Day 2: Food Markets

After our arrival in Perth we headed to the markets in the neighborhoods of Subiaco for our weekend sustenance on our jaunt to Margaret River.  The indoor market was much like Monterey Market in Berkeley.  While the produce was labeled where it was grown, it was disconcerting being at the end of winter while in the US it was the end of summer.  It was hard to know what to expect to be local and in season.  We picked up zucchini, melon, green beans and asparagus, all grown in Western Australia but I’m still not sure if that was truly seasonal.  After that we headed to the cheese and meat markets. 

 

On the plane we met a very chatty Australian “bloke”, Darryl, who went on about the meat pies.  At the cheese shop, Daily Divine, they had a tasty looking array of flaky, savory pies.  We didn’t buy any then, but it was definitely on my list to try.

My sister complains about not being able to find American style bacon in Australia – that is it doesn’t crisp up and tastes more like Canadian bacon or ham.  It sure looks like American bacon, so I’m not sure why it would taste different.  We got some pancetta instead to make carbonara that night and lamb and spicy pork sausages to bbq over the weekend.  Just like at the better butcher’s in the bay area, the shop had signs indicating all the farms where their meat was sourced.

We picked up other food stuffs at “Woolworth’s” which I don’t think had any relevance to the US Woolworth’s as it was more like a Safeway than a five and dime.  In addition to the other dried goods, we picked up some Bundaberg ginger beer for our pre-dinner cocktails.

Food shopping was a great way to get a taste of the real local flavor right off the plane.  Next I was looking forward to some of the regional foods of the Margaret River area in the south.    

Day 1: Gourmet Farmer

I wish I could say better things about the food on Qantas.  However, while sitting like a packed sardine on a 16 hour transatlantic flight we did make a great local food discovery on the endless stream of movies and media that you can chose from on your individual screen.

On Australian “reality tv” series an ex Sydney food critic, Matthew Evans, buys a farm on Bruny Island in Tasmania in order to learn where his food comes from.  While he knows nothing about farming, he does know how to eat and cook (having previously been a chef as well as a food critic).  From episode to episode of “Gourmet Farmer” he focuses on a different aspect of his rural life – with an emphasis on making high quality food.  In one show, on prosciutto, we see everything from buying/ raising slaughtering the pigs, the process of air curing prosciutto, cooking dishes with all pig parts (heart/lungs/liver) to making sausage and bacon and selling it in the local food market. 

Other episodes include raising and killing chickens (yes they even show how the chicken is humanely killed), apples, fishing, making ice cream from goat’s milk, wood burning stoves…..In each show he engages other local food producers to show him the best techniques…and it always includes a feast with others of the products produced.   I apprecicated how the show covers not just the eating and cooking – but the realities of making a living and all the technical skills needed to farm.  Of course, the show makes it look easier and quicker than it is, I’m sure.  The other really appealing aspect of the show is seeing the countryside of Tasmania.   The idyllic, undeveloped land reminds me of New England crossed with California farmland….rolling wooded hills that are brown in the summer time – rough coast lines and tiny little hamlets.  

Gourmet farmer, in its second season,  and while in Australia you can watch episodes online, you can't from the US.    Matthew Evans is very endearing in a modest way with a charming ability to laugh at himself.  I hope to find some way to keep up with the show.

I did make one other delicious discovery on the plane – vodka and Bundaberg ginger beer (similar to ginger ale, but with a stronger ginger flavor and made in Queensland Australia). It was quite a refreshing alternative to a gin and tonic.   Bundaberg also makes a wonderfully smooth rum.  I had some both in hot chocolate and over ice on the flight home while watching the rest of season 1 of Gourmet Farmer.  Not a bad way to help pass a 13 hour flight.

Australian Food Adventure

My sister and her husband have been living in Perth, Western Australia, for a year now.  I hear varying things about the food in Australia – anything from spectacularly good, even better than the bay area, to nothing to write home about.  Stephanie and I set off on our own adventure to visit Johanna and Fred while scoping out about the local food first hand.  The following chronicles some of our discoveries.  

Equal Portions of Everything: A Journalist

A while ago, I read about a journalist in one of my cocktail books. It looked interesting at the time, like one of those classic cocktails the artsy crowd drank in the 30s at the Algonquin. I tried ordering one at Cesar’s where I know they have an extensive bar - but they hadn’t heard of it and at the time I couldn’t remember all the ingredients.

I forgot about it until recently when I was at Zut, a restaurant bar on 4^th Street, with a friend who asked for a suggestion for a dry drink. My mind jumped to a journalist, but then I was worried the bar tender there wouldn’t know what was in it either. John ordered an old-fashioned, but later that evening we looked it up and made them at his place. It’s a gin based drink that has both sweet and dry vermouth, triple sec (or cointreau if you are going upscale), lemon juice and a dash of bitters. Only problem is I didn’t read the proportions properly and mixed equal portions of everything. A few evenings later, I tried again – paying close attention to the ratios.

