The Local Food Report: plum nutty

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.

The concept is this

Is anyone up for a lasagna today? I'm thinking a summer-in-the-winter, put-up pesto and tomato sauce and homemade bechamel type of gig. Takers? Yes? Ok.

There's only one hitch. I made this about a month ago, and although I can still remember the fabulous August brightness of the tomatoes and the way the pesto made me feel like maybe, just maybe it might be time for a pond swim that afternoon, I did not exactly write down the recipe. Not that I had a recipe to begin with, which is why I think this might be okay. The thing about lasagna is, you really don't need a recipe. You need to understand the concept, and the concept is this:

Find a box of noodles, the thick, flat kind with crinkly edges made for lasagna (or make some yourself). Get out a 9" by 13" casserole dish, and butter it up. Go down to your freezer, or open your pantry, and pull out a pint of that fantastic tomato sauce you made back when you couldn't even imagine the meaning of the words Wintery Mix. While you're at it, grab a half cup or so of the pesto you made with your neighbor's extra basil. Now root around in the fridge and hope for some milk, and butter, and mozzarella, and grab a few spoonfuls of flour and make a bechamel sauce. (Preferably this one, but if you have your own favorite, you just need a similar amount.)

At this point you could also get out some frozen spinach or pick some fresh from the greenhouse, and cook it down with a little bit of olive oil and garlic. Or maybe you have a freezer full of sundried tomatoes. Or, you could be into sauteed mushrooms. Whatever you're feeling here, go with it.


Finally, heat up a pot of water, add a pinch of salt, and boil those noodles. Now comes the hard part: drain the noodles, put them back in the pot, and drizzle some olive oil over them. The noodles will be hot, painfully hot, but if you're like me, you won't have any dishgloves so you'll go ahead and burn your hands, because you need to work quickly before they all stick together in a glob.

Spread a tiny blob of bechamel across the bottom of the casserole dish. Put a layer of noodles on top. Then a layer of tomato sauce, then more noodles, then maybe a few dollops of pesto and whatever vegetables you've got. Then another layer of noodles, and a smooth one of bechamel, and so on and so on. Until you've got a big, layered sandwich of tomatoes and noodles and pesto and vegetables and creamy, delightful sauce. Then, when you get to the top, layer on some slices of mozzarella and maybe even a bit of grated Parmesan.

And there you go. You've got yourself an oven-ready Winter-Into-Summer Lasagna. Happy Monday, everyone, and happy almost-March. Only 22 days until spring!

The Local Food Report: Carafoli's Sagamore

On September 15th, 1880, 500 Italians arrived in Sagamore to start digging the Cape Cod Canal. The work was short-lived—funding ran out four months later—but the community was not. More Italian immigrants came over in the early 1900s when work started again and slowly, in Sagamore Village, an Italian community was formed.

That's John Carafoli. His grandparents were amongst those who came to Sagamore looking for work, and he's one of the few who still remembers Italian Sagamore. His mother passed away when he was eleven, and as a way of trying to hold onto her, he started hanging out in the kitchens of the neighborhood women, watching them cook and bring in squash and grapes and tomatoes from the garden and getting their techniques down. Then he'd go home and try to recreate the dishes for his father and aunt and brother—lasagnas and jams and breads and sweet pastas.

By the time he left Sagamore and went out into the world, he had a whole childhood of recipes to draw from. He started working with food—these days, he's a world-reknowned food stylist and recipe developer—and the recipes acted like a sort of bridge. They took him back to Italy to trace particular pastas and breads and back to his grandparents' city of Bologna to learn about their language and culture. The recipes kept him connected him not just with his mother, but also with his Italian heritage and the Sagamore Village of his past.


There's one Sagamore woman in particular who John talks about a lot. Her name was Mafalada Maiolini, but in the kitchen, he called her Muffy. She taught him to make brassadella, a sweet, dry coffee cake from Verona that involves a top roll and a bottom roll and lots of hole poking in between, and savor, a sweet, dark jam made with leftover fruit at the end of the harvest season. When I talked with John a few weeks ago Muffy was still alive, but she passed away last Sunday, at the age of 96. In her obituary, it says that her kitchen was a gathering place for many friends—a nice way to be remembered, I think.

In Muffy's honor, John gave me this savor recipe to share. It's his—adapted from hers—honed by observation and friendship and the practice of years.

SAVOR

This is a time-consuming jam at first glance, but most of the work is in the simmering. If you can set aside two 6-hour chunks over two days to be around, you've done the hard part. This jam is traditionally made in the fall, with any leftover fruit from the harvest. Carafoli has planted his own orchard of pears, apples, figs, apricots, and peaches, and he's hoping to make savor from his own fruit next year.

6 large ripe pears
6 large ripe apples
6 large ripe peaches
1 pound Italian prune-plums or other plums
1 pound seedless red grapes
12 ounces fresh cranberries
12 pitted prunes
12 ounces pitted dried apricots
12 ounces dark raisins
zest of 2 oranges, removed in strips and minced
1 bottle red wine or saba
1 quart red grape juice
1 quart cranberry juice
1 cup cooked peeled chestnuts

Peel and core pears and apples; peel and pit peaches and plums. Cut into coarse 1-inch dice, and place in a nonreactive (like stainless steel) heavy-bottomed 8-quart pot. Add grapes, cranberries, prunes, apricots, raisins, and orange zest. Add wine or saba, grape juice, and cranberry juice and mix well.

Place pot over high heat and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce heat to its lowest possible setting, and simmer, uncovered, for 6 hours. Remove from heat and allow to sit, loosely covered, at room temperature overnight. (Sugar and acid in mixture will keep it from spoiling.)

The next day, uncover the pot and again bring to a boil. Reduce heat to lowest possible setting, and simmer for 6 more hours. Toward the end of cooking, stir frequently to prevent scorching.

Remove pot from heat; mixture will be very dark and thick. Place chestnuts in a food processor and process to make a mealy puree. Stir into cooked mixture. While mixture is still hot, pour into sterile jars and seal according to manufacturers' directions. Savor may also be covered and refrigerated for up to 4 months, or frozen in a tightly sealed container for up to 6 months.

