All things being equal, with God in heaven and everything right with the world, a local ice cream parlor should sell homemade ice cream created by a kind and happy person who loves ice cream, kids, people, and dogs.
The South Shore seems to have at least a really great one of everything, food-wise, as well as many firsts, bests, and authentic ones-of-a-kind. I, who fantasize about covering the food scene in Boston, L.A. or NYC, keep finding more and more people here doing beautiful things with food.
Take Pastry Chef Kerri Lynch-Delaney [left] and her great cupcake bakery, Babycakes, on Beale Street in Quincy.
Truth be told, I’ve barely given a thought to cupcakes since I was little and Hostess two-packs were a treasure in my hot little hands. I did know they’d become a popular trend, but I didn’t know why. Then, a visit to Babycakes changed all that.
“Welcome to my little drama,” said Lynch-Delaney last week as she chatted with customers (many by name) and I delighted over the (real) whipped cream center in her signature cupcake, the Babycake, a dark chocolate, ganache-covered version of my childhood love, the Hostess cupcake.
As I tasted my way through several other cupcakes, a steady parade of people came into the bakery either to buy their favorites or to seek advice on a special order for an upcoming event.
Although Lynch-Delaney’s husband and parents thought she was crazy to open a dedicated cupcake shop, the pastry chef has done well right from the start, four years ago.
Why?
Because her cupcakes are delicious gourmet cakes made daily, from scratch, with whole, local ingredients. We’re talking at least a couple dozen different flavors, frosted with ganache, butter cream, or whipped cream icing — many of which are filled with creamy or gooey centers or covered with a little something extra.
Then, too, there’s the inherent fun factor of really good cupcakes. From listening to her customers, it’s clear that people love choosing their own treat from among a bunch of delicious options and having a piece of great cake for so little money.
The most expensive cupcake Lynch-Delaney sells is her delicious French toast ($2.75). The rest of her menu of cupcakes and daily special flavors are either $1.50 or $2.25. Amazingly inexpensive.
Before opening Babycakes, Lynch-Delaney spent 10 years at her craft, starting with a pastry course at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts then working at several top Boston restaurants.
It takes a little digging to uncover the link between Lynch-Delaney and Boston culinary royalty: Chef Barbara Lynch (one of the country’s most acclaimed chefs — think No. 9 Park and the new, stratospheric Menton, among others) is her aunt.
Not wanting to ride on her family connections, Lynch-Delaney worked at No. 9 Park for a year following culinary school, then left to spend two years as pastry chef at the Quincy Marriott. Following that, she returned to No. 9 Park for a longer stint — as assistant pastry chef under Pastry Chef Kerry Manning.
“Working under Kerry was the best thing that ever happened to me,” said Lynch-Delaney.
The pastry chef tells each customer that the cupcakes need to be refrigerated but taste best when eaten at room temperature. And she’s so right: the flavor of sweets is much fuller when they’re warm. I tried 10 of her cupcakes, and loved them all.
I loved the mix of hot pepper and dark chocolate in the Mexican hot chocolate – and its cinnamon whipped cream frosting. The lemon coconut was a standout, too, inspired by “the lemon semifreddo with coconut on top I learned working for Barbara,” said Lynch-Delaney, referring to her aunt. I can also vouch for the Boston creme (with its vanilla pastry cream center), the carrot, the turtle [shown above], and the chocolate caramel.
Lynch-Delaney not only shares a talent for food with her aunt, but some of the irreverence Chef Lynch is known for. She laughs and teases with customers, offers coffee, credit (“don’t worry about it, pay me later”), and provides a little something perfectly sweet, just for one.
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I’ve always liked hearing about people who loved something when they were kids and kept loving it year in and year out and ended up turning it into something big and beautiful as adults.
That’s what Beth Veneto, aka Ginger Betty, did with a love of gingerbread she discovered when she was 10.
In college, studying hotel management, she convinced her boss at a doughnut shop in Hicksville, N.Y., to let her make gingerbread. She did the same thing at her job at a nearby country club where she fashioned Hanukah houses. After getting her degree and a job at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, she quit the job and moved home to Quincy with no idea what to do. But through it all, she never stopped making gingerbread: When she worked for a South Shore caterer then an insurance company, she sold gingerbread houses to her customers.
