The jungle

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.

The Local Food Report: radish recipes

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.

Tang and pizazz

It was seven degrees here this morning when we woke up. Seven degrees! I would complain, but when I called my mother, she told me her thermometer read seven below. She tends to stop by here, so I have a feeling I'd better keep mum. Anyhow, the good news is that it's now up to a balmy 16.3, and I have tested the waters and found that with two pairs of sweatpants, a turtleneck, and a sweater on, it is warm enough to make soup.

Those specimens up there are a major component of the soup I'm making today, which is the same soup we've been eating now for about a week straight. It's a potato-leek-celeriac soup that I found in an old Bon Appetit cookbook—Entertaining with Style, circa 1996—and it's amazing.

(Celeriac, in case you're not familiar with it, is the knobby, gnarly root that grows under a certain variety of celery. Unlike most celery varieties, it's grown mainly for what's underground, but you can also use the leaves and stalks as you normally would. My friend Tracy grew a bunch in her greenhouse, and we are addicted.)

If I had to pick one word to describe this soup, I would tell you that it is velvety. The celeriac gives it a creaminess that is somehow different—somehow more subtle and more refreshing than the heavy, overdone richness that you find in most potato-leek soup recipes—and that, I think, is what makes it so wonderful. It has comfort food written all over it, but it also has tang and pizazz. I like that.

I also like that it cooks for a while, which means there's a stove burner on, which warms the house up. I have a recipe for Oatmeal Sandwich bread marked, which bakes at 400 degrees, and I'm thinking of making that too. But I'm starting with soup.

POTATO-CELERIAC-LEEK SOUP

The original recipe for this soup actually called for twice as much celeriac as potato, but even as a celeriac lover, I thought that was too much. I swapped the ratios, so that the celeriac to potatoes was 1 to 2, and I thought that was perfect. Also, the original recipe called for olive oil, not butter, but I ended up adding the butter for creaminess later on, so the next time around I never bothered with the olive oil at all. In a soup like this, I think you need the creaminess that butter adds. And for toppings, the original recipe recommended parsley and orange zest and red onions, but we stuck with just the red onions, and I thought they were more than enough. Soup this good doesn't need dressing up. Oh! and it serves 3.

3 tablespoons butter

1 leek, washed and thinly sliced (white and light green parts only)

salt

1 and 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock, preferably homemade

1/2 pound celeriac, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 pound potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 cup whole milk

freshly cracked pepper

1/2 red onion (optional)

Heat up the butter in a medium, heavy-bottomed pot. Add the leek and sauté for 5-8 minutes, or until it starts to get tender. Season with about 1 teaspoon salt (unless you are using a salty broth, in which case you should wait and season later on). Add the stock, celeriac, and potatoes and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down, cover, and simmer for about 45 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft.

Use an immersion blender or food processor to puree the soup. Add enough milk to thin the soup to your liking, taste the soup, and add salt and pepper as needed. Simmer for another few minutes to let the flavor deepen, then serve hot. We like it with a generous handful of finely chopped red onions on top.

The Local Food Report: make it official

The first farmers' markets were last Saturday. I have whispered this, I know, several times, but I wanted to make it official: The farmers' markets are open in Orleans and Provincetown, and I, for one, am thrilled.

Last Saturday, I came home with the following swag: one bunch of fennel fronds, a bundle each of overwintered parsnips and carrots, a bunch of Ron Backer's asparagus, two leeks, five shoots of spring garlic, four scallions, a pound of rhubarb, one head of butter lettuce, and a stunning spring bouquet. On my night off on Tuesday [insert squeal here!], I roasted the vegetables—all but the lettuce and asparagus—with the last of our sweet potatoes and blue potatoes from downstairs. I tossed them with olive oil, sprinkled them with salt, cranked the oven up to 400 degrees, and that was it.

