Yay! We're back in Brooklyn, where the temperature's a balmy 27 and the residual curbside snow piles can be climbed easily even in high-heeled suede boots. K. and I blithely left our snowboots upstate, and so far, the sunny weather is as happy as can be.
Lucky for you, the wifi was down in the Syracuse airport on Thursday, otherwise you'd still be digging out of a mountain of hour-by-hour commentary on the hell that was JetBlue air travel that day. The flight: 45 minutes. The wait: 10+ hours. K. was sanguine, though, having been through much worse during the past year. "At least we're not carrying rockets," she pointed out, and I couldn't disagree.
But now we're here, and oh joy, I can walk to the supermarket, walk to the all-night diner on Smith St where we ended our traveling ordeal with 2am eggs and toast, walk to Chestnut, where we had our welcome-back dinner and where we got not only Daniel's off-the-menu grandma cooking (split pea soup with ham) but also the tasty leftovers from Wednesday's Valentine tasting menu, including smashing fresh Dungeness crab (rolled with cilantro and shredded red cabbage in translucent, Vietnamese-style rice-paper rolls) in tamarind-peanut sauce and a dessert lagniappe of four chocolates (meyer lemon, hazelnut, blueberry in white chocolate and meyer lemon again). The standout was the Turbodog special, spoon-soft short ribs braised in brawny Abita Turbodog ale, served over a rutabaga-potato mash with Satur Farms (Long Island) baby carrots (actual small carrots, that is, not the carved-up little supermarket fingers) and a dusting of horseradish.
B. and his pal Gaby stopped by for dessert, and we all slurped down cups of thick Mexican hot chocolate with freshly made, feathery light cinnamon-sugar churros. Churros became the topic du jour for a while; turns out a guy sells churros down in the bowels of the 6th Ave subway station, near the L train, according to Gaby. You can also get them at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, Northern California's Coney Island.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Ice Cream in Winter
Maybe because it's 15 degrees out there, with all-day every-day lake effect snow warnings on the radio every hour. Or maybe it's the sauna-hot temp of our steam-heated apartment. Whatever the reason, what I'm thinking about right now is...
Ice Cream! Specifically, the burnt-caramel ice cream being served up at the Bi Rite Creamery in San Francisco. The Bi-Rite Market, nearby, is one of the best places in my old neighborhood, a tiny but excellent gourmet market with everything you'd want to eat jammed into it, from organic blood oranges, Acme walnut levain bread, and Green & Red zinfandel to Scharffenberger chocolate mini-bars and fresh wild-caught salmon. And flowers, fancy booze, and loads of good juices and cool sodas. It also didn't hurt that it was right next door to my favorite restaurant and equidistant from Tartine Bakery and the Dolores Park Cafe.
Because I'm, like, old, I can still recall the pre-gourmet days of this stretch of 18th St, when Tartine was the danish-and-birthday-cake Carl's, and the rest of the businesses were junk shops, barber shops, and old-lady beauty parlors. On the corner was a dingy health-food restaurant called Real Good Karma, aka Real Bad Karma, because everyone had a really bad date/breakup story from that place. Across the street was Anna's Danish Butter Cookies, a 50-year-old place decked out with a cheery red-and-white striped awning. Yes, Anna was making from scratch the kind of cookies usually found only in pleated paper cups inside that big blue metal tin. You know, the grandma container, last filled with cookies in 1973, now a receptacle for old buttons, ball-point pen caps, and broken crayons in perpetuity.
But that was, oh, 1992 or so. You can't buy a beat-up Campbells Soup Kids commemorative bicentennial mug for 50 cents or a huge cherry danish waxed with squiggly white icing here anymore. My second San Francisco girlfriend no longer lives just up the street across from the huge cocktail glass sparkling with pink neon bubbles over the corner dive. The dive that advertised "Open at 6AM" on the sign outside, and actually was, the Sunday morning when we were getting a cab from a long Saturday night in SF General's emergency room, and the driver refused to make change from our single $20 bill. There was the dive, and yes, very early on a Sunday morning, they were open and willing to break a twenty for a woman wearing a leopard fake-fur coat, a black rubber halter top, and blue surgical booties. The same girlfriend who, when I finally had to cop to the fact that I was ditching her for a glamorous, if drunken, local Elvis impersonator, hissed miserably at me over mushroomy brown-rice slop at Real Good Karma. As Jen would say, small city, long life (see "like, old", above). But I digress.
So the sleepy, low-rent charm is gone, but it's still very much a neighborhood strip, at least during the day. And Bi-Rite now has an ice cream store! I haven't eaten there yet (although I'm heading there as soon as my California-bound plane touches down in mid-April) but word on the (Chowhound) street is already very thumbs up. We'll see; can Bi-Rite truly rival Paris's Berthillon in the satiny caramel ice cream taste test? Stay tuned, or tell me what you've eaten lately down on 18th St.
But sometimes I crave egg creams more than ice cream, and this place is making them:it's called the Soda Shop, owned by the guy behind Anglers and Writers and the Bespeckled Trout, both now-closed Village spots. The BT was a candy-shop-cum-soda-fountain in my old Hudson St West Village nabe. I wanted to like it, although as a business it didn't seem to have much going on; it was more a stage set for a olde-time candy store than a place where you could actually purchase things. I think I got one of their much-vaunted egg creams once; it wasn't memorable, except for the cranky lady who really didn't seem to want to be bothered to make it. But maybe they're doing better at this new location; if nothing else, the fabulously scavenged decor (black walnut paneling from the Plaza Hotel! Marble from old banks!) sounds worth a look.
What? You ask what is this egg cream of which I speak? According to E., it's an ice cream soda without the ice cream, aka completely pointless. But he's from California, a great place but not one that knows from egg creams. Egg creams, like bialys and black-and-white cookies, are a New York City thing. Chocolate syrup (traditionally, Fox's U-Bet), milk, and seltzer not poured from a plastic bottle but shpritzed in forcefully from the cartridge-loaded nozzle of a heavy glass soda siphon. It's sweet and chocolatey and fizzy, a little like a homemade Yoo-Hoo.
Ice Cream! Specifically, the burnt-caramel ice cream being served up at the Bi Rite Creamery in San Francisco. The Bi-Rite Market, nearby, is one of the best places in my old neighborhood, a tiny but excellent gourmet market with everything you'd want to eat jammed into it, from organic blood oranges, Acme walnut levain bread, and Green & Red zinfandel to Scharffenberger chocolate mini-bars and fresh wild-caught salmon. And flowers, fancy booze, and loads of good juices and cool sodas. It also didn't hurt that it was right next door to my favorite restaurant and equidistant from Tartine Bakery and the Dolores Park Cafe.
Because I'm, like, old, I can still recall the pre-gourmet days of this stretch of 18th St, when Tartine was the danish-and-birthday-cake Carl's, and the rest of the businesses were junk shops, barber shops, and old-lady beauty parlors. On the corner was a dingy health-food restaurant called Real Good Karma, aka Real Bad Karma, because everyone had a really bad date/breakup story from that place. Across the street was Anna's Danish Butter Cookies, a 50-year-old place decked out with a cheery red-and-white striped awning. Yes, Anna was making from scratch the kind of cookies usually found only in pleated paper cups inside that big blue metal tin. You know, the grandma container, last filled with cookies in 1973, now a receptacle for old buttons, ball-point pen caps, and broken crayons in perpetuity.
But that was, oh, 1992 or so. You can't buy a beat-up Campbells Soup Kids commemorative bicentennial mug for 50 cents or a huge cherry danish waxed with squiggly white icing here anymore. My second San Francisco girlfriend no longer lives just up the street across from the huge cocktail glass sparkling with pink neon bubbles over the corner dive. The dive that advertised "Open at 6AM" on the sign outside, and actually was, the Sunday morning when we were getting a cab from a long Saturday night in SF General's emergency room, and the driver refused to make change from our single $20 bill. There was the dive, and yes, very early on a Sunday morning, they were open and willing to break a twenty for a woman wearing a leopard fake-fur coat, a black rubber halter top, and blue surgical booties. The same girlfriend who, when I finally had to cop to the fact that I was ditching her for a glamorous, if drunken, local Elvis impersonator, hissed miserably at me over mushroomy brown-rice slop at Real Good Karma. As Jen would say, small city, long life (see "like, old", above). But I digress.
So the sleepy, low-rent charm is gone, but it's still very much a neighborhood strip, at least during the day. And Bi-Rite now has an ice cream store! I haven't eaten there yet (although I'm heading there as soon as my California-bound plane touches down in mid-April) but word on the (Chowhound) street is already very thumbs up. We'll see; can Bi-Rite truly rival Paris's Berthillon in the satiny caramel ice cream taste test? Stay tuned, or tell me what you've eaten lately down on 18th St.
But sometimes I crave egg creams more than ice cream, and this place is making them:it's called the Soda Shop, owned by the guy behind Anglers and Writers and the Bespeckled Trout, both now-closed Village spots. The BT was a candy-shop-cum-soda-fountain in my old Hudson St West Village nabe. I wanted to like it, although as a business it didn't seem to have much going on; it was more a stage set for a olde-time candy store than a place where you could actually purchase things. I think I got one of their much-vaunted egg creams once; it wasn't memorable, except for the cranky lady who really didn't seem to want to be bothered to make it. But maybe they're doing better at this new location; if nothing else, the fabulously scavenged decor (black walnut paneling from the Plaza Hotel! Marble from old banks!) sounds worth a look.
What? You ask what is this egg cream of which I speak? According to E., it's an ice cream soda without the ice cream, aka completely pointless. But he's from California, a great place but not one that knows from egg creams. Egg creams, like bialys and black-and-white cookies, are a New York City thing. Chocolate syrup (traditionally, Fox's U-Bet), milk, and seltzer not poured from a plastic bottle but shpritzed in forcefully from the cartridge-loaded nozzle of a heavy glass soda siphon. It's sweet and chocolatey and fizzy, a little like a homemade Yoo-Hoo.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Chicken Soup for the Snowbound
Lake-effect snow: I know what this means now. What it means in this town is huge out-of-nowhere dumps of white, drifts higher than your head, cars slipping and sliding and nosing head first into the giant lumpy piles on the side of the road. We spent Sunday holed up in the apartment after one white-knuckled foray down the street to the gas-station store. Frozen pizza was our friend that night, as was the Sunday Times crossword.
But I was finally able to cook for real last night, using the blade on K's Leatherman tool to chop onions, garlic, parsnips, and carrots, whenever K. wasn't using it herself to put up shelves or do other useful tasks around the house following our afternoon in the lumber and screws aisles of Home Depot. The chopped veg and a couple of chicken thighs and drumsticks all simmered in the one beat-up enamel saucepan that I'd brought with me from the Old Country, meaning Brooklyn, to make a batch of cold-fighting Jewish pencillin, aka Matzoh-Ball Soup. Apple crisp in the oven, and toast and butter on the table. We were sated and happy, and somewhere, so is my round little Jewish grandma, whose own soup can never be surpassed.
But I was finally able to cook for real last night, using the blade on K's Leatherman tool to chop onions, garlic, parsnips, and carrots, whenever K. wasn't using it herself to put up shelves or do other useful tasks around the house following our afternoon in the lumber and screws aisles of Home Depot. The chopped veg and a couple of chicken thighs and drumsticks all simmered in the one beat-up enamel saucepan that I'd brought with me from the Old Country, meaning Brooklyn, to make a batch of cold-fighting Jewish pencillin, aka Matzoh-Ball Soup. Apple crisp in the oven, and toast and butter on the table. We were sated and happy, and somewhere, so is my round little Jewish grandma, whose own soup can never be surpassed.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Up in Snowland
There's a lot of snow in upstate New York at this time of year. White, gray, and dirty white are the colors of the landscape, and there's not much to do here except go to the mall. Farmland and dairy ranches are more profitable paved over and turned into sprawling parking lots for big-box stores and Dunkin Donuts.