Yield: 11 pints

The Local Food Report: Marmelada

Louiza Azancot is Portuguese, at least originally. She moved to D.C. in the eighties, and to Chatham a few years back, but if her kitchen is any indication, I think she's still Portuguese at heart. I met her at the Orleans Farmers' Market, where she was very carefully picking out quince for marmelada.

Marmelada, if you've never had it, is nothing like marmalade. It is made of quince, not oranges, and although it is a kind of fruit preserve, it is much more firm than the citrus stuff. It's so hard that the Portuguese eat it in slices, alongside a piece of banana maybe or plain or with a hunk of cheese. It's sweet, and pink, and almost floral in the way it smells and tastes.

Louiza learned to make it from her mother, and she's been looking for quince on the Cape now for four years. Someone brought in a batch from Westport the other day—from Noquochoke Orchards—and when Louiza saw the fruit, she was thrilled. Marmelada is a lot of work, she says—boiling and slicing and straining and canning—but it's worth it in the end. It's a tradition from a poor country, and the whole point is to cook down the fruit into a state where it will survive the winter—in bowls covered with parchment paper, left to dry on a cool windowsill. That way, when all that's around is bitter oranges and cheese, people have a reminder of plenty, something to eat.

Of course, these days, Louiza could just go to the supermarket in January for fruit or store away a root cellar of apples, but she says she'd rather not do that. It's tradition, and besides, eating strawberries in the middle of the winter—it's weird. She'd rather eat marmelada, lots of it—even if that's all there is six months of the year.


Click on over here to see what farms in our region are growing quince. And know that for the next few weeks at least, vendors will be selling quince from Noquochoke Orchards in Westport at the farmers' markets in Provincetown and Orleans.

LOUIZA AZANCOT'S MARMELADA

These are rough measurements. Louiza says she doesn't measure; she just tastes and adjusts. Don't be afraid to improvise—according to Louiza, that's what it's all about.

several pounds quince
a pinch of salt
lemon rind
1 cinnamon stick
granulated sugar

Peel and chop the quince. Reserve the skin and the core and put the flesh of the fruit in a pot with cold water (this will stop it from oxidizing). The water should cover the fruit. Add the salt, lemon rind, and cinnamon stick. Bring everything to a boil and simmer until the fruit is very soft.

Turn off the heat and remove the lemon rind and the cinnamon. Strain the fruit and reserve the water.

Blend the quince to a smooth puree using a blender or food processor. Weigh the puree. Put it back in a heavy-bottomed pot and add 2/3 of its weight in sugar. Cook the sugared puree, mixing it gently with a wooden spoon so that it does not coat the bottom of the pot. When you can carve a "runway" and see the bottom of the pan, the marmelada is ready. (The longer it cooks the harder it gets and then it is easier to slice. )

Pour the marmelada into bowls, and cover the surface of the preserve with rounds of parchment paper. Let them dry for a day or two on the counter of a windowsill; then store in a cool, dry place, or in the refrigerator. Stored properly, the preserve should keep through the winter.

GELEIA DE MARMELO

Louiza makes quince jelly with the reserved cores and skin from the quince, after she's finished the marmelada. She says it's much softer and more like a typical jelly—the kind you spread on toast.

reserved quince cores and skin (see marmelada recipe, above)
quince cooking water (again, see above)
granulated sugar

Combine the reserved cores and skin and cooking water in a large pot. Bring to a boil over high heat and turn down to low. Simmer for at least an hour, or until the water is reduced by half.

Take the pot off the heat and strain and filter the juice to remove any impurities. Measure the water. For each pint of liquid add a pound of sugar. Combine the sugar and the strained juice in a heavy-bottomed pot and bring the mixture to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer. When the juice begins to sheet off a spoon, it has reached the gelling point. Pour it into hot, sterile, jars, and seal with sterile lids. The jelly will keep for a year un-opened.

The Local Food Report: Beach plum jelly—and jam

Some people go a bit nutty over beach plums. Like Alex's grandmother—three years ago, when we had the big year, she made over 250 jars of beach plum jelly. This year, she's already up to 192.

Len Campanelli got sucked in last year, and this year, for his stand at the Provincetown Farmers' Market, he's made hundreds of jars. He kind of wishes he had never heard of beach plums some days—making the jelly is a hellish process, he says—but he can't stop. The picking, the boiling, the straining—it's a labor of love. He picks from where he lives in South Dennis all the way out to Provincetown, tasting and refining which berries he takes along the way. A good plum is small and dark, he says, sort of like a big blueberry.

He doesn't let a single bit of the fruit go to waste—after he's strained off the juice for jelly, he pushes the pulp through a colander to make jam. The jam doesn't need quite so much sugar, he says, and it's a bit thicker, which means it takes less time on the stove. The jelly can take up to a week of on and off simmering—turning the burner on low when he's home.


When it comes down to it, it's the tradition of beach plum jelly that keeps him on. The fruit is an indigenous, native plant—Prunus maritima—and preserving it is a way of letting visitors take a little piece of this sandy land home. It's a tradition of remembering—of tucking away those last, short days of Indian summer—to hold on to until next time rolls around.

[If you're into preserves, Alex's grandmother's recipe for beach plum jelly is over here, and I'm posting another one for beach plum jam below. If you're not, there are other options: there's a list of stands and farms and markets that sell beach plum jelly over here.]

BEACH PLUM JAM

This recipe comes from a little cookbook devoted entirely to beach plums—Plum Crazy by Elizabeth Post Mirel. Beach plum jam can be a bit more work than beach plum jelly, but if you tend to like thicker, more robust spreads, you will find there's an excellent reward for your work.

2 cups pitted beach plums
2 cups sugar
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup orange juice

Cut the beach plums into small pieces. Place the ingredients in a large, non-reactive pot, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the fruit is soft and the liquid is the consistency of a thin syrup. Stir occasionally.

Pour the jam into sterile jars. Seal and leave overnight to cool; the jelly will keep up to a year.

Yield: About 2 cups.

The Local Food Report: hot pepper jam

If you've been around here for a while, you know by now that Clare Bergh has a way of collecting seed varieties. First came the tomatoes, then the eggplants, and the garlic. This summer, it's hot peppers—she's hooked.

