why does food taste better outdoors?

This is a perennial question, first asked by (I believe) Lucy in the Enid Blyton's XXX of Adventure series (Castle of Adventure, Island of Adventure, and so on), and more lately, by kitchenhand on his excellent blog, What I cooked last night. My answer is I don't know, but also, who cares, because it does, and we should just accept this and then go forth and eat as many meals out of doors as the weather will permit.
On my writing weekend, I ate most breakfasts and some lunches on the deck, and all snacks on the beach. Dinners were formally served in the dining room, but the appetizer course was eaten on the deck, with various forms of alcohol. As Virginia Woolf is my witness, it did taste better. See above, a 7-layer dip that was devoured not long after this picture was taken.
I took brownies (see here), and made a curried vegetable dish, for which there is neither picture nor recipe. It was the kind of dish which arises out of what vegetables are available and look good (onions, green and hot peppers, potatoes, corn, cherry tomatoes) and comes together with a pinch of this and a grating of that.
We were also well-supplied with chocolate, which as everyone knows is crucial to the writing process.

the joy of brownies

I'm making brownies tonight to take to a writing thing I'm doing this weekend. Brownies are good because I've made them so often I don't really need the recipe anymore--they make me feel like a high-flying, don't-need-to-check cook. Also, they're good because they're good. No one ever pokes at them dubiously and asks, "Now what's this again?" They do say, "Oh, I shouldn't." But then they do.
I originally used the Joy of Cooking recipe, but over time I've tinkered with it a little, and I have several different variations. The big difference is that I use more chocolate and less sugar, because I like them fudgier and a little less sweet. I sometimes make them with nuts, but not too often, because one of my daughters hates nuts, especially nuts in cookies. I also use the trick (which I think I read about in one of Maida Heatter's cookbooks) of lining the pan with foil and then lifting the brownies out to cool--they're much easier to cut and you don't have to pry them out of the pan with a fork if you overbake them the slightest little bit.

Brownies
1/2 cup butter
5 0z unsweetened chocolate (if I have it I use Scharffen-Berger)
1 and 3/4 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
a tiny pinch of salt
1 cup flour
optional:
I often add
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts, and
1 cup chocolate chips
but this time I substituted 3/4 cup of slivered dried apricots and a handful of chopped crystallized ginger for the chocolate chips.

Melt the butter and chocolate together (I use the microwave, doing it in 30-second increments so it doesn't get too hot; is there such a thing as overmelted?). Beat the eggs with the tsp of vanilla and the pinch of salt. You could also add other spices, etc., if you're using them.
(The old Joy told you to add the sugar to the eggs, and then the chocolate/butter mixture to that. But the new one says to add the sugar to the chocolate mixture--the advantage of this is that you don't have to wait as long for the chocolate to cool, because it cools somewhat when it mixes with the sugar. And then you don't have to worry about it being curdling the eggs. And it works fine.)
After adding the sugar to the chocolate/butter, mix in the eggs lightly, mixing well but not beating. Then add the flour, mixing until just before it all comes together (so that there is still some flour visible. Add the nuts and/or chocolate chips or whatever you're adding, and mix the rest of the way.
I line a 9x13 pan with foil, and I grease the foil with butter, and then I throw in a mixture of sugar and cocoa to coat the pan (as you are directed to do with flour for some cake recipes), tapping out the excess. In goes the brownie batter, and the pan in the preheated oven, to bake at 350 degrees. Bake for 25 minutes--checking the brownies with a toothpick to see if they're done.
Sometimes I add a tsp of chili powder (chipotle or ancho); sometimes a half tsp each of cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger. I made it once with a syrup of mint made from the mint in my garden, but I forgot to write that version down, so I'll have to invent it again some time. I also made it once and drenched the still-warm brownies with a slathering of black raspberry jam, and then a chocolate-bar frosting, which was so decadent that I haven't yet done it again.
Some things that don't work: minimarshmallows and Heath Bar bits (they both melt into the brownies). But white chocolate chips are good; and M&Ms would probably be fine, too. I won't taste the brownies with slivered apricot, ginger, and walnuts until tomorrow, but they smell divine, and D says they're pretty good.

