Parsley Creswell Returns (with a Giveaway)

                                                                                                               Parsley Creswell's "Virtuous Salad," Photo by Linda Olle

On the Upper East Side, in a breezy apartment, Parsley Creswell lives a cheese-inspired life. She has a parrot named Gougère, and she dates men with names like Mario Provolone (a renowned tenor). Of course, I’m making this up, or, well, Linda Olle is.

Linda Olle, a regular reader of this blog, pens faux gastro-memoirs – a genre she may have invented. The Upper East Side Cookbook: Main Course is the second book in a trilogy that she’s writing, a series that combines rich prose and even richer recipes: Haggis Meat Loaf, chocolate nib smoothies, Chartreuse à la Thomas Jefferson, and something called Virtuous Salad.

In the spirit of Ruth Reichl, Parsley Creswell eats her way around New York, but not as a writerly gastronome – no, Parsley is an eccentric ex-fashionista who wears corsets and collects exotic recipes. She’s Gretta Garbo with a splash of Ru Paul.

Here’s an excerpt:

With an expensive pair of birding binoculars around her neck, a gift from a swain, Parsely foraged in Central Park for mushrooms sprouting high up on a tree trunk….She placed her treasure in tissue paper and a recycled orange-and-white Zabars bag, then dined alone...

If there were a Grey Gardens cookbook, this would be it. Linda Olle has once again revived her enchanting heroine, Parsley Creswell, and this time we follow her through dumpsters, across Riker’s Island, and to Japan. With each episode, she becomes more complex, more tragic, and more quintessentially New York.

I relate to her upbringing: “…Parsley grew up in the Midwest and believed that she experienced a form of hypoglycemia if she didn’t get a constant infusion of calcium in the form of milk, cheese, or ice cream, especially in the winter.”

Giveaway: So that you can enjoy this curious odyssey -- and perhaps try your hand at Onion Pie or Angels on Horseback -- I’m giving away one copy of The Upper East Side Cookbook: Main Course. To enter, simply name the richest dish you’ve ever eaten. Get your comment in by Feb. 14, 2012. I’ll draw a winner the next morning.

Royal Wedding Cheese Balls

By Linda Olle

I spent a lot of time digging through cheese books yesterday, trying to settle on a royal approach to the big diggity doo. British cheeses are such obvious choices, and I wanted something campy. When you want lactic glam, you go cheese ball. And so I called on my faux-debutante-loving impersonator, Linda Olle, who sent me this dashing photo of Liptauer Cheese Balls. 

Yes, I think the Middletons would approve. Who doesn’t like a little stink in the room?

Lady Olle let me know that this recipe will appear in her follow-up to The Upper East Side Cookbook – a must for any collector of mockumentary-style cookbooks or fans of print-based performance art. Linda Olle, who sometimes calls herself “Parsley Creswell," describes the inspiration for this recipe, which feels very appropriate for a stodgy function:

“There was a restaurant near Lincoln Center called Cafe Des Artistes that always had Liptauer cheese and Ritz crackers at the bar - AND hard-boiled quails eggs. The restaurant closed relatively recently, but it was the ONLY restaurant I knew of serving these two things.”

I think Her Majesty would love this mod nod to Old World food-styling. Before I get my hair set and my gloves pressed, I will be making these:

Liptauer Cheese Balls

8 oz. cream cheese

8 oz. Wisconsin cheddar

3 T sour cream

3 anchovies, mashed

1 tsp capers, minced

1 T onion, finely chopped

 1 T Dijon mustard

1 ½ tsp sweet paprika

½ tsp caraway seeds, pounded

3 drops Tabasco

Blend with a paddle or by hand. Wrap and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. An hour or two before serving, roll balls (approximately 15) in toppings. Roast nuts first in a pan on the oven and cool, before chopping. Toppings: pecans, cashews, sliced almonds, black sesame seeds, sweet paprika, parsley, crushed tortilla chips, crushed pretzels, etc.

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Do tell, what will you be serving, dahhhlink? Toast and Marmite? A wedge of Stilton? A hunk of Berkswell? Or maybe a twist on the obvious, with a round of Knight's Vail? Or will you hole up with a bottle of gin and avoid the whole crusty affair?

Cheese Books for the Cheese Lover

Photo by Linda Olle, author of The Upper East Side Cookbook

I know the holidays are nigh upon us, but if you have a mouse in your life who wants to start a library of cheese books, let me make a few recommendations. These are the books I keep within grabbing reach. They are my Bibles, my inspiration, my everything.

Cheese: Exploring Taste and Tradition, by Patricia Michelson

If Ab Fab had featured a cheesemonger, Patricia Michelson would have played the role. She owns a cheese shop in London and has written several books on the subject; her prose is gushy, glorious, and full of observations like this one: “A mild Gouda-type cheese is nourishing first thing in the morning....” Her latest opus is the cheese atlas I have always wanted. Great photos. Great recipes in back.

Mastering Cheese, by Max McCalman and David Gibbons

This reads like a master class on making, tasting, and serving cheese. It is stunning in its girth and in its level of detail. I read this from cover to cover, then kept it on my nightstand and paged through it whenever I couldn’t sleep. This is a great book for anyone who wants to gain a comprehensive understanding of the dairy world right now. I love the suggested pairings (blue cheese and mangoes) , and I find “The Cheddar Lexicon” indispensable.  

The Great Big Cheese Cookbook

If you want to stretch yourself, check out recipes for Blue Cheese Cheesecake and Smoked-Gouda Baked Oytsers with Chorizo. This book offers a great mix of recipes and big, juicy photos – though it should really be called the Great Big Wisconsin Cheese Cookbook since many recipes feature Wisconsin cheeses. I got this as a promotion and I wasn’t sure about it at first, but I find myself leafing through it all the time.

The Upper East Side Cookbook, by Linda Olle

If M.F.K. Fisher and Truman Capote had been blood relations, they might have co-authored this quirky little piece of enchantment. It’s charming and strange – a cookbook/faux-memoir recounted by a protagonist named Parsley Cresswell. Parsley is an Audrey Hepburn-type who lives on the cheap despite her tony address. As she observes her caviar-eating neighbors, she whips up “Green Pie” and “Bird’s Nest Bran Muffins.” I have a feeling this will be a cult classic -- an appropriate gift for hipsters and dowagers alike.

Cheese & Wine, by Janet Fletcher

This was my first cheese book. It was a great introduction to artisanal cheese -- how to taste it, how to pair it with wine. It’s simple, elegant, and very focused in its subject matter . The photographs are gorgeous, and the prose is clean and precise. I also like the wine pairing guide in the back and turn to it often. Give this to the person who needs a stepping stone into the cheese world.