Her table at the Orleans farmers' market is a mosaic of reds, yellows, purples, greens. She labels the peppers by heat range, according to a system known as the Scoville Scale. If you've never heard of it, the basic idea is this: a guy named Wilbur Scoville came up with a method for testing the amount of capsaicin—the chemical compound that makes our mouths feel spice—in hot peppers. Based on the decisions of Scoville's taste testers, the amount of capsaicin different peppers contain and how spicy they are as a result can now be found on charts. Bell peppers, for example, have zero Scoville Heat Units, while law enforcement grade pepper sprays rate at over five million.

If you squint at the photo of Clare's peppers up there, you can tell from the numbers that the Giant Thai Hots are significantly less spicy than the Golden Nuggets to their right. Here's a chart of where all Clare's hot peppers rank on the Scoville Scale, to give you a little bit more specific idea of what I mean:

3,000:
Czech's Black
Jalapeno

5,000:
Jalapeno Heaven
Serrano Tampequino

8,000:
Giant Thai Hot

20,000:
Fluorescent Purple
Haiti Cluster

25,000:
Hot Lemon

30,000:
Cayenne Long Purple
Cayenne Long Red
Ho Chi Minh
Lemon Chile

50,000:
Las Cruces Chile

80,000:
Golden Nugget
Thai Hot

100,000:
Georgia Flame

125,000:
Hinkelhatz

250,000:
Fatali

300,000:
Habanero Lemon
Habanero White

350,000:
Habanero Orange

450,000:
Habanero Caribbean Red
Habanero Chocolate

Personally, I probably will never make it very far beyond Jalapeno Heaven. I am a terrible wimp when it comes to spice, and although I will gladly eat your pickled Jalapenos off a Greek salad, I cannot endure even the slightest hint of Scotch Bonnet or Habanero. Clare claims that she can't either, at least not raw, and that this is where friends come in handy, friends like Ben.

(Ben is Ben Chung—the guy who sells quail eggs and all sorts of garlics and herbs at the Orleans Farmers Market and, incidentally, also the same Ben Chung who has a practice downtown as a dentist—and he is not afraid of hot peppers in the least. Clare found a new cultivar growing wild in her garden this year, and he happily gave it a taste—raw!—and suggested a number for the scale.)

But while she might not go nibbling raw peppers the way Ben does, Clare is not afraid to cook even the hottest peppers into a jam. She wears gloves, to protect her fingers and (later) her eyes, and she cooks Jalapenos and Habaneros and plain old bell peppers down with vinegar and honey. Something about the combination soothes the spice of the hot peppers, she says, so that the jam is easily spreadable on toast or hot dogs or piled up on hamburgers even for "non-chile heads."


Next week, I plan to give it a try. If you get there before me, let me know how things go, okay? Oh, and if you're growing any hot pepper varieties, let us know, on the Scoville Scale, where they stand. I'm not sure if it will be for drying, or for paste, or for jam, but one of these days, I'd like to try growing some myself.

HOT PEPPER JAM

To use Clare's words, "Even with all these hot peppers, this jam's not too hot for the non-chile heads." So long as you use gloves and avoid pouring warm or hot liquid over any of the hot pepper seeds or scraps (the steam can carry the spice and burn your nose and eyes), you should be safe from even the habaneros. Enjoy!

1 dozen bell peppers (use red, yellow, and orange for a colorful jam)
10 Habanero peppers
10 Serrano or Jalapeno peppers
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup white vinegar
1 and 1/2 cups honey (or 3 cups sugar)

Wash canning jars and lids and place jars in a boiling water bath.

Wash, seed, then chop the peppers in a food processor. They will be wet—drain any excess liquid and combine the pulp with the remaining ingredients in a large, non-reactive soup pot. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil gently for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the volume of the jam is reduced by half and it thickens enough to sheet from a spoon.

Ladle the hot jam into hot, sterile jars (they need 10 minutes in a boiling water bath with at least an inch of water covering the tops of the jars), leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe the rim of the jars with a dish towel dipped in boiling water to make sure they are clean, and seal tightly with lids and bands dipped in boiling water.

Turn the sealed jars upside down and leave overnight; in the morning, check the seals. Any jars that for some reason do not seal can be put in the fridge to be used right away; the others will store in a dry, dark place for up to a year.

Ratatouille

The next cool evening—tonight, or maybe tomorrow, before it hikes up into the eighties again on Wednesday—do this:

Get out a heavy bottomed pot, and some tired eggplant, and a few cracked tomatoes from the garden. Find a green pepper in the fridge, and some summer squash or zucchini, and pull a cutting board out from the shelf. Sharpen the chef's knife, pull down a colander, and cut the eggplant and squash into rounded cubes. Toss the vegetables with salt and leave them to sit—for fifteen minutes, maybe, a half hour—until the moisture pools out of them in little drips.

In the meantime, chop an onion, flick on a burner, crank the radio. Listen to the news and the breeze and the motorcycle that revs up at sunset down the street. Mince a few cloves of garlic from the plant you just pulled up outside, wait for the oil to get hot. Brown the eggplant and then the squash, sipping on a cold beer while your work. Give the onions their turn next—their turn to sizzle, to brown, to sweat. Add the garlic and the tomatoes and let them sputter, simmer, watching the juices steam up and out through the screen. Turn the heat down, finish your beer, and add the eggplant and squash back in. Then taste—add a pinch of salt, let the ratatouille cool down, and get out a stack of containers for the freezer.

This is not—not today, at least—dinner. Make something else easy—a salad maybe, or a stack of sliced tomatoes and basil with fresh cheese—this ratatouille is for January, or February, or maybe March. It's for ratatouille pie, ratatouille plain on pasta, ratatouille baked with two eggs and cheese—in a season where nothing growing is so bright, so warm, so red.


RATATOUILLE PRESERVE

My mother has been making this ratatouille from The Victory Garden Cookbook for as long as I can remember. She puts it up in pints, as each ratatouille pie—essentially a quiche with bacon and mozzarella and ratatouille in it—uses two cups of the preserve.