Today, Veneto runs what must be the most extensive gingerbread making shop in the Boston area. If you’re looking for a place to buy gingerbread houses, gingerbread house kits to decorate at home, ginger bread cookies or cookie kits, and all sorts of other sugary, spicy, and nice gingerbread constructions, then Ginger Betty is your girl.
215 Samoset Ave., Quincy www.gingerbettys.com
If you think that leggings are the only thing making a comeback from the ‘80s, think again.
Frozen yogurt is back with a vengeance, and Pinkberry – the popular franchise that exploded in L.A. five years ago — opened its first store in Massachusetts at the Derby Street shops in Hingham in August.
The buzz on this place preceded its arrival by months, so that when it finally opened its doors, they were held perpetually ajar by a long line of people that stretched up the sidewalk.
It took weeks before i could spot the place without a crowd and stop in to try a cup.
My first taste of the extremely tangy soft serve inspired a sinister, or at the very least, cynical, thought: Had the makers added an artificial flavor to make Pinkberry taste more like yogurt than, well, yogurt — to get people to believe it was really, really good for them?
This I will never know, and I admit, it is a particularly dark thought, which is uncharacteristic of me. I’m usually inanely enthusiastic about anything that’s tasty, remotely decent for you, and new to Boston’s South Shore. And, as Pinkberry’s groupies (I kid you not, there’s a “groupie” group on the franchise’s website) will tell you, we are lucky to have a Pinkberry here.
And I like Pinkberry: it’s refreshing. And I especially like that its toppings include fresh cut, fresh fruits daily, which is unique to the stylish franchise.
The company, which is currently celebrating the opening of its 100th store, was founded by a foodie and a designer with an interest in frozen desserts. Integral to the brand is that the stores have an upscale look to give customers “20 minutes of fun,” which is really about how long it takes to get through the line sometimes, what with the people in front of you choosing all the toppings they want. And, I must say, I love the pretty origami-like Le Klint lighting, cute plastic chairs by designer Philippe Starck, and the pebbles on the floors of the stores.
Also central to Pinkberry’s finely crafted public relations image and designer brand culture (honed by the likes of some very heavy hitting board members, including Howard Schultz, chairman of Starbucks Coffee Company) is the idea that it’s good for you.
And, among desserts, it is good.
For one, it bears the National Yogurt Association’s Live & Active Cultures seal, which means it has at least 10 million active cultures per gram (whatever that means). Having always wondered whether yogurt cultures could even survive in frozen yogurt, I did a little research and discovered that they can. So, that’s encouraging.
(TCBY, the 25-year-old stalwart of the American fro-yo front, has also earned NYA’s Live & Active Cultures seal.)
And, although it takes a calculator to figure out the calories in Pinkberry (you have to determine the equivalencies among the various measuring standards the company literature offers: grams, half cups, and ounces), most Pinkberry flavors are low in calories, weighing in at about 29-30 per ounce. Which is also positive. (Fyi, many of TCBY’s flavors have the same calorie count.)
So, as far as I can see, there are three things that are good for you about Pinkberry: the low calorie count, the signature fresh fruit, and the yogurt cultures.
I do find it insulting that every time I go to the store, or read about the brand online, I’m told to be happy that most of Pinkberry’s flavors (except chocolate, which, suspiciously, has no tangy yogurt flavor whatsoever) are fat-free.
Why does this bother me?
Because the whole fat-free-sweet-foods-are-better-for-you craze was a misleading and widespread marketing ploy that many people still believe. Most fat-free, sweet foods – take muffins – make up for their lack of flavor from fat by being packed with sugar. And the sugar in such foods turns right into fat in the body. So, there’s no advantage to non-fat sugary foods health-wise. But the marketing myth prompts people to eat them in the belief that they’re doing something good for themselves.
And, sugar is the second ingredient in Pinkberry’s ingredient list (which isn’t, evidently, fully revealed because it’s top secret). That’s fine – Pinkberry’s a dessert – but don’t tell me to love it because it’s fat-free.
So, why do I enjoy a Pinkberry?
Because I like its taste and that I can get a mini [shown here], three-ounce cup of it, with some fresh fruit on top, and know that it’s only about 100 calories (plus the calories from the fruit). That’s at least half as many calories as an average ice cream.
