Reductions are my favorite new cooking technique. I love to take a mediocre bottle of wine, reduce it and turn it into a thick, syrupy liquid, the kind of ingredient white-shirted waiters describe drizzled over almost anything: salad, fish, meat, polenta, fruit.

A reduction is, as its name implies, something reduced until it's concentrated. You pour the liquid in a pan. You turn it on as low as possible. You let it simmer and simmer and simmer until it's reduced to a thick liquid.

This sounds simple, but I warn you that it takes patience. It also takes some attention. I've burned a few pans making reductions when I walk off and forget about them.

But the times I do pay attention, it's so worth it. Try it and see for yourself.

Wine Reduction
2 cups wine, champagne or juice
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
Bring juice, sugar, salt to a boil in a 1 1/2- to 2-quart saucepan over low heat. Simmer uncovered until reduced to about 1/3 cup, about 30 to 40 minutes. (Times may vary depending upon your stove.)

Cider reduction
2 cups apple cider
2 teaspoons butter
Simmer cider in a saucepan until it's reduced to about 1/2 cup, about 20 to 30 minutes. Stir in butter quickly. Suggestions: serve over salad or chicken.

Port Wine Reduction
1 small onion, chopped
1 small carrot, chopped
3 cups port
Put everything in a saucepan and let simmer gently until it's reduced to about half. '

Strain. Reserve liquid. Throw away the rest.

Balsamic Reduction
3 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon rosemary, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon butter
Salt, ground black pepper, freshly ground to taste

Simmer the broth, rosemary and garlic in a saucepan over low heat until reduced to about half.
Whisk in the balsamic vinegar. Cook until it has reduced to about 1/2 cup and is slightly thick, like a thin sauce.

Strain the sauce. Return it to the pan. Whisk in the butter. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Note: if making ahead, don't add the butter until you're ready to serve. Reheat the reduction and whisk in butter.

By Doni Greenberg at ANewsCafe

A grown-up girlfriend sleepover was arranged in November so we four friends could catch up. Our thinking was that it had been so long since we'd really, really talked that an hour or so for lunch wouldn't leave a dent in the conversational ground we had to cover. For this, we needed at least 24 hours.

This is my final column about The Supremes - my twin’s beloved chickens.

Mary, Flo and Diana are dead. They were ripped to shreds by a pair of small dogs Saturday morning while Shelly and I were away for just two hours.

The dogs also killed Eleanor, one of a pair of younger chickens Shelly bought at Easter.

Just last week, Eleanor had matured enough to begin producing small, pale, leaf-colored eggs.

Two pieces of good news. First, we actually saw the dogs that killed the chickens, dogs that left the scene of their crime down a Garden Tract alley, but hopefully, we can soon find and identify them.

Second, after searching the neighborhood we later found a panting, wide-eyed Abigail hiding in a neighbor’s yard, after she’d miraculously managed to clear a 7-foot tall fence and escape the chicken-yard massacre.

Massacre. That’s the only word that aptly describes what Shelly and I saw when we arrived home that morning.

We pulled in the driveway and were puzzled to hear high-pitched, frenzied barking of multiple dogs coming from the area behind our house, the vicinity in which the chickens have a deluxe coop and their own fenced yard.

The dogs sounded frantic. Shelly rushed to the back yard, and before I could catch up with her, she screamed my name. When I reached her, the sight was something that neither of us could comprehend: a pair of two small, terrier-like dogs were jumping and yapping and barking and running back and forth inside the chicken yard, behind the closed, locked gate.

How did they get in?

The dogs barked, barked, barked - at us - as if we were the intruders.

Shelly later said her first thought was that someone had played a joke on us and dropped off two dogs inside our yard.

Her second thought was her chickens. Her chickens - Mary, Flo, Diana, Eleanor and Abigail - lived within that yard.

That’s when our brains finally left the noisy dogs, and we turned our eyes toward the chicken yard, where the birds’ food and water containers were up-ended and strewn about the yard that was absolutely carpeted with feathers, thousands of them in familiar colors: Mary’s ebony feathers, Flo’s red-and-green feathers, Diana’s salt-and-pepper feathers, Eleanor’s rust-and-brown feathers, Abigail’s rice-white feathers.

