Holiday Lobstercide, In Two Parts

As you might have noticed, over the holidays I've allowed myself a nice, leisurely three weeks away from blogging. In my own defense: no, I have not taken three weeks off from everything else. Life has continued at its usual clip, with the added excitement of much packing and unpacking, present wrapping and unwrapping, plus a blizzard thrown in for good measure.

Instead of sitting at home with my feet up in front of a roaring fire on December 27 -- the night after the blizzard hit New York -- I was fighting an old man over an egg salad sandwich, one of the few items of food remaining in the British Airways terminal, which 36 hours after the first snow began to fall was beginning to resemble the Superdome. Then I was curled up around my duffel bag on the terminal floor, with a sock over my eyes as a makeshift sleep mask. But then again, once the plane finally took off I ended up spending the ensuing week in England, Bruges, and Paris, so I don't expect you to pity me.

Life would have gotten back to normal when I returned to a nearly snow-free New York on 1/3 were it not for my and The Viking's birthdays taking place back to back on the 11th and 12th of January. Frankly, I really don't consider 1/1 to be the start of my new year, because it's just impossible to turn over a new leaf with the prospect of further celebration staring you right in the face.

Anyway, now I'm back on the straight and narrow, and am making an effort to wean myself off a diet of triple cream cheese, foie gras, beer, butter, and pork everything in favor of fat free Greek yogurt, vegetable soups, and roasted fishes.

But getting back to the culinary excesses...

I'm a not usually a big lobster eater, but I happened cook with lobster twice in December, and in two dishes that I'm proud of.

The first dish was a lobster bisque, one which has been described to me in vivid and almost mythological terms by The Viking for most of the length of our relationship. As the story goes, The Viking journeyed far, far north in the British Isles in the dead of winter, to a place where it was dark 23 hours a day and bone-chilling winds blew off the North Sea, until he arrived at the family home of his friend The Scotsman. There the Scotsman's mother served them steaming, fragrant, buttery bowls of lobster bisque. "The best lobster bisque," I have been told. "In existence."

I attempted this bisque once before (I had asked The Scotsman's mother for the recipe) in December of 2008, and it was by all accounts a failure. It looked nice enough, exactly that inviting coral color that a lobster bisque should be, but was watery and insipid. I knew the instant that I tasted it that I had stopped the stock too soon -- the key to a great bisque turns out to be reducing your lobster stock down until it is ruddy and pungent.

This year, I decided it was time for a retry, and managed to produce a much better bowl of soup. I don't know that it reached the epic heights of the Scotsman's mother's creation, but I was satisfied with the result.


My second lobster experience came on Christmas Eve, which I spent at home with my family as I do every year. I knew I wanted to do something with lobster for dinner but couldn't find a recipe that exactly fit the bill. So, I came up with a pasta dish that combines tarragon, cream, and sherry -- all classic lobster pairings -- plus fennel, which I think gives the dish a fresh, interesting twist. It took me about three hours to make, start to finish.

Here's the thing about these two recipes: you absolutely need to start with whole, live lobsters. Not just fresh or frozen tails. To say nothing of the quality of the meat, you need the lobster bodies and shells to make the stock with, which is what gives the bisque and the creamy pasta sauce their powerful, permeating lobster flavor.

You tell people that you're making a lobster dish, yes, using live lobsters, and that yes, you're going to kill the lobsters, and they look at you like you're Charles Manson. The horror! How ghastly! I'll just about take this from vegans, who are apparently so troubled by the idea of harming innocent creatures that they have made a lifelong choice not to do so (although, they might consider moving out of the United States and to somewhere like Switzerland if that's their philosophy)...but my pork-loving, supermarket-chicken-eating, meataholic friends? Where do they think lamb loin comes from? What, exactly, does the ground veal in their Bolognese represent?

To my mind, if you're going to be a carnivore, I think it's only responsible to participate in the killing of your own food every so often. But that's just me.


Christmas Eve Lobster Pasta

Serves 6-8

4 1.5-lb lobsters
3 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup shallots, finely chopped
1/2 bulb fennel, chopped
1/2 bulb fennel, separated into individual leaves
3 Tbsp Cognac
2 sprigs Tarragon leaves, plus 1 Tbsp chopped Tarragon
2 cups white wine
4 Tbsp flour
4 Tbsp butter
1 cup cream
Splash sherry

1. Bring a pot of water to boil. Drop lobsters in one at a time, for 1-2 minutes each. Let lobsters cool and separate claws, bodies, and tails (reserving juices that escape). Return tails to boiling water for 7 minutes, then return claws for 10 minutes. Extract meat and chop into big chunks. Reserve shells, meat, and 1 cup of lobster water.

2. Heat olive oil in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan or small stock pot. Add shallots and fennel and saute over medium heat until soft. Add lobster shells and the accumulated juices, douse with Cognac, and ignite. Once the flames have burned out, add white wine, lobster water, and tarragon sprigs. Simmer until reduced to about 1 - 1.5 cups, around 1 hour. Strain in fine sieve and reserve.
4. Meanwhile, drop fennel leaves in boiling water for 5-7 minutes, until fork tender. Drain. Lay leaves flat on cookie sheet and brush with olive oil. Bake at 400 until leaves are golden colored and crisp. Remove from oven and reserve.
3. In a medium saucepan, heat butter over medium heat until foaming. Add flour and stir until paste forms, gradually whisking in lobster stock (and stirring continuously) until thick sauce is formed. Add in cream to desired consistency, then sherry, salt, and pepper to taste. Add lobster chunks and stir.

Serve over pasta (fettuccine or spaghetti), and top with caramelized fennel and chopped tarragon.

Quite Possibly The Best Christmas Cookies. Ever.

I rarely claim to offer the "best" recipe for anything, but there are two items that I'm pretty confident about: apple pie and Christmas cookies.

I can't take credit for these marvelous cookies. They came to me by way of my mother, from her friend Susan Christensen, as part of a cache of recipes printed in Courier New font onto white paper and stapled into a packet. I don't know where Susan got them, but I assume that they were handed down over the years through her family. Our packet is now covered in egg white and slicks of chocolate and other varied kitchen detritus, as any well-loved recipe should be after many years of service.