But I'm so, so happy to be back with K. now. Even if she wakes up at 3am every night, ready to start her day on some spun-around circadian rhythm. We do crossword puzzles, make fun of Saveur magazine's "Saveur 100" list, eat pop tarts (well, she does, at least; I don't have an excuse) and toss the pillows around until it's time to nap again just before dawn. Thanks to some kind of market-researching as to What Do People Want in their chain-hotel room, everything in the room tells you what it is or what it does. The pillow cases are monogrammed "soft" or "firm"; the soap is imprinted with the word "cleanse"; the lotion and mouthwash are marked "soften" and "freshen", respectively. Good to know the verbs are earning their keep here.
This town is generally a restaurant wasteland; if you like fold-out laminated menus with glistening full-color photos of every dish, you're in the right place. But last night we trekked to a nearby town that's quainter and more historic, and ended up having the best food I've had in this area, including haddock with fresh spinach, sweet-potato cake, and red-pepper coulis and filet with bacony mashed potatoes and gorgonzola sauce.
And now, we have an apartment! Smaller than this hotel room, but our first together nonetheless. Off to Sally Ann's for plates and lamps...
But I'm so, so happy to be back with K. now. Even if she wakes up at 3am every night, ready to start her day on some spun-around circadian rhythm. We do crossword puzzles, make fun of Saveur magazine's "Saveur 100" list, eat pop tarts (well, she does, at least; I don't have an excuse) and toss the pillows around until it's time to nap again just before dawn. Thanks to some kind of market-researching as to What Do People Want in their chain-hotel room, everything in the room tells you what it is or what it does. The pillow cases are monogrammed "soft" or "firm"; the soap is imprinted with the word "cleanse"; the lotion and mouthwash are marked "soften" and "freshen", respectively. Good to know the verbs are earning their keep here.
This town is generally a restaurant wasteland; if you like fold-out laminated menus with glistening full-color photos of every dish, you're in the right place. But last night we trekked to a nearby town that's quainter and more historic, and ended up having the best food I've had in this area, including haddock with fresh spinach, sweet-potato cake, and red-pepper coulis and filet with bacony mashed potatoes and gorgonzola sauce.
And now, we have an apartment! Smaller than this hotel room, but our first together nonetheless. Off to Sally Ann's for plates and lamps...
Monday, January 29, 2007
on her way home
Yes, K. is coming home, in just a couple of days now. Unfortunately, some of the people she's spent her last year with won't be, at least not for another 4 or 5 months. It's bittersweet--we're both so happy that she's coming home after this long year, but it's also very sad to know that other people's family and friends won't be so lucky, because their kids/spouses/partners have been given orders to stay put until the summer.
Not much else to report--just wishing her luck on her 16+ hour flight home. Her warning: "I'm going to smell really bad when you see me." Mmm, sweat, diesel fuel, and a slept-in uniform....
Not much else to report--just wishing her luck on her 16+ hour flight home. Her warning: "I'm going to smell really bad when you see me." Mmm, sweat, diesel fuel, and a slept-in uniform....
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Dolls and custard
Any minute now--okay, next week-- my life as Lonely Girlfriend of a Faraway Soldier will be officially over. Yippee! No longer will my 12-inch camo-clad Sgt. K. doll-- um, action figure-- have to pull girlfriend duty at dinner parties.
But speaking of action figures and parties, check out the fabulous wrestlers' wedding cupcake tower, made by vegan-punker cupcake queen Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I particularly like the topless wrester dudes positioned as both cupcake guards and flower girls. A thought for our own festivities after I get back from the farm...
Not much on the baking front these days, and I was sadly remiss on National Pie Day. I did cook that day, but only a caramel custard for the ladies of book club. I tried to explain how easy this dish is to make, but pal Diana, mother of four (including 2 7-month old twins) was having none of it. Especially when I mentioned the part about infusing the milk and cream with cinnamon sticks and orange rind.
That said, it IS really, really easy, and people are very impressed, always, thanks to the groovy caramel sauce that makes itself while the custard bakes. Plus, it requires only the most basic of fridge-and-pantry ingredients--just milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla. The infusing is fun, but it's also perfectly tasty just made with a little vanilla extract.
Super Easy Creme Caramel, Flan, Whatever
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup half-and-half or heavy cream
1 cup sugar, divided
2 tsp vanilla (leave out if using vanilla bean, below, or use brandy or something fun like grand marnier, instead)
Optional flavoring things: orange rind, cinnamon stick, 1/4 cup whole coffee beans, or half a vanilla bean, split
If you're going to do the flavoring-with-whole-things deal, bring the milk and cream to a bare simmer (just until little bubbles form around the edges of the pan). Add flavoring (you could combine the orange and cinnamon, or cinnamon and coffee), remove from heat, and let steep for at least 1 hour. Bring back to a bare simmer again, then strain out solids. If using vanilla bean, scrape out tiny seeds into milk, then discard bean husk.
Preheat oven to 325 F. Place a large baking dish half-filled with hot water into the oven.
In a small, heavy pot, melt 1/2 cup sugar. Swirl and stir occasionally to make sure sugar melts evenly. Watch closely, and remove from heat as soon as sugar is completely melted and copper-penny colored. Watch out --the caramel is REALLY hot and will stick to and burn your skin in a really unpleasant manner. It will also start to thicken and harden as soon as you take it off the heat. So, using hot pads, pick up the pot and immediately pour sugar into a high-sided ceramic baking dish (like a souffle dish). Swirl around so caramel splashes an inch or so up the sides. Set aside. It will get glass-hard and glossy as it cools.
Beat eggs and yolks with remaining sugar. Slowly pour in milk mixture. If not using vanilla bean, add vanilla extract. Pour mixture through a strainer (this catches any milk "skin" or random lumps of eggy gunk) into caramel lined dish. Place in baking dish--water should come halfway up the sides of the dish. (This water bath, or bain-marie, keeps the eggs from getting rubbery, as they would if you baked them by regular direct heat.)
Bake for 45 or 50 minutes, until surface is gently jiggly and a skewer poked in the middle comes out clean. Remove from water bath and cool on a rack. When close to room temp, refrigerate for several hours until well chilled. (Warm custard is disgusting, in my opinion, but if you're into it, hey, jump in.)
To unmold--this is the cool part--find a dish big enough so that you'll have room for at least a one-inch moat of sauce around the custard. Run a butter knife around the edge of the custard to loosen it from the pan. Place the dish, top side in, over the pan. Holding pan and plate together, flip the pan and plate over. Custard should fall onto the plate, with caramel sauce oozing down to form a lovely lake all around.
Fill the empty dish with hot water while you're eating dessert and all the extra cooked sugar will float right off.
But speaking of action figures and parties, check out the fabulous wrestlers' wedding cupcake tower, made by vegan-punker cupcake queen Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I particularly like the topless wrester dudes positioned as both cupcake guards and flower girls. A thought for our own festivities after I get back from the farm...
Not much on the baking front these days, and I was sadly remiss on National Pie Day. I did cook that day, but only a caramel custard for the ladies of book club. I tried to explain how easy this dish is to make, but pal Diana, mother of four (including 2 7-month old twins) was having none of it. Especially when I mentioned the part about infusing the milk and cream with cinnamon sticks and orange rind.
That said, it IS really, really easy, and people are very impressed, always, thanks to the groovy caramel sauce that makes itself while the custard bakes. Plus, it requires only the most basic of fridge-and-pantry ingredients--just milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla. The infusing is fun, but it's also perfectly tasty just made with a little vanilla extract.
Super Easy Creme Caramel, Flan, Whatever
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup half-and-half or heavy cream
1 cup sugar, divided
2 tsp vanilla (leave out if using vanilla bean, below, or use brandy or something fun like grand marnier, instead)
Optional flavoring things: orange rind, cinnamon stick, 1/4 cup whole coffee beans, or half a vanilla bean, split
If you're going to do the flavoring-with-whole-things deal, bring the milk and cream to a bare simmer (just until little bubbles form around the edges of the pan). Add flavoring (you could combine the orange and cinnamon, or cinnamon and coffee), remove from heat, and let steep for at least 1 hour. Bring back to a bare simmer again, then strain out solids. If using vanilla bean, scrape out tiny seeds into milk, then discard bean husk.
Preheat oven to 325 F. Place a large baking dish half-filled with hot water into the oven.
In a small, heavy pot, melt 1/2 cup sugar. Swirl and stir occasionally to make sure sugar melts evenly. Watch closely, and remove from heat as soon as sugar is completely melted and copper-penny colored. Watch out --the caramel is REALLY hot and will stick to and burn your skin in a really unpleasant manner. It will also start to thicken and harden as soon as you take it off the heat. So, using hot pads, pick up the pot and immediately pour sugar into a high-sided ceramic baking dish (like a souffle dish). Swirl around so caramel splashes an inch or so up the sides. Set aside. It will get glass-hard and glossy as it cools.
Beat eggs and yolks with remaining sugar. Slowly pour in milk mixture. If not using vanilla bean, add vanilla extract. Pour mixture through a strainer (this catches any milk "skin" or random lumps of eggy gunk) into caramel lined dish. Place in baking dish--water should come halfway up the sides of the dish. (This water bath, or bain-marie, keeps the eggs from getting rubbery, as they would if you baked them by regular direct heat.)
Bake for 45 or 50 minutes, until surface is gently jiggly and a skewer poked in the middle comes out clean. Remove from water bath and cool on a rack. When close to room temp, refrigerate for several hours until well chilled. (Warm custard is disgusting, in my opinion, but if you're into it, hey, jump in.)
To unmold--this is the cool part--find a dish big enough so that you'll have room for at least a one-inch moat of sauce around the custard. Run a butter knife around the edge of the custard to loosen it from the pan. Place the dish, top side in, over the pan. Holding pan and plate together, flip the pan and plate over. Custard should fall onto the plate, with caramel sauce oozing down to form a lovely lake all around.
Fill the empty dish with hot water while you're eating dessert and all the extra cooked sugar will float right off.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
snow!
Snow! Well, it's about time. Here we are, sitting around in Brooklyn while the rest of the country gets snow days and the National Guard towing their cars, thinking, hey, what are we? Chopped liver?
Just tiny little flurries right now, but it's nice to get a teeny taste of winter, at least.
Just tiny little flurries right now, but it's nice to get a teeny taste of winter, at least.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Countdown
10 days and K. should be on a plane heading home! Of course, the only thing certain about the Army is that nothing's certain...and there is a lot of snow where she is these days, so it's not 100% sure that she'll be leaving on the day as planned. And it will probably take at least 2 days, maybe more, for her to get all the way back to the States once they leave. But every day crossed out on the calendar is one day closer to seeing her.
If all goes well, we'll be dividing our time (until I head out to the farm in mid-April) between Brooklyn and the little town way upstate where she'll be stationed for the next few months. Besides the bright lights of NYC, just going to the grocery store, having friends over for brunch, not being separated by a time-zone difference of 9 1/2 hours, not having to travel 6 hours+ to see each other (as we had to do before she left) on the weekends all seems very exciting... As does walking over to Chestnut or Brooklyn Fish Camp for dinner, or cooking fish, grits, and greens at home.
But right now, it's finally chilly out, and that means, cookies!
If all goes well, we'll be dividing our time (until I head out to the farm in mid-April) between Brooklyn and the little town way upstate where she'll be stationed for the next few months. Besides the bright lights of NYC, just going to the grocery store, having friends over for brunch, not being separated by a time-zone difference of 9 1/2 hours, not having to travel 6 hours+ to see each other (as we had to do before she left) on the weekends all seems very exciting... As does walking over to Chestnut or Brooklyn Fish Camp for dinner, or cooking fish, grits, and greens at home.
But right now, it's finally chilly out, and that means, cookies!
Monday, January 15, 2007
Duck Redux
So, where do the ducks -- or at least their legs-- go in January? After a mad rush to bake bread, tidy up the house, and roast the butternut squash, I hopped on the subway to the Union Square Greenmarket, all set to patronize the big stand that's always there, selling venison and pheasant and wild turkeys and yes, duck.
