Baltivore

I Guess I Really DO Mean What I Say

2011-05-13T22:22:00.004-04:00

I spend a lot of time at my mom's house. Mom's sporadic help is the closest thing I've got, as a single mother, to someone holding the other end of the stick, and the boys and I all derive comfort and enjoyment from weekends at Nanu's. Thing is it's sort of like going camping: we don't simply hop in the van and drive the hour betwixt here and there. We gotta pack first, and not just our jammies and toothbrushes. My mom does NOT see the value in organic foods, to put it mildly, and so going to visit there means pretty much taking along everything I will be wanting us to eat while we're there.

She pretends she doesn't mind that we won't so much as drink her water (yes, we even bring our own water. I'm sorry but the water there tastes awful to me, plus comes from an aquifer contaminated with MTBE a few years back by a nearby gas station). I try to not make faces at the uber-industrial comestibles in her pantry. It works out. More or less.

Last weekend, though, Mom got me. I've just been struggling along for a good long while now through an incredibly protracted, difficult and penury-inflicting divorce. Simultaneously I get to enjoy feeling guilty that my standards regarding SOLE food just aren't as high as they used to be. It's not that my beliefs have changed. More that I'm too exhausted and overwhelmed to keep up the serious and continuous work that feeding us sustainably, organically, locally, ethically AND affordably entails. Take yogurt: I've gone from making my own, weekly, from grass-fed raw milk, to buying Stoneyfield organic cream top, to...well, this is depressing, but to hoping that Dannon uses non-rBGH cows and no lowly tricks like bulking up with dried skim milk. These days I'm too tired to look it up and honestly I just don't really care as much as I once did. Scurried a few rungs downward on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs scale, have I. Anyway, once upon a time when energy and/or optimism flagged I could take my class privilege and buy Amish raw milk yogurt, or really fantastic local yogurt I utterly adore from a farm whose name I am too utterly tired to drag forth from my brain right now. Seven bucks a quart, though, I just don't have that kind of financial wherewithal anymore.

But I digress. Nanu had just returned from a visit to BJ's WHolesale Club with a clamshell of Campari (tm) tomatoes. It's early May and the last time I had a tomato that tasted anything like a tomato was probably October. But these were terrific: great texture, firm and aromatic and hoo boy tasty. Some dim memory twitched, something about genetically engineered tomatoes, wherein scientists figured out how to keep the gene for ripening turned on while switching off the (evoluntionally intertwined since dawn of time) gene for softening. I suppressed it, despite a longstanding prejudice against eating food that does not rot, not to mention produce that arrives packaged in plastic clamshells, but. That seductive, fecund tomato smell. Wow. It's something of an understatement to say that my life has for rather a long while been short on sensory indulgences, so I was an easy mark. An easy mark who ate like half the tray.

I've felt sorta bad about it ever since, but not bad enough to look it up on ye olde internet. I was pretty sure my memory was accurate, that these were GMO tomatoes that I'd gorged on, so why make it worse by knowing beyond all doubt?

So. A week later I'm spending Friday night shopping Costco because that's just the kind of wild woman I am. I'm provisioning for MAPS Meet, a primitive skills workshop next week where I'm going to be teaching wild foods classes, picking up stuff that the boys will eat and that will be relatively copacetic spending four likely warmish days in a cooler. One of my favorite Costco items is actual mozzarella di bufalo from Italy -- I used to live near the very farm this stuff comes from and I'm thrilled to be able to buy fresh Campanian buffalo's milk mozz in White Marsh, Maryland (although it's now pasteurized to pacify the USDA, something the Italians would never tolerate). I picked up a tub ($11.99), thinking I'd make sandwiches between teaching sessions of traditional food preservation methods. What I was really thinking was, wow, my tiny spindly little tomato plants still under a grow light because it's been such a cold spring and dude I'm at least two months away from a homegrown tomato worthy of this cheese. And then I thought: Campari.

Yep. Sure enough, Costco gots Campari. I stood there for a really long time, holding a clamshell full of fragrant ruby-red fruit, looking and looking and lusting in my heart. My basil plants are big enough to pick from, even if my tomatoes are spindly weaklings. Insalata caprese would taste soooo good...

After who knows how long I shook it off and said aloud, stick to your principals, girly, and step away from the tomatoes. I put them back, and also the mozzarella. It can wait for the right time. Eventually things are going to get better, and tomato plants grow tall and fruitful, and I can legitimately enjoy the flavorful magic that happens when ripe tomatoes meet buffalo mozzarella, basil leaves, a drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil, and a touch of coarse salt. Even tired, even hungry and lonely and sad, I'm still me under all that baggage. And the real me still cares enough to wait for the good stuff to come along, all in the fullness of time.

Im-Morel

2011-04-22T15:24:00.004-04:00

Spring sure is dragging its feet this year. First asparagus finally got itself up and out of the ground fully two weeks later than in 2010, and I desperately wish the morel mushrooms would take a page from asparagus' book because they are NOwhere to be seen. At least not by me.

Every year I always start looking too early, just in case. But I've never gone this long, and on this many fruitless forays, without finding a single morel. Or, as has occasionally happened, hollow-stemmed holes in the ground from where someone else got there first. This year, I swear, I'd happily take the holes -- at least I'd know I wasn't crazy, that I hadn't somehow lost my eyes. Because the season appears here at last, all the spring cosigns to morels pushing their wrinkled snouts forth from the leaf mold are present: poplars leafing out, may apples fully unfurled, jack-in-the-pulpits open for pontification and pollenation.

My first few forays I was ok with not finding anything, because I didn't really expect to. May apples were nothing but green spikes just emerging, and the trees were bare -- and this was barely two weeks ago. But since then we've had the couple days of rainy weather followed by a really warm day pattern that morels like. In fact we've had it TWICE. And still no morels.

I go at least every other day, looking. I most often visit a place I consider my bellwether spot -- over the years it never has a lot of morels, but it has them reliably. Also I can park, hop out of the car and be standing in the midst of where the morels should be in about 3 minutes flat. I check here often, have been there at least four times -- I'm starting to lose track, seriously -- and nothing. Was there this morning, the first time I could get there after Wednesday's first seriously warm day of spring (84 degrees) and STILL nothing. Not even holes. At this point I'd welcome holes. I know I already said that. But I'm starting to get a little nuts, now.

Looking, and not finding. With no control over whether the thing I so assiduously seek will even appear, no matter how long and how hard I search. The frustration is quite serious. It's very much akin to the frustration of asymptotically approaching, yet never quite being able to reach, sexual climax -- wanting, not getting.

It's at this point I begin to doubt myself. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough? Looking in the wrong places (even though they've been right places, years past)? Maybe I've somehow lost my ability to see?

I both doubt and completely believe this last. I doubt it because I do have good eyes; at last night's Little League game I found a tiny plastic toy, not even two inches long, my four year old had lost from his pocket -- in the middle of a 2-plus acre grassy meadow that he'd been running all around for over an hour. He was quite upset but also full of touching faith that I would find it for him. The toy -- did I mention it was mainly green in color? -- could've been anywhere, but with some patient pacing and triangulation I eventually found it. These are skills I learned hunting morels.

And, while hunting and not finding, I've found all kinds of other things. Some things that look like morels:

My heart leaps each time, but only for the briefest of flashes before crashing back to the same old morel-free ground. Amazing how much heartbreak can be contained in a pinecone half buried in dead leaves.

Furthermore, I know my eyes still work because I've found other things while hunting: oyster mushrooms, nettles, two animal skulls and tons of bones. I am happiest about finding a half dozen cool old glass bottles, including an intact blue glass Ball canning jar that is at least 70 years old. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with these finds, yet they are mere consolation prizes. More consolation -- though I am not usually given to schadenfreude -- is that friends went to one of my morel spots (which I introduced them to: credit to them for asking, first) two days ago, when I could not, on super-warm Wednesday which SHOULD have been a prime day, and ALSO did not find morels. So it's not just me.

But it is me. I'm actively miserable over this. Downright grumpy. So I have a new theory: I haven't found any yet this year because I have yet to go morel hunting in the rain. It's too dry, despite the at least four days of rain we've had in the past two weeks including pounding thunderstorms complete with tornadoes and power outages.

Now all I need is some rain. And, apparently, a life.

Consolation prizes: stinging nettles, which were delicious sautéed in butter; bottles I found in the forest while not finding morels.

Opening Day

2011-04-14T22:49:00.003-04:00

Jack started Little League baseball recently -- his first go at an organized sport. (I know, I know, I'm un-American, keeping my kid off the field of rec-league glory until the hoary old age of eight years). Jack is adapting beautifully to Life After Little League -- there's talk of making him pitcher, kid's got a natural arm on him -- but me, not so much. We're three practices into the season and we've been late to every single one. Shoot, you may as well also count us late for the one they canceled due to rain, because I'm sure we would've been the last ones there that night too...

I don't especially care if we're a few minutes late, but Jack does. So tonight I was determined to get us to the park on time, for once. We were, of course, fantastically and record-breakingly late. BUT this time, however, I have a bona-fide gold-plated excuse for our tardiness: First Asparagus.

Seriously, I was just going to stop by our favorite farm stand...pick up a couple bunches of asparagus that were waiting there for me...cook it up later, after practice was over. I swear I didn't mean to splay out those lovely green spears on a tray, roll them around in a little extra-virgin olive oil, coarse salt and pepper. They just, um, fell into that 450 degree oven all on their own.

OK, OK, I confess: I did it. I cooked that asparagus BEFORE practice, knowing that it would take half an hour when we had to leave the house in 15 minutes, 20 max, to be on time for baseball. But I did it for the best of reasons: because my two little boys begged me to. How could any mama say no to her children's pleas for vegetables?

I was astonished at their excitement over First Asparagus, at how badly they wanted to eat it. Cole loitered impatiently in the kitchen, asking every few minutes if the asparagus was done YET. And when it came out of the oven the three of us clustered around the pan, plucking up spears with gingery fingertips, burning ourselves, dropping them, doing it again and again until finally they were just barely cooled enough to cram into our eagerly awaiting mouths.

Yes, we were late for baseball. Half an hour, actually. So sue me. We also ate every last fat, luscious spear of asparagus and walked in heads held high, smiles gleaming with olive oil and satisfaction.

A note on the asparagus: last year's First Aparagus was March 30th. It's been chilly and wet this spring and this season is rolling along a solid two weeks behind last year's. I got tired of fruitless drives past the farm stand, which since we moved is no longer along any of my daily routes. So, this year I got smart: I started emailing the farmer. He promised to let me know as soon as he put asparagus out for sale. He even gave me daily asparagus status reports ("Only 4-6 inches tall today, we need a couple days of sun before they'll be ready -- maybe Thursday?").

And, bless his heart, he did email as soon as he put out his first three bunches. We got there within the hour, and bought all three. O happy day, that hath asparagus in it.

For the Record: Jambalaya

2010-12-27T08:56:00.003-05:00

On Xmas eve, facing an incredibly busy 24 hours ahead, one of the tasks I needed to accomplish was coming up with some sort of Xmas dinner. I had planned to bake a ham my friend Deb hooked me up with earlier this fall when she offered to split half a pastured hog from Forever Endeavor Farm .

We've already feasted on the extremely tasty, super-thick uncured bacon from this hog share, and I am looking forward to trying the ham. The thing is, it's big, this ham. Also I've never cooked a whole ham before. I have a bit of Ham Anxiety going. Plus I really, really didn't want to wreck it, and when I'm multitasking like mad on 10,000 different things that need to be done NOW is precisely the time I tend to lose track of little things like the ham in the oven.

Then I just forgot to get the darn thing out of the freezer. Since it would require at least a day to thaw that pretty much took ham off our family's Xmas menu. Standing in the grocery store late on Xmas Eve afternoon -- me and the other bazillion last-minute grocery shoppers -- casting about for a replacement meal I came up with jambalaya. I've made this recipe literally dozens of times; it's always been a go-to dish for football weekends, open house holiday scenarios, any time there's an open-ended time frame yet lots of people to feed.

The recipe comes from a cook book that I alas no longer have access to. It's a church fundraiser cooking collection from some tiny parish in Louisiana, self-published in 1982 in blurry mimeograph print. There are recipes for muskrat and alligator in there, plus all kinds of Cajun dishes -- some common outside the bayou, others I've never heard of even in Paul Prudhomme. I've made some amazing dishes from that book -- a smoky, buttery crawfish etouffe prominent among them -- but always go back to this jambalaya. It's relatively easy to put together, holds well, and tastes even more amazing the next day.

I really really wish I could reproduce the original recipe in all its glory; the directions are quite eccentrically bossy and specific. But the ingredients are right. I made this late Xmas afternoon and we've been living off it ever since.

Serve with the best French bread you can find, sliced and thickly spread with lots and lots of sweet butter.

JAMBALAYA
2 lbs shrimp, peeled
1 lb andouille sausage (the andouille from Neopol in the Belvedere Market makes for a truly outstanding jambalaya)
1 c chopped onion
i c chopped green pepper
1/2 chopped celery
4 cloves garlic
1/8 t cayenne
1/2 t salt
4 bay leaves
1/2 t chili powder
1.5 t thyme
1.5 t basil
1/4 t allspice
1/4 t cloves
2 cans stewed tomatoes, drained, reserve juice
2 c beef stock (use tomato juice to reconstitute stock if using beef base)
1.5 c rice
green onions
curly parsley
Crystal hot sauce

Sear andouille, set aside. In same pan, melt 2 tablespoons butter with 2 tablespoons oil. Sautee peppers and onions until softened, then add garlic, spices, tomatoes (drained, saving juice to make up stock if using stock base). Add stock and rice, bring to boil, cover, cook on low 20-30 min until rice is cooked. Add shrimp, stir frequently five more minutes. Stir in chopped green onions and parseley. Top with more of both, plus hot sauce. Don't forget the butter bread.

