Homework

I think everyone should, at least once in a while, harvest their own food.  Even if you don’t grow it yourself, it’s worth getting out there in a field or an orchard somewhere and harvesting what you’ll eat.  Ideally, you should do enough of it to get a little tired, and a little bit wishing you were done already, so that it doesn’t feel entirely like A Pleasant Rustic Playacting Adventure but instead you get inside the work of harvesting enough to get it that this is a job, an absolutely necessary job, and like all jobs, something that you sometimes just have to get done whether the spirit moves you or not.

I also highly recommend going out to pick when it is raining, or when the sun and/or the bugs are ferocious.  A little sunburn and eyes that have been stinging with sweat, a proper selection of insect bites, or a good goose-bumped chilled ride home with your goodies, will help you remember later on that the food does not arrive magically at the store or on your plate.  It’s about gratitude, and remembering that you have a bunch of people to thank for everything you eat that you weren’t personally responsible for growing and harvesting and transporting.

This morning, we went out in the rain to pick blackberries.  It was my Belovedary’s birthday yesterday, and he wanted to go berrying, and since we are neither of us sweet enough to melt and we planned to use the fruit immediately after we got it home, we figured picking in the wet would be okay.  Which it was.  It was quiet and lush and very, very wet, and we picked ten pounds of berries and got soaked to the skin.

We brought our berries home, along with some red raspberries and some peaches from the same you-pick, and set about making blackberry pie and blackberry sorbet.  The day being as warm and wet as it was, the pie crust completely refused to behave, but I’m of the school that says it can be ugly as long as it tastes good, so I persevered.  I even took a photo, because I recall some of you folks were curious about what a pie bird looks like in use.  This is what a pie bird looks like when it’s in an ugly, patchworky, lumpy blackberry pie.

We also ate several bowls of berries plain, between the two of us.  There’ll be no scurvy in this household anytime soon, that much is for sure.

With the rest, we made blackberry sorbet.  Blackberry puree, creme de gingembre, a little lime juice, a little agave syrup, a little slug of vanilla extract, and it’s the most lovely fruity mellow thing, with a great texture and a gorgeous color.

Tomorrow it’s back to work with both of us, but we’ll have sorbet and pie to look forward to when we get home, and that’s no small thing.

This is what happens when I take my own advice.  It could be what happens when you take my advice too, if you’re so inclined.  Have some greens along with it.  We had steamed gai lan.  Fantastic.

Oh, I took photos.  But would they really express the satisfaction, a long day of writing behind me, an evening’s worth still to go, of spending a half an hour in the kitchen with the cool crispness of bok choy and cucumbers and scallions?  Would they convey the sizzle of the tofu hitting the hot oil in the wok, so loud it made me flinch even though I expected it?  I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t give the remotest impression of how mud-luscious (oh e.e.!) the sensation of mashing soaked fermented black beans with your fingertips can be, or how tantalizing the pungency that rises to the nose when you do it.  And as for the visceral gratification of whacking a peeled whole cucumber with the flat of a cleaver blade until it cracks into chunks, well, I think we can agree that no photograph could do that justice.

We ate a shrimp-broth based egg flower soup, black bean sauce tofu with bok choy, and smacked garlic cucumbers.  No rice, we usually don’t unless company’s in the offing, the better to spare my temperamental metabolic system.  Thumb-thick, winey-ripe blackberries for dessert.  Salutary indeed.

And so, back to work.

Some of this weekend’s greens haul, a nice smallish head of napa cabbage, was cut into ribbons, sauteed with onions and garlic, and used as a base for a fava bean and ham hock broth.   Some of the scraps of ham perch on top, for extra juju. Especially with a starchy broth like a bean broth, using greens as a base is an excellent idea, and balances the textures well, whereas using a starch like noodles or rice would just get stodgy.

And speaking of ham hock… Miriam asked, in a comment on the previous post, where to look for local, sustainably-farmed meat and poultry.  This will be a Baltimore-centric answer, so I hope that’s what you were looking for, Miriam.

For convenience, you can go to Mill Valley General Store, at 28th and Sisson (2800 Sisson St. is the actual address).  They’re open Thurs-Sun and they carry meats from Gunpowder Bison, Wagner’s, Five Cow Farm, and I think perhaps others.  I know they’re working on bringing in chickens also. Mill Valley also carries a fine, well-chosen selection of local dairy, eggs, and produce and the freshness is impeccable.  I am particularly fond of the Five Cow Farm beef, which is always salutary.

At the Waverly farmer’s market on Saturday mornings,  you’ll find Broom’s Bloom’s stall.  They sell chicken, pork, and lamb, as well as eggs, all raised north of town.  Gunpowder Bison also has a stall at Waverly.  I’m not sure if Truck Patch Farm is selling at Waverly or only at the downtown (Sunday) market this year, but if you like pork, Truck Patch is  my favorite and I recommend them highly. (Truck Patch is also bringing in beef, I seem to recall, starting nowish… haven’t tried it yet but I expect it’ll be good.)

