Ruth Reichl's Blog, page 39

Hot? Or Not?

Could hardly believe it when I found these tiny (about an inch long) pimientos de padron at the market today.  I've never seen them for sale outside of Spain.  I pounced on them and brought them home.

I feel a certain responsability for their being in this country.  When I took over Gourmet in 1999, I asked Calvin Trillin if there was any place in the world he wanted to go.  "Padron," he immediately replied, "for the peppers. They're not grown here."  

The peppers have a uniquely robust flavor, filling your mouth with a taste I can only describe as "green."  They also hide a surprise; most are merely delicious, but every fifth pepper or so you get one that's hot enough to send shivers down your spine.

Trillin's account of his pepper pilgrimage appeared in the November 1999 issue of Gourmet. It was such a passionate ode that a farmer in New Jersey began growing them. Now he sends a huge pile to Mr. Trillin, who hosts his own little pepper festival each fall. Robert Sietsema does the honors, frying them in a big pot of boiling oil while we stand around the stove, waiting for him to pull the peppers out. He sprinkles them with salt and we all make a grab for them. It's wonderful, messy fun.

I decided to try something a little different. Rather than deep-fry them, I simply slicked a cast iron skillet with olive oil and sauted the pimientos until their skins crinkled up. Then I showered wthem with salt, picked one up by its stem and stuck it in my mouth.

It was a hot one. It was delicious. More please. 

 

 

 

 

The Taste of Tiny

 

I'd never seen such tiny eggplants before, and I couldn't resist them. An inch and a half long, I wondered if they'd have more character than ordinary eggplants, those chamelions of the vegetable world. 

They did! Quartered lengthwise and quickly cooked in a very hot pan with just a bit of olive oil and sliced green garlic, they were like the most delicious French fries I've ever eaten. I showered them with salt, and ate them piping hot, with my fingers. Crisp outside, meltingly soft within, they retained the faint, elusive bitterness of eggplant. But hovering at the edge was a bit of sweetness too. I ate them all, standing at the stove.

And now I'm off to the farm stand to buy some more; they won't be around very long.

 

Elderberries!

Found elderberries at the farmers' market this morning. Never cooked with them before, but I brought them home and began to contemplate what to do with them.

Washing these tiny berries is a pain - lots of stem, and the berries themselves are no bigger than bb's But they have a wonderful bitterness - think very tart blueberries, or slightly sweeter cranberries - and would probably make an excellent pie. But I have it in mind to make elderberry syrup instead.  

David Lebovitz has what looks like a very fine recipe here, and he has yet to let me down.

 

 

Things I Love

Mea Culpa.  Last year, in my annual gift guide, I said that this rare and wonderful organic Monticello Balsamic is something you’d never buy for yourself; it’s just too expensive. But this morning, as I dribbled a single drop onto my sliced apricot, I knew that I was wrong.  This bottle was a present, but when it’s gone I’ll replace it. I never want to be without this remarkable elixir.

This is the way I think about it: it costs $150 a bottle, but if I dole it out, drop by drop, I can make it last a year. And that’s a year of coaxing the flavor out of recalcitrant apricots and berries, of making vegetables sing with flavor, of making every salad dressing deeper, richer, more delicious.  It’s also a year of remembering that American products can now compete with the very best.

 

 

Some Pig

Since the late seventies, when I first watched Le Cochon, a film by Jean Eustache, I've wanted to get my hands on a pig and use every single part. But the killing has always put me off; I'm just not sure I could do it.

Here's my chance to butcher a whole pig without having to be in on the slaughter; a day on a farm with a group of passionate young butchers. This is their description of the event.

The Whole Hog Workshop will be a full day event on August 24th with the Berkshire Food Guild's butcher, Jake Levin, charcutier, Jazu Stine, and chef, Jamie Paxton. The day will begin with a tour of our host farm, Cricket Creek Farm, and a discussion of pasture-based farming and sustainable animal husbandry. The morning will be spent learning how to breakdown a pig sourced from Climbing Tree Farm, which feeds its pigs whey from Cricket Creek Farm's cheese-making facility. The hands-on butchery workshop will include information on where the various cuts come from, their characteristics, and the best approaches for cooking and curing each cut.

