A Finger in Every Pie

Eat This Now

Spicy, crunchy, deep-fried shrimp fritters.   Sort of Thai-Vietnamese flavors.  Amanda Hesser wrote about these a couple of weeks ago, as part of a polemic exhorting us to make and eat more fritters of any and every kind.  Good for us or no, it's really rather refreshing to have someone encouraging us to eat more deep-fried food.  She also makes the excellent point that if fried at a hot enough temperature, fritters aren't particularly fat-laden.  These were strikingly crisp and quite greaseless for something that had gone bathing in hot oil. 

It's pretty rare that I jump right on a recently-published recipe and get to work.  Usually it simmers with me for some period of time; then I start tinkering with it in my head, and by the time I finally get around to actually making it, my end result may only barely resemble the original.  Although this recipe isn't exactly hot off the press anymore, my having cooked it last night (almost exactly as it was writtten, too) represents a fairly short leap from print to reality, at least by my standards.  I just had to try them. Puffy shrimp patties with a resonance of fish sauce and ginger and chilies were  singing to me, virtually crying out to be made.  They occupied a disproportionately large area of my food-imagination head-space for a couple of weeks; all I needed was an excuse, and a particularly beloved cousin's arrival for dinner provided me with one.

Deviating from standard operating procedure, which is to mess with everything, I really didn't play around with this recipe.  The one change I made was to use a teaspoon of Vietnamese chili-garlic sauce instead of bashing up a dried chili in the mortar and pestle.  This recipe is a bit time-consuming only if you do as I did (in the interests of our current household state of frugality), and buy smaller (actually graded "large," as opposed to extra large, colossal, jumbo, mammoth...) shrimp in the shell.  Per pound, the little ones are of course going to take more time to shell and scrupulously clean, de-vein and chop.  If you're pressed for time and/or not financially challenged, buy shelled and cleaned shrimp, and it will take you almost no time at all.  In either case, you can prep this early in the day: clean, chop, mix it all up, chill it and be ready to fry when your guests arrive. Or even pre-fry, as suggested in the article, and have them in a warming oven, which doesn't take a whole lot away from these crisp little devils. 

My longing to make this helped me conquer my loathing of deep frying, reinforced by recent disasters in this area.  Again, I did as Amanda (may I call her Amanda?) suggests, and used a taller, narrower pot with only a couple of inches of oil.  This cut way back on spatter, and since I covered the pot as soon as I was finished frying, my home didn't reek of cooking oil either. 

All I can really say is make them, wrap them up in leafy bouquets of lettuce and cilantro and mint with a squeeze of lime juice, and eat.  Eat them right away, and be happy.  Whatever else you're serving isn't going to matter much, honestly.  We had a perfectly nice spicy hot-pot of soba noodles, chicken, bok choy, carrots and such, but I really just wanted to go back and eat more shrimp fritters. 

Although you might want to have something nice for dessert, like this (thanks Estelle!):

Shrimp Fritters Wrapped in Lettuce and Herbs
adapted from the NY Times Magazine, September 16, 2007

 

Chopped raw shrimp are sticky, so no batter is needed — a little rice flour holds the fritter together.

10 ounces small shrimp, peeled and chopped (I used a pound of raw shrimp, which came to 13 ounces after shelling and cleaning)

¼ cup minced scallion

2 teaspoons minced ginger

1 dried red chili, ground with a mortar and pestle (or 1 tsp. chili-garlic sauce)

1 tablespoon fish sauce

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon sugar

2 teaspoons rice flour

Canola oil, for frying

12 cilantro sprigs

24 mint leaves

12 bibb lettuce leaves

2 limes, quartered.

1. In a bowl, combine the shrimp, scallion, ginger, chili, fish sauce, sesame oil, salt, sugar and rice flour.

2. In a heavy saucepan, heat 2 inches of oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, drop the shrimp in flattened golf-ball-size patties into the oil. Fry until golden on all sides, turning once, 1 to 2 minutes. Drain on paper towels. To serve, place a fritter, a cilantro sprig and two mint leaves on a lettuce leaf, sprinkle with lime juice, roll up and eat immediately. Makes about 12 fritters.

I ate the last of these for lunch today, ice-cold from the fridge, not even bothering to reheat them -- although I did give them their lettuce/herb wraps and their splash of lime juice.  They were delicious cold, too.

ooooh mami

True confession time:  I'm not really sure I know what the taste of umami is.  I know that as a certifiable-type food blogger, I'm supposed to know these things.  But truthfully, I'm a little skeptical of all these Americanos who grew up on ring-dings and are now waxing poetic about the joys of umami -- which, admittedly, is "subtle and serves to enhance other flavors."  It's one thing, I suppose, if you grew up in Japan with lots of bonito flakes and dashi stock and all.  Then it would be something that you knew and understood from birth, and you would come to associate certain foods with it.  But whenever I try to figure it out, I see lists of foods that are as divergent as anchovies and peas, for example. Or corn and seaweed and Parmigiano Reggiano.  Carrots, truffles, foie gras and green tea, too.  All of these are positively loaded with umami, it seems  -- but don't have a lot else in common taste-wise, as far as I can tell.  Being loaded with umami means they're high in glutamates, an amino acid compound responsible for the flavor of umami.  Yes, glutamates, as in monosodium glutamate, the compound of which the seasonings Accent and Ajinomoto are composed.  Yes, monosodium glutamate, the evil element supposedly responsible for "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome," which resulted in Chinese restaurants posting "No MSG!" signs in their windows for the past 30 years or so.  Now the debate has re-opened and apparently MSG is no longer evil or dangerous.

