Al Dente

Rice Pasta Couscous (And Don't Forget Frogs)

After living in Barcelona for 12 years, Jeff Koehler is technically considered a resident. Luckily for us, the American food writer and photographer has retained the curious eye of the outsider, roaming his adopted home for recipes and stories.

We talked on the phone about his new book, Rice Pasta Couscous, a cross-cultural journey around the Mediterranean to see the similarities and differences of how people view these staples of family meals. Oh, and along the way, he shared the secrets for making perfect couscous without any special equipment. Here are some highlights from our talk: 

On how he wound up living in Barcelona: Her name was Eva. "We were in London. I was studying drama, and she was studying organic chemistry. We shared a kitchen...When she went back to Barcelona to do a PhD, I followed her." And that meant an introduction to her mother's weekly family gatherings over paella. "Everything goes through the paella. I met the family over the paella, and eventually we said we were going to get married over the paella. I saw this simple staple become this anchor of the whole family."

On how the book was born: Through those same weekly dinners, seen through other eyes. "My friends in Morocco, it's the same for them on Friday, after the mosque, to go to the mother's house for couscous...In Algeria, one of the guys told me, you can make other dishes, but couscous is obligatory, from birth to death, couscous is at every important milestone. My friends in Naples, the mother told me a meal isn't a meal without pasta." It became clear there was a story in the similarities and differences between these traditions.

On keeping it real: It's possible to find recipes in the book simple enough for a quick dinner, say, orzo with brown butter and cheese. But one of Koehler's chief goals was authenticity, "traveling around the nooks and crannies," and replicating what he found in kitchens from Lebanon to Catalonia. That means many more labor-intensive recipes, and some with unlikely ingredients, such as the traditional frog and eel stew he found in Croatia. ("How many frogs do you add?" I asked, taking notes on the recipe. "As many as you can catch.") 

He knows many people won't be able to cook the more unusual recipes, but some will.

"I definitely didn't want to avoid stuffed pigeon with liver, it's one of the great Egyptian dishes...Some people, they can find it. There are a couple people out there who will be very happy to do it." Even with pastas, he does include well-loved standards, but "there are so many great pasta traditions that have nothing to do with the classic Italian style of boiling and saucing."

On what "the Mediterannean" really is: A lot bigger than most people realize, and more than Tuscany and Provence. "Tunisia is 87 miles from southern Italy...You can have, in Tunisia, cuttlefish or squid sauteed with garlic, the same as in Italy, but with cumin, a completely different taste."

On researching: "You can say to somebody, I really want to talk about rice. They say, I don't know the history of rice. I don't want (to know) that. I want to know, how do you use it in your life? How does your mother make it? Then you get a four-hour answer."

On his next project, Country Cooking of Spain: A highlight will be how no food that can be used or preserved is thrown away. He'll include vinegars and oils and preserved savory foods and more. "There's a big chapter on innards and extremities."

On what to do if you don't own a couscoussiere: Don't worry about it. Real diehards will say it's the only way to make couscous, and there are recipes where "the couscous is being steamed in the vapor of the stew, and  so it does take, to an extent, some of the flavor"--but, Koehler said, using it all the time "for me is not reality, even though I have one and can get the real stuff and we make it." 

Using the boxed instant stuff is fine, he said, so long as you ignore the directions. Instead, he does it this way: Dissolve a teaspoon of salt in 2.5 cups warm (not boiling) water. Pour 1 lb couscous into a very wide, shallow dish and dribble the salty water over it. Mix with a fork. Let it sit for 10 minutes to absorb the water. Drizzle in 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil. Toss with both hands, lifting the grains and letting them fall through your fingers. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, transfer the couscous to an ovenproof baking dish, and bake, turning the grains from time to time, until steamy warm, 10 to 15 minutes. If you like, add a tablespoon of butter or smen (clarified and preserved butter). Fluff with a fork.

-- Rebekah Denn

A Look Inside the Steamy Kitchen

By the time I met Jaden Hair this year she already had a high profile in the world of food: A regular column in the Tampa Tribune, TV gigs, a blog with up to a half-million page views per month, a cookbook deal. That's why I was so stunned, talking with her about The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, to realize that this career started just two years ago, in 2007. In that time, she taught herself web design, food photography, how to succeed on TV, and more.

