The Local Food Report: keeping rosemary alive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WATERMELON SALAD WITH ROSEMARY & FETA

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

4 cups chilled watermelon cubes

2 ounces feta cheese, drained and crumbled

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

2 slices rustic bread

olive oil

sea salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste

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

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

The Local Food Report: a local chocolatier

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Pay dirt

Julie from Brunswick, are you out there?

I hope so, because this post is for you. A while ago, when I told you about the grain CSA we joined this year and the New York-grown spelt that came as part of our share, you wanted to hear more. I promised you that I would look into it, and I know it took a while, but this week, I did. I looked right into the face of a spelt flour, olive oil, homegrown rosemary, and dark chocolate cake, and Julie—we hit pay dirt.

This particular cake comes from a book I've mentioned a few times around here, Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain. It isn't a book that I fell instantly in love with, but the more I've used it, the more I've liked it. And after this cake, I like it even more.

The cake comes from a whole chapter dedicated to spelt flour, because according to Boyce, spelt can be substituted for plain-old whole-wheat flour in just about anything. It does especially well in cakes and muffins, she says, because it has a sort of inherent sweet, cinnamony-ness that bakes into a fine, sturdy crumb and is good at complimenting spice. The spice for this cake—rosemary—might seem odd, but somehow, with the chocolate and the olive oil, it's just right.

The key is to use fresh rosemary and top quality dark chocolate. The first time I made this I used Baker's chocolate, semi-sweet, because it was the only thing we had on hand, and I regretted it with every bite. Semi-sweet turned out to be too sweet—it was 54% cacao—and Baker's turned to out to taste, in big chunks, just the slightest bit like chalk. The second time around I went with two bars of dark chocolate chunks from the Chocolate Sparrow and was much, much happier with that choice. We also put down a dying rosemary plant with the first go-round, and the second time, with sprigs from a fresh pot I planted for the deck, that flavor was much better, too. Last but not least I'd say don't use too strong of an olive oil—something subtle and slightly fruity, maybe, but definitely not the fresh, green kind with bite.

Beyond that, it's fairly hard to go wrong. Boyce said to bake the cake in a tart pan, but since I like nice, moist centers, I made it into a Bundt round instead. I also added a bit more milk than the recipe calls for—spelt cakes tend to be dry, and again, I like mine moist—and I was happy with that tweak, too.

So Julie, here you are: a whole-grain spelt cake and—maybe if we all cross our fingers at once—an afternoon to cozy up with a slice of it in the sun.

ROSEMARY, DARK CHOCOLATE, & SPELT CAKE

The thing that I love about this recipe—which, as explained in the post above, is adapted from Kim Boyce's Olive Oil Cake in Good to the Grain—is how easy it is. It's the type of thing you can whip up in minutes, without any beating or special steps or fuss. I made it the other night in the midst of dinner preparations, and it took only 10 minutes, from thought to oven.

3/4 cup spelt flour
1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup olive oil*
1 scant cup whole milk
1 and 1/2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped
10 ounces bittersweet chocolate (about 70% cacao), cut into irregular but roughly 1/2-inch pieces

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease a Bundt cake pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs to break them up, then stir in the oil, milk, and rosemary, and mix well. Mix these wet ingredients gently into the flour mixture, stirring until just incorporated. Fold in the chocolate pieces, and pour the batter into the prepared Bundt cake pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the top turns golden brown and begins to crack and the center is still moist but cooked through.

*Note: To make this cake even more local, I thought about using butter instead of olive oil, but decided against it in the end. Substituting butter in recipes that call for oil tends to make things a bit drier—some people say this is because the butter solidifies at room temperature, whereas the oil remains liquid—and since spelt already has a tendency to dry things out, this didn't seem like a good idea. That said, however, I think it might be a risk worth taking. If you decide to experiment, just be sure to melt the butter so that you can mix it in rather than cream it.

Dress them up

Every night when I was a kid, my mother made a salad. It was never anything fussy—some fresh greens, maybe a sprinkle of half moon radishes, sometimes a chopped up grapefruit wedge or two—but she had a certain knack for putting together the things she turned up in the fridge.

One of my friend's mom's told me recently that this skill—also known as the Throw-It-On-Lettuce-And-Call-It-Dinner technique—is the key to success as a parent, and although I can't say for sure, I have a feeling she's right. I also have a feeling that the key to my mother's particular success was her homemade croutons.

My mother makes excellent croutons. They don't take her long—they're the sort of thing she whips up right before dinner in between setting the table and waiting for the chicken to cook. She throws together a few slices of stale bread, a drizzle of olive oil, a good rub of garlic and rosemary and a generous sprinkle of salt, and in a few minutes, her little toaster oven starts steaming out dreamy crouton smells. They transform things like plain spinach and goat cheese into a salad for gourmets, romaine lettuce and store bought Caesar dressing into a plate from an upscale restaurant.


Recently, we've been making them a lot around here. The garden greens are growing faster than we can keep up with, but beyond radishes and scallions, there isn't yet much to dress them up with. Fortunately, we also can't keep up with the bread (have you been to the new boulangerie in town?!), or the rosemary, and we're only halfway through our winter garlic.

They might not be the key to every success, these homemade croutons, but I plan to keep making them anyway, full steam ahead.

ROSEMARY CROUTONS

I like to make these in the toaster oven so that I don't have to waste the time and electricity involved in heating a whole oven up, but if you only have a slot toaster, the oven will work fine. Also, I find that a nice, crusty, rustic bread like a sourdough or farmers' loaf works best, but I've used everything from stale hot cross buns to pitas with success.

4 slices rustic bread
1/4 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat your oven or toaster oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking tray or toaster oven pan with parchment paper, and arrange the bread slices on top. Drizzle the bread evenly with the oil, and sprinkle the garlic, rosemary, and salt evenly across all four slices. Use your finger to rub the oil and seasonings in and spread them across the bread. Bake for 1o to 15 minutes, or until the bread is toasted a deep golden brown. Transfer the toast slices to a wire rack and once they're cool, crumble or cut them into bite size pieces. Any extras will store for about a week in an airtight container, if you don't devour them first.