FOOD ON THE FOOD

Two More Things and Then I’ll Be Done With Black Raspberries, I Swear

First of all, just LOOK at what I found in my backyard:

Black raspberries!  No shit.  Not a lot of them.  Just one vine growing out of a rock wall right next to another thorny stem that appeared to have been hacked off by somebody at some point in the past.  And I bet that somebody was me.  Oh, foolish girl.  If only we had half a sense of what we were doing 50% of the time.

So, Smart-People-Who-Know-About-Black-Raspberries, I ask you.  How do you propagate these wild things?  Can I just chew up the berries and spit them out all over my yard?  Or do I have to more closely mimic what birds do?  Speak slowly and use very small words. 

As for the black raspberries I picked before, those that didn’t end up in the buckle were combined with some strawberries that were past their prime to make preserves.  You’ll be glad to note that I didn’t use gelatin this time.  I didn’t even use pectin.  I just relied on the fruits’ natural gelling properties using my great grandmother's basic technique.  And how did it come out?  It tastes divine.  Truly.  I’m not a huge fan of strawberry jam (too sweet), but the raspberries added such a pleasing tartness and improved the color greatly.  Just look at its garnet hue:

Actually, it was more purplish in real life.  For once the camera improved its subject.  The jam still came out too thick for my taste, though.  Twenty minutes of boiling was too long in this case.  But you can still get it on toast with some muscle, and it’ll make a kick-ass filling for thumbprint cookies.

So that’s it.  If you want to hear more about black raspberries, you’ll have to go elsewhere.

Buckle Up

Turns out I’m addicted to black raspberries.  I picked a bunch more a few days ago because it was raining, and when I got back, Looky Daddy had tweeted about this, which was adapted from this.  Suddenly, there was cake in the oven, its jammy scent wafting upstairs, interfering with my ability to fold laundry properly.  (I’m still finding mismatched socks in odd places.)

I managed to hold off for most of the day, but then I ate a quarter of this cake while making dinner.  What, I’m just fattening myself up for chemo. 

Black Raspberry Buckle

I know buckles usually have a crumbly topping, but that would ruin this.  It’s perfect the way it is.  I just like the name.

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar, plus 1 Tbsp., divided (I liked Pinch My Salt’s idea of using demerara sugar on top.  I would have done it if I'd had some.)
½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
½ cup buttermilk, well shaken
1 cup fresh black (or red) raspberries

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack towards the top.  Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.  Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Cream butter and 2/3 cup sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Beat in vanilla. Add egg and mix well.

At low speed, add flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk, and mixing until just combined.  Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top.  Scatter raspberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 Tbsp sugar.

Bake until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool.  Serve.

Source: Adapted from Gourmet’s recipe by Melissa Roberts.

In Which I Lose My Already Tenuous Credibility

Yesterday, we took advantage of the rain to go blackberry-picking among the canes growing wild at a nearby park.  The bees, I had heard, have been particularly agitated lately, sending several neighborhood children home in tears on one of the few sunny afternoons we’ve had.  I attributed this to the bees’ formidable to do list combined with a weather-restricted work schedule.  Don’t we all get that way from time to time?

I figured that the pouring rain might work in our favor.  With the bees on siesta, maybe our non-stealthy approach to foraging might go unnoticed.  And it did, allowing us (me, mostly) to pick a scant pint.  The rain did not, however, save me from being stung by angry three-year-olds.  Soggy, angry three-year-olds:

Him: Mommy, I want a raspberry.

Me: These are blackberries.  Here, have one.

Him: No, I want a raspberry.

Me: There aren’t any raspberries here.  Only blackberries.

Him: But Mommy, I see a raspberry RIGHT THERE.

Me: Ohhhh.   Those red berries aren’t raspberries, they’re unripe blackberries.

Him: Yes, they ARE raspberries.  I see them RIGHT THERE.

Sheesh, the kid grows up in a CSA and suddenly he’s a berry expert.  (To be fair, they do look exactly like raspberries.)

Me: No, those don’t taste good.  Try one of these.

Him: Nooooooo, Mommy, nooooo…RASPBERRIIIIIEEEEESSSSS…

Me: Okay, fine.  Here.  (handing him a red one)

He tastes it, shivers.  I go back to picking.

Him: …Can I have a blackberry, please?

Me: Exactly.

Meanwhile, the angry six-year-old stayed behind in the car.  Something about it raining really hard.  Yeah, kid, what else is new?  Mommy needs to get the hell outside before she hangs herself with her computer cord.

Author's Note: What makes this post hilarious is that, come to find out, those berries aren’t blackberries at all, but black raspberries.  Because I can never pass up an opportunity to be a moron.  You can read all about the berry differences in the comment section, but how I found out was at dinner tonight when we had some friends over and I threw the remaining “blackberries” into a blueberry cobbler I was making and my friend said, those aren’t blackberries, they’re black raspberries, and I had to smile about what I wrote, knowing how smug I was to think I could win a battle of wits with a preschooler.  WRONG.  So, yes, the 3YO was right about the plant classification.  As for me, well, at least I know my colors!

Mushroom Madness

So, while all of this medical shit was going down, there were mushrooms.  There was the first flush of oyster mushrooms back in May, as you might recall.  Then, there was a second flush.  And then a third.  But, as always, things didn’t quite go according to plan.

The plan, of course, was to eat the mushrooms.  But when the second flush appeared, as discovered by the 3YO, who seems to be developing a greenish- brown tinge to his thumbs, we were in the middle of making our getaway to the Cape for Memorial Day weekend and mushrooms were the furthest thing from our minds.  Still, I was delighted to note that there were four times as many mushrooms as before. 

A long weekend, however, was too long.  Upon our return, all of these mushrooms had curled up into sad little husks.  Damnit!  I went off and sulked.  The mushroom instructions mentioned nothing of a third flush, so I reluctantly moved on to other distractions.  A few days later, I noticed that these disgusting little wormy things were crawling all over the mushroom remains.  Whatever.  I figured they’d compost themselves and we’d try again next year.

Then came June and the rain.  And the rain and the rain and the rain.  The sun may have come out once in three weeks and, on that day, the 3YO checked on what he was now referring to as “his” mushrooms since he was doing all the work.  Look what he found among the shriveled remains of the last crop:

Whoa!  “His” mushrooms were HUGE, and instead of presenting as little individual umbrellas, as mine had, they were stacked and layered, seemingly clinging to the side of the bucket for dear life as the floods subsided.  Maybe two or three pounds worth, they were exactly what oyster mushrooms should look like (except for maybe the ass-shaped one). 

Wow, I thought to myself, this is my kind of crop!  The more you ignore it, the better the yields.  My mouth was watering.  I conjured up a mushroom risotto in my mind, something with brandy, beef stock, and thyme.  It would be the last meal I would prepare before my surgery, and it would be spectacular.

I could hardly wait to harvest them.  I got a paring knife and a paper bag at the ready and cut the top one off at its stem.  Right away, something didn’t look right.  Instead of the smooth, ivory texture I associate with mushrooms, the stem where I had cut it looked spongy inside, like bread.  I waved away a small cloud of bugs in annoyance.  And then some more bugs.  God, what’s with all the little flies, I thought?  Slowly, I turned the palm-sized mushroom cap over in my hand and saw it.  Every single one of the ribs housed at least one adult fly and large cluster of eggs.  On closer inspection, tiny mushroom-colored larvae were crawling out of every orifice.  What I held in my hand, I realized, wasn’t actually a mushroom at all but a mushroom-shaped conglomeration of squirming, miniature maggot-like worms.  I flung it to the ground.  It crawled away.  I passed out.

