Blackberry and Lime Italian Meringue Pie from Bon Appetit

Yoart Grec avec Muirs

         Last winter, Andrew and I fell in love with a Blackberry Yogurt we bought in St. Barth.  The yogurt or, more correctly Yaourt Grec avecs Muirs, even made it onto our “15 Things You Must Eat in St. Barth” post and our friends Mary and John made a beeline for it when they went down to the island right after we did.  Now, I had pegged the calorie count at 80, which had it been correct, would have been the best tasting 80 calories I ever consumed.  Most unfortunately, Mary read the label correctly and the calorie count zoomed up to 280.

Still not bad but 200 calories I hadn’t counted on.  And I hadn’t counted on how much we loved the blackberries in the rich, creamy thick yogurt.  It’s blackberry season so when Andrew dug through his recipe files, he was delighted to discover a Bon Appetit from last August with a glorious Cover Girl.  More properly, Blackberries sitting atop a lemon curd filling and topped with Italian Meringue.  Calories be damned, he decided to make this glorious confection.  Even if it took all day.

Grandma’s Melt-in-your-mouth Moroccan meatballs and celery (Krafs ouel Kouari) from Lisa Elmaleh Craig’s “Grandma Elmaleh’s Moroccan Cookbook”, Uncle Earl’s and Cousin Kelly’s Moroccan “Quick Bread” and “Charissa”.

                  If you love food stories, this is a wonderful one.  It starts with Lisa Elmaleh Craig’s new book “Grandma Elmaleh’s Moroccan Cookbook” (Hesperus Press Ltd., London 2012).   The book takes us on one family’s journey through the ages until they came at last to the United States in 1939.  Like so many other Jewish families, the Elmaleh clan sought refuge here just before the outbreak of World War II.  Unlike many refugees, the Elmalehs were prosperous merchants who were soon living in a large house in Cedarhurst, Long Island.  There, Sarah Levy Elmaleh became renowned for her cuisine to the point where Craig Claiborne, the esteemed editor of the New York Times food section, hailed her with a headline any cook would envy: “Moroccan cooking that a sultan would envy”.