None of this helps me get any closer to pinning down the elusive flavor of umami.  I know I'm getting closer; when I let go of the skepticism and try to get at exactly what it is, I know it's a savory something.  Savoriness, I guess.  Which I tend to associate with saltiness, so there I am back at four tastes instead of five.  I remember my grade school science class, where they wanted to teach us the four tastes. We were given tiny samples of salt, sugar, a lemon wedge and a square of unsweetened chocolate; they were the elemental foods for salty, sweet, sour and bitter.  I don't know how they're going to teach that lesson nowadays, short of giving students a nice heaping helping of Accent straight from bottle as the representative sample for umami. 

The fifth taste was discovered by this fellow, and more recently scientists verified that there is a receptor for umami on the tongue.  But I still don't have it pegged yet.  If you do, please help me out.  Describe it for me -- or give me an example of a taste that's the quintessential flavor of umami. 

In the meantime, I'll give you this recipe for a fresh-from-the-market vegetable sauté that we ate the other night.  I know it has umami-rich tomatoes and carrots; I can't vouch for the glutamate content of the other ingredients.  All I know is that when you eat it, you too will say ooooooh, mami.

 
Vegetable Umami

6 Roma tomatoes, blanched, peeled and coarsely chopped
6 garlic cloves, chopped
2 Tbsp. butter or olive oil
I yellow pepper, sliced into matchsticks 
4 slender zucchini, sliced into rounds
2 carrots, cut into thick matchsticks, blanched until crisp-tender
1/2 pound slender green beans, blanched until crisp-tender
salt and pepper
large handful of fresh cilantro

Heat the butter or oil in a large, deep sauté pan or pot.  When the butter or oil is hot, sauté garlic for a few minutes, until it just starts to turn golden.  Add tomatoes, and let them cook down a little until they become a chunky, rustic sauce.  Add the peppers and cook a few minutes more; add the zucchini and cook another minute.  Add the partially-cooked carrots and green beans, and let everything cook together until vegetables are just tender to the tooth -- or to your taste.  Season to taste; snip cilantro in with a scissors and stir through to release flavor.  Just before serving, taste again and adjust seasoning. 

On Arthur Avenue with the Amateur Gourmet

Cooking is an exercise in communication:  the ingredients communicate their freshness, the recipes communicate their patented formulas, the pans communicate their readiness, and the dish itself communicates the passion of the chef.  What you place down before a loved one is a meaningful gesture, a symbol of your feelings as reflected in the portion size, the placement on the plate, and the thing itself.  What did you cook? Did you microwave a hot-dog, or did you roast a quail? Did you microwave the hot-dog with love and roast the quail with  indifference? These things matter.

         - Adam Roberts, The Amateur Gourmet:  How to Shop, Chop  and Table-hop Like a Pro (Almost)

The email said " Hey Julie! This is Adam The Amateur Gourmet. My book comes out in three weeks! If you're willing, I'd love to send you an early copy and if you're even more willing I'd love to visit your blog on my Virtual Book Tour."

Yes, reader, it really was from Adam, the Amateur Gourmet himself.  I'd been anticipating reading his book.  And now he had asked me and AFIEP to be one of the stops on his Virtual Book Tour.  You can imagine my delighted reply. Six weeks and quite a few emails later, we would set out on a real-time food-crawl afternoon in preparation for this virtual meet-up. 

Adam's blog The Amateur Gourmet has been a favorite read of mine for a couple of years now.  His is the blog I often turn to when I need to lighten up, have a laugh, or find a new idea for something great to cook.  For although I may have been cooking a good bit longer than Adam has, I get a great deal of inspiration from him.  Adam, you see, like most of us food bloggers, is an amateur, in the very best sense of the word.

It’s always been a source of puzzlement to me that the word “amateur” has such a pejorative connotation in our culture.  We tend to use the word to denote a rookie, a neophyte, someone without much experience or expertise. “A rank amateur,” someone will say, dismissing an artist’s life-long body of work.  “Amateurish,” writes a critic, demonstrating his feeling that someone’s chef d’oeuvre should never even have warranted his notice, much less his review.   

What the word really means is that one has passion -- passion enough about a particular art or skill or field or body of knowledge to pursue it without receiving financial gain.  Adam might have described himself in the more negative connotation of "amateur" when he began his food journey  -- when, as detailed in his book, he thought that dining out was going to The Olive Garden; cooking was popping a frozen pie from California Pizza Kitchens into the oven.  With determined self-education, however, he became a dedicated lover of all things delicious. 

