Why am I awake and typing madly at 7am? Who knows? But the coffee and toast are made and I'm cozy in bed listening to the cold rain, glad that it's watering the sweet-pea and bachelor's-button seeds planted yesterday up in the garden. Oh, sweet peas! How I love them. They smell so incredibly sweet, especially the old-fashioned ones, which were specifically bred & cultivated for their scent. Their Latin name is "Lathyrus odoratus"--as you might expect, anything with "odoratus" in the name is a good thing.
Most really sweet-scented flowers use their perfume just like you do--for sex! Since they can't hit the bars, they have to get the hotties to come to them, by sending out a waft of tasty, tasty scent to attract the creepy-crawly pollinating bugs who'll climb in for nectar. Presumably, flying past a rose is like walking past a doughnut shop for a bee--irresistible.
BRAIN SEZ...MUST...HAVE...CRULLER...NOW!!!!
On their way down to the nectar bar, they get powdered in pollen, which is full of the plant's genetic material. Then they head off to flower #2 (because each flower only offers a tiny siplet of nectar, so everyone can get a little lovin') and track the previous flower's pollen all over the floor. Which makes the plant babies (fruits with seeds, to grow more plants) happen.
Not surprisingly, many flowers are only perfumey before they're pollinated. Once they get knocked up, as it were, they don't bother. Sweatpants and dirty hair after that! The flower itself often drops its petals and dies off shortly after pollination, so the plant can put its energy into fruit & seed production. If you're growing flowers for cutting, it's important to be able to visually identify your flowers' status pre- and post-pollination, because a flower that hasn't been pollinated will last a lot longer in a bouquet than one that has.
Sweet peas, though, just spread their gorgeousness around for the sake of it, since they self-pollinate before the flowers even open. Thank you, sweet peas! Since I've always had such limited gardening space, I've always felt strongly that any plant had to pull its weight and be either edible, a useful companion plant (like alyssum or marigolds, which repel aphids from other plants), or a banquet for the pollinators (bees love anything blue, hence the bachelor's buttons). But now I'm mellowing and making space for that which is simply shamelessly pretty, too.
My latest favorite is Salpiglossis (also called Stained Glass Flower or Painted Tongue), which I fell in love with out at the farm at UCSC. I had one last year, bought at the fabulous Flora Grubb, called Chocolate Royale, which produced a big ball of really beautiful deep, deep maroon-brown velvety flowers, all summer long. Plus, I love that its Latin name is Salpiglossis sinuata--so belly-dancer-ish!
And in your gardening news: stop by new gardening/groovy stuff shop Succulence on Sat, Feb. 13, for their grand opening party. I met co-owner Amy Shelf at the Underground Farmers Market last month, and she's just as nice as can be (she and her husband run 4-Star Video on Cortland Ave; Succulence is out back). Plus, she'll have some of her groovy preserves and pickles on hand. I'm going to go and remind her about her offer of a lemon-marmalade-making date...
And Pam Peirce, doyenne of gardening in the Bay Area's kooky microclimates, has recently revised and updated her classic reference book, Golden Gate Gardening. She'll be talking at Flora Grubb at 1pm on Sat., Feb. 28th.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
lemon tart
Living in SF on and off for 15 years, there's a certain built-in sense of place you get after a while. You know automatically which way to turn to get the train outbound or inbound, which way is the ocean and which way is Oakland. You fall asleep on BART coming from Rockridge, look out the window and know immediately, with a sinking heart, that you've missed 24th St and are headed somewhere past Daly City. The train pulls up in Colma and you realize you've gone 4 stops past where you wanted to be, and that you're going to have to sit on the cold concrete bench and wait for the next Bay Point-bound train to take you back to where you meant to go in the first place. Then again, at least you woke up in Colma, which is more than most people do.*
Back to 24th St, 14 Mission bus to Cortland, 24 Divis up the hill, finally home again, home again, jiggity jig. And unlike your umbrella last week, you didn't leave your french tart pan on the train, a good thing.
As usual, I was coming home after a transbay baked-goods run, not wanting to face rush hour and then late-night driving in the Green Bean, aka the PQ's nifty '95 beetle-green Taurus. The destination? Leslie's family-and-friends b-day party, a soupfest of fun, with cheese, bread and two fab soups, lentil and chicken and rice. Yes, just like this:
Leslie asked for a sweet, and since I still had the last few lemons from D's Oakland tree in the fridge, I made a lemon tart. What a hit! I used the recipe from the Bouchon cookbook as posted on Epicurious, and at first I was wary, since it was more of a creamy/fluffy filling rather than the typical jelly-ish french-bakery style. But it was tart and super-lemony and just lovely. Partly because I made one tart for what turned out to be 15 or so people (plus kids), everyone only got a little sliver, which was maybe why they all raved and wished for more. But regardless, I think that Mr. Keller might be onto something. Here's my version:
Birthday Lemon Tart
I made this with Meyer lemons, which are sweeter and more fragrant than your usual Eureka/Lisbon lemons. You can increase the sugar a little if you can't get Meyers.