That picture doesn’t even do it justice.  In my semi-conscious state, I dreamt I got Monsanto corporate headquarters on the line: “Hello, Monsanto?  I take back what I said.  I need a case of Roundup, stat.”

At some point, Husband came around with the watering can to revive me.  Then, I faced the bucket once again, hand clamped over my mouth to contain the vomit.  I harvested the rest, one by one, to see if anything could be salvaged.  Not a single thing.  Total infestation.

God, this kind of thing can break your heart.  I wonder how farmers deal with the emotional effects of crop loss on a large scale?

Breasts (of Chicken)

This is sure to be my most tasteful post ever.

Quick update.  My drains are out, I’m showered, and dressed in real clothes that aren’t designed for post-ops.  Finally, I’m of a suitable appearance for blogging.    (I didn’t think there was a minimum requirement for one’s appearance when it came to blogging, but as blogging is reflective of one’s state of mind and/or body at that moment, it would be wise to note the correlation.  “If I’m incapable of dressing myself, then I’m unlikely to be fit for blogging” is a good rule of thumb.) 

I weaned myself off of the Percocets last week on Day 1 of my period so you can imagine what a laugh a minute that was.  It was kind of an emergency situation, though, as I alluded to in my previous post.  Husband had been so kind as to purchase some Senna early on to facilitate certain things (turns out the much-lauded Senokot had been conveniently pulled off the shelves for some reason, but luckily he found a guerilla generic brand).  Then, my mom arrived with every other weapon outlined in the comment section.  So, you see, your comments really can make a difference!  I can’t tell you what worked or what didn’t work, but the 12-day standoff recently resolved itself in a series of skirmishes that began and ended within 24 hours, so let’s leave it at that.

Hungry?

So, let’s talk about something else.  And let’s have that something else not be my breasts, either, for a refreshing change of pace.  Here’s what one of our wonderful neighbors brought for dinner the other night.  A big platter of breaded chicken cutlets (with marinara sauce), which seemed highly appropriate not to mention delicious.  This is how you know you moved into the right neighborhood!

Breaded Chicken Cutlets

8 boneless chicken breast halves
6 large eggs
2 Tbsp. milk or water
¾ cup Parmigiano-Reggiano or Romano cheese, divided
¾ cup all-purpose flour
3 cups plain dried bread crumbs
3 Tbsp. olive oil (or more)
3 Tbsp. butter (or more)
1½ cups marinara sauce (see recipe below)
1½ cups mozzarella cheese, if desired

Rinse chicken breasts under cold running water, pat dry with paper towels, and trim.  Holding the knife parallel to the cutting board, cut breasts in half to thin them out.  With meat between parchment or wax paper, pound gently with a meat mallet to reach an even ¼-inch thickness.  Season with salt and pepper.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs, water, and ½ cup of the cheese.  One at a time, dredge the flattened chicken breasts in flour, then the egg mixture, then the bread crumbs.  Refrigerate breaded cutlets for 30 minutes to set.

Line a baking sheet with paper towels.  Place a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Warm 1 Tbsp. of butter and 1 Tbsp. of olive oil until hot.  Add cutlets, a few at a time, until bottom is golden-brown and crusty.  Turn and cook the other side.  Remove and drain on paper towels.

Serve topped with marinara sauce and extra cheese or, for Chicken Parmesan, preheat oven to 350°F.  Add a thin layer of marinara sauce to the bottom of a large pan.  Place cutlets on top, spoon another thin layer of sauce on top, and sprinkle with cheese.  Heat in the oven 10 minutes until cheese has melted.

Marinara Sauce

2 28-ounce cans whole Italian plum tomatoes and their juices
3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced (about 1 Tbsp.)
6 leaves fresh basil, sliced
¼ tsp. freshly ground pepper
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar (if needed)

Coarsely chop the tomatoes into ¼-inch dice by hand or food processor.  In a large skillet, heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil until shimmering.  Add garlic and stir until it just turns golden, about 2 minutes.  Without letting the garlic burn, quickly add the tomatoes and their juices, half the basil, and the pepper.  Cook uncovered on medium heat for about 1½ hours, stirring every 5 to 10 minutes so sauce doesn’t scorch.  Sauce is done when you drag a spoon across the center of the pan and no liquid seeps back into the trail.  Add remaining 1 Tbsp. olive oil, season with additional salt and pepper (and sugar, if necessary), and add remaining basil leaves.

Source: Adapted from Cooking with Grace by Grace Pilato.  Thanks, Linda!

Spa Day

That’s what Husband and I have been calling surgery this week.  A day at the spa.  It’s a little trick we came up with to keep my feet pointed towards the hospital instead of anywhere else.  Like, say, the Aquarium. 

I can see it now: Me, barefoot in my johnny admiring the penguins, paper cone of Sel de la Terre fries in hand, when the men in white coats spot me and descend.  I fling my fries and holler, “You have to catch me first,” then sprint bare-assed up the ramp along the shark tanks as fast as I can, which isn’t fast at all, by the way, but I had a head start so they wouldn’t reach me until they got all the way to the top.  There I’d be, perched on the edge of the shark tank, dizzy and winded from, I imagine, the cancer, pausing because, after all that, the dramatic death-by-shark ending I was envisioning seemed, ultimately, way more gruesome than just losing a body part.  Also, technically, I think that still would have counted as a win for cancer.

So let me send my sincerest thanks to all of you for your comments, e-mails, and pigeon-o-grams that have done a lot to keep me from teetering into dark places.  What I’ve taken away from them is that anybody who’s anybody has a grandma that’s beaten breast cancer, so if I die, I’d better have a pretty good excuse.  No pressure.  Everyone who’s been through this, and I’ve spoken to quite a few by now, tells me that this is the worst part.  Weeks and weeks of waiting for surgery, waiting for a more comprehensive diagnosis, waiting for the final treatment plan.  Once you know what lies ahead and you accept it, while things may be rough physically for a stretch, emotionally it becomes a little easier to take.  All I know is if I’m going to be hanging out in the geriatric ward, I guess I should start working out.  (Cue Rocky theme song).  I hear it’s worse than prison over there.

And thus concludes Cancer Week.  It’s time to evict that evil gremlin before he takes gigantic dumps all over my vital organs.  Lord knows my immune system isn’t up to the task.  WAKE UP, Immune System.  Can’t you see what’s going on?  There’s a war to be waged and you’re just sitting around smoking cigarettes.  DO SOMETHING!!!!  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a hot date with a surgeon from Dana-Farber.  Dear God, I hope he slips me a roofie.

Why I Didn’t Show Up For Work That Day

It so happened that I got my diagnosis five minutes before I was set to report for a day of volunteer work.  In fact, one of the first things that flew out of my mouth in the doctor’s office was that this really wasn’t the best time to have cancer because several people were awaiting my chopping skills at that very moment.  In the car, I rationalized that cancer doesn’t affect one’s chopping skills, at least not in the early stages when you feel completely fine, and so I should still go.  It wasn’t until I almost crashed into the car in front of me for no good reason that I decided it would probably be wise to back out before the inevitable wreckage ensued, emotional or otherwise.  I mean, if there were ever a good excuse, this was it.  Still, I hate reneging on a commitment, and trying to figure out the best way to extricate myself was a welcome distraction from the larger issue.

Me: You’re already late.  You need to call them.

Me: And tell them what?  That I can’t come, I have cancer?

Me: Yes.

Me: I can’t do that.  They barely know me.  What are they going to say?

