So, I wanted to try this recipe...

Pan Roasted Brussels Sprouts, or "Eat my sprouts? Yes please!"

2011-08-05T11:00:00.008-06:00

If you overcook Brussels sprouts, they will taste...nasty. This can be attested to by kids all over the country (the world?) ranging in age form 5 to 96. But they still sell them, so market forces must dictate that people are still buying them, right? So, unless economics is a lie, either there is a way to cook Brussels sprouts well, or millions of Americans (and Belgians, of course) are suffering through soggy, bland, bitter sprouts with some regularity.

I kid of course. I know the sprout to be a noble, healthful vegetable that, when handled properly yield a delicious, firm, flavorful addition to a meal.

The sprout is, as you know, the bud of a kind of cabbage—a wild cabbage to be exact. Technically it is a cultivar of the species Brassicae oleracea, the same species as kale, collards, broccoli, and spinach. The sprouts, as a breed, have only been around for about 500 years (they are far younger than their kin, which date back to pre-history), and are supposedly so named because they were developed near Brussels, Belgium. They were cultivated in England in the 17th century and have been in America since the nineteenth.

Of course, in 17th century England, tasting good was hardly a prerequisite for being eaten, and I suppose it likely that those old time Brits boiled them until "tender." That was all well and good for then, but if we want to make the sprout sing on our plates, we need to do something else. I give you: the pan roasted Brussels Sprout. And the best part is: it's drop dead easy.

Ingredients
4 slices thick cut bacon (if you have some pancetta, feel free to sub it in, but you don't need it for this)
1 lb Brussels sprouts, rinsed and any bad leaved picked away
1 large clove garlic, peeled and crushed open
spritz of fresh lemon juice
salt and ground black pepper.

Method
Cook the bacon in a large lidded skillet. When it is done (it should still be soft enough that you can stick a fork in it without shattering), romove it and drain on some paper towels. Keep the pan hot and add the sprouts and the garlic clove. Cover and let sit for a few minutes. You will want to stir them or shake the pan or something. Don't not yet. What makes these wonderful is that they pick up a slight...char seems like the wrong word, but probably isn't. Like grilled vegetables, they get that little bit of burn on them, and meanwhile the steam they let off is cooking them where they are not in contact with the pan.
After 2 or 3 minutes, shake the pan vigorously to let another part of the sprouts get the direct heat. Do this a few times.

While the sprouts are cooking, chop your cooked bacon into 1/4"-1/2" bits.

After the sprouts have cooked for 6-10 minutes, open the lid and see how beautiful they are. Give them a grind of pepper and a dash of kosher salt. Now add the bacon back to the pan and cook, shaking for another minute. Spritz with lemon juice and shake again. Serve hot.

The sprouts are, themselves, great to eat now; but take a bite with a piece of bacon, too, and the bright saltiness combined with the lemon will take it to a whole new level. the sprouts will still have a little crunch to them, which is good because mushy sprouts are icky sprouts.

I hope that you will give this a try and give this wild old cabbage a chance to show you its good side.

Oh, by the way, this technique, by the way, can be used with many vegetables. Green beans? Yes. Broccoli? Yes. Cauliflower? Yes. Asparagus? Oh, please yes!
I will do green beans exactly the same (some variance for cooking time!), but the broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, etc. are better done with a combination of half olive oil, half butter. About 3 tablespoons total. Try the asparagus with some fresh goat cheese for a great spring or summer dish.

Book review!

2011-07-30T22:39:00.000-06:00

The Butcher's Guide to Well-Raised Meat: How to Buy, Cut, and Cook Great Beef, Lamb, Pork, Poultry, and More by Joshua Applestone

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A wonderful book on the inns and outs of meat, from someone who really knows. There are many things being written right now about the evils of the food industry and the need for a change. This book is unique among them in the focus of its scope (meat only) and in the way it makes normative claims: not quite so doctrinaire as Pollan, not quite so real-world-eater as Mark Bittman's excellent Food Matters.

The within the politico-culinary world from vegan being the only conscientious way to eat has been long in coming, but it is at last making waves. Like it or not, people all over the world, and especially in America, are going to keep eating meat. If those that care about the treatment of animals or the effects of animal by-product and meat production on the environment remove themselves from the system entirely, their voices for change are effectively removed—the essentially cast a null vote on the way meat is produced. However, if they buy sustainably, humanely raised products, that creates demand for them and therefore the supply will also increase. The purchase of these products is a monetary vote for the change that they want, and this is a realization that many have been coming too. This book will help to ease them into a meat-friendly lifestyle by whetting their appetites and providing guidance on the finer points of eating meat that is produced in this way. (Grass fed beef must be cooked slightly differently, and pastured chickens tend to toughen up even more than conventional if not handled properly, etc.)

The books stance as a normative text is interesting. As I said above, it is perhaps not so normative as Michael Pollan (eat food, not too much, mostly plants), at least not on the surface. The Applestones expect us to eat meat (else why would we read the book...), but they expect us to eat less of it. In this they agree with Bittman and Pollan who say that we as Americans eat far more meat than we need. However, they try to soften the advice by couching it in economic terms—this kind of meat is more expensive, so just eat less of it. I can't quite decide if this masking is patronizing or a welcome shift from the "if you eat this you're killing us all" rhetoric that has been flying around recently. I think, probably the latter, based on the fact that I had no adverse reaction to it at the time.

