The lure of lore

When we made jam with Cynthia at the farm she sterilized her jars by slowly heating them in the oven at 100º C. Her oven didn't have any gauge of temperature. Sé mi horno, chicas, she told us, grinning, an invitation to share her secrets. Just as Cynthia knew her oven, and when it was going to rain, she knew how to make jam, bread, ice cream, beer, and champagne. All without a recipe. Without anything but her plastic kitchen scale and her contented smile. She just knew.

Cynthia started with recipes. Every so often she'd pull out her penned catalogs - pages of loose leaf with happy notes from former apprenticeships and classes. She brought them out to share with us. She no longer needs them; her work in the kitchen has become her friendly routine.

With Cynthia as our guide the volunteers and I voraciously jotted down partially translated scripts from our days spent learning in her kitchen. I flip through mine and find the menu for Christmas dinner, stick figure-like sketches reminding me how to shape bread into braids and pretzels, recipes for butter and empanadas, but the dulce recipe, the one for jam, is missing.

Finding dozens of recipes for apricot jam - each a variation of the one that came before - I turned to another guide, Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking-the Science and Lore of the Kitchen. I recall Cynthia as I read his explanation. With every recipe she served a story, an elaboration, an explanation. McGee knows the true science of the kitchen, but Cynthia, with her magic kneading hands and dulce de leche marbles, knows the lore.

Apricot Jam 

about 5 cups of apricots, halved and pitted
about 1/4 cup of water
3 3/4 cups sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice

A little bit about jam making (learned from Mr. McGee):

• Jam making is a process that involves  cooking fruit to extract its pectin. The combination of heat and acid will eventually break down the fruit. 
• Once the fruit has broken down, sugar is added and the mixture should be rapidly brought to a boil to remove the water and cause the other ingredients to concentrate, forming the jam. Boiling is continued until the temperature of the mix reaches 217-221º F or 103-105º C. 
• McGee explains that a fresher flavor is produced when this cooking is done at a gentle simmer in a wide pot with a large surface area to allow for greater and quicker evaporation. 
• At last, an acid is added, and the readiness of the mix is tested by placing a drop on a cold spoon to see if it gels.

So. Stick a spoon or dish in the freezer.

Place the apricots and water in a large, wide pot. Cook at a medium heat, stirring frequently, until the fruit has mostly broken down. Then add the sugar and raise the heat to bring the mixture to a boil quickly, still stirring frequently. Once boiling for several minutes, reduce the heat until the mixture is at a gentle simmer. When the mixture has condensed and most of the liquid appears gone (if you have a thermometer, the temperature of the mix will be 217-221º F or 103-105º C) add the lemon juice and mix to incorporate. Test the readiness of the jam by placing a drop on the chilled spoon or dish. If when you push the mixture gently with your finger it wrinkles instead of sliding back to its original position, the jam is ready.

Can or store accordingly.

A Canadian dressing

Though I lived in Montreal for four plus years, very few particularities of Canadian cuisine managed to seep into my repertoire. That's why I keep my Toronto-born friend Aviva around - to give me a little taste of what I've been missing.

The day after I returned from my trip this summer I met a visiting Aviva in Brooklyn and hauled her back here for a home-cooked feast. We celebrated my return home and her stateside visit by stocking the fridge and soiling the counter with a mess intended to be tortellini. While I hunched over oozing and tearing pockets of dough my dear friend located a little bottle of one of Canada's finest offerings - pure maple syrup - and converted our salad into one delicious bowl of expat.

 

Aviva's Maple Dijon Vinaigrette 

Drizzle over greens or any basic salad. The dressing is sweet, not mapley. Cover and refrigerate surplus.

3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon pure maple syrup

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper, to taste

In a small glass or mug combine mustard, syrup, olive oil, and vinegar. With a small whisk or fork whisk or stir quickly until the ingredients have blended into a thicker, cohesive mixture. Taste, and if desired, add salt or pepper.

Tales from the road: cobble, cobble, cobbler

This is a story from my road trip, about some pie that I had, and the cobblers it inspired. 

Just a few hours from home, fueled by a hankering for pie, Joe steered us from the highway to the Arrowhead Drive-In Restaurant in Milton, Pennsylvania. This was our last taste of the road.

I had been saving myself dinner at home, but sitting at the counter surrounded by octogenarian regulars I caved. We split an order of chicken and biscuits - Special Number Two.

Though the menu was for some reason irresistible, pie had been the draw and it was pie that proved to be the most redeeming of the joint's offerings.

