A Finger in Every Pie

In Search of Subtlety and an Almost-Perfect Chili

I have a kind of love-hate relationship with cinnamon.  It seems to go in phases, from childhood moments where cinnamon toast remains a delectable memory, to the times where a well-meaning but perhaps absent-minded or possibly selectively deaf barista has dusted cinnamon atop my coffee drink, despite my exhortations not to do so.  I now loathe it on coffee -- although I occasionally liked it brewed in coffee when I was in college.   I like spice cakes and breads and cookies, where cinnamon usually leads the called-for combination of spices.  I'm also fond of the Mexican-chocolate or Eastern-European Lebkuchen effect of chocolate exposed to a very small quantity of cinnamon, although some of my family members feel that this spoils chocolate entirely. 

I often like cinnamon in fruit desserts, but not used to excess, and not with every fruit.  I won't, for example, use cinnamon with apricots or peaches, although I will sometimes with plums and apples.  People seem to think that a recipe using apples is carte-blanche to throw in spoons of cinnamon, which will, especially if you're using wonderful seasonal apple varieties like Northern Spy or Winesap, completely obliterate all the glorious apple flavor.  Just a pinch, just a hint -- that's really all that's needed.  The first time I made an apple tart using cardamom and vanilla was something of a revelation;  I had discovered that while cinnamon is fine with apples, it's not strictly necessary.   I love using just a whisper of it in ricotta ice cream -- not enough to even tell it's there, but enough to give the flavor an indefinable boost.  And I like cinnamon very much as a subtle touch in savory dishes; Moroccan and Greek food as well as the late, deeply-lamented Laurie Colwin's favorite company dish of crunchy, oven-baked chicken all come to mind.  It just seems important not to use it to excess, especially if one has strong, high-quality cinnamon.  This finicky approach of mine is in sharp contrast to G, whose adoration of the spice leads him to crave cinnamon toast made on cinnamon-raisin bread, a longing of his which I indulge occasionally at breakfast or for a snack. And when I make it for him, the scent rises warm to my nose and, often as not, I'll make a piece of cinnamon toast for myself on a piece of plainer bread, since I don't really need or want the double-cinnamon whammy. 

Probably the best thing I had to eat during my recent trip to Montana was the chocolate chip cookie I received on arriving at my Doubletree Hotel -- which contains, although you might not even realize it, the faintest ghost of cinnamon (that last statement, by the way, is not intended to cast any aspersions on the local cuisine, about which I still know very little, sad to say.  It was just that this was a 3-day business trip, with a) no time for searching out restaurants, b) late night work sessions, and c) room-service or hotel-restaurant dinners).  Actually, I didn't receive my cookie on arriving.  But being a veteran of numerous stays at Doubletree Hotels from San Diego to Tarrytown, I knew my rights.  At some point after getting settled, I remembered that I hadn't received my signature warm check-in cookie.  So I marched up to the desk to demand (actually to politely ask for) it. 

It was good.  It always is.  In fact, it's pretty much the best thing about staying in a Doubletree Hotel -- which is by no means a bad place to stay when you're on business.  It's not exactly luxurious, but it's reasonable comfortable and serviceable.  And they've got cookies.  But they just give you one, although it's a pretty good size.  The cookie sets up a serious craving for more cookies, which the nice Doubletree people use to their advantage by having tins of cookies available for sale at the desk.  A tin of six cookies costs anywhere from $9.00 to $12.00, depending on which Doubletree you're staying in.  Or they're available by mail for $8.95 a tin, plus shipping and handling. 

Now, the ones handed out by Doubletree are pretty good cookies.  I think it's safe to say that they're made with excellent ingredients, since I have a fairly good taste-detector in terms of anything made with a mix or ersatz components.  The problem is that it can get pricey to fill a cookie habit like this, once it's initiated.  So I restrained my craving until I got back to NYC and googled Doubletree cookies.  I found not only online recipes, but discovered that a number of bloggers have made and enjoyed this recipe, whether it is indeed the actual Doubletree formula or not.  That was good enough for me, so I made it too.  They were very delicious, and did hit the craving spot.  In fact, the ones I brought in for colleagues and for my cooking class set up a whole new series of cravings in others.  The cooking class availed themselves of the opportunity for some consumer math.  I explained to them that even using premium quality chocolate chips (Ghirardelli) and other relatively expensive ingredients, it only cost about $10 to make 40 very large cookies, comparable in size to Doubletree's.  Now that they realize it's possible to make cookies that retail for $1.50 for only 25 cents, they now want to hold a bake sale to fundraise for our cooking class.   