the 5 things to eat before you die meme

Started by The Traveler's Lunchbox, this has been variously and wondrously interpreted by bloggers, including Faith at Mekuno Cooking (who tagged me); Karina at gluten-free goddess (she gives 5 foods to live for); Cookiecrumb (who includes a deathbed wish); and kitchen hand at What I cooked last night (he has 5 meals).
I had trouble coming up with my own list--too many wonderful things, of course, but also, how to interpret it--personal foods? universal foods? unique and amazing foods? My list turned out to be personal, but somewhat accessible.
1. Pizza in Italy. I didn't really know how good pizza could be until I went to Italy. The 1st one my sister and I had (a Pizza Margherita in an 8-table restaurant in a Roman alley) was a revelation that swept aside all the unsatisfactory experiences with Domino's and their like. (Actually, any food in Italy would be a good list item--almost everything we ate there was wonderful.)
2. My mother's torte, made always for Christmas dinner, and occasionally on other state occasions. We learned that my sister couldn't have it for her June birthday though, since the heat tended to uncrisp and even melt it. When we were young, the torte seemed like a miraculous and unique creation, but I know it now as a variety of dacquoise, meringue layers filled and frosted with whipped cream flavored with cherries and pineapple. It's one of those recipes that turns out to be more than the sum of its parts.
3. Warm bread you've made yourself. The taste is wonderful enough in itself, good even w/o butter (although butter is welcome), but it's even better because of the sense of accomplishment. I waited a long time to taste this because of my fear of yeast, one of several food-preparation fears I had: fear of yeast, fear of canning, fear of pressure cookers, and fear of deep-fat frying. I've conquered the 1st two, and I'm contemplating learning how to make doughnuts.
4. Pierogi, an eastern-European kind of filled dumpling for those of you whose grandma didn't make them by the dozen, filled most often with potato and/or cheese, but now available in other flavors. I'm part Slovak, and my grandma and aunts were great pierogi makers. I myself am a great pierogi buyer. Hmmm--maybe I have a fear of pierogi? Pierogi should ideally be served with fried onions, some sour cream, possibly sauerkraut, and some kielbasi sausage. It's a dish that will turn you Slovak (or Polish or Hungarian).
5. A BLT, with homegrown tomatoes and lettuce, which incidentally we had last night for dinner--tomato slices as large as dessert plates, Red Sails lettuce, bacon from The Sausage Shoppe (home-cured), and bread from one of my favorite bakeries, the Stone Oven. I was starting to feel sick last night, and the BLT made me feel cured, for a while at least.

Bloggers I'd like to tag (and who I'm pretty sure haven't posted on it yet): Barbara at Tigers and Strawberries; Liz at Pocket Farm; ladygoat at Foodgoat; Queen of the Kitchen; and Gina at Crazy Diamond.

preservation

Back from Logan, Ohio, where I discussed canning with my son-in-law. He and my daughter have done green beans (in a pressure cooker) and tomatoes so far, their first time. D and I have done peaches, pears, chutney, and peach jam. The combination is starting to approach a balanced meal, along with the venison we have in the freezer. Back to the land! Oh, wait--too late for that. Not to mention that I don't want to chop my own wood and make lye soap or whatever they were doing on those communes in the '60s while I was living a more ordinary life.

I haven't quite got the hang of jam-making yet. I'm never sure how long to cook it and my sources are somewhat contradictory. Plus, I can't resist adding things to it (balsamic vinegar? why not!). The peach jam I made yesterday came out tasting very good, but a little too solid--too much pectin? or just overcooked? I'm not sure. I won't give a recipe, because I kept adding things in a manic way, but it tastes pretty good. I'm calling it Balsamic Peach Jam--a little balsamic vinegar, some cardamom seeds to spice it up a little.

Here's the jam on some vanilla ice cream: very bad picture; very good jam.

chocolate

See, what I love about food blogs is that you can find there interviews of people who make chocolate--as for instance, here, where David Lebovitz interviews Frederick Schilling of Dagoba Organic Chocolate on his wonderful (often chocolate-focused) blog. Lots of interesting stuff about chocolate making, the chocolatemakers community, etc. Schilling quotes Dr. Seuss and mentions a fantasy of transporting chocolate from South America in sailing boats--could he be more charming? Plus, Dagoba makes one of my favorite chocolat bars, the Xocalatl, bittersweet chocolate with chilies and cacao nibs. It turns out it's their #1 best selling bar, which dashes my feelings of being unique and clever in my liking of it, but I'll get over it.