The owner made each pie from scratch, and liked to go out back, behind the restaurant, where she planted a messy tangle of rhubarb, to give her baking a local flare.

I came home wanting desserts made with summer fruit I wished I had growing in my backyard. All summer I had been yearning for berries and peaches and plums and cherries. Quite by chance I found myself faced with two bundles of blueberries and an eagerness to not only throw them atop my morning yogurt, but also to let them star in the wonderful concoction known as cobbler.

With the opportunity to make two cobblers in the span of a week I got to try to recipes that I had my eye one. Below is a combination of the two, the recipe for a darn good cobbler.

Mostly blueberry cobbler with cornmeal biscuit 
adapted from Rustic Fruit Desserts and Smitten Kitchen

1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature, for dish

For fruit filling:

4 cups peaches
2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
2/3 cups brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, about 1/2 lemon
1/2 fine sea salt


For biscuit topping: 

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cornmeal

3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1/2 cup buttermilk

To skin the peaches: Bring a large pot of water to boil. Slit an X in the bottom of each peach. Slide into boiling water and let sit for about 30 seconds, just enough to blanch, but not enough to cook at all. Remove them, and once cool, being peeling off the skin from the X. It should slide off easily. Pit the peaches and slice.

Preheat oven to 425°. In a medium-sized bowl, toss peaches with blueberries, sugar, flour, lemon juice, and salt. Butter the bottom of a 2-quart baking dish and gently pour the fruit mixture in.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, cornmeal, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut the butter into the dry mixture using your fingertips to blend until it has formed pea-sized balls. Stir in buttermilk with a rubber spatula until a wet, tacky dough comes together.

Plop spoonfuls of the biscuit dough over the filling; don’t worry about covering entire surface. Bake until the cobbler’s syrup is bubbly and the biscuit tops are browned, about 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving.

Best enjoyed almost immediately, but keeps for a few days in the fridge.

A cooperative eggplant

The first time I tried to make this was a disaster. It was during my second year away at school. I was living in my first apartment, cooking for myself for the first time. Vowing to steer clear of ramen, I relied on basic takes of my mom's classic recipes.

She called me one afternoon, as she often does, to rave about a recent find - an eggplant salad, calling for feta, one bowl, and only a half hour of oven-time.  An eggplant enthusiast, I planned to make the dish for my next meal. With no copy of the recipe in front of her, she advised I search the New York Times website. It has to be the only eggplant salad you find, she said. Indeed I did only find one. It just wasn't the right one. And what ensued wasn't bad, but it sure wasn't good (due to no fault but my own).

Though my mom mailed me a color photocopy of the real recipe shortly thereafter, I was never again inclined to make the dish. I've had it several times since then, when upon eying the jungle of mint leaves crowding her pots my mom whips it up each summer. I've loved it every time, for, as the newspaper article accompanying the recipe proclaims, it's a cool, clean take on eggplant. It wasn't until I made the dish, though, and became enchanted by its simplicity that I truly understood what all of the original fuss was about.

Summer Eggplant Salad with Feta and Mint
found here, from the New York Times

I followed the recipe almost exactly. The dressing becomes clouded and muddy in the most delicious of ways. I used about half of what the recipe calls for. It keeps well refrigerated.

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 3/4 pounds eggplant (any kind, or a mixture), trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon capers, chopped
1 pound mixed bell peppers, seeded and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (about 2/3 cup)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Whisk together the oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Toss eggplant with 1/3 cup vinaigrette, reserving the rest. Arrange on a baking sheet. Bake, tossing occasionally, until tender and golden around edges, about 30 minutes. Let eggplant cool somewhat. (It can be warm but not hot enough to melt feta or wilt mint.)

Whisk garlic and capers into reserved vinaigrette. In a large bowl, combine eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, and mint leaves. Toss with vinaigrette, sprinkle with feta. Serve immediately or within several hours.

Tales from the road: of goat cheese and farms

This is a story from this summer's road trip.

From San Francisco Joe and I continued our route northward to Applegate, Oregon, a spot not too far past the state border decorated with farms and two-lane roads. It was to one farm in particular where we were headed, a family farm where some of Joe's friends work for the summer.

It was Sunday. We packed the car early and bid adieu to chilly San Fran and our bed - adorned with not one, not two, but three duvets - that we borrowed for our stay.

The day steered us along terribly windy roads miniatured by Redwoods, to a teeny overpriced gas station, and a lone general store that offered the makings of an ideal lunch: a well-stocked deli counter and thick homemade brownies.