After a day or so, these cookies aged into being just a tiny bit cakier than I would want; I'm always seeking the holy grail of the crisp-chewy nexus when it comes to chocolate chip cookies.  These met that criterion when they were oven fresh, and can recapture it upon a slight reheating.  Everyone who tried them absolutely loved them.  But for my taste, there was too much cinnamon in the recipe.  Mine seemed more cinnamon-y than the original Doubletree cookies, where I didn't really notice the cinnamon presence.  You would think that just a quarter-teaspoon would provide that subtle, almost-not-there quality I was seeking.  But it was still too much.  Perhaps I'm using stronger cinnamon than they do; whatever the reason, if I make these cookies again, I'll cut back the cinnamon. 

More successful was my recent use of cinnamon in what I am currently calling "the best chili of my career."  Every year, as soon the air breathes even its faintest chill, G starts making noises about chili.  I like to respect this wish, since for the most part this is a man who eats and appreciates almost any dish I create for our dinners.  But chili has had me a bit befuddled.  I like it, sort of, but I always find it too heavy.  Three spoonfuls and I'm done.  I never seem to make the same chili twice, since I'm not usually happy with the results.  But this time, using as a template this recipe from Epicurious, I devised a formula which, while not exactly "light", doesn't leave you feeling as if a colony of large heavy things have taken up residence in your stomach and are never going to go away.  I have a feeling that part of the secret rests in my having used lean cuts of meat, and ignoring G's pleas for the addition of sausage, which I have often added in the past, but which ups the fat content exponentially.  I'm not fond of Cincinnati or "sweet" chili, but I did want a mellow kick to counterpose some of the powdery sharpness of the other spices.  Cinnamon was my friend here, providing a flavor balance which neatly tipped the occasionlly acrid notes of chili powder and cumin.  Sadly, I have no picture for you, although I'm not sure chili is the most photogenic of foods anyway.  We ate this for several dinners, along with my favorite cast-iron skillet buttermilk cornbread and each time we were so greedy with anticipation that I forgot to take a pic.  It seems I've finally found a chili recipe I'll save, and make again. 

Practically Perfect Chili

This makes a moderately spicy chili, but nothing that will win the kind of competition where the purpose is to burn down through the judges’ esophagi all the way to their stomach linings.  Personally, I like spicy food, but I also like to be able to actually taste what I’m eating.  Now this is not to say that there isn’t room here for your preferences.  If you’re a Texas chili die-hard, leave out the beans.  If you eschew the use of tomatoes in chili, eschew to your heart’s content (although the tomato presence here is not noticeable – the gravy is thick but with a meaty, not an acid flavor).  Don’t like peppers?  Ditch ‘em.  Spicier?  Add another chipotle or seven, and leave in the seeds.  I have full confidence that you can fine-tune this one to your likes, and find it just as delectable as I did. 

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ pounds beef stew meat or chuck steak, trimmed and cut into ½ inch cubes
2 ½ pounds boneless pork butt or boneless country-style spareribs, trimmed and cut into ½ inch cubes
2 large onions, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
10 garlic cloves, chopped

1 26-ounce box Pomi chopped tomatoes
½ cup strong black coffee
1/3 cup New Mexico chili powder
3 canned chipotle chilies in adobo, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon smoked chipotle Tabasco sauce
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. oregano
½ tsp. cinnamon

2 19-ounce cans kidney or small red or pinto beans, rinsed and drained

Grated cheddar cheese
Chopped fresh cilantro
Chopped red onions
Sour cream

Heat oil in large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add beef and pork to Dutch oven in small batches and sear well over high heat.  Cook over medium-high heat until no longer pink, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Transfer mixture to bowl, using slotted spoon. Add 2 onions, bell peppers and garlic to pot and sauté until tender, about 12 minutes.  While sautéing, add in all the dry spices:  chili, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and oregano. Return meat mixture to Dutch oven. Add tomatoes with liquid, coffee, Tabasco, and chipotles. Season with salt and pepper. Cover Dutch oven and simmer until beef and pork are almost tender, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour.

Add beans to chili. Simmer uncovered until beef and pork are tender and chili thickens, about 30 minutes. Adjust seasoning. Ladle into bowls. Serve, passing cheese, cilantro, and sour cream separately.  Best accompanied by a hot pan of cornbread. 

Serves 10.

Bay Area Wannabe

The problem with going on a blogging hiatus is that the anecdotes and meals and treats start to accumulate until I can't bring myself to blog again, due to a frenzy of indecision about the next post.  That's how a supposedly short hiatus becomes an unintended silence of far too long.  We've been back from the Bay Area for a couple of seriously insane weeks.  It feels as if the moment we arrived back into New York, the portal to Hell yawned wide and swallowed us up, with an unending round of work and other obligations.   