Tart crust:
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
7 tbsp butter, very cold, chopped into chunks
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp cold water
Mix flour, salt, and sugar, then cut in butter until it forms little nickel-sized bits. Whisk egg yolk, vanilla, and water together; add and toss together until dough comes together when squeezed. Don't worry if it seems crumbly; it will get moister as it rests. Put in a zip-lock bag, seal, and chill for at least 1-2 hours. Roll out into a round on a lightly floured surface (if it's too sticky to roll, just press into pan as evenly as you can). Tuck into a 9-inch fluted metal tart pan with removable bottom. Bake for 20 min at 350F, rotating as necessary for even browning, until golden brown. Let cool.
Filling:
2 egg yolks
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
grated rind of 1 lemon (use a microplane!)
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
4 tbsp butter
In the top of a double boiler over simmering water, beat yolks, eggs, and sugar together. Whisk until mixture is foamy and beginning to thicken. Add 1/3 of lemon juice and keep whisking. After a minute or two, add another 1/3 of juice. Repeat. Keep whisking until mixture gets thick and opaque, and mounts up a little as you whisk (whisk should leave trails). It should take about 10-12 minutes. Turn off heat. Beat in butter, 1 tbsp at a time. Remove top of double boiler from water, and let cool. It will thicken and get fluffy as it cools.
Spoon filling into crust. If desired, brown lightly under the broiler (watch carefully, as it will only take a minute or two). Serve chilled or at room temp.
Leslie's dad wanted me to be his Big Love second wife after tasting this; her mom fully agreed and said I could come for dinner at their house anytime, as long as I brought them a tart.
* Colma is the Bay Area's necropolis, with more graveyards than neighborhoods. Sure, some people do live here, but the vast majority? Very quiet.
Back to 24th St, 14 Mission bus to Cortland, 24 Divis up the hill, finally home again, home again, jiggity jig. And unlike your umbrella last week, you didn't leave your french tart pan on the train, a good thing.
As usual, I was coming home after a transbay baked-goods run, not wanting to face rush hour and then late-night driving in the Green Bean, aka the PQ's nifty '95 beetle-green Taurus. The destination? Leslie's family-and-friends b-day party, a soupfest of fun, with cheese, bread and two fab soups, lentil and chicken and rice. Yes, just like this:
Leslie asked for a sweet, and since I still had the last few lemons from D's Oakland tree in the fridge, I made a lemon tart. What a hit! I used the recipe from the Bouchon cookbook as posted on Epicurious, and at first I was wary, since it was more of a creamy/fluffy filling rather than the typical jelly-ish french-bakery style. But it was tart and super-lemony and just lovely. Partly because I made one tart for what turned out to be 15 or so people (plus kids), everyone only got a little sliver, which was maybe why they all raved and wished for more. But regardless, I think that Mr. Keller might be onto something. Here's my version:
Birthday Lemon Tart
I made this with Meyer lemons, which are sweeter and more fragrant than your usual Eureka/Lisbon lemons. You can increase the sugar a little if you can't get Meyers.
Tart crust:
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
7 tbsp butter, very cold, chopped into chunks
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp cold water
Mix flour, salt, and sugar, then cut in butter until it forms little nickel-sized bits. Whisk egg yolk, vanilla, and water together; add and toss together until dough comes together when squeezed. Don't worry if it seems crumbly; it will get moister as it rests. Put in a zip-lock bag, seal, and chill for at least 1-2 hours. Roll out into a round on a lightly floured surface (if it's too sticky to roll, just press into pan as evenly as you can). Tuck into a 9-inch fluted metal tart pan with removable bottom. Bake for 20 min at 350F, rotating as necessary for even browning, until golden brown. Let cool.
Filling:
2 egg yolks
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
grated rind of 1 lemon (use a microplane!)