The Christensen Classic Cookie Collection, as it is so called, includes eight or nine recipes, including Tea Time Tassies, Icebox Cookies, Almond Crescents, and Miniature Pecan Pies. My favorite has always been the English Toffee Squares. They are simple, unfussy, utterly indulgent, and they freeze and ship well. They are divine with a cup of tea. They are nearly impossible to flub.

Over the years I've adapted the Christensen recipe slightly. I've switched from light brown sugar to dark and from Hershey's bars to fancier chocolate, as well as adding fleur de sel, which provides a nice counterpoint to the cookies' sweetness.

I make several batches of English Toffee Squares every year, serving them at my Christmas party and packing them off to my father, grandfather, godfather, and this year at least, to my boss. I really believe that in each of these cases, handmade sweets are just about the best present I can give.


So, for all of you sitting at home or at work wringing your hands about yet unpurchased Christmas prezzies, my advice is to buy a a few pretty cookie tins and some ribbon and make these cookies (one batch will fill 2-3 tins). You will probably be done baking before you would get through the checkout line at Best Buy. Plus, Best Buy doesn't let you lick the bowl.


English Toffee Squares
Adapted from The Christensen Classic Cookie Collection

Makes 30 large cookies

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups flour
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
12 ounces good milk or dark chocolate (Scharffen Berger, Valrhona)
1 cup chopped pecans
Fleur de sel or Maldon's Sea Salt for sprinkling

1. Cream well together butter and brown sugar, then add flour, egg yolk, and vanilla.

2. Spread evenly on an 11x17 baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes in a 350 degree oven (until lightly brown).

3. Scatter chocolate on top and return to oven for 1 minute to melt. Remove from oven, spread chocolate evenly, and sprinkle with chopped nuts.

4. Let cool slightly then sprinkle with fleur de sel. Cut into squares while still warm.

Yep, That Just About Sums It Up

Christmas Party As Viewed By Hostess, December 10, 2010

Well, the annual Christmas party is now over. It came and went in a blur, partially due to the freely flowing Gruet and mulled cider (spiked with Brandy to toxic levels by my own hand), but mostly as a side-effect of playing hostess. I should just admit it up front: I'm never going to have meaningful conversations when I'm putting on a cocktail party for sixty. It might as well be a law of physics. There are always fires to put out -- hopefully not literal ones -- but empty glasses, that inevitable guest foundering alone in a corner, gougeres on the verge of burning. One day maybe I'll have people to refill the empty dip bowl and replace the toilet paper...but, as The Viking never ceases to remind me, that won't be anytime soon.

Last week I gave you a preview of some of the party treats that had already been baked. Below is a continuation of the series.

This year, for the first time, I made masala-spiced popcorn. It wasn't exactly a blockbuster, but I think it could have been if I was a little more liberal with the butter. Since it was very, very cheap (less than $10 yields gallons of it) and beyond easy to make (pop corn; add butter, spices, salt), I think it's a recipe worth perfecting.

The above represents my first foray into paté, and I'm quite proud of my maiden effort. The number one thing that I learned about making paté is that you probably shouldn't, if you'd like to continue enjoying eating it with the same abandon. This one is made from chicken liver, and the secret ingredient that lends it sweetness and depth of flavor is caramelized onion. The not-remotely-secret ingredient that makes it taste so rich: butter.

These raspberry macaroons look far better than they tasted. I love a good macaron, and this is not one of them. The recipe called for the delicate little cookies to be filled with store bought raspberry jam. I knew up front that that couldn't be a formula for success, and I had the best intentions of making my own raspberry filling. I had the ingredients in hand but at the critical moment -- which had to have been about 11 PM on Wednesday night -- I wimped out. All the talk of food mills and pectin and candy thermometers was too much for me. I used store bought jam instead, and the final product turned out sickly-sweet and only weakly reminiscent of raspberries.

Not pictured here are two lovely dips: an avocado green goddess dip with crudites, and a roasted red pepper and feta dip with toasted flatbreads. Oh, and a cheese plate. I never did take pictures of any of them.

This Danish almond cake was only modestly popular with party guests, but I think that it suffered unfairly in comparison to its richer, showier fellow hors d'oeuvres (those English Toffee Squares are such sluts). I can report that it is absolutely unbeatable with your morning coffee or afternoon tea.

Danish almond cake is something that my mother used to make at her Christmas parties when I was a toddler, back in the [decade redacted to protect the innocent]. Luckily for me, she has always kept a notebook in which she records each party that she hosts, what was served, who attended, and how the various dishes were received. Thumbing through the notebook over Thanksgiving I saw the Danish almond cake with a note reading "A big hit!" and I decided to take it for a spin. The recipe comes from a little book who's name escapes me, but that I remember as old, non-commercial, and flimsy enough looking to make me feel like the recipe was a real find.

Danish Almond Cake

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons almond extract
1/3 cup boiling water

For glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 drops almond extract
3 teaspoons warm water

Cream butter and sugar until fully combined. Add eggs and mix well. Gradually add flour sifted with baking powder and salt. Beat thoroughly. Add almond extract and boiling water. Mix well. Pour into greased 9 or 10 inch spring-form or tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, reduce to 325 for last 30 minutes. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pan. Pour glaze over the cake, spreading it over the surface of the cake and letting it sink into the crumb. Decorate with whole blanched almonds.

A Perfect(ly Good) Turkey Recipe

It's just going to be my dad, my mom, and me this Thanksgiving. That might lead you to wonder whether it's really worth all the fuss of cooking a whole Thanksgiving dinner for just three people. I reject this line of thinking, partly because I'm in the habit of cooking all day for just two people, and that's in celebration of nothing much in particular. But also because I think that a Thanksgiving that's short on personnel needs to make up for it in holiday cheer, which means plenty of cooking, eating, music, parade-watching, and of course alcoholic beverages.

