Diary of a Locavore

For him & for me

2012-02-09T14:53:00.001-05:00

Most days, Alex comes home for lunch. There's nothing particularly special about what we eat or do—it's often leftovers, and he can usually only stop for twenty minutes. I try to have the plates on the table by the time he gets here, and I often do the clearing and the dishes. But I don't mind. There's something about that quick hello! between breakfast and dinner—something about sending him off full of something hot and nourishing—that makes it all worth it.

My friend Sarah wrote a whole cookbook about these moments. It's called The Newlywed Cookbook—just out from Chronicle—and it's all about taking care of the person you love in the kitchen. Her husband András is Hungarian, and when they first met, food was a big part of how she and his family communicated. There were sour cherries, ripe figs, and above all, plenty of meals shared cooking to dishes. Last November, someone new arrived to share this love of food with—a sweet baby girl named Greta.

This month, Sarah is hosting a virtual Valentine's Day party to celebrate the release of her book. The party started February first when Sarah posted about cooking us all a bittersweet chocolate tart with smoked sea salt and it will go right up until Valentine's Day. The idea is to cook something from the book for someone you love, and there are 12 bloggers helping to host. Today it's my turn.

Of course, today was the one day Alex couldn't come home for lunch, caught up in a meeting. But I put together my recipe—Sarah's roasted beets with pistachios, that plate up there—anyway. I made one for him and one for me. And whenever he walks through the door—whether it's in an hour or at dinnertime—he knows there'll be a homemade meal ready.

P.S. Sarah and Chronicle Books have been generous enough to send me a copy of The Newlywed Cookbook to give to one of you! What do you cook for the people you love? Share in the comments, and I'll pick someone at random to send the book to. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

ROASTED BEETS WITH PISTACHIOS

From the Newlywed Cookbook

Reprinted with permission from Sarah Copeland and Chronicle Books

{jewels on a plate} Good looks and powerful nutrients? What more could you wish for from a vegetable? You won't be thinking of how good this dish is for you when you're eating it, just how smart you are for putting it all together.

Serves 4 to 6

2 large beets/beetroots or 1 bunch baby beets/beetroots {about 1 1/4lb/570 g}, tops trimmed

Extra-virgin olive oil

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cara cara, navel, or blood oranges, peeled and cut into thick rounds

1/4 cup/35 g shelled Sicilian pistachios or regular pistachios {about 1 1/4 oz}

4 oz/115 g ricotta salata cheese

Small handful of fresh mint leaves, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F/230 degrees C/gas8. Trim the beet/beetroot tops to 1 in./2.5 cm and scrub the skins. Drizzle the beets generously with the olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and put them in a small roasting pan with 1/4 in/6 mm of water. Cover the pan loosely with aluminum foil.

Roast until the beets are just fork tender, 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the size. Set aside until cool enough to handle; cut off the root and stem ends and scrape off the skins {they should slip off easily} with a knife.

Quarter large beets or halve smaller ones and toss with additional olive oil just to coat, and salt and pepper.

Arrange them on a plate with the oranges, pistachios, and thin shavings of ricotta salata cheese. Drizzle with olive oil and garnish with fresh mint.

E.H. notes: When I made this, I used clementines in place of the oranges and Tekenink Tomme cheese from Robinson Farm in Hardwick, Mass. in place of the ricotta salata. I also used some tiny beet greens for garnish in place of mint leaves, since we don't have mint in our garden this time of year. The salad was delicious!

Balsamic & cinnamon

2012-02-07T14:24:00.000-05:00

Remember that lamb stew I mentioned the other day? Well, I made it this week. It was hearty and delicious, and a pleasant break from chocolate.

The lamb came from an animal we bought last spring from Greg at Borderbay. It's a Scottish Blackface, and it is utterly delicious. We pulled out two packages of shoulder chops for the stew, and while it was a bit of a trick to trim the meat off the bones, it was worth it. Wine and crushed tomatoes made up the backbone of the dish, and the addition of balsamic and cinnamon gave it a rich, wintery finish.

I highly recommend it.

LAMB STEW WITH WHEAT BERRIES

This dish comes from Maria Speck's Ancient Grains for Modern Meals. Her original calls for raisins, but I swapped in cranberries for a local, seasonal change. They were perfect—tart, bright, with plenty of tang to cut the richness of the meat.

2 cups water

1 cup wheat berries, soaked overnight

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 and 1/2 pounds lamb shoulder, trimmed from the bone and cut into 1-inch cubes

1 and 1/2 cups onion, peeled and chopped

2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 quart crushed tomatoes
1 cup red wine
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, plus extra for seasoning
1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 pound carrots, peeled, trimmed, and finely chopped

1 cup cranberries, fresh or frozen

1 teaspoon brown sugar

freshly ground pepper to taste

Bring the water and wheat berries to a boil in a medium saucepan. Cover the pot, turn the heat down as low as it goes, and simmer for about 45 minutes, or until the grains are chewy. Set aside; keep the cooking liquid.

Season the lamb meat with salt and pepper. Heat up the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat. When it starts to shimmer add the lamb and brown it on all sides. This should take roughly 5 minutes. Transfer the lamb to a plate.

Turn the heat down to medium and add the onion, garlic, cinnamon stick, and bay leaf. Season with a pinch of salt (about 1/4 teaspoon) and cook, stirring constantly, until the onion starts to get soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook for 30 seconds or so, then add the crushed tomatoes, red wine, balsamic, paprika, carrots, and remaining 3/4 teaspoon salt. Add the reserved meat.

Bring everything to a boil, then cover the pot, turn the heat down, and leave the stew to simmer for 30 minutes. Add the cranberries and the wheat berries with their cooking liquid. Bring everything back to a boil, then cover the pot again and turn the heat down. Simmer for another 40 minutes, or until the lamb is fork-tender. Add the sugar, taste, and adjust the seasonings as you like (I added a bit more balsamic and salt and pepper). Serve hot.

Good for me

2012-01-30T10:54:00.000-05:00

If I knew what was good for me, I would stop creating chocolate desserts. But because I don't, and because I come from a gene pool that created this:

I will be doing no such thing. Instead, I will continue to do things like what I did yesterday, which was to open a cookbook about whole grains and wind up arguing with my niece about who gets to lick the bowl where we mixed the chocolate and honey and eggs.

The cookbook in question is by Maria Speck—Ancient Grains for Modern Meals. It is a very good cookbook, and it is not Maria's fault that I paged straight to the chapter called Sweet Endings. There are, in fact, lots of absolutely delicious looking recipes for things like lamb stew with wheat berries in red wine sauce and homemade spelt fettuccine that I have bookmarked for another day. But yesterday I had no choice but to inaugurate the book with a rendition of her dark chocolate truffle tart with walnuts.

Where are the whole grains? you ask. In the crust! It's not the book's most adventurous recipe—many use the whole berry and call for grains like rye and barley and amaranth—but the whole wheat and butter tart crust is easy and delicious.

The chocolate filling caught my eye because it is sweetened mainly with honey. I find dessert recipes with honey hard to come by in American cooking, but Maria seems to use it in all of her sweets, crediting Greek heritage. It also calls for milk and butter and walnuts and eggs, all of which we have been eating a lot of around here (walnuts because they're tasty and good for Sally's brain).

So without further ado, I'd like to introduce the dark chocolate walnut tart of your dreams. If you know what's good for you, you'll make it without delay.

WHOLE WHEAT & BUTTER TART CRUST

Maria manages to make this all whole-wheat by using "white whole wheat flour" and "whole wheat pastry flour," but frankly I don't have the patience or the pantry for these sorts of things. I used part whole wheat flour that I ground myself from our grain CSA and part all-purpose, and the crust came out wonderfully. Do what you please.

3/4 cup whole wheat flour (Maria calls for white whole wheat)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour (Maria calls for whole wheat pastry flour)

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

7 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

4-6 tablespoons ice water

Pulse together the flours, sugar, and sea salt in a food processor. Add the butter and 4 tablespoons of the water—give this mixture 8-10 pulses. If it seems to be coming together, stop. If it doesn't, add more water and pulse a few more times.

Dump the mixture out onto a lightly floured work surface. Form it into a ball, then work it into a disk about 1-inch thick. Use a rolling pin to roll it into a 12-inch circle, roughly 1/8-inch thick. Carefully transfer the dough to a 9 and 1/2-inch fluted tart pan (you know, the type with a removable bottom), and press the dough against the edges. Use your fingers to press off and trim any excess dough from the top, prick the dough about a dozen times with a fork, cover it with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge to chill. Leave it alone for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Put the tart pan on a cookie sheet so it doesn't drip butter and start a fire in your oven. Cut a circle of parchment paper roughly the size of the pan and place it in the middle of the crust. Fill it with pie weights or dried beans.

To partially bake the crust, put it in the oven for about 15 minutes, then check it. If the edges have started to pull away from the pan and crisp up, take out the parchment paper and pie weights (carefully! they get hot!) and return the crust to the oven for another few minutes. When the bottom is a little more crisp, take it out and let it cool to room temp.

DARK CHOCOLATE TART WITH WALNUTS

On to part two! It is rare that things I make at home actually look just as good as the pictures in the cookbooks, but this one came out as promised. It is beautiful, delightfully rich, and all around a chocolate-lover's winner.

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup whole milk

1/2 cup honey (I used a spring honey, which is fairly mild and runny)

6 ounces dark chocolate (70% cacao), chopped

1/2 stick butter

2 tablespoons nice liqueur (Maria suggested Grand Marnier; I used Chambord and kicked myself afterward for not thinking of the homemade pear liqueur we have downstairs!)

1 tablespoon freshly grated orange or lemon zest

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 large eggs plus 1 yolk, beaten together

2/3 cup coarsely chopped toasted walnuts

12 toasted walnut halves, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk together the sugar and milk over medium heat. When the sugar is dissolved (about 5 minutes), add the honey and whisk another minute until this dissolves too. Turn off the heat and set aside.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler; then set aside to cool for five minutes.

Meanwhile, stir the liqueur, zest, and vanilla into the honey/sugar/milk mixture. Stir this into the chocolate, then whisk in the eggs—the mixture will thicken slightly and look like chocolate pudding.

Layer the chopped toasted walnuts over the bottom of the tart crust and spoon the chocolate filling over top, making sure to spread it evenly around. Bake the tart for 15 minutes, then pull it out to arrange the 12 toasted walnut halves around the edge (like clock numbers). Cook another 8-10 minutes, or until the filling is puffy around the edges and just jiggly in the center. Pull it out and let it cool completely before serving (at least an hour and a half).

Check the archives

2012-01-28T14:35:00.001-05:00

Ha! This recipe archive is great. I have had a bee in my bonnet about making some sort of kale and pinto bean soup all weekend, and I just sat down at the computer to browse recipes online. I was thinking this or this or this, when suddenly I thought—haven't we made a kale and farro and bean stew around here before? I checked the archives, and would you look at that! We have.

It isn't quite what I want to make right now, but it's nice to know where to find it when that time comes around. So thank you Anna, yet again, for pushing me to do this. (And thank you Sally, for learning to take longer naps. That was a big help.)

Hope you are having a wonderful Saturday, everyone!

The Local Food Report: hunting ducks

2012-01-26T06:47:00.000-05:00

When I was about Sally's size, my mother used to call me her puddle duck. I had no idea that this was a real term until the other day, when I started researching duck hunting.

(Photo courtesy Chris Benesh)

It's duck hunting season, and that up there is a black duck, a type of puddle duck. Puddle ducks are also called dabbling ducks, and they spend most of their time feeding in shallow water. They're also local hunters' favorite, because they're the best ducks for eating.

The other kind of ducks you can hunt around here are sea ducks. Hunters don't like these as much. Why? They're divers, which means they eat lots of fish, and so their meat tastes fishy. My friend Dave Townsend, who's been hunting and eating ducks around here for years, says he's ruined a lot of perfectly good spices and herbs and sauces trying to mask the taste, and the sea birds just aren't worth cooking.

Not everyone agrees. Some people say they don't mind the taste of sea ducks. I suspect this has something to do with the fact that they shot the duck and therefore feel compelled to come up with a tasty way to eat it, but hey, I understand. Unsurprisingly, most sea duck recipes come from hunting websites (there are some good-looking ones over here and one hilariously titled Keith's Practically Edible Sea Duck over here), or chatrooms where experienced cooks and hunters share their tips (this thread on Chowhound is especially good).

When it comes to the better-tasting ducks—puddle ducks like blacks or mallards—the recipes sound much more appealing. Dave says he would soak his black duck breasts in milk before pan-searing them, which seems to be a common technique. Hank Shaw of Hunter/Angler/Gardener/Cook has a great basic tutorial for how to cook wild duck breasts, which you can find over here.

But the best-looking recipe I've found is for duck breasts with orange sauce. Duck and orange are a traditional pairing—think Duck a 'lOrange from the sixties—and this recipe from ducks.org for Duck Breasts with Grand Marnier Sauce seems in line with the recommendations I've read. Most people who've cooked wild duck say to add plenty of fat (note the 3/4 cup butter) and to not to over-cook the meat (this recipe says to sear it medium rare).

I've never shot a duck, but Alex has his license, and every year, he says he's going to go hunting. Shotgun season is over for the year—you can find the Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife regulations for migratory bird hunting over here—but falconry season goes until February 9th. Maybe, just maybe, one of these days he and Fisher will bring home a bird.

Recipe archive

2012-01-25T14:36:00.002-05:00

I have finally put together a recipe archive for you. My sister has been urging me to do this for months, maybe even years, and at long last, it's here. You get there via the tab up top that says Recipe Archive, all the way to the right.

I discovered a few strange things along the way. Apparently, I have a serious thing for roasted beet salads. Also, I noticed I don't post many seafood recipes, even though we eat a lot of seafood! This is probably because Alex is so good at these that I often let him do the fish cooking. I'll try to work on that. Lastly, I make an absurd amount of dessert. But who am I kidding? That's been going on since I was at least twelve.

At any rate, I hope you'll find this new archive useful. It's there for you, after all. Happy cooking!

Still warm

2012-01-23T19:23:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, my friend Tracy gave me three dozen eggs and a tart pan. Today I repaid her the best way I know how: with a Breton Buckwheat Cake baked with six of her eggs in my brand new pan.

The cake is a stunner. I made my first one a few days ago in an effort to work my way through some of the buckwheat flour in our freezer from last year's grain CSA, and it certainly did the trick. We worked through our cake FAST. The fact that it was only vaguely sweet and very eggy and moist and made with whole grain flour meant that we justified a little sliver after breakfast and two more in the wake of dinner and lunch.

The recipe comes from David Lebovitz, via 101cookbooks. I believe it is French. If it's not, it's everything French cakes tend to be—not overly sugary, simple to make, and deeply satisfying without being too rich. There's also no frosting—it feels very much like an every day peasant cake.

The excitement is in the sea salt that you sprinkle into the batter and then on the top just before you bake. It brings out all the nuances of the flavors that go into the cake—the undertones of dark rum, a hint of vanilla, the toothsome, earthy taste of buckwheat. I used light brown sugar in place of granulated, which I think gave it even more depth.

After we devoured ours I made it again and delivered it to Tracy, still warm in a greasy paper sack. Thank you Tracy, again.

BRETON BUCKWHEAT CAKE WITH FLEUR DE SEL

adapted from David Lebovitz, The Sweet Life in Paris

We got buckwheat last year with our grain CSA, and I milled it all into flour. For reasons I don't fully understand it is much lighter than most buckwheat flours—in color at least—but otherwise, it seems the same. Either way, it's delicious in this cake, which is moist, eggy, and only a little bit sweet. Think of it as a snacking cake.

for the cake:
1 scant cup buckwheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon plus 1/3 teaspoon fleur de sel
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
4 large egg yolks
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons dark rum

for the glaze:
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon milk

Grease a 9- or 10-inch tart pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small bowl, whisk together the buckwheat flour, the all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, and the cinnamon.

Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until smooth. Beat in the egg yolks one by one and then add the whole egg. Add the vanilla and rum in a slow dribble, beating the whole time. Beat on high speed until the mixture is very airy.

Finally, mix in the dry ingredients until the batter just comes together. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top as flat as possible (it is a thick dough so this takes a few swipes).

Make the glaze by whisking together the egg yolk and milk in a small cup. Brush it generously across the top, then take a fork and rake it across the batter to create three parallel lines in one direction and three in another to make a criss-cross pattern. Sprinkle the remaining 1/3 teaspoon of salt over the cake. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the inside of the cake is still moist.

Note: be careful not to overcook, as the cake seems like the type to dry out.

Dear Mama,

2012-01-18T16:25:00.001-05:00

Remember that cookbook Anna was going to get you for Christmas? Whole Grains Every Day Every Way, the one I recommended? Did it ever come in? I hope so—I just used it to make a top-notch pilaf recipe.

I think you have your share of the grain CSA by now—Joe piled it into the back of his pick-up when he was Maine-bound the other day—and I wanted to tell you that I tried an oat recipe. I don't know if you've had a chance to read the CSA handout yet, but the oats this year are different—they're called live oats, and they're hull-less. Apparently they grow without hulls, which means they're easier for the farmers to harvest and easier for us to cook with and clean. Yay!

We tried them in a pilaf recipe yesterday. We had friends coming over and an engagement and a pregnancy to celebrate, and I wanted to make a side that would go nicely with salad and fish. Some people say oat berries cook up similarly to rice, so I figured I'd look them up in the index of the Lorna Sass book and give whatever I found a try. What I found was on page 206: oat pilaf with carrots and thyme. It was delicious! Alex added some extra butter and salt (surprise!) and it needed a slightly longer cooking time than called for, but otherwise we didn't change anything.

I know you always plan out dinner in the morning, so you probably won't cook this tonight. But I think you'd love it, and Papa would too. Let me know if you give it a try.

Sally says coo, and we miss you.

OAT PILAF WITH CARROTS AND THYME

This makes a nice side dish with fish and salad. We've adapted it slightly from Lorna's version—hers calls for only 1 tablespoon of butter, and we didn't think that was quite enough.

While we're on the subject of butter—what kind do you buy? We were able to get it through our milk coop for a while, but they stopped making it because they were throwing too much buttermilk away. So then we bought Kate's of Maine, but when I got pregnant I got very careful about eating butter that was pastured. So these days we're buying the Organic Valley pasture butter, which they sell at Whole Foods. It's the best balance I've been able to find between local and healthy, which has become more and more the question I'm asking these days. I'd love to hear what you think.

Back to pilaf! Okay.

3 tablespoons butter, divided

1 cup finely diced onions

1 cup finely diced carrots

1/2 cup finely diced celery

1 and 1/2 cups whole oat groats, rinsed

2 cups boiling water

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

1 teaspoon sea salt, or more to taste

freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and put a kettle of water on to boil.

Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onions, carrots, and celery and sauté until soft, about five minutes. Add the oats and stir until they are coated with butter, then pour the boiling water over top. Add the salt and stir well.

Cover the Dutch oven and put it in the oven for 35 minutes. Lorna's recipe says the oats should be cooked at this point, but ours weren't. They needed another 10-15 minutes. So just keep checking after this point, adding more boiling water as needed, and pull the pot when they're done. Now stir in the fresh thyme, the remaining butter, and season with more salt and pepper to taste.

If you're not going to eat right away, toss the pilaf with a fork just like you would rice. Enjoy warm, if not hot.

3 & 93

2012-01-16T12:15:00.000-05:00

Good morning. We are just back from a trip to Richmond, Virginia. We took Sally there to meet her great-grandmother. Here's three months looking at ninety-three:

It was pretty neat. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the Logan parking garage last night we had a flat tire, and we got home very late. I don't have a recipe for you, much less a clean pair of pants or an unpacked suitcase. I'm sorry. But we did manage a trip to the farmers' market last week and a stop at Whole Foods last night, so we'll see you soon, with eats.