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
4 tbsp butter
In the top of a double boiler over simmering water, beat yolks, eggs, and sugar together. Whisk until mixture is foamy and beginning to thicken. Add 1/3 of lemon juice and keep whisking. After a minute or two, add another 1/3 of juice. Repeat. Keep whisking until mixture gets thick and opaque, and mounts up a little as you whisk (whisk should leave trails). It should take about 10-12 minutes. Turn off heat. Beat in butter, 1 tbsp at a time. Remove top of double boiler from water, and let cool. It will thicken and get fluffy as it cools.
Spoon filling into crust. If desired, brown lightly under the broiler (watch carefully, as it will only take a minute or two). Serve chilled or at room temp.
Leslie's dad wanted me to be his Big Love second wife after tasting this; her mom fully agreed and said I could come for dinner at their house anytime, as long as I brought them a tart.
* Colma is the Bay Area's necropolis, with more graveyards than neighborhoods. Sure, some people do live here, but the vast majority? Very quiet.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Steph's Cafe this Thursday
The Pie Queen is throwing open her jam cupboard! And not just for the usual friends and family, but for YOU. How? Sign up here and come to the Underground Farmers' Market on Thursday, Jan. 28 in San Francisco. Both the sign-up and the market are free, but you gotta be on the list. Why? Because the market, essentially a bake sale by your jam-making and kombucha-fermenting neighbors, is selling stuff made in people's non-health-inspected kitchens. So the city can't let it happen unless it's a "private party" with a guest list.
It's going to be great, though, and the PQ is madly emptying her jam cupboard and making marmalade and fresh bread to sell. Putting an emphasis on going local as much as possible. Bread will have whole wheat flour from wheat grown at Pie Ranch, honey from my buddy Eli, who keeps his hives in the Castro, cornmeal from a local farmer and miller, and butter from Straus. And the jams will be local, too--my friend Deb just gave me a big bag of lemons from her backyard tree in Oakland. Tomatoes for the cool tomato-ginger preserves came from Riverdog in Guida last summer, and apricots came from an old orchard up in Davis as well as from Frog Hollow in Brentwood, as did the pears for the vanilla pear butter.
Mad scramble to get some signage together, as well as creating the actual product. But last night's SPUR panel discussion about the Economics of Street Food was really inspiring. I'm thinking this pie/jam/baked stuff biz could really happen this year. Selling under the name Steph's Cafe this time. Come and say hello!
It's going to be great, though, and the PQ is madly emptying her jam cupboard and making marmalade and fresh bread to sell. Putting an emphasis on going local as much as possible. Bread will have whole wheat flour from wheat grown at Pie Ranch, honey from my buddy Eli, who keeps his hives in the Castro, cornmeal from a local farmer and miller, and butter from Straus. And the jams will be local, too--my friend Deb just gave me a big bag of lemons from her backyard tree in Oakland. Tomatoes for the cool tomato-ginger preserves came from Riverdog in Guida last summer, and apricots came from an old orchard up in Davis as well as from Frog Hollow in Brentwood, as did the pears for the vanilla pear butter.
Mad scramble to get some signage together, as well as creating the actual product. But last night's SPUR panel discussion about the Economics of Street Food was really inspiring. I'm thinking this pie/jam/baked stuff biz could really happen this year. Selling under the name Steph's Cafe this time. Come and say hello!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Up in the cool gray north
Ok, so driving in a rental car on a rainy night through a city I've never driven through before--a little hectic! But I cowboy'd up and now after a night on the aerobed, I'm up and at 'em in cool, gray Seattle, drinking some good french press coffee at the Sun Cafe in Phinney Ridge. Mike and I went through the T-day menu last night, and I did have to do a little special pleading to get some green stuff on the menu--in Mike's eyes, completely superfluous on a day dedicated to stuffing, mashed potatoes in multiple flavors, gravy, turkey pit-cooked in the Weber, marshmallow-topped MBY casserole ("more butter than yams"), Velveeta mac n' cheese, 3 kinds of pie, an a jello mold. But I'm flying my Cali flag and bring the famous Bay Wolf pomegranate-and-persimmon salad to the table, perhaps without the goat cheese and pecans since there will already be a maple-walnut pie to follow. And maybe I'll even slip in a panful of lemony-garlic kale, too.
Lots of greens--dino kale, ruby chard, broccoli rabe--growing in the neighbors' front gardens here, which is nice to see.
More to follow! And feel free to post or call with all your piemaking questions--operators are standing by!
Lots of greens--dino kale, ruby chard, broccoli rabe--growing in the neighbors' front gardens here, which is nice to see.
More to follow! And feel free to post or call with all your piemaking questions--operators are standing by!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Pie Therapy
Happy Thanksgiving week, from the Pie Queen!
Or, as she's being called these days, the Pie Therapist.
