August Dinner Party

For my latest post on WellandGoodNYC I wrote all about a dinner party I threw and how you can do it, too.

It features the terrific recipe web site Food52, as well as some serious seasonal produce. And some glam shots of me sweating it up over a hot stove.

What I learned on my summer vacation

Each summer, in an (albeit abbreviated) Italian tradition called Ferragosto, my office closes for one week. I had big plans to go to Turkey. When those plans fell through I tried to create a week full of mini vacations along with some down time. I had a long wish list, and as I sit here typing on the eve of my return to the office, I feel happy and relaxed. And I learned a few things, too.

1. When you go away for a week in summer, you miss one week of peak produce shopping. Doh!

2. I don't see Mara enough. In addition to her other qualities, she is a wonderful cook.

3. Cape May is beautiful, with lovely beaches and charming architecture full of old farmhouses, beach bungalows and Victorian homes. Everyone grows tomatoes, making them the zucchini of the area. Roll up your car windows or people will leave some on your front seat. If you're a visitor from up North, be a good guest and you might get sent home with a small cardboard box full. Score!

4. Go off the beaten path there, to a local bar called Mayer's (Meyer's?). They are known for their scallops but I will remember them for the dude who tried to pick me up by offering me a plate of gravy fries. Also memorable was the weathered fisherman who explained how much less fun fishing is now that the fishing stocks have disappeared. He also told me that I am "beautiful," that I "look like Chelsea Clinton." Hmmm.

5. Leaving a buffer on the back end of vacation is a great idea. It leaves time for farmer's market shopping (corn, eggplant, ground cherries, peaches, nectarines), hanging out with bro/sis -in-law and nephew, painting the livingroom, laundry, yoga, birthday drinks, Brooklyn Flea, La Colombe coffee, etc.

6. There are so many delicious things you can do with tomatoes. BLT was terrific (Grandaisy bread, mayo, Dom's bacon, Cape May garden tomato); roasted tomatoes (with parmesan cheese, spinach ravioli and pesto) are also a great idea; snacking on cherry tomatoes is never a bad idea.

6. I said I would do some work, and I didn't do any work. i think this was probably a very good idea.

Emperors Need Mentors, too

Oh dear, where have I been? Things got nutty, and blogging for pleasure went bye-bye.

In the meantime, I wrote this piece for Civil Eats, a sort of review, I guess, of a new book called My Empire of Dirt. It's about what it takes to learn to grow things. Last summer I learned to ride a bike, and this summer I promised myself I would learn to grow things.

As I wrote about earlier, I started with basil, anise hyssop and sungold tomatoes from seed. The anise and the tomatoes, sadly, didn't make it. I liken those losses to my early failed cooking & baking experiments.

So I bought a beautiful organic heirloom cherry tomato plant and a neato mint plant at the farmers market. I re-potted them with organic soil. I staked the tomato plant. I left town. I returned. I smelled something funny.

Soooooo my cat peed in the tomato plant (that damn pot was big enough for her to climb into. Blargh.). But the good news is that the mint plant isn't quite dead and the basil plant is thriving! I offer this night-time photo as evidence. I really am bursting with pride.

Growing Power

Last week, I attended the WK Kellogg Foundation Food & Community conference in Phoenix AZ. What a chance to see the major players in the movement, and to understand who we are--in our samenesses and differences--and where we're going.

Fast forward to my plane ride home, via Detroit. In first class, the President of the foundation. Two rows behind me, in coach, Malik Yakini, head of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. In other rows, lots of other Detroit-based food and community-growing hoi polloi. Next to me, a young woman from another Detroit urban farming program called Greening of Detroit. It's her second flight ever, the first being the one out to the conference. When the plane makes strange noises she turns to me, open and sweet, asking: "is that normal?"

Turbulence begins, worsens. Before I know it I have grabbed the sizable girl next to me and burrowed my face in her upper arm. Feeling pathetic I think about how I am 20 years older than she is, and how I have been on hundreds of flights in my lifetime. Quaking, fearful, I realize how much power there is in that plane--the future of the food movement (esp the local Detroit food movement) hung in the balance. I felt confident the world wasn't ready to lose all of them, that the plane just had to make it to Detroit safely, and so gradually let go of my death grip on the shoulder of the girl next to me.

* * * * *

Speaking of growing and speaking of power, adios to another friend from work. Julia heads off to be an intern at Growing Power in Chicago, a rather hot shit thing to do.

I myself am growing seedlings (can you see them in the picture above?) with the help of my fairy greenmother, Cerise. These are sungold tomatoes, before I culled out 1/3 of the sprouts. With handholding. When they're sturdy enough they'll go out on the fire escape so the cats can't eat them. The eating part will be for me.

September Diary

I was so busy being where I was, I forgot to blog.

What I've been up to:

• Managing Slow Food USA's Time for Lunch campaign, thrilled by the success of our national day of action--300+ potlucks in all 50 states this past Labor Day!
• Seeing movies, writing about them
• Eating beef heart and oysters at Marlow and Sons
• Stuffing zucchini blossoms with goat cheese and frying them
• Attending New Amsterdam Market, already excited for the next one on October 25th
• Supporting Just Food at their Let us Eat Local benefit, eating pork sliders, gazpacho and grilled cheese and Blue Marble's strawberry ice cream and anything else I could cram in my yapper
• despairing occasionally at the state of the world (read: politics, yo)
• Preserving 70 lbs of heirloom tomatoes

Whatchoo been up to?

Be where you are

One of my favorite concepts (and practices) is that of eating place-based foods. Place-based foods are those that have a deep connection to the land where they grow. That connection is a physical one, as well as a historic one, and it is reflected in the taste, look, feel, and culture of the food.

