We in the fog

Hi! I hope you can hear me through the fog. From where I'm sitting, I can only see about twenty feet out the window. I'm up at Alex's parents' kitchen counter in Truro, and normally, I can see a deck and a thicket of beach plums and then the big, wide arc of Cape Cod Bay. But this morning, when Fisher and I woke up to make tea, we couldn't even see the beach. I tried to let him out, but he took one sniff, turned around, and came back inside to lie down. It's that kind of a day.

We've decided that rather than fight it, we're going to make a batch of butternut squash brownies and chicken noodle soup. Oh! and chicken salad. There's a lot of leftover roast chicken in that fridge.

I don't know if you make your own chicken stock, but I never did until I was shamed into it. In a recipe I wrote a few years back for my column in Maine, I called for for canned chicken stock, and Lee Johnson of Arrowsic was not impressed.

"CANNED??? chicken broth?!" she wrote. "Canned chicken broth costs money and is either very high in sodium or tasteless and it is certainly not local."

She had a point. And so, following her directions, I learned to make stock—strip the carcass, add water, an onion, a bay leaf, and heat. Boil for an hour, maybe two, then cool the broth and drain it. Throw out the bones and put the broth away, then let the fat rise to the top, gel, and skim it off if you like when you go to grab your breakfast milk. (I usually do, but since we buy our chickens from a farmer I trust—my friend Drew—and he raises his birds on pasture, I don't throw it out. I save it for sautéing veggies instead.) Sometimes I freeze it, and on days like today I use it fresh for chicken noodle soup.

As for chicken salad, I like mine simple: something crunchy, something nutty, mayo, and some sort of fruit. Today we're doing a Waldorf sort of variation—you know, like the apple salad with walnuts, celery, and yogurt. Except there's chicken, and mayo gets swapped in for the yogurt. It's good.

What do you do with your chickens? Special stocks? Chicken salads? Soups? We in the fog bank would love to hear.

To the radishes, first of spring

Sometimes, I don't know quite what to do—with you. You are always the first to the markets; you show up all pink and fresh and new, beguiling in your white-pink-green candy-cane suits. I pick you up and bring you home—thrilled, delighted with my haul—and then, like a new parent (I imagine, that is), I look at you beaming and proud and in love, but a little bit bewildered, too.

I like you on toast, I know that—shaved and crisp, layered with baguette and cold ribbons of butter, flakes of sea salt. You are fine on salads, although I miss you sometimes caught up a in crouton-pickled-beet-crumbled-cheese bite. Still you are there, present, bright. And then the ideas end. Radishes? Thank goodness for the Internet.

I find you online, cut into matchsticks, tossed with vinegar and oil and chives and salt, served over a warm spring risotto of Pecorino and rice. I leave you in and change the Arborio out; barley, I've heard, can make just as creamy and rich a pot. The barley from our CSA is not quite right—hulled, not pearled—but with a strong and patient arm, it lets go eventually. I stir in cheese, herbs, lemon juice, and then it's your turn. I serve myself a bowl, and sprinkle you on top.

We sit down to the table: you fresh and pink and new, and me hungry, grateful, ready to spoon you up.

BARLEY RISOTTO WITH SPRING RADISHES

This recipe is the product of three inspirations. The radish dressing was inspired by a recipe for Romano Risotto with Radishes from Gourmet, September 2009. The most recent issue of Cook's Illustrated provided the method (Almost Hands Free Risotto), and the idea to substitute barley for Arborio rice came from a 2007 101 Cookbooks post on Meyer Lemon Risotto made with pearled barley. Since the barley from our grain CSA is only hulled, not pearled, I wasn't sure it would cream up the way it should, but I decided to try anyway. The result was a little more stirring than I'd bargained for, but well worth the work. If you use pearled barley, your barley should soften faster and you'll be able to cut down on the stirring time at the end.

The nice thing about this recipe is that although it does require some legwork at the beginning and end, it gives you a solid 30-minute break in the middle to get the kitchen all cleaned up and the table set. That way, when the risotto finally is ready, you can sit right down to eat.

for the barley risotto:
5 cups low-sodium chicken stock
1 and 1/2 cups water
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups barley, hulled or pearled (see headnote)
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup coarsely grated Pecorino, Piave, or Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon lemon juice

for the dressed radishes:
1 pound trimmed radishes, cut into matchsticks
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon finely chopped chives
optional: torn basil

Combine the stock and water in a large pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover and turn the heat down to a simmer.