"I think the one talent I really do have is studying, and teaching myself," she told me in a phone interview. Well, shoot. Anyone working through her approachable, quick, and zingy recipes would figure she's also got a talent for cooking and teaching.

Another part of her that clearly comes naturally: In person and chatting on the phone, she's the same energetic, fun, best-girlfriend-like presence that she is on the page. Here are some of the highlights from our conversation, and a clip from the Bulgogi Burgers she cooked up on The Today Show:

On how the "Steamy Kitchen" blog began: It was just a way to keep her recipes safe. "I used to write my recipes on index cards, and then I'd lose the index cards. Then I'd write the recipes on my hard drive, and the hard drive would crash. Then I discovered people were writing online...It wasn't for the purpose of having an audience, even though I made my husband read it, and made my brother read it, and I think my mother-in-law read it because she was curious what I was cooking for the kids."

On how her audience grew: "The reason I think it happened so soon is because I really, really got into the community. I'd go around commenting on other blogs and making friends, and it was not for the purpose at all of getting people to my site. That's the biggest mistake I think some of the new bloggers make, "I'm going to your site, you have to visit mine." I was just so happy and thrilled to find other people who loved food as much as I did."

On how she got interested in sharing her knowledge of food: She moved from San Francisco to a small town in Florida, and the culinary transition was tough. It reminded her of her childhood in Nebraska, where Asian families and groceries were rare. With the move, "I lost all my ethnic grocery stores, and my really really good ethnic restaurants." Standing at a local restaurant called "Bangkok Tokyo," she heard a woman "wearing all her jewelry, perfectly made up, talking on her cell phone with perfect nails, "Oh, I'm having sushi at the Chinese restaurant." Oh, my gosh, I was cussing to my husband. I was like, "Bangkok Tokyo" is not China! There's something wrong with this!" Hair called up a local cooking school, told them she had no experience, and asked them if she could teach a class anyway. She wanted people to know the difference between fish sauce and soy sauce, the difference between Thai and Vietnamese food, how to start out in Asian cooking. The school took a gamble on her, and the class sold out.

On teaching herself food photography: "At first, all I did was use automatic settings and just click and rely on the camera. Slowly I went from automatic to semiautomatic. Then my friend Diane spent literally 15 minutes with me one day...and taught me how to use the camera on the manual setting, and it was so easy. Then I started practicing, practicing, practicing, starting to understand. With the food styling...I would take magazines and flip through them. Every time I stopped at a photo, (I'd ask), 'What makes this dish look so good?' or "Why do I not like this photo?'...I don't use any of the tricks stylists use, (like) shellac. I don't have tweezers. I use chopsticks and my hand. And all the food is edible. We eat my food after I take a photo."

On how she came to shoot the pictures for her own cookbook: It wasn't easy. "(Tuttle Publishing) said, we want to do a book with you, but your photography isn't good enough, not good enough at all. I said, Whaaaa? Then my ego kicked in." She sent in photo samples, and the company sent them back to show her how they would look on glossy cookbook paper, and what was wrong with the photo or styling. She adapted her style, and "finally, it worked, and they said, OK. You're ready now."

Want to catch Jaden on tour? Her schedule is here. And here she is cooking up Bulgogi Burgers with banchan.

-- Rebekah Denn

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Baking Kids Love and Halloween Meringues

Good books on cooking with kids are hard to find, and it's even more uncommon to see a "serious" chef take one on. I was so pleased to see pastry chef Cindy Mushet, who won acclaim with last year's Art and Soul of Baking, follow that book up with Baking Kids Love. Written with the kid-input of Mushet's daughter Bella, it's a fun, colorful, approachable--but real--guide. Instead of the usual genre mainstays of arranging fruit in smiley faces or hiding vegetables in brownies, this one brings kids into the real world of the kitchen. They proof yeast, they melt chocolate, they roll out pie crust. It's just the sort of book I wanted to use with my own 7-year-old, so when I heard Cindy and 11-year-old Bella were coming to Seattle on tour, I asked "Baking with kids? Can they bake with my kid?" 

That's how they wound up in my kitchen, pastry bags in hand, making Halloween-style "meringue crispies" with my boy. The treats were meringue cookies stretched out into the shapes of "rattling bones and fingers," decorated with almond fingernails and melted-chocolate rings. My son is a veteran of one-bowl mixes like chocolate chip cookies and banana breads (both of which have a place in the book), but I hadn't ever given him more complicated projects. I was afraid that if he failed, he'd lose some of the pleasure he takes in baking. 

