More Light From Piazza

Isn't it gorgeous?!  It's hot off the presses, as they say.  It isn't even on-line yet.  I think this is one of the best covers yet--another Michael Piazza winner. 

My article (Occupy Pearl St.) for this season is kind of stuck in the back but it's still worth reading, if you're interested in how farmers markets really run.  If you want to read the article online, you'll have to wait for the digital version of the magazine, unless you subscribe, or find the magazine at Whole Foods or at one of the dozens of businesses throughout the Boston area that display the magazine.

There are recipes for a Hot Toddy and for gingerbread--things to get your holiday started.

Pick up a copy and enjoy it this weekend. 

Peach Fuzz

WARNING: 

The scenes you are about to see contain images which may be offensive to some viewers.

Don't let this happen to you.

Although I did get around to picking our peaches this year, and I did manage to peel them, chop them and put them all into a huge pot to make jam at a later date,

I forgot about them,

since August.

This morning I was lookng around for a big pot to use to brine a turkey for Thanksgiving and I remembered this one in the frig in the basement.  I screamed when I lifted the lid.

Kind of cool, though... 

otherworldly...

like constellations and other universes;

more like gray matter, actually,  which I seem to be losing more and more of every day.

Happy Thanksgiving.

big cadillac dreamer

November 17th.  A damp, gray, chill afternoon; first day so far this year that it actually feels like it’s getting on to winter.

Time to bake a cake.

I don’t do much baking anymore. There are so many good bakeries around, why bother.
But today I feel the urge.

A quick look through my most obliging cookbooks (meaning that most are dust-covered or falling apart or in hard-to-reach places) turns fruitless—too many pies and cooked-fruit desserts, which I love but am not in the mood for. So I haul out my personal recipe file—a manila folder

(does anyone say “manila” anymore?)

stuffed with stained and fragile recipes, loosely organized in paper-clipped bundles.  It is a treasure, this folder, full of a life-times’ worth of curated works.

I find the one for chocolate cake.

It’s written by my hand, in red pen, on a small sheet of stationary. The sheet has a logo at the top that says Stop and Go Transmissions, and a cartoon-looking picture of a 1970's traffic light. Within the red light at top is the word "stop," and written inside the green light is "go." “Transmissions are our business—our only business. Free Pickup—Free Towing—Free Delivery,” is the tag line. It was a business my father owned—seems it always comes back to my father.

In 1979 when my father was about 55 years old, with a couple of kids still at home (5 were already grown-up), he bought a Stop & Go Transmissions franchise. The timeline is a little murky because he changed businesses so often. We all thought he was nuts—he knew nothing about cars; he was a restaurant & lounge kind of guy, a "Dewar's & water" man, as my brother Joe described him once. In the 2005 eulogy to my father, Joe
wrote

Lover of the long shot
big Cadillac dreamer
double-breasted suit wearer
money loaner
story teller
risk taker
hell of a guy...

But my father insisted that this business would provide the big pay-out--next stop: easy-street.

The business was pretty successful for a while, but he was restless—he tired of it after five years, and moved on to buy the Elbow Room Lounge. That’s where I bartended for a while, and met Half-Man and Texaco Jack (but that’s another story).
 
Some time not long after this era, I acquired the recipe for this chocolate cake. I have no idea where the recipe came from and no recollection of writing it down. But I’ve made it a thousand times and it’s always good; pretty easy, too.

I bet you have all the ingredients on hand right now to make it. Who doesn’t have cocoa powder (there’s probably a can of it kicking around somewhere in that pantry), or eggs, baking soda, sugar, salt, flour, vanilla?

My sister Susan, a great cook, makes her own vanilla extract and gave me some as a birthday present. Standing inside the little medicine bottle is a real vanilla bean.

I wanted to use-up lots of pantry items before replenishing my stocks for Thanksgiving cooking.  So I added in chopped hazelnuts, walnuts and dried Medjool dates—just a handful of each, even though the cake could have used more. I didn’t adjust the proportions of any of the other ingredients and the cake was great.

I made two, one for home and one to take to my daughter in New York.  She's a starving young actress—which is yet another story.

Stop & Go Chocolate Cake
1 well-buttered 9" or 10" bundt pan (adjust cooking time accordingly)

In a saucepan on the stove top bring to boil
1 stick of butter
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 TBSP unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Ghirardelli's)

In a mixing bowl combine
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
(and any dry ingredients in your pantry you'd like to add)

Combine the two mixtures and beat with electric mixer until well mixed.

Then add
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk or sour cream (I didn't have either so I used plain yogurt)
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Beat until smooth.

350 degrees for 50 minutes to 1 hour (yum).