The Local Food Report: pretzel baguette

2012-01-12T05:56:00.000-05:00

I know everything I need to know about Tim Cleland. And that is that he and his wife Lisa are geniuses, geniuses who make pretzel baguettes.

I found this all out within about two minutes of meeting him. I was at the Sandwich Winter Farmers' Market, shopping around, wandering from stand to stand with my bags and cash and microphone in hand. I stopped to talk to Tim, and he started telling me about his wife's business, a bread delivery service called Honey I'm Home, and I confess I had totally tuned him out by the time he was about thirty seconds in. I was too busy staring at the loaf you see Alex breaking in to up above, a golden, salt-crusted baguette that looked moist and chewy and like it was in serious need of a side of golden mustard dip. I interrupted Tim. WHAT IS THAT? He said it was a pretzel baguette, inspired by one of his favorite sandwiches, which was, get this:

A pulled BBQ chicken breast

with cheddar cheese and fried onions

on a pretzel bun.

Enough said. Clearly, I needed to find out how to make this. So I asked Tim about his process. Basically, he makes a yeasted bread, lets it rise twice, and then boils it for two minutes on each side in a pot of boiling water spiked with baking soda. The baking soda is alkaline, which makes the water very basic, and a chemical reaction takes place which gives the bread a golden crust and a chewy texture.

Then I asked him for his recipe. And he and Lisa very graciously agreed to share it.

PRETZEL BAGUETTE

Tim and Lisa were nice enough to share their recipe with us. Tim recommends using the baguette to make his favorite sandwich: a toasted pretzel baguette with BBQ pulled chicken breast, cheddar cheese, and fried onions.

1 tablespoon instant yeast

2 and 3/4 cups bread flour

1 tablespoon organic sugar

1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

1 cup warm water

1/3 cup baking soda

kosher salt for sprinkling

coarse cornmeal for sprinkling

Combine the yeast, bread flour, organic sugar, salt, and warm water in an electric stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Mix until the dough comes together; then knead with the dough hook for 6 minutes.

Place the dough in a greased bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes, or until the dough ball doubles in size.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Prepare a parchment lined baking sheet and dust it with cornmeal.

Punch down the dough and on a lightly floured surface and flatten it into a rectangle. Fold the short sides in and shape it into two baguettes by tucking in the sides and gently rolling and coaxing the dough. (You can also make rolls. To do this, divide the dough into even pieces and flatten each into a disc. Create a gluten skin on the top of the rolls by gently folding the edges into the bottom center and working your fingers around the edges a few times.)

Score the baguettes (or rolls) with a razor and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Let them rise in a warm place for 20 minutes.

Bring a pot of water to the boil. (An oval shaped pot works best for baguettes.) When the baguettes have risen, carefully pour the baking soda into the boiling water and gently place the baguette in the water. Boil for two minutes on each side.

Remove the baguettes from the water (a flat metal strainer or two slotted spoons work well here). Place the baguettes on the prepared baking sheet and sprinkle with kosher salt.

Bake the baguettes for 15-20 minutes, or until they turn a deep brown color. Place them on a cooling rack. Enjoy!

P.S. WINTER FARMERS' MARKETS!

It's that time of year...here are details on the ones near us:

SANDWICH

Every other Sunday 10am to 2pm

(1/22, 2/5, 2/19, 3/4, 3/18)

349 Rt. 6a, East Sandwich

WAQUOIT

Saturdays 10am to 3pm

1/7 through 5/12

Waquoit Congregational Church, Rt. 28, Falmouth

EAST FALMOUTH

Saturdays 10am to 2pm

1/7 through 3/17

Mahoney's Garden Center, 958 Rt. 28, East Falmouth

PLYMOUTH

1/12, 2:30 to 6:30

Plymouth Plantation

future dates unsure (to read why, go over here)

Pho at home

2012-01-09T16:21:00.000-05:00

I'd like to talk pho today. Have you ever had it? I had my first taste of the Vietnamese noodle soup with my sister, at a small Cambridge noodle shop. And I've eaten it dozens of times with Alex. He spent six months in Vietnam during college, and he says there it's street food—not something you would make at home, but something you always eat out—sort of like French fries in the U.S. And apparently, it's a breakfast dish.

Well, we've turned those rules on their heads. We've been making pho at home, lots of it, and we've been eating it for dinner and for lunch. Super daring! I know.

In all seriousness though, pho is good. And while we used to get our fill of noodle soup from the Thai shops in Eastham and Orleans, both are kind of a trek and we are lazy and we like to make our broth with local meats and bones from farmers we trust. Plus, pho is the kind of food we like to eat when we're sick or in our pajamas or just in from a chilly walk on a Sunday afternoon, and we don't want to have to get in the car for that. So we started making broth at home—big, huge batches. We eat a quart or two and put the rest in the freezer. It's sort of like having emergency Ramen on hand when you're a kid, only much, much better.

Up until yesterday, we were making broth with a beef, pork, chicken, or turkey base. The recipe I use for infusing the broth comes from James Peterson's Splendid Soups, and you start with one of these basic broths and add cinnamon, cloves, ginger, a bit of sugar, white peppercorns, onion, and star anise. We also add a little bit of nuoc-mam and salt, give the broth a few hours to simmer, and then strain everything out. It's delicious.

The only thing is that Alex always says that real pho is made with oxtail. Peterson says that too, but since we never had any, we went with his other acceptable options. I was buying beef bones for more stock yesterday from Joe Beaulieu, and explaining to him what I was doing with them, when suddenly, he pulled a few packages of oxtail out. Huzzah! So starting today, we'll be making real, honest-to-goodness oxtail broth. I can't wait.

PHO / VIETNAMESE NOODLE SOUP

As Peterson states, you can use all kinds of broths for the base. So far, we've sampled beef, turkey, and pork. I liked beef the best, then pork, followed by turkey. That said, we seem to accumulate a LOT of pork in the freezer, and this is a great use for any less desirable cuts. Also, when it comes to toppings, get creative!

for the broth:

10 cups chicken, beef, pork, turkey, or oxtail broth

4 star anise

1 cinnamon stick about 2 inches long

2 whole cloves

about 2 inches of fresh ginger root, cut into 8 slices (no need to peel)

2 tablespoons brown sugar, plus more to taste

1 medium-size onion, peeled and quartered

1 teaspoon white peppercorns

a fair amount of salt—taste as you season!

1-2 tablespoon nuoc-mam (fish sauce), to taste

for the noodles:

2 pounds rice noodles

garnishes (use any or all, depending on what you have and the season):

fresh cilantro leaves

fresh mint leaves

fresh basil leaves (note: E & T Farms sells these at the Sandwich winter market!)

finely chopped Thai chilies or a dash of hot chili sauce/dried chilies if you put some up

nuoc-mam

lime wedges

chopped scallions, green parts included

hoisin sauce

mung bean sprouts (you can make these at home although I confess I have not)

shredded meat or poultry used to prepare the broth

Put the broth in a large stock pot and bring it to a boil. Crush the anise, cinnamon, and cloves with the back of a sauce pan against a cutting board and add the spices to the broth. Throw in the ginger, brown sugar, onion, and white peppercorns, and turn the heat down to low. Let the broth simmer for 1-2 hours.

If it doesn't taste flavorful enough, add some salt (we used a good deal) and some fish sauce, and if you feel like it needs more sweet, a little more brown sugar. If you still feel like the flavors aren't coming out and the broth has plenty of salt, let it simmer a little longer. Be careful while you're salting—give the broth five minutes or so on the stove in between each salting, and taste as you go. Salt will bring out the flavors, but you don't want to go overboard.

When you like the broth, pour it through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Pour the strained broth back into the pot and bring it to a boil. Add the noodles and cook, stirring occasionally, until just tender. Ladle the broth and noodles into bowls and garnish as you please. Yum!

From Sandwich

2012-01-08T17:07:00.000-05:00

We're just home from the Sandwich Winter Farmers' Market, and I wanted to stop in and say how much fun we had. There aren't a ton of vendors—Joe Beaulieu selling pastured beef and pork and even the ox tail we wanted for pho!—along with a vineyard, two produce vendors, a woman selling homemade Greek and Lebanese food, a woman with beautiful soaps and art and jams and jellies, and two bakers.

All in all, a lovely time. Stop by some time—they're there every other Sunday for the rest of the season. See you all soon. xo

The Local Food Report: pitting oysters

2012-01-05T07:25:00.000-05:00

Jim O' Connell has a root cellar. Like most root cellars, it's underground. It has a dirt floor, concrete walls, and a concrete slab for a ceiling. There are four little windows just above ground level that Jim can open to regulate the temperature, and at the entrance, there's a chute to send things down.

It's pretty normal. Only instead of being full of root vegetables, it's piled with oysters, floor to ceiling:

This practice is called "pitting." Apparently it's a pretty old tradition—Wellfleet oystermen were doing it back when Thoreau visited the Cape back in the 1840s and 50s. (The book was published in 1865, three years after his death. Thank you, Ed!) The man told Thoreau that he kept his oysters in the cellar all winter:

"Without anything to eat or drink?" I asked.

"Without anything to eat or drink," he answered.

"Can the oysters move?"

"Just as much as my shoe."

This is how Jim's oysters spend the winter, too. He brings them down around this time of year—the exact timing depends on the weather. He watches the forecast constantly, every morning and every night, and when it looks like its going to be 20 degrees or below for four nights in a row with not a whole lot of wind, it's time. That's because that kind of weather, with the salinity in Wellfleet harbor, means ice. And ice means mangled gear—moved and heaved racks and bags and baskets of oysters scattered all over, maybe even dragged over someone else's grant, maybe broken.

In fact, it's really not an issue of the oysters—wild ones survive winter in the harbor just fine. It's a gear thing. Jim's oysters sit in bags and baskets on racks 18 inches off the flats, which makes them very susceptible to things like high winds and ice. And while it might sound crazy to move a living thing into a root cellar, the oysters don't mind. They don't eat during the winter, and surprisingly, they don't even need to be in the water. They just need to be moist and around 35 degrees F.

Growers have been pitting oysters since Thoreau's time at least. Jim says he read somewhere about Wellfleetians packing oysters into the banks of Duck Creek using salt hay. Even when they weren't using so much gear, Jim says, it made sense, because if you were farming oysters in a specific part of the harbor, an iceberg could come and scatter them all over.

When the first big tides in March roll around, Jim brings his roughly 250,000 oysters back out of the cellar and onto his grant. It's a lot of work, but for someone like him—who welds his own racks—its worth it. Most growers agree, but not everyone pits. Some people leave their gear out and take the risk, and others grow their oysters on the bottom. So if you're eating Wellfleet oysters this time of year, most likely, they're either bottom culture or wild. We'll have to wait until spring to get a taste of what's in the pits.

Lo and behold

2012-01-02T10:21:00.001-05:00

This is embarassing. But we're all friends here, so no laughing please. This is the state of my Brussels sprouts' leaves:

A nice way to describe them would be forlorn. A more honest way would be pathetic. But! Hope springs eternal, and despite their tattered appearance (which, since we're being honest, they started sporting around mid August when I stopped being able to comfortably lean over to pick the worms off), I left them in the ground.

And over Christmas, a miracle occurred. I went out to pick some arugula, and lo and behold, when I bent down to check on the Brussels sprouts, there were actual buds on the stalks. Big ones! Edible ones! Happy New Year!

I'm not sure if this is an argument for lazy gardening or just a lucky accident, but I'll take it. Any year.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS WITH RED ONIONS, WALNUTS, AND BACON (FAT)

Who loves bacon fat? Brussels sprouts. And of course, I do. Whenever we cook bacon, we save the fat in a jar for later. Walnuts add a nice crunch to this dish, while red onions bring together the flavors with a little bit of sweetness.

1 stalk Brussels sprouts, rinsed, trimmed, and halved (about 1 pint)

1 small red onion, peeled and chopped

a handful of walnuts

1 tablespoon bacon fat

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Toss together the Brussels sprouts, red onions, walnuts, bacon fat, and olive oil in a small roasting pan. Season with salt and pepper to taste and roast for 10-15 minutes, or until the nuts are nicely toasted and the Brussels sprouts are just tender. Serve hot.

A very merry

2011-12-24T10:51:00.001-05:00

Hi friends. I hope you're with family and friends, baking up a storm. We're just starting the dough for a batch of Angie's, and tonight we're going to have a ham with mashed Truro turnips and a big salad from our greenhouse and homemade rye bread and the leftovers from a friend's homemade blueberry pie.

But before we celebrate, we just wanted to pop by and wish you a very happy merry. Have a wonderful few days, everyone.

The Local Food Report: thumbprint cookies

2011-12-22T07:12:00.000-05:00

Today I have a holiday present for you from my friend Tracy. She's a top notch baker, and every year around this time she and her husband host a cookie party. Everyone brings a platter of their favorite cookies, you eat a bunch at the party, and then you take home what you like best—a mixed bag. It's a nice way to learn about other people's recipes, and also to switch up what you're eating at home. We make an awful lot of sugar cookies this time of year. My favorite cookie to bring home from the party is one Tracy makes: her grandmother's thumbprint cookie, filled with things like dark chocolate ganache and beach plum jelly and homemade chocolate mint jelly.

This year, I asked her for the recipe. She very graciously agreed to share it—with all of us. I'm making mine in every shade of red: red currant jelly I made with fruit from Silverbrook Farms, beach plum jelly that Alex's grandmother put up last year, strawberry jam with fruit from Tony Andrews Farm in Falmouth, and even raspberry jelly from our plants out back. In case you're feeling inspired, here you go: Gramma Hill's Thumbprint Cookies. Happy baking everyone!

GRAMMA HILL'S THUMBPRINT COOKIES

Tracy coped this out from me from her own tattered copy, which has clearly seen many Christmases. She says she learned to make the cookies from her grandmother, who was blind. She didn't cook much, but Tracy would go and bake with her each year around the holidays, helping her measure out sugar and flour.

1 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, separated

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

chopped nuts (Tracy uses cashews, her grandmother used peanuts)

red and green jelly

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Get out several baking sheets and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla. Stir in the flour until the dough is just mixed.

Roll the dough into 1-inch balls. Roll each ball in the egg whites and then in the chopped nuts, then place them on the baking sheets.

Bake for 5 minutes, then pull the cookies out and use your thumb (or a coffee scoop if your thumbs are tender!) to make a well in the center of each cookie. Return the trays to the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes longer. Pull the cookies out and immediately fill them with jelly. Cool and serve at room temperature. Yum!

The bread

2011-12-19T10:36:00.001-05:00

Hi. I hope you had a nice Sunday. We did. I took two naps, Sally took three, and we all spent a lot of time on the couch. We read Cross Country Cat, and Frederick, and when it got dark, we went to the restaurant where I work for a holiday closing party. There were seared scallops and fried oysters and tuna bolognese and pork belly skewers, and all in all it was a good way to go out. We also baked our bread, and I wanted to show you a picture.

It's delicious. It didn't rise up quite as high as I'd hoped, but I think that might be related to the fact that our oven is in SERIOUS need of calibration and we accidentally started off the bake at 600 degrees F when it was supposed to be on 375. We also cut into one loaf right away, without doing the dishcloth thing. But it's right on in the flavor department, and it's got the texture too, so if you're thinking of baking, it's a Go!

That said, the next time I make it, I think I'll do a few experiments. I think I'll up the rye—swap out one cup of the all-purpose flour in the last portion for rye flour instead. And I happen to really like caraway, so I might double the caraway seeds or even grind some up to add into the flour.

And just so you know, we still have a lot of rye flour kicking around here. We're not done with rye yet. My next project will be these—Swedish rye cookies from 101cookbooks. Have you done your holiday baking yet? We're a little behind the times this year, but the tree is up, and this afternoon, we're going to put on the Muppets Christmas disc and start whisking and rolling and baking.

Happy Holidays, everyone.

Local rye, day 7

2011-12-18T09:13:00.003-05:00

Happy baking day! There's a dusting of snow outside the window, which seems fitting. And this morning while Sally and her dad were still in bed playing smile and squeak, I was able to sneak downstairs and start the bread. I stirred salt, caraway seeds, poppy seeds, butter, sugar, and lots of flour into Friday's rye and starter mixture, and let it knead in the Kitchen Aid until it was smooth and elastic. Then I oiled our big rising bowl, shaped the dough into a ball, and tucked it to rise next to the wood stove.

It should be ready for punching down right around the time Sally wakes up from her nap. Then all we'll have to do is shape it into two rounds and let it rise again. By lunchtime, we'll be sitting down to homemade ham and lentil soup with hot buttered bread.

SOURDOUGH RYE

James Beard adapted this from a NYT recipe back in the 90s, and I've made a few of my own changes too. The nice thing about it is that once you get your starter going, you don't have to start from scratch every time you want bread. Just keep it in the fridge, feed it with equal parts flour and water, and the night before you want to start the recipe, take it out and bring it up to room temp.

2 tablespoons dry active yeast

3 and 1/4 cups warm water

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups rye flour

2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

1 and 1/2 teaspoons poppy seeds

2 tablespoons melted butter

3 tablespoons granulated sugar (you could probably use honey, but I haven't tried yet!)

2 cups whole wheat flour

cornmeal, for the pan

1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon water

Four days (or in my case, seven!) before you plan to bake, prepare the "starter." Stir together 1 tablespoon yeast, 2 cups warm water, and 2 cups all-purpose flour in a large yogurt container. Cover tightly and let stand at room temperature for two days. Then refrigerate for at least one more day, and as many beyond that as you like.

The day before preparing the dough, take the starter out of the fridge and stir it well. Combine 1 cup of the starter with the rye flour and 1 cup warm water in a bowl. Cover it tightly and let it stand at room temperature overnight. (I let mine stand two nights with no apparent ill effects.)

The next day stir down the dough and add the remaining tablespoon of yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water along with the salt, caraway seeds, poppy seeds, butter, and sugar. Stir in the whole wheat flour, then the remaining 2 cups all-purpose flour, one cup at a time. Beard says you may not need all of the all-purpose flour, but I found I did. Knead the dough for 10-12 minutes (I was nursing Sally so I let mine "knead" in the Kitchen Aid which worked quite well).

Shape the dough into a ball, place it in a buttered bowl, and let it rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Punch the dough down and divide it into two balls. Form each into a round loaf and place on two greased baking sheets generously sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover the loaves and let them rise again for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and prepare the egg wash. Brush the egg wash over the loaves and bake them for 30 minutes, or until they are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped. If you can help yourself, cover with towels and cool before eating to prevent the crust from hardening. I'm not sure we'll be able to, but we'll try with at least one loaf!

Local rye, day 5

2011-12-16T11:33:00.002-05:00

Ok, I goofed. Today is not the big bake. That's tomorrow! Instead, sometime between now and tonight, combine 1 cup of the starter (stir it up well) with 1 cup warm water and 2 cups of rye flour in a bowl. Now cover it tightly, leave it on the counter top, and we'll see you TOMORROW for the big bake.

The Local Food Report: seven fishes

2011-12-15T07:34:00.000-05:00

We met Frank Tenaglia through a letter. It was addressed to my husband and his brother, and it was in response to an article that had been written about their seafood market, and the Italian tradition of eating seven different kinds of fish on Christmas Eve.

"Dear Hay Brothers," it began. "More than seventy five years ago, my mother used to make this meal and I loved it. She would have fried smelts, fried anchovies, baccala, stuffed squid, calamari, oysters, scallops, or crab." Frank gave his address and a phone number, and said that he hoped he could get the makings for a meal for two this year.