The results were magnificent—crispy spring alliums, sweet, melting parsnips, caramelized fennel, and just enough potato heft to go around. We ate them with fresh fried butterfish (more on that soon) and rhubarb gingerbread shortcakes (that too), and a salad made by our two new roommates (Hi Rob! Hi Siobhan!). It was absolutely sublime.


There's a list of when all the markets will be opening up over here; the next one will be Falmouth on May 27th. Thank you, farmers, and thank you, spring, and thank you, of course, to all of you.

ROASTED SPRING ALLIUMS WITH ROOT VEGETABLES

Once you get the hang of roasting vegetables, there is really no need to follow a recipe, but for those of you who like one, here it is. Feel free to substitute, add, and completely wing it—everything, this time of year, is good.

2 medium-size sweet potatoes, scrubbed
1/2 pound blue potatoes, scrubbed
4-5 medium-size carrots, scrubbed and trimmed
4-5 medium-size parsnips, scrubbed and trimmed
1 bunch spring fennel, fronds removed
4 scallions, washed and trimmed
4 shoots of spring garlic, washed and trimmed
2 leeks, carefully washed and trimmed
olive oil
sea salt
freshly cracked pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Chop the sweet potatoes, blue potatoes, carrots, and parsnips into rounds roughly 1/4-inch thick. Slice the fennel stems, scallions, spring garlic, and leeks into rounds roughly 1/8-inch thick. Toss all of the vegetables together with a good glug of olive oil and sea salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste. Spoon them into a large roasting pan (if you only have pie plates and casserole dishes, just use two smaller pans; you want the veggies to be spread fairly thin). Loosely tent the pan(s) with tinfoil, and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the tinfoil and continue baking until the vegetables are tender in the center and crisped around the edges, 20-35 more minutes. Serve hot.

His name is Stevie

Friends, I am pleased to announce that we have a brand new addition to our family. [No, this is not going to be a shotgun wedding.] He's a cat, and his name is Stevie.

Alex and I met Stevie on the road, in the dark, on the way home from a dinner party last Saturday night. It was absolutely beautiful out, one of those September stunners of a night, and we had decided to walk the mile and a half through the woods to the house on Old Chequesset. In the pitch black coming back, we heard a meow behind us, and then another at our feet, and before we knew it, an orange cat was marching steadily toward home. We tried to send him back, or away, or wherever it was he might have come from, but he was Not Going to Budge. When we arrived at the door he weaseled his way inside, and then onto the bed, and although a certain Mr. Fisher looked none too certain, it became very clear very quickly that he was going to stay.

We called the animal officer and got him scanned for a micro-chip, and they said he was up for grabs. Today, I took him to the vet, and we officially rolled out the welcome mat. Or at least, most of us did. Some of us still aren't quite so sure.


At any rate, we are finding out very quickly what Stevie Does and Does Not like. So far, we know for certain that he is very amenable to teaspoons of dulce de leche and small bits of ham. Sunday morning we baked a fresh ham for brunch—slathered it in brown sugar and cloves and dry mustard and salt and pepper—and Stevie looked as though he had just landed on a soft, billowing cloud of pure, straight-from-God bliss. In fact, the hope of ham just might be why he decided to follow us home.

This morning, when I collected the leftover bone and scraped off fat and cracklings of skin to make black bean soup, I thought he might just dive right in. I don't blame him, of course—if I weighed 11 pounds, I'd go swimming in my ham and black bean soup, too.

I adapted this particular batch from a recipe I found in the Joy of Cooking with the very intriguing title U.S. Senate Bean Soup. According to the header, a white bean and ham hock soup has been served in the U.S. Senate restaurant since 1901. At first, I wasn't quite sure if that was a good sign or not—the words Senate restaurant sound sort of like code for cafeteria to me—but as it turns out, our elected officials have excellent taste. U.S. Senate Bean Soup is like a hijacked split pea soup, with whole white beans replacing the soupy green mash. I went ahead and took things one step further by throwing black beans in instead.