All excuses aside, here's what I learned on my trip out West.  Don't let anyone fool you.  Those West Coast people have got it all over the East Coast in terms of the quality, freshness and sheer delectability of the food available to them.  The peaches and tomatoes taste like summer produce from an East Coast farmers' market -- times a zillion.   But how to take advantage of all this glory?  I figured the best way to conduct myself while I was there would be to pose as a Bay Area foodie.  After all, I had a wealth of great information from numerous local food blogs and their remarkable authors. 

So, after a week at my darling friend Pat's house in Berkeley, we laid in supplies at my dear pal Betty's house in the Mission, where we parked ourselves for another week while she and her kids took over our New York digs.  There we grilled sausages and crepinettes from the Fatted Calf, just like Dr. Biggles.  I cooked Marin Sun Farms eggs for my breakfasts, as if I were Sam -- that is, when I wasn't having a Saturday morning Ferry Plaza Farmers' market Mexican breakfast with Sam at the Cocina Primavera stand justly lauded by Jeanne and by Brett.  I stopped by Poulet on an almost daily basis so we could keep sampling Shuna's desserts.  We went to Mitchell's over and over again.  G was torn between his Grasshopper Pie milkshake and one made with Kahlua Cream ice cream and oreos, but I simply couldn't figure out which coconut ice-cream I liked better, buko or macapuno -- just like Stephanie.  We went to Zuni Café for the roast chicken and bread salad (like Joy! -- and many another SF food lover) and to Tartine for sandwiches and pastry and to El Farolito at all hours (like Joy again)  and the El Tonayense truck for tacos and quesadillas.  We took a day excursion to Copia and ate a tasting menu at Redd (like Jen, and like Joy yet again).  We ate pupusas at La Santaneca and chaat from Vik's at least twice, and a had a stellar Thai dinner at Be My Guest with my cousin Matthew, who, having married into a Thai family, knows how to order much better than we do.  I had a gorgeous dinner prepared by my lovely friend Lea and her family in San Rafael.   We stopped at Rainbow Grocery for incidentals and I went to the Ferry Plaza Farmers' market three times within a single week.  And all the while I tried to pretend that I never had to go back to New York, to work, to produce that tries its best but just doesn't quite hit the ecstasy zone, even in summer.   

At some point I awoke to the reality that I would indeed have to return home, and so I worked hard to remember all the things I love to eat on the East Coast -- aged Cabot Vermont Cheddar cheese (which, incidentally, we saw on several West Coast menus); thick, dark, Grade B organic maple syrup; the many kinds of wonderful apples that will appear shortly in my local farmers' market.  I thought about smoked fish from Russ and Daughters and Zabar's, pastrami from Katz's,  Eli's bread, Shackburgers and cheese fries and frozen custard at Shake Shack, dinner and cocktails at the Bread Bar. 

Occasionally we did some things that weren't directly related to food, or at least to eating -- walking in the Marin headlands and the Presidio, talking to our dear family friend Steve at his stunningly beautiful store Dandelion, exploring new neighborhoods, spending a few days in Calistoga, taking long drives, hanging out, laughing, watching DVDs with friends.  We went to the Edible Schoolyard, where Pat's daughter goes to school, and I thought about what kind of school I might like to run if I ever decide to use the credentials I'm getting in the terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad administration program.

But I just couldn't leave all that good West Coast food there -- and so I've comforted myself with all of the delicious things we managed to bring home with us.  Despite the insanity that is our New York lives, I've been extending my vacation by continuing to pretend to be a Bay Area Foodie.  In addition to all the jarred and bottled and boxed foodstuffs pictured below, I carried home a variety of sausages from the Fatted Calf (frozen to survive the flight),  eight Blossom Bluff Orchards peaches (individually wrapped to avoid bruising), Acme bread, Tartine brownies and the Meyer lemons I stole from Pat's backyard in Berkeley.  Fortunately Homeland Security has not yet decided that peaches or sausages might contain explosives -- other than their incredible flavor, of course.  I was nervous before we got on our plane.  There was the case of wine we were putting in checked baggage, but all the food was coming with us in my carry-on.  "If they try to take my food from me, I'm not going to go easy," I warned G.  All came through without a hitch, however, and so the other night I was able to made G quesadillas for dinner, using Fatted Calf chorizo along with some pepper jack and cilantro.  They were very good, it's true -- but we missed washing them down with the bottled Mexican Cokes that we found at all the tacquerias in the Mission, made with real cane sugar instead of corn syrup, and tasting like Coke is actually supposed to taste. 

