FOOD ON THE FOOD

Stalking the Wild Mushrooms

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I know I said I wasn’t going to start foraging for wild mushrooms—that I’m only going to grow them, and only varieties that I know aren’t poisonous and that won’t give me any kind of weird allergic reactions.  However, I strongly feel that if I continue to grow mushrooms out in nature, even common cultivated varieties, I really ought to have a knowledge base surrounding mushrooms in general, especially the ones growing wild in my area. 

In this quest to educate myself, I’ve been taking photos.  I’m a visual learner and the first step in identifying mushrooms, I imagine, is to notice them on the ground instead of trampling all over them unwittingly.  Once you get a little rain, it’s amazing how many of them you can find if you pay attention!  Below is a small sampling of the more interesting-looking wild mushrooms I ran across on my walks.  They are not necessarily all edible, though I suspect some of them might be.  I did not eat or touch any of them—just photographed them.  I assume all mushrooms are poisonous unless somebody knowledgeable, trustworthy, and physically present on-site tells me otherwise, and, even then, I’m skeptical.  Have I ever wronged this person in any way?  Could he or she be after my vast fortunes?

Still, I’m having fun trying to match up my photos to the ones in my mushroom identification book.  I have a few guesses as to what some of them are, which I’ll share in the comment section.  However, they are only GUESSES, Google.  I will not be held accountable for other people poisoning themselves.  You should never eat a mushroom if you’re in any way unsure of its identity and edibility, right?  That’s only common sense. 

If I have any mycologist readers, feel free to join the discussion in comments.  The more people that disagree with my barely-educated guessing, the more I’ll have to fixate on the details and potentially be forced to learn something.

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Who knew mushrooms could be so beautiful?

The Binghamton Area Meat Experience

In my very tomato-oriented post about our vacation to mid-state New York last month, I failed to mention the meat.  This is a very important oversight on my part, one that requires immediate rectification, because there are several specialties from that region that cannot go unmentioned. 

First up: Snappy Grillers.  I may be partial to Hebrew Nationals and Fenway Franks made by local Chelsea-based Kayem, but there’s plenty of room in my heart for additional hot dogs.  Snappy Grillers are German franks in natural casings made by Hofmann in Syracuse.  A mix of pork and veal gives them their pale color.  They grill up crispy and addictive, and how many I ate during that week on the lake is not important so don’t ask. 

Then, there’s beef on weck.  Weck, for the uninitiated, is short for kummelweck, which is a type of German roll topped with big grains of salt and caraway seeds.  The sandwich itself consists of a pile of thinly sliced rare roast beef on the aforementioned weck, cut side of the top bun dipped in beef juices (sorry: “au jus”), but not to the point of sogginess, and dabbed with as much horseradish as you deem appropriate.  I like to make myself cry, apparently, but it’s unclear whether it was the effects of the horseradish or just my usual emotional reaction to an exceptional sandwich. 

But perhaps our favorite of the area meats, and the one attributed to Binghamton in particular, are spiedies.  Pronounced “speedies,” they are marinated chunks of lamb, beef, pork, or chicken, skewered and grilled, and served in a slice of Italian scali bread.  My friend Red, whose family owns the lake house at which we were squatting, grills onions and green peppers for the sandwiches, too. 

Spiedies originated with the Italian immigrants that settled in the Binghamton area.  Spiedini means “grilled skewered meat” in Italian, and once the grilling is complete, slices of buttered Italian bread were traditionally used as a sort of mitt to pull the meat off the skewers so that there’s a seamless transition from grill to mouth.  Or you can be more civilized about it and put the grilled meat and vegetables on a platter for more systematic sandwich construction.  Your choice.