1 pound eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 pound zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
salt
olive oil
1 pound onions, roughly chopped
3-4 medium size garlic cloves, minced
2 pounds tomatoes, cored and roughly chopped
1/4 pound green or red peppers, seeded and roughly chopped (0ptional)
freshly cracked pepper

In a large colander, toss the eggplant and zucchini with salt (roughly a tablespoon). Set the colander aside in the sink for 15-30, so that the salt can draw the moisture out of the vegetables and the juices can drain.

Place the eggplant and zucchini on a clean dishtowel, and pat them dry. Turn the heat up to medium-high under a large, heavy-bottomed pot, add a bit of olive oil, and drop the eggplant and zucchini in. Sauté for 3-4 minutes, or until the zucchini is soft and the eggplant browned. Spoon the vegetables out of the pot and set them aside.

Leave the heat on medium high and add another glug of olive oil to the pan. Sauté the onions for 5-8 minutes, turning the heat down to medium after a few minutes and sweating them until they get soft and translucent. Add the garlic, sauté for thirty seconds or so, and add the tomatoes and the green peppers if you're using them. Cover the pan and cook for 3-4 minutes, then take the top off and turn the heat up to medium high again. Cook "briskly" until the juices have evaporated, about 5 minutes. Add the eggplant and zucchini, then season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for another 5 minutes, or until the extra juice from these vegetables evaporates, then turn off the heat and cool to room temperature.

Pack into pint containers for freezing; this recipe should yield 3-4 pints.

Suddenly, abruptly

I left for a few days and like that—!—the black raspberries are in. Six foot high plants are reaching dark crowns toward the sky, plants that just last spring were transplants. They came from our friend Tracy's yard, from the patch that was overflowing from Dotty's yard into hers over the fence. We planted them in a neat, orderly patch with the goldens and the reds, and all summer long they struggled just to send out leaves, put down roots. They looked so scraggly I was going to pull them this year—and then—when I got home from Maine, they were suddenly, abruptly overflowing with fruit.

Funnily enough, I'd never had a black raspberry before the other day. I'd had black raspberry candies, of course, and black raspberry popsicles, but I'd never tasted the real, fresh thing. Once I did, I understood why: secretly, black raspberries straight from the plant aren't really our thing.

I have a feeling other people would agree. Black raspberries are different from the reds and the goldens—sweeter, with less flavor, and more artificial tasting somehow. The first day the bumper crop came in, Alex picked a quart, brought them inside, and then promptly declined to sprinkle them on his breakfast cereal. And so although my mother and I had just finished sealing the lids on 43 pints of strawberry jam, I waited a day, picked another two cups and a handful of lemon-thyme, and started again.


As it turns out, black raspberries are perfectly suited to jam. They crush easily, soak up the sugar, brighten with lemon-thyme and lemon juice, and thicken up fast. Like red raspberries they have a good amount of pectin, so you don't need to add chunks of apple the way you do with blackberries in order to get them to set. Their flavor deepens, mellows somehow, into something real, something solid, something good.

I think in fact, that if you were to look into it, you'd find that the higher purpose of black raspberries is jam. I think you'd find they're intended to be grown with lemon-thyme in sandy soil, and to move from the back yard to the kitchen together, under a hot, sticky July sun, filling quart after quart and jar after jar, again and again and again.

BLACK RASPBERRY & LEMON-THYME JAM

I made this recipe up, inspired by the lemon-thyme growing crazily, happily underneath the black raspberry patch. The two seemed like natural partners—and the finished jam confirmed that they do, indeed, go handsomely together. [One note: don't substitute regular thyme; it is a completely different beast.] This jam is all at once tart, flavorful, and sweet. It's the kind of thing you want to eat on toast, over yogurt, or maybe even folded into a batch of sweet corn ice cream. We'll see.

6 cups fresh black raspberries
1 tablespoon fresh lemon-thyme
4 cups granulated sugar
juice of 1 lemon

Combine the black raspberries and lemon-thyme in a large, non-reactive pot. Crush the berries using a potato masher and add the sugar and the lemon juice. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Turn the heat down to medium low and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes, or until the jam sheets off the spoon.

(When you first start cooking the jam, pull your spoon out and watch the way the liquid drips off of it. The drops will be light and syrupy at first. As the jam continues to boil, the drops will get heavier, and eventually, they will come together to form a fluid sheet as they come off the spoon. This is the setting point.

Another good way to keep an eye on the consistency is to put a small spoonful of jam on a plate every few minutes. It will cool quickly, and when it does, you'll be able to see how the jam, at this stage, will set.)

Keep watching or testing until you get the consistency you like, then turn the heat off. If you want to put up the jam, pour it into sterile jars and seal. Screw the lids on tightly and leave the jars upside down to cool overnight; be sure to check the seals in the morning before putting them in a cool, dark place.

Otherwise, put your jars in the fridge or give them away to very nice friends, and enjoy the jam at once, however you please.

Yield: about 4 cups plus a little bit of extra for eating fresh.

We will be back

Fisher and I just wanted to say that we are home in Maine for a visit for a few days. We are very busy—turning forty quarts of strawberries into homemade jam and celebrating birthdays and anniversaries and 84 years of a long, full life—but we will be back here soon. In the meantime, Fisher has come up with something to keep you entertained: an act in which he stars as himself, balancing a spear of asparagus on his nose.

We'll see you Thursday, everyone.

Of magnificent firsts

This week was a week of magnificent firsts.

For starters, I took my first pond swim. Wednesday was the first day the heat broke 80, and I drove out to Great Pond and dove in. I took my first bike ride through the woods to the beach at Newcomb's Hollow, and at the restaurant, we were busy—crazy busy—for the first time this year.

Best of all, I stole the first four ripe red berries from my strawberry patch.

This was especially exciting in light of what happened last year. This year, if these four early berries have anything to say, is going to be a much better one as far as strawberries go. It has been months since we ate the last of my mother's jam from '08 and the few small jars from '09, and as soon as possible, I plan to rectify that.

In the meantime, I'll be eating our strawberries straight from the dirt, dipped in cream.

