Bounty 2.0

I've always considered the pleasures of the farmers market to follow an arc of sorts...a gentle hill if you will. After the scarcity of winter the spring brings, slowly, a limited selection of tender vegetables like ramps, french breakfast radishes, fava beans, peas and asparagus. The fruit is much more reticent, and until June I must make do with stalks of rhubarb (not a true fruit I realize), which I wrestle into submission by making a bracing breakfast compote.

As the season marches on the colors become more brilliant and the selection more varied. The strawberries come, followed by cucumbers, swiss chard and summer squash, and then the avalanche begins. My beloved cherries, sweet and sour, make their brief but exquisite appearance, fragrant peaches come tumbling in (as do the resultant peach crisps and cobblers I end up making when I over-estimate my weekly peach eating capability), blueberries, raspberries, beets. And then, when the heirloom tomatoes and the corn begin to come in, I know the zenith of the season has hit. And I've always assumed that everything after that point is largely downhill until the following spring.

However, this past weekend I realized that I should not be so quick to judge. Rather, we are, as I speak, in a secondary produce peak. Gorgeous apples at Locust Grove are now abundant, autumnal squashes are piled all around the square, plums are tempting me to make tarts and I even spotted the first quince of the season! Placed out in a bowl, these odd fuzzy fruits will gently perfume your home with their sweet floral scent. And if you are ambitious, cooked (please dear god do not attempt to eat them raw), they are a delightful alternative to apples and pears.

But perhaps most exciting of all, the unparalleled James Durr has regained its footing after a brief dry spell with lots of fabulous floral specimens. How does he know that I love those pale green and rust colored hydrangeas so much?

I cannot stand the blue ones, the white I can take or leave, but oh the green...I could not resist them for my bathroom sink.

And I was so swept away by the boughs of purple berries (I cannot even begin to guess what they are), I took a massive bunch home, oblivious to the space constraints of my apartment.

So now I have an arrangement that approximates a small tree sitting on my table. It is wonderfully wild and sprawling, but also makes it a tad difficult to walk into my kitchen and into the living room (not that these are actually separate rooms in my apartment but, well, I like to pretend). As Paul says, it's ridiculous, but also lovely.

Give Us This Day...Again

My love of homemade bread is no secret. I've been through Dan Lepard's genius book of artisan loaves, I've messed around with Michael Ruhlman's ratio, and I've occasionally even dipped into Deborah Madison's bread chapters for inspiration. I feel pretty happy with my repertoire at this point...a bread for every mood if you will.

So when my mother claimed that she had the end all be all recipe that I simply had to try, I was skeptical. And I was even more skeptical when she told me that the origin of the recipe was a book she had picked up on a bargain table in some big box retail store, the name of which she could not recall.

Therefore when the recipe arrived in the mail (yes, the actual mail, envelope, stamp the whole thing...to be fair my parents' scanner was broken...they are not normally quite so traditional) it sat around on a tabletop for many weeks before I formed the loaves. Which as it turns out, was my loss.

The bread is dense and chewy in the most satisfying way possible and ever so slightly sweet. Do not be fooled by the very Berkley-esque list of ingredients, the bread is the farthest thing from one of those "healthy obligations" that seems to hang over your head the longer it stays in your kitchen (yes, CSA box, I'm looking at you). And do not be intimidated by the ingredient list either. I have no idea what malted wheat flakes are. I found something flakey in my refrigerator that looked like it could be wheat based...in retrospect I think it could have been wheat bran, but frankly I couldn't tell the difference. Throw whatever grainy/flakey/wheaty items you've got and I can virtually guarantee a phenomenal outcome.

Anthony's Grain Bread

My mother's adaption of the recipe from Linda Collister and Anthony Blake's Country Bread

Makes 3 loaves

To start:

1 cup (100g) malted wheat flakes (or whatever approximation you can find)

5 tablespoons (50g) chopped rye berries (I didn't chop them, and actually may have accidentally used kamut instead of rye now that I think about it)

1/2 cup (50g) cracked wheat

1/4 cup (50g) steel-cut oats, roughly chopped

1/4 cup (40g) rye berries

1 tablespoon (10g) pearl barley

4-5 tablespoons molasses, depending on your taste

4 cups boiling water

To finish:

2 cups (200g) dark rye flour

1 3/4 cups (200g) coarse whole-wheat flour, preferably stoneground

4 cups (500g) unbleached white bread flour

3 teaspoons fine sea salt

3 0.6-oz cakes fresh yeast (50g), or three envelopes of dry yeast

2/3 cup (150ml) lukewarm water

2/3 cup (150ml) stout, at room temperature

1 tablespoon sunflower or light olive oil

3 loaf pans, well greased

Start by combining the first six ingredients in a large bowl. Add the molasses to the measured boiling water and stir until dispersed, then add to the dry ingredients and mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and leave for 24 hours.