We got our spiedies pre-marinated from Lupo’s in Binghamton, as is the tradition in Red’s family.  Lupo’s recipe is top secret, though I did steal a peek at the ingredients on a bottle of Lupo’s marinade on display at Wegmans.  You can also buy the spiedie marinade online here.  I suspect one of the secrets is an extra-long marination time for a really deep, penetrating flavor.  Of course, it was only a matter of time before I tried to make it myself.  Here’s a recipe I adapted from one that was cut out of a Binghamton-area newspaper and tucked into a cookbook at the lake house.  It’s from spiedie prize-winner Patrick Kennedy of Endicott, NY and, along with a few additions of my own, yields a very close approximation of those delicious summer meals we enjoyed so much.

 

Spiedies

Use vegetable oil instead of olive oil for the marinade because it won’t solidify in the refrigerator and hamper the long 2- to 3-day marination process.

2½ lbs. sirloin steak, lamb, pork, or chicken breast
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
2 tsp. dried oregano (or marjoram, my preference)
2 tsp. dried thyme
2 tsp. dried basil
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1 bay leaf
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
Sliced onions and green peppers
Italian scali bread
Salted butter, softened

Trim meat and cut into 1½-inch chucks.  In a large bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, garlic, salt, and spices.  Add meat and mix until well coated.  Cover and refrigerate 2-3 days, stirring every day to redistribute marinade.

If using wooden skewers, soak for half an hour before grilling.   Thread meat onto skewers and let sit at room temperature while heating grill.  You can give the onions and peppers a quick soak in the leftover marinade before grilling if you’d like.  Grill meat and vegetables until nicely browned on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside.  Butter bread on one side and grab meat off the skewers.  Add onions and peppers, if so inclined, and then grab a beer.

Pickling and Self-Preservation

Just had my last cancer treatment today.  Only one more surgical procedure next week to remove the IV port, and my bionic status will be revoked, happily and (fingers crossed) permanently.

While we’re on the subject, I have an article up on Culinate about pickling.  I talk a bit about my summer on chemo, and how I found the process of preserving my CSA produce to be both therapeutic and unsettling in its parallels.  Let me know what you think.

Jive Turkey

The wild turkeys were back in our yard this weekend.  I almost stepped right on one while I was ambling about, until she reared up, wings spread, to get my attention. I made an involuntary surprised sound when I saw how close they were and took a few steps back.  Since there were six of them and only one of me, I slowly retreated.  I’ll admit it—I’m a little scared of turkeys.  I’ve seen the male chase a motorcycle down the street.  Somehow they’ve managed to keep the numbers in their urban posse up despite the coyotes, so I wasn’t about to mess with them.  No soup jokes.  Instead, I ran inside to alert the children that nature was happening in our yard.

Later on, while I was trimming back the wilderness in the front of the house, I heard Husband’s voice from the porch:

Him: Hey, I see another wild turkey!

Me: Where?

Him: Down by the street.

(Me, looking around)

Me: That's where I am.  I don’t see it.

Him: …

Me: You mean me, don’t you?  I’m the turkey.  (sigh)

One of these days, I’ll see the jokes coming.

Urban Foraging: Peaches

My blogger friend over at Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen has a friend in Dorchester with a peach tree.  A friend who was out of town when the peaches were at their peak, and who wouldn’t be back until after Hurricane Earl was projected to hit.  What would happen to all those ripe peaches? 

Well, Earl didn’t amount to much (up here anyway), but that shouldn’t detract from the heroic arrival of four concerned citizens right in the nick of time. And, by heroic, I mean purely self-serving.  Or maybe I should speak for myself.

We arrived to a sizeable tree so laden with fruit that some of the branches required propping up.  There was a hand-written sign on the tree instructing hungry passersby to twist—not pull—the fruit from the branches.  Most of the peaches were out of arm’s reach, so we used a telescoping peach-picker: a long pole with metal fingers at the end attached to a small metal cage to catch the peaches when they drop.  Like a super-long, potentially deadly lacrosse net.  The twisting was tricky to accomplish with a clawed pole aimed ten feet over our heads, but at least one of us got the hang of it.  Unfortunately, the twisty maneuvering would inevitably result in a major shakedown of the branches, sending nearby peaches plummeting to the ground and breaking open.  I assigned myself the task of trying to catch those peaches before they hit the pavement.  You can imagine the spectacle, I’m sure.  I almost had to add myself to the number of casualties.

