Chocolate Fest is canceled, Valentine, but we have cream puffs
Comfort food, according to one online dictionary, “provides consolation or a feeling of well-being,” typically “associated with childhood or home cooking.” This may be just the winter to welcome all forms of this tangible solace.
Osterville Village Library has taken up the cause, with programs that set out to provide nourishing content for the winter months.
According to library Executive Director Cyndy Cotton, since the onset of the pandemic nearly a year ago, the library has pulled out all the stops to provide patrons and visitors with plenty of diversions to help while away the days of winter, with extra helpings of programs and “fun things for people to do.”
Some of these fall right into the heart of “comfort food” country.
One popular program, Cotton said, has been the library’s Virtual Cookbook Book Club, which started up last spring after COVID pandemic restrictions kicked in, coming to the aid of stay-at-homers who were now cooking up a storm from their own kitchens.
Club members meet online from 5 to 6 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month. Members choose one cookbook in advance to feature in a subsequent meeting. Each member cooks up a recipe from its pages, photographs the “finished product,” and discusses the recipe’s pros and cons during the Zoom session. Cotton coordinates the Zoom technicals of each meeting, which is live-streamed each month. Library staff member Lisa Fackler, who helps coordinate the group, says that the cookbooks are ordered in advance for members to pick up at the library.
Upcoming on Feb. 3, the group will be cooking from “Heart of the Home: Notes from a Vineyard Kitchen,” by Susan Branch.
On the schedule for an early spring meeting of the club will be local author and Italian chef Lu Matrascia, formerly the co-owner of Nonna Elena, a retail outlet for imported Italian specialty foods that was located in East Sandwich. Matrascia, who spends part of each year in Italy, will discuss her hot-off-the-press new cookbook, “There Are Rules: Notes from My Italian Kitchen.” It’s the Yarmouth resident’s first cookbook but, she says, not her last – she has two more in the works.
“There Are Rules” makes for engaging reading, even for non-cooks ( – just ask me!). It is just what it says; each section leads with a brief pronouncement or rule, interspersed with recipes that were carefully developed by Matrascia along with a number of colleagues, who spent hours taking notes as she prepared dishes, in order to compile her methods and quantities.
As for the “rules,” they have intriguing headings, such as “Risotto waits for no one. ... Cappuccino is only for breakfast. ... Parmigiano-Reggiano does not come in a cardboard can. ... No oil in pasta water. ... If you can’t drink it, you can’t cook with it. ...” and many more, to entice the cook to read further.
Besides rules and recipes, the winsome text includes some of the “stories, the opinions and the traditions” Matrascia has used over her years of traveling and cooking in Italy and the United States. In her introduction she says, “It wasn’t so much about the recipes, they could stand on their own. ... It was more about the process of learning to cook.”
Prior to the pandemic, Matrascia taught traditional Italian cooking classes from her home. With “hands-on” classes on hold for now, Matrascia plans to start up some virtual classes in their stead.
Cotton is also enthusiastic about another recent culinary program, one with a village connection.
The library has recently partnered with Amie Bakery in Osterville to host once-a-month virtual cooking shows, recorded at the bakery on Main Street in Osterville and then broadcast via YouTube, with a link provided on the library’s homepage.
The new series kicked off at the bakery with the library’s cookie swap at holiday time, and a second show in late December was a how-to on creating cream puffs. Backed by Zoom support from the library, bakery owner Amie and head baker Haley created that delicious dessert and made it look easy and fun.
Asked about her presentation of these classes, Amie said it’s satisfying to show “how easy it is to create (recipes) at home” that people often think must be difficult – cream puffs are a case in point, she noted.
Next up for Amie Bakery’s online cooking class will be turkey pot pie, possibly the ultimate comfort dish. Which is plenty of consolation in lieu of Chocolate Fest, which is canceled due to COVID.
Osterville Library’s many programs and activities are listed in their weekly newsletter. All are welcome to sign up by calling the library or visiting its website or Facebook page.
More information
Osterville Village Library is located at 43 Wianno Ave. For more information on programs call 508-428-5757 or visit the website at www.ostervillefreelibrary.org/ or the library’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OstervilleVillageLibrary/
Programs are free. Tax-deductible donations to the library most welcome.