Except that it wasn't there. There were plenty of stands selling pastured lamb, bison, beef, and pork, but duck I had promised, and duck it would be. So back over to Brooklyn, to pop into Staubitz on Court St at 4pm, to a butcher who was not at all sure that they had any duck. Into the back he went as I eyed the rest of the meat case, thinking, well, who doesn't likes a nice roast chicken? Luckily, though, some 10 minutes later he emerged, holding aloft a package of 4 duck legs. "Just put this into a bowl of cool water, and they'll thaw out in about 40 minutes or so."
Ah, frozen duck. I hadn't counted on that. The Zuni recipe, as I remembered it, seemed to call for at least 2 1/2 hours in the oven, and I had no hors-d'oeuvres planned. Well, then. Into the kitchen and into the water with the sealed plastic packet of duck.
And into the oven with four sweet potatoes while some milk warmed on the stove, infused with a few branches of thyme and sage. As the duck thawed, I rapidly boiled down an entire bottle of cheap Chilean Merlot to 1/4 of its volume, spattering a fine purple mist all over the stove. In a big white pot on the other side of the stove was chicken stock in process--2 chicken legs, a chopped leek, a chopped carrot, some salt and another branch of thyme.
Trying to bisect a butternut squash without a huge cleaver means my knife inevitably gets stuck in the side of the squash like a bad outtake from The Sword in the Stone. Luckily, there is another option: just stick the whole thing in the oven!
Ha! Take that, sucker!
Poke it vigorously so the steam can get out, slip it onto a baking sheet (so the inner drool won't burn and smoke), and bake at 325F until soft, a long time. Remove from the oven, slash in half and let it cool. When cool enough to handle, scoop out the seeds and strings. Scrape out all the flesh and let it drain in a colander for a couple of hours. Put the chunks through a food mill to make a smooth puree. Slash your roasted sweet potatoes open and let cool, then do the same scrape and mill. Mix the purees together, then dribble in enough herb-scented milk (or cream) til you have a smooth and gently enriched puree. Add a knob of butter, salt and pepper to taste. Smooth into a baking dish and slip into the oven while the duck bakes, just enough to heat through. Of course, orange is always suitable with squash and sweet potatoes, but there was enough citrus going on in this menu, so I opted for winter herbs--thyme, sage, or rosemary--instead.
Then, the winter salad: julienned fennel, turnip, and endive, a mixture of three crunchy whites, scattered with pomegranate seeds and a handful of arugula, in a light dressing of wine wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, good green olive oil, and a drop of honey. Three bunches of collards rinsed, ribbed, rolled, and sliced into chiffonade, ready to be steam-sauteed in a ladleful of chicken stock, then tossed into hot garlicky, lemon-zested olive oil, spritzed with lemon juice just before serving.
But back to the duck. Not thawed through, but softened enough to separate, the duck legs were patted dry with paper towels, rubbed with a little salt (according to Zuni, the well-salted legs should have sitting in my fridge for two days by now, loosely covered and thinking their own thoughts, but nuts to that) and tossed, skin down, into a hot cast-iron skillet to hiss and brown on both sides.
Much fat rendered, the legs did get crisp and browned, just as promised. Then, pour off the fat into a spare coffee can (mmm, duck-fat home fries, anyone?) and swirl the boiled-down red wine into the pan. Replace the duck legs (fatty skin side up), tuck in 3 large onions, cut into wedges, a handful of whole garlic cloves, a dozen fat unpitted prunes, and a few slivers of orange peel. Add a cup of reduced chicken stock (start with 2 cups, then boil down to half its volume) over the top, then bring the whole thing to a simmer. Cover tightly, and pop into a 300-degree oven for about 40 minutes. The liquid should come halfway up the duck legs; add more chicken stock if needed.
Timing is completely dependent on your oven and the size of the duck legs. Mine were smallish, and my oven runs hot, so everything went faster than I expected. After 40 minutes or so, I uncovered the pan, flipped the legs over, and sloshed the prunes around. A little while later--maybe 30 minutes, more or less-- I uncovered the duck again, which now looked well-browned and shiny. 10 more minutes, uncovered, and the sauce reduced a bit and the duck got even better-looking. Out of the oven, onto a platter with the mostly cooked-down onion sludge and the plump prunes. The sauce went into my new gravy strainer, there to sit for a couple of minutes so all the fat could rise to the top. You definitely want to do this, gravy strainer or not, so you're not serving a sauce that's half straight-up duck fat.
So, finally, hot greens in a bowl, squash-potato puree in a dish, sauce in a pitcher, sliced polenta bread in a basket, and duck on a platter. A fine winter meal all around. And as usual, I completely forgot about the salad, until I was opening the fridge to get dessert. Whoops! So we had salad before dessert--not chocolate cake as I'd planned (too heavy and brown after the duck), but a buttery Meyer lemon pound cake, with a chilled compote of navel and blood orange slices, pomegranate seeds, a few tablespoons of Grand Marnier and a sprinkling of orange-flower water. Very good for breakfast, too.
Except that it wasn't there. There were plenty of stands selling pastured lamb, bison, beef, and pork, but duck I had promised, and duck it would be. So back over to Brooklyn, to pop into Staubitz on Court St at 4pm, to a butcher who was not at all sure that they had any duck. Into the back he went as I eyed the rest of the meat case, thinking, well, who doesn't likes a nice roast chicken? Luckily, though, some 10 minutes later he emerged, holding aloft a package of 4 duck legs. "Just put this into a bowl of cool water, and they'll thaw out in about 40 minutes or so."
Ah, frozen duck. I hadn't counted on that. The Zuni recipe, as I remembered it, seemed to call for at least 2 1/2 hours in the oven, and I had no hors-d'oeuvres planned. Well, then. Into the kitchen and into the water with the sealed plastic packet of duck.
And into the oven with four sweet potatoes while some milk warmed on the stove, infused with a few branches of thyme and sage. As the duck thawed, I rapidly boiled down an entire bottle of cheap Chilean Merlot to 1/4 of its volume, spattering a fine purple mist all over the stove. In a big white pot on the other side of the stove was chicken stock in process--2 chicken legs, a chopped leek, a chopped carrot, some salt and another branch of thyme.
Trying to bisect a butternut squash without a huge cleaver means my knife inevitably gets stuck in the side of the squash like a bad outtake from The Sword in the Stone. Luckily, there is another option: just stick the whole thing in the oven!
Ha! Take that, sucker!
Poke it vigorously so the steam can get out, slip it onto a baking sheet (so the inner drool won't burn and smoke), and bake at 325F until soft, a long time. Remove from the oven, slash in half and let it cool. When cool enough to handle, scoop out the seeds and strings. Scrape out all the flesh and let it drain in a colander for a couple of hours. Put the chunks through a food mill to make a smooth puree. Slash your roasted sweet potatoes open and let cool, then do the same scrape and mill. Mix the purees together, then dribble in enough herb-scented milk (or cream) til you have a smooth and gently enriched puree. Add a knob of butter, salt and pepper to taste. Smooth into a baking dish and slip into the oven while the duck bakes, just enough to heat through. Of course, orange is always suitable with squash and sweet potatoes, but there was enough citrus going on in this menu, so I opted for winter herbs--thyme, sage, or rosemary--instead.
Then, the winter salad: julienned fennel, turnip, and endive, a mixture of three crunchy whites, scattered with pomegranate seeds and a handful of arugula, in a light dressing of wine wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, good green olive oil, and a drop of honey. Three bunches of collards rinsed, ribbed, rolled, and sliced into chiffonade, ready to be steam-sauteed in a ladleful of chicken stock, then tossed into hot garlicky, lemon-zested olive oil, spritzed with lemon juice just before serving.
But back to the duck. Not thawed through, but softened enough to separate, the duck legs were patted dry with paper towels, rubbed with a little salt (according to Zuni, the well-salted legs should have sitting in my fridge for two days by now, loosely covered and thinking their own thoughts, but nuts to that) and tossed, skin down, into a hot cast-iron skillet to hiss and brown on both sides.
Much fat rendered, the legs did get crisp and browned, just as promised. Then, pour off the fat into a spare coffee can (mmm, duck-fat home fries, anyone?) and swirl the boiled-down red wine into the pan. Replace the duck legs (fatty skin side up), tuck in 3 large onions, cut into wedges, a handful of whole garlic cloves, a dozen fat unpitted prunes, and a few slivers of orange peel. Add a cup of reduced chicken stock (start with 2 cups, then boil down to half its volume) over the top, then bring the whole thing to a simmer. Cover tightly, and pop into a 300-degree oven for about 40 minutes. The liquid should come halfway up the duck legs; add more chicken stock if needed.
Timing is completely dependent on your oven and the size of the duck legs. Mine were smallish, and my oven runs hot, so everything went faster than I expected. After 40 minutes or so, I uncovered the pan, flipped the legs over, and sloshed the prunes around. A little while later--maybe 30 minutes, more or less-- I uncovered the duck again, which now looked well-browned and shiny. 10 more minutes, uncovered, and the sauce reduced a bit and the duck got even better-looking. Out of the oven, onto a platter with the mostly cooked-down onion sludge and the plump prunes. The sauce went into my new gravy strainer, there to sit for a couple of minutes so all the fat could rise to the top. You definitely want to do this, gravy strainer or not, so you're not serving a sauce that's half straight-up duck fat.
So, finally, hot greens in a bowl, squash-potato puree in a dish, sauce in a pitcher, sliced polenta bread in a basket, and duck on a platter. A fine winter meal all around. And as usual, I completely forgot about the salad, until I was opening the fridge to get dessert. Whoops! So we had salad before dessert--not chocolate cake as I'd planned (too heavy and brown after the duck), but a buttery Meyer lemon pound cake, with a chilled compote of navel and blood orange slices, pomegranate seeds, a few tablespoons of Grand Marnier and a sprinkling of orange-flower water. Very good for breakfast, too.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Duck, duck, duck!
You can't really hope to impress people who've known you since you were 12. Anyone that can still remember me with feathered hair, monogrammed cardigans, and a crush on Simon LeBon and Annie Lennox--well, it would take more than a chocolate-mocha-whiskey cake to make them see me as a fancy grownup now.
But hey, give me points for trying. My old, old friends Bea and Susie (and Susie's husband and dog) are coming over for a long-overdue dinner in Brooklyn, after I've had many a fabulous meal in their houses. On the menu, then: the braised duck legs with red wine and prunes from the Zuni Cafe cookbook, butternut squash-sweet potato puree, garlicky winter greens, and yes, the clincher, chocolate-mocha-whiskey cake, from Good-Tempered Food by Tamasin Day-Lewis (yes, that Day-Lewis). Because chocolate is always good, and even if the duck runs out of the house on all four legs, no one will remember if there was plenty of nearly-flourless chocolate cake made with butter and almonds and coffee and bourbon. And perhaps, a bowlful of whipped cream made from Ronnybrook's fabulous fresh not-ultrapasteurized heavy cream, which makes for such dreamy Viennese coffee the next morning.
Not that I'll be having any, more's the pity. No, I'll just be having yet another steaming cup of hot hay and lawn clippings. After too many really unpleasant headaches during the last few months, I'm on a depressing no-caffeine regime--even though I was only ever drinking decaf coffee to begin with. No decaf coffee, no decaf black tea, just endless cups of mint and camomile, blah. I don't miss the residual caffeine a bit, but I do miss the taste, very much, and the whole coffee ritual, and real tea in the afternoon. And yes, I know chocolate has some caffeine, too, but I'm not giving up my little daily bite.
Now, off to the Greenmarket for duck legs, squash, sweet potatoes, cream, greens, and garlic. Recipes and pix to follow!
And the countdown to K.'s return continues--if the airstrips on her end aren't snowbound (as they often can be this time of year) she should be back in the States by the end of the month! Being able to walk to a warm bathroom in the middle of the night without going outside into sub-freezing weather--not to mention having a real bath, in potable water-- will take some getting used to, she says. As will wearing non-uniform clothes and not carrying an M16 everywhere she goes.