Maryjane Reunion

2010-11-01T14:00:00.003-04:00

I am having a Not Great Day and the one thing that could seriously help right this ship, right NOW, would be some good chocolate. Since yesterday was Hallowe'en there actually is quite a bit of chocolate around the house. Unfortunately none of it's anything I want to eat. Why oh why do people not give Green and Black's for trick or treat?

So after ferreting through the guys' goody bags, rejecting inferior chocolatelike products - waaaay too much sugar, not enough endorphin-enhancing cacao -- I landed on some Mary Jane candies. Remember Mary Janes? Essentially unchewable nuggets of peanut butter and molasses? God knows what else is in there these days -- please don't tell me -- but I am really enjoying renewing my acquaintance with Miss Mary Jane, who has been around since 1914 courtesy of the Necco company. Chewing that hard, it turns out, is sorta cathartic.

Now excuse me while I go peel the wrapper off another one and crank up Cee Lo Green's single from his new album Ladykilla...Yes, the song is called "Fuck You" and it's also extremely cathartic. I highly recommend a listen, but only if you're not at work. Also you need to be someplace you can boogie frantically and without embarrassment. And if you choke on your Mary Jane candy while doing so, I am so not legally responsible.

Moment of Truth With Condensed Cream-of-Mushroom Soup

2010-10-28T16:01:00.003-04:00

So I underwent a drastic rearranging of the old existential furniture, recently. As a result I've been very busy for a couple of weeks, moving the boys and me into a new, mostly empty, house, trying to settle us in and outfit us and keep everyone feeling cherished and safe. It's the discombobulation of a sudden new life in an unfamiliar space coupled with the keenly felt lack of small yet essential items like a pencil sharpener for Jack's homework, pot holders, dental floss, waste baskets...(when we first moved in, every time I needed to throw something away I had to journey from all over the house to the kitchen where the one and only trash can resided).

Many hands are carrying us right now -- close friends, family, even relative strangers. These people have cared for us, taken us in, given us emotional and financial support, cheered us on. We're slowly getting our feet under us here in this new life, starting to stand shakily on our own, but it's a huge and ongoing adjustment for everybody. Cole suddenly can't bear to go to the bathroom alone, asks for potty accompaniment; Jack resists bedtime like its lights out forever, not just until tomorrow morning. Me, I have developed stone cold insomnia, falling asleep easily enough but coming intractably awake at 3 am to ponder all the myriad mistakes I have made in my frivolous and wasted life.

One way I'm trying to take care of us, ease us all into the shallow end of this brand new pool, is by cooking. A lot. Part therapy, for me -- there have been remedial wee-hours blueberry scone baking incidents, for example -- and part just striving for normalcy. If in our old life we ate a lot of pancakes and paht thai, then eating those same meals in our new home, smelling the same smells emanating from a new kitchen, tasting the same flavors even though served on unaccustomed plates, will help make render the unfamiliar, familiar. Or anyway that is my passionate hope.

Given the huge amount of organization, setting up and shopping (oh god, the shopping -- I think the employees of our nearest Target store think I'm stalking them, given the frequency of my visits) required to get us settled, we've been either eating out more than usual or making use of convenience foods. Either of these are in some ways more stressful than just sucking it up and figuring out some way to stay home and make dinner for two boys who hate eggs and cheese, respectively, when eggs and cheese happen to be the only ingredients we actually have on hand. We live pretty far out in the country so driving to a restaurant, eating, and driving home is a solid 2 hour proposition. Tragically, our lovely rural setting also means pizza delivery is just so not happening at our house.

So, it's time - we live here now, and we've got to start eating here the right way, with SOLE-food integrity even if sometimes we do need to take turns with who gets to use the fork. My mom and I dropped the guys at school yesterday and headed to Wegman's to do a big time stock-up shopping trip. One of the recipes I was shopping for was chicken pot pie, a favorite of Cole's and a way to use up the remnants of the Sunnyside Farm chicken I'd roasted for our dinner the night before. It was a massive undertaking, this Wegman's trip, requiring multiple hours and carts. Although we even took a snack break at one point by the end we were both totally exhausted, overwhelmed and just plain used up. We were in the very last aisle and steaming hard for the checkout lanes when my mom reminded me that I need to grab ingredients for the chicken pot pie.

Now this pot pie recipe is a family treasure in its way, and my mom is unaware that for the past few years I've monkeyed around with its highly ritualized ingredients. When I am at the top of my game the vegetables in my pot pie, for example, come from either my garden or the CSA we belong to and not from a plastic bag of mixed frozen corn/carrots/peas as is called for in the ingredients list. Since I am currently locked out of my previous home, where all the food I've worked hard to grow, gather and preserve is stored, I recognize I'm not going to be able to hit this particular pot pie out of the park. I take comfort knowing that at least the chicken is righteous, as are the lovely Yukon gold potatoes picked up from the CSA last week, and so I don't feel too bad throwing a bag of frozen veggies into the cart. Scrolling the various ingredients for the biscuit crust through my memory, I see they'll too be anonymous but acceptable, some Bob's Red Mill organic flour that I can leaven with raw Amish butter. Okay. I can do this thing.

Until one last requirement stops me in my tracks: the Gienow classic version of this recipe calls for a can of cream-of-pretty-much-anything soup to bind the filling. It's not an optional thing, unfortunately. It's also getting late in the afternoon, I'm completely drained, and under pressure to get through the checkout line and over to school to pick up the boys in the next holy shit 34 minutes, school being a solid 25 minutes away. I'm standing there looking at the racks of Campbell's soup cans -- it would be so easy to just grab one and go, dinner deliverance right at hand. At this moment the idea of going home after all this shopping, rowdy hungry boys in tow, and whipping up a little bechamel sauce to put in the pot pie seems as within my abilities as turning loaves into fishes. But: Water, Mushrooms, Soybean Oil, Modified Food Starch, Wheat Flour, Contains Less than 2% of: Salt, Cream (Milk), Dried Whey (Milk), Monosodium Glutamate, Soy Protein Concentrate, Yeast Extract, Spice Extract, Dehydrated Garlic.

I. Just. Can't.

How can you have cream of anything that does not contain actual cream? (C'mon, less than 2% cream content is essentially a cream-free product). I guess it's the same way you can have coffee "creamer" that contains no actual dairy products -- some kind of industrial magic is worked on the soybean oil to create a convincingly cream-like product. I could just lighten the hell up: although cream of mushroom soup is like some sort of culinary punch line there's nothing in there that's actively harmful. Our food culture embraces convenience as though it were holy writ, despite the cost to our souls, waistlines and arteries. Plus, if anyone has earned a temporary pass to take a few culinary short cuts it is certainly me, now, in the middle of my own personal midlife maelstrom. The temptation to just ease on down the path of least resistance is powerful -- at this moment I am just so incredibly tired and, believe me, I really really really want to. But. I just hate food that lies to me. I place the can gently back on the shelf. I hear my mother sigh.

So we did get to Montessori pickup on time, just barely, and the boys were of course starving, all but gnawing their own arms while clamoring for dinner. And, yes, dinner's timely arrival on the table was delayed somewhat by the need for me to stand at the stove making a roux of equal parts flour and butter, browning that til the raw flour smell faded, and then whisking in chicken stock until the sauce was nice and loose before slowly stirring in cream off the top of a gallon of raw milk to get everything to the proper velvety consistency. I toted up the cost of scratch-made sauce ingredients in my head; it adds up to around the same 79 cents that can of soup would have cost. And really the pot pie still would have tasted pretty darn good, had I just gone that path of condensed soup least resistance -- no one would have known the difference.

No one, that is, except me. And the integrity of doing the right thing, even when it is the hard thing, is why I am here, cooking my heart out in this unfamiliar kitchen.

MARLENE'S CHICKEN POT PIE

Oven to 375.

1 chicken's worth meat, chopped
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 can chicken stock
1 bag frozen mixed vegetables
1 pint potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled, cubed

Boil potatoes in salted water, 8 min. Add frozen veggies, return to boil, boil 2 more minutes. Drain. Mix vegetables and chicken in 9x13 pan. Pour condensed soup into veg cooking pot; whisk stock into soup by the 1/4 cup until the soup is a thick but pourable consistency, then pour over vegetables and chicken.

1.5 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1.5 cups milk
6 tablespoons melted butter

Mix dry ingredients, then quickly stir in wet ingredients. Pour over filling. Bake 30-40 minutes until topping is set and dark golden brown, and filling is bubbling around edges.

CHICKEN POT PIE THAT MAKES MY MOTHER SIGH

Oven to 375.

White Sauce:
3 tablespoons white flour
3 tablespoons butter
~ 1 cup good chicken or vegetable stock
~ 1/2 cup cream, half and half or whole milk

Melt butter in skillet over medium, then sprinkle flour over and stir together with wooden spoon. Keep stirring until the roux thickens and starts to turn deep gold. Slowly pour in stock, in 1/4 cup increments, and whisking between each addition, until roux loosens but still stands up. Whisk cream/milk in by the tablespoon until the sauce has thinned somewhat but still thickly coats the whisk or spoon.

Filling:

2 cups cooked chicken meat, chopped or pulled into small pieces (from a pasture-raised chicken!)
4 cups total vegetables of your choice, prepped to be approximately the same size (for even cooking): i like diced carrots, green beans cut to about 1 inch lengths, lima beans, and peas. Baby pearl onions are really, really nice if you have them.
2 cups potatoes, scrubbed but skin on, cubed
2 cloves garlic
fresh rosemary

Boil potatoes in stock or salted water 8 minutes. Toss in veggies according to required cooking time -- limas take the longest time, peas the least -- returning to boil between additions, and cooking til just barely tender. Drain.

Place vegetables in 9x13 pan with chicken. Sprinkle with about 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary and a couple cloves of garlic pushed through a press; go over with several good grinds of black pepper too. Stir in sauce until all is well incorporated. Taste for seasoning, add salt if necessary.

Pot Pie Crust:

1.5 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1.5 cups whole milk
3 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Mix dry ingredients, then quickly stir in wet ingredients. Pour over filling. Bake 30-40 minutes until topping is set and dark golden brown, and filling is bubbling around edges.

Blackberry Fingers

2010-08-18T13:42:00.003-04:00

Typing with purple-stained fingers. Blackberries today. Wild blackberries. No other fruit in my experience requires such attention in harvest, not even morels. Most plants either/or: if they're there, they're ready to be taken and eaten. Blackberries however are about extremely fine gradation. Discernment is called for, even as the line between unripe and overripe is crossed in the span of an afternoon. With other berries, a little over or under doesn't much matter; it's a spectrum of more or less sweetness. Blackberries, however, are unappealing most of the time: sour even on the very verge of ripeness, then soft and leaky when they pass peak. When perfectly, oh-so-briefly ripe, however, they are sublime. Far better than any other berry. Not merely sweet, they express flavors as exquisite and complex as those of any fine wine. Today i had several blackberries whose taste I swear hinted of tobacco and coriander. Dazzling.

You can tell the pick-me-now, just-ripe blackberry a little bit by looking -- the color does not vary, but unripe berries have a showy shine, and overripe ones are dull-looking. The ones you want to go after look satiny, luminous. The only way to truly judge, however, is by feel. A sort of gentle simultaneous roll and pull between questing fingertips. Unripe berries don't budge, and overripe ones collapse. Ripe blackberries yield themselves, generously, voluptuously. Human touch seems exquisitely calibrated to discern the moment for plucking a blackberry at peak perfection.

I pick berries by feel, and I take only the ones that want to come. I leave the not-quite-ripe behind, even if I know I won't be coming back.

Sharing the Love

2010-07-18T10:48:00.003-04:00

Update: still only a scant few tomatoes trickling in each day, but I am awash in cucumbers. Crazy cucumbers jumping off the plant, dozens each day -- I am but one woman with only two hands, and this family will eat only so many pickles in the course of a year...We're eating lots of raita and also cold cucumber soups, but there's simply no way for us to keep up with the barrage of cukes. (Unless someone has a way to preserve cucumbers, other than pickling, that I'm somehow missing?)

So I've been giving away a lot of cukes, both slicing and pickling, as well as squash -- so if you happen to read this and would like to adopt some drop me a line and we'll figure out how to transfer some of the garden love from me to youski!

Gazpacho!!!!

2010-07-16T14:49:00.004-04:00

Another red-letter day in my personal calendar for 2010: July 15th, the Feast of First Gazpacho.

Seriously -- I feel like summer has only truly arrived when I'm able to fire up the Cuisinart for that first batch of cucumber/tomato soup. Despite the passing of solstice nearly a month ago and record-setting 100+ temperatures recently, summer wasn't really real for me until I realized last night that I had finally accumulated enough ripe tomatoes for a righteous round of gazpacho.

