The author of a cookbook offers recipes for blueberries and strawberries

BROOKLIN – James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Cynthia Graubart wants every family to come together around a table to enjoy a simple and delicious meal.

These meals should also be easy and possible to prepare in the smallest of spaces using basic household appliances, the Southern Living magazine contributor said.

To that end, the author of the recently published “Blueberry Love” and “Strawberry Love” (Workman Publishing, 2021) tested the recipe for all of his 12 cookbooks in the kitchenette of a seasonal residence overlooking Eggemoggin. Reach at Brooklin.

“I have tested each of my books here,” said Graubart. It is essential to test the recipes in a kitchenette with a small stove and basic cooking utensils. “This is how I know I make a recipe that anyone can make,” she said. Graubart says she tells her fellow cookbook authors, “If you use a 15,000 BTU burner and fancy copper-lined cookware, that’s wonderful. But that’s not how most people cook. I think it’s important to know who your audience is and how you serve them. I want people to feel successful in the kitchen.

Among the recipes, Graubart included a version of Lookout Inn’s popular blueberry martini. KELLER + KELLER PHOTOGRAPHY

“In all of my books, what matters most to me are the people spending time together at the table,” said Graubart. “I want people to come in and cook a stress-free meal. This premise guides all of my work.

Graubart offers cookbooks on berries this summer.

“It’s a dive into a subject – a goal – I really like doing that,” she said. Graubart immersed himself in chicken as a one-topic book as well as in “southern biscuits”.

Plus, as the title suggests, Graubart who has two grown children with her husband Cliff, has a respect and love for blueberries and the fields they grow in.

“My kids were picking blueberries on Caterpillar Hill, so blueberries were always the hallmark of our summers,” she said. “We made muffins and I always made blueberry pies and we made blueberry ice cream. “

“I love pop,” she said of Maine’s famous wild fruits. “I love the texture. I like the taste. I think per square millimeter there is more taste in a blueberry than any other fruit. And it is so versatile to cook with both sweet and savory dishes. The wild blueberry of Maine, I love its story. It is a rambling plant to survive winters and be thousands of years old.

“Blueberry Love” and “Strawberry Love” are available from Leaf & Anna in Brooklin as well as independent bookstores.

Incidentally, a recipe for Graubart’s Blue Ribbon Ginger Lime Wild Maine Blueberry Pie, which won first prize at the Blue Hill Fair 2019, is included in the book. Don’t let the ginger and lime scare you, it’s just a teaspoon of ground ginger and the zest of one lime in a traditional blueberry pie.

The author won a blue ribbon for his blueberry jam at the Machias Wild Blueberry Festival in 2019. KELLER + KELLER PHOTOGRAPHY

The author also won a blue ribbon for his blueberry jam in the heart of blueberry country at the Machias Wild Blueberry Festival in 2019.

The Atlantan also includes a recipe for Blueberry Martinis with House Blueberry Vodka – a nod to the cocktails Butch Smith serves at the Lookout Inn in Brooklin.

After infusing the vodka, keep the blueberries to make a batch of Graubart waste-free blueberry butter.

Graubart was finishing the berry books, which feature vivid photos of each recipe, during the pandemic. Joe Keller, a Boston-based food photographer, took all of the shots without the author’s eye.

“They must have shot it without me,” she said. “It was just the photographer and the stylist. He was grateful because there was no work.

Graubart had photographed all the dishes during the recipe tests so that the photographer had an idea of ​​what the dishes would look like.

These books contain user-friendly recipes for everyone, regardless of the dining experience.

The Brooklin Leaf & Anna boutique hosted a signing this summer. Two of the employees of business owner Anne Dentino, Shiloh Eaton and Ella Rapp, prepared recipes from the books to serve at the event. Eaton said the recipes are simple to prepare and contain ingredients that are easy to find.

Graubart makes a delicious blueberry cream pie. KELLER + KELLER PHOTOGRAPHY

The Atlantian never intended to make a career in the kitchen. Elaborate meals were not part of the growth.

“My mother was a women’s libertine,” said Graubart. “She’s never met a can of soup casserole that she didn’t love.”

