June 2011

Consider rhubarb: long, ribbed, celery-like stalks and not a seed or rind in sight. This is a vegetable, right? But in 1947, a New York court decided that since it's used as a fruit, it is  to be counted as such for the purposes of regulations and duties. Thus, with one wave of a bureaucrat's hand, does a vegetable become a fruit. Although its leaves are toxic, rhubarb's tart stalks have a long history of medicinal and culinary uses. The stuff grown in hothouses tends to be redder and sweeter than what you find in the gardeny. My big, bushy plants are of the Victoria variety—named for the British queen, whose countrymen tend to love a bit of rhubarb fool—and they are predominantly green. A clear, true, vegetal green with a flavor to match. Rhubarb is often combined with apples or strawberries. Their sweetness helps temper its rather aggressive bite, but can also overwhelm its delicate flavor, described by Alice Waters as "the smell of the earth in the spring." Wanting to showcase that, and armed with rhubarb from the garden and fresh milk from the farm, I decided to make rhubarb ice cream.
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I’ve been working on a suggested list of pantry staples for you. Everything you need to have on hand so you don’t have to run to the store every time you want to cook something. It’s challenging. Because I cook a lot of ethnic foods, what I consider to be a staple can run to things like coconut milk and Mexican oregano. Stocking your pantry is really about knowing how you like to eat. In fact, it’s a great way to control your diet. If what you have on hand is boxed macaroni and cheese and canned soup, most likely that’s what you’ll be eating. If you're tired and the cupboard is bare, that leads to take-out. No judgment here. I get it. But let me help you figure out how to eat just a little better, how to tempt yourself with healthy treats that can sing the siren song from your fridge. Something like garlic confit is great to have around. It’s simple to prepare—just slow-cook cloves of garlic in fat—and lasts quite a while. Its mild and sweet garlic flavor is perfect on toast or whisked into sauce, salad dressing and pasta. And it's très sophisticated.
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Bacon for breakfast is a treat. Not an everyday thing, but especially welcome when there's a day of gardening ahead, or something more strenuous than sitting in front of the computer. Crisp, smoky, salty, sweet and finger-lickin' good, bacon is damn near irresistible. (Especially if you know for a fact that it doesn't come from a pig raised in misery on a feed lot.) And boy does it go well with corn. Corn, bacon and avocado salad. Corn pudding with bacon. Cornbread with crispy pork cracklings. After last week's rather esoteric grits posting that involved draining and drying your grits before eating, I thought it might be a good idea to share a recipe that's a little less involved. I was ordering buckwheat and brown rice flours from Anson Mills to do some gluten-free baking, and I also picked up a bag of their coarse-ground Pencil Cob brits—so-called for the very slim corn cob. I simply boiled them with water, stirred in a little cream, some sharp cheddar and a handful of minced jalapeño and there was breakfast. A couple of slices of bacon fried to perfection and it became a breakfast of champions. So if you were daunted by my purple Forbidden Rice grits, these should send you racing to the stove.
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Call me crazy, but in the midst of this heat wave, when the plants themselves seemed to cry out from thirst beneath their green ultrasuede coats of pollen, I got a craving for clam chowder. I guess it was because I happened across a recipe for it on Tasting Table ("the free daily email for adventurous eaters everywhere"). Also, it's a bit like my own Proustian madeleine, because it takes me right back to my first job as a hostess at Gilda's seafood restaurant on the pier (or the wharf, as it was called) in Santa Cruz. I love the seafood tang against the richness of fresh cream and buttery potatoes, and the hint of salty pork. So there I was yesterday, sweat pouring off me (I had actually closed the kitchen windows in an attempt to keep out the pollen and the dust and noise of the guys working on our roof), temperatures soaring towards 100º, boiling potatoes and steaming clams. And then, you'll never guess—the skies began to darken, the ominous rumble of thunder approached from a great distance, a breeze kicked up and suddenly it was pouring. By evening the air was clean and cool, perfect chowder weather.
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It's been quite a while since I've shared anything about the great outdoors. And that's a shame because so much is going on. The delicate pink tree peonies are in bloom, as are my gorgeous bearded irises worthy of Van Gogh. The hay-scented ferns are up, the butterflies are back and the herb garden is already bursting with thyme and chives. The angelica, now protected behind a fence is big and bushy, sending up tall shoots topped with lovely, frothy blooms. I'm spread so thin, I've barely been out other than to take a cursory glance and do some much-needed weeding. Thankfully, G is able to get up on his crutches for long enough to do the daily watering required in this heat, and he goes around on his butt planting new acquisitions. Yesterday, from inside the house he heard a noise or somehow sensed a strange presence in the yard, and hobbled out to find this fellow propped up against the garden fence. An enormous, prehistoric-looking snapping turtle, all fierce and armored.