Amateur, from the French, meaning "lover;" in turn  from the Latin amare, "to love."  That’s Adam all over:  a person who throws himself headlong into his interest purely for the love of it.  Even now that he's published his first book, Adam staunchly maintains his "amateur" status.  After all, he doesn't earn a living from eating, or even from cooking, but rather from writing about these things.  He's now a writer by trade, who comes to his calling through being an -- or rather, THE -- Amateur Gourmet:  a lover of that which pleases the discriminating palate. 

I had met Adam briefly at a number of food blogger events, but I wouldn't really say that I knew him.  On the surface, we couldn't be much more different.  Aside from the superficial attributes of gender and age, we've had very different upbringings, particularly in regard to food.  Cooking, especially cooking from scratch, with at least some attention to seasonal food, was at the heart of my family's time together; dining out was central to Adam's early family life.  My mother made soups and stews and homemade salad dressing; Adam's glamorous and beautiful mom made reservations. 

So I read Adam's book.  I could see where, despite the differences in our food histories and experiences, we were much alike -- and that I stood to learn much from him.  The Amateur Gourmet:  How to Shop, Chop and Table Hop Like A Pro (Almost) is billed as a book for those who want to become more knowledgeable food enthusiasts.  But it's not just a book for the rookie.  As Shauna says, Adam's book gives more experienced cooks and eaters a chance to go back to beginner's mind.  We can all use a chance to remember where we came from, in order to continue learning.  And now that I've spent an afternoon with him, I think of Adam as the Evolving Gourmet -- in the way that we all should be -- open-minded, curious, continually exploring.

Adam and I decide to have a food adventure together -- to explore Arthur Avenue, known as the Little Italy of the Bronx. The neighborhood, which is actually called Belmont, is well-known to me, since I've consulted for several nearby public schools.  I haven't really spent much time there for a couple of years, so I'm eager to return.  For Adam, it will be completely new terrain.  How does the Amateur Gourmet approach fooding in unfamiliar territory?   

Adam shows up at our home a little after 11:00, where I'm hoping to impress him with a moist, crumbly apple-plum ripple coffee cake ostensibly baked for G, whose love of apple baked goods has been duly documented here.  Such baked goods are also handy to have on hand when other food bloggers drop by to in order to have them admire your baking prowess.  A true food hound, Adam immediately hones in on the baking pan in the kitchen, saying "What's that?"  He has only a small taste, however, since he's cleverly saving his appetite for the delights of Arthur Avenue.  But he further endears himself to me by telling me how much he likes our kitchen and our home -- what I sometimes despair of as havoc and clutter and disorder, he admires as cozy and lived-in.

Dear, long-suffering G is our chauffeur up to Bronx (at this point, I'm going to refrain from telling you my seasonal Rosh Hashanah joke about blowing the shofar).  He drops us right in the center of Belmont, Arthur Avenue and 187th St., and goes off on his own errands.

Like Kevin, I have taken Adam's book along for the ride, but the author himself remains my focus on this tour.  Where to begin?  We go to Casa Della Mozzarella, noting the gourd-shaped scamorza cheeses the size of small asteroids, as well as the guy in the back stretching massive hanks of pliant mozzarella by hand. I point out the Full Moon Pizzeria, one of the spots I used to hit  for lunch.  But I've already recommended that we eat at Mike's Deli in the Arthur Avenue Retail Market; when you're the fooding guide, it's your sacred responsibility to show off all your absolute favorites. 

We pass the butcher shops with entire dead beasts hanging in the window, the seafood and fish emporia that sell freshly opened clams to eat while walking down the street.  I show Adam the Star of David mosaic at the threshold of Teitel Brothers.  It's a shop with a name that seems a bit out of place in this neighborhood of Biancardis and Madonias and Borgattis, but it offers what are probably the city's best prices on Parmigiano Reggiano, prosciutto di Parma, excellent olive oils, and a host of other delicacies. 

The Arthur Avenue Retail Market is really the heart of the neighborhood.  It's the closest thing in NYC's five boroughs to a European-style covered market. At Mike's Deli, where the old LIFE magazine cover of Il Duce glares at us from the back wall, the much more welcoming counterman banters with us for so long we're not sure he's going to let us go eat the sandwiches he's bullied us into having.  He makes us a gorgeous prosciutto/fresh mozzarella creation with roasted peppers, and a delectable veal cutlet with baby peas and minced peppers in a wine-laced sauce.  He insist that we have two glasses of homemade red wine (which we're sure Lenn would say tastes, ummm, well, homemade).  When we demur, he asks if we're driving.  Adam blurts, "No -- her husband is," pointing to me.  "Her HUSBAND!" the counterman snorts in mock outrage.  "So you two are off here having lunch, without her HUSBAND!"  He thinks he's got us figured out.

Almost satiated, we continue on to the dessert portion of the tour.  Everyone has their favorite pastry shop in this neighborhood, but I'm a hold-out for the crisp cannoli at Madonia Brothers, filled with fresh ricotta cream only when you order.  We get large ones to eat as we continue walking down the street.  They're obscenely delicious, and Adam agrees -- by far the best cannoli either of us have ever had.  The lady from the flower shop stops us and we have a long conversation with her as we eat cannoli.  She convinces us that we will both have to go to Sicily -- probably the only place we'll ever find better cannoli.

