Pancakes

We've had a number of nice pancake-mornings recently. My dear companion, coming at it with fresh eyes (never a pancake-maker before this!) produced the fluffiest, softest ones I've ever enjoyed...and they were not made with buttermilk. 

When I lived alone, my own method for pancakes was haphazard, improvisational, and concerned with fiber and nutrition and economy of egg. One egg or none at all, a dash of leaven and salt, and a few loose handfuls of oat bran, cornmeal, pulverized nuts or whatever was on hand,  just held together with a slurry of milk and a bit of refined flour.  For company and special brunches I made proper pancakes  with real buttermilk, which still seems like a revelation. My mother introduced me to the wonders of buttermilk pancakes, but long after my childhood was over...when I was growing up we relied on dried buttermilk from a can! 

So I was quite surprised when my dear breakfast-maker whipped up the most basic pancakes imaginable: a bit of white flour, a few teaspoons of sugar, a dash of salt, two eggs, some melted butter and the right quantity of milk... we were short some of the flour, as it turned out. These simple pancakes turned out wonderfully fluffy and light, quite indulgent-tasting and unlike the coarse "flapjacks" I used to scarf down alone each morning.

Re-issue: on Oyster Stew

In December 2004, I published this essay in an early incarnation of New Gastronomer. I came across it just now and find it interesting to review, three long years later. At the time, I was living in an untidy, vermin-infested apartment with other art students, and felt quite unsure of how to proceed.  Shortly thereafter, I made the stew as an accompaniment (alongside fruitcake) to my infamous final art school critique, a bitter session which led to my withdrawal from that institution. Everything happens for a reason!

Oyster Stew
I am surprised and a little ashamed that I started this community before ever having read MFK Fisher. Or at least--I am surprised that I had not read MFK fisher before starting this community. Or something. Fascinated though I was by Alice Waters, I confess now that I was scarcely aware of Fisher's legacy until just a month or two ago. So I have been reading up.

Last night I was reading from An Alphabet for Gourmets, beginning with A is for Dining Alone. She states, "There are few people alive with whom I care to pray, sleep, dance, sing, or share my bread and wine." and so, in the absence of those few people--and with her difficulty garnering invitations to dinner due to her reputation as a cook and a person knowledgable about food--she prefers to dine alone. 
But it is not easy to cook for oneself always. So for a while she was resigned to "hit-or-miss dinners" of "tinned soups, boxed biscuits amd an occasional egg." 
It was this line I was thinking of when I found myself at Stop-N-Shop on the way home this evening. I generally avoid those kinds of places, as I am increasingly unnerved by the shiny, bloated produce and have little use for anything else they sell. But I was on my way home from a visit with G. in our studio during which we ate cheese (a sharp cheddar) and crackers (carr's water crackers) and drank an Ommegang ale I am fond of. We both became pleasantly hazy from the ale and I wanted to doze off in my chair--it was an extremely pleasant evening.

Later, at the supermarket, the aisles of "tinned" goods intrigued me. I got a few cans of tomatoes, because they are occasionally called for. And then...I saw the oysters.

I bought a can of oysters and a quart of milk and two small boiling onions, although the recipe for oyster stew on the back of the can called for celery, not onion--my squeamishness about the produce section prevented me from it, and somehow the dry papery skins of onions make me feel better about them even if I do not trust their provenance. Then I came home and consulted Consider the Oyster for another recipe, to compare the two. I found no mention of tinned oysters, of course, but proceeded in this way:

cook one small onion, minced, in two tablespoons of butter, until the onion is tender. sprinkle in some celery seed if you have it. tip 1 tin of oysters and their liquor into the pot and cook until oysters just begin to curl. Add two cups of milk. when it is hot, season with sherry, salt and pepper. Serve hot.

It was enjoyable. I was suspicious of the canned oysters themselves--the bellies were hard and a greenish color, sometimes--but the broth was delicious.

Popovers

Popovers from our new (old) cast-iron pans:

Served with some of last summer's strawberry-mulberry jam:

unlikely origins

We found our way to Russo's in the afternoon--an agreeable place to shop when the farmer's markets shut down.

We were motivated to go in part because we realized that we use enough olive oil now to warrant buying a large can (I used to be more restrained with it, and was terrified of having a large unused quantity go rancid--I have experienced rancid cooking oils in other people's homes, and am alert to it). In any case, I have been using plenty of EVOO recently, understanding that a time may soon come when it is unavailable or prohibitively expensive to transport here from Italy or California (and when this happens...I suppose we'll start using lard more, right? Or duck fat....)

A side note: I am half-waiting for Eliot Coleman to figure out a way to trick olives and lemons into growing in the Northeast, as he has done with my favorite, the artichoke! (What a revelation it was to find those at the Blue Hill co-op last summer. We enjoyed them on the deck of our friend Ben's home Chamois, in the middle of the bay, whisking up a mayonnaise while underway!)

What did we manage for dinner?

I chopped up part of a napa cabbage, and grated a black radish over it, and dressed it with lemon and oil....

casually hacking up a napa cabbage in this way reminds me of my visit to Suméne, France. I stayed with Sophie, an aerobics and dance instructor. She had part of a napa cabbage on her counter, and a large plastic bowl containing what was left from the last time she had had part of the cabbage, and for our quick  dinner before aerobic pour les veilles dammes  she just added a little fresh cabbage to the old and tossed it together. I think she may have added some kind of dressing, but I can't remember what it was. The whole scenario struck me as vaguely squalid and possibly depressed, but maybe just French--I could not decide. It didn't matter, as I was prepared to be influenced. And actually the salad was quite refreshing. in any case, it was this experience introduced me to the tender and mild napa! 

