Three Things

Chickpea pancakes for dinner, a baby food doula, a college dispatch

Good morning! I would like to dedicate this newsletter to the Pinterest devotees who have been dogged in their requests to make my newsletter posts pin-able. Mission accomplished! Just click that little share icon right underneath my byline and you’ll see all the usual options for spreading the word. Here are Three Things I’m excited to tell you about this week…

1. Socca Dinner

Last week I made socca, aka savory chickpea pancakes, and as soon as we finished, I started plotting when we could have them again. Socca is a popular street food in the French Riviera, often eaten in wedges chased down with a chilled glass of wine, but it became a thing in the US a decade ago, as soon as gluten-free eating started dominating the food headlines. Made from chickpea flour (aka besan or garbanzo bean flour), it’s grain-free, and I’ve long loved it as a sort of “healthy pancake,” good for stretching out odds and ends of the vegetable drawer. For some reason, though, this time was extra special. I think because I doubled down on the chickpea quotient, topping the pancakes with crispy spicy chickpeas, then added sautéed cooked mushrooms and kale, and drizzled the whole number with a dill-heavy yogurt sauce. The beauty of the dinner is that it’s endlessly flexible, and the socca part of it eminently memorize-able: 1 to 1 chickpea flour to water, plus a salt and little olive oil. You don’t even need a leavening agent. Here’s your how-to:

Socca, aka Savory Chickpea Pancakes
This makes 8 medium size pancakes or (my preference) four giant pancakes. The general portion rule I go by is 1/2 cup chickpea flour and a 1/2 can (or 3/4 cup) fried chickpeas per diner. You can find chickpea flour in the Bob’s Red Mill section of most supermarkets or online.

2 cups chickpea flour, aka garbanzo bean flour or besan
2 cups water
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil (plus more for frying)

Mix all ingredients together and let rest for 30 minutes. (This helps with the interior creaminess factor, but it’s ok if you skip the resting.) Set a cast iron or nonstick pan over medium-high and add a tablespoon of olive oil right before you are ready to fry your socca. Spoon enough batter to make round pancake that spreads across the whole pan, as shown. The batter will be thin, almost crepe-like. Flip, when underside is cooked and crispy around the edges, after about 1 minute, gently scraping underneath with a rubber spatula first to loosen. Remove to a foil-covered plate to keep warm and repeat with remaining batter.

Toppings

Crispy chickpeas Drain (if canned), then fry chickpeas in a generous amount of oil, letting them sit in one layer for 5 minutes, then toss again, cook another 5 minutes, remove to a paper towel and season with salt, pepper, cayenne, smoked paprika.

Your choice of vegetables I sautéed kale, mushrooms, and onions but other good options: spinach, Brussels, roasted eggplant, potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes. (As I type this, I feel like you could also roast the chickpeas alongside the vegetables to simplify; let me know if you do it this way.)

Drizzle Sauce Whisk together 1/2 cup plain yogurt (cashew cream to make vegan) 2 tablespoons olive oil, 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill (I like it very dilly), 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives, 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish, squeeze of honey or agave to taste, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Or just top socca pancakes with plain yogurt and tamarind sauce

2. Baby Food I Would Like to Eat Myself

In my next life, I’m coming back as Olivia Mack McCool’s kid. Olivia, the food stylist on my last two books, is also a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef, and — good news to parents everywhere — now a mom herself, chronicling the food she’s cooking for her ten-month-old son, Dean. The food, in fact is not any different than she’s making herself and her husband, which is what makes it so appealing. Like that photo: On the way to assembling enchiladas for the grown-ups, she extracted the refried beans, ground beef, and topped with yogurt, cheese, and cilantro for the baby. I mean…I would eat that right now, wouldn’t you? Last week, I watched her instagram story in envy as she spoon-fed Dean roasted purple potatoes with miso, then later beets with goat cheese. In summation: If you are lucky enough to be feeding a baby right now, follow her Mini-Mouths account on instagram. There’s also Mini-Mouths component folded into her newsletter, worth following whether you’re feeding a baby or not.

Save some for me! Lightly toasted bread, hummus, za’atar, avocado, berries

3. The College Report

Way on the other end of the parenting spectrum: A lot of you have asked about Phoebe, my daughter who is a freshman in college. As you could probably guess, it hasn’t been the most typical first-year experience, but she is lucky enough to be on campus (taking all her classes online) and has figured out rituals to ground herself amidst all the uncertainty, including a regular family dinner with two good friends. (I know!) On the topic of college and uncertainty, here on the home front, I wanted to point parents towards a valuable resource: The Price You Pay For College, by New York Times columnist Ron Lieber. He wrote the book to answer all those questions that keep us up at night, breaking down the true cost of an education, and helping parents and students navigate a system in a way that doesn’t break us financially or, importantly, emotionally. (See: Part 2, “The Unhelpful Feeling You may Feel.”) There’s real storytelling here along with nuts-and-bolts advice for the best ways to determine value (i.e. what exactly your kid is getting in exchange for that huge check you’re about to write) as well as evergreen, expert counsel on student loans and savings plans. Pick up a copy if you want to feel a little better about things.

See you in a few days!

Housekeeping

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