2 oz gin

1/4 oz sweet vermouth

1/4 oz dry vermouth

1/4 oz triple sec

1/4 oz lemon juice

dash of bitters

Perfect! Not sweet, but not killer dry like a martini either. Despite all those ingredients the flavor of the gin really comes through, enhanced even. I used pretty cheap ingredients for everything but the gin. To be local, I used No 209 which is distilled in SF. For those you in Philadelphia, you could use locally made Bluecoat gin. Apparently the cocktail first made an appearance in “The Savoy Cocktail Book” out of London in the 30’s. I wonder which journalist was its namesake. I like to imagine Hemingway drinking them. Cheers!

Mushroom Risotto with Grilled Sardines and Squid

Last week on Top Chef Tre lost because of his risotto recipe – too much garnish and too stiff. My first experience with risotto was when living in Italy. After a year of eating consistently creamy and flavorful risotto, I was typically disappointed whenever I would try and order it in a restaurant in the US. Often the ingredients seemed to be mixed in at the end and it was not at all creamy. In Italy, it’s typically made when ordered and they warn you it will take at least 20 minutes. I can’t imagine most restaurants doing that here, so I just make my own. Luckily it’s not very difficult, you can make all sorts of variations on it, and it’s a crowd pleaser.

One of the most popular risotto types in northern Italy is mushroom – or funghi. While living there, I still wasn’t a fan of mushrooms but seemed to find myself having to eat that dish more often than I would have liked. Maybe that prepared my palette for the day when I did like mushrooms. Mushroom risotto is now one my favorite risotto dishes.

Last weekend, John (my friend and duplex co-owner) suggested we barbeque after our day of gardening. (Yes, it’s warm enough in CA to bbq in February when much of the rest of the country is buried in snow). His family was coming to help, so it would be a good way to show our appreciation. As I had planned to make mushroom risotto earlier in the week but had to abort the plan when I found out my friend could not eat fungus for health reasons, I suggested that I make it that night. We just needed to figure out what to grill with it. John suggested fish and sausages. We walked up the street to Monetery Fish and Magnani’s, two of the best purveyors of sustainable fish and meat. We decided on squid (also known by its Italian name – calamari) and sardines because we both like them, want to perfect our cooking technique of them and they are cheap! The squid was $2.50 lb while the sardines were a whopping $3.50/lb. Plus, after listening to the show on Forum the day before about sustainable fish, they seemed like a good choice. At Magnani’s we picked up an assortment of sausages; linguisa, lamb, bockwurst and some hot dogs for the kids.

The mushroom risotto is really easy and has few ingredients.

1 1/2 cups of Arborio rice

5 cups of broth (I had picked up some funghi bullion at Claudio’s in Philadelphia, which I think is part of what makes this dish so good in Italy)

1/2 large onion diced

1/2 cup white wine

3/4 c grated romano or parmesan cheese

olive oil and butter for sautéing

1/2 cup marscapone (half and half will work if you don’t have any)

3 to 4 cups of diced mushrooms (I just got what looked pretty – lots of choice since it’s mushroom season – a mix of baby shitake and hedgehogs)

herbs as you like – thyme and parsley are good choices

In a fry pan melt several tablespoons of butter and then saute the mushrooms until soft. Add thyme (or any other herb) and some salt. Set aside. On another burner, simmer the broth. Saute the diced onions in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a big pot (a dutch oven is good), when soft add the rice and stir so all the grains get coated with the olive oil, then add the wine and coat again. When all the liquid is absorbed, start adding the broth a ladleful or two at a time, keep stirring so the rice doesn’t stick, and adding liquid as it gets absorbed. About 18 minutes in, when the rice is still al dente but getting close to be cooked, add the mushrooms and stir. After using almost all the broth add the marscapone and 1/2 of the cheese, and chopped parsley, stir and add the rest of the liquid. Turn off the stove just before the rice is totally soft – it will continue to cook while it rests in the pan. The consistency should be similar to porridge. It’s best if it rests for about 5 to 8 minutes. The longer you wait to eat it after that, the more stiff it will get, but the flavor is still good. Serve sprinkled with more cheese.

Part of the reason sardines and squid are so cheap is you are still left with a fair amount of prep work before being able to cook and then eat them. John worked on gutting the sardines. Then he rubbed them in olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper. The squid preparation was the most interesting part. Squid have 3 parts – the body, the eye and the tentacles. John pulled instructions from Marcella Hazan’s cook book on preparing them. He and Eduardo, our neighbor, set about prepping them You cut the body and tentacles off the center eye. You then pull the innards from the tube of the body and squeeze the bony hinge from the tentacle side. After that, just like the sardines, rub them in olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. They only need about 4 minutes on each side before both the sardines and squid are cooked.