Red was represented there, too. Blood.

Then we saw Shelly’s pet chickens, mangled, torn and ripped to death among the four farthest corners of the yard, frozen in absurd, unnatural positions. It as if each chicken had gone as far as she could to escape, but eventually, they’d reached the end of hope, because that’s where the dogs caught up with them, killed them, and had even started eating them. (These photos are the least gruesome of the batch.)

I yelled at the dogs, which high-tailed it out of the yard through a new slit of an opening near the fence that leads to our carport, which has about a 5-inch-wide opening where the gate wheel is. That’s obviously where the dogs entered, and how they gained access to the zip-tied snow fencing we’d used as a barricade along the side, which was now trampled down, as if the dogs jumped up on it and then used it as a ramp into the yard.

Oh yes, the dogs. We’ve scoured the neighborhood looking for them, but no luck.

In the meantime, a wonderful young man from Redding Animal Regulation named Chris Van Eych wrote up a report, and hauled the dead chickens away.

Shelly and I clung to each other and sobbed as we imagined how the birds must have suffered before they died, and how terrified they must have been.

Questions vexed us:

How could two small dogs have done so much damage to adult, large chickens?

Why were those dogs allowed to run loose in the first place?

Could we have saved the chickens if we’d been home?

Would those dogs stop at chickens? What about cats, smaller dogs, even children … which reminded us …

what in the world would we tell May?

Kimberly Ross, anewscafe.com’s managing editor, kindly allowed Shelly’s freaked-out Abigail to live with the Ross chickens, because, as Shelly says, chickens are social creatures, and Abigail wouldn’t like to live in that big Victorian coop alone. Besides, Shelly was afraid the dogs would return for Abigail and kill her, too

I’ve written before about Shelly’s chickens, and told how those funny birds were Shelly’s adored pets, animals that helped fill the void of unspeakable loss my twin has suffered over the last few years.

In fact, one of my first chicken columns shared my previous bout of chicken envy, gradually cured after I watched Shelly with her chickens, and realized how much work they were.

She doesn’t have to worry about doing any more chicken chores.

The thing is, Shelly never thought of her chickens work as a chore; not the poop-raking, or wing-clipping, or the closing-of-the-chicken-house-door at night or opening-the-coop-door-in-the-morning, or going to the feed store for wood chips, oyster shells and organic feed, or collecting eggs, or making decorative egg gift packages, or nursing ill chickens back to health, or taking them to the vet or preparing and feeding them their favorite treats of cooked oatmeal, cold spaghetti and corn kernels.

Some might say Shelly spoiled those chickens, what with the special attention and electric fans and water misters to cool them and vine-covered awnings and umbrellas to shade them.

Shelly even passed on her love of chickens to her granddaughter May, whom Shelly taught how to gently hold and speak to a chicken, and how, if you approach a chicken from behind and hover over her, she’ll crouch down and let you pet her, or pick her up.

My sister taught me plenty about chickens, too, some of which I recently put into practice when Shelly flew to Norway for a month’s vacation and left me in charge of the poultry princesses. I learned that if you softly say, “chick, chick, chick” and hold out a bowl of cooked corn, you’ll have a bunch of best-friend chickens for life. I kept my promise to Shelly to cut social engagements short to rush home after nightfall to shut the chicken house door so they’d be protected from nocturnal invaders.

Shelly is heartbroken. Shelly is chickenless. For a while Saturday, she vowed to never have chickens again, to never open her heart and allow herself to love those winged animals, no matter how many eggs they laid, and no matter how varied the colors.

That sentiment passed after a few hours, because Shelly is one of those people who believes in risking the pain of loss for the potential gain of joy and love.

Even so, she can’t bring herself to follow through with organizing Redding’s2010 Tour de Coops. Maybe next year.

For the time being, Shelly will give herself fall and winter to mourn the loss of her flamboyant, expressive, lovable birds.

Come spring, Shelly plans to buy some new chicks - black ones, like The Supremes, if possible.

But first, you can bet she will have designed a new chicken yard, impervious to any chicken-killing creature.

Until then, rest in peace Mary, Flo, Diana and Eleanor.