My plan for Thursday is to cook just enough to keep me busy throughout the afternoon but not so much as to be exhausting. I'll do turkey of course, traditional stuffing, a brussels sprout dish, and a butternut squash dish. I'm buying our pumpkin pie from 'wichcraft - I know what you're thinking, but they're inexpensive and at least as good as anything I would make (using fresh Greenmarket pumpkin, no less) so I'm not ashamed about outsourcing this.

Of all the dishes served on Thanksgiving, it is without a doubt the turkey that provokes the most angst among cooks.

Maybe that's because the turkey is the only thing that nearly all Thanksgiving tables share in common, or maybe because it's the centerpiece of the meal, or maybe just because turkeys can be so incredibly bad when overcooked. At any rate, it's a funny-looking bird to get so upset about.

The questions circulating around turkey cookery are endless and terribly specific, as if proper cooking them is like a geometry proof and one foul digit can ruin the whole thing. Should you brine? Dry brine or wet brine? For how long? What brining solution should you use? If you brine it, can you stuff it? What temperature should you cook the turkey at at? For how long? Should you use a rub? How about a glaze? How often should you baste? Should you rotate it in the oven?

I'd imagine that if you care deeply about the quality of your roasted turkey you've probably already consulted multiple cookbooks and magazines as well as poring over Google search results to the query "the perfect turkey." There's no shortage of material out there about cooking a Thanksgiving turkey, and I'm sure that I'm not going to provide you with any original insight here.

So this one goes out to everybody else: the folks who mainly just want to roast a turkey that might be a pleasant surprise to the naysaying family and friends with takeout Chinese on speed dial.

After doing a fair amount of research and realizing that I was creating more questions for myself than I answered, I finally just spoke to one of the chefs de cuisine at our restaurant company to see what he recommended. His advice is below. It's not revolutionary, nor is it probably the Ultimate, Indisputable Best Turkey Recipe Out There. I know that it's somehow more fun to think that it requires a rigorous rotation schedule, temperature variation, and secret rub ingredients to unlock the code to A Great Turkey, but what's below will get you to the dinner table with minimal fuss and maximal results.

A quick word about brining. Brining is when you use a salt/sugar/water bath to make the turkey more tender and moist by witchcraft osmosis. I've heard many impassioned arguments in favor of brining and no persuasive reasons against it, other than the obvious one that most of us have better things to do than worrying about submersing a 20 lb carcass in a water bath the day before Thanksgiving. If you have the time and inclination to brine then by all means. But at the risk of inflaming all those brine advocates out there...you can skip the brining step without seriously damaging your turkey cookery. Update: I just got a persuasive argument against brining from my boss. He says that that brining dries out the meat and that what people are responding to when they say it's "moist" is the fact that the meat is thoroughly seasoned. Instead, season under the skin and in the cavity well with salt and pepper.

For those that might be interested: this year I got a wild turkey, from Quattro Farm in Pleasant Valley, New York. The main reasons for this decision were a) after seeing Food, Inc. and reading every Michael Pollan book this year, I could not conscience buying an industrially produced turkey and b) the little guy only weighs 7-8 lbs, perfect for a small Thanksgiving gathering. I'll let you know how it goes.

A Perfectly Good Thanksgiving Turkey Recipe

Start with high quality turkey. The biggest single factor in how good your Thanksgiving turkey tastes is what type of animal you start with. It's too late at this point to special order a turkey from a local farm but you should consider it next year (you should get your order in by mid-October). In the New York area, Quattro's Game Farm, Stone Barns, and Dickson's Farmstand Meat all sell turkeys. If you're going the grocery store route, try to get a bird that's been raised pastured (cage-free) without antibiotics, hormones, or other additives. The turkey will have a much richer, fuller flavor.

Separate the legs from the turkey. The legs and breast take different amounts of time to cook, so they need to be cooked apart. I know that this ruins the table-presentation flourish of a whole turkey. Get over it.

Prep the breast and cavity. Rub the turkey with salt, pepper, and butter, both on top of and underneath the skin. Let it come to room temperature before going in the oven. Fill the cavity with stuffing, if desired.

Braise the legs. Put a little oil in a dutch oven over medium high heat and brown the legs. Then remove the legs and add chopped carrot, onion, celery, garlic, and a couple of sprigs of thyme. Let those soften, and then add a little bit of white wine to deglaze the pan (read: loosen the brown bits). Add back the legs and enough chicken stock to partially cover them. Keep covered and at a low simmer until the legs register 165 degrees.

Roast the breast. 325 degrees is a good oven temperature. Roast the breast until it hits an internal temperature of 165 (a pop-up poultry timer lodged in the bird's breast is set to pop at 180 degrees, at which point a turkey is already dried out and overcooked, so do not rely on that), basting occasionally.

And that's it! Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving.

Recipe Edits: Campanelle with Sausage, Pumpkin, & Cavolo Nero

Pictured above is the pasta with pumpkin, sausage, and cavolo nero that I cooked for dinner last night. I dunno, it was okay. The Viking thought that it was phenomenal but I suspect that's just because he was long overdue for a home-cooked meal.

I was out of town at the end of last week and in that short amount of time, The Viking had already begun to go feral. When I returned to the apartment on Saturday I found the shards of a broken espresso cup strewn across the floor, peels, cores, and bones of various foodstuffs scattered about the dining area, and evidence of what I believe to be early attempts at toolmaking. All that was missing was the cave paintings. Maybe if I had stayed away an extra day.

Anyway, I think what my Early Man was responding to in last night's dinner was the flavor combination, which I agree was appetizing...but given a few small changes in execution, the dish could have excellent (not to mention easier). Raw squash/pumpkin is punishingly difficult to peel and dice; the sausage was overcooked and rubbery from sitting in the pan too long; the kale had a slippery, boiled quality most closely associated with seaweed; the whole thing was bound together in a watery broth that I could have been reduced down to better effect.

