Clay Spoon

On a recent Saturday afternoon, after standing for some time, stupefied by the oppressive heat beneath the thick plastic canopy of a Greenmarket vegetable stand, I realized that I was surrounded by the color purple.  A basket of peppers overflowed with an exotic blend of colors, the rich purples popping out against their pale green and orange companions.  Amidst a wall of fresh green beans I was struck by a display of purple pods, the pile dappled with little green stems.  To my right stretched a table full of eggplants: large, deep purple specimens next to smaller, lavender ones, some oblong and a few rounded.  There was the smell of ripe, purple berries, their juices staining their cardboard containers and the wood table below.  Elegant purple carrots beckoned from a bountiful crate, a few spilling over into a box of young, purple cabbage.  There were purple kohlrabi, the bulbous roots adorned by purple-veined leaves; clusters of purple radishes; dark beets that were such a deep hue of red they appeared… purple.  And of course, there were tall stalks of lavender, propped up elegantly in their humble crates.  They smelled of the perfumed memories of a childhood trip to the French countryside.

My shopping agenda that day was focused on a post-detox challenge: to eat like a health-nut.  The idea was to eat organic, raw and according to “ayurvedic principles” whenever possible. I had convinced my mom to join me on a juice fast retreat at the end of July, which took place at an Ashram in upstate New York.  We returned feeling quite free of toxins, and determined to continue the battle against contaminants in the real world of processed food temptations (on every aisle…). Despite my French culinary training, I was convinced that this type of eating could be delicious.

The basic guidelines are simple: eat food that is minimally processed, and ideally not at all (if it can be plucked by your own hands from the garden, all the better); choose organic produce; plan your meals according to what is seasonal and perfectly ripe and nutritious.  I learned during one lecture that canned, bottled, dried, leftover and frozen are all code for nutritionally diminished.  There was also ample information doled out about the specifics of eating according to your personal “dosha,” or ayurvedic mind and body type, all of which I found to be a little overwhelming and occasionally contradicting.  I decided to ease into things with the basic principles, and see how it went.

At the greenmarket, the choices were bountiful.  Late summer produces the juiciest peaches and a plethora of fresh herbs and greens.  Again, I was overwhelmed.  It seemed natural to pick a theme to limit the options a bit.  And so purple it was.  I mused that it might be fun to have an appropriately color-themed meal every week (with a gradual change in hue according to the turn of the seasons).  The ultimate challenge, of course, is to compose a daily rainbow.  The following recipes might to well with an extra boost of orange and a dash of pink, so do feel free to change the color scheme according to the mood of your day.  Just so long as the theme is not blue…

Purple beans and Purslane

Purslane is a delicious, tender green that can be eaten raw.  The leaves range from miniscule to quarter-sized; if the stems are tough, tear off the leaves and discard the stalk.  Pomegranate molasses is a delicious addition to dressings, and makes a refreshing soda when added to a glass of sparkling water and lemon.  It’s usually available in ethnic groceries stores.  There was a little article about making this ingredient a home staple in the Times this past March.

For the base of the salad, wash and dry one bunch of purslane, picking off the leaves and keeping any stems that are thin and tender enough to eat.  Place in a large bowl.

Boil a large pot of water, and add several large pinches of salt.  Add one cup purple stringbeans (or any color that suits your fancy…).  Cook for a few minutes, or until just tender.  Immediately drain into a colander. Once the beans have cooled, cut them in half on the bias.  Cut the kernels off of two very sweet ears of corn.

purple string beans lose a bit pf color after blanching

This is a favorite dressing of mine – it works well with bitter greens and also tossed into cooked grains like couscous or quinoa.  Whisk together 2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses, 1/3 cup olive oil,  and the juice of ½ lemon.  Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss the purslane with the dressing (you may not need all of it), then add half the string beans and half the corn.  Serve onto large plates, and top with the rest of the beans and corn.

Braised fairytales

Those little lavender eggplants in the photo above are called fairytales.  If they grew wings and flitted about they might resemble plump fairies.

For an appetizer, slice 10 small fairytale eggplants (or another small, tender variety) in half lengthwise.  Place cut side down in a shallow pan, and add water to come up 1/2 inch up the sides of the pan.  Bring to a simmer, and cover for 5 minutes.  Remove the lid and allow any remaining water to cook off.  Whisk together 3 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce, 2 tablespoons sesame oil, 1 tablespoon rice vinegar, and 1-2 teaspoons of finely minced ginger (more if you like to taste.).  Add the mixture to the pan, cover and cook 3-5 more minutes.  Serve over large butter lettuce leaves.

Purple Cabbage Slaw

Sesame tahini makes a very creamy and rich dressing; it was used as an alternative to cream and egg yolks in the vegan recipes at the ashram.  I prefer to see it not as an alternative, but rather a useful ingredient all on its own.  I tried adding a few tablespoons to a cream-based corn soup, and it tasted so rich I didn’t need the cream.