Venice Floats My Boat

On the day we left Venice there were seven cruise ships (7!) docked at the Porto di Venezia, a short walk from the apartment Jerry and I were renting. The ships had names:

The Happy Dolphin,

Europa Palace,

Crystal Serenity,

Ocean Princess,

names that conspire to transport you away from the reality of being on a boat with thousands, all clamoring to get out and onto the slender, temporal islands of Venice.

The ships are massive: towering white behemoths out of all proportion to the delicate scale of the city.

Their wake dredges the canals; the backwash erodes the ancient walls and wooden foundations of the city. You watch them move slowly, mirage-like, across your line of vision, blotting out the serene landscape as they go.

They are part of the reason Venice is sinking and ironically, grudgingly, the reason it still floats.

The number of tourists the boats steadily disgorge make up part of the 20 million that visit Venice every year, keeping it relevant despite its rising cost of living and scarcity of jobs.

Venice is (roughly) only twice the size of Central Park and has a population of 270,000, give or take.


Tourism is not a reason to not visit Venice. You just have to have a strategy: choose a good time to go, and stay away from Piazza San Marco (and do read John Berendt’s book, City of Falling Angels, first).

We went at the end of September, figuring it would be the tail-end of the tourist season, but we were wrong. One hotel keeper I spoke to told me that there really isn't a "season" any longer. Tourists come all summer long (she said with a little repugnance), and they continue to come in autumn because it’s not so hot. But the city is inundated at Christmas time, too, then again for Carnivale in February, for Easter in April--and then it’s summer again.

There’s little down time for Venice—you just have to deal.

And we did. It was wonderful. I would go back today if I had the chance.

Venice is what the word awesome was meant to describe. Everywhere you look you see a Renaissance tableau, familiar in a sense, but realizing that this is the real thing makes you giddy. Landscapes of spires and ancient stone, palaces, velvet and old wood, shimmering water—these scenes surround and follow you wherever you go.

What you don’t see or hear are cars—you know there are no cars in Venice, don’t you? There are no roads, only canals, only boats. It is disarming to be in the midst of a major city, teeming with tourists and street vendors and side walk cafes and of course all those cruise ships, and yet hear no normal street noise, no cars, no buzzing scooters.

It dawns on you gradually, this absence of motor sounds. Walk a little way away from one of the large canals and all is quiet, hushed, conversations are intimate, everyone is whispering secrets.

We walked a lot. The weather was perfect.


We mostly stumbled upon things-- a concert of Vivaldi in the beautiful Chiesa San Vidal;
a Roshashana Service in progress in the Venetian Ghetto which included the blowing of the shofar;

the restored Gran Teatro La Fenice (the opera house which burned down in 1996 which we had read about in great detail in Berendt’s book); and the pluperfect fifteenth-century church, Santa Maria dei Miracoli, a miracle in marble thanks to the painstaking 10-year restoration by Save Venice.

We bought 3-day passes for the vaporetti and were able to take these water shuttle boats anywhere, getting on and off as often as we pleased. On one cloudless warm day, we took a vaporetto all the way to the island of Torcello, sailing out past the Lido, past Murano and Burano.

Torcello is the tiny island out in the lagoon, reached after an hour’s vaporetto ride, including several transfers.

The island’s main attraction is the seventh century cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, the oldest building remaining in all of Venice. Inside are golden Bysantine mosaics which tell the story of the ancient Eastern Church. Photos are not allowed, as the young guards remind us repeatedly each time another visitor points a camera—“No photo… No photo,” comes the weary reprimand, and I wonder how many times a day this poor student has to repeat this.

On Torcello, we ate lunch at a surprisingly large but mostly empty, beautiful restaurant called Ristorante Villa ‘600. I didn’t ask what the ‘600 meant; maybe that was the seating capacity. It had an expansive lush lawn for weddings and events, a large open-air dining room, and a patio. We ate on the patio, in the warm, autumn sun.

The staff spoke no English but were very friendly and happy to have us. The restaurant menu makes use of all the local fish that is readily available from the Adriatic. We did, too.

One of the items I noticed listed on many of the restaurant menus in Venice was Baccala Mantecato. I had never had baccala--that leathery-looking, completely unappealing package of dried cod you see occasionally in the market. But since it kept showing up in Venice I figured it must be a local specialty and worth trying. I’m so glad I did because it’s delicious; a fantastic appetizer. It’s prepared as a sort of spread for crusty bread, or on top of a slice of grilled polenta. It’s light and fluffy, very white, and very flavorful. Paired with a young Tocai Friulano, it makes a perfect small meal.

Here is a recipe for it, with thanks to dishdujourmagazine.com, followed by a few more of photos taken with my "smart" phone.

Buon Appetito!


Baccala Mantecato

Serves 6

½ lb. skinned, boneless salted cod

4 cups milk

1 chopped clove garlic

1 cup evoo

¼ cup cleaned, chopped Italian parsley, stems removed

Soak the fish in cold water for 48 hours in refrigerator. Every 6 hours drain and change the water to remove the salt. After the first day, cut up the fish into small chunks.