Me: They’ll say something nice and get off the phone as quickly as possible, which will work out well for everyone.

Me: But they’re not going to believe me.

Me: Nobody uses cancer to get out of stuff.

Me: I make shit up all the time.  Everybody knows that.

Me: Okay, well, if lies are your medium of choice then you’d better outdo yourself this time because you’re totally screwing them over.

Me: Not me.  Cancer.

Me: Whatever.

Me: Think the flat tire bit will work?

Me: Lame.

Me: Car accident?

Me: No, too many follow-up questions.

Me: One of the kids is sick?

Me: Do not involve the children in your lies.

Me: Okay.  How about this?  I was on my way to the location when things weren’t right intestine-wise.

Me: So far, so good.

Me: I pulled over to the side of the road and ran out to throw up when somebody jumped in and stole my car.  Of course, my cell phone wasn’t charged as usual and nobody wants to pick up a vomiting hitchhiker, so I had to walk all the way to the police station.  But they found my behavior suspicious, what with the early morning vomiting and my inability to walk in a straight line while vomiting, and arrested me for DUI right after I filed my missing vehicle report.  So that’s why I can’t volunteer today.  I mean, unless you have $5000 bail.

Me: Perfect!

Taking a Week Off

I need it.  In the meantime, here are some of the goofier shots from the Tufts photo shoot courtesy of Steve Marsel Studio.  To put these into context, you have to read the article.  If you’re too lazy to read the article (sigh), then just imagine what would happen if someone like me were tasked with cooking the food for a highly perfectionist cooking show.  How would that go exactly? 

I think you can guess.

Would you like some cake?  I followed the recipe, I swear.

Maybe no one will notice that my cake sucks?  Poker face, Tammy. 
(Whoops.  They noticed.)

Did I burn it?  Yup.  I burned it.  Fuck.

If you’d like the recipes for any of these, just let me know.

Enjoy the long weekend!

The Eating Habits of Ospreys

On the way to the bus stop, the Kindergartener was telling me about birds of prey.  Specifically, ospreys.  How they dive down and snatch fish right out of the water, and did I know that?  I said that I did.  (That may have been a lie.)  They eat other things, too, he told me, like dead birds.  Oh, I said.  And sometimes live birds.  Like ducklings.  My instinct was to make sympathetic noises on the ducklings’ behalf.  Who doesn’t love ducklings?  The Kindergartener tried to soften the blow: Well, not a lot of ducklings—just one duckling per day.

Test Kitchen Confidential

Every once in while, a magazine will take pity on my queries and let me write something.  It’s not often, so when it happens, it’s cause for celebration.  My latest article is in Tufts Magazine, my alma mater’s fine publication.  It’s about my short but memorable time working behind the scenes of America’s Test Kitchen.  It’s also, quite possibly, the best thing I’ve ever written (not saying much, I know).

Link is here: Test Kitchen Confidential

I wonder if Chris Kimball has a sense of humor?  Guess we’ll find out.

Shrooms

I harvested my first oyster mushrooms and, wow, were they ever pretty!  Like gorgeous ruffled trumpets.  It was painful to slice into them and listen to their Gillespie-style death throes. 

There were only four, so my plans to make mushroom risotto or a nice mushroom soup with my Baer’s Best pearl barley would have to wait for the second flush, if there is a second flush.  Instead, I made a quick bruschetta with butter, leeks, and thyme on garlic-rubbed toast.  It made a tasty, toothsome lunch.

Was it me or was there a hint of coffee flavor to my mushrooms?  I couldn’t tell if the knowledge that they were grown in coffee grounds was biasing me or if they really tasted like coffee.  Then again, why wouldn’t they taste like coffee if that’s what they were grown in?  You are what you eat.  Oyster mushrooms don't have a very strong flavor on their own.  Either way, I didn’t mind the coffee flavor.  I also felt like I had a lot more energy than usual that afternoon.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I actually cleaned one of the rooms in the house.  And did three loads of laundry.  Can anyone confirm this? 

Also, for the record, there was no vomiting.  Yay, add oyster mushrooms to the good list!  I might be developing a mushroom habit, so I hope four isn’t all I’m going to get.

Reuse is the New Recycle

I’ve been lax in linking over to my BlogHer posts lately because I’m still finding my stride.  What works over there doesn’t necessarily work over here and vice versa.  Different audience.  Different format.  I can’t write stuff the same way.  Anyway, this week’s piece on repurposing recyclables seems relevant (and applicable to blog posts, too), so here it is.  Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there.

***

Turning over your recycling to your town every week is great and everything, but think before you fling useful trash into the recycle bin.  Recycling still swallows resources and some materials may have plenty of remaining life before they progress on their spiritual path toward reincarnation.  Here are some ideas for getting extra mileage out of your food packaging through creative repurposing.

Egg cartons

Take a page from elementary schools across the country and start your sunflower seeds or other seedlings here.  Given my particular set of gardening skills, I don't have personal experience with this but it seems theoretically possible.
         

The blog at FamilyCorner.com has 18 more ways to reuse egg cartons.  Often, local farms are happy to take your extra egg cartons off your hands, too.

Milk cartons

The possibilities for milk jugs are endless: as scoops for the sandbox or filled with water to weigh down your sauerkraut during the fermentation process.  I also use mine as semi-disposable compost buckets. 
         

They’re light and have handles so I can send the kids up the hill to the compost bin.  They think it’s fun, and I delight in their convenient delusions.  Previous buckets have gotten disgusting after a while.  Milk jugs work well because when they get too gross, I just hose them down and then recycle.

DailyEcoTips also suggests using plastic milk bottles to protect young plants in the garden from non-human foragers.  The greenhouse effect is an added bonus.

Six-pack holders

Inspired by the local pub, these can be used as handy caddies for outdoor dining.  Carry utensils, condiments, and salt and pepper shakers back and forth to your picnic table.  Flatten one of the interior separators to fit napkins.  It also gives you a good excuse to pound beers.

Jars and bottles

I use empty spice bottles for bud vases and mason jars for larger arrangements.  That’s not true, exactly.  Husband does all the flower arranging around here.  I suck.

The Paisley Farmhouse has lots of other ideas for mason jars, too.

Anyone else?

New High Fashion Log For Girls

I was never much for dolls growing up.  The only doll I remember having was when I was maybe 3.  It was an ethnically ambiguous Afro-Inuit doll with dreadlocks named Mukluk.  My maternal instinct was…how do I put this delicately: underdeveloped.  Mukluk’s disappearance still remains a mystery to me.  There were no other dolls after her aside from a short-lived and unexplained Barbie fetish in my tween years.  Maybe there were some paper dolls at some point.  I had this bucket of small wooden blocks that I’d build houses and stuff with, and sometimes I’d draw a person onto a block with magic marker.  Does that count? 

Husband would say that my lack of dolls explains a lot about my nurturing side.  Husband would do well to fuck off.  But it’s become clear I could use a female alliance around the house, even if it is mostly symbolic.  I’m hideously outnumbered by males and my remaining cat, a female, hates me because, in her minuscule cat brain, I’m the one who came between her and Husband in their very one-sided, cross-species love affair.  Don’t ask.  But I’m not kidding. 

This is where the logs come in.  I know.  Finally.  The best way to grow shiitakes is in logs.  My preferred doll medium seems to be log-derived.  Why not cross-purpose my shiitake logs and relive my lost youth?  Ren and Stimpy know how much fun logs can be.