The resulting soup was just the sort of thing I would imagine a senator eating for lunch. It's nothing hoity toity—nothing high-powered or white linened or too sit-down—but the sort of thing I picture John Kerry sitting down with in a paper bowl and a plastic spoon and reading the newspaper alongside over lunch. It is simple, delicious, and solid—very much a by the people, for the people sort of soup. It's just the thing, come to think of it, that you might make to take over to a friend who just had a baby, or lost an aunt, or maybe got a new cat.

Around here, it has proved an excellent way to welcome Stevie home.

BLACK BEAN AND HAM HOCK SOUP

I made this soup with a bone from a fresh ham that had been baked for several hours. Fresh ham isn't as salty as cured ham, so be careful with the seasoning and taste as you go depending on what sort of meat you use.

1 and 1/4 cups dried black beans, soaked overnight
7 cups cold water
1 small ham hock
1 large onion, diced
3 medium celery stalks with their leaves on, chopped
1 large potato, peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Place the beans, water, and ham hock in a large soup pot. Bring everything to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until the beans are tender (roughly an hour and a half). When the beans are soft, remove the ham hock. Discard the skin and any extra fat and the bone (read: give them to your dog or cat) and return the meat to the pot.

Add the remaining ingredients to the pot as well, and simmer for about a half an hour, or until the potatoes are soft. Turn off the heat and mash the soup with a potato masher until the potatoes form a thick broth. (Some of the beans will be mashed, too, but most should stay in tact.) Serve warm, with chopped fresh parsley and a dollop of sour cream.

The Local Food Report: since 1888

Friends, I have been waiting for this day for weeks. I have been tiptoeing around like my sister and I used to when we were making an especially extraordinary construction paper Christmas present for our parents, beaming and whispering and wishing the day to give it away would just hurry up and get here. And now lo and behold, here it is, and I don't even know where to start. I guess the best place is with the dahlias. They are lovely, aren't they?

They were handpicked from a garden in Westport for the one hundred and twenty-first annual Allen's Neck Clambake, held the third Thursday of every August since 1888. If you look closely, you can see that they are set up on a picnic table in a grove, and that there are an awful lot of picnic tables stretching out on all sides, and in every direction, all decorated with white clothes and home grown flowers and paper napkins and plates. That's because the Allen's Neck Meeting House—the same Quaker congregation that's been putting this clambake on since the very first summer—sells out five hundred tickets each year. One hundred and fifty volunteers set everything thing up, and just about the whole town comes to eat.

The bakemasters are in charge, and the work starts at 7 am when they build the fire.


They build it on a big, concrete slab in the middle of the grove, sort of like you would a log cabin, with interlocking layers, and then they fill each layer with stones. That way, when they rake out the logs a few hours later, the rocks will tumble down onto either side of the concrete, evenly, and the hot wood and ashes can be swept away. Men put on fire coats and heavy boots and someone brings out a hose, and what you see up there disappears into a cloud of smoke and emerges as a perfect bed of hot cooking stones. This all happens at 11:30, in a hushed, reverent silence—The Rake Out, as they call it—and it is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.


Once the stones are set and everyone's boots have been hosed down so their toes don't sizzle up, a pick-up truck full of rock weed arrives and the men start throwing it over the rocks. The rock weed crackles and hisses as its bubbles pop in the heat, and the steam gets so thick you can hardly see your own feet. Next, they load up the food—boxes and boxes of clams and potatoes and onions and tripe stacked up in perfect squares. When the whole meal is on board, they cover it with a wet tarp, and then another wet tarp, and then another, and then finally a few more dry ones on top. They weight down some of the sides, but they make sure to leave some holes, too, because otherwise, the pressure from the steam will blow the whole thing up. It's the most unnecessary and wonderful clambake procedure I've ever seen.


Kathy Neustadt, an expert on clambakes, agrees. She's the one who invited me to come experience the event at Allen's Neck. I think she knew how excited I would be because this was the very first clambake she ever went to, back in 1984, and she got so excited about it that she researched clambakes for 8 years. This led, in turn, to a book—Clambake: A History and Celebration of an American Tradition. Kathy says that over the course of writing it, she came to believe that how a community puts on a clambake is like a window into its soul.