Last week, my husband and I drove to West Hyannisport to meet him. We sat down with Frank and his wife Carolyn, and he told us his memories of Christmas Eve dinner in an Italian household. He remembers his mother as a wonderful cook, and said that for the big meal—Feast of the Seven Fishes—she battered almost everything in flour and egg and deep fried it in olive oil. His favorite were smelts—small, oily, migratory fish—that she cooked whole, gutted but with the scales and skin on and the skeleton still in. He also loved anchovies and baccala (dried, salted codfish), and his mother's specialty, stuffed squid.

His memories of the meal reach way back—back to the 1930s, when he was six, seven, eight years old. He remembers helping his mother in the kitchen—not with the fish, but with mincemeat shaped like a horseshoe, and long snakes of fried dough, cosas frittes—literally, fried things.

But Frank never learned to cook himself. When he was younger, his mother did the cooking, and when he married his wife Carolyn took over the cooking. She was Irish, so they didn't celebrate Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. But recently, Carolyn's gotten less mobile, and Frank's taken over in the kitchen. And this year, he's hoping to make his very first Feast of the Seven Fishes.

I don't think he's planning anything complicated—just seven fishes, battered and fried—but if you're interested in the tradition, there are lots of menus from Italian-American chefs online. I found a good-looking one in Saveur (check out the story here and the menu here) and another from Mario Batali. I'm not sure yet what we're having for Christmas Eve dinner, but we almost always have some seafood. And if we make it to seven fish dishes, here are my top picks for this year:

1. Stuffed Oysters

2. Lobster Fra Diavolo

3. Stuffed Clams

4. Calamari with Stewed Tomatoes

5. Salt Cod Stew

6. Stuffed Squid

7. Seared Sea Scallops

What would you make? I'd love to hear.

Local rye, day 3

2011-12-14T09:21:00.005-05:00

Hi! Don't worry. We haven't fallen asleep on the job. Or at least one of us hasn't. I can't speak for our littlest baker, who went down this morning for a nap at 9:07.

But if you're still with us, today, put that starter in the fridge. If you peek inside, there will be a lot of whey-like liquid on top, and a soggy flour mixture down below. That's normal. Here's what mine looks like:

While you've got the top off, go ahead and give it a whiff. Does it smell yeasty, and a lot like sourdough bread? Good. You're on the right track. We'll see you Friday for The Big Bake.

Local rye, day 1

2011-12-12T19:17:00.004-05:00

Let's start a project. Ready? Ok. Take two cups of all-purpose flour, two cups of warm water, and a tablespoon of yeast. Shake them all together in an old yogurt container or a big Mason jar, put the lid on tight, and set them on the counter. Now walk away.

We'll be back with the next step on Wednesday. In the meantime, if you happen to have some local rye kicking around, say from a grain CSA, grind it into flour. You'll need that for what comes next—that, and some poppy seeds and caraway. See you then!

The Local Food Report: Macomber turnips

2011-12-08T06:58:00.000-05:00

There is a plaque planted on the side of Main Road in Westport:

For those of you who aren't into squinting, the basic gist is this. A long time ago, back in 1876, two brothers from Westport went to Philadelphia for the Centennial Exposition. It was a huge fair—it went on from May 10th to November 10th and had almost 10 million visitors!—and it showcased everything from art to industry to innovations in farming. The brothers, Aiden and Elihu Macomber, got hung up on a turnip variety descended from Swedish and Russian rutabagas that was called Pure Bristol White. They brought the seeds home, the turnip variety flourished in Westport soil, and people have been crazy for Macomber turnips ever since.

I first tried one the other day, at the Falmouth Farmers' Market. Patricia Gadsby, the market organizer, introduced me to it, and said it's one of her favorite winter treats. She says it has the sweetness of a rutabaga, the crispness of a radish, and the pure white flesh of a turnip. She likes it cooked, mashed up and aerated with a stick blender into an almost mousse-like substance. Or roasted. Or sautéed and served alongside seafood. Or even raw! in a salad!

Patricia found the raw salad recipe the other day, over here in the New York Times. It called for raw turnips, peeled and shaved very, very thin, and tossed with arugula and prosciutto. Patricia recommended it, and I tried it, and I can tell you that it's a revelation. No more cooking-only for turnips. This salad is sweet, crisp, and fresh, everything that winter generally is not. It turns root vegetable rules on their heads, and for that I applaud it.

Have you tried the Macomber, anyone?

A stretch

2011-12-05T10:17:00.006-05:00

Good morning. We have been trying to get some cooking done around here, really we have, but SOMEONE has been distracting us. I'm not going to name any names, but it's someone round, jolly, and slightly reddish. Who's not Santa.

In fact, between taking care of this certain somebody, recovering from a nasty bout of mastitis, and winding our way to Woods Hole and back for a Super Secret Surprise 60th birthday party, I believe we have only managed to cook ONE meal this week. One! It was good—seared pork with sautéed dino kale and garlic and roasted sweet potatoes—but hardly worth writing home about.

So instead I'd like to tell you about something else—something sweet. It's a gingerbread house—more of a gingerbread village, really—that we made with my niece. Lili entered it in the Wellfleet Preservation Hall kids decorating contest, and she won! Check it out.

In case you can't tell, it's an ice fishing village. The graham cracker units are the huts, the chocolate squares are the doors, and the little pools of blue frosting are the fishing holes. Those are Sour Patch Kids out there fishing with toothpicks, and those crazy rainbow striped candies are giant fish. They're getting quite a haul. It would be a stretch to call this local food, but we did find a good icing recipe, and those are hard to come by, so I wanted to share. Happy holidays, everyone.

GINGERBREAD HOUSE ICING

Lili and I looked for a good icing recipe for a long time and finally settled on this one. We liked it because it didn't call for any fussy ingredients like glycerin or meringue, and we could use egg whites from Lili's own chickens! It hardened nicely—not so fast we couldn't use it all up but quickly enough to set the houses fast.

1 pound powdered sugar

3 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Combine everything in a mixer. Beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Use within an hour or so, as this icing will harden over time.

Sad news

2011-12-04T07:41:00.001-05:00

Our hearts go out to Darnell Caffoni, who lost her husband Rod Thursday to a heart attack. I met Rod and Darnell through their stand at the Orleans Farmers Market—they are the friendly folks with the beautiful greens and radishes at Boxwood Gardens.

Rod, you will be greatly missed.

There will be a gathering to celebrate Rod's life Thursday, December 8th at 6p.m. at the Barnstable Comedy Club Theatre. All are welcome—please bring pictures, stories, love, and a dish of food if you'd like.

All our love to you Darnell—

Elspeth

The Local Food Report: heritage pigs

2011-12-01T07:00:00.002-05:00

This is Wilbur:

He's not the best-looking pig. He is an unusual pig, though. He's a Large Black, an old heritage breed. They were popular in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, but these days, there aren't many around. Why? In short, because there isn't as much land around as there used to be, and these pigs eat grass. You can tell that from their coloring—dark, coarse hair and dark skin protect them from burning.

I met Wilbur in Barnstable, at Tim Friary's. He runs Cape Cod Organic Farm, and this year, he started raising pigs. He's got two kinds—both heritage breeds. The others are Berkshires. The Large Blacks are listed on the American Livestock Breeds Conservation Priority List as "critical," meaning there are less than 200 registered each year in the U.S. The Berkshires aren't listed in our country, but they are in England. It's estimated that there are less than 2,000 pigs of either breed globally.

It hasn't always been this way. Before the era of cheap feed, pasture breeds like Large Blacks and Berkshires were easier for farmers. They ate pasture, which was free, and rooted around in the woods, which helped them clear land. They could easily survive the winter outside, even with piglets. They're fairly docile as hogs go and known for their good mothering abilities. And most importantly, they have tasty meat. Tim describes it as a bit pinker than most pork, with better marbling.

This is the first year Tim's raising either of these breeds. He has a Berkshire sow named Delilah who had six piglets, two Large Black sows, Wilbur, and two litters of Large Black piglets. He's got 22 pigs so far, and eventually, he's hoping to get up into the hundreds. This year's piglets won't be ready for slaughter until this spring. I'm already looking forward to the meat.

As promised

2011-11-28T17:37:00.000-05:00

It's dark already?! The day escaped us. And now it's time to finish dinner, give the baby a bath, and settle in for the night. But first, as promised, here's that recipe for Swedish Apple Pie. I've added cranberries, and I think it would be equally nice with pears.

SWEDISH APPLE PIE

I found this recipe in The Apple Lover's Cookbook, a new book from W.W. Norton. They very nicely sent me a copy in the mail and I've been working my way through. I like this recipe because it's an easy alternative to pie—no crust, no fuss—tasty and quick.

3 large apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4-inch slices

1/2 cup cranberries

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon plus 1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons plus 1 cup granulated sugar

10 tablespoons butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the pan

1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a pie plate and set it aside.

In a mixing bowl, toss the apple slices with the cinnamon, 1 tablespoon of the flour, and 2 tablespoons of the sugar. Pour the mixture into the bottom of the pie plate and smooth it into an even layer.

Combine the remaining ingredients in a standing mixer and beat until just combined. Use the back of a wooden spoon to spread the batter evenly over the apples and cranberries. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and crackly. Serve warm from the pan.

Along the way

2011-11-26T11:43:00.005-05:00

Hi! We've been on the road. I've been wanting to check in, but apparently when you travel with a two month old that is easier said than done. Sally has been very busy meeting friends and relatives in Maine and Wellesley, and we've been very busy showing her off. Here she is at her very first coffee shop stop in Portland:

We've been cooking along the way, and I have a recipe I want to share with you for Swedish Apple Cake, but I'm going to give it a few days. Between the turkey and the pie and the parties, I think we could all use a break. I'll see you Monday, everyone. Happy holidays!

Take note

2011-11-14T10:53:00.003-05:00

I have a root vegetable recipe for you today. That seems sort of odd, I realize, given that it's currently 62 degrees outside, but let's keep in mind that it's the weather that isn't seasonal, not the recipe. (Not that I'm complaining! Weather gods take note!)

At any rate, I found the idea for the recipe in this month's Bon Appetit. It was one of those write-ins—someone from South Carolina had eaten at a restaurant in Atlanta and wanted the recipe for a roasted carrot and beet salad. I tucked it aside in my pile of To Make Soon clippings, but when I went to start cooking, I realized the page I ripped out had the ingredients, but not the directions. It didn't look like rocket science—there was a list of dressing like substances, then a pile that sounded more like salad fixings—but when I compared notes later online, it turned out we came to similar places, but via different methods.

I also decided that I wanted it to be more of a salad than just a pile of roasted vegetables, so I saved the beet greens, chopped them up, and added some arugula. I ate it with a piece of pan-seared pollock, and a few slices of grilled bread. And even though the sun was shining and I was wearing a t-shirt and feeling very far away from the root vegetable era, it really hit the spot.

I'm liking this November.

ROASTED BEET AND CARROT SALAD

Here's my version of the Bon Appetit version which in turn was an Empire State South version of a Spotted Pig original! Confusing! But so, so good.

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

juice of 1 lemon

2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 cup olive oil plus more for drizzling

salt and pepper to taste

1 pound carrots cut into "carrot stick size" pieces

1/2 pound beets peeled and cut into the same size pieces

1/2 cup lightly packed finely chopped parsley

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh mint leaves

a handful of washed and torn beet greens

a handful of washed and torn arugula

1/2 cup crumbled feta

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Toast the cumin seeds over medium heat in a small dry skillet, stirring often. When they start to get fragrant (3-4 minutes), they're done. Grind them up using a mortar and pestle.

Whisk together the ground cumin seeds, lemon juice, vinegar, Dijon mustard, and 1/2 cup of the olive oil in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Combine the carrots and beets in a Pyrex dish. Drizzle them with olive oil and roast them in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until just tender. Transfer the roasted root vegetables to a salad bowl and toss them with the reserved dressing, parsley, mint, beet greens, and arugula. Crumble the feta over top and serve at once.

Note: I ate my salad with the vegetables hot, but they could also be roasted ahead of time and served either at room temperature or even straight from the fridge.

The Local Food Report: Nikki McClure

2011-11-10T07:13:00.000-05:00

We don't talk enough about books around here. So today, I'd like to make a recommendation. It's a kids book:

It's the first book I bought for the baby, way back in May. It's about a little boy and his mother shopping the farmers' market—based on the experience of author Nikki McClure and her son at their farmers' market in Olympia, Washington. Everyone in the book is real—Nikki gives their real names and describes how their real growing processes work, and in the illustrations, she even shows their real tattoos.

I met Nikki this spring, when she was giving a reading at the Falmouth Farmers' Market. I asked her what inspired her to write the book, and she said mostly, she wanted to find out about what was going into the food she was buying each week. That, and she wanted to write a book that would help kids put words grown-ups were tossing around all the time—things like local and organic—into every day, normal kid terms. So she started talking with people like Michael, the apple vendor, and Steve, who sells smoked salmon, and asking them about the work they did. She learned some pretty cool stuff.

I don't want to give too much away, because it really is a good read, but I did want to show you some of the illustrations.

Nikki is actually best known for her artwork. She makes her illustrations using an X-acto knife—all those black segments up there are a single piece of paper. If she makes a mistake, she has to either work it into the picture, or start all over. Then later, she scans it and fills in some bits with color on the computer.

She says she likes to use color sparingly, so that when you see it, you know it's important.

If you have a chance, pick up a copy of the book, or head to the library and check it out. It's a kid book, but it's also the kind of book you can learn a lot from as an adult.

Quick!

2011-11-04T11:56:00.007-04:00

If you hurry, you might get one last eggplant at the farmers' markets. If you're really lucky, you might even get a looker like this:

If you do, I've got a recipe for you. It's an Asian inspired eggplant and beef stir-fry from this month's issue of Bon Appetit, and it is GOOD. I've taken to making dinner in the mornings, while Sally sleeps—she seems happiest riding around on my chest while I'm doing the laundry or taking a walk or cooking—so we've been looking for recipes that we can do ahead. Dinner time apparently is prime time for fussing and nursing, and so we mince our garlic and mint and whisk together our soy sauce and nuoc nam in the a.m.

Beyond the eggplant, all you need is some local pastured steak, a few handfuls of mint from the garden, and some Asian basics that you probably already have tucked away in the cupboard. Oh! and an appetite. Good luck with the eggplant.

EGGPLANT AND BEEF STIR-FRY

Alex sells pastured Northeast Family Farms beef at his market in Truro. A wide variety of cuts will work—anything from top sirloin to skirt steak to to flank steak to beef eye round.

4 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 one-inch piece ginger, peeled and minced

1 tablespoon fish sauce (we use nuoc nam)

juice of 1/2 lime

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar

5 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound eggplant, cut into bite size pieces

1/2 pound steak

rice noodles

Whisk together the mint, soy sauce, ginger, nuoc nam, lime juice, garlic, and sugar in a large bowl. Set aside.

Warm the oil up in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and sauté the eggplant until golden brown. Transfer the eggplant to the bowl with the dressing, keeping the pan warm. Now sear the steak in the same pan and add this to the eggplant mixture. Toss well.

Finally, cook the rice noodles and drain. Let each person serve themselves a bowl of noodles topped with the eggplant and steak mixture and some of the sauce.

A do over

2011-11-01T09:52:00.007-04:00

Did you carve a pumpkin? We meant to, but the Rouge Vif d'Etampes we bought at the farmers' market over a month ago is still sitting on the stoop. Amazingly, it's also still perfectly firm. So now that Halloween has come and gone and Sally has taken her costume off, I think we'll eat it instead.

I'm thinking I'll cut it into slices, roast it, puree it, and then make another batch of pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I made some the other day, but I gave most of them away, so I think we'll have a do over. I first discovered pumpkin chocolate-chip cookies at my friend Abbie's house sometime in junior high, and I've been a big fan ever since. They're much more moist than plain old chocolate chip cookies, with full cookie flavor but a texture that's almost like a cross between cookies and gingerbread. Last year I discovered that oats make an excellent addition, and I've been making the recipe below ever since.

Happy pumpkin season, everyone.

OATMEAL-PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE-CHIP COOKIES

This recipe is adapted slightly from Abbie's original. Any variety of winter squash or pumpkin puree will work fine; I often use butternut. Be sure to use dark chocolate chips—the cookies are sweet enough as is.

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 and 1/3 cups old-fashioned oats

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

2 sticks butter, softened

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons honey

1 cup pureed pumpkin or squash

1 large egg

1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups dark chocolate chips

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.

In another mixing bowl, cream the butter with the sugars and honey until light and fluffy. Add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla, and mix well. Add the dry ingredients and the chocolate chips and stir until just combined; do not over mix. Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Scoop the dough using two spoons into balls; drop the balls onto two un-greased cookie sheets. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until just barely cooked through. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Yields 24 cookies.

For Nancy

2011-10-26T17:59:00.003-04:00

First, because I can't resist, a Sally photo. I promise we'll get back to fruits and vegetables soon.

And on the business side of things, a recipe! For Nancy, from the archives, here goes:

COCONUT CURRIED KOHLRABI AND SWISS CHARD

You can find kohlrabi at most farmers' markets. When selecting kohlrabi, keep in mind that the purple stems are sweeter and a bit more mild spice-wise than the green versions. Look for small, tender pieces, as the bigger they get the woodier they tend to be inside.

1 tablespoon butter

2 large cloves garlic, minced

6 scallions, chopped fine

1 tennis ball-size kohlrabi, peeled and diced

8-10 cups Swiss chard, chopped and packed

1/2 can coconut milk plus 1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon red curry paste

1 and 1/2 tablespoons peanut butter

salt

Get out a big, heavy-bottomed soup pot and put it over medium heat. Melt the butter, and throw in the scallions and the garlic. Stir briskly so that the garlic doesn't burn, cooking for only a minute.

Now add the kohlrabi and sauté a bit more before adding the Swiss chard. Once the greens are in the pot, put the lid tightly on top and let them steam down for about five minutes, stirring everything from time to time.

Remove the lid and add the coconut milk and the red curry paste. Turn up the heat to medium-high and keep stirring until the paste dissolves in the milk. When the liquid starts to boil throw in the peanut butter and stir until this dissolves too.

Turn the heat down to a simmer, season the pot with salt, and let the flavors cook together for a minute or two. Serve the vegetables and broth in a wide, shallow bowl over a scoop of brown rice. Sriracha hot sauce or another hot chili sauce makes a nice topping.

Sally & I

2011-10-20T16:21:00.008-04:00

Hi, friends.

Sorry to have been gone so long, but Sally and I have had a lot of catching up to do. It's very different for both of us with her here, on the outside, but it's also pretty great. My parents left Tuesday, which was both nice and scary, and the three of us are slowly settling into a routine. Mostly this involves nursing and reading and trying to sleep and doing laundry and walking, and while that might not sound like a lot, it keeps us very busy.

We've also managed to start cooking again—nothing very complicated—a salad for lunch, a pot of ham and beans for supper. But mostly, we've been relying on the kitchens of family and friends. Luckily we have good friends, friends who bring things like Torta di Mele, a moist, crackly apple cake that reminds me of my host mother in Spain. Lourdes made the best apple cake—it was moist and custardy and sweet, and I've tried but never been able to recreate it. Until Teresa brought one over, complete with a print out of the recipe. It's nearly gone now, so I don't have a proper picture for you, but believe me this is a cake you want to make. It is simple and elegant and in a very homey way quite pretty, and perfect this time of year.

We'll see you soon, friends, and until then, I hope we all find time to bake.