The delights pictured here are culled from a number of wonderful days.  The luscious Recchiuti chocolates come from one of the Ferry Plaza visits, of course.   Then there was our day at Bouchaine Vineyards (in the Carneros region of Napa) with their winemaker Michael Richmond, who also has his own label, Amethyst, that he grows "in his backyard," as he puts it.   G and I received what felt like a very preliminary taste of an education in California wines from Mike, who spent several hours giving us other tastes as well.  G lost count sometime around the point when Mike was siphoning us some sips from the twentieth barrel or so.  As our senses were heightened by taste after taste, Mike enlightened us about not only grapes and their harvest and fermentation, but barrels, their woods and degree of "toast" and the impact that all of these factors have on the resulting wines.  Needless to say, we've begun to appreciate wine in a whole different way these days.  And the bottles that we managed to get back on the plane (we did have to put them in checked baggage, very carefully packed) are all the more precious for our newfound knowledge. 

But of all the days that deserve at least one post of their own, the most memorable would be my afternoon with June Taylor, our own era's virtuoso of preserved fruit.  We were staying in Berkeley, as luck would have it, literally a block away from Ms. Taylor's Stillroom.  When I realized how close I was, I screwed my courage to the sticking-point and called.  I expected to talk with a receptionist, an assistant -- almost anyone except Ms. Taylor herself.  But it was she who answered the phone, and invited me to come for a visit that very afternoon.  When I got there, I saw that indeed there were no receptionists or in fact, anyone other than Ms. Taylor and a young woman, her one assistant.  Small is beautiful indeed at the Stillroom.  I sat on a high stool, drank a proffered cup of green tea, watched and listened.  Ms. Taylor made small batches of apricot sauce in huge pots, bottled them and talked to me of preserving and conserving in both the immediate moment and in the larger sense of what life brings us:  the web of relationships, passion, work, education, and history.  We spoke of the moments that children remember and carry inside always -- of mothers who make something delicious just for them.  We talked about connecting with farmers and other producers, so that the continuum of nourishment is human and not relegated to a factory production line.  We talked of our mutual sense of desire to share knowledge with others -- but to see also that they find their own sense of how to create what they like, rather than relying solely on someone else's expertise and taste; to see that these ways don't die out despite the forces in our world which seek relentlessly to industrialize those things which should still be done by hand. 

Our conversation began with the apricot sauce -- something that Ms. Taylor was inventing right there, right then, so as not to discard the excess of liquid produced by a particularly juicy harvest of apricots.  Almost everything can be used, she said.  And I heard the echo of my mother, and the resonance of my own upbringing -- the eggshell swiped clean with a finger so as not to waste any of the precious egg, the chicken carcass used for stock, the meat and vegetable juices saved to flavor soups, the re-used vanilla bean stuck in the the sugar jar.  So you see, my afternoon with Ms. Taylor wasn't just about jam (and indeed, as she herself will tell you, she doesn't make jam, but rather marmalades, fruit butters, and conserves).  My time with her was about preserving and conserving -- the preservation not only of the fruit but of artisanal ways with it; the conservation not only of foodstuffs, but of the land, the resources and the people who labor to produce them.   

June Taylor is the sort of person you want to learn from, you want to know, and you want to spend time with.  If and when I'm lucky enough to be in the Bay Area when Ms. Taylor is giving a class, I will run and not walk to sign up for that experience.  And we certainly plan to be spending more time in the Bay Area.  G loves it there, for many reasons more than just the tacos and the ice-cream.  I'm lucky enough to have great friends and good colleagues there.  So perhaps some day, perhaps in five years, or in ten, I'll be doing more than just pretending to be a Bay Area foodie. 

All Things Apricot

Zorba came upon an old man planting an apricot seedling and asked why he, an old man, was planting a new tree. "I live as though I would never die," was his reply. "And me, I live as though I might die tomorrow," said Zorba, "which one of us is right?"
    - Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba The Greek

I like to think that I live as both the old man and Zorba  -- especially when it comes to apricots. I plant metaphorical apricot seedlings for the future, and eat as many apricots as I can today, since I don't know what tomorrow may bring.  Right now, in the depths of early winter, I find myself with severe cravings for the golden acid-sweet burst of an apricot.  I've always loved them.  I love the blush-sweet image they conjure in my mind, little orbs so glowingly peachy, but with a tad more perfume, a bit more piquant bite.  I love the words for apricot in other languages:  abricot in French, albaricoque in Spanish, and my favorite of all, Arabic -- mishmish.  Mmmmmm.....mishmish.  I'm sure that I didn't read Collette Rossant's gorgeous memoir with recipes, Apricots on the Nile, merely because of its title...but then again an evocative title is certainly part of what draws us to a book. 