First I had to find some logs.  Not dead, rotting logs you find in the woods, as I had planned, because they’re already inhabited by competing fungi.  No, you need recently cut logs.  Except I didn’t want to cut down any trees.  So, I asked myself, what would Barbie do?  Barbie was useless.  She was too busy admiring her boobs in the mirror, as usual, so I asked Ken.  Ken suggested trolling the neighborhood for wood in his convertible.  Ken always got a bad rap.  He’s actually very smart for plastic. 

Sure enough, there was a big pile of logs on the curb down the street.  Turns out everyone cuts down trees in the spring.  Yay, deforestation!  But, boy, those logs are heavier than they look.  I cradled them lovingly in my arms one by one and deposited them in the trunk.  And that’s where they stayed for about two weeks to let the wood’s anti-fungal compounds wear off and to protect them from rogue spores.  (Or because I forgot about them.)  Then I got my drill and punched holes two inches deep about four inches apart, staggered all around the four logs. 

This took much longer than expected because, apparently, I have Black & Decker’s Strawberry Shortcake Purple Pie Man edition of a cordless drill, which has no power even when I recharge the spare battery pack and swap it out and put my full weight on top of it, and then have to wait around for an hour while the other one recharges, and repeat six times.  (Stupid piece of shit.)  (But it smells like strawberries!!)

Anyway, with the 100 or so holes drilled, I banged in the plug spawn with a hammer. 

See?  My doll has implants, too.  Then I brushed the holes with melted beeswax to protect them from insects (messy and a pain to clean up, but at least I made use of all those beeswax sheets I meant to turn into candles for wedding favors but then never did).  With the logs inoculated, you water them once in a while and store them in the shade.  After enough time has passed (about a year, I hear) and the right conditions present themselves (whatever those might be), fungus will start to emerge in ruffles all around the log like an ill-conceived, earth-tone flamenco dress.  If you’re lucky, you can strip down the logs and dress them up again for a good seven years!  My logs are going to be sooooooo pretty.  I can’t wait to have a tea party!

So, if you see me talking to my logs, that’s why.

Do You See What I See?

Baby mushrooms!  I think I squealed when I saw them.  I think I actually squealed.

It’s been about a month since I “planted” my oyster mushroom spawn, and it didn’t really look like anything was happening at all.  But then I poked around in there and I could see all these white fibers spiderwebbing their way through the material.  Mushroom mycelium!  That’s the real body of a mushroom—that fibrous network that colonizes whatever material is being broken down.  This hidden matrix can extend for acres in nature, I’ve read.  The caps we eat are just the fruits of the larger organism, the gills of which house and disperse the spores for reproductive purposes.  Yes, once again, we humans have been tricked into propagating the genes of another species.  Color me happy to oblige.

Since we’ve had so little rain lately, I supplemented my daily misting with a few extra cups of water just for kicks.  Mushrooms appeared the very next day.  It shouldn’t be long now before the bucket is filled.  Once the fruits are established, they grow by cell enlargement rather than cell division, meaning they basically balloon out in direct proportion to the available water supply.  Within reason.  I restrained myself from leaving the hose on all night for the good of the neighborhood.  Property values are down enough as it is without having to explain the towering fungus.

I’ll tell you all about the shiitake logs next week.

Sauerkraut Scorecard

Okay, so the results of my third batch of sauerkraut are in, and here’s what the tally looks like so far:

Batch 1: Awesome.  Amazing.
Batch 2: Rotten.  Total crap.
Batch 3: WAY TOO SALTY

Curses!  It’s become abundantly clear just how much of a role beginner’s luck played in my successful first attempt.  The second time, I’ll admit, I got cocky.  True, you can be somewhat negligent with sauerkraut, but not that negligent.  This most recent time, though, I thought I had done everything right.  I followed the same script as the first time, with the exception of adding more caraway seeds and stuff, or at least that was my memory of it until Husband started asking questions.  Questions meant to help, he insisted, but which I was sure were actually intended to incriminate and/or persecute, and so I was very careful to be as evasive and defensive as humanly possible.  Until he disarmed me with some clever joke, which caused crucial information to slip and he was able to determine the source of the problem like a big jerk.  (Jerk.)

As you may recall, the reason my second attempt at sauerkraut failed was because too much water evaporated from the crock.  The protective brine receded and left the cabbage exposed and ripe for spoilage.  And spoil it did.  This time, I was careful to monitor the brine level and when it appeared to be getting dangerously low, I proceeded to add more salt water to bring the volume back up.

Scientific types will recognize my mistake right away, as did Husband, who had to refresh my memory on the principles of evaporation.  When water evaporates, the salt doesn’t evaporate along with it.  If it did, then rainwater, evaporated from the world’s oceans, would be salty, and April showers would bring dead flowers and screams of “MY EYES, THEY BURN” when you get caught in the rain, post-piña colada.  No, the salt remains where it is, which is how we have come to enjoy the various forms of crystalline sea salt from hither and yon.

So, in the Case of the Evaporating Brine, the volume of water had gone down, but the salt remained in a now-much-higher concentration.  You want to add fresh water to dilute it back to its original concentration and bring the volume back up to cover all of the cabbage.  If you add more salt water in the amount of 1 tablespoon per 1 cup of water, as I did, the result will offend even the most salt-loving taste buds and, even if you manage to choke some of it down, will turn you into a shriveled prune for the remainder of the evening.  For future reference, Self, once you establish a baseline level of brine in the first few days of fermentation, meaning enough to cover the cabbage by a good half-inch or so, any water loss over the subsequent weeks should be replaced with fresh water only. 

I tried to rectify this disappointing turn of events by cooking the sauerkraut with a ton of potatoes to try to spread out the saltiness.  It didn’t work.  Then, I tried soaking the sauerkraut in several changes of cold water and then draining it.  Still, the salty torment continued.  I still eat it, though.  I just line up five big glasses of water in a row in front of my plate.  The actual flavor is really good, if you can hone in on it through the electricity coursing through your head. 

But if you think I’m through with fermentation, you’re more than a little mistaken.  I plan on fermenting the crap out of my CSA produce this year, including but not limited to any extraneous bok choy that may find its way into my possession.  After all, how many more ways can there possibly be to screw up this process? 

The count continues.

At Least I Still Have My Virginity

Cheering on today’s marathoners put a smile on my face, as it does every year, and almost made me forget the injustices of the previous two weeks.  Notice that I said almost.  Shall we review the timeline?  Do we care?  Too bad.

Let’s start the story the week before last when a variety of strange illnesses struck three out of four family members (myself included), eventually resolved themselves, but then mutated into more virulent strains resistant to antibodies, elixirs, and reason.  I’m beginning to think you can catch this stuff via Twitter because that’s the only place I’ve heard about these multi-week fevers.  I just assumed people were making things up for 140-character sympathy.  My bad. 

The 3YO suffered the worst of it, by far, and though he has recuperated just fine, over the two weeks he missed four out of six pre-paid preschool days.  If you have kids, then you know what kind of toll this takes on even the most patient parent, but especially one who can only work nights and preschool days.  One who works somewhat speculatively in an already tenuous marketplace and who doesn’t have the greatest history of securing lucrative freelance work as it is.  Hence the blogging.

But it was okay because I had my monthly Ladies’ Night Out to look forward to mid-week and I was really more desperate than I should have been for wings.  I mean, wings are great and everything, but I was literally dying for wings.  Eating locally means you rarely get to eat more than two wings at any given time, and that’s if you’re being really selfish.  And, I’ll admit it, those 23 honey hots made me feel one thousand times better.  Until I found out that my car had been towed sometime around the 14th, I’m guessing, though the timing doesn’t matter. 