The next day, the soaked mixture should resemble coarse, sloppy porridge. Add the rye, whole-wheat, and white flours and the salt. Crumble the yeast into the luke-warm water and stir until dispersed, then add the stout. Pour the liquid into the grain and flour mixture, and mix thoroughly to make a firm but not stiff dough. Add a little more water if necessary, or, if the dough feels very sticky, work in a little extra white flour.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead thoroughly for 10 minutes (dust your hands and the work surface with flour only if the dough is sticky). Shape the dough into a ball. Put the oil into a clean, large bowl, add the ball of dough, and flip it over so it is coated with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature until doubled in size--about 2 hours, but add more time in cold weather, less in hot.

Punch down the risen dough and divide it into three equal portions. Shape each into an oblong to fit the pans, then put the dough neatly into the pans. Cover and leave as before until doubled in size--allow 1 1/2 hours.

Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Uncover the loaves and dust with a little rye or whole-wheat flour. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the loaves sound hollow when unmolded and tapped underneath. Turn out and cool on a wire rack.

The bread is best if left for a day before slicing, and will keep for 5 days, or can be toasted. Once thoroughly cooled, it can be frozen for up to a month.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

After a particularly long and taxing day, there are few things that I enjoy more than a plate of well prepared food and a glass of good wine. Depending on my mood, this restorative ritual takes place either out with friends or in blissful solitude at home (assuming Paul is not around of course. If he is, then it is blissful near-solitude with a soul-soothing companion).

One evening quite a while ago I found my nerves frayed, my body tense and my energy depleted, from what exactly I cannot recall. I came home, collapsed briefly, and set about making my curative solitary meal. Given my emotional state, I can only assume that the meal consisted of some combination of pasta, sausage, garlic...it would have been The River Cafe's Penne With a Quick Sausage Sauce if I had my wits even remotely about me.

I felt that an accompaniment of a glass of hefty red wine was in order, so I pulled an unfamiliar looking bottle from the wine rack and popped it open. This selection method can be a bit of a crapshoot, as we seem to receive an extraordinary amount of unsolicited wine, beer and liquor (although considerably less so now that our wine distributor-neighbor has moved away) from various visitors and guests so one never knows about the selection. Plus which our apartment is absolutely stifling during the summer, which is of course not very kind to wine.

So, with a bit of trepidation I gave the wine a try. OK, as it turned out, although it probably could have benefited from one or two less sultry summer seasons. But no matter. I ended the evening feeling exceedingly placid.

Not long after, Paul returned from whatever far flung place work had taken him. A few hours after his return he asked after the now-missing bottle, which at that point was sitting on the kitchen counter half empty. As Paul is not a particular fan of wine, I became a tad worried. Turns out it had been a gift from the band Tool, one of his favorites, a special bottle from the vineyard owned by one of the members. Oops. I promised to find a way to keep the bottle around as a memento if nothing else.

Turns out that wine bottles make unbelievably perfect olive oil dispensers.

The circumference of the bottle is sufficiently small such that I can easily pick it up with one hand while cooking, and the cylindrical shape suits me much better than the more square bottles that many olive oil producers insist on. The glass is dark, thus protecting the lovely oil from the ravages of light, the label is stamped directly on the glass, thus avoiding the whole tatty paper label problem, and the opening is the perfect fit for the flip top dispenser that I had picked up years before at Sur La Table but had never used due to the lack of an appropriately-sized vessel.

A silver lining had been successfully achieved.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Kale?

In theory I am a big fan of kale.

I always associate it with a wonderful soup that my Aunt Felicity used to make on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.


I have a very clear memory of my first brush with it. I recall driving up the path to her family's summer home on Martha's Vineyard one Wednesday before Thanksgiving, delighting in the candles twinkling cozily in each window (the house does not have electricity...these things were I'm sure very charming in the 1920s when the property was initially purchased, and I suppose still are for short stays), luxuriating in the laughter of her many siblings and nieces and nephews emanating from the open doorway, and relishing the fact that she met me at the threshold with a heavenly bowl of meat and kale and rich broth spooned over a toasted piece of bread.


I ate it inside by the fire, drinking in the warm, familial atmosphere. I smiled when my Aunt then asked if I fancied going for a canoe ride on the pond in the moonlight, until my cousin informed me that the offer was in fact serious and my smile widened to a grin.


Sadly, this is not the scene that tends to meet me on the average evening in New York when I am trying to figure out what on earth to do with the bushels of kale that end up in my CSA box. Upon my return from work there is no soup that has been simmering away for hours with delectable marrow bones on my stove. No roaring fire, no pond, no canoe. Just kale.


So for a while I braised it, occasionally throwing in a bit of chorizo and potato, but frankly I could never get the leaves to be tender enough to enjoy. I suppose several hours would be required to achieve true tenderness. Plus which I was not coming even remotely close to using up my allotted weekly amount.


