_____ and cream

I ate five peaches today.  Five.  Two for breakfast.  One after coffee.  One before a bike ride.  And one now.  I meant to eat the last one while wrapped in the sheets and floating through endless blog dribble, but it didn't even make it out of the kitchen.  I would have taken a photograph, but, well...  I will console myself by thinking that any of you would do the same, if these peaches were sitting around your kitchen. 

Biscuits from Heaven

Cory gave me the recipe for these amazing biscuits. I think she actually got it from Cook's Illustrated. THEY ARE THE BEST BISCUITS EVER. Since I started making them a few months ago, my friends request them all the time. This morning, I made them to complement omelets herbs fines and candied bacon for Marc, since he helped me fix my tire.



the makings of cheddar-chive biscuits

Combine:
2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar

Cut in:
4 tbsp butter (more never hurts)

{this is where I add extras: cheddar cheese and chives, anyone?}

Fold in:
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Scoop quarter-cupfuls onto a plate of flour, shape biscuits, arrange in a buttered, floured, round cake pan. Melt two tbsp butter, pour over biscuits.








Bake at 500 for 5 minutes, then 450 for 15 or until golden brown. YUM.





Serve with plenty of iced coffee.









{Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the baked biscuits because they were gobbled up before I could take any.}

a bag-full

Trips to the farmers' market have long been my social therapy sessions. Now that I am living in a city where your skin boils as soon as you move away from your spot in front of the box fan; where development planning is so inept that you cannot get anywhere- not to the grocery store, not to the bookstore, not to the bike trail, not from the bedroom to the bathroom, without hopping in a damn car; now that I spend my days cramped over the eyepiece of a dissecting microscope marking the geography of helpless beetle bodies; now, more than ever, the market is a breath and a sigh.

At 3:30 on Wednesday, I quit my doings and headed for the Lake Ella Growers' Market. It's a small collection of folk who gather here- sandwiched between the Black Dog Cafe and a foul little lake. The vendors, along with their wares, vary by the week. On a good day, you'll find a husband and wife selling cuts of grass-fed beef and farm fresh eggs, a woman and her daughter pouring samples of their homemade yogurt and selling cold pitchers of raw milk. You can always find greens billowing from coolers and wicker baskets. The tangled necks of summer squash are striking against thin-skinned new potatoes, and bunches of rouge-cheeked radishes line up alongside pole beans and wax beans and baskets of onions.

Last week I landed a handful of yellow squash blossoms, a container of fresh chevre from Sweet Grass Dairy, and a jar of hot raspberry pepper jelly. I brought my treasures back to Joe, and we made pizza, with pinwheels of layered flowers and dollops of warm goat cheese drizzled with olive oil and flecked with pepper. This Wednesday, I lost myself. I arrived soon after the market opened and I emptied my wallet over royal purple wax beans, dirty skinned yellow onions, a bundle of swiss chard- the last of the season, four pounds of Georgia peaches so lovely you can smell them from across the market. Then I sat down to drink iced coffee and read Annie Dillard, but mostly to people watch. When my friend arrived to meet me, I showed her around the market and unloaded my last pennies on an armful of oblong carrots, a bunch of lemon basil, and a bulb of freshly rooted garlic. And then, when my coffee was finished and my bag full, I headed home to begin the feast.

Joe rolled out his famous homemade pappardelle and I blended a tangy pesto with toasted pinenuts, parmesan, olive oil, coarse sea salt, seven cloves of garlic, and the entirety of my lemon basil. While the pasta rested, I whisked together a vanilla creme anglaise and turned spare egg whites into a billowing angel food cake, which we ate together, along with stoned and sliced peaches, for dessert. Our friend joined us for dinner and brought along a butternut squash and apple bake, and I boiled, buttered, and salted the purple wax beans before sitting down with a cold bottle of Pinot Grigio and a table full of fresh, local and lovely food.

-logan

Words from A Non-Graduate

School is out and humidity is in. I love this time of the year, transition time. A week of hustle and bustle as students pack up and move out. The streets are scattered with thrift sales and abandon furniture. Families swarm in for graduation followed with celebrations and plenty of free beer. Oh the charms of living in a college town. Today marks the onset of true summer living. The weekend commotion has died down leaving the city feeling bizarrely empty and peaceful. I want to do nothing but lay around and drink something icy.  I think it's the perfect way to welcome my most cherished friend, summer.   

Reconvening at the Admiral

The Admiral used to be sort of our spot for a low-key night of excellent cocktails and a bowl of hot olives when we wanted to get away from campus for a bit. Last Friday Joe's parents treated a whole bunch of us to an exquisite dinner there. Not only was the food and drink decadent, the company was wonderful.