But hey, give me points for trying. My old, old friends Bea and Susie (and Susie's husband and dog) are coming over for a long-overdue dinner in Brooklyn, after I've had many a fabulous meal in their houses. On the menu, then: the braised duck legs with red wine and prunes from the Zuni Cafe cookbook, butternut squash-sweet potato puree, garlicky winter greens, and yes, the clincher, chocolate-mocha-whiskey cake, from Good-Tempered Food by Tamasin Day-Lewis (yes, that Day-Lewis). Because chocolate is always good, and even if the duck runs out of the house on all four legs, no one will remember if there was plenty of nearly-flourless chocolate cake made with butter and almonds and coffee and bourbon. And perhaps, a bowlful of whipped cream made from Ronnybrook's fabulous fresh not-ultrapasteurized heavy cream, which makes for such dreamy Viennese coffee the next morning.
Not that I'll be having any, more's the pity. No, I'll just be having yet another steaming cup of hot hay and lawn clippings. After too many really unpleasant headaches during the last few months, I'm on a depressing no-caffeine regime--even though I was only ever drinking decaf coffee to begin with. No decaf coffee, no decaf black tea, just endless cups of mint and camomile, blah. I don't miss the residual caffeine a bit, but I do miss the taste, very much, and the whole coffee ritual, and real tea in the afternoon. And yes, I know chocolate has some caffeine, too, but I'm not giving up my little daily bite.
Now, off to the Greenmarket for duck legs, squash, sweet potatoes, cream, greens, and garlic. Recipes and pix to follow!
And the countdown to K.'s return continues--if the airstrips on her end aren't snowbound (as they often can be this time of year) she should be back in the States by the end of the month! Being able to walk to a warm bathroom in the middle of the night without going outside into sub-freezing weather--not to mention having a real bath, in potable water-- will take some getting used to, she says. As will wearing non-uniform clothes and not carrying an M16 everywhere she goes.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
High Summer Far Away
Late July, Norton Island
This clear-washed morning
I have become,
quite unexpectedly,
Queen of raspberries.
This Sunday I do not share
lingering along the mud-rutted weed-wracked path
bowl of blue sky above
the cup of my palm
Pleasure replaced by pleasure
no surfeit in this moment
This moment caught in fire-bright jewelweed tangled up the vines
open throats lapped with nectar and
the thrust of bees.
This clear-washed morning
I have become,
quite unexpectedly,
Queen of raspberries.
This Sunday I do not share
lingering along the mud-rutted weed-wracked path
bowl of blue sky above
the cup of my palm
Pleasure replaced by pleasure
no surfeit in this moment
This moment caught in fire-bright jewelweed tangled up the vines
open throats lapped with nectar and
the thrust of bees.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
A toast to Manka's
The new year has begun, but the deadlines continue apace. A good thing, of course, as I need to save the cheddar for my farming tuition, but it also means new postings and happy baking stories might be a little thin on the ground in the next few days. But of course, no deadline is so pressing that gingerbread can't happen, especially the super-easy Silver Palate version, which made me feel loved just by the smell in the kitchen. It's also lucky that you can't make hoppin' john for one, since I've been living on bowls of the reheated leftovers since Monday.
Elsewhere in the news, it was sad, so sad, to get the news that Manka's Inverness Lodge, a quirky, wonderful restaurant and the rustic inn of my secret heart, was destroyed by fire right after Christmas. Not the whole place, but its heart and hearth, the nearly century-old Arts and Crafts main lodge, kitchen, and restaurant, along with four guest rooms. Luckily, no one was hurt, and owner Margaret Grade and her partner Daniel DeLong still have the annex and some surrounding buildings. They're having a dinner/wake on Friday; call them at 415-669-1034 if you want more info. The whole of Pt. Reyes and West Marin is intensely romantic, in a misty, coastal California way, and Manka's occupied a rather large place in the longings of my dreamlife north of the Golden Gate Bridge. I had hoped to take K. there for a night when we were on our whirlwind tour of SF last January, but finances (and that fact that the restaurant would have been closed then) prevailed; now, of course, the wisdom of living in the moment has proved itself yet again. I hope they can recoup, and rebuild. It won't be the same, but the spirit should prevail.
I realize this might sound a wee bit precious, to write an elegy for such a place. But Manka's was a unique expression of a particular outlook on life. Grade's dedication to local foods--long before "locavore" became a buzzword--has helped to preserve the agriculture of West Marin. The livelihoods of dozens of local farmers, fisherman, beekeepers, oystermen, poultry and dairy ranchers, and foragers were in part supported by the kitchen of Manka's, helping to preserve the agricultural heritage of West Marin. Their names went on the whimsical menus; I still have one, from the last meal I ate there in August of 2002, just before I left San Francisco on a path that would turn out to be much more heart-wrenching than I could have expected.
The menu for that meal, written like free verse,
A soup of Bolinas beets
Crowned with a cloud of sour cream
Laced with wild Inverness mint
Jim's duck seared over almond wood
Nested in fronds of local frisee
warmed with Bolinas torpedoes
Tenderloin of Bill's pork
grilled in the fireplace
propped atop lodge mashed potatoes
encircled with a natural jus
laced with just picked and sundried French plums
Local artisan cheeses
with suntoasted almonds and Rosa's moscato grapes
both from the vine
some nearly sun dried
A tart of farmers' market First Lady nectarines
and local dairy whipped dream
heightened with west Marin honey
I remember, at another, on the eve of Christmas eve, the dessert came crowned with "an ice of local dairy cream"-- a phrase that E. and I loved and used for years. For a long time, I had one of their Lenten menus up on my wall, featuring "another sole saved from the surrounding seas." The price of the meal was listed as "for your penance." Another Christmas Eve menu offered reindeer carpaccio, served on a "rooftop" of celery root and fennel.
In the dining room, loose nests of bare branches hung from the ceiling in lieu of flower arrangements, and quotes from favorite writers were stenciled on the walls. A lazy dog sprawled across the entrance as we drank our tea in front of the fireplace . Outside, in the misty winter night, a regiment of fir trees stood at attention all around the redwood-shingled building.
So, a toast and a pan of gingerbread to all the staff of Manka's, and a wish for their swift rebuilding.
Gingerbread to Warm Your Heart
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a square 8 x 8 pan.
Sift: 1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves (or allspice or nutmeg, if you prefer)
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
In a separate bowl, beat:
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup sugar
Boil: 1/2 cup water
Measure out: 1/2 cup melted butter or vegetable oil, or a combo of the two
Grate: an inch or so of fresh ginger, or dice up some candied or preserved ginger
Stir egg mixture into flour. Pour boiling water over batter, add butter or oil and candied ginger and stir until smooth. Pour into pan and bake until springy (cake tester should come out clean), 35-40 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla iced dream.
Elsewhere in the news, it was sad, so sad, to get the news that Manka's Inverness Lodge, a quirky, wonderful restaurant and the rustic inn of my secret heart, was destroyed by fire right after Christmas. Not the whole place, but its heart and hearth, the nearly century-old Arts and Crafts main lodge, kitchen, and restaurant, along with four guest rooms. Luckily, no one was hurt, and owner Margaret Grade and her partner Daniel DeLong still have the annex and some surrounding buildings. They're having a dinner/wake on Friday; call them at 415-669-1034 if you want more info. The whole of Pt. Reyes and West Marin is intensely romantic, in a misty, coastal California way, and Manka's occupied a rather large place in the longings of my dreamlife north of the Golden Gate Bridge. I had hoped to take K. there for a night when we were on our whirlwind tour of SF last January, but finances (and that fact that the restaurant would have been closed then) prevailed; now, of course, the wisdom of living in the moment has proved itself yet again. I hope they can recoup, and rebuild. It won't be the same, but the spirit should prevail.
I realize this might sound a wee bit precious, to write an elegy for such a place. But Manka's was a unique expression of a particular outlook on life. Grade's dedication to local foods--long before "locavore" became a buzzword--has helped to preserve the agriculture of West Marin. The livelihoods of dozens of local farmers, fisherman, beekeepers, oystermen, poultry and dairy ranchers, and foragers were in part supported by the kitchen of Manka's, helping to preserve the agricultural heritage of West Marin. Their names went on the whimsical menus; I still have one, from the last meal I ate there in August of 2002, just before I left San Francisco on a path that would turn out to be much more heart-wrenching than I could have expected.
The menu for that meal, written like free verse,
A soup of Bolinas beets
Crowned with a cloud of sour cream
Laced with wild Inverness mint
Jim's duck seared over almond wood
Nested in fronds of local frisee
warmed with Bolinas torpedoes
Tenderloin of Bill's pork
grilled in the fireplace
propped atop lodge mashed potatoes
encircled with a natural jus
laced with just picked and sundried French plums
Local artisan cheeses
with suntoasted almonds and Rosa's moscato grapes
both from the vine
some nearly sun dried
A tart of farmers' market First Lady nectarines
and local dairy whipped dream
heightened with west Marin honey
I remember, at another, on the eve of Christmas eve, the dessert came crowned with "an ice of local dairy cream"-- a phrase that E. and I loved and used for years. For a long time, I had one of their Lenten menus up on my wall, featuring "another sole saved from the surrounding seas." The price of the meal was listed as "for your penance." Another Christmas Eve menu offered reindeer carpaccio, served on a "rooftop" of celery root and fennel.
In the dining room, loose nests of bare branches hung from the ceiling in lieu of flower arrangements, and quotes from favorite writers were stenciled on the walls. A lazy dog sprawled across the entrance as we drank our tea in front of the fireplace . Outside, in the misty winter night, a regiment of fir trees stood at attention all around the redwood-shingled building.
So, a toast and a pan of gingerbread to all the staff of Manka's, and a wish for their swift rebuilding.
Gingerbread to Warm Your Heart
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a square 8 x 8 pan.
Sift: 1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves (or allspice or nutmeg, if you prefer)
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
In a separate bowl, beat:
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup sugar
Boil: 1/2 cup water
Measure out: 1/2 cup melted butter or vegetable oil, or a combo of the two
Grate: an inch or so of fresh ginger, or dice up some candied or preserved ginger
Stir egg mixture into flour. Pour boiling water over batter, add butter or oil and candied ginger and stir until smooth. Pour into pan and bake until springy (cake tester should come out clean), 35-40 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla iced dream.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Beans, greens and (zam)pone
Happy New Year! This was the year that no one made plans...and me last of all. Luckily, my downstairs neighbor Amy and her pals knew of a party to go to, and so the four of us headed out to get a cheap (as in, not one of those $75 frilly prix-fixe deals. I don't begrudge restaurant owners the chance to make some moola, but I would add NYE to Valentine's Day as my two least-likely days to go out to eat as a result of those annoying, overpriced set menus) bite at Pete's Ale House, our Atlantic Ave chili-and-beer stalwart. Except that, at 8:30pm on New Year's Eve, they were closed. Huh? According to the guy pulling down the metal grille, they were going to be open on New Year's Day instead, presumably to pick up the more docile hair-of-the-dog/football-bowl crowd.
So instead, we hustled down to Bocca Lupa, at Henry and Warren, where there was an empty four-top table just waiting for us. On the menu was zampone, the ubiquitous New Year's dish in Bologna and Modena--a whole pig's foot deboned but skin intact, plumped out with sausage, boiled, and served with lentils. The lentils I can understand, since many cultures go with coin-shaped beans to symbolize prosperity in the new year, but I never found out the significance of the pig's foot, except that the Bolognese love their pork products dearly, and there is little of the pig that doesn't find its way onto the table in some form.
But I didn't eat zampone in Bologna, and I didn't eat it in Brooklyn either. Instead, we had tender little meatballs in tomato sauce over bread, fabulous lamb chops over grilled radicchio, panini oozing mozzarella and pesto, green salad with pomegranate seeds and pecorino cheese, a platter of affetati (cured meats), gorgeous grilled artichoke with toasted hazelnuts, a pile of fresh berries with whipped cream, and a warm Nutella-and-banana panini with a similar polar ice cap of whipped cream. And a round of prosecco bought for us by a guy at the bar because we were a cute and/or happy table, followed by another round of prosecco to toast the countdown from Times Square on the TV over the bar.