Mushet kept such fears in mind for the book, thinking hard about what to include so that kids (and, not incidentally, parents) could find kitchen success. Butter cakes did not make the cut, for instance, because not every modern-day parent knows how to gauge when the butter and sugar are properly creamed. Instead, there's the pretty "chocolate celebration cake" on the book's cover, which uses oil. Mushet also knows, though, that kids can rise to the expectations of adults; she's seen even 5-year-olds safely wielding knives and whipping up goodies. "Because I believed it, they could do it," she said.

The book started out with the recipes that Cindy and Bella loved to make together, then Bella proved a good sounding board for which gaps to fill and which recipes to leave out. Which recipes did Bella say to chuck? "Whole wheat bread". Sure, she likes it, but "Do I love it?" No. Instead, the book has pretzels and pizza dough, cinnamon rolls and monkey bread.

Baking is such a science, with success riding so much on correct measurements, I had to ask whether it was risky to put the recipes in the imprecise hands of children. Mushet noted that the book stresses the importance of measuring properly and following directions. And she shared this tip from when Bella was very young: She let her youngster measure out each ingredient, but had already pre-measured the precise amounts herself in advance. The correctly filled spoons and cups were the ones that went into the mixing bowl.

And our own baking experiment, with my boy? It was a delight. Cindy showed him how to separate eggs, and he proceeded on his own without a single speck of yolk going into the whites. "You're a natural!" she told him. Bella showed him how to judge the stiffness of the whipped whites, then how to pipe them into scary bones and fingers. He needed no directions on the sprinkled sugars and other decorations -- or, of course, on the eating. He's now the designated meringue chef in the family. We're both brimming with pride. 

Here's the recipe:

No-Knead Bread Goes Whole-Grain

When I wrote about Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois's first book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, I was promptly deluged in emails, which I passed on to the authors. A surprising number were from people asking how to translate the pair's no-knead recipes into whole-wheat or other whole-grain versions. And a surprising number, Hertzberg and Francois told me this week, were from people thinking they could just substitute whole grain flours for white flour, cup for cup. Sadly, baking doesn't work that way.

Hertzberg, a physician, and Francois, a pastry chef, have always jumped to answer reader questions on their blog, but now they're back in print to take on the issue in full, in 313 pages of recipes and commentaries and techniques. Their new book, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes A Day, translates their core concept (doughs that come together quickly, in large quantities, stored in the refrigerator to bake as you wish) into loaves and pizzas and pastries made with whole grains. There's plain old whole wheat flour, but also spelt, flax, barley flour, graham flour, and more.

The biggest requests they got from readers, they told me Tuesday before setting off on their book tour, was for whole grain breads, followed by requests for gluten-free breads (which they also included, consulting with Shauna Ahern and Danny Ahern).

After experimentation and testing, their secret ingredient? Vital wheat gluten, a product that's commonly used in industry baking, but has only in recent years become widely available in supermarkets. Whole wheat flour has less gluten than white flour, and it needs a boost from the added wheat gluten, which helps the bread rise and maintain an airier texture. Without it, they couldn't have made doughs that could be stored for so long. "Ten years ago, we couldn't have written this book," Hertzberg said, as they try to stick to ingredients that are easy to find.

"Healthy" bread is about more than whole grains, though. They added some information and advice on nutrition, and incorporated fruits and vegetables into some of their doughs, such as red beet buns and a zucchini flatbread. The federal government recommends eating nine servings of fruits or vegetables a day, Hertzberg noted. "I've got a friend who says he can't even name nine vegetables."

The book's breads are a homecoming of sorts for Francois, who grew up in a Vermont commune, eating whole grains and no refined sugars, before attending the Culinary Institute of America. "I went to culinary school to learn the food science, so I could adapt recipes for healthy desserts," she said, but instead she graduated eating white sugar. Now, she's gladly baking the pumpkin pie brioche she developed for the book, using honey and a mix of whole wheat and white flour, turning the dough into sandwich loaves and Indian spice donuts and caramel rolls.

"It took me all this time to kind of get to where I had originally wanted to be."