Incidents like this one are commonplace on Arthur Avenue.  Everyone is friendly, and disposed to chat.  No-one seems to think twice about striking up a conversation with strangers.   It has almost the feeling of a village, but one that's disposed to be open and warm to outsiders rather than the opposite.  The flower lady tells us her life story, and describes how she, recently arrived as a businessperson on this strip, was overwhelmed by the outpouring of holiday gifts for her little daughter from fellow merchants.  "It's like a family here," she says. As we continue our walk, Adam and I agree that there's something wonderful about this neighborhood. Despite the way it attracts tourist and day-trippers like us, it maintains the quality of a place that hasn't been changed all that much by time.

It's a gorgeous day, the last of summer shading into fall, and Adam and I continue our lunch conversation as we walk.  We do have a lot in common, really.  Of course we both love food.  God, do we love food.  But there are other things as well.  We're both romantics at heart, with strong ideas about what make relationships work; we're both very attached to family, but sanguine about the players in our respective family dramas; and we're both strongly pulled toward social responsibility.  When I talk about my dream of reforming NYC public school lunches, Adam says excitedly "Let's do it!  I'll do that with you!"   

Going fooding with Adam, I really do get to know the guy who wrote this charming book.  His enjoyment of the moment, his endless curiosity and boundless enthusiasm would make anyone an amateur of the Amateur Gourmet.  As my own mother would have said, what's not to love? 

 

Sexy Peach: Get Her While You Can

Peaches are female; I've always thought that.  I suppose all fruits are, since they are, after all, the bearers of seeds. Ovaries, basically.  But there's just something particularly femme about peaches, not to say that real men don't eat them, of course.  Peaches are what bring me here today.  Not just peaches, but naked, blushing, jewel-tone peaches suspended in a richly scented cream custard above a blissfully crumbly crust.  Naked, you ask?  Yes indeed.  At first, of course, your sweet peach is softly, delicately fuzzy -- but then, oh then, you coax her to slip off her skin, and take a warm bath in cream. 

I've been thinking and dreaming and envisioning a sort of peach-cream-custard-tart dessert for weeks now.  I kept buying bags of peaches and nectarines at the farmers' market, tenderly giving them their last day's ripening in a paper bag, planning their transformation into peach-cream-custard-kuchen.  But I still wasn't feeling great for a while there and it was hot, too hot for oven-lighting, so I ended up happily eating them out of hand or sliced into bowls, topped with Greek yogurt and drizzled with a tiny thread of wildflower honey.  So good.  This may be one of the first summers in recent years when I've almost, almost gotten my fill of peaches.  Corn and tomatoes, berries and melons croon their summery songs, and gladden my heart and my mouth. But the ripe, drippy peach is summer's quintessence.  And although these days there are many mournful screeds about summer's end, there are still peaches in Northeastern U.S. farmers' markets and farm stands.  Gather them while ye may.

So I didn't make this dessert I'd been envisioning, and I still didn't make this dessert. Then, however, two things happened.  The mercury dropped back down into the 70s, and we had friends over for dinner.  Not just any friends, but the darling friend who a) threw me the loveliest and poshest bridal shower ever, b) gave me her mother's gorgeous antique gold mesh bracelet as a shower gift, c) along with her husband, did all the flowers and decorations for the larger of my wedding parties and d) again, along with her husband, gave us our beautiful wedding night at the London Hotel in midtown.  And that's just what she's done for me recently.  Not only that, but her husband is my husband's very clever and hard-working business partner.  Last but not least, these friends are living at the moment in a studio sublet while they wait for lagging contractors to finish renovations on a new home.  All their meals are restaurant meals or take-out, so a home-cooked dinner is a huge treat for them these days.

Lots of motivation here to pull out all the stops:  truffled foie gras mousse brought back from our recent trip to Montreal, thick (antibiotic and hormone-free, vegetarian-fed beef) porterhouse steaks, fresh corn, a farm-stand vegetable melange so delicious it could be a meal in itself, and dessert:  skinless naked blushing cream-custard-cloaked crumbly-crusted peaches.

Often when I conceive of a new recipe, I play around with it too much, and it doesn't quite come off as planned.  Not being a food professional, I generally don't have the wherewithal to test and re-test something until it comes out just right, so instead it waits for me to make it again, by which time, if I ever do get around to it, I may already have forgotten what wasn't right in the first place.  This time, however, I got it on the first try.  I might modify it on another go-round: try nectarines, add some berries to the stone fruit, use a different kind of sugar and maybe just a tad more, since it's not too sweet.  But really, it's just so exactly what I had in mind that it may overcome even my relentless desire to tinker. 