Warm up half the butter in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. When it's melted, add the onion and salt. Sauté, stirring frequently, for 3-5 minutes, or until the onions are softened but not browned. Add the garlic and sauté, stirring constantly, for about 30 seconds, or until it starts to get fragrant. Pour in the barley and cook, stirring frequently, for 3 minutes.

Pour in the wine and cook, stirring constantly, until it is all absorbed. This should take about 3 minutes. Pour in 5 cups of the hot broth and water mixture and turn the heat down to medium-low. Cover, set your timer for 40 minutes, and—stirring every ten minutes or so—simmer until almost all the liquid has been absorbed and the barley is just al dente.

Add another 3/4 cup of the hot broth and water mixture and stir until almost all the liquid has been absorbed, about 10 minutes. The barley should be starting to get creamy. Add the remaining 3/4 cup liquid and cook, stirring constantly, for another 10 minutes, or until all the liquid is absorbed and the barley is cooked through and creamy. Turn off the heat, stir in the cheese, cover, and let sit for 5 minutes.

Stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons butter and the lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot, with the dressed radishes on top.

Note: To reheat this risotto on the stove top, simply put it in a heavy-bottomed pot with a splash of milk or cream.

Holding all the hurry

There is no point in trying to pretend. As of today, it is officially six days until we hand over our house keys, pack up the car, and drive to Maine to get ready for the wedding. Things are starting to get just the teensiest bit crazy around here.

This weekend, for instance, Friday I spent 45 minutes on the phone with my mother's very dear friend, going over all the final details for the flowers before finishing up my last column and arriving at the restaurant seven minutes late. Saturday a friend's mom and I did the practice hair run (big! and curly!) and I walked around doing the recycling at work like some sort of Jessica Simpson shake-those-curls-loose barbie doll, and Sunday Alex and I got the yard all squared away for freezing temperatures. It's been feeling sort of like a perpetual Christmas Eve, a long, drawn-out one, where for weeks and weeks on end you hurry around waiting for the big day, slowly ticking off the time in your head.


Luckily, in the midst of all the chaos, cabbage season decided to show up. There is no vegetable like cabbage to keep you grounded, I think, and savoy cabbage works some particular magic. There's something about the way it ruffles—the way it's all composure and elegance on the outside, even though everything is tightly wound and scrunched up underneath. We've been braising it, recently, cooking it down with butter and onions and thyme and sherry until it collapses into a soft, tender heap, and it's been just the thing. We're sort of the same way by the end of the day, actually, come to think of it, Alex and the cabbage and I, all wilting just a little bit into our dinner plates.

Slowly, though, with the help of a bit of pork and herb butter and a hunk of bread, by the end of the meal, we perk back up. The cabbage lulls us into a soft, contented sort of haze, and we sit on the couch making lists about packing and to-do's and thank-you notes and RSVPs. It's nothing fancy or exciting, but I think the braised cabbage has been keeping us sane.

I'll be back on Thursday to tell you about a very special someone and how he taught me to fillet fish, but after that, I won't be around for a while. We'll be in Maine for a week, and then in Boston for a few hours, and then, if I pinch myself hard enough, in Paris for three days and Italy for two (!) whole (!) weeks. We'll be back November 28th, and I promise to be here on Monday, November 30th, with a whole new set of stories to tell.

Until then, I hope you'll enjoy this cabbage. It is very good, I promise, at holding all the hurry at bay.

BRAISED SAVOY CABBAGE WITH ONIONS AND THYME

I probably shouldn't admit this, but until the other day, I wasn't entirely clear on what the word braising really meant. I understood the results, and I was a big fan, but I wasn't quite sure how to get there. I went on sort of a braising kick reading online until I at least had a vague grasp on the term, but I'm hoping, one of these days, to pick up this book and learn a whole lot more. I have a feeling, based on the cabbage, that braising is my kind of thing.

3 tablespoons butter
2 onions, diced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
1 medium size head savoy cabbage, core removed and chopped into thin ribbons
1 cup chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon sherry
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter over medium high heat in a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot. Throw in the onions and let them sweat for 10 minutes or so, stirring frequently so they don't burn. Midway through add the thyme, and once the onions are soft and translucent, add the cabbage. Continue sauteing while stirring constantly. When the cabbage and onions have lost their moisture and are very dry, after about five minutes, pour in the chicken stock.

Continue stirring constantly, mixing the onions and cabbage with the stock, until the stock has been reduced by at least half. (There should be only a little bit of visible juice mixed in with the cabbage at the bottom of the pot, more of a glaze than a broth.) Add the milk and the sherry, and reduce the liquid by half again. When the milk and chicken stock form a nice, thick glaze, season the cabbage with salt and pepper to taste, and you're ready to eat.