If it’s any consolation, you were loved by the best.

Doni Greenberg is an independent online journalist. She founded what’s now known as anewscafe.com in 2007 with son Joe Domke of the Czech Republic. Prior to 2007 she was an award-winning newspaper opinion columnist, feature and food writer recognized by the Associated Press, the California Newspaper Publishers Association and E.W. Scripps. She lives in Northern California, in the tiny town of Igo.

Doni is also the inspiration behind GLlenbrookeNews.com

Cris Fiscus is my new daughter-in-law’s father, a good man, a gifted writer of father-of-the-bride toasts and a heck of a good cook.  

He prepared these ribs for a family engagement dinner that honored Josh and Kat at the Fiscus home. I was blown away fby the ribs’ texture and complex taste. I liked that these ribs weren’t too saucey, so the rib flavor came through loud and clear.  

I do believe these are the best ribs I’ve ever tasted.  

Chris was kind enough to give into my begging for his recipe, which I’m sharing with you here today.  

As an aside, although Chris favors the oven to bake his ribs, he says we can use our barbecues if we want, just make sure it’s low, slow and indirect. I hope you enjoy Chris Fiscus’ ribs as much as I did.  

Chris Fiscus’ Father-of-the-Bride Baby-Back Ribs

Cut racks of baby-back ribs in half to manage them more easily. Remove skeins - tough membrane - on the bone side. (Both of these steps can be done by a butcher, if you’d prefer.)  

Rub the ribs lightly with regular mustard.  

Mix 10 parts brown sugar with one part Pappy’s Seasoning. Rub the mixture liberally on the ribs over the mustard.

Refrigerate overnight.  

Fill a broiler pan with 12 ounces tangerine ale.  

Place the ribs on broiler pan, and make a tent with aluminum foil to prevent premature browning.  

Bake the ribs at 200 degrees for five hours. Glaze with the drippings and broil, keeping an eye on them to prevent the ribs from caramelizing or burning. 

Note from Chris: “Create your own rub! You can use the same method on the barbecue by cooking over indirect heat. Be creative!” 

Chris Fiscus lives in Redding with his wife, Paula. Chris also happens to be the father-in-law of Doni’s son, Josh Domke, married to Kat (formerly Fiscus) Domke. When Chris is not creating his famous oven-cooked baby back ribs, he enjoys fishing, hunting and delivering mail for the U.S. Postal Service.

I swore I would never use or buy silicone bakeware.

Now I just swear at silicone bakeware.

Am I alone?

I gave in to those flexible silicone pans because of the promise of muffins and madelines and cakes that would never stick. No more hunks of cake left behind in a cake bottom.

Even so, the thought of putting a piece of flimsy plastic bakeware in a 350-degree oven made about as much sense as putting a piece of Tupperware under the broiler.

Nothing says lovin’ like plastic burning in the oven. How do you spell carcinogenic?

What ultimately swayed me was a pastry chef at the former the Oregon Street Tea Co., a young woman who said she loved, loved, loved her silicone baking pans.

Her testimonial inspired me to cave in and buy my first silicone cupcake pan. I’m so impressionable.

I started with a little red cupcake pan.

I used a tried-and-true cake batter and counted the minutes until they were done.

Out they came. The good news was they didn’t stick. The bad news was they were all off-centered. Every one.

I tried again, this time I enlisted the help of my special batter dispenser. I poised the dispenser’s opening directly over the cupcake well and allowed the batter to gently fill precisely in the middle. It didn’t  matter. They ended up leaning to the left or the right, as if they were trying escape something scary as they baked.

I blamed that pan and bought a round silicone cake pan.

Same result.

!*&%$#@

I tried my sister’s silicone loaf pan and

ended up with a delicious marble cake that was highly peaked on one end and deeply sloped on the other.

Thank goodness for serrated knives.

As someone who baked her first cake at 7, I know a bit about baking cakes. But the silicone pans had me questioning and cursing my baking ability.

Everything I baked in silicone looked as it had been baked in the Titanic’s oven.

I went online and searched for answers, and found none. What really frustrated me were those sites where people raved about how great silicone pans were for their flawless results. Show offs.