The color photographs were wonderfully done and the book was well organized and mostly very well written. There were some repetitious points, but that is hardly to be avoided in a book of this nature.

The recipes were nice, and I look forward to trying the chorizo, but the sausages were actually one of the reasons that I didn't rate this book higher. An important step was omitted in the instructions, one that beginning sausage makers need to know about: mixing. After the meat has been ground with the spices, it must be mixed together to form the necessary emulsion that occurs when the protein myosin binds with itself, trapping the liquid in the meat (along with any that you add) and making the meat adhere to itself. This "primary bind" is important if you don't want a crumbly sausage that dries out quickly once it is cut open. I cannot excuse the omission of this step in the recipe instructions, for it will only lead to unsatisfactory results.

One last reason for the rating is the commercial-like tone of some of the book. There a few mentions of the book that was written about them by one of their apprentices, and several mentions of the fact that maybe you, too, can one day apprentice with them. Don't get me wrong here: I would LOVE that. I might even apply some day. And while it will be because I read about it in this book, I just felt that the pitch was a little too forward. Why not just put it in the back with the rest of the resources?

Over all, it was excellent. I really recommend it to anyone wanting to know what it takes to be a butcher, what this dying art looks like, and how your meat comes to you.

Chanterelles!

2010-07-11T19:27:00.006-06:00

It is a sad and disappointing truth that when restaurant menus list a dish with "wild mushrooms" they almost always mean "Portobello mushrooms." If you get really lucky, you might even get shiitakes; but really, even those are only about as wild as a PG rated movie, circa 1992. I guess I can't blame them. Real wild mushrooms are expensive and the supply chain can be unreliable and dependent on factors like rainfall and proximity of clean forests. Plus, there is always that nagging fear that maybe, just maybe, one of the shrooms could be a little more...wild...than you want, and dead customers are not happy customers.

But now I live in Bloomington, and I now have the B-town farmer's market. Oh, and it's Chanterelle season. If you've never tried these yellow-orange delights, find some and do it now. They are, to me, the epitome of delicious mushrooms.

I tired them first when I was living in Hohenstein-Ernstthal in Sachsen, Germany, where the mushroom gathering culture is so ingrained that there are licensed Pilz Berater (mushroom advisors) who will look at your haul and tell you what to eat and what to discard. Some friends sauteed them in butter with some salt and pepper and brought me drooling back for more. They have a mild nutty flavor with only the minimum earthy flavor that you'd expect from a fungus of the forest.

And one of the wonderful things about living in Bloomington is that if you know where to look, you and three friends can gather two pounds of them in ten minutes. (No, that wasn't me, and yes, I envy them as much as you do.) This time of year the farmers market is chock-a-block with fresh wild chanterelles. We bought some last weekend (1 pint for $6) along with some fresh garlic from some farmer friends of mine and a half dozen ears of sweet corn. Lunch extravaganza.

I buttered and toasted a few slices of challah in the oven while I brought the water to a boil. What about the chanterelles? One beautiful French word: Duxelle (I thin it translates as "mushroom alchemy", but I'm not sure). We finely chopped half the mushrooms, about half an onion and one clove of garlic and sauteed it in plenty of butter. Dash of salt, grind of pepper. The mushrooms act like a sponge and soak up the butter, then the onions and garlic release their juices which are also soaked up. Once it starts to brown a little and the liquid is gone, kill the heat. We boiled the corn for a minute and served.

We spread the duxelle on the crisp toast and rolled the corn in butter and felt like no King of France, no robber baron of the last century, no gun-running drug-lord gastronome from the highest social circles of Prague ever ate so delicious a meal. Try putting a little heap of duxelle on your next bite of corn on the cob and you will have found a great thing.

So, one year into Bloomigton, and though the restaurant scene has failed to really amaze us (with the exception of one good Thai place and a great BBQ joint), we're finding that the local wild goods might be worth the search.

Baked Olives with Fennel, etc.

2009-03-23T15:41:00.002-06:00

We had A~ and J~ for dinner again last week and made lasagna from scratch. It was beautiful, but what I particularly liked was our accompanying olive dish. With spring upon us, it proved to be a bright, fresh tasting foil to the rich, meaty lasagna.

I picked up a variety of olives, all of which were good. The dried-cured were particularly because they soaked up more of the juice than the others. The citrus helped to bring out the fruitiness of the olives and the fennel bulb absorbed the flavors of both the olives and the orange. It was just delicious.

Baked Olives with Fennel, etc.

16 oz olives--I used Kalamata, dried cured and both green and black Cerignola (Nicoise would be great, but they were out)
1 small fennel bulb, trimmed and sliced thinly the short way
1/2 tsp fennel seed, crushed
zest and juice of 1 orange
pinch pepper

Combine all ingredients in a glass baking pan, bake at 350 F for about 20 minutes. Fennel should still be somewhat crisp. Serve hot or cooled; or for a great antipasto, store in the fridge overnight to let the flavors mingle even more.

Baby Bok Choy Stir Fry with Cannellini Beans

2009-03-13T13:47:00.007-06:00

Whenever I walk past the bok choy in the produce section, I always think to myself about how eminently edible they look. The shape, the interesting colors ranging from forest green to snow white, the almost peppery flavor--these vegetables are always poking me and asking me to take them home. A few nights ago I gave in. (I'd have done it sooner, but the baby doesn't like it when Chanel eats cruciferous vegetables.) I picked up three baby bok choy that looked particularly tasty and started to think about what to make.