Remembering the Butternut

I have fond memories of sitting on the granite steps of my grandparents' house with a hammer and a basket of butternuts, carefully cracking the shells and extracting the tasty nutmeats. I do not remember any rhapsodizing that might have been going on amongst the adults, if any, but I vaguely recall a small expedition during which we had gathered the nuts from a stand of trees on the other side of town with permission of the owner. I imagine now that the owner was a friend or patient of my grandfather, the town doctor and  quietly dedicated forager. The husks of these nuts, initially green and sticky, were decomposing, oxidizing brown and slightly slimy. We'd crack open the shell with the hammer and pick out the meat.  Our fingers would be stained with the tannins for days, and aromatic....

I remember the flavor of these raw butternuts being sweet and so wonderful that to this day, anytime I find a green-husked windfall under a walnut-looking tree (and I keep my eye out for such things) I usually pause to find a stone or lump of asphalt with which to smash it then and there, to see if it possesses that same fine flavor. Any walnut species is fairly tasty, in my experience, but so far, I have not found one quite as nice as the butternut, which has led me to understand that this nut is rare. I believe that my grandfather was quite a fan of the species, and had propagated trees in his neighborhood (and had given one to my parents, who planted it near our compost pile, where I believe it still stands), but none ever yielded fruit. Having little background in botany I can't be sure of why this is, but I suspect it has to do with fertility and flowers, and lacking a second tree to germinate the first, or something....

Today, I know Butternut to be a valuable lumber, and my father is using quite a bit of it in his fine work. But where are the nuts? Not in the market, as far as I'm aware. I've found this factsheet from the national forest service which describes the fungus that has claimed many trees and made cultivation difficult. They are, as with the Hutterite beans of my previous post, in Slow's Arc of Taste.

hutterite beans and broccoli raab

While visiting the Maine zipcode I call my hometowns, we often shopped for staples at the "health food store" (which is neither a food co-op nor a dreadful Whole Foods nor a gourmet shop, but an independent, comprehensive but slightly marginal foodshop of another kind we don't seem to have here in boston), we came across a selection of locally grown dry beans. I immediately spotted the French Flageolet, which I'd been reading about and was eager to try, but there were many others, all with intriguing names: Maine Yellow Eye, Jacob's Cattle,  and a beautiful pale yellow-green bean with a sweet shape called Hutterite. This one we bought on appearance alone.

Early in the day we put some to soak, and this evening we made short work of them in the pressure cooker. I am impressed by this method of cooking beans, and really pleased by it! It is quick and efficient. However, I am not at all sure of how it works. I leave the operation of that contraption to my companion, and further discussion of the particulars of pressure cooking will have to wait..

Meanwhile, I stewed some onion slices with thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper in olive oil and later some butter, at high and then low heat, until the onions were very soft. When the beans were done I added them to the onions along with a small amount of the beans' cooking liquid, simmering it and adding more liquid as needed. The beans became quite creamy, and finally it seemed done. The onions had really melted into the sauce, which tasted as though it must have been made with a rich chicken stock of the sort I used to make in my bachelorette days! 

As it turns out, Hutterite beans are named in Slow Food's Arc of Taste. After reading their description of the bean and its availability, I feel especially pleased to have been presented with the opportunity to purchase them--and in such unassuming packaging (just the usual bulk food bags and generic labels--just think how they'd be marketed at the vulgar Whole Foods Market) I am tempted to wax on about Maine agriculture and beans--beans being such a humble and economical food, yet so delicious-- and Maine farmers enabling us to experience these delicious, endangered varieties. Surely these beans are the best value in the Slow Food movement to date!

Broccoli raab is a green we are extremely fond of. I am discouraged that I have to keep buying it in these pink-baled bunches under the label Andy Boy, rather than from a local farmer (I did not see it once at the farmer's markets all summer), but I will keep trying. 

In any case: we had from our final CSA share some shallots (the only ones we saw this season!), and I sliced these fine with garlic, a dried red chile, and more thyme. Into the hot olive oil for a while, joined then by blanched and drained raab (rappini), salt, more oil, black pepper. 

Both recipes were sourced from Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers at Lucques, more or less. The beans were derived from her flageolet recipe (I cut out 2/3 of the steps, I'd say); the raab was followed faithfully. A note on that book: Risking hyperbole, I find that everything I've tried from that book has been unlike anything I've ever tasted before. Way more complex, rich, and flavorful. Even when I do only a few of the things she suggests, good things come of it. 

Marzipan

Here is this year's marzipan. I made around 200 pieces to distribute to friends and family.  As you can see, I made pears, apricots, carrots, oranges, onions, garlic. Last year I made some very darling sprouted garlic cloves. The oranges have whole cloves stuck in them to imitate the stem end. I used small twigs and broken cloves for the pear stems. The apricots' stems are made of cardamom seeds. 

My marzipan is made entirely from ground almonds, beginning with almond paste: I ground blanched and slivered almonds to a fine powder in our very powerful blender. Then I stirred in a sugar syrup and some kirsch, cured the resulting mass for several weeks, then kneaded it with one egg white and a quantity of confectioner's sugar. The recipe is taken from the Joy of Cooking (1975 ed.), and from all the ones I've tried, seems the best. Last year I did extensive research on flavorings. I tried hard to replicate the flavor of my favorite commercial marzipan, Niederegger. This year I saved stones from nearly every peach, plum, and apricot we had this summer intending to use their noyaux, but when the time came, I elected to add just a few drops of almond extract instead of grinding those kernels of bitter almond flavor.

I typically form the pieces forty at a time, let them dry for an hour or so, then paint them with food coloring diluted with water.