Finally, I quit using the pans. I returned to my old metal and glass pans. I made peace with taking a few seconds to butter and flour the pans, so the cakes wouldn’t stick, which is why I turned to the stupid silicone pans in the first place.

Even so, I wondered if I were to blame. Maybe I’d lost my touch. Maybe my oven thermostat was out of whack. Maybe my batter was weird. Maybe I misread the recipe.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was the fault of the silicone pans. Maybe, if God had wanted us to bake in floppy rubbery material he wouldn’t have created Pyrex and Wilton and Calphalon and Bundt pans in the first place.

That’s what I was thinking, and I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Then son Joe emailed me about his plan to make chocolate ganache cupcakes for Valentine’s Day to serve to his Czech family and friends.

He said he’d bake them in his new silicone cupcake pan.

I tried to warn Joe. I told him how everything I’d made in silicone looked like a Gumby hairdo.

He said he’d never heard such a thing.

Kids. They do what they want. They live dangerously, even after we warn them.

Fine. Be that way.

He baked the cupcakes. And sent me a photo. (See above.)

His cupcakes had cookbook-perfect symmetrical rounded tops. No cupcake deformities. No need to perform cosmetic cupcake surgery or frosting sculpture to even things out.

Maybe it’s because Joe used paper liners.

Maybe it’s because the silicone pans sold in the Czech Republic aren’t defective.

Or maybe it’s because my son is a better baker (than his mother).

Independent online journalist Doni Greenberg founded what’s now known as anewscafe.com in 2007 with her son, Joe Domke of the Czech Republic. Prior to 2007 Greenberg was an award-winning newspaper opinion columnist, feature and food writer recognized by the Associated Press, the California Newspaper Publishers Association and E.W. Scripps. She lives in Northern California in the tiny town of Igo

First they sat in infant seats on the kitchen counter. Later they grew into toddlers who stood on chairs as they helped roll out cookies or knead dough or stir batter. Later still they cooked unsupervised, everything from breakfast and lunch to dinner and desserts.

No wonder son Joe in the Czech Republic now receives rave reviews from his in-laws when he bakes a Chocolate Cake with Ganache Frosting (Andrea Charroin’s recipe) and from the folks at Joe and Marie’s neighborhood pub when he whips up some Truly Amazing Peanut Butter Cookies (yes, also Andrea’s recipe).

Who doesn’t love Andrea’s recipes, or, for that matter, Lee Riggs’ recipes? Both are gifted culinary writers who make anewscafe.com a more delicious place.

Even so, nothing makes me quite as happy as when my kids request one of my recipes, such as Joe did recently when he asked for my Chicken & Dumplings recipe.

Of course, it’s not really my recipe, but an adaptation of the Farm Journal’s Best-Ever Recipes. (If you ever see one of these cookbooks in a thrift store, buy it.)

Interesting that Joe should request a recipe with dumplings, because dumplings are a staple of many Czech meals. The thing is, Czech dumplings and American dumplings are as different as American beer and Czech beer.

Czech dumplings are more dense, served in thick, uniform slabs.

American dumplings - at least the ones I’m most familiar - are free-formed, more like floating biscuits. Both Czech and American dumplings are often served atop saucy dishes, often with chicken.

My Chicken & Dumplings recipe is a classic comfort food for a crowd. It’s a great way to use up leftover chicken or turkey, and the ideal meal for a cold day. It’s hearty, and I suspect it’s not exactly low-calorie. Oh well, just have a little.

Doni’s Chicken & Dumplings

In a large pot bring the chicken broth to a rolling boil.

In a large jar combine the milk and flour. Cover with a lid and shake the heck out of it - until it’s smooth and creamy.

Slowly stir the milky liquid into the hot broth over medium heat. Stir constantly so it doesn’t stick. The broth should thicken. Adjust seasonings to your taste.

Add the chicken pieces. At this point you may either keep the mixture hot, or refrigerate it for later. Next, make the dumplings.

Dumplings

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.

Cut the shortening or butter into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender (or, better yet, your fingertips) until it resembles course cornmeal.

Slowly add the milk to the dry mixture and then use a wood spoon to stir it into a soft dough just enough to incorporate everything. (Careful. Do not over-mix.) At this point you may proceed to the next step and plop the dumpling dough on the hot soup mixture, or you may refrigerate the dumpling dough and prepare everything later.

