My Mother’s Ginger Cookies -

Except that they aren’t. These are really a variation on soft molasses cookies. That’s what kept driving me nuts over the years. I made these with my mother when I was young and have never been able to duplicate them since (until now). Mother was from Kentucky and these may be what Louisville people called ginger cookies, but they are not like the normal ginger cookie. I know. I’ve tried all kinds of ginger cookie variations and they were never right. Good, maybe, but not what I was looking for.

Anyway, try these. They’re rather good.

1 stick shortning - can be butter flavor or plain (1 cup)
210 g sugar (1 cup)
1 beaten egg
400 g all-purpose flour (2-1/2 cups)
350 g molasses (1 cup)
4 g salt (1/2 tsp)
9 g soda (2 tsp)
3 g cinnamon (1 tsp)
3 g cloves (1 tsp)
3 g ground ginger (1 tsp)

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Cream the shorting and sugar. Beat in the egg and molasses. Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

You can skip the cinnamon and cloves if that’s not to your taste.

Traditionally, chill the dough, roll thin on a floured surface, then cut out with a cookie cutter. Place on a greased cookie sheet.

That’s too much fuss for me. I don’t fool with the chilling bit. I just drop tablespoonfuls onto the greased cookie sheet (doesn’t need greasing if non-stick type), then kind of pat flat with my greasy fingers. Works just fine.

Somewhere around 10 minutes in the oven, then let them cool on the sheet before transferring to a cooling rack. Don’t burn them. The molasses makes them kind of touchy.

Enjoy.

Herself Sez: OMG These are good! Although my little Gam was from Kentucky, too, she didn’t make anything like these - she wasn’t from Louisville - she was from the Eastern Mountains - Pulaski County. So the foodways and traditions were somewhat different.
She was a good cook, and I still am trying to find her cookie recipes for a date-spice drop cookie and an almond-pecan icebox cookie. Both are delicious. She only made them at Christmas time. {{SIGH}} I don’t know what was wrong with me - when she was alive and “with it,” it didn’t occur to me to get those recipes and some others that are very important and precious to me now. But isn’t it always the way??

But the Ol’ Curmudgeon has successfully reconstructed his mother’s “ginger” cookies. They are delicious. Not crisp, but soft and chewy. Uuuuuuuum!

Lamb Chops –

When it’s spring and the birds are blooming and the trees are singing, or something like that, and a young man’s fancy turns to… Well, never mind, we know what young men’s fancy is. But an old guy’s fancy may turn to - Lamb Chops! And yes, Shari Lewis was nice for that other fancy.

Yeah, I know, we always thought of lamb as the overdone leg that mama would have sometimes. And only sissies eat lamb and I don’t like lamb. Guys, grow up, get over it. Real men eat whatever they damn well please. I know in the South manly-men don’t eat lamb. But the rest of the world does, and lamb is mighty fine eating. And yes, good lamb chops are expensive. But, if you have a Costco or something similar that does wholesale pricing, and you keep a serious lookout for sales, you just might be able to afford them. You want at least double-cut, and preferably triple-cut. The bigger the cut number, the thicker the meat. Now single-cut (about ½”) is ok for pork chops, but just will not do for lamb. Double-cut is twice as thick. Triple cut is 3 times thicker.

Set the oven for 450°.

Lamb chops, about 2 per person if you are having a good, filling, side dish or two. 3 per if they’re only double-cut. I’m talking about the small sized chops here. About ½ the size of pork chops. You’ll know them when you see them. You won’t usually see the pork chop size. They get reserved for restaurants. Or they come from sheep, not lambs. You don’t want sheep.
Now, you want some good, fresh mint. Yeah, you can use dried, but fresh is better.
You also want a good grade of mint sauce. Cross & Blackwell is the very best. You can make your own if you really want to. Mint sauce is nothing more than an infusion of mint leaves in a sweet leaching liquid. Oh, all right, a herbal vinegar, if you please:
½ cup finely chopped mint
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 cup English malt vinegar
Mix it up in a saucepan, simmer for about 20 minutes, let it cool, decant into airtight containers (old condiment bottles work well).
Take some butter, cold from the refrigerator. Add about 1 ½ tablespoons per chop.
1 clove of fresh garlic per chop, minced. Yes, they’re garlicky. Goes nicely with lamb.
Small bowl food processor or lots of elbow grease.