The obvious idea (at least for me) was to saute them somehow. After all, I'd only ever had bok choy at my favorite Mongolian Barbecue restaurant (authentic? I neither know nor care). Stir fry seemed like a good way to go, because the intense heat of the wok both tenderizes the stems and (thank you fast cooking!) retains or even brightens the vibrant colors of the bok choy.

Of course, stir fry begs certain flavors: garlic, chili, ginger, soy sauce. These are a given. We also had a beautiful fresh red bell pepper that seemed to want to go in, and of course some onion. but what about protein? Chicken? Beef? Shrimp? That pheasant sausage with dried cherries I had made earlier and frozen? No none of these. Tonight it would be a legume. Cannellini beans, to be exact. Chanel and I have been loving these beans (also called white kidney beans) for some time now for their great flavor and creamy, smooth-dry texture. I cooked these first with a large pinch of salt. The result, when ultimately combined with the soy sauce, was a bright, almost briny stir fry that was filling, healthy, and, above all, delicious. Give it a try, I think you'll like it.

Baby Bok Choy Stir Fry with Cannellini Beans

3 heads baby bok choy rinsed, bottom 1/2 inch cut off
1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 red bell pepper, cut into thinnish strips
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
1-2 tsp finely chopped/minced ginger root
2 dried chilies (thai, etc.)
~1 tsp sesame oil
2-3 Tbsp soy sauce
large pinch pepper
a few Tablespoons vegetable or peanut oil
1/2 bunch cilantro, leaves chopped, stems chopped finely
pinch salt--optional

Heat 1-2 Tbsp oil in a wok until very hot, add beans and, if using, the salt (it was good with the salt, but if you don't like quite salty food, leave it out). Cook, stirring occasionally, until the beans start to show some browning (3-5 minutes). Many of them will shed their skins. That's just fine. Use a slotted spoon to remove the beans to a plate and set aside.

Add a little more oil and get it hot. Throw in the chilies while heating. When hot, add the bok choy and stir so that all of it comes in contact with the hot wok and oil. Add garlic and stir again. When the garlic is fragrant, add 1/4-1/3 cup water. This should boil like mad. Good. Put a lid on it an let the steam work on it for about 2 minutes. Once the thick white stems are about to become tender, remove to the bean plate.

To the wok, once again heated to very hot, add the peppers, onion, ginger, sesame oil, pepper, and cilantro stems. Cook until the peppers are becoming crisp tender. Add the reserved beans and greens as well as the soy sauce. Stir until most of the liquid has cooked off, leaving only a saucy, shiny coating on everything.

Garnish with chopped cilantro leaves and serve with great delight.

Feeling my roots...in a grain

2009-02-02T21:42:00.005-07:00

A few weeks ago when our friends were visiting for an evening, I started talking to M~ about some Hungarian breads that she knew about. As we were talking, her husband, B~ commented to Chanel "Wow, Martin can connect with anyone over food." I don't know about that, but this weekend I found myself connecting a whole group of people in a way I never expected.

Saturday we went to Honeyville Grain's outlet in Salt Lake City, where I bought a bag of whole grain rye, with which we were going to make rye bread (love it!). When we got home, I borrowed an electric grain mill and set about grinding my own whole grain flour. It was loud, and I got flour all over myself. But something else happened while I was working on it.

I was watching the grain from above as it fed slowly into the grinder, and I really took a good look at it. Rye, for those who haven't seen it, is both longer and more colorful than wheat. To me it seemed older than wheat does, more primitive. Its blue-grey-green color gives it the feel of something that was forgotten for a long time, like a house you might find abandoned in the woods. And as I was thinking of how this grain looked so ancient, it occurred to me: for hundreds of years in northern Europe, wheat was the Rich Man's grain, and the people ate oats, barley and rye to live. So this was the grain-this was the bread-of my ancestors. This was what my forebears had eaten for so many generations, and now I was making it myself. My ancestors--named Miller, incidentally--had done this same thing.

I guess that's what I love about food: it really does connect us to others, it really is universal. To know the food of a people is to get a sense, albeit small, for its soul. And I was glad to have felt that connection with my elders through a simple whole grain.

Q4U Review

2009-01-08T19:33:00.012-07:00

So...(moan)...full...

We just got back from one of the city's best, though by no means fanciest, restaurants. Q4U, located in Kearns, occupies the shell of what was originally a JB's, then an all-you-can-eat sushi place, then the "Taste of Grace" southern food joint. You wouldn't know by looking at it, but this is some of the finest barbecue in the west–if not the entire nation.

That's right. You heard me. In Kearns.

Owner/pitmaster 'T' Brown and his wife Becci are the ones behind Q4U's massive piles of deliciously tender smoked meats and the bounteously flavorful sides. And what makes it all so good? Time. 'T' smokes the spareribs, baby backs, pulled pork and brisket over hickory for hours...and hours...and hours. Which means that when the plate of Famous ribs gets to you, you can suck the meat right off. I'm not exaggerating. Even if you had no teeth you could clean these ribs right to the bone. The large end of a half rack ($10.99) is plenty for a hearty appetite, but get a side of Q's BBQ Chili Beans (smokey, lightly spicy, and laced with shredded pork) to go with them. You'll love it.