When the author and his sister were children, their mother would take out a pound of ground beef to thaw it. She told them that if they didn’t want meatloaf for dinner, they “better make something with it.”

Graubart’s grandmother, however, was a bridge player and therefore adept at all kinds of finger sandwiches imaginable.

“It wasn’t until I went to college that I discovered new things and started eating new things,” she said.

The Jacksonville, Florida native, who has attended ten schools in 12 years due to family moves, has undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism.

In the 1980s, she got into broadcasting and eventually landed a job as a television producer for Southern Cooking Queen Nathalie Dupree. Dupree, who resides in Charleston, South Carolina, has hosted more than 300 TV shows and specials on PBS, The Learning Channel and The Food Network.

“We hit it off,” said Graubart. “I learned so much.”

The cookbook author said she always assumed cooks were born this way. It wasn’t until she met Dupree that she realized that “you don’t have to be born a cook, you can learn”.

To date, they have collaborated on several cookbooks and are still quick friends. They won a James Beard Award in 2013 for their book “Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking”.

They ended up creating a cookbook, “Southern Biscuits”, out of all the work on “Mastering”.

“We had written 39 cookie recipes,” explains Graubart. “I said that would be a nice calling card” to turn this chapter into a standalone book.

“The publisher was reluctant,” she recalls. “I didn’t know that when Nathalie recruited me, she was already late.”

But, “Southern Biscuits” was born and it was also a success.

“We sold a ton of ‘southern cookies’ as e-books, which surprised us,” Graubart said. People were downloading the cookbook to Kindle and iPads for access on vacation.

The duo then wrote “Mastering the Art of Southern Vegetables”.

Working on the 700+ “Southern” page inspired Graubart to continue this project with two more cookbooks.

“I worked all day,” she says. “My children have grown up. I did very little cooking, ”she said. So, first came “Slow Cooking for Two”, which was followed by “Slow Cooker Double Dinners for Two”. He taught people how to top a slow cooker with two bags of liner to create two different meals at the same time.

Graubart also wrote a cookbook when his son was little called “The One-Armed Cook”. It was the time when she was trying to put meals on the table with a baby on her hip.

Graubart is currently writing a History of Georgia Community Cookbooks.

“I have a huge collection,” she says. Its shelves hold 400 community cookbooks – church cookbooks, junior league cookbooks, and more. It helps that her 34 year old husband is an antique book dealer. Cliff Graubart has operated the Old New York Book Shop since 1971. He now runs the business from their home in Atlanta, Georgia.

Graubart is a member of the Dames d’Escoffier, the International Association of Culinary Professionals and is also a recipient of the 2017 MFK Fisher Prize.

Autographed copies of Cynthia Graubart’s latest cookbooks are available from Leaf & Anna in Brooklin. To learn more about the author or to sign up to receive a monthly recipe, visit cynthiagraubart.com.

Homemade blueberry vodka

Makes a 750ml bottle

4 cups of fresh or frozen blueberries

½ cup) sugar

2 tbsp. the water

1 750 ml bottle of vodka (about three cups)

Plan to steep the vodka for five days for the tastiest result.

Cook the blueberries, sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat until the blueberries are tender and release their juice for 8-10 minutes, let cool.

Combine blueberry mixture and vodka in a non-reactive bowl and cover loosely. Let sit at room temperature for four hours.

Cover and refrigerate for five days or until the vodka is infused with blueberry flavor.

Filter the solids by pouring the mixture through a fine mesh strainer covered with cheesecloth into a glass jar or decanter.

Gently squeeze the solids to extract a little more juice but avoid squeezing as this releases more sediment.

Reserve the solids to make a batch of blueberry butter or throw them away.

Blueberry vodka will keep for three months in the refrigerator or six months in an airtight container in the freezer.

Journalist Jennifer Osborn covers news and reporting on the Blue Hill Peninsula and Deer Isle-Stonington. She appreciates advice and story ideas. She also writes the Gone Shopping column. Email Jennifer with your suggestions at [email protected] or call 667-2576.