Then, over to a party in a converted garage/loft in Park Slope, where all the guests picked up brushes and snipped out old magazine pictures to add to the evolving mural/collage on the wall. Me? I painted a green and red pomegranate.
Getting a cab in the rain at 2:30am was just as much fun as you can imagine. Up in the morning on a misty, gloomy day, to shred greens, soak black-eyed peas, and sizzle up a couple spoonfuls of lard in my black cast iron skillet for cornbread. Greens for folding money, black eyed peas for coins, and cornbread for gold. Usually this is a vegetarian meal, since I never have a ham bone lying around to go in the peas, but this time I snagged a big chunk of bone-in smoked ham from the nice folks at Flying Pigs Farm. So ham, onions, celery, garlic, and bell pepper were sauteed, then the soaked peas were thrown in with some water. Too much water, as it happened, so use less than you think, since the peas don't soak up as much water as other beans. Some thyme, some sage leaves if you have them around, a couple little dried red peppers or some red cayenne pepper. It doesn't take long to simmer to tenderness. Rice can be added to the peas and cooked in the same pot (a good way to solve the extra-liquid problem) or cooked in a separate pot and the peas spooned over the rice at serving time.
However you make the peas, you have to have greens. Now, I'm definitely on lefty-progressive-California end of the greens-cooking spectrum. I'll admit it: I don't have any sentimental attachment to swampy olive-drab greens cooked to rags. I adore the minerally sweetness of good fresh greens after a frost (especially collards and bumpy lacinto/black Tuscan/dino kale), and so chez PQ they get cooked just enough so they don't chew like a plastic raincoat on your plate.
After a thorough washing, cut the tough rib out of each leaf, roll the leaves up in a cigar and chiffonade them into slim slices. Throw your big mound of greens into an inch or so of salted boiling water in a big skillet, slap on a cover and let the greens steam for five to 8 minutes, with occasional stirring, until they've collapsed and lost their rubbery texture but still retain a little bit of toothsome chew. You can eat them straight out of the pot with your fingers, as I do when I'm alone, or you can scoop them out to cool, grate up some lemon rind, saute some chopped garlic in olive oil until it's just golden, then throw the greens, lemon rind, and red pepper flakes back into the pan to heat through. Squeeze on some fresh lemon juice just before serving. The leftovers, if you have any, are good cold too, although the acidity of the lemon juice will turn them a sludgy khaki color.
Finally, of course, there is cornbread, made with straight-up stone-ground cornmeal and buttermilk and "no cookie ingredients"--that is, no sugar, no flour, but a couple tablespoons of lard from the freezer into the pan to grease it up, plus a little of the butter that melted sitting on the radiator after breakfast. A really hot, heavy pan will give you the good crust you need.
All the best for you and yours. A good year to come, this one.
So instead, we hustled down to Bocca Lupa, at Henry and Warren, where there was an empty four-top table just waiting for us. On the menu was zampone, the ubiquitous New Year's dish in Bologna and Modena--a whole pig's foot deboned but skin intact, plumped out with sausage, boiled, and served with lentils. The lentils I can understand, since many cultures go with coin-shaped beans to symbolize prosperity in the new year, but I never found out the significance of the pig's foot, except that the Bolognese love their pork products dearly, and there is little of the pig that doesn't find its way onto the table in some form.
But I didn't eat zampone in Bologna, and I didn't eat it in Brooklyn either. Instead, we had tender little meatballs in tomato sauce over bread, fabulous lamb chops over grilled radicchio, panini oozing mozzarella and pesto, green salad with pomegranate seeds and pecorino cheese, a platter of affetati (cured meats), gorgeous grilled artichoke with toasted hazelnuts, a pile of fresh berries with whipped cream, and a warm Nutella-and-banana panini with a similar polar ice cap of whipped cream. And a round of prosecco bought for us by a guy at the bar because we were a cute and/or happy table, followed by another round of prosecco to toast the countdown from Times Square on the TV over the bar.
Then, over to a party in a converted garage/loft in Park Slope, where all the guests picked up brushes and snipped out old magazine pictures to add to the evolving mural/collage on the wall. Me? I painted a green and red pomegranate.
Getting a cab in the rain at 2:30am was just as much fun as you can imagine. Up in the morning on a misty, gloomy day, to shred greens, soak black-eyed peas, and sizzle up a couple spoonfuls of lard in my black cast iron skillet for cornbread. Greens for folding money, black eyed peas for coins, and cornbread for gold. Usually this is a vegetarian meal, since I never have a ham bone lying around to go in the peas, but this time I snagged a big chunk of bone-in smoked ham from the nice folks at Flying Pigs Farm. So ham, onions, celery, garlic, and bell pepper were sauteed, then the soaked peas were thrown in with some water. Too much water, as it happened, so use less than you think, since the peas don't soak up as much water as other beans. Some thyme, some sage leaves if you have them around, a couple little dried red peppers or some red cayenne pepper. It doesn't take long to simmer to tenderness. Rice can be added to the peas and cooked in the same pot (a good way to solve the extra-liquid problem) or cooked in a separate pot and the peas spooned over the rice at serving time.
However you make the peas, you have to have greens. Now, I'm definitely on lefty-progressive-California end of the greens-cooking spectrum. I'll admit it: I don't have any sentimental attachment to swampy olive-drab greens cooked to rags. I adore the minerally sweetness of good fresh greens after a frost (especially collards and bumpy lacinto/black Tuscan/dino kale), and so chez PQ they get cooked just enough so they don't chew like a plastic raincoat on your plate.
After a thorough washing, cut the tough rib out of each leaf, roll the leaves up in a cigar and chiffonade them into slim slices. Throw your big mound of greens into an inch or so of salted boiling water in a big skillet, slap on a cover and let the greens steam for five to 8 minutes, with occasional stirring, until they've collapsed and lost their rubbery texture but still retain a little bit of toothsome chew. You can eat them straight out of the pot with your fingers, as I do when I'm alone, or you can scoop them out to cool, grate up some lemon rind, saute some chopped garlic in olive oil until it's just golden, then throw the greens, lemon rind, and red pepper flakes back into the pan to heat through. Squeeze on some fresh lemon juice just before serving. The leftovers, if you have any, are good cold too, although the acidity of the lemon juice will turn them a sludgy khaki color.
Finally, of course, there is cornbread, made with straight-up stone-ground cornmeal and buttermilk and "no cookie ingredients"--that is, no sugar, no flour, but a couple tablespoons of lard from the freezer into the pan to grease it up, plus a little of the butter that melted sitting on the radiator after breakfast. A really hot, heavy pan will give you the good crust you need.
All the best for you and yours. A good year to come, this one.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Down on the Farm (Again)
Happy day after Boxing Day! Now that you're back from foxhunting, it's time to hunker down with a cup of tea and a plate of whatever Christmas leftovers are still lying around--cornmeal-almond biscotti and banana bread, if you're here in PQ castle, plus many, many oranges and lemons. And cold turkey from Christmas Eve....the best thing to happen to rye bread since peanut butter and cream cheese.
But that's not what I came to tell you about. I came to talk about....being a hippie farmer in Santa Cruz next year! Yep, I'm ditching Brooklyn to live in a tent on the top of a hill at UC Santa Cruz for 6 months, surrounded by organic vegetables, persimmon trees and kiwi vines-- what K. is calling my farm deployment, from April to October '07. More about the program here, which will be celebrating its 40th birthday next year. So come on down to the farm and say hello...
And the quote of the day, from the man behind Wisconsin's wonderful Penzey's Spices, “A real cook wants to make soup for anyone who needs a bowl of soup, not just for the people they happen to agree with.”
But that's not what I came to tell you about. I came to talk about....being a hippie farmer in Santa Cruz next year! Yep, I'm ditching Brooklyn to live in a tent on the top of a hill at UC Santa Cruz for 6 months, surrounded by organic vegetables, persimmon trees and kiwi vines-- what K. is calling my farm deployment, from April to October '07. More about the program here, which will be celebrating its 40th birthday next year. So come on down to the farm and say hello...
And the quote of the day, from the man behind Wisconsin's wonderful Penzey's Spices, “A real cook wants to make soup for anyone who needs a bowl of soup, not just for the people they happen to agree with.”
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
We Represent the Latke League
If Susie Bright hasn't already changed your life, her blog post from December 23rd will now. Headlined The League of Amazing Latkes, Susie's recipe should have anyone with the slightest inclination toward fried foods longing for latkes, even five days after the lighting of the last Hanukkah candles of the year. But it's always a good time for latkes, and now that I have Susie's magic technique to go with my own recipe*, I...MuST...FRY....
Except that I'm not going to use my Cuisinart to shred the potatoes. Back when I used to cram 25 people in my Valencia Street studio for the Anuual Latke Party, well-meaning friends would periodically chase me away from the stove and insist that I take a break from frying to socialize. They would then start grating the next batch in the Cuisinart, and the potato shreds always, always came out too skinny. Anyway, people make too much of a deal about hand grating. Three cups or so of grated potato is what, 3 big Idahos? It just doesn't take that much time or muscle to put the tater through the shredder. Grating the onion the same way is less fun, because of the sting, but as Bob Crachitt says, it's only once a year, sir.
And, well, I probably won't go out and buy a potato ricer when I can do the same job with my own two hands. (Perhaps the same reason why I don't own a vibrator...) But I will spread Susie's gospel, and if you make latkes her way, you owe your mouth's pleasure to her and you should throw some money at her always smart, impassioned, and informative blog.
*Now, I'd hate to think of myself as one of those fussy writers who loathes for any editor to lay a glove on her golden prose, and normally, I'm not-- it's just journalism, not the Great American Novel or the Great Poem of My Soul, and eternal gratitude is due to the many editors who have labored selflessly over the years, improving my wandering prose when it needed it most (thanks, Miriam!). But in this case I'd be very embarrassed if you thought I actually wrote--for money!-- such a limp opening line as was posted under my name with that recipe. The following is how I'd rather it read:
A religious celebration that mandates fried food? Now that's our kind of holiday! During Hannukah, the Jewish festival of lights, eating foods fried in oil is a happy way of commemorating the holiday's central miracle, in which a single vial of consecrated oil burned for eight days.
And in communities with roots in Eastern Europe, no treat is more typical than the potato pancakes known as latkes. If you're putting together a full holiday feast, latkes make a great match for Pot Roast with Porcini and Beer or Cabbage Borscht with Caraway. Unlike the heavy beige disks you'll find in the freezer section of a Jewish deli, these latkes are mostly all delectable brown crunch, with just enough oniony-potato goodness inside.
So what does it take to make a crisp, light latke? Squeezing the excess water out of your potatoes is one very useful trick; so is whisking the egg whites to a stiff froth and folding them in just before frying. Speed, however, is the true friend of the latke maker. For best results, your potato mixture should go from the bowl to the frying pan to your plate without any hanging around. The latkes will be at their crunchiest straight out of the oil, but if necessary, you can keep a well-blotted batch or two warm on a baking sheet in a 250 F oven for up to 20 minutes.
Sour cream and applesauce are the traditional accompaniments. You might think you could serve them with mango chutney or hot salsa instead, but you'd be wrong. At least try them with the applesauce and sour cream first—odd as it may sound to the uninitiated, the combination really does work.
And just to digress--because what is a blog but a safe haven for digression?--just as Hanukkah is greatly overwhelmed by the socio-religious juggernaut of Christmas, so the real miracle of Hanukkah wasn't so much the 8 days' oil but the triumph of the scrappy Macabees over the much better armed and equipped Persian soldiers, who were intent on destroying the temple and driving out the Jews. After the battle, the Jewish fighters went back into their nearly-trampled temple to clean up and reconsecrate it. The first order of business was the rekindling of the Eternal Light, the flame that burns in front of the ark where the Torah is kept in every temple. According to legend, there was only one tiny vial of sacred oil left--enough for perhaps one day of light, but instead, that single vial burned for 8 days, enough to fetch a new supply to the temple. So Hanukkah is a festival of lights, where candles are lit for 8 days and eating fried foods is a must.