Most of the time we choose recipes because the ingredients sound good: sausage, pasta, cavelo nero, pumpkin. What's not to like? The actual flesh and bones of the recipe, though, may not be all that inspired. That's why it's always important to read fully through a recipe before beginning to cook, making substitutions or changes in technique as you see fit (or, looking for a new recipe using the same ingredients, if the whole thing just doesn't seem right). A recipe ought not to be the boss of you. It should just be a guideline, open to your changes and interpretations.

I'll use this recipe as an example. I'm not going to include the source, because I don't mean to pick on its creators - but here's how I might have done things differently, if I could do it over again.

Pasta with Pumpkin, Sausage, and Cavolo Nero

Kosher salt
1 lb. sweet Italian sausage, casings removed if using links
1 Tbs. olive oil (optional
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
3 cups 3/4-inch-diced peeled, seeded pumpkin 1 small pumpkin or butternut squash, halved
1/4 cup dry white wine
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. dried Marjorem a pinch nutmeg
1-1/2 cups lower-salt 3/4 c. chicken broth
10 oz. cavolo nero kale (aka Lacinato, black, or dinosaur kale), trimmed, ribs removed, leaves cut into 1-inch pieces
8 oz. dried campanelle pasta
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano; more for serving
Freshly ground black pepper

Their instructions:

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil over high heat.

In a heavy-duty 12-inch skillet over medium heat, cook the sausage, breaking it up into small pieces with a wooden spoon, until mostly browned, 6 to 8 minutes.Push the sausage towards the edge of the skillet and add the olive oil if the center of the pan is dry (this will depend on the amount of fat in the sausage). Add the onion and cook until golden and the sausage is well browned, about 8 minutes. Stir in the pumpkin, wine, garlic, and marjoram and cook until the wine evaporates, 3 to 4 minutes. Add 3/4 cup of the broth and cook until the pumpkin is almost tender, about 8 minutes. Add the kale and the remaining 3/4 cup broth, cover, and cook until the pumpkin and kale are tender, about 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in the boiling water according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water and then drain well. Add the pasta to the skillet with enough of the pasta water to coat the pasta and vegetables generously. Stir in the Parmigiano and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with additional Parmigiano.


My Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and place pumpkin halves cut-side down in a baking dish. Cook for 30-45 minutes, until a knife can be inserted fairly easily into the pumpkin. Remove from the oven, cool, remove peel, and cut into 3/4 inch dice. Set aside.

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil over high heat.

In a heavy-duty 12-inch skillet over medium heat, cook the sausage, breaking it up into small pieces with a wooden spoon, until well browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove sausage from pan with slotted spoon and set aside.

Add olive oil if the center of the pan is dry (this will depend on the amount of fat in the sausage). Add the onion and cook until golden, 6-8 minutes. Stir in kale, wine, garlic, nutmeg, salt, and pepper, and cook until the wine evaporates, 3 to 4 minutes. Add chicken broth, bring to a simmer, and cook until kale is tender and broth has reduced to half, about 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in the boiling water according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water and then drain well. Add the pasta, pumpkin, and sausage to the skillet with enough of the pasta water to coat the pasta and vegetables generously. Stir in the Parmigiano and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with additional Parmigiano.

Qu'est-ce Que C'est Dans Ma Boite Du CSA? Summer Squash, Japanese Eggplant, Napa Cabbage, Fava Beans, The List Goes On And On...

This week I found myself in an unfamiliar position: I was actually prepared to use all of my CSA produce -- I had the dishes all planned out! -- and then a lot of it went bad on me.

Food spoilage was a serious, complex problem over most of the course of human history, but the invention of refrigeration around 100 years ago should have changed all that. We live in the golden age of food preservation (actually, maybe the baroque period?). If we can make milk that's shelf-stable for months, I should be able to keep a cucumber fresh for 7-10 days.

And yet, my refrigerator is where vegetables go to be tortured. Earlier this week some of the squash froze to death and some of it appears to have been suffocated in an unventilated Ziploc bag. The cucumbers died of dehydration. Poor old squash and cucumbers.

I think that most of you can relate. When a new fruit or vegetable comes into one's life, it's not always obvious what should be done to keep it happy. Does one put it in the fridge? If so, in a plastic bag? Or in a brown paper bag on the counter? Should one wash it first? And if one is having this much trouble caring for vegetable matter, how can one expect to have a child?

To make matters worse, my refrigerator is unpredictable and mean-spirited. It is the Mel Gibson of kitchen appliances, cruel and volatile, freezing things at random and without warning. It appears to be particularly bigoted against leafy greens. Mel is currently set at 38 degrees and still manages to freeze things, leading me to believe that either the thermostat is a lie or I remember even less from high school chemistry than I thought.

This week of ruined foodstuffs was a wake up call to get my act together. For information about properly storing produce, I found this cheat sheet - it's not the prettiest, but the information is presented concisely and clearly. Were you even aware that certain troublemaking fruits like apricots and tomatoes must be stored separately from the rest of their fruit and vegetable friends? Neither was I.

I also need to get myself a refrigerator thermometer and figure out what parts of my fridge stay at what temperature, and store things accordingly. I can already see The Viking throwing his face in his hands at this, envisioning a future in which he gets in trouble for putting the blueberries back on the wrong shelf. Sorry, The Viking, but it's the world in which you are about to live.

Without further ado, here's a rundown of how I used my CSA produce:

I sliced the Japanese eggplants and what was left of the squash, brushed them with olive oil, and simply grilled them on a griddle plate on my stove top.



I rescued two cucumbers and used them to make raita, the Indian yogurt, cucumber, and mint sauce. This became a cool, refreshing accompaniment to the grilled vegetables.

The carrots were tossed in with a leftover butterflied lamb shank that I thawed, trussed, and braised on the stove top with tomatoes, lemons, garlic, port, cinnamon, thyme, and bay leaves. I've never cooked lamb this way before and it's worthy of a blog entry of its own - it was sensationally tender and delicately tinged with North African flavors.



The fava beans I blanched and threw together with mint, sliced radishes, sliced red onion, and a honey mustard vinaigrette. I meant to include feta, and that would have been a valuable addition to a salad that ended somewhat too flimsy for its own good.