As a child, most of my apricots were eaten dried, since we never seemed to get good fresh ones.  These days, with the happy advent of farmers' markets to our cities and fresh local produce at our fingertips, I revel in apricot season.  It seemed to run almost through the entire summer this year -- from mid-June through August.  I made a tart, a cake or two and developed a passion as well as a recipe for apricot curd.  Mostly, though, when they're fresh and seasonal, I eat them as they are -- hopefully with perfumy juices dripping down my face -- but even when they're not that juicy, quite happily. 

But it's January, and so I'm back to my old friend the dried apricot.   I toyed with the idea of slow-roasting our New Years' Eve shoulder of pork with apricots -- but knew that G, that inveterate apple fan, would be wishing for spiced sauteed apples with the roast, and I didn't want to disappoint.  Instead our sweet course to ring in the new year was a spin on bread-and-butter pudding that was light, pillowy, creamy as a dream -- but with a lusty apricot tang.  I unearthed the last jar of apricot curd I'd frozen back in August and plumped up some of my favorite French dried apricots from Fairway with a nice splash of Grand Marnier.   Then it struck me -- the golden pandoro I'd bought some weeks ago, taken a taste of and promptly abandoned could be put to good use here.

So the pandoro was sliced, buttered and spread with apricot curd (you could easily use apricot butter or good apricot preserves here too), layered in a buttered dish with snipped apricots plumped in Grand Marnier, and then covered with a custard of eggs, more cream than milk, not too much sugar, and a liberal grating of nutmeg.  I baked it until just set, about 40 minutes, and it was quite perfect -- and even better on New Years' Day.   

But that was not enough to satisfy my midwinter apricot mania.  The same book I mentioned earlier, Apricots on the Nile, had provoked the idea of an apricot flavor insinuating itself into more savory fare -- specifically, Ms. Rossant's description of and recipe for delicate little lamb meatballs in an apricot sauce.  That recipe remains for the moment in my mental to-try file, since I'm just a little iffy about meat-and-fruit combinations.  In the meantime I happened across a recipe for linguine with apricots.  At first glance, I dismissed it.  Pasta in a fruit sauce?  Must be dreadful.  But I went back for another look.  There's practically as much garlic as apricot in the recipe, as well as olive oil, dry white wine, rosemary -- lots of savory counterpoint to the sweet tang of the fruit.  I realized that the reason I don't like most sweet-and-savory combinations is that the sweet too often outweighs the other flavors.  I can't stand my sweet potatoes with sugar or syrup or even sweet spices.  Their natural sweetness needs no heightening -- instead it demands the contrast of salted butter and plenty of pepper, to my palate.  In anything other than outright desserts, a whisper of nutmeg is reserved for savory potato and spinach dishes, hints of cinnamon and allspice for tagines where cumin and garlic balance the sweetness of the other spices.  In this recipe, apricots are the only sweet element, playing against other sharp and savory flavors.  I decided it had possibilities.

So tonight I gave pasta with apricots and garlic a spin.  Magic.  I let the apricots simmer in the garlicky, winey olive-oil broth until they began to melt into the liquid.  Then the sauce was tossed with hot linguine and sprinkled with fresh chopped parsley.  It still needed just a little something, so toasted pine nuts were sprinkled over.  My mind prohibited grated cheese at first, but I knew that when G saw pasta, he would probably want cheese.  Then I thought of fruit's natural affinity for cheese -- and it occurred to me too that these apricots were, in a way, operating as if they were simply slightly sweeter tomatoes in the sauce.  A bit of freshly grated pecorino romano was a delicious if not strictly necessary addition. 

And so I live not just for time to come, nor solely for today -- but to taste apricots and conjure summer while enjoying winter as well.  I hope too that all of you are enjoying your favorite aromas and tastes as you enter a new year that will hopefully bring us all closer to the future, as well as inviting us to live right here, right now.

Apricot Bread-and-Butter Pudding

Serves 6

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup coarsely chopped moist dried apricots
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
8-10 small slices pandoro or other golden egg bread, i.e. challah or brioche
1 cup apricot curd or butter or preserves
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp. good vanilla
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter a shallow baking dish with a capacity of about 1 1/2 quarts.  Put the chopped apricots in a little dish and sprinkle the Grand Marnier over and leave them to macerate.  Make little sandwiches with the pandoro, butter and apricot curd or jam; there may be some butter left over to dot on the top later.  Now cut the sandwiches in half  or even quarters to facilitate fitting them into your dish; arrange them evenly along the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle over the apricots, tucking them into the spaces between the little sandwiches.  Sprinkle over any unabsorbed liquer that remains in the bowl.

Whisk the eggs and egg yolk together with the sugar, and pour in the cream and milk.  Add the vanilla and nutmeg, and mix all together well. Pour this over the bread sandwiches and leave them to soak up the liquid for about 10 minutes, by which time the pudding is ready to go into the oven. Smear the bread that is poking out of the custard with the soft butter.