I have to say now, before I go any further, that this is real Memphis style BBQ. Don't come expecting ribs slathered with some gooey red sauce. All the meats are dry smoked. They are rubbed with a special spice blend, but if you want sauce, you'll have to put it on yourself: they make two kinds in house (I taste little difference between "spicy" and regular). Both are tangy and a great foil for the dark, smoky meat.

On this excursion, Chanel opted for the Old Fashioned Fried Chicken. The basket ($10.99) comes filled with 1/2 of an excellent chicken on a bed of fries which are dusted in the house seasoning. The fries (on several visits) were mediocre. The chicken was a dream. Absolutely crispy without being weighed down in heavy batter, the meat was hot and juicy and abundant. Though not as good as the ribs, fans of real southern fried chicken will love this.

I went for my usual. The Sultan ($9.99) is two hot link sausages slices and served with sauteed peppers and onions with two Famous Ribs and two sides. I usually get the black eyed peas (the recipe for which Becci says is actually from 'T's cousin in Scandinavia), and the collard greens, which come with a bottle of hot pepper vinegar. This choice of sides is not only delicious, but also ups your street cred with the owners. The juicy hot link sausage is made in house and is just hot enough so that it doesn't sacrifice flavor (which, to my palate, tasted gently of coriander and other good things).

The desserts are classic southern: peach cobbler, banana bread pudding and real sweet potato pie. I have to confess that I have little experience with the desserts. Every time I eat there, I stuff myself silly before it's even an option.

As for the rest of the menu: the fried catfish is tender and flaky and mild, but the fried flavor comes through a little strongly, and the onion hush puppies (cornbread fritters) are not to be missed.

I know this is the time for new resolutions and new goals, but if you find yourself in need of some serious comfort food, head on out to Kearns. Maybe I'll see you there.

Humbly begging your most kind forgiveness.

2009-01-04T19:15:00.003-07:00

Not posting for two whole months is no way to run a blog. I apologize and promise to do better in the future. Things got busy with the holidays, and I had grad school applications to finish.

HOWEVER! I have new blog that I am working on with my wife. It will be in addition to, rather than in the stead of, this one. It is also concerned with food and a new project that we are working on this year, and I will be posting all the recipes from said project here.

Thanks for reading, I'll be back with a recipe for Thüringer Bratwurst any day now!

Five Cheese Fondue

2008-11-03T18:01:00.005-07:00

Recipe:

2 parts Gruyere
1 part each of Appenzeller, Emmentaler, Raclette, and Leerdammer or Jarlsberg (see note)
Dry white wine
Lemon juice
Cornstarch
Ground black pepper
Fresh grated nutmeg
1 clove garlic, split lengthwise

You can use a splash of Kirsch if you like.

Use about 24 0z. total of the cheese blend for two people (this will produce a lot, so gauge your needs accordingly)
For every 24 oz. cheese use 2 cups wine, 2 tsp lemon juice, 2-3 Tbsp cornstarch, a good dose of pepper and a dash of nutmeg.

Grate and combine the cheeses. In a fairly large bowl, mix the grated cheeses with the cornstarch, pepper and nutmeg. Use enough starch so that all the cheese looks lightly "frosted." Set aside. Rub the inside of the pot all over with the cut garlic clove. Put the wine in the pot and heat gently just until it bubbles. Add the lemon juice. By handfuls, add the cheese mixture, stirring until each is melted before adding the next. If using the kirsch, add it with the last handful of cheese and stir the pot until everything is smooth. If you're using an "old school" non-electric fondue pot, place it over whatever heat source you are using. If you're using an electric, you're good to go. Adjust the heat so that the cheese bubble a little every once in a while.
Enjoy with good crusty bread, pickles, and pearl onions (I like them caramelized in butter).

Note: I use Leerdammer/Jarlsberg less for their flavor (though the flavor is good too) than for their cost effectiveness. If I had the budget I wanted all the time, I would substitute Morbier here. Its creamy character and amicable pungency fit right in with the other cheeses.

Fondue Forks for Everybody!

2008-10-28T22:16:00.016-06:00

I love cheese. There are precious few cheeses I've met that I don't like. In my time as a cheese monger, I had the both the access to good cheese and the opportunity I needed to work out what I consider to be a really excellent fondue recipe (one customer once told me she liked mine better than The Melting Pot's!) And since we got our enameled cast iron fondue pot, we hadn't had the chance to use it. So when we got together with some friends on Monday for a fondue dinner, I was very excited.

We made my own take on a traditional alpine fondue dinner. Now, I've never been to Switzerland or even the Jura. But someday when I go there, I hope to find that I wasn't too far off.

A~ brought some good salad greens for which I had prepared a roasted hazelnut vinaigrette. I don't expect on my future Swiss vacation to find a hazelnut vinaigrette, but the hazel is such a well beloved nut in central Europe–especially the German speaking regions–that I thought it not amiss to use it here. I quite liked it. The acidity was balanced well and the toasted nuttiness was more like a suggestion in the finish than an up-front flavor. A~ also brought the pieces for a simple yet wonderful cheese plate: a chunk of good Morbier, whole wheat crackers, honeycrisp apples, and red and Asian pears. She also brought some home grown grapes to go with it, and to drink we had juice form their new harvest mixed with sparkling water.