The calamari was amazingly tender. Most everyone remarked on how good it was. I was worried about them before eating them as a friend had poor luck with her squid which she indicated required forceful pounding to ternderize only to still have a tough dish. Maybe ours were so good because they were fresh, not frozen, and on the small side. We brainstormed a good idea for the calamari next time which is to stuff them with a paste of herbs, peas and any other vegetable – then bread and fry – much like a variation on a chile relleno.

Sardines seem like they would be challenging to eat with all their bones, but it’s surprisingly easy to debone them. Just pull open the body, peal the head back and the spine will come with it – bones and tail too. The meal was also served with roasted brussel sprouts, a seasonal green salad that our neighbor Susie brought over and plenty of bottles of wine – both red and white.

When John’s sister heard what we were making she asked what are we making for the kids as mushrooms and squid and sardines are not typically choice food for kids. We told her we had hot dogs and she decided to make a “squid friendly” kid dish she had seen recently. You cut the hot dogs into pieces into which you insert uncooked spaghetti noodles. You boil them together in a water and when done the noodle strands look like tentacles - there you have your “squid”!

Next month I am going mushroom foraging along the coast, so I need to think of another creative mushroom dish.

Feast of the Seven Fishes

There is a southern Italian tradition of having seven fishes for dinner on Christmas Eve. I am still unclear to the significance seven fishes specifically. Some explanations are that it symbolizes the 7 sacraments or the 7 days of the week, but there doesn’t seem to universal agreement on this. Recently, I’ve been curious to try the tradition myself.

My friend Sam, who is Indian, doesn’t have any personal traditions around Christmas Eve, so she was into following the ritual, especially since her husband is of Italian descent and she loves fish. Last year when we cooked up the feast, it was extremely elaborate with multiple courses all in involving fish – the most involved being a salt baked sea bass. This year as she has a young baby and I was working on Christmas Eve, we decided to try and make it simpler. Our brilliant shortcut was to make cioppino, an Italian fish stew. I found a recipe that had a total of 6 fishes in it, so all we needed was one more fish dish.

The weekend before Christmas I made a trip to the Italian market in Philadelphia. I can’t say the food is sourced locally or sustainably at the market place, but it sure is an authentic experience to the City. My favorite shop is Claudio’s. The place, especially the smell of the cured meats, brings me back to living in Venice. Many other people had the same idea I did, as the line both to order and pay snaked through the entire store and backed out the front door. We decided to go for it as we had already made the trip down there. It was an experience – all types of people were there from housewives from New Jersey, a young Italian couple, to food lovers like me. I knew they carried marinated fresh anchovies which are a thousand times better than the canned ones. Anchovies on toast would constitute our seventh fish. In addition to anchovies I bought mushroom bullion cubes, panettone, Italian marscapone and ladyfingers (for making tiramisu). I was happy as a clam.

Once we had the seven fish determined, the rest of the menu was figured out quickly.

Appetizers: sautéed mushrooms with marscapone on polenta rounds + anchovies on bruschetta with an herb paste

Salad: mixed greens with fennel, pomegranite seeds and oranges

First course: butternut squash ravioli with a walnut cream sauce

Second Course: Cioppino

Dessert: Assorted cookies and gelato

Sam agreed to take on the cioppino and my mom handled the dessert. Making the ravioli filling a day in advance was helpful too. I was thrilled to have the Market on Main Street in Manayunk finally open and even more impressed that they carried everything I needed for the meal – except for wonton wrappers for ravioli. Too bad the shop wasn’t there the four years I was living in Manayunk!

The appetizer course was pretty easy to assemble. I found a cylinder of pre-made polenta at the market so all I had to do was slice it, then brush them with olive oil before broiling them in the oven until golden. While the rounds were cooking, I sautéed and assortment of mushrooms – chantrelles and baby shitakes – in olive oil, butter, garlic, a dash of wine, and some salt. Towards the end, I added chopped thyme and sage. When the rounds were browned, I spread marscapone on them and topped it with the sautéed mushrooms. They were a big hit.

For the anchovy toasts, I bought Italian green sauce (herb paste) in a tube from the market, spread that on bruschetta toasts and topped with a marinated anchovy (or not for the vegetarians in the crowd).

I did a little research online for various ideas around squash ravioli and walnut cream sauces. Here’s what I cobbled together. For the filling, roast a medium butternut squash and a sweet potato. The latter helps absorb some of the water in squash in addition to adding flavor. Next scoop out the cooked innards into a bowl and mash together with some sautéed shallots or onions (about 1/2 cup), nutmeg, a pinch of cayenne, and salt. Brush each side of wonton wrapper with egg yolk and place a spoonful of filling in the middle and pinch closed the edges. When ready cook in salted, boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes.