Put the butter in, add the garlic and get it mixed in. Add just enough mint sauce for flavor and work it in. Don’t put so much sauce in that the mixture becomes liquid. You want this to be rather stiff. That’s why we use cold butter. Work in a good amount of mint. I put in about as much as the mix will hold. Your taste may call for some less. Put the chops in a pan with a grill rack. I always line the pan with aluminum foil, otherwise it’s a mess to clean up. Set the chops on the rack, getting each as close to level as possible. Now, for each chop, dig down with your fingers beside each bone, making a little pocket. Fill the pockets with the butter mixture and keep heaping it on the chops until you run out of topping. Really mound it up. Pop in the oven for 45 minutes for triple-cut. The cooking time can be varied to suit your taste. This should get you done with very little pink. If you like your lamb a bit rarer, reduce the time. I do like mine about medium, but Herself can’t stand underdone lamb.

Of course, you can always pan-fry them. Just treat them like any other kind of meat. You know the drill - Add some olive oil, add some butter. Get the pan hot to where the mix shimmers slightly and the butter is no longer foaming. Ease the flame down between medium and medium-high depending on your range-top. Slide a little crushed garlic in and cook until it is brown, then remove the debris. Add the chops that you have salted and peppered, both sides. Try about 5 minutes a side for double-cut. This should be about medium. If this is too rare for you, just add a bit more time, but be careful of burning. You may need to reduce the heat and go for a little longer time. Anyway, garnish with some chopped mint. Serve with mint sauce.

You can also grill lamb chops, the rules are the same as for any red meat. You might try grilled with some kind of rosemary marinade. The Greeks really like rosemary with their lamb, and they are the experts. Actually, most all the Middle East types deal quite well with lamb. Look for Greek, Lebanese, and so on recipes. They are all the same basic culture, though they will all deny it. And may want to cut your throat for saying so. Alexander had the policy of mingling the cultures. Not to mention the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire - need I go on?

But I’ll get more into Middle Eastern lamb recipes at a later time. Oh hell, I might as well talk a little about kibbe - there are a million spellings. The basic kibbe is:

1 lb. Finely minced lamb. It mostly gets ground in this country - but that is not right. Keep the fat content down low.
1 medium onion, finely minced. Or more, to taste. You can also puree, but I like fine mince better.
2 teaspoons good kosher salt, or less, to taste
1 teaspoon cumin (optional)
Pepper to taste (optional)
½ cup fine burghul - cracked bulghar wheat - soaked for 30 minutes and pressed dry.

Mix the whole mess together. If it is too sticky, try adding a little water.

Now you can bake it or fry it (make that 1 cup burghul for cooked). Deep dish, patties, whatever. Don’t overcook it dry.

But the absolute best way to eat it is raw, like steak tartar. It is called kibbe naeya. I can just see the queasy looks out there. Raw lamb, yech! But it really is delicious. And I wouldn’t lie to you about something as important as food! Of course, you have to have a supply of meat that you can absolutely trust, and that may be hard. If you get clean meat, skim off the surface 1/8″ or so with a clean sharp knife and do your own grinding or mincing you are pretty safe. Anyway, get (or bake) some good fresh pita bread. Get a really good grade of extra virgin olive oil. Greek or Lebanese is better than Italian for this. Put some spicy veggies in the olive oil if you like. Now, tear off a strip of bread, get some kibbe and some olive oil on it. If you’re going to be authentic, use a central communal bowl, and only use your right hand to tear and roll the bread. Depending on the place and local custom, you might have a central dish of olive oil or one per side of the main dish, or even individual dipping bowls. All samey-samey. Chow down and enjoy - it is wonderful!

Southern Sweet Cornbread -

The staple of the South for many years was cornbread. The Southern wheat flours are not really very good for bread. They are super fine for pies and such. Therefore the South developed the tradition of cornbread. This is what I use when I am in the mood for cornbread. Kind of a variation of the way my mother made it. Actually, the very best cornbread I ever had was made by my best friend’s mother, but I have never been able to get the same results, even with her recipe. But this one works very nicely.