For the "main dish," we had a five cheese fondue, and–because, really, if you're going to go all out with the cheese, Wonderbread just won't do–two kinds of good bread (artisan Country French and Multigrain). I cut the bread into cubes about an hour before we ate so that they could get just a tad crusty. Along with the cheese and bread we had traditional French cornichons (sour and excellent for cutting the heavy fat of the cheese) and well caramelized pearl onions (these were good enough to eat like candy and accented the cheese exceptionally well). In a less traditional vein, we also had steamed broccoli. You may call "inauthentic!" but we figured that since broccoli with cheese sauce is so good (shout out to my Grandma M!), why not have it with fondue.

It was just beautiful. We ate picnic style on our living room floor and all (except maybe J~) had way more melted cheese than we should have. The pickles were refreshing and crisp, the bread perfect. The onions were a particular delight, and I felt so extravagant when I dipped a piece of Morbier into the fondue. The confluence of so many textures and flavors, of temperatures and smells was enough to make me start thinking that we should do this again as soon as possible.

Scrabble and sparkling water with lime preceded dessert. Ah, dessert. Trying to maintain the evening's European feel, we opted out of some big sweet fudgey cake (though I love those too...); instead we had roasted pears with vanilla ice cream. I like this because it's small and not too sweet. I spooned the lava-like caramel from the pan onto the pear halves so that when you took a bite, the caramel, which would cool on your fork and in your mouth, would create interestingly shaped bits in your mouth. A bite of ice cream would make them hard and totally inflexible, allowing you to roll them on your tongue as they dissolved.

Our baby, L, was nice enough to sleep through the whole event, and we were thankful.

Braised Collard Greens

2008-10-15T14:36:00.013-06:00

Though I've never been there, I love southern food. No other cuisine of which I am aware has quite the same love for and dependence on that walking smorgasbord, the pig. Pulled pork, barbecue ribs, and country ham are defining dishes of the southern kitchen. Heck, practically everything has a porcine component. Biscuits? Try that with some country sausage gravy. Beans? What are black-eyed peas without a ham hock?

Cooked greens? You bet your accent. Last night we made a pot of collards for dinner. I've only made this dish twice now, but I find it so easy and delicious that they are quickly becoming a staple in our crisper.

Traditionally, one makes collards with a ham hock. I didn't have one. All I had was a whole ham bone with lots of delicious meat stuck to it which was leftover from a gathering on Sunday. Well, I grudgingly made the substitution. It resulted not only in a beautiful, kitchen-filling aroma, and delicious savory greens, but also in a velvety and luxuriant mouth feel (created by the the natural gelatin obtained by cooking connective tissue for an hour over low heat).

Since I didn't feel like cooking anything else, I threw a few home made Thüringer Bratwursts from the freezer in during the simmering. I know it's not at all authentic, but it sure was tasty.

Collard Greens

One bunch collard greens (~1 lb)
3 strips bacon
one onion, chopped
two cloves garlic, minced
two small red chilies, crushed; or ~1/2 tsp dried chili flakes
ham bone, if available
water or stock to cover
salt
pepper
sugar
1-2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

In stock pot, render and brown some bacon, and saute the onion, garlic, and chili (last week I used three, which was too hot; this week only one, which wasn't enough) in the fat (leave the bacon in the pot).

While sauteing, wash the collards and tear the leaves from the thick stems (throw out any sections that look unappetizing). Roll the leaves together lengthwise like a big green cigar and chop. Once the onion is clear and the garlic is beginning to brown, throw the greens and the ham bone into the pot and add enough water to cover everything. Add pepper to taste.

Once it is boiling, turn it down to simmer. After about 45 min. check the seasoning. Add salt and sugar if needed. Simmer another 15 min.

Pour the greens into a colander, reserving the liquid (pot likker [liquor]) for dipping or use in another dish. Put the greens in a serving dish and toss with the vinegar. Serve and get nostalgic.

Given last night's shortage on the main attraction, I'd say that two bunches of greens are about right for three people (or maybe only two real greens fans).

Peach III

2008-10-07T14:09:00.010-06:00

We'd preserved so many peaches (there are, after all, only the two of us and the baby) that we were beginning to run out of ideas. Plain-Jane peach jam seemed like a good idea, so I checked Putting Food By for a recipe. No dice. But! I did find a recipe for something I'd never heard of before: Southern Peach Honey. How could I not like that?

We peeled and sliced all our remaining fruit and crushed it by hand (which was really fun), and ended up with 12 cups of peach pulp. Now, let me just tell you the recipe right now so you can see what that means.

Peach Honey

crushed pitted, peeled peaches

for each cup peaches, 2 cups sugar

stir to combine, bring to a boil and simmer for 30 min.

Did you catch that little bit of math there? That's right, we needed 24--yes, 24--cups of sugar for this recipe. We didn't have that much. But we did like Peter and gave what we had. In went the whole rest of the bag. It ended up being about 15-16 cups.

Before it even came to a boil, which took some time, we scooped off about a third of it and decided to make some no-pectin peach and ginger jam. (That recipe also came from Putting Food By.) We're excited to try it as a glaze on baked ham. Yum!

When the honey came to a boil we lowered the heat and used an immersion blender to smooth it out. We cooked and canned it, and it is fabulous on pancakes with lots of butter.

You can see its beautiful color in the photo at the top of the blog. It's the jar on the far right; the peach-ginger jam is on the far left.

Sorry Soyjoy...

2008-09-24T16:21:00.002-06:00

To my great happiness, an e-mail of mine was read on the podcast of world-famous comedy team Armstrong & Miller. It's called Timeghost, and it was episode 9.

Peach II

2008-09-24T15:32:00.002-06:00

I took some peaches to share with my co-workers the other day. I threw a Rosa and a few Lorings in a shopping bag and guarded them carefully on the train to work.