Tales from the road: San Fran one bite at a time

I know I shared my fantasy of daily updates, but, friends, Internet access has been an unkind stranger. So bear with me as I search for wireless and in the meantime plan stories and recipes to share in the future. For now I do not cook, but I present you with a peak at people in San Francisco who do.

Kelley, I owe you big-time, girl. Were it not for your love affair with the city of San Francisco and your current unemployment allowing you unbridled time to indulge your friends, I would nevereverever have discovered the food wonders you suggested I try.

Kelley is a brand-new friend who spent all of her twenty-some-odd years in California, but now resides in Brooklyn. She has only seen snow once, has - I've come to learn - artfully well-tuned taste buds, and knows all the hippest, most tasty places to tantalize them.

San Francisco is the one stop on my California road adventure where it seemed possible to avoid breaking out the bills every time hunger roars its mighty call. You see, Joe and I are staying in a friend's apartment, and that apartment so conveniently features a lovely yellow kitchen and the necessary appliances for creating a home-cooked meal. The ventures we've made outside of the kitchen, as per Kelley's wise word, have been positively phenomenal and very well worth the (usually small) fare we've doled out. The excerpts that follow are not intended as reviews, but are merely an opportunity to relay my delight of the few eateries I've sampled

run, forrest, run

Since March I have been waking extra-early before work, regularly visiting a well-shaded trail in a neighboring town, and repeatedly tracing a selection of streets in my own. I've been training, you see - not for a "Who Love Bergen County Roads Best Bee, but for a race, one that I will run this Sunday in sunny, never-been-seen-by-me San Diego.

The race is San Diego's take on the Rock n Roll Marathon. Take back your gasp. I'm only running half. Still that's a whopping 13.1 miles.


Completing a marathon has been on the "things I really want to do" list that I sometimes compose in my head for a number of years. I keep this list in mind, yet don't consider achieving the goals until I know that I can actually make them happen. At that point I write down the task, and in the case of the marathon, I runrunrun. That's not exactly how this went down.

When I was introduced to Team in Training in March, an organization that would not only help me, but benefit others as well, I was struck by the urgent impetus to commit on the spot. With three months to go and a handful of reservations nagging sporadically in my head, I signed up to run farther than I have ever before and to raise a sizable sum that would make its way to people living with blood cancer.

Without getting into it too much, I'd like to let you know that TNT is a truly impressive organization - supportive, legitimate, organized, and kind. Training and fundraising have given me direction in the past three months.

Friday marks the beginning of the culmination of all of that. It also marks the beginning of what I'm hoping will be a wonderful summer - one that involves me, my dear friend Joe, and his trusty car. We'll be tracing the coast from California up north before making our way back east. With this trip I hope to bring you a daily chronicle (or almost-daily, depending on Internet availability) of our days on the road. The form that this will take has yet to come to me. But I have a lengthy flight tomorrow to figure it out.

I baked a variation of 101 Cookbook's Marathon Cookies to celebrate, commemorate, and fuel me for the occasion. They're delightful lumps of protein, power, and spicy goodness. I highly recommend them if you're inclined to carry snacks on summer activities, or like to eat cookies for breakfast.

Finally, if you would like to donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, first thank you! and second, you can do so here, at my fundraising page.

(Half-) Marathon Cookies
adapted (only a little) from Heidi Swanson at 101 Cookbooks

2 c rolled oats (not instant oats)
1 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tbsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
zest of one lemon
1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt

one 15-ounce can white kidney, great northern, or navy beans, rinsed & drained
1/4 c olive oil
1 c natural cane sugar (or brown sugar)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 c chopped dates
1 c sesame seeds

Preheat your oven to 350F degrees and place a rack in the top third. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Pulse the oats in a food processor (or blender) until they resemble a raggy flour. Transfer the oats to a large mixing bowl and whisk in the flour, spices, baking powder, baking soda, lemon zest and salt.

Pulse the beans and olive oil in the food processor until they are creamy. Add the sugar, egg, dates, 1/3 c sesame seeds, and vanilla extract and pulse until smooth. Scrap down the sides of the bowl once or twice along the way.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir until the ingredients start to come together.

Place the remaining sesames seeds in a bowl. Form each cookie with a scant 1/4 cup scoop of dough. Roll each scoop of dough into a ball then coat it with sesame seeds. Set each ball on the prepared baking sheet and with the palm of your hand flatten the dough just a bit. Repeat with the remaining dough, leaving at least an inch or so between each cookie.Bake for about 15 minutes or until the sesame seeds around the bottom start to get golden.