Garden Update

The view yesterday
















The many squash volunteers from the compost
















Under the zucchini canopy
















Lettuces still going strong





















Beans peaking

Variety

A three-part dinner tonight, inspired by the garden and a few things from fridge and pantry. First, crispy tofu tossed in Christine's new favorite sauce, the hybrid tahini/guacamole with scallions and cilantro to finish. Next, a stir-fry of just-picked goodness including carrots, beans, peas, beet, and yellow squash (the only one not from the garden, but still local) and last pad thai noodles with beet greens and a sauce of dried shrimp, garlic, ume vinegar, sesame oil, truffle oil, ponzu, nama shoyu, nam pla, and agave syrup. A Mas de Gourgonnier rosé was not a perfect match; the riesling in the fridge would have been better, but I opened the rosé thinking aperitif while I cooked and it seemed silly to open another one.

A Note on Mash

We learned this from John, and I think he learned it from Richard. It's a kind of pesto, but made with a bitter green from the endive/radicchio family like pan di zucchero or radicchio; lately we've been using the galia endive because it's at its peak. Frisée makes a divinely creamy mash. The suribachi is the ideal tool for making mash, and though it takes a bit of work, the result is well worth it, since it can accompany a bloody piece of meat as perfectly as the most ascetic vegan fare.

You smash a garlic clove and grind it up with some olive oil, then add an ume plum or two and keep grinding. Then some pine nuts, toasted if you have time, and then the shredded greens and some more oil. Lemon juice is grand, and truffle oil takes it to a higher place, but pretty much everything besides the garlic, greens, and oil is optional. The bitterness is smoothed a bit by the ume and oil, and it is a cleansing addition to any plate- try it and see how it cuts through fatty meat, or enhances pretty much anything. You can easily find a suribachi at your local Asian market or online. We use the food processor all the time, but this brilliant variation on the mortar and pestle is just the ticket for a coarser, more rustic preparation, and allows you to get it just the way you like it. Plus, it's nice to move sometimes when you cook, and the bowl makes a pleasant ringing sound while you grind.

Casual

Sirkka and Danny came over for a mellow Friday dinner. Christine had been to Fleisher's earlier in the day, and their housemade sausages are very good, so I whipped up a variation on her Mom's sausage pasta sauce- with hot & sweet sausage and lots of herbs. Whole wheat spaghetti has a nice body and flavor for a big sauce like this (even though we don't like the other shapes; the penne, etc. are too mealy) and there were good sides, mostly from right outside the kitchen: mash, sautéed pak choi, Sirkka's radish pickles, a great salad and her cherry canten with whipped cream and berries for dessert, enhanced by our new gelato place's passion fruit sorbetto. Not bad. A 2001 Domaine la Millière CDP and a 200 Hilberg-Pasquero Barbera "Bricco Gatti" both did well by this good, honest food.

Taste the Rainbow

Christine bought wild salmon and a beautiful piece of chicken-of-the-woods today, and the colors were just gorgeous together, so I was inspired- especially since I spent all day drawing on a big sheet of MDF and needed some color. Plus, the greens beans have arrived, going from tiny to 6 inches long in about two days. I reheated brown rice with water to that magical twice-cooked creamy state, and cooked the fish skin side only so it was still raw on top. Mushrooms, then beans, then baby fennel followed in the same pan, refreshed with a tiny bit of butter to help give the mushrooms some moisture. Mash made from endive and herbs, ume plum, oil, and pine nuts and a pan sauce of a splash of wine and agave rounded out the meal.

A nasturtium flower finished the plate and a Pleiades XV, always an excellent salmon wine, astonished again with its insane nose and funky elegance. We were lucky to be able to compare it With the 2002 Novy Page-Nord syrah that we opened last night to go with pizza; after the yummy but kind of monolithic purple fruit and chocolate of the Novy, the Pleiades had some of the same toasty funk and layered quality that Sujit's Echezeaux had at the party a while back.

Mission Statement

I bought and read Barbara Kingsolver's latest book a few weeks ago, and it's both an inspiration and validation to what we're doing here, and to what more and more people are doing around the country: growing and eating as much local food as we can. It's the best kind of activism, since it involves copious pleasure while at the same time using less fossil fuel to bring us our dinner. It also helps, I think, to not be an absolutist; salt, pepper, olive oil, coffee, most of our wine and spices, and fruit in the off-season all come from somewhere else, and I think that's OK. We live, after all, in a global economy.

My Mother had a garden when I was growing up, and some of my earliest memories are of doing what Milo is doing right now- "helping" by picking peas or strawberries then eating them all. In the age of the scientifically honed marketing of awful crap pseudo-food to the very young, I look at our garden as an antidote- or at least a vaccine- against the corporate factory food machine that is killing our soil, our wildlife, and our people in front of our eyes. We vote in elections, true, but voting with our eyeballs (we have no TV reception) and with our wallets (by choosing this kind of food, among other things) are just as important; the free market is an instrument of activism too. Beyond polemics, though, my son is learning that food comes from the ground, and he eats more kinds of food than any other kid his age that I know of. We eat together almost every night, and every day he asks to go outside and look for berries, or mint, or to come in the garden and eat peas or radishes. And he asks for truffle oil on his risotto. He'll be three in September.

