A HARTE APPETITE: NEW COLUMN FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE TO COOK

I think it was Moliere who observed that some men eat to live while other men live to eat. I know which category I fall into. I love food, glorious food. The word "diet" has always been a particularly offensive four letter word as far as I am concerned. (And did you ever notice that the first three letters of that word spell "die"!) Samuel Johnson could just as well have had me in mind when he said, "A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does his dinner."

So being one who loves to eat, it was only inevitable that sooner or later I would have to try my hand at cooking. And now that I've been at it for a while I have discovered that Julia Child was exactly right when she wrote in her now classic first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking:

Cooking is not a particularly difficult art, and the more you cook and learn about cooking, the more sense it makes. But like any art it requires practice and experience. The most important ingredient you can bring to it is love of cooking for its own sake.

This column, then, is for people who love to cook. And in particular it is for people who prefer to have a recipe to lean on when they do so. I must admit that I have great admiration for those folks who can whip up something delicious with whatever is on hand and without ever opening a cookbook. (My wife is one of them.) But as for me, I need a recipe, even if, as is often the case, I depart from it and modify it significantly. Coming across a new recipe is much more likely to inspire me to take up my position in the kitchen than coming across some new foodstuff in the supermarket. In fact, I can still vividly recall the first time, nearly 20 years ago, that I saw Julia Child's recipe for Choulibiac (fillets of sole baked with mushrooms and fish mousse in a choux pastry crust) in one of those so-called women's magazines you get in the checkout lane of the grocery store. I just had to make it. And even though it's really company fare that serves eight, that's what we had that night for dinner! (By the way, the recipe is not nearly as complicated as it sounds.)

Though I might not be quite so impetuous these days, I am still ever on the lookout for a new or intriguing recipe. I've been known to ask for recipes at restaurants, to buy a whole cookbook just on the strength of one recipe, and when at the doctor's office or getting my hair cut, to request permission to take one or two of the office magazines home so that I may copy a few recipes. If you've ever been on an airplane and found yourself irritated that some previous passenger had torn a recipe from the magazine you were reading, well, I must confess, it could have been me. I think I know what the gastronome Brillat-Savarin meant when he said, "The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star."

So what I want to do in these columns is share some of my favorite recipes with you and encourage you to share your favorites with me, and the rest of our readers. I'm looking for tried and true recipes, the kind you've made and perfected, the kind you'd share over the back fence with a neighbor or which, perhaps, have been handed down over generations. They might be fancy or simple, easy or a little bit challenging, low in fat or positively decadent. But they should be what a good friend of mine calls "keepers."

From time to time I'll ask readers to submit recipes revolving around a particular theme or ingredient (like baked beans for the Fourth of July or chocolate for Valentine's Day) and occasionally we'll sponsor recipe contests (for example, we're planning one for National Pie Day in January), but anytime you have a recipe you would like to share, I hope you will send it in. And, if you're looking for a particular recipe that you can't quite put your fingers on (like the one they used to use for doughnuts at Franklin School playdays), I hope you'll send in your requests.

Let me begin the sharing with a couple of recipes for cheesecake which are dear to my heart (at least that's what my doctor says). Of course, they're not for My Daddy's Cheesecake, the type produced by the company I used to co-own and which are now being made by Wes Kinsey and his crew. (Now that I'm no longer a partner in that business, I can say with total objectivity -- well, at least without creating a conflict of interest -- that they are the best cheesecakes I have ever eaten.) But these cheesecakes, while different, are good in their own right and have for years been among my favorites. The first is for a velvety smooth chocolate cheesecake and the second is for a wonderful combination of pie and cheesecake, blueberry cheese pie.

Chocolate Plus Cheesecake

This is a recipe which was inspired by one I clipped from an out-of-town newspaper some years ago. The plus refers to whatever type of liqueur you wish to add. I think orange liqueur makes an especially sublime combination, but you might try Kahlua (use cinnamon flavored grahams if you want to make it taste truly Mexican), raspberry, strawberry, cranberry, or even that new ginger liqueur I've seen on the shelf. No matter what variation you try, I think you'll love it.