peachy

I always thought I'd like to do some canning, in the way that people think they might like to write a novel, some time, in the future, when other interests have palled, perhaps when they've retired and don't have enough to do. But this summer I had canning thrust upon me. D's father Raymond, who has an intensively planted city garden, has always canned--tomatoes, peaches, pears. And this year, he decided he wasn't up to it any more, so D said we would do it. Sure, we'll do it, I said comfortably back in June when the peaches were still in the future, and I sat back to read another ancient mystery I'd found when cleaning the closet.
And then the peaches arrived! Several hundred of them.
So we're canning, and just in time for the 22nd Sugar High Friday, Can You Can, hosted at Delicious Days.
The main reference we used (besides D's father, who had plenty to say) was the older version of The Joy of Cooking, which has been there for me through many culinary triumphs and failures. We supplemented it with an intensely wordy online treatise from the USDA, and a perky but useful FAQ, here.
So far, we've done 35 pints of peaches and 10 quarts, canned in a medium sugar syrup by the cold-pack method. We've had 4 exploding jars (they didn't really explode, just broke in the hot water bath), which was exciting (what was that noise!?) but annoying. We don't need cologne because we carry with us a mild but pervasive odor of peachiness. We have only one peach-related injury--D cut his knuckle during some over-enthusiastic peeling.
We've learned several things: pack those peaches in tightly; when they say to fill the jars with a certain amount of headroom, they really mean it; boiling water is HOT!; and, although this may seem obvious, peeled peaches are slippery. Mainly we've learned that it isn't as hard as I feared it might be. It's the kind of thing that you get better at the more you do it. And I have to say that I feel an immense sense of accomplishment when I look at the jars on the dining room table.
I'm thinking: we can do this!; which is a good thing, because in a couple of weeks, the pears are going to start coming in.

one local summer #8: pot luck

My featured local meal this week wasn't actually a meal. I made locally grown food the star of my potluck contributions (as it turned out, I wasn't the only one--there were some homegrown tomatoes in the salad and, I believe, local eggplant in the main dish).
I made 2 things--a kind of tapenade with garlic toasts and a fruit crumble. The tapenade was all local except for the olive oil and spices, and the bread was from a local bakery. The crumble (or was it a crisp?) had local plums and cherries and local butter from Hartzler's Dairy in the crumble topping. I made it with very little sugar because one of the potluckers is a diabetic.

Tapenade
1 small tomato, seeded
1/2 medium onion
8 oven-dried tomatoes (from last year)
1/2 mildly hot pepper
1 garlic clove
handful of local black walnuts, chopped
handful of mixed basil from the garden (green, purple, lime, and Thai)
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp of smoked paprika
1/2 tsp of chipotle powder
drizzle of olive oil
I put everything except the oil into the food processor and let it go for a minute. When it was chunky, I started adding the olive oil in dribs and drabs until it started to look spreadable (probably about 1/4 cup). It tasted fine, and was popular enough that it was half gone before I took a picture of it.

Plum-Cherry Crumble
about 15 prune plums, pitted and sliced
about twenty cherries, pitted
5 tbs white (divided use)
pinch of ginger
pinch of nutmeg
1/8 cup of red wine
1/4 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup flour
2tbs demerara sugar (although you could use brown)
3 tbs butter
pinch salt
I roasted the plums a little first after tossing them with 3 tbs of the sugar, the ginger and the nutmeg--about 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven to draw the juices out a little. I put the plums and their juice in my baking dish (a smallish 5-cup pyrex) along with the halved cherries. I added the wine and tossed them a little. (I had some rose petal syrup leftover from something else and added a couple of spoonsful, but this was optional.) I put the oatmeal, flour, butter, salt, and the rest of the sugars in a dish and mixed it with my hands (although you can use a pastry cutter if you want to). Then I spooned it onto the fruit and put it in the 350-degree oven for about 35 minutes (or until you can see the fruit juices bubbling up a little.
At the potluck we had this with Hartzler cream, and it was universally commended. It turned out very red/purple, despite the prune plums--some powerfully colored cherries, I guess.