LIZ PIERSON'S STRAWBERRY JAM

When we make this, it's an all-family, all-day event. We leave for the pick-your-own fields (Prout's in Bowdoin, Maine) around seven, have 40 quarts home by ten, and spend the rest of the morning washing, hulling, and watching the pots on the stove. One note: we do not slice the berries, and I think this is key. It makes for big globs of berries in the finished jam, a texture that I adore.

6 cups strawberries, washed and hulled
4 cups granulated sugar

Get out a large, non-reactive pan, put the berries in, and crush them gently with a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon. Cook over medium-low heat for about five minutes, stirring frequently, until they begin to release their juices. Add the sugar and stir until it's dissolved. Turn up the heat to medium-high and bring the berries and sugar to a light boil.

Cook, stirring frequently, until the jam sheets off the spoon. (When you first start cooking the jam, pull your spoon out and watch the way the liquid drips off of it. The drops will be light and syrupy at first. As the jam continues to boil, the drops will get heavier, and eventually, they will come together to form a fluid sheet as they come off the spoon. This is the jellying point.)

Spoon out a little bit of jam onto a plate and let it cool. If it has a good consistency, pour it immediately into sterile jars. (If not, continue cooking until you feel it has the thickness you want.) Wipe the rims with a cloth dipped in boiling water and seal the jars with sterile lids. Check the seal by leaving the jars to cool on a dishtowel overnight—if they didn't seal, there will be juice oozing out.

Once it's put up, the jam is good for at least a year.

P.S. There's a list of places that do pick-your-own strawberries in our area over here. Tony Andrews Farm in East Falmouth is currently open for pick-your-own seven days a week, from eight to noon. I'll see you there!

The Local Food Report: a rabble-rouser

Everyone, say hello to a Mr. Black Currant. He's sort of an outlaw around here, a rabble-rouser of sorts, but he's worth getting to know. So are his cousins, White and Red.

Black Currant got into trouble when he started bringing White Pine Blister around—a miserable, highly contagious rust that can cause a white pine tree to heave its last breath. Red and White and another cousin, Gooseberry, got in on it too, and trees started keeling over left and right. These were tall, stately, important trees—ship's masts and dining room tables and whole staircases worth. So the government intervened, told the whole Ribes family to pack their bags and leave almost every state in the U.S. The worry, of course was that the tart, juicy berries would topple whole commercial forests, collapsing an industry as they went.

Instead, they collapsed the berry supply.

Sixty years later, in 1966, once the hubbub had quieted down, the feds shifted the decision to the states' realm, letting them decide whether they were comfortable with the berries or not. In New York in 2003, nearly a century after they'd been sent away, the outlaw Black Currant was let back in. Vermont, Connecticut, and Oregon followed suite, but the rest of New England still hasn't allowed that.

For the other members of the family—Red Currant and White Currant and Gooseberry and even a fellow they call Jostaberry—Massachusetts has a tangled, tricky set of laws: they're banned in 137 cities and towns statewide; anyone else is free to go online and order up a plant. But this really doesn't help much. As you might imagine, between all the yellow tape and the hunting around for legal terms, the Ribes berries still aren't particularly popular. Hardly anyone grows them, and those that do tend to eat their whole stash or turn it into jellies and desserts.

Except for Andy Pollock, who grows in Dartmouth and sells at the farmers markets in Provincetown and Falmouth and Vineyard Haven and Plymouth. He has the tangy red berries, the dark, veined gooseberries, and the ivory, champagne-tinged whites. He started growing them, he said, because they were unusual, and this year the plants will turn three.

He sells the fruits in tiny, 1/2-pint containers, for $3 and $4. He says it depends on the day—sometimes they sell like hotcakes, other mornings they hang around hour after hour, languishing in the heat. He looks for Northern Europeans—Brits or Swedes or Ukrainians—because they know the fruit well. Over there, currants are still prolific, common wild and in markets all summer long. Here, between the bans and our preference for sweet over tart, we never really got acquainted very well.

It's a shame we didn't, because though they might be rabble-rousers, currants are good. The red ones are good plain, in a pop-in-your-mouth sort of way, and the white ones are excellent in a glass of champagne. The black currants I find a bit strong, much better suited to topping a lamb chop or a duck breast as a rich, simmered sauce than to eating raw, but good nonetheless. As for the gooseberries, well, I think they fall somewhere in between.

(I've never seen a jostaberry in my life. If you have, do tell.)

I'm still very much in that awkward, getting-to-know-you phase with these fruits, but one thing I do know is they make very good jam. I tried my hand at a batch the other day—half red currants, half white currants, and plenty of sugar—and it came out just right. Currants naturally have plenty of pectin, so it was a breeze to set, and the flavor is the perfect balance of tart and sweet. There are more ideas for what to do with currants over here, but if you're just getting introduced, this jam is a very good place to start.

CURRANT JAM

Most people make currant jelly, not jam, because they don't like the seeds, but I've always preferred to leave them in. (Call me crazy, but that feeling you get when raspberry seeds are stuck between your teeth on a lazy summer afternoon? It makes me absolutely delirious.) If you're more of a goes-down-smooth type, this recipe can be easily adjusted. Simply heat up the berries alone, without the sugar, and once they're soft, strain out the seeds and skins. Save the juice and for every cup of liquid add a cup of sugar. Cook the mixture over the stove in a small, heavy-bottomed pot, following the instructions below for figuring out when it has set and is ready to put into jars.

This recipe doesn't make much—just about a cup of jam—but it can be easily multiplied. I didn't buy many currants, as they're kind of expensive and I wasn't sure just yet if I would like the results of this jam foray, but I can now say that it was well worth it. In fact, next time I think I'd buy at least a quart of berries, maybe even two.

Oh! and I wouldn't try this with black currants, if you can find them, because they have a very, very different taste. Gooseberries might be okay, but I think I'd mix them with red currants for that characteristic bright taste.

1 cup currants (I used equal parts red and white, which I thought worked quite well)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water

Combine the berries, sugar, and water in a small, heavy-bottomed pot. Cook over low heat, mashing the currants into a pulp with a ricer or a fork as they cook, and stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to a gentle boil and simmer until the jam sheets off a spoon. Take care not to overcook it, as currants have plenty of pectin and can firm up a little too much, into a substance much more like rock candy than a condiment if they're left on the stove too long.