As we waited for Joe's family to find their way, we stood on the patio amidst a raging hailstorm, sipping our cocktails, which ranged from extra dirty martinis to old fashioneds. It was so good to see Logan. Her hair so long and beachy, her eyes so bright blue, her smile so sweet and sincere. And Joe, with his giggles and sassy goodness.

I love meeting people's parents. It makes so much sense! Joe's parents are so sweet and funny and generous. His mom is super sweet and an experienced cook - she and I geeked out over Julia Child. His dad is a little inappropriate, but in a funny enough way that it's somehow okay. Joe looks exactly like him. It was so interesting sitting across from him, diving into my salad and looking back and forth between him and his son whom I have known for years.

ANYWAY, onto the important stuff - the food. We all shared a couple of big plates of coconut curry mussels to start off. It is oh-so-satisfying, prying open those shiny black shells, sucking out the tender morsel of flesh, followed by a bite of the chewy, yeasty bread dipped in that spicy, creamy, oceany sauce. oh man.

I ordered one of the best salads of my life. I will most certainly be recreating it in my own kitchen. It was a small, buttery tender head of Bibb lettuce, accompanied by pickled beets, deviled eggs, applewood bacon, smoked blue cheese, pistachio brittle and shallot vinaigrette. Brilliant flavor combinations - sweet and savory are my favorite. I wanted it to last forever.

I also had a small plate of soft shell crab, which was deep-fried and served with mango-avocado relish, ceviche, pickled onions, and chimichurri. The ice-cold ceviche and creamy avocado contrasted beautifully with the super-crunchy savory crab. The pinot gritio I chose to accompany the meal was absolutely perfect - crisp, slightly fruity, with just the edge I needed. All I can say is, wow.

A big shout-out to Joe's awesome parents! Thanks so much for giving me a night to remember.

jealous about tortillas

So for the past four months I’ve lived with Sarah, she has never ceased to amaze me with her timely 10 o’clock bedtime, her impeccable white teeth, and her curious affection for Mexican cuisine. Dinners at our house are interesting. They usually go something like this:

            It’s 5pm and I come barging through the front door, kick off my shoes, launch my book bag onto the futon and immediately pull a bowl of bran flakes and cold milk to my chin. Meanwhile, Sarah is chopping onions and letting eggs sizzle on the stove. She prepares a bowl of guacamole, smothering avocado with garlic and salt. A pile of black beans makes a steam cloud and tortillas brown on a skillet. Smelling her dinner makes me wish my bowl contained something warm and spicy instead of soggy cereal. Sarah constructs a plate of breakfast burritos, carefully adding each component like it’s the most important. Finally, her slender frame lowers to the plate of food waiting at the table. I stare at her take perfect bites from the burritos, wondering if her breath will smell like garlic when she’s finished.

 

 

 

Dinner from the old country

My good friend Matt Piedl and I have enjoyed many culinary adventures together. His most recent idea was Czech food. Recalling the tasty albeit monochromatic fare I sampled on my visit to the Czech Republic, I agreed enthusiastically. I remembered some sort of roast pork, some yummy squishy dumplings with brown gravy, sauerkraut and potatoes. That was what I was served at a rustic lodge after spelunking in the caves of the "Bohemian Paradise" mountains. It is known as their "national dish". (Do we have one of those? Cheeseburgers perhaps?)

Alas, we failed to plan ahead and an hour before dinnertime we had yet to so much as go grocery shopping, our tummies were grumbling, and we came to the crushing realization that the pork was supposed to marinate for a minimum of 48 hours. Forget that!

So instead we opted for a dish Matt remembered from his childhood dinners prepared by his authentic Hungarian grandmother! Chicken paprikash! We purchased a whole bird, which he portioned with my poultry shears, muttering "choppin' birds, choppin' birds" all the while. He dumped the butchered fowl into my huge dutch oven along with heaps of onions and generous spoonfuls of lard and paprika. Meanwhile, I sliced up a head of green cabbage, blanched it, fried up some bacon, sauteed celery, carrots, onions and bell peppers in the fat, then stirred in the blanched cabbage and the chopped bacon and topped it off with a glug of white vinegar and a sprinkle of s&p. Matt whipped up a simple noodle batter - just eggs, flour, and water - and dropped spoonfuls of it into boiling water to make spetzel. When everything was just about ready, he finished the chicken with a stream of heavy cream, which mixed with the chicken juices and brought the dish together beautifully.

Seemed like a perfect Sunday dinner!

Julia Child is a sadist.

I wanted to make creamed swiss chard and spinach with gruyere. In other (french) words, epinards gratinee au mornay. Seems simple enough. Make a cheese sauce, stir in up with the sauteed spinach, scrape it into a gratin dish and put it in the oven. Oh no. Not if you're taking directions from good old JC.