Risi e Bisi

Those peas, those peas. This right here is honestly why I bought the chicken, notwithstanding the crispy, wife-pleasing goodness of the roasted bird. The carcass made an excellent broth, and we all picked peas (Milo is very good at picking, but eats them all) plus salad and herbs. Super simple risotto ensued, flavored with the peas tossed in at the very last minute, plus parsley, parmigiano, and truffle oil. I made the risotto on the wet side, according to tradition and the aforementioned wife, who is after all half Italian as opposed to my zero percent (don't let the URL fool you.) Milo asked for extra truffle oil on his rice. That's my boy.

On the side, a perfect salad, featuring our new official house vinaigrette of walnut oil and sherry vinegar, which is nutty, sharp, and rich, yet transparent so the character of all the different greens and herbs can shine through; today's offering included mesclun, mustard, mizuna, parsley, cilantro, nasturtium, dill, shiso, and chive. To match the dinner, a 2005 Les Domaniers de Puits Moret which is bottled under the Domaines Ott label but isn't an estate wine. As a result, it costs about 10 bucks less and delivers a nice, crisp, pale pink accompaniment to this kind of food.

Basic

Last night, a simple roast chicken with brown rice. Also, shiitake caramelized in the chicken fat, and baby veggies (carrot, turnip, beet) from the garden roasted in foil alongside the bird then tossed with peapods in the wine-deglazed mushrooms. I bought the chicken as much for the carcass as for this meal; the peas in particular call out for something good this evening, and the perfect cool weather is allowing for all kinds of cookery that sweltering would never permit.

A 1996 Louis Max Charmes-Chambertin was good, but thin and still tight- it felt stuck in third gear- some more time would help, but it was our only one.

Dim Something

Many leftovers and not much time led to this variety of small treats; there's nothing like having nori, and other wrappers around to turn random scraps into elegant bites. The goes-without-saying summer rolls, wontons made with a filling of leftover curried chick peas puréed with the last of the sweet potato salad fromm John's birthday, and maki made from some brown rice remnants and filled with the purée, a bit of barramundi Milo had the other night, scallions from the garden, and snap peas. We drank a Bonny Doon vin gris which comes admirably close to the French model they're emulating.

Spontaneous

Chris and Sirkka had a long day coming back from his gig at the Montreal jazz festival, so I offered to make them dinner to make things easier. Christine is in the city for a couple of days, so I wasn't able to shop, and thus made do with the garden, fridge, and pantry. Poppadums kept the kids happy while I made more summer rolls (from now on just assume I make them every time since I'm completely addicted to them) with the same almond butter-ponzu based sauce as last time. I soaked and then cooked a bunch of chick peas with a variety of milder curry spices so the kids would be able to eat them, and Chris made endive mash and picked more salad- last time they were here we made a walnut oil-sherry vinegar dressing, and it really let the greens shine through, while still having a ton of flavor, so he made it again. They also brought homegrown/made radish pickles that rounded out a rich, varied and clean meal very nicely. This kind of food really gets the taste of the road out of your mouth, as does a sparkling Vieux Pressoir Saumur rosé followed by a 2003 Selbach-Oster Spätlese riesling.

Week in Review

The lemon tarts were so well reviewed, especially by Christine, that I was pleased to have saved the unused pie dough in the fridge. We had some of the sweet potato salad left, and a few of the blue potatoes, and tofu that I didn't throw in lunch's fridge soup because I wanted to make more summer rolls. So I made a tart in the small pan, just the same as last night, and summer rolls with mint, greens, tofu, and noodles with an almond butter-ponzu sauce, green mash from radicchio this time, sweetened a bit with an ume plum, and so arranged a nice plate that kind of reprised the highlights of our last few meals in fine style. I had wanted to open a sparkling rosé with the fancy feast, but neither of us felt like drinking tonight.

John's Birthday

Phillipe and Lea hosted a party for John, and several people brought some food and wine. Phillipe made fantastic boeuf bourgignon and a sublime gratin of cauliflower; Liz curated the perfect salad from her garden and made her signature cashew cream to pour on gorgeous fresh berries for dessert (there was also cake.) I made the raw sweet potato salad, twice-baked tiny blue potatoes with fromage blanc, chives, and truffle oil mixed in and baby chioggia beet chips to garnish, sautéed scallops with a red wine-butter sauce, and last little Moroccan-inspired savory lemon tartlets that I thought up recently. It's basically a zabaglione style lemon tart, but with salty preserved lemon in the custard, a dollop of cumin-enhanced tapenade on top, and a drop of homemade harissa to finish. I baked the crusts in the muffin tin and filled them after they cooled.