For the sauce, I toasted 1 1/2 cups of walnuts and then ground them coarsely in a food processor. In a sauce pan heat a stick of butter with 3/4 cup of cream and some salt and pepper,. Cook down at a low heat. When thickened slightly, add the walnut powder, a pinch of nutmeg, and some cracked pepper. Serve over the cooked ravioli with grated parmesan on top. The dish is very rich, so 3 or 4 raviolis per person would be fine for a big dinner like this. The recipe will make enough for 40 -50 ravioli, so you can freeze the uncooked ravioli for future quick meals.

The recipe for the cioppino came from All Recipes online. Sam read through the reviews and incorporated some of the suggestions, like adding clam juice and cooking the crab and cod in bigger chunks so they don’t break down too much in the soup. We were all pretty full by the time this course arrived, so there were certainly leftovers. It was delicious and would make a great, hearty meal all on it’s own!

Maybe next year I’ll try and simplify even further.

Apple Cornbread Mushroom Stuffing with Bacon

This year I attended a potluck Thanksgiving. When asked what I wanted to bring, I knew it had to have apples in it. The friends with whom I was staying during my transition back to Berkeley, have a very abundant apple tree in their back yard. We had pots full of recently picked apples. I decided to make an apple cornbread dressing. with ingredients like grains, nuts, meat, vegetables, fruit and herbs, stuffing can be a whole meal by itself.

I went to the internet to get a general idea of ingredients, proportions and steps in stuffing recipes. I noticed a quite a few called for eggs. I guess they help hold the ingredients all together like a soufflé, but that wasn’t the consistency I was looking for.

I decided to use boxed cornbread to cut down on time and because I’ve never been that happy with my homemade cornbread as it always tends to be too dry and somewhat flavorless. I’ve always liked Jiffy box cornbread for the end product and its simplicity, but when I looked at the ingredients this time, I was discouraged. Lots of chemical ingredients I couldn’t pronounce (breaking 2 of Michael Pollen’s food rules) and it has lard in it. I wonder how many vegetarians know that. I was making a portion of the batch for vegetarians so that wouldn’t work out. I decided to give Trader Joe’s cornbread mix a try – it still had unrecognizable ingredients, but not as many, and it is vegetarian. However it turned out way too moist and sweet for a savory, stuffing dish. I ended up drying out the cubes in the oven. Next time I will make my own, dry cornbread!

Cornbread tends to be pretty crumbly, so in order to have some shape in the dish, I included French bread that I got from nearby Acme bakery.

For more inspiration I went to one of the local produce markets, Monterey Market. After being in Philadelphia for four years, I was blown away at how much locally grown produce is available this time of year and how cheap it was. 3 bunches of celery for $1 and organic, spinach for $.69/lb! I like how the market labels every product with its origin, including the state. I was lured by all the varieties of mushrooms and decided to include wild chantrelles from Oregon in my dish.

Here’s a recipe based on what I made (not totally exact as I didn’t take measurements). It serves about 12 – 16 as a side dish

1 box of baked cornbread for an 8x8 pan – cut into cubes and dried out

1 baguette – cut into cubes and dried out.

1.5 onions diced

3 –4 stalks of celery diced

olive oil or butter (or both)

1/2 lb to 3/4 bacon – chopped

1 lb of mushrooms, roughly chopped

white wine to taste

3 to 4 apples – peeled, cored and chopped

1/2 c toasted, slivered almonds

vegetable broth (about 2 cups, but use your discretion, depending on how moist you want your stuffing)

chopped herbs – sage, thyme, parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375. Fry the bacon until cooked. Drain on paper towels and save some of the lard for use later. In a separate pan, sauté the onions in some butter or olive oil until soft, add the celery and apples until soft. Then add the mushrooms, which cook quickly, some white wine floor flavoring, the sage and thyme, and more butter or oil if needed. Cook down until the mushrooms are starting to get soft and tender. In a big pot, put in some of the lard (optional for more flavor) and heat until liquefied. Then add the rest of the cooked ingredients and bacon. Stir in all the bread cubes and mix. Add vegetable broth to moisten the mixture – should be moist but not liquidy. Then add the toasted almonds and chopped parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to a glass or ceramic baking dish and bake until crispy – about 30 minutes.

The bacon and lard can be omitted if you want to make a vegetarian option.

The next morning we scrambled some of the leftover stuffing into eggs for breakfast. I guess that’s like adding the eggs I saw in some of the recipes online that I initially was dubious about!