Except that I'm not going to use my Cuisinart to shred the potatoes. Back when I used to cram 25 people in my Valencia Street studio for the Anuual Latke Party, well-meaning friends would periodically chase me away from the stove and insist that I take a break from frying to socialize. They would then start grating the next batch in the Cuisinart, and the potato shreds always, always came out too skinny. Anyway, people make too much of a deal about hand grating. Three cups or so of grated potato is what, 3 big Idahos? It just doesn't take that much time or muscle to put the tater through the shredder. Grating the onion the same way is less fun, because of the sting, but as Bob Crachitt says, it's only once a year, sir.
And, well, I probably won't go out and buy a potato ricer when I can do the same job with my own two hands. (Perhaps the same reason why I don't own a vibrator...) But I will spread Susie's gospel, and if you make latkes her way, you owe your mouth's pleasure to her and you should throw some money at her always smart, impassioned, and informative blog.
*Now, I'd hate to think of myself as one of those fussy writers who loathes for any editor to lay a glove on her golden prose, and normally, I'm not-- it's just journalism, not the Great American Novel or the Great Poem of My Soul, and eternal gratitude is due to the many editors who have labored selflessly over the years, improving my wandering prose when it needed it most (thanks, Miriam!). But in this case I'd be very embarrassed if you thought I actually wrote--for money!-- such a limp opening line as was posted under my name with that recipe. The following is how I'd rather it read:
A religious celebration that mandates fried food? Now that's our kind of holiday! During Hannukah, the Jewish festival of lights, eating foods fried in oil is a happy way of commemorating the holiday's central miracle, in which a single vial of consecrated oil burned for eight days.
And in communities with roots in Eastern Europe, no treat is more typical than the potato pancakes known as latkes. If you're putting together a full holiday feast, latkes make a great match for Pot Roast with Porcini and Beer or Cabbage Borscht with Caraway. Unlike the heavy beige disks you'll find in the freezer section of a Jewish deli, these latkes are mostly all delectable brown crunch, with just enough oniony-potato goodness inside.
So what does it take to make a crisp, light latke? Squeezing the excess water out of your potatoes is one very useful trick; so is whisking the egg whites to a stiff froth and folding them in just before frying. Speed, however, is the true friend of the latke maker. For best results, your potato mixture should go from the bowl to the frying pan to your plate without any hanging around. The latkes will be at their crunchiest straight out of the oil, but if necessary, you can keep a well-blotted batch or two warm on a baking sheet in a 250 F oven for up to 20 minutes.
Sour cream and applesauce are the traditional accompaniments. You might think you could serve them with mango chutney or hot salsa instead, but you'd be wrong. At least try them with the applesauce and sour cream first—odd as it may sound to the uninitiated, the combination really does work.
And just to digress--because what is a blog but a safe haven for digression?--just as Hanukkah is greatly overwhelmed by the socio-religious juggernaut of Christmas, so the real miracle of Hanukkah wasn't so much the 8 days' oil but the triumph of the scrappy Macabees over the much better armed and equipped Persian soldiers, who were intent on destroying the temple and driving out the Jews. After the battle, the Jewish fighters went back into their nearly-trampled temple to clean up and reconsecrate it. The first order of business was the rekindling of the Eternal Light, the flame that burns in front of the ark where the Torah is kept in every temple. According to legend, there was only one tiny vial of sacred oil left--enough for perhaps one day of light, but instead, that single vial burned for 8 days, enough to fetch a new supply to the temple. So Hanukkah is a festival of lights, where candles are lit for 8 days and eating fried foods is a must.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Aunt Flossie's Black Cake
Musing about fruitcake--as who doesn't this time of year?--I realized that I do, in fact, have a tried-and-true recipe for Black Cake, aka West Indian fruitcake, in my files. The recipe was originally posted on Chowhound, as part of the annual Laurie Colwin Black Cake discussion, and the poster swore she made it every year, following the method of her husband's grandmother, the inimitable Aunt Flossie. Have I made it myself? Well, at the risk of adding to the pantheon of mythical Black Cakes, no. But Aunt Flossie's granddaughter-in-law has, and that's good enough for me to pass her rule along to you. I've still never, ever seen burnt sugar essence in a grocery store, but many New Yorkers swear they have, all over the city. So, a belated Christmas gift from Aunt Flossie to you, posted exactly as it was written.
Note that the fruits have soak for at least a month before using, which pretty much blows the idea of making this in 2006 out of the water. Get started now anyway, and before you know it, it will be a miserable sleety day in February and nothing will sound better than a slice of fruitcake and a hot cup of rum-spiked tea.
Aunt Flossie's Fruitcake
This is an authentic West Indian fruitcake. The recipe was brought to the USA by my husband's grandmother, better known as "Aunt Flossie" at the turn of the last century. It is fairly labor intensive and you need a full day and must follow the recipe exactly or it won't taste the way it should. Note that you can cut this recipe in half.
Fruits:
1 lb dried pitted prunes
1 lb. raisins
1/2 lb dried cherries
1 lb currants
1/2 lb candied citron
1/4 lb candied lemon peel
1/4 lb candied orange
In a large ceramic jar (or you can use glass but never metal!) add all the fruits and pour over these:
1 quart medium (not cream) sherry
1 quart ruby (gallo) port
1 quart stout
1 quart dark rum
Cover and soak for at least a month before using. These fruits can keep forever -not a surprise considering the amount of alcohol- and I always have fruits soaking in a big ceramic jar that I keep in a cool pantry. If you do this just check on the fruit every few months to make sure all the liquid hasn't evaporated.
When ready to bake the fruits have to be ground. I use a Cuisinart and grind them using the pulse button. You want the fruit ground but not turned to paste or mush, so do it a little as a time, and don't strain the liquid.
To bake the cake:
1 lb. sweet butter (use a good brand - I like the imports from France)
1 lb. all purpose bleached white flour
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp. allspice
1 TBL cinnamon
1 tsp. mace
1 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
1 TBL vanilla extract
1 TBL almond extract
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 pint heavy cream
1 lb. light brown sugar
1 dozen eggs
burnt sugar
Soaked fruits, above
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F
2. Cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy - about 10-12 minutes
3. In a separate bowl sift the flour and spices
4. Put vanilla, almond extracts and heavy cream in a bowl and set aside
5. Beat the butter mixture once more to make sure its still fluffy and add 1/2 tsp salt
6. Separate the eggs, setting the whites aside. Beat the yolks into the butter mixture ONE AT A TIME
7. Using a wooden spoon beat in 1/4 of the flour mixture to butter. Then alternate adding cream and flour to butter until all is incorporated
8. Add in burnt sugar for coloring the batter - you can make this by literally burning sugar and then adding a little water to give it a more liquid as opposed to sticky texture- or look in the west Indian/import section of your grocery store and you'll see bottles of burnt sugar- so add until get the color you like
9. Add mixing with the wooden spoon 8 large cooking TBL (by this I mean the large metal cooking spoons used to stir large pots) of soaked ground fruits. Now here's the part which calls for your own judgement. Taste the batter after you have added those first 8 cooking TBL of fruits and see how you like it - If you like it "darker" meaning more of a taste of fruits keep adding fruits - the more fruits you add the denser it will be.My family likes it pretty dark (dense).
10. With an electric mixer beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry - like for a meringue
11. Fold egg whites into mixture
12. Grease with Crisco two deep cake pans - 8-10 inch diameter and 4-5 inches deep. Add batter
13. Bake at 300 degrees for 35 minutes and then lower to 200 degrees and bake 4 hours. Check after 2 hours to see how its doing. When done inserted toothpick should emerge relatively clean. When taken out of the oven sprinkle with more rum (this is optional)
Aunt Flossie always made one or two tester cakes to see if she needed to add more fruits to batter.In a very tiny pan - I use small ramekins- I bake a tester cake - I actually do it at 350 degrees and it takes less than an hour - then I taste and add more fruits to the batter if I need it. Or sometimes I bake a dark and light cake. I bake half of it as is and then add more fruit to the other half.
Note that the fruits have soak for at least a month before using, which pretty much blows the idea of making this in 2006 out of the water. Get started now anyway, and before you know it, it will be a miserable sleety day in February and nothing will sound better than a slice of fruitcake and a hot cup of rum-spiked tea.
Aunt Flossie's Fruitcake
This is an authentic West Indian fruitcake. The recipe was brought to the USA by my husband's grandmother, better known as "Aunt Flossie" at the turn of the last century. It is fairly labor intensive and you need a full day and must follow the recipe exactly or it won't taste the way it should. Note that you can cut this recipe in half.
Fruits:
1 lb dried pitted prunes
1 lb. raisins
1/2 lb dried cherries
1 lb currants
1/2 lb candied citron
1/4 lb candied lemon peel
1/4 lb candied orange
In a large ceramic jar (or you can use glass but never metal!) add all the fruits and pour over these:
1 quart medium (not cream) sherry
1 quart ruby (gallo) port
1 quart stout
1 quart dark rum
Cover and soak for at least a month before using. These fruits can keep forever -not a surprise considering the amount of alcohol- and I always have fruits soaking in a big ceramic jar that I keep in a cool pantry. If you do this just check on the fruit every few months to make sure all the liquid hasn't evaporated.
When ready to bake the fruits have to be ground. I use a Cuisinart and grind them using the pulse button. You want the fruit ground but not turned to paste or mush, so do it a little as a time, and don't strain the liquid.
To bake the cake:
1 lb. sweet butter (use a good brand - I like the imports from France)
1 lb. all purpose bleached white flour
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp. allspice
1 TBL cinnamon
1 tsp. mace
1 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
1 TBL vanilla extract
1 TBL almond extract
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 pint heavy cream
1 lb. light brown sugar
1 dozen eggs
burnt sugar
Soaked fruits, above
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F
2. Cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy - about 10-12 minutes
3. In a separate bowl sift the flour and spices
4. Put vanilla, almond extracts and heavy cream in a bowl and set aside
5. Beat the butter mixture once more to make sure its still fluffy and add 1/2 tsp salt
6. Separate the eggs, setting the whites aside. Beat the yolks into the butter mixture ONE AT A TIME
7. Using a wooden spoon beat in 1/4 of the flour mixture to butter. Then alternate adding cream and flour to butter until all is incorporated
8. Add in burnt sugar for coloring the batter - you can make this by literally burning sugar and then adding a little water to give it a more liquid as opposed to sticky texture- or look in the west Indian/import section of your grocery store and you'll see bottles of burnt sugar- so add until get the color you like
9. Add mixing with the wooden spoon 8 large cooking TBL (by this I mean the large metal cooking spoons used to stir large pots) of soaked ground fruits. Now here's the part which calls for your own judgement. Taste the batter after you have added those first 8 cooking TBL of fruits and see how you like it - If you like it "darker" meaning more of a taste of fruits keep adding fruits - the more fruits you add the denser it will be.My family likes it pretty dark (dense).
10. With an electric mixer beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry - like for a meringue
11. Fold egg whites into mixture
12. Grease with Crisco two deep cake pans - 8-10 inch diameter and 4-5 inches deep. Add batter
13. Bake at 300 degrees for 35 minutes and then lower to 200 degrees and bake 4 hours. Check after 2 hours to see how its doing. When done inserted toothpick should emerge relatively clean. When taken out of the oven sprinkle with more rum (this is optional)
Aunt Flossie always made one or two tester cakes to see if she needed to add more fruits to batter.In a very tiny pan - I use small ramekins- I bake a tester cake - I actually do it at 350 degrees and it takes less than an hour - then I taste and add more fruits to the batter if I need it. Or sometimes I bake a dark and light cake. I bake half of it as is and then add more fruit to the other half.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Sparkle Plenty
So, the PQ Mother and I have been going back and forth about the all-important question of Christmas Day Dessert. As it happens, PQM will be hosting Christmas dinner this year, with her sister, brother, sister-in-law, and myself in attendance. At first, I was thinking plum pudding, then PQM suggested a buche de Noel--otherwise known as a Yule log cake, made of a spongy genoise spread with ganache, rolled into the shape of a log, and frosted with chocolate buttercream rippled to look like bark. Yippee! Elaborate and extravagant, just the thing I actually love to make for the holidays, right down to the decorative meringue mushrooms and sawed-off log ends.