The irony is that none of my real tomatoes are anywhere near ready; I grow heirlooms, and they take their sweet time ripening. However, my next-door neighbor had some extra veggie starts he purchased back in May and gifted me with a couple of well-established hybrid tomato plants -- some Sweet 100 cherries and an Early Girl, the commercially raised plants all significantly larger than my earnest, spindly little started-from-seed heirlooms. So while waiting for the *real* tomatoes to get a move on I've been getting a couple of (unreal?) cherry tomatoes each day for the past couple of weeks, and maybe a small ripe Early Girl every other day, while the rest of the tomato herd languishes along far behind.

Early Girl has never been a favorite of mine; the tomatoes are small, with a dry, even mealy, texture, and they don't have a lot of flavor. But heck, you want tomatoes in early July, here is how to get them -- this hybrid lives up to its name (at least the "early" part; I have no idea what flavor the "girl" might contribute). I've learned to leave them on the plant to the point of over-ripeness as a way to maximize the flavor and even impart a little bit of juiciness, but it requires stone-cold discipline not to pluck those first little red globes from the vine when it's going on nine months since I last tasted an actual, ripe REAL tomato...maybe there's something significant about that natal time frame. Maybe it's just my brain wilting in the heat -- we spent most of today out on the Gunpowder, where it is currently 95 degrees, Accuweather Real Feel (tm) 104 degrees -- but today I'm wiling to swear I look forward to each summer's first tomato with nearly the intensity that I awaited the birth of my children.

Get your hands on some good tomatoes and try my gazpacho recipe, and see if you don't agree that anticipation is the ultimate appetite stimulant.

Michelle's Juicy Gazpacho

6-8 tomatoes, ripe as can be, quartered
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled
2-3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil -- the best you can find
1 large cucumber, peeled and seeded
salt to taste

Toss garlic into Cuisinart and pulse until finely chopped. Add everything else, pulse several times until coarsely pureed. Taste and correct for seasoning; I suggest starting with the smaller amount of vinegar and adding more if needed -- the amount depends heavily on the acidity of the tomatoes.

I eat this straight, or with sliced avocado, sometimes croutons tossed on top.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2010-07-14T09:13:00.005-04:00

Greetings fellow eaters -- I know, I know, long time no post. It's been an interesting time (in a Chinese curse -- "may you live in interesting times" -- kind of way) hereabout the cul-de-sac, and my computer time is hampered by many competing demands. Mainly, though, this time of year I'm doing so much hands-on food production -- growing, foraging, and preserving next winter's stores -- that I don't have much time or, honestly, energy left for writing about it.

So far this spring I put in my usual garden, plus two dug-from-sod new ones -- a berry patch and a second, much larger veggie plot. The berry patch is strawberries and red raspberries, both of which I planted on Mother's Day. Since this plot won't see much action til next spring, I've interplanted them with watermelons (Crimson Sweet) and cantaloupes (Athena). Cole and I had fun yesterday working on his number skills by seeking and counting the baby melons while we sprayed the plants with homemade deer repellent (garlic + rotten eggs + hot pepper oil + water + trying hard not to breathe through nose equals a reasonably effective deer deterrent).

The other two plots are the Jekyll and Hyde of vegetable gardens; the more established one, at my house, is a struggling 15x20 foot fenced plot that never gets enough sun to get semitropicals like peppers and tomatoes to set fruit. On the flip side, it's a fantastic place to grow tender greens all summer long, so I've bowed to the inevitable and planted a salad garden -- plus incubator to about a billion Cinderella pumpkin seedlings which sprang up from a Hallowe'en pumpkin I tossed on the compost heap last fall and inadvertently planted when I spread the compost this spring. Turns out the greens like to shelter under the giant pumpkin leaves, so it's a very interesting unintentional co-planting.

After five years of listening to me bitch about how I can't grow tomatoes at my house my mother finally said, Oh, all right, put in a garden here. When I was a kid we had an enormous -- nearly half an acre, we grew our own corn, dude! -- garden that produced a serious portion of our family's provender. My brother and I were required to put in an hour a day in garden work (which in our opinion didn't pay off until after the first frost, when we would engage in epic rotten tomato battles). Once her free labor had gone off to college, Mom happily turned the garden into lawn and lawn it has stayed until this spring. My Mother's Day gift was getting the berry and vegetable plots roto-tilled, which in my opinion beats anything in a blue Tiffany box.

My little shade garden has been producing daily salad fixins since April, but now my large garden is really kicking into high gear. We went camping week before last, and right before we left I harvested a handful of stuff to take along -- a few cucumbers, some baby Patty Pan squash -- but pickings were slim. One week later we came home to bedlam. Okra the size of Marketmore cucumbers and cucumbers the size of Ron Jeremy's one-eyed monster. The squash plants are vining all over creation, plotting takeover of the remaining lawn, and producing squash the diameter of dinner plates on a daily basis.

That first day back I harvested a bushel and a half total of squash, cukes, eggplant and okra, and it's been go to war Miss Agnes ever since. I've been doing my level best to keep abreast of the wave ever since, eating as much as we can, giving a bunch away, and lacto-fermenting cucumber pickles.

On one hand I can't wait for tomatoes to come in -- other than daily small handfuls of cherry tomatoes, nothing else ready yet from the 48 tomato plants I put in. Once tomatoes begin we'll be able to eat our favorite supper of gazpacho and fried squash every, and I do mean every, day. But: once tomatoes begin in earnest, so does the picking and canning and freezing, and I'll be able to look forward to free time in, like, October.

So although this is my favorite time of year, it's also the most demanding -- I'll put in full-time labor over the next couple months harvesting and preserving. Good thing I don't have to waste time going to the grocery store these days; nearly everything we
we have the privilege of eating these days -- and I don't use the word privilege lightly, being able to nourish ourselves with such marvelously fresh, conscientiously produced food is indeed a daily joy and also honor -- comes from either our own ground, or nearby ground tended by folks we know.

Yesterday was case in point. Breakfast: lamb's quarters and pico de gallo, all made from garden goodies, plus eggs from a neighbor's nearly feral hens (they roam the woods of her farm all day; the only grain they get is when she scatters a handful to lure them into their pen at nightfall). Lunch: leftover fried chicken (shout out to Dru & Homer at Sunnyside Farm, best chicken in the world!) and a big bowl of purslane salad. Dinner, fried patty pan squash, cucumber salad, and bhindi masala.

(The only store food I used yesterday was coffee, salt and peanut oil -- I'm very pleased with the cider vinegar I fermented from soured cider left over from last year's pressing. Such hard work, pouring cider into a jar, covering that with a coffee filter, and letting it linger on the kitchen counter until it smelled, like, well, vinegar. Probably the most calories burned in the process were expended feeling smug as I calculated the value of the 20 oz of vinegar: organic apple cider vinegar, from TJs, at $2.48 for 8 oz or $40/gallon, means I'd just saved $6.20 by *not* pouring old cider down the drain).

GIANT CUCUMBER SALAD

Cucumber(s)
Vinegar (cider, white balsalmic, or rice wine vinegars all work nicely)
Salt
Sugar or honey

Check toughness of cucumber skin; if too tough to pierce with fingernail, either pare them entirely or if skin is only a little tough you can peel alternating stripes, which makes a very pretty salad. Cut off ends.

Slice as thinly as possible (I use a mandoline to both get paper-thin slices and make quick work of slicing a lot of cucumbers -- this keeps well, so I make giant batches).

Put in large glass or ceramic bowl. SPrinkle salt and sugar (or drizzle honey) over. Start with a little, and add more later to taste. Pour vinegar over everything (I do this by eye, but my guess is about 2-3 tablespoons per cucumber depending on size of cuke and strength of vinegar).

Now here's the fun part: wash your hands and then get 'em in there, squeezing and squishing and turning and mixing it all up. The idea is to break down and soften the cucumbers -- they'll express a good amount of liquid. You can eat this right away but it tastes even better if it sits awhile. Great quick relish too -- I use it on hamburgers, etc.

The Morel of the Story

2010-04-22T16:00:00.005-04:00

Spring is here, and every species in the world is getting down -- birds are noisily advertising for mates, pollen fills the air indicating rampant plant sex right here right now, and I am so not getting any. Morels, that is! Mushrooms!

I have been morel hunting for a few years, and been lucky at it. I had a good teacher who shared a good spot with me, and helped me get my eyes on. Since then I've been able to do well each spring, finding good spots of my own, bringing home dozens of delicious 'shrooms. This year however I've been eagerly awaiting morels...and waiting...and waiting.

All the co-signs of morel time are here, and even starting to be gone. Folklore says to look for morels when oak leaves are the size of squirrels' ears -- that was so three weeks ago, the forest canopy is close to fully leafed out at this point. Jack in the pulpits and mayapples are way up, the garlic mustard is flowering, and still no morels. I have gone out looking nearly every day over the past three weeks (I started early, just in case -- it's been unusually warm this spring) and have found a grand total of six. Which is six more than other friends, looking in the same park, have been able to come up with.

Morels are famously finicky; the felines of the fungus world, they come when they feel like it -- or not. So if the winter has been not too severe, but also not too mild, if precisely the right amount of rain has fallen at the right time, and the temperature is not too hot, but also not too cold, and if you look in the right place at just the right time...you might find some morels. Then again you very well may not: thus the thrill of the morel hunt.

So today I stopped by the public park where more than two weeks ago I found four morels. Historically this has not been an abundant site, but so far it's the only place that I've found any at all this year. After a half hour of looking I found two more(ls). The first four from a couple weeks back I dried, but these two I threw in a bunch of butter with the rest of the lion's mane and eventually a big clump of dandelions. A fantastic late lunch on a busy day.

In the Weeds

2010-04-19T11:07:00.006-04:00

Yesterday was the monthly Baltimore Food Makers pot luck, and about thirty of us enjoyed a picnic in the Jerusalem Mill area of Gunpowder Falls State Park. After eating we hiked through the park along the Gunpowder to the Jericho covered bridge and over into neighboring Flying Plow Farm, searching for wild edible plants the whole way.

Some folks from the Mid-Atlantic Primitive Skills Group joined us for the day, and MAPS leader/expert wild foods forager Hue started us off with an appetizer of maple seed pods, and also picked up a pokeweed shoot and spring beauty corm for show-and-tell.

I also helped point out common wild edibles as we ranged through the park. My emphasis on these weed walks is on the weeds -- they're basically everywhere, even in the city; nobody cares if you kill the plant when you gather it; and many varieties are so abundant it's fairly easy to gather enough to feed a family and even preserve some for winter. So we started off taking a look at some common varieties -- dock, plantain, chick weed, dandelion, cow cress, day lily -- growing right by the park roadside.

Once we entered the forest, however, the emphasis was more on looking rather than gathering (with the promise of free-for-all foraging once we reached Flying Plow). The harvesting of native plants is prohibited in Maryland state parks, but we got to admire a pantheon of native varieties in situ. A partial list: skunk cabbage, jack-in-the-pulpits, wild ginger, trout lily, spring beauty, toothwort, greenbriar, wood nettle, jewel weed, and wild ginseng. We also found, in distressing abundance, invasive non-native edible species such as Japanese knotweed, lesser celandine and garlic mustard.

One of the highlights of the walk was when Hue spotted a hericium erinaceus -- lion's mane mushroom -- growing on a beech tree.

(Thanks to Aliza Ess for the photo -- the pieces missing from the mushroom are because several samples had already been taken from it!)

It was a large, dense double cluster, and so after Hue gathered as much as he wanted for the gourmet wild foods cooking class he's teaching next week there was plenty left for other group members to take some home. We all stood around together totally geeking out on this fungus, smelling and tasting and utterly delighted.

This was my first lion's mane. Even uncooked it was delicious -- slightly sweet, with a faintly acrid aftertaste. Hue commented that lion's mane is supposed to taste like lobster, and I definitely got that from the dense, rich flesh.

Here is a close-up of a lion's mane, showing the shaggy strands of the mushroom's outer layer that give it its name:

Eventually the group moved on, but even as we toured Tom and Sarah's first year setup at Flying Plow Farm and identified even more edible species (dandelion greens, mint, dead nettles, gill-over-the-ground, sorrel, burdock) my mind was half occupied by thoughts of sautéing my share of lion's mane in lots and lots of spring butter.

A long day of weed walking plus hungry children the moment I got home called for a simple Sunday supper of spaghetti and meatballs (my homemade frozen "DIY convenience food" -- is that an oxymoron?) in heirloom tomato marinara. The guys had no interest in the lion's mane, which was just dandy with me -- more for mama! -- so while the main course cooked I divided the lion's mane in half and melted just enough butter to coat the bottom of a small cast iron skillet. I pulled half of the mushroom into chunks roughly the size of lump backfin crab and slow-sautéed them for a long time. They never browned -- I wasn't trying for sear -- and did not express any liquid; instead, they just seemed to soften and blot up all the butter.

A dash of sea salt was the only other need for these astonishing 'shrooms -- really, you could have told me I was eating lobster chunks and I would have believed you, the taste and texture were so similar. The lion's mane is just really rich, with a slight sweetness that reminds me of really fresh, ocean-y crustacean. I just stood over the frying pan letting each chunk melt on my tongue and savoring...until Jack came in asking for more meatballs, as in the ones I'd cooked for myself.

Inspiration struck: I'd cooked the mushrooms as a side dish, but they'd work well as an impromptu entrée. My house marinara is very simple, all about the brightness of tomato, and it worked really well with the remaining lion's mane when i swirled both into a plate of pasta. I ate a few bites, and then did a light grating of sheep's milk romano over the rest. It was really really good either way, but the cheese provided just a hint of earthy sharpness that made a nice counterpoint.

