Chelsea Market Hajj

Most tourists (and I consider myself a tourist when it comes to New York City) come to New York to soak-up the culture, see a show, find some fabulous bargains, buy a watch. Me, I come to New York to find food. A trip to NYC is incomplete without a stop at Di Farra's, or Citarella or, in today's case, Chelsea Market (as I write this my husband Jerry is spending an hour or so smoking legally in public--at a fancy tobacco shop). Chelsea Market is to foodies what Cooperstown is to baseball fanatics. So we made a pilgrimage to Chelsea to see what the market is all about--and I was not disappointed. Hope you can hear this video of the lovely trio that was playing outside Amy's Breads in Chelsea Market. Maybe you can sense a little of the vibe of the market, too.

Amy's is amazing of course--everything is handmade, and fresh, fresh, fresh. And the staff is young and cheerful.

A little way down the hall from Amy's is this place

Would love to try-out this sustainable eatery and wine bar, but for another time. Right now it's time for a trek to the Lower East Side and to Little Giant. More later...

One Perfect Pumpkin

Slowing down--my posts have definitely slowed-down since August elbowed into my life. There hasn't been one weekend that I've been around in August, and that means no Sundays at the new farmers market up the street from my house. But down the street from my house, Mt. Hope Cemetery is looking beautiful, as it usually does (I don't mean to sound morbid but it is as lovely a piece of landscape as there is in Acton. I've watched it change with the seasons for 32 years now and it never fails to delight me. I've jogged its roads, walked its trails, walked an increasing number of family pets, taught both daughters to ride bikes and to drive, all within its leafy, protected confines).

Right now, the old row of hydrangeas is about to turn pink, and from pink to mauve, then from mauve to copper. The trees must have been planted by an expert landscaper who knew how much room the flowers needed to show off their big-bosomed blooms!

For several days running I’d been seeing a tall, lean man working on the roof of the little storage building in the cemetery. One morning, as I walked by, I saw him coming down off the ladder and I asked if he were finished. “Yes, all done, but I wish I had more to do here,” he added a little wistfully. I asked what he meant and he said, “It’s been so nice being here. It’s so peaceful and you meet the most interesting people.” He wasn't joking. Besides the blue-blooded Yankee characters buried in Mt. Hope (with names like Hapgood, Weatherbee, Turnbull, Adams, Hoar and Mead--to name a few!), you're likely to meet many of your neighbors in the cemetery, out walking, or rollerblading, or X-country skiing for sure. There are the regulars like the 6:00 AM man who visits his wife's grave daily (he seems so sad); and the guys walking as therapy recovering from by-pass surgery. But the image that sticks in my mind so vividly is a birthday party for a three year old, replete with party hats and games and a cake(I bet you were wondering how in the world I was going to tie this post in with food!), all set-up right there in Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Another clear memory is of a young mother walking along the cemetery's lanes, slowly, patiently, hands in pockets, staying a few steps behind a little girl on a pink bicycle tilting menacingly on training wheels. The mother seemed a little bored. I stopped and smiled and commented to her how my own 2 daughters had learned to ride their bikes in this same place. She wanted to stop and chat but was reluctant to widen the gap between her and the bike. That was 15 years ago? I well remember what it was like spending long, long days with a pre-schooler, making up games, arranging play-dates, reading aloud E B White and holding onto the seat of a wobbling bike, straining for adult conversation, waiting for my husband to return home that would mark the end of that day, consuming days and weeks and even years in this way. And now, when each day begins abruptly with tasks and to-do's, the minutia of home maintenance, and ends in what seems like an instant, I can't believe I had days like that. And that that huge part of my life is passed. I remember seeing 1 small perfect pumpkin on a grave around that time, too.


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Cape Cod

We just returned from 3 hot and hair-kinkingly humid days on Cape Cod, in Truro to be precise, very near the Cape Cod National Seashore, way out on the eastern extreme of New England. But lest you get a picture that it was anything at all approaching frontier-like, let me adjust that image a bit.

We stayed in a motel resort, of sorts, one that had seen better days--like maybe the 1960's. Kalmar Village is one of hundreds of indistinguishable "family vacation resorts" stretching along the narrow strip of highway called Route 6A, with the National Seashore sand dunes looking every bit like a Hollywood movie-lot on one side, and the seaweed and kelp-strewn bay a stone's throw away on the other. Our room did have free WiFi, and a window air conditioner, which was a life-saver during those 3 days.