As previously reported, the Mirabelles became a tart.

As for the Napa Cabbage and Kale...these didn't turn out so well. I braised them in a skillet with garlic and onions and finished them with rice vinegar and raz el hanout. It was a dish that didn't make any sense, and the finished product showed it (it's pictured below with leftover lamb and raita).



This week, only the purslane got left behind. I'll try to do better by it next time around.

A Glut of Mirabelles

Mirabelle. What a great name for a fruit.

Mirabelle comes from the Latin word mirabilis, which mean wondrous. This was not my first impression of the yellow plums that bear that name, but in light of the flattering reputation, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

You see, for the past two weeks, my CSA box has included a quart of these small, firm, buttercup-yellow UFOs (Unidentified Fruitlike Objects). I could tell that they were probably a type of plum, but no plum that I had ever seen before. They were also too sour to eat as a hand fruit -- at least to my taste -- so I stuck them in a big Ziploc bag in the fridge and vowed to find some other use for them.

And there they sat. And sat. And sat. As of yesterday (12 days after the first batch arrived), they were still firm and fresh smelling, and I decided that their time had come.



A little bit of research revealed that these bright yellow plums are known as Mirabelles, and they are a regional delicacy of Lorraine. If Wikipedia is to be believed, 90% of the Mirabelles harvested become jam or eau de vie, and from what I can tell the other 10% are dropped directly into CSA boxes: nearly every reference to them on the interweb was some message board poster overwhelmed by the number she got from her CSA and wondering what the hell to do with them all. So, my position was far from unique.



I'm not set up with jam-making equipment (though I'd like to be!), so I needed to take a different route. I decided to try a tart. If all went according to plan it would be the perfect, summery dessert for our friends The Diplomat and The Free Spirit, both of whom were joining us for dinner last night.



I used a standard pie crust and surrounded the fruit in creamy custard (note: this tart can be made with any stone fruit; if you are using peaches or nectarines, slice them into segments rather than halves). The final result was a particularly...well...tart tart, in which the Mirabelles had softened and mellowed into a lovely, yolk-colored puree. The Viking and our two guests were big fans of the flavor but if you're like me and want a sweeter finish, sprinkle the top of the tart with sugar five minutes before removing it from the oven, and/or serve it with sweetened whipped cream. It'll be mirabilis.



Mirabelle Tart

Serves 8

For the crust:
1 stick butter
1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
2 - 4 Tbsp ice water


For the filling:
18 oz. Mirabelles, halved and pitted (*can be substituted for small purple plums, apricots, sliced peaches, or sliced nectarines)
2/3 c. cream
1/3 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp butter

1. Mix together flour, sugar, and salt. Cut butter into 15-20 pieces and while still chilled, work into flour mixture until mixture resembles a course meal. Add water a tablespoon at a time until dough just holds together. Form into a disk and chill 1 hour.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degree. Butter 9 - 10" tart pan. Roll out crust and press into tart pan, discarding any extra dough. Arrange Mirabelle halves, rounded side up, to fill pie crust.

3. Mix together sugar, egg, and cream. Add flour. Pour mixture into tart crust.

5. Bake for 35 - 40 minutes. Let cool at least 20 minutes before serving.

Go Fish

Be honest: does fish scare you?

Because recently it's come to my attention that the majority of Americans are freaked out by the idea of cooking fish. In a meeting with the product development team from a national kitchen and home goods store, I was told that food items relating to fish preparation (spices, marinades, sauces, etc.) typically didn't sell well in their stores, which has led them to realize that their customers don't cook much fish at home. Later in the same week an editor at a large entertainment news weekly informed me that they do not print fish recipes as a matter of policy, having deemed fish to be inaccessible by their readership.

To me, this is bizarre and worrisome. You want to know what's actually difficult to cook well? Chicken. Lean cuts of pork. In fact, all leans cuts of all meat. You know what's easy? Fish.

I assume that you, my readers, represent a higher order of person than those scared off by our legless friends. But just in case any of you number among the fish-phobic, I'm here to help. Today I bring you a cheap, quick, easy - dare I say foolproof? - method for cooking fish.

Take the lowly tilapia. This does not number among my favorite fish. It sounds like a tropical disease and, cooked plain, it tastes of wet sock. As soon as it begins to cook, tilapia gets VERY flaky and begins to fall apart. Every time I have cooked it in a skillet it has come out the other end looking like a pile of mashed potatoes. I've never tried grilling it, but can assume that that's a non-starter.

HOWEVER...tilapia is cheap, one of the most environmentally sustainable fish out there, and very low in fat and calories, so we should stop being such snobs and learn how to cook it properly. Let's focus on the positive, shall we?



Think of tilapia as the fish equivalent of tofu: it may not have a lot of flavor on its own, but it soaks up the flavors around it. When cooked with the right mix of pungent ingredients, it can really be lovely.

Here is how I recommend you prepare it: wrap it in a tin foil pouch with assorted flavorful things and stick it under the broiler for 20-30 minutes. This creates hassle-free, flavor-packed steamed fish with very minimal cleanup (just ball up the tin foil and throw it away). It also pretty much eliminates any wafting fish odors that threaten to weasel their way into your carpets and fabrics, which is always a consideration when pan-roasting fish.



I made tilapia this way last night, and have included below a recipe for the preparation I used. I've named it Tilapia Marseillaise, since the ingredients I used were a mix of Provencal and North African flavors, ones that you generally find in the cuisine of Marseilles (think Bouillabaisse). Also, today is Bastille Day, so I felt that I should nod in the direction of France. Ergo, Tilapia Marseillaise.

But get creative here, people; no need to use the same ingredients as I did. This is an opportunity to comb through your refrigerator and cupboards and experiment. You will be amazed at how exciting it is when you successfully cook something that you thought up all by yourself. The only guideline here is to include strong herbs and/or spices (mine were a Moroccan spice blend called ras el hanout and saffron).