They disappeared quickly, with everyone excited by the prospect of sticky fingers and sugary lips. But somehow, at the end of the day, there was still one large, fragrant Loring left in my bag. I thought that I'd take it along and maybe give it to some homeless person at the train stop; that perhaps it could be a great treat for some Dickensian street urchin who, upon taking it, would proclaim his thanks to me in an out-of-place Cockney accent before running off to share with his family, fingerless gloves gently holding the golden fruit.

But instead, I ate it. I stood there by the rails and bit into the soft, sweet flesh. I left the skin, even the fuzz on. The juice ran down my chin in streams, not just trickles. While everyone around me was in a commuter frame of mind (heads down, grumpy form working), I ate sunshine and youth and beauty in the early evening shade. I threw my tie over my shoulder so that it wouldn't get dripped on and stripped the peach to its freestone core in only a few seconds. But what seconds they were!

Once I had finished, I walked over to the nearby café and asked for an ice cube with which to de-stickify my fingers. It was glorious!

Autumn Meal

2008-09-22T21:36:00.016-06:00

In celebration of the first day of fall, tonight I made our traditional autumnal equinox dinner: Cooked apples and onions with Polish sausage and roasted potatoes. It was beautiful.

Each year since our courtship, my wife and I have been eating this delicious, warm flavored peasant meal in the autumn, and it has turned into our last vestige of Pagan celebration for the death of the Sun.

The dish is really quite simple. I found the original recipe for the apples and onions in Mark Bittman's supernal tome How to Cook Everything (page 588). I go a little further with my seasonings, because I want the dish to really be about the taste of Fall. The dish is hearty and filling and a wonderful way to signal the end of fresh greens and garden cooking and the beginning of darker foods and root-cellar cooking. I only wish we'd remembered to pick up some Reed's Spiced Apple Brew while we were out shopping. It would have been just about perfect for this meal. Ah, so ist das leben, ja?

Apples cooked with onions, adapted from Mark Bittman.
Ingredients:
2 large yellow onions, diced
2-3 Tbsp butter or bacon fat
2-3 Granny Smith apples, cored and sliced
generous pinch each of allspice, cinnamon, and mustard seed
~1/8 tsp caraway
1/4-1/2 tsp dried sage
sugar?
salt and pepper

Sweat the onions WITHOUT the fat in a covered large skillet over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Add and stir in the butter or bacon fat. Add the apples and *spices. Cut the heat to low and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Check the flavor and add sugar if the apples haven't brought enough to the party themselves. Season with salt and pepper, increase heat to medium and cook until the apples are tender, but not total mush.

*Here you might be saying to yourself "dude, you lost me on the caraway." For some reason some people don't like caraway. I don't get it. To me it epitomizes fall flavor, and it goes so well with the eastern European feel of the dish. But, you don't like it, fine. Leave it out.

Peach I

2008-09-22T14:37:00.010-06:00

Spiced Pickled Peaches

This recipe is based on a very old newspaper clipping that my grandmother has in her recipe book. Chanel and I tried it last year, and were disappointed that we'd made so few jars. We did not repeat the mistake.

We find that these are excellent, if not somewhat strong, on vanilla ice cream. (Yes, vanilla ice cream.) Other suggestions include pouring them over a pork loin while cooking, or even using a jar as braising liquid for a pork roast. Also, I read in my Time-Life series that these are also a traditional Southern accompaniment to baked ham. Can anyone comment on the veracity of that claim?

This old and, in this part of the west, nearly forgotten use for peaches is really worth trying.

Ingredients:
Fresh, ripe, sweet peaches; skinned (see below), stones removed, cut into pieces
2 lb brown sugar
2 C. cider vinegar (or try other vinegars for exciting experimentation)
1 oz cinnamon stick
1/2 oz whole cloves
~1/8 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
pinch allspice

To skin the peaches, blanch them for a minute or so in boiling water, then plunge them into cold water. The skins should slip off easily.

Combine the sugar, vinegar, and spices in a large saucepan or pot (smaller if you're doing fewer peaches). Bring to a boil and simmer for about 20 minutes. Cook the peaches in the syrup until tender and somewhat colored by the sugar, but not reduced to mush. If you plan on using them soon, pack the peaches in jars and let stand in refrigerator for a few days to allow the pickling to happen. If storing, pack in jars and follow proper procedures for canning, which you can find in books such as Putting Food By, by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg, and Beatrice Vaughan, or your local Ag extension website.

Give it a shot. You'll be glad you did. (Pictured in title, center two jars.)

Peaches!!! (coming soon...)

2008-09-07T21:22:00.003-06:00

This weekend was the annual Peach Days harvest festival in Brigham City, Utah. This venerable old institution is one of the oldest of its kind in the nation, and I'll tell you something: The peaches of Brigham City could give Georgia a real run for her money. (If you disagree, come out and we'll drive up US-89 and get some together. You'll see.)

So, there will be at least one post on the way involving these delicious fruits. Pickled spiced peaches, peach jam, peach joy...

Above are my peaches ripening to perfection on our kitchen table. I got 1/2 bushel each of Rosa (on the right, smaller, sweeter than any peach I've ever had), and Loring (on the left, larger, yellower, "classic peach" flavor in spades). Below is an up-close shot of one of the Rosas. I love the leopard pattern on the skin.