TORTA DI MELE

In English, this apparently is called "Apple Cake with a Crackly Meringue." Whatever you want to call it, it comes from both Italy and Spain, and this version in particular comes from Lynn Rosetto Kasper's The Italian Country Table. Teresa's baked up beautifully—crackly and wispy on top and moist in the center.

2 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 and 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

a pinch of salt

1 and 1/2 sticks cold butter, cut into small pieces

3/4 cup milk

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

shredded zest of 1 large lemon

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 large (about 1 pound) apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 large egg white

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9-inch spring form pan.

In a large bowl, work together the 2 cups of flour, 1 and 1/2 cups sugar, the salt, and the butter with your fingers until crumbly. Take 1 cup of this mixture and press it over the bottom of the pan and about 1/2 inch up the sides to make a crust.

Make a well in the remaining crumb mixture. Add the milk, eggs, vanilla, lemon zest, remaining flour, and baking powder. Blend these liquid ingredients in the well as best you can without mixing in the crumbs. Then stir in the crumbs until well blended but still a little lumpy. Fold in the apples and scrape the batter into the pan over the crust.

Beat the egg white until foamy in a small bowl. Beat in the remaining sugar until the mixture forms peaks. Spread this over the batter.

Bake for an hour to 75 minutes or until the top is golden brown and a straw comes out clean. Cool and serve at room temperature. Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream make a nice accompaniment, but the cake is so moist that they aren't essential.

The Local Food Report: black walnuts

2011-10-13T05:20:00.001-04:00

There are some tastes you never forget. The flavor of wild American black walnuts is one of them.

I first tried black walnuts this fall, when my forager friend, Richard Bailey, gave me a sack of them. I'd been hearing about them for years: from my grandmother, who grew up with them, and from my mother, describing the black walnut cake she used to make with them. They both got a sort of dreamy, far away look when they talked about the nuts---the kind of look people get when they talk about tastes and memories that belong to another time, another place. When I finally bit into a slice of my grandmother's black walnut cake for the first time a few weeks ago, I understood: black walnuts are all wild, all American, all history.

They don't grow on the Cape, not naturally. Their range extends from Western Massachusetts and Vermont out to southern Ontario, down to central Texas, and then east into Georgia and up the coast. But an Austrian couple in Wellfleet planted a tree half a century ago, and each fall, it produces.

The tree itself looks sort of like a locust---compound pinnate leaves and scratchy bark---but it's actually in the hickory family. The nuts are housed in a fleshy husk that's green straight off the tree, then slowly fades to black. They're famously hard to open: Richard Bailey uses a knife and a bench vice, but others have used hammers, rocks, the tires of their cars. Once you get through the husk, you find a hard shell, same as an English Walnut, so you still have to crack that. Finally, you get to the nutmeats, about a cup for every two pounds un-shelled.

It's a lot of work, but when you taste that flavor, you know it was worth it. The recipe my grandmother handed down to me is called Maryland Black Walnut Cake, and it comes from the Shields Chesapeake Bay Cookbook, circa 1990. She used to have an older recipe, the one my great-grandmother made, but that one's gone and this one is close, she says. It calls for all the usuals: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, a little bit of vanilla and baking powder and milk and salt. But then you add the black walnuts---1 and 1/2 cups of pure ground musk, and it changes the whole game. The flavor is something like really good banana bread soaked in port and black currant cordial with a little bit of smoke mixed in. It's good straight out of the oven but it gets better over the course of a few days---more moist, more pungent, somehow more rare.

I can't hand you a slice through the screen, but I can give you the next best thing: everything you need to bake your own cake, grow your own trees. You can buy black walnuts online, over here, and this company sells the trees online. And thanks to my grandmother, here's that cake recipe.

MARYLAND BLACK WALNUT CAKE

My grandmother talks about a recipe Gransie (her grandmother) used to make, but we can't find that anywhere. Instead, she sent me this recipe card from her files, with a note at the bottom that says "Shields Chesapeake Bay Cookbook, 1990."

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter

1 and 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 eggs, separated

3/4 cup milk

1 and 1/2 cup ground black walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a tube or Bundt cake pan.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until they're light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and egg yolks and beat well. Alternately add the dry ingredients and the milk to the creamed butter mixture, mixing well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they're stiff but not dry and gently fold them into the batter along with the ground black walnuts until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until a piece of straw comes out clean. Turn the cake onto a rack to cool, then dust with confectioners' sugar before serving.

The Local Food Report: plum nutty

2011-10-06T06:20:00.000-04:00

Today, I'd like to let my grandmother do the storytelling. A while back, when she moved into an assisted living apartment, she stopped cooking. She's always been one hell of a cook---things like oven-fried chicken, stuffed potatoes, and tenderloin wrapped in bacon so rich it makes you melt---and recently, when she realized how interested I was, she gave me her old book of recipes. I wanted to know the stories behind the pages of measurements and ingredients, so one weekend, my mom and I flew down to her place in Richmond. I brought my recording gear, and we talked about food, and family, and recipes. One night, I asked her about something called plum nutty. Here's the story, in her words:

"Plum nutty? Oh, that's very special. That's a recipe that came from my gynecologist in Sandusky, Ohio. And he had been a flight surgeon during World War Two, stationed in the Pacific. And after he came back to the States he happened to be a member of our church, and every Christmas, he gave me plum nutty.

He would never tell me how to make it but he would give it to me. And plum nutty was made with plums---was a preserve---made with plums and nutmeats and it was very good as preserves but it was even better to put on top of vanilla ice cream.

So. I kiddingly knew he'd never give me the recipe but I just deviled him for it all the time and he also took care of me physically and I had several miscarriages after my son was born. And then came the day when I was pregnant again and it looked like this one was gonna stick with me.

And after Liz was born, he came to the house one day with two jars of plum nutty, and the recipe. So that's how I got the recipe for plum nutty."

Every time I listen to my grandmother tell the story, I tear up a little bit. When I think of her and the eight years she spent waiting for that recipe and waiting for my mom, I know that gift from her doctor must have felt like gold. My mom still has the original piece of paper, in Dean Sheldon's handwriting. She scanned it into the computer the other day, so that I could put it up here, for you. I hope you'll make it---plums, right now, are in season---and I hope that when you do, you'll know it's something special.

A girl!

2011-10-04T15:58:00.005-04:00

Miss Sally Elizabeth Hay was born at 6:42pm on Sunday, October 2nd. She weighs 8 pounds and is 21 inches long, and she is the most beautiful thing her Momma has ever seen. She's also the spitting image of her Papa.

We'll be back soon to share more but while we get settled in at home, we just wanted to let you know that she's finally here.

xoxo Elspeth

The Local Food Report: keeping rosemary alive

2011-09-29T06:44:00.000-04:00

Every spring, I buy a rosemary plant. And every winter, despite my best intentions, I manage to kill it. My friend Pete grows all kinds of varieties of rosemary, and he says it's not my fault. They're fussy. Still, he has some tips.

Here's the Pete Krumplebeck guide to keeping rosemary alive on Cape Cod:

1. Buy the right variety. Arp is apparently the only rosemary that has half a chance of surviving winter outside, in the ground, around here. It's hardy to zone 6, while most other varieties only make it to zone 8. We're in zone 7a, so Arp is a good pick.

He also grows Tuscan, BBQ, and a prostrate rosemary, but he keeps those in pots and brings them inside for the winter.

2. Keep them outside as long as possible. I usually bring my rosemary in around October, but Pete says this is too early. They like cold roots, prefer them even, and until there's a hard freeze, they're happier outside. He says he usually brings his in sometime between Christmas and New Year's Day.

3. Keep an eye on their water. Rosemary roots are very fussy, Pete says. They don't like to be dry but they also like to be well-drained, so you need to pot them correctly. He fills the bottom of third of his pots with perlite, then uses a regular potting soil mixture without too much organic matter on top to fill them. He says you should give the plants a good dunking every 7 to 10 days, and that when you do, the water should drain out in 2-4 seconds. And whatever you do, don't water with hot water—he says that's the easiest way to kill them.

4. Put them in a sunny spot with moving air and not too much heat. Inside, rosemary will get powdery mildew if it's left still for too long. Put it near a window or a fan, or dust it off every once in a while.

5. Outside, if you're having trouble with aphids or little white flies, give it a baking soda bath. Pete calls baking soda a multi-purpose "bugicide," and says it'll work wonders.

WATERMELON SALAD WITH ROSEMARY & FETA

I have long been a fan of the watermelon salad. We've been eating one version or another since the melons came into season a few weeks ago. But this riff is something new to me—I never would have thought of adding rosemary! Now I'm not sure I can imagine watermelon salad without it. It's sweet, juicy, and robust, and the feta adds salt and tang.

4 cups chilled watermelon cubes

2 ounces feta cheese, drained and crumbled

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

2 slices rustic bread

olive oil

sea salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste

Arrange the watermelon and feta in a shallow pie plate or bowl. Sprinkle the rosemary over top. Heat up a cast iron skillet or griddle, drizzle the bread with olive oil, and grill until golden on both sides. Cut into croutons.

Drizzle the salad with olive oil, arrange the croutons on top, and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Serve at once.

Pizza & pups

2011-09-26T10:26:00.006-04:00

Today is my due date. You are not going to get a cohesive sentence out of me, so let's try pictures instead.

Puppies! No Baby Hay yet, but we bred Fisher in July, and his little ones have arrived. My sister and her boyfriend and I went to see them this weekend, and they did a fairly good if temporary job of satisfying our need to snuggle with a small mammal. They're almost four weeks old, big enough to open their eyes and wobble around and chew on each other's chins and tails, but not big enough to do much else. There are five black ones, two yellows, and one tired nursing mama. Fisher came in and took a sniff, but he seemed pretty scared of the whole situation, and quickly backed out. We spent the rest of the weekend teasing him for being such a deadbeat dad.

Oh! and we made pizza.

I'd been wanting to make homemade pizza for a while, and I finally found a good recipe for whole wheat crust. Alex's nieces were over, and my sister was visiting, and it seemed like the perfect night. The only thing was, we didn't have any of the traditional pizza toppings on hand—the tomato sauce was all tucked into the freezer, the basil was dwindling, and there wasn't even a ball of plain mozzarella in the fridge.

And so we went unconventional, and I am so, so glad that we did. Alex caramelized an onion, then stirred in some finely chopped rosemary and a good dollop of homemade fig butter to make a spread. He smoothed this on the crust, then layered on arugula, bits of cooked bacon, pieces of sauteed eggplant, goat cheese, and slices of fig and almond burrata from Kathleen Kadlik. It was sweet and savory all at once, and very, very good.

FIGGY BURRATA PIZZA

This is a pretty loose recipe. We used one ball of the whole wheat crust from the New York Times link up there, and I made fig butter from fresh figs, not dried, following Kim Boyce's recipe in Good to the Grain. This preserve is full of butter. If you use fig jam, be sure to add a few tablespoons of butter when you melt it with the onions.

1 ball whole wheat pizza dough at room temperature

cornmeal, for the peel

1 medium size onion, sliced thin

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

1/3 cup fig butter

olive oil

1 small eggplant, cut into thin strips

salt

a handful of torn arugula

4 strips cooked bacon, torn into 1/2-inch pieces

1 ball fig & almond burrata mozzarella

2-3 ounces chevre

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Roll out the dough as thin as you can. We used a half sheet pan, so we rolled ours into a rectangle, but obviously you should roll yours into whatever shape your pan is. Sprinkle the pan with cornmeal and lay the dough on top.

Caramelize the onion in a heavy skillet over medium-low heat. When it's tender, add the rosemary and fig butter and sauté another minute or so, until they're warmed through. Spread this mixture evenly across the pizza dough.

In the same skillet, warm up a glug of olive oil. Salt the eggplant slices and sauté until tender, about five to eight minutes. Layer the cooked eggplant strips evenly over the pizza. Do the same with the arugula, bacon pieces, and the two cheeses.

Bake the pizza for 15-20 minutes, or until the dough is crispy around the edges and the cheeses are bubbling. Enjoy hot.

The Local Food Report: long pie pumpkin

2011-09-22T07:03:00.000-04:00

Peter Burgess is into local history. He named his fields in Truro Six Pence Farm after he found an original 17th century six pence while he was out there digging one day. And when it comes to vegetable varieties, he prefers to grow those with some age and a story.

That's the Long Pie Pumpkin. When it's underripe, it looks sort of like an overgrown zucchini, but once it blushes orange, it's more of a pumpkin torpedo. Peter found out about it through the Fedco seed catalog, and he grew it for the first time this year.

It's said to have come over to Nantucket in 1832, aboard a whaling ship from the Isle of St. George in the Azores off of Portugal. It got popular with local farmers, and for a while it was simply called the Nantucket Pumpkin. Eventually the variety made its way north, and by the 1930s it was a favorite with growers in Androscoggin County, near where I grew up in Maine.

Farming started to peter out on Nantucket and the variety got less common in Maine, but a few growers kept it alive. According to researchers in Waldoboro, a man named John Navazio saved the seeds for years, and eventually went to work at a company called Garden City Seeds. They put the variety up for sale, and slowly but surely, it's making a comeback. RAFT listed it as an endangered heirloom last year, and in response, Chef's Collaborative sponsored a Long Pie Pumpkin "grow-out." Farmers all over New England grew the variety, told their neighbors about it, and with any luck, convinced a few more to grow it this season.

Peter Burgess, for one, is a fan. He says Long Pie Pumpkin is very resistant to squash borers and squash beetles, and that you can pick it early and let it ripen inside if you have a cold growing season. Also, most importantly, he says it makes the best pie ever, because it's sweet and meaty and cooks down like a squash.

My grandmother's recipe for pumpkin pie is up over here. I plan to get my hands on an orange torpedo asap.

Time & tomatoes

2011-09-20T09:06:00.008-04:00

They say amniotic fluid has flavor---that babies can taste what their mothers eat, and develop food preferences in utero. If that's true, this baby is going to have quite a thing for tomatoes.

I've been eating tomatoes at least once a day since late July. Most of the time, I've been eating them simply---cut up and drizzled with olive oil, tucked into sandwiches and salads, cooked down into soups and sauce. A few weeks ago, Tom, one of the cooks at the restaurant, made a creamy tomato bisque, and I must have eaten a gallon of the stuff. I can't seem to get enough.

Out in the garden, the season's almost over, but we're still holding on. There are a few more meals left out there, and just in case this baby's not quite sure yet how it feels about tomatoes, I'm going to make these last few meals count. We're going to eat tomatoes my favorite way: sliced into big chunks, topped with torn basil and big hunks of creamy burrata mozzarella and grilled croutons, then drizzled with olive oil and sweet balsamic glaze and sprinkled with sea salt. We had this last night for dinner, and the day before for lunch.

Today when it gets to noon, I'm going to head out to the garden, pick a few last red globes, and make up another plate before time and tomatoes run out.

HEIRLOOM TOMATO SALAD

There are so many different versions of this it hardly counts as a recipe. The most important thing to focus on is the quality of your ingredients---you need sweet, super ripe tomatoes, and a rich creamy burrata. Recently I've been using a brand called Maplebrooks Farm from Vermont, but I also like the gorgonzola-stuffed mozarella that Kathleen Kadlik sells at the farmers' markets in Orleans, Falmouth, and Provincetown.

2 large heirloom tomatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks

a handful of basil leaves, torn in half if large

1 four ounce ball of burrata or mozzarella, cut into bite-size pieces

2 slices rustic bread

olive oil

balsamic glaze

sea salt

Warm up a cast iron skillet or griddle over medium heat. Meanwhile, arrange the tomatoes, basil leaves, and cheese in a wide, shallow bowl. When the griddle's hot, drizzle the bread slices with olive oil and grill until golden and just crispy on both sides. Cut the bread into croutons. Drizzle the salad with olive oil and balsamic glaze, arrange the croutons on top, and sprinkle with sea salt. Enjoy at once.

The Local Food Report: tomatillo salsa

2011-09-15T07:07:00.000-04:00

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to introduce the tomatillo:

Isn't it a beautiful fruit? I met it last summer, talking with Ron Backer of Surrey Farms in Brewster. He grows all sorts of interesting heirlooms, including the tomatillo, which originated in Mexico. A lot of people think it's a tomato relative, and it is in the Solanaceae family, but it's more closely related to ground cherries and Giant Cape Gooseberries. It grows inside a paper husk, and depending on the variety and how ripe it is, the fruit can be any shade from yellow to lime green to a deep violet. Most importantly, it makes a killer salsa.

Ron feels so strongly about tomatillos and salsa that he calls salsa made with regular old tomatoes gazpacho in disguise. He admits that tomatillos are a little bit sour, but he says he likes this taste, and that Americans are too into sweet. He thinks it's a cultural thing that comes from eating too much high fructose corn syrup, and that we need to start thinking like the Latin Americans and Asians who count sour and bitter as good tastes.

And really, once you taste tomatillo salsa, I don't think you'll need much convincing. He makes his by roasting the fruits, then pureeing them with jalapenos, cilantro, onions, garlic, and a little bit of lime juice and salt. I tried it the other day, and I have to say, it's delicious.

If you're looking for tomatillos, they can be kind of tricky to find, but they are around. Silverbrook Farms grows them, and they sell at the Provincetown and Falmouth farmers' markets, and there are vendors selling them in Orleans and Wellfleet, too. Happy salsa season, everyone!

ROASTED TOMATILLO SALSA

This salsa is amazingly easy. There is almost no chopping involved, and it takes total about 10 minutes to make. Then all you have to do is chill it!

1 lb fresh tomatillos, husked and rinsed

2 fresh jalapeno or serrano chillies

2 garlic cloves, unpeeled

1 bunch fresh cilantro

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon salt

lime juice to taste

Preheat your oven broiler. Arrange the tomatillos, chillies, and garlic cloves on a baking sheet. Broil for about 7-8 minutes, or until the tomatillos are soft and a bit charred, turning occasionally. (I ended up taking some tomatillos out early and leaving the rest to roast a bit longer, as they cook at different rates depending on ripeness.)

Peel garlic and pull tops off of chillies. Puree in a blender or food processor along with tomatillos, cilantro, onion, salt, and lime juice. Chill before serving.

A plate to clean

2011-09-12T07:44:00.006-04:00

Hi friends. Sorry for the radio silence. It's been a bit of a week around here---my computer decided, with exactly two weeks until my due date and exactly three radio shows still to finish---that now would be a good time to quit. I'm still waiting to hear back from the very nice man at Cape Mac, but in the meantime, I thought I'd stop by from Alex's computer.

I have to admit, it hasn't been all bad here in the land of the computer-less. I've planted lettuce, staked the dahlias, been to the beach twice, finished a book (The Shipping News---an excellent read!) and started another (The Help, so far excellent).

I've also been cooking. I made a huge batch of oven-roasted tomatoes the other day, and a big bowl of homemade salsa, and even an anchovy-garlic tomato sauce that we poured over pasta and topped with torn basil and toasted bread crumbs. As you can see, we're still in a very serious tomato phase.

That last recipe in particular turned out very nicely. I wanted to tell you about it because it came from one of those confusion inspirations---the type where you read a recipe wrong and then it turns out you're glad you did in the end. I was looking through the new Bon Appetit and there was a whole page on anchovies. I saw what I thought was a recipe for an anchovy-tomato pasta sauce, but what turned out to really be a recipe for an anchovy-laced vinaigrette that you poured over sliced tomatoes. Anyway, by the time it got to dinner time and I'd gone to the market to get anchovies and hauled in another few pounds of tomatoes from the garden, I had the pasta dish very set in my head. I didn't let it deter me, when I looked for the recipe, that it didn't actually exist.