Turkey Drive

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Robert’s men’s group, EBNOM, (The East Bay Nation of Men) held their annual turkey drive at the Neighborhood House of North Richmond. For 20 years they have been organizing this volunteer effort where they raise money and labor to provide Thanksgiving dinners for families in need. The locations of the drive vary with last two being held at the senior center. For as little as $15 they are able to provide dinner for a family of four. This is due in large part to the connections to food vendors that several of the organizers have. Given the current economic climate, this year I have been looking more actively for ways to help out my community, so I eagerly agreed to donate money and time.

We arrived before 8am in the morning and I was tasked with coordinating the effort to divide the fresh produce equally for 500 families. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many potatoes and yams in one place! There were 25 boxes of sweet potatoes and 70 – 50lb bags of potatoes! I was glad to see that they were giving away some fresh produce rather than all boxed and canned goods. There was also some fresh broccoli and onions, just not enough for all 500 bags. It definitely seemed like a daunting task – to evenly divide so much food – but we were armed with a room full of willing participants and quickly got an informal assembly line going.

Often around this time of year, the discussion about the difference between sweet potatoes and yams comes up – as it did for us. Varying explanations are offered, with most thinking the color is what differentiates them. However, according to the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission what we call yams, orange sweet potatoes, are actually just a different variety of sweet potato. Apparently there are several hundred types of sweet potatoes! Technically, a true yam is rough and scaly and typically imported from the Carribean. We started using the term yam in order to differentiate the orange ones grown in the south.*

In the large hall there were cans of cranberries, corn and green beans, boxes of stuffing of stuffing, and bags of fresh Acme bread. The turkeys were a little late in arriving because one of the men had truck troubles - he eventually found another working truck. It was quite impressive seeing the full truck back in with the delivery of 500 turkeys. Before giving out the meals around 10am, the volunteers and staff gathered in one large circle to give thanks; for the donations, for the organizing help and for all the good things and people in our lives.

It was a very orderly affair – the people in line were patient and the volunteers organized. As not all of the families spoke English, interpreters were available to help out. Lots of enthusiastic kids were both picking up meals and helping give out the items. People signed up in advance for a free meal; however there was still enough for others who hadn’t pre-registered after those with tickets picked up their meals. We were done just before noon. Seeing all the happy faces and meeting so many enthusiastic people made me feel like I was gaining more than I was giving. I definitely plan to participate next year.

* This discussion is reminiscent of how we came to call bison “buffalo” since they looked liked similar creatures to the ones the settlers had in Europe – but once it was discovered that they are very different and new term, bison, was needed – but by then the word buffalo stuck and we still use the term interchangeably in North America.

Fried Green Tomatoes

No produce item says summer to me more than tomatoes. The other day I was picking some in my friend, Sam’s, backyard garden where I noticed an abundance of green tomatoes. I collected a dozen or so of the unripened tomatoes to take home with me to make fried green tomatoes. They are so quick and simple to make with many variations on how to make them. I personally really like using corn meal that I mix with a variety of seasonings, usually including something spicy, like cayenne. This time I used garlic powder, hot paprika (great for adding color as you can be generous with the portion without burning your mouth off), and a mixed seasoning that Sam got my in New Orleans called “Slap Ya Mama”. It’s a mix of cayenne, salt and black pepper. I sliced the tomatoes, dredged them in a beaten egg, and then the corn meal with the spices. They were fried in a thin coating of peanut oil. Alternatively you can bake them to make it less caloric, but I have always preferred them fried. You could also use olive oil, but I like how you can cook at a higher heat with the peanut oil. It lets you flash fry them so they brown without becoming too soft. They only take a minute or two each side to get browned and crispy.

I served them with some local goat cheese with herbs spread across the top. The creaminess of the goat cheese is offset nicely by the heat and tanginess of tomatoes. Their sourness reminds me of tomatillos. Sam tells me that they don’t hold their shape when fried, but I am tempted to still try and create a Mexican twist on the southern fried green tomato. My meal also included diced watermelon with mint and a cold beer from the Philadelphia Brewing Company while the next day I had the fried tomatoes with some watermelon gazpacho. "Tomatoes Two Ways" – a popular trend on Top Chef – serving one item multiple ways. Both meals were refreshing and simple – particularly good for the extra hot summer we have been experiencing.

Watermelon Gazpacho

Gazpacho is one of those dishes that I haven’t quite acquired the taste for but believe I should as it typically uses such fresh, healthy ingredients. So occasionally I try it to see if my palette has changed. Recently my mother and I ate at Silk City Diner which I heard about from a friend in California! She saw it featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network. As it was a hot day and we were sitting outside on the festive patio, I was inspired to try their watermelon gazpacho. Yum! What I don’t normally enjoy about traditional gazpacho is the acidity and the feeling that I am eating watered down tomato sauce. The sweetness from the melon balanced out any acidity. The soup was thick and smooth with chunks of crab meat providing some additional texture and brininess. The following weekend at the farmer’s market, they were carrying striking, yellow and orange striped heirloom tomatoes and seedless watermelon, so I decided to attempt to make the soup for myself and friends coming to dinner that night. Also available that day were cucumbers and red peppers – some of the other typical gazpacho ingredients.

A quick internet search produced a myriad of recipes. How do I chose???? I started with an image search since I knew what I wanted it to look like. Finally I started with a recipe from chef Tyler Florence, in part because he called for some heat using chiles. I made some changes in the herbs and base ingredients, like using mint as the herb and lime in place of vinegar since I thought it would go well with the sweetness of the melon. Here’s my revised version.

1 large heriloom tomato, diced and seeded (most recipes suggest seeding, not sure it’s necessary).

1/2 jalepeno

1/2 red pepper, diced

2 cups of diced watermelon

juice from 1/2 a lime

1/4 olive oil

2 tablespoons minced red onion

1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced

2 tablespoons chopped mint

salt and peper to taste

1/4 crumbled feta

In a food processer, puree all ingredients together except 1/2 the watermelon, 1/2 the mint and the feta. After pureeing add in remaining watermelon cubes and serve topped with the rest of the mint and crumbled feta. This recipe comes out thick and creamy because the oil acts like an emulsifier. The watermelon cubes add texture while the saltiness from the cheese plays well against the sweet melon.

My dinner guests were Michael and his friend, Javier, who was visiting from Barcelona. I was a little nervous serving a variation on gazpacho to a Spaniard, but the recipe was a hit with both. Javier had never had a watermelon gazpacho before and Michael declared it was the best gazpacho he’s ever tried. Perhaps next time I will attempt to make a traditional gazpacho – you never know what you might like, especially when using the freshest ingredients.

Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream and the Ingenious Cherry Pitter

Last month, the cherries were alluring and abundant at the farmer’s market. While I like eating them fresh, the heat wave this summer and a childhood memory inspired the idea of making cherry vanilla ice cream, a favorite flavor of my mother’s. Preferring the “weird” choices, like rum raison, pralines and cream and cherry vanilla, worked in her favor with young kids. There was always ice cream left for her to eat. Maybe now that I am adult, I could appreciate the subtlety of cherry vanilla ice cream. Besides, I was planning a summer solstice locavore party and it seemed like an appropriate menu item since most of the ingredients could be sourced locally.

The first challenge was finding an ice cream maker. Growing up, I remember the crank kind in the big wood barrel that you would fill with salt and ice. It took a long time and was a lot of work, but my siblings and I never seemed to mind with the reward of fresh ice cream at the end. We usually made ice cream using the fruit that we picked that day. I was looking for the less labor-intensive machine – the electric style one. Back in Berkeley, I borrowed one from a friend on several occasions. It was fraught with its own inconsistencies, ie my friend told me that I have to run it inside the freezer to keep the filling cold enough, but it made better ice cream than any store bought I’d eaten. My mother indicated that she had one, but she’d never used it. I brought it home only to find out that the machine wouldn’t turn on, so that went to the appliance recycling yard. My mother bought a replacement, this time a 2 quart capacity Cuisinart machine that was on sale at William Sonoma. I made sure, first thing this time, that the machine worked. I didn’t want to end up with a bunch of ingredients and no working machine on the day of the party.

The next step was tracking down a cherry pitter. Several years ago, a friend was in Wisconsin on work related trip. She returned to work with several pounds of sour cherries and a story about an awesome cherry pitter she bought. I asked to borrow it for this effort. From past experience, I know that most cherry pitters are challenging to work with; it’s tiring on the hand or the cherries are too big or the pit doesn’t come all the way out. This particular pitter works like a hole punch. It comes with a plunger that is attached to a mason jar lid (you provide your own jar, which keeps down shipping costs). The cherry is placed between the plunger and whole in the lid and then you push down on the plunger and without much effort at all you have a perfectly pitted cherry, often with the stem still intact. Amazing. One could easily pit pounds of cherries without tiring. It’s worth the investment. A similar one can be found at Amazon.

Not having made cherry vanilla ice cream before, I needed to find a recipe. Searching on the internet, I was surprised at how many obviously bad recipes I was finding – why would you make cherry ice cream with maraschino cherries or cherry juice??? I found a simple cherry recipe on at 101 Cookbooks*. It calls for whole milk and heavy cream, but what I liked most was that it uses honey – which meant I could sweeten the ice cream with a local, raw honey. The only ingredient it didn’t include was vanilla, so I found a vanilla ice cream recipe* by Alton Brown that uses whole vanilla bean and substituted this in place of the liquor from the first recipe. My mother swears by making a custard with eggs for ice cream recipes. Neither of these two recipes included eggs and I was trying to keep it simple, so I opted out on the eggs. I did discover that the difference between vanilla ice cream and French vanilla is that the latter uses eggs. I was able to order whole milk and double cream from local farms through Mugshots. Differing cream types (light cream, heavy cream, double cream), identify the amount of fat content. Double cream contains a minimum of 48% milk fat.

While the recipe was really simple, I was met with disaster the first go around. Having worked with finicky ice cream machines before, I was worried about this. The recipe is really simple and requires only that you heat the milk(1 cup), cream(2 cups) and honey (3/8c) until it starts to simmer. Then you add in the pitted and quartered cherries (1 lb) and the vanilla bean(scrapings from one bean and the empty pod), chill the liquid in the fridge for at least a couple of hours and then pour it into the pre-frozen container in the machine. It should only take 20 minutes to turn into a frozen, thickened consistency. Well, it never did thicken and we had cherry milkshakes instead of ice cream. I think most people didn’t mind, but I was disappointed.

Determined to figure out what went wrong, I did some research. A friend thought it might not be a highly rated machine, so I went to the reviews online to find out that it was one of the best. The reviews were helpful though as a few people had a similar experience as I did with others proffering advice. The biggest take away was that I could figure out was that the custard was not chilled enough in advance. Some suggested chilling in the freezer rather than the refrigerator. The one thing I don’t understand about the ice cream maker design is why it has a big opening in the top that is not sealable if it is so important for the liquid to be extremely cold. It just seems like a big hole for the heat to rush into, particularly in the warm months when most ice cream is made and consumed. All machines I saw had this feature, so there must be a reason but I haven’t figured it out.

With the extra remaining ingredients and more fresh cherries, I gave it a second try. This time I put the custard in the freezer for a couple of hours to chill. I also set the cold bowl over the hole to seal it up after pouring in the ingredients. Previously I increased the recipe amount by 1.5 times as I was making some for a large group and the machine claims it would make up to 2 quarts. This time I decided to do the recipe amount of 1 quart. The purpose of the ice cream maker is to whip air into the mixture, so having room for increased volume is important. This is the difference between American ice cream and gelato, which is much denser and requires a different machine. Well these 3 changes did the trick and in less than 20 minutes of machine turning I had perfect cherry vanilla ice cream that I enjoyed with friends. Given this success, I am sure I will be inspired to make more ice cream this summer so I have borrowed my mother’s machine for a little while longer.

*Notes: I made a few changes from the original recipes which are reflected in the ingredients above. One is cooking the vanilla pod along with the scrapings in the liquid for a more intense vanilla flavor. Pull the empty pod out before chilling. Another is increasing the honey quantity by 1.5 times. The honey which is more mellow than regular cane sugar, keeps the dessert from becoming cloyingly sweet, even with this little extra. I also upped the quantity of cherries to one pound.

Strawberries and Rhubarb

My strawberry season started off at Strawberry Harvest Festival hosted by POP (Philadelphia Orchard Project) whose mission is to plant orchards in the city of Philadelphia that grow healthy food, green spaces and community food security. The celebratory event was held on the grounds of the Woodford Mansion in Fairmount Park where there is the Strawberry Mansion Children’s Orchard. In addition to a bbq and lots of fresh strawberries, they served fresh strawberry juice and strawberry crumble. Part of the event included a volunteer effort to plant 36 fruit trees in the field in front of the mansion. Much of what we planted was “pawpaw” trees. I’d never heard of that fruit before moving back to the area. Apparently it is native to the area and can be used in any recipe that calls for a bananas. The flesh is yellow and sweet and a bit challenging to eat as there are so many large black seeds. Once they come into season this year, I’ll have to see what inspiration I can cook up with the fruit.

Part of the day included a volunteer effort to plant 36 fruit trees in the field in front of the mansion. Much of what we planted was “pawpaw” trees. I’d never heard of that fruit before moving back to the area. Apparently it is native to the area and can be used in any recipe that calls for a bananas. The flesh is yellow and sweet and a bit challenging to eat as there are so many large black seeds. Once they come into season this year, I’ll have to see what inspiration I can cook up with the fruit.

The farmer’s markets are up in full swing, including our single farmer stand in Manayunk. When it first kicked in last month there was an abundance of rhubarb and strawberries. Beyond strawberry rhubarb pie, I’ve not had much idea of what do with rhubarb. I remembered that I had saved an article from many years back on savory ways to serve rhubarb which I dug up for inspiration. One of the recipes, simple lemony rhubarb sauce, is a dish that was recommended with white fish and was definitely simple to make. All it involved was dicing up a pound of rhubarb and cooking it down over the stove with 1/3 a cup of sugar into a sauce consistency which takes about 15 minutes. At the end you add juice from half a lemon. Rhubarb is known to be tangy, but it didn’t require much sugar to make it palatable, particularly for a savory dish.