Salt of the Earth, Salt of My Kitchen, Part IV: The Big Production

2008-08-20T15:47:00.007-06:00

Of course, I had already read Mr Kurlansky's entries on salt production and purification, so when I got home after the weekend, the first thing I did was throw one of the "rocks" into a pot of water and start it to boiling. As it boiled, the salt began to dissolve, the mud came apart, and the water was turned the color of rust.

Once the whole rock was broken down and dissolved, I killed the heat to let the dirt settle out. As I waited the heat within the water moved the suspended minerals around in clouds and currents that made the pot look like the storms on the surface of Jupiter.

Eventually all of the dirt fell out of solution and formed a layer on the bottom of the pot. I poured, scooped and siphoned off the water from the pot which was now a richly saturated brine. This I boiled further and yelped for joy when small congregations of crystals started to float on the surface and others began to fall to the bottom like mineral snow. It was working!

Most of the salt I dried in the pot, stirring it over low heat until almost all the water was gone, then putting it in a bowl to air dry over the next few days. I tried drying some of it in the oven, but it became one solid sheet. I almost threw it away, but instead threw it into my spice grinder and gave it a whir or two. What I ended up with was salt, but with the consistency of powdered sugar. (I've found this to be great for dissolving in cooler liquids-hooray for thermodynamics!)
I poured it out into a bowl and showed my wife. I pointed out the salt's pale rosy color, a sign that I had not removed all the iron rich clay from the water. She first bent to smell it; I chuckled. "It doesn't have a smell," I said. "Oh, right" she replied. She gave it a taste and responded with a "Yum!" that she wouldn't give to the raw mud.

A few days later I decided to see if I could make some more, but pure white rather than rosy pink (not that there's anything wrong with that...) I turned to Mr K. again and found that I could either use ox blood (which, I'm not kidding, they didn't have for sale at the local meat department), or part of an egg white which had been frothed up with a good deal of water. This was supposed to make the salt white, and be easier to do than the seemingly arduous process involving the beef blood. I opted for the egg.

The result was phenomenal. I got some more mud boiled and settled, but this time I wasn't careful at all about keeping the settled mud from getting into my refining pot. I heated it back to boiling and added a few teaspoons of egg mixture to the murky pot. Then: Voila! The foam created by the egg cleared every little bit of the mud out of the salt. The brown water turned crystal clear, and I did a little jig while no one was looking.

I decided to solar evaporate this batch, hoping to glean those oh-so-precious crystals of fleur-de-sel. I boiled it until it was saturated and put it out on our south-facing porch. Each night I brought it into the house, each day I put it out on my way to work. In a few days time, I had it. A thin layer of fleur-de-sel hung, suspended, above the rest of the salt crystals and attached ever so frailly to the sides of the pot. I tried very carefully to remove them, and met with some success. It is not a job to be done hastily!

I presented Chanel with my prize and proclaimed that this was about as pure and as good as it gets. "And you know what?" I said. "We've got all of this that we'll ever need, just sitting there in the ground waiting safely for us to come and get it."

I had completed the journey. I had done what millions of our ancestors had done, but what almost none of us do today. I had made salt the way that it was done in Venice and Normandy; I had made salt the way that Gandhi had made it. I had made with my own hands: the salt of my kitchen.

Salt of the Earth, Salt of My Kitchen, Part III: Back to the Salt Mine

2008-07-08T20:10:00.014-06:00

A little less than a mile down the trail, we turned east from the river we had been following and headed up a narrow gully. Along the way we saw tracks of deer and elk on the ground, and looking up we saw the winter nests of bald eagles. We passed sage brush, Mountain-mahogany, bright red Indian Paintbrush, and pale green Mormon Tea–the scaly green leaves of which didn't taste nearly as good as I hoped they would.

A few hundred yards up the wash we came to absolutely nothing, and Gary proclaimed “well, here we are!” “Huh? What?” I thought. The soft, sandy clay had eroded over the entrance to the shaft in the ten years since anyone had been there. “I thought we’d need the shovel,” he said. I wondered if we didn't need a backhoe. He dug, I dug, Chanel cheered, Isaac didn't really dig much. Time passed. When we finally broke through, I could hardly wait to get down in and see the walls lined with salt crystals, all glimmering in the beam of my flashlight, ready to be scraped cleanly into my bucket like fresh snow.

I followed Gary into the entrance, sliding in on my back side. The smell was musty dirt, a smell I love from my teen years exploring caves. But do you remember that I said not to get your hopes up about the shaft? Well, I’ll tell you why. There was nothing there. Not a glimmer or a glint, not a loose crystal the entire 80-foot length on either side. I tasted the mud, I licked the walls. There was a mild salt flavor, but otherwise it was a long, dark, narrow hole. I was crushed.

After exiting the "cave," I hiked up the ravine a bit further and was rewarded with a fantastic find. A short distance to my left there was a cliff, gouged out of the side of the hills by erosion. Upon closer inspection, I found that it was more eroded than the surrounding areas because it was essentially made of salt. This was the deposit that gave the "salt mine" its name. I was finally there.

Now, to say that it was made of salt may be conjuring a false image in your mind. It was NOT a bright white wall of pure crystals. Quite to the contrary, in fact. The cliff face was mostly red and brown mud, but when I got closer I could see that in the crevices and creases, in the holes and folds of the face there were hidden dozens and dozens of cauliflower-like formations of pale rosy colored salt crystals. Some were tiny-the size of a quarter-while others were the size of a small ham. I tried to break away some of the dried mud on the surface, but found it to be exceptionally hard. Was the mud being held together by crystallized salt? I managed to get a little off and tasted it: it was completely saturated.

