art and food

D was in a juried art show which had its opening last night, so we went and mingled with other other artists and art lovers. Some good stuff--above is the 1st prize winner, which was called "Emerging."
And here is my favorite painting of D's in the show:

And here is the food--it was solid fare of the cheese-cracker-grape-olive variety, but I particularly liked the signs, which suggested mysterious food and drink misbehavior at past openings that I'd like to hear more about.

one of the 50 best restaurants in America

I went out to dinner with some friends last Friday--a kind of memorial dinner. We did an informal writing retreat in the summer, and want to keep the energy alive; also just to have fun.
We went to Parker's New American Bistro and it was wonderful--above is my entree, a moistly tender piece of pork loin with just the right amount of chewiness. And here's the lamb sausage on a polenta cake appetizer: also extremely good (I snagged the last bite).
One of the nice things about Parker's is that everything is very good, and also as local as it's possible to be when you're running a restaurant. Parker is a local-foods advocate, and is active in various ways around Cleveland and northeast Ohio in the farmers markets, etc. In fact, he's closing the restaurant to give more time to these activities, which is good and bad. Good: more attention to local food, better farmers markets. Bad: no more Parker's.
So this dinner might have been a swan dinner, if I don't make it back before the end of December. It made me think of all the times I'd been there before. It's in the Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland, which is where I went to high school, so the 19th-century building was familiar to me from before it was a restaurant (it's quite close to a boys' school, in the vicinity of which the girls from my girls' school did a certain amount of hanging out).
And then later, when I was working at Cleveland State, my boss would sometimes take me to dinner at Parkers. He liked it because they would bring his plate without any garnish or vegetable. He didn't like to see anything impinging on his meat and potatoes--it ruined his appetite, he said. At other restaurants they would say they'd leave off the carrots or the curly kale, but then they would forget. He also liked the dessert souflees, which had to be ordered at the beginning of the meal (they still do). I had my first souflee there--lemon, very good.
Parker's was featured by Gourmet as one of the 2006 50 best restaurants--one of not so many Cleveland restaurants to be so honored--so it's quite a loss. I'm thinking I ought to go once more at least before it's gone forever.

food news from here and there

Dagoba Organic Chocolate has been purchased by Hershey. Click here for some words about this from Schilling of Dagoba via David Lebovitz's blog. Question: is Hershey planning to gobble up all the organic/artisan chocolatemakers? Is this an evil chocolate plot? Stay tuned.
Elise at Simply Recipes has posted a recipe for Caramel Apples, which look so wonderful I'm thinking of changing my mind about not liking them.
Bridal gown made by future husband, a baker, from cream puffs. See here.
Kitchenhand gives a personal history of the bean, and a recipe.
I had cheese (an unidentified cheddar scrap rescued from the back of the fridge) and crackers (Ritz) for lunch. No photos.

fair food

I went to the Fairfield County Fair in Lancaster last weekend. It's the last county fair in Ohio every year, which gives it an air of nostalgia--last fair, end of summer--quick, eat some funnel cake. Which I did, along with a lot of other stuff.
I also went to look at the food exhibitions, which I love. I've never entered anything (although come to think of it, why not?). I love the gleaming jars of jam and the giant vegetables, and the slices of pie and cake going limp, on display for days after their eat-by dates. This year, I especially liked the weird carrot exhibit, but I'm also always a sucker for outsize tomatoes and giant pumpkins.
I guess some people think of county fairs as outdated, and possibly they are, but I love their connection back to the time when Ohio, and much of the U.S., was mainly agricultural, when farming was one of the major occupations. Making a good jar of jam or canning garden produce wasn't just something you did for fun, but a survival mechanism. Long ago, in the winter, you couldn't go to the store and buy some sundried tomatoes or a jar of capers or spiced peaches. If you didn't have it in the root cellar, you did without.
This was my 1st year canning, and I admit I'm glad I don't have to depend for my winter diet on my food-preserving labor, because it was hard and time-consuming and I was thoroughly tired of it when it was over. But I don't want to lose the connection, even if it's sentimental, even if I'm being food-nostalgic.
The fair is also a wonderful spectacle, full of color and noise and movement. This was the first time I went in the daytime and I felt pleasantly overwhelmed by the sun and the blue sky, the moving crowds, the bright colors of the booths and the rides. A holdover again, right? For those benighted generations w/o electronic diversions. But a day later in front of the tv, I remembered being at the fair, when instead of sitting in front of the flat screen, I had walked in the very midst and moil of the highly-colored, doughnut and gyro scented air, able to put my hands on the giant goose-necked squash or press my face against the chainlink fence to see the sulky race.
And yes, I did have a deep-fried Twinkie.