Really a large tart, this has its roots in an old recipe from Edward Espe Brown's The Tassajara Bread Book, a slim tome which slightly pre-dates California Cuisine but in which you can find much of the thinking that informs our current foodways.  I made enough changes that I'm pretty sure it's become my own recipe: cutting back on the sugar, ditching the cinnamon and replacing it with nutmeg, since cinnamon is generally overused in fruit desserts (it doesn't really suit the peach's delicate floral nature -- although a bit of nutmeg does); adding excellent peach liqueur (Mathilde) and vanilla in the form of vanilla sugar in order to enhance without overwhelming; blanching the peaches and leaving them in their round pink-cheeked halves; changing the  proportions to create a higher ratio of fruit and custard to crust; and finally adding a sprinkling of crushed amaretti to soak up juices and provide another layer of flavor.  So it's related, but not really the same any more as the original, which (despite its Zen Center pedigree) I suspect may have had its roots in an old Betty Crocker cookbook -- where I found even earlier references to something remarkably similar. 

But enough blather.  I cannot recommend more strongly that you act now, before peaches disappear from your local farm stand or market.  Trust me, you'll have plenty of time to play with apples, or even plums.  The window for peaches in all their golden-pink pulchritude is rapidly closing; there's just about enough time for you to enjoy a last fling with these lush orbs.  Even G, who places himself firmly and manfully in the camp of apples, thought this dessert was a winner (of course, he also thought it would be even better with a creamless filling of apples and a judicious layer of crumble on top, thereby resembling the original only in the pat-in bottom crust, which was, in his words,  Best. Crust. Ever).  Go now and get those peaches, strip them of their skins, crust them, cream them, bake them -- and then tell me whether, girly fruit or no, this dessert is not beloved by all, gender prejudices notwithstanding. 

Peach Cream Custard Kuchen
serves 15 moderate eaters, or fewer voracious types

A few notes:  you've already seen from the pictures that this is not really a "presentation" dessert.  It's not going to have the drama of a gorgeously decorated cake or pie, but I strongly recommend it for guests or a special occasion dessert because it's so damn delicious.  Think of it as a homey sort of thing which can be dressed up to your heart's desire with fruit slices or fruit coulis or mint leaves at the plating stage -- if you wish.  In our case, the eagerness to begin snarfing it down prevented us from playing frou-frou with it.

I don't recommend serving it with ice-cream or whipped cream as I've seen suggested in some similar recipes.  There's plenty of cream in there already -- oh, and in case the dessert police are after me (hi bro!) because of that 2 cups of heavy cream, please remember that this makes a LOT of servings.  Practice portion control, and realize that you're consuming far less cream than you would if eating a piece of pie served with a scoop of  ice-cream -- unless it's a very small scoop.

As always, quality ingredients (preferably local fruit and organic dairy goods) make all the difference between a dessert that is transcendant and one that is merely good.

9 just-ripe peaches ( you can use nectarines here, if you wish -- no need to blanch them or skin them in that case)

2 Tbsp. crème de pêche or other good peach liqueur (optional)

2 cups a.p. flour

3/4 unsalted cup butter

1/4 - 1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

8 small amaretti biscuits (hard dry almond macaroons)

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

3/4 - 1 cup vanilla sugar (demerara or turbinado could also be nice here, in which case you could add vanilla extract to the custard)

 

Preheat the oven to 400F.  Butter a 9 x 13 inch pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, and butter the parchment. 

Blanch the peaches:  submerge them in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds, then plunge them into an ice-water bath.  The skins should slip off effortlessly, leaving the blush on the peach flesh.  If they're still hard to remove, give them another 30 seconds in boiling water.  You don't want to cook them, however, since they'll receive plenty of cooking later.  Once peeled, cut them in half, stone them and place in a bowl.  Sprinkle with the optional peach liqueur.

Place flour, 1/4 (or 1/3) cup sugar, salt and baking powder into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse in butter until the mixture is blended, somewhere between "little peas" and "cornmeal." Press gently into the prepared pan, covering the  bottom and going up the sides about 1".

Place the amaretti into the workbowl of the food processor (it is unnecessary to wash the food processor between tasks for this recipe). Process until you have a coarse rubble.  Sprinkle this over the bottom of the pastry-lined pan. 

Arrange peach halves, rounded side up, in 5 rows of 3 peaches each. You'll have 3 halves left.  Slice two of them into thin slices, and tuck as many of them as you can between the peach halves. Reserve the remaining half and any extra slices, as well as all the juices/liqueur from the bowl of peaches.  Sprinkle the peaches with 1/2 cup of vanilla sugar.  It will seem like a lot when you're sprinkling, but it's not.  In fact, if you have a sweet tooth, you may want to add the greater quantity of sugar here, since this is not a particularly sweet dessert. Place the pan in the center of the oven, and bake for 15 minutes.

While the crust is baking, place the reserved peaches in the food processor workbowl, along with all the accumulated peach juice and liqueur.  Process into a purée.  Add the cream, the eggs, the egg yolks, the remaining vanilla sugar, and the nutmeg.  Process until well-blended, about 10 seconds.

Remove the pan from the oven. Don't be alarmed if there's lots of liquid in the bottom of the pan; the bottom crust will still become crisp and flaky. Pour the cream mixture evenly over the fruit and return to the oven for 15 minutes, then lower heat to 350F and bake for another 15 minutes.  At this point, the custard in the center should be just barely set.  If it's still liquid, continue baking, checking every five minutes for firmness.  You want the custard to be set, but just barely, as it will continue to cook when you remove it from the oven.  When done, take it out and let it cool in the pan.  Cut into squares, each one containing a peach half, and serve.