-- Rebekah Denn

Cookbook Causes and Broccoli-Cheese Soup

I've been cooking lately from a little cookbook with some big names behind it, benefiting a homeless shelter. I was so impressed with the caliber of the Seattle chefs and recipes in 40 Seasonal Soups that I decided to ask one --James Beard award-winner Maria Hines of Tilth-- how she decided to get involved. Beyond that, I also wondered, how does she choose between the dozens of good causes that hot chefs are asked to participate in each month? How do they decide where to donate their scarce free time?

Hines told me that she and chefs at other small restaurants sometimes joke about the endless requests: "Hey, why aren't they going to people who make money?" She also, though, appreciates that what she has is considered sexy enough to raise money for those in need. 

Multiple calls for donations come in daily, and Hines tends to help out if she knows someone affiliated with the organization, or if she knows someone who would benefit from the cause being championed, like the AIDS events she supports because of a friend with the disease. Fund-raisers for events she's personally passionate about, like PCC Farmland Trust and Chef's Collaborative, also get an edge.

And why support the 40 Seasonal Soups book? "That was easy," she said. Editor Elizabeth Kruse only asked for a recipe, not for donated gift certificates or food or time. Some chefs feel proprietary about their recipes; Hines is glad to share one for a good cause. (And, as it happens, she then also cooked up gallons of soup for the fundraising lunch that accompanied the book's publishing party.) 

Tilth's Broccoli-Cheese Soup was a huge hit at my house, as different from the canned version as home-baked bread is to Hostess. After shopping for the Grafton cheddar in the ingredient list, I also understood how a cup of soup can cost $9 at the restaurant: The cheese runs $22/pound. "It's so nice and sharp and nutty, it just brings so much flavor," Hines said. That's why she uses it for her own version, but she said you can feel free to substitute another aged cheddar for something more budget-friendly. Here's the recipe: 

Tilth's Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Ingredients

for soup:

1-1/2 lbs broccoli
1 quart water, light chicken stock, or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon shallot, finely chopped
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons lemon juice, divided
1-1/2 cups whole milk
 2-1/2 cups grated Grafton cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste

for crostini:

4 slices baguette, cut on bias
extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, halved
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup Grafton cheddar, grated

Directions:

1. Trim broccoli and separate florets and stems. If stems are woody, peel skin off. Set aside a cup of florets. Roughly chop remaining stems and florets.

2. Bring water or stock to a boil in a large pot, reduce heat to medium and add broccoli. Simmer until tender, 7-10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, heat butter and olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallot and garlic and saute for 30 seconds. Add reserved florets to skillet and saute 2-3 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon lemon juice to florets and set aside.

4. When simmering broccoli is tender, reduce heat to medium-low. Add milk and cheddar. Stir gently until cheese has melted and incorporated into soup. Add one teaspoon lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

5. For crostini, preheat broiler. Rub the cut sides of the garlic on each slide of baguette. Drizzle with olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste. Place under broiler to toast until they start to brown.

6. Divide cheddar over tops of each toast, return to broiler until cheese melts. Remove from oven.

7. To serve, divide sauteed broccoli florets between bowls. Top with a cheddar crostini and ladle soup around broccoli and toast.

Serves 4

-- Rebekah Denn

Cooking for Mr. Tofu... AND Ms. Skirt Steak

Remember Mr. Latte? Watch out now for another culinary coming-together, the story of how writer-chef Ivy Manning, famous for her barbecued ribs, met "Mr. Tofu," a committed vegetarian. Their story had a happy ending both personally and edibly, as Manning learned to adapt her meals to satisfy everyone from carnivore to vegan.

She includes recipes and advice on that topic in her new cookbook, The Adaptable Feast, with directions on dishes like "Cassoulet for A Crowd" and "Moussaka With Lamb or French Lentils." I wrote here about how this "compromise dining" is becoming more widespread, and also talked with Manning about how she figured out the personal and logistical sides of her new menu.

Though Manning had been a vegetarian in her teens, she told me she couldn't go back to it despite her love for Mr. T. She was teaching cooking classes when they met, which included meat dishes, and was testing recipes at home. Also, she's anemic, and liked the iron source meat provided. And, she just plain liked the taste. In the "first blush of love," she would cook vegetarian meals for the couple to share. Then she tried cooking two separate meals. Finally she hit on her "fork in the road" recipes, where some servings can be diverted as vegetarian or bolstered by meat.