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In my quest to offer you more alternatives to the dreaded, over-processed, denatured, cardboard-like breakfast cereals we should all be rejecting forever, I hereby tempt you with a delicious bowl of nutty, nutritious and quite comforting grits. As you can see, I've gotten all fancy with purple rice and, though you need not be so esoteric, I highly recommend you source your grits from somewhere like Bob's Red Mill or Anson Mills. Both offer a variety of organic heirloom rices and grains, all painstakingly milled and very fresh. The taste really illustrates the difference, as does the quality of the nutrition you get from products like these. Please don't feed your kids (or yourself) instant oats or Rice Krispies or cornflakes when you can give them healthy, whole foods instead. And grits are a great vehicle for other flavors, like soft-cooked eggs, crispy bacon, spicy Tabasco, creamy yogurt, maple syrup, strawberry jam, cultured butter—pretty much anything tastes good plopped on top of or stirred into this yummy bowl of mush. This particular bowl I ate with a dollop of crème fraîche and some crunchy smoked sea salt.
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Before I move on to telling you about the best baked beans on the planet, a few words of business. The new print feature, which allows you to print a formatted pdf of recipes, is up and running, but only works on recipes that have been coded. For now, that is only new recipes, but I am working furiously to get the rest done. As they are coded, they will also begin to appear in my new recipe archive (on the right hand side), which you'll be able to use to scan through content. Make sense? All in good time, my lovelies, all in good time.And now, to the beans. I debated calling these "Bean Candy," because they are so sweet, sticky and luscious. They are the ultimate summer side dish but so substantial I prefer to think of them as the centerpiece. These beans are a great example of how you can use just a bit of meat as flavoring while having a high-fiber, nutritious meal. We recently enjoyed them with a pan of hot cornbread and some spicy red cabbage slaw. It definitely did not feel like anything was missing.
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June is busting out all over. The delicate pink and white blossoms of spring have given way to lush peonies and roses and lilies. After a momentary blip last week, there is no more no sign of the sultry, damp days ahead when dogs will lie panting in the shade and we will press sweating glasses of lemonade to our fevered brows. Today all is bright green hills and turquoise skies. The kind of weather when thoughts turn to fresh salads. And the grill, of course. Summer means grilling. Oh, no! you say But I'm a city dweller. I can relate. I'm a grill widow. Where once I was only in charge of marinating, my hobbled husband has temporarily relinquished his patio post in front of the Weber, leaving me to face down this fiery challenge. For the moment, I have run screaming back to my stove, where it's possible to make a perfectly acceptable steak. Heat up that cast iron pan really well, buy the best meat available and don't overcook it. That's the best advice I can give you. That, and serve it sliced thinly next to a simple salad of arugula and red onion. It's heaven on a plate.
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This blog has been live for about 18 months now, and I was accruing posts for about 6 months prior to that. So it's about time I organized some of this material in more user-friendly ways. It's happening incrementally, so even though there is a seasonal archive listed, I have to go through and code all the recipes before they actually appear there. Sigh. There are only about 300 of them so I should be finished sometime before the apocalypse. And I got my gorgeous new multi-tasking domestic goddess illustration up, but my banner images went all wonky and reverted to seasons past. Bear with me. It will all come right before you know it. Not the most professional approach, but the best I can manage at the moment. There is a new print icon next to recipes, which now allows you to print only the recipe and not the entire post. And soon there will be more new and improved features: stay tuned. I would really appreciate any feedback or requests in terms of how this site functions. It's a work in progress and I value your input, gentle readers. Without you, I'm nothing (except a harried woman running between the stove, the computer and the garden). Have a fantastic weekend!
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I confess to being a little overwhelmed. Wait, did I confess to that already? It doesn't feel like things have eased up much. But I guess I'll sleep when I'm dead, as the saying goes. And I ain't dead yet. But I am a bit behind. So this recipe for pickled ramps is coming at you at a time when the farmers markets are no longer overflowing with wonderful wild leeks. Still, it works just as well with scallions which are now in abundance. One of the best things about these pickles—aside from the pungent, sweet-tart, slightly crisp ramps (or scallions) themselves—is the leftover brine. I have been using mine for salad dressing. Whisked with a bit of mustard and some olive oil, it's perfection. It's also great to dirty up your martini. Ice cold gin, a little pickled ramp brine and maybe even a slim ramp slung over the side of your glass.I love them with cheese! Above, they're arranged on top of ricotta-smeared rye with a few sprouts and a good sprinkling of red sea salt. I chopped up a few and plopped them into my latest quesadilla. It's a good idea. You can also fold them into omelettes, toss them into salads, stir them into mashed potatoes and use them as a garnish for cold soups. I think you get the idea. Pickled ramps are easy, versatile and just one in a series of homemade condiments coming your way.
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