Still, we managed to pick quite a few usable peaches.  Maybe 20 or 30 pounds?  They looked pretty gnarly, but they tasted GREAT.  Totally sweet and juicy, not mealy and flat-flavored like what you often find in the produce aisle of your well-intentioned supermarket.  Most of the black dots were only surface blemishes and came off with the skin. 

With my share of the loot, I made brandied peaches and peach jam.  Sadly, some portion of the stone fruits met their untimely demise over Labor Day weekend when I returned home to find a long, grayish-black hairy mold overtaking them like a Chia Pet growing actual human hair.  It was disgusting.  But I still have the jam!  And maybe next year we’ll have our own peach tree growing out of the compost bin!

Savin Hill Peach Jam

Adjust the recipe however you like: half the amount of sugar as peaches and some lemon juice for acidity.  I also added a little pectin just to make sure it would gel. 

4 lbs. peaches, skins on, pits removed, gnarly parts cut away
2 lbs. sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
1 Tbsp. pectin

Chop peaches coarsely and add to a large pot along with sugar.  Let sit, covered, at room temperature for several hours or overnight in the fridge. 

Dissolve pectin in lemon juice and add to peach mixture.  Simmer over medium-low heat for about an hour, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon at the beginning and increasing the frequency as it thickens to prevent the bottom from scorching.  Skim off any foam that rises to the top as it will cloud your jam.  It’s quite delicious for snacking, though.

When the mixture starts to look thick and jammy, hold your wooden spoon above the pot parallel to the floor, edges of the spoon up and down.  Tip the top of the spoon toward you slightly and watch the peach juice drip down into the pot.  If the drips come down in single, watery drips, you need to cook it some more.  If the drips start out singly, but then two drips join up to form one thick drip, this is sheeting.  I’m learning that I like to take the pot off the heat when it just reaches this point, sometimes a tiny bit sooner for a slightly looser jam.  (Alternatively, spoon a small amount onto a plate and put it in the freezer.  If it gels and wrinkles when touched, it’s good.) 

Ladle into clean jars.  Cool, cover, label, and refrigerate for up to a month.  Or, for longer lasting storage, can them using the boiling water method for 10 minutes.  Makes 6 pint jars.

Source: Adapted from Tea and Cookies.

Marathon Munchies

I did the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk today.  Well, the half-marathon version anyway: 13 miles along the marathon route from Babson College in Wellesley to Copley Square in Boston to benefit cancer research at Dana-Farber.  It took about 5 hours.  I finished fine, but it was interesting how my eating changed as the physical stress increased:

Mile 1: Nothing
Mile 2: Water
Mile 3: Nothing

Mile 4: Water, banana
Mile 5: Nothing
Mile 6: Water, half a bag of Smartfood
Mile 7: Nothing
Mile 8: Water, Butterfinger
Mile 9: Butterfinger
Mile 10: Butterfinger
Mile 11: Butterfinger, bag of chips
Mile 12: 2 Butterfingers
Mile 13: Water, hot dog, clam chowder, multiple celebratory Butterfingers

I hope Butterfingers don’t cause cancer or I’m in big trouble.

P.S. A special thanks to all the friends and family who supported me!

Simple End-of-Summer Pasta

We were lucky to have been invited by friends to their family lake house in New York at the tail end of summer vacation.  Located in the foothills between the Catskills and the Poconos, it’s a really cool old house with porches and a fireplace and bats in the attic, and you walk right out the back door onto a dock overlooking a beautiful spring-fed lake.

A total media blackout was enacted for the entire stay.  Fishing poles replaced TV, computer games were traded for a kayak, and nature walks were conducted rain or shine.  Six kids under age 8 shared beds and sleeping bags while Husband and I slept in a tent on the porch.  After the first chilly night, I stole all the blankets off of everyone else’s bed and stacked them up in the tent like The Princess and the Pea, wherein I played the role of both princess and pea.  Books were read and many bowls of ice cream were consumed.  Contentious Scrabble games, inflamed by questionable scorekeeping, were eventually tempered by wine and exhaustion.