150 grams unbleached all-purpose flour (1 cup)
166 grams yellow cornmeal (1 cup) (Aunt Jemima or Perkerson’s yellow)
65 grams sugar (5 Tbs)
8 grams baking powder (2 tsp)
4 grams salt (1/2 tsp)
244 grams milk (1 cup)
65 grams bacon drippings (1/3 cup)
1 large egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Lightly grease an iron skillet with bacon grease.

Roughly mix everything up. Should have flour clumps about the size of BBs.

Bake for 26 to 30 minutes, the edges should be brown, the top golden, and a toothpick in the center should come out clean.

Serve hot with good butter. Dandy for soaking up pot likker.

I suppose that it is possible to do some substitutions to make a food nazi happy, but why bother. The flavor is the name of the game. Same with the pan. You could use a square or rectangular pan, but the purist uses an iron skillet.

Herself sez: Welllll, there is a slightly different recipe for every Southern cook!! Some people use self-rising corn meal mixes, others use white cornmeal. Some don’t add sugar, some add less sugar, some add more. Some add more shortening, some add less. Some will add “cracklins” to their cornbread. These are bits of crispy pork fat - not quite as crispy as the pork rinds you see in the grocery, but gently rendered to a slightly crispy texture. Some people use bits of “chittlins” - chicken intestines cleaned, chopped up and fried. I’m not as fond of the cornbread with cracklins or chittlins it. The daughter-person and her husband like white cornmeal mix with little or no sugar added for making their cornbread. I prefer a sweeter, yellow cornbread, and the Ol’ Curmudgeon’s recipe suits me just fine!

Sweet and Tart Glazed Salmon - -

This is pretty easy and quite tasty. This will serve two - just increase the proportions as needed for more people.Make up the glaze:

2 Tbs brown sugar
1-1/2 Tbs honey
1 Tbs butter
2 Tbs spicy mustard
1 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs olive oil
¼ tsp ground ginger
salt and pepper to taste

2 salmon fillets

Mix up the glaze in a small saucepan, heat and stir until thoroughly hot and blended. Set aside to cool to room temp.

Brush the fillets with the glaze, skin side down, and broil for about 4 minutes. Flip over and brush the skin side with the glaze. Broil for 2 to 3 minutes, don’t burn it. Flip back over and coat with the rest of the glaze and broil for 1 to 2 minutes - the glaze should bubble and brown, but not burn. If the fillets are very fresh you can reduce the cooking time by a minute or two.

Exotics –

This is a lunch toasted open face sandwich of sorts that my mother used to make. I can remember them from back in the 1950’s. I have no idea where she learned these things or whether it was her own idea. I do know that they are very nice and tasty. I do know where the name came from. Sometime in the mid 1970’s I was having lunch with her several times a week and this was her go-to when she was tired or completely out of other ideas. She used to say “I guess we’ll have something exotic and unusual” and then do these. Therefore we started calling them exotics.

Skip forward to today and Herself and I still like these a lot. And we call them exotics in humorous tribute to my mother.

Simple:

Bread (we like honey-wheat or pain de mie)
Cheese, cover the bread like cheese toast (cheddar, sliced about 1/8” or less)
Tomato, one good sized slice in the center
Bacon, 1/3 to ½ piece centered on the tomato

We pre-cook our bacon about halfway (enough to render most of the grease), since Herself just cannot stand undercooked bacon.

Into the broiler until the cheese bubbles and the bread is crisp around the edges. Don’t worry if the bacon gets slightly charred. Adds to the flavor.

That’s all there is to it. Simple, satisfying, delicious.

Enjoy.

Herself Sez: I think this must be a Kentucky thing. My grandmother used to make them for me for lunch from time to time, too! Remember, my family was from the same area of Kentucky as your Mama’s family, m’dear. I don’t remember that we called them anything special, though.

Baked Eggs -

This is one of those baked egg dishes that is the devil to get right until you learn your oven and the timing. Then you will not be able to blow it once you learn the looks of the thing done right. Warning: an uneven broiler (like mine) can cook one dish rock-hard and the dish next to it can be just about raw. That can drive you nuts.To bake eggs use individual gratin dishes or Pyrex bowls of about 3 to 4 egg capacity.

Put the oven rack on the top or whatever will get you about 6″ from the broiler. Yeah, I know we call them baked but it is really broiled. So, preheat the broiler while we get all this together.