This is probably best eaten the day it's made, but it was still delicious and crisp-crusted on the second day, after a night in the fridge.

 

because today I have no words of my own, I never do on this day

Although we cannot guess what will be in the time that is to come, we do, at least, have the right to imagine what we wish that time to be like.

In 1948 and 1976 the United Nations proclaimed long lists of human rights, but the immense majority of humanity enjoys only the rights to see, hear and remain silent.

What if we begin by exercising the never-proclaimed right to dream?

How about if we hallucinate for a while?

Let us stare beyond infamy, to imagine another possible world:

the air shall be cleansed of all poisons except those born of human fears and human passions;

in the streets, cars shall be run over by dogs;

people shall not be driven by cars, nor programmed by computers, nor bought by supermarkets, nor watched by televisons;

the tv set shall no longer be the most important member of the family and shall be treated like an iron or a washing machine;

people shall work for a living instead of living for work;

written into law shall be the crime of stupidity, committed by those who live to have or to win, instead of living just to live like the bird that sings without knowing it and the child who plays unaware he or she is playing;

in no country shall young men who refuse to go to war go to jail, rather only those who wish to make war;

economists shall not call "standard of living" what is really standard of consumption, nor will they call "quality of life" what is really quantity of things;

cooks shall not believe that lobsters love to be boiled alive;

historians shall not believe that countries love to be invaded;

politicians shall not believe that the poor love to eat promises;

earnestness shall no longer be a virtue, and no one shall be taken seriously if he can't make fun of himself;

death and money shall lose their magical powers, and neither demise nor fortune shall make a virtuous gentleman of a scoundrel;

no one shall be considered a hero or a fool for doing what she believes is right instead of what will serve her best;

the world shall not wage war on the poor, but rather on poverty, and the arms industry shall have no alternative but to declare bankruptcy;

food shall not be a commodity, nor shall communications be a business, because food and communication are human rights;

no one shall die of hunger because no one shall die of overeating;

street children shall not be treated like garbage because there shall be no street children;

rich kids shall not be treated like gold because there shall be no rich kids;

education shall not be the privilege of those who can pay;

the police shall not be the curse of those who cannot pay;

justice and liberty, those siamese twins condemned to live apart, shall meet again and be reunited, back to back;

a woman, a black woman, shall be president of Brazil, and another black woman shall be president of the United States;

an Indian woman shall govern Guatemala and another Peru;

in Argentina, the crazy women of the Plaza de Mayo shall be held up as examples of mental health, because they refused to forget in a time of obligatory amnesia;

the Church, holy mother, shall correct the typos on the tablets of Moses and the sixth commandment shall mandate the celebration of the body;

the Church shall also proclaim another commandment, the one God forgot: "You shall love nature, of which you are part";

the deserts of the world and of the soul shall be reforested;

the desperate shall be welcomed and the lost shall be found, for they are the ones who despaired of so much waiting and lost their way from so much searching;

we shall be compatriots and contemporaries of all who have a yearning for justice and beauty, no matter where they were born or when they lived, because the borders of geography and time shall cease to exist;

perfection shall remain the boring privilege of the gods;

but in this tough and crazy world every night shall be lived as if it were the last, and every day as if it were the first.

- from Remembering, by Eduardo Galeano

This excerpt was written by Eduardo Galeano shortly before the turn of the millenium.  It suits a day when the one thing to be desired is the power to imagine the world differently. The translation is rather poorly cobbled together from several different ones and includes some liberties of my own, since I couldn't find my original copy of the poem.  It has also gone through several edits since I posted it.  For those who would like to read it in Spanish, it is here in its entirety.

When Less is More

There's nothing quite like a farmer's market to help a girl recover her appetite. Even better if, while still suffering a bit from post-illness weariness, all she has to do to get there is walk across the street.

Earlier this summer, G returned from a Sunday morning errand bursting with momentous news.  "You'll never guess what's right outside.  It's your idea of birthday and Christmas and Sunday morning miracle all wrapped up into one.  C'mon, guess." 

"Oh," I said, coming up with the most preposterous, unlikely idea I could muster, "ummm, well, suddenly, miraculously, masses of fresh locally grown produce are directly outside our door.  Like, there's a farmer's market outside, on our street."

"Yes!" G howled in delight.  Not that it actually made all that much difference to him, since I'm the one that's in the throes of local produce obsession.  And actually, having a Sunday farmer's market across the street is probably a bit of an annoyance for him, since it cuts down parking options on our block.    But he was thrilled on my behalf, and of such emotions are good marriages made.  And maybe at least part of the thrill is on his own behalf.  After all, he does enjoy his share of whatever I cook up from the fresh provender -- especially if it's collard greens, and extra-especially if it's corn. 