(If you're nervous that you might not be able to tell when the moment arrives, try dribbling a bit of jam onto a plate every now and again and letting it cool. Tilt the plate, and if it moves like jam rather than water, you're there.)

Pour the hot fruit mixture into a Mason jar* and let it cool overnight. It makes an excellent topping for a hot English muffin with butter, and is also good combined with a bit of horseradish and mustard as a sauce for rich meats like beef and lamb.

*Be sure to take the proper sterilization steps for the jar and the lid if you're planning to keep the jam in the cupboard; these instructions are intended for a jar that will be tucked into the refrigerator and eaten up very soon.

Itching to get back

I have a confession to make. Before I cooked for you this weekend, I hadn’t made a single thing, not one thing, for a week. Actually, I rounded down. Secretly, it was more like eleven days.

It was my official Spring Cooking Strike.

I don't know what came over me, but I felt awfully rebellious. The sun came out, the greenhouse warmed up, and I started itching to be outside. I went over to Cahoon Hollow to check out the waves, dreamt big dreams of orderly brick garden paths and neat picket fences and a brand-new raspberry patch, and frittered away a few lovely afternoons planting tomato seedlings and zucchini seeds and summer squash.

We made our way along with a big puddle of lamb shanks and sauce the fishmonger slaved over last Sunday (thank goodness someone was cooking), and some leftover sourdough bread and frozen carrot soup, and a few dinners at friends' houses. But by Friday, the jig was up. And to tell you the truth, I was itching to get back. I had a recipe for blackberry jam cake to try.

I found it in Carole Walter's book, Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins, & More, as part of my eternal search for the Wedding Cake. It was swirled with nutmeg and cinnamon, just a pinch of cloves, and almost an entire cup of thick, sweet jam. It sounded absolutely perfect for a jumping in endeavor.

It was. It helped with the pantry cleaning that's been going on around here recently—using up some jam, and a good deal of butter and flour and sugar and all that. Plus, it eeked the last drops from a jar of lemon extract, which went into an absolutely scrumptious glaze. It seemed somehow very spring: spicy, sweet, just barely hinting of sprouting grass and bare feet.

Plus, it's just mild enough to pass for a meal at breakfast or a snack come lunch or an after dinner dessert—an awfully important trait these days, when meals have been far and few between.

Happily, I think we may be past that. Or at least we will be, once I finish off this last slice of cake.

BLACKBERRY JAM SPICE CAKE

I think you could swap a cup or so of the all-purpose flour called for in this recipe for whole-wheat with excellent results, but I didn’t try it on the first go-round. Also, the original recipe called for seedless blackberry preserve, which is fine if that’s what you have, but I think chunky whole berries and seeds add far more character to the finished cake.

for the cake:

2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk or sour milk
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs
3/4 cup blackberry jam, preferably homemade
1 teaspoon vanilla

for the glaze:

1 tablespoon butter
2-3 tablespoons milk or cream
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon lemon extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9-inch bundt pan; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, spices, and salt. Combine buttermilk and baking soda, and let side for about 5 minutes.

In a medium-size mixing bowl, cream butter with both types of sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then add blackberry jam and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk alternately, mixing until just combined after each addition.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, using a spatula to clean the bowl and then smooth flat the surface of the batter in the pan. (It’s important to take the time to do this, otherwise when you flip your cake and place it on the stand, the bottom will be rounded and it will teeter around instead of sitting flat. Trust me; I found this out the hard way.)

Bake for about an hour, or until the cake starts to pull away from the edges of the pan and the top turns golden brown and begins to crack apart. Let it cool in the pan; in the meantime, melt the butter in a small, heavy-bottomed pot and mix in the other ingredients until smooth. If the icing doesn’t seem runny enough, add a bit more cream. Flip the cake onto a plate or cake stand, and drizzle the icing over it into a thin, ribbon-like pattern. Once the icing has hardened, enjoy with a cup of tea.

Quince, meet toast

This is what happens when you leave a quince unattended. I hate to admonish a fruit so early in the morning, but really, it's been quite out of hand.

I'd been watching it for nearly a month, when its bedfellows had disappeared rather suddenly into the steam pot, and finally come to rest in a batch of fruit leather. It had been softening, slowly, but no where near the pace of, say, an apple or a pear.

I had neglected it, certainly, but I hardly expected the redress I received this morning. I had tiptoed, sleepy eyed, into the kitchen in search of breakfast. I'd seen the quince, complacent, and halved it face down in a pan to poach. With the stove at a simmer and an inch or so of water in the pot, I hurried up to the shower to clean up for the day. By the time I returned, a chaotic hiss had broken loose. The water was gone, the quince black, and the pot bottom scorched beyond repair.

It seemed so personal, somehow, like the quince had known my plan and sat eager in rebellion. Still, I managed to quell my disappointment, scraped the burnt skin and seeds from the fruit's surface, and mashed the remaining flesh with a bit of water and sugar. I pinched in nutmeg and cinnamon, set it back on the stove, and watched carefully over my unruly charge.

By the time the toast was hot, fruit and spice had softened into a thick paste. With a bit of butter and spread like jam, it turned out far too good for rebuke.

QUINCE BUTTER

Serves 4 

Poach 1 quince until soft (taking care to continue adding water). Remove skin and core. Mash with 1/2 cup water, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until mixture thickens into a paste the consistency of apple or pumpkin butter. This makes enough spread to serve four on breakfast toast.

Quince leather

They started out as poached quince—the fruit leather, that is. I peeled the strange green crosses between apple and pair, sliced them down the middle, and set them in to boil. They simmered away, in honey and lemon, leaching tannins and rigidity until finally they sat, soft as mush.

The trouble was, the peculiar, impossibly hard fruits were now too soft. A few days earlier, when I'd picked them up at the market, this had been a mistake impossible to imagine. You could have thrown one from a moving car, stem and all, and found it still intact after the wheels ran it over.