Place the dish on a baking sheet and put in the oven to cook for  about 40 minutes or until the custard has set and puffed up slightly.  Remove and let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Linguine with Apricots (adapted from the Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook)

1/2 cup best-quality olive oil
15 - 20 fat cloves of garlic, half minced, half cut into thin slivers
1 generous tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely minced
1 cup dry white wine
3⁄4 cup plump moist dried apricots, cut into slivers
Salt and pepper
1 pound linguine
1⁄2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup snipped fresh chives

Toasted pine nuts
Grated pecorino romano cheese

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Add the minced and slivered garlic and sauté until just browned.  Stir in the white wine.  Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes.  Add the rosemary and apricots.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer for about 15 minutes, until some of the apricots start to dissolve and the sauce emulsifies.  If the oil stays separate, stir a little hot water in to encourage the emulsion.

Cook the pasta al dente and drain, reserving 1 cup of the pasta's hot cooking water.  Use as much of this as seems necessary to loosen and re-emulsify the apricot-garlic sauce. 

Place the pasta, sauce, parsley and chives in a large serving bowl and toss to coat.  Sprinkle with toasted pine nuts. Pass grated cheese at the table. 

Delights From the City of Lights

This is another long-overdue post.  Much earlier in the summer, my cherished pal Ernestine, known in the comments section of this blog as Ernie, had herself a lovely fling visiting family in France.  Always one to share the wealth, she came back with all kinds of treats for her friends, among whom I'm clearly lucky to count myself.  After her return,  I met up with Ernie as well as our mutual and also delightful pal Andrea for a farmers' market excursion and lunch on a horrendously hot summer day.  As we desperately tried to restore our fluid balance and get in a little nutrition at 'wichcraft, I unpacked the seemingly never-ending bag of goodies that Ernie had brought me.  All I can say is if this is what she brought just for me, I can barely begin to imagine what her luggage must have looked like.  It's a good thing that she's both beautiful and charming, since a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, especially when it comes to those stern customs officials. 

So, clockwise from the upper left-hand corner of what is not the world's clearest nor best photo, we have a gorgeous set of tiny mustards from Maille .  Continuing on, a pineapple-vanilla conserve from none other than Christine Ferber .  Long thin Carambar candies are a delight to any lover of chewy, caramel treats -- and some of them have (or I should say, had) a nougat center.  A beautiful bag of violet-flavored hard candy is next, and then something I have absolutely never seen -- sugar in lemon and violet flavors.  Here's where the quandary sets in -- what to do, what to make with these glorious treats?  From sugar to salt and spice:  three of the little bags contain mixtures of fleur de sel -- one scented with vanilla bean, one mixed with smoked paprika and another labeled simply "aux epices" which I think is mixed with a quatre epices mixture.  The last little sack contains an amazing curry powder with rose petals and mint, which I used to great effect in a shrimp makhani not long ago.   

I need no advice for the delights in the middle -- the first, a glorious tube of gianduioso, which I first saw on Chocolate and Zucchini, and lusted after.  Ernie somehow telepathically knew this and brought it to me.  And the last treat, something I'm still savoring in small bites -- a bar of Nougat "Decouverte" from Arnaud Soubeyran, makers of gorgeous Montelimar nougat.  This particular confection is composed of dark chocolate nougat with toasted almonds and candied orange peel.  Ever since I opened it and began to dole it out to myself in carefully rationed portions, many of my waking hours have been spent in trying to figure out how to get some more. 

So to Ernie, merci mille fois for the gorgeous goodies I'm still enjoying.  And as for the rest of you, put your thinking caps on (the schoolteacher does rear her pince-nez at the worst moments).   I'm thinking tiny butter cookies sprinkled with lemon and violet sugar on top or maybe on the  sides like sablée cookies.  And maybe the vanilla fleur de sel gets scattered on that bread and chocolate and olive oil thing I've always meant to make and never have.  Smoked paprika fleur de sel would have to be good on lots of things -- but what?  And the quatres epices I don't have much experience with, but it smells heavenly. 

Let me know if inspiration strikes, or if you've used any of these lovelies yourself.  In the meantime, you'll find me taking a tip from Clotilde and pointing the tip of the gianduioso tube directly mouthward...

Sour Cherry Serenade

I've been a bit on tenterhooks lately, not wanting to miss the extraordinarily brief season for sour cherries.  Thankfully, I found my puckery little treasures at the Greenmarket yesterday morning.  This post might otherwise have been called "Tart Cherry Tantrum".