Now when I say "farmer's market", you have to understand that this is not Union Square we're talking about.  This is East Harlem, and the market consists of 2 stands.  That being said, between the two we're offered a pretty nice variety of whatever's ripe on the farm.  One of the farmers is originally from Mexico, and in addition to today's peaches, nectarines, plums, apples, pears, grapes, tomatoes, peppers and other fruits and vegetables, he was offering tomatillos, a couple of different kinds of hot peppers, cilantro and several herbs that apparently are traditional in Mexican cuisine which I've never seen at any other market, including Union Square. Both farmers offer their bounty at very reasonable prices, keeping their produce within reach of those who might not be able to afford the offerings at more boutique markets.

While the produce is not organic, the farmers have been willing to have some conversations with me about their growing practices.  They do make the effort to avoid heavy chemical pesticides.  Interestingly enough, they do this because it's more cost-effective for them, or so they claim.  Pesticides are expensive, and if the customer isn't necessarily turned off by a few bug holes in the collard greens, why not avoid them? 

Our neighborhood also has a slightly larger Thursday market, a few blocks further away, which attracts 3, maybe 4 farmers.  Occasionally the nice people from Bread Alone are there too, as are the folks from Cornell Cooperative Extension, who operate a small table where they do cooking demonstrations, give samples of the foods they've made with seasonal produce, hand out recipes and offer information and other resources to the folks who come to look, and hopefully, to buy.  These two markets are not Greenmarkets, however.  They are run by a group called ANWA/Harvest Home (and I found so little information about them that I don't even know what that stands for) in collaboration with Union Settlement.  How can I not love the fact that someone cares about whether or not the people in my neighborhood (most of whom are on fixed incomes or public assistance or just generally living below the poverty line, despite rapid gentrification) have access to fresh, local, seasonal food? 

Lest you should think I don't miss the precious baby sucrine lettuces and wild arugula and tri-star strawberries of Union Square Greenmarket, not to mention many colors of ugly tomatoes, well, of course I miss them.  But I don't feel deprived, or not too much, anyway.  Here's the thing:  by nature,  I'm someone who actually CAN have too much of a good thing.  Especially when that good thing is something that promotes overspending and eventual waste.  I'm sure others are capable of far greater restraint than I, but the the fact is, I rarely leave Union Square market having spent less than about $70, and my sense of being overwhelmed by gorgeous produce and specialty items (fresh sheep's milk cheese!  Free-range quails' eggs! Teeny-tiny gold-nugget potatoes for $6 a pound!) leads me, too often, to buy more than we need -- and certainly to buy more expensively than we need.   

The true motive for shopping more locally (in my own neighborhood, that is) is that this year is going to be the year of living frugally.  I'm on a sabbatical leave (translation:  the portion of my salary that allows for any margin of luxury is the portion I'm not getting in the paycheck this year.  My luxury this year is time, although we've been too encumbered by recent illness and annoying tasks for me to be able to feel or enjoy it yet).  One becomes accustomed to living at whatever level one can afford, and spending accordingly. Cutting back is never easy; however, I'm up for the challenge of being a little more creative about our finances.  It's important to be philosophical about these matters.  By some people's standards, we're in dire financial straits.  From the perspective of many, many others -- well, we're doing just fine.  As one of my students recently said, it's all relatives (family members not withstanding).

Occasionally I'm sure I'll allow myself the pleasure of a spin down to Union Square.  But for now, while there's still corn outside my door at four ears for a dollar, I'll be factoring convenience and price points into the quest for healthy and local food. 

And what to do with that corn?  Well, I'm coming round to the idea that perhaps less is more when it comes to preparing produce, too.  G could happily eat steamed corn on the cob seven nights a week when it's in season.  But me, ah, well, the quest for novelty is ever-present.  Earlier in the summer I made fresh corn soup as well as several mixed sautés of vegetables that included sweet nuggets of corn nestling in among the squash and peppers and tomatoes.  But I wanted something different from that too -- a dish in which the corn could be the star.

With this in mind, I found a recipe for fresh corn polenta in Suzanne Goin's lovely book Sunday Suppers at Lucques.  This seemed to me a capital idea, consisting, as it did, of sautéed kernels folded into more-or-less conventionally-made polenta (although Ms. Goin's is long cooked, with a high proportion of water).  I couldn't even wait for dinnertime to try it out.  I got up early the next morning and made a pot of excellent stone-ground grits and folded the sauteed kernels in along with some lumps and bumps of sharp Vermont cheddar cheese.  Delectable, especially when sided with crisply fried sausage patties.  Emboldened by this success, I went on, a day or so later, to try the dinnertime version with polenta. 

I knew I had polenta in the house, since someone had recently given me a packet as a gift.  A packet whose label I hadn't read.  A packet that turned out to be quick-cooking polenta.  How bad could it be?  I cooked it up despite my misgivings, folding in the fresh sweet corn kernels and some Parmigiano Reggiano, and served it up next to crisply sautéed filet of sole and green beans in a thickly simmered jam of fresh tomato, garlic and basil.  I feel quite sure that the reason the polenta turned out to be such a dud-like bowl of gruel has nothing to do with Ms. Goin's excellent recipe.  It's simply the gluey result one gets from instant-style polenta (conversely, I knew that the reason why my experiment with the grits had turned out so well was that they, unlike the polenta, were a coarsely textured stone-ground product).  The addition of fresh corn to the polenta studded it with beautiful kernels of corny goodness which somehow didn't do a thing to mitigate its pastiness or provide any sort of much-needed flavor boost. It was merely, as G says whenever he considers something okay but not particularly delicious, "fine." 