Last weekend I spent my birthday--a milestone one, they say--on the North Fork of Long Island, and I focused my activities and my eating on place-based traditions.

I went wine-tasting and swirled in my mouth the product of the relatively new grape growing traditions of the East End. On the island only certain varieties grow well, and as a result, the menus are populated by Chardonnays and Merlots, with some Gruners and Rieslings mixed in. You don't go to Long Island to drink Pinot Grigio; be where you are. Drink where you are.

I ate corn. Lots of it. The North Fork's sweet summer corn is outstanding, and extra good when grilled in its husks by your big brother (hypothetically speaking, of course). I ate homemade lobster rolls, made with local lobster--Una's recipe, via Ethan, and outstandingly simple and good. Also, local wild striped bass, more than once, and tomatoes, tomatoes tomatoes (blight be damned). There were no local peaches, because it turns out all those peaches at Union Square all come from Jersey. So, I guess you don't go to Long Island to eat peaches; be where you are. Eat where you are.

And the birthday thing: I think I am meant to be scared by this birthday, by the fact that I haven't figured out my whole life yet, by the fact that I am getting older and nobody lives forever. But instead I walked on the beach, and I rode bikes with my friends, experiencing what it must feel like to be a kid in the suburbs, learning to feel comfortable on a bike, thrilling at the freedom of exploring the neighborhood, tooling around with your buddies, baking in the hot sun.

My birthday mantra: maintain a place-based tradition. Be where you are.

Doing things a little bit weird

This summer I learned to ride a bike.  Most regular folks learn to do this in childhood and then spend their days as a youngster, tween, teen etc. tooling around the neighborhood on their hoopties, getting into trouble and feeling the freedom that comes with having their own set of wheels.

What was I waiting for?  It turns out that not only is it easy but it's crazy fun.  I remember I finally tried a mango when I was 21 years old and I couldn't stop kicking myself for waiting so long.  All those years of missed mango eating! Sheesh!

Here I am again, whooping it up on the bike and kicking myself at the same time. 34.5 missed years of bike riding! I might be the stupidest person I know. Or, I guess I just do things a little bit weird.

A BLT is a classic, but because I guess I like to do things a little weird, tonight I made something I'll call:

BLT in a bowl

• Several varieties (different colors, shapes, sizes) of summer tomatoes
  
• Fresh basil leaves
  
• Bacon
  
• Summer corn
  
• oil
  
• baslamic vinegar
  
• salt
  
• pepper
  

Cut up tomatoes and dress with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper

Cook the corn and scrape the kernels from the cob

Rinse and then chiffonade the basil leaves

Fry up thick cut bacon (or, like me, random bacon chunks left over from sliced bacon, sold by Flying Pigs Farm) and slice it up

Toss everything together

Eat with a spoon

What the f-uh? Real food.

In response to those of us encouraging people to learn about where their food comes from, to THINK about their food choices: here cometh the grammatically incorrect, anti-thought advertising campaign from KFC.  "Unthink."

Before I start knocking Starbucks' "real food" campaign, I should actually go in there and try some of their new food, all HFCS-free and whatnot.  Only problem is I can't bear to go buy any of that stuff--scarred by a few unsavory airport meals. 

Hellmann's, too, is getting in on the action, having launched an ad campaign in Canada that touts the localness of their shelf-stable mayonnaise. The website is super creepy, in that you can't tell at first that it's a Hellmann's site.  Apparently a few years ago, they were going for realness, too. Ummm, ok.

I know what's real, thank you very much.  Like my lunch today:

early Long Island summer tomato. check.

greenhouse Long Island basil. check.

Tuscan olive oil.  splash of Katz's wine vinegar. salt. pepper. checkkkkkk.

heaping tbsp Calabro ricotta.

Mix it all up in a bowl.

Almondine baguette.

Voila--le sandwich!

A Perfect Marriage

During the height of growing season, I like to make stuff myself.  It's easy to look like a superstar chef when you slice up a perfect tomato and sprinkle some sea salt on it.  However, I also like to take a break from that and let somebody else do a wickedly good job with summer's bounty.  I can't afford to go to Blue Hill more than once a year, so instead I hit up Franny's every chance I get.

Two nights ago EPW and I supped on this divine combo: Dandelion greens, nectarines and guanciale. This is so...Franny's.  

Salty, meet sweet.  

Sweet, meat bitter.  

This is how a good party works, right? There is someone there to introduce the disparate elements and help them figure out how they can go great together.  

hello again, after all this time

There were so many things I meant to write about this summer.

Like the weekend that L and I went strawberry picking and then made jam, jam, jam up to our eyeballs. I was going to warn you, my reader(s?), that if you don't cook it long enough it will be strawberry sauce, not jam, and though it will still taste fabulous, and although it won't negate that you had a wonderful time picking out there in the field with your friend, it won't really be "jam," per se.

Or my trip to Greece with A, and our favorite dishes there. Highlights that included zucchini fritters, marvelous yogurt, tremendously rich and creamy feta, and more karpouzie than I could possibly eat. If still giving warnings, I would warn that those nescafe frappes can be surprisingly strong.

Instead, I write finally tonight to share the dish I created this evening with the ingredients I have here in my new refrigerator in my new house. Let's call it "heirloom tomato surprise." It is unbelievably, amazingly, summery good. This is the kind of cooking I love because:

a) it involves making do with whatever's on hand

b) it isn't something I can eat a month from now or 6 months from now. I'll next be able to have it tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and then not again for about 11 months.

Heirloom Tomato Surprise

Orecchiete pasta
fresh ricotta cheese
toasted pine nuts
various heirloom tomatoes, cut into small chunks
baby basil, chopped
salt
pepper

Cook pasta
toss with large dollop of cheese, salt and pepper
throw on tomatoes and basil
shake toasted pine nuts on top
(good with a spoon)