Which is what must have gotten the celebrity Victoria Beckham to consider eating it (if magazine stories can be believed.) You can read more about all the famous people who eat Pinkberry on the company’s website and even, as I mentioned, become an actual Pinkberry groupie!
All of this design and fresh fruit, of course, comes at a pretty hefty price. Which is another thing you might need a calculator to tabulate: the original flavor (which is kind of like a sour vanilla), is less expensive than the flavors (like mango or coconut) and each of the four sizes that Pinkberry comes in each have four prices: one for an original without a topping; one for an original with a topping; one for a flavor without a topping; and one for a flavor with a topping.
These prices range, from the three-ounce mini size to the 13-ounce large size, from $2.25 to $8.20!
That’s alotta moola for culture and fruit.
But that doesn’t really bother me. Desserts cost a lot, and I like a little cup of Pinkberry, as I said, with some pineapple, kiwi, blueberries, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
What is it, then, that irritates me about Pinkberry, which, by the way, is due to open its second store in Massachusetts on Boston’s Newbury Street at the end of this month?
I guess it’s that I just don’t like so much culture with my culture.
No groupie membership for me: make mine plain.
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So a cold wind blew in last week, and like a dumb blonde turns toward the nearest guy, it made me want to make apple pie.
Every fall, I pull out my “Joy of Cooking” and take my crust recipe for a spin like a kid with a new two-wheeler. It’s always a ride because I never know if the crust is going to come together well or not. As simple as crust is – flour, butter (or another fat), salt, and water, it’s finicky.
One time, I must not have measured correctly and had to keep adding water and worked the pastry too long. That crust was a revelation: I never knew you could make something so leathery out of flour, butter, and water!
Last week’s pie hit the spot, even though some of the crust – the thickest part along the outer edge and the bottom crust – were a little tough. Just a little. But the flavor was delicious and we devoured it. I used five giant Macintosh apples for the filling with minimum amounts of sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and it was truly delicious.
But one little pie wasn’t enough to satisfy my weather-induced desire for the All-American dessert, so I made another.
I’d read about several good crust recipes over the previous couple weeks and considered trying one of them, but I didn’t want to abandon my trusty crust. I just wanted to figure out how to make it more tender. And I found the answer in an article in Cooks Illustrated.
For those who may not know the magazine, its articles are written by a staff of writer-cooks who perfect recipes in a large test kitchen in Brookline. (The company also has a TV show.) They do a crazy amount of cooking – like making 150 (seriously) versions of a dish — to isolate all aspects of a recipe and find solutions to every possible less-than-perfect outcome. And they solved their major crust problems with vodka.
Vodka!
This is the deal: water and flour create gluten, a protein that forms stretchy fibers. A pie crust needs gluten, but too much makes it tough. So to keep crusts tender, many recipes use as little water as possible, even though too little liquid makes doughs hard to roll out without tearing or sticking.
Enter vodka, which is 40 percent alcohol, a liquid that doesn’t cause gluten to form. It does, however, add the wetness that makes dough pliable and easy to work. And the vodka, the article promised, was undetectable in the pie because it vaporizes in the oven. (Kind of like writing a letter with invisible ink.)
So I made another pie with my regular recipe, but I increased the liquid from six tablespoons to eight, using half water and half vodka.
Again the pie was delicious and the top crust, including the edge, was nicely tender. The bottom crust, however, was still slightly tough – but for a different reason: I hadn’t made the bottom crust large enough. Because it was too small, I couldn’t crimp it over the top crust well and the filling bubbled over it and down the inside edge of the pan wetting the outside bottom crust while it was cooking.
So, I got the vodka out again…
The third pie was pretty darn tender with that buttery flavor I love. And although it wouldn’t win a beauty contest, it was delicious enough that friends and family felt like they were having a real treat when they ate it.
As they say, cooking is an art and baking a science. But if you have no interest in culinary science, or you’re in a hurry, Morning Glories Bakery in Scituate makes great pies every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Owner Elcio Taborda uses only butter in his crust – very unusual for a bakery. Morning Glories also sells its homemade pies frozen, or will bake you one if you call ahead, any day of the week — no matter which way the wind blows.
Morning Glories Bakery, 52 Country Way, Scituate, 781 545-3400.