Instead, I browned some garlic in olive oil, added the anchovies, and stirred until they sort of dissolved into a paste in the pan. Then in a separate pot I cooked down the tomatoes with onions and red wine and basil into sauce, the way I do when I'm going to put it up to freeze it. I pureed it at the end, so that it was smooth, and then added a good glug to the anchovy-garlic mixture. While the two came together, I put on a pot of water to boil and threw the pasta in, and then tore the leaves from a few basil stems. Finally, I toasted some Panko crumbs in olive oil and grated some Parmesan. When the pasta was hot and drained, I lit the candles, cut some fresh dahlias for the table, and pulled out the china. I tossed the pasta in with the anchovy-tomato sauce, arranged a nice nest of it on each plate, and sprinkled torn basil and grated Parmesan and toasted Panko crumbs on top.

Then we ate. I cleaned my plate, and Alex cleaned his. The dog sat under the table, wishing he had a plate to clean, and finally, we blew out the candles, closed the screen door, and went to bed. It was, all in all, pretty terrific.

PASTA WITH TOMATO-ANCHOVY SAUCE

If you're looking for anchovies, Alex sells a very nice Spanish variety at his market in Truro, which is what I used. Wherever you find yours, just be sure to use the kind marinated in vinegar, not oil, as it will give the pasta sauce a very different texture and taste. This recipe serves 2-3.

olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 package white anchovies marinated in vinegar (roughly 100 grams net weight)

1 and 1/2 cups thick, smooth tomato sauce (I used homemade tomato-basil)

1/3 pound spaghetti, cooked and drained

1/3 cup toasted Panko bread crumbs

1 ounce Parmesan cheese, grated

a handful of torn basil leaves

optional: several oven roasted tomatoes, to place on top

Heat up a glug of olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over low heat. Add the garlic and saute, stirring constantly, for about a minute, or until it starts to get fragrant. Pour in the anchovies, vinegar and all, and turn the heat up to medium. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes, or until the anchovies dissolve into a sort of paste with the oil and the garlic. Add the tomato sauce and continue cooking until everything is well combined and comes to a simmer. Combine the pasta and sauce and toss well.

On each plate, arrange a nest of pasta and top with toasted Panko crumbs, grated Parmesan, torn basil leaves, and if you have some on hand, a few oven roasted tomatoes. Serve immediately.

See you in a few

2011-09-05T15:09:00.005-04:00

Hi! Happy Labor Day. I'm running out the door to work, but I just wanted to stop in and say that I hope you're having a wonderful holiday.

That up there is my friend Max celebrating the end of the season a few years ago, and I think his grin pretty much sums up how I feel about today. Sadly, I've been working all weekend, so I don't have a recipe for you today, but last week was my last full week of work (!) before the baby comes, so I'll be back in the kitchen soon.

In the meantime, enjoy the afternoon, join me in eating a watermelon or two, and I'll see you in a few days.

The Local Food Report: everbearing raspberries

2011-09-01T06:50:00.002-04:00

Some raspberry bushes give fruit twice. Did you know that? I had a hunch, but I wasn't sure.

The thing is, growing up, we had wild raspberry bushes in our yard, and they only fruited once. The fruit sort of trickled in, a little bit sporadic, but there was definitely only one harvest, sometime in July. Then a few years ago, we put in a raspberry patch here. A friend gave us the bushes, dug up from ramblers that had grown into her yard under her neighbor's fence, and we tucked them into a sandy hill with a good helping of loam. We weren't sure what to expect, really, so when we got a seemingly erratic but plentiful harvest of goldens, black raspberries, and reds, we were pleased. They seemed to come all summer long: from June into July, with a little break in August, and then again in September. We didn't pay much attention to the pattern; we were just happy to pick.

But the other day, when I saw Jane Ditzel had red berries at the farmers' market in Orleans, it was like someone flipped on a light switch. She was telling me that this is her fall crop of berries, from her Polana variety plants, and that both of her varieties—the other one is Heritage—bear fruit twice: once in July, and again starting in September, into late October or even early November. They're everbearing varieties, she explained. This means that unlike regular raspberries, which only bear fruit on two-year old canes in mid-summer, they also bear fruit on new growth—brand new first year canes—starting in the fall until frost hits.

This explained why we'd been getting berries all season at our house: we have black raspberries, which only fruit once in June and early July, and then we got the mid-summer fruiting from our Heritage and golden plants, and then things went quiet for a little while, only to ramp back up in mid-September, just in time for Alex's birthday. I was looking through some old film, and I found this picture of Stevie the cat in the raspberry patch helping me pick. The roll was dated September 22, 2009, which made me realize we've been getting two harvests all along—I just never realized it.

At any rate, if you're interested in planting a patch, there's some very good information about hardy New England varieties, including everbearing plants, over here. And if you're more interested in eating raspberries, specifically raspberry pie, all you need to do is scroll down. It's nice to know the season's here, again.

RASPBERRY PIE

There is something incredibly decadent about raspberry pie, I think. So many precious berries! This recipe is adapted from a recipe for blueberry pie in The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters.

dough for one 9-inch bottom and top crust

6 cups raspberries

3/4 cup granulated sugar

4 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out the dough for the bottom crust and drape it across a 9-inch pie plate.

In a large bowl, stir together the raspberries, sugar, tapioca, lemon zest and juice, and salt. Let the mixture stand 10 minutes, then pour it into the prepared pie crust. Dot the berries with the butter.

Roll out the top crust and drape it over top. Trim any excess dough so that both top and bottom crusts have a 1-inch over hang. Then roll the edges of the top and bottom crust in together toward the rim of the pie plate. Pinch the crusts together and crimp all around. Cut steam vents in the top of the crust.

Bake the pie at 400 for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 and bake until the crust is golden and the juice is thick and bubbles through the steam vents, about 45 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream.

On our feet

2011-08-29T12:19:00.006-04:00

Well, she's come and gone, hasn't she? The power came back on this morning, the water pump cranked into high gear, and all that's left to do now is go out and pick up the litter, separate the tomatoes and dahlias from the storm debris.

All in all, I'd say we escaped fairly handily. There are a few under ripe fruits down, yes, and the topsoil is swept off the garden, and the yard will take some raking. But there are no trees against the house, the tomato plants are still standing, and the breads and meats and sauces in the freezer are still chilly.

Just before she hit, we harvested over 50 pounds of tomatoes from our 62 plants. The fruit is sitting on the kitchen counter, all laid out in a mosaic of reds and oranges and a tinge of green. Tomorrow—once we're back on our feet—I'll pull out the onions and basil and garlic I bought at the market Saturday and start the sauce factory. But for today, I'll be out in the yard—picking up another 20 pounds of fruit, and piling it on the counter, saying goodbye Irene.

TOMATO SAUCE

This isn't really a recipe so much as an outline. My mother asked me how I make my sauce this morning, and I realized I do it by feel and memory. I don't measure or time, and I always make a big batch. So in case you have fruit of your own to put away, here's how I do it—at least loosely.

olive oil

2-3 heads garlic, peeled and cloves minced

1 medium onion, diced

a third cup or so of old red wine

salt

1 big mixing bowl full of quartered tomatoes

minced basil, oregano, rosemary, or thyme—or some combination of all four

Warm up a good glug of olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and sauté, stirring constantly, for about a minute, or until it starts to get fragrant. Add the onion and sweat, stirring frequently, for 5-8 minutes, or until it's soft and translucent.

Turn the heat up to medium-high, let the pan warm up (keep stirring so the garlic and onions don't burn!) and pour in the red wine to deglaze. Let the wine reduce two-thirds, then season with salt and add the tomatoes.

I don't have a potato masher so I use a pastry cutter to crush my tomatoes, but if you have a masher, that's a much better tool—use it! The tomatoes should almost fill the pot, and they'll let out a lot of juice as they heat. Once you have them pretty well crushed and the liquid starts boiling, stir well and turn down the heat to a simmer. A big batch will take a few hours to reduce down, and you'll get about two-thirds to half the volume you started with. When the sauce is fairly thick, add the herbs. Simmer for a few more minutes, then either puree or leave chunky, depending on your taste.

I freeze my sauce in quart Mason jars, leaving about 2 inches headspace so they don't break. A one pot batch yields about 3 jars.

The Local Food Report: organic corn

2011-08-18T07:15:00.000-04:00

Have you noticed how tough it is to find organic corn locally? Most farmers' at the markets around here bring their corn in from off-Cape, and most of it is labeled "conventional," i.e. grown with pesticides. (That word usage has always seemed a bit funny to me, as if pesticides have been the norm for hundreds of years, but that's an aside. Anyway.)

So the other day when I noticed Anna Henning of Redberry Farm in Eastham selling organic sweet corn at the market in Orleans, I got excited. I asked her how she'd done it, and here's what she told me:

1. She chose an early corn variety. The main reason people have so much trouble growing organic corn is because it gets invaded by corn ear worms (also known as tomato fruit worms when they eat big holes in your tomatoes). The later on in the season it gets, the bigger and more mature the corn ear worms get, so it's best to plant a corn variety that can be harvested in mid to late July.

2. She used the three sisters' planting method. You've probably heard of this—it's a Native American thing. Basically, first you plant corn seeds in the middle of a raised flat mound. Once the corn sprouts to about 15 inches high, you plant beans and squash around it. The corn acts as a pole for the beans, the beans in turn help stabilize the corn, and the squash acts as a sort of live mulch, keeping the soil moist and shaded and also helping fend off predators with its prickly stems. Nutritionally, the beans add nitrogen back to the soil, which is good for the corn and squash plants.

3. She planted it in a spot with plenty of sunlight and gave it plenty of water. Anna thinks that a lot of times when people don't do well with corn, it's because they planted it in a spot that's too shady.

4. She kept an eye out for corn ear worms. This is the hardest thing for most people. Anna kept watch over her corn, particularly when the leaf whorls were starting to come up, because the worms tend to get in through the top of the ears and then eat their way down. Unchecked, they'll eat the entire plant. So when the leaf whorls were forming Anna put a few drops of mineral oil into the top of each ear, which she says helped deter the worms. Then she kept checking for worms, and on any ears that had worms, she cut the tops off. This doesn't really hurt the plant, she says, although it doesn't look great.

And that's it! She had a lot of trouble with germination, she said, but otherwise success was mostly about paying attention. Of the 20 rows she planted, only about 5 came up, so next year she's going to plant a lot more.

I was lucky enough to buy ten ears from her the one day she had her crop for sale, and they were good. We ate most of them as snacks, just husked and raw and straight off the cob, but in case you're looking for sweet corn inspiration, here are some of my favorite recipes:

—Grilled Corn with Manchego & Lime

—Garden Salad with Raw Corn

—Roasted Beet, Corn, & Basil Salad

—Grilled Corn with Lime Juice & Hannahbells

Enjoy!

Still green

2011-08-15T09:27:00.009-04:00

The tomatoes all blew over in the storm the other day. All 62 plants, laid out flat, like grass brushed back by a stream. It took me a few days, 62 stakes, and four changes of sweaty, tomato-stained laundry, but they're back on their feet. There were a few casualties. In the process—between the wind and the hammering and the detangling—I had to bring in almost four pounds of fruit still green.

Luckily, I don't mind green tomatoes. I kind of like them, even, though I realize that sounds a little crazy. There are all sorts of excellent things you can make with green tomatoes: rhubarb and green tomato chutney, green tomato jam, my great-grandmother's green tomato pickles.

But my favorite thing is green tomatoes dipped in milk, battered in cornmeal, and fried up for breakfast. It's a southern dish, I think—in Richmond, where my cousins live, it's on the menu at most brunch spots, and it's often served with a few eggs and some bacon. The green tomato slices get soft and meaty on the inside while the cornmeal crisps up on the bottom and top. The fried green tomato's closest cousin, I think, might be fried eggplant.

At any rate, we made fried green tomatoes for breakfast yesterday, and if you've never tried them, I highly recommend it. I used the recipe in the Joy of Cooking: thinly sliced green tomatoes, a saucer of milk, and a dipping mixture of flour, cornmeal, paprika, thyme, and parsley. It's simple but very good. I like to serve mine with a fried egg, sunny side up, still a little bit runny so you can sop up the yolk with the tomato slices. Oh! and hot sauce. Some people like theirs with a spicy mayo, and I'm definitely partial to that, but recently, Alex has turned me on to an orange-red Mexican hot sauce called Valentina, and I think I like that even better. It's more flavorful than spicy, but still a little hot, and it adds something of a tang to the whole dish.

We still don't have a single red tomato, unless you count the cherries. So in the meantime, we'll keep making this—until the weather improves and the green gives way to red.

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

I've adapted this recipe slightly from the one in the Joy of Cooking. It's nice to serve the tomatoes with fried eggs and, if you like, bacon. If you do decide to cook up some bacon, fry the tomatoes in the grease—they'll be that much tastier. This recipe serves 4.

4 large green tomatoes, sliced thin

1 and 1/2 cups cornmeal

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme

1 teaspoon paprika or Old Bay

salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste

2/3 cup milk

olive oil, for frying

Combine the cornmeal, flour, parsley, thyme, and paprika in a small, shallow bowl or pie plate. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour the milk into a small, shallow bowl. Put a few glugs of oil into a large cast iron frying pan, and warm it up over medium-high heat.

Batter each tomato slice by dipping it first in the milk, then rolling it in the cornmeal mixture on both sides. Fry each slice until golden and crisp on both sides. Serve at once.

The Local Food Report: Westport Rivers

2011-08-11T07:07:00.000-04:00

Did you know that you can make white wine out of red grapes? I had no idea until the other day. I was at the farmers' market in Falmouth, talking with Will Becker of Westport Rivers Winery. Thanks to the new rule change, Massachusetts vineyards can now sell their wines at farmers markets, and Becker was on the green at Peg Noonan Park all afternoon, doing tastings. I listened in for a while, and I learned a lot.

(Photo courtesy Falmouth Farmers' Market)

For instance, did you know that Westport—and actually the whole area from roughly Newport, Rhode Island to New Bedford, Massachusetts—has a micro-climate ideal for growing French varietals traditional to the French regions of Champagne and Alsace? Both regions are ideal for grapes like Pinot noir, Pinot blanc, Pinot gris, Pinot meunier, Chardonnay, and Reisling—grapes that like a cool climate, dry, sunny days, and a relatively short growing season. The cooler climate tends to make them more acidic here than when they're grown elsewhere, and wine lovers appreciate this for the crisp, dry, fruity flavor it gives whites and sparkling wines and rosés.

I wanted to find out more, so when I got home, I started researching the grapes. Here's a list of some of the grapes grown by local vineyards—there are seven within the 30 miles from Newport to New Bedford, not to mention one in Truro and one in northeastern Connecticut!—and a little bit about where they come from:

1. Pinot noir: Pinot noir is a black wine grape (hence the name). It's grown all over the world, but most people associate it with the Burgundy region of France, which is where it comes from originally. The grape clusters are small and sensitive to frost and wind, and also picky about soil types, and for all of these reasons, the fruit is considered relatively hard to grow. But it's also very sensitive to terroir, meaning it tastes really different depending on where it's grown, and apparently, when it's grown in southeastern Massachusetts, it tastes pretty good. It can be used to make white wine by pressing the juice with minimal contact with the skins, which is the process I was talking about up above.

2. Pinot blanc: This one's crazy. Apparently, it's a genetic mutation of Pinot noir. In plain English, that means that sometimes Pinot noir vines mutate and produce white fruit. I had a hard time finding specifics, but it is my understanding that these vines can then be cloned and reproduced. The same goes for Pinot gris and Pinot meunier. These three varietals are considered the three most "successful" mutations of Pinot noir. Who knew!

3. Chardonnay: This varietal also comes from Burgundy. These days, people grow it everywhere. Some wine makers age its juice in oak barrels, some don't, but the grape itself is relatively neutral tasting. It also varies considerably by region. Scientists today believe it's a cross between Pinot blanc and Gouais blanc, although originally it was thought to be another mutant of Pinot noir. Wine makers say it's easy to grow, and it adapts to all sorts of different climates relatively easily.

4. Reisling: Reisling is a white grape variety from the Rhine region of Germany. It's generally used to produce dry, semi-sweet, and sweet sparkling wines. Like Pinot noir, it's said to be very sensitive to terroir, and the taste of wines made with this grape varies widely depending on where it's grown. It's generally grown in colder regions, including the Alsace region of France. Interestingly, this region was alternately under French and German rule for about 75 years in the 18 and 19 hundreds, which explains why it's a German grape in French territory.

Interesting stuff, huh? From these grapes, Westport Rivers makes all sorts of different wines. Their flagship is a Brut Cuvee (made from Pinot noir, chardonnay, and Pinot meunier), but they also make a chardonnay, a Pinot gris, a blanc de noir (white wine made with black Pinot noir grapes), a blanc de blancs (chardonnay), a rosé from Pinot noir, a reisling, and a Pineau de Pinot, which is a sweet dessert wine made from Pinot noir grapes. As you can see, with even just a few grape varieties, there are all sorts of possibilities.

Westport Rivers wine is available at all sorts of places locally. They sell at the farmers' markets in Falmouth and Provincetown, and they're on the wine list at Blackfish, where I work, in Truro. Ten Tables in Provincetown also pours their chardonnay. The vineyard owner, Bill Russell, sent me a full list of liquor stores and restaurants where you can find their wine, so if you're looking for it, don't be afraid to ask.

And in the meantime, keep your eye out for other local vineyards at farmers' markets. Apparently, they rotate, so that shoppers don't get the same vineyard every week. This means that before the markets close, you could get in a lot of local tasting.

The jungle

2011-08-08T08:03:00.007-04:00

What would you like to talk about today? Tomatoes? Zucchini? Potatoes? Our garden is chock-a-block full of all three.

This was our first year with a dedicated summer garden—until this season, we planted our summer veggies in with the winter crops, under the cold frame. But the timing started to get tricky—for optimal winter production, we really needed to be planting the beds in July and August. With tomatoes and zucchini and green beans that would produce until late September, that didn't happen, and for those beds, I'd end up having to buy seedlings.

So this year, with our friend Corey's help, we took down a few trees on the south side of the shed and turned over a ridiculously dense layer of tree roots—we broke a backhoe in the process—and dug down two feet beneath the old oaks and pines and blueberries. Then we got a truckload of pure compost and filled it in.

It looked like a plot of black gold.

These days, it looks more like a jungle—a 20' by 25' forest of cucumbers and squash and potato and tomato plants. A good two thirds of the garden is taken up by the tomatoes—62 in all, staked and caged and grown from seed. Most of them are full size varieties—things like Spring Shine and Amish Paste and Rose de Berne—but there are also a few Sun Gold cherries thrown in. Next come the potatoes: two full rows of Red Bliss, ready for harvest. Then there's a half row of broccoli, a wild tangle of cucumbers, and a row of zucchini and Waltham butternuts that spreads about ten feet in every direction. It's not at all neat or orderly, but it's the best kind of mess.

Right now, it's the potatoes that are pouring in. They are the one crop that is entirely Alex's department, and whatever he's doing, it's working. He says he learned from his grandfather how to grow them. First, he says, you have to dig a trough, to put the seed potatoes in. Then, once they start to sprout, you have to mound the dirt up over them, and as they grow, do this again, and again. Eventually, they'll get tall and start to flower, and right after the flowers fade is when you should start checking beneath them. We got our first potatoes about a month ago, and every week, he brings another basket in.

This week, I made potato salad with our haul. It wasn't anything fancy: just fresh potatoes and green beans from the garden with hard-boiled eggs and red onion. Still, it was good—simple and creamy and crisp—and every bite grown from our soil.

EGG, GREEN BEAN, & POTATO SALAD

I like to think of this as a potato salad that can be a meal. The green beans add crunch while the eggs add a much-needed hit of protein.

