Eating

Someone recently accused me of eating a lot of kale. They said it as though it were an accusation, like I needed to justify myself. I hereby declare myself a lover of kale. I freely admit that. (Proof positive is this post. And this one. And this one.  And this one.) The stuff is good. Tastes delicious, is very versatile and packs a wallop of nutrition. Do you read Goop? Gwyneth Paltrow's blog sort of irritates me. I can't really pinpoint why but I think it just might have something to do with her total and unmitigated sense of entitlement. Just because you can spend two hours a day working out with Tracy Anderson in your custom-built blonde wood yoga studio in back of your lovely house in East Hampton, Gwynnie, doesn't mean we can. Grrrr. Yet we can make her I-need-to-lose-5-pounds-quick-for-this-movie-premiere kale juice cocktail (with lemon juice and agave nectar). Or even better, we can use kale to whip up deliciously salty-crunchy chips that we can munch on to our heart's content without even missing those salt-&-vinegar kettle chips one iota. Perfect for getting into fighting shape. Beach weather is coming, hard as it may seem to believe when we're currently at 28 degrees upstate!! (All those new little green leaves? Drooping in the cold, poor darlings!) So you gotta eat your kale, bay-bee!
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My mother, June Chávez Silverman, was a fiery, high-spirited Chicana beauty with black eyes and a cackling laugh that was contagious. She loved to entertain and was a legendary hostess, especially during the years my father was provost of Stevenson College at UC Santa Cruz. I still have the black silk camellia she pinned on the low-cut neckline of her festive gowns. Exuding clouds of Youth Dew and always amazingly calm, she would oversee Ramos Fizzes and chicken enchiladas for a hundred. I still have the recipe card in her handwriting for this delicious Chile Relleno casserole. It's a great thing to make if you have leftover pot roast—though I'll cook one up just for this dish. Hatch green chiles (in a can) are easy to find if you're on the West Coast, and easier to find now on the East. This cheesy, addictive dish is definitely a crowd pleaser, but you can scale down the proportions and throw it together for your nearest and dearest. Mamá, this one's for you.
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Too intimidated/busy/shy/lazy to make your own pie crust? Think you'll just pick one up at the store or take a shortcut by buying one of those pre-made crusts? Think again. PRIORITIES, people. Have you ever read the ingredients on one of those pie crust packages? Blech. (If you absolutely have to use one, let it be the Keebler and not the Pillsbury; but neither will work for this recipe, thank god.) Let me lay something on you: polyunsaturated fats and hydrogenated fats are terrible for you. As in cellulite, saddle bags, Hadassah arms, heart attacks, strokes. I'll tell you more about that in an upcoming roundup on fats, but for now I want to give you my beloved and timeworn recipe for strawberry-rhubarb cobbler-ish. It just won an Editors' Pick on Food52; and so did my Cardamom-Saffron Lassi, a variation of the one I posted here!  
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This cardoon looks a lot like celery after some very hard living, but it’s actually from the artichoke family—Cynara cardunculus. You may recognize its linguistic similarity to Cynar, the Italian artichoke-based bitter aperitivo also produced by Campari. The plant is a perennial with silvery-green leaves and edible stalks that can grow up to 7’ tall. It has some sharp, almost razor-like edges that you don’t really want to brush up against. When the plant flowers, the blossom looks like a large purple thistle. Though it’s often regarded as a nuisance weed in North America, other more civilized cultures have long regarded it as good eating. When the Italians grow it, they bend the young stalks down to the ground and bury them in the earth. This blanches the stalks, reducing bitterness and making them so tender they’re even served raw with bagna cauda or a similar achovy-based sauce. Cardoons are also delicious fried or made in classic Roman style, blanketed with a buttery bechamel sauce, as in my recipe below.