After a pork-filled lunch, the workshop will focus on curing lessons and demonstrations. The participants will take the pig they broke down in the morning and put each cut under cure to create popular cured products, including bacon, sausage, proscuitto, coppa and more. We will go over the various curing techniques including dry curing, smoking, and making sausages, salamis, and terrines. After a charcuterie tasting, the workshop will conclude with everyone settling down around a table overlooking the farm to feast on a pork-centric meal and absorb the day’s learning over some local craft beers.

The Whole Hog Workshop will be held on Saturday, August 24th, 2013 at Cricket Creek Farm, Williamstown, MA. The Workshop will begin at 10:30 am. Tickets are $350 per person, including beverages, lunch, and dinner. They can also be reached via their Facebook page facebook.com/BerkshireFoodGuild

 

My Dinner at Stone Barns

Our taxi from the train station narrowly missed the chicken on the driveway; as he dropped us off at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, the driver said cheerily, “I’m going to try and hit that chicken on the way down.  It would make a great dinner for my kids.” From the corner of my eye I could see him contemplating the sheep grazing in the meadow, thinking they’d be pretty tasty too.

They would be great - but reducing the experience that Dan Barber and his crew produce to mere food would be to miss the best part of the evening. This is a restaurant unlike any other I’ve ever been to.

You know all the pertinent parts: the restaurant in the former Rockefeller dairy barn raises a great deal of the food that appears on the plate.  They’ve got greenhouses and fields filled with organically-grown vegetables you’ve never heard of, and their pigs forage for acorns in the woods behind the restaurant. There are cows and sheep and chickens, and the Stone Barns team is so intent on recycling that even the bones are turned into charcoal. Nothing goes to waste.   

The place is as gorgeous as a movie set, with a dream-like quality that sometimes makes you pinch yourself (go look at the website).  The flowers! The candles! The beauty of each plate. And the service is superb in a particularly American way; it’s friendly without being familiar.  

But something else is happening here: there’s a communication between the kitchen and the customer that I’ve not seen anywhere else. There is no menu; you simply put yourself in their hands and the staff intuits your desires.  I doubt that any two tables get the same meal. 

I can’t remember a dinner I’ve liked better than the one I had last night.  It was a progression of tiny courses that paid homage to the season. I left the table, after a five hour meal feeling light and incredibly happy. 

The meal was extremely simple. Most of the courses were tiny vegetables that spoke for themselves. A handful of tiny tomatoes that burst into the mouth.  Baby fennel, strident with anise-flavor, curled into a “plate” made of bark.  Infant leeks, so thin they were barely visible, pulsating with flavor. Tiny beans that looked like threads.  Chinese gooseberries. A single watermelon cucumber the size of a marble. A whole eggplant, charred in the ashes, its creamy white flesh scooped out and served with just-harvested sesame seeds and tomato foam. Cantaloupe simply seared and then distilled into a fragrant drink. Little “tacos” made of turnip that we wrapped around lobster and a trio of fruit and vegetable salsas. The parade of vegetables went on and on, occasionally punctuated with a perfectly cooked egg, a gorgeous little cracker, or the astonishingly fine house-made pepperoncini.

The biggest surprise: pig heart “pastrami” so delicious it would make any offal-hater change her mind.  And the single best piece of bread I’ve had in years: a slice of brioche made with heritage wheat that tasted like no wheat I’ve experienced in my life. Served with seductively delicious just-made ricotta and a savory marmalade, it has given plain old bread, butter and jam something to aspire to.  I will never forget those flavors.

This meal was so much fun to eat; I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much at dinner. It led, finally, to a single gorgeous piece of pork - sweet, tender, and just enough. Biting into that rosy meat I felt as if everything that had come before had been a tribute to this animal.

Dessert was wonderful too - peaches with white chocolate, blueberries, and the strawberry cannelloni that’s been on the menu since the restaurant opened. 

It was, for me, a perfect meal.  But I noticed that the people at the next table were eating a completely different dinner; they had more meat, more composed dishes. They seemed every bit as happy as we were. And that’s the main point.  

All through the meal I could sense a silent communication between the front of the house and the back. They were watching what we were eating, figuring out what we liked, adjusting the food.  This is, of course, what you do at home when you cook for your family. But I’ve never before seen that happen in a restaurant.  At Stone Barns you aren’t just paying for a meal, you’re forging a relationship. A relationship so extremely pleasing that all you can think at the end is, “How soon can I come back?”