We drank many things: my last half bottle of Sine Qua Non "Pagan Poetry" rosé, Pleiades XI and XV, Liz's 2002 Kistler pinot noir, a 2002 Joblot Givry, a 1998 Vigne de l'Enfant Jésus (I know it's one of John's favorites, so I dug it out) and Gerard brought an insanely good double magnum of 1990 Le Pergole Torte. Then we had champagne, Billiot and a grand cru rosé I bought that afternoon and failed to write down for posterity. It was very good. We never made it to the 1967 Barolo that we gave him. I also forgot to bring the camera.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

We went to Providence for a night for a wedding, where we saw some family, met some great people, and ate very well; the wedding was catered by Smoke & Pickles, and they did a bang-up job with giant striped bass and copious smoked chicken, plus smoked bluefish, ahi tuna and beef tenderloin as appetizers. I LOVE a well-catered wedding. Food is the music of love, so play loud and often.

So we returned tired and hungry today but with all the ingredients for another eggplant parmigiana cleverly staged in the fridge by Christine. I had used the shiitakes with the short ribs the other night, so to replace them I pulled up the last of the spinach and wilted it in a pan, while the eggplant roasted with salt and oil and I chopped many herbs with garlic to add to canned tomatoes for the sauce. Layered with the spinach in the middle, and baked, then finished under the broiler, it was a hearty, bubbly welcome home that made me doubly grateful that I hadn't bought any crappy road food when we stopped for gas. As for the Thackrey Centaur- the name the Aquila sangiovese briefly had until he had to change it for legal reasons, and which was shipped without capsule or label (I just found a sixpack of it in Brooklyn when I was organizing the basement, so naturally we had to have one) it's so damn sexy and luscious that we should have brought a bottle or twelve to the wedding.

Another Dinner Party

But this time back home, after thorough provisioning at Sahadi and in Chinatown; we're set for exotic staples and condiments for quite a while. Chris, Sirkka, and Nissa came, so I had defrosted some short ribs, and combed through the garden for baby vegetables; this bowl is honestly one of the greatest things I've seen in quite a while. I blanched everything separately to perfect al dente tenderness, and rubbed the skin off beets and carrots to let the pure color show.





















The ribs browned, got aromatics added, and wine, and simmered for about 4 hours. I strained the liquid and poured it back over them on low while I steamed a giant sweet potato, caramelized shiitake, braised pak choi, and made summer rolls with tofu, lettuce, mint, mustard greens, and bean thread noodles for an appetizer (with tangy peanut sauce.) Chris made a mash out of the galia endive, and picked a killer salad while I finished the plates with jus and parsley:














We drank their gorgeous 1990 Batasiolo Barolo "Vigneto Bofani," and our 2000 Hilberg-Pasquero Nebbiolo d'Alba. It's always interesting to compare two wines, and having the same varietal a decade apart from two different producers in adjacent regions shed a lot of light on how many variables can influence a wine.

Dinner Party

Another city trip, and finally we were able to schedule a dinner at Kris' house. Mary came, and Sujit and James, and Sujit's Mom, and Susan. Kris made many courses, most very high-end riffs on simple comfort food. The amuse bouche was a tiny bowl of puréed chard atop a dollop of parmesan cream- like creamed spinach but super refined. Next came ham and eggs- a poached egg with super fancy jamón and a red pepper sauce. Then crab, mango, and avocado in an apple juice-moscato syrup followed by an octopus and potato stew, rich, sweet and oceany, then macaroni and cheese with gorgeous lamb bits and deep Indian spices that took it to a whole other level. Finally, poussin with cabbage and carrots, then cheese, then cake since his birthday was a few days before.

Roughly in order, the wine highlights of the evening were as follows: a 2005 Selbach-Oster Wehlener Sonnenuhr, my 98 Castello dei Rampolla Sammarco and 1983 Drouhin Bonnes Mares, Mary's 98 Gros Richebourg, and Sujit's 86 Jayer-Gilles Echezeaux. Pretty fantastic.

Zuppa del Frigorifero

Somewhat presciently, last night after dinner I thought to make fridge soup for tonight since I suspected I'd be working late. This one was a continuation of last week's, via another iteration we made in Vermont containing the leftover sausage and garden greens (yes, I brought the soup with us to Vermont.) This time around I browned 3 strips of chopped bacon with half an onion, deglazed with wine, and dumped in the earlier soup, a beef bone from takeout night, tricolor orzo, and fresh herbs. Simmered for an hour or so, it gained a whole new depth and direction of flavor and got to sit overnight which always helps. I love these soups; normally more of a winter thing, the availability of fresh or leftover things from the garden plus random meat scraps make the summer version even better. As long as you bring it back to a boil every couple of days, they can keep going indefinitely. This one approaches the two week mark if you count all the way back to the pulled pork which started it all, and there's enough left to add more to tomorrow.