When you’re ready to introduce the dumpling dough to the hot chicken soup mixture in your biggest wide-mouth pot, drop the wet dough by spoonfuls onto the chicken mixture.

Simmer (med-low heat) uncovered for about 10 minutes.

Now put a lid on the pot and simmer for about another 10 minutes.

Serve immediately. May garnish with fresh chopped parsley.

Makes about 16 servings.

Stand back and bask in the raves.

(Note: Your goal is fluffy, fully cooked dumplings, not gummy, doughy ones. Be aware that because of the baking powder, the dumplings will expand as they simmer in the hot mixture. Plus, the bigger a dumpling, the more cooking time it will need. For this reason, I prefer dotting the liquid with many smaller dumplings rather than just a few big ones. Finally, because this recipe makes a lot, you might need two large pots to allow for more surface space to fit all the dumplings.)

Editor's note: Readers of GlenbrookeNews will recognize Doni as my long-time friend  and inspiration for Glenbrookenews.com.   You can read her  and see more of Andrea's recipes at www.Anewscafe.com

I am totally in love with *Jim and Laura Gore’s Vietnam travel blog  about the father/daughter bike ride through Vietnam, decades after Jim was there as a young man on a more dangerous mission.

Jim & Laura’s Vietnam Cycle Tour is the ultimate vicarious read. This morning I paddled in a round bamboo boat with Jim, and joined him as we drank coconut milk without spilling a drop. And then I went snorkeling with Laura, and admired the ocean view from the window of their beautiful hotel.

Jim and Laura’s Vietnam blog is my reason for loving blogs today. It entertains me, moves me, informs me and delights me. Their pictures - oh my gosh - are amazing: a Vietnam feast (and Jim and Laura dressed up in traditional silk outfits), historical ruins, dirt roads, lush greenery, and daily snapshots of their adventures that make me feel as if I’m there.

(edititor's note: to start at the beginning of the blog click HERE)

Thank you, Jim and Laura - and all A News Cafe bloggers - for sharing your lives, thoughts, photographs and experiences with us. 

*(Background: Jim, of Elk Grove, is A News Cafe’s friend and online programming genius. Laura, of Redding, is his grown daughter, someone I’ve known since she attended the Redding Co-Op Preschool with my kids. She works as a data analyst and is also pursuing yet another degree. And you already know Darcie Gore, Jim’s wife/Laura’s mother/my lifelong friend and A News Cafe Blogger /focus group/cheerleader/voice of reason.)

Bruce and I took a journey to Lake Shasta Caverns last month in Lakehead after we accepted an invitation to attend media day by Matt Doyle, the Caverns general manager.

Sad for the Caverns, Bruce and I were the only media folks who showed up.

Lucky for us we got a private tour.

We learned all kinds of interesting things, such as the fact that more than 2.5 million people have visited the Caverns since it opened to the public in 1964, which might have been the first and last time I set foot inside there.

Doyle said a lot has changed - for the better - at the Caverns since then, way back when I was a kid.

For example, he said Lake Shasta Caverns boasts new, air-conditioned buses that navigate smoothly upon on paved roads, not the chip-sealed, pot-holed roads of my childhood recollections.

We saw all these things for ourselves during the boat ride across the lake, which led to a visitors center with restrooms and picnic tables, a lookout and a friendly mascot, no doubt as photographed as the caverns themselves.

From there we took our private bus ride to the cave entrance, which led to the reason we were there: a tour inside the caverns, a place that stays a perpetually pleasant 65-ish degrees. We heard of real bears (unlike the one above) who'd sometimes crowd the cave entrance, perhaps in hopes of coolness and shelter, and of the occasional rattlesnake on the trail outside the caverns exit, which never caused harm, only a flurry of excitement from spectators.

The more we saw, the more interested we became in this incredible natural wonder - a destination that sat patiently in my own backyard all my life.

I'd neglected it.

I chastised myself for not having visited Lake Shasta Caverns sooner, and for not having brought my own kids there when they were younger and would have really enjoyed it. I never suggested the Caverns to visiting friends or relatives, or out-of-town company.