I just stood there in the middle of the empty parking lot for the longest time, staring at the No Trespassing sign in front of where my car was supposed to be.  I tried to muster indignation, but it was no use.  I sheepishly made my way to the ATM to make one of the largest cash withdrawals in recent memory and here’s where things get a little fuzzy.  I either unknowingly dropped my bank card somewhere or, more likely, left it in the machine as I was counting the stack of crisp twenties that would soon go to supporting my local towing company.  It’s possible that I couldn’t hear the insistent beeping over the din of me berating myself in my own mind:

Me: What, do you think you can just park your car anywhere you want?  The sign said “Patrons Only.”

Me: I am a patron.

Me: A patron today.

Me: The sign wasn’t specific.

Me: You know, this isn’t the carefree late-nineties before kids when we all sat around and made big bonfires out of our disposable income just for fun.  Use better judgment. 

Me: But you can’t park anywhere, ever around here and yet sometimes you still need to park your car.

Me: In Boston, yeah.  But this is Newton.

Me: Shut up.

Long story short, my bank card vanished, too.  I’m probably not supposed to admit that I cried the whole two miles to the tow yard, I was so beaten down.  I’m probably not supposed to admit that I walked the whole way there in darkness because I refused to hail a cab not only because it would cost maybe another $8, but then I’d probably have to stop crying for a half a second and that really wasn’t going to happen.  I pulled it together in the last quarter mile.  There’s no crying in tow yards.

So anyway.  Yeah.  I think I need to get a job.

Spring is Finally Here!

Everyone has their own yardstick for spring’s arrival: buds on the trees, warmth on the skin, pollen in the nose.  Me, I only have eyes for the turkey vultures (not to be confused with the turkey non-vultures who paid us a St. Paddy’s Day visit).

Each spring, the vultures come to roost in the trees and rock outcroppings of the backyard cliff our house is perched upon.  It’s a very scenic view we have here, what with the giant water tower at the top of the hill, and the highway at the bottom, and the turkey vultures swooping down to survey the carnage in between.

I remember the first time I saw one flying overhead, casting its dark shadow across our postage-stamp-sized yard, I thought it was a solar eclipse.  Naturally, I looked directly at the sun.  That’s when I saw it (before the blinding pain, I mean).  The silhouette of what I thought was a bald eagle.  It seemed so majestic from far away, I couldn’t help but start humming “America the Beautiful.”  Weeks later, when my sight returned, I got a better look at him and his cronies lurking around some prime road kill by the side of the road and, just like that, the majesty was gone. 

If you’ve never seen a turkey vulture up close, boy are you in for a treat.  The shiny black feathers are okay, but the bald, red, shrunken head is a little disconcerting.  Same with the hunched, stooping posture.  Despite their hideousness, scientists are interested in these birds on account of their unusual digestive tracts that enable them to stomach high levels of bacteria and rot, something the good folks at the FDA might be interested in now that most of our meat has become nothing more than glorified road kill itself.  I’ll be anxiously awaiting the results of those studies and their proposed applications.

Still, as my harbingers of spring, I welcome the vultures.  They seem to be multiplying.  I think cell phone usage is working in their favor.

A vulture-eye view of the Watch City.

A Heart-Warming Easter Conversation

We drove down to New Haven for Easter to spend some quality time with Nonni and stuff ourselves silly with manicotti, porchetta, and Italian cream pie.  We discussed many things including why the demise of newspapers has to mean the end of good journalism (it doesn’t), the insurmountable deficit and how we’re all China’s bitches (maybe not in those exact words, though), and whether or not I could steal off with my dad’s much better digital camera for a week to see if my photography improves (he said yes, but don’t get your hopes up).

As it always does, the conversation deteriorated to who would be leaving with what leftover food items, and how much of it would be shipped to my dad’s younger brother in Seattle.  As far as my dad’s concerned, it’s always too much.  Here’s what passed between him and Nonni:

Him: So I’ll take the porchetta, the manicotti, the meatballs, the potatoes, the bread, the ice cream, the pies, any cappellettis you have in the freezer, the kids’ Easter baskets, aaaaaaand Tammy can have the leftover peas.  Oh, and I want the crescia, too.

Her: The crescia’s for Eddie.

Him: Go ahead, send him all my crescia.  He was always the favorite.

Her: No, I don’t have favorites.

Him: Gimme a break.  Even Sis knows it.  (To me) She once asked Mom what would happen if all three of us were drowning and there was only enough time to save one of us.

Me: (To Nonni) And what did you say?

Her: I said I would rather drown with all my children than save just one.

Me: Wow.  That’s a good answer.

Him: Yeah, except for the part where we all die. 

And that, my friends, is the problem with society today.  Precious few would make such a grand gesture on principle alone.  Once again, Nonni puts me to shame because I don’t think that option would have even occurred to me.  Of course, we won’t talk about the stash of stolen plastic bags from the grocery store I found in Nonni’s cabinets, still compressed and stuck together from being grabbed from the bagger’s station and stuffed into her purse.  That wouldn’t have occurred to me, either.

Easter Egg Ice Cream

Easter preparations have begun in earnest.  Hard-boiled eggs have been dyed, benevolent rodents have been plied with unreasonable gift requests, and at least one food blogger we know has put a serious dent in the Greater Boston Cadbury Crème Egg supply.  And while I know deep down in my heart that Easter isn’t only about the candy, I think Christ would agree that it’s totally all about the candy.  And it was only a matter of time before I wised up and started freezing some of it away to extend the season.  (See?  I’m a good little locavore.)

Ordinarily, I try not to take my culinary cues from the fast food chains, but what can I say?  Every once in a while, McDonald’s has a good idea.  Namely, the Cadbury Crème Egg McFlurry, which is all the rage in the British motherland (thanks, Jo!).  Basically, it’s crushed Cadbury Crème Eggs in vanilla ice cream.  The speed with which I was able to recreate this at home was limited only by the speed with which I could sweep an entire shelf’s worth of crème eggs into my shopping cart.  Which is to say, not long.

The evidence:

(This is what it looked like after I excavated most of the candy out of it.  Notice the yellowish pools of fondant goo?  Guess I missed a few spots.)

I could draw this story out longer than it really needs to be, but I’m sure you have other things to do.  The results?  Were disappointing.  Shocking, I know, coming from someone who conducts elaborate experiments and writes Plath-like poetry on the subject.  Who wouldn’t love Cadbury Crème Eggs in ice cream besides the 98% of the world’s population that hates crème eggs? 

I’ve concluded that it’s a conceptual problem.  You’re diluting the crème egg so less of it comes into contact with your tongue at once.  That’s not the spirit of the crème egg at all.  The crème egg is all about killing yourself softly with sweetness, but then resurrecting yourself because you have to have another crème egg even if it kills you.  Which it will.  Again.  That’s the moral of Easter, I’m pretty sure.  The sub-moral is: Crème Egg ice cream sucks.

But it got me thinking about Robin’s Eggs, and how much I love those malted milk balls.  And malt goes so nicely with dairy products, as the fifties proved.  Plus, the speckled candy shells come in several festive Easter hues, which, though not altogether true to nature, would give the ice cream appropriately hideous visual interest. 

Now this?  This is a good idea.

Robin’s Egg Ice Cream

Good with Whoppers, too.

2 eggs
¾ cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
10-oz. bag of Robin’s Egg malted milk balls

Whisk the (chicken’s) eggs for a few minutes.  Add the sugar, little by little, whisking all the while.  Add the cream and milk, and whisk until sugar dissolves.  Pour into ice cream maker and follow manufacturer’s instructions (usually to spin for 25 minutes or so). 