I served the sauce with some tilapia that I baked in foil with some olive oil, salt, parsley, pepper, sliced onion and diced asparagus, also fresh from the farmer’s market. The meal also included red quinoa and a salad with sliced strawberries and toasted pecans. All in all a light, fresh meal to initiate the beginning of the abundant summer growing season.

A friend who suggested serving the sauce over yogurt mentioned that her father would make rhubarb daquiris. As I enjoy experimenting with cocktails, I mixed up a strawberry rhubarb daquiri that was made with rum and included fresh mint. The rhubarb added a refreshing acidity similar to using fresh squeezed lime that I so enjoy in my drinks.

Some great alternatives to the traditional strawberry rhubarb pie!

Talula’s Table for Twelve

Talula’s Table in Kennett Square had grown to mythic proportion in my mind as one of the ultimate farm to table experiences. I first heard about the restaurant from a friend in California when I moved to the area in 2006. If it’s getting written up on the other side of the country, there must be something notable about the place. Perhaps it’s the fact that you have to make a reservation a year in advance precisely at 7am in the morning when they first start taking calls. The demand is due both to the quality of the food but also because they only serve 12 people a night. In fact, you have to reserve the entire restaurant and plan on bringing 8 to 12 people willing to spend $100 on a meal. By day the restaurant is a store where they sell prepared foods and run their catering business. At night, the diners sit at a long farm table set up in the middle of the store.

I never seem to have the wear-with-all to plan that far in advance, but Jenn and Scott did. Jenn had first tried a year ago in January on Scott’s birthday not realizing that you have to call at 7am to secure the reservation. So Scott decided to try as a surprise on Jenn’s birthday. Unbeknownst to Scott, Jenn turned the alarm off because she wanted to sleep in on her birthday. At 7:30am, Scott awoke and stumbled down the stairs to make the call only to find out it was already reserved, however they had a cancellation for the night before. That’s how I found myself lucky enough to be dining at Talula’s this May along with 9 other of Jenn and Scott’s food loving friends.

Kennett Square is in the heart of Chester County home to many small farms most notably mushroom farms. The town is the home to annual mushroom festival that I attended last September. There is an abundance of fresh produce grown nearby for Talula’s to integrate into their menu and they do it so tastefully. The restaurant was started by a couple who owned and operated another restaurant in Philadelphia but decided for a quieter place, closer to the food source. Just weeks before we were to eat there, Sam, another friend to be dining with us, passed me a Philadelphia article about how the couple had broken up, but that the wife’s friends and colleagues had rallied to help her maintain the restaurant. The new chef de cuisine had already been working with them. LeBan’s review of the new operations indicated that it had changed, but that it was still remarkable. Whew.

Dinner service starts at 7. It’s a BYO establishment but they give you wine recommendations with the various courses on the menu that they send out a week in advance. I thought that was really smart. We started with champagne and passed hors d’oeuvres, each a small bite of heaven. I noticed we all struggled with eating the goat cheese and sun dried tomato tartlet without dropping crumbs all over the floor as the crust was so wonderfully buttery.

We then sat down to an eight course extravaganza. At the beginning of each course, the dish is explained to the diner and questions may be asked. We learned that the pickled wild ramps served with the lamb are basically foraged onion grass. As it the time of year when the produce is really starting to flourish we were treated to late spring’s abundance throughout each course; asparagus, rhubarb, pea shoots were just a few. I was glad to see we had a dish with mushrooms as well. Two of my personal highlights bookended the meal – starting with the asparagus soup with a crab tortellini and finishing with a puff pastry lavender ice cream sandwich bite over a rhubarb puree. The duck plate was memorable for its texture and flavor. I still haven’t come to terms with my love of foie gras. The delightful, creamy mouthful was served over a thin crisp. Talula’s food is memorable both for the flavor and its artful plating. Each dish looked like a work of art. They manage to put just enough to fill you mouth with flavor but not have you too stuffed so you are not enjoying the food by the end. I was pleasantly surprised by the use herbs and seasoning that managed to stand out and be noticed, like the nutmeg in the tartlet or the mint in the pea sauce that complimented the scallops. I am starting to learn how to use less in a dish to really profile flavors. This meal was an inspiration for that effort.

The meal did not end with the dessert dish listed on the menu. It was followed by a tray of homemade truffles – in both dark and milk chocolate – some sprinkled with salt, some filled with caramel and some filled with a raspberry banana tasting filling. Even the bill came in a lovely basket with a take away bag of tea and biscotti. At home, nibbling on the tea-dipped biscotti whose flavor was so unusual, it took me a while to identify that it was lavender.

Even the service was stellar, friendly, informative and unobtrusive. The evening really did feel like a dinner at a friend’s house without the host having to run around but instead gets to enjoy the company and food. Talula’s is definitely recommended if you are the kind of person who can plan a year in advance – or at least score an invitation from a friend who does!