At first, I thought this was sort of a grandiose way to think about a clambake, but then I found out that the one at Allen's Neck doesn't have lobster. This put me into a swivet, having grown up in Maine and all, and I realized Kathy was right. How you put on a clambake says more than you think about who you are, and where you're from.

At any rate, 'tis the season. Kathy will be at the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford this weekend, talking about the history and traditions of New England clambakes, and I'm sure she'd love to see you if you have time to stop by. There will also be all sorts of other interesting talks and tours and good food and on the whole just a lot of fun, so I wouldn't skip it if you live nearby. For more information, you can head on over here. Oh! And you can read more about Kathy's book in this direction.

Enjoy your weekends, everyone.

The Local Food Report: one potato, blue potato

As a kid, I associated each letter of the alphabet with a certain color. A was red, B was blue, C was tan, and so on. (Z, if you must know, was a beautiful, deep forest green.) In my head, when I spelled words out, I could see the colors flying by. My sister's name, Anna, was a blur of red-green-green-red. My mom, Liz, was mostly see-through with a finish of green, and my dad, Jan, was a sort of purple-red-green combo match.

My own name was far more complicated—the letters scribbled out in a long, unwieldy streak. Yellow-white-salmon-blue-yellow-gray-black.

For a while I thought I might be just the slightest bit crazy, but then my sister told me she had an imaginary color-coded alphabet, too. One day, I remember, we got out 52 sheets of paper and wrote out our letters in color for each other to inspect. The colors matched up on roughly half; the others we could not agree on. I have no idea where any of it came from, but X was pea green to my mind, and that was that.

Foods, I used to think, worked the same way. Carrots were orange, tomatoes were red, and blueberries—of course!—were blue. At the grocery store, for the most part, that's still true. But at farmers' markets, it isn't such a sure bet. Enter yellow carrots, green tomatoes, and black radishes. I've seen black raspberries, too, and purple kale and golden beets. The whole Food Is Color Coded theory has really started to fall apart since I started shopping outside. Which leads me to my new friend, the blue potato. Actually, he's really more purple, but we'll let that go.


The Cape Cod blue (or All Blue, as it's technically called) is being grown this year by Ron Backer of Surrey Farms in Brewster. He picked the blues at first because they're colorful and eye-catching and sell like crazy at the markets. Plus they come in around mid-July, in between the early potatoes and the late summer batch, which just so happens to be perfect timing for Ron. But he also decided on them because if he harvests them the right way, he can make them last a month, or maybe even more. He picks them without pulling the plant, by digging his hand into the dirt and feeling around and then—aha!—pinching the purple tubers off. Not every potato variety is amenable to all this reaching-under-its-roots, but the Cape Cod blue seems to tolerate it well. Each week, Ron picks however many pounds of the blue potatoes he thinks he'll sell, and then the next goes back for more. He thinks he has another week or two of this before the gold gives out.

The best part about this picking method is that he can leave the Cape Cod blue plants to self-seed for next year. This saves him the $10 to $15 a pound on seed potatoes, and means that so long as he makes a map of where the crop grew the year before, he can head out in the spring and find a brand new patch of seedlings. Of course, he has to replant them in a new spot in order to avoid pests and diseases (like this year's late blight, which thankfully has yet to hit Ron's farm), but other than that, it's a piece of cake. Transplant, pick, over-winter, and transplant again. Voilá!

All of this easy-pick-and-plant business has given him plenty of time to brainstorm recipes. Like the recipe he came up with for blue potato salad, involving balsamic and peppers and plenty of fresh red onions, sliced.


When I made it I tweaked it a little bit—beefed it up with dill, and mayo, and a little bit of lemon juice—but the basic structure came from Ron. He likes his with a bit of Dijon mustard mixed in, but between the dill and the balsamic I thought we had enough going on. So go ahead—it might not look like your typical potato salad, all russet and cream—but I promise, once you take a bite, you really won't give a hoot.