Meanwhile, pour the robin’s eggs into a plastic storage bag and crush with a mallet or hammer.  Once the ice cream machine is done with its magic, pour soupy mixture into a freezable container, and fold the crushed candy in as you go.  Freeze until stiff.

The Verdict on Meat: Less Cowbell

There’s a nice piece in the Globe by Devra First about this seemingly collective resolution some of us share to eat less meat.  Also, for a slightly less mature look at the subject, specifically the recent health study that was done, here’s my (re-edited) post up at BlogHer, which I forgot to link to last week:

Findings from a study published last month in the Archives of Internal Medicine concluded that regularly eating red meat increases the odds of premature death.  Pork, too, was lumped into the red meat category, unfortunately for me.

Now, I’m the first one to make excuses when the news is something I don’t want to hear, but I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: science is tricky.  You don’t always know the whole story and how all of the variables were accounted for.  For example, was it the actual meat that was killing people, or was it the stuff we’ve been feeding to the cows that’s killing people?  Did the esteemed scientists build a time machine to go back and do the experiment when cows ate only grass and didn’t get injected with shit to make a fair comparison? 

What about the social dynamics between the test group and the control group?  Maybe the people who didn’t get to eat meat were jealous of the people who did, and they sent threatening e-mail messages to the others and the stress put the meat-eaters at a higher risk of heart disease.  So the carnivores ended up making thrice as many cell phone calls to their friends and family for comfort, which put them at a higher risk for cancer.  Did the researchers at least bug the rooms of all the test subjects?  Maybe people genetically predisposed to premature death are genetically predisposed to love meat?  Can you prove that's not true?

Here’s the thing: I like meat.  I feel it’s an important and traditional part of my own particular diet.  But I do agree that, like anything, balance is key.  Skimming the study, I was heartened to read that the experts didn’t go so far as to recommend eliminating beef and pork entirely from one’s diet (unless you want to), but suggested that people avoid eating it everyday.  That seems doable, except for the fact that I tend to fill up the empty space on my plate where the meat should be with eggs.  What do the studies say about eggs these days? 

The truth is, we’ve been cutting back on meat during the past year, ourselves, in the name of moderation and frugality.  It hasn’t always been easy or free from controversy.  Some of my strategies have included swapping in a bean or lentil dish for the meat.  Thus far, this has not met with approval from the man of the house.  Beans are a side dish, I was told.  A more successful approach was cooking up a steak and slicing it thinly, then fanning the pieces out to make them look more impressive.  Or on a salad so they look virtuous.  This has worked well because it turns out that both Husband and I feel immense relief that we don’t have to eat an entire steak by ourselves.  Who knew?

Another tactic is to look to ethnic cuisines for inspiration, particularly the ones with religious dietary restrictions, and see what kind of awesomeness the Indians, for example, bestow on vegetables and legumes.  I love this cookbook for the beets and stir-fried cabbage alone.  I recently made a very tasty lamb curry for the family with less than one pound of meat.  It looked pathetic, I’ll admit, a few meaty chunks in a great pool of sauce.  But the meal ended up being all about the sauce, anyway, as it soaked into the rice, and everyone wanted seconds of that and the greens braised in ginger cream.  The meat was just gravy, so to speak. 

Here’s another article worth reading by Mark Bittman that offers some good suggestions for how to reduce your meat intake should you be so inclined.  Any meatless or almost-meatless meals you swear by?

Wine Has a New Attitude

Ever notice how I don’t talk about wine that much?  It’s because I don’t know what I’m talking about.  I know it’s wet.  I know it’s grape-y.  I can usually tell the difference between red and white.  I recently spit out a pricey Chardonnay everyone else insisted was perfectly good, yet I’ve never met a red Spanish table wine I didn’t like.  Generally, though, it’s fair to say that if you offer me a glass of wine, any kind, I won’t refuse it. 

If you like wine, too, then 40 of the more creative, less stuffy wine bloggers out there have an April Fools surprise for you.

How2Choke

There’s a Web site out of Cambridge called How2Heroes that films fun, educational videos of local people demonstrating their food-related crafts.  You can watch Joanne Chang of Flour Bakery make her famous sticky buns, and learn about cheese-making from the farmers at Shy Brothers Farm in Westport.  They even have regular folks like you and me cooking stuff.  It’s worth checking out if there’s a topic or technique you’d like to learn more about, like maple sugaring, and you’re sick of the annoying personalities on the telly.

They contacted me a few months back about doing a video for one of my recipes.  I came up with what I thought was a very convincing string of excuses for why I didn’t think that would be possible.  That I would be washing my hair that particular day.  That I would be brushing it the next.  That I would be attempting to style it for the next three days in a row and, no, the following week I would have to start the process all over again.  But they were remarkably persistent, and so it would seem that my remaining cat fell gravely ill.  Then family members started dropping like flies.  Some more than once.  At least one was brought to the brink of death but then experienced a miraculous recovery, only to have a fluke household accident finish them off 36 hours later.  It was very hard to keep all the stories straight, frankly.

Finally, orphaned and petless, I had a Wednesday free to do a video on how to make a very simple maple ice cream.  You can watch it here, if you’re brave enough.  Brave because you’ll notice that I drew upon my trademark ultra-relaxed, super-confident, breezy personal style that puts everyone at ease.  Don’t smile, Tammy.  We wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.

Given that the guys manning the cameras were as nice as could be, I can only surmise that the reason for my deer-in-headlights demeanor was that there was a second whisk that was lodged somewhere.  Somewhere unspeakable.  And every time I so much as hinted at letting my guard down, someone would come up behind me with a croquet mallet and take hard aim.  And now that you have that image in your head, this should be a hell of a lot more entertaining to watch. 

I’ll be sure to get myself good and liquored up next time.  If there is a next time.

Spring Cleaning

I always have high aspirations for doing a thorough house cleansing and purging at this time of year, but the problem is that spring is the wrong time to do it.  Winter is the right time.  Winter, when you’re stuck in the house anyway and there’s no escaping the mushrooming filth.  Spring, on the other hand, is the time to get the hell out of the house and back into the world.  To escape said filth.  Spring is not the time to be forced into captive scullery work like a disregarded stepchild.

So, I stepped outside yesterday to breathe in the warm, fragrant spring air, and all the oxygen was sucked out of my chest by a wind so cold and bitter, I had to run back inside and cuddle up with a vacuum cleaner for warmth.  Maybe, just maybe, I thought, spring is also a time for rebirth.  A time to reinvent myself as someone who cleans the house once in a while.  Someone who takes pride in the appearance of her domicile.

Long story short, I did some spring cleaning on my blog instead.  If you put your laptop on your actual lap, your body temperature goes up by 30 degrees in five seconds flat.  Also, it has a soothing whirring sound unlike my Eureka upright. 

You may notice that there are some new links to local blogs over there on the left, some optimistically seasonal pictures on the right, and I finally fixed my FAQ page so the banner isn’t cut off halfway across (it only took two years).  I updated the questions themselves, too.  It’s not much, but it’s something.  The non-virtual dust bunnies will have to die another day. 

Bartering is Back

Here's this week's post on BlogHer:

Now that the First Lady has announced the creation of an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn, I’m feeling empowered.  Like maybe it was my BlogHer post on the subject that may have tipped the scale in our favor.  So now I’m wondering what else we can revive, preferably a well-established idea onto which I can just piggyback at the last minute.  I know.  Bartering!