There are a couple of other meat vendors at the Sunday market under the JFX, but I haven’t actually shopped around too much as I so often get my meat at the Saturday market or at Mill Valley.  One whose meat I can vouch for, though, is the goat from Jeanne Dietz-Band at Many Rocks Farm.  It’s very well reared, well cut, and of high quality.

My standbys are Truck Patch for pork, Many Rocks for goat, Broom’s Bloom for lamb, Gunpowder for bison, and Broom’s Bloom again for chicken.    That said, I keep an eye out for specials and unusual items as they show up.  I recently had a lovely beef heart from Broom’s, and this ham hock was from them as well.

I feel very fortunate today, for I have had the great good luck to become friends with the kind of people who will greet me with the phrase “I’ve got way too much produce on my hands, I need to get it out of here, take as much as you want.”

And who will then encourage you, as you are filling sacks upon sacks of amazing, beautiful, fresh veggies, to stuff your bags even more full.

My refrigerator is literally crammed, stuffed like a Strasbourg goose, with bags of bok choy and Chinese cabbage, kale, garlic scapes, collards, zucchini, spinach, and rocket.

I’ll be making garlic scape pesto later on, some of which will be tossed with sauteed zucchini.

The bok choy has a date with destiny in the form of mushrooms, garlic, and a hot wok.

The collards are already lined up to be shredded, steamed and put in the bottoms of bowls to have a brothy blend of fava beans and ham hock ladled over it.  Perhaps some browned garlic over the top, little semi-crisp, sweet garlicky, salty chips.  I made the beans and ham hock yesterday, needing to use up the hock, with no idea how I would serve them.  Now I know. Obviously I was just making something to go with the greens.

The rest will fall into place, and by “place” I mean our bellies, by and by.

I am grateful for the kindness of friends.

I’m dining alone tonight, my Belovedary down at Camden Yards watching the Orioles lose.  It’s a nice night for it.

Dining alone can be a challenge.  Even I sometimes get tempted not to bother cooking if it’s just me, especially when I am, as I am tonight, working late on a deadline.

I try, though, to do it anyway.  Gently, as a kindness, and not grumpily and rushed as if it were an insult to have to get some food into edible condition for my own continued upkeep.

The summer’s first slim zucchini, gently sauteed in olive oil with plenty of garlic and a pinch or so of dried crushed marjoram and oregano.  That’s the secret of zucchini that is meltingly tender but not disintegrating: slow, gentle sauteeing, not too much movement in the pan, use enough oil, and let things brown just a little to bring out the sweetness and provide a tiny bit of structurally crucial crust.

Eggs scrambled over a low heat with a couple handfuls of thinly chopped fat ends of sweet new green onions mixed in.

Salt, pepper, a glass of cold, smooth, friendly Vouvray that’s almost too sweet for this meal.

Here’s to solitude.

Pazi dolmasi is Turkish stuffed chard.  Normally you’d make it with very large chard leaves, and stuff them with a meat or rice filling much as you would if you were making stuffed grape leaves.  Then they’d be baked, probably with a bit of tomatoey or lemony sauce to keep things moist.

The chard leaves in my garden are not very big yet, so I decided to deconstruct my “stuffed chard leaves” into a quicker, easier dish.  The filling, in this case, I made with some ground bison, because I happened to have some on hand.  You could use lamb, which would be more traditional, or a mix of roasted chopped eggplant and cooked rice, which would also be very nice. The chard is cut into ribbons, and then wilted in a hot cast-iron pan.  Because it’s young chard, the stems are no obstacle, and need only a little cooking.

This is a very approximate recipe

• 1 pound ground bison or lamb
• 2 small or one medium onion(s), diced
• 4-6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• approximately 1 tablespoon dried or fresh mint
• approximately 1 tablespoon dried or fresh dill weed
• small amount (a little more than 1/4 teaspoon) ground cardamom, or 2 large dried green cardamom pods, crushed
• small amount (about 1/4 teaspoon) ground allspice, or three dried allspice berries, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed dried red pepper
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup diced fresh or canned tomato
• approximately 1/2 cup dried currants, tart cherries, chopped dried apricots, or other tart *unsweetened* dried fruit
• olive oil
• salt to taste

Heat a heavy pan until it’s extremely hot and add enough oil to put a light film over the bottom of the pan. Add the onion and saute until it is starting to get caramelized, then add the garlic and saute until fragrant.  Add the meat and break it up with a spoon or spatula. As the meat releases its juices and some fat, add the seasonings except for salt (don’t salt until the end), and continue to cook for 5-7 minutes.  Add the tomato and stir well, then add the dried fruit.  Simmer approximately 10 minutes, perhaps a little more; add a small amount of water if the pan begins to get dry.  Before serving, taste, and salt/pepper to taste.

Serve over a bed of chopped wilted or steamed chard.

This is a lovely savory dinner, easily made.  It can be stretched by combining the filling with an equal amount of cooked rice, if you desire. If you want a garnish, toast a handful of pine nuts in a dry heavy pan, and scatter them over the top.