Ingredients:

For crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

6 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted

1/4 cup granulated sugar

For filling:

1 1/2 pounds cream cheese (three 8 oz. packages) at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 small (6 oz.) package chocolate chips (make sure they're real chocolate)

1 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons whipping cream

1/4 cup strong coffee (I simply put a teaspoon of instant coffee into 1/4 cup water; it doesn't even have to be hot)

1/2 cup liqueur

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Lightly grease a 9-inch springform pan. (Using Pam or another cooking spray is the easiest way.) Combine crumbs, sugar, and butter and mix well. Press mixture over bottom of pan.

Beat sugar into softened cream cheese. (A food processor is a real godsend here; you don't even have to make sure the cream cheese is all that soft.) Beat in eggs. Melt chocolate chips with the cream. (A microwave makes short work of this. If you do it on the stove, use very low heat or a double boiler.) Blend the melted chocolate mixture and the rest of the ingredients into the batter until smooth, but don't overbeat.

Pour filling over crust in pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. (The cheesecake will not look done in the center, but, trust me, it will firm up as it cools. If you overbake the cheesecake it will still be delicious, but it will lose its silky texture. If you're like me, the first few times you make this, you'll probably bake it longer than you need to, but with experience you'll be easily able to judge when the cake should be taken out of the oven.) Cool cake in pan, then refrigerate for eight hours or overnight. Unmold and garnish with whatever you like, for example, inverted whole strawberries, whipped cream, candied orange slices, chocolate curls, etc. This cake should serve at least eight, depending on how hearty their appetites are.

Blueberry Cheese Pie

If you like pie and cheesecake too, you can't go wrong with this recipe. I've made it many times since I first spotted it several years ago in a little book published by Consumer Guide on display in the supermarket checkout lane. I paid all of $2 for the book!

Ingredients:

For crust:

3/4 cup crushed shortbread cookie crumbs (Pepperidge Farm Chessmen are the best)

1 1/2 tablespoons melted butter (it's a shame to use margarine in this recipe)

For filling:

1 1/4 pounds cream cheese (2 1/2 eight oz. packages) at room temperature

1 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup sugar

1 large egg plus two large egg yolks

For topping:

2 cups fresh blueberries

1/4 cup sugar

1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Grease bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie pan with cooking spray or butter. Mix crumbs and melted butter thoroughly. Press crumb mixture evenly on bottom and sides (but not the rim) of the pan. Refrigerate five minutes, then bake at 350 degrees for five minutes. Cool 30 minutes.

Beat cream cheese with mixer until smooth. Then beat in sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla. Gradually add sugar and beat until it is incorporated. Blend egg and egg yolks in small bowl, then add to cream cheese mixture and beat in. (Or, if you use a food processor, blend sugar and cream cheese together, then add remaining ingredients and process until smooth.)

Pour batter into prepared crust and spread top smooth. Bake about 30 minutes until the center is just set. Let pie cool, then refrigerate at least four hours.

Puree 1 cup of blueberries and the 1/4 cup sugar in food processor until pale in color. Transfer mixture to 1 1/2-quart saucepan, add lemon juice, and cook, stirring constantly, over low heat until mixture is shiny and dark blue and is reduced to 3/4 cup. Remove from heat and stir in remaining blueberries. Spoon topping over cold pie and spread evenly. Refrigerate about an hour until topping is set.

Because this pie is so rich, you can theoretically get eight servings rather than six out of it.

Got a recipe you'd like to share with our readers? Are you looking for a recipe for something in particular? Send your recipes and requests to The Harte Appetite, in care of the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo. 63702-0699.

~Tom Harte is a professor at Southeast Missouri State University and a food columnist for the Southeast Missourian.