Maybe at the at the time I thought the tour was too expensive.

Now, when I consider that the $22 fee includes not just the tour, but the peaceful boat ride and guided tour, $22 seems like a steal. For that matter, so does the admission fee of $13 for kids (3 to 15).

Maybe I'd held a grudge all these years against the harrowing ride aboard an ancient bus with tires that seemed ready to slip off the narrow road's edge and into the lake below.

Now, the buses are new and air conditioned, and the road didn't look so scary.

And the 600 stairs inside? Once you get beyond the dreaded 81 stairs, the rest is totally manageable. (Though our guide said it's not unusual for some visitors to opt to turn back at that point rather than finish the tour. By the way, there is the option to take just the boat and bus ride and skip the cavern tour.)

Our tour began at 4 p.m. and we were back in the parking lot by 6 p.m.

We were so glad we went.

We enjoyed our time with the young boat captain Joshua Francis, and Cavern guide Christi Ricker. (You can hear her voice on the slideshow below.)

We admired the view of Lake Shasta from the cavern entrance where we stopped to take pictures.

We learned that tourists from all over the world visit Lake Shasta Caverns every year, and that hundreds of north state schoolchildren participate in the caverns' educational programs each month.

We heard tales of the caverns discovery in the late 1800s, and how men used lantern soot to claim their finds. We even saw skinny metal ladders left behind that led to dark, tiny openings into which those explorers crawled.

We learned how others would later try to erase those original names and replace them with their own.

We marveled at the labor required to make the cavern "rooms" available for visitors, from the dynamite to blast openings to bringing in three hand-carried buckets of cement inside for each of the 600 stairs, and the patience required to allow the concrete to cure in the cool, damp interior.

We were dumbstruck to learn of the caverns' early naive days, when tourists were allowed to "play" the precious "pipe organ" formations to elicit sounds, but which also destroyed millions of years' worth of growth.

And we were shown examples of how seemingly innocent oils from curious human hands literally killed what Mother Nature created, and how those oils halted any further growth, and blackened the smooth, wet surfaces as reminders of every tourist's touch and every spelunker's rope, footwear and hardware.

Sometimes interesting things came from those people, because as recently as the '70s, a new room was found by a couple of spelunkers and their 10-year-old son when the boy squirmed through an opening no adult had reached before - a room included as part of the tour today.

Here we are years later, beyond raunchous weddings inside the caverns and concerts and lighted torches. Today's cavern guardians know so much more about the delicate balance between tourism and stewardship, which is why guides are charged with the mission to teach every guest - including thousands of children each year - how to help preserve and protect this gift of minerals and air - droplets, darkness and time.

This leads to the proud news that Lake Shasta Caverns has applied for the well-deserved, long-overdue National Natural Landmark status. (Stay tuned for more information about that.)

And while you're at it, listen for more information about the first-ever "Haunted Caverns" tours around Halloween, and eventually even some dinner cruises on the lake.

Maybe I'll see you there. And if you do visit Lake Shasta Caverns, please say hello from everyone at anewscafe.

Lake Shasta Caverns is located at 20359 Shasta Caverns Road

Lakehead, Calif. Tours operate every day, and depart every half hour from 9 a.m until 4 p.m. For more information click here on Lake Shasta Caverns or call 1.800.795.CAVE or fax 530.238.2341.

For general information email LSCinformation@aol.com.

For reservations email LSCreservations@aol.com.

To contact Doyle, the general manager, email him at ShastaCav@aol.com.

Top photo and slide show images courtesy of Lake Shasta Caverns.

Other photos by Doni Greenberg.

Reprinted with permission,  www.anewscafe.com

Doni Greenberg is an award-winning newspaper opinion columnist and food writer. Her writing excellence has been recognized by the Associated Press, the California Newspaper Publishers Association and E.W. Scripps. In 2007 Doni received the Woman of Achievement Community Award from the American Association of University Women. She's now an independent online journalist. Her life philosophy is "I think it's gonna be good!"  Her website is www.anewscafe.com

reprinted with permission to Glenbrooke News

http://anewscafe.com/2009/05/12/chicken-marbella-marvelous/