Clean

As if by fate, no sooner had I extolled the many pleasures to be had during and after drinking Thackrey's Andromeda but the email announcing the new release arrived in my inbox. Hooray! We've been waiting for the 2004 for a long time and are most excited to try it (and then leave the rest alone for as long as we can stand it.)

Tonight, a really healthy vegan meal to get us centered after some heavy eating; last night, exhausted, we ordered takeout from the Bear, which was very good, but still meat-o-centric and which left us craving clean green food. So another variation on the faux green papaya salad, this time using japanese yam with serrano chile and homegrown scallion in a peanut/lime/ume/agave/tamari dressing accompanied the last of the tatsoi, (cabbage and cauliflower will go in the empty rows) sautéed, and wok-seared tofu in a hybrid tahini-guacamole sauce: tahini, avocado, lemon and lime juice, truffle and olive oils, and salt. A few black sesame seeds, garden cilantro, and the rest of the scallion to garnish, and another Marques de Cáceres Rioja rosé hastily chilled in the freezer later we were happy and feeling much healthier.

Havin' a Meatwave

A de rigueur trip to the farmer's market was different in one notable way this time around: we bought no vegetables. Our garden provided salad and cooking greens, plus herbs and radishes to last the weekend, so all we needed was cheese, jam, bread, snacks to get us through the market, and of course some of Pascal's mighty sausages. He has recently reopened in a new location, and his charcuterie is as good as ever. We bought the duck crepinettes, plus merguez and pork with cabbage and bacon, and threw them on the grill. I chopped the mixture of greens we brought- chard, radicchio, endive, tatsoi, and spinach- and gave them a quick sautée with garlic and lemon while some couscous cooked. Served on a big platter, with a decanted 1998 Beaucastel CDP, it was a simple yet sublime late Spring meal.

Vermont Weekend

We arrived later than planned, so a quick dinner was required. 4 chicken legs, only partially defrosted, went in the big enamel pan with oil and onion to caramelize a little bit. Then wine to deglaze, and Japanese yam, carrot, zucchini, grape tomato, a quartered lemon, and a mix of Moroccan spices followed by enough water to safely leave it alone to simmer for about 45 minutes. Normally I would have added everything at different times so all was perfect, but this way it attained a certain stewy charm and was dead easy. To celebrate our arrival, and my organizing of the cellar, we opened a 2003 Thackrey Andromeda, which remains a gorgeous paradox; it beats every other California pinot we put it up against, and yet seems to taste hardly at all like pinot noir- it just tastes like Thackrey. It's also a well-documented fact (and not just by me) that ladies LOVE the Andromeda.

Paté

Two meals today featured some homemade charcuterie; I recently got the eponymous book by Ruhlman & Polcyn and have many plans to make some serious stuff this summer. Normally with cookbooks I read them through like a novel and then only occasionally consult them again except for baking and other things where actual measurements are important. For lunch, joined by my cousin Marilyn and her husband Sandy, I picked a lavish salad and made rillettes of trout that Kenny brought by a few days ago and that I smoked this morning. The trout, mixed with local horseradish flavored goat cheese, olive oil, lemon, melted butter and lightly sizzled garlic, herbs, and salt, went in a big bowl and I mashed it with a fork until it was all smooth and creamy (this keeps some texture that the food processor would destroy, and makes it easy to spot any errant bones.) With a crusty baguette, a perfect lunch.

At the same time, I made a paté, but it wasn't ready in time so we had it for dinner with another salad. The rest of the pork, plus rendered bacon fat, spices (cumin, ginger, Vietnamese 5 spice, paprika, herbs, chile) salt, pepper, and a bit of bread soaked in milk all went in the food processor with just enough water to get a good spin going. Then I folded in the chopped bacon and whacked it into a 2 cup pyrex thing with a lid that I rushed out and bought this morning at the hardware store of all places; I was prepared to go to the fancy kitchen store in town but got lucky. Baked in a bain-Marie for a bit over an hour, then cooled and secured with rubber bands, by dinner it was ready and unmolded and sliced beautifully. Garnished traditionellement with cornichons and a good mustard, and the salad on the side, it was a classic country dinner for a perfect Spring evening, enhanced by a 2004 Jadot Meursault. We've been digging the (more affordable) white Burgundies lately, especially with this kind of food.

Ma Po Tofu

This is a standby favorite, and when I went to buy tofu this afternoon there were fresh local snap peas at the store as if to underscore the wisdom of my choice (ours are only just flowering.) So half the ground pork I got on Saturday, plus the tofu, garlic, ginger, hot peppers, and a sauce made from the shrimp/miso broth, tamari, rice vinegar, a drop of agave and flour to thicken it went into the wok in roughly that order. Scallions to garnish, and the bolting tatsoi from the garden cleaned the wok out with some lemon. Served on brown rice, with a Crios Torrontes that has such a strong lychee note that it cries out to go with Chinese food. Although to be fair, if I had made this really hot like it's supposed to be (and like we did pre-Milo) an off-dry riesling would have been the better match. Never one to sweat the wine pairings, Christine made up for the lack of spice by larding hers with sambal oelek.