Crack the 3 eggs each into separate dishes. You don’t have time to futz around cracking eggs when you get going. Be careful not to break the yolks or get shell into the mix.

Mix up:

1 or 2 decent cloves of fresh minced garlic
¼ tsp fresh minced thyme. (Use a pinch of dried if you don’t have fresh.)
¼ tsp fresh minced rosemary. (Use a pinch of dried if you don’t have fresh.)
1 Tbs fresh minced parsley. (Use 2 tsp dried if you don’t have fresh.)
1 Tbs grated parmigiano reggiano. (You can also use a Gruyere for a nice variety. Don’t skimp on the quality of the cheese.)

Put ½ tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of heavy cream in each dish and place them on a baking sheet under the broiler until it gets bubbly and hot - 3 or 4 minutes. Pour in the 3 eggs to each dish, salt and pepper to taste, and sprinkle on the herb-cheese mixture and get them back into the oven.

Broil for about 5 minutes or until the whites are just beginning to set. Take them out a bit before you think they are ready as they will continue to bake in the dish. Serve them up with the nice toast of your choice.<!–

You can vary this with any topping that you like - or nothing but salt and pepper. A good shredded ham goes well. Or crumbled bacon. Different cheeses vary it nicely.

Enjoy.

Herself Sez: As someone who prefers, nay REQUIRES, her eggs to have s*o*l*i*d whites, this was a big disappointment. As Himself Sed, our oven heats unevenly. His eggs were fine for him (somewhat loose). Mine turned out basically RAW!!! Yetch!! Likewise Retch!! In the future, mine will have to be left in an additional 10 minutes or so OR will have to be put in about 10 minutes before Himself’s go in. I can deal with solid yolks. I can deal with solid whites. I cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, deal with raw (or even shakey) whites (except in egg nog, when they are well whipped, or in a milk nog - again well mixed in). This little experiment was a total failure for me - he’ll have to try again. Luckily, however, his failures are very few and very far between!

Steaks and Roquefort Sauce -

Here is another delightfully different steak recipe to perk you back up when things are just getting ho-hum. Fast and easy and different and delicious.This is for 4 steaks, so adjust to whatever you have.

Reduce about 1-1/2 cups beef or veal stock down to ½ cup and set aside.

Mix up 2 oz. room temp Roquefort or Blue Cheese and 4 tbs unsalted room temp butter in a small mixing bowl. For this kind of exercise a good kitchen fork usually works better than a blender for putting together this kind of stiff stuff.

Generously salt and pepper the steaks, cook to medium rare. Pan-fried in butter and/or olive oil over medium heat is best, but you can broil them if you like. When things are pan-fried then there is a layer of brown goodies that incorporate into the suace when the pan is deglazed. This is not true when things are broiled. Plate, cover and let rest while you make the sauce.

Pour off the fat from the skillet, leaving about a tablespoon. If you broiled them, pour about a tablespoon into the pan. Add ½ cup of reduced beef stock and whisk vigorously to deglaze the pan. Bring the stock to a simmer and add the butter-cheese mixture in chunks. Stir each chunk in until it has emulsified and blended in smoothly, then add the next chunk. Now the trick is that you may have to diddle the heat and/or move the skillet off and on the heat because you want the mix to blend smoothly and not just become oil. When the sauce is nice and thick spoon it over the steaks and serve. If you want to do a traditional variation you can add chopped nuts just before serving. I don’t like it that way myself.

Herself Sez: I prefer it with the chopped nuts. Lots of chopped nuts. This is a GREAT way to serve steak! Almost, but not quite as good as his Steak au Poivre - wherein I licked the plate when he wasn’t looking the first time he served it! Yeah! I reeeely did!!

Eggs Benedict -

Eggs Benedict is one of those classic dishes that just about everyone has heard of and most have not had - or have had some inferior version at a second-rate restaurant. The real deal is not all that hard to make. All we have is four basic goodies: poached eggs, Canadian bacon, English muffin, Hollandaise sauce. Nothing at all difficult here. The only touch thing is getting the timing right so that it all comes together nice and warm.From the 1920’s to the 1940’s just about everyone named Benedict claimed to have had something to do with the creation. There doesn’t seem to be any definite trail to follow. The only thing that I can say is that any claim after 1898 is probably off, since the oldest reference seems to be in Adolph Meyer’s Eggs, and how to use them, published in 1898. This reference may or may not be accurate, but the basic idea seems to have been around for a while.