in honor of Julia

Lisa at Champaign Taste had the nifty idea to celebrate Julia Child's birthday today by making one of her recipes. I decided to make mayonnaise because I've never done it and always wanted to. To make it even easier, Julia gives Blender Mayonnaise as a variation in Mastering the Art of French Cooking--I couldn't put it off any longer.
I want to say I'm a little embarrassed that I haven't done it before--it was soooo easy.
Julia Child's Blender Mayonnaise
1 whole egg
1/4 tsp dry mustard (I used prepared because I couldn't find dry)
1/2 tsp salt (I used kosher)
1 tbs white wine vinegar (or Julia says you can use lemon juice)
1 cup olive oil (or a mixture of oils)
I put the 1st 3 ingredients in my food processor (figuring it would work as well as the blender--which it did) and whirred it for 30 seconds; added the vinegar and let it go 10 seconds more. Then I poured the oil very slowly into the feed tube--in fact, I put it in by dripped spoonsful, because Julia was emphatic about the need for slowness. I could see it turning into mayonnaise right then and there--it was like a chemistry experiment (and more successful than most of mine were in Sister Gabriella's class).
And voila--le mayonnaise (la mayonnaise?).
I tried it immediately on the classic cheese and tomato-from-the-garden sandwich.
Bon appetit!

Postscript: I just read on megnut that mayonnaise is (possibly) 250 years old this summer. Glad to have observed two anniversaries in one.

The Local Spice is Right

Local spice, local ingredients. This is my entry for The Spice is Right 5: Fresh and Local. Barbara at Tigers and Strawberries this time asked us to come up with a locally grown spice if we could and pair it with as much local produce as possible, in honor of the lush and prolific growth of summer.
My local spice is coriander, the seeds of cilantro, and their terroir is my backyard. I've been growing cilantro for more than ten years, and sometimes now it reseeds itself, which I love. But I don't take any chances--I plant it every year, somtimes twice, because I love it so much.
The cilantro wars have been fought fiercely at my house, because D is one of those people who are genetically disposed to dislike the taste of cilantro. To some of these unfortunates, cilantro tastes like soap; D says it tastes like wet cardboard. I used to think he was just giving me a hard time, or that if I snuck it into enough dishes he'd get to like it. But I can't fight a genetic disposition.
In doing a little research on coriander/cilantro, I was glad to find out that its name derives from the Latin coriandrum, which in turn derives from the Greek corys, a bedbug, supposedly referring to the scent of the crushed leaves (I'm not going to tell D about this). It's both a spice (the seeds, whole or ground) and an herb (the leaves). The seeds have been found in Egyptian tombs (I've noticed this is claimed for a lot of plants--those Egyptians must have been fiends for seed burial). It was one of the 1st herbs grown by the American colonists, and the Roman legions carried it along on the march to flavor their bread. It is still used in cough medicine in India. There's a website for cilantro haters: I Hate Cilantro! And it's the name of the title character in I, Coriander.
I got my recipe from The Serendipitous Chef's Fiery Cool Cucumber Soup. Here's my version, only a little different:

about 3 medium cucumbers, seeded and cut in large pieces
(I peeled them, but left a little on for green flecks)
half an onion, cut in chunks
1 tbs dill
a small handful of basil
a small handful of mint
about 1 tbs of green coriander seeds, smashed a little with a knife
3 cloves garlic
1tsp chipotle chile powder
1 tsp paprika
pinch of sea salt
a pinch of cumin seeds
a splash of olive oil
and another of white wine
about 2 cups of yogurt
I put everything except the last 3 ingredients in the food processor and whirred it up until it was small-chunky. Then I put in the olive oil and white wine, and started adding yogurt about a quarter cup at a time. When it got to a nice soupy, not-too-thick consistency, I stopped (hence the imprecise measurement). I chilled it in the freezer for about 20 minutes (since it was very close to dinnertime), and brought it out and garnished it with mint sprigs (forgot them in the picture).
As for locality--the cucumbers was from D's father's garden, the onion from the farmers market. The herbs and the garlic were all from my garden, the white wine was a local wine, leaving only the salt, chile powders, olive oil, yogurt from out of town.
It was great--so good that I ate some for a bedtime snack later that night--chilled and icy, with a snap of spicy pepper and the pleasant tang of the yogurt--so good that I'm planning on adding the Chef to my blogroll--I don't want to miss anything else this good.