Kaiseki

Well, not really, but if we had Bento boxes it would have looked pretty close. Christine bought both salmon and shrimp today, because they were both great, so I did a multi-course meal but served them all at once. First, the salmon as sashimi, with garlic-infused sesame oil, tamari, lime juice and pink peppercorns, which was decadently creamy, rich, and elegant. Then, the shrimp, shelled- the shells became a broth with onion and carrot- rubbed with a mix of cumin, cinnamon, ginger, curry powder, and salt, and seared in a pan, which I deglazed with some of the shrimp broth. Fresh chopped and sautéed pak choi from the garden got a splash of the same broth to finish, and then I added red miso to the rest of the broth and poured it over soba for a nice soup. We finished with a mesclun salad, as fresh as can be, with a simple vinaigrette. All together it added up to a nicely varied meal, with lots of textures and flavors, many of which were well complimented by a 2002 Jadot Savigny-lès-Beaune "La Dominode" which is still young and tart but has a gorgeous nose that shows what it might be like in a few years.

Changing courses in midstream

As regular readers know, I am a huge fan of fridge soup, wherein all the random scraps and leftovers from a week's worth of meals contribute their various qualities to a rich and efficient pot of goodness that can then be polished off or further transformed depending on quantity. I began dinner thinking that tonight's would be such a dinner, and we had some good stuff to throw in: the pork-flavored tomato sauce from last night, some lentil salad, asian greens, half an onion, carrots, some bacon, and multicolored pasta. And in fact this all did become a pretty damn good soup. But Christine made it known that soup alone might not satisfy, so instead of making goat cheese-kalamata olive-garlic-herb-truffle oil crostini as an appetizer I took the puréed mixture and used it as a sauce for some butternut squash ravioli from the freezer. Now having pasta twice in a row isn't optimal, and I had put some pasta into the soup before this adjustment, and store-bought ravioli don't exactly compare well to homemade fettucine, but at the end of the day she was right and we were full and happy; I also sautéed some zucchini with garlic and wine (a splash of the Mas de Gourgonnier rosé we had with the meal.)

Pastissima

There wasn't enough pulled pork left to make a meal from, so it became the base for a pasta sauce: herbs, onion, garlic, and a can of tomatoes cooked together for a couple of hours to integrate the deep BBQ with the fresh new flavors. Milo and I rolled out some fresh fettucine- half white, half whole wheat flour- and cut turnip greens and mesclun in the garden. There's a fabulous chewy density to fresh pasta, and it takes me right back to the "green door," the unnamed restaurant in Rome behind the school where I would go for artichokes and fettucine on a regular basis. Unlike the cheap red I enjoyed so much back then, this time around we had a 2003 Moreau Saint-Aubin "en Remilly." It's hard to believe that nearly 20 years has gone by since I first lived in Rome, but there's no doubt that that year was the beginning of my trajectory as a self-taught cook; penne all'arrabiata and carciofi alla Romana were the first dishes I ever duplicated without a recipe at home after eating them at restaurants, and they're still two of my go-to specialties.

Pork, Beans

I went to Fleisher's today to stock up- haven't had meat in quite a while- and so was moved upon return home to use the pulled pork in the freezer from last fall in order to make room for a whole lamb shoulder. I pulled up the hon tsai tai from the garden, since it had all bolted, and stripped the leaves, giving them the garlic & oil treatment with a squeeze of lime at the end. Fresh fava beans cooked long and low with oregano and tomato paste were the focus of Milo's dinner, and added a nice counterpoint to the pork, which I served on little corn muffins with the beans spread around the plate. A mash of galia endive from the garden with garlic and oil provided a nice sharp condiment, and we drank a 2006 Marques de Cáceres Rioja rosé.

'Za

I was in the city last night (where I ordered sushi and drank a delicious, citrusy 2004 Jadot Puligny-Montrachet to celebrate my return to wine-drinking) and returned late enough to need a quick dinner plan. Thus pizza, with spinach from the garden plus olives, fresh (local) tomatoes, garlic, and local mozzarella. With salad from the garden and a 2005 Château de Roquefort Corail, it did the trick on a hot, humid evening and made me very glad to be home. This weekend I'm going shopping, and the scale arrived so tomorrow I'm going to wake up the 150 year old sourdough starter and get to work.