After the chunks of fish have been soaked, drained and dried completely bring the milk to a boil and add the fish. Once the fish has been added lower the heat, cover the pot and cook for 20 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, remove the fish from the milk, but don’t discard the mild, and place fish into a colander to drain.

Place the fish into a large mixing bowl, add the garlic and most of the parsley. Using a hand held mixer on high speed, thoroughly blend ingredients. While continuing to mix, drizzle in the olive oil until the texture is a white creamy paste. Add salt and pepper to taste. Continue to mix on high speed adding as much of the milk as needed to attain a creamy and fluffy texture. Garnish with the remaining parsley and serve at room temperature.

Smells Like Moon

I've found a new way to avoid writing. 

It's this cool little atomizer that spritzes the screen of my smart phone and comes with a little chamois cloth that wipes away all the greasy schmears from finger swiping and other "gesture techniques".  I can get the screen really, really clean if I apply a little pressure, and a little time--or a lot of time, depending on how desperately I'm procrastinating at the moment.  There's no end to the amount of time one can fritter-away staring incredulously at the lovely, colorful display of all those apps (is it 10,00 or 100,000?), and of course one can always read about smart phones.  And, lucky for writers like me, until one becomes adept at using the frustratingly jumpy touch screen, sending text messages couldn't take longer.

Another thing I've been doing to avoid writing is reading about writing.  And I've discovered my disorder is not so unusual--I'm in good company as  Anne Lamott assures me in her book Bird By Bird.  If you haven't already read it (it was published in 1994!) you've got to get it.  It's an accumulation of all the advice she's ever given to writers in her college writing classes and professional workshops.

Mostly it's about how to get started, how to actually sit down, stop procrastinating and put your fingers on that keyboard!  She's hilarious.

And a great comfort to daydreamers like me.

She writes about how the number one question she gets from her students, even in the very first class, is "how do I get published."  She tells them this is the least of their worries; that  in all probability they will not ever be published; and that even if they are published, they will never get rich on it.  She's quite blunt and honest about this. She describes how jealousy can stop-up a writer's creativity.

Lamott spends a whole chapter talking about how most writers she knows are paranoid and insecure-- plagued with worrying that all their colleagues are conspiring against them and secretly getting ahead, professionally--the implication being that they (Lamott and her neurotic writer friiends) are being left behind.  She says you can be defeated by the paranoia, or use it as comic relief.  One of the several poems she uses in the book as poignant examples of her advice is this one by Phillip Lopate:

We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.

It goes on...

But I won't.

I do have to get down to writing. 

The book is worth reading more than once though, and I may read it again as soon as I finish it this time.

Oh, and the reference at the top of this posting to the moon?  It's in there.  It's something Lamott's son said, when he was about three.  It's an example of using our senses when writing.  I can't find the exact spot in the book where she describes this scene but if you give me another 1/2 hour or so I'd be happy to look for it.  

Being From Away

North Haven Island,  Day 10


Two weeks is a long time—two weeks of sparkling, clear days, one just like the next. There is something about the quality of the light here on North Haven that makes you want to freeze the moment, dance in the sun, cry. Things can be so perfect.

Like a ship-to-shore communication from an earlier time, my text message to my daughters read, “Another beautiful day on the island. Running out of things to do. Dad getting ancy.”

I’ve been trying for days to write about this island, this North Haven, Maine, but I admit I’m not up to the task. It takes a much better writer than I to do it justice. I could write simply that it’s the most beautiful place in the world, but that statement might be easily dismissed--besides, I haven’t been everywhere. I could say there’s a photo-op around each corner (at the crest of each rise in the smooth, undulating roads), but that would be trite. I could say simply that this island’s beauty is hard to capture in words, but wouldn’t that be a cop-out?

Maybe I’ll just let Elizabeth Bishop say it for me. Her 1978 now famous poem, North Haven, was written in memoriam to her good friend Robert Lowell. She wrote:

I can make out the rigging of a schooner
a mile off; I can count
the new cones on the spruce. It is so still
the pale bay wears a milky skin; the sky
no clouds except for one long, carded horse's tail.

At its widest points, the island of North Haven is roughly 12 miles long and 3 miles wide. It sits in Penobscot Bay, about 15 miles off the coast of Rockland, Maine, separated by about a half mile of blue water from the larger island of Vinalhaven. Foy Brown or someone else from the boatyard can take you over to Vinalhaven anytime. Round trip passage is $7; $2 extra for your bike.

There are about 350 year-round residents. With “the summer people,” the number swells to 2000. No one wants to leave; come September, most do.

Writers are drawn to this place, as are artists.

