Cooked, Then Cold
Welcome to [Untitled Food Magazine], an independently owned digital food magazine. Our Thursday editions are where we feature a great new recipe. Tuesday is for features.
IN THIS ISSUE: Amiel seeks to infuse the plums that are in the icebox; Cale seeks haute jelly beans for his tum-tum.
Appetizers
This Is Just To Say
A few weeks back, my three-year-old and I processed close to twenty pounds of fresh apricots to make an enormous batch of saffron-tinged jam, and I stashed all the pits in the freezer with a vague notion of trying my hand at homemade amaretto. To that end, I went to the liquor store in search of neutral grain spirits. I almost grabbed an ever-economical jug of Everclear, but a nearby bottle of Polmos brand SPIRYTUS REKTYFIKOWANY caught my eye.
The 151-proof Polish “rectified spirit” was a bit more expensive but significantly vibier, and upon further inspection came with a glossy paper tag around its neck that featured, in both Polish and English, a recipe for “plum tincture.” Color me intrigued!
I had never encountered an infusion method like this before: the plums spend a month in the high-proof spirit, then the liquor is drained off and the fruit is sugared and left to ferment(?) further. Then the infused booze and eventual plum jus are recombined?! Fascinating! I paid for two bottles, decided to table my amaretto ambitions until after stone fruit season, and high-tailed it back to the Eger Bros. farmstand for the requisite six kilos of ripe plums. The plump purple fruits are chilling in the icebox as I type, and I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask our intrepid readers if anyone has any experience with recipes like this before I dive in. Do hurry, though—if I don’t start soon, I fear my family will eat them for breakfast. —Amiel
Gelée Belle
What is a jelly bean if not slightly trashy? That question lingered as I read an interesting story about Jelly Belly’s pivot to premium. The brand, owned by the $2 billion candy juggernaut Ferrera, realized it had fallen into the trap facing many consumer brands: a race to the bottom. The way people have come to know the product—mixed packs promising “surprise flavors” (that are probably gross)—lacked refinement.
Jelly Belly now wants to become Jélique Bélique, replacing hodgepodge assortment packs with something more curated for real connoisseurs. The details of what high-end jelly bean means were scarce beyond this sentence: “packages with six flavors that are tied to a certain part of the year, place or season, like fall or a tropical paradise.” Is the world ready for a premiumized tropical paradise-themed waxy, viscid ovule? The jury’s out. But I will miss the mystery flavor beans, even if I do admit I never really liked any of them to begin with. —Cale
Cooked, Then Cold
By Amiel Stanek
What do we mean when we say it is too hot to cook?
So much of summer food writing is about not cooking. When temperatures rise, it is generally accepted that we should avoid the application of heat altogether—to seek sustenance sans stove. Our Very Best No-Cook Recipes. What To Make When It’s Too Hot To Cook. A parade of Substantial Salads and picnic dinners and various assemblages of cans and condiments.
I understand the impulse to eat cold food when it is hot outside (and perhaps hot inside, depending on the A.C.). There is a logic to it. The salad is cool. We assimilate the salad. We become salad. We are cool.