Soups were tricky, she said, as meat stock adds such umami and flavor. She developed a mushroom stock with a clear, neutral flavor that did well in her Asian-style soups, and then a "no-chicken" stock. Another big speed bump, she said, was finding a substitute for fish sauce; its "funk" is hard to replicate. And, she discovered that seitan, which gets a bad rap, is easy to make and "really quite delicious." 

Two things I appreciated but hadn't expected to find in the book: One, Manning stresses the importance of eating meat that's been raised in a humane and sustainable way, including tips on how to find it. Then, I appreciated how she allowed for downgrades in her recipes, allowing, for instance, boxed lasagna noodles if you don't want to make your own, saying to use jarred pesto if you haven't got time for her recipe. "I'm a purist," Manning said, but she realizes not everyone has the time or inclination to cook the same way.

And, her current life with Mr. Tofu? Going just great, thank you. Of course, dear reader, she did marry him. And he's thanked in the book's acknowledgments, as someone who "stuck to his vegetarian guns all this time."

-- Rebekah Denn

U.S. Team Battles for Oatmeal Honors

It takes a lot of haggis--I mean, hubris!--to challenge the Scots in the field of oatmeal. This year, though, a team from Oregon-based Bob's Red Mill, home of specialty grains and flours, is competing in the 16th Annual Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship in a small Scottish town. (A spurtle, by the way, being a wooden porridge stirring stick.) Matt Cox and Dennis Gilliam of Bob's Red Mill are the first Americans in the competition's history, competing in the "specialty porridge" and "traditional porridge" categories. Grains are serious business here: The defending champion, according to the contest web site, credits his success to getting his porridge water from a bore hole dug 100 feet down into an underground river. 

I talked with Cox by phone today, where he was impressed by the way the competition has taken over the "charming" little village of Carrbridge, and excited about showing his oatmeal stuff on Sunday. Stumbling on news of the contest a few years back, Cox said, he and his colleagues instantly thought "what fun, what an adventure, what a way to show our passion." (Scoff if you will, oatmeal-haters, but those of us who eat it daily for breakfast can understand such commitment.)

Cox knows the American team has a lot to prove, but points out that his company has been in the whole grain business for some time, that he's made thousands of batches of porridge in his day, and "we've learned a thing or two along the way."

His specialty recipe, inspired by the oatmeal brulee served at a Portland restaurant, Gravy, was designed to showcase Oregon's natural bounty, Cox said. "I don't know who it couldn't appeal to."

Get your grain on by following the festival on Twitter. We'll be rooting for, as one commentator put it, "Team Oatmerica." 

(Updated Sunday night to add, IT'S A PORRIDGE UPSET! GO TEAM OATMERICA! The U.S. team scooped up the title, as the BBC reports here.)

Cox's recipe, by the way, is a bit complex for home cooks, but if you're comfortable bruleeing and flambeing, here you have it:

Oregon Orchard Oat Brulee

Ingredients:

for oatmeal:

1/2 cup steel cut oats, raw
1/2 cup steel cut oats, toasted
2 cups water
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup heavy cream

for compote:

1-1/2 cups diced unpeeled pear (2 or 3 pears should do it)
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3/4 teaspoon toasted crushed coriander seed
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (for cinnamon sugar)
3/4 teaspoon sugar (for cinnamon sugar)
pinch of salt
3/4 cup dried sweet cherries
1/2 cup Clear Creek Distillery Pear Eau de Vie
3/4 cup granulated sugar for flambe
finely chopped hazelnuts for garnish

Directions:

1. Soak oats in water overnight, covered.

2. Bring water and oats to a boil in a small saucepan. Add salt and cream. 

3. Cook 17-18 minutes, stirring. Remove from heat, cover and let set while preparing compote (below).

4. Sprinkle diced pear with lemon juice, set aside.

5. Mix ingredients for cinnamon sugar (the 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 3/4 teaspoon sugar) together, set aside.

6. Melt butter over low flame in saute pan. When butter is just beginning to color, add coriander and let it perfume the butter for a few seconds. Add the pears, and give the pan a shake. Sprinkle 3/4 teaspoon of the cinnamon sugar over the pears, sprinkle salt over pears, and toss again to coat evenly. 