Tilapia Marseillaise
Serves 2

2 6-8 oz tilapia fillets
1.5 cups chopped tomatoes
2 pinches saffron
1 Tbsp. ras el hanout
1/2 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves
6 sprigs thyme
2 cloves garlic, halved and crushed
2 large sheets tin foil

1. Place each fillet on its own sheet of tin foil, and sprinkle them with salt, pepper, ras el hanout, and saffron.
2. Squeeze lemon onto the fillets, coat with them olive oil, and place thyme, garlic, and tomatoes on top.
3. Wrap the tin foil sheets into pouches (folding the short ends inwards, and then rolling the long ends together like the top of a lunch bag).
4. Place them directly under broiler, seam side up, and let cook 20 - 30 minutes.
5. Unwrap and transfer to plates.

Regatta Life

As weeks go, this one has been pretty spectacular. We've been spending most of our time at The Viking's Valhalla, aka his mum's place. Here the usual routine is to roll out of bed, eat a lazy breakfast of toast with homemade jam or just-picked raspberries on cereal, take some exercise in the form of a run through the forest or a dip in the pool, and spend the rest of the day sunning, reading, and going on walks with the family Labrador.



But our main reason for coming across the pond was our annual trip to Henley Royal Regatta, a multi-day carnival of old-fashioned Britishness unrivaled in this day and age by anything except maybe the horse racing at Ascot, or the filming of certain period dramas.

If you are an American, then to understand Henley you need to forget everything that you thought you knew about sporting tournaments.

In preparation for the five days of racing, a large, gated facility is constructed on the banks of the Thames. This is called the Stewards' Enclosure. It features two grandstands, several open air bars and seating areas, bathrooms with porcelain sinks and toilets, and rows upon rows of canvas deck chairs facing the river (pictured above). There is, naturally, a Champagne and Oyster Bar on the premises.

To gain admission to the Stewards' Enclosure, you must be a member or a guest of a member (in true British fashion there doesn't seem to be any formal selection procedure for membership, but there is a long waiting list, and inherited titles and/or prominence in the rowing world helps). Gentlemen are required wear smart trousers, jackets, and ties at all times; ladies must wear skirts that cover their knees. Hats are encouraged. Neither cell phones nor children are permitted inside the Enclosure.

Anyone with a history of rowing wears his boat club blazer throughout the event. These range from the sartorially understated (Oxford University Boat Club's navy blue felt blazer, with navy gross-grain piping) to the utterly absurd (The Archetypals' mustard, black, robin's egg blue, red, and purple striped blazer). Their wearers range in age from about 18 to 89, and this is the only place I've ever been where people on both ends of that age spectrum get blind drunk side by side.

That's what's happening on the riverbank, anyway. In addition to being a giant five day garden party, Henley is also a very large rowing tournament, with everyone from international-level crews to schoolboys competing in a series of single elimination races (they even let the women have a race or two). I think as many as 1 in 4 spectators realizes that there is rowing going on in the background.

Of the eating and drinking at Henley: this is an event best known for stupendous quantities of the latter. You can say a lot of things against the British, but my God do they know how to day drink. The bars in the Enclosure open when the racing begins, at 9:30 AM daily, and from then onwards a small army of bartenders is in perpetual motion fetching draft beers, bottles of champagne and white wine, and jugs of Pimm's.


Meanwhile, the only food available for purchase tends to be pretty flimsy fare. There is a sit-down seafood luncheon where you can get a meal for two of cold langoustines, boiled potatoes, and a bottle of white wine for about GBP 75 ($120); there are the oysters on offer at the Champagne and Oyster Bar; the Leander Club, a posh rowing club located just next door to the Enclosure, serves strawberries and cream at tea time.

If you're wise, you bring a hearty picnic lunch and eat it in the big Cricket field where everyone parks their cars. Many spectators do this, so it's the Henley version of tailgating -- which is to say that men in pink ties, linen blazers and straw hats sit around eating cucumber sandwiches and drinking rose wine.

By 3 PM, you'll begin to see the first people too drunk to stand being escorted out of the Enclosure to collect themselves (this will continue for hours). Women wearing chiffon dresses, hats, and guilty smiles will be inexplicably covered in grass stains. Ahhh. Regatta life.

No food or drink is so closely associated with Henley as a jug of Pimm's. I thought I'd share the recipe here, in an effort to bring a little bit of HRR to you -- it's normally made with a carbonated drink called Schweppes Lemonade, which isn't widely available in the US, but Sprite will work instead.



Pimm's Cup

Serves 8

2 cups Pimms No. 1
4 cups Schweppes Lemonade or Sprite
1/2 orange, sliced in 8
1/2 apple, sliced in 8
1/2 small cucumber, sliced in 8
4 sprigs mint, cut in half

Mix Pimms and soda in a jug over ice, then diving among 8 glasses. Garnish each glass with a slice of orange, apple, cucumber, and a sprig of mint. Serve immediately and often.

Qu'est-ce Que C'est Dans Ma Boite Du CSA? Cherries, Greens, Lettuces, Garlics, Beets, & Spring Red Onions

This past week has been one particularly full of upsets and surprises in the world of sports. In the World Cup, England didn't make it past the Round of 16, having been asked by zie Germans on Sunday to pack up their three-piece suits and go home. Over at Wimbledon, two little-known men stretched their first round match to over 11 hours and almost 180 games; one of those leggy blonde Russian model-slash-tennis-players vanquished Venus Williams in the quarterfinals; and just a few hours ago, a person I have never even heard of dissed and dismissed Roger Federer in four sets.

Likewise, this past week I astounded myself (and maybe The Viking a little bit too) by using everything that the CSA man delivered to me last Tuesday night -- despite many dinners out, despite too much work, despite utter weariness of Swiss chard, which has begun to haunt me in my dreams. Would I call this an athletic feat? Probably not. But getting all those fruits and vegetables into food form in a seven day period took intense concentration, discipline, and training. The results weren't always pretty, but I got the job done.

[Ed Note: If you think that this sports analogy was an awkward and terrible way to begin a blog post mostly about beets and leafy greens, you are correct. I just really wanted to mention that FEDERER LOST to some rando! In 4 sets! What's up with the world?!]