The direct exchange of goods and services for other goods and services without any money involved has been in place for a long, long time.  Since the dinosaurs, at least, like the time a Tyrannosaurus Rex reportedly bartered a delicious meal from a Stegosaurus in exchange for a swift and merciful death.  (Sorry, I’ve been playing with dinosaurs all day.)

Bartering made particularly excellent sense in the time period before currency was invented but after stealing was considered poor form:

Caveman1: What’s that?

Caveman2: A saber-toothed tiger I hunted.  You?

Caveman1: Half a mastodon.  (sigh)  Mastodon soup, mastodon stew, mastodon chowder.  I’m sooooo sick of mastodon.

Caveman2: Do you want to buy some tiger chops off of me?  

Caveman1: Only if I can sell some of this goddamned mastodon.

Caveman2: I like mastodon.

Caveman1: Okay, but I don’t have anything to give you to symbolize that I’m exchanging my mastodon for your chops.  I mean, besides the mastodon itself.  

Caveman2: Yeah, me neither.  I just have the chops.  How would we know that an actual exchange was taking place?  I mean, besides remembering what we had before.

Caveman1: There’s no way to tell.  What should we do?

Caveman2: I know.  We could just put them on either side of this rock slab and each walk to the other side and then run away with whatever's in front of us?

Caveman1: That'll never work.  We have to fight to the death.

Caveman2: (sigh) Okay, here I go again…

Once more, I apologize.  My prehistoric knowledge is limited to the Ice Age movies.

With the advent of currency, bartering fell out of favor for practical reasons.  For example, it’s hard to make change when you’re trading a mule for a bucket of eggs.  Also, coins and paper money meant that you could more easily conduct three-way, four-way, or even 16-way trades if the person who wanted to barter with you didn’t have anything you wanted (or if they had hideous taste) (or if, like me, they constantly offer poor trades).

Now that none of us has any money, bartering has gone mainstream, with sites like Craig’s List ready to set you up with someone who wants your used crap as much as you want theirs.  Bartering never really went out of style with the culinarily inclined, who might trade a jar of this for a jar of that to manage their surpluses or just to keep things interesting.  But now, with the miracle of the Internet, it’s taken on a whole new dimension.  Soup Swaps have sprung up all over the country from Seattle to Boston, where people make a batch of soup, portion it into a designated number of containers, freeze them, and then meet at a predetermined location to socialize and exchange with the other participants.  Joelen of Joelen’s Culinary Adventures hosts meal exchanges in Chicago called Brunch & Barter, where everyone meets for brunch and exchanges pre-portioned meals in much the same way.  It’s a lot like a holiday cookie swap but without the guilt and self-loathing that occurs when you go home and eat them all in one sitting.

But bartering doesn’t necessarily require that much orchestration.  It can be as simple as exchanging baked goods for fresh yogurt and raw honey from local farmers, as Kate of Living the Frugal Life demonstrates.  Or it can inspire some pretty interesting business arrangements, like the Will Work For Food Project.  The owner of a Boston-area design firm, Gates Studio, forged a relationship with several small area farms in which she offered marketing and branding services in exchange for locally grown food.  The response was overwhelming.

An economy in the toilet can mean new opportunities to get creative with your own skills and resources.  I'd like to see more of this.  Do you barter?

Dulcet Caramel, You Will Be Mine

Recently, a jar of Argentine dulce de leche caught my eye at Russo’s.  I didn’t even hesitate as I placed it lovingly in my basket.  After all, this is the time of year when I eat whatever the hell I want, from wherever I want, environment be damned.  It’s been a long winter and the summer is still achingly out of reach.  So, I figured, I could either fly the whole family down to Argentina for dessert or fly the dulce de leche up to me.  (It was a bitch of a flight, but I got the goods.)

This dulce de leche by La Salamandra, essentially caramelized whole milk, is by far the best I’ve ever had, with deep caramel tones and a full, rich mouthfeel.  Now the canned stuff will forever suck by comparison.  I spread it on crêpes for a mid-afternoon snack, then melted and poured it over ice cream for a mid-evening snack.  A banoffee pie even crossed my mind for a midnight snack, except by then I had already eaten the rest of it right out of the jar.  God, this stuff is amazing.

So, here’s a question.  Has anyone ever boiled cans of condensed milk for hours to make dulce de leche?  And did they explode?  Back in my twenties, I did this quite a few times without considering the dangers of cans under pressure.  Then I heard all of these second-hand horror stories about explosions and caramel-coated kitchens and I haven’t done it since.  Just curious what your experience has been.  David Lebovitz says you can make it in the oven without the can, which seems less controversial/exciting.  But I may never go back to cans again now that it seems like you can make better stuff with regular milk (do I hear local?), sugar, and baking soda in a pot.  Or at least the Argentines can.  As always, I will report back.  In the meantime, here’s a snack.

Crêpes with Dulce de Leche

My crappy 7-inch non-stick T-Fal from college makes awesome crêpes.  Don’t tell anyone.

2 eggs
1/3 cup flour
Pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1 Tbsp. butter
Dulce de leche

Whisk together eggs, flour, and salt in a medium bowl.  Slowly add the milk, whisking constantly, until smooth.  Strain batter into another bowl, cover, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.  The batter will seem like it's way too thin, but it's not.

Heat a 7-inch non-stick pan over medium heat until hot.  Grease pan with a little butter, then pour in ¼ cup of batter, swirling to coat the bottom of the pan evenly.  Cook 1-2 minutes, until the edges start to brown and the underside is cooked and developing toasty spots.  Flip crêpe and cook 1 minute more.  The first one always comes out like crap.  Persevere.

Transfer crêpe to plate and spread dulce de leche on half of it.  This is easier to do if the dulce de leche is room temperature.  If it’s coming from the fridge, you can nuke it slightly to loosen it up, but be careful or you’ll end up with a puddle that refuses to be wrangled.  Fold crêpe in half, then in half again, and devour.  Repeat.  Makes about 6.  (Also good with Nutella or whatever other fillings you might concoct.)

Source: Adapted from Saveur, from an article by Melissa Hamilton (I think).

Luck of the Famished

In honor of St. Paddy’s day, we were visited this morning by leprechauns.  Have a look-see:

What the hell?  What month is it again?  I just packed away my musket and everything.

We were alerted to the invasion by the 3YO, who was sitting on the potty, looking out the window and muttering happily to himself about “turkeys in the grass.”  Yeah, yeah, I said, turkeys in the grass, aliens in the sky.  Pipe down and do your business (potty training is a sore spot with me at the moment).  Then I saw that there were, in fact, turkeys out there.  Eleven of them.  Our tiny yard was filled feather to feather with wild turkeys.  With all the ruckus the kids were making in their so-called observation mode, the male puffed himself up into full tail-feather display (or it could have been my shrieking at the kids to be quiet that did it).  Then, one of the turkeys flew up into a tree, which was a very odd thing to see.  I always knew turkeys had wings, but I thought they were just ornamental.

I’m afraid there’s no pot of gold at the end of this St. Patrick’s rainbow.  But, there is a pot of soup.  Extra points if you use turkey stock.

Stracciatella (Egg Drop Soup)

Because, like so many Bostonians, my Irish is mixed with a little Italian.

6 cups chicken or turkey stock
2 cups fresh spinach or Swiss chard, washed, stemmed, roughly chopped
5 egg whites
1 Tbsp. lemon rind
1 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Bring stock to a boil and add spinach.  Lower heat and cook for 2 minutes.  Meanwhile, beat egg whites with lemon rind, cheese, salt, and pepper.  Dribble into simmering broth.  Stir gently and turn off heat.  Let sit for 5 minutes.  Stir in any additional salt and pepper it may need before serving.