Talking about pies, as I do all the time but especially at this time of year, I'm continually amazed at how many people have serious fear of pie-ing. So I put out a call for potential patients, and got three: Kevin, Leslie, and Nancy, all of whom got a free one-on-one session with the Pie Therapist, and at the end, a hot pie coming out of their very own oven.
More fun stuff from the archives:
Lard Crusts!
I'm writing this deep in the Southwest Airlines scrum at Oakland Airport, on my way to the festivities in Seattle. My ticket to the party at Mike and Renee's? A tub of organic, local, happy-pig lard, packed in my suitcase next to the sweaters. This is not the first time I've traveled with apples and lard in my suitcase. Which makes me either a) weird, or 2) dedicated to supreme pie action.
Or, as she's being called these days, the Pie Therapist.
Talking about pies, as I do all the time but especially at this time of year, I'm continually amazed at how many people have serious fear of pie-ing. So I put out a call for potential patients, and got three: Kevin, Leslie, and Nancy, all of whom got a free one-on-one session with the Pie Therapist, and at the end, a hot pie coming out of their very own oven.
More fun stuff from the archives:
Lard Crusts!
I'm writing this deep in the Southwest Airlines scrum at Oakland Airport, on my way to the festivities in Seattle. My ticket to the party at Mike and Renee's? A tub of organic, local, happy-pig lard, packed in my suitcase next to the sweaters. This is not the first time I've traveled with apples and lard in my suitcase. Which makes me either a) weird, or 2) dedicated to supreme pie action.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
turnovers to the people
Well, hello! I missed you.
But not enough to write, you say. Thanks for working those abandonment issues, PQ!
Mmm, yes, well, be that as it may, PQ is back and just in time for Thanksgiving, pie time! As usual, we are offering a free fear-of-pie-ing class. Have the PQ in your kitchen, get covered in flour, and be freed from your dependence on those horrible frozen crusts forever! Flour, salt, a little sugar, butter and/or lard: voila, pie crust!
In fact, I'm getting going early with the pie-making this year, thanks to the benefit for Julie Kahn's Florida documentary Swamp Cabbage on Sunday. Turnovers for 150? Sure! It would only be more difficult if I had to take all of them up to Marin on the bus. But amazingly, PQ has a car now--her first ever! It's been a friend these past couple of months, toting crates of apples and boxes of pears home from hither and yon. The theme of the benefit dinner is wild & foraged, and really I should have been picking blackberries and scavenging for local apples and figs all these past months. But time got away from me, or something, and all of sudden, I was madly searching around for turnover timber that I could get for free or cheap. What's in the kitchen now:
-25 lbs of apples and a huge, beautiful Musquee de Provence squash, gotten in trade from Julia at Mariquita, for working at her bi-weekly Mystery Box pickup outside Piccino on Thursday. I ferried flats of strawberries and big plastic bags of veggies into Smartcars and Priuses for a few hours, and came home with a sense of duty done.
-Another milkcrate of knobby little apples, picked with Lauren of Produce to the People. Through Neighborhood Fruit, Lauren heard of a guy out in the avenues who had extra apples up high on his backyard tree. Being a fellow Bernalite, she picked me up in her truck and we nipped over there, ladder and pickers in hand. The guy was rather bemused to have two flannel-wearing cheerful ladies in his backyard, taking turns getting the fruit off his tree. Weirdest part: after telling us about a recent surgery he had to remove some moles from his torso, he insisted on whipping up his shirt to show us the rows of metal staples in his back and chest. He then followed us down the street and gave us both his card.
-40 lbs of beat-up kitchen pears from Frog Hollow, which I had to pay for, albeit much less than their usual $4/lb.
Wish I could have scored some quinces and huckleberries, but these will work...so now onto the pastry making! Am thinking of trying the quick-puff recipe in my Williams-Sonoma baking book, which is essentially just regular pie crust that's rolled and folded, rolled and folded three times to increase the flakiness and butter-layering. Report to follow!
But not enough to write, you say. Thanks for working those abandonment issues, PQ!
Mmm, yes, well, be that as it may, PQ is back and just in time for Thanksgiving, pie time! As usual, we are offering a free fear-of-pie-ing class. Have the PQ in your kitchen, get covered in flour, and be freed from your dependence on those horrible frozen crusts forever! Flour, salt, a little sugar, butter and/or lard: voila, pie crust!