Red

Snapper and bell pepper, to be exact, both of which looked good at the store this afternoon. I juiced the peppers, reserved the foam, and reduced the juice with ginger, garlic, and a bit of agave syrup. The fish got a coating of fine and coarse cornmeal, spices, and salt, and cooked in some olive oil in the iron skillet. After the fish finished, I threw in some pak choi fresh from the garden and wilted it, deglazing the pan with lemon juice (this is by far the easiest way to clean an iron pan; all it needed was a rinse and wipe when dinner was over.) Leftover brown rice became creamy & steamy in a small pot with a little water on low. The reduction and foam offered two versions of the essence of pepper- sweet, tangy, and subtle. It would have been killing with a nice rosé, but I can't have any wine until tomorrow.

Parmigianina

Kind of a mannerist take on the original, with the eggplant slices baked in the oven on a cookie sheet with a bit of oil and salt, and alternating layers of caramelized shiitakes between, with sauce full of garden herbs and cheddar and mozzarella on top. It's less work and a lot healthier to do it this way, and tastes fantastic. With a perfect salad to finish, it got us through the second day of rain in fine style.

Potato Pizza

A good lunch for a rainy day, and a great reason to have a mandoline in the cupboard. With rosemary from the herb garden, a drizzle of truffle oil, and fresh mesclun, it really hit the spot. As soon as my scale arrives, I'm going to start making pizza dough from scratch.

Spring Cleaning

I took some time off, since I was on what they call "la dieta" in the Amazon, which culminated in a healing circle presided over by a Peruvian shaman. Now I'm back, though certain things are still off-limits for a few more days. There's an immense value to paring down from time to time; you realize how little food we need to stay alive, and how the variety and quantity of what we eat is so much more than that. Going without salt in particular really draws your taste out, and lets you find amazing subtleties in the simplest food.

The garden is exploding, and it's already time to start succesive plantings of certain things. I will take pictures as soon as it stops raining.

Toothsome Victuals

I've been thinking about this dish for months- ever since I noticed that the cooked Lebanese couscous is the same size as petits pois sometime last winter while making soup. So I took the chicken broth and reduced it until I had just enough to fill 4 ramekins already filled with cooked couscous and peas, hoping that it would gel strongly enough to hold it all together once I unmolded it. While they were cooling off, I took the chicken meat and made chicken salad with scallions, ramps, and lots of chiffonaded sorrel, plus a vinaigrette with mustard, pesto, olive and truffle oils, and cider and balsamic vinegars. I made some carrot curls with the saladacco and tossed it all together, then put it back in the fridge to marry the flavors while the ramekins got cold enough to unmold.




















The broth was just gelatinous enough, and they unmolded pretty easily. Surrounded with the chicken salad, and garnished with spicy microgreens and baby kale from the garden, they had all the richness of chicken noodle soup but were cool and clean and light for the end of a hot day. The salad had a nice clean comfort kind of flavor too, with creamy chicken, bright sorrel, and sharp alliums bumping another simple staple up a level or two. Another 2005 Turonia albariño showed very well with this dish, although I would have preferred rosé (but we're out again; I don't know how that keeps happening.)

Eating Local Part 2

Tonight, a revised version of what I had planned for last night before the trout showed up: venison loin- the last of what Kenny gave us in the fall- some leftovers, and some other locally grown treats. To begin, and for Milo's dinner, a pizza with pesto, sliced morels, and mozzarella. The morels have the most intensely umami mushroominess and they blended heroically with the sweet cheese and tart pesto.
















The second course, about an hour later (because both Chris and John came over separately to get some unplanted seedlings, dig some mint and nettles out of the field, and take a trout each since we only cooked two last night) was the venison loin, seared in a pan and then finished in the oven with whole garlic cloves, then garnished with a sorrel/goat cheese/horseradish sauce and refried cubes of the polenta from last night. The meat juices completed the plate, and we drank the remaining Mas de Gourgonnier and Turonia that were in the fridge. Pretty great, and almost all grown right in the area; as far as I can tell, only the salt, pepper, wine, and maybe the garlic came from far away.

Eating Local

This morning we had an omelet made from eggs given to me by Kurt at Elijah's Café when I stopped by for a smoothie to cheer Milo up since he has a cold, and ended up leaving with half a pound of fresh morels and the eggs as well. In keeping with such bounty, I was all set to write an entry, using the same heading, featuring the last of the venison Kenny brought us last fall, when lo and behold he showed up while I was weeding the garden this afternoon with four fat trout he caught today up near Mt. Tremper. I went shopping soon after, because we were low on many things, and more importantly out of coffee, so this is what we had tonight (while the venison waits for tomorrow.)

While the fish cooked in parchment with herbs and garlic, the morels and fiddleheads had a light sautée in Vermont butter and garlic and locally grown and ground polenta bubbled nearby with some very unlocal salt and pepper. To finish, a splash of the chicken broth I made at lunch time (local chicken) deglazed chopped sorrel wilted in another bit of butter. Fiddleheads and morels, apart from being two of the most alien looking delicacies, also epitomize Spring and complement each other well. Salt, pepper, and wine aside (2006 Crios Torrontes- lush, floral, perfumed and springy) everything else on the plate came from our area. Best of all, we finished the meal with a salad of baby greens from the garden, which we ate with no dressing of any kind; it was like a greens tasting, with peppery mustard and arugula and funky, meaty bok choy and hon tsai tai. Profound and intense, and cut just minutes before.