Except that, as it happens, everyone's boringly on diets these days, and after watching some French guy beating pounds of butter into ganache and buttercream on the Food Network yesterday, PQM called me and nixed the buche. Her idea: her own mother's no-fail holiday dessert, a refrigerator cake made from those chocolate Nabisco wafers sandwiched with whipped cream. (Have you gathered that I do indeed have Southern Protestant antecedents, at least on my mother's side?)
Being a nice kid at heart, I agreed, but only to buy time, and in an hour, I had it: my Parisian pal David Lebovitz's citrus-champagne gelee. Made with Prosecco, unflavored gelatin, and glistening slices of kumquat, blood orange, and pink grapefruit, it's light, gorgeous-looking, and actually good for you (Vitamin C!). I'm going to throw in some pomegranate seeds for holiday color (antioxidants!) and candy up some Meyer lemon peel.
And then I'll make a plum pudding when I get home.
Champagne Citrus Gelee
Adapted from Room for Dessert by David Lebovitz
This would also be a perfect and glamorous dessert for New Year's Eve.
2 envelopes powdered unflavored gelatin (such as Knox)
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar, or to taste
1 bottle (750 ml) sparkling wine, Prosecco, or Champagne (not Andre, but not Tattinger, either--something in the $10-$15 range should be just fine)
Juice of 1 lime or lemon (use a real lime, not one of those nasty plastic jobs full of bitter battery acid)
12 kumquats, ends and seeds removed, sliced thinly
3 pink grapefruits
4 navel or blood oranges
seeds of 1 pomegranate
a little good-quality orange liqueur (not the stuff that tastes like those powdery baby aspirin)
candied citrus peel in syrup (see below)
Sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water in a large bowl. Let soften for 5 minutes. Heat 1/2 cup water with sugar until sugar dissolves. Pour sugar syrup over gelatin and stir until gelatin is thoroughly dissolved. Pop the cork (whoo hooo!) and pour in the whole bottle of Champagne (watch out for the froth!) and lime or lemon juice. Taste and add more lime or lemon as needed. Cover and refrigerate until it begins to thicken and set.
Make the candied peel in syrup (recipe below), or take it out of the fridge if you made it earlier. Warm gently until syrup is liquid again. Toss in sliced kumquats. Take off heat and set aside.
Now, prep the fruit:Cut off the top and bottom of the grapefruit so it sits flat, then slice off peel and white membrane from top to bottom in vertical strips, moving around the circumference. Trim off all the white pith. Now, steadying the fruit with one hand, free the fruit segments from between the "fans" of tough membrane, using a small sharp paring knife. Slice or wiggle the fruit out, so you get a glistening arc of membrane-free fruit. Drop fruit slices into a bowl. Repeat with remaining grapefruits and oranges. Sprinkle with orange liqueur, if desired. Refrigerate, tightly covered, if not using right away.
Now, get out 8 stemmed parfait or wine glasses. Drain the kumquats/candied peel. (Save the orange syrup if you can think of something to do with it later). Get out the gelee, the pomegranate seeds, and the bowl of fruit slices. To assemble, spoon some of the Champagne gelee into each glass. Add some pomegranate seeds, a few pieces of citrus, a few slices of kumquat, and a few strands of candied peel. Continue layering gelee and fruit until glass is full. Chill until serving time.
Serves 8
Soft candied citrus peel
5 lemons, limes, or oranges, washed
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 TB corn syrup
Remove zest (the colored part of the peel) with a vegetable peeler. Cut lengthwise into threadlike strips. Cover peel with water, bring to a boil, and cook until soft and translucent, about 5-6 minutes. Drain peel and discard water. In the same pot, bring water , sugar, and syrup to a boil. Add peel, reduce heat, and simmer until peel is translucent and candied, about 20 minutes. Cool in syrup and refrigerate.
NOTE: Please don't even think about making this with Jell-O or any other gelatin dessert mix. No, no, no! Search around in the Jell-O section til you find the little orange Knox box. It's there, I promise you, if only for the freaky people who drink it for their nails. If you live in a place where the gelatin comes in sheets, do tell me how you use those, since even 8 months in Italy wasn't long enough for me to get the hang of them.
ANOTHER NOTE: If you don't drink, I bet you could use some swanky carbonated juice--like the pomegranate fizz I just found at Trader Joe's--in lieu of the Prosecco. Straight apple would be too bland, but any nicely tart blend should do.
POST-XMAS POST MORTEM: What a hit! This looked gorgeous (esp. the pomegranate seeds, my own addition) and everyone loved it. Making it again, I would sacrifice the sparkling clearness of the gelee for more flavor; instead of softening the gelatin in water, I'd use the ravishing pink orange-grapefruit-tangerine juice left in the bowl of fruit slices (which would mean prepping the fruit before starting the gelee) and I might make the sugar syup out of juice rather than water, too. Definitely use blood oranges if you can find them; they look gorgeous and add a subtle raspberry flavor that's very pleasing.
Except that, as it happens, everyone's boringly on diets these days, and after watching some French guy beating pounds of butter into ganache and buttercream on the Food Network yesterday, PQM called me and nixed the buche. Her idea: her own mother's no-fail holiday dessert, a refrigerator cake made from those chocolate Nabisco wafers sandwiched with whipped cream. (Have you gathered that I do indeed have Southern Protestant antecedents, at least on my mother's side?)
Being a nice kid at heart, I agreed, but only to buy time, and in an hour, I had it: my Parisian pal David Lebovitz's citrus-champagne gelee. Made with Prosecco, unflavored gelatin, and glistening slices of kumquat, blood orange, and pink grapefruit, it's light, gorgeous-looking, and actually good for you (Vitamin C!). I'm going to throw in some pomegranate seeds for holiday color (antioxidants!) and candy up some Meyer lemon peel.
And then I'll make a plum pudding when I get home.
Champagne Citrus Gelee
Adapted from Room for Dessert by David Lebovitz
This would also be a perfect and glamorous dessert for New Year's Eve.
2 envelopes powdered unflavored gelatin (such as Knox)
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar, or to taste
1 bottle (750 ml) sparkling wine, Prosecco, or Champagne (not Andre, but not Tattinger, either--something in the $10-$15 range should be just fine)
Juice of 1 lime or lemon (use a real lime, not one of those nasty plastic jobs full of bitter battery acid)
12 kumquats, ends and seeds removed, sliced thinly
3 pink grapefruits
4 navel or blood oranges
seeds of 1 pomegranate
a little good-quality orange liqueur (not the stuff that tastes like those powdery baby aspirin)
candied citrus peel in syrup (see below)
Sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water in a large bowl. Let soften for 5 minutes. Heat 1/2 cup water with sugar until sugar dissolves. Pour sugar syrup over gelatin and stir until gelatin is thoroughly dissolved. Pop the cork (whoo hooo!) and pour in the whole bottle of Champagne (watch out for the froth!) and lime or lemon juice. Taste and add more lime or lemon as needed. Cover and refrigerate until it begins to thicken and set.
Make the candied peel in syrup (recipe below), or take it out of the fridge if you made it earlier. Warm gently until syrup is liquid again. Toss in sliced kumquats. Take off heat and set aside.
Now, prep the fruit:Cut off the top and bottom of the grapefruit so it sits flat, then slice off peel and white membrane from top to bottom in vertical strips, moving around the circumference. Trim off all the white pith. Now, steadying the fruit with one hand, free the fruit segments from between the "fans" of tough membrane, using a small sharp paring knife. Slice or wiggle the fruit out, so you get a glistening arc of membrane-free fruit. Drop fruit slices into a bowl. Repeat with remaining grapefruits and oranges. Sprinkle with orange liqueur, if desired. Refrigerate, tightly covered, if not using right away.
Now, get out 8 stemmed parfait or wine glasses. Drain the kumquats/candied peel. (Save the orange syrup if you can think of something to do with it later). Get out the gelee, the pomegranate seeds, and the bowl of fruit slices. To assemble, spoon some of the Champagne gelee into each glass. Add some pomegranate seeds, a few pieces of citrus, a few slices of kumquat, and a few strands of candied peel. Continue layering gelee and fruit until glass is full. Chill until serving time.
Serves 8
Soft candied citrus peel
5 lemons, limes, or oranges, washed
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 TB corn syrup
Remove zest (the colored part of the peel) with a vegetable peeler. Cut lengthwise into threadlike strips. Cover peel with water, bring to a boil, and cook until soft and translucent, about 5-6 minutes. Drain peel and discard water. In the same pot, bring water , sugar, and syrup to a boil. Add peel, reduce heat, and simmer until peel is translucent and candied, about 20 minutes. Cool in syrup and refrigerate.
NOTE: Please don't even think about making this with Jell-O or any other gelatin dessert mix. No, no, no! Search around in the Jell-O section til you find the little orange Knox box. It's there, I promise you, if only for the freaky people who drink it for their nails. If you live in a place where the gelatin comes in sheets, do tell me how you use those, since even 8 months in Italy wasn't long enough for me to get the hang of them.
ANOTHER NOTE: If you don't drink, I bet you could use some swanky carbonated juice--like the pomegranate fizz I just found at Trader Joe's--in lieu of the Prosecco. Straight apple would be too bland, but any nicely tart blend should do.
POST-XMAS POST MORTEM: What a hit! This looked gorgeous (esp. the pomegranate seeds, my own addition) and everyone loved it. Making it again, I would sacrifice the sparkling clearness of the gelee for more flavor; instead of softening the gelatin in water, I'd use the ravishing pink orange-grapefruit-tangerine juice left in the bowl of fruit slices (which would mean prepping the fruit before starting the gelee) and I might make the sugar syup out of juice rather than water, too. Definitely use blood oranges if you can find them; they look gorgeous and add a subtle raspberry flavor that's very pleasing.
Happy Solstice!
The sun is sluggish at this time of year, crawling above the horizon and then subsiding by mid-afternoon, ready to be overtaken by a flaming five o'clock sunset, the evening stars flickering in the indigo-stained heavens before you've even left the office. High mackerel clouds furrow the sky, a winter field lying stripped and fallow for the season.
This is the time to fill the days with light, to celebrate the moment when the slow-waning sun will finally turn and begin its ponderous, fiery journey back towards Earth, just as the world outside is still bracketed by long hours of chilly darkness.
By rights, a solstice party should go on all night, starting in darkness and ending at dawn with a purifying dunk in the ocean. Forget the cufflinks and the little black dress; a solstice party is a night for red velvet, for getting in touch with your inner Stevie Nicks and draping yourself in at least one item suitable for dramatic mid-dance swooping. This is the party where someone will suddenly decide to paint a mural on the kitchen wall, and where someone else will arrive and decide to fill up the tub in the one bathroom and take an exhibitionist bath among the bubbles and floating candles and gardenias.
Unexpected couples and threesomes and moresomes will pile up in the most unlikely places: in the tub, on the roof, up and down the stairs, on your upstairs neighbors' fire escape. Cluster candles on every surface, get a giant wood fire going in the fireplace if you're lucky enough to have one, and put a massive pot of vin chaud to steam on the stove.
Vin chaud, the French version of mulled wine, will make all your guests want to curl up in cozy little heaps and hibernate for the rest of the winter, but it's too delicious to miss, and you can always make coffee later if people get too sleepy. It's the best thing about winter in Paris, which is otherwise a bitterly cold and unremittingly gray place at this time of year. Served in narrow-stemmed glasses with slices of orange floating like little reminders of tropical climes, vin chaud brings a sweet, wintry warmth to every steamy café. To make it, add a cup of sugar to three cups of water in a big pot, then drop in long curls of orange and lemon peel, a few cinnamon sticks, and a scatter of whole allspice berries and cloves. (Whole spices impart a clearer, more intense flavor to the drink and won't muddy the liquid the way powdered spices would). Simmer it gently for 15 minutes. Add some brandy, if you have some lying around, then pour in red wine to taste – at least one bottle, maybe two. Heat to the point of steaming, without letting it boil. Taste and add more sugar or wine as needed. Float orange slices on top. Alternate with spiced tea, hot spiked coffee or chai, or a potent pour of caffeine-jolted yerba maté, if you really want to wake people up.