We had this alongside a thick pork chop with a little bit of blue cheese herb butter on top and a slice of bread—it is the perfect vegetable accompaniment to that sort of hearty meat cut. A rib-eye would be good too—anything with heft and a good amount of fat. If you don't eat meat, though, it doesn't matter too much. I ate the cabbage the next day for lunch with just the herb butter and a hunk of toasted bread, and it was just as good.

A little kabocha sunshine

You know that part in the wedding vows where you promise to love and comfort and honor and keep each other in sickness and in health? Well, I think the God of Marriage has decided to test us. Not in some big, scary way, but instead, through this hilarious little device She calls a cold. (In ancient Greece at least, the God of Marriage was a woman, Hera. I'm pretty sure she's still out there, presiding over rituals and testing prospective couples and chasing bad suitors away.)

Anyway, a cold sounds pretty tame, doesn't it? When Alex spent the whole day in bed last Tuesday I thought maybe he was getting cold feet or overwhelmed by work or even just vying for a plate of cookies and a cup of tea, but now, I understand. This cold is NOT tame.

Instead, this cold is the kind that sneaks up on a Sunday afternoon while you're out in the garden puttering happily around, pulling the oak leaves from the strawberry patch and planting fresh rows of spinach in the greenhouse and potting your herbs for the cold winter months, and attacks. It throws your left nostril into continual sneeze preparation mode, takes away your taste buds, and kicks you into bed.

If it weren't for friends who leave kabocha squashes on your doorstep, I'm not sure we would have made it through.


The kabocha squash is the one on the right there, the deep ruddy orange one with the pumpkin shaped body and the tall stem. Kabocha is a Japanese variety, and while normally it has dark green skin and bright orange insides, this particular version is called a Sunshine kabocha. It tastes the same—smooth and a bit pasty, kind of like a cross between a butternut and a hubbard—but it is much, much more cheerful looking. And when you're in your room with the heat cranked up to 75 and the door shut tight and the covers up to your chin, nice bright Sunshine kabocha soup makes an excellent therapeutic tea.

Luckily, I made the soup last week when Alex was sick, before I got hit. I armed us with shallots and kabocha sunshine and chicken broth and ginger, and it appears to have done the trick. Between the soup and the half empty bottle of terrifyingly green Nyquil on the bathroom counter and a bowl of autumn olive sorbet brought over by a friend, we are most definitely on the mend.

I hope you don't need this soup—not at least, for any of Hera's tests—but just in case, you might make a batch. It's always good, in a month like this, to have a little kabocha sunshine on hand.

ROASTED KABOCHA AND SHALLOT SOUP

This recipe is adapted from one I found in Cooking Light last fall. While the original called for butternut squash, I think you could swap any variety with a nice orange flesh in and get very good results. If you do decide to use another variety, like say, butternut, keep an eye on the liquids. I ended up using twice as much chicken broth as Cooking Light called for, which I think might have been because of the pasty, suck-the-moisture-in nature of kabocha squash. Try adding 2 cups at first, then work your way up until you have the consistency you want.

1 medium-size kabocha squash (butternut, sugar pumpkin, or Hubbard would probably work too), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
6 small shallots, peeled and halved
1 (1 and 1/2-inch) piece ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
3 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups chicken broth, preferably homemade
2 tablespoons fresh sliced chives
freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Toss the squash, shallots, ginger, oil, and salt together in a large casserole dish. Cover with tinfoil and bake for 30 minutes; remove foil and bake 30 minutes longer, or until the squash is soft. Combine the roasted vegetables and chicken broth in a blender (in batches, depending on how much space you have) and puree until everything is smooth. Pour the soup into a large, heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for roughly 5 minutes to allow the flavors to come together. Serve piping hot garnished with fresh sliced chives and freshly cracked black pepper to taste. A side of toast, especially if you're under the weather, never hurts as a side.

Making its debut

My Swiss chard would like to announce that it is very fussy about getting its picture taken, and that it will only pose for someone using crazy 800 speed, neon color film. Here it is, making its cover-shot debut.

Ta daa! It would also like you to know that it is very picky about what touches its skin, and that it is thrilled to have been picked and cleaned and to have the pollen washed off, finally. It was just about at its breaking point with that stuff—spots, rivers, dust, and all. (Here my car and my sinuses would like to chime in, and say that they are feeling a little bit like Winnie the Pooh, walking around all day saying "Tut-tut, feels like rain!" and kind of wishing it would. They are fed up with pollen, too, only there's nothing they can do.)