 

 

Corny? Indeed.

Been reading all these recipes for corn ice cream, which gave me an idea. What if I just took the kernels off the cob, put them in the freezer, and ate them frozen, all by themselves?

Turns out it's a terrifically refreshing snack. Kind of like instant ice cream. If you take really good local corn,  scrape off the kernels just after it's been picked, you end up with something that bears absolutely no relation to the frozen corn in the supermarket. 

And if you really want something that reminds you of ice cream, try pouring a little cream over the frozen kernels. Amazing!

 

 

 

 

Summer's Most Refreshing Food

This is gazpacho season.  I like to keep a pitcher in the refrigerator, and pour out a little cupful every time I feel hunger coming on.  It’s refreshing, good for you - and about the easiest thing you can possibly make.  But most of all, it’s completely seasonal; gazpacho is great now, and for about another month. And then its time has passed.

Classic gazpacho is basically just a liquid tomato salad. You take a bunch of very ripe tomatoes and whirl them in a blender with a few compatible vegetables. I generally add onion, cucumber and a small amount of garlic.  Salt and pepper. Some olive oil and a bit of vinegar.  Then you let it rest in the refrigerator, allowing the flavors to get acquainted.  

 When it’s time to eat, you can simply stir and slurp.  Or you can dice up a crunchy vegetable or two -  cucumbers, peppers, carrots - and a leaf of basil, parsley or celery.  If you have leftover pesto, it’s great on top. A few fat homemade bread crumbs, another little dash of olive oil, and you’re ready to be refreshed. 

Vague recipe: 2 pounds of ripe tomatoes (you don’t need to peel them), half an onion, a peeled cucumber, one clove of garlic, 2 tablespoons olive oil and the same amount of good vinegar. Salt and pepper. Blend. Thin with a little water if you like. That’s all there is to it. 

How to Cook a Perfect Peach

Just made the peach galette from the Masamoto family’s wonderful book, The Perfect Peach.  I reduced the sugar in their recipe, and while I have to admit that my galette doesn’t look nearly as good as the one their jacket, it smells fantastic and was great fun to make. Can’t wait to serve it for dinner tonight. 

Peach Galette (adapted from The Perfect Peach, which was just published by Ten Speed Press) 

For the pastry

1 cup unbleached flour

1 tablespoon sugar

pinch of salt

1/2 cup cold butter

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons milk

1 tablespoon cream

sugar for sprinkling

 

For the filling 

1/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons flour

pinch of cinnamon

5 or 6 ripe peaches

squeeze of lemon juice

 

Make the dough by blending the dry ingredients and cutting in the butter.  Then whisk the milk into the egg and mix into the butter and flour mixture.  Form into a ball, wrap in wax paper, and refrigerate for a couple of hours. 

Allow to warm for about 10 minutes, then roll into an 11 inch circle, place it on a parchment-lined baking sheet and put in the refrigerator to chill while you preheat the oven to 375 and prepare the peaches.

Peel the peaches and slice into 1/4 inch wedges. Toss them with the flour and sugar, squeeze in a bit of lemon juice.

Remove the pie dough from the refrigerator. Leaving 1 1/2 inches on the outside, cover with the peach slices, arranging in a spiraling circle.  Pleat the outer edges of the dough over the peaches and brush the dough with the cream. Sprinkle sugar over the cream and bake on the lowest shelf of the oven for about 50 minutes, until the crust is golden.

Cool on a rack. 

Where to Find a Perfect Peach

Let's get this out of the way at the beginning: they're expensive.

They're also extremely rare. Finding a perfect peach in modern America is almost impossible. There are whole generations of people who think that peaches are supposed to be crisp and crunch when you take a bite. But these are real peaches: so fragrant their perfume drives you mad. And so soft and juicy you're tempted to climb into the bathtub every time you eat one.

They're also remarkably seasonal: I wait for these all year.

So if you're like me, and you dream of peaches, you'd choose one of these wonderful Frog Hollow peaches over chocolate cake, ice cream - or just about anything else you can name.

And if you're like me, you'll be ordering some from Farmer Al this week. Wait and you'll be out of luck.