Daube

Phillipe and Lea invited us for dinner at their place with John and Debi. Phillipe made daube provençal, one of his specialties, as well as asparagus and tomatoes stuffed with eggplant and rice. The daube was mighty, with intense lamb and herb flavors, a nice spice from marinated olives, perfect potatoes, and melting meat. The company was grand, and John and I both brought wine: a 2000 Gros Noré Bandol, a 1998 Clos des Brusquières CDP, a 1996 Tollot-Beaut Aloxe-Corton, and a 1997 Jaboulet Cornas. Yum.

New Toy

I got a saladacco, or spiral slicer, the other day and used it tonight for the first time. The cheap ones were not well reviewed, so I sprung for the $60 version and it worked like a charm. Half a sweet potato, peeled, then spun through the gadget using the middle blade yielded a nice bowl of orange curls. Tossed with scallions, half a jalapeño, and a dressing of peanut butter, flax and sesame oils, nam pla, cider vinegar, tamari, and the juice of one lemon, it made a more than adequate substitute for green papaya salad, one of my all-time favorites, that I've been craving lately with the warmer weather. I also banged out a by now pretty standard vegetable curry, with acorn squash, cauliflower, tofu, sweet potato, carrot, chard, and peas in a coconut sauce. A plate of papadums and another standard, the 2005 St. Urbans Hof riesling, completed the meal.

Warming Up

Chris came over, solo, bearing gifts of salad greens and nettles (he's wearing gloves because he was pulling leaves off stems before we steamed them) and I had been to the fish market and bought scallops and halibut to play with. I marinated the scallops in olive oil, pink pepper, Celtic salt, and hebes de Provence that I mashed together in the suribachi, then seared them in the iron pan with a bit of butter, deglazed with wine, and served on a bed of our neighbor Deb's arugula (she got hers planted well before ours.) I also made polenta, and the halibut marinated in a pesto of cilantro and ramps before going in the iron pan as well. A handful of chopped ramps followed the fish and garnished it on top of the polenta (locally grown, stone-ground, and organic.) We started with a Château de Roquefort Corail, then had a splash of Pleiades XV that Chris brought, opened the day before and thus smooth and gorgeous, and then a 2001 Guigal white Hermitage to accompany the main meal. A perfect preview to what lies in store for all of us once all our gardens start producing.

The Raw And The Cooked

It got humid, and I was in the woodshop all day so something light and quick was called for. The leftover brown rice (we always make too much, so there are easy options in the following days) and some wilted watercress became maki, and carrot "noodles" from the peeler tossed in a sauce of cider vinegar, tamari, mustard, and sesame oil with a garnish of black sesame seeds. A bit of ground beef mixed with ginger, garlic, pepper, and scallion went inside wonton skins to make little gyoza- browned in a drop of oil, then steamed, covered, with the addition of a splash of water. They got a drizzle of tamari, ume vinegar, and sesame oil, and a healthy handful of scallions to finish. To go with this mixture of the raw and the cooked, a 2005 Clos de Paulilles Collioure which had enough grip to handle the meat and was still light enough for the veggies, with an herbal quality that did well enough with the Asian condiments.

Soup and Salad

The rib bones from yesterday, still with a bit of meat on them- and lots of flavor left to give- went in a pot with onion, carrot and herbs to brown a bit. Then a bowl of soaked cannelini beans, water, and a bit of salt, and it all bubbled for two hours. I pulled all the good meat off, chucked the rest, and stirred in a handful of chopped oregano from the herb garden. Finished with chives (also from the garden) and accompanied by a salad of local greens (though not yet our own) it was a perfect meal for a cool evening after an absolutely perfect day. We drank a Mas de Gourgonnier rosé, one of my favorites, and a great match. From my old neighborhood in the Lubéron, it has a wonderful minerality that goes with this kind of earthy food, and particularly well with that magical bass-and-treble-at-the-same-time flavor that is white truffles.

Mothers' Day

This tantalizing triskelion is made up of espresso-rubbed, homemade sauce-basted, and apple wood from our tree-smoked pork ribs cut apart and arranged over mashed sweet potatoes and the yams from the night before and garnished with the pineapple salsa. For Mothers' day, we opened one of Christine's favorites: a 2001 Carver Sutro petite sirah, which is finally coming into its own as a rich, gorgeous wine. Next time I want to try it along with a Sirius.