Gather a cutting board full vegetables, preferably dominated by purple hues: peppers, carrots, radishes, and herbs.  Quarter one small, purple cabbage.

the inner leaves of my cabbage

Remove any brown or damaged outer layers.  Working with a large, sharp knife, cut the quarters into thin, long ribbons.  Place the cabbage ribbons in a large bowl.  Thinly slice carrots, radishes, and beets on a mandoline or with a sharp knife.  Slice peppers into thin sticks.  You should have about 2 cups cut vegetables total, and 4 cups cabbage. Soak any herbs in water and dry on paper towels, then roughly chop and add to the bowl (about 1 cup total cilantro, parsley, mint, or basil).

Gently mix all of the vegetables together.  In a small bowl, whisk together 4 tablespoons sesame tahini, 2 tablespoons olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon turmeric, a pinch of sea salt, and several grinds of fresh pepper. Add more lemon and seasoning to taste.  Drizzle the dressing around the edges of the vegetable bowl, then incorporate into the salad.  Serve sprinkled with raw almonds or walnuts.

Brace yourself for a clichéd food memory.

During my high school years, my mom and I developed a summertime habit of homemade breakfast, eaten on the back patio.  It began when I brought home a bag of coffee beans from a trip to Costa Rica, providing us with an excuse to trade our daily outing to a local café for a leisurely, in-house brew.  It seemed natural to enjoy our beverages in the sunlight, where we could perch on the rusty deck furniture and admire the view of the UC Berkeley campus beyond.  Though no one in the family could boast of a green thumb, we enjoyed the fruits of a small Meyer lemon tree, which continued to produce limb-bending, golden citrus year after year (despite ample neglect).  At one point, a weed-filled planter was converted into a strawberry patch, and a thorny blackberry shrub soon occupied another large pot.  Wild mint and lavender prospered side-by-side in a decaying planter-box.  A few flowering vines provided some shade over the terrace.  Our little garden may not have been beautiful in the classical sense, but it was a lovely oasis for sun tanning and novel reading.  Most importantly, it was a thrill to go digging through the dirt and suddenly happen upon a crimson berry.  The verbs and adjectives that come to mind to describe these summer morning forages smack of consumer-targeted food porn: we plucked succulent strawberries, anointed them with a squeeze of Meyer lemon, and muddled the flavors with fresh mint.  Yes, the juice may have dribbled down our chins, just a little bit.

The first sweltering days of summertime have already hit New York, making me ache for a bowl of homegrown berries.  When I awoke this morning, a fleeting whiff of the sweet fragrance of Meyer lemons had me toppling onto my bike in search of the nearest produce shop, then rushing back to the apartment to assemble breakfast.  Nothing tasted quite right – the strawberries lacked a sun-warmed glow, the lemons were not so sweet as I remembered.  I got a little more creative, adding a drizzle of lemon syrup from a batch of candied lemon peels, and crushing the mint with raw sugar to release more of the aroma.  It was an appetizing start to a lazy Sunday, but there was still something missing…

But of course!  It’s Mother’s Day, after all!  And no summer breakfast will ever be complete without her. Mom, please pluck those berries, juice those lemons, and enjoy a breakfast on the deck for me.  I promise that I did not forget to send you a card (if it doesn’t make it to the mailbox, blame the mailman).  I love you dearly.  Now, if anyone forgot to bring their mothers a lavish breakfast in bed, it is a well-known fact that mothers may reserve the right to receive two breakfasts the following weekend (the numbers keep climbing for every week that the meal goes undelivered.  At this rate, Mom, I’ll owe you fifteen breakfasts before the end of summer).  Better to plan early, and present your mum with this recipe for summer strawberries, along with some poached eggs, toast, and a great cup of coffee.

Summertime Berries in Bed

1 box of strawberries, or a generous handful of berries gathered from your garden

2 tablespoons Meyer lemon juice

1 teaspoon raw sugar (a little more if you’re using regular lemons)

1 teaspoon Meyer lemon syrup (agave or honey work well too)

1 sprig of mint

Wash the berries and dry them well on paper towels.  Slice off the stems, then slice into quarters.  Place the berries into a bowl, and toss with the lemon juice, raw sugar, and syrup or honey.  Pick several leaves of mint.  Stack the leaves into a pile, then roll them into a cylinder and slice them cross-wise with a sharp knife (to make a chiffonade cut).  Mix the mint in with the fruit.  Allow the flavors to meld for a few minutes, or up to an hour in the refrigerator.  Consume promptly, with your mother, and tell her how much you love her.