(Neither of the photos do it justice--I swear it didn't look that brown in real life!)

vegging out

The heat has broken somewhat, but it's still not what you'd call cool. So we opted to keep the temperature of dinner minimal, both the cooking of it and the eating. It also turned out to be more or less vegetarian (I used some chicken broth making the beans, but mostly because it was in the fridge, a leftover; vegetable broth could be easily substituted).
Black Bean Salad
about 1 cup uncooked black beans
liquid to cover (I used a mixture of water, red wine, and chicken broth)
half an onion
several sprigs of Thai basil
2 cloves of garlic
a sprig of mint
2 ears of corn
assorted heirloom tomatoes, enough to make about a cup roughly chopped
salt
half a lime
olive oil
Herb Pesto (see below)
I sorted through the beans, put them in the dutch oven with the liquid and the next 4 ingredients, and simmered them until they were tender (this took a while, because these beans were pretty old). When they were done, I discarded the onion, garlic, and herb sprigs, and set the beans aside to cool down.
I microwaved the corn--my new discovery, and I wish I remembered whom to credit, but I don't. Corn cooks perfectly in the microwave wrapped loosely in a paper towel. For 2 ears, I put the timer on 2.5 minutes, but you probably would need to experiment to find the perfect timing for your own microwave.
I cut the corn off the cobs and combined it with the beans and the tomato, annointed it with the juice of the half lime and a dose of olive oil (probably a couple of tablespoons), and the pesto.
The pesto looks depressingly khaki in the picture, probably because I used a mixture of purple and green basils. I threw it together, but this is a good approximation:
Herb Pesto
handful of green basil leaves
handful of purple basil leaves
the leaves from a goodish sprig of purslane (optional)
handful of mint leaves (I used 2 kinds--apple mint and spearmint)
5 or 6 walnut halves
about 3 tbs parmesan cheese, in small chunks
a dash of cider vinegar
olive oil
Throw the 1st 5 ingredients in the food processor and whirl it up a little; add a splash of olive oil and watch it approach chunky paste-hood. I kept adding olive oil until the texture looked right to me, probably about 3-4 tablespoons--some people would like more. At the last, I added the cheese and the vinegar (in vain hopes that it would keep the color bright--it did--bright khaki) and let it go a few more seconds. It was marvelously good, destined to be eaten on toast for breakfast the next day.
This was a hot-day meal to remember: it was vegetable-rich; I believe the beans and corn give you a complete protein; it was easy; and it was very good.

a return to one local summer

The above is an action shot of D putting together a 90%-local stirfry: his father's carrots, squash and onions broccoli and corn (not visible) from the farmer's market, some herbs from our garden, various condiments, and rice (which is the unlocal 10%, or so I declare). We had guests, and dinner was running late, so no photo of the finished product. It was whisked onto the table and we fell up on it. Very good.
Working quite hard on my novel, plus time out for a high school reunion--when will I get to cook anything interesting again? D is having all the food fun this summer, with his Wonders of Wok Cookery cookbook. And of course, it's been hot. I have a wistful desire to make some muffins, or a batch of chocolate chip-pecan cookies. But I'm not prepared to turn on the oven until the temperature dips substantially below 90.

farmers market envy

Lake Tahoe was great in a number of ways, about which I'll say more over several posts. But one of the most amazing things was the Tahoe City Farmers Market (Thursdays, 8 am to 1 pm, in case you're in the neighborhood). First, it was on the lake--points right there for the blue and sparkling view.
But even without the clear Tahoe water (from snowmelt) sparkling between the stalls, there would have been so much else to look at, taste, sniff--and, of course, buy. A rainbow of plums, for instance. A dozen varieties of tomatoes, heirloom and conventional. Breads, Indian food, giant blackberries, velvety peaches. An avalanche of beans.

My sister kept asking me if I'd taken a picture of this or that (I had), and I kept saying, have you tasted this? the cilantro pesto? the organic strawberries?

We bought (a partial list) mint chutney, chicken tikka, strawberries, blackberries, red plums, black plums, maroon plums, lemon cucumbers, basil, a small honeydew melon, a handwoven market basket, goat cheese, manchego cheese, eggplants, several kinds of tomatoes, and much, much more. Then we staggered back to our house on the lake, ready to eat locally for as many days as it took to consume it all.
I love my usual farmers markets--North Union at Crocker Bassett and off Detroit Ave. in Lakewood--but I have never seen anything like this variety and lushness there. I guess this is the difference between living in Ohio and California. They had yellow carrots! And long beans! I'd forgotten about those--something I'd never even seen before (next to the eggplant in the bean picture).