I don't have a lot of time to elaborate today, but I did want to give a brief recap of where this week's produce went (with promises to be more entertaining tomorrow):

We got exactly five beets in this week's CSA delivery, none of which were larger than a lime. I turned them into an appetizer for Monday night's dinner (a two course dinner on a weeknight = a rarity, by the way). I wrapped the beets in tin foil and roasted them at 375 for half an hour, then let them cool, peeled the skins off, and sliced them thin. I topped that with shards of cold Crottin goat cheese, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and walnut oil, and a sprinkling of chopped basil, kosher salt, and pepper. The outcome was terrific, and I plan on making this again when we have company (and a more sizeable delivery of beets).



Of the cherries that look so gorgeous up above, most went directly into The Viking's mouth, who spat their pits into a bowl like machine gun fire. The cherries that I could rescue from his gaping maw became that sad clafouti that I told you about.

Some of the Swiss chard went into my lunches this week. But I find that no matter how much Swiss chard you use, the next time you open your fridge the same amount seems to be waiting for you. Luckily all of this pressure to use leafy greens has taught me a thing or two about disposing of large quantities of them (and spring onions and garlic, too). Just chop them all up and saute them! Really, I cooked Swiss chard, kale, and beet greens according to the method described here, adding a splash of white wine vinegar at the end to give them a little tang. They wilt down to almost nothing, and I served them with roast pork and new potatoes.




And finally the lettuces. Lettuces tend to speak for themselves. I ripped them up and dressed them with a vinaigrette of garlic scapes, Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar, and olive oil, and served them with roasted new potatoes and broiled sockeye salmon.

The Return Of BYOL

The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones.
-Somerset Maugham

Bad habits: we all have them, privately hate them, ritualistically try to break them, almost always fail, and then doggedly try, try again. It's what makes us human. That, and opposable thumbs.

Since I'm in the habit (whether good or bad, only time will tell) of sharing things with you, here are some of my nasty practices:

-I do not make my bed
-I do not hang up wet towels after using them
-I pick my nails
-I leave doors/cabinets/drawers open
-I do not drink enough water
-I consume too much caffeine
-I floss irregularly
-I sometimes conform to the technical definition of a binge drinker ("consuming four or more drinks on a single occasion")
-I eat less than 2 hours before bedtime
-I do not bring my own lunch to work.

This last one is of particular concern. I like to think of myself as the kind of person who packs an economical, healthy lunch each day, but a Saturday morning audit of my most recent credit card statement revealed that things have really been slipping. Most days, I spend $10.02 at Le Pain Quotidien for some extremely mediocre vegan soup and a mint lemonade. That's over $50 per week, which is appalling. Something must be done.

Habit-breaking seems to happen in waves (see: New Years, Lent, Intervention), so this was all-around a weekend of resolutions and good intentions. I made the bed each morning, hung up my towels post-shower, flossed every night, and plunged head-first into the routine of making my own lunch again.

I got back in the swing of things with a simple, satisfying dish that was one of my old standbys: roast chicken + brown rice + vegetable of choice, tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, and herbs. This time, the guest stars were sauteed Swiss chard, basil, and parsley. The ingredients for 5 lunches cost around $20, and it took two hours to make (including cleanup).

It's important to start with a good chicken, not one of the deformed, big-breasted monsters sold by Butterball or Purdue. I don't want to go into all the details here, but suffice it to say that these are the chicken equivalent of Heidi Montag. An all-natural, free-range chicken (like the ones I get from Epicurian Farms) should be only 3-4 lbs in size and all of its body parts should be proportional.



For all of you in the 'set it and forget it' camp, I have some bad news regarding the roasting of a chicken: doing it well requires a fair bit of fussing and tending (I use Julia Child's method; I'm by no means saying it's definitive, but it's the best I've found so far).

First you must truss the bird (getting the chicken in a tight football shape helps it cook evenly and keeps the juices in; leaving the legs and wings to jangle around on their own in a hot oven really has a bad effect on the meat) and slather the whole thing with butter, salt, and pepper. Once it's in the oven, there's a lot of chicken calisthenics to tend to during the cooking process -- basting, turning, adjusting, etc. etc.

Here's a breakdown of how Miss J suggests doing things:

0:00 - 0:05 - Oven at 425, birdie breast side down.
0:05 - 0:10 - Move the bird onto its right side; baste.
0:10 - 0:15 - Move the bird onto its left side; baste.
0:15 - 0:35 - Turn oven down to 350; baste bird every 8 minutes.
0:35 - 0:55 - Move bird back onto right side; baste every 8 minutes.
0:55 - 1:10 - Turn the bird breast side up and cook until juices run clear, basting frequently.

I don't know that the timing of the turning and basting has to be all that precise, but the important thing is to only put the carcass breast side up for the last 15 minutes. This is because the breast meat tends to be the driest, and cooking breast side down lets the juices pool in and around that area of the bird.

While you're babysitting your roasting chicken you can prepare the rest of the dish. Start the brown rice according to the instructions on the bag (liquid, rice, simmer, you get the picture). Use a knob of butter, a pinch of salt, and stock instead of water if you have it on hand. Make about 6 servings.



Then it's time for the vegetables. Chop up a few cloves of garlic (I used spring garlic), and a couple of small shallots or red spring onions, and then saute them in a large skillet over medium heat in olive oil. Separate the stems from the leaves of the Swiss chard, chopping each separately. Add the chopped stems, salt, pepper, and a splash of water to the skillet; cook covered for 2-3 minutes. Add the leaves and a splash of water and cook covered until wilted, around 10 minutes. Set aside.

You should let the chicken rest until it cools and then take as much meat off the carcass as possible, cutting it into bite-sized pieces. Mix this in with the chard and brown rice, and add a tablespoon of olive oil and a a couple of tablespoons each of chopped basil and parsley to finish it off.

There you have it: two hours and $20 later, you've got five days worth of lunch tucked neatly in your fridge. Now that's a habit worth keeping.