I was ecstatic. I ran around trying to get Chanel and the others to taste it. "Lick this," I proclaimed, "it tastes like salt!"
"No thanks," was the uniform reply, "I've tasted salt before." As if that were some kind of excuse. Had they ever tasted salt mud? Hm? I doubt it.

I got the shovel and hacked at the wall for a few minutes, breaking off chunks of every size and purity. I took one large piece with lots of visible crystals and lots of smaller pieces that looked like dirt and even some of the mud that was still wet from the recent rain-smeared onto the sides of the bucket like dark red peanut butter.

The walk back to the cars was as pleasant as the walk in, but I was more excited. I had what I had come for; I had my salt of the earth.

Salt of the Earth, Salt of My Kitchen, Part II: Half the Fun...

2008-06-12T16:04:00.012-06:00

Every year for Memorial Day weekend, we go to Ephraim, Utah for Scandinavian Days. They call Ephraim “Utah’s little Denmark” (for reasons, I might add, of blood and lineage, not of scenery or architecture), and Scandinavian Days is a local festival that celebrates the small town’s Nordic heritage.

While there we visit my wife's family, who all live a few mile up Highway 89 in the same county, and make sure to get one of my favorite meals of the whole year: Swedish Meatballs.
YOU: “Huh?”
ME: “Yes!”
One of the perennial kiosks at this festival is the Viking Feast. This catering company, run by real Swede Kjell Karlsson and his real Utahn wife, Robyn, makes the two hour drive south worth every minute. Kjell came to America about 20 years ago and used to have restaurant which he also called A Viking Feast. Some years ago they started catering from the restaurant, and Kjell eventually found that to be what he really enjoyed; so they closed the restaurant and went full speed into catering. They are excellent. The meatballs, perfectly seasoned and browned, are served in their rich and flavorful brown gravy--I could eat a shoe with that gravy—with skin-on mashed potatoes that are a primer for what light and fluffy should look like. On the side they serve a cranberry (or is it lingonberry?) jelly and traditional cucumber salad. Paper thin cucumber, vinegar some sugar, a little salt and dill: its cool simplicity plays perfectly against the complex and warm meatballs.

I suppose it is possible that I love this dish so much because I do get it only once a year, but I doubt it. I think it really is just that good.

This year, after I had gorged myself on Viking goodies, we asked Chanel’s dad, Gary, if he wanted to take a trip to the mine. “Yeah,” he said with wide eyes, as if we’d just offered him a whole blueberry pie, “that’d be great!” So we hopped into our van, and he into his car (with Chanel’s little brother Isaac) and we headed out.

About nine miles south of Manti we pulled off the road. Central Utah, especially Sanpete County, is generally a beautiful place. It’s basically one long, wide, flat fertile high mountain valley where spring comes late and green and almost lush. At least until you go past the southern third of Manti. After that it seems...how should I say this...God-forsaken? That might be a little much, but it is decidedly more barren. About nine miles south of Manti we pulled off the road and parked by the north end of the characteristic white and red clay hills that define the landscape for at least the next 60 miles. I retrieved a clear plastic bucket from the back of our van and Chanel grabbed the cheap flashlight we had bought on the way down. Chanel’s dad procured a two foot long hand spade from his trunk and we started walking.

Salt of the Earth, Salt of My Kitchen, Part I: Impetus.

2008-06-02T14:36:00.001-06:00

In every kitchen, in every culture, in every country of the world, there is one undeniable constant: Salt. From French Fleur de Sel to Vietnamese Nam Pla, from the desert salt of the Timbuktu camel trains to Scandinavian salted herring, salt is everywhere. "Yes, yes," you say, perhaps rolling your eyes, "we all know that." Indeed. But have you ever made your own salt? If you are like the great majority of our modern, western world, the answer is "no, I haven't." And neither had I, at least until last Memorial Day weekend.

At the time, I’d been reading Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky. You might have heard of this very interesting and informative book, and I recommend it, if for no other reason than the fact that I know nowhere else to find a second century B.C recipe for Westphalian ham. I have not yet tried that particular recipe, but perhaps someday. But I digress.

In reading the book, I found myself becoming more and more interested in the many ways that salt was used, but more especially in the ways that is was found and made. I think that’s why I began taking an interest in what my wife had told me about her father’s family owning a salt mine.

“Really?!?” you might ask. Well, yes and no. The family owns the mineral rights for 200 acres of Central Utah land, one corner of which has a very rich salt deposit on it. No one works there. There is no commerce. In fact, no one had even been there for ten years. It turns out there is one lone shaft, blasted out with black powder many, many years ago. More on the shaft later (but don’t get your hopes up too much…).

So, anyhow, I talked to Chanel to see if maybe her father would take us to the mine some time. “Oh, I’m sure he’d love to!” Sweet. We planned it. We’d go down for a weekend and come home with, as Kurlansy’s book calls it, “the only rock we eat.”

More to come...

2008-05-31T22:56:00.001-06:00

Welcome to my blog. Here I intend to write about all my wonderful experiences with and my love for food. I'll have recipes, restaurant reviews, and, perhaps someday soon, some videos. I hope that you'll come back and enjoy what I've written. Until then, hearty appetite, and enjoy!