All three couples brought our CSA shares from Waltham Fields and Lindentree Farm, and we somehow managed to consume all 19 pounds of tomatoes by way of pasta sauce, ratatouille, gazpacho, BLTs, salads, and countless tomato sandwiches of toasted Italian bread, warm mayo, slabs of ripe heirlooms, salt, pepper, and nothing more.  But here’s the other dish that made us swoon: Angel hair pasta tossed with raw cherry tomatoes macerated in a garlic and basil slurry.  It’s a lake house tradition that I daresay should extend beyond the lake.  Not only is it virtually no effort at all, but it’s a great way to enjoy the last of the season’s sungolds.

 

Angel Hair Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes, Garlic, and Basil

So good you could even skip the cheese!

1 lb. angel hair pasta
4 pints cherry tomatoes, halved
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
6 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
¼ cup fresh basil, chopped
Red pepper flakes to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Marinate tomatoes in olive oil, garlic, basil, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper for 4-6 hours.  Boil angel hair in salted water until al dente.  Drain, then toss with tomato mixture and as much Parmesan as desired.

Source: Adapted from The New York Times and Jean Halberstam of Nantucket.

Crabby

We got in one last Cape Cod beach day over the weekend and look what Husband found in the shallows: a beautiful blue crab.  I’ve never seen a live crab that size (or color) around here before.  Not since I was a little kid living near the Chesapeake Bay.  Husband hypothesized that Hurricane Earl must have churned up the oceans quite a bit because he also found a whole bunch of live scallops where we usually only find single-shelled remains.  

The crab was quite ill-tempered and pretty much exactly as depicted in Finding Nemo, brandishing its claws like the true weapons that they are, fearlessly facing off with four potential attackers 250 times its size.  Or maybe the number and size differential was the reason for his mood.  In any case, I’d like to borrow some of its evolutionary hutzpah for a day. 

We put it back where we found it, of course, in the relative protection of one of the deeper tidal pools.  The crab fought us every step of the way, clamping onto the net as we tried to lower it into a bucket and then refusing to let go.  Now I’m thinking maybe we shouldn’t have been so hasty with its release.  And I’m not strictly talking about succulent crab cakes.  No, I have too much respect for this particular crab.  I’m thinking more along the lines of dragging it around to various job interviews and such.  I think my skills and talents would be much more readily apparent with a giant, fearsome, lunging crab on my side. 

Got Milkweed?

This is our vacation souvenir.  The 2nd Grader found a tiny monarch caterpillar on a milkweed leaf outside the New York lake house our friends generously shared with us.  By the end of our stay, the caterpillar, who occupied his own bunk in an empty peanut butter jar, had more than tripled in size, and my oldest was lobbying hard to bring it home.  We agreed.

After the five-hour car ride back, however, it seemed a little lethargic.  Later in the day, it climbed up on the stick propped up inside the jar as if it were ready to spin its cocoon, but Husband noted that it was still way too small.  It needed fattening up and I knew just the person for the job.  However, the caterpillar was completely uninterested in the spread I set out for him: chocolate cake, ice cream, pickle, Swiss cheese, salami, lollipop, cherry pie, sausage, cupcake, and watermelon.  It’s weird because I got the menu from a very reliable source!  They ought to write a non-fiction book entitled The Very Finicky Caterpillar.

Instead, Husband went on an emergency milkweed run.  Husband knows about monarch caterpillars: they like milkweed and that is all.  Now the caterpillar is happily munching away again.  It’s almost big enough to undergo its transformation and the kids are awaiting the event with much anticipation.  (They’ve seen this at school before, but it’s different with your own caterpillar!)

I just hope this particular butterfly doesn’t mind the extra 300 miles he’s going to have to tack on to his 2,000-mile migration to Mexico.  Have an extra tequila on me, Flutterby!