Canadian bacon. Only in the US is it called Canadian bacon. Everywhere else it is back bacon. Anyway, get some. Slice thin and heat is all it takes. If it is the pre-sliced, pre-cooked stuff we get in my area then all it needs is heating up.

Poached eggs. There are two ways to poach eggs. The traditional directly in water or the use of a poaching pan. If you have a poaching pan you already know how to use it, so we won’t go into that. The traditional method is pretty easy. Get a large skillet, put about 2″ of water and a teaspoon of vinegar in it. Get the water boiling while you crack each egg into a separate glass or small dish. The reason for this is that you keep all the shells out of the way, and you cannot crack eggs directly into the water as neatly or fast enough so that all the eggs come done at the same time. Once the water is boiling, drop in each egg gently with a quick wrist motion. You don’t want the eggs to contact the bottom of the skillet or they may stick a bit. Reduce the water to a good simmer and cook for 4 minutes for done whites and liquid yolks. 5 minutes if you like hard yolks. Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. You don’t want any of the water in your Eggs Benedict.

English muffins. Split, butter, toast. Nothing special here.

Hollandaise sauce. This is one of the easiest things to make. 3 egg yolks. 1 stick of unsalted butter, melted gently. 1 tablespoon hot water. 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice. Get the yolks, hot water, lemon juice into a blender. Put on the top with the center removed. Start up the blender and gently pour the melted butter in as the goodies blend. When all the butter has been added keep blending for a minute or two - we want a nice smooth sauce. You can make the sauce while the eggs poach.

Assembly: muffin half, bacon, egg, sauce. Sprinkle with paprika and some chopped parsley. That’s it. The only trick to the whole thing is to get the timing right so that nothing sits around getting cold waiting for something else. When it goes right everything comes done together and assembly is quick and easy.

Substitutions and variations abound:

Florentine: Leave out the bacon and substitute spinach, and you have a sort of ersatz Eggs Florentine. The older version used sauce Mornay, not hollandaise.

Seafood: Shellfish for the bacon.

Veggie: Avocado and/or tomato for the bacon.

Pacifica: Smoked salmon for the bacon.

Redneck: Biscuit, sausage, fried egg, sawmill gravy.

Herself’s Meatloaf

I don’t think I’ve ever made meatloaf the same way twice. As long as the Ol’ Curmudgeon likes it, I won’t worry about it. What is meatloaf? Well it’s a basic food staple.

From time immemorial, people have mixed meat with veggies, breads, thickeners and various spices, baked it in a loaf or patty, and served - sometimes with a sauce or gravy, sometimes without. They did this to stretch the meat in lean times, to use up bits of meat that otherwise might have been thrown out, and to make tough meats more digestible. In early times, the meat used was already cooked - usually leftovers - whereas now-a-days we tend to use a raw ground meat - either beef or pork, but lamb, chicken, turkey and veal can be used, also. Any meat, actually. Horse, anyone? Donkey? Goat? Yup. Any or all of the above!

What I do these days is get or make about 2 pounds of  meatloaf mix - 1/3 ground beef, 1/3 ground pork, 1/3 ground veal. Add in 1-2 sweet Italian sausages removed from the casing. Do not mix, yet!! Now the variations begin! About 1/3 - 1 cup of bread crumbs. I’ve used - pulverized bread out of the loaf, crushed croutons, crumbled cornbread, prepared breadcrumbs from the grocery. I’ve used more, I ‘ve used less. In this case, less isn’t very good, and too much more is not very good, either. Just toss them in on top of the meat. Toss in 1-4 Tbsp of some kind of meat sauce - Heinz, Worcestershire, A-1, Lea and Perrins steak sauce, etc. I tend to use a thick, savory sauce, like Lea and Perrins Steak Sauce. Chop up some onions. About a quarter cup to half a cup is good. I don’t add bell peppers, but some people do. If you add them, don’t add much, chop them up very finely, and “sweat” them before adding. Salt, pepper to taste. I use seasoned salt and lemon pepper. Only now do you mix - very lightly - just enough to get a semi-even distribution of all ingredients.