2 pounds fresh red potatoes, scrubbed and chopped

1/2 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 and 1/2 inch lengths

1/4 cup red vinegar

4 hardboiled eggs, peeled and chopped

1/2 red onion, peeled and thinly sliced

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh dill

2/3 cup mayonnaise

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

salt and pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Throw in the potatoes and cook for 8-10 minutes, or until tender when pierced with a fork. About a minute before the potatoes are done, add the green beans. They only need to cook for about 30 seconds—just until they turn bright green. Turn off the stove and drain the vegetables.

Transfer the potatoes and green beans to a large mixing bowl. Pour the red wine vinegar over top and stir well. Let the mixture cool to room temperature.

Stir in the hard-boiled eggs, red onions, dill, mayonnaise, and mustard until everything is evenly distributed and well coated. Season with salt and pepper and chill before serving.

Slowing down & speeding up

2011-08-03T09:07:00.009-04:00

We are waiting.

Something changed in the past week—somehow, the arrival of the baby seems at once much closer, and much farther away. I am slowing down while the baby is speeding up—kicking and rolling and jabbing and fighting a never-ending case of the hiccups.

In the meantime, of course, it's August. Alex is at the shop long days and I'm still at the restaurant—four nights, bustling between the kitchen and dining room from five to ten o'clock. It's a funny kind of waiting you do in the busiest month.

Mostly, we've been eating simple food: boxes of blueberries, hunks of good pastured cheddar, blackberries by the fistful from the briar patch at High Toss. But the other night, we mustered the energy to fire up the grill. Alex filleted flounder while I shucked corn—the first sweet, milky ears from the farmers' market. I quartered an onion and stuck it on skewers, and we layered everything on the hot coals until the skins charred up.

When the corn was done, I pulled out a recipe I'd ripped from Bon Appetit this month: Roasted Corn with Manchego & Lime. It's a riff on Mexican corn—elote—which has long been one of Alex's favorites. You cut the corn from the cob, then stir in butter and lime juice and zest and red pepper flakes and grate Manchego over top. It is zingy and summery and fresh, and simple enough to come together fast.

It's the kind of dish that's good for a wait. It won't make the end of September come any faster, but it's an important reminder to savor: the heat, the sweet corn, the season—the last eight weeks of impatient evenings, with just us two before the little one.

GRILLED CORN WITH MANCHEGO & LIME

The first time I made this, I roasted the corn in the oven like the original Bon Appetit recipe called to. It was good, but I had a feeling grilling it would add a lot more flavor. It did!

6 ears sweet corn, husked

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

zest and juice of 1 lime

1 cup finely grated Manchego cheese (BA recommends using a microplane zester, which we did with excellent results)

1/4 cup thinly sliced chives

salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste

Place the corn in a large dish and drizzle it with the olive oil. Transfer the ears to a grill over medium heat and cook until the kernels are cooked through and just slightly charred in spots. Let the corn cool enough to touch it, then cut the kernels from the cobs.

Put the warm kernels in a serving bowl and toss them with the butter until it melts. Add the red pepper flakes, lime juice and zest, Manchego, and chives, and stir well. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and enjoy at once.

The Local Food Report: walla walla

2011-07-28T06:50:00.002-04:00

Last Saturday, David Light sold me an onion.

It weighed 1.46 pounds, and it was big and round and sweet. He grew it from Walla Walla seed, and he was planning on selling it as a Walla Walla onion until he found out something very interesting. We'll start at the beginning, okay?

Walla Walla onions have a long history. According to legend, a Frenchman named Peter Pieri brought the seed over from Italy to the Walla Walla Valley in Washington State in 1890. The valley has a specific kind of soil—very low in sulfur and very rich—and a mild climate. The onion thrived. Pieri and his neighbors kept growing, and kept selecting the seed from the biggest, roundest, sweetest plants. After a few generations, people said the Walla Walla onions were so sweet you could eat them like an apple. They got a reputation.

Other people grew Walla Walla onions, too—people outside the valley. But in 1995, a group of growers from the Walla Walla Valley decided that this wasn't fair. The Walla Walla had gotten its name from their soil and their climate, they reasoned, and people simply couldn't grow the same quality onion elsewhere. So they took their case to the federal government, and it handed down Walla Walla Sweet Onion Marketing Order Number 956.

Basically, the marketing order makes it illegal for anyone outside the legally specified growing area—Walla Walla Valley, which is in partly in southeastern Washington and also a little bit in Oregon state—to market their onions as Walla Walla sweets. There's a ten member committee that regulates this.

But here's where things get confusing. Seed catalogs and plant vendors can sell their products under the Walla Walla name, just not the onions themselves. But when David Light bought his Walla Walla plants, there was nothing that said "Caution!" or "Be Careful!" He had no idea he couldn't sell his onions under the Walla Walla name.

He found out about the marketing order before it caused him any trouble. He sells his Walla Walla variety onions as Sweet Corsicans. But I talked with a small market farmer in Ohio, Lucy Goodman, who got a letter ordering her to cease and desist or pay a fine of $5,000 a day.

I can't really decide where I stand on this. On the one hand, yes! we want to protect local food and its heritage and traditions. But should we get the federal government involved?

What do you think? I'm curious.

P.S. There's a similar marketing order for selling Vidalia onions. Georgia growers got theirs before the Walla Walla growers, back in 1989.

A garden recipe

2011-07-25T12:03:00.007-04:00

Sometimes, I imagine our lives through the neighbors' eyes, through the windows across the street.

I notice a routine: a man up early, the green Chevy pulling away. A woman—now noticably round—out in the briars each morning in her nightgown and bare feet. She brings an old pint container for the berries: first the black, then the red, now the golden raspberries.

She snacks while she picks—then waters the carrots, checks the kale and broccoli for the little green worms that devour holes in the leaves. She disappears inside and then is back on the front stoop. A black lab settles onto the brick beside her, and she spoons something out of a porcelain bowl—granola and yogurt maybe, with a handful of berries.

Later in the day, she might come out and weed. The tomatoes need trimming, and the butternut squash vines are growing almost clear across the street. She checks the orchard—there were five ripe peaches before the birds stole two the other day—and sprays horticultural oil on the new pear leaves. She ties a loose asparagus fern to the others around the stake, pulls a few heads of lettuce.

Then she drives off, too—off to the restaurant in black skirt and shoes—and the yard is quiet for another afternoon.

GARDEN SALAD

We haven't been eating anything complicated recently. There's too much good fresh food to bother fussing with recipes and heat. But here's a suggestion for a simple salad with a tried and true dressing recipe that's good on just about any chilled spread of garden-fresh veggies. This recipe serves 2.

1/3 cup white vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 medium cucumbers, thinly sliced

2 ears of fresh corn, shucked and kernels cut off the cob

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

a handful of Thai basil

4 carrots, sliced into thin rounds

a handful of cheese—I used cheddar, cut into tiny cubes, but I also think goat cheese, shaved Manchego, or Parmesan ribbons would be good

Whisk together the white vinegar, olive oil, sugar, pepper, and salt in a small measuring cup. Set aside.

In a large shallow bowl, layer the cucumbers with the corn, cherry tomato halves, Thai basil leaves, and carrot rounds. Sprinkle or shave the cheese evenly over top. Pour the dressing on, and let the salad marinate at room temperature for at least 10 minutes before serving.

The Local Food Report: a bumper crop

2011-07-21T06:50:00.001-04:00

This is my whole crop of blueberries this season:

It's sad really. Last year, straight out of the nursery, they were loaded. This year, nothing. I'm pretty sure I've been doing something wrong.

So when I met Anita Stanley of South Dennis at the Orleans market—when I saw her pint upon pint of beautiful, deep blue, healthy looking berries—I decided to ask for advice. Here are her tips on growing blueberries, from purchasing to planting to long-term care. Happy berry growing!

1. Choose the right varieties. Blueberries are not self-pollinating, which means you need at least two, and preferably three or more, in order to get good pollination. (Although there are some plants advertised as self-pollinating, no one I've talked to recommends planting them without at least another variety around.)

Stanley grows Bluetta, Coville, and Berkeley. Bluetta's early and sweet, Coville is big and mid-season, and the Berkeley's come in late—which also means she gets a harvest all summer long.

2. Choose a good spot. Blueberries like acid soil with plenty of sun, and they like wet feet. Don't plant them in a dry spot. (I've seen them thriving in swampy areas around here, and on the banks of ponds.)

3. Use netting! Otherwise, the birds will make off with your crop. Cheesecloth works well for individual bushes, but if you have a large patch, like Stanley does, she recommends building a fence with high posts, and netting the whole enclosure overhead.

4. Cut the plants back. For the first three years, you shouldn't prune. After that, Stanley says, prune every year so that a bird could fly in between the branches. This will stop berries and branches from overlapping, which not only makes picking difficult but also leads to smaller berries. Prune, and you'll get big berries with more space. Pruning is best done in the winter, when the plants are dormant.

5. Keep an eye out for disease. Stanley says her plants were decimated last year by winter moths—a relatively new pest for the Cape. They were only introduced to North America in the 1950s, to Nova Scotia via Europe, and they made their way south about 10 years ago. They lay eggs on the bark of the plants, which overwinter and hatch come spring. Stanley fights them by spraying the plants in December, when they're dormant and have no flowers or leaves, with horticultural oil. Horticultural oil is a kind of mineral oil, so it's fine for organic growers, and it kills the moths by smothering their eggs.

Happy blueberry growing!

Thank you

2011-07-18T08:25:00.006-04:00

It is hard to thank you enough—

you who is up at 5 for work, every day. You who on your day off prunes the tomatoes, builds a compost bin, puts a door on the nursery. And then—when I think you must be tired, done—who mows the orchard, takes us for a swim. You who lets me do the napping while you make dinner—butter-poached lobster with pasta and sherry, roasted veggies—and washes the dishes. I don't have the words, not in this language.

But I do have this: whole wheat chocolate chip cookie dough in the fridge—made with flour from our CSA, pastured butter, Ghiradhelli's 60% Cacao big, dark chips. So let me pack them into a ramekin, fire on the oven, and give you thanks that are warm, oozy, and deep dish.

The Local Food Report: no bake cheesecake

2011-07-14T07:29:00.000-04:00

The other night at work we did a big rehearsal dinner. It was unlike anything we'd ever done at the restaurant—a whole room blocked off for hours, passed apps and a cocktail hour—not to mention that all of the food was kosher, and some of it was even vegan. Considering the amount of pork and shellfish and butter and heavy cream we go through most nights, it was pretty amazing.

Sometime toward the end of the night, after we'd run the entrees and made sure everyone had enough wine and silverware and water and fresh cracked pepper, the line cooks called me into the kitchen. Go out back! they told me. There's something you need to try.

I walked down the line, through the heat, into the back room where the dessert chefs were plating. We'd brought in a special raw food, vegan chef for the occasion—a Wellfleet woman named Katie Reed—and she handed me a spoonful of something creamy and blue. Blueberry cheesecake, she told me. Made with local berries. I was ready to be skeptical—in high school, a vegan chocolate cake turned me off of vegan baked goods pretty much entirely—but one bite, and I was sold. There was no cream cheese, and the cake wasn't cooked, but somehow it was rich, decadent, and even creamy.

Later, I went back to talk with Katie. She said nuts made up the base—pureed cashews and almond cream—mixed with local blueberries, agave, coconut oil, vanilla, and Irish Moss—to act as a stabilizer. Then for the crust, she used sprouted, dehydrated walnuts, mixed with Medjool dates and organic raisins for sweetness. The end result was pretty amazing.

It was also raw, vegan, and gluten and dairy free—which is the way Katie cooks and eats, always. She got into vegan food as a kid because she had so many food allergies, and eventually, she went to culinary school to keep learning. She used to live out in Portland, Oregon, where she says raw food is more of a known quantity—but here on the Cape, she's still working to spread the idea through good recipes. She and her sister have started a raw food catering company, and they also offer raw food cooking classes and sell some of their dishes at the Orleans and Wellfleet farmers markets.

The cool thing is that they have farm land to back all these efforts up. The two of them are working a 2 acre parcel in Truro, growing produce for their catering events and to sell at the farmers' markets. Katie picked the blueberries for the cheesecake from a wild patch in Truro, and she says usually, if she hasn't grown it, she's either picked it in the wild or from a friend's farm somewhere local.

If you're interested in learning more, look for Farm Maid Foods at one of the farmers' markets, and say hi. There's a lot to learn, and all kinds of good food to try.

BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE

This is Katie's recipe. She says cashews and almond cream are pretty typical in raw cheesecake bases—they're what give it the creamy taste.

for the crust:

2 cups walnuts

1/4 cup Medjool dates, pitted

1/4 cup Thompson seedless raisins

a pinch of salt

for the filling:

3 cups cashews, soaked for at least 2 hours

1 cup almond cream*

1 cup agave nectar

1 cup coconut oil, warmed to a liquid state

1/4 cup lemon juice

3 tablespoons lecithin

2 tablespoons Irish moss paste**

1 vanilla bean pod, soaked and scraped

a pinch of salt

2 cups fresh blueberries, divided

Make the crust. Pulse the walnuts in a food processor until you get a coarse meal. Be careful not to over process the nuts. Coarsely chop the dates and raisins and add them to the walnuts along with the salt. Process until the dates and raisins are incorporated and there are no more pieces. Empty this mixture onto the bottom of a spring form pan. Use your fingers to flatten the crust along the bottom of the pan and for a final smoothing use an offset spatula.

For the filling, combine the cashews, almond cream, agave nectar, coconut oil, lemon juice, lecithin, Irish moss paste, vanilla, and salt in a high powered blender. Blend until smooth. Reserve one cup of this mixture and place it in the fridge (this will be the glaze that goes on top of the finished cake). Add 1 and 1/2 cups of the blueberries to the remaining mixture and blend thoroughly. Pour this mixture into the spring form pan on top of the crust and place the pan in the fridge. Chill for several hours, or until the cake sets up completely.

Set the cup of frosting out an hour before serving to allow it to reliquify. Take the cheesecake out of the fridge and cut it into slices. Drizzle the icing over top of each slice, and garnish each slice with a handful of fresh blueberries. Serve at once.

*Note: To make almond cream at home, soak 3/4 cup almonds overnight. Drain them in the morning and place them in a high powered blender with 1 cup of water. Blend thoroughly and strain through a nut milk bag or cheesecloth. Reserve the cream. (You can use the almond pulp to make raw breads, cookies, or crackers.)

**Note: To make Irish Moss paste at home, soak the Irish Moss seaweed for 24 hours in water, draining and replenishing several times throughout the day. Blend in a high powered blender with 1 part seaweed to 3 parts water. Pour the paste into ice cube trays and reserve for later dessert making. This recipe calls for 2 ice cubes worth of Irish Moss paste.

Easy to dream

2011-07-11T10:15:00.009-04:00

It's hard to say before it happens what kind of mother you'd like to be. Or maybe it's the other way around—easy to dream, hard to be. Either way, I hope one day that our baby will have this: memories of a kitchen where homemade baked goods are everyday, routine.

I know there will be a thousand things to do come one baby, maybe two eventually. There will be diapers to wash and tears to dry and books to read. But I hope there will also be mama and helpers in the kitchen: aprons tied, flour flying, oven warming up to 350. I hope there will be silly substitutions and big messes and amidst it all, discovery. That's the kind of kitchen I grew up in, and I was lucky.

In the meantime, we're already baking together—me and this baby. We have to keep ourselves well-fed while we wait and grow and giddily count the weeks til meeting. We need snacks for work and Alex does, too. Mostly, we bake portable things—scones and muffins with ingredients we trust: whole grain flours, pastured yogurt and butter, eggs from the girls in Wellfleet.

This week, we baked with buckwheat. We got the whole grains this year as part of our CSA, and I ground them down right away. After a few rounds of pancakes the flour sat in the freezer, untouched, until I saw a Figgy Buckwheat Scones recipe. I had fig butter in the fridge—made last fall with fruit from a friend's tree—and plenty of buckwheat. And so we mixed: buckwheat, all-purpose, whole wheat. We whisked in sugar, baking powder, salt, then cut in the butter—cold, salty. Finally we stirred in yogurt and cream, then rolled out the dough into a thick, sticky plank. We scooped the fig butter on top in big, seedy dollops—then spread it thin and rolled the dough into logs. When we cut them, the fig butter spiraled into the dough, wrapping.

Almost half of them disappeared straight out of the oven, instantly. The taste was just like the recipe said—a sophisticated Fig Newton: rich, ripe, winey. But a few days later, we're still snacking.

Soon enough it will be time for a new mess, another hot oven, and one more homebaked recipe.

FIG & BUCKWHEAT SCONES

I've adapted this recipe from one I found in Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce. I liked her base, but I added whole wheat flour and substituted yogurt for half of the heavy cream. These scones are delicious straight out of the oven, or cooled and spread with a dollop of butter the next day.

1 cup buckwheat flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick cold butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces

1/2 cup heavy cream

3/4 cup whole milk plain yogurt

1 cup fig butter

Whisk together the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Cut in the butter and work it into the dry mixture by rubbing it between your fingers until it is in pea-size pieces. Pour in the cream and yogurt and mix until just combined.

Transfer the dough to a very well-floured surface. It will be sticky, so sprinkle some flour on top too. Use a rolling pin to shape it into a rectangle about 8 inches wide by 16 inches long by 3/4 of an inch thick.

Spread the fig butter over the dough. Roll the long edge of the dough up so that it makes a log 16 inches long. Cut the log into two pieces, transfer it to an airtight container, and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Cut each log into about 10 equal pieces and arrange each piece on the baking sheets so that the swirled side is up. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the top of the scones are golden brown.

The Local Food Report: sorrel

2011-07-07T00:19:00.001-04:00

Have you ever tried sorrel? I hadn't until recently. It's different than most greens—for starters, it's a perennial herb. Unlike spinach or Swiss chard, it comes back every year, and it produces tangy, thick leaves all season long.

According to my friend Lucas, who sells greens at the farmers market in Orleans, sorrel is popular in places like Europe and New Zealand and France. He thinks it's just starting to catch on in the states. It's not for everyone—it tastes pretty sour—but I think it's sort of refreshing in small quantities. Darina Allen, who wrote Forgotten Skills of Cooking, describes it as a sudden little electric shock in a salad. That pretty much captures it perfectly.

When it's cooked down, sorrel is good with cream. Pretty much every recipe I've found for either sorrel soup or a wilted sorrel fish sauce uses some sort of dairy, whether it's butter or whole milk yogurt or heavy cream. The best soup recipe, I think, comes from Julia Child—sorrel, after all, is a French thing. She calls it Potage Germiny.

Raw, I like it in salads. You can throw it into any old salad for a little kick and zing, but it's especially good paired with roasted beets. They're so sweet and the sorrel's so sour that they mesh perfectly.

Lucas says 2011 is going to be the year of sorrel, so sometime, if you have a chance, join in. The greens will be around all season long—from now through late fall—so there's plenty of time to experiment.

CREAM OF SORREL SOUP

This is Julia's recipe, just adapted a bit for simplicity. It makes six servings.

1/3 cup minced green or yellow onions

4 tablespoons butter, divided

3 to 4 cups packed fresh sorrel leaves, washed, dried, and cut into thin strips

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons flour

5 and 1/2 cups boiling chicken stock

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Warm up 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Sauté the onions for 5-10 minutes, or until tender and translucent. Stir in all but a handful of the sorrel and the salt, cover the pot, and turn the heat down to low. Cook until the leaves are tender and wilted, about 5 minutes.