There may be no better way to say te adoro than a vanilla cupcake with cream cheese frosting decorated with red sugar crystals.  Simple and to the point, elegant and classic, and a tangy frosting.  With sprinkles on top.

edible flowers make the cake

Cupcakes have been the darling of New York since Carrey Bradshaw bit into a pink-frosted specimen at Magnolia Bakery, barely taking the time to chew between chitchats about her new crush.  Gossiping and cupcakes go hand-in-hand.  But unlike Tasti-D-Lite, which the Sex and the City girls were also fond of licking, cupcakes haven’t gone out of style.  In fact, Baked By Melissa just opened a real storefront off Union Square, the Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery was packed to the gills for the pre-Valentine’s rush, and CupcakeStop now has almost 11,000 followers on twitter.  Most amazing to me is a recent addition to the Magnolia mini-empire in Dubai.  Dubai. Another Times piece on the overseas phenomenon makes me wonder if cupcakes are an underhanded attempted by the US government to spread diabetes to other competing nations, something along the lines of ‘they’ll be so jealous of our all-American trendy treats that they’ll go crazy for cupcakes, develop a nation-wide type II diabetes epidemic, and then we won’t look as bad.’  Far-fetched, I know, but it makes you think.

The irony of the whole $5 cupcake craze is that these are the things that a kindergartner’s lunchbox is made of.  These are the cunning desserts that a loving mother can whip up for a sleepover party with some pantry staples and a carton of milk.  Or heck, why not make them from a mix?  They are just so, darn easy.  I could attempt to explain the fad in terms of food memories and fashion, but it’s V-day, and I have some baking to do.

And so it is time for my favorite cupcake recipe, from the legendary Gourmet Magazine.   Ever since Gourmet was shutdown for good, I cling ever tighter to the recipes on the online site, and curse the iPad for not coming out in time to save my favorite culinary periodical.  This one is for you, Gourmet, with love.
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watermelon radishes

It’s rough trying to eat a lot of salad in the winter. There’s nothing more nutritious and light than a bowl full of baby spinach and arugula, but it can be an unsatisfying option when you crave steaming mashed potatoes. During the winter I try with all of my cooking might to keep greens in my diet, my fallback being a comforting vegetable soup or a side of sautéed kale. And to be honest, salad can get a little monotonous sometimes.

This was not the case with the autumn salad that was ceremoniously placed before me while dining at Toqueville last week. I was lucky enough to be dining with Hagan, The Wandering Foodie, which meant lots of special treatment. Hagan’s current project, 93 Plates, is any food blogger’s idea of heaven. He has asked 93 restaurants in New York to sponsor a meal for himself and a foodie guest or two, squeezing in 3 meals a day for 31 days straight. It’s a great way to build connections within the food blogging cyberspace, while wandering from one great meal to the next.

a food blogger at work

The service at Toqueville was a perfect reflection of the care that was lavished upon the creation of our meal in the kitchen. The waiters performed a well-choreographed dance, revealing the next course just as we began to crave another savory bite. It is the creamy textures that stand out most in my memory: luscious confit of veal tongue, briny and sweet sea urchin that gradually dissolved into a tangle of angel hair, and foie gras nestled amongst a tower of caramelized vegetables and sea scallops. The sommelier continuously materialized, seemingly from thin air, to present yet another pairing.

But then again, this was a special meal, and not the type of treatment that I would normally expect. The experience gets right to the heart of a thorny issue in the food blogging realm, concerning the credibility, as well as sustainability, of gratis meals for bloggers. Wordpress even publishes a code of ethics for food bloggers, building upon a more detailed set of guidelines put forth by the Association of Food Journalists. The guidelines instruct bloggers to visit a restaurant at least twice, maintain as much anonymity as possible, and “pay in full for all meals and services.” As a young, eager eater with a slim budget, an occasional dinner on the house at a lovely establishment is hardly something that I am quick to pass up. I can at least chalk it up to experience, while holding back from any sort of formal review. If the meal is noteworthy, that’s the time to plan another visit, with a pair of shades and a large hat to conceal my now infamous visage. Which is why it will be a pleasure to return to Toqueville for a celebratory evening in the future, next time with a more objective approach (and several less glasses of fantastic wine to color my opinion).

Now, back to the salad. The appetizer course was brought to Hagan and I as his and her dishes. A teetering pile of little fried vegetable strips ontop of microgreens for her, confit of veal tongue for him. I love salad, a fact that I was quick to point out in praise of my dish, and that my companion was quick to tease me about. I should have expected that. Why is it that men are so keen to make fun of women who enjoy a bowl of simple greens? I cannot think of anything more nutritious and beautiful. Perhaps they imagine a large dish of mildly wilted iceberg lettuce with pre-frozen shredded carrots on top, dolled up with ranch dressing flavored by high fructose corn syrup. I wouldn’t want to eat that either.