If anything could make me want to move to California, the prospect of this kind of farmers market might do the trick.

going away

I'm going away to Lake Tahoe for a week, so maybe I'll get to see what eating locally is like in another location. In the meantime, I wanted to recommend Molly O'Neill's book, Mostly True. Its subtitle is "a memoir of family, food, and baseball"; and when I heard a piece about it on the radio, it sounded like it was mostly about food. O'Neill is a food writer and has been a chef, so I was expecting it to be something like Ruth Reichl's books (which I loved). But although there is food aplenty in here, it's really centered on O'Neill's amazing family--her father, mother, and 5 brothers. Very funny and readable.
Here's a quote to tempt you:
Many families have an inspirational text, a book that both mirrors their hopes and ambitions and acts as a spiritual how-to guide--the Bible, for instance.... Ours was Go, Dog. Go!.... a story about dogs... dogs on bikes and scooters, dogs in the water, in trees, and in cars. ... mostly about boy dogs....
There is one girl in Go, Dog. Go! She is a French poodle and a redhead and she spends all her time trying to get one big goofy-looking hound to notice that she's alive. ... "Do you like my hat?" she asks... "I do not," replies the hound....
In fact, I looked more like a St. Bernard than a poodle, and I had little interest in building hats. But my appetite for recognition was greater than any dogs', and in the spring of my eleventh year, I courted it with a red pogo stick.
I hadn't heard of O'Neill before reading this, but I'm determined to search out whatever else she's written.

eating weeds

What could be more ecologically sound? I was reading cookie crumb's blog this morning, and there was a photo of something that I've been pulling up and throwing on my ineffective compost heap--purslane. It's free, green, and good for you.
"Purslane may be a common plant, but it is uncommonly good for you. It tops the list of plants high in vitamin E and an essential omega-3 fatty acid called alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Purslane provides six times more vitamin E than spinach and seven times more beta carotene than carrots. It's also rich in vitamin C, magnesium, riboflavin, potassium and phosphorus." (from Seabreeze Organic Farm's website)
I went right out and pulled some up. I washed it and nibbled a bit--a little tart, possibly lemony (as some sources say it is). Not bad. We had some in our salad for dinner, but it was pretty overwhelmed by the lettuce, cucumber, carrot shavings, and vinaigrette with mustard and honey. I think I'll have to look out for some recipes that will give it more of a starring role.

one local summer, redux

Our second meal was heavenly-delish, but maybe a mite unbalanced. I was brought up with dinners that always included meat (or occasionally fish), potatoes (very rarely replaced by rice or dumplings), two vegetables, and salad. So sometimes when we make guacamole for dinner accompanied only by chips, or a solitary baked potato, I feel as if I ought to be explaining something to my mother.
The slightly unbablanced meal was fresh pea soup, and potatoes fried with onions and chives--my first time with this soup (although I've made split pea a number of times).
I couldn't find a recipe that I felt happy with (or that I had all the ingredients for), so I used one in Joy of Cooking and one in a Martha Stewart book as my foundation and took flight from there.
It came out wonderfully--a beautiful color of green, with a very fresh taste. The fried potatoes were basically just potatoes fried with onion and chives (and a little home-grown garlic)--no need for a recipe.

Fresh Pea Soup Garnished with Croutons and Mustard Flowers
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 tbs olive oil
2 cups shelled peas
a handful of beet (or other) greens, cut in thin strips
a handful of fresh mint leaves, ditto ***forgot this in 1st draft, sorry)
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup cream
1/4 cup yogurt
pinch of ginger
1/2 tsp ancho chile powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp nutmeg
a few shakes of pepper
salt to taste
croutons and mustard flowers
(or other garnish)
I sauteed the onion and garlic in the olive oil. When they were softened I added the peas, beet greens, broth, and wine, and brought it to a simmer. I'm not sure exactly how long I let it go, because I kept taking one pea out to see if it was done; I'd guess about 4 minutes.
I added the seasonings and the cream and let it go a little longer, 2 more minutes about. (The spices gave just a hint of heat to the soup--but some might like it more purely pea in flavor--if so, I'd use only the salt, pepper, and nutmeg.)
I tried my immersion blender on this mixture, but it didn't work so well, so I put it in the regular blender and gave it a whiz. When it was smoothly and deliciously green, I added the yogurt, and then garnished our bowls with the flowers and croutons. This was meant to be a cold soup, but in fact, I ate it at room temperature (very good), and D ate it warmed up (because he can't see the point of cold soups) and had no complaints.