Brian later emailed me that he'd made faux crab cakes from his portion of lion's mane, a brilliant way to take advantage of the mushroom's unique properties:

He also mentioned, however, that even though the "crab" cakes were fantastic, he realized he couldn't tell them from a regular crab cake and felt almost disappointed. So, he wrote, "I just heavily seasoned both sides of two mushroom pieces with salt and threw those in the oil to brown heavily on both sides. (It was at this point that it occured to me that i should have been using butter). When I bit into the first one of these, I just sat there chewing in pleasure. It was so juicy and so sweet. It was like a cross between the seafood sweetness of a really good scallop and the oceany subtleness of an oyster. I had sprinkled good seasalt on when they came out of the pan, which might have contributed. But really, these two slices were mind blowing. It's amazing how different this is from something like a morel though. A morel is forest and earthiness - this was nothing like that, but in a completely different way."

Brian concluded, "We have got to find more of these." And I concur completely. Power to the weed walk!

Going for the Aspara-Gusto

2010-04-13T12:14:00.002-04:00

So all of a sudden it's going Spring gangbusters around here, and in addition to some surging life and professional demands plus putting in my garden I've been busy gathering and cooking many fun edibles. The downside to all this busy-ness is that I haven't had a spare moment to write about the fun edibles part.

This year March 30th goes down as a red letter day in my personal calendar: Feast of the First Asparagus. There's a little farm stand down the road from where I live, and starting in late March I try to drive past at least once a day and see if the homemade "Asparagus" sign is posted out front. Last Wednesday was my lucky day -- the sign was flying, and I screeched into the field next to the little ramshackle compound. It was nearly 1 pm, and typically produce appears in the early morning at this place. When it's gone, it's gone, at least until the next morning, and so I tried not to get my hopes up. But I was so eager to see if there was indeed any asparagus left that I left my van door hanging open and dashed -- literally ran -- into the farm stand.

Ahhhhh...three bunches left standing upright in a couple of inches of water inside a big Country Crock margarine tub. I was shameless and bought all three ($1.50/bunch). It probably says something about my social life that I was ecstatic -- utterly over the moon -- to be holding three bunches of just-picked Baltimore County asparagus.

Drove straight home and as soon as I walked in the door I turned the oven on to 450 degrees F. Lined a baking pan with foil, plopped one bunch of asparagus on it, drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkled coarse sea salt and cracked some fresh pepper on it. Into the oven for 15 minutes, and into my mouth as soon as I could pick up the spears from the baking pan without burning my fingertips too badly...

I'll happily eat asparagus every day until Farmer Bills decides to rest his patch -- at least, every day I get there in time to buy. I was too late each day after Wednesday, arriving once the Country Crock bucket was tragically emptied by earlier buyers, but yesterday as I was leaving all forlorn Mr. Bills happened to be walking across the field. I hailed him to say hello and told him my tale of woe (No asparagus! Five days in a row!) and he very kindly went back in the field and picked two more bunches for me. He says it's a little slow right now with the cooler weather, but as soon as it warms up some there should be abundant asparagus for all.

Unless, of course, I get there first.

Feelin' Sassy. Sort of.

2010-03-28T15:43:00.003-04:00

Anyone who's hung out with me recently is well aware of my intense interest in homesteading skills. When I was a kid, back in the back-to-the-land days of the 1970s, the Foxfire books were something of a handbook slash bible for the cool skills needed when venturing off the grid and into a wild life.

I recently bought the first two books off Ebay, and was reading Foxfire 2's chapter on spring wild plant foods with great interest. Maryland's first spring forageables are just peeking above the ground, and I'm raring to start collecting -- and eating.

Old-time mountain folk valued sassafras tea as a spring tonic, saying that it thinned a person's blood made sluggish by a long winter spent indoors. I could certainly use a seasonal pick-me-up, and decided to make some sassafras tea while waiting for the dandelion leaves to get just a little bigger before I pick them and sauté them in an obscene amount of butter.

I uprooted a sassafras sapling while setting up my new compost heap, and making tea could not have been easier -- I scrubbed the three-foot long, fragrant taproot clean of mud, cut it into lengths, smashed those with a meat hammer, and boiled them in a big pot of water. The liquid turned a lovely deep red color and gave off a scent reminiscent of both licorice and shoe polish. I strained out the solids, sweetened the tea with honey (gathered from Baltimore county bees kept by a friend's 9 year old son!) and drank several cups. This might have been wishful thinking, but I swear it made me feel a little, well, tingly.

It's truly a delicious drink -- a complex, slightly sharp taste that reminds me of root beer, with a velvety mouth feel. (The mouth feel is very distinct, and I wasn't surprised to read later that sassafras leaves are dried to make filé powder, the Cajun seasoning that lends both flavor and especially thickening properties to gumbo). I poured the rest into bottles, one to give to a friend and brought the other as a beverage contribution for a pot luck following a Mid-Atlantic Primitive Skills Group workshop on emergency preparedness.

That batch of sassafras tea is all drunk up now, and I was basking in a fairly deep sense of coolness about having made it. I mean, talk about your back yard beverage! But then it occurred to me to look up the health benefits of sassafras tea, other than of course the traditional springtime blood thinning thing.

Distressingly, it turns out that sassafras used to be popular as a food additive and flavoring but was banned by the FDA in the 1960s after it turned out that safrole, the essential oil that gives sassafras its distinctive odor and flavor, caused liver cancer in laboratory rats. Grrreeeeaattt...It also turns out that the Cherokee, who used sassafras as a traditional medicine, also stressed that it should never be taken for more than a week at a time, so even back before laboratories and rats it was known that you shouldn't drink a whole lot of this stuff. One side affect of too much sass, too fast: profuse sweating and shakiness.

I feel a little bad that I foisted potentially carcinogenic sassafras tea on my friend Brian -- he's been under the weather for the past couple weeks, a guy in need of a spring tonic if ever I've seen one -- as well as my new MAPS friends, all without doing due diligence on the potential benefits or, ahem, pitfalls of the foraged food.

Further research shows that a few cups of sassafras tea isn't going to hurt anyone -- it's long term, high-dosage use that brings on the liver cancer. (Now, what was it that Euell Gibbons died of? Since in Stalking the Wild Asparagus's sassafras chapter Gibbons mentions his fondness for, and frequent quaffing of, sassafras root tea). So I'll probably limit my own sassafras tea consumption to a single, annual March spring tonic brewing, and certainly alert anyone I might ever offer it to in the future as to its potential lethality.

So I hereby apologize to Brian, and MAPS folks (especially Dan, who seemed to like it the most), and also to my liver. Happy Spring!

Cube-ism

2010-03-25T13:44:00.002-04:00

So I waded back into the beef this week. Porterhouse steaks last Friday night -- the butcher cut them a little thin for me, on the skinny side of half an inch, but a quick sear on the grill with a nice sea salt and pepper crust turned out some tender, flavorful meat. Mashed potatoes (potatoes and butter courtesy of the Amish co-op) and a salad (from Gardener's Gourmet woodstove-heated greenhouses in Westminster, by way of the Waverly farmer's market) rounded out a quick and satisfying dinner.

Ever since I crammed, stuffed, and wedged that quarter side of beef into my freezer last month I've been wondering what the hell I'd do with the 20 or so pounds of cube steak that came along with. I wasn't even sure what cube steak *is* -- we never ate it when I was a kid, so it's not part of my retro-foods vernacular.

I did however have vague recollections of a fantastic Dorothy Allison essay I'd read in the NYT Magazine a few years ago. It was more about her scrambling up the economic ladder far enough to afford a duck and a goose for Christmas -- the accompanying recipe is how to roast a duck. The part that stuck in my memory, though, was a passage about pounding oddball cuts of beef with a Coke bottle to tenderize it -- essentially, home-made cube steak. I went looking for it and got to re-read one of the most lyrical passages of food writing I've ever encountered:

"Gravy is the simplest, tastiest, most memory-laden dish I know how to make: a little flour, salt and pepper, crispy bits of whatever meat anchored the meal, a couple of cups of water or milk and slow stirring to break up lumps. That’s it. It smells of home, the door locked against the night and a stillness made safe by the sound of a spoon going round in a pan. It is anticipation, the last thing prepared before the meal comes to the table, the bowl in Mama’s hand closing the day out peacefully, no matter what came before."

Having read that -- and also the part about the Coke bottle pounding -- again, how could I not venture in for my own cube steak and gravy experience?

Once the inaugural pack of cube steaks thawed out, I opened the white butcher's paper to discover six heavily dimpled, flattened cutlets. The cuts were in a checkerboard shape -- hence the term "cube" steak. When I'd spoken to the butcher who custom-slaughtered our quarter cow, she'd offered this meat in the form of cutlets or cube steaks, my choice, but heavily recommending the cube steaks. "You'd have to work really hard to get this meat anywhere near tender enough to eat. You'd have to pound it within an inch of your life before you cook it," she advised over the phone. "But we have a machine that pounds the meat and tenderizes it for you."

Hey, I'm in favor of anything involving less work for little ol' me, so cube steak it was. Plus, though I'd envisioned engaging Jack and Cole in a little pre-dinner meat pounding, we utterly lack any of the heavy-lipped old fashioned Coke bottles Dorothy Allison references. So I told the butcher go ahead, pound 'er up.

Cube steak, it turns out, generally comes from parts of the cow that got a lot of exercise -- fairly tough cuts of muscle, like the the top or the round. Once tenderized, however, whether mechanically or via child labor, it's basically poor man's steak, straddling the divide between hamburger and cheap sirloin. Kitchens the world over have a use for cube steak, it seems. Browsing the innerwebs for cooking ideas, I mused over the phenomenon of smothered steak -- an approach ranging from intriguing, as in braising them in stock with caramelized onions, to terrifying preparations involving canned green beans and cream of mushroom soup. Latino kitchens marinate in lime and garlic to make bistec palomilla or adobo seasoning for bistec encebollado; Asian ones don't bother with the macerating, they just cut it matchstick-thin and stir fry. The cube steak concept that most made my mouth water, however, was chicken-fried steak.

I used to spend a fair amount of time in Austin, Texas, and I have fond memories of the chicken-fried steak at Threadgills. They claim theirs is world famous, and maybe even invented there if memory serves, but I just wanted to dine where Janis Joplin used to be the house entertainment. The outstanding chicken-fried steak was a secondary benefit.

Now, Threadgill's does East Texas CFS, which means batter dipped and served with sawmill (white) gravy. I am by birth tragically gravy challenged and so decided to make West Texas-style CFS, where the meat is simply coated in seasoned flour and quickly fried in a hot skillet. I am reasonably able to make a quick pan gravy, essentially a red-eye gravy, but cream gravies in my past have been regrettable.

So I filled a pie plate with flour, sprinkled on some coarse sea salt and lots lots lots of ground pepper. I floured the steaks on both sides and dropped them into a very hot iron skillet which had been liberally lubricated with lard. Once I'd flash-fried up a dinner's worth of cube steaks I then turned the savory, crunchy bits left in the pan into a dark brown gravy by dumping the leftover flour into the skillet to brown, then adding water and a little milk. By this time the smell of frying beef had filled the house, and once the gravy thickened up I called the boys to the table for chicken-fried steak and garlic mashed potatoes, with an ocean of gravy poured over.

I didn't have to call twice.

Loving the Leftovers

2010-03-17T12:38:00.004-04:00

Since starting this blog a couple months ago it's become evident to me that we tend to eat the same dinners over and over. In any given week one night will almost definitely feature paht thai, and another is likely to feature spaghetti and meatballs.

(A note about meatballs: although I'm all about eating locally, sustainably and seasonally, there are a few convenience foods I might actually purchase, were they to exist, like frozen, pre-cooked meatballs made from pastured beef. I have never found these anywhere, but it would be great to keep a package on hand for last-minute meals. Instead I make my own meatballs in giant batches, cook and freeze them for quick reheating: DIY convenience food. For just those times when the meatball bag is empty and the guys are too starving to wait for -- and I'm too exhausted to assemble -- scratch-cooked anything, I stash a package of Applegate Farms uncured, grassfed hot dogs in the freezer. Hey, on those nights, it's either that or popcorn for our evening meal; peanut butter sandwiches would be a fantastic dinner alternative, except on those nights we are also invariably fresh out of bread).

Anyway, the guys often request skeddi (as Coley calls it) and meatballs. I usually cook an entire pound of pasta, even though we eat maybe a third of it for dinner, because what I really look forward to is the next day: Skeddi Pie. Or, as my Neapolitan landlady used to call it, torta di pasta.

I've never actually seen a recipe for this, though I'm sure you can find anything on the ol' innerwebs. It's one of those something-from-nothing dishes that Italian cooks seem to emerge from the womb already proficient in throwing together. It's brilliant with any kind of left-over pasta, from short or tube pastas to long strands, even if the pasta is already dressed in tomato, cream or any other sauce. This recipe can also make use of many other odds and ends you might have lingering in the fridge. It's fast, simple, and inexpensive, and best of all really really delicious. Also highly portable -- it's one of my favorite picnic foods.

Basically, once the pasta is tossed with the eggs and Parmesan, you can toss in whatever you've got loitering around: leftover roasted vegetables. Artichoke hearts. Sun-dried tomatoes, or chopped fresh ones. Anchovies or sardines. Olives, capers, marinated mushrooms. Pennies. (Just seeing if you were paying attention).

