Chez Julia

As a young girl visiting my relatives in Providence, R.I., I remember how slowly and deliberately my aunt would drive through her neighborhood at night. I thought perhaps she was just more cautious than my own mother, but I soon learned that she drove slowly not for fear of running over a small child, but because she wanted to see how other people decorated their homes.

Other People's Places (You down with O.P.P.?) are endlessly fascinating: the decoration, the paint colors, the wallpaper, the books on the shelves, the light fixtures. Who doesn't become a complete voyeur when given the chance to peek into someone else's living space?

Celebrity homes can either be especially intriguing, or incredibly boring. The homes of C-list celebs in In Touch, for example, often seem to have been decorated by publicists eager for their client to appear legit.

Chefs are curious subjects for home tours, because at least one room is their's and their's alone: the kitchen. But what about the rest of the house?

Exhibit A: The home of Julia and Paul Child. The above photos are from an August, 1976 Architectural Digest piece on the Child's home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. What's so glorious about this photo spread, is that while we all know her kitchen ("the beating heart and social center of the household," as she calls it in the article), it's rare to catch a glimpse into the rest of her home: the living room, the dining room, the pastry room off the main kitchen, and the "grass-papered" music room. The Child's home seems especially familiar, warm, and thoroughly lived in - in other words, a home worthy of driving by slowly.

Julia et Jim

With so many menus in the New York Public Library collection, it's not uncommon for me to stumble upon a gem I've never seen before. The menu featured here is one such example. Had a patron not requested this 1975 dinner menu honoring James Beard and Julia Child a few months ago, it would still be sitting in its box downstairs. But thankfully the request was made, and I was introduced to this charming item.

The dinner, which was sponsored by the Wine & Food Society of New York, was held on Halloween night at the Pierre Hotel. And in addition to a traditional menu of food offerings, the organizers wrote creative "recipes" for both Julia and Jim, wherein the ingredients and techniques that make up these two unique personalities are written out in a recognizable recipe format. The result is clever, sassy, and fun.

Ruth Madoff's Cookbook

While Bernie Madoff spends the rest of his life in prison, his wife Ruth will have plenty of time to work on a second cookbook. Yes, a second cookbook. Ruth Madoff edited a cookbook in 1996 called "The Great Chefs of America Cook Kosher," which has garnered its own bit of controversy.

Ruth, along with her friend Idee Schoenheimer, is credited as an executive editor of this spiral-bound work, although according to an article in the New York Times a few months ago, the book is really the work of food writer Karen MacNeil.

In the article, MacNeil (who is credited as editor of the book) claims she was paid to write the entire book...and did. Ruth Madoff may have had her own author blurb, but according to MacNeil, Madoff didn't write a word. Rather, she simply wanted to be part of something "fun."

The book features recipes from top chefs around the country who have adapted their dishes to fit the requirements of a kosher kitchen. Many of the recipes are simply reprinted from the chef's own cookbooks and hardly require any culinary creativity to make them kosher.

For example, Lidia Bastianich shares her recipe of pappardelle with fresh porcini sauce -- taken from her book La Cucina di Lidia -- while Al Forno owners Johanne Killeen and George Germon include their recipe for roasted asparagus. In other words, simple recipes already fit for a kosher kitchen.

It's also questionable whether the Madoff's even keep kosher. The Times article refers to a London Daily Mail article which claimed that Bernie was a big fan of pork sausages, "taboo under any definition of kosher cooking."

Rest assured, the New York Public Library has the book in its holdings, and unlike Mr. Madoff's Ponzi scheme, it won't cost you a dime.

Kheer Royale

Of all the puddings in the world, rice is my favorite. I do Kozy Shack rice pudding, I do Greek diner rice pudding, but my favorite is Indian rice pudding, or kheer. It's a thinner, milkier pudding, and with the delicate taste of cardamom, it makes for a refreshing and subtly sweet dessert.

I've attempted kheer before, and failed miserably. But this weekend, as I was cooking a fairly sizable Indian dinner for my brother's birthday, I decided to attempt it again. I know how much that boy loves his rice pudding. This time I used Vij's recipe. Five ingredients, and an hour and ten minutes later, kheer royale.

Rice Pudding
(from Vij's Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine)

Note: I halved the recipe and it served six people. This is the full recipe, as printed.

10 to 12 green cardamom pods
3/4 cup basmati rice
12 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar
raw, unsalted almonds for garnish.

Lightly pound cardamom and peel off the pods. Empty brownish-black seeds into a medium pot. Discard the pods. Add rice and milk and bring to a gentle boil on medium-low heat. Simmer, stirring gently and regular, for about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Never scrape the bottom of the pot while stirring, otherwise you maybe get bits of slightly burned milk in your pudding.

As the rice and milk cook, the consistency will become more and more like pudding. Stir often, or turn down the heat slightly if the rice begins to clump.

Remove the pot from the heat and add sugar. Stir well. If you wish to serve it chilled, wait until the pudding is at room temperature before putting it into the refrigerator.

Sprinkle almonds (or pistachios) over pudding before serving.