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So remember that incredible lo mein with ramps and trout roe I mentioned eating at Momofuku Ssam Bar last week? I just couldn't wait to have it again—and I wanted you to be able to try it at home while ramps are still in season—so I made my own version of it. For those of you asking what is a ramp?, it's a wild leek that is foraged at this time of year. Whole Foods carries them in some locations, but they're all over the farmers markets right now. And enthusiastic locavores are charging about the countryside on a rampage, filling their reusable cloth bags with them by the armload. With a flavor somewhere between scallion and garlic, they've got a slim white bulb at the end of a stalk that's often a bit purple, and flat leaves that are a brilliant green. You can eat these leaves, too, sauteed with oil in a hot pan. Rich in selenium and sulfur, the ramp has been the subject of intense study in the areas of cancer prevention and treatment. But, really, it's just plain delicious, and goes so well with the other foraged delicacies of spring: fiddleheads, morels and asparagus.
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You know how biscotti means “twice cooked” in Italian? Well, ricotta means “re-cooked.” I never knew why until I decided to investigate this wonderful light cheese. We associate it with Italian cooking but it's also traditional around Hanukkah, used to stuff blintzes or in cheesecake. It turns turns out that ricotta is made from whey, the low-fat and nutritious liquid that is a by-product of cheese production. Once cheese is made from the curds, a second cooking of the whey results in ricotta. I’ve actually perused quite a few recipes for ricotta, and hardly any mention this. They all call for making it with whole milk, some even adding cream, but this is not the traditional way and results in something quite a bit richer, albeit delicious, that is more along the line of farmer's cheese or fromage blanc. Splitting hairs, you say. And you may be right. If you're not making fresh cheese you probably won't have whey availalbe, so go ahead and make your rich and delicious ricotta from whole milk. (Try the recipe below.) Or buy the sinful version from Salvatore Brooklyn. They also have a smoked one that will make your toes curl under.
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I adore chutneys, with their wonderfully complex mix of flavors: hot, sour, salty, sweet. They're like a perfect storm for your tastebuds. This one combines tart rhubarb with dark brown sugar, cider vinegar, sour cherries and a host of spices and aromatics: cumin, coriander, garlic, hot chiles, ginger and fresh turmeric. Look for this last in an Indian market, or substitute a teaspoon of ground dried turmeric. It has a wonderfully bitter bite and a rich saffron color that will stain everything in sight.
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Soon we'll be hot, sweaty and reaching for something refreshing as we push through the swinging door into the screened-in porch, the smell of summer still on us. Another of the thirst-quenchers I'll have on hand is this Tamarind-Lime Cooler. The agave nectar balances the tartness of the lime and tamarind, and the sweet-spicy Chile Salt really kicks it up a notch. These are the flavors of summer in Guadalajara, in Bangkok, in your own backyard...
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Vermont Sweetwater Bottling Company, a small family-run business, has come out with its own unique soda that contains neither water nor sugar. Vermont Maple Seltzer is made from pure maple sap that is gently carbonated! They also make a sweeter, more mapley soda and some other fruit flavors, but it's really all about the Maple Seltzer. It's lightly sweet, with a barely perceptible hint of maple, and quite refreshing. Even my friend Matthew, who swears by his Coke, was rather intrigued. It's got about a third of the calories of that corporate cola and, with just 8 grams of natural sugar, has none of the high fructose corn syrup. I ordered a couple of cases online (the link is above) and they were just delivered today. I plan to keep icy cold bottles in the fridge all summer long. (I'm imagining some excellent bourbon cocktails topped off with this as well...)
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photo from the new york times

Run don't walk to see Alfred Molina play Mark Rothko in Red on Broadway. This two-man play, also featuring the young British actor Eddie Redmayne (you may remember him as Matt Damon's son in The Good Shepherd), comes to us from a successful run in London. Written by John Logan (whose screenplays include Sweeney Todd, The Aviator and Gladiator), Red delivers an authentic and complex portrait of Rothko as he works on a series of murals commissioned for—but ultimately never delivered to—the swank Four Seasons restaurant. He is ferocious, pedantic and very funny, and Molina fully inhabits this character, body and soul. Redmayne does a great job of portraying his young assistant, ambitious and brash in his own right. There is no intermission, and the play moves along quite briskly. It received a roaring standing ovation the night I was there.
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