Torta di Pasta

4 cups cooked/cooled pasta (approx 1/2 lb, a little more or a little less is fine)
3 eggs, beaten,
1 cup grated Parmesan or Reggiano cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated pepper

Add-ins: at least throw a handful of sliced scallions in there, or some olives, but really anything goes -- as little or as much as you like.

Oven to 375.

In large bowl, combine pasta with all ingredients (except add-ins). Using your hands for best results, and also because it's fun, mix gently but thoroughly. Fold in scallions, olives, etc.

In a large (9 or 10 inch) ovenproof skillet (cast iron is brilliant for this), heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil. When pan is very hot, pack pasta mixture into the pan as evenly as you can. Cook over medium-high for about 3 minutes, until starting to brown on bottom. Run a spatula around sides and underneath to loosen torta and prevent sticking. Slide into oven for 15-20 minutes, until middle is firm to touch in center.

I usually serve this straight from the pan, but you can run a spatula under and around the cake to loosen it and then invert onto a platter.

Crunchy On The Inside

2010-03-15T14:09:00.006-04:00

Recently I've been trying to take more of a problem-solving approach to life here on the cul-de-sac. Case in point: we seem to always run late for school in the mornings, and it's a major stressor for everyone -- me carping at the boys to get dressed, find their backpacks, finish their breakfasts, no really I mean it put clothes on right NOW. I swear the average school morning shaves an entire week off my lifespan, and the boys don't enjoy it either.

One thing that slows us down, I know, is that my insistence on a solid, nutritious breakfast, and preferably a hot one. Pancakes are relatively quick, and so is oatmeal when I remember to soak the danged oats the night before, but when you're working on getting everyone fed, dressed and out the door in less than 30 minutes, scratch-cooked breakfasts are just going to make us late for school. Again.

So I've been playing around with the idea of breakfast bars -- whole grains, fruit and protein in portable form. Add a travel cup of milk and you've got a car seat-friendly first meal of the day. I certainly didn't invent the idea -- the supermarket is rife with kiddie go-foods, from cereal bars coated with a white substance meant to suggest milk to slurpable tubes of technicolor yogurt containing more sugar per serving than a Coke.

Since I've long been concerned with organic and whole foods, I've also often been mocked for being a hippie: "You're SO crunchy," someone once told me. I don't wear Birkenstocks or tie-dyed anything, and never really counterculture identified (though I must confess to attending a few Grateful Dead shows) so I'm not sure why how I eat makes me a hippie when I seem to lack most of the other flower child cultural markers. Whatever, man.

Thus I think it's funny that I've only been making my own granola for a couple of years, and this is my first shot at granola bars -- granola being the standard culinary petard used to hoist hippies, I guess. Maybe I've been crunchy on the inside all along.

No matter my demographic, I would benefit as much as the guys from a healthy portable breakfast, if this morning's regrettable trip to Safeway is any indication. Today I had time for coffee but nothing more on a morning totally thrown off by the Daylight Savings time change, which sprang forward hard on my ass. After dropping the guys at school -- on time, though just barely -- I swung by the grocery store and was blindsided by English muffin lust. Safeway's got a buy-one, get one free sale on Thomas' products this week and, upon entering this particular store, shoppers are greeted by an enormous English muffin display.

I've worshiped at the Church of Michael Pollan for nearly four years now, and we eat as traditionally and seasonally as we possibly can. However, English muffins happen to be one of the industrial foods I've missed most -- for many years I breakfasted daily and happily on a toasted English muffin, slathered with butter and marmalade -- and this morning, confronted in my hunger-weakened state by the muffin mountain, I threw two boxes of whole wheat muffins into the cart. It wasn't til I got home that it dawned on me to check the ingredients list, which was appallingly long: thirty-eight separate ingredients (counting "mono- and di-glycerides" as two). Holy multisyllabic industrial food additives, Batman! I still toasted one up and ate it slathered with butter, but the joy was gone. English muffins are so over for me now.

Fortunately I have evolved a really, really good breakfast bar recipe. I played around with all sorts of approaches, including blending in tofu for extra protein and moisture, but ended up with a more or less classic granola bar. It's dense and chewy, not too sweet, and as chock-full of fruit and fiber as you want to make it -- you can add up to three cups of dried fruit, nuts, seeds, whatever you got, or none at all (though IMHO you're crazy if you don't, those tasty little treat nuggest are the best part!), it's all good. My favorite combination so far is 2/3 cup each dried fruit-juice-sweetened cranberries, walnuts and large-shred (flaked) organic coconut. (Anybody knows a reliable place to find flaked coconut minus propylene glycol and sulfites, please to let me know).

Cul-de-Sac Breakfast Bars

1 cup quick rolled oats (not instant)
2/3 cup old fashioned oats
1/3 cup whole wheat or unbleached flour
1/4 cup hippie sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
up to 3 cups coarsely chopped dried fruit, nuts and/or seeds*

6 tablespoons melted butter (can substitute some or all of this with coconut oil)
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
2 tablespoons golden syrup** or molasses
1 tablespoon water

Oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8x8 pan.

Mix together all the dry ingredients plus any additions you're adding. In a separate bowl whisk together butter, syrups and water. Toss wet with dry until evenly moistened. Firmly press the mixture into the prepared pan, packing it down and distributing it evenly.

Bake 40-45 minutes, until the edges are brown. The center will seem underbaked, but will firm up as it cools. Cool completely in pan on a cooling rack before slicing. To store -- not that these will hang around long -- wrap squares individually or keep in airtight container.

* Suggestions: any kind of nuts, of course, and chopped dried fruit like apricots or prunes. Also sunflower seeds, pepitas, sesame seeds, wheat germ, flax meal, even chocolate chips (cherries, walnuts and dark chocolate chunks are a pretty amazing combination if you're loose on your definition of acceptable breakfast foods).

**Lyle's Golden Syrup is my new favorite obscure ingredient! It's a British baking item that is a useful substitute for corn syrup. Genuine golden syrup like Lyle's is made from cane sugar, and has a marvelous caramel flavor that really comes out in these granola bars. (There are knockoff brands that mix corn syrup with molasses; technically this is treacle, not golden syrup, so be sure to read the label). For a darker, richer flavor you can of course use molasses. You could also substitute King syrup, or of course just use corn syrup. Golden syrup is sold at many grocery stores.

Kitchen Therapy

2010-03-10T09:07:00.004-05:00

I've been making a lot of som tum (green papaya salad) recently. Actual green papayas -- not unripe regular papayas, but a distinct and separate papaya species that remains green even when ripe -- are hard to come by, and I generally only find them at H-Mart or other large Asian grocers. They tend to be big, so when I do get my hands on a green papaya it's som tum time for quite some time around here. (You can find the recipe along with one for paht thai here).

The thing about green papaya is that its flesh is really tough, and the recipe I use calls for tenderizing it via extended pounding in a mortar and pestle. Lacking a large enough mortar, I just pound the hell out of it in a giant Pyrex bowl using the pusher cylinder from my Cuisinart as pestle. It's quite the workout, really -- the whole recipe, which requires thorough pounding to mix in the seasonings as well as bruise the raw green beans, takes about 6-8 continuous minutes of rapid upper body exertion. It's a great way to work out any frustrations or tensions you may have carried through the day: it's not just dinner, it's an existential palliative!

Sometimes, however, even a thorough papaya pounding isn't enough to cure what ails and this morning I felt the deep need for Rice Krispie treats. I've been slogging through a rough couple of weeks, life-wise, and I've been craving them for quite a few days now. I believe in listening to the body and feeding what it asks for -- I mean, usually my body is asking for greens. (Seriously: my most common food cravings are kale, spinach and eggs. Go figure). But what about when your body says, hey, how 'bout some doughnuts?

So to both soothe my angst and stick to my dietary convictions, I've been trying to come up with a less evil version of RKTs -- using puffed brown rice, local raw butter and making my own marshmallows (more about that in a future post -- I have yet to conquer the homemade marshmallow learning curve). My first efforts were, in a word, inedible. The homemade marshmallow was definitely the problem -- once set, it refused to soften again to combine properly with the cereal. Instead of Rice Krispie Treats I had tooth-shattering brown nuggets that nobody wanted to eat, not even the squirrels after I chucked them out in the yard. And our aggressive mutant squirrels will eat anything left outside -- including pumpkin pie, bottled mustard and, once, the better part of a Coleman cooler lid.

This morning I just gave up the struggle and made some damned straight-up RKTs. I didn't do this on purpose but I did end up using just about the most vile ingredients possible -- WalMart brand crisp rice cereal that my mom brought over, plus supermarket marshmallows and some regular butter that's been sitting in the freezer. So this is truly a junk-fest of odd additives -- who knew there was blue food coloring in marshmallows? They're white, fer cryin' out loud -- and funky chemicals: bring on the tetrasodium pyrophosphate!

Making RKTs could not be easier: put 40 large marshmallows (or 4 cups mini mallows) and 3 tablespoons butter in a big bowl. Microwave for 2 minutes, stir, and microwave another 1-2 minutes untill completely melted. Stir again, then stir in 6 cups crisp rice cereal. Press into buttered 9x13 pan. Begin eating immediately.

I started the recipe at 8:50 and by 9 am I was chowing on my very own personal pan of industrial deliciousness. I guarantee they'll be gone by the end of the day, and yes I'll probably be feeling pretty gross, physically. But one-third of the way through the pan I already feel a little less bleak of spirit, a little more optimistic and energized (though that's likely due to the four different kinds of sweetener -- count 'em: corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, and sugar -- found in the ingredients).

Eating sustainably is crucial, but sometimes sustenance wears a weirdly different form. I almost never eat this way, but today I'm feeding not my body but my soul. And my soul apparently is solidly white-trash.

FOOTNOTE: I only got to eat the portion of the RKTs you see already missing in the photo. Shortly after posting this blog entry I spotted our babysitter's adolescent Weimeranar dashing out the front door of my house carrying an entire giant rice krispy treat in his joyful jaws. Dammit.

Captain Beefheart: the part about the beef heart

2010-03-03T11:48:00.003-05:00

So when my quarter cow came, by the way, it was accompanied by its tongue, liver and heart. Your basic variety meats, in other words, minus the brain and kidneys. They came to me because the other three cow sharers didn't want them. I have never cooked any of these cuts, but I do like eating them -- particularly tongue -- and so it's going to be an adventure to learn how to do it myself. My grandfather used to be fond of beef heart, sliced thin and given a quick, hard fry. He also liked brains scrambled with eggs, but I just don't think I'll be going that far into family food tradition.

Honestly, though, almost as much of an adventure lies in learning what the hell to do with all the OTHER cuts of beef now cramming my freezer to capacity:

45 pounds of ground beef (!)
10 lbs stew meat
10 lbs cube steak
5 lbs bones

Plus a couple dozen steaks -- porterhouse, sirloin, t-bone, and rib steak, whatever that might be -- and an army of roasts: arm, chuck and English. Plus more stuff I didn't even write down as I stuffed it into the freezer.

I am, by the way, in the market for a really good meat loaf recipe...

Captain Beefheart

2010-03-03T10:42:00.003-05:00

Two weeks ago today I took possession of a quarter of a cow. Take my word for it: even one fourth of a cow is still a LOT of cow -- 175 lbs, to be precise.

Fortunately my custom-butchered demi-cow had been carved up into smaller pieces, and then wrapped in white freezer paper packages and labeled. When I first heard about this steer-sharing opportunity I was excited -- pasture-raised beef for $3/lb! -- but also hesitant. I wasn't sure I had the freezer space to house such a quantity of cow but decided I could handle it when a quarter beef was described to me as filling two regular coolers or four paper grocery bags.

Well, maybe really big ones -- when it arrived, my cow took up four really really large cardboard boxes, and it was quite a job to fit it into an already fairly full standup freezer. I had to triage existing freezer contents and eat, compost or give away some of the things I found in there (some quite embarrassingly elderly -- 5 year old Boca Burgers, anyone?) to create space for Big Beef. But at last space was created and I was able to actually fit all the beef inside the freezer and close the door securely -- although the stuff in my freezer now fits together, interlocked closely and precisely like an intricate 3-D puzzle that I have to partially dismantle every time I want to take something out.

Now that I've lived with my own personal quarter cow for two weeks I have come to the conclusion, too late alas, that I was crazy to buy this damned much beef when our family doesn't actually eat that much meat. I was vegetarian and vegan during my 20s, and even though I'm an enthusiastic carnivore now it's like beef just isn't a significant part of my culinary vocabulary. It seems the shopping and dining habits developed in my veggie 20s -- which was when I also learned how to really cook -- are so ingrained that even now, when I go to the grocery store, it's like the butcher shop is invisible. I just don't think about it or buy it -- and this is a proclivity that predates my now 3.5 year old vow to only eat humanely pasture-raised animal foods.

So these days I'm trying to Think Beef when it comes to dinner, but I've only cooked it twice in these past two weeks. The first time was successful: I marinated something called an English arm roast -- which turned out to be a lot like a flank steak only with a big bone in it -- to make Korean bulgogi. I was relieved to find that this grass-fed beef was relatively tender, even though it had been harvested (PC foodie speak for slaughtered) in February.

