A Finger in Every Pie

One Minute Less

As counterintuitive as it may seem, I actually find myself doing a lot of cooking in the summer -- and quite a lot of baking.  This occurs for a number of reasons.  One is that the farmer's markets have all that good produce, and we can't just eat it all raw all the time, now can we.  Another is that we get invited to parties and barbecues and weekend houses, and I like to bring things I've made, which are undoubtedly always the most welcome of gifts.  But sometimes, even when I've made the dough for the World Peace cookies ahead of time, the thought of lighting the oven is unbearable.  And then, of course, there's that forementioned fresh green produce that I already overbought at the Greenmarket.   My favorite solution in that case, especially if it's for a picnic or barbecue, is a salad lightly thrown together of barely cooked and raw vegetables, a bit of pasta, lots of herbs, and a fresh, flavorful dressing. 

It's hard to get people to agree on much of anything, but a fair number of them seem to have arrived at the conclusion that pasta salad is a positively horrid article.  There must be some people who like it, however, since deli counters and luxury food shops are full of the more loathesome versions of it, namely things like cold tortellini in cold pesto, neither of which are items that were ever meant to be eaten cold. 

This salad, however, is one that I make every summer, and with any and every summer vegetable that I can find.  Try not to think of it as a pasta salad.  Think of it as a market salad, composed of all the things that are freshest and best at the farmers market on the day you're making it, along with some cooked pasta to give it ballast.

My only regret about this iteration of it, which I made on Saturday, is that I wish I had cooked the vegetables a tiny bit less.  I actually didn't cook them much at all, and the snap peas and the peppers (not seasonal, but I had a red one in the fridge, what can I say) are actually raw.  But I had asparagus and English shelling peas and little zucchini too (first of the season, still nutlike and sweet).  And although they were as verdant and crisp and lovely as they appear in the photo above, I wish I had actually just blanched them, plunging them into boiling water for perhaps a minute, then shocking them in ice water to freshen up.  However, the party of eleven to which this was fed were unanimous in their praise, and we heard no mournful tones at the appearance of pasta salad.  Really, although I thought the vegetables could have used one minute less, the assembled company just wanted more. 

Summer Vegetable Salad with Pasta
serves about 12 - 15

This is the version I made last weekend, relying on what was in the market (and that lone red pepper in the fridge).  My usual template is little carrots, small rounds of young zucchini, pepper strips in many colors, whole cherry or grape tomatoes, some olives, and the pasta.  But this incarnation was even better. 

Make less if you're serving less.  This has a shelf-life of about 24 hours -- its deliciousness decreases exponentially with time.  Or keep cooked pasta and cut/cooked veg in separate containers, and dress smaller portions right before serving, if you're going to eat this over a few days.

Dressing:
2 large spring onions or 4 fat scallions, cleaned and roughly chopped
2 small heads of green garlic and their stems, or one fat clove of garlic, chopped
1/2 cup mayonnaise (Hellman's real mayonnaise is the way to go here -- or homemade)
1 cup yogurt (I used Greek yogurt, full fat, but almost any yogurt will work
juice of one lime
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Place onions/scallions and garlic in the bowl of a food processor, and process until finely chopped.  Add everything else, and whiz till emulsified.  Taste for seasoning, and add whatever it needs.  It should be fairly highly seasoned, since it's going to flavor all that pasta -- but not so heavily flavored that it masks the sweetness of the vegetables.  Reserve.

Salad:
2 cups of shelled peas, cooked for about a minute in a little water, then shocked in cold water and drained
1 lb of asparagus, blanched, refreshed, drained and cut into 2-inch pieces
3 small zucchini, cut into rounds, blanched for a minute, then refreshed in cold water and drained
1 red pepper cut into thin strips
3/4 pound of sugar snap peas, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 pound of pasta (spirals or any shape you like) cooked al dente, then rinsed in cold water
1 cup chopped fresh herbs (basil, lots of chives and mint are a combo that work well here)
Reserved dressing

Just before serving, toss everything together.  This is a salad that's best when freshly dressed -- it doesn't need to marinate, and doesn't really benefit from it.  Taste for seasoning, adjust, and serve.

Serious Pig

The email message from Ed Levine (of Serious Eats and New York Eats fame) read "Hello barbecue lovers,  I look forward to meeting all of you and eating some serious 'cue....Oh, yeah.  One more thing.  Come hungry.  Ed"

We can't say we weren't warned. 

And even though on Sunday my beloved G (the actual winner of our household Serious Eats barbecue prize) woke with what they used to call a "crick" in his neck and shoulder, and even though the two things he hates almost more than anything in the world are blazingly hot days and crowds, and even worse, the combination of the two, that man was determined to take his sweetheart to the barbecue.  A good thing for me, you see -- since I happen to be the afore-mentioned sweetheart. 