Tropicalia

It was a perfect day, and they had Marlin at the market, so I made a version of the way I had done it in Costa Rica a couple of years ago. First, a pineapple salsa, with jalapeño, lime, scallion, cilantro, and salt, which sat and marinated while I did the rest. A light rub of cinnamon, chile, and pepper on the fish, and Japanese yams went into the steamer. When the yams were done, I threw the fish in the iron pan to sear. Finished fish rested on a plate while I mashed the yams and cleaned the pan with escarole and ponzu. We drank a 2005 Crios rosé, which I like better than last year's; it's drier and less candy-like.

Garden

Here, finally planted (except for two beds of hot-weather things) is the garden. In a couple of weeks we'll be getting the first mesclun, and after that many other things. It was a ton of work, but now that the beds are done they should be pretty easy to prepare in subsequent springs.

Summa cum laude

Seriously muggy and hot today, with afternoon thundershowers giving us our first rain in a full week. Nice to give the sprinkler a break, especially since I was doing some space-mandated editing in the garden; rhubarb came out of a bed and into the ground near the fence, carrots got reduced to make room for salsify, burdock, scorzonera and parsnip, and tomorrow the celery/celeriac gets cut in half to make room for daikon and radish.

So tonight, with the heat and the vegetables foremost in mind, a vegan feast. Pappadums, sautéed zucchini, radicchio salad with truffle oil, blue lentils with leek, mint and scallion, and tempeh with the very poular BBQ sauce. Washed down with the bright 04 Turonia albariño since we're out of rosé, a condition which I will remedy tomorrow.

Chez Liz

Liz invited a few people over for a dinner and bonfire. Everyone brought something, and we grilled many veggies- eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, radicchio, onions, asparagus- plus fish and chicken. Phillipe made a crazy leek salad, Sirkka made roasted potatoes, John made salad and brought an intense daikon and ikura relish, and Chris manned the grill while I dealt with squid and tuna; a pesto/umeboshi/lime mixture went in & outside the squid, then they cooked over a hot fire for a minute per side, and the tuna got a good sear before slicing into strips and getting a jalapeño slice and sesame-soy drizzle. All this was thoroughly enjoyed outside by a roaring fire. Dessert was Liz's trademark cashew pudding on fruit, and we drank lots of good wine- the standouts were a 1999 Kistler chard (my last), and a 1997 Brunello and a 1989 Côte Rôtie that John brought (I forgot to write down the producers.)

Christine's Birthday

I rubbed and roasted a whole chicken, and threw a bunch of sweet potatoes into the oven as well, with lots of garlic and thyme. Crimini mushrooms, sautéed with garlic and deglazed with white wine, went into the blender with the burdock from a couple of days before plus just enough water to spin into a thick purée. Once the bird came out, I made a roux with the fat in the roasting pan and then added white wine, water and, once it reached a good consistency, the mushroom/burdock mixture. On top, trumpet mushrooms, also sautéed with garlic and parsley, and deglazed with wine. On the side, escarole done the usual way. We drank a 2005 Étude pinot noir, which is a yummy wine but was much too young and tart. Dessert was birthday cake- dairy free, juice-sweetened banana cake. Milo was near-hysterical about it.

Another Dinner

This time at Rick and Julie's house, where they've been playing with sous-vide cooking, using a vacuum sealer and a hot water bath to slow-cook meat and fish so that they're perfect all the way through. In this case, New York strips that he had dry-aged for a month in a special fridge, then cooked at 128˚ for 4 hours, each in its own bag, then seared up in a pan to put a good crust on the outside. Along with these, Julie made a wicked salad, roasted sweet potatoes, cooked kale in a little chicken broth, and asparagus with a bit of bacon. To go with this feast, Rick went deep into the cellar; we began with a 1971 Bouchard Le Corton, then opened a 1966 Beaulieu Georges de la Tour Reserve, then finished a 1990 Sorrel Hermitage they had opened a few days earlier. Dessert was a fantastic mango-banana sorbet accompanied by a 1988 Bonny Doon Muscat vin de glacière. There is simply nothing like decades-old great wine, and being able to switch back and forth between pinot noir, cabernet, and syrah from such old and wonderful bottles was a treat.

Chef Jeff

We went to visit Jeff, Eve, and their two boys for an early dinner on a beautiful day. It was at their house during grad school that the tradition of epic dinners really embedded itself in my psyche as an essential component of life. Good ingredients, improvisation, and great people all combined to make some meals that I'll never forget. Jeff had made his trademark grilled squid, and pan-roasted salmon in a sauce of puréed greens, chiles, and cream. Eve made wild rice, and a cooked beet and carrot salad with goat cheese. Dessert was fruit salad and dark chocolate. It's too bad we see them so rarely.

Visit

In Evanston, visiting Christine's Mom, I wanted to give her a night off so I made dinner (having shopped earlier in the day.) Seared bluefin tuna, dressed with hot garlic-infused sesame oil, got two contrasting salads: a mango salsa with red onion, tomato, cucumber, and lime and radicchio chopped fine with salt and truffle oil. The sweet mango complemented the slightly bitter radicchio. I also cooked some burdock and a big bowl of chopped bok choy.