Qu'est Que C'est Dans Ma Boite Du CSA? Kale, Swiss Chard, Lettuces, Radishes, Carrots, Spring Garlic, & Garlic Scapes

Another Wednesday, another batch of sad vegetables languishing in my crisper drawer. I didn't get a chance to do much cooking these past days (too much World Cup, too many Real Housewives reruns, too little culinary ambition), and as a result was again unable to make the most of my CSA delivery. Whimper.

I'm becoming slightly worried that this CSA produce is going to function much in the same way as my New Yorker subscription, which exists to sit around the house and make me feel bad about myself, reminding me of the person that I could be: someone who reads contemporary short fiction and doesn't let good food go to waste.

But, let's start with the high points.

Kale and carrots went into this gorgeous white bean & kale soup. It's Dan Barber's recipe (courtesy of Bon Appetit, available here), and I have to say that it seemed suspiciously healthy when I first encountered it. I worried that it might turn out to be one of those things that personal trainers and trophy wives eat and rave about but that really tastes like sawdust mixed with dishwater.



It does not. It's tangy and light and delicious. The key here is the Sherry vinegar added in at the end -- if you don't have Sherry vinegar on hand, do not skip this step. You can use white wine vinegar instead. Also, make sure to give the stock and white wine plenty of time to reduce down to make a concentrated broth, even if you exceed the timing marked in the recipe.

The Viking and I ate the soup with some disappointing store bought bread. The whole meal happened to be vegan, for those of you who go in for that sort of thing. For those that don't: I'd suggest frying bacon or pancetta in with the shallots at the beginning for a heartier soup.

The next night, I made a pasta dish from the Swiss chard, garlic scapes, and spring garlic, and served it with with pork cutlets in a cider-mustard sauce.



For the pasta dish, I separated the leaves and stems of the Swiss chard, chopping them separately. Then I sliced and sauteed garlic scapes and spring garlic (white parts only) in olive oil. I added in the sliced stems and a little water, letting them soften and then adding the leaves and little bit more water. Then I added almost 2 cups of chopped San Marzano tomatoes. That all got mixed together with a pound of penne and 1/2 cup Parmesan. As a side note, do yourself a favor and buy high quality pasta -- something other than Ronzoni, De Cecco, and Barilla if you can find it. It has more texture and flavor, and really makes all the difference.

I digress. I suppose I shouldn't spend any more effort trying to distract you from the issue at hand, which is of course the big bag of lettuces and radishes left in my fridge. I briefly considered eating a side salad with my double espresso this morning, but ultimately decided against it. They're still sitting in the fridge wilting right now, probably wishing that they were delivered to someone who really appreciated them.

Thank You All For Coming, My Friends. I Hope You're Enjoying The Clams Casino.

This was a weekend of birthday parties. Well, "parties" might be too strong a word, since there were no martinis involved. Celebrations. We had my mother over for a birthday dinner on Friday night and on Sunday hosted a very belated one for my friend the Tiger.

The big thrill in my little world these days is the large (by New York standards) outdoor space attached to our new apartment. It was the main selling point to the place as far as I was concerned, and set visions of sunbathing, barbecues, and dinner parties under the stars dancing in my head. It's finally warm enough to start executing on plans; we have a Weber grill, a table and benches, a chaise long, and several plants. It's all terribly exciting.

There's only one hitch: the actual grilling part. My culinary interests have developed over a period of years completely devoid of any outdoor cooking facilities whatsoever, meaning that I'm still a total grill novice. The Viking has equally little experience with an open flame and yet wordlessly, instinctively, the Weber has become his domain. I'm not sure that I like the implicit gender politics -- and I do want to learn to be a grillmaster in my own right -- but for now, it's a nice change from our typical mealtime roles. It feels good to be a team.

Over the past few weeks it's been the blind leading the blind, The Viking neurotically cutting into meat and prodding things with tongs while I hover and speculate about proper grill surface placement. But we persevere.

For the Tiger's birthday, we attempted the hamburger.

One of these days I'm going to make a research project of tasting my way around New York hamburgers and learning all the nuances of really a good one, but one thing I do already know is that the key to a successful burger is achieving a balance of textures and tastes: the unctuous beef patty, the soft, sweet roll, the pickly tang of a relish or ketchup, the crisp lettuce, and the sharp creaminess of melting cheese.



For Sunday's BBQ I bought Pat LaFrieda patties (somewhat of a fad here in NYC, due to the decadent meat blends that he creates for restaurants), Martin's potato rolls, and cheddar and pecorino cheeses. I made caramelized onions and a tomato relish, too. It wasn't the best burger we'll ever make, but it wasn't bad for a couple of rookies.

I threw together a green salad (...of CSA lettuces, thankyouverymuch), and realizing that my planter full of basil was poised to make a land grab from the strawberries, I made pesto and used it to dress a cold pasta salad of rotini, plum tomatoes, pine nuts, and peas.



I was pleasantly surprised by the tomato relish, which was essentially just my attempt to dress up ketchup in a hurry; it lent a bright, fresh note that turned out to be crucial to the whole burger experience. In truth this relish hardly needs a recipe - it's not rocket science - but here it is.




Tomato Relish

Serves 10

3 medium tomatoes
1 small onion
1 jalapeno pepper (optional)
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 c. ketchup

1. Chop tomatoes and mince (i.e. finely chop) onion and pepper; combine with salt and pepper in small bowl, cover, and chill for 1 hour.
2. Strain tomato mixture through fine sieve and discard juices.
3. Stir ketchup into tomato mixture and serve.

Dinner For 1: Cheddar, Spring Garlic & Pancetta Omelette Bliss

I just want to take a moment to draw your attention to how unbeatable an omelette is when you're cooking for one: it's super cheap, nutritious, quick, and easy, and magically transforms things like sad little nubs of cheese and random, wilty produce into a warm, gooey pocket of awesome.

Tonight, I used spring garlic (which is similar to scallions) from my weekly CSA delivery, along with leftover cheddar and pancetta. My omelette recipe can be found here. Add a cold beer, and dinner doesn't get much better than that.