(In general, you want to harvest your meat-on-the-hoof in the fall, after the animals have had a nice long season of dining on lush, abundant pasture. So this steer got to eat some organic grain, plus lots of silage and whatever plants it could find in January pasture -- maybe not the strict pasture-fed ideal, but ultimately producing tasty and tender meat. I don't mind a little grain finishing, so long as it's not in some nightmare hock-deep-in-shit CAFO feed lot).

The bulgogi -- meat sliced thinly across the grain, marinated in sesame oil and soy sauce with lots of garlic, chopped scallions and a pinch each of sugar and red chile flakes -- was fantastic. We ate it rolled up with rice inside of red lettuce leaves, I wish I'd had doenjang, the fermented soy bean paste condiment that traditionally accompanies bulgogi, but Sriacha had to suffice.

My next beef dish was red beef curry, and I hoped to make it a little more locavore by cooking it with some pumpkin from last year's garden. The results, despite a luscious cup of coconut cream and several more of coconut milk, were pretty lackluster -- the recipe definitely needs some reworking. The bulgogi, though, that was a keeper.

Bulgogi
(marinade per one pound of beef)

4 T soy sauce
1 T canola oil
1 T sesame oil
1-2 T granulated sugar
3 large garlic cloves, minced
2 scallions, finely chopped greens and all

1 t sesame seeds

Slice beef thinly, across the grain. This is easier to do if the beef is still slightly frozen.

Whisk together soy sauce and sugar until sugar dissolves, then add remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour over meat, toss until meat is well coated, and let marinate for at least an hour -- the longer, the better.

Traditionally you grill bulgogi on a hibachi, but I cooked it by tossing slices into a very hot cast iron skillet for about 30 seconds on each side, just searing the beef so it remains tender.

Let It Snow

2010-02-24T14:54:00.009-05:00

So the forecast is calling for more snow. Once you're back from the required trip to the grocery store for your Baltimore Papier Maché supplies -- bread, milk and toilet paper, which I've always thought everyone must somehow use to make art projects while snowed in -- here's a column I wrote for this week's issue of the Baltimore City Paper on food you can make using snow as a prime ingredient.

Good to the last drop: Jack, left, gets his head stuck in the snow cream bowl while Cole, above, contemplates the three ingredients of snow cream: sugar beaten into milk, and a bowl of fresh, clean snow.

Maple Syrup Snow Candy:

Butternutty

2010-02-20T18:45:00.006-05:00

For a blog about eating locally and sustainably, I've sure been cooking a lot of grocery store ingredients this past month. Paht thai is pretty much straight Trader Joe's provender, and the pasta al sarde and lasagna both were born of Wegmans. But when there's three feet of snow on the ground, it's so easy to slip back into old food habits, buying stuff that's traveled a long way from producer to my table with many stops in between.

Time to get serious about eating locally even though it's February, bleakest month of the food year. (In the Cherokee language, the word for February translates as "hungry month"). The larder is emptying, and space on the once-crammed freezer shelves is starting to open up. We've eaten through much of what I squirreled away last summer and fall, and it's time to take a hard look at what's left.

I estimate 7 weeks until asparagus rings in the new food year, so these next couple of months are going to be all about combining things, possibly in unexpected new ways. If indeed, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence," then things are going to be getting pretty freaking magnificent up in here.

But for my first shot at cleaning out the freezer I can pick the low hanging fruit, make something from ingredients that obviously go together. Like winter squash and apples, rendered into a soul-salving soup. The squash grew in my garden, we picked the apples on a nearby farm, the onions from Tuscarora Organic Co-op and the butter and milk that I used to make the yogurt came from the Amish grass farmer we buy our outlaw raw milk products from (for more about that, check out this raw milk story I wrote a couple years back for the Baltimore City Paper). So, other than some sea salt and spices, the ingredients tossed into the pot for this particular soup are all local.

I was waiting for my friend Brian to send me the recipe he came up with for his subtle but very nice butternut squash soup -- the boy's got some big butternuts -- but got impatient and went ahead on my own. It turns out I would've had to be inventive anyway, because I was using squash I'd roasted, then puréed and frozen in 2-cup portions. My squash purée stash is a mix of butternut, acorn, sugar pumpkin and freak delicata, all of which cook up into basically the same sweet-savory orangish goo. Winter squash is sort of universal, so use whatever.

The freak delicata grew from my compost heap -- two years ago I composted a couple rotten delicata from our CSA share, and the seeds volunteered in last summer's garden after I spread the compost on it in the spring. Apparently by late fall my compost pile wasn't hot enough to sterilize their seeds. I also tossed in our Hallowe'en pumpkins that year, so I can only conjecture as to what kind of squash nookie took place in there: cucurbits are rampant cross-pollinators, among the sluttier citizens of the vegetable patch. Their offspring came up as extremely vigorous squash vines producing bright orange squash with delicata's distinctive striated ridges, some oblong, some ballooning into pumpkin form. Here are a couple as yet uneaten freak squash:

Brian's recipe, which I'll post after my recipe, calls for using butternut in the raw. Either way you try you'll end up with some very good soup, but the two are very different destinations!

CURRIED WINTER SQUASH & APPLE SOUP

4 cups winter squash, cooked & puréed*
2 cups coarsely chopped apples (cored, but not peeled) (2 c applesauce would work too)
1.5 cups onion, chopped
1 cup cider, apple juice or water
2 cups stock (vegetable or chicken)
2 teaspoons curry powder, or more or less to taste
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or more whole milk yogurt, to taste
2 tablespoons butter

1. Melt butter in heavy deep skillet or pot over medium-high heat. Sauté onions and apples until soft, about 8-10 min.

2. Add squash purée, cider, stock, salt, and curry powder -- add this in increments and taste as you go, because you want deep curry flavor but too much can make things bitter -- it's a thin line. Add fresh ground pepper to taste. Bring to boil, then lower heat and simmer 15 minutes partially covered.

3. Purée soup in blender/food processor, or in pot using immersion blender. Return to pot, add yogurt to taste, and heat gently until warmed through about 3 minutes. Alternatively, I add the yogurt to each bowl as it is served, swirling it in the soup to make a pretty presentation.

4. Soup tastes even better garnished with very thin apple slices, cilantro, or big crispy croutons.

* To make squash purée: heat oven to 375 degrees. Cut squash in half (lengthwise) and scoop out seeds. Put halves cut side down in baking pan and bake until tender, 45 minutes to an hour. Let cool. Scrape flesh from inside squash skins, and press through sieve or pulse in blender/food processor. Freezes well and you can always throw the extra in muffins, pancakes, etc.

BRIAN'S BUTTERNUT SOUP

1 butternut squash, peeled, cut into 1/4" slices
1 onion, chopped
butter
thyme
cinnamon
chile powder (i just ground up some dried random chiles i had - a mixture of different chiles is nice)
garlic, chopped
chicken/turkey stock (a cup or two) - not absolutely necessary
plain, whole milk yogurt

1. Saute onion, butter, garlic, thyme and cinnamon with a pinch of salt.
2. Add BN squash slices. Add stock and then enough water to cover squash.
3. Simmer ~1 hr, or until squash is very soft.
4. Puree all of the soup in a food processor.
5. Return soup to pot.
6. Salt as needed to taste.
7. Start adding chile power a little bit at a time and tasting. The soup will start becoming more complex before you notice any added heat. Keep adding chile powder until there's just a tiny about of spiciness. It shouldn't be a spicy soup, but there should be just a hint of the heat.
8. Add yogurt to balance acidity. You might need to add a little more chile powder after adding the yogurt.

Not to overlook the oily little fishes

2010-02-16T09:45:00.004-05:00

In general, fish is good food -- high-quality protein rich in omega-3 fatty acids, and also delicious. What's not to like? Oh, just that in our hunger for tasty fish dinners, humans are rapidly depleting the earth's fish populations, destroying habitats and polluting the water via unsustainable industrial fishing practices. (For a lucid, empowering analysis of the state of our oceans and fisheries, plus things you can do to help turn the tide, check out the Monterey Bay Aquariums sustainable seafood info site, with handy pocket guide to safe, sustainable seafood choices).

Possibly as a means of revenge on the havoc our species is wreaking on the piscine world, many fish are now actually dangerous to eat. Big boys at the top of the marine food chain -- swordfish and all tuna species, shark -- are not only endangered species but contain high levels of mercury. Mercury is released into the air through industrial pollution; it then precipitates into our streams and oceans and turns into methylmercury in the water. Fish absorb the methylmercury and it builds up in their flesh; although human bodies can eventually flush mercury from our systems, it takes a long time -- a year -- to rid yourself of even one meal's worth of mercury exposure.

Fortunately, it's possible to still eat fish in good conscience and minus the mercury. Small plankton-eating fish don't accumulate as much mercury as do larger predator fish and so are safer; also the fisheries for sardines, anchovies and mackerel are well-managed. Since these are oily little guys, they contain a lot, proportionally speaking, of the beneficial omega-3s. All around a sustainable and healthy choice.

My friend Brian and I have been talking about sardines recently, trying to think of ways to eat them rather than just, well, eating them, like on crackers or bread. Brian came up with a tasty avocado-and-sardines sandwich, while I've been struggling to recall a dish I enjoyed several times while living in Italy that involved sardines tossed with breadcrumbs in pasta. Since fresh sardines are pretty rare around here, our experiments have involved preserved fishies, but good-quality canned sardines are widely available. I prefer to buy sardines and anchovies in glass jars rather than metal tins due to bisphenol-A exposure from the plasticized linings now used in all canned foods
(more about that here).

As for buying sardines, look for Spanish or Italian-packed brands. The best sardines are caught near near Portugal or Spain, and the olive oil they're packed in tends to be better quality. Skip those packed in soy oil, really really skip those packed in tomato sauce or mustard -- often a ploy to cover up inferior fish -- and be sure to check ingredients: there is no need for anything but fish, oil and possibly salt in that can. Italian groceries tend to carry good selections of sardines and anchovies; in Baltimore, Trinacria is my favorite place to shop for salty, oily little fish. (I personally just can't get past the cat-food smell and flavor of mackerel, so I can't speak to eating or shopping for that particular fish).

So last night I had dinner just for my own self, no picky little boys to displease with funny fish, and so played around trying to recreate pasta alle sarde from memory. There are two ways canned sardines are paired with pasta in Italy: one is Sicilian, where the sardines get tossed with a little tomato paste, fennel, golden raisins and pine nuts. The other is more typical of Sardinian "cucina povera" -- literally "poverty cuisine" -- using just bread crumbs, garlic, and olive oil plus seasonings, and that's the one I remembered fondly.

While the pasta water heated I heated an iron skillet, drizzled in a couple tablespoons of olive oil, then sauteed 4 cloves of garlic until just aromatic. Then I tossed in about 3/4 cup of bread crumbs -- fairly rough crumbs from stale bread chunks pulsed just a few times in the food processor. (On the rare occasion we don't wolf down a whole loaf before it's stale, I run the remainder through the Cuisinart and toss it in a ziploc I keep in the freezer, bread crumbs in the bank). Once the bread crumbs were golden and crispy I scraped them into a bowl, wiped out the skillet, and reheated it with 2 more tablespoons of oil.

Turns out that was a little bit of oil overkill -- since the sardines came in their own oil bath, and of course you want to use that in the pan since it has all that good fish flavor. (Also, as I sauteed the sardines over medium-high heat they expressed a surprising amount of moisture; the whole thing got pretty soupy, so I drained most of the liquid off -- straight down the sink. That turned out to be a mistake as the final dish was pretty dry, so next time I'd save the juices in a ramekin until finished). After the sardines sizzled for 3-4 minutes I sprinkled in some flaked red chile pepper with seeds -- just basically crumbled one small red chile in -- and a big handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley, plus some coarse sea salt. I used kitchen shears to cut up the whole sardines into bite-size pieces as they cooked, and then tossed them around with the seasonings. Once things were well incorporated and heated through, I folded in the bread crumbs, then mixed in the al dente spaghetti.

Pretty good, but a little flat -- needed more salt, which helped, but was still lacking something essential. After a few tastings and a little ruminating, I hit upon lemon zest -- a little citrusy pick-me-up to accent the bold sardine flavor and counteract the oiliness. A few scrapes of an organic lemon across the fine end of the grater and, voila! Dinner was served, a little something from nothing. Or at least from ingredients I commonly have sitting in pantry and fridge.

So, to summarize:

1/2 lb spaghetti (or any other long pasta), cooked al dente
1 jar or tin of sardines in olive oil (I like Angelo Parodi brand)
4 cloves garlic
chile pepper flakes to taste
coarse salt to taste
flat leaf Italian parsley, chopped, to taste
lemon zest to taste
3/4 cup coarse bread crumbs (make these yourself -- the packaged kind will ruin this dish)
olive oil

Sautee minced or sliced garlic in olive oil until just fragrant, about 30 seconds, then toss in bread crumbs. Toss and stir until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat, set aside. Wipe out skillet and reheat with more oil -- perhaps the oil drained off the sardines plus additional if that seems scant. Drop in the sardines, which should be whole and firm. Heat them for 2-3 minutes, then sprinkle on salt and red pepper, then cut the sardines up in the pan, tossing everything around. Once heated through, add the bread crumbs, toss, then the spaghetti and parsely, toss, and taste. Add lemon zest last, to taste, and then buon appetito!

Paht Thai

2010-02-14T19:21:00.002-05:00

Everyone has a few go-to recipes, things you can throw together more or less while sleepwalking through the kitchen simply because you've made them so many times before. In our house we have paht thai at least once a week, although we call it "peanut noodles" because that is what Jack named it when he was three and trying to request it for dinner one night.