Little did we know that the best part of the prize would turn out to be not the barbecue book, not the FastPass, but the tour and chats with Pitmasters, engineered by Ed (an extremely knowledgeable and delightfully personable host and tour guide, of course) and accompanied at every stand by heaping portions of barbecue.  I'm not sure I can remember another time when I've actually eaten four lunches, or at least parts thereof, but Sunday would have been the day.  We weren't eating locally, not that day; our focus was on the barbecue from far-away places, since who knew when we would have a chance to eat these specialties again. And I suppose there might have been a little bit of that inability to honor prophets from our own country -- after all, does anyone take NYC barbecue seriously?

The tour began with a stop at Ed Mitchell's North Carolina-style barbecue tent, for "whole hog" barbecue, which you see being torn apart in the photo above.  The pitmaster was too busy to talk to us on that stop, since it was the beginning of Sunday's gig and everyone was frantically chopping up whole roasted hogs.  But we scored fabulously crusty ribs which were actually part of the "leavings," since at The Pit's outpost they were serving just chopped barbecue sandwiches.  We had their delicious coleslaw and the sandwiches too, which had a vinegary tang and a nice hot pepper bite.  We certainly enjoyed the sandwiches, although they were not my personal favorite barbecue offering of the day.  The pork on the sandwiches was so finely chopped that it had almost a mashed consistency, which I and others certainly enjoyed a great deal, but which was not the barbecue texture I tend to crave.  Fortunately, my favorites on the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party tour were yet to come. 

Next was our stop at Ubon's, where we were treated like royalty by none other than Garry Roark, who turned his family's sauce recipe into a thriving business in Yazoo City, Mississippi.  Mr.  Roark insisted first on giving us all ice-cold wet towels to put around our necks, so we could "properly enjoy the barbecue."  He told us that if we were too hot, we wouldn't have the same level of satisfaction.  Then one of his pitmasters came over with a whole roasted shoulder of pork, and proceeded to show us exactly how each part of the shoulder fell into different special pieces of succulence as he pulled it apart and gave us tastes.  In the meantime, Mr. Roark and his gracious wife Elaine served us what were indeed my favorite pork barbecue sandwiches of the day, rich chunks and shreds of that same shoulder, accompanied by more great homemade slaw.  He also served up what was by far the best sauce we tasted that day -- we later used our FastPass to purchase bottles to take home. 

By this time we were getting full, or at least I was, but that did not impede our progress.  Ed took us to the Salt Lick BBQ from Driftwood, Texas, where we took a break from pig to have some of my barbecue favorites -- meltingly tender brisket and crisp, spicy sausage.  I managed to muster some hidden reserve of appetite as the kind folks at the courtesy tent served it up, and pitmaster Michael Rodriguez came to talk to us.  Then it was on to Mike Mills' courtesy tent.  Mr. Mills edited the wonderful barbecue book that was part of our prize, Peace, Love and Barbecue.  He'd brought with him two of his numerous barbecue outposts: the 17th Street Bar and Grill in Murphysboro, IL, and the Memphis Championship Barbecue in Las Vegas, NV.  At their courtesy tent we were served perfectly cooked baby back ribs and sweet, tender baked beans, which inspired me to want to make some of my own.  Like a good chili, they used a mix of beans in a rich sauce that was both a great balance of flavors and a perfect accompaniment to the ribs.

By this time, I could only take tastes of the delicacies being served.   Ed offered to continue the tour, but we were two hours in, and all of the prize winners were ready to give their stomachs a rest.  We parted ways with many thanks to Ed for the fantastic afternoon, which had been like an incredible barbecue-themed road-trip, all within a radius of a few blocks.  We'd hit North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, Illinois and Nevada.  We knew that we were far past both hunger and capacity, and hadn't even started to use our FastPass.   We took a meander through the park,  bought some dessert for later on our FastPass, got some sauces and peanuts and such, and then gave the rest of the FastPass away. 

As we were leaving, I spied Danny Meyer at Blue Smoke's courtesy tent.  I wiggled behind the barricade to thank him again for the generous prize he'd donated to Menu For Hope last December, as I hadn't seen him since that time.  We also had a good laugh about the little tiny world we live in; I'd discovered only recently that one of my treasured colleagues, whom I've known and worked with at annual meetings for some years, is a member of his family.  I was turning to leave him to the many others that wanted a chance to meet and greet him, when he said, "Have you tried our ribs?" He gestured toward the racks and racks of ribs being turned on grills by cooks nearby.  I told him how full I was already, but he insisted, "They're the best ribs we've ever done," as he pressed a carton of them on me.   So G and I meandered in the hot sun toward home, laden with our sauces and desserts and luscious Blue Smoke ribs for later as well. 