And while all this revelry is going on, you can be baking a solstice bread to greet the reappearance of the sun and nourish her weary acolytes. Start the process as the party begins. Get the first few guests – who would otherwise stand around fiddling with the crudités – to pitch in with the mixing and kneading. Most people are pleasantly surprised at bread dough's happy squishiness, like that of a soft stomach or a yielding inner thigh, and the buoyant way it springs back under their hands. As it swells and subsides in its rests and risings, the bread will mark the passing of this longest, darkest night of the year.
After the first kneading and rising, throw in handfuls of seeds ripe with the promise of the next year's harvest. Poppy seeds like specks of blue-black night, deep green pumpkin seeds, tiny round golden balls of crunchy millet, sunflower seeds harvested from the deep rich heart of October's lanky, sun-following flower – they all go into a rough-grained dough, golden with cornmeal and semolina, sweetened with honey and a grate of orange rind. A few hours before dawn, pull out a large sheet pan and pull your dough into the shape of a beautiful sun. Let it rise one more time, then bake until golden. Bundle into a clean towel, and round up the hardiest (or most pagan-minded) remaining guests. Make a bonfire, brace yourself on the cold sand, strip down, and fling yourself into the sea as the sun rises. Then run back screaming, dry off, and share a breakfast of warm-from-the-oven solstice bread.
This is the time to fill the days with light, to celebrate the moment when the slow-waning sun will finally turn and begin its ponderous, fiery journey back towards Earth, just as the world outside is still bracketed by long hours of chilly darkness.
By rights, a solstice party should go on all night, starting in darkness and ending at dawn with a purifying dunk in the ocean. Forget the cufflinks and the little black dress; a solstice party is a night for red velvet, for getting in touch with your inner Stevie Nicks and draping yourself in at least one item suitable for dramatic mid-dance swooping. This is the party where someone will suddenly decide to paint a mural on the kitchen wall, and where someone else will arrive and decide to fill up the tub in the one bathroom and take an exhibitionist bath among the bubbles and floating candles and gardenias.
Unexpected couples and threesomes and moresomes will pile up in the most unlikely places: in the tub, on the roof, up and down the stairs, on your upstairs neighbors' fire escape. Cluster candles on every surface, get a giant wood fire going in the fireplace if you're lucky enough to have one, and put a massive pot of vin chaud to steam on the stove.
Vin chaud, the French version of mulled wine, will make all your guests want to curl up in cozy little heaps and hibernate for the rest of the winter, but it's too delicious to miss, and you can always make coffee later if people get too sleepy. It's the best thing about winter in Paris, which is otherwise a bitterly cold and unremittingly gray place at this time of year. Served in narrow-stemmed glasses with slices of orange floating like little reminders of tropical climes, vin chaud brings a sweet, wintry warmth to every steamy café. To make it, add a cup of sugar to three cups of water in a big pot, then drop in long curls of orange and lemon peel, a few cinnamon sticks, and a scatter of whole allspice berries and cloves. (Whole spices impart a clearer, more intense flavor to the drink and won't muddy the liquid the way powdered spices would). Simmer it gently for 15 minutes. Add some brandy, if you have some lying around, then pour in red wine to taste – at least one bottle, maybe two. Heat to the point of steaming, without letting it boil. Taste and add more sugar or wine as needed. Float orange slices on top. Alternate with spiced tea, hot spiked coffee or chai, or a potent pour of caffeine-jolted yerba maté, if you really want to wake people up.
And while all this revelry is going on, you can be baking a solstice bread to greet the reappearance of the sun and nourish her weary acolytes. Start the process as the party begins. Get the first few guests – who would otherwise stand around fiddling with the crudités – to pitch in with the mixing and kneading. Most people are pleasantly surprised at bread dough's happy squishiness, like that of a soft stomach or a yielding inner thigh, and the buoyant way it springs back under their hands. As it swells and subsides in its rests and risings, the bread will mark the passing of this longest, darkest night of the year.
After the first kneading and rising, throw in handfuls of seeds ripe with the promise of the next year's harvest. Poppy seeds like specks of blue-black night, deep green pumpkin seeds, tiny round golden balls of crunchy millet, sunflower seeds harvested from the deep rich heart of October's lanky, sun-following flower – they all go into a rough-grained dough, golden with cornmeal and semolina, sweetened with honey and a grate of orange rind. A few hours before dawn, pull out a large sheet pan and pull your dough into the shape of a beautiful sun. Let it rise one more time, then bake until golden. Bundle into a clean towel, and round up the hardiest (or most pagan-minded) remaining guests. Make a bonfire, brace yourself on the cold sand, strip down, and fling yourself into the sea as the sun rises. Then run back screaming, dry off, and share a breakfast of warm-from-the-oven solstice bread.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Fresh Air Beats the Demons
More to follow, on the subject of making your Christmas gifts (biscotti! chocolate-mint stars! candied orange peel!) and staying out of the mall, but first, a quote for the day, from an review of a documentary about Ingmar Bergman in Wednesday's New York Times. Bergman, who now lives on a remote Baltic island, "follows a rigorous daily routine that includes a brisk morning walk because, as he puts it:
'The demons don’t like fresh air. What they like best is if you stay in bed with cold feet.' "
'The demons don’t like fresh air. What they like best is if you stay in bed with cold feet.' "
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
The PQ Holiday Gift Guide
Useful with a bit of luxury, that's what you want in a holiday present. Scout out things that taste good, smell good, or (make you) feel good, and you can't go wrong. So, in this mode, the PQ holiday gift list, for starters:
Now, wait a moment. This isn't MY gift list, although I'd make a happy home for any and all of these things (hence the glaring absence of coconut, foie gras, blue cheese, Godiva chocolate, and overly scented candles in the shape of little jars of blueberry jam). Back in the day, I spent a LOT of time doing gifty round-ups for various newspapers and guidebooks, and I still love to sing the praises of very good things you might not have heard of. Nearly all of these are produced by small local businesses that are a boon to their neighborhoods--the next best thing to making all your gifts yourself.
Christmas cake from June Taylor Jams. This was discussed exhaustively in the previous post, but suffice it to say, an absolutely delicious treat, and miles better than any candied-cherry monk-baked monstrosity. Not to be wasted on anyone who is not already a true fruitcake believer. In fact, you may not be able to bear to give it away. In that case, either buy two, or invite a few dear friends over, cut your own loaf in very thin slices and serve with:
Spiced Christmas Tea. Also available in tea bags and loose in a box, but the festive red-and-black tin makes an especially nice gift. Can be found at many specialty food shops and tea-and-coffee emporia. Black tea festooned with bits of lemon and orange peel and cinnamon bark. Add a little tot of dark rum and you'll be toasting the Empire in style.
Later that night, fill up the tub, pour a glass of something cold and bubbly, and lather up your sweetheart with a bar of soap from Juniper Ridge. So what if you couldn't spring for a weekend snuggled in a massive four-poster at Manka's Inverness Lodge? Not only does Juniper Ridge make all their soaps by hand, they also go out and pick the plants themselves, scenting each bar with real wildgathered Western juniper, California bay laurel, desert pinon, Port Orford cedar, or coastal sage. Each one captures a real scent of the West, and they'll make even the most boring little shower stall smell like a beautiful redwood sauna under the stars in Yosemite. The charming and useful 4-bar gift pack is tied together with ribbon and adorned with a little sprig of pine. I stock up on these every time I'm out in SF, and use them every day until only the saddest little olive-green slivers remain. A particularly nice gift for the butch girl or guy in your life, as the scent is subtly fresh and woodsy. Like camping!
But for those of you of the girly persuasion, what you and/or your lovely girlinas need is a gift certificate for a cucumber, pumpkin pie, or honey-walnut pedicure at Sweet Lily Spa in Tribeca. Cozy chintz-covered chairs, cute enameled basins for soaking your tootsies, manicurists who don't pummel your calves or skewer your cuticles: this place will pamper your feet like they're a pair of very rich, very fluffy little dogs in a pink cashmere puppy tote. They use the real stuff here: freshly sliced cukes, a slather of honey, lotsa pumpkin--you could eat your feet! Or someone else could, if you both like that sort of thing. The last time I walked out of Sweet Lily, my feet were so baby-smooth that they kept slipping around in my socks.
You don't have to limit your holiday giving to people you know. New York Cares, a great organization that makes volunteering all around NYC as easy as the click of a mouse, is running their annual coat drive through Dec. 31st. Any gently used coat (adult, teen, or child-sized) can be donated, and will be distributed throughout the winter directly to those in need. You can also organize a coat drive at your workplace, through a community group, or at your church, synagogue, or other house of worship/gathering place.
Now, wait a moment. This isn't MY gift list, although I'd make a happy home for any and all of these things (hence the glaring absence of coconut, foie gras, blue cheese, Godiva chocolate, and overly scented candles in the shape of little jars of blueberry jam). Back in the day, I spent a LOT of time doing gifty round-ups for various newspapers and guidebooks, and I still love to sing the praises of very good things you might not have heard of. Nearly all of these are produced by small local businesses that are a boon to their neighborhoods--the next best thing to making all your gifts yourself.
Christmas cake from June Taylor Jams. This was discussed exhaustively in the previous post, but suffice it to say, an absolutely delicious treat, and miles better than any candied-cherry monk-baked monstrosity. Not to be wasted on anyone who is not already a true fruitcake believer. In fact, you may not be able to bear to give it away. In that case, either buy two, or invite a few dear friends over, cut your own loaf in very thin slices and serve with:
Spiced Christmas Tea. Also available in tea bags and loose in a box, but the festive red-and-black tin makes an especially nice gift. Can be found at many specialty food shops and tea-and-coffee emporia. Black tea festooned with bits of lemon and orange peel and cinnamon bark. Add a little tot of dark rum and you'll be toasting the Empire in style.
Later that night, fill up the tub, pour a glass of something cold and bubbly, and lather up your sweetheart with a bar of soap from Juniper Ridge. So what if you couldn't spring for a weekend snuggled in a massive four-poster at Manka's Inverness Lodge? Not only does Juniper Ridge make all their soaps by hand, they also go out and pick the plants themselves, scenting each bar with real wildgathered Western juniper, California bay laurel, desert pinon, Port Orford cedar, or coastal sage. Each one captures a real scent of the West, and they'll make even the most boring little shower stall smell like a beautiful redwood sauna under the stars in Yosemite. The charming and useful 4-bar gift pack is tied together with ribbon and adorned with a little sprig of pine. I stock up on these every time I'm out in SF, and use them every day until only the saddest little olive-green slivers remain. A particularly nice gift for the butch girl or guy in your life, as the scent is subtly fresh and woodsy. Like camping!
But for those of you of the girly persuasion, what you and/or your lovely girlinas need is a gift certificate for a cucumber, pumpkin pie, or honey-walnut pedicure at Sweet Lily Spa in Tribeca. Cozy chintz-covered chairs, cute enameled basins for soaking your tootsies, manicurists who don't pummel your calves or skewer your cuticles: this place will pamper your feet like they're a pair of very rich, very fluffy little dogs in a pink cashmere puppy tote. They use the real stuff here: freshly sliced cukes, a slather of honey, lotsa pumpkin--you could eat your feet! Or someone else could, if you both like that sort of thing. The last time I walked out of Sweet Lily, my feet were so baby-smooth that they kept slipping around in my socks.
You don't have to limit your holiday giving to people you know. New York Cares, a great organization that makes volunteering all around NYC as easy as the click of a mouse, is running their annual coat drive through Dec. 31st. Any gently used coat (adult, teen, or child-sized) can be donated, and will be distributed throughout the winter directly to those in need. You can also organize a coat drive at your workplace, through a community group, or at your church, synagogue, or other house of worship/gathering place.
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