Surprise!

Why do such a thing to a cake? For starters, this merely nudges our sweet-savory boundaries out a little bit farther, a natural next step from chocolate-covered pretzels and miso caramel. For another, everyone I’ve peddled it to at Food52 HQ and beyond went bug-eyed and smitten—even the ones who’ve been on Team Hold-the-Olives for life.

Photo by Rocky Luten

And finally, because olives in dessert aren’t actually so weird after all. As I was hunting recipes for our Genius Desserts cookbook, the theme came up a lot: in chocolate and cannoli; candied in China, studded in cookies from Portugal, sunk in clafoutis in Marseille.

But the first place that many food and coffee nerds near New York—including myself and this Genius cake’s inventor, Charlotte Druckman—saw oil-cured black olives in a dessert was on the crunchy planks of shortbread at Abraço, a button-sized cult coffee shop in the East Village with a destination pastry case, stocked by baker-owner Elizabeth Quijada.

Photo by Rocky Luten

Quijada's semi-sweet olive shortbread was one source of inspiration that got Charlotte’s wheels turning when an olive oil start-up called Brightland asked her to develop a recipe that featured their olive oil called Alive.

Charlotte combined that shortbread notion with the basic framework of Marian Burros’ famous Purple Plum Torte. Then she pushed and pulled on the ingredients, swapping in some almond meal for buttery flavor and texture, adding molasses-y moisture from brown sugar, and ratcheting up the vanilla.

Related: More on the genius of lots of vanilla and why olive oil makes a more lasting cake than butter.

And, since she wrote a whole book on inventive ways to cook and bake in cast-iron skillets called Stir, Sizzle, Bake (you might remember her certified Genius Cacio e Pepe Shortbread as one of them), she then poured this aromatic batter into a very hot cast-iron pan.

The chopped olives polka-dotted the top along with a sanding of crunchy granulated sugar, and this cake was born: crisp-sweet and bronzed on every surface, tender and hauntingly scented with vanilla through the middle, all of it teetering joyfully on the midpoint of salty, buttery, and sweet. I’d like to note that she did all of this the first time it came into her brain. Who said recipe development had to be painstaking?

Photo by Rocky Luten

But she hasn’t stopped there. Since then, she’s used this blueprint without the olives, too: with cacao nibs folded into the batter and Marcona almonds snuggled on top; with ground pistachios replacing the almond flour and miso stirred in. She’s mulled adding chopped rosemary and orange zest to the original olive version, and topping with labne or crème fraîche and streaks of more good olive oil.

All of which is to say that you can push and pull and make your own versions of this cake, too. Tell us what you’ll do! Promise we won’t think you’re weird.

Charlotte Druckman's Olive (Oil) Cake

View Recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cup (95g) all-purpose flour 1/4 cup (25g) almond meal 1 teaspoon baking powder (the aluminum-free kind, if you can find it) 1/8 teaspoon fine salt 1/2 cup light or dark brown sugar 1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil 2 large eggs 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 5/8 cup pitted oil-cured black olives, roughly chopped

3/4 cup (95g) all-purpose flour 1/4 cup (25g) almond meal 1 teaspoon baking powder (the aluminum-free kind, if you can find it) 1/8 teaspoon fine salt 1/2 cup light or dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil 2 large eggs 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 5/8 cup pitted oil-cured black olives, roughly chopped

Got a genius recipe to share—from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at [email protected].

from Food52 https://f52.co/2DcFNRd