And Mr. Meyer was right.  The Kansas City-style ribs were so incredibly flavorful, tender and just plain good that despite our full-belly tour of barbecue specialties from so many other places, we could rest in the knowledge that thanks to him and Kenny Callaghan, urban barbecue from NYC is no urban legend -- and it's far more than just a contender. 

The Good, the Bad and the Somewhat Sad

So the good news is We Won!  We Won!  No, not the lotto, you silly donkey.  If I'd won the lotto would I still be writing this blog?  Well, yes, probably.  But okay, no, we didn't win the lotto.  Sorry about the donkey crack.  I'm a little testy these days. 

We did, however, win a FastPass to the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party.  I say "we" sort of loosely.  Technically it's G that entered and won.  In actuality, the winning entry was a limerick that we co-wrote.  Of course he came up with the imagery noted by the judges for its "priceless" quality.  But the limerick rhythm and rhyme scheme, well, folks, that was yours truly.  What a team we are.  Good thing, too, since I must needs have my share of that BBQ.

In other, not-so-good news, I had a run-in at a bakery today. God, I hope I don't make a habit of this, since I really don't have a lot of time to do my own baking these days.  Anyway, here's what happened. 

My colleague Paul showed up outside the Silver Moon Bakery, where we'd planned to sit and have beverages and start planning the summer technology institute we're co-teaching next month.  I was waiting for him.  "We can't stay here," I said.  "I've been burning and pillaging, and we need to go find a Starbucks."  

It was just such a fate I'd been hoping to avoid, since I'd rather patronize a homey little  neighborhood bakery than a StarBorg.   It was I who'd suggested Silver Moon as a meeting place.  It's a place that I've always liked, and so I probably shouldn't be outing them on my blog, since I'll never again be permitted to purchase another of their yummy (and pricey) chocolate brioche sprinkled with crystal sugar, a treat that definitely aided in my recuperation from surgery when I was staying at my cousin's home on the West side some eight years ago.  Said cousin (and I won't tell her name, for fear that she'll get cut off from her baguette supply) introduced me to her local bakery, and once I had tasted the wonder of their chocolate brioche,  a luscious envelope of brioche dough folded over a treasure of dark chocolate chips and then sprinkled with crystal sugar -- well, I was hooked. 

Not so hooked that I would make a special trip or anything.  But certainly hooked enough that if I had time to kill in that neighborhood, there would be a bag of brioche coming home with me from my West side travels.  You can imagine my joy when I got there early for my meeting with Paul, quite early, and found that there were still plenty of chocolate brioche.  You know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow, yes you do.  And not only that, they had apple raisin brioche.  And I live with a lover of apple pastries, so a few of those had to go in the bag too.  And they had one more apricot brioche that looked lonely all by itself, so I figured I'd let that one come home with me as well.  A cup of iced tea and $25 later, I took everything outside to a cafe table.  I wasn't going to eat any of the brioche, but I felt nice and cozy knowing that after my planning meeting was over, I would take them home and save them for tomorrow's breakfast, and surprise G with apple raisin brioche, and put some in the freezer since who knows when I'll be on the West side again.

I sighed with contentment as I waited for Paul.  Whereupon I was told by a server that I couldn't sit at the table, since it was waitservice only and I had purchased my goods inside.  I looked around at the people sitting happily at tables and eating their $3 muffins, drinking their $4 worth of coffee, and I explained to her that I had just spent $25 dollars inside. 

She didn't care.  Rules, you see, is rules.  And they did have signs up that said tables were for table service only.  Considering the sort of temper I've been in for, oh, the past several months, I behaved very well.  I picked up my bag o' brioche and my books, and went and sat on one of those overly sunny benches in the middle of the traffic island that separates the uptown stream from the downtown stream, and I courted skin cancer and wrote a nice diatribe in my notebook about the perfidy of human beings.  It's all material, you see, and will undoubtedly find its way into my roman á clef, never fear.

Then Paul showed up, and I explained to him that we were persona non grata at the Silver Moon.  He told me the story of the Pie Lady in the Berkshires, whence he and his wife could never return because once, whilst in the domain of the Pie Lady, their small sons had behaved like, you know, children.  They probably mind more than I do, because maybe they don't bake their own pies.  Although you never know.  But bakeries, well, if bakeries snub me, I just say "The hell with you, I'll bake my own frikkin' chocolate brioche."  Which, if I'm truthful,  is pretty unlikely as well, since I don't fool much with rich yeasted pastry and laminated doughs and whatnot.  But it sounds like a good retort, doesn't it, 'specially when you're wandering around, searching for a Starbucks, since somehow or other you've hit the only two-block radius in Manhattan that doesn't seem to have one. 

There'll be brioche for breakfast tomorrow, and for some other times to come.  But once this stash is gone, will I ever want to go back to the Silver Moon?  Would you?