We were on the Cape for a partial family reunion--my husband's family. There were 12 of us in all and we ranged in age from 3-63. We did child-friendly activities and ate in child-proof restaurants, which was fine. One adult thing we did, though, was visit a local winery. Yes, there is a bona fide vineyard and winery on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, that makes rather OK wine (just like there are really good wineries in many surprising locations throughout the USA, like the Black Mesa Winery in New Mexico, for example, where I had a delicious Cab. and an excellent Port; or in North Carolina where I had a Cab. Franc that hinted of the tobacco that used to grow in the same fields now growing grapes).

All 12 of us descended upon Truro Vineyard, which happened to be down the road from Kalmar Village.

The winery offers tastings of 5 of their wines for $7 per person (you get to keep the glass, too). Two of their wines are sold to tourists in kitchy, blue-glass bottles made in the shape of a lighthouse (in honor of the nearby Highland Lighthouse pictured above in the first photo taken by Jeremy D'Entremont. The lighthouse is famous for having been dragged several hundred feet over a 19-day period in 1996 to escape the edge of the cliff which was slowly eroding).

Now seriously, would you buy wine sold in a bottle that looked like this? What a surprise then to find that Truro's 2008 Diamond White was so good. Diamond White, also known as Moore's Diamond, is a white American variety of grape. The grape dates to 1885 when Jacob Moore of Brighton, NY crossed Concord grapes with the Iona grape. Today it is grown mainly in Pennsylvania and New York, which is where Truro Vineyards gets its grapes for this wine.
The wine was slightly sweet, fruity and was excellent with pate and cranberry-flecked Wensleydale--just right for a hot August afternoon, relaxing with kids, family, and slightly sweet local wine.

Cod Again

I decided to cook dinner for friends who just arrived back from spending a month in France. It was a Thursday night and on Wednesday I had picked-up my fish share--cod again--so dinner had to be cod (no sense in being part of a fish share if you don't eat the fish as soon as you can). I hunted through my cookbooks to find yet another way to prepare this delicate, delicious fish and found a good one in Joy of Cooking. With a little alteration, here's the recipe for Cod a la Portuguese. It's almost a stew. (The francophiles loved it, btw). And with all the farmers markets in full-swing right now, there's no reason this can't easily be an all-local dinner.

For 4-6, depending on appetites.
2, 1-lb fillets.
Cut fillets into serving size pieces and salt and pepper them. Place into a heavy-bottomed pot that has a lid.
Add the following ingredients to the pot:
3 chopped fresh tomatoes
1 finely chopped onion
1 crushed garlic clove
1 sprig of thyme
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup dry white wine (this is the only ingredient that wasn't local, but it could easily be, for example, Turtle Creek Winery in Lincoln, MA makes a delicious, not-oaky chardonnay. I bet there's a winery near you. But I used a Muscadet Sevre et Maine which we drank with dinner and it was perfect).

Bring the pot to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer gently for about 10 minutes with the lid on. Carefully remove the fish to a hot rimmed platter and keep warm while you reduce the stock by about 1/3, taste for salt, add some butter and pour it all over fish and serve. The fish may fall apart but it's delicious, and pretty low-fat.

With it I served a salad of local greens, steamed baby carrots from the farmers market, and roasted local potatoes drenched in a tasty sauce of capers, lemon, parsley and evoo (nothing local about any of that).

Olive Oil Cake

Doesn't sound very appetizing does it? But every time I make this cake people ask for the recipe. Come on in and I'll tell you how.

It's a 1-layer, very moist cake with intriguing, sophisticated flavors. It is essential that you use the best ingredients money can buy which makes this cake somewhat expensive to make but worth every bite. And it keeps and keeps, and even gets better with age.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Cake (with thanks to my hero, Michael Chiarello)
Makes 2, 1-layer cakes
Ingredients

1 cup fresh-squeezed oj (canned, bottled or frozen will not do!)
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 large eggs, room temp.
1 1/4 cups whole milk
2 cups sugar

1/4 cup orange liqueur, rum, brandy or whisky (I've used Grand Marnier and Rum)
1 1/2 cups extra virgin olive oil (it will seem like a lot but it's OK. Check the harvest date, not the sell-by date, if possible--the fresher the better)
1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons anise seeds or fennel seeds
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves, divided

2 cups all purpose unbleached white flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
orange marmalade for the top of cake
fresh rosemary sprigs for garnish

Assemble all ingredients and oil 2 10" round cake pans. Set oven to 350 degrees.
In a non-reactive saucepan reduce the orange juice over medium heat to 1/4 cup. This takes a while but it's key. Add salt, stir, and let cool.