7. Add cherries and toss to coat. Turn the flame up and pour in the eau de vie. Tilt the pan to catch the gas flame and let the alcohol burn off. (Note: This would be the "not for amateurs" department.)

8. Continue to let the compote simmer until the juices begin to caramelize. Add to the oats and mix in gently. Spoon into three small bowls, mounding the tops.

9. Garnish with granulated sugar. Flambe. (See, again, under "not for amateurs.") Add topping of finely chopped hazelnuts.

Serves 3. 

--Rebekah Denn

The Sad, Sudden Death of Gourmet Magazine

The rumors are true -- worse than true. Gourmet magazine is shutting down. The November issue, already at the printers, will be the last.

Gourmet seemed eternal, a glossy newsstand staple that--thanks to editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl--stayed as relevant for us today as it was for our grandmothers. I can still count on my mom cutting out new recipes each year to try out at our family Thanksgiving. I never thought I'd be writing this, its obituary:

"Gourmet magazine, the nation's oldest and arguably most respected food magazine, will die in November, 2009. Publisher Conde Nast said in a memo that the magazine will be shuttered in order to "navigate the company through the economic downturn and to position us to take advantage of coming opportunities." 

The news brought tears to the eyes of readers--and there were many; despite the recession, Gourmet's circulation was close to a million copies. The magazine was born in 1941, and, through the decades, "chronicled every food trend that our country has embraced, and during that time every important food authority contributed recipes to the magazine," Reichl wrote in The Gourmet Cookbook. 

It was intelligent and stylish, dedicated to great recipes but also to great writing about all aspects of food.

New York Times restaurant critic Sam Sifton wrote today that "this is a sad day for anyone who loved the magazine for its recipes, lush photographs and endlessly curious, immensely smart travel and food writing." Food writer Nancy Rommelman wrote "I will wager everyone over a certain age who cooks has a Gourmet story." (She started subscribing at age 12.) Top Chef contestant Robin Leventhal put it more simply, echoing the feelings of thousands when she tweeted "It is a SAD day in the land of food!"

Gourmet is survived by Bon Appétit, another Conde Nast title, which we like but which really isn't the same. It is also survived by Reichl, who we think of as its mom, by media food editor Zanne Stewart and its other amazingly knowledgeable employees, and by legions of wonderful writers and loyal fans. There is no specified charity for donations, but perhaps contributions could be made by cooking one favorite dish from its archives and raising a glass in thanks for the years of inspiration."

--Rebekah Denn

Prizewinning Apple Pie

There's an informal logic to judging a pie contest. "Skip lunch" is a good first rule. "Skip breakfast" is a good corollary. Beyond that, though, things get formal fast.

At the Puyallup Fair last week, where I helped judge the apple pie competition, we graded every entry on appearance, texture, and technical details. Was the crust about 1/8-inch thick, and were the edges uniformly shaped? Was the pastry tender and flaky, the fruit pieces plump?

Originality counted for just 10 percent of the final score, yet contestants threw their hearts into standing out. One pie featured dyed-green pastry. We sampled apple-rosewater and apple-peach and apple-rhubarb and...yes...apple-chocolate.

After our points were tallied for the nearly 30 pies, we needed to break a tie between first and second place. "Oh, I know which one I liked best," I said in relief. "Same here," said my fellow judge, Kathleen Merryman of The News Tribune of Tacoma.

You guessed it. We favored different pies. She was a committed fan of a double-crust apple pie that she said tasted "like sunshine." I admired its gluten-free crust, made from spelt flour. But I personally favored a nutty apple-maple pie, lovely with a cut-out pastry apple on its dark background, possessing a crunch and flavor that -- even after sampling more than a dozen pies -- left me surreptitiously sneaking extra contemplative bites.

Her favorite was closer to what I think of when I think "apple pie." She reminded me that the texture in my favorite was mushier. But viscerally, to me, mine just tasted better.

Our third judge, experienced Washington State University food safety expert Marlene Angell, looked to the formal rules. She agreed with Merryman on the texture and me on the flavor. Texture counted for 30 percent of the final score, she noted. Taste ranked supreme, at 40 percent.

The Apple-Maple Crunch by Peggy Morris took home the blue ribbon. If I ever feel hungry for pie again (perhaps by next week?) it'll be first on my list to bake. Here's the recipe: