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And check out a few extra photos:  Egg compared to the size of a large mixing bowl.  Egg unmixed. Check out the color and amount of yolk.  Mushroom, onion, herb and emu egg frittata right out of the oven.  Dinner is served.
The L.A. Times laments the shootout over local food versus, well, everything else. Sound familiar? Aw geez – now what do we do? Here’s the thing everyone seems to be forgetting. Eating ain’t optional. You don’t eat, you die. Now you can be eating organic vegetables only, or you can be eating McDonald’s. Same deal – you don’t eat, you die. Here’s another thing everyone seems to be forgetting. Fun. Whatever happened to enjoying what you’re eating? Oh that’s right, we’re supposed to eat what’s good for us and things that were produced properly are morally acceptable, etc, etc, etc. What? No one told you it can all be one and the same. I went to a small dinner party recently. The first course was potato, leek and asparagus soup. There were two torta rusticas made with chard – one with cheese and the other with non-dairy substitutes like soy cheese for the lactose intolerant folks among us (no vegans), broiled swordfish, beets with a touch of orange, a simple green salad served with whole wheat baguettes. And I contributed a pear tarte Tatin for dessert and a quick whipped cream was produced. But the evening was friendship and catching up and debating (though not solving) all the troubles of the world. Did anyone care that the potatoes, leeks, greens, chard and just about everything else were probably from California via the grocery store and the asparagus pretty much had to be from some other country? Or that swordfish is usually on the top of the worry-about-mercury list? No. Was the meal unhealthy? No. Culinary pleasures come in many packages, and this one came with people and wine and opinions. And a touch of pear tarte Tatin – featuring precisely zero local ingredients — never hurts. Crust is adapted from Gourmet and the filling from The New York Times many, many years ago. Pear Tarte TatinCrust1¼ cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoons sugar ¼ teaspoon salt 1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes 3 tablespoons ice water plus more as needed Whisk together flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl (or pulse in a food processor). Blend in butter with your fingertips or a pastry blender (or pulse) just until most of mixture resembles coarse meal with some roughly pea-size butter lumps. Drizzle ice water over mixture and gently stir with a fork (or pulse) until incorporated. Squeeze a small handful of dough: If it doesn’t hold together, add more ice water 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring (or pulsing) until just incorporated, then test again. Do not overwork dough, or pastry will be tough. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 4 portions. With heel of your hand, smear each portion once or twice in a forward motion to help distribute fat. Gather dough together, with a pastry scraper if you have one, and press into a ball. Form into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill until firm, at least 1 hour. Dough can be chilled up to 1 day (it will freeze pretty well for a couple of weeks). Let stand at room temperature 20 minutes before rolling out. Filling7 firm, red Anjou pears, peeled, halved and cored Fresh lemon juice ¾ cup sugar 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in small pieces Crust (above) Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Position rack in bottom third of oven. Squeeze lemon juice on pears. Set aside. Place sugar in a 11-inch cast iron skillet or tarte Tatin pan over low heat. When some of the sugar begins to melt, begin stirring with a wooden spoon until all of the sugar is melted and begins to turn a pale golden color. Remove pan from the heat. Arrange pear halves in the pan spoke fashion, cut side up, with the narrow end of the pears toward the center, as close together as possible. Fill in the center with the remaining pears. Scatter butter over the pears. Place pan over medium heat. Cook until the sugar turns a deep caramel color and the juices released from the pears are nearly evaporated, about 20 minutes. While pears cook, roll the dough into circle about 2 inches larger in diameter than pan. Lift and lay over the pears, tucking the edges into pan around edges of pears. Bake until the crust is golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside for 10 minutes. Run a small, sharp knife around the edge of the tarte to loosen. Place a large plate or platter over the skillet. Holding the plate and skillet together using 2 kitchen towels, carefully but quickly invert the tarte onto the plate. You may need to do a bit of re-assembling. Cut into wedges and serve with whipped cream or crème fraiche if desired. Eight servings.
And I am confused. Well, maybe not confused – distressed is more like it. How can so many people be so sure they are right (and everyone else is wrong) about food? How can so many people be considered right about food when our food system is sick and so many of our bodies are sicker? We don’t know what is right. I don’t know what is right. And lately I have been thinking about arguments for vegetarianism and veganism and where dialectics end and progress begins. Is it right for a vegan argue it is wrong, cruel, etc, etc to have domesticated cows (OK, they’re all domesticated) when cow (and other) milk is such an incredibly potent foodstuff? And has been for centuries? Is meat bad in all forms if you consider that prehistoric man ate it? Possibly raw? Meat is not all bad for you and it IS progress that we’re not all out there hunting it on a regular basis. There go ANY gun laws, for starters. Would you rather have time to read a book (OK, OK, watch TV) or spend that time trapping your own dinner? And my favorite example is this: an organic farmer keeps chickens that help eat the bugs on his farm and thereby minimizes other treatments he might need. The byproduct is, of course eggs. Do we not eat them? They are the result of a beneficial process, and one of the most complete and useful foods on the planet. Progress means someone who is much better at it than I am can grow, produce, and otherwise supply my food. And dammit – bananas and pineapple make my smoothie a much, much better tasting drink and there’s no way anyone’s growing them around here. Or even in this country. Progress and bending the locavore sensibility has given us chocolate and coffee and tea and guava and figs and hazelnuts and pignoli or pinon and rice, for goodness sake, and tofu and it lets someone other than me struggle with making pasta (which has eggs in it) and on those rare occasions when I do eat meat, it allows someone else to take care of the dirty work. And it gives me the right to have the wonderful indulgences of a peach tart (aha – sugar and butter, a milk product) and a moist hunk of sour cream coffee cake (eggs, sugar, milk products) and good old French toast. Did I mention Parmigiano- Reggiano? And papayas? Our system – or lack thereof – of how we make all this work certainly has room for improvement. But you know, generally humankind has benefited from progress in food. Burger King is not what I had in mind, but in a lot of ways, a box of Swanson organic, free range chicken broth is. A little simplistic? Yes, but I think the ideologues among us would do well to offer a little leeway and grace to those who think about this stuff, but think differently. Or like me, don’t know what the heck to think. I have no answers – and if polemics (and this crummy cold weather) has you down too – try stew. This version is without meat, but it’s just as good with chicken or lamb.
Stew Braised with North African SpicesOlive oil I very large onion, quartered and thinly sliced 2 celery stalks, thinly sliced 3-4 large cloves garlic, minced 1½ teaspoons cinnamon 1½ teaspoons turmeric 1 teaspoon sweet paprika 1 teaspoon ginger 1 teaspoon cumin 4 tablespoons tomato paste 3 cups chicken broth (you can use veggie broth – but it’s not my favorite) 1 medium butternut squash, peeled and cut in 1-inch pieces 6 yellow flesh boiling potatoes, cleaned and cut in 1 inch pieces 5-10 medium carrots, peeled and cut in ½-inch rounds 4 medium turnips, peeled and cut in ½-inch pieces ½ cup orange juice 1 orange cut in eighths Salt and pepper, to taste 1 large can chickpeas, drained Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On stovetop, heat a large oven-proof Dutch oven over high heat. When it’s hot (a few drops of water will sizzle instantly), pour in enough oil to form a thin film. When oil shimmers – it will happen quickly – add onion, celery and garlic. Turn heat to medium and cook until just softened. Add spices a sauté briefly until aromas are released. Add tomato paste and stir in until evenly distributed. Add broth, stir up all bit from bottom of pan. Add remaining vegetable, orange juice and orange pieces. Mix vegetables. Season with salt and pepper. Cover tightly and place in oven. Braise 1-1½ hours, until vegetables are just soft. Stir in chick peas and cook another 10 minutes. If too soupy, remove lid and let some liquid evaporate. Adjust seasoning. Lots of servings. *If you want this to be a soup, add more broth. If you want meat stew, brown meat/chicken in oil first. Remove meat and continue with vegetables. Add browned meat to pot before braising.
And an awful lot of them have to do with food. Granted, I already run in the semi-elite end of the eating/cooking spectrum, so some might argue I really don’t have much need to be whining about this stuff. I’m a doctor’s dream – no fast food, gobs of veggies, grow my own, daily fresh fruit smoothies, and I consider two of my biggest sins the regular use of commercial chicken broth and never having made my own pasta (OK – I’ve made gnocchi). Not too shabby. It’s all perspective. The 2010 vows – even less meat than my already bare minimum. Smaller portions. A little less coffee – hey, I like it! I’d say less cheese – but it ain’t gonna happen. More care with food sources, sanitation, organics (not always necessary, really). More daring, more inventiveness. Try those recipes I typically toss because they looked too hard. Mess around with new flavors and ingredients. Steer clear of the same old fallbacks – even if they’re really, really, really good. And make more of my own bread. This is a longstanding vow. Bread baking for me goes way back to teenager-dom. I believe oat bread was the first. It took me a long time to even agree to rapid rise yeast, and I have never, ever used or even considered using a bread machine. To be sure – there is a ton of good bread that I can get my hands on regularly: Judies in New Haven (the original Peasant is still the best); CitySeed’s organic breads (which are made for them); Eli’s in New York (the “health” bread especially); the Kitchen at Billings Forge in Hartford (tough to get but worth the trip); Chestnut Fine Foods in New Haven (one of the few places with anadama). I mean, Chabaso really doesn’t even rate in my book. But at upwards of $5 a loaf — really I need to break the bread-buying habit. Truth — bread just isn’t that tough. While it’s a lot of time from start to finish, it is NOT time consuming. Easy to do between other things. So Jan. 1, 2010 – I made bread. New beginnings = fresh bread. Went back to Cook’s Illustrated amazing ciabatta – made with zero fat — from the March-April 2009 issue, and finally tried it with whole wheat (2:1 white to whole wheat). Here’s my tweaked version of their all-white recipe. It’s seems long, but it’s not. You can double it if you have a large and sturdy stand mixer and — betcha can’t eat just one. (And while I’m resolving here – goal is for 2 posts a week: Saturdays and Wednesdays. But don’t hold me to it.) Whole Wheat CiabattaBiga1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour 1/8 teaspoon rapid-rise yeast ½ cup water at room temperature In large stand mixer bowl, combine all ingredients and stir with wooden spoon until mass is uniform, about 1 minute. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature at least 8 hours or up to 24. I highly recommend closer to 24. Dough1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour 1 cup whole wheat flour ½ teaspoon rapid-rise yeast 1½ teaspoons salt 1 cup water at room temperature mixed with 2 tablespoons nonfat dry milk Add all ingredients to biga. Using mixer with paddle attachment, mix on low about 5 minutes until mass is uniform and pulls away from bowl. Remove dough from paddle. Replace paddle with dough hook and mix on medium/low about 10 minutes until dough is smooth. It will be very sticky. Leave in bowl covered tightly with plastic wrap until doubled, about 1 hour. If you double the recipe, this will take a bit longer. Rub large rubber spatula blade with a very thin film of canola oil. Using spatula, lift ¼ of dough from edge of bowl and fold inward. Turn bowl 90 degrees and repeat. Do this a total of 8 times – 2 full turns of bowl. Cover with plastic, let rise 30 minutes. Repeat folding process and let rise another 30 minutes. Place dough on generously floured board. Cut in half without punching it down.
But it turned out all that rain was good for some things. For the guys who had tomatoes, boy did they have tomatoes. There were some instances of emergency pick-your-owns for peaches, which were so dense, tree branches were in danger of breaking. And the blueberry season – well it’s still going. So we’ve definitely hit deluge and it doesn’t take much to completely overdo it at the farmers’ market. We’ve all been there — suddenly the leftover corn from last week is being crowded out by the dozen new ears you decided looked too good to pass up. Ditto the peaches, beans, squash, peppers, and yes tomatoes. I’m not a canner so my M.O. is to use what I have some way for immediate consumption. Or freeze something cooked, like a sauce. Or freeze the raw items, which I do mainly with fruit to use over the winter in smoothies, since fruit tends to look pretty wretched when it thaws. But really I’ve been cooking and baking – and EATING – a lot lately. I’m sorting through a stack of recipes I’ve set aside, figuring out which work and which don’t; going back and tinkering with old ones; and just throwing things together. So some of my suggestions for all that stuff: TOMATOES: I’m big on quick sauces. I take all my half-ripe, half-rotting, otherwise screwed up tomatoes – cut out the bad stuff and chop up the rest (including the under-ripe parts, skins, seeds). Into a big saucepan goes: 1. Olive oil 2. Some combination of onions/scallions/leeks (sometimes garlic) plus fresh hot peppers of varying heat (I’m long on jalapeños this year) – all sautéed until just soft. 3. Chopped tomatoes. Simmer the whole thing, seasoned with salt, until tomatoes begin to break down and excess liquid is gone. Depending on amount and size of pan – it’s about 20 minutes or so. Obviously it can go on pasta, but it’s also a great sauce for fish, like grilled monkfish, swordfish or bass. And for those inveterate meat eaters, you can always start of with finely chopped pancetta. Crisp that up and then proceed. FRUIT: These are recipes I’ve run into in the last few years. All are from gourmet, but they definitely needed some adjusting. The links will get you to the original recipe. Peach Blueberry Cake – This is truly a slow cooker, and I’ve made it into a deeper cake so cooking time is closer to 2¼ hours. For the filling: use 2½ pounds of peaches – 8-9 medium ones; 1½ cups blueberries; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; ¾ cup sugar; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 tablespoons tapioca. Best way to prepare filling is to put all the fruit in a bowl; mix it with lemon juice, followed by sugar, followed by flour and tapioca. There is no need to grind anything but the tapioca. I recommend a 10-inch springform, with foil under it. Do not skip the foil on top. You can use raspberries instead of blueberries, but you’ll need to increase the tapioca a bit. Plum Blackberry Streusel Pie – I’d go for about 2¼ pounds of plums and 1 pound of blackberries. Increase the tapioca to 4 tablespoons, but keep the cornstarch the same. This pie expands – so don’t think you can do without the baking sheet underneath. Buttermilk Raspberry Cake — 1 cup of raspberries is nowhere near enough. I use 2 cups and the recipe works just fine. Bake at 375; 400 is just too high. It might take an extra 5 minutes or so. CORN: Grilled is best in my book. For leftovers just scrape it off the ear. Nothing fancy needed other than a big knife. Balance the corn on one end and scrape down all the way around. Flip it over and finish the rest. This cornbread recipe is based on one I saw in The NY Times. But frankly I’ve tinkered with it so much at this point, it’s pretty much my own. Brown Butter Sage Cornbread With Grilled Corn (and optional cheese)3/8 cup corn oil ¼ cup chopped fresh sage leaves 1 cup flour 1 cup yellow cornmeal 1 tablespoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 1¼ cups buttermilk 2 eggs 3 tablespoons sugar ¼ teaspoon baking soda 1-1½ cups kernels scraped from grilled corn 5-6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled — optional ½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Heat oil in a 9-inch cast iron skillet. When hot, add chopped sage and cook until crispy. Scrape oil and sage into a bowl and set aside. While sage is cooking, in a large bowl, sift together flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together buttermilk, oil-sage mixture, eggs, sugar and baking soda. Gently fold wet ingredients into dry ones until just combined. Fold in corn, and optional cheese. Melt butter in the cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, tilting pan to coat bottom and sides completely. Cook butter 2 to 3 minutes, until it starts to color and smell nutty. Scrape batter into skillet; smooth surface with a rubber spatula. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve. Note: If you don’t have cast iron, brown the butter in any kind of pan and pour into an 8- or 9-inch square baking pan. If you’re not a sage fan – use up some of your hot peppers. Chop them up and fold in with the corn. No need to cook them first. Do you have some special end-of-summer recipes? Send them along.
I met Julia Child a couple of times. Met. Rarefied setting, but seriously, just met. That means I got the chance to throw some questions at her in a reporters’ gaggle covering the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Colo. Totally appropriate for me to be there – I was a food editor in Colorado for a number of years. Even among the big names – no make that huge names – there, she was the draw, the star. Her sessions had people hanging in the doorways. And more than anything, she had people laughing. It was 1995 and 1996. She was still physically imposing, but stooped and didn’t walk well. But the mind and tongue were sharp and she was hysterical — deadpanning on a second-thought pour of ALL the wine into whatever it was she was doing. I actually forget the dish. But seeing Julie & Julia (yes delightful, yes Streep is, well – Streep, and stand warned you will be STARVING when you leave) got me remembering Child in 1995 in particular, and how it all relates to who we are food-wise today. For the foodies gathered in Aspen – and that meant the non-press paying big, big bucks for some serious food – Julia Child’s demonstration session was called “Will the Real Salade Niçoise Please Stand Up!” The exclamation point was hers. It was a two-full-page/four-column recipe for Salade Niçoise, which she said was the Escoffier version, and included a scolding in print and in person about things like cheap oil, frozen string beans and unripe tomatoes. And it included this: “I’ve had so-called embellishments, such as fresh tuna rather than canned, or shrimp or crab. But I don’t like embellishments! I want that canned tuna.” (Yes, I still have the program and the full recipe, and the exclamation points, again, were hers.) Julia Child came of culinary age in a time and place in Paris where the everyday food was local and fresh, bought more or less as needed, and occupied a cultural place in society the way it really never has in the U.S. It was well before the commodity farming, industrial processing and rampant use of antibiotics, hormones, etc. we’ve seen in the U.S. – the backlash against which has spawned the local food movement of the last half-dozen or so years. And so these unanswerable questions: Was it ever fair to impose French food sensibilities (some would say snobbery) on an American public that just didn’t and to a large extent still doesn’t have access to these products at a reasonable cost or at all? For instance, the only way many people have to purchase duck (as in the pate de canard en croute that is the movie’s climax) is frozen, which of course will never get you the same quality in the dish Child created. Is the classic way still the right way or the only way? The largely French techniques are still the core of cooking training – no question. And it’s probably like painting – learn the classic way, by the rules before you start screwing around with things. But, is there something inherently wrong with fresh tuna in a Salade Niçoise? Is food an exact science only, or is it meant to evolve and jettison older conventions to be replaced with newer sensibilities? What would Julia Child think of the local food movement in swing now? Does it deny us certain foods she valued – that is to say classic French food made in the U.S. heartland from ingredients fetched, imported and flown from faraway, because that’s where they come from? Do food miles make Julia Child obsolete? And just because something is classic in the French tradition, does it mean we should still eat it now? Tripe comes to mind, but hey, maybe that’s me. And yes, butter – good butter, OK, any butter – is delicious, but in truth is not meant for everything. When Julia Child demonstrated her Salade Niçoise back in 1995, she advocated hard-boiled eggs made in a pressure cooker, but failing that she had a complex system of piercing eggs, a 17-minute steeping, chilling, re-boiling, chilling. I totally think Julia Child did amazing things for the world of food. She made us see possibilities, test limits, be adventurous. She did as much if not more for television – opening a genre, putting public TV on the map, refining how to even approach food in a visual setting. But her hard-boiled egg technique is NOT the best. It’s a pain in the butt. And if I want fresh tuna in my Salade Niçoise, I’m gonna use it. And here, in the half-decade since we lost Julia Child, I’m thinking she might not even mind … too much. Cook’s Illustrated No-Gray-Ring Hard-Boiled EggsPlace eggs in a pot, no more than one layer’s worth. Cover with at least an inch of water. Bring to a boil. As soon as the water boils, turn off heat, cover, and let steep precisely 10 minutes. Chill to stop cooking in an ice water bath. As for the whole Salade Niçoise recipe. Maybe. Kohlrabi is variously described as looking like Sputnik or a hot air balloon. Both would be pretty accurate. I suspect the reason is far less heinous. They’re cheap and easy to grow, can withstand all kinds of cold temperatures, do very well in heat, don’t seem to have any diseases – low maintenance, just what Connecticut farmers like. And so for all you CSA members in particular – watch out, they’re coming. So what is this little odd veggie? It is far better known and more common throughout Europe. The name is more or less German. Kohl means cabbage; rabi means turnip. In fact kohlrabi is in the cabbage family. It may look like a root vegetable, but it is not. The nearly tennis ball-sized bulb you see with all those leaves attached grows above ground. The bulb can be eaten raw – usually shredded like a slaw. Or you can cook it. Trick is you have to peel it past the woody exterior. If you pick it very young, you can eat the whole outside, but don’t count on finding that at the market. The leafy tops can also be eaten – but cooked is best. The flavor is often described as turnips mixed with cauliflower. I’ll tell you, I don’t see it. The bulb tastes very much like broccoli to me. The leaves taste like – well, sorry to say this … kale. The leaves can be steamed or sautéed in oil – but they’re tough so give them time. Super high heat can make them bitter, so watch that too. With garlic or garlic scapes in oil, salt and lots of pepper and then finished with fresh lemon juice, they make a nice side dish. With the bulb – I think less is more – just steamed is sweet enough. Maybe a touch of salt and butter. Theoretically the bulbs can be roasted – but who the heck wants to be roasting things in the middle of summer? And of course you can drown them with any sauce, dressing, pesto you can think of. But that actually would sort of defeat the purpose of eating kohlrabi. You see – it’s good for you. Low calorie, loaded with Vitamin C (140% of the RDA), plenty of fiber and a nice dose of potassium. And remember – they’re coming. Striped bass – stripers, in the vernacular – seem to have a certain association with summer, though they’re really a year-round fish. Either way, it’s worth sorting out the Connecticut confusogram of stripers. For starters – there’s been a statute on the books for a long time here that prohibits commercial fishing of striped bass. So if your fish store says “local striped bass” – it may be close, like New York or Massachusetts, but it’s not Connecticut. But – Connecticut commercial fishermen can, with the proper licenses and all that jazz, fish stripers in non-Connecticut waters and bring them back here. So the fisherman can be local. And – sport fishing of stripers is permitted, but that’s for personal consumption, not sale. Stripers, however, have had a health issue for a number of years – namely PCBs – those now-banned cancer-causing industrial compounds that were dumped in waterways all over the east coast. Those nice big striped bass just soaked the PCBs in as a predator eating the stuff that ate the other stuff that ate even more stuff that ate the worm contaminated with PCBs. The way Dave Simpson, the director of Marine Fisheries for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection explains it: “Each level gets more concentrated. “The bigger they are, the higher they are in food chain, the more they tend concentrate contaminants.” In the last month or so, there’s been some good news on that front. Connecticut, along with six other states, has loosened its health recommendation on how often to eat striped bass (and bluefish). Based on a review of data from 2008, the state Department of Public Health recommends that non-risk groups can safely eat striped bass once a month. That is actually more frequent than the old once-every-two-months recommendation. Non-risk groups would be everyone except, children, pregnant women, nursing mothers – and you might want to add in the elderly. Simpson suggests to lessen the PCB risk even further, cut away the dark part of the fish, which is fattier – and fat is where PCBs cluster. Or cook it in a way that the fat drips out, namely grilling. Striped bass tends to be a thickly-cut, moist fish that can stand up to a grill without drying out, falling apart or otherwise becoming – oh you know, fishy. You can just grill it plain with a touch of oil and pepper, or use a marinade although that may keep it from getting a nice crust, if that’s what you prefer. I prefer a sweet and spicy rub I make with a secret hot chile mixture from New Mexico. Failing that you can concoct or buy whatever you want: a Southwestern mix of dried chile and herbs; a curry; a North African mix of cumin, paprika, turmeric and cayenne; a jerk mixture – all would work. Grilled Striped Bass½-1 cup light brown sugar (not dark – it burns, sticks and makes a mess) In a flat glass pan like a small baking dish, mix brown sugar and spice mixture. Add canola oil just to moisten slightly. It should not be runny. Dredge meat portions of fish in mixture, covering it thickly. Let sit about 10 minutes. Grill on oiled, heated grill, adding more mixture if needed. Fish should make a nice crust with a moist interior. 