BLUE POTATO SALAD

In addition to being very, very tasty, blue potatoes are also much richer in anti-oxidants than the plain old white or yellow kind. In my book, that gives you license to make yourself one plate of this salad, and then go back for more.

2 and 1/2 pounds blue potatoes, diced, boiled, and cooled
2 fresh red onions, thinly sliced
2 green peppers, chopped fine
1 bunch dill, chopped fine
1 cup mayonnaise, preferably homemade
balsamic vinegar to taste (I used 2 tablespoons)
sugar to taste (I used 1 teaspoon)
salt and pepper to taste
a squirt of lemon juice

Pull the cool potatoes out from the fridge and dump them into a large mixing bowl. Add the red onions, the green peppers, and the dill. Measure out the mayonnaise in a large measuring cup and whisk in the balsamic, sugar, salt and pepper, and lemon juice until you have a dressing you like. Pour this dressing over the vegetables and toss well. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

The Local Food Report: a winter market in Rhode Island

If you have never been to a winter farmers' market, I think you should get in your car right now and begin steering toward Pawtucket, Rhode Island, looking for signs like these:

(poster image courtesy of Semap)

Actually, you should probably wait until Saturday morning, since that's the day the Pawtucket market is held, but you know what I mean. I am all business when it comes to this.

Why on earth should you listen?

Well, for starters, if you like cheese, you ought to sit up and pay attention. They have the best ricotta cheese in the world at this market, made by Naragansett Creamery. And if you like nice greens, and liver for making paté, and dried beans, and homemade, homegrown salsa, and artisanal chocolates, and fresh baked bread, you should be there. And if you even begin inching towards your car at the mere mention of trotters (pigs feet! soft! tender! succulent! exotic!) then you should definitely go. Because they have all this stuff, and more.

You should also check out the cooking demonstrations while you're there. Every week, a group of students and a chef from the Johnson & Wales culinary program show up, shop the market, and start cooking something up. They use what they find that day to create an absolutely enticing dish, and then they start handing out the recipe. The day I visited, a guy named Chef David was making a winter veggie hash. It looked very, very good, and so I tucked the recipe flyer into my pocket and made sure to pick up all the ingredients before I made my way home.

In my own kitchen, it was just as good as it had smelled at the market. It's not that the pan-browned potatoes were all that—they weren't groundbreaking or unique, just a typical breakfast hash—but they were a good reminder of what to do with a heap of winter market fixings and a few fresh eggs.

I should add that I sprinkled in a pinch of cumin to mix it up a little and also swapped some of the potatoes for turnips and added in some frozen summer squash, zucchini, and eggplant. Oh! and I sprinkled the piping hot final product with a bit of grated cheddar, which I heartily endorse as a fine touch.


All in all, I'd say hash browns are the perfect way to start a Sunday morning—which, incidentally—dawns right after Saturday's market. Imagine that.

CHEF DAVID'S WINTER HASH

2 cups potatoes, diced
1 cup turnips, diced
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 onion, diced
1 cup chopped zucchini, summer squash, and/or eggplant
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated

In a medium-size bowl, toss potatoes and turnips with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon curry powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Heat up a large cast iron skillet, and throw in potatoes and turnips. Cook until they begin to soften, stirring occasionally. (This can take 20 to 30 minutes.)

In the same bowl, toss vegetables (mine were frozen, then thawed, then drained to help remove some of the liquid, and chopped finely) with the remaining olive oil, curry powder, salt and pepper to taste, and all of the onion. When the potatoes and turnips are almost done, throw this veggie mixture in and cook for several minutes longer.

Serve hot, with grated cheese sprinkled over top (it should melt and blend in). An egg over easy makes a nice accompaniment, along with a bit of hot sauce.

The Local Food Report: Red Russian Kale

Kale, you are one tough cookie. February, the coldest month, and you're still going strong. Even under a blanket of snow?

