Fare Exchange: Baking snickerdoodles and chilling gazpacho

TO REACH USFare Exchange is a longtime meeting place for people who love to cook and love to eat. We welcome both your recipes and your requests. Be sure to include precise instructions for every recipe you send.• Mailing address: Jane Henegar, 913 Mount Olive Road, Lookout Mountain, GA 30750• E-mail: chattfare@gmail.com

photo Jane Henegar

Welcome to Fare Exchange and to the questions of the day. For starters, we are looking for rice pilaf, Greek chicken, shrimp and grits as served by TerraMae Appalachian Bistro, and where to find the best regional food in Chattanooga.

Wanda Holt of Manchester, Tenn., wonders "if you happen to have the recipe for rice pilaf. They have a good recipe at the Oak Restaurant in Manchester and I always order it with Greek chicken, which is delicious. Of all the cookbooks I have, I have found just one for rice pilaf."

So, do you happen to have those two recipes, your own or the Oak's?

Maud Pinglot is making a week-long visit to this area, and hopes you can advise her as to where to find the best local color, local cuisine. "On our last visit we loved TerraMae Appalachian Bistro, tucked away on a side street in the downtown area, and would especially like their recipe for rosemary biscuits that have just the right delicate touch of rosemary ... and also their shrimp and grits. It is the best I have ever tasted, made with 'Andouille sausage, heirloom tomatoes and champagne cream sauce.'"


Today is snickerdoodle day, a celebration of the simple cookie. Barbara Mann has been making this one "since I received a 2005 issue of Fine Cooking."

Snickerdoodles No. 1

2 2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1 3/4 cups sugar, divided

2 large eggs

2 tablespoons cinnamon

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, soda, salt and cream of tartar to blend. In a mixer, beat butter and 1 1/2 cup sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Scrape bowl with spatula.

Beat in eggs until thoroughly combined, about 2 minutes. Scrape bowl again. On low speed, slowly blend in flour until incorporated.

In a small bowl, mix cinnamon and remaining ¼ cup sugar. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons into sugar mixture and roll to coat.

Set 3 inches apart on parchment paper on cookie sheet or on greased cookie sheet.

Bake until golden and slightly soft in center, 15 to 18 minutes.

Cool one minute before transferring to rack to cool.

Put cookies in airtight container for 3 days or freeze for 1 month or longer, "much longer and they do fine."

Sandra Oliver's snickerdoodles are slightly different.

Snickerdoodles No. 2

1 cup Crisco

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 3/4 cups plain flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Topping:

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs and beat well.

Mix flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt in a separate bowl and stir to mix. Add to creamed mixture.

Form into balls with small ice cream scoop. Roll in sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes.


Ginny Gaines sent a luscious-sounding recipe for gazpacho adorned with shrimp.

Bloody Mary Gazpacho with Shrimp

1 quart tomato juice

1 1/2 cups chopped grape tomatoes

3 celery stalks finely diced (about 1 cup)

1 English cucumber, seeds removed, finely diced

1 medium red bell pepper, diced

1 medium red onion, diced (about 1 cup)

1 jalapeno pepper, stemmed, seeded, minced

1 large garlic clove, minced

1/3 cup fresh lemon or lime juice

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 to 2 teaspoons prepared horseradish

1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

1 pound large shrimp, poached

To prepare gazpacho, combine all ingredients except shrimp in a large bowl. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 6 hours. To serve, ladle gazpacho into bowls or large glasses. Top with shrimp or drape the shrimp over the glass rims.


Lately we've taken to putting slices of peach, lemon and lime in water glasses for dinner. Fruit is so delicious and plentiful these days; why not some blueberries or a cantaloupe sliver, for that matter? The tang of lemon has had plenty of press in Fare Exchange the last few weeks and here's one more from Barbara Swygart of Sewanee, who recommended a particular jar of lemon curd.

"The very best lemon curd is imported from England by British Aisles Limited, 6 Progress Ave., Nashua, NH 03062. It can be purchased from Old Durham Road.com. It is sold in 11-ounce jars, costs $10.95 per jar and comes via UPS in 4-5 days. The label states that it is made from cane sugar, pasteurized fresh free-range eggs, lemon juice (18%), butter, gelling agent, citrus pectin, zest of lemon and oil of lemon. We can testify that it is extremely good."

If you copied last week's recipes for lemon curd, Jan O'Neal, who also sent her recipe, recommended that it be served with pound cake, angel food cake or gingerbread.


Light and lemony and creamy are wonderful attributes of food, but there is still the draw of simple fare and the robust tastes of soul food. So wrote R.K., who is fond of fried chicken gizzards and has found them at their well-seasoned best in a certain gas station for something like $2.95 for a dozen.

He received a dozen of these very chewy delicacies and responded to the giver with this text: "Third and Holtzclaw, I presume? Muy delicioso." That was indeed the gizzards' address.

It doesn't have to be fancy or costly or even easy to chew to be done well from this perspective. Any fans of gizzards and liver out there? If so, what do you do with them?

Kitchen must-haves

This time you will read not an answer but a question. In one of today's recipes, a small scoop is recommended for cookie making. Just how important, please tell us, are varied easy-release cookie scoops in the well-equipped kitchen? If they are needed, what sizes are most necessary? We await your answer.

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