A few of the poached halves were still good, of course, but most had gone over the tipping point from tender to mush. We ate those that hadn't, drizzled with the honey-lemon sauce, a sprinkle of salt, and a pinch of fresh ground nutmeg, and I threw those that had into the food processor.

I'd been wanting to make fruit leather for a long time now, to see if it was really possible like they said in the books. I'd never had the treat homemade, only bundled in plastic and tucked into lunchboxes, but I was eager to give it my best.

Without a dehydrator, this meant careful work. After pureeing the soft fruit with a few spoonfuls of honey, I spread it on a well-oiled cookie sheet with a thermometer on top, and sat down to work. Every hour or so, I turned on the oven to 200 degrees. The mercury shot up to 150, and I turned it off again—my attempt at a homemade machine.

With all but the middle strips, I overshot of course. Afraid of undercooking, I hardened the thin edges into long, brittle crisps. Relinquishing them to trial and error, I sat, marveling nonetheless, at the ones I'd managed. The morning's wet paste of fruit and honey had dried into a pliable, sticky sheet, just like those of the third-grade lunchroom. I took a bite; the flavor was there, and the texture, too, like a chewy bite of ambrosial nectar.

I wrapped what I'd made in thin, wax strips. The paper kept the leather from sticking; a rubber band offered to secure. Tomorrow, I'm hoping for another batch—this time, aiming for perfection.

QUINCE LEATHER

Fills 1 cookie sheet with 1/8 inch pulp layer

Poach 4 quince, peeled, seeded, and cut in half, in 3 cups water, 1 cup honey, and the peels and juice of 1 lemon. Bring to a boil and then simmer until tender, about one half hour, turning fruit occasionally.

Blend quince in food processor with several tablespoons honey. The mixture should be easily spreadable; if not, add more honey or a bit of the poaching liquid. Spread on a well-oiled cookie sheet or screen, and dry in the oven (kept around 135 degrees) for 4-8 hours. It helps to keep on the convection fan, if you have one. Midway through, when the paste is beginning to harden, cut the leather into strips and flip. This will make removal and drying faster and easier. When dry and pliable but not crisp, roll up in wax paper and tie or secure with rubber band.

Green tomatoes

I took down my tomato plants this morning. I stepped out in my p.j.'s and slippers, down the steps and onto the chilly, dew-laden path, and began to strip the vines bare. It would frost well before the green fruit had a chance to ripen, and besides, I had a winter garden to make way for.

Dismantling the plants reminded me of taking down the Christmas tree; I worked slowly, methodically, wrapping each fruit in newspaper and dropping it gently into my basket. The event brought the same twinge of sadness, too, for a season too quickly passed and long months ahead idle with anticipation. When every last green globe was gone, I tore up the roots and cages and walked back to the house.

The tomatoes I tucked away, like ornaments, on the top shelf of a basement closet. It was cool down there, and dry thanks to the dehumidifier, and the tomatoes would keep well in their paper sweaters til Christmas time, at least. Unwrapped one by one, they'd ripen on the windowsill upstairs, soaking up the warmth and light until finally they blazed red as an August fruit.

Perhaps we'd make them into a stew, or a hearty pasta; a bit of cheer on a dreary November day. But for now, they could settle in to wait.

TOMATOES IN PAPER

Pick green tomatoes at the end of the season and wrap them up individually in paper. Store them in a cool, dark room. Ripen as needed by unwrapping and exposing the tomatoes to warmth and light. They will keep for about three months.

The Jam Kitchen

I'd heard mention of the Jam Kitchen before. It was mythical, almost, brought up over a pot of homemade blackberry jam or a hot batch of tomato sauce with women gathered around the kitchen table. No one I'd spoken with had ever been there, but they all had a vision.

There were row upon row of solid cast iron burners, the rumors imagined; a stool and station for every girl; an old-fashioned, industrial line-up simultaneously beautiful and efficient.

When I arrived for the jam-making workshop at dusk last night, I finally saw the place with my own eyes. A woman stood, sorting cranberries and apples, lining up pots and spoons and a long row of bowls.

It was every bit as charming as they'd said it would be: white tin basins, wide blue floorboards, windows from stool to ceiling for sun-cooking preserves.

We sat down quickly and were put to work. Down went the apple corer, out popped eight thick slices and a cylindrical core, and the knife took the chopping from there. The cranberries we had to eye carefully, picking out bruises and wrinkles and a few rogue stems.

With the fruit ready, the woman in charge lit a wave of blue beneath our burners, and we added sugar and lemon juice, and began to stir. It all happened so quickly—the popping of berries and rolling foam, the thickening against the spoon and finally a falling sheet. We scraped the foam and set to jarring.

The jar lids were sterilized with brandy, she told us. The alcohol killed off any lingering trouble, without all that fuss about boiling. When we'd packed and sealed our eight ounce jars, she ran them through the dishwasher, just to be sure. Labeled and cooled, they looked more professional than any jars I'd ever managed at home: with solid white lids in place of gold ball screws and caps, and a well-printed label, I tucked them away to give as holiday gifts.

CRANBERRY APPLE JAM
recipe adapted from Mary Beers, Green Briar Jam Kitchen instructor

Makes 6, 8 ounce jars

Pick through 4 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen) removing any stems and debris. Wash cranberries and place in cook pan. Peel and chop 4-6 apples into small chunks. Add 4 cups apples, 4 cups sugar, and 1/4 cup lemon juice to pan.

Cook over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to a rolling boil. Caution: cranberries pop. Cook until thick and glossy, or until in the wake of the spoon as you stir you can see the bottom. Skim off any foam. Pour while hot into sterilized jars and seal.

The Local Food Report: beach plum jelly

It was last summer when I first discovered the beach plum. Walking up and down the sea paths in Truro, I found myself surrounded. Sweet, pitted fruit hung from the dunes, a mosaic of violet and green.

It was a banner year, they all said, the women who'd been making jelly all their lives. The best, perhaps, in seven years, since that last good pick at the turn of the 21st.

We gathered our buckets and boots, and tromped through the poison ivy to pick what we could. Gallon upon gallon piled up in the kitchen, until we could manage no more.