It’s cranberry season now, and apple season, and green tomato time, too. And pears are there for the picking and even raspberries — but not for much longer.
One after another they budded, blossomed, grew, and ripened, appearing in our gardens, farmer’s markets, and stands.
And then each of their particular times passed, the plants stopped producing, another summer ended, and there was no more of this or that for the taking.
Unless you preserved some!!
Which is what Christine Hadayia Sommers and her sister Stacy Hadayia do in Christine’s Hingham home. Like their great-grandmother, their grandmother, and their mother, the sisters preserve fruits by making them into gorgeous jellies and jams, marmalades, relishes, and syrups under their Sommers’ Bounty label.
Jam-making isn’t mere canning, but relies on that wonderful food preservation technique, which was discovered in the early 1800s and perfected over subsequent decades.
Preserving food is as old as people’s hunger, and so are the methods we’ve used to stop food from spoiling. But none of them — drying, salting, sugaring, fermenting, pickling, icing, or submerging in fat to seal the air out (duck confit) – is as versatile as canning.
By the 1880s, home canning was big in America and fruits were the most popular foods to preserve. The basic process involves cooking the fruit; pouring it into hot sterilized jars; eliminating any air bubbles in the mix; affixing a top that allows an airtight seal to occur; and boiling the filled jars for 10 minutes.
Canning’s magic is based on an alchemy of heat and air pressure that creates a vacuum in a jar that seals it. Home cooks can preserve almost anything, but fruits and some vegetables are easiest because they can be processed (the last step) in simple boiling water – 212 degrees. Jars of meat stew, for instance, need to be processed at a higher temperature – above 240 degrees — which requires a pressure cooker. (It takes a higher heat to kill the microorganisms in meat required to ensure that the food is safely preserved.)
The Sommers sisters have been making jams and jellies all their lives, but started selling their preserves at the Hingham Farmers Market last year.
Some of their recipes and certainly their know-how are a natural inheritance: their great grandmother, born in Hyde Park in 1888, was the oldest of 13 and canned as a part of her household chores. The sisters’ mother’s family lived with their great grandmother in Scituate — before she married and moved to Hingham — and so the knowledge was passed along uninterrupted.
It is the most natural next step that the sisters would be the generation to expand the craft by collecting and creating the extensive variety of flavors that comprise their line.
I visited them at work one recent night when they were finishing up a dozen jars of apple butter and starting some beach plum jelly. Christine and her father had picked about 100 pounds of the rare fruit in Carver, where a farmer had planted some at the edge of a marsh.
When I began tasting several of their offerings, I suddenly realized that I’d never considered jellies and jams as much of anything. But each small taste of these bright concoctions burst with a piercing flavor that instantly commanded interest and respect. I loved them all – think they are gorgeous – even physically: the translucent crystalline jewel tones of some remind me of rubies and emeralds.
Sommers’ Bounty makes more than 30 flavors that sell at the low price of $5 each. There’s Granny Sutton’s Red Pepper Jam (the recipe came from the grandmother of one of Christine’s high school friends), and piccalilli, a green tomato relish passed down from the sister’s great grandmother. Their thick apple butter, which has no sugar, is another family standard that their “mother always made.”
Face to face with their customers at the farmers market, the women see who likes what. Kids especially like banana jam and carrot cake jam – which tastes just like carrot cake.
“It’s interesting to see what customers like,” said Christine. “Beach plum is definitely an old-fashioned regional favorite. Anyone who grew up around here would go pick the plums. Some of the older people are glad someone is still making it.”
The preserves have been steadily gaining popularity – on one of their recent days at the market they sold more than 150 jars. They also have a website where orders can be placed.
The women stock their inventory in a spare room in Christine’s home. Dated jars are stacked in box bottoms on neat shelves, flavor by flavor. Taken together, they’re an archive – a living library — of this year’s harvests.
For more info, visit www.sommersbounty.etsy.com
I can’t think of anything more quintessentially sweet than a cookie.
Here’s her recipe:
- Cookie dough:
- 6 cups flour
- 1 ½ cup sugar
- 6 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ¼ cup melted butter
- 4 eggs
- ½ cup milk
- Glaze:
- powered sugar
- water
- anise, vanilla, lemon, or almond extract