Now turn the heat back up to medium and sprinkle in the flour. Cook for three minutes, then pour in the boiling stock, stirring well. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, blend the yolks and cream in a large mixing bowl. Slowly, drop by drop, beat in a cupful of hot soup. Gradually beat in the rest, pouring it in a thin stream as you beat. Return the soup to the saucepan and cook, stirring constantly, for 1-2 minutes over medium heat. Do not bring the soup to a simmer—you just want to cook the eggs. Turn off the heat and stir in the remaining tablespoon of butter.

For hot soup, serve immediately, garnished with the remaining sorrel leaves. For cold soup, leave out the final tablespoon of butter and chill before serving.

SORREL & ROASTED BEET SALAD

Sorrel pairs well with beets because the green offers plenty of sour to the beets' sweet. I love the zing of sorrel in a salad—all citrusy and tang. This salad makes enough to serve 4.

2 slices thick, rustic bread

1/4 cup olive oil, plus extra for toasting the bread

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

salt and freshly cracked pepper

3 cups young sorrel leaves, washed and dried

2 pounds beets, roasted, peeled, and sliced (for a roasting tutorial, click here)

8 ounces goat cheese

1/2 cup toasted pistachios or pecans

Warm up a cast iron griddle over medium-high heat. Place the bread in the middle, and drizzle a little bit of olive oil on top. Toast for 2-3 minutes per side, or until the bread is sizzling and golden. Remove the bread from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes before cutting it into 1/2-inch cubes.

Whisk together the remaining olive oil and balsamic vinegar with a fork, and add salt and pepper to taste. Arrange the sorrel in a large salad bowl and layer the roasted beets, bread cubes, goat cheese, and toasted nuts on top. Drizzle with the oil and vinegar mixture and serve at once.

Happy 4th

2011-07-04T09:16:00.004-04:00

Have you had breakfast yet? I hope not. It's a holiday, and holidays are prime time for lazy breakfasts and sleeping in. If you have already eaten, that's okay. We can do this another day. But if you haven't, do me a favor:

Grab a colander and the kitchen scissors, and run outside barefoot to the garden. Cut a whole bunch of arugula. It doesn't matter if it's gone to seed, or even started to flower—the leaves will still be good. Fill your colander, then come back in to the kitchen. Light the flame under a cast iron skillet, medium high, and drizzle some olive oil in. Cut a slice of toast—some good, rustic bread—and grab an egg from the fridge. While the pan heats up rustle through your cheese drawer and look for a hunk that's hard, Mediterranean—something like Parmesan or Pecorino or Manchego, even.

At the stove, crack the egg in the pan and start back a little when it sizzles. Then watch as the white spreads and thins and finally gets golden around the edges and forms tiny bubbles on top. When you think it will hold, flip it—but only for a minute! You want that yolk still runny, just barely hot.

Move the egg to a plate, add some more oil to the pan, and throw the toast in. Let it cook til it's golden, then flip it and do the same thing again. When the toast is done move it over to the plate with the egg, and add the arugula to the pan. You'll need a little oil so that it can wilt, and a sprinkle of salt on top. The arugula doesn't need much—a minute at most. When it's done it should still be fairly firm, fairly solid, just warm and just starting to wilt. Turn the heat off. Now arrange the greens on the plate with the toast and the egg and grate the cheese over top. If you use a carrot peeler, you'll get big, thick ribbons of white, which I think is nice. Finally, cut a few wedges of lemon, and squeeze the juice over the greens, with another little drizzle of oil oil on top.

Now sit down, breathe deep, and take a bite.

A new radish keeper

2011-06-27T12:18:00.006-04:00

I can't stay for long today. I'm in Maine, sitting on my parents' couch. It's hot and sunny and beautiful, and Fisher's on his bed at my feet, filling the whole room with the smell of wet dog. He just went for a swim at Simpson's Point (the rest of us hardly got our toes in!) and in a little while, we're going to put a batch of pulled pork in the oven for my sister's birthday dinner. But I wanted to stop by, quickly, and remind you about the radishes.

I don't know if you took me up on any of those recommendations a few weeks back, but it's been a radish kind of spring around here. While the sun and the berries and the summer fruits take their sweet time, we've been experimenting with the cold weather crops all kinds of ways. The other day, I added a new radish keeper to my list: radishes washed, greens trimmed, and then greens and roots sautéed.

SAUTEED RADISH SALAD

In the summer, I make a lot of sautés for lunch—usually heavy on the greens, sort of like warm green salads. Recently, I’ve been using radishes—greens and all. If you have extra radish greens (or other braising greens) kicking around, feel free to add them. The greens wilt down pretty significantly, so it’s hard to add too many. This recipe serves two.

2 bunches radishes, with greens

2 slices bacon

4 cloves garlic, minced

a handful of crumbled blue or gorgonzola cheese (I like to use the mozzarella with the gorgonzola dolce inside that Kathleen Kadlik sells at the Provincetown and Falmouth farmers' markets)

olive oil

two slices of rustic bread

1/2 lemon, cut into wedges

Trim the greens from the radishes, leaving about an inch of stem still attached to the bulbs. Wash and dry the greens and set aside. Scrub the radishes, trim their tails, and cut each one in half the long way. Set aside.

Warm up a cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add the bacon and fry for a few minutes on each side, until it’s done to your taste (I like mine crispy enough to crumble). Transfer the bacon to a plate to cool.

Add the radishes to the pan with the bacon grease and cook for 5-6 minutes over medium heat. When the radishes are soft and a little bit golden in spots, turn the heat down to low and add the garlic. (Add olive oil or a splash of water to the pan at any point if you feel you don’t have enough grease.) Stir well and throw in the greens. Stir again and cover immediately. Cook for a minute, then take off the lid and stir well. The greens should be just wilted.

Transfer the radishes and greens to two bowls. Crumble a slice of bacon over each, and sprinkle half of the cheese over each salad. Turn the heat back up to medium high under the cast-iron skillet, and fry the bread in olive oil until it’s golden brown on both sides. Either cut the bread into cubes and throw it on top of the greens or serve alongside as a slice. Garnish each bowl with a few lemon wedges, and squeeze the juice over top to taste.

The Local Food Report: a local chocolatier

2011-06-23T07:18:00.005-04:00

Chocolate is a pretty safe bet with me. Give me a chewy chocolate chip cookie with big, dark chunks, or a dense chocolate torte, and I will gladly hand over the keys to my car, or let you do your laundry in the basement. But handmade, local chocolates? Sixty-four percent single origin wrapped around a milk chocolate ganache infused with fresh local produce and herbs? You could probably empty our safe deposit box.

I'd never had a chocolate like that until the other day. A woman named Danielle Verizone makes those specimens up there. The one in the back is called Minty Fresh, and the one up front is a local strawberry ganache with a piece of dried strawberry on top. Danielle started her business back in 2009, after taking a class at L.A. Burdick Chocolate in New Hampshire. She calls herself the Sirenetta Seaside Chocolatier of Scituate, and she sells online and at the farmers' markets in Hingham, Falmouth, and Scituate.

The cool thing is that unlike most artisanal chocolatiers, she actually uses local produce and herbs in her chocolates. She was on her way to go strawberry picking in Bridgewater when I talked with her the other day, and for her other flavors, she uses things like basil from her garden and local mint and rosemary. Basically, they act as infusions—giving the dense milk chocolate ganache center its kick and flavor. She purees the berries or herbs, then heats them up with milk and honey, and finally purees the infused cream with milk chocolate. This makes a big slab of ganache, which she cuts into bite-sized pieces and dips in single origin sixty-four percent cacao dark chocolate. I tried four flavors—Rosemary with Olive Oil and Sea Salt, Spring Strawberry, Wild Minty Fresh, and Lavender Silk—and they were all delicious. Danielle puts out a new collection every season.

Right now, she's experimenting with raspberries and blueberries for summer—she's thinking raspberry-wasabi and blueberry lemon balm.

In the meantime, if you need a fix, there's a recipe to make your own chocolate sea salt caramels over here. Happy local chocolate, everyone.

All sorts of keepers

2011-06-20T09:39:00.003-04:00

You know where's a good place to find recipes? The Williams Sonoma catalog. Honestly. I find all sorts of keepers in there. The gadgets that go with them—banana slicers and salad dressing emulsifiers—get a little ridiculous, but the recipes are terrific.

Take, for instance, the roasted beet salad recipe I tried the other day. The base ingredients are pretty standard—watercress, roasted beets, toasted walnuts, goat cheese—but the dressing is something else altogether. Basically you take lemon juice and a little bit of crème fraîche and add oil and shallots and a big handful of dill. The dairy makes it creamy, the lemon juice gives it kick, and the shallots and dill make it feel big and zippy. When you pour it over the greens and beets, a sort of magic happens, and everything feels at the same time rich and fresh.

We've made it about three times this week, and today, I'm thinking of having it for lunch again. It's just the thing for a hot day—filling but not heavy, satisfying in a very summer sort of way. Enjoy the sunshine, friends.

ROASTED BEET SALAD

I made a few changes to the Williams Sonoma original of this recipe. For starters, I used arugula and spinach from our garden in place of the watercress. I also added homemade croutons (rustic bread seared in olive oil on our cast iron griddle) and swapped out the crème fraîche for whole milk plain yogurt and Cloumage cheese.

(Cloumage, for those of you who have never had it, is the newest cheese from the Shy Brothers. It tastes sort of like a cross between ricotta and crème fraîche, and they sell it at the Provincetown and Falmouth farmers markets.)

Finally, I upped the dill. I don't know about you, but I can't get enough of that green.

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 and 1/2 tablespoons Cloumage

2 and 1/2 tablespoons whole milk plain yogurt

5 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

2 teaspoons minced shallot

salt and pepper

4 cups arugula or watercress

2 large beets, roasted, peeled, and cut into wedges (for a roasting tutorial, click here)

1/3 cup toasted walnuts

4 ounces crumbled goat cheese

2 slices good rustic bread, toasted in olive oil in a cast iron skillet or griddle and cut into croutons

Combine the lemon juice, Cloumage, yogurt, olive oil, dill, shallot, and salt and pepper in a Mason jar or salad dressing container. Shake vigorously to emulsify and set aside.

You can plate the salads either individually or on a large shallow platter. Arrange the greens on the bottom, then layer on the roasted beet wedges, toasted walnuts, crumbled goat cheese, and homemade croutons. Drizzle with dressing and toss just before serving.

The Local Food Report: a giant tomato contest

2011-06-16T06:41:00.004-04:00

Mark your calendars, friends. On Saturday, September 10th, Ben Chung and the rest of the gang at the Orleans Farmers' Market will be hosting a giant tomato contest. There will be cash prizes—$200 for first place for adults, $100 for second, and a $100 first place prize for kids. Chemical fertilizers are considered cheating, and you have to grow the tomato yourself, on Cape.

The weight to beat is 7 pounds 12 ounces—that's the world record Gordon Graham set in Edmond, Oklahoma back in 1986. That's also the size of a newborn baby! Yikes. (To see a picture, click on over here and scroll down.) Considering it's been twenty-five years and no one's broken Graham's record, you probably don't have to grow that big, but if you want to get a two or three or even four pounder, Chung has a few tips.

First off, you want to choose the right variety. He recommends growing an indeterminate—they grow and fruit all season instead of all at once, which means they have the potential to get BIG. He's growing Delicious (the same variety Graham grew), Soldacki, Big Zac, and Hungarian Oxheart. Unfortunately, I called around, and these varieties aren't readily available locally. I asked Clare Bergh (the woman who grows over 150 varieties of tomatoes, and sells the seedlings at the Orleans Farmers Market), and her list of suggestions is at the bottom of this post.

Once you've got the variety picked out, you'll want to choose a good spot. Ben says to look for somewhere sunny, somewhere that gets at least six hours of direct sunlight every day. Then he says to loosen the soil, mix in some compost, and water the plants deeply once a week. This is better, apparently, than a little sprinkling every day.

When the plants start fruiting, keep your eye out for one fruit that seems bigger than the rest. Then pinch the others off—suckers, stems and all—and let the plant devote all of it's energy to getting this one tomato BIG. (Ben says you can replant the suckers, so they don't go to waste, and they'll turn into new plants.)

Now as that one fruit gets BIG, it will need support. You'll need to cage the entire plant, for starters, so that it doesn't blow over—Ben recommends a cage at least 5 or 6 feet tall for that. Finally, you'll want to net the fruit—wrap some bird netting under and around it, and tie it to the cage, so that it has plenty of support. If you're growing a two or three pound tomato, it could easily bend over and break the plant, so this is important.

Are you in? It sounds like a lot of fussing, but I think I am. I planted sixty-two tomato plants this year and no, I do not know what I was thinking. Given that they will all be in peak production mode right when I am about to go into labor and learn how to take care of a newborn baby (thank you Mom, for volunteering not only to help with the baby but also offering to help put up the tomatoes harvest!), I think I can spare a few plants for experimenting.

Good luck, everyone, and until then, happy growing.

BIG TOMATO VARIETIES FROM CLARE BERGH, BON TERRA NURSERY

ANANAS NOIRE- 80 days, Ind, 1-1.5lb dark brown fruit with green shoulders, rich, full-bodied, sweet, smoky flavor.

ASHLEIGH- 85 days, Ind, Lazec Macedonia, 1-2lb red fruit, huge meaty old fashioned flavor, abundant producer.

AUSSIE- 85 days, Ind, 1-2lb red fruit, meaty, fluted, bold rich complex flavor, great disease resistance.

BIG ZEBRA- 85 days, Ind, 1-2lb orange-red and green striped fruit, loaded with deliciously sweet and robust flavors.

HENDERSON’S PINK PONDEROSA- 87 days, up to 2 lbs pink red, rich and meaty.

ISPOLIN- 72 days, Ind, 1-2lb dark jade-pink beefsteak, superb earthy sweet flavor.

ITALIAN TREE- 85 days, Ind, 1-2lb meaty red fruit, superior old-fashioned flavor, great for canning, grows to 15' tall.

KELLOGG'S BREAKFAST- 80 days, Ind, W Virginia, 1lb+ orange fruit, outstanding flavor.

MARIANNA'S PEACE- 80 days, Ind, 1-2lb dark pink fruit, full tomato flavor, good acid/sugar balance, very productive.

MEME BEAUCE- 70 days, Ind, Quebec, 1-3lb flattened red fruit, heavily ridged, good taste, absolutely gorgeous fruit.

MRS. MAXWELL'S BIG ITALIAN- 69 days, Ind, 1-2lb dark pink beefsteak, incredible flavor, very prolific.

OMAR’S LEBANESE- 80 days, Ind, 1-4lb pink fruit, meaty, excellent rich flavor, beautifully ridged.

SYLVAN GAUME- 80 days, Ind, Russia, up to 3lb red ox-heart shaped fruit, delicious flavor, very productive.

VIRGINIA SWEETS- 80 days, Ind, 1lb+ golden yellow fruit with red blush, sweet rich flavor, abundant harvest.

BOY-OH-BOY- 75 days, Ind, 1lb+ red fruit, excellent flavor, solid flesh with few seeds, disease resistant.

In full swing

2011-06-13T13:54:00.001-04:00

Strawberry season is here! The rain is here, too, I know, but we can't let that put a damper on things. Saturday morning the berries were everywhere at the markets: plump, blushing, peeking out from cartons of green. They're in our garden, too, big and dark, in full swing.

Yesterday morning Alex and I decided to celebrate. We slept through the storm and made French toast and topped it with a whole quart of fresh-picked berries: sweet red slivers over soft slices of anadama soaked in eggs and cream. And then, between cleaning and organizing and dinner and a walk, we managed to eat a whole other quart over the course of the day.

I don't do much cooking with strawberries—for the most part, I think they're best plain—but I do have a few favorite recipes. There's my mother's strawberry jam, for one, and the award winning strawberry-rhubarb pie I picked up last year from Elise. We always put up a bunch—just hulled and sliced and sprinkled with a spoonful of sugar, so that they'll juice before they freeze. And usually, I make strawberry shortcake.

But this year, I have my eye on a new recipe. It's the Fresh Strawberry Pie from last month's Cook's Illustrated, and what I like about it is that it doesn't fuss much with the berries. (If you want to see a how-to video, click on that link up there.) You just puree a few berries and cook them down with sugar, cornstarch, Sure-Jell, and salt—to make a thick glaze—and then pour it over a bunch of fresh strawberries into an already-baked bottom pie crust. The glaze firms up and holds the strawberries in place, and since you're not baking them, they don't ooze or juice and they still taste like good, sweet, fresh berries. There isn't much sugar, or much work, and after you've let the pie chill and set, you cover the top with homemade whipped cream. It sounds like sort of a shortcake-in-a-pie thing to me.

So if you're looking for me today, that's where I'll be. I'm heading out to pick more berries now, and by tonight, I plan to be digging in to a chilled slice of homegrown berries and sweet cream.

NO-BAKE STRAWBERRY PIE WITH WHIPPED CREAM

I've adapted the recipe from Cook's Illustrated slightly, but the idea is all theirs. I'm thinking I might also try making this with cooked down homemade strawberry jam instead of making the fresh berry puree. Our jam tends to be soupy, but who knows---with a little more time on the stove and a hit of Sure-Jell, it might be just the thing!

1 and 1/2 quarts fresh strawberries, gently rinsed and hulled
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 and 1/2 teaspoons Sure-Jell for low-sugar recipes (the pink box!)
a pinch of salt
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 fully baked bottom pie crust
1 cup heavy cream
a dash of vanilla
1 tablespoon confectioners' sugar

Pick out a handful of the "worst" berries (think small, under-ripe, bruised, etc.). If you have a kitchen scale, they should weigh about 6 ounces; if not, aim for about a cup and a half. In a food processor, puree them until they're smooth.

Whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, Sure-Jell, and salt in a medium saucepan. Stir in the puree and cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes (keep stirring!). Scrape the thickened puree into a bowl and stir in the lemon juice. Set this mixture aside and let it cool to room temperature.

When the glaze is cool, add the remaining strawberries. Stir gently until the berries are all coated, then scoop the mixture into the prepared pie crust and spread it around evenly. Put the pie in the fridge and let it chill until the glaze is set, about 2 hours.

Just before you're ready to serve the pie, whip the cream with the vanilla and confectioners' sugar until it is smooth and thick and forms soft peaks. Spoon the cream over the top of the pie, use a spatula to make it pretty, and serve immediately.

The Local Food Report: new foods at farmers' markets

2011-06-09T07:19:00.001-04:00

Attention shoppers! Or at least, attention Massachusetts farmers market shoppers who are over 21 and enjoy wine and littlenecks and oysters!

It is now legal for local shellfishermen and vineyard owners to sell at farmers markets.

So far, only two vendors have taken advantage of the shellfish thing. There's a guy in Provincetown selling Wellfleet oysters and littlenecks, and Les Hemmila of Barnstable Seafarms sells at the Wednesday market in Hyannis. The wine regulations just went through this Monday, so it's hard to say yet which vineyards will be where. But I do know that Truro Vineyards is planning to sell at the farmers' market in Provincetown, hopefully by next week, and maybe also at the markets in Orleans, Harwich, and Chatham.

I thought I'd keep you in the loop.

Oh! and if you want to learn more about the state regulations, click on over here. They're actually pretty interesting—there's a lot more allowed than I would have imagined. Finfish, for example. Who knew?! I've seen lobsters, but never a slab of tuna. There are definitely still things that are prohibited—most noticeably raw milk—but based on these regulations, there's a lot more allowed than what we usually see.

A granola bar

2011-06-06T08:05:00.006-04:00

We eat a lot of oats around here. In fact, I just searched through my email receipts so that I could give you some sort of number, and it turns out we eat about 60 pounds of oats, just the two of us, every year. Hoo-ey!

