field trip

We visited a new friend at his farm outside the city today, and came home with all kinds of goodies to show for it, eggs, morels and other lovely mushrooms, raw goat's milk and most exciting of all, raw goat's milk kefir! I love kefir, but my favorite kind, Liberte, isn't sold in the U.S. any more. Most of the kefir sold in supermarkets is interchangeable with yogurt, but the real stuff has a crazy, fizzy, tangy kick to it. Also, I got to hold lots of baby goats, and who doesn't love to snuggle with a baby goat?

puntarelle part two

Remember, oh, two weeks ago when I said I wanted to grow so much salad I would overdose on the stuff? Well, I can't believe it isn't even the end of May and I am starting to get a little behind in harvesting and eating it! Part of the issue is that gorgeous puntarelle that seduced me at the farmer's market, I've been having a torrid affair with it for the last few days, but seriously, I can't believe it, and my second, much larger, crop hasn't even reached harvesting stage yet! On the plus side, this is my first ever garden crop I can start giving away to friends and neighbours!

But speaking of the puntarelle, check out our amazing lunch from yesterday, J.'s delicious pork belly, puntarelle and awesome bread from little t., holy crap, and a gorgeous afternoon to boot.

puntarelle!

Got this amazing head of puntarelle at the farmer's market this weekend, couldn't resist, even though I'm getting a tiny bit behind in harvesting my own salad greens. This was grown by the awesome farmers at Viridian Farms. It has already provided two huge salads and shows no signs of stopping yet. The best part for eating is the sliced hollow stems or bulb like cores that make up the base of the plant, but i like eating the leaves too. The whole thing can be time consuming to prepare, especially if you keep stopping to take pictures! I put the sliced stems in ice water as I go and watch them curl up into little ringlets. It just make me salivate, thinking of the bitterness, the raw garlic and anchovies, and it makes me dreamy for Rome. . .

breakfast done right

hot black coffee and pie left out from the night before, all on a sunny morning with a few good sections of newspaper, that is a breakfast worth eating. . .

eating outside

First real dinner outside! It wasn't exactly hot, but still, worth it. I had a pretty productive day, rosemary syrup and rhubarb-pear compote/pie filling. The potatoes are sweet and yukons, layered with pears, onion, rosemary, hot pepper. I told you I've been crazy about spicy sweet potatoes lately. We went to Costco a couple of days ago, whoa, the stuff all looks so much bigger when you get it home, and it all looked so small in that absurd cart! You have to be pretty determined to put a dent in a bag of pears that big. I don't have a finished picture of the tart because we ate it, it came out pretty well though, the rhubarb stuff is on the bottom inside, and the pears soaked with vanilla, some candied orange peel and lemon juice. I need to keep working on a dough that works perfectly every time.

J. is home!

J. is home! This is one of my favorite things, vegetables wrapped in quickly seared meat and dipped in sesame oil and salt, he used to make it for me after longs nights of work on hot summer days back in Queens. We have a new set up now that we've moved, I found this Wagner's fat free fryer at the goodwill and we sit at the counter across from the stove so he can cook the meat as we go. Being cooked for is such a wonderful thing, isn't it?

A quick note on cast iron, Wagner's was founded in 1881 by Bernard and Milton Wagner, Sidney, Ohio. This was maybe 15 years after Griswold was founded in Erie, PA, but Wagner's eventually bought out Griswold and now both are owned by The American Culinary Corporation, looks like they still do some manufacturing in the U.S., but the website is a little vague. In any case, the old stuff works perfectly and only seems to get better.

then again

who can resist some good old fashioned scenic decrepitude?

main street

I think I mentioned I've been out driving in America, a brief western jaunt. I love long distance driving in America, I feel like I can't keep my eyes open wide enough, everything is so beautiful and changes so fast. I am a huge fan of two lane highways, this trip we hit Rte 13 in Colorado, Rte 789 in Wyoming, Rte 30 in Wyoming and Idaho and Rtes 26 and 22 in Oregon.

It is always freshly shocking and devastating to see some of the totally wiped out or barely hanging on main streets. Sure, I have a weakness for beautiful decay, but at least on the main streets I avoided taking too many pictures of the emptiness this time, and tried to focus on nice things well made, old signs and post offices. The top and bottom images above are from the city of Buhl, Idaho, "trout capital of America." Apparently most of the rainbow trout consumed in the U.S., over 20 million pounds annually, is processed outside of Buhl. Whoa, we didn't see any trout being processed but there was what looked like a potato or an onion storage facility just off main street. Downtown Buhl is right on the Thousand Springs Scenic Byway and still looks pretty good, a closed down dollar store here and some scuffed up signs there but overall still a place to go, a really nice post office, the dairy, and a giant, giant sculpture of a trout on the side of a building in the center of town. I wonder what you would make of it, Richard Brautigan?

But the middle picture is from Montpelier, Idaho, which has one of those main streets that you actually have to drive off the main road to get to, and it was pretty grim. There were a few people showing up at the movie theater when we passed through a little before dusk, and there was a pizza place right next to it that looked open but not much else. Really, side by side empty buildings, top to bottom, nothing. This poor bakery with the lovely sign is an empty shell. You can see a nice picture of the sign, as well as a view of the interior here, in these great photos from 2006, and if you scroll through the comments you can see notes from people who have memories of it open, not so long ago really. I can tell you that as of last month the interior is only dustier, greyer and more cluttered.

It make me sad, but also makes me feel lucky to have lived in the places I have lived I guess, where I can walk to things and smile at my shopkeepers and librarians and postal clerks every day. Interesting project about Main Streets in America here, check it out.

growing things

My mom took this picture of wild leeks in my home town, aren't they beautiful?

I "harvested" kale and oregano from my garden for my pasta sauce today.

winning and losing

Grizzlies 4, Beavers 2, not the perfect outcome, but that seems civilized compared to the beat down the trail blazers finished suffering moments ago. But taking in a game has other compensations, we had a lovely afternoon at the ball park.

keep it simple

Travel is delightful, of course, but I am always happy to have real food in a real kitchen when I get home. For our first night home, J.'s birthday, I cut the backbone out of a nice chicken, covered it in hot red pepper flake, lemon zest and salt, and roasted it on top of these vegetables. Spicy sweet potatoes have made me happy recently. The roasting minded itself for the most part, while K. and I took a long walk in the late afternoon sun up to the reservoir to shake ourselves out from several days in the car. I used my huge new copper roasting pan for the first time, recently scored at goodwill, worked like a charm, practically my new best friend. I think it came out well, and there were enough greens in the garden for a salad again!