I love a good cocktail hour. Not necessarily one at a cocktail party (too much small talk, never enough elderflower-spiked Prosecco), but the golden pre-dinner time around happy hour. I like the calm that the evening holds right around then, as if the day is slowly exhaling its breath. I like the sensation of having been active for hours, and maybe just having finished a run or a swim or a bike, and being clean and showered and dressed for supper.
My parents started a new tradition—a daily ritual really—a few years ago, which they call the venue. Every night, they pick a different spot on the farm and sit down together for a glass of wine. They’ll set up a pair of green canvas folding camp chairs out in the field behind the new barn, or up by the pool overlooking the ponds, or down by the clothesline where the stream rushes past, shaded by willow trees and swathes of the fresh mint that grows wild and abundant in the pig pasture.
The venue could be inside, too. It could be at the kitchen counter or in two of the armchairs in the living room, or scooted up close to the fireplace. They do a venue wherever they are, so there have been plenty in exciting places (at a beautiful beach hotel overlooking the bluffs in Watch Hill, Rhode Island or hiking in the White Mountains or high on the cliffs of Big Sur) but it’s not about the specialness of the spot—in fact, quite the opposite. It’s about infusing every ordinary day with anticipation—knowing that there’s a moment in the evening to look forward to, when you’ll pause and talk to someone (or sit silently, depending on how the day went) without phones or distractions.
Oh, and there’s wine. So even on the worst days, you know that’ll get you through.
If you are a wine or beer or cocktail drinker, then beverages are probably a highlight of that happy hour time. But you really shouldn’t overlook the snacks. In the order of meals, I think that a nicely arranged cheese board situation is woefully under-appreciated.
Everyone has a vague idea of how to toss together the right sort of items to pair with drinks: open a box of Bremmer wafers and slice some sharp cheddar cheese, and you’re good. Maybe crudite + dip is more your style, or you just pour chips into a bowl and call it a day. You can’t go wrong with any of those, of course, but consider the pay-off putting forth a little advance effort.
Because happy hour-esque snack foods are so readily available in packaged form (sliced prosciutto, any manner of crackers, Goldfish, Chex Mix, a wedge of Brie, popcorn, roasted almonds, olives, and the like), we don’t usually think to go homemade.
But, it’s worth the extra step sometimes. (Sometimes! Not always. Let’s be clear there.) But cheese straws, for example, are so much better warm from the oven than store-bought. Other excellent thoughts: you could make mini cornmeal and Parmesan biscuits, or a caramelized onion and cheese dip to go alongside Triscuits. You could squeeze some lemon into yogurt, then add a pinch of flaky salt and some grated garlic and put that out alongside pita chips.
Even a teeny bit of cooking can elevate an ingredient—like warming up nuts in a skillet with olive oil and some spices instead of pouring them straight out of a jar. Or mixing smoked salmon with a few spoonful of creme fraiche and tossing on some chives.
All of these ideas are nice. But crackers—crackers are happy hour snack royalty. I’ve written about some recipes for homemade crackers before, but the best ever are the flaky, oversized sheets of olive oil crackers that my mom makes.
She rolls the dough (a very simple combination of olive oil + water + flour + baking powder + salt) out into big ovals, paper-thin, and bakes them on a sheet pan, then break them apart into irregular pieces once crisp and cooled. She usually tops hers with sesame seeds, although really anything from dried rosemary to flaky salt to lemon zest and poppyseeds would be good.
I can never make them just like she does. But I try! Sometimes I can come pretty close. I’ll make a near-perfect batch, and then a few days later, they’re too thick and or too salty or missing something…her? I think? A metaphor for all of us—always missing our mothers?
The trick to success with this kind of cracker is in rolling it thinly enough. That’s the only way to get snappingly crisp and crunchy crackers.
Whenever I find myself nearby Carissa’s Bakery in East Hampton, I pick up an order of the freshly made carta di musica crackers: massive oblong sheets of crackers that they tuck inside white paper bags. You know they’re good because you can see the olive oil seeping through the paper, staining the leather of your car seat (whoops, worth it!) when you toss them in the backseat for the drive home.
These crackers have golden edges and puffy air pockets dotting the surface: they’re made using a traditional Italian recipe which is so named (carta di musica means ‘sheet music’ in Italian) because it’s supposed to be rolled so thinly that you could read sheet music through it.
It so happens that I have a friend who works in that bakery, and she nicely sent me their recipe. It calls for semolina flour, whereas my mom’s recipe uses entirely all-purpose, but otherwise they’re pretty much the same. I’ve played around with both and ended up tweaking and combining them into the recipe you see below, which yields a very easy-to-work-with dough.
If you make it the way my mom does—by rolling the dough and placing it on a sheet pan before it goes into the oven—you’ll get a flatter cracker without air pockets.
If you make it the way traditional carta is made—by preheating an oven stone or sheet pan or baking steel and transferring the dough onto the hot surface—you’ll get that puffy, air-pocket-strewn appearance. I’ve explained how to do both below and use whatever method you want.
Olive Oil Crackers
1 cup (120g) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (122g) semolina flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (113g) water, at room temperature
1/3 cup (66g) olive oil
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. If you’re planning to bake on a baking steel or pizza stone, place it on the middle rack to preheat as the oven does.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, and salt.
Add the water and olive oil and stir to combine. Knead the dough until smooth—you don’t need to overmix it but it shouldn’t be rough and bumpy. You can do this by hand or in a stand mixer with a dough hook.
Pinch off palm-sized chunks of dough, one at a time. If you’ve preheated a stone or steel to bake them, then roll the dough out as thinly as possible and transfer it onto your preheated surface in the oven—this is a little tricky to do unless you have a pizza peel so I usually roll it on a piece of parchment paper and slide the parchment onto the preheated surface, OR I attempt a tricky “fling the dough onto the surface” move which rarely works and has lead to a few burns on my hand. But when it does work, it puffs up beautifully.
If you’re not using a preheated surface, then roll the dough as thinly as you can directly on a baking sheet (I flip mine over and roll it/bake it on the bottom of mine, since then the lip/rim doesn’t get in the way) or on a piece of parchment which you then transfer onto a baking sheet.
You want the dough to be THIN—so thin that you can almost see through it. Try to get it uniformly thin as then it will bake evenly without burning.
You can bake it plain, or you have a few options for topping. You can brush it with olive oil and sprinkle flaky sea salt on top or fresh or dried herbs. Seeds are also nice: poppy seeds or sesame seeds or a mix of any you like. You could use everything bagel seasoning or even grated Parmesan. If you use cheese, don’t overdo it or the crackers will be too salty (you can always dial back the salt slightly in the dough if you go that route).
Bake the crackers for about 8 to 10 minutes, or until a pale golden. As you can see, I often burn mine!!! If some areas of the dough are thinner, they’re bound to burn slightly. Personally, I like them extra-dark but that’s up to you.
The crackers might not seem crisp, but they’ll crisp up as they cool. If they don’t get crispy enough, you can always pop them back into the oven to crisp—if you do this, I like to have the oven on to 350 degrees, heated (like if you’re using it for something else), then turn off the oven and put the crackers in. That way they won’t burn but the residual heat will crisp them.
Once cooled, break them up into large pieces with your hands to serve and eat.