"Fine," I thought. "I can still do something delicious with the leftovers," because leftovers there were, however gummily unyummy they might be.  In my mania to conserve precious natural resources in addition to the dwindling resources inside my wallet, I simply had to use this stuff up.  I though of a recent blog post I'd seen on Orangette that had, at its end, a recipe for polenta fries. "Great!" I thought. "Instead of making the polenta the way it is in Molly's recipe, I'll just use my leftovers and cut them into sticks and fry them.  Perfect."

No. Not perfect.  Not perfect at all.  I wasted an entire bottle of cooking oil, burned my hand and made my kitchen smell like fried food, something I studiously avoid any more than once or twice a year, tops.  And all in the name of making these rather nasty fried logs of starchiness which, at first attempt, fell apart completely in the oil, and then, when I cleverly coated the next batch in cornstarch to make them stick together, burned and well, just weren't particularly flavorful, since the pap of which they were composed wasn't all that good to begin with. So again, please be advised that this has NOTHING to do with Molly's lovely recipe, which I did NOT follow, since I was using up leftovers and just going with the concept of polenta fries rather than her careful recipe. 

All I can tell you is that as G valiantly chawed through the crunchy but tasteless corn logs on his plate, I knew, despite his avowed love of corn, cheese and  all things deep-fried, he could only be thinking "Why couldn't we just have had corn-on-the-cob?"  There's a lesson in that somewhere.  I'm aware that for the most part, my efforts to economize and use things up are  rewarded with something delicious -- or at least edible. In this case, however, trying avoid waste merely led to waste:  a whole bottle of wasted oil, wasted corn mush (lots of it got thrown away), wasted time and energy.  In this case, the waste was caused by a low-quality ingredient: the instant polenta. 

Even though the dish might have been wonderful with real polenta, I think that for the moment, I'm going to stick with the less-is-more premise -- particularly when it comes to corn.  For the rest of the season, as long as the corn lasts, we'll enjoy simply steamed ears, sweet and milky and toothsome. And you, being wiser than I, will probably do the same even without my cautionary tale.

However, in the event that you have a few ears left over from steaming, and you're in the mood for a corny breakfast (or for that matter, dinnertime) treat, the following is still well worth a try. 

Fresh Corn Grits
serves 2 generously or 3 modestly

1 cup stone ground grits (these are good, and if you don't feel like ordering 10 pounds at a time, you can also get them here, which is where I first found them)

2 to 2 1/2 cups water 
2 Tbsp. butter
1 tsp. salt
2 ears leftover steamed sweet corn 
2 oz. good cheddar cheese, in small cubes
freshly ground black pepper

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil.  Stir in grits, 1 Tbsp. of butter, and salt.  Return to a boil, reduce heat and cook slowly, covered for at least 1/2 hour, stirring every few minutes.  Add more water if it becomes too thick.

While the grits are cooking (please don't skimp on the cooking time -- long, slow cooking makes these better than you ever thought they could be), shave the kernels from the cob with a sharp knife.  Sauté them until they become slightly browned in the remaining tablespoon of butter.  Stir them, along with the cheese, into the hot grits.  Serve immediately with black pepper ground over the top. 

Almost Back

The good news would be that I've actually been back in the kitchen, doing at least a minimal amount of cooking and baking.  The not-so-good news is that very little in the way of food (or of anything else, for that matter) seems to hold my interest.  I get tired of whatever it is I've cooked after a few bites, with a sort of post-illness ennui. 

The cakes above, for example, which are a variant of this cake.  They're made with the same delicious beurre noisette, light muscovado sugar, and plums, blueberries and raspberries, all from the farmers' market, in addition to the usual nectarines.  I also gave them the added fillip of a drizzle of salted butter caramel, which caused the fruit to caramelize further on top, and provided that crisp sugary crust surrounding the fruit.  And I enjoyed making them, but became so disinterested in them shortly thereafter that I gave them both away.  We took one to my father's home, for a dinner we made to share with him and his caregiver the other night.  I ate a little slice at dessert time.  My dad, however, was very taken with it, which pleased me no end.  We left the entire cake, hoping he might eat more over the course of the week; it's not always an easy task to tempt his appetite.  And we knew we had another one at home, since I always make two of these. 

The second one we took to our friends, where we were having an impromptu pizza supper last night.  With no regret, again after one small slice, I begged to be allowed to leave them the remains, assuring them that it's a great breakfast cake with a hot cup of good coffee.  They agreed happily.  And G also, although he liked the cake perfectly well, showed no signs of wishing for a slice or two to take home.  Neither of us can quite bring ourselves to care much about food yet.

Tonight, however, I'll make darling G his favorite collard greens and some fresh corn-on-the-cob, along with a few other surprises, to see if that doesn't pique his appetite a bit.  And perhaps mine, as well.