2 servings. Yes indeed, Baggott Family Farms of East Windsor does it again. First with fresh corn grown right here in Connecticut – not just before July 4, but this weekend. And that’s earlier than ever. I saw it myself. Nothing underhanded at work. For years the Baggotts have been pushing about 30 of their 700 acres of corn earlier and earlier by using plastic on the ground, row covers on top and then hand picking. “A lot of what we do is expensive and that’s why a lot of other people don’t do it,” Tom Baggott explains. “If I was a smaller guy, I wouldn’t do what I do, I’d just buy it from me.” In fact he’s pretty much as big as it gets here in little Connecticut. Baggott is the largest commercial vegetable grower in the state. Most of his product – corn, cukes, squash – is wholesale to the large grocery chains in the area. But not the early corn. “This is grown for the local market,” Baggott says. “We start out just having it for stands. Then we have it for local chain stores that want to pay the money to have local corn and then by the middle of July it’s a bloodbath.” Until that bloodbath starts and there’s fresh local corn everywhere, you can find Baggott corn at their own farm stands on Blue Hills Ave. in Windsor and on Route 5 in East Windsor. Plus at other folks’ farm stands who buy from Baggott. Baggott corn will eventually turn up in the grocery store, but right now you’re getting southern corn there mostly – Florida and Georgia. And since we’re approaching July 4, let’s talk about corn on the grill.For that perfect method. Hah – ask 5 people, you’ll get 10 methods. Among those out there: Steam/boil first and finish on grill with seasonings. Skip the stove part – a waste of energy. Leave corn intact. Soak in water and then grill. Winds up steaming and you don’t get much grill smokiness. Pull down husks leaving them attached; remove silk; pull husks back over corn and tie them back in place. Grill soaked or unsoaked. Helps keep kernels from burning. You still mute the smokiness. Remove husks and silk. Grill it as is. Basic sweet and smoky. Remove husks and silk. Brush with marinade of your choosing. (The house favorite here is orange juice with a touch of mustard and a spicy chile mixture or cumin, or a lot of black pepper.) Hey – we like it. Common points: Keep turning the ear to cook all sides and you don’t need to cook it that long. Medium heat is probably the safest. The Martha Stewartesque cool handle thing: Pull back the husks, remove the silk, and then using a single piece of husk, tie the remaining husks back into a handle. It’s pretty and makes it a little easier to pick up. In the extraneous information category from my friend Jin with a teething daughter: Those cobs are great. I ran into this recipe recently in Gourmet. Can’t say I’m wild about the extra fat/calories – but it sure as heck sounded good.
Gourmet’s Salvadoran Grilled Corn¼ cup Dijon mustard Mix first 3 ingredients. Brush on hot corn and sprinkle with cheese. Enough for 12 ears. No, I’m not talking about this dreary spring and interminable rain. I’m talking about the fact that even though we are still many weeks from the heart of the summer produce season and its flood of food, I’ve already had my first run-in with classic summer market syndrome – buying too much.
GREENS, EGGS and LEMONOlive oil 1 bunch scallions or small spring onions, or 6-8 garlic scapes (or more of any of these) cut in 1-inch long pieces 6-8 cups arugula or sturdy baby greens like chard, spinach or broccoli rabe (if you use large green, you’ll need to cut them to bite-size) Coarsely ground black pepper, to taste Salt, to taste 6 eggs, beaten with a whisk Fresh lemon to taste In large sauté pan, heat oil over medium high heat. When hot add scallions. Cook until just wilted and starting to brown. Add greens. Cook stirring, to keep leaves separated, until wilted and just cooked. Add pepper and salt. Add eggs, lower heat to medium. Stir with greens until mixture is a light scramble and just set. Serve with fresh lemon squeezed on top. 3-4 servings. |
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Truthfully, it was a little questionable we’d get to this point – that late season deluge of local produce, given the early season situation of 2½ months of rain, drowned cherries, what seemed like the shortest strawberry season on record, and the late blight tomato disaster.
It’s something of a cottage industry at the moment – food writers on the subject of Julia Child. So as long as everyone else is piling on – it would seem not inappropriate to join in.
Otherworldly for sure, these pale green or deep purple vegetables seem to have multiplied at farmers’ markets and in CSA boxes like pods from Invasion of the Body Snatchers – and I suppose a case could be made for resemblance — or like, well, kale.