But then I discovered the most wonderful thing...kale chips! I have of late been thoroughly engrossed in food52.com, a website run by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs. Kale was a theme of the week a bit ago, and several people submitted recipes for crispy kale chips. Intrigued, and with copious quantities of kale on my hands, I gave the idea a try.


I ripped the leaves apart from the stems. I mashed a couple of garlic cloves with a generous amount of olive oil in my mortar and pestle (although I suppose there is no reason that you could not just chop the garlic and throw it in with the oil), and tossed the kale leaves with the oil mixture. Once spread reasonably flat and in one layer on a baking sheet, I rained a layer of Maldon salt down over the kale and threw it in a 400 degree oven for about ten minutes, tossing the leaves about with a spatula at the five minute mark. Et voila, crispy leaves to accompany cocktails.


Of course you could I suppose get fancy and throw some parmesan cheese or paprika or vinegar into the mix, but why mess with such a good thing? And in case you're wondering, I am, for the first time in months, completely out of kale! Two days early!

Fuzzy Wuzzy

I didn't grow up with parents that were particularly pro-fur. In fact, they were decidedly pro-animal, pro-conservation, and thus quite anti-fur. Perhaps it is odd then that one of the possessions that I remember with the greatest fondness growing up is a sheepskin.


My mother kept the family sheepskin thrown over the back of my grandmother's love seat in the living room, and my sister and I used to snuggle beneath it whenever the weather became chilly, even after we were far too big to comfortably fit beneath it.


I think at one point the original sheepskin became tatty (my sister and I perhaps loved it a tad too intensely) so a replacement was procured. The second one was loved a tad too intensely by one of our cats who was on the hunt for a furry companion (and who also was not the brightest feline I've ever come across). Eventually sheepskin #2 also went to the great barnyard in the sky and by that point my parents were empty nesters and I suppose had moved on from the pelt-in-the-living-room theme so there was no #3.


I thought that I had moved on as well, but recently as I was browsing the website of TOAST, one of my favorite online retailers, I found myself quite smitten with their reindeer skin.



Such lovely gradations of color, such luxurious looking fur...perhaps for my dainty (or not so) feet as I step out of bed in the morning? Like my parents, I am perhaps not someone that you would assume would have fur in the home, and until now I haven't. But I have to admit that I am now tempted. Seriously tempted.

Changing of the Guard

At a dinner party I attended last week the subject of autumn came up. The weather's changing, I love the crisp air, I look forward to this season, I feel guilty hoping for cold weather, ugh, it means winter is coming...various responses poured forth from my dining companions. My personal opinion? I couldn't be happier.


Fall means that I once again am in the the mood to make chocolate brioche on Sunday mornings and strong coffee to match.


It means lots of sweet, firm root vegetables, hearty greens and sturdy fruit in my CSA box...





and gloomy weather, which provides the perfect excuse to cozy up in my apartment with a good book or movie. Or the impetus to head to a friend's place nearby for a good simmer in his steam room, as Paul (who prefers to call it a schvitz) and I did this past Sunday...



And endless cups of tea at all times of day to fortify against the chill.


It's all starting!

The Power of the Internet

Last weekend I was feeling particularly lackadaisical, so rather than rush around in an effort to complete various tasks that had gone undone during the week, I simply draped myself over the sofa and spent the afternoon, cup of Marco Polo tea at my side, watching old episodes of Nigella Bites on You Tube.

Stunningly enough, I actually came across an episode that I'd never seen before called Nigella's Christmas Bites. A full hour of holiday treats and simple dishes that Ms. Lawson happens to enjoy during the holidays months. Lentil and chestnut soup, pickled vegetables, Indian spiced potatoes, pasta in walnut sauce, pomegranate meringue, macadamia nut brittle...it all sounded so good! And, as is the case with most of her early recipes, although these dishes aren't hard, nor are they wildly exotic, they tend to be just different and imaginative enough to feel like a series of small revelations.

Although I don't use the one cookbook of hers that I own terribly often (I have Feast, and use it mainly for her granola recipe, pavlova recipe and if I'm in need of some sort of a cake) I was inspired to look into the possibility of purchasing her book Nigella Bites. There were plenty of used copies for sale for less than $4 on Amazon, but as I am both a tightwad and am also loathe to bring yet more stuff into our apartment for fear of causing clutter, it did give me pause.

But then I realized that I had $10 worth of Amazon gift certificates from Swagbucks, which meant that the book would actually be free. And I am not one to turn down free books. Ever.

You do know Swagbucks, no? A search engine that works just like google except for some searches you earn points. And eventually points turn into some sort of merchandise or gift card. That you would actually want to use. This at first glanced seemed a bit to close to those "make $1,000 a week sitting at home!" ads for comfort, but I must admit I've been converted. And now I'm trolling Amazon for something to spend my remaining $6 on.