The mustard flowers are from my garden--I have mustard growing wild, which I more or less like, and I often eat the flowers raw when I'm out in the yard--they're very hot and sharp. They're not too noticeable when you put them in something, so they were just the tiniest piquant note in the soup, and also very pretty. The croutons were homemade: sourdough bread cut up and heated over a low flame in a cast iron pan to dry them out; then I added a little oil and tossed them around in the pan until they were coated and crispy.
My mother would have liked each element of this meal (although she would have perhaps questioned the mustard flowers), but she would probably have recommended that we add a nice sauteed chicken breast or a stuffed pork chop.

one local summer

Liz at Pocket Farm cleverly came up with One Local Summer, to keep us eating locally in a non-pressured way: commit to at least one purely local meal a week over the summer. I had to beg off last week (here's the round-up) because I was traveling, but it's week 2, and I'm on it.
My local meal last night was simple and delicious--no thanks to me, because it was a total D production. Lately, he's been obsessed with our wok, but this meal celebrates a return to the good old iron skillet.
He made some deer burgers: meat from last year's hunting season, in SE Ohio, lettuce from his father's garden, local Amish cheese, locally baked bread. The cherry tomatoes are local produce from the Mustard Seed Market, as were the vegetables in the coleslaw.
I actually have lettuce in my own garden, but mine is more in the micro-green stage. D's father claims this is because he waters his every day, and I don't. It's true, I believe in tough vegetable love.

coconut and cucumbers

Here's a quote that expresses perfectly how I feel about food blogs:

"I think the thing I like most about food weblogs is that they lift recipes and food off the page and into real life, in living color! You take one look at a picture of something cooked by a living person, not some invisible cookbook aggregate, and you say, Hey! I can do that. In fact, I am going to do it right now!

I found it along with a great post on Coconut Bread on mekuno cooking; and just to make it more food-blog-interactive, Karin found the recipe at another of my favorite blogs, bakingsheet.

We had hot dogs for the Fourth, which were ungourmet but perfect. Just to show off I made some cucumber salad, not really a recipe: cucumbers (peeled and seeded) and the kernels from one ear of corn, tossed with a dressing (a few tablespoons of mayo, soy sauce, lime juice, a bit of olive oil, rice vinegar) and a handful of herbs snipped from the garden: dill, fennel, cilantro, and mustard flowers). It was our hot dog antidote, the healthy part of our meal.

futile apologies

How many times have I read other bloggers who say thusly: I've been eating, cooking, taking photographs like mad--but, sorry, no time to post! I hate this as a reader. Just give me a hint, I think. Stew? Curry? lots of dessert?
But now I have to say it myself--lots of stuff I could have posted about, but the truth is I've been working hard on my novel, and blogging has suffered. And now I'm going away for the weekend. Is there no end to my perfidy?
In the meantime, here's something I posted on the Eat Local Challenge site, plus a photo of the flowers on my tomato plants, and one of the garlic scapes that I couldn't for some reason put up on the ELC.

June...

Is that not one of the loveliest words in English? meaning summer, meaning sun, meaning long days, roses, the smell of mown grass.
I'm a fan of June, and not just because I have the summers off (although that's no small thing). May was the month of eating locally, which was interesting, sometimes difficult, educational, occasionally thrilling (ramps!). This year, June is the month of eating and not cooking--D has offered to do most of the cooking so I can work more intensely on finishing a big project. Toward that end, he's unearthed our wok and started cooking up various stir-frys.
Meanwhile, I make my own lunches (unless they're leftover stirfrys, of course), and they are pretty basic: cheese sandwich, cheese and crackers, yogurt with some fruit--the kinds of meals that are assembled rather than cooked, and that can, if necessary, be eaten in front of the computer.
Occasionally, however, the thrown-together lunch approaches greatness: leftover mashed potatoes, a drizzle of olive oil, a splash of milk, some sea salt, and--because it's June--some herbs picked at random in the garden and snipped into the bowl--basil, fennel, and dill.

cookbook windfall

Sweetnick's has a round-up of inside-of-fridge photos, here--both informative and entertaining. All of these refrigerators are a lot cleaner than mine, and they look better organized, too. I'm not showing mine off, but here is part of the bounty from my son-in-law's recent day-long yardsaling: a vintage cookbook bonanza.