some things I have cooked

One thing is the pumpkin stuffed with a sausage stuffing. I got the idea of a stuffed pumpkin in my head (which sounds uncomfortable), and then I bought a small pumpkin to symbolize fall, and then I felt we should eat it before it went squashy. I think I was influenced by the Sausage-Stuffed Acorn Squash at Chez Megane--that's how the pumpkin got in my head.
I precooked my pumpkin halves in the microwave a bit and also precooked the sausage a little because we were both hungry. The stuffing was very simple: mild Italian sausage, an egg, some torn up bread, a splash of milk, and some herbs from the garden (basil, parsley, and sage). I garnished it with some sauteed sage leaves, and it was very good.
Another thing is the Tomato-Apple Salad, which was the result of having tons of apples from D's father's tree. They were very insect-bitten this year, and most of the apples have to be cut and cut again to find the good parts. We wanted a tomato salad, but there weren't enough tomatoes left in the garden, so in desperation, I added chopped apples--this was an excellent idea. The salad was about equal parts chopped yellow tomato and chopped tart apple, in a vinaigrette of olive oil and lemon juice, with a sprinkling of kosher salt and a grind or 2 of pepper. Who knew that tomatoes and apples went together so well? I'm thinking now of a tomato soup with apples in some form: chopped? juiced? sauteed? We'll see.
Something I've cooked with: my new olive oil, brought back from the food nirvana of California by my friend Kris. It's from Lodestar Farms, a lemon olive oil with a very nice pedigree: extra virgin, cold pressed, late harvest. So far I've only used it twice. I drizzled it on the stuffed pumpkin when it came out of the oven, and I've dressed the pumpkin seeds with it after I roasted them. Both applications heavenly.
This weekend I'm going to Logan, Ohio, home of Pizza Crossing. I expect to try some pepperoni, and pepperoni/sausage/mushroom/hot pepper with my grandsons, who don't mind if I eat the hot peppers off theirslices.

all the things I haven't cooked, plus my favorite herb

I haven't cooked anything at all this week. I'm working on a big project, and D has taken up the spatula (as he did for a lot of the summer). Yesterday, he made a crockpot venison stew that was the ultimate comfort food, with drop biscuits to sop it up, which was so heavenly and nourishing that it may even have increased my IQ a couple of points.
I wasn't cooking over the weekend, and I wasn't blogging either, so I missed contributing to Kalyn's my-favorite-herb event, and didn't get to vote for basil, which came in poor second to cilantro (cilantro 13, basil 7). Check out her round-up, here.
So this is a belated tribute to basil. I have 7 basil plants growing in my garden, 3 of them still looking pretty good although it's been chilly (we haven't had a frost yet). The photo above was taken yesterday, when I was on my way to the library.
I use basil a lot. In summer it goes into 8 out of 10 dinners. I use basil leaves instead of lettuce on my sandwiches. I put a leaf or 2 in my cup of herbal tea in the mornings. I dry part of what I grow and use it as long it lasts (it never lasts long enough). And I make pesto and freeze it.
Pesto is my favorite basil recipe. I got my original pesto recipe from a book on herbs that I've lost. I bought it at an herb shop run by a chirpy old woman, the kind of person from whom you want to buy something, because they're so nice and they answer all your stupid questions about growing this and making vinegar out of that, and in this case, because they're so cute (she was wearing a straw hat with real daisies stuck in the ribbon band around the crown). So I bought the book, and read it through and through, learned how to make herb vinegars, different ways to dry, and most important, how to make pesto.
I changed her recipe somewhat, reducing the oil, for instance--and I see no need to stick to pine nuts; I've used walnuts and almonds, both of which were fine (walnuts give a better texture though). I add a little vinegar because I was nervous then about botulism or something, and I still do because I like the way it tastes. I also like it to be spicy, so I often add part of a hot pepper.
Here's my recipe, which is always amendable--I don't really measure anything anymore, so these are estimated measurements.
Basil Pesto
2 cups of basil (I put it in a pyrex 2-cup measuring cup and really squash it down tight)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (it's best if you use fresh-grated, but in a pinch, I've used the stuff in the green can and it's pretty good that way)
a handful of some kind of nuts: pine, walnut, almond; I used pecan once, and I'm thinking of trying pistachio this year, since I have half a bag in the freezer)
a splash of vinegar: probably this splash is in the nature of a scant tablespoon; I use whatever I have in the cupboard.
a whole or half hot pepper: I've used both dried and fresh; jalapenos or cayenne, usually.
a clove or 2 of garlic
I put everything in the food processor except the olive oil and let it go for a minute; then I add the olive oil a little at a time through the feed tube. Sometimes I use more than a quarter cup--I like it to be moving toward smooth, but still a little textured--more olive oil would make it more sauce-like. Mine mounds up in the spoon.
I sometimes add other things on a whim--some green or red pepper; half an onion; some parsley. And I mix basils, except for purple, which I segregate.
I freeze it in small containers, and we eat it in all the usual ways--pasta, mainly. But it's also good on a sandwich, either by itself or mixed into a little mayonnaise. Even frozen it has a strong aroma--when I open one of the little containers I can smell the basil and it's like opening my back door to summer.

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.