(So what's your staple dish? There's a comments box down below, don't be shy...)

This is a pretty straightforward version; my one modification is to add peanut butter while stir-frying the noodles. Hardly authentic, I know, but using a couple tablespoons of creamy peanut butter on the hot noodles naps them with this wonderful, rich coating that then grabs all the other ingredients/garnishes and makes a really rich, satisfying one-pot meal. All modesty aside, I make the best paht thai I've ever had

I use really wide rice noodles, but really any kind works; I've even used the super skinny thread-style noodles in a pinch. Also, if I don't have tofu or any meat on hand to throw in, I just scramble an extra egg. I nearly always make this with shrimp (wild caught, not farmed, especially not farmed in Viet Nam or Thailand -- shudder). It's also very good with tofu, which I slice and pan fry in oil and garlic until the edges crisp a bit.

PAHT THAI

1/2 lb rice stick noodles
4T oil
2T coarsely chopped garlic
8 shrimp, peeled & deveined (or tofu, chicken, etc)
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2T fish sauce
2T peanut butter
3t sugar
4T chopped peanuts
2 c bean sprouts
8 scallions cut into 1-inch lengths, then split if you feel up to it
large handful cilantro
2 limes, quartered lengthwise

Soak noodles in very warm water to cover, 20 min or until soft. Heat pan over med-hi heat. Add 2 T oil & swirl to coat; when 1 bit garlic sizzles in pan, add rest and toss until golden, about 30 sec. Add shrimp and toss until pink and opaque, 1 min. Remove & set aside.

Add egg and tilt to coat pan in thin layer, then scramble into lumps, salt lightly, set aside.

Add remaining oil, heat 30 sec, add softened noodles. Spread and pull noodles into a thin layer covering surface of pan. Then scrape into clump again & gently turn over. Repeat until noodles soften into ivory ringlets. Add fish sauce, turn & stir; add peanut butter, turn & stir; add sugar and peanuts, turn & stir.

Reserving some for garnish, add bean sprouts, cilantro, green onions & shrimp-egg mix. Cook 30 more seconds, turning often. Serve. Garnish with cilantro and bean sprouts, more peanuts, and squeeze lime quarters over each plate. When I have some on hand I sprinkle those tiny salty dried shrimp on top too.

This papaya salad is a terrific accompaniment to paht thai, but actual green papayas are hard to come by. I usually find them at H-Mart or other Asian groceries; green papayas are a separate papaya variety that is green, permanently -- they never turn red. I have, however, used less-than-ripe regular papayas, and the results are still very good, though a good bit jucier. I've also done this salad using finely shredded cabbage and carrot for a kind of Thai cole slaw, and it's great that way. Warning: very very spicy.

SOM TUM
Green Papaya Salad

6 fresh kii noo chillies, whole, or 2 serranos thinly sliced
1 T coarsely chopped garlic
1 t coarsely chopped shallot
1 small hard green papaya, shredded, -- 2 cups, or 2 c finely shredded carrot and cabbage
9 green beans cut in 2 inch lengths
1 tomato in wedges or 7 cherry tomatoes, quartered lengthwise
1 t palm sugar or sugar
1/4 t salt
2 T fish sauce
1 lime

Combine chillies, garlic and shallot in mortar and grind until broken down but not mushy.

Add papaya and pound until stiff shreds become limp and soft, about 3 min. Use a spoon to scrape and turn over as you work. (If you use a regular papaya skip this step and begin pounding papaya when you put in the green beans).

Add green beans and pound to bruise them. One at a time add sugar, salt, & fish sauce, pounding in between. Squeeze in juice from 1/2 lime then add pieces and pound those too. Add tomatoes and pound gently so they release some liquid.

Taste sauce in bottom of mortar and correct for balance of sour, hot salty and sweet. Transfer salad to platter with slotted spoon and drizzle on some remaining sauce, serve.

One in the Oven

2010-02-10T12:24:00.002-05:00

If you hang around this blog often enough I imagine some recurring themes will emerge, and I am willing to bet that one of those themes is going to be pie. Got one in the oven right now: apple, with almond crumb topping (recipe and notes on topping here).

Jack and Cole were chasing each other in a circuit through the kitchen, hallway, and dining room, getting faster and faster and louder and louder until they threatened to turn into butter. (Not familiar with the story of Little Black Sambo? He gets chased by tigers, then cleverly begins to run circles around a tree which he then climbs, as the tigers run faster and faster around the tree until they eventually turn into butter. Which Sambo then eats with pancakes -- my kinda children's story!)

Fortunately the words, "Who wants to help me make a pie?" stopped 'em in their tracks, and we all settled down to slice apples (that we picked back in the fall -- a little wrinkly, but still tasty), toss them with a little organic evaporated cane juice (an -ose by any other name is still sugar) and cinnamon, and then tuck them into a pie crust.

This is my favorite Cuisinart pie crust recipe, supposedly developed by Julia Child.

JULIA CHILD'S CUISINART PIE CRUST

1 3/4 c. flour
1 stick (1/4 lb.) butter, cut up
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. salt

Blend ingredients in food processor (I just use the metal blade) until crumbly. Add 1/4 cup of ice water and continue blending just until ball forms.

I like this recipe because it makes enough for one large pie -- all my pie plates are the large 10 inch Pyrex pans -- plus enough left over to satisfy the dough rolling, patting, and pounding needs of two little boys. I used to feel bad for wasting food when I let them basically destroy about a third of a pie crust through enthusiastic playing-with, but when I let them hands-on help rolling out the big crust for us to eat it would end up tough -- not just tough but nigh bullet-proof -- from over-handling. Everyone needs a fair turn with the rolling pin, see? So we waste a little, but I have come to feel it's justified in the interest of the tender, flaky bigger picture.

My grandmother, Grace Phillips, who had a terrifically talented hand with pastry, always looked down on my reliance on the Cuisinart for pie crust. She did everything by hand, cutting the shortening into the flour with two knives criss-crossing in a silvery, chiming blur. She was also a big believer in Butter Flavor Crisco, though, so clearly intergenerational pie crust preferences must be allowed.

I use the food processor for just about everything -- it's my desert island kitchen tool, were I to be banished to a desert island and limited to one cooking utensil, this would be it, assuming the island had electricity. There are times when mixing things by hand is essential, but pie crust does not seem to require careful hand blending. To be honest, my Cuisinart crusts are better than when I do it by hand.

18 minutes left on the timer...house filling with scent of cinnamon and carmelizing sugar...

I am a believer in starting fruit pies at a high temperature -- 450 degrees -- for the first ten minutes, and then dropping the oven to 350 for another 45 minutes or so. Got to check the crust every so often for over-browning, though. I've sort of thought about buying one of those pie shields -- even gave one as an xmas gift last year to my best friend Heather, who is also known to bake the occasional apple pie. However, I'm not much of a kitchen gadget gal and as a rule don't clutter up my cabinets with single-use-specific gear when a little aluminum foil does the same job.

Donner, party of seven, your table is ready...

2010-02-07T16:17:00.007-05:00

So it snowed, again. Big time, this time -- some people are calling it Snowageddon, but my favorite thus far is SnOMG.

Just as the first flakes began to fall on Friday afternoon the guys & I paid a visit to Wegman's for gettin'-snowed-in supplies. People were rushing around in there like it was the fall of Saigon, everyone clutching their bread and toilet paper wild-eyed as though the last chopper were leaving at any moment. We should maybe have been shopping for loin cloths and pointed sticks for use after civilized society collapsed under the weight of two whole feet of snow...

Anyway, I wanted to gather ingredients for a few cooking projects this weekend. Since we've been snow bound and all I basically cooked my ass off all weekend (when I wasn't washing dishes, anyway, or shoveling snow).

Friday night: spaghetti and meatballs, meatballs being a sort of homemade convenience food around here. I make a bunch, 2 or 3 lbs of grass-fed ground beef worth at a time, cooking and then freezing them by the dozen to have on hand for those "it's 5:30 on a Tuesday, what in the name of god are we having for dinner?" days. Amish-raised beef from Lancaster, homemade marinara canned back in August, Trader Joe's organic spaghetti. Plus a salad from the last little bit of arugula and spinach from Gardener's Gourmet at Waverly Farmer's Market last weekend -- I'm betting there was no market yesterday.

Saturday: cranberry-walnut muffins for breakfast and all day snacking. Pierogi (frozen, from last Easter I think, trying to clean out freezer) for lunch, with tons of onions in even more tons of butter. Ummmmm...followed up by homemade play-doh (purple). Then macaroni and cheese, at Jack's request. Finally, at 5 pm, I got started on short ribs braised in red wine, with turnips and pearl onions. I had forgotten how complicated this recipe is, and so dinner was served at 10 pm.

I was a little afraid of messing up the short ribs -- I'd made this recipe successfully on multiple occasions with regular beef short ribs, getting delectable results every time -- it's been a stalwart in my cooking repertoire. Then I switched to pastured beef, and the very same recipe, my beautiful never-fail braised short ribs, turned out disastrously! I finally realized that what the grass-fed short ribs needed was a whole lotta supplementary fat, which I now supply with either bacon or lard. The problem is, it's a judgment call how much fat to add -- you sort of need to eyeball the ribs and see if they'll need a lot, or a whole lot.

Fortunately I nailed it this time, and the results are super-tender, with lots of flavor. The recipe is really long so I'll put it at the end of this post.

Sunday: so far I've only done another batch of cranberry-walnut muffins plus another batch of play-doh (green this time) and reheated some short ribs.

PLAY-DOH

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
1.5 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
food dye or liquid watercolor of your choice

Stir together ingredients in saucepan over low heat, adding coloring as you stir. When everything pulls together into a ball in the center of pan, after about 3 minutes, it's ready.

SHORT RIBS BRAISED IN RED WINE WITH TURNIPS AND PEARL ONIONS

1 lb. uncured bacon OR about 4-6 tablespoons rendered lard
5 lbs. bone-in beef short ribs
3 cups dry red wine (I used Three Buck Chuck, but better wine=better ribs)
2 Large onions, chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced 1/2" rounds
1 large rib celery, sliced
8 medium garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup unbleached flour
4 cups beef or chicken stock (or mix them)
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary
3 bay leaves

2-3 turnips, peeled and sliced
1 bag frozen pearl onions (do not thaw)
1 teaspoon sugar

Flat leaf Italian parsley (fresh)

1. Fry up bacon in large, oven safe stock pot or dutch oven; save bacon for BLTs while this incredibly long recipe braises in oven.

2. Oven to 450 degrees. Place short ribs, bone side down, in single layer in a baking pan. Drizzle bacon fat over short ribs, at least 4 tablespoons -- more can't hurt, you'll make the ribs more tender and be draining the fat later. Roast for about 45 minutes, until well browned.

2.5 Meanwhile, sautee carrots, onions and celery in remaining bacon fat until soft, about 10 minutes. Add garlic, cook 1 min, add flour and cook about 2 minutes until flour browns. Remove from heat and rest.

3. Once they are browned, remove ribs from oven and reduce heat to 300 degrees. Place ribs on platter and reserve. Deglaze pan with wine: you can place it on a burner to do this, if it's a flameproof pan, but coming out of a 450F oven it'll be hot enough to deglaze as is -- be sure to protect your hands.

Return vegetables to heat. Stir in wine from roasting pan, stock, dried herbs and undrained tomatoes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, bring to boil.
Add ribs and any juices that they've exuded, completely submerging ribs in braising liquid. Once the pot has returned to simmer, cover and place in oven. Braise until ribs are tender, about 1.5 - 2 hours, maybe even longer -- start checking after 90 minutes.

4. Transfer ribs from braising liquid to platter. Strain liquid, pressing solids to get as much juice as you can back out. Set liquid aside, discard solids.

Wipe out dutch oven/braising pot and heat over medium-high with 2 tablespoons bacon fat or lard -- or if you've run out olive oil will do. Add the peeled, quartered and sliced turnips and pearl onions, plus sugar and then salt to taste. Sautee until beginning to carmelize and brown in spots. Meanwhile, if you're fat-o-phobic, now is the time to skim off the fat on the surface of the braising liquid (I never do this). Add the braising liquid to the turnips and onions, bring to a simmer. Add the ribs (and any accumulated juices) and submerge them, and heat over medium flame until ribs are warmed through and turnips are tender, about 5-7 minutes.

Serve over mashed potatoes, with lots of flat-leaf parsley.

Through Wegmans, Local-ly. Ish.

2010-02-03T10:27:00.005-05:00

The potato soup lasted less than 36 hours and so last night I needed to make another big batch o'something. I've had an intense craving for lasagna for several weeks but have been putting off making one because I just haven't had the time, spare gallon of raw milk, or proper enzymes to make mozzarella. I don't know if it's possible to buy locally produced semolina to make the noodles, but everything else -- ricotta and mozzarella, tomato sauce I made and canned last summer, eggs, basil -- could be made from locally procured ingredients.

And by locally procured, I don't mean purchased at Wegman's -- I had to explain the difference to my mom last night, who was hanging out with me while I put the lasagna together. I was lamenting its near utter lack of local provenance -- that I'd purchased the ingredients to assemble into a semblance of lasagna, instead of making them myself from scratch. She said, completely straight, "But Wegman's is less than 10 miles away, surely that counts as buying locally." (Though now that I think about it, she was probably joking; I get a tad overfocused when I'm cooking and humor is often wasted on me at such times).