When I was nine years old, we moved from a suburban apartment building to a suburban house on what seemed to us a princely quarter-acre of land. One of the first things my dad did once we were actually in this house was to go to a local tree nursery, where he purchased a small Montmorency cherry tree and brought it home.  It was then planted by all of us with no small ceremony in our front yard. 

Sour cherries have special standing in my family.  They're not just a foodstuff -- they're a part of our history.  When my (somewhat ancient) father was a boy, he lived on a farm (actually an anarchist school colony.  No, really) where there was a Montmorency cherry tree.  He said that it was his favorite hideaway, and that when the sour, sour cherries were ripe, he would climb the tree with a favorite book, perch on a comfortable limb and read, eat sour cherries and spit out the pits. 

We waited several years, but eventually began to harvest a small cherry crop which grew larger with each successive year.  Eventually we needed a ladder, and baskets for what we thought of as "cherry day", pickers passing their full baskets to those who would wash them, pit them and begin to cook.  Sour cherries, especially these fragile, bright red Montmorencys, go bad quickly.  Even by the evening of the same day they're picked, they can begin to develop brown patches.  Speed is of the essence here, so we turned our ripe provender into stores for both the near and the farther future as quickly as we could. 

We made pies.  One year I made five of them.  I wish I were still blessed with the culinary courage I had then, when I was in high school and college.  People loved those pies, so I must have been doing something right.  It's just that over the past several years, I've developed a pernicious fear-of-pie-crust syndrome.  If you have the perfect crust recipe, let me know. 

We made jam.  It wouldn't jell because we only used half the amount of sugar called for, so we cooked it way down until it was a thick, luscious preserve of cherries.  We liked it so much, we made it just that way every year. 

We made "cold-pack" canned cherries in syrup.  This was my father's baby, he who barely cooked at all, and he was extremely proud of them -- rightly so, for they were amazing on ice-cream and French toast.

And my mother made cold cherry soup, which she called Cherry Borscht.  It's a cold, sweet-tart summer fruit soup in a luscious shade of pink, with whole, unpitted cherries bobbing up and down around the dollop of sour cream or crème fraîche which tops it off. 

Oh to have that kind of wealth once more.  I didn't really understand that it was wealth at the time, you see.   We had such an abundance of cherries, and the problem was what to do with them all.   Glorious indeed are gallons of cherries, free for the picking.  This became even clearer yesterday at the Greenmarket, where a not-exactly-heaping, in fact not-particularly-full quart basket was going for about six bucks a pop.  I thought about how many quarts I'd need just to make a few jars of jam.  Unfortunately, I had to remind myself  that paying the rent is important too, not just sour cherries and the site of memory. 

I bought about 3 quarts, which was enough for a small pot of cherry soup, and a large sour-cherry streusel cake.   They don't go very far, especially after stemming, washing, trimming and pitting.   But last night I was happy in that way that happens to city dwellers when they buy and prepare food that came directly from a small, reasonably local farm.   It was like the companionable feeling I had recently while shelling peas.  I enjoyed pitting cherries yesterday.  It put me, even if only for a moment, into an alternate life taking place on some other time strand.  A choice not taken, a life not lived, at least here and now:   my farmwife self, getting ready to make preserves and pies, even if what I was actually making was cold cherry soup and cake.   Through the action of working with this beautiful fruit, I could actually forget about the noisy street baking right outside our doors and windows, the ofttimes unmentionable scents and noises of inner city neighborhoods in summer, and allow my cherries to take me on a journey:  first back to childhood, then to this fantasy of the alternate self.  Nothing like a mini-vacation, provided courtesy of the farmer's market and the fresh produce to be had there. 

Tonight G and I will share the cherry borscht and streusel cake at dinner with my father and brother and sister-in-law.  Our first course will be the soup of cherries and our last course the dessert of cherries.  What we have in between -- well, that's going to be up to the others.  But our meal will be bookended by sour cherries so much like those we once grew and harvested and pitted and preserved together as a family.   And somehow my mother, who in our long-ago kitchen pitted the cherries with a hairpin, just as she'd been taught, will be present too.  Thus do we mend the strands of family and memory that during hectic days seem in danger of unravelling.  For us, the tartness of Montmorency cherries is imbued with that power. 

Cara Mia

I'm in love, truly in love with this little beauty.  I snapped this in the assistant principal's office at one of my schools, figuring that if Bakerina can make sourdough sponge at work, I could take pictures of my new-found love at school (it was probably the most productive thing to happen in that office all day.  And if you think that the blithe snapping of photos of citrus fruit on top of the stunningly dull standardized test-prep materials shows a lack of respect for the tests themselves  -- well, let's just say you're on the right track.  But that's a story for another place, another blog [earth-shattering expose of the horrors of the public school system?]). 