You have some serious hutspa, that's for sure. From what I've gathered, it's a build up of sugar that makes you so strong. You use the sugar to push water from inside your cells into the extracellular zone, where it can freeze without doing you any harm. Now who came up with that?

Whoever it was, I think we both owe them a tremendous thank-you. You survive the winter, and we have charming winter greens. Hurrah!

The funny thing is, the person I met you through planted you by mistake. She meant to plant Eastham turnips, but picked your seeds up instead. I'm guessing you knew that all along, but chose not to say anything. I understand.


But the long and the short of it is, you turned out to be a wonderful mistake. Not necessarily financially, as you require quite a bit more work, but for those of us who simply can't take another day of root vegetables. In that department, you've been a miracle worker. Especially for the shoppers at Orleans' Phoenix Fruits. You get dropped off there most weeks—when the snow has melted for a moment or two, allowing your planter to pick—in a big, red, bushy case. She thaws you out in a bowl of warm water, lets you regain your strength, pats you dry, and you're off. You're Red Russian kale, after all, not just some everyday face. You could run out any day, any storm now, but that's okay. You're doing everything you can to see us through.


I like you especially in soups. The other day your planter left you for me in a cooler by her field, and I conjured up a big, burly pot of Portuguese kale soup: sausage and Maine kidney beans, stored potatoes, onions, and garlic, a bit of beef broth, and crushed tomatoes I'd put up towards the end of summer. It is one of my very favorite soups. You cooked down to the perfect consistency—hardly limp and lifeless like spinach—but instead soldiering on, limber and proud.

I can't thank you enough.

PORTUGUESE KALE SOUP

adapted from a recipe that Mac's Seafood serves at their clam shack on the Wellfleet Town Pier

1/2 to 1 pound (depending on which of these you choose, and how "meaty" you want the soup to be) sausage, chorizo, or linguica, in bite-sized bits
1 medium-sized white onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups red kidney beans, soaked overnight, or until soft (simmer in water before adding to soup, if needed)
3 medium-sized potatoes, diced
1 quart crushed tomatoes
1 quart beef broth
1 large bunch kale (I used Red Russian, but whatever you can find locally will work)
salt and pepper to taste

Sauté whatever meat you choose in a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot over medium-high heat. When it has rendered a good amount of fat, add onions and garlic, and sauté until translucent. Next add potatoes, sauté for several minutes more, and then kidney beans. Keep stirring and season with salt and pepper to taste (but remember you will be adding beef broth, which adds salt).

Deglaze the pan with about a cup of the beef broth, let it reduce by about half, and add the rest along with the crushed tomatoes. Depending on how juicy your crushed tomatoes are, you may need to add a bit of water at this point. Bring soup to a boil and simmer, uncovered, for about 15 to 20 minutes. Throw in the kale and taste again for salt and pepper, adding seasoning as needed. Continue stirring from time to time, and cook until liquid has reduced by about 1/3 to 1/2 and has formed a nice, slightly thick broth.

Serve hot. This soup is especially good peasant style, with a chunk of hard white cheese and a hunk of county sourdough.

The Local Food Report: Aunt Birdie's Potato Salad

Time was, potato salad was composed mainly of potatoes. In years since, it's grown cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, and eggs, and gotten rather heavy with the mayonnaise.

I don't have a problem with getting gussied up, but neither do I like to every day. I'd guess that's how a ruby-skinned potato feels, too. Today's recipe is from Ruth Reichl—it's her Aunt Birdie's potato salad I toyed with giving you after our last interview—but it seemed better suited somehow to the mood today. We talked a lot this week about the new president, and all Reichl's hopes for him in the realm of food. Given the magnitude of what she's wishing on in terms of food and tax policy from the Obama kitchen, it seemed only fair to keep things straightforward when it came to the cooking itself.