What my Swiss chard doesn't know is that getting picked usually means the end is near. The warm, hot, buttery end, around here. It's not a bad way to go, but still. It isn't all roses and picket fences on the other side of the yellow dirt.

These days, everything seems to be meeting that sort of end. It all goes the same way: into the big, deep stainless skillet with a big pat of butter over a high blue flame. I've tried to think of more creative burials, but I keep coming back to this one simple preparation. It's a bit repetitive, but really, I don't think it's me.

Spring simply tastes good this way.


Sometimes, I'll add a little garlic and chicken broth in too, especially with Swiss chard. There's something about the Swiss chard juice that asks for it—without a little padding, it tends to kind of squeak around in your mouth, the way spinach and grapefruit salads sometimes do. That's a feeling a little splash of chicken broth can do wonders for.

Otherwise, I don't really like to mess with my Swiss chard too much. It's so simple, so elegant, and so fussy about its looks, that it never seems like a good idea to touch it beyond a bit of heat.

I hope you're enjoying spring, too.

SAUTEED SWISS CHARD

If you have a garden, Swiss chard is one of the easiest greens to grow. It takes a little while to get rolling, but once it starts growing, there will be plenty to go around. There are more tips on growing it over here.

As for this recipe, it's one of my favorites. It's nothing special or complicated, but it makes an excellent noontime snack. I like to eat it with a piece of toast, and maybe a hunk of cheese.

1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pound Swiss chard, washed and patted dry
1/2 cup chicken broth

Melt the butter in a large sauté pan over medium high heat. Once the butter is melted and the pan is very hot, throw in the garlic and cook it for about 30 seconds, stirring quickly the whole time so it doesn't brown. Turn up the heat to high and immediately pour in half the chicken broth, allowing it to reduce by about half. Turn down the heat to low, add the Swiss chard and the remaining chicken broth, and cover for about a minute. Stir, cover again for about a minute, and serve warm in a bowl with the broth.

A bit backward

What is it they say? In like a lion, out like a lamb? This March is a bit backward, it seems.

I began the weekend with the best of cooking intentions, but when Saturday and then Sunday dawned warm and sunny, they simply didn't make the cut. Other things did, like dog walking and lettuce planting and beach visits and an afternoon of wine and spinach puffs on a lovely Sandwich porch. Even car vacuuming and house cleaning snuck in there.

But spending all day in the kitchen when March was offering 60 degrees seemed like a terrible waste. I don't have any regrets.

I did manage, once Sunday wound down, to muster the energy for a simple carrot soup. The fridge was empty, after all; I'd eaten through a quart of my mother's homemade minestrone, nearly a cup of sour cream, and far more banana bread than ought to be legal. I had to make something, and carrot soup seemed the easiest thing.

There was a pot of homemade chicken broth on hand, boiled down from the carcass of a bird we ate last week. I had several pounds of carrots still kicking around in the hydrator from goodness knows when, and lots of storage onions tucked away in the basement closet. All that was left was a few sprigs of thyme, and they sat happily potted in the greenhouse outside.


I cried an awful lot during the onion slicing, either because I knew the cold weather was to return today or because storing onions all winter somehow gives them a terrible ability to sting. I don't know which, but it was sort of cathartic in the end.

The whole endeavor—melting butter, sauteing onions, carrots, and thyme, throwing in broth and a pinch of salt—only took about a half an hour, from start to bowl. It's not a demanding soup; you can empty the dishwasher, wash the knives and pots, and generally have most of the cleanup done by the time you're ready to eat.

Late on Sunday afternoon, that's a very good thing.

CARROT SOUP

adapted from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters

I always turn to Waters' when I want a meal that is easy to make, requires only a few good ingredients, and will be simple yet elegant all at once. This soup is no exception, and beyond adding a bit more thyme, I really didn't change much.

4 tablespoons salted butter
2 onions, cut in half and then sliced thin
3-4 sprigs thyme
roughly 6 cups carrots, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
salt to taste
6 cups chicken broth

Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot. Add the onions and thyme once it is hot, and sauté for about 10 minutes over medium-low heat, or until the onions are translucent and soft. Add the carrots and season with salt to taste.

Continue to cook the vegetables together for another 10 minutes or so (Waters points out that cooking the carrots with the onions is important to build flavor, so don't skip ahead to the broth). Once they are fairly soft, add chicken broth and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and leave the soup to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the carrots are cooked to your liking. Serve hot with a good rustic bread and maybe a dollop of sour cream.