I am intrigued with the island names. I meet them all in the two short weeks we are here. Kate Quinn. Stretch Perkins. Kiki Hamlin. Foy Brown. June Hopkins. Stacy Beverage. Others are good-sounding names I encounter all over the island--Hallowell, Cooper, Waterman, Thayer, Cabot and Calderwood.  You get the picture.

June Hopkins, a prominent island resident, who has lived here for almost a decade of decades still considers herself “from away.”

The main “industry” is lobstering. Despite this, lobsters sell at Cooper's in the village, for $9.90 a lb.

There is no supermarket, just a small grocery store that carries all the basics. No pharmacy, an occasional bakery, no hardware or liquor store.

What there is?
One gas pump for the whole island, two restaurants, one inn, three gift shops open irregular hours, two art galleries showing the work of New England’s (and beyond’s) best artists, a busy boatyard (Foy’s), a gorgeous library, a tiny post office.  And anchoring it all: Waterman’s Community Center. The social history of the island can be learned hanging out at Waterman’s (which has wi-fi, for a $5 donation).

Despite all it lacks in commercial consumer goods though, it is possible to eat a mainly locavore diet in the summer on North Haven.

There’s the big farm up on South Shore Road, Turner Farm. It’s open Tuesdays and Thursdays. Turner Farm has a huge, new, beautiful barn. If you’re a barn lover, this is the barn you would fantasize building—post and beam, lofty, all warm wood and clean sawdust. Turner sells vegetables, goat cheese and eggs.

Foggy Meadow Farm on Crabtree Point Road, near our rented house, has a herd of goats and sheep and sells their meat. Doreen, the owner and a children's book author, will take you out to the shed if she’s there, otherwise it’s self serve from the freezer.

A small Farmer’s Market sets up Saturday mornings at 9:30 all summer, in the ball field across from the church. If it rains, it’s held inside the church. The vendors include a young man who bakes bread, a woman who grows beautiful flowers in her garden (the delphiniums were an iridescent blue), a few more local bakers, Turner Farm, and a local graphic artist selling t-shirts. I did say small didn’t I? You'll meet everyone there, it being the main event of the week. And vendors sell-out usually by 10:00 AM.

And there’s North Haven Oyster Company, up on Middle Road. This too is self-serve, self-pay. On one of the days we pulled our car up to the old refrigerator standing in the driveway and helped ourselves to a baker’s dozen for $10, as the sign instructed, we saw a man laid-out on a board nearby. “Hurt my back,” said the body. He didn’t get up and that’s all he said. We took our oysters, put ten dollars in the can, and left. (The oysters were delicious and briny and worth the struggle to get them open, btw).

The use of credit cards is rare—it’s a mostly cash-only island. The honor system of paying is common.

There’s a song written about the island, a teenager’s lament called, “I Have Six Mothers, Three Hundred Fifty Babysitters.”

Kayaking one morning on the smooth, clear waters of Bartlett’s Harbor we encountered a curious seal who popped up to check us out, then dove. Two silent porpoises slipped by, ignoring us, as if in deep conversation. A mother osprey sitting on her nest atop Pulpit Rock shouted her warning not to approach too closely.

Everyone waves.

All along the roads, we pass field after field that oblige us with open vistas of the sea.

We saw fire works from Camden clear across the harbor on the 4th of July.

Although we were there a little too early in the season for blueberry-picking, I found what sounds like a sensational recipe for wild blueberry tart in the New York Times (August, 2008), written by someone who lived on North Haven. I'm planning to make this as soon as I can pick some local blues. 

Enjoy!

 

North Haven Wild-Blueberry Tart

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Salt

Dash of cinnamon

* cup flour

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon rolled oats

1/4 cup finely chopped blanched almonds

3 1/2 cups fresh wild blueberries (see note)

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Grated zest of 1 lemon

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon confectioners' sugar

Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream (optional).

1. Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and 1/3 cup of the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, a pinch of salt and the cinnamon. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the flour, rolled oats and almonds. Shape into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Press the chilled dough into a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Wrap in plastic and freeze for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Transfer the tart pan directly from the freezer to the oven and bake until the crust is golden, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, and using paper towels to protect your hands, gently press the hot crust, which will have risen a bit, back into the pan. Cool slightly on a wire rack before adding the berry filling.

3. Rinse the blueberries, shake them dry in a colander and transfer them to a large bowl. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar, the lemon zest and a pinch of salt. Stir it and the lemon juice into the berries, bruising the berries slightly with a fork. Transfer the berry mixture to the crust and distribute the berries evenly. Bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

4. Cool completely on a rack. Sprinkle with the confectioners' sugar and, if you choose, serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Serves 6 to 8.

NOTE: Do not use frozen blueberries. Domestic blueberries may be substituted for wild.