In fact, I'm getting going early with the pie-making this year, thanks to the benefit for Julie Kahn's Florida documentary Swamp Cabbage on Sunday. Turnovers for 150? Sure! It would only be more difficult if I had to take all of them up to Marin on the bus. But amazingly, PQ has a car now--her first ever! It's been a friend these past couple of months, toting crates of apples and boxes of pears home from hither and yon. The theme of the benefit dinner is wild & foraged, and really I should have been picking blackberries and scavenging for local apples and figs all these past months. But time got away from me, or something, and all of sudden, I was madly searching around for turnover timber that I could get for free or cheap. What's in the kitchen now:
-25 lbs of apples and a huge, beautiful Musquee de Provence squash, gotten in trade from Julia at Mariquita, for working at her bi-weekly Mystery Box pickup outside Piccino on Thursday. I ferried flats of strawberries and big plastic bags of veggies into Smartcars and Priuses for a few hours, and came home with a sense of duty done.
-Another milkcrate of knobby little apples, picked with Lauren of Produce to the People. Through Neighborhood Fruit, Lauren heard of a guy out in the avenues who had extra apples up high on his backyard tree. Being a fellow Bernalite, she picked me up in her truck and we nipped over there, ladder and pickers in hand. The guy was rather bemused to have two flannel-wearing cheerful ladies in his backyard, taking turns getting the fruit off his tree. Weirdest part: after telling us about a recent surgery he had to remove some moles from his torso, he insisted on whipping up his shirt to show us the rows of metal staples in his back and chest. He then followed us down the street and gave us both his card.
-40 lbs of beat-up kitchen pears from Frog Hollow, which I had to pay for, albeit much less than their usual $4/lb.
Wish I could have scored some quinces and huckleberries, but these will work...so now onto the pastry making! Am thinking of trying the quick-puff recipe in my Williams-Sonoma baking book, which is essentially just regular pie crust that's rolled and folded, rolled and folded three times to increase the flakiness and butter-layering. Report to follow!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
We're Jamming...
You'd think, working in a place full of fruit, jam, and pastries, my first priority on my day off would not be making bread and jam. But it is! I could spend the day trying to find my mysteriously-disappeared cell phone, but I've done what I could, and short of a little more desultory searching, I don't think there's much more I can do to bring it back from Buenos Aires or wherever it's decided to go junketing. So instead: apricot jam!
This is a special windfall batch of jam, courtesy of the Free Farmstand. Tree and pals gleaned over 400 lbs of beautiful Blenheims from an old orchard up in Davis. They brought back the bounty to the city, where the promise of fruit (and the beautiful Sunday afternoon) resulted in an actual line snaking back from the table--something I'd never seen before. The offerings on the table were mostly mixed-up greens (including some very nice bunches of orach, aka mountain spinach) and bunches of herbs...the greens (including the radish greens from the Star Route Farms French breakfast radishes for which I'd traded a few super-ripe candy-cot apricots the day before) made an excellent mess sauteed with young garlic and a little soy sauce and sesame oil over brown rice.
But mostly it was all about the fruit, and along with a couple of other intrepid jam makers I scored a whole flat of very ripe Blenheims to take home for jamming. Ten pounds of free fruit, gathered with love and generous intent, plus a few knobbly lemons from someone's backyard.
Right now, batch #2 is simmering on the stove, along with a pot of black-bean soup, and the dough for whole-wheat oatmeal is rising on the table. After a cold, cold start, it's a lovely sunny day out there, and the first flower has opened on the Royal Chocolate salpiglossis, living up to its name.
This is a special windfall batch of jam, courtesy of the Free Farmstand. Tree and pals gleaned over 400 lbs of beautiful Blenheims from an old orchard up in Davis. They brought back the bounty to the city, where the promise of fruit (and the beautiful Sunday afternoon) resulted in an actual line snaking back from the table--something I'd never seen before. The offerings on the table were mostly mixed-up greens (including some very nice bunches of orach, aka mountain spinach) and bunches of herbs...the greens (including the radish greens from the Star Route Farms French breakfast radishes for which I'd traded a few super-ripe candy-cot apricots the day before) made an excellent mess sauteed with young garlic and a little soy sauce and sesame oil over brown rice.
But mostly it was all about the fruit, and along with a couple of other intrepid jam makers I scored a whole flat of very ripe Blenheims to take home for jamming. Ten pounds of free fruit, gathered with love and generous intent, plus a few knobbly lemons from someone's backyard.
Right now, batch #2 is simmering on the stove, along with a pot of black-bean soup, and the dough for whole-wheat oatmeal is rising on the table. After a cold, cold start, it's a lovely sunny day out there, and the first flower has opened on the Royal Chocolate salpiglossis, living up to its name.
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