garden

At last, just when I had given up hope, our number came up for a community garden plot. 100 square feet of raised bed now ours.

We have already gathered many seeds for favorites that tend not to show up as much as we might like in our CSA share or at the farmer's markets. Broccoli raab, in particular (we have procured a 30-day and a 60-day variety), but also rocket (including a wild, perennial variety), brussels sprouts, bitter melon, fennel, haricot verts... I also have seeds for borage and corn salad which I would like to try again--I had poor luck growing them in containers last year.

We  are also going to try growing hops for our root beer. This probably deserves a separate post, but there's not much to tell yet: today I visited the brew store to buy the rhizomes. I chose two noble hops: Mt. Hood and Sterling. 

fresh pasta

Twice now we have made lasagna and made the noodles for it. I have been using the pasta recipe from Alice Waters' the Art of Simple Food, a book I have used and appreciated a great deal recently.

An interesting revelation regarding the grain: 

for today's preparations I  coached my dear one over the phone on the modifications I make to this recipe, as he was to mix up the pasta dough before I got home.  Some weeks ago, I bought a bag of Bob's Red Mill semolina. It is coarse and yellow. In my first batch of pasta I used half of this semolina, half all-purpose flour. This resulted in a stiff dough that was difficult to roll out by hand (though the finished lasagna was quite delicious). In this house, we also have indian semolina, or sooji, and it is lighter though still coarse. In any case, my companion used the sooji (his culinary predisposition is toward indian food) and a different (lower) proportion of semolina to all-purpose flour, and the result was a wonderfully tender noodle. This substitution led me to appreciate that the atta, or chapati flour we use for making indian parathas and roti  is also a durum wheat, and semolina comes from the endosperm of durum wheat. 

mustard, a re-issue

The following is a re-issue of an essay first published in May of 2006. That version is no longer available online.

At some point during my middle-elementary school years, I discovered that eating mustard on a cracker was a good way to induce a temporary high. Interestingly, without the cracker or other starchy medium, the mustard had no effect. Many a recess break was spent sitting in the sun with classmates--many of them thrill-seekers I'd otherwise never socialize with--a squeeze bottle of Grey Poupon, and packages of saltines from the cafeteria. A short time later, I was introduced to the fine regional mustards manufactured by Raye's of Eastport, Maine.

One of my few restaurant meals while in the Netherlands last month included a bowl of mosterdsoep. It was made with a whole-grain mustard, and had the wonderful flavor of mustard without being overwhelming. Gelderland is, I have since learned, known for its mustard.

In Paris, one of the shopping destinations suggested in my Lonely Planet guide that I thought I might visit but did not quite make it to was the Maille flagship store. While in France I often thought of mustard but never did find myself in one of its better-known provenences.

Recently on the Boston Natural Areas Network email list, there was sent a bulletin concerning wild garlic mustard--an invasive non-native species that self-seeds aggressively and casts shadows over native wildflowers who would otherwise grow and provide food for wildlife. From a foraging perspective, "wild garlic mustard" is an intriguing name, and it certainly is edible, but the plant really does need to be kept in check. In any case, I did not, until just now, realize what the specimen looked like. All along I assumed it was the more garlicky-looking green shoot that is coming up all over my garden. Turns out it is actually the white-blossomed, toothy-leafed one that I picked the other day to put in a vase in the kitchen.

All this brings me to my present experience wherein I find myself nursing a nasty chemical burn, the result of a remedy involving mustard gone awry. Yes, it was my friend Irina who told me about it to begin with, but I do not hold her in the least bit responsible for the rectangular red welt that now marrs my décolletage. No, I am accustomed to botching naturopathic remedies (some of you may remember my nasty incident with an iron supplement last summer), and if she had not mentioned it to me there is no telling what other trouble I may have found for myself.
In any case, I just googled "mustard burns on the skin" and here is what I found: http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/2d_recon/2d_recon_refs/n51en057/chapter4.htm. scroll down for a description of my wounds. According to this document there is still time for a blister to form, though I think I might be out of the woods. Fortunately, it doesn't sound like I will have a scar.

Jars

Small jars of thoughtfully made and given preserves have become my most treasured refrigerator-door keepsakes.

-two kinds of hot sauce from Tyler, which I have enjoyed with fried eggs on my days off for over a year now.
-from Danny and Corinne, many things: a rather wondrous rosehip and honey preserve, like nothing else I have tasted--I bring it out for pancakes and popovers; once, a quart-jar of unspiced kimchee, which we ate over the course of many weeks as a rejuvenating snack; a jar of Raye's (my longstanding favorite mustard)!
-from Annette, a jar of apple chutney made with apples from a specific state park.

Last year, I gave out a number of jars of strawberry-mulberry jam, a few jars of sauerkraut, some extra spicy kimchee.

Success at Last, in Sourdough

still waters no more

I am pleased to say that tonight my companion made for us our first homemade sparkling water. We have a pressurized tank strapped to the leg of the butcher block work table. He estimates it will yield over a year's worth of sparkling water.

chickpea/garbanzo, socca/panisse...

Somewhere, in an Elizabeth David book or maybe MFK Fisher, I read about an Italian/Provençal street food that is a chickpea-flour pancake..
I missed out on the real thing in my visits to both those places--back then, I had not known it existed--but I knew from the description that I would love it.

In the Silver Spoon cookbook--the Joy of Cooking-scale Italian food compendium translated and put out by Phaidon a few years ago--I found two recipes involving farinata: one, the pancake. Two, a chickpea flour polenta, cut into strips and fried. I decided to try the pancake. The batter is a lot of water--six cups--and quite a bit of oil, and some chickpea flour and salt.
I heated some olive oil in a cast iron skillet and swished a rosemary bough in it. I poured in as much of the batter as would fit and put it in the oven.

Eventually, it cooked down--the water evaporated--and it became deceptively eggy and custard-like--and, to this omnivore who lives in a vegetarian home, also reminiscent of chicken fat (though it was, of course, just flour and water and oil). Authentic? I have no way of knowing.

It was different, and not bad at all. We ate as much of it as we could--nearly half, I think. I must disclose that later, we both experienced indelicate digestion.