First, I looked up the recipe for spinach au gratin. That recipe required a recipe of sauce mornay, which required a recipe of sauce bechamel. It also required a recipe of blanched spinach, which requires a recipe of sauteed spinach, which requires a recipe of prepared spinach. WTF, Julia? I guess spinach was tougher back in the day. I decided to just sautee it in some butter and dump it in the casserole with the sauce mornay. And it was delicious and decadent, of course.

And that was just the side dish. The main course was a whole trout (Logan and Joe, you've seen me do this before), roasted with sliced lemons and almonds. The other side dish was purple rice pilaf with sliced portabello mushroom, caramalized onions and craisins. Sounds weird, I know, but trust me. I got rave reviews. We had a very cheap but nonetheless appropriate pinot grigio to complement the meal. I wish I could supplement my writing with pictures...but my camera is broken. Hope you all can settle for good old fashioned words.

P.S.

Over on the left hand sidebar, I've added a new little gadget: a place to link and share the blogs that you frequent or discover. Mine is a changing list of food and life-style digs. I'd love to know what you're reading!

xo.
logan

Cherries two ways

It is a casual Friday here in Tal. The college kids have fled for the summer and the city is now breathing quietly. Joe is asleep. He went to the midnight Ironman opener, and has been talking of nothing but superhero scenarios and eminent napping since. I spent the day collecting sea shells, pretending to cast my ballot for potential villain candidates in the upcoming Batman movie, and mostly, thinking about what I was going to make for dinner. I dawned on me that it might not be normal to think about food all day. Most people probably think about productive things, like the stock market, or important things, like a doctor's appointment. But me... I mostly just think about food: what I ate for breakfast... what would bananas foster ice cream taste like... what does grandma put in her apple crisp to make it so good? The wanderings of my mind are fairly one-note. And this past week, all brain capacity seemed to hone in on a single obsession- chipotle cherry short ribs.


Like any disease, I have learned to live with my food obsession disorder. When an idea slips into my mind and begins to grow, I simply let it fester, until the obsession manifests in a disastrous mess and, usually, an edible finale. The short rib obsession took this usual form. It ended with a counter glazed in cherry preserves, a stovetop spattered with beef grease, and a skillet full of, well... dinner. I haven't quite gotten the hang of this meat thing yet, so the experience was a bit like chewing a leather boot. Thank god for the cherries and booze, which saved the dish entirely. I roasted a batch of new potatoes from the farmers market, and we dunked these heartily into the salty sweet drippings.

A few days later, it was time for a bit of housekeeping around here. My idea of cleaning is oddly centered around purging the refrigerator of unmentionables, and rarely involves anything outside of the kitchen. This time, it meant finishing off those sticky jars of sour cherries. Within a few minutes, the sink was full of freshly dirtied dishes, and the oven was warming for a lovely lemon-cherry bundt cake.


Lemon-Cherry Bundt Cake

This cake is similar, in texture, to a coffee cake, and, when paired with a dark cup of coffee, makes for a nice breakfast. If you like your breakfast sweets a little less sugary, you could try cutting back the sugar to 1.5 cups.

6 Tb unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
zest and juice of one lemon
1 cup sour cream

2 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 Tb wheat germ
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp sea salt

Roughly one cup sour cherries (mine were canned, but fresh would be tastier)
Roughly 1.5 cups cherry preserves or, in my case, a sort of cherry filling

Preheat oven to 350. Melt the butter by placing it in a bundt pan (or divide between two standard bread pans), and set in the preheating oven. Remove the pan(s) from the oven as soon as the butter has melted. Wisk together the remaining five wet ingredients. Slowly wisk the warm butter into the egg and sugar mixture. In a separate bowl, wisk together the dry ingredients. Stir the flour mixture into the wet mixture by hand, until the flour is just combined. Add the sour cherries and stir just enough to incorporate. Using a pastry brush or your hands, butter the pan(s) with the residual melted butter. Lightly flour the greased pan(s). Pour half of the cake batter into the pan(s). Spread the cherry preserves on top of the cake batter, and top with the remaining batter. Level the top of the cake, and sprinkle generously with sanding sugar. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the cake center comes out clean. Cool for ten minutes, then loosen the edges of the cake with a knife and invert onto a plate. If serving as a dessert, this cake would finish well with a lemon glaze, made by mixing together the juice and zest of another lemon with a cup or two of powdered sugar. If glazing, do so while the cake is still warm.

FYI

i added a picture of the lemon ricotta puff pancakes with blueberry sauce in my brunch post. check it out!