My dish was described on the menu as a “salad of greenmarket autumn vegetables.” There was nothing dreadful about this salad, but it was a point of contention between Hagan and I, and therefore entertaining to discuss. My stance is this: while there is nothing wrong with an array of vegetable chips and a sweet vinaigrette, they don’t belong on a salad meant to showcase market produce. The delicate tangle of microgreens, those little green specks poking out from under the lotus chip, were overwhelmed by a heavy dose of pomegranate drizzle and an assortment of fried roots. Too many ingredients led to some conflicting flavors. There was a slender little slice of watermelon radish, however, that caught my eye…

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Mac in a Cheese Bath

Occasionally, the weather in New York is so frigid that I begin daydreaming about bathing in a pot of warm, cheese fondue.  Doesn’t that sound comforting?  It would have to be a very large pot, and a whole lot of fancy melted cheese…

Which got me thinking about the value of these high quality dairy products that I often gaze wistfully at from behind the glass at the specialty grocery stores, but rarely have the courage to buy.  If I were really to buy enough of that lovely white cheddar and aged Gruyere to bath in, would it be worth it?  I decided that no, bathing in very fancy cheese didn’t make sense.  But bathing just a few little pastas in enough cheesy sauce to make a festive dinner might be simple, and worth every penny.  When the weather outside is frightful, you deserve the most delightful mac and cheese.  Now, the first time that I made mac and cheese, I skimped on the cheese.  Not only did this result in bland mac, but I missed a perfect opportunity to expand my cheese palette.

For the next casserole night, I walked right up to the cheese counter at Murray’s Cheese Shop and began ordering.  The people at Murray’s are eager to educate, with samples as the primary learning tool.  There’s a lot to try, from stinky and oozy to nutty and sweet.  I’m not much of a smelly cheese lover, but I highly recommend the Pico Picandine.  I brought some back to my boss, a die-hard French stinky cheese fan, and he spent the rest of the afternoon mumbling about how good it was.

I asked my Murray’s cheese expert for advice on an old-fashioned macaroni casserole.

“Easy,” he said, already cutting samples of his choices.  I walked out with a pound of Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, and a quarter pound each of Gruyere, Gouda, and Pecorino Romano.  My small parcel carried a hefty price tag for it’s size, but I reasoned that a little of the good stuff goes a long way, especially when served up in a classy manner.

Whether you are enjoying your cheese bath alone, or at a long table full of dinner guests, may I suggest the Le Creuset Mini Cocotte [note: I am in no way affiliated with Le Creuset], with the eight ounce size for a perfect side dish and the twelve ounce for a petite meal.  That’s about all the French that I can handle for one night – let’s just say this tiny little cast-iron pot makes an adorable presentation.  Le Creuset even sells a mini cocotte cookbook on their site – talk about perfect portion-controlled meals for one.  I like the idea of having a set for small gatherings, and serving the mini stews with the lid on.  I tried my mac and cheese recipe in a glass-baking dish one night, and then as individual cocottes the next; the minis take the cheese…cake.  Cast iron is a really versatile material (more in another post), and aides in making a wonderful, savory crust of melted cheese around the sides.  It’s easy to assemble, as well.  Since I tend to do prep work ‘round midnight, I make my béchamel sauce and cook the pasta the night before, chill, then mix together the next day and bake individual cocottes with some toasted bread crumbs.

The Mini Cocotte

About the béchamel.   This basic French sauce sounds important, but it’s very simple.  A basic sauce is simply a stock, plus a binding element.  The binding element, called a liason, serves to thicken a liquid to give it body and consistency.  It’s usually some type of starch (flour in this case) that is mixed with a fat.  The starch swells, and suspends the liquid in a gel network.  For a béchamel, flour is first mixed with melted butter and cooked for a minute or two – this is an important first step, as the brief cooking eliminates the raw flour taste.  There’s nothing worse than a floury taste in your pasta sauce.  Then milk (the stock in this case) is added, and the mixture is whisked constantly over low heat until it thickens.

My recipe is adapted from a Martha Stewart classic, much discussed throughout the blogsphere.  Serious Eats and Mark Bittman blogging for the NY Times are among many addicted to this recipe.  The recipe serves about 12 people very generously, so I like to make a half recipe to serve as a main for 4, and have leftovers the next day (I also own only 4 mini cocotte dishes, so it works out better that way.)   The recipe calls for breadcrumbs made by tearing up slices of white bread.   There are other options, however, such as neatly cut squares of brioche, panko, or store-bought crumbs in a can.  Brioche is my favorite for croutons, so I cut up a few slices of a day-old loaf to top the casserole.  I found that the recipe called for too much milk, and produced a bucket of sauce.  Even after altering the ratios a bit, I still had sauce leftover.  Not always a bad thing; it’s great for the freezer, to be put to use whenever pasta dinner needs a lift.

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