In a bowl, beat eggs on high until frothy, a couple of minutes. Add milk, sugar, liqueur, evoo, reduced oj, lemon zest, anise/fennel seeds, and 1/2 the rosemary. Mix for 1 minute until well blended. Mix in the flour, soda and powder until well blended and smooth.

Pour half of mixture into each oiled cake pan. Bake for about 1 hour, until center of cake springs back when touched, and edges look crispy. Place on a rack to cool. While still warm run a knife around the edges and pop out the cake onto a plate. Spread 3 tablespoons or more of the marmalade over the tops of both cakes, sprinkle each with the divided chopped rosemary and garnish with the sprig.

You will not be able to stop eating this cake. Give your firends the recipe.
Enjoy!

Mistral and the Sisters

My sisters (I have 5 of them) took me out for a surprise birthday dinner on Saturday night. The plan was they would arrive from all points in New England and meet at my house, and after Champagne and hors d'oeuvres, whisk me away by cab. Long after I was dressed and ready one of my sister's, Donna, called to inquire what I was wearing. "It's not really fancy," she said, "but I don't think you want to be wearing a t-shirt and capris." I had on a simple dress. I stated that I couldn't think of any restaurant in Boston (outside of maybe one of the newer hotel restaurants), in the summer where one would need to dress-up, unless of course we were going to Mistral, "in which case we're all screwed." Not wanting to give the surprise away, Donna said well, we'll see.

After drinks we got into 2 waiting cabs and drove to, of course, Mistral!

Although I've been to many Boston restaurants I had avoided Mistral because # 1, it's one of the most expensive restaurants in Boston; and #2, besides serving food, it had a scene, beautiful people, a see-and-be-seen kind of atmosphere. But I had also heard consistently positive reviews about the food, so I was excited.

Mistral is the wind that blows through the southern part of France, through Provence. And ours was the party of 7 that blew through Mistral at 5:30 and was gone by 7:00, just in time for things to get going, for the pedicured and tan to arrive--they never even knew we had been there. (That's me against the pillar; see how empty Mistral was at 5:30!?).

But it was a wonderful meal and a warm, loving family-time. My sisters lavished attention on me and paid for everything. My 81-year-old mother (she's sitting to my left in the photo) looked and felt great and was happy with her cold melon soup and tenderloin. To begin with, we were served a chickpea spread for the warm semolina loaf. It was delicious and along with a salad could have been the whole meal (the portions, unlike the guests at Mistral, are large).

My main course was the sirloin and it was one of the best I've ever had. It was hefty, and lashed with a satiny reduction of something (I wish I had saved a menu; I don't remember the ingredients). I took half of it home.
And the salad of mixed greens, lightly dressed, that preceded the steak was enough to serve 4--but I ate the whole thing anyway.

At the end of the meal, the waiters brought out a glass with 3 scoops of different sherberts, so pretty, with a lighted candle on top. Happy Birthday to me!

Chicken Gizzards for Dinner

After my day of chicken "processing", and working mainly at the gizzard station, I asked Jen Hashley (of New Entry Sustainable Farming Project) what people do with the gizzards she sells after all her chickens are sold. She said lots of people cook with them, the gizzards, and that they're pretty tasty. She gave me a couple of recipes she's used. I haven't tried either of these but Jen has, and I'd trust anything she recommends. If you try them let me know how it turned out.

CHICKEN GIZZARD JAMBALAYA

2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. oil
1 1/2 lbs. chicken gizzards
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 c. chicken stock
2 stalks celery
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 c. uncooked rice
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

Heat the butter and oil in heavy saucepan. Add the gizzards and cook over medium heat until well browned. Add the salt and pepper stock and vegetables and let simmer covered for 1/2 hour.
Add rice and Worcestershire sauce and simmer, covered until the rice is tender and all stock is absorbed, about 45 minutes. Uncover and let steam for 10-15 minutes off the burner.

PORTOBELLO, WILD RICE AND GIZZARDS

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups uncooked wild rice
4 1/2 cups water
1 pound chicken gizzards
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 medium red onion, chopped
1 large portobello mushroom cap, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese


DIRECTIONS
Place rice and water in a pot, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 45 minutes.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Lightly grease a medium casserole dish.
Place gizzards in a pot with enough water to cover, and bring to a boil. Cook 15 minutes. Drain, and dice.
Heat olive oil in a skillet, and cook the onion, mushroom, garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes until tender. Mix in the cooked gizzards, and cook until lightly browned. Transfer mixture to the prepared casserole dish, and stir in the rice. Top with Parmesan cheese.
Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until bubbly.