The filling also makes a fantastic sandwich component, which means you need never worry about what to do with leftovers.  I recommend warm, fresh pita stuffed with a healthy handful of fresh lettuce or spinach, some sliced cucumber, and perhaps some thinly sliced radish, then a helping of this filling.  Drizzle your sandwich with plain yogurt or a mint-garlic yogurt, if you like.

Among the perks of working at home: Kung pao bison with asparagus.  Betcha you won’t find this on the Lunch Specials at your close-to-the-office Chinese place!

I fervently believe that someday researchers will discover that brassica-family vegetables are a natural antidepressant.  They work for me, anyway.

Vegan “beef” (pressed, salted tofu) and broccoli with garlic “oyster” sauce (mushroom-based) for dinner tonight as a saving throw against a day made of grumpy.  Coupled with sesame cabbage, using up the last of a head of savoy cabbage that has been kicking around the crisper bin.

I’m a mostly improvisational cook. I read cookbooks like other people read novels, as a leisure activity, but rarely refer to them while I’m cooking. Now and then I cook someone else’s recipe precisely as written, but I mostly use other folks’ ideas and methods as platforms upon which to build.

For years I was told that while this was a reasonable approach to take to savory cooking, it was the precisely wrong approach to take to baking. Cooking is an art, as the saying goes, baking is a science. Dozens of cookbooks, and dozens of cooks, told me that baking was too finicky, relied too much on precise chemistry and physics, for it to be played by ear.

In some cases this is completely true. I strongly suspect that the more formal and Continental the baking, the truer it is. It’s unlikely that you’ll get good results out of laminated doughs without carefully measuring the ratio of fat to flour, and I can attest from personal experience that tweaking a genoise recipe the wrong way can mean that the batter will go straight from liquidy glop to shaggy hunks without passing, even for a moment, through the desired state known as au ruban.

But not all baking is this way. What’s more, as an historian it is plain to me that baking hasn’t always been an exact science because technologically it could not have been. There was a rather long time that delicious baked goods coexisted with a complete lack of things we now take for granted like thermometers, ovens with thermostat-regulated heat, calibrated measuring cups and spoons, and industry-standardized ingredients.  Recipes for baked goods, like all recipes, had instructions like “add butter the size of an egg with four egg yolks and a glass of sugar, beat for three paternosters.”  If our ancestors could turn out tasty results whilst measuring by eye and beating for the length of time it took them to say a particular prayer a few times, well, let’s just say there’s more leeway in baking than some people want you to think.

Armed with this insight, I’ve let myself do a fair bit of improvisatory baking in the past few years. I wouldn’t have dared if I didn’t already have a lot of experience with baking from recipes, and a fairly solid knowledge of what many different kinds of batters and doughs are supposed to look, taste, and feel like. Knowing what you’re going for and roughly what will get you there is the backbone of any improvisatory cooking.  That’s why there are some kinds of baked goods–tuiles, croissants, panettone–I would never try to improvise even though I do not doubt for a second that there are more skilled bakers than I who could improvise them successfully. I play fast and loose only with ones I know from experience are likely to be forgiving of my wayward instinctive “throw stuff in until it looks and tastes right” cooking methodology. Quick breads, sheet cakes, yeast breads, and drop cookies are the sorts of baked goods I improvise the most, with the best and most consistent luck.

One of the doughs I love to improvise on is brioche. Sweet, eggy, buttery, it’s a cousin of challah and all the eggy Eastertide breads. Brioche properly has its own method and its own proportions, but I think of it as also being a family of doughs. You can use versions of a “brioche” dough for lots of things. One of which is a crowd-pleasing faux-braid filled with a mixture of neufchatel (or cream cheese, if you prefer it even richer) and preserves. It’s sort of the cherry-cheese danish principle, applied to a loaf of bread.

This one does actually have cherry preserves folded up inside it, mixed with the neufchatel.  I made the dough with a combination of wheat, barley, and oat flours, with some maple syrup and of course eggs and butter and yeast and salt.

Like most fruits, cherries darken when they’re cooked. The bright neon red you see in cherry danishes and commercial cherry pies is Red Dye No. 3, not anything that comes from actual fruit.  If I’d wanted a more vibrant and truer color in this,  I probably would’ve gone with tangerine marmalade or perhaps blueberry or elderberry preserves.

Another dough that bears up well under experimental conditions is a basic tea bread. Most sweet fruit and vegetable tea breads have a similar basis, and they can be tweaked easily into multiple formats with almost any flavorings or additions you like. Sometimes, when I end up with leftover bananas, I make something that is more or less a cross between banana bread, banana cake, and a fruit slump or pan dowdy: banana-bread batter thinned slightly with milk or soy milk and an extra egg, poured into a flat pan rather than a loaf pan and topped with liberal quantities of fresh or frozen berries or sliced fruit.

I call it Banana Situation, as in “oh geez, I really have got to do something about the banana situation before they rot.” Depending on what other fruit you use, it can be hyphenated accordingly.   Banana-Peach Situation is particularly nice.  This right here is Banana-Blueberry Situation.

No recipes were consulted and no measuring cups dirtied in the making of these baked goods. And they came out just fine in spite of it.