Mostly, we eat them for breakfast. I buy them from Maine, online from a farm called Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater, and they are organic and Maine-grown and make top-notch homemade granola. But thanks to my sister [hi Anna!], we have now found a new all-day snacking use for them, and between that and the baby, I predict our annual consumption will soon be in the high eighties. Please, no crop failures.

So, what is that beauty up there? That is one of the Granola Bars with Chocolate featured in the New York Times article that Anna sent me last week. It is also addictive, and not entirely healthy, but also not entirely unhealthy. The bars are made up mostly of oats, but also of butter and honey and dark chocolate. They hold up the way a granola bar should—they're chewy but not hard, they don't fall apart—and they have a hint of cinnamon and a dash of vanilla. In short, they are absolutely lovely.

I should have noticed them earlier, since the paper pulled the base recipe from a cookbook I have and love—Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain—but her version recommended dried fruit instead of chocolate. What can I say? Chocolate gets my attention.

GRANOLA BARS WITH CHOCOLATE

Alex says these are too chocolately. That phrase really isn't in my vocabulary, but if you're not a chocolate person, try making these with dried fruit instead. Oh! and a note about the wheat bran: the NYT recipe uses flaxseed meal, and the headnote in Kim Boyce's original says you can also use wheat germ. I just used coarsely ground wheat from our grain CSA.

3 tablespoons butter

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup wheat bran

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup honey

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (I like Ghiradelli's 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chips)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Grease an 8" by 8" glass or metal baking pan.

Melt the butter in a wide saucepan over medium heat. Add the oats and cook, stirring frequently, until the grains are lightly toasted—about 8 minutes. Be careful not to let them burn—they should smell toasty and should be, in Kim's words, about two shades darker. Turn off the heat and spoon the oats into a mixing bowl.

Wipe the pan clean and add the honey, brown sugar, and vanilla. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat and keep it at a gentle bubble for 5 minutes. Pour this syrup over the oats and stir well. Let the mixture cool for 5 minutes, then stir in the chocolate chips.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and spread it evenly. Bake the bars for 20 minutes, taking care not to let them brown or they'll get hard instead of chewy. Let them cool completely; then cut them into squares and store in an airtight container.

The Local Food Report: giant asparagus

2011-06-02T07:27:00.003-04:00

Do you remember Peter Staaterman, from Longnook Meadows Farm in Truro? He's the one, last fall, who grew the Dill's Giant Atlantic pumpkin that took first place at the Truro Ag Fair. Well, this spring, he's at it again. Only this time, he's growing giant asparagus:

I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but see those two little spears? Those are regular big-spear size, say, 1/2-inch in diameter. And that big guy? That's a solid inch across! Peter's been getting two or three stalks this enormous from almost every plant this season—a huge increase from last year.

The reason, he thinks, is an experiment he's been doing with manure and biochar. When Peter started farming his land in Truro, out toward Longnook, he had pretty poor soil. After a few failed attempts at growing vegetables, he knew he needed to do something to amend it, and so he got it tested and added the usual manure and compost. It worked pretty well. But this year, he also started adding biochar. We've talked about biochar once here—in connection with Bob Wells, who sells it at the Orleans farmers' market and uses it to grow fantastic blueberries—but it's still a relatively new thing. Basically, biochar is pure carbon made by burning any biomass—Peter uses wood—in the absence of oxygen. You need a special furnace for this called a retort, but once you get that, Peter says it's pretty easy. In fact, farmers in the Amazon came up with the process without any special equipment about two thousand years ago—that's how old of an idea it is.

So how does it help?

Well, mainly, on the Cape, it helps give the soil some structure. Peter kept adding manure to his asparagus patch, the way your supposed to, but because the soil is so sandy and well-drained here, the good bacteria in the manure that help digest it into compost and deliver the nutrients to the plants kept washing away, leaching out. It was frustrating. The biochar, Peter thinks, provides a home for these microbes—a repository of sorts—so that they stick around, and the asparagus is constantly fed. It's a pretty cool thing.

And the kicker is that unlike manure and other fertilizers, biochar doesn't break down. It will stay in Peter's soil for hundreds, even thousands of years—in other words, it's a permanent solution. All he needs to do now is keep adding a bit of manure, and he'll get a bumper crop of asparagus every spring.

My asparagus patch is still pretty young—I only planted it last spring—but I'm thinking of trying out Peter's idea, to try and get a jump start on things. I talked with Peter Hirst, who co-owns New England Biochar with Bob Wells, and in case you want to add a little biochar to your asparagus patch, too, here are his instructions. First of all, you can get it either by visiting their website and calling the company, or simply by showing up to the Orleans farmers' market and visiting Bob Wells at his stand. Peter Staaterman also sells a custom blend for the outer Cape—complete with biochar and other trace minerals that we lack, and that we need—at his farm stand, off of Longnook road in Truro. Wherever you get it, Hirst says you'll need about 40 pounds for an area that's 10' by 10'.

Then, once you get it home, you just mix it in with your soil the way you would any other amendment. I'm planning to add a little manure at the same time, so that I get all the microbial benefits. The ultimate goal is to make your soil 8 percent biochar by dry weight, but this is pretty tricky for a home gardener to calculate, so Hirst says go with about 1/4 pound per asparagus crown (or, if you're doing the rest of your garden, 1/2 pound per square foot) for starters, and take things from there.

Oh! and in case you're wondering whether you really want asparagus spears an inch in diameter—whether they'll still be tender and juicy and still taste good—they will, and you do. Peter's been selling his spears to the restaurant where I work, Blackfish, and they're tantalizingly good. We serve them over greens with a honey creme fraiche dressing and a local panko fried egg with the yolk still runny, and every plate I've cleared has been clean. I think it's one of those times when more really is better, if you know what I mean.

The Local Food Report: radish recipes

2011-05-25T23:32:00.001-04:00

Radishes. They're tempting, right? It's not just me? They sit there at the farmers' market all pink and blushing and suddenly there are three bunches on your kitchen counter and you have no idea what to do with them. Because while radishes are nice in salads and just for snacking, plain, that's not going to take care of three bunches in a week, not to mention the greens.

I figured farmers probably have this same problem except even worse, so last week, I decided to ask them what they do. I got all kinds of answers—everyone said they snacked on them, raw, straight from the garden, and sliced up fresh over salads—but I got some new ideas, too. Here are the best ones, I think—from the farmers' at the Orleans market, to me, to you:

1. Oven-roasted radishes

This comes from Kristen Watkins, who with her boyfriend Lucas Dinwiddie runs Halcyon Farm in Brewster. They grow French Breakfast radishes, and a few weeks ago, looking for inspiration, they decided to roast them in the oven, the way you would potatoes. They scrubbed them, then trimmed the greens so there were a few little stems still on, the way you sometimes see fancy restaurants do with small carrots. Then they sliced them in half, tossed them with olive oil and lemon juice and a little bit of salt and pepper, and roasted them on 400 degrees F for 10 or 15 minutes. Kristen says the roasting changed their texture—made them soft and juicy and a little bit crispy around the edges—and also made them sweet.

2. Radish pasta salad

This is Darnell Caffoni's recipe, from Boxwood Gardens in Orleans. She's a big fan of cold summer pasta salads, and one with chopped spring radishes and carrots, torn up salad greens, a few slivers of hard-boiled egg, and a Greek or Italian style dressing is her favorite. Just be sure to get the radishes this time of year, she says, while they're still young—later in the season they'll get kind of pithy, and won't be so mild.

3. Sautéed radish greens

Every farmer I talked with agreed you should save the greens. Like turnip greens, they're super healthy and also super tasty. Ron Backer likes his sautéed in olive oil with a little bit of spring garlic and asparagus—yum! I'd add an egg over easy and a slice of toast and sit down to breakfast.

4. Radish greens in pasta

Kristen Watkins says that her favorite thing to do with the greens is chop them up and toss them into hot pasta to wilt, the way you would with basil or arugula. She especially likes doing this with a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, grated Parmesan, and a little bit of salt and pepper.

The other night, I tried two of these ideas. I grabbed two bunches of radishes—one French Breakfast and one Easter Egg—and cut off the greens. I set the greens aside, then scrubbed the radishes and chopped them in half. I tossed the radishes in a roasting pan with a diced onion and a little bit of olive oil and some fresh rosemary, and put them in the oven on 400. Then I boiled a pot of whole-wheat rotini and cooked a few slices of bacon. When the bacon was done, I sautéed the radish greens in the grease with a little bit of minced garlic, and grated a handful of cheddar cheese. Finally, I threw the whole mess together—hot pasta, grated cheese, crumbled bacon, and garlic-spiced radish greens. By the time we'd gotten out forks and water glasses and plates, the roasted radishes were done too, and we sat down to a whole radish meal—and ate our way from tops to tails. It was easy, new, and delicious to boot.

We're home

2011-05-23T09:03:00.006-04:00

Hi! We're home. We have taken every last pair of pajamas, every toothbrush, and even a final forgotten E & T Farm tomato from Alex's parents house. We're not quite in our own bed, mind you—things are still fairly messy upstairs—but we are in our own basement, and for me, for now, that feels amazingly, ecstatically good.

We spent the entire day yesterday cleaning—scrubbing every glass, every pot, every surface of the kitchen counters and shelves. The rest of the house won't be livable for a few days yet, but hey!—I figure with the kitchen down, we have covered at least the most important ground. We can now eat, and cook, and clean up—at least once we get a little rest.

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you a recipe I've made twice in the past week—an asparagus-spinach pasta, dressed with crushed pistachios and grated Parmesan and a garlic-lemon-EVO dressing. The inspiration came from a recipe for asparagus with an orange zest-pistachio aillade I tried from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook last spring. I liked the flavors, but there were too many odd ingredients, and it was too fussy. This take is fresh, and easy, and springy, and does a good job, I think, of showcasing the main star: the asparagus.

If you make it, let me know what you think. I'll be here, scrubbing away.

GARLIC-PISTACHIO ROTINI WITH SPINACH & ASPARAGUS

We can't pick from our asparagus patch yet (it still has another two years!), but Ron Backer's had spears at the Orleans farmers' market the past two weeks. As for the pasta, rotini is the corkscrew-shaped kind that comes in short, thumb-length pieces. It isn't the only option for this, but I like the way it catches the garlic and pistachios and spinach as it rolls around in the dish.

1/2 pound dry whole-wheat rotini or other pasta

5 cloves garlic, peeled

1/2 cup shucked pistachios

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 pound spinach, washed

1 pound asparagus, woody ends snapped off and spears cut into roughly 1 and 1/2-inch pieces

juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

grated Parmesan to taste

Put the pasta on to boil.

Meanwhile, pulse the garlic in a food processor until finely minced. Add the pistachios and sea salt and pulse several times, until the pistachios are crumbled.

When the pasta is about 1 minute away from being fully cooked, add the spinach and asparagus to the pot. Stir well so that the vegetables are evenly cooked, and take care not to over cook the asparagus. When the pasta is fully cooked and the asparagus is still al dente, drain the water from the pot.

Toss the hot pasta and vegetables with the pistachio-garlic mixture, the olive oil, and the lemon juice. Add more salt to taste if needed. Let it sit for a few minutes to allow the flavors to meld, then serve still piping warm topped with grated Parmesan.

The Local Food Report: the cinnamon fern

2011-05-19T07:18:00.000-04:00

In Maine, this time of year, you eat fiddleheads. It doesn't really matter if you're particularly fond of them, or whether or not you have some fantastic recipe, or even a foraging spot. You pick some up at a farmers' market, or maybe the local health food store, and you dig in. I'm not even especially crazy about the ferns, but still; it's one of those rituals I've missed.

Until this year. I was at work the other night, one of the first nights, pulling at my tights and standing in the kitchen eating bread. In the corner, spread out near the sink, I saw what looked like a pile of fiddleheads. They were green fern heads, still tightly curled like the regular Ostrich fern type, but instead of looking relatively clean, they were covered all over with a sort of fine, fuzzy hair. The cooks told me that a local forager had brought them in and that they were a different kind of fern—a Cinnamon fern—a kind that tasted pretty similar but was really difficult to clean. They could get the fuzz off by running the ferns under cold water and rubbing at the stalks, but for a restaurant kitchen, it was way too much work. They gave me the forager's name, though, and I called him: Charlie Grimm.

Charlie took me along with him last week—I can't say exactly where, as I'm sworn to secrecy— it was in Truro, in the woods, in a place that was both mossy and a little bit boggy. It was also pretty shady, and there, under a canopy of tall hardwoods, we found lots and lots of Cinnamon ferns. Some were open, but most were still pretty tightly curled, and we picked enough for Charlie to take home and cook for his family. I would have tried some, but apparently one study linked extremely heavy fern consumption in Japan to stomach cancer and an inability to absorb certain important B vitamins, and while that's all fine and good for a normal, healthy adult eating a few every now and again, it didn't seem like such a good idea for an unborn baby. So, Charlie took them home, and I took pictures.

But he did send me his recipe—a very delicious sounding recipe involving butter and garlic and high heat and sauteing—and I wanted to pass it along. That way it's recorded this year for you, and next year for me. Happy foraging, friends.

CHARLIE GRIMM'S HOW-TO ON CINNAMON FIDDLEHEADS

Clean thoroughly, removing the downy hairs as completely as possible, and wash well in cold water. Boil in salted water for 8-10 minutes. (Charlie says he's eaten the fern heads raw with no ill effects, but that it's not recommended as they do contain some mild toxins that can give you indigestion.)

Drain and saute in a hot pan with butter and minced garlic, adding salt and pepper as desired. Serve warm.

Alternatively, after you've boiled the ferns, simply dress them with a vinaigrette, like you might with asparagus.

A tulip

2011-05-18T08:24:00.002-04:00

for you, to chase away the rain. I'm off to the Wellfleet Farmers' Market at Preservation Hall—Hunter wellies on, rain pants & jacket on, hood up. Let's hope it's still on, despite the gray.

Satisfying, and beautiful

2011-05-16T09:26:00.007-04:00

Hi! I tried to stop in here on Friday, but Blogger was having some kind of meltdown, so I couldn't. I wanted to tell you that the first farmers' market of the season was Saturday morning at eight o'clock sharp in Orleans, and that I was looking forward to seeing you there. I hope you made it.

If you didn't, though, don't worry. Barbara and Gretel and Lucas and the gang will be there every week from now on, and the Provincetown market starts this Saturday. There's also a new farmers' market on the block, starting up this Wednesday at the brand-spanking-new Preservation Hall in Wellfleet. I'm not quite sure who will be there yet, but I'm planning on going, and I promise to report back. It is so nice to have a fridge full of local greens and spring carrots and hothouse tomatoes (!) and cucumbers (!) and Ron Backer's asparagus. Finally! It makes me a little giddy.

It is also a good reminder that there are, believe it or not, other food groups besides rhubarb & Meyer lemon desserts. Between the rhubarb pie testing my mother and I have been doing, and last week's attempt at this Shaker Lemon Pie, and the rhubarb-lemon cobbler we talked about two weeks ago, I find it hard to fathom, but according to the Little Caesar lettuces and the French Breakfast radishes, it's true.

And I have to say, it feels pretty good to step back into the salad world. Yesterday, Alex and I had one of those hugely productive Sundays—tidied up, did the laundry, finished the house budget, picked out paint colors, planted squash, planted melons, planted tomatoes, went to the dump, scrubbed the guest room!—and mid-day, we stopped for a quick rest at the kitchen table. We didn't have time for a long break—there were still way too many spiders living in the baseboards—but I wanted to make something a little bit elegant, something pretty and simple.

I pulled out a nice china salad bowl, and three bags of greens from the fridge. I did a little mix-and-match—some of Barbara's butter lettuce, a handful of spicy mustard Mizuna from Rod and Darnell, and a whole bunch of Lucas's baby braising mix. Then I chopped up a tomato, sliced a carrot and cucumber and two radishes thin with the mandolin, and crumbled some goat cheese and gorgonzola on top. It was hardly fancy, but it was satisfying, and beautiful, and with a few slices of baguette and butter, it did the trick.

If you're feeling anything like I am these days—hungry, and busy, and a little too interested in gardening to sit down and make anything terribly fussy or complicated—I highly recommend giving it a whirl.

FIRST OF SPRING TOSSED SALAD

This is hardly complicated enough to count as a recipe, but it's what we've been eating all week, and it's also delicious. Tomatoes and cucumbers are not normally things I associate with spring, but with Ed and Betty's hothouse in full operation, maybe they'll move up permanently on the calendar—keep your fingers crossed, and who knows.

1/8 cup balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon whole grain mustard

a pinch of salt

freshly cracked pepper

1/2 pound mixed spring greens

1 spring carrot, trimmed and sliced thin

2 French Breakfast radishes, trimmed and sliced thin

1 tomato, chopped into half wedges

1/2 cucumber, sliced thin

a handful of crumbled gorgonzola

a handful of crumbled chevre

Whisk together the balsamic, olive oil, mustard, and salt and pepper to taste in a small pitcher. Be sure to whisk for at least 30 seconds; it takes the mustard a little while to bring the vinegar and oil together and get the whole thing to emulsify. Set the dressing aside.

In a large salad bowl, toss together the greens and other vegetables. Crumble the cheeses on top, dress, and toss well. Serve at once, with a hunk of crusty bread to mop up the extra cheese and dressing and veggie juice.

The Local Food Report: community kitchens

2011-05-11T11:38:00.000-04:00

Jennifer Joslin didn't plan on starting a pasta sauce business. She had three kids, picky kids, and the two things they really liked were pasta and pizza. She figured the easiest way to get carrots and green beans and cabbage into them was to sneak it into their tomato sauce, and so she did.

Then it hit her: Eat Your Vegetables! Maybe, just maybe, she could support her family and help other parents put a healthy meal on the table by turning this pasta sauce into a business. The thing was, she didn't have the money to buy equipment and build a certified kitchen. Building a kitchen is expensive, hugely expensive, and she wasn't even sure yet if this idea was going to work. Then she found out about the Dartmouth Grange.

The story behind grange is this: a few years ago, a group of Dartmouth residents noticed that their grange, their historic community hall, was sitting largely unused. They wanted to change that. They also wanted to help Dartmouth stay rural, but still boost agricultural and economic development. So they raised money to put a 2,000 square foot addition on the historic hall, complete with a steam kettle, braising pan, stovetop range, several ovens, and a filling machine—in short, a complete clean, certified, licensed kitchen space. Then they established a rate—the kitchen costs about $33 per hour to rent—and opened the doors to the public.

For Jennifer, it was the perfect place. She could start her pasta sauce company with very, very little overhead, and even less of an investment risk. All she was really buying besides the time was the vegetables and the glass jars, and hey! if the company never took off, she and her family could eat that commercially-certified shelf-stable sauce for for years.

But the company did take off. Within a few months, Jennifer had her sauce in two markets, and after a year, she now sells it in sixteen. (And one of those is a Whole Foods!) Parents liked that it had six vegetables (tomatoes, carrots, garlic, green beans, eggplant, and red cabbage) and that two of them were often from local farms (the carrots and the eggplants) and that it was appealing to their kids.

Recently Jennifer moved to another shared use kitchen—a community kitchen with a bigger steam kettle at How on Earth in Mattapoisett—so that she could make larger batches. Hers is a story of community kitchen success.

She's met lots of other people who got their businesses off the ground in community kitchens, too. There are granola makers, pickles, jammers, and all sorts of folks, all producing small-scale, local, artisanal products in these two kitchens. It's pretty cool.

You can find out more about Jennifer's pasta sauce, Eat Your Vegetables!, over here. For a link to the Dartmouth Grange kitchen head on over here, and you can learn more about the shared used kitchen at How on Earth in Mattapoisett over here.

Happy dreaming, everyone.