In this series of three time lapse videos originally sent to us as part of the April Flash Contest, blogger BlueJay brings a unique style to the genre of food blogging. In each video, we watch as the food—and in one case the dish—in front of us disappears in distinct frames. The minimal white background lends to a futuristic, postmodern vision surrounding the concepts of consumption and documentation. These videos, like the food they center, are a treat—enjoy! Baked https://stonesoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Baked_JayaKhurana.mp4 Zest https://stonesoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Zest_JayaKhurana.mp4 Heliotrope https://stonesoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Heliotrope_JayaKhurana.mp4
Food
Zoe’s Summer Crumble
The sun streams down through the rows of berry bushes, revealing glistening berries and intermingling with giggles as bigger and bigger patches of blackberries are found. Hands dart in, avoiding the prickly branches and beetles munching on the leaves. “How many containers have you filled? I have already gotten two!” my sister Zoe calls from further down the row, always wanting a competition. Wet grass clings to our feet as we happily search for the hidden berries inside the tangled mess of vines, popping a few in our mouths when the other isn’t looking. After cartons, and bellies (shh!), are full, we run inside to begin our project. A few raspberries at the farm! A crumble is a perfect treat to end a hot summer day. Juicy, crisp, and too sweet, it can be garnished with a scoop of cold, creamy vanilla ice cream or eaten plain. Though I love a good crumble in the winter, curled up on a couch in front of the fire with a book (click here to read my blog post about a delicious winter treat!), no one can beat a delicious summer crumble. A crumble tastes of humid summer days, a cool crisp breeze, a running stream. With one bite it pulls me away to previous happy summers, while making me feel content and lucky where I am. What reminds you of summer? Please, please, please leave a comment below! My family’s favorite crumble recipes are from Smitten Kitchen and Martha Stewart, but in my opinion, nothing is better than my sister’s summer crumble (inspired by these two recipes) that she whips together to create the perfect summer night. The beauty of a crumble is that it is very forgiving. It can contain any kind of fruit that you can dream of (my favorites are blackberries, blueberries, and peaches), with just a thickener (flour or cornstarch), a little bit of sugar (not too much!), and a topping of flour, sugar, salt, and butter. A crumble is like tie dying, any way it is created it will look beautiful. If you make this recipe, take a picture and send it to me! Ohh, those summer days. Although Zoe can make any recipe overly delicious, with this recipe the rest of us can at least can be assured that we can make a pretty good summer crumble. Here is Zoe’s recipe and happy baking: Zoe’s Summer Crumble (Inspired by Martha Stewart’s Peach Crumble) Yield: 12 small servings Time: 30 minutes Ingredients: Filling 7 cups of any fruit (I just made mine with blueberries and sour cherries–you can use frozen or fresh fruit) 6 teaspoons cornstarch or 4 tablespoons flour A scant 1/2 a cup sugar (or as little as 1/4 a cup, depending on how sweet your fruit is) A splash of lemon juice (it is okay if you don’t have this–I often leave it out) Heaping 1/2 teaspoon of salt Topping 5 tablespoons unsalted butter Scant 1/4 a cup brown sugar or 1/4 cup granulated sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon molasses 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt Directions Preheat the oven to 375 degrees For the filling: In a bowl, gently (so that you don’t mash the fruit) mix all the ingredients for the filling, flour/cornstarch, sugar, fruit, lemon juice, and salt. Pour fruit mixture into a 12″ by 8″ baking dish. For the topping: Cream the butter and brown sugar in an electric mixer for about two minutes at medium to high speed. Add salt and flour in a few batches. Mix until the dough starts to form a ball. Crumble the topping into little pieces over the fruit mixture. Bake for 40-50 minutes—if it looks like it is browning too quickly on top, cover with aluminum foil. It’s done when the fruit is bubbling and the topping has some color. A heaping 1/2 teaspoon of salt! Pouring the flour and salt into the fruit. Berries galore!!! Preheated to 375 degrees. Ready to bake… Putting it into the oven! Finished crumble! SaveSave
Writing Activity: write a recipe and send it to Stone Soup
Quail Kabob ingredients. The recipe is by a nine-year-old. Instructions for the Quail Kabob. We all eat, and many of us like to cook. If you are 13 or under and like to cook, we’d like you to submit recipes to Stone Soup. We will publish the best of them in Stone Soup Online and, over time, when we have a enough really really good ones, we will publish a cookbook. The manuscript for Quail Kebobs at the top of this page was written by my daughter when she was nine. Here is the format we would like your recipe submission to be in: Recipe title. The Headnote. Maximum 250 words. Many cookbooks use a recipe format that includes what they call a “headnote.” The headnote is a little story. You can think of it as a short story. What you say there is really up to you, the recipe author. You can talk about how the dish is your favorite. You can tell about the first time you tasted it. Or smelled it. Or made it. Or, you can give some advice about the recipe. For example, if there is a tricky part, you can talk about it here. Whatever you say, you should think of the headnote as a little jewel. The list of ingredients. This is where you say what goes into a recipe, and usually, how much of it that is needed. But, there is leeway here. For example, if you are writing a recipe for fried chicken, you can say, butter or oil for frying. If making crepes you could say, add milk to make a thin batter. On the other hand, you can also give exact measurements for everything. Instructions. The instructions are step-by-step procedures that need to be followed to make the recipe work. One way to think about it as you write them is to imagine that you are talking to a friend. You are standing next to a friend in a kitchen, explaining to the friend what to do. If, in the list of ingredients, your recipe called for two eggs, then in the instructions you might say, “Break two eggs into a bowl and mix.” Depending on what you are making, you might say, “Break two eggs into a bow and mix until light and fluffy.” In other words, tell people what they need to do. Flour and milk mixed together can be lumpy. If the batter needs to be smooth, say, “Mix until there are no more lumps.” Before writing your recipe, look in cookbooks at your home or at the library to get an idea of how cookbook authors do it. Of course, also, look online. Great recipes are a literary form all their own. Because you are writing about things that are hard to describe — for example, taste and smell — it can be a real challenge for you, the writer, to come up with original prose. “This waffle tastes wonderful!” “This steak tastes wonderful!” “This bean-and-cheese taco tastes wonderful!” OK. Wonderful! But, how does that bean-and-cheese taco taste? What makes it so wonderful that I should bother making your recipe? Why your waffle, and not someone else’s? We will test recipes. So, your recipe needs to work. We are looking for originality, evocative writing, and for instructions with absolute clarity. Happy cooking, and good luck!