Source: Adapted from Ciro’s Provincetown Kitchen by Ciro and Alethea Cozzi, one of my favorite Italian cookbooks, which I believe is out of print.

Four Stocks You Can Count On

In these troubled times, it’s hard to know the safest place to put your money.  I’ve never claimed to be any sort of financial expert, but I know where I’ll be storing my nest egg, and it ain’t under my mattress.  No, these 10 bucks are going straight into my stockpot.  That way, come June, I’ll know I have something left.  Take that, economy.

To continue our previous discussion, don’t let stock’s reputation get you down.  It just requires that you have access to a large pot, that you remain in the vicinity of your house for a few hours while it simmers away (not hard when you’re poor), and that you have some freezer space in which to store it.  Stock is a good way to clean out your crisper of limp celery, dehydrated carrots, and that leek you don’t know what to do with, as well as any onions that are starting to sprout.  I use parsley leaves often when I cook, so I save the stems for stock.  Any vegetables that are about to rot, I store in the freezer until it’s time to make stock.  Same with leftover wine, if you can imagine such a thing.  Ditto for bones, which is one of the benefits of buying local meat. 

Here’s the method for vegetable stock (broth, really), but use whatever you have on hand.  VegYear says potatoes are the secret to a great veggie stock, so I’ve learned something today.  You can then modify this basic recipe if you have access to bones.  Often you can get some for cheap or free from your local butcher or fishmonger if you ask.

Basic Technique: Vegetable Broth

3 onions (or leeks), halved (peeled or unpeeled)
2 garlic cloves, smashed (peeled or unpeeled)
2 carrots and/or parsnips in large chunks (unpeeled with tops is fine, washed would be nice)
2 celery stalks (or small celery root) in large chunks
Handful of parsley stems
Several springs of thyme
A bay leaf
A sprinkling of whole peppercorns
A cup of wine (optional)

Cover with water by several inches (vegetables will float, so use your imagination).  Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.  Let cool a bit, then strain and portion into freezable containers (or ice cube trays).

Here are some non-vegetarian stock options:

Chicken Stock
Add a meaty chicken carcass to the vegetables and add water to cover.  Simmer 2-3 hours, skimming off the foamy stuff that collects at the top.  Strain out the solids and remove the slick layer of fat from the top of the remaining stock.  Or leave it in like I do.

Beef Stock
I like to roast five pounds of beef, veal, or lamb bones for about 45 minutes in a 375ºF oven first to get those deep, meaty, caramelized flavors going on.  Then they go into the pot with the vegetables.  Simmer for 3-4 hours, skimming the foam off every so often.  Remove the fat if you like (this is easier to do when it’s been in the freezer for an hour or two, as it helpfully congeals).

Fish Stock
Fish heads or racks (meaning skeletons, not breasts) from white fish like haddock are ideal.  Oilier fish like salmon I’ve heard don’t make good stock.  You’re supposed to remove the eyes, which cloud up the stock, but I just leave them alone (somehow, gouging them out seems grosser than cooking them).  I like to use fennel fronds in place of carrots, but that’s just me.  Simmer for 30 minutes, skimming occasionally.

Now that you’ve invested in delicious stocks, how do you know when it’s time to cash out?  I find chicken and vegetable stocks to be the most versatile with a subtle flavor good for most soups or sauces.  I like them in risotto and polenta, too.  You can even use them to braise tougher greens like collards and kale.  Beef stock has a more assertive flavor, good for heartier soups and stews.  I use fish stock whenever a recipe calls for clam juice in chowder or any fish-based soup, and you could also use it to poach seafood.  Just remember to add salt whenever you cook with homemade stock.  You’ll need a fair amount, but it will be nowhere near what you get with bouillon cubes.

So, who’s with me?  Let’s hear it for frozen assets, the only investments you can really rely on these days.  At least until they shut off your electricity.  What else do you guys use stock for?

Stock v. Writer’s Block

Stock Novice called me out on one of my posts last week.  The one about onion soup where I was all, “Go grab yourself some homemade beef stock out of your freezer, which you surely keep jam-packed full of hand-crafted broths in well-marked, dated containers arranged alphabetically by animal.”  As if everyone pees homemade stock. 

Her question was a good one: How do you incorporate stock-making into your daily life?  I would follow that up with: And why?  And if we’re going that far, we might as well define stock, which is just broth made with bones and vegetables.  Why bones?  Because they have a lot of flavor (but you can make “stock” out of vegetables alone and nobody’s going to sue you).  I cook with stock for the same reason that I tend to favor fresh, local produce: because my cooking comes out so much better that way.  You get a high rate of return for a minimal investment, at least by my calculations.

The best time to embark on stock-making is in the fall, winter, or early spring when it’s cold and you want to be warm.  It will make your house toasty and delicious-smelling.  I make and use a lot of stock in the winter for soups, and the remainder gets put away for the summer.  Making stock is quite simple.  It is time-consuming, but the bulk of that time is completely unsupervised.  So, I might put a pot on after breakfast and let it go while I vacuum (meaning check my e-mail), clean the bathroom (meaning check Twitter), break up some squabbles (meaning yell from the other room and hope for the best), and do some laundry (meaning read blogs while actually doing laundry because I haven’t figured out how to get out of that, yet). 

In other words, if you’re at all homebody-ish and/or computer-oriented, then stock is a good way to justify your time.  Or, as a completely hypothetical example, to get out of an unwanted social engagement:

Friend: Hey, think you can help me move this weekend?

You: Didn’t you just move?

Friend: Yeah.

You: Oh, man, I totally wish I could, but I have the whole weekend blocked out to make stock.

Friend: Dude, that sounds so hard. 

You: It’s crazy hard.

Friend: Why don’t you let loose for a few hours?  Maybe grab one end of a pool table for me…

You: I can’t, man.  Fire hazard.  Talk to the stock.  When the stock’s a-rocking, don’t come a-knocking.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about a fringe benefit of stock I like to call “edible composting,” as well as how to make four different kinds of stock.  And then, what the hell to use them for.  Perhaps I can drag this topic out for a whole year!  Stay tuned.

Taking Stock

I’m kind of burnt out, if you must know, so posting may be light this week and next.  I say “may” because as soon as I commit to taking a blog vacation, I suddenly get bombarded by inspiration in the most mundane things, and then I have to handcuff myself to the radiator so I don’t spend six hours on the computer when I’m supposed to be doing other stuff.  Stuff in the vicinity of the radiator, I guess.

Me: (in my best whine) I can’t think of anything to write about.

Me: Fine.  Don’t write then. 

Me: …

Me: That’s right, the blog is closed.  You’re cut off.

Me: Wait, no... 

Me: Don’t worry, there are plenty of other blogs for people to read.

Me: But what about all this important shit I have to write about?

Me: (sigh) Like what.

Me: Like, um…stock.  Yeah.  Somebody asked a good question about stock last week and they deserve an answer, goddamnit.

See?  Some might call it co-dependency, but I prefer to think of it as outsmarting writer’s block.  Tomorrow, we’ll see if it worked.

P is for…

For the past several weeks, the Kindergartener’s teacher has introduced a new letter of the alphabet to the class.  Friday’s letter was P.  P as in pickle, pie, pear, pomegranate.  The kids are then asked to draw something that begins with the letter P.  Here was the Kindergartener’s contribution:

Me: (uncomfortable throat clearing followed by raspy wheezing) …

Him: See, Mommy?  It’s a pan.

Oh.  Pan.  Phew.