The jelly was simple: hot fruit pressed into juice, a pile of sugar, and a bit of Certo to seal the deal. We tried jam, one batch, but the pitting was too much. Jar by jar, we filled the cupboards with jelly.

This year, I'd expected the same. We'd long ago eaten our last bite of purple-stained toast, and we were ready for more. I traipsed into the dunes, bucket in hand, to find the fruit scattered, twigs bare.

There were some who managed to make do: Terri Sayre, the jelly lady of Briar Lane, and the jam shop up in Chatham picked through the scarcity to come up with a supply. But with a good row of blackberry jelly, a few jars of rosehip, and a seemingly endless rack of gift jams, we already had enough toast topping for the winter.

Still, I can't quite squelch that hankering. Luckily, the Chatham Jam & Jelly Shop is open Monday through Saturday, 10-5, with beach plum jelly for sale while supplies last. For those of you with tenacity and a few lingering berries, here's a recipe to follow.

TOMMY BRADFORD'S BEACH PLUM JELLY

Heat 8 heaping cups beach plums with 1 cup water and cook until soft. Strain through a colander (that you need cheesecloth is a lot of baloney).

Stir together 4 cups beach plum juice and 6 cups sugar in a heavy bottomed pan over medium heat. Bring to a rolling, rolling boil and put in 1 package of Certo. Bring back to a boil and let roll for 1 minute. Take off heat and pour into sterilized jars.

Click here for more information on a Cornell University beach plum study Cape Cod Cooperative Extension Director Bill Clark participated in...

September picnic

The sun filtered through the trees like moonlight as we took off our packs and swung our legs over the old railroad bridge. It was a perfect day for a picnic—cool, crisp with the promise of fall, with a stunning blue sky and white light overhead. Poplars and oaks rustled as the river meandered by beneath us, and we spread our napkins for the noontime meal.

My mother had helped me with the sandwiches: big, thick slices of squash bread from Cottage Street Bakery in Orleans, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes from my garden, a thick wedge of goat cheese invited down from Maine, and a few leaves of basil from the pot on the deck.

But the star was the spread. I made it finally—Nelia Dunbar's rosehip jelly—the recipe I received from my call to arms last week. It was a thick, luxurious red, with the aroma of tomato soup and the gooey sweetness of pie. Back in the kitchen, we'd spread it thick on toast and set out through the woods to enjoy that first taste.

The bridge made it come alive, our legs running free through empty air, spurred on by their own reflection and a swig of cider here and there. It seemed appropriate to enjoy the jelly there in the manmade wild, on the banks of a century-diked river still fighting for freedom and an empty railroad bed that wished it'd never found it. The rosehips were like that too, introduced but adopted, long ago washashores now passing as natives.

When we finally shook out our napkins and packed up to go, I wondered how many picnics the bridge had seen. This—our first—would be far from the last.

SEPTEMBER PICNIC SANDWICHES

Toast 2 slices good bread. Spread one side with rosehip or other savory jelly, and the other with a generous layer of soft chevre. Stack one side with sliced tomatoes, basil leaves, and sliced cucumbers, and top with the other. Cut in half, place in a plastic sandwich bag, and rubberband so as to keep from shifting. Bring along a salt shaker, a bit of cider, and one good apple. Enjoy outdoors.

Rosehip jelly

My mother made rosehip jelly once, beneath the dim lighting of her college dorm hall at Smith. It was the 70s, and the rooms had no kitchens. So she boiled the fruit she'd collected from the campus gardens over a one-burner electric element, tucked away in the phone booth shared by all the girls on the hall.

The jam was terrible, she says, with the consistency of glue paste and a flavor not much better. Still, every time I see the rose plants fruiting, I wonder if perhaps I shouldn't give it a try. When I visited Nantucket last week, I saw jar upon jar of it for sale at local shops. It was an island specialty they told me, as revered as the Cape Cod beach plum is here.

There are plenty of recipes online. But as this seems to be a rather finicky preserve, I thought I'd put a call out to readers. Does anyone have an old rosehip jelly recipe, tried and approved? Can't wait to see what the comment box brings.

Stolen fruit

This summer was the first since I can remember that I've had Labor Day off. In a town where Monday brings the last line at a clam shack's window, Tuesday does just as well for the worker's day.

But this year, we called it quits. Labor Day means a rest for us, too, we decided. Orange-topped coffee pots sat empty, stove top pilots flickered idle beneath the fan, and the clatter of dishes ceased for an evening.

We dragged totes of lobster and oysters and tuna and fruit out across the sand at noon and began to feast. The sun played forgotten across my skin, dogs quarreled, and the tide crashed out. By evening, we were surfing, riding and tumbling against the mess of choppy swell, laughing and crashing and paddling out again.

By sun fall, I was ready to return home, exhausted from food and play. I walked up the dune, out the parking lot, and headed on foot towards town. As I made my way through the flickering light, I stopped to read the mailbox names. Rabbits scampered into the bushes as I passed, and a family of turkeys crossed safely from field to forest.

At every driveway, it seemed, I found an apple tree. This was old Truro, untouched by mansions and time, stuck in the poetic throws of agrarian life. At every tree I stopped, picked a piece of fruit, and continued walking. The residents were gone for the summer—they'd packed their bags this morning, swept out of town, and left the harvest to fall, overripe, to the ground.

By the time I reached town center, I carried a Sunday paper, packed into its careful plastic sack with 14 apples: one from each of some family's chapters. They were large and small, unblemished and wormy, tart and sweet. Many were the same; I wondered if perhaps there had been a larger orchard once, and I'd just stumbled upon the pieces.

Whatever their history, they were excellent for eating. I took bite after bite as we drove home, tossing core after core out the truck window until finally only seven remained. With more, perhaps, I could make a batch of applesauce, but for now, I'm content to breakfast.

MIXED BAG APPLESAUCE

Take as many sweet apples as you'd like, and wash them in cold water. Put on a large pot with 1-2 inches water to boil, and drop in apples, whole or sliced. When tender, crank the apples through a food mill or press them through a fine mesh seive, catching pulp in a large mixing bowl. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, and sugar to taste (all are optional), and serve chilled or hot.