As you may already be aware, this is a Cara Cara orange.  The Californians of course are yawning their ho-hums, but it's a somewhat newer fruit to those of us in other parts of the country.  They're certainly new to me -- and I am oh-so-glad that I discovered them.   On the outside, they look pretty much like a navel orange.  What I'm a sucker for is their inner beauty; that peachy, salmony, tequila sunrise color is a charming surprise.   A blush-pink orange! 

I've aways had great affection for blood oranges, ever since my mother smuggled some home from Italy when I was a child.  I love the drama of their color and the tiny shock of their haunting flavor.  These Cara Caras, however, are a sweeter and perhaps friendlier treat.  They're not quite so in-your-face as the show-stopping blood orange, but still a wonderful contrast to other orangey cousins.    Let's face it, I love citrus, all kinds of citrus, on its own and in every sort of dish that you or I can imagine.  The problem is that occasionally the acid can be a leetle bit bothersome.  These darlings, however, are not only gorgeous and delicious, but low in acid as well.  The other night we had two homemade desserts in the house, since I was a busy bee last week and made dark chocolate pudding with whipped cream one night and brown sugar-pineapple crumble the next.  But when it came down to it, I decided that I'd rather have a Cara Cara for dessert.  That sort of choice (while not totally unheard-of) is somewhat unusual for me when not based on a dietary or caloric decision.  I love them for themselves alone, you see, not for their healthy or low calorie benefits.

The only glitch is that I could blow the rent check buying them.  But it would almost be worth it.

Life Gives Me Lemons

For the second time in less than two months, I've been gifted with something I absolutely adore.  Meyer lemons...you love them too, don't you?  If you don't, it's only because you haven't used them yet.  And if you haven't, you should.   No, really.  All right...well...perhaps I'm being just a tad opinionated, especially since some people really don't like lemons very much at all.  Or at least they think they don't.  One of those people actually lives with me.  We'll draw a tasteful veil over that particular discussion...the one about how I constantly use various ingredients that someone thinks he doesn't like, and he gobbles down all the food anyway...

But let's get back to our central theme here, which is the Meyer lemon.    This citrus, according to some definitions, is "not really a lemon at all", but a cross between a mandarin orange and a lemon.  It's somewhat sweeter than a regular lemon, and has a gorgeous, deep yellow-orange skin.  (The picture doesn't really do them justice; we don't have a good digital camera yet, so this is taken with a video camera and I don't think the color is really true.)  But what even the best picture couldn't give you is the Meyer's elusive perfume -- rather like a lemon, yet with a pervasively floral, something-slightly-orangey scent.  The juice of this citrus is a wondrous thing -- but the zest is even more bewitching. 

Several years ago, when I too was a neophyte with regard to this delectable fruit, I noticed its appearance as an ingredient in recipes and on menus -- mostly those of chefs and restaurants in California.  Meyer Lemon Tart; Farm-raised Chicken with Meyer Lemon and Chanterelles; Pan-Sauteed Sea Bass with Meyer Lemon Beurre Blanc; Meyer Lemon Mousse, Meyer Lemongrette Dressing...what was this phenomenon?  I explored, and finally found a few in a box on the floor at Fairway.  What a revelation!  Now that we can finally get them in New York, of course, they're practically passé.   By now the chefs have surely found new darlings to make much of on their menus and in their cookbooks.  But  I've found a passion that I'm confident will endure.

So, my recent good fortune:  first my friend Lea (who lives in Marin County and has a Meyer lemon tree in her yard) Fed-exed me a dozen gorgeous lemons for Christmas.  And this is a woman I've never even met!  She's a friend I made through an online culinary forum.  What a pal!  I made lemon curd, lemon cookies, lemon pasta, lemon dressings, lemon marinades.  Then I discovered that my colleague Joe was going to the Bay Area on a brief work-related trip, and I dropped a rather broad hint (something on the order of  "Joe, would you get me these special lemons that I know you've never heard of, but that I really really want?"  Subtle, no?).  Joe made a quick stop at a Farmers' Market in Oakland, and for a mere pittance (we won't talk about how much these little beauties cost in NYC) brought me back the golden orbs you see in the photo above, this very morning.  He also had the good sense to bring some back for Chris, his wife.

What fun I'm going to have.  Tonight's sauteed basa fillets benefited from a nice soak in some Meyer juice; tomorrow's chicken will receive a lovely marinade; and my brother's birthday dinner will include a lemon-scented pilaf and a lemon-dressed salad, as well as an asparagus soup brightened by the, umm, zestiness of the Meyer's zest.  Here's hoping that life (or good friends) will give you some lemons, too...and may they all be Meyer lemons.