Precook, about half-way done, enough bacon to cover the top of the loaf. While the bacon is cooking, gently pack the meat into a loaf pan. Liberally cover the top with ketchup. I use Hunt’s - nice deep flavor, not too spicy. Once the bacon is about half-way done, lay the strips over the top.

Bake in a 350degF oven for about an hour, or until the meat is done in the center (145deg on meat thermometer).

The first night we have it, we just slice it and serve warm. We don’t like gravy on it, but others do. A flour gravy, a sausage gravy, brown gravy - whatever you like will work if you want gravy.

The next day, we slice thinly and make sandwiches with lots of mayo and sweet relish on them. I like some spicy dark mustard on mine; the Ol’ Curmudgeon does not. O well! To each his - or her - own!

Other things that can be done with meatloaf include  rolling up into little dough-covered packets - pasta dough makes raviolis, yeast dough makes pierogs, flatbread (pita) makes gyros, tortillas makes burritos, corndough covered with corn shucks makes tamales. Good for lunch pails. The meatloaf should be cooked before adding to these to avoid having food poisoning problems. Every culture seems to have some kind of meat roll.

Roll in packets of wonton skins and cook in chicken-miso stock - you have egg-rolls. (Leave out the meat, only use veggies, cook in miso stock - then you have spring rolls.)

Another delightful thing to do with a meatloaf mix is to roll it in softened cabbage leaves and cook all lined up and stacked in a deep pot (crock pot will do) with some vroth of some kind around it. Cabbage rolls are an Eastern European fave. Think Poland, the Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, etc. Good with a generous dollop of sour cream on top!

Roll into little balls, cook in a skillet - voila! Meatballs! Add to some cream sauce or tomato sauce and serve over pasta - Spaghetti and Meatballs! Or, add to a savory brown sauce and - Hungarian meatballs.

It’s all the same stuff. And it’s all good, plain, basic, country cooking. Country French, country English, country Russian, country - add your own geographic area.

To get it to where you like it requires experimentation. That’s something we have problems with in our “Mickie-D” society. We want to do it fast without playing around. Some people are actually fearful of experimenting in the kitchen. To them I say, put your fears aside and get your hands dirty!!

Southern Iced Tea -

Everyone in the South grew up drinking iced tea. Sweet iced tea. There was no other kind. Everyone had it in their homes and the restaurants had it. It was strong and sweet and cold and refreshing. You can’t get it anymore unless you make it yourself. There was nothing instant or artificial about it. Even the “Country Southern” restaurants are using instant stuff now. If you have sun tea, custom tea, hippie tea, herbal tea, English tea, or any other they may be good, but they are not Southern Iced Tea. Southern Iced Tea is the real deal. The only point of disagreement among the various tea making artists was tea brand. There were 3 main ones that I remember. Lipton, Tetley, and Luzianne. We were a Luzianne family. It is still the best as far as I am concerned. Lipton and Tetley are good, but will get bitter if over brewed, to my taste. On the other hand, there were just as many, if not more, that preferred one of the others. Try them all, choose your own.

We also used either metal or glass to brew tea. Never use plastic. I can remember when Tupperware swept through the South, maybe the mid-50s or so. There were many things that it was good for. Brewing tea is not one of them. Tastes funky. My family used an old pot with no handle to brew the stuff. Aluminum, I think.

This is the simplest stuff in the world, just remember 3-2-1. Three family size tea bags. 2 cups of water. One cup of sugar. Yeah, that’s a lot of sugar. Your food nazi will not like it. No, you can’t substitute anything else and get the taste. Yes, you have to add it while the brew is hot. You can’t add it later and get the same taste. Not possible. This stuff was consumed by people who worked hard. They did not need to worry about calories or diabetes. They were plumb skinny from hard work. Anyway, boil the water, steep the bags. Remove the bags when they have yielded a strong rich brew but before it gets bitter. Good Southern iced tea is never bitter. Looks like a rich reddish umber to me. Stir in the sugar, making sure it dissolves completely, while the brew is still hot. Let the brew cool to room temperature, you don’t want to melt the ice and get a weak drink.

There were some practitioners that added just a pinch of baking soda. I never could tell that it made that much difference. If you want to try it - go right ahead.