Yesterday, utterly overloaded by Big Life Stuff and feeling pretty desperate lasagna lust, I decided to just go for it, go to the store and buy the noodles and cheeses and just make a fricking lasagna already. While I was at it, I satisfied another craving -- this time, for out-of-season vegetables -- and roasted some eggplant and zucchini (thank you, Mexico!) to use as part of the filling.

Aside from the eggs (mixed into the ricotta as binder) not one ingredient was Baltimore-based. I could have made it sorta half-assed local by using homemade marinara but decided to go whole-ass grocery store ingredients -- why squander a precious quart from my dwindling supply of home-canned organic heirloom tomato sauce on factory cheese? The Classico Tomato-Basil sauce was probably the best tasting ingredient I bought, actually.

I didn't work from a recipe, though maybe I should have. The lasagna smelled great but ultmately tasted only so-so; the flavor lacked oomph -- I should have thrown garlic in while roasting the vegetables -- and I used no-bake lasagna noodles, which turned out to seriously suck.

When standing there in the pasta aisle I thought, hey, Barilla is making them, the no-bake thing must really work!, but they cooked up all weird and pasty. Easy, yes, but boiling noodles out of a box isn't all that much harder, and now I know they taste much better. The no-bake ones, they just taste like you used the box.

I'm not sure what lesson to take from the experience. Many people consider making lasagna from scatch to be exactly what I did last night: buy each premade ingredient, put 'em together in a pan, and bake. I don't think of this as cooking, however, so much as assembly. I've made lasagna truly from scratch -- rolling out the pasta myself, making the mozz and ricotta, using homemade marinara, basil from the garden -- so I know what really great homemade lasagna tastes like, and this wasn't it.

I only wish that my fall from the locavore wagon had yielded tastier results. I mean, we'll still eat the rest of this lasagna, probably tonight, but unfortunately fantastic flavor won't be drowning out the slight residual taste of regret. Though maybe some butter-drenched garlic bread will help...

Going Thru the Mill for Potato Soup

2010-02-01T20:06:00.004-05:00

So, like, it snowed this weekend. Maybe you noticed. Nothing like a week's worth of
sub-freezing weather and then half a foot of snow to create a deep existential need for soothing, super-rich comfort food.

I wasn't sure what to make -- all kinds of starchy, lipid-laden candidates sprang to mind: Macaroni and cheese. Tamale pie. Biscuits and gravy. Whatever the dish, though, I was going to have to go food shopping -- I've been working a lot recently and the cupboards at our house are getting pretty bare.

I had missed the Waverly farmer's market on Saturday, alas, and was feeling a tad bummed about having to rely on supermarket supplies for Project Comfort Food. Then my best friend Heather suggested we take a stroll through Mill Valley General Store in Remington -- or, as she calls it, "the farmers market quickie mart." (more here at Mill Valley General Store).

Mill Valley, in case you've never been there, has all kinds of great gardening supplies, which you'll be needing sooner than you think, plus food from local/organic/ sustainably farmed vendors: Trickling Springs creamery, Tuscarora Organic Co-op (veggies), Whiskey Island Pirate spices, Zeke's coffee. Next best thing to the farmer's market, absolutely, and they're open four days a week, hallelujah!

And thus it was decided: I'd troll Mill Valley for ingredients, and whatever presented itself would inspire the dish I'd make.

Produce pickings were somewhat slim, it being deep winter and all. Most of the options were storage-hardy items like turnips, apples and Jerusalem artichokes, but then that is absolutely the appropriate kind of thing to be eating right now. The wheels in my brain started turning when I got a look at Tuscarora's beautiful organic potatoes, and I decided to make Brass Parrot Baked Potato Soup.

This is one of those perennial semi-famous recipes that gets constantly reprinted in Southern Living collections and local newspaper food sections -- the Brass Parrot is an actual restaurant in Texas and their contribution to the world is this soup. Really, it's nothing earth-shattering; it's just basic potato soup. However, I'm sentimentally fond of the recipe because the first time I cooked it, about 12 years ago, was the very first time I ever made a roux.

It seemed so magical to me then, and honestly it still does: when you melt butter in a pan and then add some flour, brown it a little while, and then slowly whisk in some milk, it will get thick! No matter how rotten a day I have had out there in the world I can come home and perform this reliable kitchen miracle. I find it deeply reassuring.

You can find the classic B.P. recipe all over the 'net. Here is the version I made, with changes dictated partly by my taste and partly by what Mill Valley had to sell me on Saturday. My main changes were to use half bacon fat and half butter, rather than all butter, for the roux; to use cheddar instead of the called-for American cheese, and to use cream instead of milk. (Clearly this soup is not for the faint of fat).

I bought all the central ingredients at Mill Valley. Flour, homemade chicken stock, and organic, locally pasture-raised bacon and butter I had at home, and chives -- I did have to get those at the grocery store. I thought about skipping the chives in the name of making a truly locally-sourced concoction, but this soup lives or dies by its garnishes and chives are essential to elevating it from basic potato soup to really really good potato soup.

Here's a photo of the very last bowl, dinner for our fantastic babysitter Miss Alyssa on Monday night. Having just served it to her and then run out the door, I called from the road to say, "Stop eating! Take a picture first!" Because she is the greatest babysitter of all time, she obliged me. So, potato soup, garnished with bacon, chives and lots of black pepper, one bite gone.

Baltimore Parrot Baked Potato Soup

6 starchy potatoes, peeled and diced (Tuscarora Organic Co-op)
6 cups chicken stock (Springfield Farm)
1.5 teaspoons white pepper (black is ok if you don't have white)
1/2 lb cheddar cheese, shredded (Trickling Springs)
1 cup flour
4 tablespoons butter (I get mine from an Amish grass farmer)
2 cups cream or milk (I used Trickling Springs heavy cream)

1 lb uncured bacon (Amish grass farmer)
chives (Superfresh, sigh)

1.) Fry up the bacon. You don't have to use a whole pound; basically, you want to render the fat for the roux and have some crispy bacon to crumble on the soup for garnish. The rest is to snack on while you cook. I defy you not to eat it.

2.) In large soup pot, bring stock to boil. Add potatoes and white pepper, salt if your stock is unsalted. Cook potatoes until about halfway done.

3.) Drain all but 4 tablespoons of the bacon fat and save for some other delicious application. Return pan to medium heat and add 4 tablespoons butter. Once butter and lard are melted together, slowly whisk in flour a little at a time until roux forms. Cook roux about three minutes, until lightly brown and raw flour taste has faded.

4.) Over medium heat, add roux to potatoes and stock a little at a time, whisking gently but thoroughly each time. Add cream and cheese, again stirring thoroughly but gently, and bring to a simmer. Keep an eye on this stage and stir often so the bottom doesn't scorch. Once at simmer, lower heat to extremely low, cover, and cook 15 minutes.

5.) Serve! Garnish with crumbled bacon, chopped chives, lots of black pepper, and more cheese if you like. Some people add sour cream as a garnish but I find this to be gilding the lily.

Pie for One

2010-01-29T15:56:00.003-05:00

So these days I'm writing about food a lot, and writing about food makes me hungry. It's a hazard of the freelance food journalist's life. During work hours I have to write, not cook, unless of course I'm writing about cooking. But mostly I just have to stay at my desk, pounding the keyboard and feeling deprived.

(Random aside: the best writing advice I ever read was from Dorothy Parker, who said that the best way to write a book is by the seat of your pants -- put the seat of your pants in your desk chair and *write*)

That leaves the craving food part. Recently I concocted a very quick way to make a tasty little treat that satisfies the need for Please Something, Anything, Good to Eat NOW and yet keeps my deadlines met and my editors happy: pie for one. It's not exactly a compact hydrogen fuel cel or cure for cancer, but in its modest way I like to think it advances humanity's collective happiness. Mine, anyway.

It came about when I was standing in front of my open fridge for about the eighth time on a deadline morning, hoping some tasty treat had magically appeared -- nope, yet again -- and gazing instead at all the stuff I'd have to cook if I wanted to eat it. I was about to settle for snacking on an apple when I opened the freezer just to see if any treats had magically appeared in there -- nope -- and noticed a ziploc of leftover crumb pie topping. Apple. Pie topping. Apple...pie.

So clearly the only way this works if you have pie topping on hand, or are willing to throw some together on the spot -- it's pretty quick to make, but doing so does take away a bit of the instant gratification factor. I happened to have pie topping on hand because my standard fruit pie strategy is to make one pie crust recipe into two bottom crusts, and use crumb topping -- thereby getting two crumb pies instead of one traditional two-crust pie. The topping recipe I've evolved makes a little more than two pies' worth, so I throw the extra in the freezer. It keeps well.

(On freezing pie: Usually when I make two pies I mean to save one of them to have on hand for later, but in reality that almost never happens, we just devour them both. "Pie for breakfast!" is our family's official motto. I have found, however, that when I do manage to get one in the freezer the best way is to freeze the unbaked pie, then later bake it from frozen starting out covered completely in foil for an hour, then uncovered (watching the edges for overbrowning) for another 45-60 minutes).

The key to super fast pie for one is to make the pie topping in advance and keep it in the freezer. To make the topping: put 3/4 cup walnuts (or pretty much any other nut you like -- I've also used whole or slivered almonds, which are great with peaches and/or blueberries, and macadamias make an unbelievably yummy version. I tend to use black walnuts because I can buy them locally grown), 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup unbleached or whole wheat flour or mix thereof, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a food processor and pulse until uniform texture. Add 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces, and pulse in short bursts until the mixture resembles coarse meal. This topping freezes well and makes enough for one 9 inch pie or a whole bunch of little ones, your choice.

Then, when terrible craving strikes, take a small, oven-safe Pyrex bowl. Thinly slice one small apple, skin and all, into the bowl; if you like, toss in some frozen unthawed blueberries or whatever other fruit you have around. (You could also use all frozen fruit if nothing fresh is in season; just reduce cooking time). Cover and microwave on hi for 3 minutes. Fruit will be bubbling and should be softened. Sprinkle on as much frozen topping as appeals, then slide under a broiler or in the toaster oven for 4-5 minutes until the topping is browned. Let cool precisely as long as you can manage to resist the amazing smell of fruit, butter, and carmelized sugar, then dig in.

Ok, so since it lacks a bottom crust really it's more of a fruit crisp than a pie. My food pal Aliza has mentioned patting pie crust into muffin tins and I plan to pick her brain about mini bottom crust technique, although I suspect that adding a bottom crust will seriously up both hands-on and baking time required -- and Pie for One is all about the glory of instant gratification. So why waste time quibbling when you could already be about halfway done making one right now?

Happy New Year's Fridge

2010-01-29T15:20:00.001-05:00

One of the sparkling traditions I use to ring in each new year is by cleaning out my refrigerator (woohoo, do I know how to party or what?). January is just about over -- clearly, 2010 is off to a bit of a slow start 'round these parts -- but today I finally managed it.

It was a slightly disgusting but oddly satisfying exercise to ferret out all the little tubs of leftovers that had migrated to the back, hiding behind our massive condiment collection. I meant to cull the condiment herd while I was at it -- does anyone really NEED five different curry pastes? -- but, as happens every time, each one seemed too potentially useful to dump. Even the cocktail sauce that expired last March; it's still sealed and, after all, what can really go wrong with cocktail sauce? Even though I guess if we're housing year-old unopened cocktail sauce, chances are that this family's cocktail sauce needs are pretty minimal. Honestly I'm not even sure how it got here. But I digress.

I reorganized our pared-down fridge while channeling Alice Waters. My kick in the pants to finally tackle this project came from a two year old NYT Magazine article that recently turned up in my office detritus while I was searching around for something else. The writer had had Waters, the Chez Panisse owner and local/organic eating guru, inspect her home refrigerator and evaluate its contents' SOLE value -- how sustainable, organic, local and ethical the writer's food choices were.

I like to think Alice would mostly approve of my fridge's contents. There are a few lingering, wrinkly late fall vegetables from our CSA allotment, and other vegetables and herbs from the farmer's market. Lacto-fermented Amish sauerkraut. Homemade goodies like pickled beets and applesauce made from local organic heirloom apples that I picked myself. Our dairy and eggs are locally pasture-raised. The only non-artisinal foods in my fridge are the United Nations of condiments collection and some cranberry juice.

So after I'm done self-congratuatorally patting my own back with Alice's ghostly hand I must acknowledge the other side of the local eating coin: yeah, this fridge inventory might earn me a green ribbon for supporting local food producers. But, on the other hand, while it's full of food there's not much to eat in there. Plenty to cook, yeah, but darned little to just take out and chow on. I realized this the other day when I had a hankering for an egg salad sandwich.

Lunch doesn't get simpler, right? Right -- except that I have local-fooded myself into this unintentional corner where in order to toss together an egg salad sandwich I first have to bake a loaf of bread, because we ate all of yesterday's bread for this morning's breakfast, and then whip up some homemade mayonnaise, because who wants to eat industrial store-bought mayonnaise? Making this so-called simple lunch could take all afternoon and I had to get back to work. So instead of an egg salad sandwich, I just had a hard boiled egg.

The local foods movement is working to alleviate some of our nation's most pressing problems involving food production, sustainability, and the environment, not to mention supporting small farms. However, eating locally can at times also be a real pain in the ass.