Her Aunt Birdie's potato salad was just the thing. It's simple, spare, and tasty, and it wouldn't mind waiting a few days. (Reichl says she likes it best after three.) It has a very, very short list of ingredients, and even the least dedicated locavore can find the produce involved from a nearby farm in the winter. It sets a very low bar, when it comes to presidential expectations.

But it is an important bar all the same. What if the Obamas ate potato salad in February, rather than on the fourth of July? What if they saved asparagus for April, strawberries for June, and ate their fill of pears in October? What if they not only did these things, but told the world about them, too? Think what a turn our national belly might take.

Aunt Birdie's potato salad isn't much, but it is a place to start. Just in case you haven't quite mustered the courage yet to jump in.

AUNT BIRDIE'S POTATO SALAD

adapted from Ruth Reichl's recipe in her 1971 cookbook, Mmmmm: A Feastiary

3 pounds small potatoes
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 medium onion
1/2 cup cider vinegar

Dice potatoes, leaving skins on. Place in a large pot and cover with water. Boil until tender, then drain and put into a serving bowl. Toss with oil and honey and salt and pepper to taste. Finely chop onion, and mix in. Dilute vinegar slightly with water, bring to a boil in a saucepan, and pour over top. Let sit for several hours, or even several days.

Here are some links for more information on what we covered in today's radio interview:
The Who Farm (remember, the garden on top of a bus?) and Eat the View (check out their video on the history of gardening the White House Lawn).

The Local Food Report: purslane potato salad

Early in June, my garden was overrun with weeds. I found them struggling beneath the squash, sneaking up between the tomatoes, and towering above the dainty green hair of a row of unsuspecting carrots. I battled them for weeks, pulling here and there until finally the earth was bald of all but its rightful occupants.

But like so many well-intended wars, it turned out there were a few innocents strewn across the field at arms' end. The very next week, I headed to the farmers market, only to discover that one of my weeds was a dining table gem.

Purslane, as the common succulent plant is called, is found all over backyards, fields, and untended gardens on the Cape. Its proponents use it in casseroles and dips as a substitute for spinach, while others eat it fresh in a mix with lettuces and kale and other summer greens. I'd had its seaside cousin, orach, or sea purslane, baked into a summer spanakopita as a child, though I never made the connection until the other day.

The leaves, with their slightly salty and sour taste, are unknown to most Americans despite their popularity in Europe and Asia. There, the plant is cultivated for use in stir-fries and soups, prized for its omega-3 fatty acids and dietary minerals. In Greece, it is used in folk medicine as a remedy for constipation and urinary inflammation, while Pliny is said to have touted the plant as a protector from evil, and Indians as a cure for liver disease.

Beyond its rumored health benefits, the crunchy leaves boast an excellent flavor. Several spicy, lemony bunches from the farmers' market have been quickly devoured at my house since discovering the plant. Just this week, however, I picked up a new bunch and decided to experiment with something new. Potato salad, I'd learned, was a popular Ikranian destination for the leaves, and so I set about chopping.

A half hour and a pile of dishes later, I found myself with a delicious room temperature summer salad. Simultaneously filling and light, it proved the perfect addition to a beach towel, a good book, and an afternoon on the dunes.

PURSLANE POTATO SALAD

Serves 4-6

In a medium pot, boil 5 cups chopped potatoes until tender. Drain and set aside to cool. In a bowl, mix 1 cucumber chopped into half moon slivers, 1 cup purslane leaves and buds (flowers and stalks are edible as well, if you choose), and 1 cup chopped scallions with greens. Add potatoes and mix well.

In a small, wide bowl, whisk 1 egg yolk until smooth. Drip in, whisking constantly, 1 cup olive oil, making sure to add slowly enough to keep mixture opaque. Add 1 teaspoon salt and 1-2 finely chopped Serrano peppers. Mix well. Spoon over potato and vegetable mixture (there may be some spicy mayo leftover; it will keep in the fridge for at least a week, if not longer), adding several tablespoons white wine or cider vinegar and fresh ground pepper and salt to taste. Toss well and serve at room temperature.